must place the _Window_. Indeed, it has generally been made to take the
precedence of it, and is no doubt that by which the date of a building
is most readily ascertained and its style defined.
The Romanesque windows were simply openings with round heads, the jambs
and arches being either perfectly plain, moulded, with or without
enrichment, or the jambs shafted. These windows were most usually
isolated, but were here and there grouped into couplets, triplets, etc.,
or made to form portions of continuous arcading.
In the early days of the transition the windows remained unaltered,
otherwise than as to the general refinement of their details. Later on
the arches were made pointed, and their proportions somewhat elongated;
and even in the fully-developed Early Pointed style--properly so
called--the window differs little in principle from that of the
Romanesque period, though, in fact, it assumes a widely different form,
through its carrying towards their ultimate results the principles of
grouping begun during the previous style, and those of refinement and
elongation incident to the transition.
It is in carrying out these principles to a still greater extent that
the Early Pointed of England differs from that of France. It is really
the same style, and no important feature can be pointed out in the one
country which is not to be found in the other; but just as the Germans,
by dwelling longer on the Romanesque style, rendered it more refined and
perfect than elsewhere, so the English, by the continued retention of
the unmullioned window, systematised its use in a manner not equalled in
other countries. I see no difference of principle in the fenestration of
the Early French and the Early English Pointed styles: in both the
principle was the decoration and combination of single lights. Nor do I
see that in England this was done in a manner essentially differing in
any respect from what was common in France. The great difference was the
far greater width of the French openings, which often rendered their
windows inelegant in proportion, while it offered a noble field for
stained glass. The characteristic of the English windows, on the other
hand, was narrow and tall proportions, and a greater amount of
enrichment of the jambs and arches, though none of these are, by any
means, constant features. Sometimes we find in English works lightness
carried to a vicious extreme, as in the beautiful but frail eastern
transept at Worcester; though in a majority of instances it retains a
masculine firmness and solidity, as in the east end of Whitby.
Time would fail me to illustrate the magnificent combinations of this
early class of window to be found in cathedrals and monastic
churches--as the east end of Ely, the west at Llandaff, or the north
transept at York; nor would it be possible to enumerate the simple and
impressive village churches to which, in their humbler forms, though
with equal artistic merit, they lend such a charm. The style is too well
known in England to need minute description, and its merits too fully
acknowledged to need enforcement from me.
I will rather proceed to consider that great invention which may be
considered to complete the series of developments which constituted
Pointed architecture: I mean the mullioned and traceried window; not
that I consider it as in all points better than its predecessor, nor
that in our own revival it should supersede it; but that, as a matter of
fact, Gothic architecture would have been imperfect without it. Like
almost every other feature of Pointed architecture, the traceried window
grew out of the Romanesque.
In all periods of Romanesque we find occasionally two or more arched
openings comprised under one enclosing arch. The arrangement is more
frequent in belfry windows and triforium openings than elsewhere, but
occurs in ordinary windows, especially in secular buildings. The space
intervening between the large arch and the two or more placed below it
was, even as early as this, occasionally pierced with circles or other
forms of opening. Here, then, we have the elements of the mullioned
window before even the introduction of the pointed arch. In the same
situations it gradually developed itself, step by step, during the Early
Pointed period, so that we have in triforium arcades and in other
positions a pretty full development of what is called _plate_ tracery
before its use became frequent for ordinary windows. The case was pretty
much the same both in France and England, though on the whole the love
of placing two openings under one arch was greater in France; thus, we
see in the aisles at Chartres two plain lights under one arch with a
circular opening, and above, in the clerestory, a very large circle in
the head with somewhat complex subordinate piercings. The same is the
case at Bourges, where three lights are often comprised under one arch,
with a single circle in the head.
The next great element which aided in producing tracery windows was the
wheel, or other richly-pierced circular window. This, again, originated
under the Romanesque style, as we may see at Barfreston and elsewhere.
It is, in fact, a very close approach to tracery, and when placed in the
space between comprising and comprised arches, it almost completes the
change. All that is wanted is the piercing of the intervening spaces in
forms whose outlines are parallel to the main piercings, so as to form
what Professor Willis calls _bar_ tracery. This was, I fancy, commenced
in France--though there are very early traces of it in England--and was
done at first in a partial and clumsy manner, as in some windows at Le
Mans and Tours, but soon was systematised.
I do not see that in any of the previous steps the French were in
advance of the English architects, but in this last step I think they
were so, and this led them to a much earlier abandonment of the single
window and its combinations; so that for some time the French were using
tracery windows, while we were rendering more perfect the unmullioned
system--not from want of knowledge of the other, but rather from a
preference for a system in which we were producing more beautiful
combinations than our neighbours had attained.
