LECTURES
ON
THE RISE AND DEVELOPMENT
OF
MEDIÆVAL ARCHITECTURE

J. LEI

Design Submitted for the New Law Courts, London.

Central Hall.

Sir Geo. Gilbert Scott R.A., architect

LECTURES
ON THE
RISE AND DEVELOPMENT
OF
Mediæval Architecture

Delivered at the Royal Academy
By Sir GILBERT SCOTT, R.A.,
F.S.A., LL.D., Etc.
IN TWO VOLUMES—VOL. II.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET
1879
The right of Translation is reserved.

Printed by R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh.

CONTENTS.
VOL. II.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
CONTAINED IN VOL. II.

LECTURE X.
The Transition.

Review of the developments in the early Architecture of our own land—Recent research in Central Syria—Examples in Northern Europe previous to the eleventh century—Early remains in Scotland and Ireland—Anglo-Saxon Architecture—Churches founded by St. Augustine—Canterbury and York—Churches at Hexham and Ripon—Ramsey Abbey—Winchester Cathedral—Destruction of Churches by Sweyn—Restoration and building by Canute—Roman models—Characteristics of Anglo-Saxon work—Brixworth Church, Northamptonshire Church on the Castlehill, Dover—Worth Church, Sussex—Bradford Church, Wilts—Chancel of Saxon Church at Jarrow-on-the-Tyne—Churches of Monk Wearmouth and Stow—Crypts at Wing, Repton, and Lastingham—Towers of St. Benet’s, Cambridge: Trinity Church, Colchester: Earls Barton: Barnach: Barton-on-Humber: Sompting, Sussex: and Clapham, Bedfordshire—Chapel at Greensted, Essex—Classification into periods of this form of Architecture.

IN commencing a series of lectures in my capacity as the official occupant of this professorial chair, I feel in some degree shackled by the circumstance that, though the office is new to me, its duties (so far as the lectures go) are not so: inasmuch as, during the latter years of the tenure of this office by our venerated Professor Cockerell, I was, in conjunction with Mr. Smirke, called upon to occupy the place from which ill-health and infirmity compelled him to be absent; and at a later time I have done the same for my immediate predecessor, Mr. Smirke, when circumstances interfered, for one season, with his lectures. I have, consequently, already given nine lectures from this chair without being its rightful occupant; and, now that I commence officially, I find the novelty of anything I might have had to say in a great degree worn off by anticipation. I have consequently been puzzled whether to begin afresh or to go on from the point I had reached. The former would, perhaps, be the most correct course; but, after long uncertainty, I feel it to be too artificial to sever what I said out of office from what I have to say in office, and I have determined to link my future lectures on to those which have preceded them. I shall also for the present limit myself to Mediæval architecture as the subject on which I have been engaged.

In my previous lectures I have given an outline of the development of Pointed architecture from the preceding round-arched style, and followed on with some practical suggestions as to the study of these phases of architecture. In them I have treated equally of foreign and English buildings, or have, perhaps, dwelt more at length on the former, and have carefully traced the connection of English with French architecture as they grew up, side by side, from the common germ, each to its glorious perfection.

I purpose now to fall back upon the commencement of this series of developments, and, while I go more in detail into the varied features of the architecture of these periods, to limit myself, during the present session at least, very much to its English productions.

My reason for this is, that we have of late been directing our attention too exclusively to foreign buildings, greatly to the neglect of our own,—so much so, that many of our architectural students seem to be as little acquainted with the Mediæval works of their own country as if they were brought up in Italy or France.

I hold the study of the contemporary buildings of neighbouring countries, especially those of France, to be essential to the due understanding of our own, and of the style as a whole; but this affords no excuse for the neglect of English architecture, to which, beyond all question, we are bound, as English architects, to direct our primary attention, and which will repay our study by a series of special beauties of its own, which have of late years been almost wholly overlooked.

In reviewing the changes in the architecture of our own country, it may be wholesome to begin early:—to “look at the rock whence we were hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence we were digged.” A retrospect such as this gives rise to some curious reflections. At one time we feel perplexed by the depth of antiquity into which we are directing our view, and at another with the very reverse of this. When we go beyond the Norman Conquest,—beyond the destructive ravages of the Danes,—through the half-mythic times of the Heptarchy and the heroic age of the Pagan Saxons; and, again, beyond the destruction of the Roman arts; through the mystic and hazy age which intervened between the withdrawal of the Roman and the conquest by the Saxon; again, through the four centuries of Roman domination into the unknown abyss of prehistoric Britain, what a vast lapse of time does it represent! Yet the earliest period we thus reach is, nevertheless, some four centuries subsequent to the close of the Old Testament history and the period of Pericles and Phidias, and perhaps fifteen centuries subsequent to many of the great monuments of Egypt!

Archaic art seems to have the power of reproducing itself; and even the ages of heroic and barbaric myth may re-occur after periods in which society and civilisation may appear to have worn themselves out by over-refinement; and thus, when we attempt to trace out the early Christian architectural arts of the nations of Northern Europe, we find ourselves as much in the mist of antiquity as if we were prying into that which preceded the Pyramids or the earliest palace of Nimroud, though we are in reality examining works subsequent to the time when the empire of Rome fell to pieces from sheer old age.

In taking an enlarged view of Mediæval architecture, we must view it in two distinct but at the same time united aspects; we must view it as the architecture indigenous to the modern as distinguished from the ancient civilisation; but we must also view it as having been developed upon an antique nucleus.

There are also two other separate, though united, views which we ought to take of it. We should view it, on the one hand, as the work of men elaborating, as from the beginning, a new system of art on the mere reminiscences of an old and defunct system,—absolutely defunct as relates to the northern races,—but we should view it also as, all the while, aided by the yet living art of the Eastern Empire and by the smouldering embers of that of Rome itself.

In some districts there may have been a tradition remaining of some old method of building which had prevailed among the Pagan, Celtic, or Teutonic tribes; but the germ may generally be said to have been Roman or Byzantine, founded on reminiscences, and aided, from time to time, by direct communication.

The two great divisions of Mediæval architecture are, firstly, that which preceded, and, secondly, that which followed the great transition of the latter half of the twelfth century. The whole may be viewed as the one great development of arcuated construction into a style of art, and its two great divisions are the round-arched and the pointed-arched styles.

It is my purpose during the present session to limit myself very much to the former; but viewing it, not only in its own bearings, but also as the precursor of the latter. Though I intend to choose my illustrations almost wholly from buildings in our own country, it would be taking a very narrow view of our subject if we were to consider the great round-arched style otherwise than as a whole, and our own portion of it other than as a branch of that mighty bifurcated tree whose boughs, whether growing from its eastern or its western stem, spread themselves over the whole civilised world.

It has been well remarked, by Mr. Freeman, in his History of Architecture, that the ancient Roman manner of building was essentially an arcuated style, though its true character was artificially overlaid by the features belonging to the purely trabeated style of Greece; and that the whole course of change through which it, in after ages, passed, may be described as the gradual throwing off the trabeated overlayings and the perfecting into an architectural style its vital germ,—the arcuated system.

This process was carried on equally in the East as in the West, though under circumstances accidentally differing. The two great metropolises of the Christian Roman empire, commencing with the same architecture, gradually changed it into two distinct branches, though clearly belonging to the same great trunk. In both the changes or developments took for their starting-point the architecture, not of Greece, but of Rome. In the West, they continued to follow the natural suggestions of that style, influenced deeply by the changed religion, and subsequently curbed and held down, first by the removal of the seat of government to Constantinople, and then by the continuous waves of the northern invaders who gradually brought down to a very low ebb the civilisation and arts of the Western empire.

In the East, the influence of the Christian worship was at least equally deep; while the presence of the imperial court and government offered greater advantages to development, and the accidental preference for domed construction gradually gave a wholly new tone to the general character of the architecture, while the proximity of ancient Greek remains had a very strong influence on the ornamentation.

Different, however, as is the general aspect of a Byzantine and Romanesque building,—especially when the former assumes its crowning feature, the dome,—it cannot be denied that they are, nevertheless, the same style in two phases; and that there is no such contradiction between them as to forbid their amalgamation to any extent. In proof of this, we have the not incongruous character of the Crusaders’ buildings in the East, in which the dome was not forbidden; the similarity to Romanesque of such of the Byzantine buildings as do not happen to have domes; the introduction into France of the domed architecture by a colony of Greeks; the admission of much that is Byzantine into the Romanesque buildings of Germany; and finally, the very extensive use of purely Byzantine foliage and other forms of ornamentation into the buildings of Western Europe in the twelfth century. This last-named circumstance I have dwelt upon at length in one of my former lectures, and I shall, no doubt, have frequent occasions again to allude to it. The fact is, that the ornamentation of the later examples of the Romanesque style is for the most part rather Byzantine than Roman in its origin: even the acanthus-leaves in the capitals and cornices more resembling those of the monument of Lysicrates than those of any Roman building; while the surface ornaments—so profusely used—are often traceable to the patterns of the various manufactures of the East, so largely imported into Western Europe.

