Taken altogether, there is perhaps no cl_A History of Architecture in all Countries, Volumes 1 and 2, 3rd ed. From the Earliest Times to the Present Day

Englishman may turn with more pride than the educational establishments

which the Middle Ages have left him. Though in some cases entirely

rebuilt and no doubt very much altered, still the colleges of Oxford and

Cambridge retain much of their original features, and are unrivalled in

their kind. None of them, it is true, are very ancient as we now see

them. With the exception of some of the earlier buildings at Merton, the

greater number owe their magnificence to the days of Wykeham (ob. 1426)

and Waynflete (ob. 1486). It was during the reign of Henry VI.

(1422-1470) that the great impulse was given, not only within the limits

of the Universities, but by the foundation of Eton and Winchester, and

other great schools, all which belong to the 15th century. But the

building of Gothic or quasi-Gothic educational establishments was

continued till the death of Queen Elizabeth (1602).

[Illustration: 867. Section of Westminster Hall. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]

In most respects, these colleges resembled the monastic establishments,

which, to a certain extent, they may be considered as superseding. The

principal difference was that the church of the monastery became subdued

into a chapel exclusively devoted to the use of the inmates of the

college. In all these establishments, whether palaces or colleges,

castles or manor-houses, the principal apartment was the hall, in some

cases subordinate to the chapel only. It was on the halls that the

architects lavished their art, and, generally speaking, these are most

entitled to be considered as architectural features. Even now there are

in England at least a hundred of these halls, either entire and in use,

or sufficiently perfect to render their restoration easy. All have

deeply and beautifully framed roofs of timber. In this respect they

stand alone, no wooden roofs on the Continent being comparable with

them.

[Illustration: 868. Hall of Palace at Eltham.]

Among them the largest and grandest is, as it ought to be, the hall of

the King’s Palace at Westminster, as rebuilt by Richard II. Internally

it is 239 ft. long by 68 ft. in width, covering about 23,000 superficial

feet. The hall at Padua is larger, and so may some others be, but none

have a roof at all approaching this either in beauty of design or

mechanical cleverness of execution. In this respect it stands quite

alone and unrivalled, and, with the smaller roof of St. Stephen’s chapel

adjoining, seems to have formed the type on which most of the subsequent

roofs were framed.

The roof of the hall at Eltham (Woodcut No. 868), which belongs to the

reign of Henry IV., is inferior both in dimensions and design to that at

Westminster, but still displays clearly the characteristics of the

style. It would have been better if the trusses had sprung from a line

level with the sills of the windows, and if the arched frame had been

less flat; but that was the tendency of the age, which soon became so

exaggerated as to destroy the constructive proportion altogether.

We are not able to trace the gradual steps by which the hammer-beam

truss was perfected, but we can follow it from the date of the hall at

Westminster (1397), to Wolsey’s halls at Hampton Court and Oxford, till

it passed into the Jacobean versions of Lambeth or the Inner Temple.

Among all these, that of Kenilworth, though small (86 ft. × 43 ft.),

must have been one of the most beautiful. It belongs to an age when the

style adopted for halls had reached its acme of perfection (middle of

15th century), when the details of carpentry had been mastered, but

before there was any tendency to tame the deep framing down to the

flatness of a ceiling. The wooden roofs of churches were generally

flatter and less deeply framed than those of the halls, which may have

arisen from their being smaller in span, and being placed over

clerestories with little abutment to resist a thrust; but, whether from

this or any other cause, they are generally less beautiful.

There are few features of Mediæval art in this country to which

attention could be more profitably directed than the roof; for, whether

applied to secular or ecclesiastical buildings, the framed and carved

wooden roof is essentially English in execution and application, and is

one of the most beautiful and appropriate manifestations of our national

art.

Did space admit of it, it would be easy to extend these remarks, and in

so doing to explain and prove a great deal which in the previous pages

it has been necessary to advance as mere assertion. The subject is, in

fact, practically inexhaustible; as will be easily understood when it is

remembered that for more than five centuries all the best intellects of

the nation were more or less directed towards perfecting this great art.

Priests and laymen worked with masons, painters, and sculptors; and all

were bent on producing the best possible building, and improving every

part and every detail, till the amount of thought and contrivance

accumulated in any single great structure is almost incomprehensible. If

any one man were to devote a lifetime to the study of one of our great

cathedrals—assuming it to be complete in all its Mediæval arrangements—

it is questionable whether he would master all its details, and fathom

all the reasonings and experiments which led to the glorious result

before him. And when we consider that not in the great cities alone, but

in every convent and every parish, thoughtful professional men were

trying to excel what had been done and was doing, by their predecessors

and their fellows, we shall understand what an amount of thought is

built into the walls of our churches, castles, colleges, and

dwelling-houses. If any one thinks he can master and reproduce all this,

he can hardly fail to be mistaken. My own impression is that not

one-tenth part of it has been reproduced in all the works written on the

subject up to this day, and much of it is probably lost and never again

to be recovered for the instruction and delight of future ages.

COMPARATIVE TABLE OF ENGLISH CATHEDRALS.[431]

-------------+--------+---------+---------+---------+---------+--------+-------+--------+---------+-------------

| | inside. | Towers. | Towers. | of | of | of | of | Central | Height to

-------------+--------+---------+---------+---------+---------+--------+-------+--------+---------+-------------

York | 72,860 | 486 | 196 | 198 | 93 | 101 | 106 | 102 | 51 | 1 to 2

Lincoln | 66,900 | 468 | 206 | 258 | 82 | 71 | 80 | 81 | 39 | 1 2

Winchester | 64,200 | 530 | .. | 140 | 76 | .. | 85 | .. | 35 | 1 2·43

Westminster | 61,729 | 505 | 220 | .. | 103 | .. | 75 | .. | 35 | 1 3

Ely | 61,700 | 517 | 215 | 170 | 72 | 70 | 75 | .. | 34 | 1 2·1

Canterbury | 56,280 | 514 | 152 | 229 | 80 | 70 | 73 | 85 | 33 | 1 2·4

Salisbury | 55,830 | 450 | .. | 404 | 84 | .. | 82 | .. | 35 | 1 2·3

Durham | 55,700 | 473 | 164 | 216 | 74 | .. | 81 | 77 | 32 | 1 2·3

Peterborough | 50,516 | 426 | 154 | 143 | 78 | .. | 79 | .. | 36 | 1 2

Wells | 40,680 | 388 | 125 | 165 | 67 | .. | 69 | .. | 34 | 1 2

Norwich | 40,572 | 408 | .. | 309 | 73 | .. | 70 | .. | 26 | 1 2·8

Worcester | 38,980 | 387 | .. | 191 | 66 | .. | 78 | .. | 32 | 1 2·45

Exeter | 35,370 | 383 | .. | .. | 70 | .. | 72 | .. | 34 | 1 2·1

Lichfield | 33,930 | 319 | 192 | 252 | 55 | .. | 66 | .. | 28 | 1 2

-------------+--------+---------+---------+---------+---------+--------+-------+--------+---------+-------------

CHAPTER IV.

ARCHITECTURE OF SCOTLAND.

CONTENTS.

Affinities of Style—Early Specimens—Cathedral of Glasgow—Elgin—Melrose—

Other Churches—Monasteries.

CHRONOLOGY.

DATES.

Malcolm Canmore. Accession A.D. 1057

David I. 1124

William the Lion 1165

John Baliol 1292

Robert Bruce 1306

David II. 1329

Robert II., Stuart 1371

James I. 1406

Mary Queen of Scots 1542

THERE are few countries in the world in respect to whose architecture it

is so difficult to write anything like a connected narrative as it is

regarding that of Scotland. The difficulty does not arise from the

paucity of examples, or from their not having been sufficiently examined

or edited, but from the circumstance of the art not being indigenous. No

one who knows anything of the ethnography of art would suspect the

people who now inhabit the lowlands of Scotland of inventing any form of

architecture, or of feeling much sympathy with it when introduced from

abroad. It may have been that the Celtic element was more predominant in

the country during the Middle Ages, and that the Teutonic race only came

to the surface with the Reformation, when they showed their national

characteristic in their readiness to destroy what they could not build.

If this were not so, it must have been that their priests were

strangers, who brought their arts with them and practised them for their

own satisfaction, in despite of the feelings of their flocks.

Briefly, the outline of Scotland’s architectural story seems to be this.

Till the time of the wars of the Edwards, the boundary line between the

styles on either side of the border cannot be very clearly defined. In

Scotland the forms were ruder and bolder than in the South, but were

still the same in all essential respects.

After the days of Wallace and of Bruce, hatred of the English threw the

Scotch into the arms of France. Instead of the Perpendicular style of

the South, we find an increasing tendency to copy the Flamboyant and

other contemporary styles of France, till at last, just as the style was

expiring, both churches and mansions are almost literal copies of French

designs. But, in addition to these, an Irish element is strongly felt:

at Iona and throughout the West, extending in exceptional cases to the

east, as at Brechin and Abernethy. It can also be traced in the Lothians

in the chapels and smaller edifices of the 11th and 12th centuries, and

seems to be the ingredient which distinguishes the early Round-arched

Gothic of Scotland from the Norman of England. Besides these three, a

Scandinavian element makes itself felt in the Orkneys, and as far south

as Morayshire; and even Spain is said to have contributed the design to

Roslyn Chapel, and made her influence felt elsewhere.

All these foreign elements, imported into a country where a great mass

of the people belonged to an art-hating race, tended to produce an

entanglement of history very difficult to unravel. With leisure and

space, however, it might be accomplished; and, if properly completed,

would form a singularly interesting illustration, not only of the

ethnography of Scotland, but of art in general.

The buildings of David I. (1124-1165) gave an immense impulse to the

round-arched style, which continued for nearly a century after his time,

and long after the pointed arch had been currently used in the South. It

is true we find pointed arches mixed up with it, as at Jedburgh, but the

pillars and capitals are those of the earlier orders; and the circular

arch continued to be used from predilection whenever the constructive

necessities of the building did not suggest the employment of the

pointed form.

The feature of English art which the Scotch seem to have best

appreciated was the lancet window, which suited their simple style so

completely that they clung to it long after its use had been abandoned

in England. This circumstance has given rise to much confusion in the

dates of Scottish buildings, antiquaries being unwilling to believe that

the lancet windows of Elgin and other churches really belong to the

middle of the 14th century, after England had passed through the phases

of circle and flowing tracery, and was settling down to the sober

constructiveness of the perpendicular.

Circle tracery is, in fact, very little known in the North, and English

flowing tracery hardly to be found in all Scotland. It is true that a

class of flowing tracery occurs everywhere in Scotland, but it is, both

in form and age, much more closely allied to French Flamboyant than to

anything English. It was used currently during the whole period between

the 2nd and 3rd Richards, and even during the Tudor period of England.

The one great exception to what has been said is the east window of the

border monastery of Melrose; but even here it is not English

Perpendicular, but an original mode of treating an English idea, found

only in this one instance, and mixed up with the flowing tracery of the

period.

Of Tudor architecture there is no trace in Scotland; neither the

four-centred low arch nor fan-vaulting are to be found there, nor that

peculiar class of perpendicular tracery which distinguished the 16th and

17th centuries in the South. At that period the Scotch still adhered to

their Flamboyant style, and such attempts as they did make at

Perpendicular work were so clumsy and unconstructive that it is little

wonder that, like the French, they soon abandoned it.

In so poor and thinly-populated a country as Scotland was in the 11th

century, it would be in vain to look for any of the great ecclesiastical

establishments that are found in the South. The churches seem at this

age to have been cells or small chapels, such as that at Leuchars or

Dalmeny, closely resembling St. Clement’s church at Trondhjem, and a

little larger than the contemporary edifices so frequently found in

Ireland.

[Illustration: 869. Window, Leuchars. (From a Drawing by R. W.

Billings.[432])]

Leuchars is perhaps the most characteristic and beautiful specimen of

its class, of which, like the contemporary chapel at Cashel, which it

much resembles, it may be considered as the type. Its details are not

only rich, but, as may be seen from the woodcut, bold and elegant at the

same time. Both internally and externally, the ornament is applied in so

masterly a manner that the beauty of the art makes up for the smallness

of dimensions, and renders it one of the most interesting churches in

Scotland.

[Illustration: 870. Pier-Arch, Jedburgh.]

David I. seems to have been the first king who gave an impulse to the

monastic establishments and to the building of larger churches. His

endowment of the great border abbeys, and his general patronage of the

monks, enabled them to undertake buildings on a greatly extended scale.

The churches of Jedburgh and Kelso, as we now find them, belong either

to the very end of the 12th or beginning of the 13th century. They

display all the rude magnificence of the Norman period, used in this

instance not experimentally, as was too often the case in England, but

as a well-understood style, whose features were fully perfected. So far

from striving after novelty, the Scotch architects were looking

backwards, and culling the beauties of a long-established style. The

great arch under the tower of Kelso is certainly a well-understood

example of the pointed-arched architecture of the 13th century, while

around it and above it nothing is to be seen but circular-headed

openings, combined generally with the beaded shafts and the foliage of

the Early English period. The whole is used with a Doric simplicity and

boldness which is very remarkable. Sometimes, it must be confessed, this

independence of constraint is carried a little too far, as in the

pier-arches at Jedburgh (Woodcut No. 870), which are thrown across

between the circular pillars without any subordinate shaft or apparent

support. This was a favourite trick of the later Gothic architects of

Germany, though seldom found at this early period. Here the excessive

strength of the arch in great measure excuses it.

[Illustration: 871. Arches in Kelso Abbey.]

Besides the general grandeur of their designs, a great deal of the

detail of these abbeys is of the richest and best class of the age. The

favourite form, as at Leuchars, is that of circular arches intersecting

one another, so as to form pointed sub-arches, and these are generally

ornamented with all the elaborate intricacy of the period, such as is

shown in Woodcut No. 871, taken from Kelso Abbey Church.

While these great abbeys were being erected in the southern extremity of

the kingdom, the cathedral of St. Magnus was founded at the other

extremity, at Kirkwall in the Orkneys. This building was commenced 1137,

and carried on with vigour for some time. The first three arches of the

choir (Woodcut No. 872) are all that can certainly be identified as

belonging to that period. The arch of the tower belongs probably to the

14th century, and the vaulting can hardly be much earlier. The three

arches beyond this are still circular, though with mouldings of a late

period. It is said that these were not completed till the 16th century.

