S. Étienne, Nevers, in almost every respect, which there is little
doubt was completed in the first half of the eleventh century, by the
founder Abbot Odalric. Then again to the west there is the church
of Moustier-neuf, Poitiers, commenced in A.D. 1069, and consecrated
in A.D. 1096, which has a _chevet_ evidently formed upon the same
type as Conques; and at S. Hilaire, in the same city, consecrated in
A.D. 1069, whilst the ground-plan of the chevet is just the same as
that of Conques, the nave columns are analogous, there, to the half
barrel-vaults of the triforium in Auvergne. Now none of these churches
is earlier than the beginning of the eleventh century, and yet it is
hardly credible that a province shut in as Auvergne was should have
received a perfect and complete new style, or invented one and carried
it to the degree of finish and perfection at which it had arrived
when Notre-Dame-du-Port was erected, without our being able to trace,
somewhere, the source from which it was developed. I believe, however,
that its origin may be traced if we examine carefully the architecture
of the church of S. Front at Périgueux, commenced in A.D. 984 and
completed in A.D. 1047. This church, founded on the same type as,
if not copied from St. Mark’s, Venice,[58] exercised a vast direct
influence on the architecture of the day. It is seen most clearly in
churches which are, like itself, cruciform, without aisles, and covered
with domes. The churches of Auvergne, and those other examples to which
I have referred, seem to me to be clearly derived from S. Front, or
from the Eastern models on which it too was founded. The east end of
St. Mark’s presents a circular wall, with a succession of semicircular
recesses or apses in its thickness. S. Sophia contains the same
feature, though differently treated. The Roman circular buildings which
have so much in common with early Byzantine architecture have the same
feature; and S. Vitale, Ravenna, whether it is Romanesque or Byzantine
in its origin, is planned in a similar way. The architect of S. Front
evidently copied his apses from these models, only converting the
recesses of St. Mark’s into chapels projecting from the walls.[59] The
Auvergne architects attempted to combine the plan of the basilica, with
its nave and aisles, with the features which were seen at S. Front.
They retained its external wall and projecting chapels, therefore, but
placed within them the cluster of columns round the apse forming an
aisle between the chapels and the choir. By this simple and natural
modification of the S. Front plan to meet the necessities of their
triple-aisled churches they at once invented, one may almost say, the
perfect French chevet. I know no other churches in France of the same
age which appear to have suggested so much in this respect; and you
will realize it if you compare their plans with, among others, those
of Bourges cathedral, S. Pierre at Bourges, S. Martin at Étampes,
Chartres cathedral, the destroyed church of S. Martin at Tours, and
finally what is, I think, almost the best complete Gothic plan, that
of Rouen cathedral. In every one of these we see the surrounding aisle
lighted by windows between the chapels, and the chapels are distinct
and well-separated on the exterior, precisely as in these older
churches in Auvergne. These buildings, therefore, have great value,
not only as illustrating a chapter of the history of our art, but
because the chapter which they do illustrate is just one of the most
interesting I can conceive; being that which explains how and by what
steps Gothic architecture, of which, as our national style, we are so
justly proud, was developed from the noble architecture of the old
Romans and Greeks, an architecture to which we owe, among other things,
this great debt of gratitude, that it naturally led up to, and rendered
possible, a Westminster, a Chartres, an Amiens, and all the other
glories of our Christian architecture.
You will have gathered that there are many similar features in the
churches of the two provinces which I have been describing. They are
shortly these: vaults and quasi-domes alike, and carried on the same
kind of squinches or pendentives; the decoration with mosaics and
its detail; the design and treatment of doors, either sculptured or
inlaid; the form of trefoil cusping of arches, character of mouldings,
sculpture, and decoration with painting, all of these are the same
throughout both districts. The only marked difference, and it is
important, is in the ground-plan, the cathedral of Le Puy having no
chevet, but an east end derived from Romanesque rather than Byzantine
precedents; and the other churches in its neighbourhood are generally
similar in their plan.
There are two important heads of my subject to be shortly discussed
before I conclude. One of them refers to roofing; the other to coloured
decoration. First, as to roofing. I have already explained how this was
executed; let us now consider why the modes which we see were adopted.
At S. Front the experiment was tried of covering a nave and transepts
with a succession of domes resting on pendentives, and supported on
pointed arches spanning the nave. These domes were the only covering of
the church, and were visible on the outside as well as on the inside.