Much light has recently been thrown upon the Byzantine style, especially in respect of its secular productions, through the discovery by the Count de Vogüé of a vast number of ruined towns in the mountains of Central Syria, which have remained almost untouched (except by time and earthquakes) just as they were deserted in the seventh century on the approach of the first Mahometan invaders. These remarkable remains give us the connecting link between Classic and Mediæval art, though greatly influenced by the traditional mode of building belonging to Syria. It is a subject which would need a separate lecture to deal with it as it deserves, and I only mention it here for the sake of saying that the carved ornamentation of these remarkable buildings is Greek in its feeling,[1] and not Roman, and that it is evidently allied to that imported at a much later period into Western Europe; and which especially characterises the buildings of the twelfth century in France, and (though less constantly) in England; all tending to establish the essential unity of the round-arched architecture of the early Middle Ages, and the fact that the East and the West were much more united in artistic affinity than has generally been admitted.

My main object at the present time is to trace the history, and investigate the character of those branches of this great round-arched style which have developed themselves in our own country: and my purpose in the foregoing remarks has been to lead you to view our own architecture, not as an essentially separate style, but as a part of that which pervaded Christian Europe, and extended till the Mahometan invasion, far both into Asia and Africa, which was the nucleus even of the Mahometan styles, and which in Sicily (as in the Holy Land and in Spain) again met and coalesced with its infidel offshoot, and produced by this reunion the noble architecture of Palermo, and other cities of Northern Sicily.

Among all the races of Northern Europe, who were either conquered by Rome, or aided in the overthrow of her empire, I do not know that any has left a vestige of what may be viewed as indicating, in any intelligible manner, the previous existence among them of a distinctive style of architecture. Stonehenge and the cromlechs can hardly be viewed as exceptions; and, when the Angles and Saxons invaded Britain, they found, so far as we know, no architecture but the Roman, nor brought with them any of their own; while, to make matters worse, they seem to have devoted themselves to the destruction of what they found.

What was the character of their buildings while they continued Pagan, we have no means of judging. We have proofs that timber was their most customary material, though it would be unreasonable to suppose that they were unable to build in stone. It is likely enough that their houses were generally of wood, for such was the case throughout the Middle Ages, and continues to be so to this day, where timber is abundant. Many of the churches afterwards were of the same material; but such also has at all periods been the case when dictated by local circumstances, and is still frequent in our colonies, so that it is insufficient to disprove the contemporary use of stone.

There is a curious parallelism in this respect between the buildings of ancient Greece, of Etruria, and of England. In Greece we find clear proofs of the architectural style having been founded on timber construction, though the Cyclopean walls, etc., of the primæval cities (whether the works of the same or a different race) forbid the thought that the use of stone was ever unknown. In Etruria we find no less gigantic walls, though we learn from Vitruvius that timber entered largely even into the construction of their temples, and suggested the peculiarities of the Tuscan order. If, then, in Saxon England we find the words “to build” to be derived from timber;—if we learn from early writers that the majority of their buildings were of wood; and if we find in their stone buildings indications of their imitating the construction of timber framing, we need no more conclude that our forefathers were ignorant of stone building, where it was needful, than that the early Greeks or Etrurians used timber from ignorance of the use of stone.

They were colonists, though conquerors. They were, no doubt, but very partially civilised; and, settling down as strangers in a country from which they had driven out the old inhabitants, and whose towns they had in great measure destroyed, they were likely (as colonists do in our own day) to make the largest use of the material most ready to their hand, and to defer to more settled times the use of a more permanent manner of building.

The paucity of remains of buildings of the period between the dissolution of the Roman Empire in the West and the eleventh century, is by no means peculiar to our own country. Throughout Northern Europe the same fact prevails. The earlier waves of northern invaders were absorbed in the old civilisation, but each successive wave made a deeper and a deeper inroad into the remaining arts of the old world. It was natural then, that, on the return of art and civilisation, the works of this dark period should be deemed unworthy of preservation, and were replaced by new erections. In our own country the Romans had not been overcome, but had simply withdrawn, so that the dissolution of art was a more rapid work than in most other parts of the old empire, while the early efforts of the Saxons were over and over again destroyed by the yet uncivilised and unchristianised Scandinavians, from the last of whose devastations there was hardly time to recover before the Anglo-Saxon monarchy was overthrown by the Normans. No wonder, then, that the conquerors, though but then become adepts in architecture themselves, should disdainfully reconstruct nearly all the churches and greater edifices of their predecessors in that new manner of building in which they had been so recently instructed, and for the carrying out of which their conquest had supplied them with such ample means.

It would be a curious and interesting investigation to trace out the history of what may be styled the Primitive Romanesque architecture of Northern Europe; or, in other words, to examine into the style of building which prevailed during the long interval between the overthrow of the Roman power in the fifth century and the final establishment of that family of nations which for the last eight or nine centuries has been the embodied representative of Europe.

The thousandth year of our era seems as if it were the beginning of a new state of things: as if what succeeded it were in the open daylight, while the six preceding centuries could only be viewed by the glimmer of twilight. This is especially the case as regards our own art. How little do we know of the architecture of Western Europe, north of the Alps, during that long interval! Only here and there a building equally obscure in character and date,—a dull ray of light only just sufficing to render the darkness visible. No doubt a careful investigation would increase the number of known examples on the Continent. At present they are but few, such as the Basse-œuvre at Beauvais; the Church of St. Jean at Poictiers; that of Quenqueville in Normandy; the church at Lorsch, on the Rhine, and the older parts of St. Pantaleon at Cologne; all of which possess a character so distinct from that which prevails among the buildings of succeeding times as quite to sever from all which followed the architecture of these primitive ages,—this gulf which divides the ancient from the modern world.[2] Our business, however, at present, is not with the Continent, but with the sister islands of Britain.

The circumstances of the various portions of the British Isles differed in those early times so much one from another, that it is difficult to view them at all systematically. South Britain, early overspread with Roman art, civilised and Christianised, while Scotland and Ireland were yet barbarous and Pagan, became again, in its turn, both Pagan and barbarous when Ireland and Scotland had received the light of Christianity and civilisation.

Early in the fifth century these blessings had been conveyed to Ireland from then Christian Britain, and in the next century South Britain was sunk in almost impenetrable darkness, and was subsequently beholden to Ireland and the Irish race dwelling in Scotland, on the one side, and to missionaries from Rome on the other, for rekindling the extinguished lamp of religion and knowledge.

Of all the churches which must have existed in what is now England when inhabited by the old Britons, I am not sure that we possess a single relic; nor is there any certainty that even in Wales or Cornwall, where they were comparatively undisturbed, the case is much better. More curious still is the scarcity of early buildings in Scotland; though I shall be able to show you that some exceptions exist. Bede speaks of timber building as the “Mos Scotorum” and of stone building as “Mos Britonibus insolitus,” which may account for this dearth of objects of high antiquity. However this may be, we have to look mainly to Ireland for relics of the early modes of building among the British races; and here we happily find much to gratify our curiosity.

It was early in the fifth century that Patricius or St. Patrick (who describes himself as at once a Briton and a Roman), went from the northern parts of Roman Britain to instruct the then Pagan Irish, or, as they were more generally called, Scots. It was about the time when the invasion of Alaric had compelled the Emperor Honorius to withdraw his legions from Britain; and was, consequently, at the precise moment when our country was about to pass from the age of Roman subjection into that of mythic confusion,—beginning with the frightful devastations of the Picts and Scots, and subsequently of the Saxons; passing on through the semi-fabulous days of Vortigern, King Arthur, and Merlin, and ending with the flight of Cadwallader from desolated Britain; the driving out of the ancient inhabitants; the destruction of Christian churches and Roman cities, and the re-establishment of Paganism.

As there seems good reason to believe that, among the existing remains in Ireland, some are actually of the age of St. Patrick, it follows that in them we possess remains two centuries earlier than any left us by our own Anglo-Saxon forefathers, and that their type may be founded on that of the lost British buildings, though no doubt far humbler in scale and mode of building than those erected in South Britain with Roman aid. The Early Irish remains are mainly of three classes: the cells and other domestic buildings of the monks: the oratories and churches; and the round towers. The former class are of the rudest and most ascetic description, and seem to be founded on the customary dwellings of the Pagan inhabitants. The monks evidently eschewed all pretensions to personal comfort, and took up at once with the scale of dwelling common among their flock. They lived in stone huts, built without mortar, and vaulted over; more like ovens than human habitations, and so small as only to be sufficient for one person. With these they surrounded their churches, adding a few buildings, similar in character but somewhat larger, for more general purposes. Some, even of their oratories, were almost as pristine in their construction; and the churches themselves, though less rude, were of the most severe simplicity.

The form of dwelling indicated by the Cells or “Kills” which I have alluded to is not wholly alien to that still existing (or at least in use at the commencement of the present century) in the distant island of St. Kilda, excepting that the cells were for one person while the St. Kilda houses are for a family. Dr. Edward Daniel Clark thus describes these houses in 1797:—“The construction of their dwelling-houses differs from that of all the western islands. They consist of a pile of stones without cement, raised about 3 feet or 4 feet from the ground, forming a small oblong enclosure, over which is raised a covering of straw, bound together with transverse ropes of bent.... Round the walls of their huts are one or more arched apertures, according to the number of the family, leading to a vault, like an oven, arched with stone, and defended strongly from the inclemency of the weather; in this they sleep. I crawled on all-fours, with a lamp, into one of these, and found the bottom covered with heath; in this, I was informed, four persons slept. There is not sufficient space in them for a tall man to sit upright, though the dimensions of these vaulted dormitories varied in each hut, according to the number it was required to contain, or the industry of the owners.”

The central apartment he describes as without either chimney or window, but with two holes, some 7 inches square, to let out a little of the peat smoke.

