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

by Sir George Gilbert Scott

Gradual refinement of Romanesque—French architects the earliest to systematise the pointed arch—The English before the Germans—The Italians from the Germans—Fully acknowledged in France 1140—Suger’s work at St. Denis—Carving in French churches—Corinthianesque outline of capitals—Distinctly Byzantine capitals—A route by which Byzantine foliage may have reached France—The importation indisputable—Its effects seen in Early English capitals—West front of Chartres—Fluting on basement of doorways—Cathedral of Noyon—St. Germain des Pres, Paris—Cathedral of Sens, prototype of the Choir and Trinity Chapel at Canterbury—Notre Dame, Paris—A new kind of foliage—The capital “à crochet”—English transition—Incipient specimens—Refined Norman—Pointed style, with reminiscences of Romanesque—William of Sens—William the Englishman—Influence of French work—Oakham Castle—Glastonbury Abbey—Cathedral of St. David’s—Temple Church, London—Chichester Cathedral—Tynemouth Abbey—Hexham Abbey—Unfoliated capitals—Round moulded capitals—Characteristics of English and French transition—The German transition—Practical lessons from studying these changes—Principles to which the transition was pioneer.

IN my last lecture it was my endeavour to illustrate the mechanical and structural portion of the process by which the Romanesque, or round-arched Gothic, became changed into the Pointed style—a change which I showed to have resulted primarily from causes purely constructional, and arising from the mere necessities of the case, though subsequently carried on into parts, in which the change in the form of arch, though not statically necessary, was demanded from reasons of geometrical and æsthetic harmony. I further showed that the change was not, by any means, that abrupt revolution which it is often described as having been; that a large proportion of the distinctive characteristics of Gothic architecture are common to its round-arched and pointed-arched varieties; that these two forms of architecture are hardly to be called two styles, but rather the grand divisions of one style—the latter being the natural and logical result of the progression ever going on in the former, during every moment of its prevalence, and in every country where it prevailed.

The portion of the subject, however, on which I then treated, was only the mechanical framework of the style—its mere ossature, to use M. Viollet le Duc’s expression, or—as a celebrated palæontologist, who did me the honour of being present, said—the “backbone” of the subject. My object this evening is to overlay this skeleton with the muscles and sinew, and with the external expressions of its inner life; to show that those dry bones lived; or, in other words, to show the changes in the decorative features of the architecture, and in the sculptural art which accompanied it. I have further to trace out the transition as exhibited in the structures of different countries—and especially of France, England, and Germany;[10] and in a general manner to inquire both into their peculiar characteristics and into the order of their chronological precedence.

The tendency I have so often mentioned to refine and to elevate the character of the Romanesque architecture is common to all the countries where it prevailed. In all we find the severe simplicity of its earlier productions gradually and steadily relaxing throughout the whole period of its history; the rudeness of its early decorations disappearing in favour of a more artistic treatment; its ponderous massiveness becoming lightened; its low proportions changed for more lofty ones; and the general asperity of its character becoming softened down; so that in its later stages it seems often to possess nearly every feature of the succeeding style, excepting the pointed arch and the elevation and lightness which followed its introduction, though it also possessed features which its successor speedily discarded. I especially refer to those systems of ornamentation—most of them of Oriental origin—by which the Romanesque buildings may usually, irrespective of their arches, be distinguished from those of the succeeding periods.

The pointed arch having, as I have before shown, been first introduced in the vaulting,[11] where its particular statical advantages were most required, it naturally follows that the change would commence earliest in those countries in which the builders set themselves most actively about the solution of the problem—the steps of which I somewhat at length traced out in my last lecture; I mean the conversion of the basilica, with its timber roofs, into a completely vaulted structure; and I think there can be no doubt that that country was France.

