happy. The pillars are nearly like those of the great French cathedral,
but the side shafts, instead of being attached, are separate shafts of
Purbeck marble, the nucleus and the capitals and bases being all of the
same beautiful material. The use of this hard stone led to that of
moulded unfoliated capitals, in which they lose in effect when compared
with those at Amiens; but the nobler material would more than compensate
for this.
The triforium is far superior to that at Amiens both in design and
detail, and the whole internal design, though inferior in size and
altitude, is to my eye far more pleasing; and when its varied materials
retained their colour, and the Purbeck marble, which pervades every
part, preserved its polish, there cannot be a doubt as to the superior
magnificence of its effect.
The parts, too, are much better proportioned, with perhaps, the one
exception of the too acute form of the main arches; the wall arcading is
much more beautiful, and the details generally more richly moulded. We
have, then, here, at our doors, a building whose interior is equal to
that of any existing Gothic building, and we have no excuse if we do not
avail ourselves of so noble an opportunity of study.
Of the exterior I will say nothing. All its old features had perished by
the end of the seventeenth century, when they were vilely renewed, and
this base restoration is now in its turn decayed.
The chapter-house is a splendid but melancholy relic, little more than a
ruin, and that not like those ruins which seem to do honour to the
memory of their bygone glory by the picturesque loveliness which graces
their decay. It is choked up with presses, chests, galleries, huge sacks
of parchment, and every possible obstruction and disfigurement. Its
beautiful windows--which filled the entire width of its sides--are
walled up, and its elegant vaulting destroyed. Just enough remains to
render its restoration practicable. I have, with great labour, traced
out all the old details, and only wish for the chance of restoring it in
some degree to its pristine beauty.[46] I should mention that the
splendid encaustic floor is still perfect, and that very fine specimens
of wall painting still remain. The vestibule and staircase by which it
is approached are beautifully designed, and the doorway from the
cloister is among the most splendid relics of English art. The latter is
in a dreadful state of decay, but I am happy to say that it has just
been stereotyped in its present state by the application of an invisible
solution, which will prevent the further progress of disintegration, and
which has set and hardened the crumbling particles, which the gentlest
touch would have before displaced.
[Illustration: Fig. 111.--Conventional Foliage, Chapel of St. John
Baptist, Westminster Abbey.]
The foliated carving in Westminster Abbey unites the two great types
which characterise this century--the conventional and the natural--and
contains some of the best of each. I commend it to your careful study,
and will mention that all within reach has been indurated in the manner
I have just alluded to. What remains of the figure sculpture is also of
great merit, especially four angelic figures in the triforium of the
transept,[47] and two full-length figures in the chapter-house, one of
which I had the great happiness of discovering.
[Illustration: Fig. 112.--Natural Foliage, Chapel of St. John Baptist,
Westminster Abbey.]
The internal proportions of the church seem to me to surpass those of
any other I have seen. They appear to be generally founded upon the
equilateral triangle, and a comparison of this with many other churches
will confirm the truth of what I have heard has been stated by an
ancient Freemason--that the square will furnish good proportions, but
the equilateral triangle much better.
The introduction of Italian mosaic-work[48]--both porphyry mosaic on the
pavement, and glass mosaic on the tombs of the builder and rebuilder of
the Abbey--is a fact of great interest, as showing the high estimation
in which the arts peculiar to Italy were then held, so much so as to
lead to the bringing to England of two master mosaic-workers--Odorico
and Pietro[49] (each, no doubt, with his staff of workmen)--to carry
out the two branches of the art. Both artists were from Rome, as the
inscriptions still testify; but their work was put together here, as is
proved by the use of Purbeck marble, both as the groundwork of the
pavement and for the architecture of the tombs. This architecture is not
very elegant in its details, excepting only the beautiful spiral
pillars, and some of the surface patterns prepared for the mosaic; and
the introduction of an art so inferior to their own, for the sake of the
rich inlaying it contained, still more strongly proves their
appreciation of the merits of the mosaic art. Let us follow the example
more wisely, and when we import any foreign specialty, let us not bring
with it any of the demerits which chance to accompany it, but unite it
with the best art we are masters of.