At Conques, the architect, unable to carry domes on the comparatively
delicate piers which were all that were required for the division of
a nave from its aisles, contrived a barrel-vault for his nave, the
thrust of which was resisted by the half barrel-vault of the triforium;
a device not improbably obtained from Byzantine churches: for if we
compare the section of S. Sophia with that of the crossing and central
dome of Notre-Dame-du-Port, we shall find the semi-domes affording
abutments for the great domes in the former, absolutely identical in
their section with the half barrel-vault, which forms the abutment
on the north and south sides of the central dome of the latter.[60]
But it was impossible to obtain any light for a clerestory roofed
and supported in this fashion, and one is rather disposed to wonder
how it was that so many churches should have been built on the same
gloomy scheme. It was, no doubt, because in that part of France wooden
roofs were thought to be undesirable, and no other economical way was
seen of combining the nave and aisles with what was intended to be an
indestructible stone roof. I need hardly say that at the same period,
in the north of France, in Normandy, and in England, the nave was
seldom, if ever, roofed with anything but timber, and the aisles only
were vaulted in stone.
At Tournus, on the Saône, another device was adopted to serve the same
end as the Auvergne roof, but admitting of a clerestory: this was
the covering of the nave with a succession of barrel-vaults at right
angles to the length of the church, and supported on bold transverse
arches. But I doubt whether it was ever repeated on a nave, though
there are several examples of aisles thus roofed;[61] and it was, no
doubt, ugly and ungainly. The Le Puy architect devised yet another
plan, which combined to some extent all the others, and this was, as
I have explained, a succession of domical vaults, which, while it was
much lighter and more practicable (owing in part to the difference of
scale) than the S. Front plan of a series of genuine cupolas, achieved,
nevertheless, much of the effect that was there gained. A very small
portion only of the weight of the vault exerted a direct lateral
thrust, and it was possible, therefore, to erect such a roof upon a
clerestory; and though the transverse arches limit the height of the
building in one respect, in another there is no question that the
height is apparently much increased; for in looking down the interior
it is impossible ever to see the apex of any of the domes, and the
vault lost behind the transverse arches gains immensely in mystery and
infinity, so as to produce the effect of a larger and loftier building
than the reality. But, on the other hand, the disadvantages were great:
the piers between the nave and its aisles were so large as to render
the aisles nearly useless; and I can hardly wonder, therefore, that the
example set here was not generally, if, indeed, at all followed.
It is doubtful where the kind of vault used at Le Puy was first
devised. The central dome of S. Michel de l’Aiguille is, perhaps, the
oldest of all, and this is, in fact, a square dome, if one may use the
expression. The octagonal dome-vaults of the cathedral are probably
a little later, but that over the crossing of the church of Ainay at
Lyon may possibly be older. A comparison will make it evident that one
is copied from the other; and if the Le Puy vault was derived from
Lyon, it becomes possible to make the important inference that it was
an Eastern influence travelling up the Rhone and distinct from that
which is seen at Périgueux, to which we owe this kind of domed roof.
Further evidence of this is found in the pendentives of the dome at
Brioude,[62] which are identical in intention with the plan of the
church of SS. Sergius and Bacchus, at Constantinople, and yet quite
unlike the kind of pendentive common in churches of the S. Front type.
They are, in fact, the Le Puy and Ainay pendentive reduced to the very
simplest conditions. The invention of the flying buttress adumbrated
in, and possibly suggested by, the quadrant vaults of Auvergne, finally
stopped these various endeavors after new forms of roofs, and set men
to work to see how it might most readily be made to serve the boldest
and most airy system of design and construction; and in the rage for
these, that old system of roofing with domes, which had been, so far
as is known,[63] first tried in France at Périgueux, and had afterward
spread with such rapidity over a very large district, though with many
modifications and variations, was entirely ignored or forgotten. Is it
well that we too should ignore it? It is clear that the disciples of
the Gothic school may claim it as their own with just as much truth
as any other school can; and in some form or other it is often so
attractive, so majestic on a large scale, so impressive even on a small
scale, that few of us who have much work to do should altogether eschew
all use of it, or treat it as though it were the exclusive property of
the architects of Classic and Renaissance buildings. I do not feel,
however, as most who write on the subject seem to do, that our domes
must invariably be supported on what are called true pendentives. I
think they are not beautiful, and I do not see that they are especially
scientific. The S. Front pendentives are mere corbellings out of the
wall, and in truth only imitations of pendentives. At S. Mark’s they
are formed with a succession of arches of brick work across the angle
of the dome, though this construction is not visible, and these, I
suppose, are all wrong; but they are very similar in their intention
to the kind of pendentive which I have had to illustrate to-night, and
which is in truth much more Gothic and picturesque in its character
than the true pendentive, for it admits of any amount of decorative
sculpture, and is really precisely similar in its object to the
squinches under our own English spires.[64]
[Illustration: THE WESTERN PORCH, SAUMUR]
I will add but a few words as to the constructional polychromy
which distinguishes the exterior of the churches throughout this
volcanic district. So far as I have seen, it was never, save in Le
Puy cathedral, admitted into the interior,[65] and this is much to be
regretted, because it seems that the vaults of their naves, the domes
of their crossings, and the semi-domes of their sanctuaries, would
have afforded most admirable fields for this kind of decoration. As
I have stated, the walls were once covered with painting, and as long
as this existed a mosaic of black and white and dull red would have
been valueless; but now that the iconoclast, the whitewasher, and the
restorer have done their worst, the want of some decoration on the
otherwise bald surface of the vaults is painfully felt everywhere.
