The foliage carved in the form of crosses in the quatrefoils over the chancel arch at Stone are repeated in a quatrefoil over the door in the cloister at Westminster, leading to the private apartments of the abbat. The crosses are, of course, not identical in their treatment; but the idea is the same, and one of rare occurrence.
IV. The Materials used in the Abbey and at Stone are as nearly as possible the same. The wrought stone work is executed in Caen stone and Gatton stone, and a great deal of chalk is used for wall-lining and groining, and all the shafts are of marble.
V. Finally, the same general system of proportion is observed in the minster and the village church. In both, the width from the aisle walls to the centre of the columns is equal to half the width of the nave. At Westminster the height is given by three equilateral triangles, whose base-line is the width across the nave from centre to centre of the columns; and two of these triangles give the height for the springing of the groining, and the third the height of the groining to its apex. At Stone, if we erect triangles on the same base-line, the first gives the top of the capitals of the nave arcade; the second, within very little, the height of the top of the wall; and the third may very well be supposed to have marked the height of the ridge of the timber roof. The width of the bays in the nave of Stone is equal to the diagonal of half the width of the nave; and the width of the bays in the chancel is equal to the diagonal from the centre of one column to the centre of the nave or aisle opposite the next column; whilst the height of the chancel is given by two triangles similar to those in the nave, whose base is the width from centre to centre of the groining-shafts.
I do not wish to lay too much stress on any one of these points of resemblance: it is not to be expected that two churches, built by the same architect, so unlike in size, in position, and in dignity, should show anything more than some general resemblance of character; but I cannot help thinking, that when I have pointed to such a general agreement in the proportions, the materials, the sculpture, and the details, as we find at Stone and Westminster, it would be almost enough to decide the question, even without the final and (as it appears to me) conclusive evidence afforded by the all but exact identity of the cusping and the general similarity of design in the wall-arcades in the two churches, which must either have been copied one from the other, or designed by the same architect.
II
CHURCHES IN NORTHERN GERMANY
(From the Ecclesiologist, 1854–1857)
I
THE CHURCHES OF LÜBECK
Three old cities far apart, across the whole breadth of a continent, enable us to form a fair judgement of what the whole of Europe may have been in the palmy days of the Middle Ages. They are Lübeck, Nuremberg, and Verona; each telling its own tale, each marked with the impress of national peculiarity, and each remarkable, among other things, the one as the city of brick work, the next as that of stone, and the last as that of marble. In Lübeck nothing but brick was ever seen; in Nuremberg, stone was used with an excellence seldom rivalled; whilst in Verona, though brick was most beautifully used, the great aim of its architects was ever to introduce the marbles in which the district around it is so rich. Each of these cities deserves a full and ample study, for each teaches its own lesson, and that a lesson scarcely to be learnt elsewhere; and if this evening I give you such notes as I was able to make in the course of a short sojourn last autumn in Lübeck, it is not because I do not value Nuremberg and Verona much more, but because it would seem that if one were to write of all three, this is the one with which one should commence, as nearest to and most connected with our own country and style of architecture, and because its features of interest are in some degree less remarkable than those of the others, and one would wish to reserve the best for the last.
In one respect, moreover, two of these cities may well teach us a lesson. Nuremberg and Lübeck were to the world in the Middle Ages what London, Liverpool, and Manchester are to the world in this age: the very centres of all commerce for all Europe; and we may surely not do amiss if we take to ourselves, and ponder well upon, the lesson which the singular difference between their earnestness in matters of religion and ours ought to teach us. There was in these two old cities such an appreciation of the value of religious ordinances, and evidently so very great a readiness to provide places for their due celebration, that one cannot without a blush think upon the vast difference which such a city as Manchester displays, with its almost countless thousands of poor wretches uncared for and unthought of, and without any power of putting foot even in the sanctuaries of their God.