DURHAM CASTLE AND CATHEDRAL
KING JOHN'S CASTLE (LIMERICK)
There is a famous castle in Limerick, Ireland, built in John's time which constituted an [{121}] excellent example of this and which has doubtlessly often been studied and more or less imitated.
One portion of Kenilworth Castle in England dates from the Thirteenth Century and has been often the subject of careful study by modern architects. The same thing might be said of many others.
With regard to the English Abbeys too much cannot be said in praise of their architecture and it has been the model for large educational and municipal buildings ever since. St. Mary's Abbey at York, though only a few scattered fragments of its beauties are to be seen and very little, of its walls still stand, is almost as interesting as Yorkminster, the great Cathedral itself. There were many such abbeys as this built in England during the Thirteenth Century—more than a dozen of them at least and probably a full score. All of them are as distinguished in the history of architecture as the English Cathedrals. It will be remembered that what is now called Westminster Abbey was not a Cathedral church, but only a monastery church attached to the Abbey of Westminster and this, the only well preserved example of its class furnishes an excellent idea of what these religious institutions signify in the Thirteenth Century. They meant as much for the art impulse as the Cathedrals themselves.
One feature of these monastic establishments deserves special mention. The cloisters were usually constructed so beautifully as to make them veritable gems of the art of the period. These cloisters were the porticos usually surrounding a garden of the monastery within which the Monks could walk, shaded from the sun, and protected from the rain and the snow. They might very easily have been hideously useful porches, especially as they were quite concealed from the outer world as a rule, and those not belonging to the order were not admitted to them except on very special occasions. The name cloister signifies an enclosed place and lay persons were not ordinarily admitted to them. Those who know anything about them will recall what beautiful constructive work was put into them. Certain examples as that of St. John Lateran in Rome and the Cloister of St. Paul's without the walls some five miles from Rome, constructed during the [{122}] Thirteenth Century and under the influence of the same great art movement as gave the Cathedrals, are the most beautiful specimens that now remain. The only thing that they can be compared with is the famous Angel Choir at Lincoln which indeed they recall in many ways.
The pictures of these two Cloisters which we present will give some idea of their beauty. To be thoroughly appreciated, however, they must be seen, for there is a delicacy of finish about every detail that makes them an unending source of admiration and brings people back again and again to see them, yet always to find something new and apparently unnoticed before. It might be thought that the studied variety in the columns so that no two are of exactly the same form, would produce a bizarre effect. The lack of symmetry that might result, from this same feature could be expected to spoil their essential beauty. Neither of these effects has been produced, however. The Cloisters were, moreover, not purple patches on monasteries, but ever worthy portions of very beautiful buildings.
All of these buildings were furnished as regards their metal work, their wood work, and the portions that lent themselves to decoration, in the same spirit as the Cathedrals themselves. The magnificent tables and benches of the Thirteenth Century are still considered to be the best models of simplicity of line with beauty of form and eminent durability in the history of furniture making. The fashion for Colonial furniture in our own time has brought us nearer to such Thirteenth Century furniture making than has been true at any other time in history. Here once more there was one of these delightful combinations of beauty and utility which is so characteristic of the century. Even the kitchen utensils were beautiful as well as useful and the Irish poet might have been satisfied to his heart's content.