[CHAPTER XXVIII]
TRACES OF EARLY TIMES IN THE CHURCHES
1. In most villages the church is the chief old building in the place, and it is a good thing to be able to tell the time to which its different parts belong. It will help us to fix in our minds the different periods, or steps, in the history of our country. Never be ashamed to ask questions about an old building. It will be a very strange thing, indeed, if you cannot find, in every town and village, somebody who has a keen interest in old buildings, and who will delight in pointing them out to you. Nearly every local newspaper in the country, from time to time, prints odds and ends connected with the history of the neighbourhood. If there is anything about an old building that you want explained, you can easily write a short letter to the editor of the paper, and there is sure to be someone who will take the trouble to answer your question, and help you to understand.
Architectural Features
Long and Short Work (Saxon); Anglo-Saxon Doorway; Anglo-Saxon; Double Window; Norman Curving; Norman Doorway; Lancet Windows; Doorway, 14th Century; Window, 15th Century
2. An old parish church has a good deal to tell us about the history of the parish and its people, and if you know something of the history of the place in which you live, you will know something worth knowing of the history of your country, which will help you to be a good citizen.
3. There are, as we said in a former chapter, some few churches which have little bits of Saxon work left in their walls and windows. In a great many more we shall see some Norman work, especially in pillars and arches and doorways. That Norman Period takes in the reigns of all the kings from William I to the time of King John, from the middle of the eleventh century to the end of the twelfth, down to the time of Magna Carta.
4. When we come to the time of Magna Carta we are in the thirteenth century, when pointed arches came into use. Through the reigns of King Henry III and King Edward I a great deal of building in that style went on. In almost every parish some alteration was made in the church in that century; and probably in the chancel there are one or two old windows, which will be pointed out to you as having been first put in during that century.
5. You may, perhaps, find a very old battered figure of a man in chain armour, the sort of armour in which King Edward I went fighting in the Third Crusade, in Wales, and in Scotland; in which Simon de Montfort and Wallace and the Bruce fought. Some of these effigies have the legs crossed—some at the ankles, some at the knees, and some at the thighs. It used to be said that these represented crusaders; but nobody seems really to know what was the meaning of the cross-legged effigies.
