PARISH CHURCHES OF THE LATER SAXON PERIOD
Sec. 18. In later Saxon churches the aisleless plan and the rectangular
chancel were normal. Instances of an aisled plan after the seventh
century have been noted already: it has been seen that there are only
two definite examples, and, although there may be indications of others,
these are few and far between and uncertain. The apsidal chancel again
is exceedingly rare. We have noted it in combination with other
basilican features at Wing: the instances in which it occurs again are
very few, and in these, as in the important monastic church of
Deerhurst, there are other variations from the aisleless plan. In by far
the largest number of examples, the plan adhered to was that simple one
of which we have a complete prototype at Escomb. Late Saxon fabrics
which remain free of later additions are few; but there is a
considerable number of churches which still keep the quoins of an
aisleless Saxon nave _in situ_, although aisles have been added during
the twelfth or thirteenth centuries. Such are St Mary-le-Wigford and St
Peter-at-Gowts at Lincoln, Bracebridge in the western suburb of Lincoln,
St Benet's at Cambridge, and Wittering, near Stamford. At Winterton in
Lincolnshire large pieces of the western part of both walls of the nave
were kept as an abutment to the tower, when aisles were added.
Sometimes, as at Geddington and Brigstock in Northamptonshire, the whole
wall above the nave arcades is the upper part of the wall of the
aisleless building; and instances in which blocked window openings, of a
not improbably pre-Conquest date, remain in walls that have subsequently
been pierced with arcades, are exceedingly common. If an untouched Saxon
nave is a rare thing, an unaltered Saxon chancel is obviously rarer. The
small rectangular chancel of the large medieval church at Repton, in
Derbyshire, is practically unique; it was probably preserved for the
sake of the crypt beneath, which, at first a plain rectangular chamber,
was subsequently, but still in pre-Conquest times, vaulted in
compartments supported by columns. But at Sidbury in Devon, where there
is a small rectangular crypt, the chancel above was rebuilt in the
twelfth, and lengthened in the thirteenth century, without any reference
to the line of the walls of the crypt below it. A good example of an
unaltered late Saxon fabric is the church of Coln Rogers in
Gloucestershire. Here the western tower, built up inside the nave, is a
later addition, but the nave, rectangular chancel, and arch between
them, are still intact. The chancel arch, though by no means broad, is
yet much wider than those at Escomb and Bradford-on-Avon; and its width
probably represents the normal width of a chancel arch of this period.
Sec. 19. An addition occurs in most of these late Saxon plans, which had a
great influence on the subsequent, and even on the contemporary,
development of the church plan. We have noted that at Rome and Ravenna
towers formed no part of the original basilican plan, but were added
later as _campanili_. In England it appears that the tower formed no
part of the plan until, at any rate, the epoch of the Danish wars.
Western bell-towers were very general by the beginning of the eleventh
century. In most of these towers, the ground floor forms an entrance
porch; but it does not follow that the western tower in England was
generated by the heightening of the western porch. The porches of
Brixworth and Monkwearmouth were probably not heightened until the
western tower had come into existence elsewhere. An origin for the
western tower has been sought in the fore-buildings which occur in some
of the early German churches, and contain separate upper chambers. It
may be that, derived from this source, the western tower superseded the
porch, and, where porches existed, they were adapted to the new
fashion.