[Illustration: 872. Plan and three Bays of Choir, Kirkwall Cathedral.]

Farther south, arches of this late age could not have been built in such

an ancient style, but we can believe that in that remote corner the old

familiar modes were retained in spite of changing fashion; and the

consequence is that, though the building of this cathedral was carried

on at intervals during 400 years, it is at first sight singularly

uniform in style, and has all the characteristics of an old Norman

building, as may be seen from the woodcut.

[Illustration: 873. North Side of the Cathedral at Kirkwall.]

The cathedral of Glasgow (Woodcut No. 878) is almost the only other of

the great ecclesiastical edifices of Scotland which retains its original

features in a nearly perfect state. It is at the same time one of the

most satisfactory and characteristic buildings to be found in the

country.

[Illustration:

874. 1. Plan of Glasgow Cathedral.

2. Plan of Crypt, Glasgow Cathedral. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

(From J. Collie’s Description of this Church.)

]

The bishopric was founded by David I., but it was not till after several

destructions by fire that the present building was commenced, probably

about the year 1240. The crypt and the whole of the choir belong to the

latter part of the 13th century, the nave to the 14th, the tower and

spire to the 15th. The central aisle never having been intended to be

vaulted, the architect has been enabled to dispense with all pinnacles,

flying buttresses, and such expedients, and thus to give the whole

outline a degree of solidity and repose which is extremely beautiful,

and accords perfectly with the simple lancet openings which prevail

throughout.

The whole length of the building externally, exclusive of the western

towers, one of which has recently been pulled down, is 300 feet, the

breadth 73, and the area about 26,400 square feet, so that it is far

from being a large building; but its situation is so good, and its

design and proportion so appropriate and satisfactory throughout, that

it is more imposing than many others of twice its dimensions. The spire,

which is 219 feet in height from the floor of the church, is in perfect

proportion to the rest of the building, both in dimensions and outline,

and aids very much the general effect of the whole.

[Illustration: 875. View in Crypt of Glasgow Cathedral.]

The glory of this cathedral is its crypt, which is unrivalled in

Britain, and indeed perhaps in Europe. Almost all the crypts now found

in England were built during the Norman period, or very early in the

pointed style. That at Glasgow, however, belongs to the perfected style

of the 13th century, and as the ground falls rapidly towards the west,

the architect was enabled to give it all the height required, and to

light it with perfect ease. Here the crypt actually extends under and

beyond the whole choir; but even with all its adjuncts, it did not equal

in size the crypt of old St. Paul’s. There is a solidity, however, in

the architecture of the crypt at Glasgow, a richness in its vaulting,

and a variety of perspective in the spacing of its pillars, which make

it one of the most perfect pieces of architecture in these islands.

[Illustration: 876. Crypt of Cathedral at Glasgow.]

[Illustration: 877. Clerestory Window, Glasgow Cathedral.]

In the crypt and lower part of the church the windows are generally

single or double lancet, united by an arch. In the clerestory they

sometimes take the form of three lancets, united, as shown in Woodcut

No. 877, by an imperfect kind of tracery, more in accordance with the

simplicity of the building than the more complex form prevalent in

England at the same period. In the south transept, and some of the later

additions, there is a tracery of considerable elaboration and beauty of

design.

[Illustration: 878. East End of Glasgow Cathedral.]

[Illustration: 879. East End, Elgin Cathedral.]

Perhaps the most beautiful building in Scotland is, or was, the

cathedral of Elgin. The province of Moray, in which it was situated, was

so remote that it seems to have been comparatively undisturbed by the

English wars, and the greater part of the building was erected during

the Edwardian period, with all the beautiful details of that age. The

seat of the see was removed from Spynie to Elgin in the year 1223, and

the cathedral commenced contemporaneously with those of Amiens and

Salisbury. All that now remains of this period is the fragment of the

south transept (Woodcut No. 880), where we see the round arch

reappearing over the pointed, at a period when its use was entirely

discontinued in the South. At the same time the details of the doorway

(Woodcut No. 881) show that in other respects the style was at that

period as far advanced as in England. The cathedral was burnt down in

1270, and again partially in 1390. The choir and other parts which still

remain were built subsequently to the first conflagration and escaped

the second. These parts appear at first sight to belong to the lancet

style of the previous century, but used with the details and tracery of

the Edwardian period, and with a degree of beauty hardly surpassed

anywhere. As compared with English cathedrals, that at Elgin must be

considered as a small church, being only 253 ft. in length internally,

and 82 wide across the five aisles of the nave. It is very beautifully

arranged, and on the whole is perhaps more elegant in plan than any of

the Southern examples. As a mechanical design, its worst fault is that

the piers supporting the central tower want strength and accentuation.

As will be seen from the plan, an attempt was made to throw the weight

of the tower on the transept walls, which are built solid for this

purpose; but this was artistically a mistake, while mechanically it

caused the destruction of the tower at the beginning of the last

century. The choir (see Woodcut No. 879) is terminated by what is

virtually a great east window, but with piers between the compartments

instead of mullions. As an architectural object this is a far more

stable and appropriate design than a great mullioned window like that of

York and others in England. But the latter must be judged of as frames

for glass pictures, which Elgin is by no means so well suited to

display. Its details, however, are exquisite, and the whole design very

rich and beautiful.

[Illustration: 880. South Transept, Elgin Cathedral.]

[Illustration: 881. Ornament of Doorway, Elgin Cathedral.]

[Illustration: 882. Plan of Elgin Cathedral. (From an Original Plan.)

Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]

The north and south aisles of the nave and the chapter-house were

rebuilt after the last destruction, and belong to the 15th century.

These parts, though very charming, display generally the faults of the

Scotch Flamboyant style, and show a certain amount of heaviness and

clumsiness mixed with the flowing and unconstructive lines of this class

of tracery, which nothing could redeem but the grace and elegance with

which the French always used it.

Next in beauty to Elgin Cathedral is the well-known abbey at Melrose.

This, though founded contemporaneously with Jedburgh and Kelso, was

entirely rebuilt during the Lancastrian period, and, owing to its

situation near the border, shows much more affinity to the English style

than the building last described. The nave, as may be seen from the view

of its aisle (Woodcut No. 883), is of a bold, solid style of

architecture, with a vault of considerable richness. The window of the

south transept is the most elegant specimen of flowing tracery to be

found in Scotland, and its great east window (Woodcut No. 884), as

before remarked, is almost the only example of the Perpendicular style

in the North, and is equal to anything of the kind on this side of the

Tweed.

[Illustration: 883. Aisle in Melrose Abbey.]

Few of the architectural antiquities of Scotland are so well known, or

have been so much admired, as the chapel at Roslyn (Woodcut No. 885),

which William St. Clair caused to be erected in the year 1446.

For this purpose he did not employ his countrymen, but “brought

artificers from other regions and forraigne kingdomes,”[433] and

employed them to erect a building very unlike anything else to be found

in Great Britain.

[Illustration: 884. East Window, Melrose.]

Our present knowledge of styles enables us to pronounce with little

doubt that his architects came from the Spanish peninsula. In fact,

there is no detail or ornament in the whole building which may not be

traced back to Burgos or Belem; though there is a certain clumsiness

both in the carving and construction that betrays the workmanship of

persons not too familiar with the task that they were employed upon. The

building, which perhaps exhibits the greatest affinity of detail to the

Chapel is the church at Belem on the Tagus, opposite Lisbon (Woodcut No.

969). Nothing, in fact, can well be more similar than the two are. That

at Roslyn is the oldest, having been commenced in 1446. Belem, begun in

1498, was finished apparently in 1511, at which date the Scottish

example hardly appears to have been complete. Roslyn Chapel is small,

only 68 ft. by 35 ft. internally. The central aisle is but 15 ft. wide,

and has the Southern peculiarity of a tunnel-vault with only transverse

ribs, such as is found at Fontifroide (Woodcut No. 553), and in almost

all the old churches of the South of France. The ornaments between

these, which were painted in the earlier examples, are at Roslyn carved

in relief. The vault, as in the South, is a true roof, the covering

slabs being laid directly on the extrados or outside of it, without the

intervention of any woodwork, a circumstance to which the chapel owes

its preservation to the present day. Beyond the upper chapel is a

sub-chapel (Woodcut No. 886), displaying the same mode of vaulting in a

simpler form, but equally foreign and unlike the usual form of vaults in

Scotland.

[Illustration: 885. Chapel at Roslyn.]

[Illustration: 886. Under Chapel, Roslyn.]

[Illustration: 887. Stone Roof of Bothwell Church. (From a Drawing by J.

Honeyman, jun.)]

Another very interesting chapel of the same class is that now used as

the church at Bothwell, near Glasgow. Like Roslyn, it has the

peculiarity unknown in England, though common in the South of France, of

a tunnel-vault with a stone roof resting directly upon it. It is not

large, measuring only 53 feet by 22, internally. The beauty of its

details, however—late in the 14th century—and the simplicity of its

outline, combined with the solidity of its stone roof, impart to the

whole an air of grandeur far greater than its dimensions would justify.

Had it been constructed with a timber roof, as usual in churches of its

date, it would hardly be considered remarkable, but it is redeemed both

internally and externally by its stone roof. As will be seen from

Woodcut No. 888, the arrangement of the stones forming the roof is very

elegant, and gave rise to a form of battlement frequently found

afterwards in Scotland, though generally used only as an ornament.[434]

[Illustration: 888. Exterior of Roof of Bothwell Church.]

[Illustration: 889. Ornamental Arcade from Holyrood.]

[Illustration: 890. Ornamental Arcade from Holyrood.]

The chapel attached to the palace at Holyrood is of a very different

character from that at Roslyn; being infinitely more beautiful, though

not nearly so curious. The building was originally founded by David I.

in 1128, but what now remains belongs to the latter end of the 13th or

beginning of the 14th century, and has all the elegance of the Edwardian

style joined to a massiveness which in England would indicate a far

earlier period. Some of its details (as that shown, Woodcut No. 889) are

of a beautiful transitional character, though not so early as might be

suspected; and others (such as Woodcut No. 890) have the rich but

foreign aspect that generally characterises the architecture of

Scotland.

[Illustration: 891. Interior of Porch, Dunfermline.]

The nave of the cathedral of Aberdeen is still sufficiently entire to be

used as a church, and with its twin western spires of bold castellated

design is an impressive building; but it has a character of

over-heaviness arising from the material used being granite, which did

not admit of any of the lighter graces of Gothic art.

The cathedral of St. Andrew’s must at one time have been one of the most

beautiful in Scotland, but fragments only of its east and west ends now

remain. They suffice to show that it was of considerable dimensions, and

inferior, perhaps, only to Elgin and Melrose in beauty of detail.

[Illustration: 892. Window at Dunkeld (restored).]

Besides these there are in Scotland many ruined monastic establishments,

all evincing more or less beauty of design and detail. One of the most

remarkable of these is Dunfermline, whose nave is of a bold,

round-arched style, very like what Durham Cathedral would have been had

it been intended (as this was) for a wooden roof. The other parts

display that intermixture of styles so usual in monastic buildings; bold

billeted arches, as in Woodcut No. 891, being surmounted by vaults of a

much later date. But Scotch vaulting was in general so massive and rich

that it requires the eye of an archæologist to detect a difference that

is never offensive to the true artist. Among the remaining specimens are

Dunblane, Aberbrothock, Arbroath, and Dunkeld, a window of which

(Woodcut No. 892) is a fine specimen of the Scotch flamboyant, identical

in design with one still existing in Linlithgow parish church, and very

similar to many found elsewhere. The west doorway in the last named

church is a pleasing specimen of the half Continental[435] manner in

which that feature was usually treated in Scotland.

[Illustration: 893. Doorway, Linlithgow.]

It has already been hinted that the Scotch unwillingly abandoned the

circular archway, especially as a decorative feature, and that they

indeed retain it occasionally throughout the whole of the Middle Ages,

though with the details of the period. The doorway illustrated in

Woodcut No. 894, from St. Giles’s, Edinburgh, is a fine specimen of this

mode of treatment, and so is the next illustration, from Pluscardine

Abbey. Similar doorways occur at Melrose and elsewhere. For canopies of

tombs and suchlike purposes, the circular arch is almost as common as

the pointed. Other examples are found at Iona, though there the

buildings are nearly as exceptional and Continental in design as Roslyn

itself—the circular pier-arch is used with the mouldings of the 13th

century, and the pointed arch is placed on a capital of intertwined

dragons, more worthy of a Runic cross or tombstone than a Gothic

edifice. The tower windows are filled with a quatrefoil tracery (Woodcut

No. 896), in a manner very unusual, and a mode of construction is

adopted which does not perhaps exist anywhere else in Britain. The whole

group, in fact, is as exceptional as its situation, and as remote from

the usual modes of architecture on the mainland.

The early Scotch vaults, as already mentioned, were singularly bold and

massive, and all their mouldings were characterised by strength and

vigour, as shown in the examples taken from Glasgow and Dunfermline

(Woodcuts Nos. 876, 891). At a later period, however, when the English

were using perpendicular tracery, and when the invention of fan-vaulting

was beginning to be introduced, the Scotch, with the flamboyant tracery

of the French, adopted also their weak and unconstructive modes of

vaulting. It is not uncommon to find as poor a vault as that of the

lately destroyed Trinity College Church, Edinburgh (Woodcut No. 897),

erected contemporaneously with the elaborate vaulting of the royal

chapels in England; and not only in this but in every other respect it

is to the Continent, and not to their nearest neighbours, that we must

at this late period look for analogies with the architecture of the

Scotch.

[Illustration: 894. Doorway, St. Giles’s, Edinburgh.]

Scotland is, generally speaking, very deficient in objects of civil or

domestic architecture belonging to the Middle Ages. Of her palaces,

Holyrood was almost rebuilt in the reign of Charles I., and Edinburgh

Castle entirely remodelled. Stirling still retains some fragments of

ancient art, and Falkland seems on the verge of the Renaissance.

Linlithgow perhaps alone remains in its original state, a fine specimen

of a fortified palace, with bold flanking towers externally, and a noble

courtyard in the centre.

[Illustration: 895. Doorway, Pluscardine Abbey.]