This, however, would not be the only condition on which the probable precedence among the different nations, in taking the step which was necessary to generating a perfect form of arcuated architecture, would depend. It seems necessary that it should not be a country already so thoroughly provided with noble churches as to preclude the probability of a great architectural movement, nor one which had already made so determined an effort in perfecting its national style as to have become too much enamoured of its successes to be in a position to strike out boldly in a new line: indeed, it should be a people of so active a spirit, and with so strong a tendency to progress and to change, as to render it improbable that they should ever settle down in quiet contentment with their own attainments. The question as to where the great stride forward was to be expected would naturally lie between France and Germany—the dominions of the two great successors of Charlemagne in his kingly and his imperial capacities. Neither Italy nor England were so likely: the former, from her too great proximity to Classic monuments; while the latter—though her political power was equal to that of France, her continental possessions most extensive, and her architectural strivings most vigorous—had too newly risen from the position of a conquered country to take the first place in such a movement, and was also the less likely to do so from the fact of her builders having for the most part avoided the vaulted construction (on a large scale at least), from which the first advance was largely suggested.

The matter lay, then, between France (I mean the actual centre of the Frankish monarchy, of which Paris was the focus) and Germany. The latter, however, had already made her great architectural movement, and was (and not without cause) becoming selfsatisfied with her achievements. She had generated a glorious style, and covered her land with monuments of which she might well be proud; while the part of France immediately under the royal power had not yet been able to erect structures of a magnitude worthy of her position as the great representative state of Western Europe. The immense influence gained just at this time by the French monastic establishments, as well as their schools of learning and science, and still more the increase of the regal power under the wise government of Louis VI., and by the annexation of the southern provinces through the marriage of his successor, brought about the commencement of the great building period in France, a little before the middle of the twelfth century, and the active genius of the people decided the rest. The consequence was that, though the refinement and perfecting of the Romanesque architecture went on uniformly in all the countries I have named, and though its transition into the Pointed style is as distinctly national in England and Germany as in France, the precedence as to the time at which the grand advance was made must be unhesitatingly awarded, I will not say to France (for some parts of it were particularly tardy), but to that district of France round Paris, the focus of the royal power—that portion of it, in fact, which was immediately under regal government, as distinguished from that of the great vassals of the Crown. We must further in justice admit that, though each country had its own transition, founded directly upon its own national and even local variety of Romanesque, each was also in some degree tinged and influenced by the early developments arrived at in the royal domain of France.

I wish to be as specific as possible on this point, for the sake of steering between two exaggerated views. The one view is this: Seeing the transitional style of each country to be distinctly national—a logical and consistent transition from their own local Romanesque—to conclude from this that the result was absolutely independently arrived at, though a considerable chronological interval may have intervened. The other is the conclusion that, as the central French architects had been the earliest in systematising the pointed-arched developments, all other countries had simply followed in their wake, and done no more than follow the fashions set at Paris. The truth lies between these contradictory views. The communication ever going on throughout Europe caused each country to know pretty perfectly what was going on in others; their Romanesque in each was about on a par as to advancement, and in each the want of the pointed arch must have been nearly equally felt. Each, then, had its national and logical transition; but the French having outstripped the others as to time, many of their minor developments were adopted ready-made (if I may say so): so that though each transition is clearly national, and distinct from that of other countries, we nevertheless find, both in Germany and England, features which have as clearly been borrowed from the French.

The English—though it would appear likely, from their adherence to open timber roofs, that they would have felt the want of the pointed arch less than the Germans, who more usually vaulted their naves,—nevertheless outstripped their more phlegmatic kinsmen in its adoption. This may have arisen from two causes—the constant use in England of central towers, the frequent failures of which, when supported by round arches, would have given them another reason to desire one of greater strength; and also their intimate connection with France and the vast domains in that country which came under the rule of our kings.

It is true that (with the exception of Anjou and Maine) the provinces held by Henry II. were those in which the Romanesque style held out the longest; yet the fact that the two countries were at the time almost as one—the English provinces of France being larger than, perhaps, either England itself or the independent domain of the French king—their ecclesiastical systems intimately united—the French language spoken by all the higher orders in England, who held possessions perhaps of almost equal extent in both countries—it is hardly probable that the state of architecture should be greatly different in England and in France.