Sec. 20. The towers of Earl's Barton, Barnack, and St Peter's at
Barton-on-Humber, are perhaps the most obviously interesting relics of
Saxon architecture which we possess. All are much larger in area than
the normal western tower of the later Saxon period. Earl's Barton is a
western tower, and its ground floor has probably always served as a
porch: the rest of the church, however, is a medieval building of
various periods. At Barnack, again, the complete plan of the Saxon
church has been lost. Here, however, the western tower was something
more than a porch. The doorway is not in the west, but in the south
wall; and in the west wall, inside the church, is a niche with a
triangular head, which was certainly neither doorway nor window, but a
seat. Whether this implies that the ground floor of the tower was used
for special religious functions, or for some purpose connected with the
common life of the parish, is not clear; but it shows, at any rate, that
there was some good reason for the unusually roomy planning of the
tower. We stand on firmer ground at Barton-on-Humber. Here, again, a
large medieval church exists to the east of the tower. But upon its
western side is a small rectangular building of contemporary date, which
was not a porch in front of the tower, but a westward extension of the
body of the church, the main entrances being on either side of the
tower. The foundations of a similar projecting building have been
discovered to the east of the tower, beneath the floor of the later
nave. It is therefore clear that the ground floor of the tower, or
rather of a high tower-like building, formed the body of the church, and
that the eastern projection was the chancel. There are clear indications
at Broughton, also in north Lincolnshire, that this plan was used, at
any rate, once again. The tower at Broughton is obviously later than
that at Barton: the doorway, whose details are of a post-Conquest
character, is in the south wall; and a large circular stair-turret, like
that at Brixworth, projects from the west wall. Probably there was only
a chancel here, and no western annexe to correspond. A similar
stair-turret occurs at Hough-on-the-Hill, between Grantham and Lincoln:
the tower, now western, has a doorway in the south wall, and probably
stands mid-way in date between Barton and Broughton. It is planned on a
very ample scale, with thin walls and a large floor-space. The main
fabric of the church is altogether of a later date; and there are no
indications, at any rate above ground, of an earlier building east of
the tower. The size of the tower, the provision of a stair-turret, as at
Broughton, to leave the ground floor clear, suggest that here we may
have a third example of the plan in which the tower covered the main
body of the church. The arrangement at Barnack gives grounds for a
suspicion of something of the same kind there. In all these cases the
tower has been a tower from the beginning; but at Barton-on-Humber the
uppermost stage was added towards the end of the Saxon period.
[Illustration: Fig. 4. St Peter's, Barton-on-Humber: from S.W.]
Sec. 21. In these buildings we seem to discover the influence of the
centralised plan, acting through the channel of German art. It would be
absurd to say that the plan of Barton-on-Humber was inspired by the plan
of the palace-church at Aachen, which was an adaptation, with some
improvement, of the plan of San Vitale at Ravenna. No masterly
intellectual effort, such as the Aachen plan shows, was necessary to
plan a rectangle with two smaller rectangles at either end. But the
church at Aachen had made the centralised plan familiar to the builders
of western Europe. In Germany and in France there are traces of its
influence; and we may reasonably suppose that the builders of
Barton-on-Humber were acquainted with the existence of an alternative to
the usual plan of the church with a longitudinal axis, and did not
arrive by haphazard at their concentration of the plan upon a central
point. One earlier example of the centralised plan is known to have
existed in England. In addition to his basilica at Hexham, Wilfrid had
built another church there in the shape of a Greek cross. The
description of it which we possess shows that the central space was the
actual church, that it was tower-like in form, and nearly circular in
shape, and that the arms were simply porch-like projections. Probably it
was a combination of baptistery with tomb-church. It is not likely that
the simple plan of Barton was derived from that at Hexham. Both were
probably the result of continental influence; but, while the church at
Hexham may have been the work of Gallo-Roman masons in direct
communication with the general current of architectural progress, the
church at Barton was probably built by Englishmen, who adapted the
centralised plan to methods natural to their comparative want of skill.
Sec. 22. Neither at this time nor later did the centralised plan in England
develop along the lines suggested by Barton-on-Humber. No real
development on such lines was possible. In Germany, the achievement at
Aachen made possible the polygonal nave of St Gereon at Cologne and the
centralised plan of the Liebfrauenkirche at Trier, as well as many
twelfth and thirteenth century churches whose complicated parts are
planned and massed together with relation to a central tower space. In
England, however, the habit of dealing with circular or polygonal forms
made little progress; and our few "round churches," the plan of the
naves of which was a devout imitation of the church of the Holy
Sepulchre at Jerusalem, and our polygonal chapter houses, are almost all
that we have to show in the way of attempts at a definitely centralised
plan. Our church plan develops as the result of an effort to combine a
series of rectangles effectively; and, while this combination can be
attempted in several different ways, it is obvious that the rigid lines
of the rectangle do not admit of that free scope in centralised planning
which is given by the circle or polygon.
Sec. 23. We have seen, however, that, even in the earliest days, there was
a tendency to admit additions to the simple longitudinal plan, which, in
process of time, were bound to give birth, if not to a definitely
centralised plan, to something, at any rate, in which a central point
counted for much. A feature of the early cathedral and of St Pancras at
Canterbury, was the projection of _porticus_, porches or side chapels,
from the nave. These were entered by archways pierced in the centre of
the lateral walls. In the cathedral they had outer doorways, and formed
the main entrances of the church, on the north from the monastery, on
the south from the city. The south porch contained the altar of St
Gregory, and, as Eadmer tells us, was used as a court of justice to
which litigants, in process of time, resorted from every part of
England. In the north porch, dedicated to St Martin, was held the school
of the monastery. Upon both porches towers were built at a date which
cannot be ascertained, but was probably later than the time of
Augustine. Of the use of the porches at St Pancras, which did not
contain outer doorways, it is impossible to say anything definitely.