[Illustration: 896. Window in Tower, Iona.]

There are, besides these, numberless square towers and fortalices

scattered over the country, which were the residences of the turbulent

barons of Scotland during the Middle Ages; but none of these can

properly be called objects of architecture.

[Illustration: 897. Aisle in Trinity College Church, Edinburgh.]

The baronial edifices of the succeeding age give the impression of

belonging to an earlier style, which was retained in this wild country

long after it had been laid aside elsewhere. They are as remarkable as

any class of buildings erected after the Middle Ages, both for

originality and picturesqueness. But they were, with scarcely an

exception, built after the accession of Elizabeth to the throne of

England, and all, when closely examined, display features belonging to

the Renaissance style. Their description would therefore be more

appropriate in a subsequent volume than in a chapter devoted to the

Gothic architecture of Scotland.

CHAPTER V.

IRELAND.

CONTENTS.

Oratories—Round Towers—Domical Dwellings—Domestic Architecture—Runic

Cross Decoration.

THE history of architecture in Ireland forms as distinct a contrast to

that of Scotland as it is possible to conceive. At a very early period

the Irish showed themselves not only capable of inventing a style for

themselves, but perfectly competent to carry it to a successful issue,

had an opportunity ever been afforded them. But this has not yet

happened. Before the English conquest (1169) the country seems to have

been divided into a number of small states, whose chieftains occupied

the scant leisure left them between the incursions of the Danes and

other Northmen, in little wars among themselves. These were never of

such importance as to yield glory to either party, though amply

sufficient to retard the increase of population and to banish that peace

and sense of security which are indispensable for the cultivation of the

softer arts. Yet during that period the Irish built round towers and

oratories of a beauty of form and with an elegance of detail that charm

even at the present day. Their metal work showed a true appreciation of

the nature of the material, and an artistic feeling equal in kind, if

not in degree, to anything in the best ages of Greece or Italy; and

their manuscripts and paintings exhibit an amount of taste which was

evidently capable of anything.

After the conquest, the English introduced their own pointed

architecture, and built two churches in Dublin which, in dimensions and

detail, differ very little from English parish churches. But beyond the

Pale their influence was hardly felt. Whatever was done was stamped with

a character so distinctly Irish as to show how strong the feeling of the

people was; and sufficient to prove, with our knowledge of their

antecedents, how earnestly and how successfully they would have laboured

in the field of art had circumstances been favourable to its

development. For seven centuries, however, the two races have lived

together, hating and hated, and neither capable of comprehending the

motives or appreciating the feelings of the other. It was not that the

Saxon was tyrannical or unjust, but that he was prosaic among a people

whose imagination too often supplied the place of reason, and that he

was strong among those who could not combine for any steady purpose. His

real crime was that, like the leopard, he could not change his spots. He

belonged to a different race, and the Irish have always chosen to

cherish the idea of vengeance and suffer the derangement consequent on

it, rather than enjoy peace and prosperity under those they hated. Art

is a plant too tender to flourish in the garden of hatred, and it has

consequently been long banished from Irish soil, though, under gentler

influences, it is probable that it might be more easily revived and more

successfully cultivated there than in any other part of the British

Isles.

Whatever may be the fate of art in Ireland for the future, the history

of the past is sufficiently discouraging.

The cathedral of Dublin must always have been a second-class edifice for

a metropolitan church, and those of Cashel and Kildare, which are as

celebrated and as important as any in Ireland, are neither so large nor

so richly ornamented as many English parish churches. The cathedral of

Lismore has entirely disappeared; and generally it may be asserted that,

throughout the country, there is not one cathedral church remarkable for

architectural beauty or magnificence, though many are interesting from

their associations, and picturesque from the state of ivy-clad ruin in

which they appear.

The same is true with regard to the monasteries—they are numerous; and

many, though small, are rich in detail. One of the most elaborate is

that of the Holy Cross near Cashel, erected in the 15th century. This,

like every other building of the Gothic period in Ireland, shows a

strong affinity to the styles of the Continent, and a clearly marked

difference from those of this country.

Some of the monasteries still retain their cloisters, which, in all

instances, have so foreign an aspect as to be quite startling. That at

Muckross (Killarney) retains the round arch on two sides with the

details of the 15th century. That at Kilconnel (Woodcut No. 662)[436]

looks more like a cloister in Sicily or Spain than anything in the

British Islands. None of them seem large. The last named is only 48 ft.

square, though, if more extensive, it would be out of place compared

with the rest of the establishment.

There is scarcely a single parish church of any importance which was

built in Ireland beyond the limits of the Pale during the Middle Ages,

nor, indeed, could it be expected that there should be. The parochial

system is singularly unsuited to the Celtic mind at all times, and,

during the Gothic period, the state of Ireland was especially

unfavourable to its development, even if any desire for it had existed.

What the Celt desiderates is a hierarchy who will take the trouble of

his spiritual cares off his hands, and a retreat to which he can retire

for repose when the excitement of imagination no longer suffices to

supply his daily intellectual wants. These may lead to a considerable

development of cathedral and monastic establishments, but not to that

self-governing parish system which is so congenial to the Saxon mind.

View it as we will, the study of the Mediæval architecture of Ireland is

a melancholy one, and only too truly confirms what we know from other

sources. It does not even help us to answer the question whether or not

Ireland could successfully have governed herself if left alone. All it

does tell us is that, from the accidental juxtaposition of two

antagonistic races, one of them has certainly failed hitherto in

fulfilling the artistic mission which, under favourable circumstances,

it seems eminently qualified to perform.

[Illustration: 898. Cloister, Kilconnel Abbey.]

From these causes, the Mediæval antiquities of Ireland would not deserve

much notice in a work not specially devoted to that one subject, were it

not that, besides these, Ireland possesses what may properly be called a

Celtic style of architecture, which is as interesting in itself as any

of the minor local styles of any part of the world, and, so far as at

present known, is quite peculiar to the island. None of the buildings of

this style are large, though the ornaments on many of them are of great

beauty and elegance. Their chief interest lies in their singularly local

character, and in their age, which probably extends from the 5th or 6th

century[437] to the time of the English conquest in 1169. They consist

principally of churches and round towers, together with crosses and a

number of other antiquities hardly coming within the scope of this work.

No Irish church of that period now remaining is perhaps even 60 ft. in

length, and generally they are very much smaller, the most common

dimensions being from 20 to 40 ft. long. Increase of magnificence was

sought to be attained more by extending the number of churches than by

augmenting their size. The favourite number for a complete

ecclesiastical establishment was 7, as in Greece and Asia Minor, this

number being identical with that of the 7 Apocalyptic Churches of Asia.

Thus, there are 7 at Glendalough and 7 at Cashel; the same sacred number

is found in several other places,[438] and generally two or three at

least are found grouped together.

As in Greece, too, the smallness of the churches is remarkable. They

were not places for the assembly of large congregations of worshippers,

but were oratories, where the priests could celebrate the divine

mysteries for the benefit of the laity. In fact, no church is known to

have existed in Ireland before the Norman Conquest that can be called a

basilica, none of them being divided into aisles either by stone or

wooden pillars, or possessing an apse, and no circular church has yet

been found—nothing, in short, that would lead us to believe that Ireland

obtained her architecture direct from Rome; while everything, on the

contrary, tends to confirm the belief of an intimate connection with the

farther East, and that her earlier Christianity and religious forms were

derived from the East, by some of the more southerly commercial routes

which at that period seem to have touched on Ireland.

A good deal of uncertainty and even of ridicule has been thrown on the

subject of the Eastern origin of the Irish Church by the extreme

enthusiasm of its advocates, but there seems to be no reasonable ground

for doubting the fact.[439] At all events, it may safely be asserted

that the Christian religion did not reach Ireland across Great Britain,

or by any of the ordinary channels through the Continent. As a corollary

to this, we must not look for the origin of her architectural styles

either in England or in France, but in some more remote locality whose

antiquities have not yet been so investigated as to enable us to point

it out as the source whence they were derived.

The Irish Celtic churches are generally rectangular apartments, a little

longer than they are broad, like the small one on the island of

Innisfallen on the lake of Killarney (Woodcut No. 663). To the larger

churches a smaller apartment of the same proportions is added to the

eastward, forming a chancel, with an ornamental arch between the two.

The most remarkable of these now existing is that known as Cormac’s

Chapel, on the rock at Cashel (Woodcut No. 900), which was consecrated

in the year 1134. It is a small building, 55 ft. long over all

externally. The chancel is 12 ft. square internally, covered with an

intersecting vault; the nave is 18 ft. by 29, and covered by a

tunnel-vault with transverse ribs, very like those found in the South of

France. Externally, as shown in the view, it has two square towers

attached to it at the juncture of the nave and chancel, while the church

itself is richly ornamented by a panelling of small arches.

[Illustration: 899. Oratory, Innisfallen, Killarney.]

In almost all cases the principal entrance to these churches is from the

west, opposite to the altar. The chapel at Cashel is, however, an

exception, since it has both a north and a south entrance. That on the

north is the principal, and very richly ornamented. The same is the case

at Ardmore, where the whole of the west end is taken up by a bas-relief

rudely representing scenes from the Bible, and the entrance is on the

north side of the nave. On these principal entrances all the resources

of art were brought to bear, the windows generally being very small, and

apparently never glazed. There is a doorway at Freshford in Kilkenny,

and another at Aghadoe near Killarney, which for elegance of detail will

bear comparison with anything in England or on the Continent of the same

age.

[Illustration: 900. Cormac’s Chapel, Cashel.]

[Illustration: 901. Section of Chapel, Killaloe.]

One of the peculiarities of these churches is, that they were nearly all

designed to have stone roofs, no wood being used in their construction.

The annexed section (Woodcut No. 901) of the old church at Killaloe,

belonging probably to the 10th century, will explain how this was

generally managed. The nave was roofed with a tunnel-vault of the

ordinary form; over this is a chamber formed by a pointed arch, and on

the outside of these two, the roofing slabs were laid. Sometimes,

instead of being continuous, the upper vault was cut into ribs, and the

roof built up straight externally, with horizontal courses resting on

these ribs. This mode of double roofing was, perhaps, a complication,

and no improvement on that adopted in the South of France in the same

age (Woodcuts Nos. 312, 319), but it enabled the Irish to make the roof

steeper than could be effected with a single vault, and in so rainy a

climate this may have been of the first importance.

The roof of the Cashel Chapel is of this double construction; so is the

building called “St. Kevin’s Kitchen” at Glendalough (Woodcut No. 902),

which apparently belongs to the 10th century. There is another very

similar at Kells, and several others in various parts of Ireland, all

displaying the same peculiarity.

[Illustration: 902. St. Kevin’s Kitchen, Glendalough.]

Had the Irish been allowed to persevere in the elaboration of their own

style, they would probably have applied this expedient to the roofing of

larger buildings than they ever attempted, and might, in so doing, have

avoided the greatest fault of Gothic architecture. Without more

experience, it is impossible to pronounce to what extent the method

might have been carried with safety, or to say whether the Irish double

vault is a better constructive form than the single Romance pointed

arch. It was certainly an improvement on the wooden roof of the true

Gothic style, and its early abandonment is consequently much to be

regretted.

ROUND TOWERS AND ORATORIES.

The round towers which accompany these ancient churches have long proved

a stumbling-block to antiquaries, not only in Ireland but in this

country; and more has been written about them, and more theories

proposed to account for their peculiarities, than about any other

objects of their class in Europe.

The controversy has been, to a considerable extent, set at rest by the

late Mr. George Petrie.[440] He has proved beyond all cavil that the

greater number of the towers now existing were built by Christians, and

for Christian purposes, between the 5th and 13th centuries; and has

shown that there is no reasonable ground for supposing the remainder to

be either of a different age or erected for different uses.

Another step has recently been made by Mr. Hodder Westropp, who has

pointed out their similarity with the Fanal de Cimetière so frequently

found in France,[441] and even in Austria (Woodcut No. 765).

To any one who is familiar with the Eastern practice of lighting lamps

at night in cemeteries or in the tombs of saints, this suggestion seems

singularly plausible when coupled with the knowledge that the custom did

prevail on the Continent in the Middle Ages. It is, however, far from

being a complete explanation, since many of these towers have only one

or two very small openings in their upper storey; and there is also the

staggering fact that this use is not mentioned in any legendary or

written account of them which has come down to our time. On the other

hand, they are frequently described as bell-towers, and also as

treasuries and places of refuge, and seem even better adapted to these

purposes than to that of displaying lights.

That they may have been applied to all these purposes seems clear, but a

knowledge of their use does not explain their origin; it only removes

the difficulty a step farther back. No attempt has been made to show

whence the Irish obtained this very remarkable form of tower, or why

they persevered so long in its use, with peculiarities not found either

in the contemporary churches or in any other of their buildings. No one

imagines it to have been invented by the rude builders of the early

churches, and no theory yet proposed accounts for the perseverance of

the Irish in its employment, at a time when the practice of all the

other nations of Europe was so widely different. It must have been a

sacred and time-honoured form somewhere, and with some people, previous

to its current adoption in Ireland; but the place and the time at which

it was so, still remain to be determined.[442]

Although, therefore, Mr. Petrie’s writings and recent investigations

have considerably narrowed the grounds of the inquiry, they cannot be

said to have set the question at rest, and anyone who has seen the

towers must feel that there is still room for any amount of speculation

regarding such peculiar monuments.

In nine cases out of ten they are placed unsymmetrically at some little

distance from the churches to which they belong, and are generally of a

different age and different style of masonry. Their openings, from the

oldest to the most modern, generally have sloping jambs, which are very

rare in the churches, being only found in the earliest examples. Their

doorways are always at a height of 7, 10, or 13 ft. from the ground,

while the church doors are, it need hardly be said, always on the ground

level. But more than all this, there is sometimes an unfamiliar aspect

in the detail of the towers which is not always observed in the

churches. The latter may be rude, or may be highly finished, but they

rarely have the strange and foreign appearance which the towers always

present.