There exists in the greater island of Arran, in the Bay of Galway, among many primæval antiquities, a house ([Fig. 193]), supposed to be of the Pagan period, which is thus described by Mr. Petrie, in his admirable work on the Ancient Architecture of Ireland:—“It is in its internal measurement 19 feet long, 7 feet 6 inches broad, and 8 feet high, and its walls are about 4 feet thick. Its doorway is but 3 feet high, and 2 feet 6 inches wide on the outside, but narrows to 2 feet on the inside. The roof is formed, as in all buildings of this class, by a gradual approximation of stones laid horizontally, till it is closed at the top by a single stone; and two apertures in the centre served the double purpose of a window and a chimney.”

Fig. 193.—Stone House, Arran.

The cells of the monks differed but little from this, excepting in being quadrangular within, though round or oval without. It would appear that some of the Irish monasteries had whole towns of such insulated cells, and it was from the great number of these erected by St. Columba that his name received the affix of “Kill,” and which caused his famous foundation in Iona to be called “I Colmkill.”

The earlier oratories seem frequently to have been a development of the construction of these cells, “built of uncemented stones admirably fitted to each other, and their lateral walls converging from the base to their apex in curved lines.”

Fig. 194.—Oratory of St. Gallerus.

These pristine oratories are surrounded by the cells and the graves of their founders and occupants, the latter inscribed with the cross. I give, from Mr. Petrie, a sketch of the oratory of St. Gallerus (Fig. [194]), which he describes as, externally, 23 feet long by 10 feet broad, and 16 feet high to the external apex. It has a small doorway in the west end, and is lighted by a single window in the east end, which east gable was finished by a cross. Of very similar construction are several in Scotland and the Western Isles. Of these I have been enabled to give some illustrations, which are, in one respect, more complete than Mr. Petrie’s drawings, inasmuch as they are furnished with plans (Figs. [195], [196], [197]).

Fig. 195.—Elevation of south side, and Plan of Teampull Sula Sgeir, Scotland.

Fig. 196.—Interior, west end, and Plan of Teampull Rona, Scotland.

Fig. 197.—Teampull Beaunachadh, Scotland. The Chapel of St. Flann, in the Flannan Isles.

East end. West end.

“The early Irish churches are of two very simple types, being either oblong ([Fig. 198]), with a door at the west, and a window at the east end,—a mere development, with upright walls, of the oratories just described,—or a double oblong, forming a nave and chancel, and united by a chancel arch.... The one doorway is always west, and one of the windows to the east, though side windows are also introduced, all apparently without glass; the doorway usually square-headed, the windows round-arched, or triangular-headed.” “In all cases the sides of doorways and windows incline, like the doorways in the oldest remains of Cyclopean buildings, to which they bear a singularly striking resemblance.” “In the smaller churches the roofs were frequently formed of stone, but in the larger ones were always of wood.”

Fig. 198.—Teampull Caeunanach, Ireland.

The doorways are, however, sometimes arched. The apsidal termination is, I believe, wholly unknown in these churches; and it would appear from this fact that the square end of the majority of English chancels is a tradition from the ancient British churches: the apse, which so frequently made its appearance and was again so frequently removed, being a foreign importation, against which the national feeling rebelled, as if opposed to local tradition. Of a piece with this feeling was the indignant protest of a Scotchman against the intention of one St. Malachy to erect a church in an unaccustomed style. “Good man, what has induced you to introduce this novelty into these regions? we are Scots, not Gauls; why this levity? Was ever work so superfluous, so proud!” This feeling, rather than the poverty of the country, may have occasioned the rigid severity of these early churches in Ireland, the largest of which rarely exceeded 60 feet in length,—the very length prescribed by St. Patrick for one of his churches, and which Mr. Petrie thinks was his usual dimension for churches of the largest class. This was also the length of the original church at Glastonbury, probably the first erected in Great Britain, while it differs but slightly from that of the naves of Brixworth Church, Worth Church, and that on the Castlehill at Dover, three of our oldest remaining pre-Norman English churches.

The difficulty naturally arising from the limited size of the churches and the unlimited numbers of the monks, appears to have been met by multiplying the number of the former. Thus we find several—up to seven—churches continually forming a single group. Just as at Glastonbury, there were at one time three in immediate proximity, though subsequently united into one.

Besides the more or less numerous cells which surrounded the churches, or groups of churches, there were usually houses for the abbots, hardly less ascetic in their construction than the cells of the monks; halls for strangers, refectories, and kitchens. Of the abbots’ houses we have several remaining, especially those of St. Columba at Kells, and of St. Kelvin at Glendalough. These were single rooms, about 18 feet to 25 feet long, by 15 or 16 feet wide, vaulted and covered by a stone roof, with a window and a door of very small size, all perfectly plain, but skilfully constructed.

All such groups of buildings were surrounded by a high and thick wall of defence, with strong gateways, and somewhere at hand was often erected a round tower, at once the bell-tower of the monastery and the place of refuge in case of attack.

We know nothing of the internal arrangement of the churches, excepting that in some cases there is a stone bench across the east end, the altar standing a little in advance; a square version of the Basilican arrangement; for, be it remembered, the apse possibly only came into use when secular Basilicæ were converted into churches, while those under consideration were probably founded upon the traditions of churches which existed in Britain before the time of Constantine, so that our English square east-end may after all be the more primitive type, and if such were the case, it would appear that the seats of the clergy were at first along the eastern wall and behind the altar, as in the apsidal churches. To these views, however, I will not pledge myself, as we do not know how soon apses came into use.

This system, too, of erecting monasteries, not with general dormitories, but with numerous private cells, seems to have been founded on the early Eastern form, of which so many existed in the deserts of the Thebaid, and of which many ancient notices exist. The most perfect remaining specimen of this kind of monastery in Ireland is one on a most minute scale founded by St. Fechin, in the seventh century, in the almost inaccessible island of Ardoilen, off the coast of Connemara, which, excepting only that all its buildings are vaulted, agrees almost precisely with Bede’s description of that founded about the same time in the island of Farne, on the Northumbrian coast, by St. Cuthbert, himself a Scot or perhaps an Irishman. Those in the north of Ireland and in Scotland seem to have been usually of timber, “more Scotorum,” as Bede says, and have consequently perished; but in the south and west of Ireland they were of stone, and remain, in many instances, in a more or less complete state to our own day.

Some, however, in Scotland, were of stone, like those of Ireland.

Fig. 199.—Leather Book-case.

It was in these establishments,—so severely simple in their architecture,—that the lamp of piety and learning was preserved during the darkest period of our history; sending forth its light not only among the British islands but to Continental Europe; and here were followed up even the decorative arts,—as illumination, embroidery, and jewellery. Such, no doubt, was the famous monastery of Iona, which, as an able historian says, “soon became, morally and religiously, a spectacle as glorious as any that Christendom could afford.... The school, of whatever knowledge, sacred or profane, was then within the reach of the northern people,—the nursery of many arts, the centre of a Christian colony, and the mother of priests and missionaries.”

It was on landing here that Dr. Johnson exclaimed:—“We are now treading that illustrious island which was once the luminary of the Caledonian regions, whence savage clans and roving barbarians derived the benefits of knowledge and the blessings of religion.... That man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona.”

Fig. 200.—Window, Timahoe.

At somewhat later periods the severity of the Irish architecture became gradually relaxed, while its leading types remained unaltered. As the dates of the more decorative buildings are unsettled, I will not enter upon the discussion how far their ornamentation was indigenous, and how far derived from other countries. Towards the Norman period, we find features agreeing with the details of that style united with Irish forms and mixed with ornamental details,—such as those which decorate the well-known Irish crosses, and are common on the monumental slabs in the monastic cemeteries. We also find the jambs of doorways, windows (Fig. [200]), and chancel arches, losing the square form extending through the thickness of the walls, which characterises the earlier examples (like those of our own Anglo-Saxon buildings), and becoming divided into separate orders, with decorative mouldings, and shafts with caps and bases, and thus exhibiting the most important elements of the advanced Romanesque and “Gothic” styles. These features increase in distinctness till we reach examples known to be contemporary with our own Norman works, and culminate in the charming Chapel of St. Cormac at Cashel, which, though in outline evincing an adherence to Irish tradition, is in all its details distinctly Norman, and is known to have been erected in the twelfth century. Mr. Petrie thinks that these decorative features are in many instances of very early date. I cannot quite agree with him where Norman details appear; for, though a system of ornamentation may appear early in a particular country, it is impossible that it should anticipate the precise forms elaborated much later by a regular course of progression elsewhere.

Fig. 201.—Chapel of St. Cormac at Cashel. Exterior.

Fig. 202.—Chapel of St. Cormac at Cashel. Interior.

There is in Scotland at least one specimen of parallel character to these later of the old Irish churches. I allude to the church of St. Regulus, which stands side-by-side with the cathedral at St. Andrews; just as that of St. Cormac does with the cathedral at Cashel.

Fig. 203.—North and East Elevations, Church of St. Regulus, St. Andrews.

Fig. 204.—Plan, Church of St. Regulus, St. Andrews.

