THE AISLELESS CHURCH OF THE NORMAN PERIOD
Sec. 29. During the century after the Norman Conquest, the great abbey
churches and cathedrals represent the work of a foreign architectural
school, gradually acclimatising itself in England; while, on the other
hand, the parish church continued to be planned by local men, open to
receive the improvements which more skilled foreign masons had
introduced. Consequently, while local art received a continually
increasing refinement, the plan of the church developed upon traditional
lines, and not upon those novel lines which foreign masons would have
laid down for it. The chief proof of this is seen in the persistence of
the aisleless plan with rectangular chancel and western tower. The
tendency of a Norman builder would be to design his church with an
apsidal chancel, transepts, and a central tower; his practice would
vary, but this would be his favourite plan. On the other hand, the
rectangular chancel and western tower remained the favourite
terminations of the parish church in England. But, while a large number
of rubble-built, unbuttressed Norman towers, usually heightened or
otherwise altered in the later middle ages, remain in many parts of
England, their relation to the plan suffers some change. The ground
floor of the Saxon tower was, as we have noticed, the main entrance to
the church. The Norman western tower either contained no western doorway
at all, or provided merely an entrance, which was used only on special
occasions. At Caistor the ground floor was probably the main porch of
the aisleless church; and there are exceptional instances, as at
Finchingfield in Essex, where, in fairly advanced Norman work, the same
arrangement was clearly contemplated. On the other hand, at Laceby,
between Caistor and Grimsby, a south doorway, coeval with the western
tower, has always been the main entrance to the church. Similarly, at
Hooton Pagnell, and at Blatherwycke in Northamptonshire, south doorways,
of the same age as the tower, form the chief entrance. These last three
are early Norman examples; but we may go back even further, to find the
same thing in churches which are usually reckoned as late Saxon work, at
Heapham in Lincolnshire, and Kirk Hammerton, between York and
Boroughbridge. In south Yorkshire there are a few churches of the middle
of the twelfth century whose western towers are noticeably derived, in
their plan and general construction, from the Saxon type--Birkin,
Brayton, and Riccall. But in all three, the main entrance to the church
was made through a south doorway, the arch of which is covered with
elaborate late Norman ornaments. The western tower was thus reduced to
the state of a bell-tower at one end of the church, and, while
increasing in size and in magnificence, was actually a less
indispensable part of the plan than before.
[Illustration: Fig. 5. Aisleless plan: 12th century.]
Sec. 30. The nave of the Norman aisleless church was usually short, and,
where the church was entirely rebuilt, rather wide in proportion to its
length. The naves of churches like Garton-on-the-Wolds or Kirkburn in
Yorkshire, give the effect of spacious halls, of no great length, but
wide and lofty. It cannot be doubted, however, that the fabric of the
Saxon church was frequently kept, or that the church was rebuilt upon
Saxon foundations. It is not unusual, as already stated, to find Saxon
quoins still existing at the angles of naves to which aisles have
subsequently been added. Evidences, on the other hand, of the westward
lengthening of a Saxon nave in the Norman period appear to be rare. At
North Witham in south Lincolnshire, the south and (blocked) north
doorways are Norman work, in the usual position near the west end of the
nave. East of them, however, in the centre of the nave walls, there are
distinct traces of the inner openings of a north and south doorway,
which may belong to the late Saxon period. That we have here a case of
the twelfth century lengthening of an earlier nave may be inferred. The
probability is increased by the fact that, in the neighbouring church of
Colsterworth, where aisles were added during the early Norman period to
a late Saxon fabric, the nave and aisles, towards the end of the twelfth
century, were certainly extended a bay westward. As little architectural
work is done without a precedent, we may assume that the builders at
Colsterworth were following the example of North Witham.
Sec. 31. The great majority of Norman rectangular chancels have been
lengthened and enlarged; for the plain "altar-house" at the east end of
the nave was too small for the purposes of the ritual of the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries, and afforded no intermediate space between
nave and chancel. However, short and approximately square chancels were
by no means invariable; and, before the middle of the twelfth century,
oblong chancels of considerable length in proportion to their width were
being built. There is a good early twelfth century example at Moor
Monkton, in the Ainsty of York; and the chancel of the middle of the
twelfth century at Earl's Barton, Northants, is of considerable depth,
and was of ample size for all later purposes. At Earl's Barton the
eastern portion was the chancel proper; while the western portion
supplied that space for a quire which was not provided in less elongated
plans. In by far the larger number of cases, the rectangular chancel had
a wooden roof. There is, however, a fair number of churches in which the
system of ribbed vaulting, as employed in larger buildings, was used.
