Lectures on the rise and development of medieval architecture; vol. 1

by Sir George Gilbert Scott

IN the introductory lecture which I had the honour of reading before you last year, I endeavoured to give an outline of the varied claims of the architecture which was developed in our own and neighbouring countries during the Middle Ages, upon the study both of architects and lovers of art at the present day.

I will not recapitulate what I then said; but, presuming that by honouring me with your presence this evening you admit the subject to be well worthy of your attention, will crave your indulgence while I endeavour, at the risk of appearing to be going over a trite and almost exhausted subject, to give a brief outline of the rise and development of the architecture whose claims upon your study I then attempted to advocate.

My object is rather to trace out the re-awakening of art in the eleventh and following centuries from the slumber in which it had so long lain, than to chronicle its changes during the chaotic ages which followed the final catastrophe of the ancient world. Like the contemporary fable of the Seven Sleepers at Ephesus, its changes during this dreamy interval were but the turnings of the slumberer from the right side to the left, and little need is there to investigate such sluggish and disconnected movements. Our concern is rather with living and energetic art; and if we stop at all to inquire into its semi-dormant condition, it is rather for the sake of judging what were the elements of life which it retained, than from any really practical interest which attaches to its productions.

It is hardly possible to conceive of a state of things so utterly anomalous and contrary to all historical precedent as that of Western Europe after the deluge of Northern barbarism had annihilated the mightiest empire the world ever saw, and almost swept from the face of the earth the arts and literature which it had taken the whole period of human history to generate. Like the giant-slayers of old romance, the barbarous conquerors must have been filled with awe in contemplating the stupendous proportions of their now lifeless victim; and while wandering amidst the mighty monuments of the people they had overthrown, they must have been inspired with deep veneration for their intellectual power, and with ardent longings to inherit some portion of their skill—aspirations which, if we may judge from some of the structures erected by Theodoric, there can be little doubt would have been realised had not every wave as it subsided been succeeded by a fresh torrent of barbarism. The lamp of art was only saved from utter extinction by two surviving institutions—the Western Church and the Eastern Empire; the one seeming to absorb each succeeding wave of conquering barbarism, and the other to supply to each those elements of civilisation by which its fury was in its turn to be abated.

As might be expected from the circumstances of their position, the architectural efforts of the new races were founded on the basis of the Roman monuments, with whose vestiges they were on every hand surrounded, aided by friendly and continuous importations of the still living art of the Eastern Empire. Their elements were the Christianised Roman of the Western Basilica, and the newly-developed architecture of the Byzantine Church. Long, long, however, was it before any distinctive style was developed out of these elements. The efforts of Theodoric must be considered as rather Byzantine than Gothic; and for three centuries so little, if any, was the progress, that we find Charlemagne, the re-founder of the empire, actually despoiling the palace of the early Gothic king to use its architectural fragments in his own structures!

There can be no doubt, however, that the efforts made by Charlemagne for the revival of art would have soon produced some great results had he been followed by successors in any degree worthy of him; but so far from this, the nations he governed seem to have fallen back into almost worse barbarism than before, while the incursion of Northmen, Huns, and Saracens long repressed every effort after better things. We know little of the actual state of architecture during this melancholy period. The notion of Charlemagne having found a distinctive style of architecture in Lombardy, and having transplanted it to the banks of the Rhine, seems to be little more than a myth, though I think it not improbable that the Lombards had already taken some steps towards the formation of a new style.[2]

It is dubious whether a fragment of the structures erected by the Lombard kings now exists from which we may ascertain their style;[3], and though it is possible that the subsequent architecture may have been influenced by them in some degree, it is certain that the models which the Frankish emperor more especially followed were rather found in Byzantine Ravenna than in barbarous Lombardy, and the few remains of his architecture seem to be imitations of either Classic or Byzantine structures.

In England the works of this period were a very rude and unintelligible imitation of those of the same period at Rome, united with a strange translation into stone of their own timber structures, and occasionally enriched with that primitive kind of ornamentation which it is customary to call Runic.[4]

In the north of France it would not appear that the humbler class of churches were much better than those of which we find the remains in our own country. The remnants of one of the churches erected at that period on the site now occupied by Nôtre Dame at Paris, are debased Roman with Corinthian capitals; but the few remains of smaller churches—such as the old church at Beauvais—are not very unlike the Saxon structures in England. Of the latter it is but fair to state that the fragments which remain nearly all belong to merely rustic churches, and are hardly fair specimens of their style; they afford, however, sufficient proof of the rude state of art, though we have the witness of contemporary and succeeding historians to the fact that they were supposed and intended to be in the Roman style—meaning thereby, not that of ancient Rome, but that which prevailed at the period, and which we usually designate as the Basilican style.

The dawn of better things may be dated from the commencement of the tenth century, and may be mainly attributed to the consolidation of the German empire under the three first Othos (936-1002) and their immediate successors, and more especially to the fact of these emperors having had Lombardy equally with Germany, Switzerland, and portions of France under their sway, and thus in some degree uniting in one that vast expanse of country which extends from the banks of the Po to those of the Elbe.