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

by Sir George Gilbert Scott

In England, as in France and Germany, the same Romanesque architecture had (with local varieties) grown up with the new civilisation; as it perfected itself it showed in each the same tendencies and the same yearnings, which Pointed architecture could alone satisfy. If it were so that these were at length met by suggestions from the East, it was our forefathers who fought there side by side with those of our neighbours, and the lessons learned and the trophies won were common property. It is possible that France was more rapid in making use of them, and it is certain that Germany was the most tardy in doing so; but in each the result had long been aimed at; in each it was the natural consequence of what had already been attained; and was therefore not the property of one, but the common inheritance of all; and each having attained it, carried it on and developed it in her own way, thus making it in every sense her own.

I am, however, only urging this as a claim which our old architecture has upon our own study. If we investigate the architecture of Egypt, of Assyria, or of Persia, we find that it tells of races with whom we have no national or personal sympathy. If we go to the classic shores of Greece, though there we should be viewing the work of a race whose arts and literature are, more than those of any other people, the property of the world, we nevertheless fail to find anything to connect them in any special sense with ourselves. If we transfer our researches from Greece to Rome—though we now view the vestiges of that mighty empire whose world-wide sway stretched its iron sceptre over our own land, and though we find among them the germ of the arcuated architecture which forms the nucleus of our own styles—they are still severed from us by so wide a gulf that, were it not for the modern revival of their style, they would appear perfectly alien to our race and climate. All these studies must be followed up in distant lands, excepting only those few fragments of Roman work scattered here and there in our own and neighbouring countries—the evidences of universal empire, the footsteps and symbols of ancient servitude. How different is the study of Gothic architecture! Its original exemplars are at our own doors; the very churches, perhaps, in which from our infancy we have worshipped; the monuments of our own forefathers; the works of men bearing our own names, whose armorial badges we are still proud to use; who spoke, in its pristine form, our own language; who sat in our own Parliaments, were lords of still-existing manors, founders of still-surviving charities, men who fought the battles of which we are still proud, and laid the foundations of our liberties and of all those institutions which render the name of England illustrious among the nations of the earth. Surely the architecture which grew up among men so nearly allied to us has a pre-eminent claim upon our attention!

I have thus traced out what appear to me to be the leading historical claims of the style we are treating of, and which I will recapitulate as being—

Istly. That it is the architecture of the modern, as distinguished from the ancient world.

2dly. That it is the architecture of the nations wholly or partially of Germanic origin, in whose hands the civilisation of the modern world has been vested.

3dly. That it is the latest link in the chain of genuine and original styles of architecture, a chain commencing with the first settlement of the human race, and terminating in Gothic architecture.

4thly. That it is, in a stronger sense than can be predicated of any other style, Christian architecture.

5thly, and lastly. That it is pre-eminently the architecture of our own forefathers and of our own land.

I will now proceed to direct your attention to some of the more prominent among its intrinsic claims.

Commencing, then, with its abstract beauty, I will not treat this as a comparative, but as a positive, quality. Differences of taste and education lead us to form varied estimates of the relative merits of the several styles of art, but the most devoted follower of classic antiquity could scarcely question the absolute and intrinsic beauty of a Gothic cathedral. Every style of architecture has had its own glories. The mighty Hall at Karnac; the Hall of Xerxes at Persepolis; that model of symmetry, the Parthenon; the Coliseum at Rome; and that gorgeous congeries of domes which canopied the shrine of Holy Wisdom at Constantinople, all rank among the most noble of the works of man; but who is there so prejudiced as to deny the worthiness of those glorious temples which preside in august serenity over the cities of Northern Europe to an equal place in our admiration? Surely, if abstract beauty and intrinsic grandeur alone are considered, the cathedrals of Amiens, of Rheims, of Chartres, of Bourges, of Strasburg, of Cologne, of Lincoln, Salisbury, or York, with a hundred others, will not suffer by comparison with the works of any previous age? Nay, I am convinced that an unprejudiced umpire would go much further, and pronounce them in most respects far superior to the works of earlier ages; but my argument only requires that they should be admitted as their equals.