Account of a Tour in Normandy, Volume 2

by Dawson Turner

This pavement has been the subject of much learned discussion; because, if the antiquity of the emblazoned tiles could be established, (which it certainly cannot) we should then have a decisive proof of the use of armorial bearings in the eleventh century. Nearly the whole of these tiles are now removed. After the abbey was sold, the workmen entirely destroyed the tiles, breaking them with their pick-axes. The Abbé de la Rue, however, collected an entire set of them; and others have been preserved by M. Lair, an antiquary of Caen.--Ducarel thus describes the pavement when perfect: "The floor is laid with tiles, each near five inches square, baked almost to vitrification. Eight rows of these tiles, running from east to west, are charged with different coats of arms, said to be those of the families who attended Duke William in his invasion of England. The intervals between each of these rows are filled up with a kind of tessellated pavement, the middle whereof represents a maze or labyrinth, about ten feet in diameter, and so artfully contrived that were we to suppose a man following all the intricate meanders of its volutes, he could not travel less than a mile before he got from one end to the other. The remainder of the floor is inlaid with small squares of different colors, placed alternately, and formed into draught or chess-boards, for the amusement of the soldiers while on guard."

Such is the general description of the floors of this apartment: with regard to the date of the tiles, Ducarel proceeds to state that "it is most probable the pavement was laid down in the latter part of the reign of King John, when he was loitering away his life at Caen, with the beautiful Isabel of Angoulême, his queen; during which period, the custom of wearing coats of arms was introduced."--Common tradition assigns the tiles to higher date, making them coeval with the conquest; and this opinion has not been without supporters. It was strenuously defended by Mr. Henniker Major, who, in the year 1794, printed for private distribution, two letters upon the subject, addressed to Lord Leicester, in which he maintained this opinion with zeal and laborious research. To the letters were annexed engravings of twenty coats of arms, the whole, as he observes, that were represented on the pavement; for though the number of emblazoned tiles was considerable, the rest were all repetitions[^[80]]. The same observation was found in the inscription attached to a number of the tiles, which the monks kept framed for public inspection, in a conspicuous part of the monastery; and yet some of the armorial bearings in this very selection, differ from any of those figured by Mr. Henniker Major. The Abbé de la Rue has also many which are not included in Mr. Henniker Major's engravings. In one of the coats the arms are quartered, a practice that was not introduced till the reign of Edward IIIrd. The same quarterings are also found upon an escutcheon, placed over the door that leads to the apartment. This door is a flattened arch, with an ogee canopy, the workmanship probably of the fourteenth century.

To the same date I should also refer the tiles; and possibly the whole palace was built at that period. There are no records of its erection; no document connects its existence with the history of the duchy; no author relates its having been suffered to fall into decay. So striking an absence of all proof, and this upon a point where evidence of different kinds might naturally have been expected, may warrant a suspicion how far the building was ever a royal palace, according to the strict import of the town. A friend of mine supposes that these buildings may have been the king's lodgings. During the middle ages it was usual for monarchs in their progresses, to put up at the great abbeys; and this portion of the convent of St. Stephen may have been intended for the accommodation of the royal guests.

The assigning of a comparatively modern date to the pavement, does not necessarily interfere with the question as to the antiquity of heraldic bearings. The coats of arms which are painted upon the tiles may have been designed to represent those of the nobility who attended Duke William on his expedition to England: it is equally possible that they embraced a more general object, and were those of the principal families of the duchy--De Thou gives his suffrage in favor of the former opinion, but Huet of the latter; and the testimony of the bishop must be allowed, in this case, to outweigh that of the president.--Huet also says, that it is matter of notoriety that the tiles were laid down towards the close of the fourteenth century. He mentions, however, no authority for the assertion; and less credit perhaps will be given to it than it deserves, from his having stated just before, that the abbey and palace were contemporary structures.

Upon the outside wall of a chapel that is supposed to have belonged to the same palace, were ancient fresco paintings of William and Matilda, and of their sons, Robert and William Rufus. They are engraved by Montfaucon[^[81]], and are supposed by him, probably with reason, to be coeval with the personages they represent. The figures are standing upon animals, the distribution of which is the most remarkable circumstance connected with the portraits. To the king is assigned a dog; to the queen a lion: the eldest son has the same symbol as his father; the younger rests upon a two-bodied beast, half swine, half bird, the bodies uniting in a female head.--Upon the same plate, Montfaucon has given a second whole-length picture of the conqueror, which represents him with the crown upon his head, and the sceptre in his hand. Considering the costume, he observes with justice that it cannot have been painted earlier than the latter part of the fourteenth century. Ducarel, who, as usual, has copied the Benedictine's engravings, says that, in his time, the same portrait existed in fresco over a chimney-piece in the porter's lodge.--We saw two copies of it; the one in the sacristy of the abbey church, the other in the museum, an establishment which may, without injustice to the honors of Caen, be dismissed with the brief observation, that, though three rooms are appropriated to the purpose, there is a very scanty assortment of pictures, and their quality is altogether ordinary.