Thus at Heddon-on-the-Wall, Northumberland, there is a small square
chancel with a ribbed vault. At Warkworth, there is a long vaulted
chancel of two bays, built during the first quarter of the twelfth
century; and at Tickencote, Rutland, two bays are combined in one by the
use of sexpartite vaulting. In these cases the chancel arches are wide,
forming the western transverse arches of the vaulting: that at
Tickencote is of remarkable magnificence.
Sec. 32. There are certain cases in which the chancel was of the same width
as the nave, and no structural division existed between them. At Askham
Bryan and at the chapel of Copmanthorpe, near York, the plan, externally
and internally, is a plain undivided oblong. At Tansor, Northants, the
chancel was rebuilt about 1140, when the side walls were set back in a
line with those of the nave. In St Mary's in the Castle at Leicester,
the long and very narrow nave was, as may still be clearly seen,
continued eastward without a break into the long and narrow quire and
chancel. Here the eastern half was used, no doubt, by the college of
dean and canons, while the western half was the parish church. The
beautiful church of St Peter, Northampton, built towards the end of the
third quarter of the twelfth century, gives us a complete example of an
undivided plan, aisled throughout save in the eastern bay, which forms a
projecting chancel east of the aisles of the choir.
Sec. 33. Hitherto we have dealt merely with the rectangular chancel. But
there are also churches which end in an eastern apse. These are
comparatively few and exceptional. In Yorkshire, where the number of
Norman rectangular chancels is large, and buildings such as Adel exhibit
the aisleless church in its highest state of architectural development,
the number of apsidal chancels can be counted on the fingers of one
hand. In Sussex, where Caen stone was largely used, and we should expect
foreign influence to be noticeable, the proportion of apsidal chancels
is small. In Gloucestershire, the Cotswold district contains several
small Norman churches, which have been little altered: the rectangular
chancel is universal. These are typical districts; and, to state a
general rule, we may say that, while the apsidal chancel is foreign to
no part of England, and occurs in unexpected places, as in the chapel of
Old Bewick, Northumberland, it is never general in any single region.
Its rarity is an important fact. Were our parish churches the work of
masons sent out from the larger churches and monasteries, we should
expect to find it a common feature; for in those buildings the apsidal
plan prevailed. But, in the hands of local masons, its sparing
employment is easily explained. To build an apse needs skill, not only
in planning, but in stone-cutting. The question of vaulting the apse
increases the difficulty and the expense. These difficulties would not
trouble masons who had worked at the building of Durham or Ely or
Winchester; nor would expense trouble the monasteries, which, according
to the popular idea, were so ready to lavish money on the fabrics of
parish churches. Many apsidal chancels have disappeared, no doubt; but,
if we take the bulk of those which remain into account, we shall find
that they have a habit of occurring in small groups, as in Berkshire,
where three occur together within a single old rural deanery, and that
the large majority of the churches in which they are found were not
monastic property. A few belonged to preceptories of Knights Templars in
their neighbourhood; and perhaps we may see in their apses a reference
to the circular form of the Holy Sepulchre. But, as a rule, we may say
that a band of masons in certain neighbourhoods developed some skill in
building apses, that money was forthcoming, and that so a few examples
came into existence. In one curious instance, Langford in Essex, which
is within easy distance of four or five other apsed churches, there is
an apse at the west, and there are foundations of another at the east
end of the building. For this church a Saxon origin has been claimed:
the plan, at any rate, indicates a survival of a plan once common in
western Christendom, and especially in the German provinces. In apsed
churches, like Birkin in Yorkshire, the apse does not spring from points
directly east of the chancel arch. The arch is wide and lofty; behind it
is a nearly square rectangular space, which is divided from the apse by
another arch. At Birkin the apse has ribbed vaulting, which allows the
walls to be pierced freely for windows. At Copford in Essex, Old
Bewick, and other places, the roof is a half-dome without ribs: this
allows for the display of mural painting, but admits of less light.
[Illustration: Fig. 6. Birkin, Yorkshire: interior.]
Sec. 34. The most important feature in the apsidal plan is the provision of
the distinctly marked quire space between the nave and chancel. This
space also occurs in plans where the chancel is rectangular; but in such
cases it becomes the ground story of a tower. There are famous examples
of this at Iffley, near Oxford, and Studland in Dorset, where the
chancels are vaulted. Coln St Denis in Gloucestershire, where the tower
is of very wide area, and projects noticeably north and south of nave
and chancel; and Christon in Somerset, are further instances of the
plan. The tower between nave and chancel, without transepts, is seldom
found in an apsidal plan. It occurs at Newhaven in Sussex, where there
is a small apse. Here the plan is virtually that of some small parish
churches in Normandy, such as Yainville, near Jumieges. The majority of
such plans in England, however, end in a rectangular chancel. Precedent
for the plan is, as we have seen, to be found in Saxon churches. At St
Pancras, Canterbury, we have noticed the westward prolongation of the
apse: at Brixworth a definite presbytery or quire space was planned, on
a large scale, between apse and nave. In later Saxon churches, where the
chancel was rectangular, a tower, with or without transeptal chapels,
was sometimes built between nave and chancel; and here, although
externally the division was not always clearly marked, an internal quire
space was divided off from the nave by the western arch of the tower.