I know few, if any, churches which possess the same internal beauty as
Westminster Abbey. More modern art has done its worst to ruin it, but
its intrinsic loveliness overrides every such attempt, and reigns
triumphant over every disfigurement. One characteristic it possesses
almost alone--I mean the virgin privilege of perpetual exemption from
the brush of the whitewasher. It probably owes this unique happiness to
its having been built on the principles of constructive polychromy. It
has materials of at least four varieties of colour, and these, in some
degree, systematically and artistically used; and this fact has been
sufficient to keep the whitewasher at bay. We are told that it is
un-English and fantastic to care anything about the colours of our
materials; but let it never be forgotten that the churches which could
boast of the chaste dignity of their unvaried stone colour, have been,
both at home and abroad, made over periodically to the tender mercies of
the monochromist, while this, at least has been spared,--and that on
account of the “un-English” phantasy of using more than one natural
colour in its construction. These colours are now nearly concealed by
smoke, but they still show modestly through, and still aid in rendering
the tone more solemn and striking than that of any church I have seen,
excepting that very different one--St. Mark’s at Venice.
Among the monuments in the Abbey belonging to this century I will
mention--in addition to the Italian works already alluded to--the effigy
of William de Valence, an oak figure plated with enamelled copper, the
enamels on which are of magnificent workmanship; the beautiful bronze
effigies of Henry III. and Queen Eleanor, with the marble altar-tomb of
the latter, and its beautiful iron grille (Fig. 114); the pretty little
altar-tomb of some of the royal children, and the gorgeous monuments to
Edmund Earl of Lancaster, and Aveline, his countess: the latter have
been among the most splendidly decorated works of their day, and are
worthy of the very closest study, both by the architect and the
architectural painter.
[Illustration: _Centre compartment._
Fig. 113.--Retabulum, or moveable Reredos, formerly belonging to the
High Altar, Westminster Abbey.
_The paintings, except the merest fragments, have gone from the panels
to the right of the centre compartment._]
[Illustration: Fig. 114.--Part of wrought-iron grille, Queen Eleanor’s
Tomb, Westminster Abbey.]
I will call attention to one other object in the Abbey--I mean the
remarkably ancient retable or movable reredos formerly belonging to the
high altar. It is a wonderful work of art, and I call attention to it
especially in this place, because it contains the most beautiful
specimen of very early painting remaining in this country. The pictures
are probably by an Italian artist, several of whom are known to have
been brought over about this time; but I confess I have seen no work of
its age in Italy which I thought equal to it, an opinion confirmed by an
Italian professor of architecture to whom I once showed it. It is, I
believe, contemporary with the early days of Giotto.
I will now pass on to a far humbler building, and one very little known
or visited; I mean the Chapel of St. Etheldreda, in Ely Place, Holborn.
This was the chapel of the splendid town palace of the Bishops of Ely,
and was built by Bishop De Luda soon after 1290. The destruction of the
palace you will, I dare say, recollect to have been celebrated by Pugin
in his “Contrasts.” It was sold during the last century, and the present
untempting-looking street built on its site--a place where one would as
little expect to find a gem of ancient art as the ripe strawberries
which Dickon of Gloucester saw growing there and begged for.
The chapel is in a wretched plight; its side windows have lost both
tracery and mullions, its west window is in great measure boarded up,
the cradled roof plastered, the whole galleried around and fitted up
with pewing which would disgrace a tabernacle of the last century; yet
through all this its beauty still shows. The chapel is, as was so usual
with private chapels, elevated on an overground crypt, so as to bring it
to a level with the principal apartments of the palace. Curiously
enough, this crypt is not vaulted, but has over it the original floor of
massive timber.