Mr. Billings has given a good view of this interesting, and, I may say, beautiful, remain; and I am enabled, by the kindness of a friend (Mr. R. Anderson, of Edinburgh), to show you detailed drawings of it. It consists either of a nave (with chancel arch) and a western tower, or of a chancel with apse arch and a central tower, in which latter case it would be parallel to the remains of Jarrow Church. In the other case, it may have had a lofty western porch, as had those of Wearmouth and Barton-upon-Humber. The large western arch in the tower must have opened into either a nave or a porch; and, as this is actually larger than the chancel arch, and the mark of the roof of equal height, it certainly suggests a nave. Its workmanship is of a very superior character: and its details, though plain and archaic, are very good. The tower is of great height, evidently, like many other early towers in Scotland, founded on the idea of the early campaniles of Italy. The capitals of shafts closely resemble those of St. Pantaleon at Cologne,[3] which are of the tenth century. I find it difficult to conjecture the age of this church; but, I imagine it to be anterior in its date to the introduction of Norman architecture into England. It is said that when the surrounding ground was excavated the foundations of an apse were found.

Fig. 205.—Details, Church of St. Regulus, St. Andrews.

I will not dwell on the Irish crosses, and the round towers,—time not permitting,—though both are among the most remarkable features of early Irish art. The towers agree precisely in their architectural details with the churches, and never appear but in connection with them. They are known in the Irish language by a name signifying a belfry, and were no doubt the campaniles of the monasteries, their unique type showing the originality of invention of these early architects. Their doors were placed at a considerable height for the sake of security; they were divided into several stories, each with a single window except the upper one, which had four or more,—all pointing out their double object of bell towers and places of defence. Two similar towers remain in Scotland.

The Irish and Iona crosses are works of extreme beauty, and of very decorative detail. I shall have to allude to their anti-types in England when speaking of Anglo-Saxon architecture, to the consideration of which I will now proceed.

The subject of the architecture of pre-Norman England,—that is to say, of England (exclusive of Wales and the counties occupied by the Britons), between the arrival of Augustine in 596, and that of William of Normandy in 1066,—a period exceeding by ten years the interval between the reigns of Edward III. and Queen Victoria,—has been held by some to be involved in such utter obscurity as to leave it uncertain whether any such architecture existed, or, at least, whether we have any means of ascertaining what it was; and yet no period of history is, perhaps, more replete with accounts of the foundation of cathedrals, monasteries, and churches. The cause of this is clear. The churches of this period were, no doubt, frequently of timber; but, of whatever material, were subjected,—first to the destructive effects of the repeated devastations of the Danes, and subsequently to the greater architectural ambition of the Normans which led to a perfect mania for reconstruction. The consequence is, that we have no cathedral or great abbey or church remaining of this period, and have to content ourselves with such evidences of their style as may be gleaned from among ordinary parish churches for the most part in rural districts, and consequently of the humbler class.

The historical notices of the erection of churches during the Anglo-Saxon period are more frequent than descriptive.

On the arrival of Augustine, he found the Church of St. Martin, Canterbury, already used by the Christian Queen Bertha. This was, no doubt, a Romano-British structure. He found also a second, but in ruins; and this he made the nucleus of his metropolitan cathedral. He constructed also a third, afterwards called by his own name. We know, too, that in his day were also founded the cathedrals of Rochester and London; and there is no reason to doubt that all of these were of stone. I am not aware that we hear anything more, in Anglo-Saxon days, of St. Martin’s, or that we have any description of St. Augustine’s, but we have a strong light thrown on the subsequent history of the cathedral up to the Norman Conquest in the writings of one Eadmer, a singer at the cathedral, who wrote early in the twelfth century.

Recapitulating the account of its having been erected by St. Augustine on the site of a Roman church, he proceeds to say that in the days of Archbishop Odo, in the tenth century, the roof had become so decayed as to require renewal; that Odo took the opportunity of increasing the height of the walls, and that the work occupied three years. He also tells us that a church dedicated to St. John the Baptist had been added by Archbishop Cuthbert in the eighth century near the east end of the Church, for baptisms, etc. He says that the church escaped the destruction threatened by the army of King Sweyn in 1011; but was subsequently burnt down by accident, and remained in ruins until rebuilt by Lanfranc.

He further gives a very clear description of the church, from which it appears that it was built in some degree on the model of the Basilica of St. Peter at Rome. He minutely describes the eastern altar space as greatly raised above the general level of the church, and having beneath it a crypt or confessionary, made in the likeness of that of St. Peter’s at Rome. He further describes an oratory and altar to St. Mary at the western end raised on steps, behind which was the pontifical throne. Also two towers, the one on the north and the other on the south side of the nave, projecting beyond the aisles, and containing chapels.

Professor Willis, in his admirable history of the cathedral, gives an able dissertation on its plan at this period, showing how precisely the description of the eastern arrangements agree with those of the Basilica of St. Peter, but that the Chapel of the Virgin at the west end must have been a western apse, like those so common in Germany, and of which we have an earlier instance in the ancient design for the arrangements of the monastery of St. Gall, supposed to be of the eighth century. Eadmer confirms his account by saying that he can answer for its correctness, for he saw the ruins himself when a boy at school.

From the above description we learn, first, that a Roman model was taken; secondly, that the church was of stone or brick; thirdly, that it had aisles; fourthly, that it had both an eastern and western apse; beneath the former of which was an extensive crypt, called a confessionary, as containing the tombs of confessors.

The additional church of St. John was clearly a baptistery; and Professor Willis thinks that Archbishop Odo’s addition to the height of the walls was a clerestory.

I am not aware that we have any information as to the cathedrals built by the companions of Augustine (Mellitus and Justus) at London and Rochester; but it is unlikely that they would be otherwise than of cognate plan and materials; while, curiously enough, there continues to this day at Rochester, and continued to the seventeenth century in our own St. Paul’s, equally as at Canterbury, a crypt beneath the elevated sanctuary, no doubt the lineal successor and representative of those erected by these missionary bishops, in imitation of the great basilica at Rome, whence they had been sent to evangelise this distant region.

A few years later Paulinus, another Roman missionary, succeeded, under circumstances very similar, in converting to Christianity Edwin, king of Northumbria, who, while receiving instructions preparatory to his baptism, built a temporary church of timber at York; but subsequently erected, around the same, and under the instructions of Paulinus, a larger and nobler church of stone, which was completed by Oswald, his successor. Here, again, we have still remaining the choir-crypt,—the probable successor of that of the original church, and as some say, containing a relic of its actual structure. Thus, we have the two metropolitan cathedrals distinctly recorded as erected of stone by their first bishops.

Bede also relates that Paulinus built a stone church, of beautiful workmanship, at Lincoln, the walls of which remained at the time he wrote, though, by some mischance, it had lost its roof. It is clear, however, that some of Paulinus’s churches were of timber, and, later on, we find St. Aidan and St. Finan,—missionaries from Iona,—erecting a cathedral of that material in the Island of Lindisfarne “more Scotorum.”

Shortly afterwards, however, a church was built, after the monastic rule of Lindisfarne, but of stone, at Lastingham, in Yorkshire; where, again, we find the choir-crypt,—the successor of the original one,—remaining to this day. Still, in the seventh century, we have a more minute account given us by Bede of the works of Benedict Biscop, in the erection of the monastic church of Monk Wearmouth. This church he built of stone, “according to the manner of the Romans, which he had always loved.” He built, also, the church at Jarrow of the same material, and the existing remains of both I shall have presently to describe. So much did he consider himself a follower of the Roman manner, that he went, over and over again, to Rome, to procure ornaments wherewith to decorate his two churches. This was about 670 and 680.

The successor of Benedict Biscop is said to have sent architects to Naitan, king of the Picts, to make him a church of stone after the manner of the Romans.

About the same time we find St. Wilfrid thoroughly repairing, glazing, and “washing whiter than snow,” Paulinus’s Church, at York, and building two of great splendour (according to the ideas of the times), at Hexham and Ripon.

The former is described by a contemporary writer in ecstatic language, as “supported by various pillars and porticoes, adorned with a marvellous length and height of walls, and with passages of various turnings; nor was it ever,” he adds, “heard that such another church was erected on this side the Alps. He tells us also, of its ornaments of gold and silver and precious stones,” and of its altar, clothed with purple and silk hangings. This church remained, though in a damaged state, till the twelfth century, when the Norman prior describes it in very similar words to those used by the old Saxon historian. He speaks of the crypts and subterranean oratories, the walls of great height, “divided into three distinct stories supported by polished columns, some square, and others of various forms,” of the “capitals of the columns” ... and “the arch of sanctuary,” as “decorated with histories and images and different figures carved in relief in stone and painted, displaying a pleasing variety and wonderful beauty.” The body of the church was “surrounded by aisles and porticoes, which with wonderful art were divided above and below by walls and winding stairs.” Above he describes “galleries of stone,” by which “a vast multitude of persons might be there and pass round the church without being visible to any one in the nave below.”

Of the church at Ripon, the contemporary historian says that “he [St. Wilfrid] erected and finished at Ripon a basilica of polished stone from its foundations in the earth to the top, supported on high by various columns and porticoes.”

This church, founded by Odo, archbishop of Canterbury, was in the tenth century “reduced by wars and hostile incursions to a deserted and ruined solitude.”

All the buildings of the erection of which I have briefly enumerated the records, were founded within a century of the arrival of St. Augustine. Within the same century (about 680) we have reason to believe was erected the church at Brixworth, in Northamptonshire, which still remains in a fragmentary state, but, as I shall presently show, with sufficient proofs of its having been founded on the plan of a Roman basilica, with an aisled nave and an unaisled choir, an apsidal and aisled sanctuary raised high on a vaulted crypt. This church was but a humble dependency of the great monastery of Peterborough.