Externally the coloured materials are used in two ways; sometimes the
whole of the wall is built of the dark volcanic products, and patterns
are obtained by the occasional use of white stone or by alternate
courses of this and the darkest scoriae that can be found. Or else the
walls generally are built of stone, and the patterns only formed with
the dark material. Here, too, as is the case in all old examples of
coloured constructions with which I have ever met, the colours follow
the natural course of the construction. At Le Puy, for instance, the
courses are alternately light and dark, producing bold horizontal
bands of colour. The arch stones are continued generally in one line
of colour all across an arch, even when it consists of several orders,
and from the arch on into the wall. The bands of ornament are similarly
arranged in horizontal stripes, generally placed where they will
dignify and give value to some very prominent architectural member.
They never occur below the line of the springing of an arcade, and are
richest under cornices and between their corbels. And when we consider
the date at which this inlaid work was executed, and compare it with
what we know of our own art at the same period, or, indeed, with that
of any other portion of the country which is now France, we cannot too
highly extol its delicacy and grace and its carefulness of design and
execution. I believe that we may regard the whole of the work in Velay
and Auvergne as that of native artists. The detail of sculpture is,
when compared with such work as is to be found in Provence, exceedingly
rude. It is vigorous, indeed, but wanting in that extreme delicacy and
refinement which marks the work of the early Provençal artists.
Were I to attempt to say anything about the buildings of a later date,
it would be impossible to do more than give a catalogue, which would be
as unintelligible as it would be tedious. I will only say, therefore,
on this head, that Clermont cathedral well deserves careful study, and
is rich in very fine glass; that at Montferrand may be seen as large
a collection of mediaeval houses of all dates as in almost any small
town that I know; that Riom possesses a fine S. Chapelle; and that in
the abbey of La Chaise-Dieu is still preserved a very rare and complete
series of tapestries of the sixteenth century. Besides these, a large
number of articles of church-plate are to be found scattered up and
down in the village churches, and all this goodly store of antiquities
is set before you in a province whose physical features are so full of
interest and beauty as in themselves to make a journey through Velay
and Auvergne one which none will repent having undertaken.
APPENDIX
I. _S. Mary’s, Stone_
II. _Churches in Northern Germany_
I. _Lübeck_
II. _Naumburg_
III. _Erfurt and Marburg_
IV. _Münster and Soest_
V. _German Pointed Architecture_
I
SOME ACCOUNT OF THE CHURCH OF S. MARY, STONE, NEAR DARTFORD
(_From the papers of the Kent Archæological Society, in Archæologia
Cantiana, 1860_)
Having given these preliminary notes, illustrative of the history
of the church, it will be well now to give a detailed architectural
description of the fabric, illustrated, as far as may be, by the
discoveries which have been made in the course of its restoration.[66]
The church appears to have consisted at first of a chancel, nave with
north and south aisles, western tower with the aisles prolonged on
either side of it, and western porch. The only subsequent additions
were, in the fourteenth century, a small vestry on the north side of
the east bay of the chancel, and in the sixteenth century the Wilshyre
chantry, in the space between the vestry and the east wall of the north
aisle. In the fourteenth century (probably during the bishopric of
Haymo de Hethe) the windows at the west end of the nave and aisles, and
that in the west bay of the south wall, were inserted; and at the same
time the tower-piers were altered. Probably they were, like the other
piers throughout the church, exceedingly delicate, and were thought
to be not sufficiently solid to carry the weight of the steeple; but
at any rate it is clear that the piers, with their capitals, are
not earlier than _circa_ A.D. 1350, whilst the arches have earlier
mouldings, and are of the same character as the rest of the church. It
was at the same time that additional support was given to the eastern
piers of the tower, by the addition of bold flying buttresses, spanning
the aisles, and visible only on the inside of the church. The staircase
to the tower, placed against the south-west angle, appears to me to
have been added at the same time; whilst the upper part of the tower
retains nothing but poor fifteenth-century work, and was probably
entirely rebuilt at that time, if, indeed, it is not a work of the
seventeenth century, undertaken after the fire which melted the bells,
in A.D. 1638.