The east and west windows, of five lights each, are among the finest of
their period and size.[50] The side windows, denuded of their tracery,
retain, internally, their beautiful jamb mouldings, and the wall between
them has a graceful canopied and crocketed panel to each intervening
pier, which gives the sides a very rich effect. I had long and often
lamented their mutilated condition, and was one day trying to get at
some clue to the design of their tracery, by examining the scars where
it had been amputated, when the thought struck me that the two
westernmost of them being blocked up by the adjoining houses, might, if
opened out, be found to retain their decorative features. I applied for
permission to do this; and what was my delight, on removing the material
which obstructed them, to find the old window--mutilated, indeed, and
shattered--but still retaining every element needful to the restoration
of its design!
[Illustration: Fig. 115.--Side Windows, Chapel of St. Etheldreda, Ely
Place, Holborn.]
The doorway to the chapel is very beautiful, and its foliated ornament
well worthy of study. The internal dimensions are about 90 feet by 30--a
favourite size, it would seem, and not differing much from the
dimensions of St. Stephen’s Chapel, that at Temple Balsal, or the Sainte
Chapelle at Paris (reckoning the latter in French feet).
The architecture of the chapel is nearly allied to that of a series of
sepulchral monuments I alluded to in my former lecture, and some of them
again in this. One of these is that of its own founder at Ely; the
second and third are those of Edmund and Aveline, at Westminster Abbey;
and the fourth is that of Archbishop Peckham, at Canterbury. All these
date between 1290 and 1300, and are works of exquisite beauty and of the
richest decorative art.
I will now lead you on a short excursion out of London, to a glorious
old temple which was, in the days of my pupilage, considered to be
within walking distance, and can now be reached in less than an hour by
railway. I mean the venerable Abbey Church of St. Alban.
You probably know the general history of this church: founded over the
tomb of the protomartyr of England, within ten years of his martyrdom,
and rebuilt on a larger scale by Offa, King of Mercia, it was again
rebuilt of its present enormous dimensions by the earlier of the Norman
abbots, using the materials excavated from the ruined city of Verulam.
The Roman brick was not a material very suggestive of ornamental
architecture, and we accordingly find the original portions to be plain
and massive in the extreme, but, nevertheless, highly impressive and
interesting. In the work of a later Norman abbot we find this unshapely
material cased with stone-work, and of richly decorative details; but
the church in general retained its severe simplicity undisturbed till
the accession of Abbot John De Cella, in the reign of King Richard I.
This worthy abbot was more a man of taste than of business, and his
temperament more sanguine than calculating. He had no sooner taken
possession of the abbacy than he embarked on a magnificent project for
rebuilding the western façade of his abbey church; only a prelude,
probably, to the reconstruction of the whole in the new style.
The massive brick front, with its flanking towers, would have formed an
excellent nucleus for his work; but his ardent spirit would not submit
to such an expedient, and he at once took down the vast façade, and that
before he had collected money for the new one. The consequence was that
he had scarcely got his new work out of the ground before his funds were
exhausted. His first builder turned out a rascal, and he had to
discharge him; the stone he used was destroyed by the frost; and, mishap
after mishap following his undertaking. The worthy man was led, as is so
common with bad men of business, to bend his proud spirit to a paltry
trick; and, as a means of raising the wind, he sent one of his monks
about the country with a man whom he declared to have been raised from
the dead by the agency of the relics of St. Amphibalus, and begged money
on the strength of the miracle. But all would not do, and after ten
years’ labour, during which the old historian tells us that all the
funds he procured were merely like rivers flowing into the sea, which
was no fuller for receiving them, he could not bring his work above the
level of the masons’ shed; and, at length, giving it up in despair,
contented himself with more humble undertakings.
