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

by Sir George Gilbert Scott

Though Charlemagne had been the first to establish this mighty empire, and that on a yet grander scale, and may claim the title of the founder of modern civilisation, the seeds he had sown scarcely began to take root till the days of his German successors of the tenth and eleventh centuries. I say German successors, because the kings of France were his successors as Frankish kings, the others as German emperors; and from this time forward we find a sort of contest or competition ever going on, both in politics and arts, between those who represented him in those two capacities.

From the commencement of the tenth century we find one style of architecture for a time spreading over the plains of Lombardy, the valleys of Switzerland, and that of the Rhine, and extending itself over Saxony and all the civilised parts of Germany.

I do not say that the style was absolutely identical; but still it was essentially the same. It was promoted by the same all-pervading political influence; and there can be no doubt that the same ecclesiastics, and even the same artists, were engaged in carrying it out; and that even among those most remote from one another a constant interchange of views as to taste and construction was ever going on, while the differences which we observe would arise rather from those of climate, material, and proximity to the relics of ancient art, than from any essential or intended difference of style.

The force of the influence brought to bear at this period upon the furtherance of art may be judged of from the accounts we have of the schools of art and science established so far north as Hildesheim (in the neighbourhood of Brunswick and Hanover), by Bernward, Bishop of that see, at the close of the tenth and the commencement of the eleventh century. Bernward was tutor, and afterwards chancellor, to Otho III., and there are extant portions of an elaborate treatise on geometry from which he instructed that prince. He was himself skilled in many arts, as wall-painting, the illumination of MSS., mosaics, working in metals, cutting and setting precious stones, as well as in architecture itself; and it is said that “whenever he found a youth with a feeling for art, he took him into his laboratory, and instructed him with the greatest kindness in giving the required forms to stubborn metals, hard stone, wood, and ivory. The most artistic of these young men he always took with him when he travelled, especially when he went to Italy, that their taste might be improved by seeing masterly works of art, and hence be enabled to execute similar works at home.” Bernward rebuilt his cathedral and erected the church of St. Michael at Hildesheim (still existing); and of his works in metal there remain the gates and the spiral column (of which casts may be seen at the Crystal Palace), as well as the great corona, in the cathedral. I have dwelt the longer on these particulars because we happen to have more complete records of Bernward than of most of his contemporaries in art, and because the sphere of his operations was at a point so distant from the recognised centres of art; and when it is recollected that he was cotemporary with the erection of many of the great Romanesque cathedrals of Germany—as Mayence, Spire, and Bamberg, and of multitudes of less important churches (at the dedication of many of which he was present), and further, that he lived earlier than the erection of the Cathedral of Pisa, the Church of St. Mark at Venice, or St. Zeno at Verona—it will be seen at once how early and energetic was the architectural movement in Germany under those emperors who were also kings of Italy; and we need not wonder at the immense hold which the architecture, thus generated, had over the national mind of Germany.

It is probable that about the same period a style somewhat analogous to the Lombardo-Rhenish, though more strongly tinctured with Classic detail, was growing up in Provence and the other southern provinces of France, spreading itself northward, and thus meeting the German variety on the borders of Switzerland and in Burgundy. The dates, however, of buildings in those districts seem too indefinite to be argued upon with confidence, though it is certain that at a date somewhat later a very noble and refined variety of Romanesque, but with a strong Classic admixture, prevailed there.

About the same time the development of a distinctive style was promoted in the North by an apparently adverse cause. The Northmen, under Rollo, having ravaged and possessed themselves of an extensive province in the north of France, and having soon afterwards joined the Christian Church, set themselves vigorously about the task of repairing the sacrilege which, in the days of their ignorance, they had committed: nearly every ecclesiastical edifice in their new dominions had been destroyed, and never, perhaps, had a new and vigorous people a more perfect carte blanche for generating a new phase of architecture. We accordingly find that they soon covered their land with edifices; at first, it is true, rude and simple,[5] but subsequently possessing elements of dignity and massive grandeur of a very high order.

Of the central district of the Frankish monarchy at this period we have few architectural relics. The weakness of the Carlovingian monarchs, and the almost entire dismemberment of their dominions, left them, probably, little able to carry out great works; yet it cannot be doubted that the active genius of the race—surrounded as they were by the Romanesque developments of Lombardy, Provence, Rhineland, and Normandy—could not have failed to have produced works fully proportioned in merit to those of their neighbours, though during the period of subsequent greatness they were not deemed worthy to be retained.

We now arrive at the period at which the real subject of which I have undertaken to treat commences; and it may here be well to give a few moments’ consideration to the intrinsic nature of the art at this time being generated.

The early architecture of Rome,—locally occupying a position between the Greek colonies to the south and the Etruscan cities to the north,—partook, as it would seem probable, of the characteristics of both, and was more especially marked by the union of the Greek orders and their trabeated structure with the arched construction shadowed forth by the buildings of Etruria. The whole history of Roman architecture seems to evince a competition ever going on between these rival systems. It was at first an unequal contest, for the arcuated system had never, when first taken up by the Romans, had the advantage of being treated as the vehicle for architectural decoration—it was as yet mere construction; while the trabeated system had passed through a refining process of two thousand years’ duration, and had been brought by the Greeks to the highest pitch of beauty and perfection. The Roman structures display every step in this contest, some of their greatest structures being purely arcuated and merely constructive, others as purely trabeated—mere imitations of Grecian architecture; but the majority uniting both in different proportions, the Grecian element being very commonly little more than a decorative overlaying of the arched reality. As time moved on, the arched construction steadily gained ground: not only were openings arched over, but wide spaces vaulted both with domes, continuous cylindrical vaults, and those of the groined or intersecting form.

During the later ages of Pagan Rome, though architecture as a decorative art was on the wane, the triumph of arched construction became more and more complete. Columns hitherto used to support horizontal entablatures were employed directly to carry arches, the architrave being bent into a semicircle instead of lying horizontally upon the column; while spaces of gigantic span were covered with groined vaulting, some reaching to a width never since attempted.