It is not a very profitable question to inquire by how many years the
French may have been in advance of us in this development, and it is so
exceedingly difficult to get at positive dates of the erection of
buildings in either country, that it would be impossible if desired. The
fact, no doubt, is, that for many years the two kinds of window were
contemporaneous. Thus, traceried windows may have been in use at Rheims
and Amiens, while the older kind was being used at Bourges and
Chartres.
It is said that in England the fully-developed bar tracery was first
used in Westminster Abbey, which was commenced in 1245; but this is
merely an assumption; and it is clear that it was used in the eastern
part of St. Paul’s, a part of which was consecrated in 1240. The east
window of Netley Abbey looks very early, but I do not know its real
date, but believe it is said to have been finished in 1249; while the
eastern windows at Lincoln look too thoroughly developed to be very
early specimens, though known to have been erected between 1256 and
1280. In any case the change had fully established itself in England
during the third quarter of the century.[40]
There can be no doubt that, whichever class of window we prefer, this
invention was of immense practical utility. It rendered possible what
was never attained before--the formation of windows of _any_ width which
might be wanted, without injury to the beauty of the building. This is,
in fact, the great use of the mullion, to enable you to use wider
windows than you could use without it--indeed, to render their width
unlimited; and the consequence of the invention was the introduction of
windows in some cases not less than 30 feet or more in width, and 60 or
70 in height, and that without appearing to make any unseemly gap in the
walling, which would otherwise have been the case with a window of
one-sixth of the size.
After the system was once introduced, it seems to me to have been often
more beautifully carried out in England than in France; indeed, I hardly
know in France windows of equal beauty with those at Lincoln, Tintern,
or St. Mary’s Abbey at York.
At a later period excess of tracery became the great vice of the style,
but while kept within bounds, it unquestionably was a great element to
its perfection; and though it must always be remembered that a building
of any amount of beauty and dignity can be designed without it, it would
be placing upon ourselves a very foolish restriction if, merely from an
individual preference for the earlier and sterner style, we were to
debar ourselves from the use of so convenient and reasonable an element.
[Illustration: Figs. 103, 104, 105, 106, 107.--Base moulds of
Buildings.]
One feature in which the English works of this period appear to me to be
peculiarly excellent is the base moulds; I do not mean of columns, but
of the building itself. I have never seen any in France to equal many of
our own in the quality of appearing eminently fitted to support the
whole structure, or in the artistic arrangement of their parts.
Against this we may balance on the other side the French cornices and
foliated bands, which are one of their most beautiful characteristics.
They usually consist of two courses--a hollow projecting moulding
containing the foliage, capped by a weather moulding--the equivalent
respectively of the bell and abacus of the capital; indeed, in many
cases forming the continuation of the capitals of window jambs across
the intervening piers. We have in many cases cornices equivalent to
these--as at York, Howden, and the nave of Lichfield; but they are, on
the whole, a much less English than French feature. The foliage they
contain is usually of great beauty, and eminently suited to its
position.
The great glory, however, of the French churches is their doorways; and
beautiful as are those of our own, they make no kind of pretension to
vie with those of our neighbours in magnificence. In this respect the
architects of the two nations seem to have gone on quite contrary
principles; for the French, even in buildings on a secondary scale,
introduced portals of prodigious size and extreme richness, while the
English, even in buildings on a grand scale, often made their doorways
very inconspicuous. Compare, for instance, the façades of Amiens and of
Wells: in one the portals are everything, so that you can recollect
little else; in the other they are nothing, and you can scarcely
recollect their existence; while, in the façade above, the English
example is the richer of the two; and the illustrative sculpture which
in the one case is expended on the portals, is in the other diffused
over the entire front. In England a magnificent portal is of rare
occurrence; in France one looks for it as a thing of course. Nothing
more glorious than the great French portals can be conceived: the lofty
and deeply-receding jambs are divided in their ample height into two
portions, the pedestal or basement of which is richly decorated either
with diaper-work or with sculptured medallions, or, as at Amiens, with
both; and the upper stage contains colossal figures of apostles or other
holy men of old, who appear to view with severe and solemn benignity the
entering crowd, and to express, by the gravity of their countenances,
the caution, “Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God.” In the
tympanum are sculptured scenes from Scripture history, the lives of
saints, our Lord surrounded by the evangelistic symbols, or perhaps the
awful scenes of the final Judgment; and the mouldings of the arch are
probably filled with angelic figures, as if the guardians of the
faithful worshippers; while this impressive array of imagery is placed
in a setting of the noblest and most perfect architecture, and that on a
scale well suited to the sublimity of the sentiments expressed.
The portals of Nôtre Dame at Paris, of Amiens, and of Chartres, may be
instanced as among the most striking examples; but all great churches of
the end of the twelfth and of the thirteenth century have the same truly
glorious approaches, well calculated to solemnise the minds of those
entering by them, and to prepare the way for the overwhelming dignity of
the interior.