Notwithstanding this, the proof of their Christian origin is in most

cases easy. Woodcut No. 902, for instance, shows a round tower placed

_upon_ what is, undoubtedly, a Christian chapel, and which must

consequently be either coeval with the tower or more ancient. At

Clonmacnoise (Woodcut No. 904) the masonry of the tower is bonded with

the walls of the church, and evidently coeval therewith, the chancel

arch being undoubtedly Christian round Gothic of the 10th or 11th

century. At Kildare the doorway of the tower (Woodcut No. 905) is

likewise of unquestionable Christian art, and an integral part of the

design, though it may be somewhat earlier than the foregoing; and at

Timahoe the doorway of the tower is richer and more elaborate, but at

the same time of a style so closely resembling that of Cormac’s Chapel

as to leave no doubt of their being nearly of the same age. The only

remarkable difference is that the jambs of the doorway of the tower

slope considerably inwards, while all those of the chapel are perfectly

perpendicular. Another proof of their age is, that many of the doorways

have Christian emblems carved _in relief_ on their lintels, as in the

example from the tower at Donoughmore (Woodcut No. 906), or that from

Antrim (Woodcut No. 907), or on the round tower at Brechin in Scotland,—

emblems which, from their position, and the fact of their being in

relief, cannot have been added, and must therefore be considered as

original. When we find that the towers which have not these indications

differ in no other respect from those that have, it is impossible to

resist the conclusion that they too are of Christian origin; the

positive evidence of a few being sufficient to overbalance the mere

absence of a proof in a far greater number.

[Illustration: 904. Round Tower and Chancel Arch of Fineens Church,

Clonmacnoise.]

[Illustration: SECTION

PLAN

905. Doorway in Tower, Kildare.]

Antiquaries have enumerated 118 of these monuments as still to be found

in Ireland; of these some twenty are perfect, or nearly so, varying in

height from about 60 ft. to 130 ft., which is the height of the

imperfect one at Old Kilcullen. They all taper upwards towards the

summit, and are generally crowned with a conical cap like that at

Clonmacnoise (Woodcut No. 904), though not often constructed in the

herring-bone masonry there shown.

[Illustration: 906. Doorway in Tower, Donoughmore, Meath.]

[Illustration: 907. Doorway in Tower, Antrim.]

[Illustration: 908. Tower, Devenish.]

[Illustration: 909. Tower, Kilree, Kilkenny.]

The tower of Devenish (Woodcut No. 908) may be taken as a typical

example of the class. It is 82 ft. high, with a conical cap, and its

doorway and windows are all of the form and in the position most usually

found in monuments of this class. The conical cap is sometimes omitted,

and its place supplied by a battlemented crown, though this is probably

of later date; this is the case at Kildare, and also at Kilree (Woodcut

No. 909). In one instance, and, I believe, one only, the base of the

tower is octagonal. This is found at Kinneh, county Cork (Woodcut No.

910).[443]

One of the most beautiful and most perfect is that of Ardmore (Woodcut

No. 911). It is of excellent ashlar masonry throughout, and is divided

externally into 4 storeys by string-courses, which do not, however, mark

the position of the floors inside. Its mouldings and details lead to the

presumption that it is nearly coeval with Cormac’s Chapel, Cashel, and

that consequently it must belong to the 12th century. It stands within

the precincts of the rude old church mentioned above, and when explored

not long ago the skeletons of two persons were found below its

foundations, placed in such a manner as to lead to the inevitable

conclusion that it was a place of Christian burial before the

foundations of the tower were laid. [Illustration: 910. Tower, Kinneh,

Cork.]

[Illustration: 911. Tower, Ardmore.] The floors which divide the tower

into storeys are generally of wood, but sometimes of masonry,

constructed as that at Kinneh (Woodcut No. 912). There are no stairs,

but ladders are used to pass from one storey to the next.

Several instances of doorways have been quoted above. Of these no two

are exactly alike, though all show the same general characteristics.

That at Monasterboice, for instance (Woodcut No. 913), has an arch cut

out of a horizontal lintel extending the whole way across, while that at

Kilcullen (Woodcut No. 914) has the arch cut out of two stones, which is

by far the most usual arrangement.

[Illustration: 912. Floor in Tower, Kinneh.]

The windows are generally headed with two stones meeting at the apex, as

in the three examples given below (Woodcut No. 915); but sometimes the

window-head is either a flat lintel or a single stone cut into the form

of an arch, as at Glendalough (Woodcut No. 916).

[Illustration: 913. Doorway, Monasterboice.]

[Illustration: 914. Doorway, Kilcullen, Kildare.]

[Illustration: 915. Windows in Round Towers.]

[Illustration: 916. Window, Glendalough.]

Though these remarkable towers are of extremely various forms, differing

according to their age and locality, almost all exhibit that peculiar

Cyclopean character of masonry which has led to such strange, though

often plausible, speculations; for though neither their details, nor

their masonry would excite remark if found at Norba in Latium or at

Æniade in Acarnaniæ, yet here they stand alone and exceptional to

everything around them.

Whatever may have been their origin, there can be no doubt as to the

uses to which they were applied by the Christians—they were symbols of

power and marks of dignity. They were also bell-towers, and lamps were

possibly lighted in them in honour of the dead. But perhaps their most

important use was that of keeps or fortalices; to which, in troubled

times, the church plate and other articles of value could be removed and

kept in safety till danger was past.

As architectural objects these towers are singularly pleasing. Their

outline is always graceful, and the simplicity of their form is such as

to give the utmost value to their dimensions. Few can believe that they

are hardly larger than the pillars of many porticoes, and that it is to

their design alone that they owe that appearance of size they all

present. No one can see them without admiring them for these qualities,

though the peculiar fascination they possess is no doubt in great

measure owing to the mystery which still hangs round their origin, and

to the association of locality. In almost every instance the tower

stands alone and erect beside the ruins of an ancient but deserted

church, and among the mouldering tombstones of a neglected or desecrated

graveyard. In a town or amid the busy haunts of men, they would lose

half their charm; situated as they are, they are among the most

interesting of the antiquities of Europe.

There is still another class of antiquities in Ireland, older perhaps

than even these round towers, and certainly older than the churches to

which the towers are attached. These are the circular domical dwellings

found in the west of the island, constructed of loose stones in

horizontal layers approaching one another till they meet at the apex,

like the old so-called treasuries of the Greeks, or the domes of the

Jains in India. Numbers of these are still to be found in remote parts,

sometimes accompanied by what are properly called oratories, like that

shown in Woodcut No. 917, taken from Mr. Petrie’s valuable work. It is

certainly one of the oldest places of worship in these islands,

belonging probably to the age of St. Patrick; and it is also one of the

smallest, being externally only 23 ft. by 10. It shows the strange

Cyclopean masonry, the sloping doorway, the stone roof, and many of the

elements of the subsequent style, and it is at the same time so like

some things in Lycia and in India, and so unlike almost any other

building in Europe, that it is not to be wondered at that antiquaries

should indulge in somewhat speculative fancies in endeavouring to

account for such remarkable phenomena.

[Illustration: 917. Oratory of Gallerus. (From Petrie’s ‘Ancient

Architecture of Ireland.’)]

Ireland is not rich in specimens of domestic architecture of the Middle

Ages, but such fragments as do exist show marked variations from the

contemporary style in England. Such battlements, for instance, as those

which crown the tower of Jerpoint Abbey are identical with many found in

the North of Italy, but very unlike anything either in England or

Scotland, and give a foreign look to the whole building which is very

striking.

[Illustration: 918. Tower, Jerpoint Abbey.]

The same may be said of the next example (Woodcut No. 919) from a house

in Galway. Its architecture might be Spanish, but its ornamental details

look like a reminiscence of the entwined decoration of a Runic cross,

and reminds one more of the interlaced work of the Byzantine style than

of any other.[444]

[Illustration: 919. House, Galway.]

[Illustration: 920. Ballyromney Court, Cork.]

Ballyromney Court, illustrated in Woodcut No. 920, is perhaps the most

usual form of an Irish mansion in the last age of Gothic. After its time

the Elizabethan became the prevalent style. All individuality vanished

with the more complete subjection of the country in the reign of that

queen. This is, no doubt, to be regretted; but, as before remarked,

Ireland is interesting, not for her Gothic so much as for her Celtic

antiquities, the epoch of which closed as nearly as may be with the

English conquest in 1169.

[Illustration: 921. Cross at Kells.]

BOOK VIII.

SPAIN AND PORTUGAL.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

SPAIN.

INTRODUCTION.

CHRONOLOGY.

DATES.

Gothic Conquest—Athulf A.D. 411

Moorish conquest 711

Kingdoms of Navarre and Arragon established, about 760

Sancho I., King of Castille 1005

Alphonso VI. unites all Northern Spain into one kingdom 1072

Henry de Besançon—foundation of kingdom of Portugal 1095

Alphonso III.—conquest of Toledo 1085

Conquest of Cordova 1226

Conquest of Valencia 1238

Conquest of Seville and Murcia 1243

Ferdinand el Santo died 1252

Alonso el Sabio 1252-1284

Pedro the Cruel 1350-1369

Ferdinand and Isabella 1474-1516

Conquest of Granada 1492

SPAIN is one of those countries regarding the architecture of which it

is almost as difficult to write anything consecutive as regarding that

of Scotland. This does not arise from the paucity of examples nor from

their not having been examined and described, but from the same cause as

was insisted upon in speaking of Scotch art, that the style was not

indigenous, but borrowed from other nations, and consequently practised

far more capriciously than if it had been elaborated by the Spaniards

themselves.

In the very early ages of their architectural history we do find the

inhabitants of the Peninsula making rude attempts to provide themselves

with churches. These, however, were so unsuited for their purposes that

so soon as returning prosperity put the Spaniards in a position to erect

larger edifices, they at once fell into the arms of the French

architects, who had advanced far beyond them in the adaptation of

classical materials to Christian purposes. When tired of the French

styles, they enlisted the Germans to assist them in supplying their

wants, and Italy also contributed her influence, though less directly

than the other two. In the mean time the Moors were more steadily

elaborating their very ornate but rather flimsy style of art in the

southern part of the Peninsula, and occasionally contributed workmen and

ideas whose influence may be traced almost to the foot of the Pyrenees.

When all this passed away with the Middle Ages, they borrowed the

Renaissance style of the Italians, but used its Doric and Corinthian

details more literally and with less adaptation, than any other nation.

With these classical materials they erected churches which were larger

and more gorgeous than those of the previous styles, and admired them

with the same unreasoning devotion they had bestowed on their

predecessors.

So far as we at present know, this peculiarity is unique in the history

of architecture. Some nations are content to worship in barns, or to

dispense with temples altogether. It is not, therefore, surprising that

they should have no architecture, or should throw it aside as the Scotch

did the moment they could shake off its trammels. But the Spaniards

loved art. They delighted in the display of architectural magnificence,

and indulged in pomp and ceremonial observances beyond any other people

on the Continent.

The singularity is, that though endowed with the love of architecture,

and an intense desire to possess its products, nature seems to have

denied to the Spaniard the inventive faculty necessary to enable him to

supply himself with the productions so indispensable to his intellectual

nature. We can perfectly understand how, among so Teutonic a people as

the Scotch, architecture should be found planted in an uncongenial soil

and perish with the first blast of winter; but what seems unique is

that, planted where both the soil and climate seem so thoroughly

congenial as they do in Spain, it should still remain exotic and refuse

to be acclimatised.

If we knew who the Spaniards were we might be able to explain these

phenomena, but we know so little of the ethnography of Spain that at

present this source of information is not available. The term “Iberian”

hardly conveys a distinct idea to the mind. The first impulse is to say

they must have been Turanian; but, if so, where are their tombs? Few

tumuli or rude-stone monuments exist in Spain, and fewer traces of

sepulchral rites or ancestral worship, and these have been so

imperfectly described that it is difficult to reason regarding them, but

unless they do exist we are safe in asserting that no Turanian people

lived in historic times in Spain. From history we know that the

Phœnicians occupied the coast-line at least all round the southern part

of the Peninsula, and their settlements probably penetrated some way

into the interior. The facility with which the Moors conquered and

colonised the country, is in itself sufficient to prove that a people of

cognate race had occupied the land long before they came there; but this

hardly helps us, for neither the Phœnicians nor any of the Semitic races

were ever builders, and we look in vain in Spain or at Carthage, or at

Tyre or Sidon, for anything to tell us what their architecture may have

been. The Goths who invaded Spain in the beginning of the 5th century

must have been of Teutonic race, Aryans _pur sang_, for they have not

left a building or a tradition of one, and they therefore can hardly

have influenced the style of their successors in the Peninsula. Even the

Moors were scarcely an architectural people in the proper sense of the

term. Their mosques were, so far as we know them, made up of fragments

of classical temples arranged without art or design. Their palaces were

ornamented with plaster work of the most admired complexity of design,

coloured with the most exquisite harmony; but all this was the work of

the ornamentalist, hardly of the architect. It was perfectly suited to

the wants of an elegant and refined Oriental race, but most ill adapted

to the wants of a hardy race of mountaineers struggling for freedom

against the invaders of their birthright. The Celtic element must have

been the one wanting in this “olla podrida” of nations to fuse the whole

together, and to give the arts that impulse which in Spain was always

wanting. All the other elements they seem to have possessed, but the

absence of this single one prevented them from attaining that unity

which would enable us to follow their story with the same interest which

we feel in tracing the development of the arts in France or England.

Notwithstanding this, however, it must be confessed that the result in

Spain is frequently grand, and even gorgeous, though never quite

satisfactory.

The periods of Gothic architecture in Spain coincide in age very nearly

with those in this country; far more nearly than with France or Italy,

or any other nation. Before the era of the Cid (1066-1099), which was

coincident with that of William the Conqueror, there existed a style

similar in importance and character to our Saxon style. This the

Spaniards call “obras de los Godos,” and the term may be practically

correct, but it would confuse our nomenclature to call it the “Gothic”

of Spain. “Asturian” or “Catalonian” might nearly describe it, but for

the present some such indefinite description as “Early Spanish” must

suffice.

In the latter half of the 11th century it was overwhelmed, as in this

country, by a wholesale importation of French designs. These continued

to be employed, as if no Pyrenees existed for about a century, with the

round arch in all the decorative features, but with an occasional

tendency to employ the pointed arch in construction.

By degrees this round-arched style grew into an early pointed Spanish,

which, like our own lancet, is more national and more characteristic

than any other phase of the art, and, like it, seems to have been more

cherished and for a longer time. In the beginning of the 13th century a

new set of French patterns were introduced; but while French cathedrals

with geometric tracery were being erected at Toledo, Burgos, and Leon,

in the provinces they continued to adhere to the simpler and more solid

forms of the earlier style.