Entrance porches, of which one remains, projected from the sides of the
church at Bradford-on-Avon: the outer and inner doorways of the north
porch are extremely narrow, and are placed west of the centre of its
north and south walls. It is possible, therefore, that there was an
altar in this porch, so that it served the double purpose of entrance
porch and side chapel.
Sec. 24. As time went on, the western porch beneath the tower was disused
as a public entrance. The principal entrance of most churches is on the
south side, west of the centre of the aisle wall, and is usually covered
by a porch. There is a Saxon example of this at Bishopstone in Sussex,
where, as at Bradford, room seems to have been left for an altar on the
east side. However, the main entrance of the ordinary Saxon church was
at the west end, through the ground floor of the tower. The porch in the
lateral wall seems to have been regarded primarily as a side chapel; and
in some later Saxon churches the porches were dissociated from lateral
doorways, and were planned as closed projections from the eastern part
of the north and south walls of the nave. This seems to have happened at
Britford, near Salisbury, where archways remain on both sides near the
east end of the nave. At Deerhurst square projections were entered from
both sides of the nave, immediately west of the chancel arch; and it is
probable that there were somewhat similar projections at Repton. At
Worth in Sussex, where the north and south doorways of the nave are
Saxon, and there is no western entrance or original tower, there are
large Saxon chapels projecting from the eastern part of the nave, and
entered by wide arches. The cruciform plan is sufficiently marked in the
conjectural restorations of Deerhurst and Repton. At Worth it is quite
unmistakable.
Sec. 25. At Worth, however, in spite of the dignity of the lateral arches,
the chapels are still porch-like excrescences, larger in scale than
usual, but lower in elevation than the nave. In elevation their
transept-like appearance is less noticeable than on plan. Moreover, the
length of the nave remains unbroken from west wall to chancel arch: no
central space is marked off to which these transeptal projections give
emphasis. Nevertheless, a suggestion of an intermediate space between
nave and chancel is given; and this space is definitely marked in the
plans of churches which may be quite as early in date as Worth--_i.e._
about the first half of the eleventh century--by the admission of a
tower between nave and chancel. The eastern part of the walls of the
nave at St Mary's in Dover Castle are continued upwards as a tower, with
small rectangular chapels projecting from the sides of the ground
floor. Externally, no division between the tower and nave is noticeable;
but, inside the church, in addition to the chancel arch and the arches
into the chapels, a fourth arch is pierced in the western wall of the
tower, and so an intermediate space between tower and nave is
effectually created. At Breamore in Hants, a further step is taken. The
tower space, between nave and chancel, is of the same width as the nave;
but, in addition to the necessary internal division, an external
division is also marked by the quoins of the tower, which are complete
to the ground. Only one chapel remains at Breamore, on the south of the
tower, entered by a narrow Saxon archway; but there was originally
another on the north.
Sec. 26. The chapels which project from these early "central" towers are,
it is to be noted, not true transepts. They are narrower than the tower,
which is built up from the ground, and not upon a system of piers and
arches which require lateral abutments in the form of transepts. The
western tower is transferred, as it were, to a point near the centre of
the church, assumes the width of the nave, and is provided with
transeptal excrescences, to communicate with which its side walls are
pierced. Such excrescences are not necessary. At Stanton Lacy, in
Shropshire, there is only one. At Dunham Magna, in Norfolk, and other
places, such as Waith in Lincolnshire, there are, or were originally,
none at all. The construction of the "central" tower upon piers
connected by arches was beyond the skill of the ordinary Saxon builder;
and its natural consequence, the development of the full cruciform plan,
with transepts of the height and width of nave and chancel, was thus out
of his reach. We know, from contemporary evidence, that one important
abbey church, that of Ramsey, had a central tower which was built upon
piers and arches as early as 974 A.D.; and perhaps this was the case in
other large churches. But, even in the large church of Stow in
Lincolnshire, which is commonly taken on trust, without sufficient
historical evidence, as the cathedral church of the Saxon diocese of
Lindsey, although an advance in transeptal construction was made, the
main principle was imperfectly grasped. This church was made the home of
a community of clergy about the beginning of the reign of Edward the
Confessor, by Leofric, earl of Mercia, and his wife Godiva. It was
restored after the Conquest by Remi, the first Norman bishop of Lincoln.