I would not have fatigued you with these documentary accounts, had I not felt it desirable to prove the importance of these earliest temples of our English Church. Cathedrals, churches, and monasteries were, in fact, built throughout the length and breadth of now Christianised England. The more important buildings were all, no doubt, of stone; many of the humbler ones of timber.

But times of trouble were at hand: “there is a time to break down” as well as “a time to build up;” and what the Christian English had built, the Pagan Northmen too often overthrew. Thus, in Alfred’s time (though in the reign of his predecessor), we find Croyland, Peterborough, Ely, and other monasteries ruthlessly destroyed, and in some cases they lay desolate for very long periods of time, though in others they were speedily restored.

At a later period, a new impulse was given to building by the introduction of the Benedictine order, and we find monasteries either founded or reformed on this rule throughout the kingdom.

Two descriptions of such Benedictine churches I will quote, the first being from the history of Ramsey Abbey, in the time of Dunstan.

The architect’s name is, for a wonder, mentioned in this case: it was Ædnoth, and he came, as it would seem, from Worcester. The church is said to have had “two towers rising above its roof. The smaller of these towards the west, in front of the Basilica, presented a fine spectacle from a distance to those entering the island. The larger one was in the centre of the square, standing upon four columns connected by arches stretching from aisle to aisle.” This laconic description seems to indicate a church with aisles, transepts, central tower, and a western tower. It may be, however, that the word “ala” signifies not an aisle, but merely a transept.

The other church I will refer to under this head is the Cathedral of Winchester, as rebuilt in the reign of Edgar. It had been founded in the days of St. Birinus, the first missionary to the West Saxons, about 635. Athelwold, made Bishop of Winchester in 963, was a great restorer of churches which had been devastated by the Danes. Among those restored by him may be especially named those of Ely and Peterborough. He renovated and partly rebuilt his own cathedral at Winchester, which was rededicated in 980. It is described by Wolstan, in a poem addressed to the succeeding Bishop, St. Elphege. He speaks of the “lofty walls and solid aisles, and various arches; the many chapels which so distract the attention, that a stranger is at a loss which way to turn, seeing doors open to him on all sides.” He mentions also the “fine roofs of intricate structure, and the brilliant variety of the fabric.” St. Elphege seems to have added a new apse, with “secret crypts, where secret recesses lay on every side, the structure of which supported the holy altar, and the venerable relics of the saints.” “A sparkling tower,” also, “that reflects from heaven the first rays of the sun.” “It has five compartments pierced by open windows, and on all four sides as many ways are open. The lofty peaks of the tower are capped with pointed roofs, and are adorned with various and sinuous vaults, curved with well-skilled contrivance. Above these stands a rod with golden balls, and at the top a mighty golden cock, which boldly turns its face to every wind that blows.”

Again, however, came the ruthless Northman, and destroyed church after church throughout the entire course of his desolating march.

No former incursion probably had been so fatal to architecture as that of Sweyn. Its very success, however, brought its own cure; for his son Canute, being allowed to succeed to the English throne, not only became Christian, but devoted himself with exemplary piety to repairing the devastations which the sacrilege of his father and himself had perpetrated. He not only repented, but brought forth fruits meet for repentance; so that the last half-century of the history of the pre-Norman England, is replete with accounts of the restoration and building of churches.

The foregoing notices are sufficient to show that throughout the continuance of the pre-Norman English Church buildings were constantly being erected of considerable dimensions and sometimes of great intricacy, and even of some degree of splendour of design; and that the more important of these were uniformly of stone, though the humbler ones were often of timber. It further shows that the architectural style of these buildings, as well as the internal arrangement of the churches, was intended to be an imitation of the Roman buildings of the same period.

We will now proceed to inquire into the existence and character of any remains of buildings of this period.

Of the important structures, I may say at once that nothing remains; the ambitious character of the Norman builders having led them to reconstruct on a larger scale all the cathedrals and great monastic churches, excepting, indeed, that one which they found in course of re-erection at Westminster, and which was designed in their own style.

There exist, however, throughout the length and breadth of the land, remnants, and, in a few instances, large portions, of buildings of a wholly exceptional character; not assignable to the Norman or any other of the well-known styles which have prevailed in England; but evidently of earlier date. They are clearly not early Norman; for, with the single exception of the round arch, they have nothing in common with the specimens of that style erected in the reign of the Conqueror, but are clearly of a style quite distinct from them. In one instance, we have a tower known to have been erected in the days of the Conqueror, in juxtaposition with the remains of a church in this more ancient style; and in many other instances we have Norman features in connection with these mysterious remains, and to every eye asserting the entire diversity of their art. In some instances, again, as at Monk Wearmouth, Jarrow, Brixworth, and Deerhurst, the remains of this style are on the sites where churches are recorded to have been built in Anglo-Saxon days. These remains correspond in character with buildings represented in Saxon illuminated books. They evince in many instances evidence of having been built in rude imitation of the Roman works of those periods, though in some instances they seem also to suggest the imitation of timber construction.

The most obvious rules of induction, then, point to the conclusion that these are the remains of buildings of Anglo-Saxon date.[4]

The leading characteristics of these remains (though not all of them to be found in every instance, and probably varying with the date) are as follows:—The frequent decoration of the external walls with pilaster strips, as is so common in early Italian churches, and afterwards in Germany; the bonding of these by alternate vertical and horizontal stones; the imitation of this mode of bonding in quoins where no such strips are used, and in the jambs of doorways and other openings, excepting where Roman brick is of frequent occurrence; the jambs of doorways running square through the thickness of the wall, without recessed orders, and the door itself hung against the inner face of the wall; the frequent use of a kind of pilaster on either side both of doorways and archways, the impost moulding sometimes breaking round, and sometimes stopping against them, and a continuation of the pilaster going round the arch;[5] the occasional use of triangular heads to doors and windows; the use of what are called baluster columns, or short pillars, turned in a lathe, not unlike Elizabethan balusters, bulging in the middle and ornamented with a number of mouldings of trifling relief, such as turners of all ages delight in (these are used for the division of windows, and other purposes); the windows which are usually set high in the wall, are often equally splayed within and without, and the arches sometimes more splayed than the jambs, and slanting upwards like an old-fashioned bonnet; a very abnormal kind of mouldings, unlike those of any other style, and generally a very strange archaic look in the whole of the work, which makes one conscious of being in the presence of the works of men in a very pristine state of civilisation, the style having little or no relationship to those Mediæval buildings with which we are familiar.

I ought, also, to mention the frequent use of tall, narrow towers, unbroken, or nearly so, in their vertical outline, either simply quoined with the long and short work already mentioned, or with their surfaces diversified by pilaster strips and string-courses, the intervening surfaces being usually built of rubble and plastered. The belfry-windows are often of two lights, separated by a baluster or other form of pillar set in the middle of the wall, and bearing a transverse bracket of stone, to enable it to support the whole thickness of the wall. Such towers are clearly imitations of the Italian campanile, though in a rude form. They occasionally have oblique strips as well as the vertical pillars and horizontal strings, which suggest the idea of an imitation of timber-work; at other times the pilasters are united by arches.

It is not easy to describe the general plans of churches, as the remains we possess are too scanty to be generalised upon. Some had aisles, some transepts without aisles, many had neither. One, at least, has a central tower without transepts; and at least one a central tower with transepts. Some had apsidal chancels, and some had the square end. The towers, in a great majority of instances, are at the west end. The walls are in some cases by no means low, and the naves occasionally of greater width than is usual in village churches of later periods.

What forms are made use of for pillars we are but imperfectly aware. One of the notices I have quoted speaks of their being square and of other forms. The few which remain in situ are of the former kind, mere fragments of wall: but at Worth Church there are, in the jambs of the chancel arch, half pillars, 2½ ft. in diameter, with very perfect capitals; and certainly an entire pillar of this form must have suggested the demi-column. At Canterbury there are two round columns brought from Reculver, which are probably of Anglo-Saxon date. Their capitals are of the most remarkable form.

I will make special mention of a few pre-Norman churches and fragments of churches as specimens; but to do more in a lecture such as this would be both tedious and unprofitable; for, however interesting the study of the primæval architecture of our race, it must be confessed that, while in general plan these churches are the progenitors of those we think worthy of imitation, we cannot venture to say so much of their details.

Fig. 206.—Plan and General View of Brixworth Church, Northamptonshire.

I exhibit a plan and a general view of Brixworth Church, enlarged from drawings kindly lent me by Mr. Roberts, who has given the church the most careful study. We have documentary evidence of the erection of the church by the abbots of Peterborough, about 680. Being near the ruins of a Roman station, it contains much Roman brick.

The chancel, or rather the sanctuary, was apsidal, with a surrounding aisle, and raised high on a crypt of corresponding plan. This sanctuary and aisle open by three arches into a choir of 30 ft. square, and this, I think, by a single arch, into a nave about 30 ft. by 60 ft.

This nave had arcades opening into either aisles, or, as Mr. Roberts thinks, into cubicula or oratories, the foundation of which he has found. The arches are turned in Roman bricks, very strangely used; a steep skewback being formed for their springings to reduce the angle of convergence, and so moderate the thickness of the mortar-joint, which, in arches of such a depth, would have been inconvenient. The nave and choir have had a clerestory, the windows of which have arches of Roman bricks. This is thought by some to be a later addition, from the reduced thickness of the walls; but of this I feel far from certain. Mr. Roberts suggests it as possible that the wide nave was again subdivided by arcades; but I confess I much doubt this.