The aisleless plan, therefore, with a tower above the quire, and a
rectangular chancel, points to a development along old-fashioned lines,
even in churches in which, as at Iffley, the builders have acquired
great skill in expressing themselves in Norman terms. In certain
districts, as in Gloucestershire, this plan was a favourite one. Even in
the fourteenth century, Leckhampton church, near Cheltenham, was rebuilt
in faithful adherence to this tradition. Here the tower is narrower than
the small chancel, and the nave has a south aisle.
[Illustration: Fig. 7. Two aisleless plans with central tower: (1) tower
between nave and chancel; (2) tower over crossing of transepts with nave
and chancel.]
Sec. 35. In the cases of Dover, Breamore, Stow, and Norton, we have watched
the gradual evolution of the cruciform plan with central tower. It must
be noted once more that to the cruciform plan the central tower built on
piers and arches is essential. It is possible, as in the Gloucestershire
churches of Almondsbury and Avening, to pierce the north and south walls
of a tower and add transeptal chapels: the plan will have a cruciform
appearance, but will still be only an elongated plan with lateral
additions. It is possible, in a church where there is no central tower
at all, to extend the side walls at right angles north and south, and
so form transepts; but here again the transepts have no structural
reference to a central point in the plan, but are mere widenings of the
nave or aisles. The thirteenth century aisleless churches of Potterne,
in Wiltshire, and Acton Burnell, in Shropshire, are both cruciform in
plan. The church at Potterne was planned throughout with reference to
the crossing of transepts, nave, and quire, above which its central
tower rose: the tower space is the central point of the whole. But, at
Acton Burnell, there is no central tower or space: the body of the
church consists of a long aisleless nave and an aisleless chancel
beyond; and the transeptal chapels are simply stuck on, as it were, to
the eastern part of either wall of the nave. This is at once noticeable
in elevation, when the chapels are seen to be mere excrescences, with
roofs lower than the nave. Moreover, where there is a true central
crossing, with a tower above, such as we find in almost all our
cathedrals, a transept on either side is necessary for the support of
the tower. The transepts need not be wholly symmetrical, although in
most cases they are; but they must be there. On the other hand, where
there is no central tower, and the crossing is merely apparent, symmetry
of treatment is quite unnecessary. While there are two transeptal
chapels of similar size at Acton Burnell, or at Achurch in
Northamptonshire, there are far more instances in which a less regular
treatment was adopted. Thus, at Childs Wickham in Gloucestershire, and
Montacute in Somerset, there is only one transeptal chapel, in each case
on the north side. At Corbridge in Northumberland, transeptal chapels,
extended outwards from the aisle walls, are of different lengths. At
Medbourne in Leicestershire, a long aisleless transeptal chapel was
built out from the north side of the nave in the thirteenth century.
Within the next fifty years a south chapel was built, but, instead of
copying the proportions of the northern chapel symmetrically, the
builders gave their new chapel a much greater width, and placed its
altars in an eastern aisle. The plan is thus accidentally cruciform. At
Acton Burnell and Achurch it is, no doubt, designedly cruciform; at
Montacute and Childs Wickham, imperfectly cruciform. But all three
varieties belong to one class, the longitudinal plan with transeptal
extensions. The structural feature which makes the truly cruciform plan,
the central tower upon arches and piers, is wanting. And this
distinction between churches planned from a centre, and churches whose
plan follows a longitudinal axis, although often overlooked, is
essential.
[Illustration: Fig. 8. North Newbald, Yorkshire: tower arches, chancel
and S. transept, from N.W.]