During the 14th century the French style reigned supreme, with only a

slight touch of local feeling and a slight infusion of Moorish details

in parts, till in the 15th it broke away from its prototype into a style

half German, half Spanish, with all the masonic cleverness so fatal to

the style in Southern Germany, and more than German exuberance of

detail, and complexity of vaulting expedients. With these the style

continued to be used for churches as late as in England, and long after

the classical styles had become universal in Italy and fashionable in

France.

The Gothic style was not entirely disused in Spain till after the middle

of the 16th century, but there its history ends, no attempt at a Gothic

revival having yet been perpetrated among that inartistic race. It may

come, however; but they would adopt Mexican or Chinese with equal

readiness, if either of these styles would provide them with places of

worship as gorgeous and as suited to their purposes as those they now

possess.[445]

CHAPTER II.

CONTENTS.

Romanesque: Churches at Naranco, Roda, and Leon—Early Spanish Gothic:

Churches at Santiago, Zamora, Toro, Avila, Salamanca, and Tarragona—

Middle Pointed style: Churches at Toledo, Burgos, Leon, Barcelona,

Manresa, Gerona, Seville—Late Gothic style: Churches at Segovia,

Villena—Moresco style: Churches at Toledo, Ilescas, and Saragoza.

EARLY SPANISH ROMANESQUE.

AS might be expected from what we know of the history of Spain, the only

specimens of this style which are known to exist in the country are to

be found in the Asturias or in the recesses of that mountain range which

extends from Corunna to Barcelona. It was in these regions alone that

the Spanish Christians found refuge during the supremacy of the Moslems

in the Peninsula, and were free to exercise their religious forms

without molestation.

Four or five examples of the style have been described in sufficient

detail to enable us to see what its leading features were. The earliest

appears to be that of Santa Maria de Naranco, near Oviedo, said to be

erected A.D. 848.[446] Another is San Miguel de Lino, which appears to

be nearly as old. A third, San Salvador de Val de Dios,[447] is less

important than the other two, though peculiar, more like an Irish or

French oratory than the others. A fourth is Santa Cristina de Lino.[448]

San Pablo, Barcelona,[449] may be of about the same age as these; and no

doubt there are many others which have escaped notice from their

insignificant dimensions.

Among these the most interesting is that first named, which stands at

Naranco. As will be seen from the plan (Woodcut No. 923), it is unlike

any contemporary example we are acquainted with. Practically it is a

Roman tetrastyle amphiprostyle temple, if such terms can be applied to a

Christian edifice; and, so far as we can understand, the altar was

placed originally in one of the porticoes, and the worship was

consequently probably external. The great difference seems to have been

that there was a lateral entrance, and some of the communicants at least

must have been accommodated in the interior. The ornamentation of the

interior differs from classical models more than the plan. The columns

are spirally fluted—a classical form—but the capitals are angular, and

made to support arches. On the walls also there are curious medallions

from which the vaulting-ribs spring, which seem peculiar to the style,

since they are found repeated in S. Cristina.

[Illustration: 922. View of Church at Naranco. (From Parcerisa.)]

[Illustration: 923. Plan of Church at Naranco. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]

The chief interest of this building, however, lies in the fact that it

exhibits the Spaniards in the middle of the 9th century trying to adapt

a Pagan temple to Christian purposes, as if the Romans had left no

basilicas in the land, and as if the Goths had been unable to elaborate

any kind of “ecclesia” in which they might assemble for worship. San

Miguel and Santa Cristina are adapted for internal worship, but their

form is very unlike those of any other church we are acquainted with.

The church of San Pablo differs essentially from them, inasmuch as it is

a complete Christian church in all its essentials. Though very small (80

ft. by 67), it is triapsal, with a central dome and all the arrangements

of a church, but more like examples found in the East than anything

usually known in the West. Its details still retain traces of classic

feeling (Woodcut No. 925), though something not unlike the Jewish

candlestick of the Temple is mixed up with ornaments of Christian

origin.

[Illustration: 924. Plan of S. Pablo. (From ‘Mon. Arch.’)]

[Illustration: 925. Detail of S. Pablo. (From ‘Mon. Arch.’)]

[Illustration: 926. Church at Roda. (From Parcerisa.)]

It is difficult to distinguish between the buildings existing in

Catalonia and on the southern side of the Pyrenees, and those which

prevailed in the southern Aquitanian province. The church at Roda, for

instance (Woodcut No. 926), might as well have been found at Alet

(Woodcuts Nos. 549, 550) or Elne (Woodcuts Nos. 560, 561). It presents a

complete Gothic style, rich and elegant in its details, but the parts

badly fused together, and not well proportioned either to each other or

to the work they have to do. Still the combinations are so picturesque,

and the details so elegant, that it is not without regret that we find

the style of Alet and Roda passing away into something more mechanically

perfect, but without their quasi-classical refinement.

[Illustration: 927. Panteon of St. Isidoro, Leon. (From Parcerisa.)]

Towards the other extremity of the architectural province we find in the

Panteon of the church of San Isidoro at Leon (A.D. 1063) a contemporary

example, exhibiting a marked difference of style. At the time when this

and the church at Roda were erected, Catalonia belonged architecturally

to Aquitaine, and Leon to Anjou, or some more completely Gothicised

province of France. In consequence, we find the style at Leon much more

complete in principle, but very much ruder in detail. The eastern

province was in the hands of a Latin people; the inhabitants of the

western must have been far more essentially Gothic in blood, and their

style is strongly marked with the impress of their race.

EARLY SPANISH GOTHIC.

After three centuries of more or less complete supremacy over the whole

of Spain with the exception of the northern mountain fastnesses, the

tide of fortune at length turned against the Moors. During the course of

the 11th century the Castilles and all to the north of them were freed

for ever from their power. Their favourite capital, Toledo, fell into

the hands of the Christians in 1085, and from that time the Christians

had nothing to fear from the Moors, but on the contrary had the prospect

of recovering the whole of their country from their grasp. It was

consequently a period of great and legitimate exultation, greater than

that which followed the fall of the last stronghold of the infidels

before the conquering arms of Ferdinand and Isabella (A.D. 1492)—an

event that ended the drama of the Middle Ages in Spain, which the

conquest of Toledo had commenced. It is between these two events that

the history of Gothic art in Spain is practically included.

[Illustration: 928. Plan of Santiago di Compostella. (Reduced from

Street.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]

For present purposes it may suffice to divide this history into three

great chapters.

1. Early Spanish Gothic, commencing about 1060, and lasting for two

centuries. A plain and simple, but bold and effective style, first

borrowed from the French, but latterly assuming a local character.

Round-arched when first introduced, but adopting the pointed form in its

later development, though still retaining the rounded form in many of

its details till a very late period of the style.

[Illustration: 929. Santiago Cathedral. Interior of South Transept,

looking North-East. (From Street.)]

2. Middle or perfect Pointed Gothic, introduced from France about the

year 1220, when Amiens and Salisbury were founded; and used in the plans

of Toledo, Burgos, and Leon. It consequently overlaps the other to some

extent, though its actual development as we now see it (except in plans)

must probably date from the latter part of the 13th century. It may be

said to have lasted for more than 200 years, though it is extremely

difficult to draw a line between it and the

3rd period, or Late Gothic style, the duration of which was probably

hardly more than one century. The cathedral at Salamanca was founded

1513, and that at Segovia 1525; and these are the two typical examples

of the style, which in minor examples continued to be practised till

nearly the end of the 16th century, but latterly with a considerable

admixture of Renaissance detail.

[Illustration: 930. Interior of S. Isidoro, Leon. (From Street.)]

One of the earliest examples of a complete cathedral in Spain is that of

Compostella, commenced in 1078, and carried on vigorously from the

foundation. As will be seen by the plan, it is a complete French

cathedral in every respect, very nearly identical with that of St.

Sernin at Toulouse (Woodcut No. 572), possessing only three aisles

instead of five in the nave, though otherwise very similar to it in

arrangement and general dimensions.

Its internal structure is also that of the French cathedral, and forms

an instructive point of comparison with our English examples of the same

age. Up to the string-course above the triforium the Spanish, French,

and English examples are much alike, except that the section of the

piers in England is nearly double that of the others. Above this, at

Toulouse and Compostella, there is a bold tunnel-vault with transverse

ribs; at Ely, Norwich and Peterborough a clerestory with a flat wooden

roof. These differences in the treatment of the upper part no doubt

arose to some extent from the difference of latitude, sufficient light

being attainable in the South without a clerestory, though the gloom of

such a design could never be tolerated in Normandy, and much less in

England.

[Illustration: 931. Cathedral at Zamora. (From Villa Amil.)]

What is most striking, however, at Compostella is the completeness of

the style. The piers are not only judiciously proportioned to the work

they have to perform, but are as perfect in their details as any of the

contemporary churches in Auvergne; and though in what may be called a

Doric style, this church is as complete in itself as any of the florid

Corinthian Gothics that succeeded it.

The same may be said of the church of San Isidoro at Leon, which, though

probably somewhat later—the church seems to have been completed about

1149—presents the same simple style in the same degree of

well-understood completeness, all the lines running through without

confusion, and every part well proportioned to the other. The foliation

of the transept arch may be a peculiarity borrowed from the Moors, but,

as used here, it is simple and appropriate, and perhaps better than a

roll moulding, which would have been the mode of treatment on this side

of the Pyrenees.

[Illustration: 932. Collegiate Church at Toro. (From Villa Amil.)]

The interior of Zamora Cathedral, which seems to have been erected about

the year 1174, though wholly in the pointed-arch style, is as plain and

as little ornamented as that last described. Even the interior of the

dome is plain when compared with its exterior, which is varied in

outline and rich in decoration, like most of those of that age in Spain.

As in the façade, the round arch is employed in the cimborio almost to

the exclusion of the pointed arch as a decorative feature, though in the

lower part of the façade and under the dome all the arches are pointed.

It is possible that these interiors, which now look so plain, were, or

were intended to be, plastered and painted; though, had the intention

been carried out, it is hardly probable but that traces of this mode of

decoration would have remained to this day, which does not seem to be

the case. Still it is difficult to understand why they should have

designed a façade so rich as that of Zamora Cathedral (Woodcut No. 931),

if it were to lead to an interior infinitely plainer than the exterior

would lead one to expect. In all the countries of Europe during the

Romanesque period the external doorways were the features on which the

architects lavished all their art, and Spain was certainly not behind

the others in this respect. That at Zamora is excelled in richness by

that at Toro (Woodcut No. 932), though the rest of the façade is not so

well worked up to its key-note as in the last example. Among a hundred,

one of those at Lérida (Woodcut No. 933), borrowed from Mr. Street’s

work, will illustrate their beauty, and seems to force on us the

conviction that so much labour would not have been bestowed on them if

they were not intended to herald a greater richness within.

[Illustration: 933. Lérida Old Cathedral. Door of South Porch. (From

Street.)]

In this last example, the doorway has been covered by a porch of 14th or

15th century work; but occasionally the Spaniards seem to have attempted

a porch on the scale of Peterborough, as in the church of San Vincente

at Avila (Woodcut No. 934). In this instance we have only one arch

between two flanking towers; but, though limited in extent, it forms a

very noble feature, and gives a dignity to the entrance, too often

wanting in Gothic design. Its date is uncertain—probably the end of the

12th century—but, strange as it may appear, the richly carved doorway

within, though round-arched, seems to be an insertion either of the same

age, or subsequent to the pointed-arch architecture which surrounds it.

[Illustration: 934. San Vincente, Avila. Interior of Western Porch.

(From Street.)]

[Illustration: 935. Exterior of Lantern, Salamanca Old Cathedral. (From

Street.)]

Beautiful as are these details, the great feature of the Early Spanish

style is the cimborio, or dome, which generally occurs at the

intersection of the nave with the transepts. Something very similar is

to be found in France, especially in Auvergne and Anjou; but the

Spaniards seized upon it with avidity, and worked it out more completely

than any other nation; and with their wide naves it afterwards assumed

an importance almost equal to the octagon at Ely. One of the most

perfect examples in the early style is that which crowns the old

cathedral at Salamanca (Woodcut No. 935), and dates about 1200. As will

be observed from the view of the exterior, every detail belongs to the

round-arched style, and in France would certainly be quoted as belonging

to that date, or earlier; but when we turn to the interior (Woodcut No.

936), we find that the whole substructure is of pointed architecture.

True it is the old simple Early Spanish style, yet still such as rather

to upset our ideas of architectural chronology in this respect. The

internal diameter of the dome is only 28 ft.; yet it is a most effective

feature both internally and externally, and gives great dignity to what

otherwise would be a very plain building.

[Illustration: 936. Section of Cimborio at Salamanca. (From ‘Mon. Arch.

d’Espana.’) No scale.]

Without going beyond the limits of the style, the dome at Tarragona

(Woodcut No. 938) illustrates the form usually taken by Gothic domes

when resting on square bases. There is a little awkwardness in the form

of the pendentives, which do not fit the main arches below them, though

at that age the Spaniards might have learned from the Saracens how to

manage this feature. At Salamanca the mode in which the square base was

worked up into a circle was by pendentives of Byzantine form, the

courses of masonry simply projecting beyond one another till the

transition was effected, but without that accentuation which was thought

so essential in Gothic art. Above the pendentives, however, at

Tarragona, the form of the dome is perfect. The windows are alternately

of three and four lights, and the whole is fitted together with

exquisite propriety and taste.

[Illustration: 937. St. Millan, Segovia. (From Gailhabaud.) Scale 100

ft. to 1 in.]

Although borrowing their style in the first instance immediately from

the French, the Spaniards developed it with such a variety of plans and

details, as might have made it a style of their own but for the fresh

importation of French designs in the beginning of the 13th century.

Before these came in, however, they had very frequently in their

churches adopted a form of external portico which was singularly suited

to the climate and produced very original and pleasing effects. In the

annexed plan of St. Millan at Segovia (Woodcut No. 937), they form

fourth and fifth aisles, opening externally instead of internally;

these, with the windows over them and the shadow they afford, break up

the monotony of the sides of the church most pleasingly.[450] Sometimes

the aisles are carried round the church, so as to form a portico at the

west end as well as at the sides. Sometimes they are on one side or the

other as the situation demands; but wherever used they are always

pleasing and appropriate.

