I have been induced to draw up the following sketch of the Priory of
Holy Island, from its being the most beautiful fragment of antiquity in
the district to which our researches are confined, as well as from its
presenting one of the most remarkable architectural remains of the
period to which it belongs in the kingdom.
It need scarcely be mentioned that, in the earlier periods of Christian
history, the choice of so unattractive a site was in obedience to the
idea which indicated the remote and scarcely accessible island, and the
lone and unfrequented desert, as spots peculiarly fitted for that
contemplative life, and withdrawal from the world, in which the
perfection of religion was supposed to consist.
When the monastic system was introduced into the West, this was its
leading and characteristic feature, and the same spirit which had
selected the inhospitable island of Iona, induced the monk who issued
thence for the conversion of Northumberland, to prefer the bleak sands
of Lindesfarne to the present valleys of the adjacent continent.
It would be needless also to dwell upon the advantages derived from
monastic establishments during the darker periods of history—their
preservation of literature and religion—the solace they afforded to the
way-farer and the pilgrim—the asylum they furnished to the poor, the
sick, the impotent, and the aged—the influence which they exerted in
alleviating, where they could not prevent, the various evils incident to
a barbarous age—the peaceful arts which they cultivated, and especially
that which enabled them to raise those august and sumptuous edifices,
which still remain the grandest examples of architectural skill, and
defy all approaches of the moderns to a parity of excellence.
The exercise of these and kindred virtues ought to redeem the monastic
institution, when reviewed in a candid and equitable spirit, from the
unmeasured obloquy and censure which the license and misrule of some of
its branches in later times have drawn down upon it.
There is no doubt, however, that the very virtues, which originally
inspired awe and attracted esteem, tended, by a natural process,
frequently renewed, and always with similar results, to the gradual
corruption and final overthrow of the monastic system.
Long before the Reformation the elements of discontent had been at work,
and the clamour against the monasteries had been gradually acquiring
force and fixedness, when in the person of
“the majestic lord
Who broke the bonds of Rome,”
was found a fitting instrument for the expression of the popular will.
In the year 1536, the lesser monasteries were doomed to destruction by
the execrable tyrant who wielded the sceptre of England, and the Priory
of Holy Island was included in the general wreck.
From that hour it dates its gradual decay and present state of
irretrievable ruin. Sir Walter Scott has thus described it in “Marmion:”
“In Saxon strength that abbey frown’d,
With massive arches broad and round
That rose alternate row on row,
On ponderous columns short and low,
Built ere the art was known,
By pointed aisle and shafted stalk,
The arcades of an alley’d walk,
To emulate in stone.”
The latter part of the stanza is a complimentary allusion to the
fanciful theory of Sir James Hall concerning the origin of the pointed
arch. The application of the term _Saxon_, it would be impossible to
verify or substantiate.
There are no buildings in this country with the characteristic forms of
this church, or the distribution into nave and aisles, that belong to so
early a period. A few rude structures there certainly are which may have
been erected by Saxon architects, one of which occurs in our own
district—the tower of Whittingham Church, Northumberland—characterised
by a peculiar sort of quoining—consisting of long and short stones,
placed alternately over each other—small round-headed apertures divided
by a rude balastre, and the absence of buttresses. The term Norman may
be safely used, if it be understood simply to designate a style which
appeared in this country at the conquest, and prevailed for 125 years,
during the Norman rule; but it is in reality Roman, and was derived from
the imperial city by the architects who diffused it over Europe, with
the religion to which these structures were consecrated. It flourished
during the first thousand years of the Christian era, with long
interruptions during the dark ages, but its rudiments maybe discerned at
this day in the Temple of Peace at Rome, erected during the first
century, and in the Halls of the Baths—those colossal structures in
which the grandeur of thought and magnificent aims of the Roman people
are most conspicuously combined. In these edifices we perceive the
general arrangement of our Norman and Gothic churches—a wide central
space arched over at top, with the vaults resting on pillars
corresponding to our nave; between these pillars lofty arches open into
as many vaulted apartments on either side intercommunicating by similar
archways and constituting side-aisles. The roof of the side-aisles being
considerably lower than that of the central vault, admits the insertion
of lights in the main wall looking into the cave, which correspond with
our clerestory windows.
