Architectural Antiquities of Normandy

by John Sell Cotman; Dawson Turner

In a work like the present, devoted expressly to the elucidation of the Architectural Antiquities of Normandy, and more particularly intended to illustrate that style of architecture which prevailed during the time when the province was governed by its own Dukes, it has appeared desirable to select one or two objects, and to exhibit them, as far as possible, in their various details.

Under this idea, the abbey church of St. Georges de Bocherville has been taken from the upper division of the province, and that of the Holy Trinity at Caen from the lower. Both of these are noble edifices; both are in nearly the same state in which they were left by the Norman architects; and both of them are buildings whose dates may be cited with positive certainty.

The abbey of St. Georges was situated upon an eminence on the right bank of the Seine, two leagues below Rouen. It owed its origin to Ralph de Tancarville, lord of the village, about the year 1050. A rage for the building and endowing of monastic establishments prevailed at that period throughout Normandy; and this nobleman, who had been the preceptor to Duke William in his youth, and was afterwards his chamberlain, unwilling to be outdone by his compeers in deeds of piety and magnificence, founded this monastery and built the church in honor of the Virgin and St. George. Both the conqueror and his queen assisted the pious labour by endowments to the convent; and Ordericus Vitalis relates how, upon the decease of the monarch, the monks of St. Gervais, at Rouen, where he died, made a solemn procession to the church of St. Georges de Bocherville, there to offer up their prayers for the soul of their departed sovereign.

At the revolution the abbatial church was fortunate enough to become parochial, and it thus escaped the ruin in which nearly the whole of the monastic buildings throughout France were at that time involved. Its previous good fortune in having been so very little exposed to injury or to alteration, is even more to be wondered at.

Plate 6. Abbey Church of St. Georges de Bocherville.
General view.

The general view of the church, ([plate 6]) for the drawing of which the author is indebted to Miss Elizabeth Turner, is calculated to convey a faithful idea of the effect of the whole. Whatever is here seen is purely Norman, except the spire; and upon the subject of spires antiquaries are far from being agreed: some regarding them as a comparatively modern invention, while others, on the contrary, believe that the use of them may be traced to a very remote period. The semi-circular east end, with a roof of high pitch, the windows separated by shallow buttresses, or by slender cylindrical pillars, and the grotesque corbel-table, are, all of them, characteristics of the early Norman style: a greater peculiarity of the present building, and one indeed that is found in but few others, lies in the small semi-circular chapels attached to the sides of the transepts.

The west front ([plate 5]) exhibits a deviation from the general style of the church, in the two towers with which it is flanked. The shape of the arches in these plainly indicates a later æra; but they are early instances of pointed architecture. The grand entrance is displayed upon a larger scale in the [seventh] plate. The ornaments to this door-way are rich and varied, and there are but few finer portals in Normandy. But in specimens of this description the duchy is far from being able to bear a comparison with England. It would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to assign a satisfactory reason for this circumstance; and yet the fact is so obvious, that it cannot fail to have occurred to every one who has paid any attention to the architecture of the two countries.

In the interior of the church there is scarcely an architectural anomaly to be discovered. The only alterations are those which were rendered necessary by the injuries done to the building in the religious wars, during the sixteenth century; and the repairs on that occasion extended only to a portion of the roof, and of the upper part of the wall on the south side of the nave. As a satisfactory specimen of the character of the whole of the inside, the south transept has been selected for the subject of the [eighth] plate. In this, however, as well as in the opposite one, there is a peculiarity which requires to be noticed; that, within the church, at the distance of a few feet from the end wall, is placed a column, from which an arch springs on either side, occupying the whole width of the transept, and thus forming an open screen. The screen terminates, above, in a plain flat wall, which is carried to but a very short distance higher than the arches, so as to be nearly on a line with the triforium. The same arrangement exists also in some other churches in Normandy; as in that of the royal abbey of St. Stephen at Caen, in the abbey church at Cerisy, in the abbey church at Fécamp, and in the cathedral at Séez. In the two last mentioned buildings, it is found connected with the pointed architecture. At Cerisy, a church, erected a.d. 1030, by Robert, father to the Conqueror, the screen is surmounted by a row of seventeen semi-circular arches, which rise to about half the height of the columns of the triforium, and form an elegant parapet. It is possible that there may have been originally some decoration of the same kind at St. Georges. At Fécamp, the screen is carried up to the roof by three tiers, each consisting of three arches; and the recess thus made, is still used as a chapel, having an altar at the east end, and, in the centre, an ancient font. Such may have been originally the case at St. Georges; and thus we may account for the small semi-circular additions to the transepts, one of which is visible in the general view of the church. Mr. Cotman, however, suggests another idea, which may have entered into the mind of the architect of St. Georges; that, by means of this screen at the end of the transepts, the aisles of the nave would receive apparent length; from the columns, which form the screen, ranging in a line with those of the outer walls of the church. Among our English ecclesiastical buildings, there are similar screens in the transepts of Winchester cathedral[2], where the portion of the church that remains in its original state, greatly resembles, in its architecture, the church of St. Georges de Bocherville, and is known to have been erected at nearly the same date[3].