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

by Sir George Gilbert Scott

The conditions to be demanded of our future architecture, whether destined to be based upon the Classic or the Gothic Renaissance, or whether they are to continue ever, as now, to assert side by side their rival claims, are:—a perfect and unhesitating fulfilment of practical demands, whether of construction, convenience, or comfort; an equally unhesitating adoption of the materials, inventions, and mechanical and constructive appliances of the age; a capability of reasonable economy or of judicious magnificence in all degrees and proportion; a character at once noble and in harmony with the country and climate, and with national associations; a perfect freedom of treatment, united with perfect truthfulness; and a free admission of the sister arts in their highest and most perfected forms. How happy would it be for art if we could proclaim an armistice between rival styles, while the advocates of each devote heart and soul to the realisation of these conditions, so obviously demanded by reason and common sense!

That Gothic architecture is in its spirit well fitted to unite these conditions, I think may be judged by much that I have shown you in this and the preceding lecture. It lays claim in a pre-eminent degree to the character of Freedom. Free in its use of arcuated or trabeated construction, as may best suit each particular case; free in the form of its arches, which, in addition to those used in other styles, take other and excellent forms, which enable them to assume all possible proportions of height to span; free in its vaulting, which has peculiar facilities for adapting itself to every possible space and span; free in the proportions, as well as infinite in the varieties, of its columns; free as air in the sculpture it applies to their capitals, as well as to other architectural uses; free in the pitch of its roofs; in the size, number, form, and grouping of its windows; and, above all, absolutely free in its planning, in which the practical requirements of the interior have undisputed sway irrespective of external design—it seems as if it could not be otherwise than suited to an age in which freedom is the great point to be aimed at in all we undertake. Convinced that such is the case, let us devote ourselves, heart and hand, to the task; let us bring all our energies to rendering the style we select as our groundwork really and absolutely subservient to the wants and to the spirit (so far as it is a healthful and a truthful spirit) of our age; let us apply to the work all our reasoning powers, and ground all we do upon common sense. But let me not be mistaken: this cannot be done by a mere abstract effort of the mind: let me, therefore, urge upon you who are students to exercise your reason and common sense in another way, and to be assured of this, that you cannot succeed in the practice of art, unless, in addition to all the practical considerations I have had occasion to allude to, you make yourselves, in the strictest sense of the word, ARTISTS.

A Digression concerning Windows.

In the foregoing Lectures, having only brought the history of our Architecture down to the close of the thirteenth century, I have neglected that of the later styles, and, consequently in great measure, the development and progressive changes in window-tracery. This has, however, been so amply treated of in many books and essays that it is not a matter with me of much regret. I confess I had intended to have supplied the omission in subsequent lectures, but circumstances prevented.

It would have been an agreeable task to have followed up the history of window-tracery and the many details which accompanied it, through the remaining two and a half centuries of the reign of Gothic architecture—to have shown how it grew from the purely geometrical system of Westminster, Newstead, and the “Angel choir” at Lincoln into the sweeter tracery of the “Easter aisle” at St. Albans, and of St. Etheldreda’s Chapel in Holborn; and on again into the yet softer loveliness of the Lady Chapel at Chichester, the halls at Penshurst, Mayfield, the gatehouses of Battle Abbey and of St. Augustine’s at Canterbury, and the Chapel of St. Anselm and De Estria’s work at the cathedral there; and then again into the more flowing tracery of Alan de Walsingham’s work, till it fell into debility by its too sensuous ramifications, and was brought back again to vigour by the stern perpendicular work of Wykeham; and how that, in its turn, became softened down, into such works as Crosby and Eltham Halls, and again into the exuberance of the Tudor style. All this would be very pleasant, but would necessitate the treating of all contemporary variations of detail, and would swell my lectures out into another volume: more than this, I have given no such lectures. It has been my task to show the principles on which Gothic architecture was founded, and on which it attained its leading developments, rather than to follow them out to their ultimate results, on attaining which much which led to them was thrown aside, as scaffolding is taken down when a structure is completed.

I feel it necessary, however, while neglecting the more usual course of chronicling the history of window-tracery, to supplement my lectures at this point with some remarks on the general construction of windows—applicable more or less to all periods of Mediæval architecture.

The most normal form of a window in an arched style is simply an opening straight through the wall covered by a barrel arch. This is, however, obviously defective in its fitness for diffusing light in the interior, a deficiency which, though slight in the case of a large window in a thin wall, becomes serious when the window is narrow and the wall thick. The simplest method of meeting this is to splay the jambs and arch of the window, at, for example, an angle of forty-five degrees, so as to allow for the spreading of the rays of light within.

In English architecture of pre-Norman days, this was most frequently done, both within and without, by placing the glass a long way from the outer face, or perhaps in the mid-thickness of the wall ([Fig. 154]). This had the advantage of splaying the head or arch as well as the jamb, which allowed more high light to enter; an advantage often increased by splaying the exterior of the arch more than the jambs, giving it a bonnet-like shape, and so obtaining still higher light ([Fig. 155]). Windows thus splayed inside and out, may be seen in the Castle Church at Dover—some few of these are not arched but had oak lintels, splaying upwards at about forty-five degrees ([Fig. 156]). The bonnet-headed window may be seen at Holy Trinity Church, Colchester; Clapham Church, Bedfordshire and many other buildings.