To this original church a western tower was subsequently added, in which the Roman brick does not take so prominent a place; and later still, though still in Anglo-Saxon days, a very large round stair-turret was added, west of the tower.

The alterations introduced when the tower was added are clearly visible, especially the introduction of a triple window with baluster pillars, looking from the second storey of the tower into the church.

Fig. 207.—Brixworth Church, Northamptonshire.

Nave, looking West. Nave, looking East.

Fig. 208.—Plan of Church on the Castle-hill, Dover.

I exhibit also a plan and other drawings of the till lately ruined church on the Castle-hill at Dover. Here, again, Roman bricks have been largely used, both for quoins and arches, and some other parts. The church is cruciform, with a central tower, the transepts being narrower and lower than the nave. Wide and lofty arches open into the tower on the east and west, but those on the sides were, no doubt, low and narrow, and consequently were replaced by larger

Fig. 209.—View of the Church on the Castle-hill, Dover.

ones late in the twelfth century. The chancel is square-ended. The windows are of a very large size, and about equally splayed without and within, and had wood frames for the glass, the grooves for which were quite distinct ([Fig. 210]). The main doorway seems to have been that on the south side. It has stone jambs of long and short work running square through the wall, the door having been hung against the inner surface. The arch is of brick, and a pilaster strip flanked it on either side and ran round the arch. Similar, on a small scale, was a ruined doorway, found in the north transept, and now restored precisely to its original form. Similar, also, are the windows of the tower, which were treated like doorways, with a shutter within. At the west end stands the ancient Roman pharos, from which was a communication to the church, both on the floor-level and also above. The latter had a doorway in a very perfect state ([Fig. 211]), which opened into a western gallery, of which I found the holes for the insertion of the timbers. Beneath this gallery, on either side, was a small window, which, for want of room for an arch, was made square-headed, with splayed wooden lintels, of which the exact impressions of the ends were found, giving its precise form.[6]

Fig. 211.—Upper Western Door, Castle-hill Church, Dover.

The tower arches have the pilaster strips on either side, and continuing round the arches. Each has a stone impost with very abnormal mouldings ([Fig. 212]).

Several very curious balusters of Caen stone were found among the ruins ([Fig. 213]). They appear from their freshness to have been always internal, and, I fancy, formed parts of a screen under the western arch of the tower, of which some foundations apparently remain. Externally, the quoins are partly of Roman brick and partly of long and short work, with very large stones. This is, perhaps, the most nearly complete of all our pre-Norman churches. There is no clue to its date. Some call it a British church: some say that it was built by Eadbald, the son of Ethelbert, about 640, and others that it is of a much later period, to which opinion I confess that I incline.[7]

Fig. 214.—Worth Church, Sussex.

Fig. 215.—Plan, Worth Church.

Another nearly complete church is that at Worth, in Sussex ([Fig. 214]). The plan may be said to be that of the Dover Church, omitting the central tower and adding an apse. The transepts, like those at Dover, are small, and their arches low and narrow; while the chancel arch assumes almost majestic proportions. The transept arches (now much mutilated) had the pilaster strip, both to jambs and arch, with a double square impost of massive proportions ([Fig. 216]). The chancel arch is more artistic in its treatment, having a large demi-column in either jamb, 2 ft. 6 in. in diameter, with a regularly formed, though plain, capital; while instead of the pilaster, a smaller semi-column is placed against the face of the wall on either side, and indirectly carried round the arch in the form of a square projection ([Fig. 217]). The arch itself is square in section, and runs without break, through the thickness of the wall. No doorway nor window of the original date remains. The walls of the nave are about 25 ft. high, and are divided at mid-height by a large string-course, above which the windows were probably placed. The angles have pilaster strips in long and short work, and similar strips are placed at intervals along the walls reaching up to the mid-height string-course, all of them standing on a continuous base of two massive courses of stone. The half-height string-course of the nave is continued round the transepts, as are the eaves courses, and run across their gable ends. The chancel was externally dealt with much as the nave, though a little less in height. This church had no tower, and, as a curious commentary on the fashionable opinion that the Anglo-Saxons nearly always built of timber and their successors in after-times of stone, we find a timber tower of the fifteenth century added to the stone church of Saxon date![8]

Fig. 218.—Plan, and East End of Church, Bradford, Wilts.

Fig. 219.—Church, Bradford, Wilts.

At Bradford, in Wilts, a very complete church has but recently been discovered; having previously been so surrounded by buildings that its character was unnoticed. I give drawings of it, made by my friend Mr. Irvine, a zealous antiquary, who has also sent to the Academy a cast of some uncouth sculpture found there.[9] The church consists of a nave and chancel, and has every characteristic of Anglo-Saxon work strongly developed.[10]

At Jarrow-on-the Tyne the chancel of the Saxon church remains. It has few characteristic features. The windows are of a very pristine form, in this case with no external splay, the jambs of upright stones with horizontal stones for imposts, and arches cut out of single stones. They had been walled up at a very early date to a certain thickness from the exterior with very small perforations,—some circular and some more elongated,—in the filling up wall. This, I fancy, was as a means of defence. There is one doorway, which is a plain arched opening running square through the wall, the door having been hung as usual against its inner face, and the jambs formed of large stones facing the reveal. There are some signs of an apse having existed, but of this I cannot speak with any certainty. A tower was erected between the nave and the chancel—as I am informed by a local antiquary—in the reign of the Conqueror. The nave has long since perished, but in the walls of a modern erection on its site were found, used as building material, about twenty baluster columns, some 2 ft. 3 in. high and a foot in diameter ([Fig. 220]). This was in all probability the very church erected by Benedict Biscop, and in which the Venerable Bede worshipped.

Fig. 220.—Baluster Columns, Jarrow-on-the-Tyne.

At Monk Wearmouth are the remains of the other church of Benedict Biscop.

This church was burnt, as also was that at Jarrow, by the Danes in 867, and both remained in ruins till about 1074, when (or a few years later) both churches were re-roofed and restored to their sacred use. It was at this time that the tower at Jarrow was erected.

The most interesting portion of the church at Wearmouth is its western end. From this projects a tower evidently of Anglo-Saxon date. This tower has arches on three sides of its lower storey, which, till recently, were not only walled up, but almost buried in the accumulated earth.

In September 1866 they were excavated, and the western entrance opened out by the local Archæological Society, with the help of Mr. Johnson, architect, of Newcastle. The side doorways were found to have monolith jambs, 6 in. wide on the face, which are notched into a continuous cill, and support massive imposts, from which the arch springs, with very bold voussoirs. The western entrance, which is 6 ft. 4½ in.

Fig. 221.—Western Entrance. Church at Monk Wearmouth.

to the springing and 4 ft. 8½ in. wide, has an arch springing from massive abaci 10½ in. thick, which are supported by baluster-shafts very similar to those found at Jarrow, two of which occupy the width of the wall on either side, and stand upon jambs each of a long and a short stone, the reveal of which is curiously sculptured with entwined serpents. This is decidedly the most remarkable doorway of this kind yet known. Above the doorway runs a band or string sculptured with animals and edged with the cable mould. At the same time, the two lower storeys of the tower were found to have originally formed a gabled porch,—two windows, of construction very similar to the side arches above described, having been stopped up in the end of the church by the conversion of this porch into a tower. Baluster-shafts have been discovered in the internal jambs of these windows.

At Jarrow, amongst many curious fragments discovered, is a stone in which is sculptured, as a continuous ornament, a long row of the balusters represented on a miniature scale, as if they were so established an architectural element as to be imitated just as arcades and windows are in Gothic architecture as a mere ornament.

The church at Stow, in Lincolnshire, contains extensive remains of Anglo-Saxon work, but of doubtful date. The church was founded about the time of Paulinus, as a cathedral for the Bishops of Lindsey, but was burnt by the Danes, as it is believed, in 870. It was re-founded about 1040. The tower arches and transepts are in one style, but of which date is doubtful. I confess I think the preponderance of evidence is in favour of the earlier date. Foundations have been discovered of aisles to the nave, clearly of the same age with the transepts. The older parts show everywhere marks of fire, and the transepts have been heightened in Saxon times; and, as I should think probable, at the time of the second foundation. The present nave and chancel are Norman.

There exist several crypts beneath chancels, which are of this date. Among these, besides the fragmentary remains at Brixworth, I will mention one not generally known, at Wing, in Buckinghamshire. It is of excessive rudeness, being built only of very rough stone; but it is notable for the completeness of its plan, being apsidal, with two ranges of piers, and as having remains of the two doorways through which it was approached by steps from either side of the chancel arch.

Fig. 222.—View of Crypt, Repton Church, Derbyshire.

The apse in this case is polygonal, with pilaster strips up its angles, and parts of the nave are of pre-Norman date, and show clear evidence of its having had aisles.

The crypt at Repton is famous for the finished and decorative form of its architecture. I give a drawing of it.

Fig. 223.—Plan of Crypt, Repton Church, Derbyshire.

The crypt at Lastingham is not of Saxon date, but its Norman successor. The original church was destroyed by the Danes. Its foundation I have already noticed.

