Lectures on the rise and development of medieval architecture; vol. 2

by Sir George Gilbert Scott

The nave is of thirteen bays, besides the western transept. These parts were added in the course of the twelfth century, making the whole length (not measuring the west porch added in another style), about 420 feet, the transept measuring about 190 feet in length.

There was, of course, a central tower as usual, but there was a second tower of great size, and probably of greater height in the middle of the western transept, which transept was flanked at its angles, with vast polygonal stair-turrets, and had large and noble apsidal chapels projecting from its eastern sides. These parts are in the Transitional style, which I do not touch upon during this session; but I may here say that, whether projected from the first or not, a more magnificent addition to the usual features of a great cathedral or abbey church, can hardly be imagined, though what its effect was when the central tower existed, and the western one was crowned by a vast leaded spire, one can hardly now appreciate.

Abbot Symeon’s tower had the same radical weakness with that built by his brother, and though it lasted longer (having no Rufus beneath it), it at length gave way, and was succeeded by the remarkable structure now forming the unique centre of the glorious temple.

Of doorways, windows, etc., I will not now treat, though some of the latter are of great beauty. Were it not that I limit myself during the present lecture to buildings begun during the eleventh century, I should here have noticed Peterborough, whose eastern end was a manifest imitation of that of Abbot Symeon.

Abbot Symeon died at a hundred years of age in 1093. Of what a long course of events had he been a contemporary or an eye-witness! He might have remembered the congratulations called forth by the failure of the prognostications of the world’s coming to an end in the year 1000. A relative of the ducal family of Normandy, he might have witnessed, when in early manhood, the arrival of Ethelred and Emma with the destined king, confessor, and saint, when they fled from the ravages of King Sweyn; and he might have even directed the education of the Confessor-King. In architecture, he might have watched almost from its rise the development of the Norman style, and have assisted, when at early middle age, at the consecration of Duchess Judith’s Abbey Church at Bernay, which is now our earliest specimen of what was then the rising art of Normandy, and long subsequently became that of England, and of which he and his brother,—now in their old age,—had become respectively the founders of two of the noblest examples.

Before describing any other of the remaining works of the period, I will carry you in imagination to one which has long ceased to exist. St. Paul’s Cathedral in London was founded, as we have seen, early in the seventh century, by Mellitus, the missionary bishop, and by Sebert, king of Essex. Having been destroyed by fire, its rebuilding was commenced in 1083 by Bishop Maurice. The structure then commenced was of the most ample dimensions. The elementary scale was larger even than that of Winchester, for the width of the nave from centre to centre of the pillars was 46 ft. 6 in., while that of Winchester was 42 ft. 6 in. The nave was twelve bays in length, and each transept had five bays, exceeding in this respect (so far as I know) any other Norman church, excepting the Abbey at Bury St. Edmund’s. The transepts were doubly aisled. The choir had, probably, four bays, but of its eastern termination I know nothing.

The central tower must have been nearly 60 ft. square, and the length of the transept 300 ft. The choir was raised high on an extensive crypt (the successor, in all probability, of that which I have conjectured Bishop Mellitus had constructed on the model of that of St. Peter’s at Rome). Whether the two western towers, placed beyond the outer walls of the aisles, like those of Abbot Paul at St. Alban’s, were of the original date, I am uncertain.

The architecture of the interior seems to have somewhat resembled that of Winchester, but was more lofty and more ornate. The plan of the pillars seems precisely the same; but the arches both of the main arcade and of the gallery were moulded, and circumscribed apparently by an enriched label. The triforium arches are not shown as subdivided, but I think that this was owing to an alteration of the original work. The clerestory had in each bay three openings. The aisle walls were, internally, arcaded beneath the windows. Whether the circular windows, which in Hollar’s view light the triforium storey, represent original ones, such as those at Waltham, we cannot judge.

Of this stupendous edifice, William of Malmesbury, who saw it in its unaltered state, remarks, that “such is the magnificence of its decorations that it is reckoned worthy to be numbered among the most illustrious edifices; such the extent of the crypt, such the capacity of the temple above, that it seems capable of sufficing to hold any multitude of people.”

Our old London cathedral, through the whole period of its existence, appears to have been the largest in England, and one of the largest in Europe,—its dimensions at a later date being 600 ft. from east to west, 300 ft. from north to south, and 520 ft. in the height of its spire.