He was succeeded by Abbot William De Trumpington, a man who united with
the taste for building, inherent in the age, a more moderate ambition
and greater aptitude for business. He resumed the suspended works, but
moderated their costliness; and making all the details plainer, and
giving up or postponing the flanking towers, he was not only enabled to
complete the rest of the front, but also to carry on the new work a long
way down the nave, and subsequently to make many other alterations.
Now, I beg you to go and examine these works, and, in doing so, to bear
in mind their history. You will find--as the chronicler tells us--that
just about the height of a mason’s shed, there is a sudden change in the
work. Up to that height the details are very superior, and far richer
than above. Below, we find traces of the artist; above, of the
constructor and man of business, though not to the forgetting of art.
Thus, round the piers below are bases for marble shafts; somewhat higher
are the marks where their moulded bands have been broken off; but above,
their capitals are wanting--
“For William’s shears had cut the bauble off.”
The three portals I alluded to in my last lecture are the work of the
unfinancial artist;[51] the range of pillars, etc., down the nave, of
the not inartistic man of business. Both are noble works. Trumpington’s
works are bold and massive, and his details good, though simple; but for
beauty of design we must award the palm to his less thrifty but more
_spirituel_ predecessor: indeed, I know few works equal in design to
what he commenced; and had he been able to carry it out, this façade
might have vied with that of Wells. Unhappily there are, externally,
little remains of the work of either of the abbots.
Late in the century the choir, also, was in great measure rebuilt. Its
character is less forcible than the earlier works, yet exceedingly
beautiful.
The eastern chapels--which opened by five arches into the church--were
at the same time commenced, but only in part carried out, the Lady
Chapel having been stopped short after rising a few feet from the
ground, and the chapels which opened from the choir having suffered
considerable alterations from their first design. They are now virtually
in ruins, but their details are of exquisite beauty. The windows have
tracery of very high merit, and the wall arcading--now almost entirely
destroyed--has been quite charming.
These works form a continuous series, from the last days of the twelfth
to the end of the thirteenth century, and are admirable illustrations of
the architecture of this great period.
I will dip seven years into the succeeding century to mention the
exquisite fragments of the substructure which carried the shrine of the
protomartyr. They have recently been exhumed in opening a walled-up
arch. They are of Purbeck marble, and, in spite of the stubborn
material, are most wonderfully carved, the leaves being so much undercut
as in places to be quite detached.[52]
This venerable church possesses claims upon the student residing in
London second only to those of our own Abbey of Westminster. I recommend
it to your special and diligent study, and you will, I am sure, never
blame me for my advice.[53]
On some of your visits there, pray go on to Dunstable, where you will
find a noble priory church, in the later Norman style, whose western
portal was probably in its day the finest in the kingdom; but owing to
the friable clunch of which it was constructed, has lost the greater
part of its decorations. The west front contains excellent work of the
thirteenth century. It is a great architectural enigma, which I believe
I have solved, but I will not spoil it for you by explaining my
conjectures.
I begin to see, however, that I have embarked on an endless task, and
have got half through my time without getting through the home district.
I will therefore leave it, with a request that you will not consider
Stone Church, near Gravesend, the worse for having become somewhat
hackneyed. It is a mutilated work, but what remains of it is as
exquisite an example of a period about agreeing with that of Westminster
Abbey as can, perhaps, anywhere be found.
As I cannot pretend to give you a complete architectural itinerary, I
will imagine--not seeing my way to a better--a northern tour in search
of works of the age I have been treating of; and giving a passing look
at Waltham Cross, in which I once delighted, though now, I confess, its
so-called restoration has rather damped my enthusiasm, and hastily
looking in at Jesus Chapel at Cambridge, a very excellent specimen of
Early English, let us proceed to Ely. I have repeatedly alluded to the
two great works in our style which it contains: the western porch, built
between 1197 and 1214, is by far the noblest in this country. It is
peculiar in its size and position, more of a narthex, perhaps, than a
porch, or rather the western arm of the cross formed by the western
transept. Externally, it is covered with decorative arcading in four
ranges. It is of two storeys, the upper one having formed a spacious
chamber. The angle buttresses are of that beautiful kind which are
almost peculiar to this period, being of the form of clustered pillars.