The public library is a handsome apartment, one hundred and thirty feet in length, and it contains about twenty thousand volumes, mostly in good condition; but a great proportion of the books are of a description little read, being old divinity. To the students of the university, this establishment is of essential service; and on this account it is to be regretted, that the very scanty revenue with which it is endowed, amounting only to twelve hundred francs per annum, prevents the possibility of any material increase to the collection, except in the case of such books as the liberality of the state contributes. And these are principally works of luxury and great expence, which might advantageously be exchanged for the less costly productions of more extensive utility. We inquired in vain after manuscripts and specimens of early typography. None were to be found; and yet they might surely have been expected here; for a public library has existed in Caen from an early part of the last century, and, previous to the revolution, it was enriched with various donations. M. de Colleville presented to it the whole of the collection of the celebrated Bochart; Cavelier, printer to the university, a man known by several treatises on Roman antiquities, added a donation of two thousand volumes; and Cardinal de Fleury, who considered it under his especial protection, gave various sums of money for the purchase of books, and likewise provided a salary for the librarian. I suspect that no small proportion of the more valuable volumes, have been dispersed or stolen. Round the apartment hang portraits of the most eminent men of Caen: tablets are also suspended, for the purpose of commemorating those who have been benefactors to the library; but the tablets at present are blank.

For its university Caen is indebted to Henry VIth, who, anxious to give éclat and popularity to British rule, founded a college by letters patent, dated from Rouen, in January, 1431. The original charter restricted the objects of the university to education in the canon and civil law; but, five years subsequently, the same king issued a fresh patent, adding the faculties of theology and the arts; and, in the following year, he still farther added the faculty of medicine.--To give permanency to the work thus happily begun, the states of Normandy preferred their petition to Pope Eugene IVth, who issued two bulls, dated the thirtieth of May, 1437, and the nineteenth of May, 1439, by which the new university received the sanction of the holy see, and was placed upon the same footing as the other universities of the kingdom. The Bishop of Bayeux was at the same time appointed chancellor; and sundry apostolical privileges were conceded, which have been confirmed by subsequent pontiffs.--Thus Normandy, as is admitted by De Bourgueville, owed good as well as evil to her English sovereigns; but Charles VIIth had no sooner succeeded in expelling our countrymen from the province, than jealousy arose in his breast, at finding them in possession of such a title to the gratitude of the people, and he resolved to run the risk of destroying what had been done, rather than lose the opportunity of gratifying his personal feeling. The university was therefore dissolved in 1450, that a new one might hereafter be founded by the new sovereign. The king thought it necessary to vary in some degree from the example of his predecessor; and for this purpose he had recourse to the extraordinary expedient of abolishing the faculty of law. A petition, however, from the states, induced him to replace the whole upon its original footing in 1452, and it continued till the time of the revolution to have all the five faculties, and to be the only one in France that retained them. Two years only intervened between the dates of the patents issued by Charles VIIth, upon the subject of this university; yet there is a remarkable difference in their language. The first of them, which is obviously intended to disparage Caen, styles it a large town, scantily inhabited, without manufactures or commerce, and destitute of any great river to afford facilities towards the transport of the produce of the country. The second was designed to have an opposite tendency; and in this, the people of Caen are praised for their acuteness, and the town for its excellent harbor and great rivers. The patent also adds, that the nearest university, that of Paris, is fifty leagues distant.

In the estimation, at least, of the inhabitants, the university of Caen ranks at present the third in France; Paris and Strasbourg being alone entitled to stand before it. The faculty of law retains its old reputation, and the legal students are quite the pride of the university. Since the peace, many young jurisprudents from Jersey and Guernsey have resorted to it. Medical students generally complete their education at Paris, where it is commonly considered in France, that, both in theory and practice, the various branches of this faculty have nearly attained the acmè of perfection. The students, who amount to just five hundred, are under the care of twenty-six professors, many of them men of distinguished talents. The Abbé de la Rue fills the chair of history; M. Lamouroux, that of the natural sciences. They receive their salaries wholly from the government; their emoluments continue the same, whether the students crowd to hear their courses, or whether they lecture to empty benches. It is strictly forbidden to a student to attempt to make any remuneration to a professor, or even to offer him a present of any kind. The whole of the dues paid by the scholars go to the state; and the state in its turn, defrays the expences of the establishment.

There is likewise at Caen an Academy of Sciences, Arts and Belles Lettres, which has published two volumes; not, strictly speaking, of its Transactions, but exhibiting a brief outline of the principal papers that have been read at the meetings. The antiquarian dissertations of the Abbé de la Rue, which they contain, are of great merit; and it is much to be regretted, that they have not appeared in a more extended form. A chartered academy was first founded here in the year 1705; and it continued to exist, till it was suppressed, like all others throughout France, at the revolution. The present establishment arose in 1800, under the auspices of General Dugua, then prefect of the department, who had been urged to the task by the celebrated Chaptal, Minister of the Interior.--Some interesting, letters are annexed to the second part of the poems of Mosant de Brieux, in which, among much curious information relative to Caen, he describes the literary meetings that led to the foundation of the first academy. The town at that time could boast an unusual proportion of men of talents. Bochart, author of Sacred Geography; Graindorge, who had published De Principiis Generationîs; Huet, a man seldom mentioned, without the epithet learned being attached to his name; and Halley and Ménage, authors almost equally distinguished, were amongst those who were associated for the purposes of acquiring and communicating information.