The most numerous of the Anglo-Saxon remains are the bell-towers. These have almost always the peculiar characteristics which I have already noticed. Their number is so great that it would be impossible to enter into any enumeration of them. One of the best known, perhaps, is that of St. Benet’s, Cambridge. It has pilaster strips up each angle, with long and short work. The string-courses are merely square courses: each storey recedes a little in width. The belfry windows are double, divided by a mid-wall baluster and bracket; and there are plain windows again over their spandrels. The intermediate surfaces were plastered. The tower arch is of strangely rude design. The tower of Trinity Church, Colchester, is peculiar, as being, to a great extent, of Roman brick.[11] ([Fig. 225]).

Fig. 224.—St. Benet’s, Cambridge.

Earls Barton tower is the most remarkable of its class, uniting the profuse use of pilaster strips, diagonal strips, arched strips, long and short work, baluster columns, and other characteristics of the style ([Fig. 226]). I have noticed here that the majority of the arches are so in form rather than in construction, some being cut out of the solid, some built up with horizontal courses projecting one over the other, and others, again, formed by a number of flat stones set on edge one behind another, and the arched opening cut through them all.

Barnach Tower is something like it, though with less variety,—a more Cyclopean look.[12] ([Fig. 228]).

Fig. 225.—Tower, Trinity Church, Colchester.

The tower at Barton-upon-Humber bears considerable resemblance to that of Earls Barton, though with less profusion of the usual characteristics and less rudeness of construction. This tower is rendered remarkable by having attached to it a very large and lofty western porch, apparently of about the same date ([Fig. 227]).

Among the most remarkable towers, however, is that at Sompting, in Sussex ([Fig. 229]). Its most striking characteristic is, that its sides are each gabled, and it is roofed like the typical steeples on the Rhine. I am told that an instance of this also existed at Flixton, in Suffolk. The details at Sompting are somewhat elaborate.

The tower of Clapham Church, in Bedfordshire, is chiefly remarkable for its great height and plainness. The chancel arch, of great simplicity, here remains, as did one window of the chancel (a small bonnet-arched opening like some in the tower itself) till destroyed recently by a stupid builder.

One more building, I must notice. It has often been mentioned that our Anglo-Saxon forefathers built largely of timber; and, strange to say, after the lapse of more than eight centuries, we have one of their timber structures remaining!

Edmund, king of East Anglia, who had been slain by the Danes in the ninth century, had been canonised; and on the invasion by Sweyn, more than a century later in 1011, his relics were removed from Bury St. Edmund’s to London for security. On their being

Fig. 228.—Barnach Tower, Northamptonshire.

carried back in 1013, an old register of Bury informs us, “he was also sheltered near Aungre, where wooden chapel remains as a memorial unto this day.”

Fig. 229.—Tower, Sompting, Sussex.

This chapel still exists at Greensted, near Ongar (Figs. [230], [231]). It consists of cleft oak-trees grooved and tongued together by their edges, and let into grooves in horizontal cills and heads. The exterior of the trees was exposed on the outside of the church, the sapwood of which having long since perished, the furrowed and gnarled heart is now seen, presenting a most ancient and interesting appearance. It is more than thirty years since I visited this most venerable relic. Since then it has been repaired; but I trust that its antiquity has not been compromised, and that it will long remain as a relic of the royal saint, and a visible exponent of the old Anglo-Saxon verb getymbrian—to build.

I must not, however, go on enumerating specimens: they will be found in great numbers in several publications, as Mr. Bloxam’s Principles of Gothic Architecture, Mr. Parker’s Glossary, Britton’s Antiquities, and elsewhere; while very interesting articles have been written on them by Mr. Freeman, Mr. Ayliffe Poole, Mr. Paley, and others. In my own practice I every now and then fall in with minor specimens not mentioned in books, and often walled up and hidden from view, to make way for later work.

Fig. 230.—Chapel at Greensted, Essex.

Taken from a drawing made in 1748.

Fig. 231.—Plan of Chapel at Greensted, Essex.

Fragments of Saxon crosses are frequent. They are usually covered with that plaited ornament so frequent in the illuminations of the period.

In proof of their early age, we often find them imbedded, as mere material, in Norman walls. In St. Peter’s, at Northampton, I found the base of one of the Norman columns to be wrought out of a piece of one of these crosses; and at Jarrow there are several portions of them built into the tower, which was itself erected in the reign of the Conqueror.[13]

Though this form of architecture spread over a period of some 470 years, we have little or no means of classifying it into distinct divisions of date. It would seem that the system of rapid change which characterises the centuries succeeding the tenth had not then commenced, and that much the same manner of building pervades long spaces of time.

On a conjectural view of the case, one would look, perhaps, for the following divisions:—

1st. From the arrival of Augustine to the earlier devastations of the Danes.

2nd. From the time of Alfred to that of Dunstan.

3rd. The period of the general establishment of Benedictine rule up to that of the devastations of the Northmen under Sweyn.

4th. That from the accession of Canute to the Norman conquest.

Mr. Freeman divides the style into three:—

1st. The direct but rude imitations of Roman work, of which Brixworth is an instance.

2nd. The developed Saxon manner, with its high towers, its pilastered strips, and suggestion of imitated timber-work, as at Earls Barton, etc.

3rd. That in which Norman features are introduced or anticipated.

I may mention, however, that we have proofs, as at Deerhurst, which is said to have been rebuilt in 1056, and elsewhere, that the style remained with little modification to the last.

I shall show you in my next lecture (in which I propose to treat of the earlier Norman buildings, erected by those who actually came over in the days of the Conqueror or of his companions) that the two styles overlapped; that there were pre-conquestal Norman and post-conquestal Saxon buildings. I will, however, at present detain you no longer; and if I have trespassed upon the rules of the Academy by giving a lecture more on archæology than on art, I must apologise on the ground that I have treated of our own early efforts in architecture; of buildings whose bold and archaic rudeness was so strangely accompanied by exquisite skill in other arts,—as in illumination, in embroidery, in jewellery; and the contemplation of which, to use the eloquent words of Mr. Freeman, “Should raise a thrill of patriotism in the heart of every genuine Englishman,” ... “whose barbaric grandeur breathes in its fulness the spirit of England’s ancient days of freedom and isolation,” and reminds us “of the long roll of our native saints and heroes; of holy bishops and no less holy princes; of Ina, and Alfred, and Athelstan; of Bede ... and the martyred Alphege; of Harold and Gurth, and Leofwine; of St. Wolstan and Abbot Frederick; of the battle-axe of Hereward and the martyr-block of Waltheof; and all the glorious train of the ‘England of saints’ ere yet she bowed beneath the yoke of a foreign lord.”

LECTURE XI.
The Transition.

Architecture of the Normans—St. Stephen’s at Caen—Canterbury Cathedral modelled on that of St. Stephen’s—Description of the Norman church built by the Confessor at Westminster before the Conquest—Instances of Anglo-Saxon architecture being used after the Conquest—Characteristics of the Norman style—Varieties of combination—Doors, windows, archways, arcades, and vaulting—Minor details—Mechanical ideal of a great Norman church—Vast scale and number of works undertaken by the early Norman builders.

MY last lecture was rather antiquarian and historical than instructive in any principles of art. It showed you how the Celtic inhabitants of Ireland and Scotland worked out for themselves,—upon Romano-British reminiscences, added to those of their own race,—a manner of building which, though severely simple, was by no means to be despised; and also how our own Anglo-Saxon forefathers went through a similar process, working partly on the same foundations, but more directly on lessons brought to them from Italy, though not always very well understood.

I might further have shown you (had it been my subject) how that both of these races were far more successful in the more delicate arts of embroidery, illuminated painting, and jewellery; and how little in their practice of those decorative arts they trusted to any but their own traditions.

I am not sure, too, whether in sculpture the pre-Norman English may not have succeeded better than in architecture,—quaint and untechnical though their productions were.

I fear, however, that we must admit that, in our own particular art of architecture, we have little to learn from their buildings, however interesting and quaintly picturesque; and that, though belonging to a branch of the great round-arched family, they fail—almost of all effort, certainly of any success—in developing that manner of building into a style of art.

That fearful deluge, whose destructive waves swept with such overwhelming fury over our land after the decease of the last—the sainted—monarch of England’s older dynasty, may be likened to the sudden breaking down of its banks by some mighty river, which, while it sweeps from the earth the crops and the homesteads, leaving nothing but devastation on its track, yet deposits, in subsiding, a film of foreign substance upon the deluged soil, which adds to it a new productiveness, and, in time, far more than compensates for the loss and havoc which accompanied it.

So it was (at the least with architecture), after the Norman conquest. The old manner of building which, during a course of nearly five centuries, had failed to generate any development of a truly artistic character, was swept once and for ever from the face of the earth, so much so that some have denied its very existence; but there was substituted for it a style which, if at first little less rude than its predecessor, contained within itself the germs of a thoroughly sound artistic system, which speedily germinated into a series of developments, the most glorious which, perhaps, man has ever yet seen.

We have the clearest evidence, both from the statements of old writers, and such as we derive from our own observation, that the style of building introduced into England by the Normans, was viewed as a distinctly new one—a “novum genus compositionis,” and in no degree as a development of that which preceded it in this country.