The nearest approach which we have in England to this class of doorway
is the south entrance to the
[Illustration: Fig. 109.--Western Portals, south entrance, St. Alban’s
Cathedral.]
eastern part of Lincoln--a truly noble portal;[41] but on the whole,
though of a different class, the most dignified approach to any English
cathedral is the western porch of Ely.[42]
St. Alban’s has had three magnificent western entrances. The smaller
ones have been wonderful works of art, though now ruined.
[Illustration: Fig. 108.--St. Alban’s Cathedral. Ornament between
Shafts, Western Portals.]
The north porches of Salisbury and Wells are very noble; indeed, many of
our great churches have portals which we should deem magnificent, could
we forget those of France, and which we know to be eminently beautiful,
however they may be surpassed in magnificence.
In almost all other parts the English cathedrals of this age are often
richer than the French, as in the clustering of the columns, the
richness of the arch mouldings, the beauty of their wall arcading, the
importance and detail of the triforium, etc.; while, on the contra side,
they have to yield greatly to the French in altitude, and in many cases
in general scale, as well as in the amount of sculpture with which they
are enriched.
My object in drawing these comparisons is not a wish to lay any claim to
superiority for either, nor to shake the claims of our neighbours to
general precedence, as I view Paris to have been, in a certain sense,
the centre and metropolis of Mediæval art. It is rather to show that
these were the arts of a great _period_, not of a single _people_; that
all were labouring together in perfecting a great and glorious
development of art, each knowing well what others were doing, each
according to their means taking care to keep up to the standard already
attained, and to add to the public treasury developments of their own;
each making it his great endeavour to do his own work as well as it
could possibly be done according to the means at command, and each
people vying with its neighbours, not in the spirit of petty jealous
competitors for praise, but each striving, with a noble and glorious
emulation, to do the utmost in its power to further the great art which
all had contributed in generating.
Having given, in this and my two preceding lectures, a rough and very
imperfect sketch of the rise and perfecting of Gothic architecture, it
is not my intention any further to pursue the subject historically;
but--assuming the thirteenth century to be the great period of the
style--I should wish, in any future lectures I may give, to illustrate
and discuss its principles, and the many sections into which it divides
itself, whether geographical varieties or the leading features of the
buildings themselves. I may not be able to carry out this intention, but
in my next lecture, the last of the present session, I purpose--after
alluding to some of the most remarkable works of the period and with
some slight description of their characteristics, and after calling
attention to the all-pervading character of the art as it bore upon
secular and other buildings, upon the allied arts, and upon the
ordinary arts of common life--to found upon what we have had in review
before us some general suggestions as to the practical lessons we ought
to learn from what we have been considering, and the influence it ought
to have upon our own artistic practice.
LECTURE V.
The Thirteenth Century--_continued_.
St. Saviour’s, Southwark--Choir of Temple Church, London--Chapel at
Lambeth--Westminster Abbey--Its Italian mosaic work, monuments, and
ancient reredos--Chapel of St. Ethelreda, Holborn--St. Alban’s
Abbey--Priory Church, Dunstable--Stone Church near
Gravesend--Waltham Cross--Jesus Chapel, Cambridge--Ely and
Peterborough Cathedrals--Warmington Church--West Walton
Abbey--Crowland Abbey--St. Mary’s and All Saints, Stanford--Ketton,
Grantham, and Frampton Churches--Lincoln Cathedral--Southwell
Minster--Newstead Abbey--York Cathedral--St. Mary’s Abbey, and St.
Leonard’s Hospital, York--Skelton Church--Beverley and Ripon
Minsters--Fountains, Rivaulx, Whitby, Kirkham, and Guisborough
Abbeys--Chapel of the Nine Altars, Durham--Hexham and Dryburgh
Abbeys--Chapel of Holyrood--Elgin and Glasgow Cathedrals--Furness
Abbey--Southern examples--Most great churches in France vaulted,
not so in England--Universal excellence of workmanship from 1175 to
1400--Domestic architecture of France, Germany, Italy, and
England--Influence of thirteenth century work on our artistic
practice.
In my last lecture I gave a hasty outline of the developed architecture
of this great period.
I will now endeavour to give an equally hasty glance at some of its more
marked creations, beginning--as in duty bound--at home. Their number,
however, is so great, that one is perplexed to know where to begin, or
in what order to take them. Perhaps the most profitable way will be to
imagine the student to live in London, and to commence with the works of
this century, which he may study within a walk of his home.
Let us begin, then, with the church of St. Saviour--formerly St. Mary
Overie--in Southwark.
When I first knew this Church the whole of it was standing: externally,
it is true, the aspect it presented was not very pleasing, for it had
been cased almost throughout with red brick, and the Lady Chapel was
little else than a ruin. The choir was then in course of restoration.