[Illustration: 938. Tarragona Cathedral. View across Transepts. (From

Street.)]

The round form of church does not seem ever to have been a favourite in

Spain. There are some examples, it is true, but they seem, like that at

Segovia (Woodcut No. 939), to have been built by the Templars in

imitation of the church at Jerusalem, and used by them, and them only.

The idea of a circular ceremonial church attached to a rectangular

“ecclesia,” does not appear to have entered into Spanish arrangements.

As before remarked, the sepulchres of the original people of Spain do

not seem to have been sufficiently important to lead to any considerable

development of this form in the Christian times.

[Illustration: 939. Church of the Templars at Segovia. No scale.]

MIDDLE POINTED SPANISH STYLE.

While the early style described in the last chapter was gradually

working itself into something original and national, its course was

turned aside by a fresh importation of French designs in the beginning

of the 13th century. Before the Germans had made up their minds by

building the Cathedral of Cologne to surpass the grandest designs of the

French architects, the Spaniards had already planned a cathedral on a

scale larger than any attempted even in France. The great church at

Toledo was commenced in 1227, seven years after Amiens and Salisbury

cathedrals had been determined upon. The plan is certainly of that date;

the present superstructure may rather be taken as representing the style

of the end of the 13th century, though it does not seem to be known when

the church was first consecrated.

The church which Toledo Cathedral most resembles in that plan is at

Bourges (Woodcut No. 640). The length is about the same, but the French

example is only 130 ft. in width across the five aisles, while the

Spanish church is 178 ft., so that its area is considerably in excess.

It is not easy to say what the area of Toledo Cathedral really was, as

we cannot quite determine which of the excrescences belong to the

original design; but we shall not probably be far wrong in estimating it

as under 75,000 sq. ft. It is less therefore than Seville, Milan, or

Cologne. It covers rather more ground than York Cathedral, but

considerably exceeds Chartres (68,000 sq. ft.), or any of the French

cathedrals.

[Illustration: 940. Plan of Cathedral at Toledo. (From ‘Monumentos

Arquitectoricos d’Espana.’) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]

The church at Toledo possesses the same defect in plan that we remarked

on in describing that at Cologne: it is too short for its other

dimensions. When the French architect at Bourges found himself in that

difficulty he omitted the transepts, and so, to a great extent, restored

the appearance of length. The architect at Toledo has not projected his

transepts to the same extent as at Cologne, but they are still

sufficiently prominent internally to make the church look short; but, on

the other hand, by keeping his vault low, he has done much to restore

the harmony of his design; and instead of the 150 ft. of Cologne, or the

125 of Bourges, even with his greater lateral extension, the height of

the central vault is little over 100 ft. (105?). The next aisle is 60,

the outer 35,—a proportion certainly more pleasing than Bourges, or any

other five-aisled cathedral. So thoroughly French is the design, that

there is no attempt at a cimborio or dome of any sort at the

intersection of the nave and transepts; but, on the other hand, the

arrangement of the choir is essentially Spanish, and the screen

surrounding it among the most gorgeous in Spain, and one of the most

beautiful parts of the cathedral.

[Illustration: 941. View in the Choir of the Cathedral at Toledo. (From

Villa Amil.)]

The origin of the Spanish arrangement of the choir will be understood by

referring to the plan of San Clemente at Rome (Woodcut No. 395). The

higher clergy were in the early days of the Church accommodated on the

bema in the presbytery. The singers, readers, &c., were in an enclosed

choir in the nave. The place for the laity was around the choir outside.

So long as the enclosing wall of the choir was kept as low as it was at

Rome (about 3 ft.), this arrangement was unobjectionable: but when it

came to be used as in Spain, it was singularly destructive of internal

effect. In France the stalls of the clergy were in the choir beyond the

transept, and all to the eastward of the intersection was reserved for

them, the nave being wholly appropriated to the laity. This was an

intelligible and artistic arrangement of the space; but in Spain the

stalls of the clergy were projected into the nave, blocking up the

perspective in every direction, and destroying its usefulness as a

congregational space, where the laity could assemble or be addressed by

the bishop or clergy. Worse than this, it separated the clergy from the

high altar and Capilla Mayor, in which it was situated, so that a railed

gangway had to be kept open to allow them to pass to and fro.[451] When

the Spaniards determined that this was the proper liturgical arrangement

for a church, had they been an artistic people they would have invented

an appropriate shell to contain it; but to put such an arrangement into

a French church was a mistake that nothing could redeem. Even the

elaborate richness of the exterior of the choir at Toledo fails to

reconcile us to it, though it is perhaps the richest specimen of its

class in Europe, and betraying in certain parts of its ornamentation the

influence of Moorish taste which still lingered in the soil in spite of

persecution and every attempt to eradicate it.

[Illustration: 942. Plan of Burgos Cathedral. (Reduced from Street’s.)

Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]

[Illustration: 943. West Front of Burgos Cathedral. (From Chapuy,

‘Moyen-Âge Monumental.’)]

The external appearance of this church is very much less beautiful than

that of the interior. It is, however, so encumbered, that a good view of

it can hardly be obtained, and what is seen has been so much altered as

to have lost its original character. The north-western tower, in

granite, of the façade is fine, though late (1428-1479) and hardly

worthy of so grand a building. Its companion was terminated with an

Italian dome in the last century, and both in height and design is quite

incongruous with the rest.

[Illustration: 944. Plan of Leon Cathedral. (Reduced from Street’s.)

Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]

If at Toledo we find a noble interior encased in an indifferent husk,

the contrary is the case at Burgos. Although very much smaller, being

only originally designed to be 90 ft. wide by about 310 ft. long, and

all its dimensions reduced in proportion, still externally it is as

picturesque and effective a design as can be found anywhere in Europe.

The western façade (1442) is essentially a German design, originally

consisting of three portals deeply recessed and richly sculptured, and

still crowned with two spires of open work, and is exquisitely

proportioned to the size of the building, though its details are open to

criticism. It is well supported by the cimborio or dome at the

intersection, though this is even later, having been erected to replace

the old dome which fell in 1539, and seems not to have been completed

till 1567. Beyond this again, to the extreme east, rises the chapel of

the Connestabile, erected about 1487, and though this also is impure in

detail, it is beautiful in outline, and groups pleasingly with the other

features of the design. The effect of the interior is very much injured

by the four great masses of masonry which were introduced as piers to

support the cimborio when it was rebuilt; and which, with the “Coro”

thrust as usual into the nave, greatly destroy the appearance of the

building. On the other hand, the richness of the details of the Capilla

Mayor and of the Connestabile chapel, together with the variety and

elaborateness of the other chapels, make up an interior so poetic and so

picturesque, that the critic is disarmed, and must admit that Burgos

merits the title of a romance in stone if any church does.

[Illustration: 945. Bay of Choir, Leon Cathedral. (From Street.)]

[Illustration: 946. Compartment of Nave, Burgos Cathedral.]

Leon is a third 13th-century church, the design of which seems certainly

to have been imported from France. The exact date of its commencement is

not known. Mr. Street thinks it about 1250-58, which seems very

probable, and it may have been practically completed about 1305. Its

dimensions are not unlike those of Burgos; but it has been very much

less altered, and may be taken as the type of a 3-aisled basilica as

imported into Spain in the 13th century. In the arrangement of the

pier-arches (Woodcut No. 945) it very much resembles Beauvais, and in

the extent of the clerestory it is more essentially French than almost

any other church in Spain. Burgos, on the contrary (Woodcut No. 946),

possesses features not to be found in France, such as the round-arched

head to the triforium, and the rounded form of the clerestory

intersecting vault. The tracery of the clerestory windows is also

peculiar in such a situation, and altogether there is a Southern feeling

about the whole design which we miss at Leon.

Oviedo is another example of the same class, and generally it may be

said that the Spanish cathedrals which were commenced in the first half

of the 13th century are all more or less distinctly French in design.

But the Spaniards were again working themselves free from their masters,

and towards the end of the century and during the next erected a class

of churches with wide naves and widely spaced piers which were very

unlike anything to be found in France; and, if they cannot be considered

as original, their affinities must be looked for rather in Italy than to

the north of the Pyrenees.

[Illustration: 947. Plan of Cathedral at Barcelona. (Reduced from

Street’s.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]

Among these churches the most remarkable group is that still existing in

Barcelona. That city seems during the 14th century to have had a season

of great prosperity, when the cathedral and other churches were rebuilt

on a scale of great magnificence, and with special reference to the

convenience of the laity as contradistinguished from the liturgical

wants of the clergy. The cathedral seems to have been commenced about

1298, and been tolerably far advanced in 1329. Its internal length is

about 300 ft., its width, exclusive of the side chapels, about 85 ft.,

so that it is not a large church, but is remarkable for the lightness

and wide spacing of its piers, and generally for the elegance of its

details. Looked at from a purely æsthetic point of view, it has neither

the grandeur nor solemnity of the older and more solid style; but gloom

and grandeur are not necessary accompaniments of a city church, and

where cheerfulness combined with elegance are considered appropriate,

few examples more fully meet these conditions than this church.

Considerable effect is obtained by the buttresses of the nave being

originally designed, as was so frequently the case in the South of

France, as internal features, and the windows being small are not seen

in the general perspective. This supplies the requisite appearance of

strength, in which the central piers are rather deficient, while the

repetition of the side chapels, two in each bay, gives that perspective

which the wide spacing of the central supports fails to supply.

Altogether the design seems very carefully studied, and the result is

more satisfactory than in most Spanish churches.

The system which was introduced in this cathedral was carried a step

further in Sta. Maria del Mar (1328-1383). There the central vault was

made square and quadripartite, as was frequently the case in Italy; the

vault of the aisles oblong, on exactly the contrary principle to that

adopted in the North of Europe. Again, however, the equilibrium is to

some extent restored by each bay containing three side chapels, though

the effect would have been better if these had been deeper and more

important. Such a design is inappropriate when a choir is necessarily

introduced to separate the clergy from the laity, but for a

congregational church it is superior to most other designs of the Middle

Ages.

A third church, Sta. Maria del Pi (1329-1353), carries this principle

one step farther—this time, however, evidently borrowed from such

churches as those of Alby (Woodcut No. 568) or Toulouse (Woodcut No.

569). It has been carried out with the utmost simplicity. The clear

internal length is nearly 200 ft., the clear width upwards of 50 ft.

Such a church would easily contain 2000 worshippers seated where all

could see and hear all that was going on. Though it may be deficient in

some of those poetic elements which charm so much in our Northern

churches, there is a simple grandeur in the design which compensates for

the loss.

[Illustration: 948. Sta. Maria del Mar, Barcelona. (From Street.) Scale

100 ft. to 1 in.]

[Illustration: 949. Sta. Maria del Pi, Barcelona. (From Street.) Scale

100 ft. to 1 in.]

The church (Woodcut No. 950) at Manresa is very similar in design so

Sta. Maria del Mar, only carried a step farther, and in the wrong

direction. From wall to wall it is 100 ft. wide, and 200 ft. long, and

is thus so comparatively short that we miss the perspective which is the

great charm in Northern cathedrals. Still if it were not that the

central aisle is blocked up by the choir, as is usual in Spain, it would

be a very noble church. Its central aisle, which possesses a clear width

of 56 ft., would be a very noble place of assembly for a congregation.

There is, at the same time, a simplicity and propriety about its details

and the arrangement of its apse which have seldom been surpassed, while

at the same time, they are characteristic of Spain.

[Illustration: 950. Interior of Collegiate Church, Manresa. (From

Street.)]

The Spaniards having once grasped the idea of these spacious vaulted

halls, and found out the means of constructing them, they carried the

principle far beyond anything on this side of the Pyrenees. Their most

successful effort in this direction was at Gerona. The choir of a church

of the usual French pattern had been erected there in the beginning of

the 14th century (1312?), but it had remained unfinished till 1416, when

after much consultation it was determined to carry out the design of a

certain Guillermo Boffiy, who proposed to add a nave without pillars, of

the same breadth as the centre and side aisles of the choir. As will be

seen from the plan, it consists of a hall practically of two squares,

the clear width being 73 ft., the length 160 ft. Considering that 40 ft.

is about the normal width of the naves of the largest French and English

cathedrals, such a span is gigantic, though with the internal buttresses

of the side chapels it presented no great difficulty of construction.

Indeed, when we remember that in their vaulted halls the Romans had

adopted 83 ft. (vol. i. p. 331) as the normal span of their intersecting

vaults, it is not its novelty or mechanical boldness that should

surprise us so much as its appropriateness for Christian worship. As

might be expected, there is a little awkwardness in the junction of the

two designs. It is easy to see what an opportunity the eastern end of

the great nave offered to a true artist, and how a Northern architect

would have availed himself of it, and by canopies and statues or

painting have made it a masterpiece of decoration. It is too much to

expect this in Spain; but it probably was originally painted, or at

least intended to be. Otherwise it is almost impossible to understand

the absence of string-courses or architectural framings throughout. But,

even as it stands, the church at Gerona must be looked upon as one of

the most successful designs of the Middle Ages, and one of the most

original in Spain.

[Illustration: 951. Plan of Cathedral at Gerona. (Reduced from Street’s

to 100 ft. to 1 in.)]

The cimborio had somewhat gone out of fashion in the North of Spain in

the 15th century, and with these very wide naves had become not only

difficult to construct, but somewhat inappropriate.

Still there are examples, such as that at Valencia (Woodcut No. 953),

which, externally at least, are very noble objects. The church at

Valencia seems to have been erected in 1404, and probably it was

originally intended to have added a spire or external roof of some sort

to the octagon. So completed, the tower would have been a noble central

feature to any church, though hardly so perfect in design as that of the

old cathedral at Salamanca (Woodcut No. 935).

[Illustration: 952. Interior of Cathedral at Gerona, looking East. (From

Street.)]

[Illustration: 953. Cimborio of Cathedral at Valencia. (From Chapuy.)]