The aisleless nave and chancel are Norman work of two periods: probably
the nave was rebuilt upon Saxon foundations. The transepts, however, of
considerable length and equal height with nave and chancel, were
retained from the pre-Conquest building. The tall jambs of the arches of
the central tower also remain on all four sides. The arches which they
bear are of early Norman character; and the present tower is a late
Gothic structure, the arches and piers of which are built up on the
inner side of the older masonry. But the Saxon tower space, including
the area of the arch-jambs, is rather wider than the arms of the cross
which project from it. The tower formed a separate building, with quoins
complete from the ground, and nave, chancel, and transepts, instead of
combining to support it, were mere excrescences from it, entered by
arches in its walls. Possibly the example of Barton-on-Humber may have
had to do with this treatment of the tower as a separate central
pavilion, which may have been deliberately preferred to the arch and
pier treatment. In other respects the plan is an advance upon the plans
of Dover and Breamore. And the necessary advance upon Stow is found in
the church of Norton-on-Tees in south Durham. Here the tower, between
nave and chancel, rests on piers connected by arches. The arches have
been widened; two have been entirely rebuilt at a later date; and the
rest of the church has been subjected at different times to enlargement
and rebuilding. In spite of this, we have at Norton our earliest
surviving example of a plan in which the various portions of the
church--nave, chancel, and transepts--are gathered together in one
structural connexion. The tower is to the east of the centre of the
longitudinal axis of the church; but structurally, it is the central
point with regard to which the building is planned, and the unity of the
composition depends upon it.
Sec. 27. We have arrived thus at a centralised plan of cruciform shape, of
which the component parts are rectangular, the central space being
approximately a square. The examples which have been given cannot be
proved to follow one another in chronological order, but they represent
successive steps in planning and construction, of which Norton-on-Tees
is the highest. The importance of the inclusion of the tower in the plan
is obvious. In its early appearances, its position is unsettled, but the
natural tendency is to place it above a main entrance; and this is
usually at the west end of the building. Where the builders aim at a
simple centralised plan, the high central rectangle will form, like the
round or octagonal central space of Wilfrid's church of St Mary at
Hexham, _ecclesia ... in modum turris erecta_, and, as at
Barton-on-Humber, will possibly be heightened by a later generation into
a real tower. The distinction of the side chapel from the entrance
porches, becoming more fully recognised, will lead to the building of
transeptal chapels at the east end of the nave; and thus an important
addition will be made to the ordinary longitudinal plan. The need of
some central building, against which these additions may abut, will be
felt. The tower will thus be introduced between nave and chancel, either
as an independent structure, or as an upward extension of part of the
side walls. The transepts thus, as at Stow, can be raised to an equal
height with nave and chancel. From this to a plan in which the component
parts are recognised as interdependent, and are closely knit together in
structural unity, is an obvious step. At this point, architectural
skill, as distinct from mere building ingenuity, comes into play.
Sec. 28. As we proceed, we shall find survivals of old plans, even at an
advanced period in the middle ages, which prove that progress in
architecture was by no means of an uniform kind. Builders in remote, and
especially in hilly, districts, from Saxon times to the present day,
have naturally restricted themselves to plans which require as little
cost as possible to carry out. Local building material is also an
important consideration. In districts where good building stone is to be
obtained on the spot, or where money is plentiful and water carriage is
possible, the development of plan is naturally rapid, and every fifty
years or so, additions to churches will be made in which the old plan
will become entirely transformed. In woodland districts, the plan will
be controlled to no small extent by the requirements of timber
construction. In such regions, Saxon churches were probably built of
wood. The only wooden church of Saxon times which remains is that of
Greenstead in south Essex, with a rectangular chancel and aisleless nave
constructed of vertical logs placed side by side, and framed originally
into a timber plinth. However, it may be stated as a general rule, that,
whatever may be the helps or hindrances to development provided by local
materials, the real starting-point of the parish church plan of the
middle ages is in every part of the country an aisleless plan; and that
this plan consists either of a nave and chancel with a longitudinal
axis, or of a nave and chancel whose longitudinal axis is intersected by
a transverse axis across transepts. Variations, no doubt, occur; but
these will never carry us far from one or other of these fundamental
plans. The aisled basilica of the continent found no scope for itself in
Saxon England; and it was through an interval of aisleless building that
the aisled plan eventually became acclimatised, and then in a form which
bears only a superficial kinship to the basilican plan.