The interior was a most noble structure, and was almost perfect, and
nearly all of this century, though some small portions westward were
earlier, and the south transept possibly a little later. The whole was
on a very symmetrical design, that of the nave being very much the same
with the choir.
Its character may easily be judged of from what remains. It was nobly
massive and grand, not of lofty proportions, but still such as to
satisfy the eye. The pillars were alternately round and canted squares,
flanked with attached shafts; the triforium consisting of arcades,
interrupted only by the vaulting shafts. At the east end is a beautiful
Lady Chapel, vaulted on light clustered pillars.
The restoration of the choir was carried out by the late Mr. George
Gwilt, aided by his sons; and it is impossible too warmly to praise the
zeal and ardour with which they pursued the work, their study of the
style then so little understood, or the untiring pains they took to
render their restoration accurate. All these ardent lovers of ancient
art are now deceased, and I feel a melancholy pleasure in bearing
witness to their merits. I was intimately acquainted with one of the
sons, and never did I meet a man more enthusiastically devoted to the
style on which his artistic education had been founded. He absolutely
adored everything which was Early English; and, in carrying out
restorations--in one of which he aided me--so faithfully did he
reproduce the whole work, that nothing could induce him to alter even
the positions of the jointing of the ashlar work.
The pains which Mr. Gwilt took in restoring the choir disgusted the
heartless parishioners, who, on proceeding to the transepts, placed the
work in other hands; but, on the Lady Chapel being undertaken by private
individuals, Mr. Gwilt nobly undertook the work gratuitously, and
carried it out with the same care he had bestowed on the choir.
Shortly after this, a report having arisen that the nave roof was
decayed, a surveyor was employed to examine it, who, recklessly
condemning it as unsafe, it was taken off, and none put on in its place.
The walls, being of chalk, became shattered by exposure to the frost of
several winters; and when the restoration of the nave was proposed to
the parishioners, that enlightened body of men negatived it, and, taking
down the glorious old structure, erected the present abject monstrosity
in its place.[43]
Happily, however, the interiors of the choir and Lady Chapel are still
perfect. Let us hope and pray that their widowhood may not be of much
longer duration, but that a reproduction of the noble nave may be
substituted for its unworthy supplanter.
[Illustration: Fig. 110.--Temple Church, London. View of Choir.]
I should mention that the nave was entered on the south side by a very
noble double doorway, of great height and depth, though when I knew it
its decorative features had perished. I will only add that if measured
drawings of this church are in the possession of the family of Mr.
Gwilt, it would be most desirable that they should be deposited among
public archives, to await the time when they _must_ be wanted as a guide
to the re-erection of the lost portions. In the meantime let me beg of
you to study well what remains.[44]
Next in importance, and probably in date, comes the choir of the Temple
Church, which was consecrated in 1240--a more fortunate building than
the last, and not needing from me any chronicle of its restoration. It
is, in idea, a magnified transcript of the Lady Chapel at St. Saviour’s,
being, like it, vaulted throughout upon pillars of equal height, and is
probably about the most perfect specimen in England of this beautiful
mode of construction.
The only other important instance I recollect in London of the earlier
portion of our style is the chapel at Lambeth--a very good Early English
chapel, though somewhat dishonoured by plaster vaulting, the ribs of
which I myself saw being prepared for by a core of spikes and tar-cord.
Let us hope that this is the last instance of such construction,
especially of its introduction in a time-honoured building like this!
We now come to one of the noblest of England’s temples--the Abbey Church
of Westminster; and you will readily excuse me from dishonouring this
truly glorious temple by attempting its description in the course of a
hasty catalogue like that I am now giving. As you all know, it was
commenced in 1245 by King Henry III., and the eastern portions finished
about 1269. This makes it contemporary, in a certain sense, with Amiens;
for though the latter was commenced in 1220, it was not completed till
1288. There can be no doubt that the cathedral at Amiens was, at the
time of its erection, viewed as the most perfect development of the
style; for it is clear that it was made, in many instances, the model on
which the designs of other churches were formed.
Cologne Cathedral, for instance, was commenced in 1248, during the
erection of that at Amiens, and is manifestly a free copy of it so far
as concerns its earlier portions;[45] and though Westminster Abbey is by
no means built on the model of Amiens, it was probably influenced by it.
That prodigious pile, carried forward through so long a series of years,
would be a great object of interest to all contemporary church-builders;
and Henry, who was much in France, would naturally send the architect of
his own sacred mausoleum to see the great work of his day.
Westminster Abbey is a church built on a French ideal, but with English
detail--a great French thought expressed in excellent English.
The windows are of the perfected bar tracery, which had not yet been
much used in England; but in other respects I cannot find a
distinctively French detail--or scarcely any--in the building, excepting
the work of a single French foliage carver. Even the plan, which is
purely French in idea, is carried out in a manner quite different from
that of any French church I have seen.