How far the Norman style was distinct from the Romanesque of other parts of the north of France is a question which it would be curious, though difficult, to investigate. I think it might be shown that architecture, both in France and other countries of Western Europe, made a sudden forward start after the thousandth year of our era; possibly owing to the relief experienced at finding the futility of the prevalent fears that the world was to come to an end in that year. If such a simultaneous impulse did take place, it would be especially felt by a young and energetic race like the Normans, newly admitted into the Christian European family, recently reclaimed from the savage barbarism of Scandinavia, and grafted on to the old and comparatively civilised stock of France. Unlike, too, the other portions of France, Normandy had lost, in all probability, a large proportion of her ancient churches by the devastation of this very race while yet pagan; and nothing would be more natural than that, when Christianised, settled down, and instructed in the arts of their new neighbour, they would feel a special impulse towards repairing the effects of their own devastations, and would, while doing so, take a vigorous course in developing the manner of building in which they had been so newly instructed. I would not, however, wish to claim for the Normans any great degree of originality in architecture. Different districts of France each possessed their own local variety of Romanesque, though all clearly of one family; and Normandy, like the others, had its own variety, and that a vigorous one; and to ourselves the most interesting, as having been transplanted into our own country and become the parent of all our architectural developments. What was the form of Romanesque which prevailed in Neustria before it was overrun by the Northmen and transformed into Normandy, I think we have no means of judging,[14] the relics of its buildings being so few and fragmentary as to offer no distinct evidence; but just as the converted Northmen in the days of Canute were in this country the earnest restorers and builders of churches, so did those who had settled in France become the vigorous promoters of the art which they had once destroyed; while, by a remarkable coincidence, they were the means of bringing over in a succeeding generation to those of their own and kindred race in England the developments which they had generated under more favourable circumstances and guidance in the country which had for a century and a half adopted them into its own family.

If, however, the more vigorous pursuit of the building arts in France dates, as I have conjectured, from the opening of the eleventh century, and was contemporary with the revived impulse in this country under Canute, it follows that the mode of building introduced by the Normans was not only to the English, but in reality, a novum genus compositionis.

Quite in accordance with this is the character of what we call in this country Early Norman. Had Norman architecture been fully matured before its transplantation into England, we should not recognise its earlier productions by evidences founded upon rudeness and immaturity; yet such is unquestionably the case. Noble and vigorous as are the works of the Normans of the early days of their occupation of England, they undoubtedly bear evidences of an early and archaic stage of their form of art; and, even in Normandy itself, we do not find buildings of great architectural importance of dates much antecedent to those of the first structures built by the invaders of England. Early Norman in England would still be Early Norman, if in Normandy; so that we may consider the style, though generated on French soil, to have run the greater part of its course pari passu in both countries.

The investigations made and recently published by M. Bouet, of Caen, into the architectural history and changes of the abbey church of St. Stephen, founded in that city by the Conqueror, fully bear out this view, and show that the church, as built by William, was a very different and much more archaic structure than that which we now see; a large proportion of the more prominent features of which are proved to be the overlayings of later, though still Romanesque, times.[15]

As it is not my purpose, generally, to illustrate my description of the Norman style by its productions on its native soil, I shall select the church just named as the point de départ, by means of which I shall transfer my consideration of the style from Normandy to England. There are several churches of earlier date than this, such as parts of the abbey churches of Jumièges and Bernay,[16] but St. Stephen’s is clearly the great connecting link. In the first place, it was built by the Conqueror, and was in actual progress when he invaded England; and, in the second place, Lanfranc, the first abbot of St. Stephen’s, which was built under his direction, was also the first metropolitan of England appointed under the Norman dynasty, and immediately on his assumption of the see of Canterbury,—only four years after William’s arrival,—he commenced the rebuilding of the cathedral (then lying in ruins), after the almost precise design of his own abbey church at Caen. This abbey church, then, at Caen, and the metropolitan church of England, were built under the influence of the same monarch and at the same time; for, though St. Stephen’s was first begun, it would appear that Canterbury was finished first: they were built under the direction of the same ecclesiastical head, and in all leading features were on the same design, their plans being absolutely identical. The only difference of importance was the existence at Canterbury of the crypt, on which the choir was raised by many steps,—a reminiscence of the church built by St. Augustine, described in my last lecture, while such did not exist at St. Stephen’s. Both churches had naves of eight bays in length, in addition to which both had a western façade, with two flanking towers.

The transepts of both churches were of two unequal bays, and the outer bay of each had a gallery all across it, supported by a massive pillar (as at Winchester); in each there was in both transepts an apsidal chapel repeated on the triforium level; and though both have lost their original choirs, the probability is that both were of two bays long, with the addition of a simple apse. Professor Willis has shown that their very dimensions were nearly identical.

It has been discovered that at St. Stephen’s the western towers were a subsequent addition, though so early that little difference can be observed in their details. I judge from this that the towers at Canterbury were a deviation from the design of St. Stephen’s, which was at once rectified by adding them to the prototypic building.

The piers of St. Stephen’s are oblong masses, divided at each end into groups of three large shafts. To these are added, on the side facing the nave, shafts, alternately single and triple, which ran up to the roof. The triforium storey is almost a repetition, to a less height, of the main arcade; though, where it passes the western towers, it is divided into two sub-arches by a single shaft. Mr. Parker, whose excellent paper on the subject will be found among the Transactions of the Institute of British Architects, seems to think that the triforium floor was of timber, and the aisle unvaulted. Professor Willis was under the impression that it had had no floor, but that the two storeys were united, as is now the case at Rochester. This, I think, seems disproved by Mr. Parker’s paper, and by M. Bouet’s drawings, which show a doorway opening into the triforium storey. This storey is at present vaulted above with a half-barrel vault. This Mr. Parker thinks an addition; but M. Bouet shows a remnant of it embedded in the east wall of the transept, where the old choir aisle has been removed, which seems to suggest its being original.

The greatest alteration which the older portions of the church have undergone is the addition of vaulting to the nave and the entire transformation of the design of the clerestory in a later Norman style, which, to a casual observer, seems to work in so well with the older parts as to appear original. M. Bouet and Mr. Parker have found the remnants of the original arcade,—which were uniform in height and incompatible with vaulting,—both in the nave and transepts, proving that vaulting was not contemplated in the first erection.

I am, however, rather anticipating my history, and must fall back upon a somewhat earlier period; for, though Canterbury Cathedral was probably the first church erected in England after the Norman Conquest, it was nevertheless by no means the first Norman church; for it was in a Norman minster that the Conqueror had, full four years before the works at Canterbury were begun, received at the hands of an English archbishop the crown of England.

You will remember that as early as 1013 Ethelred and Emma, the parents of King Edward the Confessor, had fled with their children from the fury of King Sweyn to the court of Richard le Bon, duke of Normandy. It followed that the education and tastes of the future king were Norman; and long subsequently, after he ascended the throne, England so swarmed with Normans as not only to excite discontent but to give occasion to civil war. It was, then, natural that, when King Edward determined (about 1050) to refound the Abbey of Westminster, he should adopt for his new work a Norman rather than an English design. We accordingly find it spoken of by William of Malmesbury (writing in the following century) as “That church which he, the first in England, had erected in that mode of composition which now nearly all emulate in its costly expenditure.” Matthew Paris,—a century later,—says that Edward “was buried in the church which he had constructed in that new mode of composition from which many of those afterwards constructing churches, taking example, had emulated it in its costly expenditure.” These notices by men of whom the one knew most, and the other might have known all, of the Norman churches in England, are sufficient to prove the Confessor’s church to have been not of Anglo-Saxon but of Norman architecture; and, as they thought, the earliest of its style in this country.

Whether that erected by Earl Harold at Waltham, and consecrated in 1060, was in the same style, we cannot ascertain. His proclivities were certainly not Norman, yet he may have adopted the fashion just coming into vogue, though we find that other churches built nearly as late, and some even subsequent to the Conquest, still retained the older and more national character.

The church built by the Confessor at Westminster is thus described by a contemporary writer:—

“The house (domus) of the principal altar, constructed with very lofty vaultings, is compassed round with squared (stone) work uniformly jointed: the aisle[17] around the building itself is shut off by a double tier of arches from either side, the continuity of the work being firmly consolidated in every direction.

“Further, the cross (crossing) of the temple which would enclose the choir of those singing the praises of God in its midst, and by its two-fold support on either side would sustain the lofty apex of the central tower, rises at first simply with a low and massive vaulting; it then swells out with several staircases, skilfully ascending with many windings; then, with a plain wall, it runs up to the roof, which is of wood, carefully covered with lead.

“Below, however, and above are arranged in order chapels (domicilia), which are to be consecrated through their altars in commemoration of apostles, martyrs, confessors, and virgins.

“This multiplicity of a work so vast was, however, begun at such a distance from the east of the ancient temple, that even some part of the nave which was to lie between them, intervened with ample space, lest the brothers occupying it should be interrupted from the service of Christ.”

Another contemporary writer describes the church as “upheld by diverse columns, and vaulted everywhere with multiplicity of arches.”

From these accounts we may gather:—

1st. That the church was apsidal.

2d. That the aisles were of two storeys, and each of them vaulted.

3d. That there was a lofty central tower under which the choir sat, and that this had winding staircases, and was covered with a timber roof and leaded.

4th. We further learn that the church contained numerous chapels and altars placed both below and above, and that in the eyes of one who had, perhaps, lived to see several of the new Norman churches commenced, it appeared a work of vast size and great multiplicity.

Lastly, we find that it was placed so far to the east of the ancient church, that not only were the services in that church never discontinued, but that a portion of the nave of the new church might be erected. The latter proves, of course, that the entire nave was not completed by the Confessor himself, as he died within a few days after the consecration.

A writer of the thirteenth century, in a poetical Life of the Confessor, thus describes his works at Westminster:—