Of about the same age (1401) is the great cathedral of Seville, the

largest and in some respects the grandest of Mediæval cathedrals. Its

plan can, however, hardly be said to be Gothic, as it was erected on the

site of the Mosque which was cleared away to make room for it, and was

of exactly the same dimensions in plan (Woodcut No. 954). It consists of

a parallelogram 415 ft. by 298, exclusive of the sepulchral chapel

behind the altar, which is a cinque-cento addition. It thus covers about

124,000 sq. ft. of ground, more than a third in excess of the cathedral

at Toledo (75,000), and more than Milan (108,000 sq. ft.), which, next

to Seville, is the largest of Mediæval creations. The central aisle is

56 ft. wide from centre to centre of the columns, the side-aisles 40

ft., in the exact proportion of 7 to 10, or of the side of an isosceles

right-angled triangle to the hypothenuse. As will be explained

hereafter, this is the proportion arrived at from the introduction of an

octagonal dome in the centre of the building, though it may have arisen

here from the existence of an octagonal court in the centre of the

mosque; but, be that as it may, it is a far more agreeable proportion

than the double dimensions generally adopted by Gothic architects, and

probably the most pleasing that has yet been hit upon. Unfortunately no

section of the cathedral has been published, but the nave is said to be

145 ft. in height, and the side-aisles seem to be in as pleasing

proportion to it in height as they are in plan, so that, though

different from the usually received notions of what a Gothic design

should be, it is an invention that should well bear to have been further

followed out. Perhaps it might have been, had it not come so late. The

cathedral was only finished about 1520, when St. Peter’s at Rome was

well advanced.

[Illustration: 954. Plan of Cathedral at Seville. Scale 100 ft. to 1

in.]

The architect of this noble building is not known, but he was probably a

German acting under Spanish inspiration, as at Milan we find a German

carrying out an Italian design with just that admixture of foreign

feeling which seems to prevail at Seville. When, however, we consider

what was done at Barcelona so shortly before, or at Segovia so soon

afterwards, we need hardly be surprised if a Spanish architect really

built this cathedral also. Those features which to us have a foreign

aspect may really be peculiarities forced upon him by having to suit his

church to the lines of a mosque, and there may be forms in Andalusian

architecture derived from Moorish examples with which we are not so

familiar as with those which the Northern provinces derived from France.

But, be this as it may, Spain may well feel pride in possessing a

cathedral which is certainly the largest of those of the Middle Ages, as

well as far more original in design than Toledo or any that were built

under French influence. These remarks apply only to the interior.

Externally it never was completed, and those parts which are finished

were erected so late in the style that their details are far from

pleasing in form or constructively appropriate.

LATE SPANISH GOTHIC.

The last stage of Spanish Gothic was not less remarkable than those

which preceded it, and perhaps more original. At the time when other

Continental nations were turning their attention to the introduction of

the classical styles, Spain still clung to the old traditions, and

actually commenced Gothic cathedrals in the 16th century. A new

cathedral was designed in the year 1513, for Salamanca, to supersede the

old one; and another very similar both in dimensions and style was

commenced at Segovia in 1523.[452] Both these churches are practically

five-aisled, but as they have three free aisles and two ranges of

chapels between the internal buttresses, making a total internal width

of 160 ft., with an internal length of twice that dimension, no fault is

to be found with their internal proportions. But their details want that

purity and subordination so characteristic of the earlier styles.

Their great peculiarity, however, consists in the extreme richness and

elaboration of their vaults. In this respect they more resemble St.

Jacques, Liège (Woodcut No. 681), and some of the late German churches,

than anything to be found nearer home. But, wherever derived from, the

practice of thus ornamenting the vaults at this late date contrasts

singularly with what was done in earlier stages of the style.

One of the defects of Spanish architecture, after the earliest examples

in the round-arched forms, is the poverty of its vaults. Generally they

are like those of the French; but owing to the vast extent they attained

at Gerona, Manresa, and elsewhere, the one lean rib in the centre and

the absence of any ridge-rib make themselves more painfully felt than

even in the French examples. When in the 16th century the architects

tried to obviate this defect, it was not done as in England by

constructive lines representing the arches, but by waving curved lines

spread capriciously over the vault, which was thus certainly enriched,

but can hardly be said to have been adorned.

[Illustration: 955. Plan of Cathedral at Segovia. (Reduced from Street.)

Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]

In one or two instances, the late Gothic architects aimed at the

introduction of new principles, not perhaps in the best taste, but still

so striking as to merit attention. In the church at Villena (1498-1511),

for instance, all the columns are ornamented with spiral flutings so

boldly executed as to be very effective; and as this spiral ornament is

consistently carried throughout the design, and the parts are

sufficiently massive not to look weakened in consequence, the whole

design must be admitted to be both pleasing and original.

[Illustration: 956. Section of Church at Villena. (From ‘Mon. Arch.

d’Espana.’) Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]

The exteriors of these 16th century churches have a much more modern

look than their interiors. From the buttresses being internal, the

external walls are perfectly flat, generally terminating upwards by a

cornice more or less classical in design. The windows are frequently

without tracery, and are ornamented with balconies, and Renaissance

ornaments are often intermixed with those of Gothic form in a manner

more picturesque than constructive. At times, however, they exhibit such

a gorgeous exuberance of fancy that it is impossible to avoid admiring,

though we feel at the same time that it would be heresy to the

principles of correct criticism to say that such a style was legitimate.

Among the minor examples of the age, perhaps the most remarkable is the

church or chapel of San Juan de los Reyes at Toledo, built by Ferdinand

and Isabella as a sepulchral chapel for themselves, though not used for

that purpose. It is thus the exact counterpart of our Henry VII.’s

Chapel, and of the church at Brou in Bresse. As its founders were at the

time of its erection among the richest and most prosperous sovereigns in

Europe, all that wealth could do was lavished on its ornamentation. It

is as rich as our example, and richer than the French one. But, on the

whole, the palm must be awarded the English architect. There is more

constructive skill, and the construction is better expressed, at

Westminster, than either at Toledo or Brou; though it is difficult not

to feel that the money in all these cases might have been better

expended on a larger and purer style of art.

Some parts of the church of San Miguel at Xeres exceed even this in

richness and elaborateness of ornament, and surpass anything found in

Northern cathedrals, unless it be the tabernacle-work of some tombs, or

the screens of some chapels. In these it is always applied to small and

merely ornamental parts. In Spain it is frequently spread over a whole

church, and thus, what in a mere subordinate detail would be beautiful,

on such a scale becomes fatiguing, and is decidedly in very bad taste.

It would be tedious to attempt to enumerate or describe the other

cathedrals of Spain, or the numerous conventual or collegiate churches,

many of which are still in use, with their cloisters and conventual

buildings nearly complete. In this respect Spain is nearly as rich as

France; while she possesses, in proportion to her population, a larger

number of important parochial churches than that country, though

inferior in that respect to England. The laity seem during the Middle

Ages to have been of more importance in the Spanish Church than they

were north of the Pyrenees, and the tendency of the architecture

therefore was to provide for their accommodation. If, however, any such

feeling then existed, it was carefully stamped out by the Inquisition

after the fall of Granada. It would be interesting, however, to trace it

back, and try to ascertain the cause whence it arose. Was it that the

Aryan blood of the Goths was then more prevalent, and that the Iberian

race has since become more dominant? Whatever the cause, it is one of

those problems on which architecture may hope to throw some light, and

to which, consequently, it is most desirable that the attention of

architects should be turned.

MORESCO STYLE.

While Gothic churches were being erected under French influence in the

north and centre of Spain, another style was developing itself under

Moorish influence in the south, which in the hands of a more artistic

people than the Spaniards might have become as beautiful as any other in

Europe. It failed, however, to attain anything like completeness,

primarily because the Spaniards were incapable of elaborating any

artistic forms, but also perhaps because the two races came to hate one

another, and the dominant people to abhor whatever belonged to those

they were so cruelly persecuting.

If we knew more of the ethnic relations of the Moors, who conquered

Spain in the 8th century, we might perhaps be able to predicate whether

it were possible for such dissimilar parents to produce a fertile

hybrid. It seems certain, however, that the Moors did not belong to any

Turanian race, or traces of their tombs would be found; but none such

exist. Nor did they belong to any of the great building races, for

during the whole of their sojourn in Spain they showed no constructive

ability, no skill in arrangement of plans, and no desire for

architectural magnificence. But they were a rich, luxurious, and refined

people possessing an innate knowledge of colour and an exquisite

perception of the beauty of form and detail. They were, in fact, among

the most perfect ornamentalists we are acquainted with, but they were

not architects. Had the inhabitants of Toledo from the 11th century been

French, or any Celtic race, the combination of their constructive skill

with the taste in detail of the Moors could hardly have failed to

produce the happiest results. As it was, after a few feeble efforts the

style died out, but not without leaving some very remarkable specimens

of architectural art, though on a small scale. They were also only in

perishable plaster, which, though well suited to the style of the Moors,

is a material which no architectural people ever would have employed.

[Illustration: 957. Sta. Maria la Bianca. (From ‘Mon. Arch.’) Scale 50

ft. to 1 in.]

As might be expected, the principal examples of this style are to be

found in or about Toledo, but specimens exist in almost every province

of Spain up to the very roots of the Pyrenees, and its influence is

often felt in the extreme richness of ornamentation into which the

architects of Spain were often betrayed, even when expressing themselves

in Gothic or Renaissance details.

[Illustration: 958. Sta. Maria la Bianca. (From Villa Amil.)]

Among the examples at Toledo the two best interiors seem to be the

church of Sta. Maria la Bianca and that of Nuestra Senora del Transito,

both originally built as synagogues, though afterwards appropriated to

Christian purposes. The first is said to have been erected in the 12th

century, and was appropriated by the Christians in 1405. As will be seen

by the plan, it is an irregular quadrangle, about 87 ft. by 65 ft. in

width across the centre, and divided into five aisles by octagonal piers

supporting horse-shoe arches. Above these now runs what may be called a

blind clerestory, though it appears as if light were originally admitted

through piercings in it. The objects are so dissimilar that it is

difficult to institute a very distinct comparison between the synagogue

and a contemporary Gothic church of the same dimensions; but it may

safely be said that if the Northern style is grander in conception, this

is far more elegant in detail: the essential difference lying in the

fact that the Gothic style always had, or aimed at having, a vault, and

consequently forced the architects to work and think—the very difficulty

of the task being thus the cause of its success. The Saracens in Spain,

on the contrary, never attempted either a vault or a dome, but were

always content with an easily constructed wooden roof, calling for no

ingenuity to design, and no thought how to convert its mechanical

exigences into artistic beauties. The Moorish architects could play with

their style, and consequently produced fascinating elegances of detail;

the Gothic architects, on the contrary, were forced to work like men,

and their result appeals to our higher intellectual wants; though in

doing so they frequently neglected the polish and lighter graces of

style which are so pleasing in the semi-Asiatic art of the South of

Spain.

The other synagogue—del Transito—we know was completed in 1366. It is

merely a large room, of pleasing proportion, the walls of which are

plain and solid up to about three-fourths of their height. Above this a

clerestory admits the light in a manner singularly agreeable in a hot

climate. The roof is of wood, of the form called _Artesinado_ in Spain,

from its being something in the form of an inverted trough—with coupled

tie-beams across, so that, though elegant in detail it has no

constructive merit, and the whole depends for its effect,[453] like all

Moorish work in Spain, on its ornamental details.

[Illustration: 959. Apse of St. Bartolomeo. (From ‘Mon. Arch.’) Scale 25

ft. to 1 in.]

All the churches we know of in this style date within the period

comprised between the fall of Toledo (1085) and that of Granada (1492).

During that time the Moors were still sufficiently powerful to be

respected and their art tolerated. After their expulsion from their last

stronghold, fear being removed, bigotry became triumphant, and

persecution followed, not only of the people and their religion, but of

everything that recalled either to remembrance.

It is possible that some larger and more important churches than those

we now find were erected during this period in this style; but if so,

they have perished. One of the largest at Toledo, San Bartolomeo, has an

apse (Woodcut No. 959) little more than 30 ft. across over all, and

others, such as Santa Fé, Santa Leocadia, San Eugenio, or Santa Isabel,

are all smaller, St. Ursula alone being of about the same dimensions

with St. Bartolomeo. The decoration of the apse of the latter will

afford a fair idea of the style of detail adopted in these churches. For

brick architecture it is singularly appropriate. It admits of more or

less light, as may be required. It is crowned by a cornice of pleasing

profile, and the whole is simpler and better than the many-buttressed

and pinnacled apses of the Gothic architects.

A more picturesque example, though not so pure as that last quoted, is

found in the little chapel of Humanejos in Estremadura (Woodcut No.

960). As will be observed from the woodcut, there is some 13th-century

tracery in its windows, thus revealing its date as well as betraying its

origin, and but for which it might almost be mistaken for an example of

pure Saracenic architecture.

[Illustration: 960. Chapel at Humanejos. (From Villa Amil.)]

This is even more the case in a beautiful chapel in the monastery of the

Huelgas, near Burgos, which, were it not for some Gothic foliage of the

14th century, introduced where it can hardly be observed, might easily

pass for a fragment of the Alhambra. The same is true of many parts of

the churches at Seville. That of La Feria, for instance, and the apse of

the church of the Dominicans at Calatayud, are purely in this style, and

most beautiful and elaborate specimens of their class.

Very pleasing examples of the adaptation of Moorish art to Christian

purposes are to be found in various churches throughout Spain. That of

St. Roman at Toledo[454] is a very pleasing and pure example of the

style, but neither so picturesque nor so characteristic as that at

Ilescas (Woodcut No. 961), not far from Madrid, which, though differing

essentially from any Gothic steeple, is still in every part

appropriately designed, and, notwithstanding its strongly marked

horizontal lines, by no means deficient in that aspiring character so

admirable in Gothic steeples.

[Illustration: 961. Tower at Ilescas. (From Villa Amil.)]

Another remarkable example is the tower and roof of the church of St.

Paul, Saragoza. It is so unlike anything else in Europe, that it might

pass for a church in the Crimea or the steppes of Tartary. As if to add

to its foreign aspect, the tiles of the roof are coloured and glazed,

thus rendering the contrast with Gothic art stronger than even that

presented in the details and forms of the architecture.