Sec. 36. A noble example of a Norman cruciform church, whose plan has
suffered little alteration, exists at North Newbald in the east Riding
of Yorkshire. At each angle of the crossing are masses of shafted piers,
connected by wide and lofty rounded arches. The nave, as is usual, is
the longest arm of the four, so that the plan is a Latin cross. It has
north and south doorways: there are also doorways in the end walls of
the transepts, placed in the western part of each wall. In the east
wall of each transept is an arch, now blocked up, the filling being
pierced with fifteenth century windows. These arches are the openings of
original apses, which contained the transept altars. The chancel,
probably always rectangular, was rebuilt in the fifteenth century. As a
corollary of the true cruciform plan, the four arms are all of equal
width. At Bampton-in-the-Bush, Oxon, where the plan of the church was
greatly altered in the thirteenth century by the addition of aisles, the
Norman plan was very similar to that of North Newbald. The cruciform
plan of Melbourne, Derbyshire, with its aisled nave, was probably
inspired more directly by continental examples. The aisleless chancel
was vaulted, and ended in an apse, which was squared in later times by
the addition of a rectangular piece east of its springing points. Out of
the east walls of the short transepts opened wide apses, the walls of
which joined the western ends of the walls of the chancel. Thus,
externally, the plan of the eastern part of the church was closely
allied to the plan with three apses which, in some of our larger
churches, was derived from Normandy. At Melbourne, however, there are
important variations from this plan. The chancel is short, there are no
quire aisles, and the transept apses were rounded externally. In the
larger churches of Normandy, the side apses were at the end of
the quire aisles, and were usually squared externally, while the
apses projecting from the east walls of the transepts, as at
Saint-Georges-de-Boscherville, were left rounded. At Newbald and Bampton
there seems to have been no attempt to give complete unity of design, as
at Melbourne, to the rectangular chancel and transeptal apses. In any
case, transeptal apses were the exception in the plans of our Norman
cruciform churches, although their convenience for holding altars is
obvious.
Sec. 37. The cruciform plan, beautiful as it is, was never generally
adopted. It was inconvenient for purposes of public worship, as long as
the rounded arch remained fashionable. In our own day, even in churches
where the central tower is carried on high pointed arches, and the view
of the altar is practically unhindered, the chancel is cut off from the
nave by the crossing, and the acoustic problem, which in modern church
planning is so necessary a consideration, is almost insurmountable. In
the middle ages, this problem was not so acute; but it was undesirable
that the interior of the chancel should be nearly invisible from the
nave. At Newbald the tower arches are planned upon a liberal scale: at
Bampton, on the other hand, where the eastern tower arch is left, the
others having been rebuilt in the thirteenth century, it is very low.
The low tower arches at Burford, Oxon, and the narrow arches at St
Giles, Northampton, are examples of the way in which the supports of
the Norman central tower interfered with the internal convenience of
churches. It was not until much later that this difficulty was solved,
and then only in one or two cases, when the cruciform plan had become
exceptional. The plans of Bampton, Burford, and Witney, show how the
builders of west Oxfordshire experimented in cruciform planning. The
division between chancel and nave is felt much less at Witney than in
the other two churches; for the great thirteenth century tower and
spire, resting upon massive piers joined by pointed arches, throw a
considerable portion of their weight upon nave and transept arcades,
whose exceptional massiveness gives unity to the whole design. In the
fifteenth century, however, the rebuilders of the aisleless church of
Minster Lovell, between Witney and Burford, solved the problem by
removing the supports of their square central tower from the angles of
the crossing to points entirely within the church, and building arches
from the piers thus formed to the angles of the crossing. The
comparatively light piers, instead of hindering the view, allow of easy
access from the nave to the transepts, and there is hardly a point in
the body of the church from which seeing and hearing alike are in any
way impeded. With the earlier builders, however, the natural course was
to leave the piers where they were, and endeavour to lighten them as
far as possible; and, in aisled churches, the difficulties involved
often led to the abandonment of the complete cruciform plan.
Sec. 38. The cruciform church gives occasion for a brief remark on one
aspect of medieval building which is often exaggerated. The revival of
interest in medieval architecture, in the early part of the nineteenth
century, was accompanied by an insistence on symbolism in the plan and
design of churches. A minute symbolism, which often was the fruit of
pious imagination, or was derived from the fancies of post-medieval
writers on ritual, was read into every detail of the medieval church
fabric. It is true that, as has been said, some builders worked
imaginatively, imitating in the round naves of a few churches the
rotunda of the Holy Sepulchre. Other instances of devout imitation might
be found, if we looked for them. But the imitation of a concrete model
is a different thing from translating abstract mysteries into the plan
and elevation of a building. And, although the ground plan with nave,
transepts, and chancel, certainly forms a cross; and, although, as time
went on, the resemblance to the chief symbol of the Christian faith was
no doubt recognised and valued, the plan itself, as we have shown, came
into being from entirely natural causes. Where the central tower was
introduced, the plan was dictated by structural necessity. Where there
was no central tower, transeptal chapels provided accommodation for
altars, for which the body of the church afforded no convenience. In
this and in other cases, medieval builders were impelled by practical
common sense and the requirements of the services of the church; and
symbolism, if it was a consideration at all, was purely secondary.