No other alteration was made in the church before the Reformation,
and in 1638 the church suffered from the fire caused by lightning,
mentioned by Hasted and in the Petitions to Parliament. The roofs
throughout must have been burned, and, covered as they were with
shingle,[67] it is not surprising that when once set on fire no part
of them was saved. Traces of the fire are very evident, particularly
on the stones of the tower arches, which are reddened by its action.
We found also in the upper part of the aisle walls portions of molten
lead, which had run into the interstices of the stone work at the time
of the fire. The Petitions of the Parishioners of Stone give most
exact information as to what happened before and after the fire; from
them we learn (1) that before the fire the stone groined roof existed
on the chancel, but was much dilapidated, and that the glass in the
chancel-windows was in a sad state of decay: (2) “that the chauncell
received little damage by the late fire,” yet that a very large part of
the brief-money, raised for the repair of the church, was “uncessantly
wasted and bestowed on the same, soe that the church is like to remayne
unfynished.” This was in A.D. 1640, and I think we may gather from it
the exact date of the alterations in the chancel. Its groined roof was
taken down, its walls lowered some five feet, the tracery of the window
in the north wall of the chancel partly destroyed in order to lower
the walls, and the window then built up; the east window and probably
one in the south wall destroyed, and imitations of perpendicular
windows--poor in character, but nevertheless very good for their
date--inserted in the place of the original windows in the north,
east, and south walls of the chancel. The wall was rebuilt on either
side of these windows with numerous fragments of the old groining
ribs, thus affording the final proof that the windows were inserted
and the groining taken down at the same time. This discovery was most
grateful to me, inasmuch as it had been objected to the restoration of
the original windows in the chancel, that those which we had to remove
were fair examples of perpendicular work, and valuable in their way: in
truth, they were examples of Gothic work in the years 1638–40, of no
value at all in relation to the architecture of the rest of the church,
though undoubtedly affording very interesting evidence of the undying
love of Gothic architecture in this country, and of a not unsuccessful
attempt at its revival.[68]
I have been unable to learn the exact date of the repair and re-roofing
of the remainder of the church. The living was sequestered in A.D.
1650, and Mr. Chase must, I should think, in the ten years between the
petitions and this date, have put his church into tenantable condition.
The nave roof appears to be of about this date, and is framed with
tie-beams, queen-posts, and purlines, with arched braces above the
collars, and, though not very ornamental, has been re-opened, with the
very best result on the general effect of the church. Subsequently to
the erection of the new roofs, they had been churchwardenized, in the
usual way, by the addition of plaster ceilings,[69] and in a less usual
way, by the addition of a second roof over the other, and supported by
it to the serious damage of the walls and piers.[70] The vestry seems
never to have been repaired after the fire, and the Wilshyre chantry
was roofed with a steep lean-to against the north wall of the chancel,
and ceiled with a flat ceiling, for which I cannot be too grateful,
as it made it impossible to insert a new window at this place in the
A.D. 1640 restoration, and afforded me the only chance of discovering
and restoring the original chancel windows. Knowing this before making
my plans, I cut into the wall at this point, and was rewarded, even
beyond my greatest expectations, by the discovery of the window-jamb,
the monials, and a sufficient portion of the tracery to enable me to
restore it exactly to its original design in every respect.
Having thus completed the notice of the alterations in the fabric,
it is time to give a proper account of all its architectural
peculiarities. The church is internally a rare example of a building as
nearly as possible in the same state as when it was first built. For
a village church its character is unusually sumptuous and ornate; and
perhaps there is no example of any first-pointed building in England
in which the grace and delicacy which characterize the style have been
carried to greater perfection. It is impossible, indeed, to speak too
highly of the workmanship or of the design of every part, and close as
is its similarity in many points to our glorious abbey at Westminster,
it is a remarkable fact, that in care and beauty of workmanship the
little village church is undoubtedly superior to the minster. This
might well be, for with all its beauty, and with all its vigour, the
mere execution of much of the work at Westminster is not first-rate,
and hardly such as one might expect in so important a position.