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

by Sir George Gilbert Scott

Fig. 152.—Cloth Market at Yprès.

lower storey subdivided into rooms of a small size for more varied uses; and with all this unbroken uniformity, it would be hard to find a more wonderfully striking building. The other, being for stowage, demanded multitudinous storeys and numerous supports. The storeys within are not, perhaps, more than 8 or 10 feet high, and the floors are carried on oaken pillars. The windows, being more for ventilation than light, are small and square, and closed by shutters instead of glass. The crane houses are made noble structures of timber, but no ornament is admitted, excepting to the doorways and perhaps the gables. The whole speaks its purpose so unmistakably that I do not suppose any one ever yet asked what it was; and though a mere unmasked and almost unadorned warehouse, it stands forth and asserts—and not in vain—its claims upon public admiration amongst the admired monuments of that truly interesting city.

To go into the various classes of secular buildings, and to show the consistency of their treatment, each with its own proper requirements, would fill a volume, and a volume, if it did any justice to the subject, well worth reading. I must not now go farther. I will, however, point out a few developments demanding our notice. I have before alluded to several points of difference between the windows of secular and ecclesiastical buildings. These differences were carried farther and farther according to the demands of the particular building in hand. The windows were wide or narrow, more or less numerous, subdivided or undivided, arched or square-headed, and, if arched, had high or low arches, strictly according to the demands of the rooms within; and whatever those demands were, the architecture was subordinated to them. Some buildings had windows few and far between; others were nearly all window; and of course there were all intermediate varieties. Some buildings were vaulted in every storey, giving good examples of really fireproof construction; others were fireproof through one or two storeys, and timbered above; and others, again, had timber floors throughout. In secular structures we find trabeated architecture in its truest form—not stone beams, which, when extended beyond very narrow limits, go against the nature of the material, but real beams of wood, used in a thoroughly sensible and constructive manner. I would particularly call attention to the fact that beams were not merely run into walls—where, the moment the ends so immured decay, down comes the floor; but they were aided by stone corbels, and not only so, but by timber corbels, lying on them; or if the bearings were very great, braces were added, which will carry the beams even when the ends are rotted off.

This is trabeated architecture in a very genuine form. I dare say both Greeks and Romans may have used it so, too; but as their timbers have gone to dust, the Renaissance has lost its precedents, and has too often imitated stone construction in wood, or in more modern works, in lath and plaster; for wood, having disappeared from among the precedents, has of late been to a great extent eschewed as a visible architectural material.

Then, again, we have another common-sense development—the fireplace. The Romans had a number of good methods of warming their buildings; but the straightforward, honest fireplace—the social palladium of the Englishman—we owe, I believe, to the Mediæval builders—the men who are said to have known nothing of modern comforts. There are fireplaces in old Norman castles—Conisborough, for instance—as good as in a Belgravian house, and the chimney-pieces were often a great deal handsomer. With the fireplace came that other modern feature, the chimney-shaft. Look how consistently with common sense, and with the principle of decorating what was demanded by utility, that was treated!

The oriel window or bay window was another Mediæval invention, and it would be difficult to find a feature more conducive to comfort and cheerfulness. It is often very sensibly translated into other styles; but, like the fireplace and the chimney, it belongs to the style of those “comfortless” ages of which we are treating.

The dormer window is another invention of this window age. The high roof was not to be thrown away—it must be utilised by being formed into attic storeys; windows, therefore, must be contrived wholly or in part in the roofs. Hence that highly picturesque and useful feature, which, though like the oriel, now translated into other styles, was invented in the middle ages, and, like all their inventions, originated in common sense.

I have spoken of the construction of floors, but omitted to notice the ceilings. Great scope was given to variety in their treatment. Sometimes all the timbers were shown, and, perhaps, decorated with colour, the wood-work being more or less ornamented, as the character of the building demanded. For lofty rooms this often gives a noble covering; in other cases, the beams and binding joists are shown, and the intervening spaces panelled; in others, again, the whole is panelled, and in each case any amount of decorative painting used which might be desired. There is no doubt that the ceilings in Gothic buildings were, in many cases, the types which suggested those of the earlier Renaissance buildings before people began to imitate stone construction in plaster, and to make quasi-constructive features in hollow cradling. In the middle ages, either constructive parts were exposed to view, or the decorations which concealed them were designed simply as decorations, without in any degree professing to be constructive—plain honest common sense being the ruling principle, as it ought to be, and once was in other styles.

One of the most striking ways in which this principle of common sense is displayed is in the absolute freedom exercised in planning, or, more correctly speaking, the absolute subordination of external design to the practical requirements of the interior. There was no love of irregularity for its own sake among the Mediæval builders; on the contrary, they had no objection at all to general uniformity where the circumstances of the case did not suggest a departure from it; and where irregularity was demanded for use, they did not carry it beyond what the demand required; but when the practical requirements naturally led to irregularity, they fearlessly followed them, without any of that morbid striving after forced uniformity which characterises—I will not say Classic works, for the ancients also acted on more natural principles—the great majority of modern buildings. That they did not capriciously strive after irregularity is proved by such buildings as the great market halls of Bruges and Yprès, the latter of which has a front of 450 feet long, without one deviation from uniformity, simply because the practical requirements in each wing were identical. That, when the internal requirements but slightly differed, they carried irregularity no farther than the demands of reason suggested, is proved by such fronts as that of the ducal palace at Venice, and of a very great number of street houses and palaces in different countries, where the normal idea is uniform, but the windows placed to suit rooms of varying size; but that, when the practical requirements had no reference to uniformity, they fearlessly acted on them, without any of those sickly repinings which would so sadly disturb the peace of the modern architect, still more without any torturing of the internal arrangements to make them fit to a preconceived elevation (which is the usual practice in these more enlightened days), is abundantly proved by many of the noblest works which our forefathers have bequeathed to us.