The two portals--the outer and the inner--are, in their leading forms,
alike; they are double, and of very lofty proportions. Their heads were
formerly filled with the Vescica Piscis, possibly containing sitting
statues; but this--why, it is impossible to divine--was taken out in
both instances, and a wretched piece of flowing tracery, in plaster,
substituted by Bernasconi, to the no small detriment of the doorways.
The inner doorway is an exquisite work of art, the mouldings being most
beautifully foliated. The sides of the porch are arcaded in two stages
in a most beautiful and artistic manner, and probably contained
sculpture. The capitals are among the finest to be found in any English
building. The porch measures internally 40 feet by 30 feet.
The other great work of this century, at Ely, consists of the six
eastern bays, with the eastern front. They were commenced by Bishop
Northwold in 1235, and completed in 1251.
[Illustration: Fig. 117.--Ely Cathedral, Eastern Front.]
It forms one of the finest specimens of the Early English style. The
noble development of its triforium is an inheritance from the Norman
church, with whose levels it was made to range. The liberal use of
Purbeck marble adds vastly to the beauty of the work: the pillars are
entirely of this material, including even their richly foliated
capitals, as are the long and elaborately carved corbels which carry the
vaulting shafts.
The carrying out of the whole--its proportions, its details, its
mouldings, the massive strength of its construction, united with just a
sufficient degree of lightness, the great elegance of its vaulting, and
the grandeur of its eastern façade--render it one of the most valuable
objects of study which we possess. The tomb of its founder is a
wonderful work of art--a canopied effigy surrounded by statuettes,
angels, and even subjects, all in a single block of Purbeck marble.
There are other works of our period at Ely, and fine ones; but we must
not linger there, but proceed onward to Peterborough.
If the three great arches which form the west front here are to be
viewed as portals, I was certainly wrong when I said that English
portals were small and inconspicuous. These are, in fact, of such vast
elevation as to deprive them of that title. The whole may be viewed as a
vast portico, it is true, but the doorways are within it, and of
moderate dimensions, while above them, and still below the arches, are
considerable windows. It is, in fact, a design which stands quite by
itself, and can scarcely be judged of by ordinary parallels.
I confess that to my eye it has always appeared as a glorious
conception, though one not often to be repeated. Had its flanking towers
been completed in the same style, the two great towers which backed it
up completed with their spires, and the odd little chapel which has been
thrust into its central arch been omitted, I know few fronts to which it
would yield in grandeur, and none in originality.
[Illustration: Fig. 118.--Circular Window, West Front, Peterborough
Cathedral.]
Peterborough once possessed a noble work, in the latter part of the
century, in its Lady Chapel, but only a few fragments remain. Its
mutilated cloister, the gateway to the bishop’s palace, and the ruins of
the infirmary, are beautiful works of this period. I know few cathedrals
which, externally, I more enjoy than Peterborough. In old coaching days
I used often to pass through at between four and five in the morning,
and if daylight permitted, I made it a point of conscience to run round
the cathedral while the mail bags were in course of arrangement; and
never will the impression it produced on my mind be effaced.
[Illustration: Fig. 119.--Petersborough Cathedral.]
We come here into a country replete with village churches, many of which
are in our style. Warmington, for instance, between here and Oundle, is
an almost perfect thirteenth-century church, and I only mention it as
one specimen, for time would fail me to enter upon even an enumeration.
Off to the northeast, too, there is West Walton, with its splendid and
unique detached tower--an almost unequalled example; and nearer at hand
are the mournful and tottering relics of the sister Abbey of Crowland,
the details of whose Western front are hardly to be surpassed, and are
the more interesting as having been evidently the work of the architect
to the eastern part of Lincoln Cathedral. Even the stone is from
Lincoln, though it is a material not used in the district.