CHAPTER VI.
PRIMITIVE ECCLESIOLOGY.
With the introduction of Christianity into Britain an entirely new era of art begins, derivable here, as elsewhere, from the central heart of ancient Christendom, as in the celebrated example of the Candida Casa, built at Whithern, in Galloway, in the Roman style.
We have the authority of Bede for the fact already referred to,—that the first churches of the Britons were constructed of timber. The cathedral of St. Asaph, founded by St. Kentigern in the sixth century, was a wooden church, after the manner of the Britons, and so also we may believe was the first cathedral of Glasgow, the work of the same founder. The first cathedral of the Isles seems not even to have aspired to the dignity of a wooden church, but to have been only a wattled inclosure, not unsuited to the simplicity of the primitive apostle of the Picts. Similar erections were probably employed at a much later period, for the temporary accommodation of the first phalanx of the newly founded monastery. A very curious seal, attached to one of the older charters of Holyrood Abbey, represents a structure so entirely differing from all the usual devices of the earliest ecclesiastical seals, that I am strongly inclined to look upon it as an attempt to represent the original wooden church, reared by the brethren of the Holyrood Abbey, on their first clearance in the forest of Drumselch. It manifestly represents a timber structure. The round tower is also curiously consistent with the older Scottish style, which the Romanesque was then remodelling or superseding, but bears no analogy to that of the Abbey of St. David. The contemporary seal of St. Andrews, which has for its device the venerable metropolitan church of St. Rule, proves that such portraiture was actually attempted and successfully practised at the period.[613] Viewed in this light the old Holyrood seal is one of the most interesting ecclesiological relics we possess, figuring, it may be, the primitive structure first reared on the site which is now associated with so many of the most momentous occurrences both in the ecclesiastical and civil history of Scotland. The earliest charter to which it has yet been found attached is a notification by Alwyn, Abbot of Holyrood, A.D. 1141; but both the style of workmanship and the curiously mixed lettering manifestly belong to an earlier period, when the mos Scotorum was still in use, and perhaps point to the existence of a familia, or Christian community established in the glades of Drumselch Forest, long before the royal foundation of the Holyrood. Amid such primitive structures, the Candida Casa of St. Ninian must have stood forth as a majestic example of Italian art, and have furnished a model which succeeding builders would strive to imitate. Yet as each country of Christian Europe has its own peculiar variations from the theoretical standard, or its provincialisms, as they may be fitly enough called, so Scotland and Ireland, occupying originally a more isolated position than the other kingdoms of Christendom, modified these to a remarkable extent, and produced a style differing so greatly from the Italian model as to confound the speculations of modern ecclesiologists. The masterly essay of Dr. Petrie on "The Round Towers of Ireland," has at length freed this inquiry from the cumbrous theories of older antiquaries, and given consistency to the archæological records of native art.
While England has her Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical remains, exhibiting more or less of the transition by which the debased Roman passed into the pure Romanesque, or Norman style, Scotland, along with Ireland, possesses examples of an early native style belonging to the same period, anterior to the Norman invasion, and distinguished by more marked and clearly defined characteristics. The peculiarities of the early masonry have generally been selected by judicious ecclesiologists as one of the most unerring guides to genuine Saxon remains, including such constructive features as the varieties of long and short work, whether introduced plainly in the angles of the buildings, or in the form of pilaster-strips, panels, arcades, and other decorations on the surface of the walls, as in the celebrated Earl's Barton Tower, Northamptonshire, and in Stanton Lacy Church, Shropshire. The latter are only modifications of the simpler long and short work, and are obviously introduced for the same purpose, namely, to supply the want of a sufficiency of good building materials, and to bind together the unsubstantial ruble-work between, much in the same way as beams and brick-work are united in a timber-framed house. This difficulty of obtaining a sufficient supply of stone accounts for the introduction of herring-bone work, consisting of courses of bricks or tiles of Roman shape, and not unfrequently the spoils of older Roman buildings, disposed in alternate chevron rows. Such evidence is not of course in itself sufficient to fix a building as undoubtedly belonging to the Anglo-Saxon period, but as it generally occurs along with features more or less markedly distinct from the earliest Romanesque buildings to which an authentic date is assigned, it is a mere disputing about terms to question the existence of many well known examples in England of a style of ecclesiastical building popularly known as Saxon architecture. In addition to these constructive features there are not wanting peculiarities of detail, such as the belfry windows, divided with a rude baluster, or a slender cylindrical shaft carrying a long impost without any capital, and small apertures both in doors and windows, formed by two or more stones laid so as to form a straight slope, and producing a class of pointed openings coeval with the earliest circular arch in our ecclesiastical architecture. Sculptured decoration is rare, and generally extremely rude. The imposts of arches most frequently present imperfect imitations of Roman mouldings, where they are not simple square blocks, though in some instances a modification of the long and short work, consisting of rag-stone regularly disposed in imitation of carved mouldings, serves as an economical substitute for more laboured decorations.
Most of these characteristics of Anglo-Saxon architecture are, in the true sense of the word, provincialisms, not indeed necessarily confined to England, but pertaining to the earliest buildings of districts where good stone is scarce, and not easily procured. They form interesting examples of the legitimate origin of architectural details from the necessities of the locality in which they are found. On this very account, however, they are such as we should not expect to find, either in Scotland or Ireland, where substantial building materials abound. Examples, indeed, of analogous workmanship are not wanting in either country, and some of those of Scotland will be referred to. The celebrated ruin of St. Anthony's Chapel, near Edinburgh, though certainly not earlier than the fourteenth, and more probably belonging to the fifteenth century, affords a curious instance of the adaptation of the rude materials of its immediate site, where others of the best quality were of easy access. This, however, is a solitary example, and no indication of a prevalent custom. Any evidence of such an exotic style as that usually called Saxon in the south of England transplanted to these localities, like the Scoto-Roman masonry already described, would clearly point to a foreign origin, and to builders unfamiliar with the facilities of a stone country.
The peculiar characteristics of the later ecclesiastical revolutions of Scotland, which almost entirely eradicated all veneration for the historical memorials of the ancient Scottish Church, have largely contributed to obliterate the evidences of our primitive Christian architecture. Some few examples of singular value, however, exist to attest the correspondence of the earliest sacred structures with other contemporary works of art. Scotland, as well as Ireland, has still her round towers, among the earliest and most interesting relics of native ecclesiastical architecture. Into the endless controversy of which these have formed the subject it is happily no longer needful to enter. Dr. Petrie's admirable work has sufficed to sweep away the learned dust and cobwebs laboriously accumulated about the inquiry into their origin, and exhibits the value of patient investigation and the logical deductions of a thoroughly informed mind, in contrast to the vague and visionary speculations of the fireside student. The field which the Scottish antiquary has to investigate is narrow indeed when compared with that which Ireland offers; but is on that very account freed from some of the difficulties which beset the explorer into the corresponding Irish examples of the architectural taste and skill of a remote and long unknown period. It is even possible that a closer investigation of the history of the round towers of Scotland may throw some additional light on those of the sister isle.