“Hildebertus opus ecclesiæ, quod per longa tempora protractum fuerat, suo tempore insistens consummare, dedicationem ultra quam res exposcebat accelerans, multa inibi necessaria inexpleta præteriit.”
Comparing this with the words of Orderic, this surely need not mean more than that, though the fabric was perfect, yet much of the ornamental work was left unfinished. Hildebert, in short, left the nave much as Arnold left the choir. At least the nave was in this case when he dedicated the church. For he had time after the dedication to make good anything that was imperfect.
We should then infer from Orderic that the nave which William of Passavant recast was begun by Howel and finished by Hildebert. This may give us the key to a passage in the Biographer on which we might otherwise be inclined to put another meaning. After describing Howel’s building of the transepts in the words quoted above in [p. 635], he goes on (289);
“Eisque [crucibus] celeriter culmen imponens, exteriores etiam parietes, quos alas vocant, per circuitum consummavit.”
One might have been tempted to take this of transept aisles; but, weighing one thing with another, it seems to be best understood as meaning that Howel rebuilt the whole of the outer walls of the nave and its aisles. This would give to him the whole extent of the quasi-Roman work of the aisles, together with the great western doorway. The interior work of the aisles seems also to agree with his date. We must therefore suppose that Howel rebuilt the nave aisles only, still leaving the arches of Aldric’s basilica. Then Hildebert rebuilt or thoroughly restored the nave itself, with the columns and arches and whatever they carried in the way of triforium and clerestory. We may therefore suppose that the existing columns, as distinguished from the square piers, are his work, though the splendid capitals of many of them must have been added or carved out of the block in the recasting by William of Passavant.
There is however one fragment of the nave arcades which is older than Hildebert, very likely older than Howel. This is to be seen in the first pier from the east. I need not say that the eastern bay of a nave often belongs to an older work than the rest, being in truth part of the eastern limb continued so far—perhaps for constructive reasons, to act as a buttress—perhaps for ritual reasons, to mark the ritual choir—very often for both reasons combined. One of the best examples is that small part of the nave of Durham abbey which belongs to the work of William of Saint-Calais (see N. C. vol. v. p. 631). At this point then in the nave of Le Mans, we find half columns with capitals and bases of a strangely rude kind, more like Primitive Romanesque (see N. C. vol. v. pp. 613, 618, 628) than anything either Norman or Angevin. These are assuredly not the work of Hildebert. There is one argument for assigning them to Howel, namely that something of the same kind is to be found in the remains of the northern tower of which I shall speak in another Note (see below, [Note RR]). But if any one holds them to be the work of Arnold or of Vulgrin, or even looks on them as a surviving fragment of the basilica of the days of Lewis the Pious, I shall not dispute against him.
I must add however that, between Hildebert and William of Passavant, we have, according to the use of Le Mans, to account for two fires—“solita civitatis incendia,” as the Biographer (Vet. An. 349) calls them—and their consequences. In 1134 there was a fire which, according to the Biographer (350), was more fearful than any which had ever happened at Le Mans since the city was built, not even excepting the great one of 1098. Everything perished. “Tota Cenomannensis civitas cum omnibus ecclesiis quæ intra muros continebantur, evanuit in favillas.” We read of the “matris ecclesiæ destructio” and “combustio,” all the more lamentable because of its beauty—“ipsa enim tam venustate sui quam claritate tunc temporis vicinis et remotis excellebat ecclesiis.” So Orderic (899 B); “Tunc Cenomannis episcopalis basilica, quæ pulcherrima erat, concremata est.” The then Bishop, Guy of Étampes (1126–1136), spent two hundred pounds in trying to repair the damage; “Ad cujus restaurationem cc. libras Cenomannenses dedit, sine mora contulit, et omnibus modis desudavit quomodo ipsa ad perpetuitatem decenter potuisset restaurari.” Under the next Bishop, Hugh of Saint-Calais (1146–1153), there was another fire, the account of which is very curious (Vet. An. 349);
“Ignis circa meridiem a vico sancti Vincentii prosiliens, sibi opposita usque ad muros civitatis et domos episcopales, tegmenque sacelli beati Juliani adhuc stramineum, cum fenestris vitreis concremavit et macerias, et in summis imagines sculptas lapidibus deturbavit.”
The people break open the shrine of Saint Julian in order to save his body, which they carry to the place where the Bishop was. The Bishop seems to have repaired the episcopal buildings before he touched the church, and the details have some interest in the history of domestic architecture (“domum petrinam ex parte sancti Audoëni positam, decenti solariorum interpositu numerosas fenestras habentium cum sua camera continuavit”). Presently we read;
“Beatissimum patrem nostrum Julianum ipso die a lignea basilica in occidentali membro ecclesiæ intra macerias facta, post incendium in qua fere triennio requieverat, in redivivam sollenniter, clero cantibus insultante, populo congaudente, transtulerunt ecclesiam.”