The general character of Holy Island Priory is Norman, or to speak more
correctly, Romanesque. The West front is almost perfect—remarkably so
when we consider that, in buildings of that period, this part has
generally undergone a change, by the insertion of windows of a later
style, leaving only the Norman door below to point to the real date of
the structure. Here, we have a door of great depth and richness of
effect from the number and boldness of the ornaments. On either side are
plain semicircular blank arches—but not intersecting—and the whole were
flanked by towers, one of which still exists. Of the nave, the southern
portion as well as the south aisle, is entirely gone, but that on the
north is tolerably complete. The piers, with their capitals, which bore
up the arches, are of various patterns, channelled, lozenged, shafted,
and shewing in their sculptured surfaces, and the various fretwork of
the arches, that is, in the only decoration which the style admitted—the
germ of that inexhaustible variety and multiplicity of ornament which
was in the sequel to characterize the Gothic.
The nave, as well as aisles, has been vaulted in stone, as is evidenced
from the vaulting shafts, and commencing springers still seen at the
junction of the nave and transepts, and from the curve of the vault
itself, yet traceable at the west end, but denuded of its ribs. This is
a remarkable and almost singular instance of the centre aisle of a
Norman building receiving a vault of stone. Both in England and on the
Continent, the nave was covered simply by a flat boarded roof, to which
were in a great degree owing the frequent and destructive fires of our
early churches.
There are six arches in the nave, but the last is of smaller dimensions
than the rest. This peculiarity is not unfrequent in Norman and Gothic
churches, as if the architect had not previously calculated the space to
be occupied by his arcade. The effect here has been to produce a
horse-shoe instead of a semicircular arch, from its being of the same
height, but lesser span, than the others. This arch is very rare, even
in Norman buildings.
Above the pier-arches there has existed a triforium, of which the only
remains are a single shaft at either end of the nave, the beginning and
termination of the arcade. The Norman triforium is in England simply a
row of openings or pannels in the wall, to fill up, ornamentally, what
would otherwise have been a blank space. In Germany it is a real
gallery, and appropriated to the young men, and called the Männer-chor.
Of the vaulting of the north aisle one arch still remains, but flattened
at top, and only retained in its position by the wedge-form of the
stones which compose it. This will soon fall, and yet might be easily
preserved. The vaulting was quadripartite—the piers, with their
cushioned capitals, and transverse ribs, are yet seen. In one or two
places, the vaulting from pier to pier yet remains, though the ribs
which would have appeared to support it are gone. This is a proof that
the ribs used in vaulting were introduced merely to satisfy the mind by
_appearing_ to support the arches above, and that the eye, which had
been accustomed to strong lines in every other part of the building,
should not here rest in a blank surface.
We now reach the intersection of the nave and transepts. Here in the
strong and massive piers, we have slender circular shafts set in square
recesses—a style of transition from the short and heavy Norman to the
loftiness and exility of the Gothic, by which the weights above being
distributed to different and independent props, an air of lightness and
grace is produced without any diminution of security or strength.
Above, arose the tower which crowned the whole structure, but of its
existence the only remaining evidence is the most singular and beautiful
feature of the ruin. It is the great cross rib traversing the vault
diagonally from N.W. to S.E., and spanning the mid-air free and
unconnected with the building but at its spring. Had this been a pointed
arch, it would have fallen with its superstructure, but the pressure of
the round arch being only at the sides, it is likely to endure as long
as the parts which buttress it up.
The chancel beyond the transepts had originally a semicircular
termination, as is still discernible on the floor—a feature retained in
all the Norman churches abroad. In this part of the edifice, it is to be
regretted, is a departure from the unity of style which pervades the
rest of the fabric—the circular apse has given place to a rectangular,
lighted by pointed windows, in compliance with the fashion of the day,
and in violation of the grave simplicity of the rest of the structure.
Buttresses of slight projection run all round the building. They were
scarcely needed by the Norman architects, from the enormous thickness of
their walls, and their inferior height; but in them we may trace the
rudiments of what became, in the hands of the Gothic builders, so
beautiful and necessary a member, shooting up into airy pinnacles and
spires, and impressing a lofty and majestic character upon the whole.
Of the conventual buildings the traces are few and indistinct. The most
important to their comforts—the vast kitchen chimney yet remains in all
its original strength and completeness. The large walled space adjoining
was probably the Refectory, with which the kitchen would communicate by
the buttery-hatch.
The building is now secured from violence and wanton dilapidation, and
as it has only to contend against the silent erosion of lichen and
wallflower, we may hope that it will long continue to adorn our
district—a monument of a far distant age and far different state of
society, and a beautiful and affecting link between the past and the
present.
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