The Church of St. Thomé at Toledo has a tower so perfectly Moorish in

all its details, that but for its form it might as well be classed among

the specimens of Moorish as of Mozarabic architecture. Throughout Spain

there are many of the same class, which were undoubtedly erected by the

Christians. Both in this country and in Sicily it is never safe to

assume that because the style of a building is Moorish, even purely so,

the structure must belong to the time when the Moors possessed the

country, or to a happy interval, if any such existed, when a more than

usually tolerant reign permitted them to erect edifices for themselves

under the rule of their Christian conquerors.

[Illustration: 962. St. Paul, Saragoza. (From Villa Amil.)]

Sometimes we find Moorish details mixed up with those of Gothic

architecture in a manner elsewhere unknown, as for instance in the

doorway, in Woodcut No. 963, from the house of the Ablala at Valencia.

The woodwork is of purely Moorish design, the stonework of the bad

unconstructive Gothic of the late Spanish architects, altogether making

up a combination more picturesque than beautiful, at least in an

architectural point of view.

[Illustration: 963. Doorway from Valencia. (From Chapuy.)]

CHAPTER III.

CIVIL ARCHITECTURE.

CONTENTS.

Monastic Buildings—Municipal Buildings—Castles.

MONASTIC BUILDINGS.

AS already mentioned, to most of the great churches described above

there were attached monastic establishments on a scale commensurate with

them in dignity, and ornamented in an equal degree. Most of these, too,

had chapter-houses, generally square vaulted apartments, not equal in

originality or magnificence with those of England, but very superior to

anything found in France. The most ornamental part of these is generally

the screen of triple arches by which they open on the cloister.

Internally they are now generally plain, but they may have been adorned

with wooden stalls and furniture, which have since disappeared.

[Illustration: 964. Cloister of the Huelgas, near Burgos. (From Villa

Amil.)]

More important than these are the cloisters to which they were attached—

the _patio_ of the convent, which in such a climate as that of Spain was

an indispensable adjunct, and much more appropriate than a covered

arcade ever was or could be in our northern climate. The Spanish

architects seem, in consequence, to have revelled in the designs of

their cloisters, and from the simple arcade of Gerona (1117) to the

exuberant caprice of San Juan de los Reyes, they form a series of

examples completely illustrative of the progress of Spanish art: perhaps

more so than even the churches to which they are attached. Some of the

cloisters have octagonal projections with lavatories.

The favourite form of the earlier examples, like those in the South of

France (Woodcut No. 559), is that of an open arcade supported on coupled

columns, on the capitals of which the architects delighted to lavish all

their powers of variety and design. That at the convent of the Huelgas

(Woodcut No. 964) gives a fair idea of the mode in which they are

carried out, and is certainly far more appropriate than the traceried

arches of Northern examples, which, without glazing, are most unmeaning.

During the 14th and 15th centuries the Spaniards adopted them, and some

of the best specimens of their traceries are to be found in the cloister

arcades. Having gone so far, however, they went on, and carried the idea

to its legitimate conclusion by filling up the whole opening with a

screen of pierced tracery. The most complete example of this style is

that found at Tarazona in Aragon. The cloister itself is in brick, but

not even plastered; the openings are filled with stone slabs pierced

with the most varied and elegant Gothic tracery. It would seem a more

reasonable plan to have used stone for the structure and terra-cotta for

the openings; but as it is, the effect of the whole is extremely

pleasing. It is, however, more like an Oriental than an European design,

and reveals as clearly as the churches of Toledo the continued presence

of the Moor in the land of Spain.

[Illustration: 965. Cloister, Tarazona. (From Street.)]

[Illustration: 966. The Casa Lonja, Valencia. (From Street.)]

MUNICIPAL BUILDINGS.

Spain does not seem to have possessed, during the Middle Ages, any

municipalities of sufficient importance to require buildings of an

important or permanent character for their accommodation. There are, it

is true, one or two Lonjas, or places for the assembly of merchants,

which are of some magnificence. But these were erected on the very verge

of the Renaissance, and betray all the feebleness of an expiring style.

That at Valencia is, perhaps, the best example. Internally it has

twisted fluted columns similar to those at Villena[455] (Woodcut No.

956). The two buildings are said to have been designed by the same

architect, but the columns in this instance are much more attenuated

than in the church. The exterior has at least the merit of expressing

the internal arrangements. On one side of the central tower is the great

hall, on the other the public rooms, and above these an upper storey

with an open arcade. The last is a feature very frequently found in

Spain, not only in Mediæval palaces, but in those of the Renaissance

period, and wherever it exists it is one of the most pleasing that can

be found; it gives all the shadow of a cornice, without its inconvenient

and useless projection, and crowns the whole design in an appropriate

and pleasing manner.

CASTLES.

[Illustration: 967. Castle of Cocos, Castille. (From Villa Amil.)]

One example must suffice to recall attention to the fact of the

existence of “Chateaux en Espagne.” On the plains of Castille they are

not only numerous, but of great magnificence; erected apparently before

the fear of inroads from the Moors of Granada had passed away, or at all

event when a military aristocracy was indispensable to save the nation

from reconquest by these dreaded enemies. Of these the Kasr at Segovia

is one of the best known and most frequently drawn. It has the advantage

of being still inhabited, and its turrets retained, till recently, their

tall conical roofs, which gave it so peculiar and local an aspect.[456]

It also possesses the advantage—rare in Spanish castles—of standing on

the edge of a tall rock, to which it has been fitted with almost

Oriental taste.

Another favourable specimen is the now ruined castle of Cocos. Its tall

towers and clustering turrets still attest its former magnificence, and

point to a local style of defensive architecture differing from that of

any other part of Europe, but even more picturesque than the best

examples of either France or England. The castle at Olite is still more

local in its style. Many other examples might be quoted; but they hardly

belong to the fine-art branch of Architecture, and thus scarcely come

within the scope of this work, though a monograph of the military

architecture of Spain during the Middle Ages would be almost as

interesting as that of her ecclesiastical remains.

CHAPTER IV.

PORTUGAL.

CONTENTS.

Church of Batalha—Alcobaça—Belem.

SO little attention has been paid to the subject of Gothic architecture

in Portugal, that it is by no means clear whether it contains any

churches of interest belonging to that style. There are certainly some

splendid remains at Belem near Lisbon, and fragments at least elsewhere;

but those who have described them are so little qualified for the task

by previous study, that it is impossible to place reliance on the

correctness of their assertions regarding them. One church, however,—

that at Batalha,—has met with a different fate, and having arrested the

attention of Mr. Murphy, “the illustrator of the Alhambra,” was drawn by

him, and published in a splendid folio work at the end of the last

century. As might be supposed from the date of the work, the

illustrations do not quite meet the exigences of modern science, but it

is at all events one of the best illustrated churches in the Peninsula,

and seems in some respects to be worthy of the distinction, being

certainly the finest church in Portugal.

It was erected by King John of Portugal, in fulfilment of a vow made

during a battle with his namesake of Spain in the year 1385, and was

completed in all essentials in a very short period of time. From the

plan (Woodcut No. 968) it will be seen that the form of the original

church is that of an Italian basilica—a three-aisled nave ending in a

transept with five chapels; the whole length internally being 264 ft.,

and the width of the nave 72 ft. 4 in. It is therefore a small building

compared with most of the Gothic churches hitherto described. To the

right of the entrance, under an octagonal canopy which once supported a

German open-work spire, are the tombs of the founder and of his wife

Philippa, daughter of John of Gaunt; beyond this the octagon expands

into a square, in a very Eastern fashion, to accommodate the tombs of

other members of the royal family who are buried around. The whole

design of this part is one of the most suitable for a family sepulchre

to be found anywhere. The wonder, however, of the Batalha, or rather

what would have been so had it been completed, is the tomb-house which

Emanuel the Fortunate commenced for himself at the east end of the

church. Similar chapels at Burgos and Murcia have already been noticed,

but this was to have surpassed them all, and if completed would have

been the most gorgeous mausoleum erected during the Middle Ages.

It is curious to observe how the tradition of the circular tomb-house

behind the altar remained constant in remote provinces to the latest

age. The plan of this church is virtually that of St. Martin at Tours,

of St. Benigne at Dijon (Woodcuts Nos. 575, 577), and of other churches

in Aquitania. It is easy to see how by removing the intermediate walls

this basilica would become a chevet church, complete except for the

difference in the span of the two parts. Had the mausoleum been

finished, the wall separating it from the church would not improbably

have been removed.

The plan of this tomb-house is interesting as being that of the largest

Gothic dome attempted, and as showing how happily the Gothic forms adapt

themselves to this purpose, and how easily any amount of abutment may be

obtained in this style with the utmost degree of lightness and the most

admirable play of perspective; indeed no constructive difficulties

intervene to prevent this dome having been twice its present diameter

(65 ft.); in which case it would have far surpassed Sta. Maria del Fiore

and all the pseudo-classical erections that have since disfigured the

fair face of Europe.

[Illustration: 968. Plan of the Church at Batalha. (From Murphy.) Scale

100 ft. to 1 in.]

Generally speaking, neither the proportions nor the details of this

church are good; it was erected in a country where the principles of

Gothic art were either misapprehended or unknown, and where a lavish

amount of expenditure in carving and ornament was thought to be the best

means of attaining beauty. The church from this cause may almost be

considered a failure; its two sepulchral chapels being in fact by far

the most interesting and beautiful parts of the structure. It may be

observed also that the open-work spire agrees much better with the

semi-Oriental decoration of the churches both of Burgos and Batalha than

with the soberer forms of the more Northern style. One is almost tempted

to fancy that the Germans borrowed the idea from Spain rather than that

Spain imported it from the North. Till we know more of the age of the

cathedrals of Leon, Oviedo, and other cities in the North of Spain, the

point cannot be determined; but it seems by no means certain but that

further knowledge will compel the Germans to resign their claim to this

their single alleged invention in the pointed style.

Next in importance to the church at Batalha is that at Alcobaça,

commenced in the year 1148, and finished in 1222. It is a simple and

grand Cistercian abbey-church, not unlike that at Pontigny (Woodcut No.

643) in style. Its total length is 360 ft.; its height about 64. The

nave is divided from the side-aisles by twelve piers, the arches of

which support vaults of the same height over the three divisions—a

circumstance which must detract considerably from the beauty of its

proportions. The east end is terminated by a chevet (called by the

Portuguese a _charola_) with nine chapels.

The monastery attached to this church, formerly one of the most splendid

in the world, was burnt by the French in their retreat from Portugal.

At Coimbra there are still some remains of Gothic churches; the

principal of these is the old cathedral, which, though much destroyed,

still retains many features belonging to the same age as that of

Alcobaça.

In the same town is the church of Sta. Cruz, rebuilt by French

architects in the year 1515, in the then fashionable flamboyant style of

their country; and in complete contrast to this is the small but

interesting Round Gothic church of Sta. Salvador, erected about the year

1169.

The church of the convent at Belem near Lisbon, though one of the

latest, was intended by its founder, Emanuel the Fortunate, to be one of

the most splendid in the kingdom. It was commenced in 1500, but not

finished till long after the Renaissance had set in, so that (in the

interior especially) it is very much disfigured by incongruities of

every sort. The southern portal, however, is wholly in the style of the

first years of the 16th century, and is as elaborate an example of the

exuberant ornamentation of that age as can be found in the Peninsula. It

is, of course, full of faults, and by no means worthy of imitation; but

its richness in figure sculpture and in architectural carving is very

impressive and pleasing, in spite of all that can be said against its

taste.

[Illustration: 969. Façade at Belem. (From a Photograph.)]

No one who is familiar with the chapel at Roslyn can fail to recognise

at once the similarity of design and detail between the two. The

Portuguese example is half a century more modern, for which allowance

must be made. It is also more delicate, as the work of a Southern people

might be expected to be. Moreover, it is the work of men among whom the

style arose, and who consequently were more at home in it than the

Scotch builder could pretend to be; but notwithstanding all these

deductions, there is a similarity between the style of the two buildings

so remarkable as to leave no doubt of their common origin.

The other churches of Portugal, such as those of Braga, Guimaraens, &c.,

seem to have been of late flamboyant style, and generally are so much

modernised that the little beauty they ever possessed is concealed or

destroyed by modern details.

Notwithstanding the late age of the principal examples and the apparent

paucity of those of an earlier time, it is still possible that Portugal

may contain much to interest the archæologist. But travelling has

hitherto been inconvenient and slow in that country, and it has not yet

been visited, or at least described, by any one familiar with the

peculiarities of Mediæval art. When properly explored, we may be

surprised at the treasures it contains. On the other hand, it is by no

means impossible that the ‘Handbook of Portugal’ is correct when it

asserts that “There is no European country which has less interesting

ecclesiology than Portugal. There are certainly not 150 old churches in

the kingdom. The French invasion, the great earthquake, and the rage for

rebuilding in the 18th century, have destroyed nearly all.”

Let us hope it may not be so, but at present we have little beyond the

hope to rely on.

PART III.

SARACENIC AND ANCIENT AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE.

BOOK I.

CHAPTER I.

SARACENIC ARCHITECTURE IN CHRISTIAN COUNTRIES; OR, BYZANTINE SARACENIC.

NOTE.—In consequence of the re-arrangement of the work, as explained

above, by which all the Indian chapters are taken out of it and put

together in a separate volume by themselves, the third part of the

original work is reduced to very limited dimensions. It consists in the

first place of those styles of Saracenic art which are in any way

connected with the European styles, and which consequently must be

studied together with them in order to be understood. But all the Indian

developments of the same style are omitted; first, because they have no

real or direct connection with the Western styles; and, secondly,

because their affinities are much more intimate with the local styles of

Hindostan than with those of Europe. When, however, this great branch is

cut off, the Saracenic styles west of the Indus do not occupy a very

important place in a general history of architecture—nothing that can

compare with the great Christian or classical styles, and hardly even

with those of Assyria or Egypt.

As the Indian styles necessarily include the Cambodian, Chinese,

Japanese, &c., the only styles that remain to be described are those of

the New World. Their connection with other styles is at present so hazy

and indefinite that they may be arranged anywhere; but in order to avoid

any appearance of prejudging any hypothesis, it may be as well to place

them in this part of the work, in juxtaposition with a style with which

they cannot be suspected of having any connection.

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INTRODUCTION.

A History of Architecture in all Countries, Volumes 1 and 2, 3rd ed. From the Earliest Times to the Present Day · 第 13 / 18 章

Taken altogether, there is perhaps no class of buildings to which an