The triforium piers are very similar, though lighter, excepting that the
round pillar has lateral shafts to carry the sub-arcuation. All the
orders are moulded.
How far the general plan was laid down from the first by Symeon is not
known, but it differs from other cathedral and abbey churches in having
a magnificent transept at the west end. Whether what we call the
foundations of towers at Winchester may have been a foreshadowing of the
arrangement, I cannot judge; but from its extraordinary scale (far
exceeding that of western towers in general), I think it not unlikely.
There was also some distant resemblance to this in the façade at Bury.
Though, judging from the number of its bays, one would think the size of
Ely and Winchester not very different, there is a disparity in the
essential scale, which causes it to fall far short of the dimensions of
Walkelyn’s church. The widths of naves from centre to centre of piers
are respectively, 42 feet 6 inches and 37 feet 6 inches; and that of the
bays, similarly measured, are about 22 feet and 19 feet 9 inches.
The nave is of thirteen bays, besides the western transept. These parts
were added in the course of the twelfth century, making the whole length
(not measuring the west porch added in another style), about 420 feet,
the transept measuring about 190 feet in length.
There was, of course, a central tower as usual, but there was a second
tower of great size, and probably of greater height in the middle of the
western transept, which transept was flanked at its angles, with vast
polygonal stair-turrets, and had large and noble apsidal chapels
projecting from its eastern sides. These parts are in the Transitional
style, which I do not touch upon during this session; but I may here say
that, whether projected from the first or not, a more magnificent
addition to the usual features of a great cathedral or abbey church, can
hardly be imagined, though what its effect was when the central tower
existed, and the western one was crowned by a vast leaded spire, one can
hardly now appreciate.
Abbot Symeon’s tower had the same radical weakness with that built by
his brother, and though it lasted longer (having no Rufus beneath it),
it at length gave way, and was succeeded by the remarkable structure now
forming the unique centre of the glorious temple.
Of doorways, windows, etc., I will not now treat, though some of the
latter are of great beauty. Were it not that I limit myself during the
present lecture to buildings begun during the eleventh century, I should
here have noticed Peterborough, whose eastern end was a manifest
imitation of that of Abbot Symeon.
Abbot Symeon died at a hundred years of age in 1093. Of what a long
course of events had he been a contemporary or an eye-witness! He might
have remembered the congratulations called forth by the failure of the
prognostications of the world’s coming to an end in the year 1000. A
relative of the ducal family of Normandy, he might have witnessed, when
in early manhood, the arrival of Ethelred and Emma with the destined
king, confessor, and saint, when they fled from the ravages of King
Sweyn; and he might have even directed the education of the
Confessor-King. In architecture, he might have watched almost from its
rise the development of the Norman style, and have assisted, when at
early middle age, at the consecration of Duchess Judith’s Abbey Church
at Bernay, which is now our earliest specimen of what was then the
rising art of Normandy, and long subsequently became that of England,
and of which he and his brother,--now in their old age,--had become
respectively the founders of two of the noblest examples.
Before describing any other of the remaining works of the period, I will
carry you in imagination to one which has long ceased to exist. St.
Paul’s Cathedral in London was founded, as we have seen, early in the
seventh century, by Mellitus, the missionary bishop, and by Sebert, king
of Essex. Having been destroyed by fire, its rebuilding was commenced in
1083 by Bishop Maurice. The structure then commenced was of the most
ample dimensions. The elementary scale was larger even than that of
Winchester, for the width of the nave from centre to centre of the
pillars was 46 ft. 6 in., while that of Winchester was 42 ft. 6 in. The
nave was twelve bays in length, and each transept had five bays,
exceeding in this respect (so far as I know) any other Norman church,
excepting the Abbey at Bury St. Edmund’s. The transepts were doubly
aisled. The choir had, probably, four bays, but of its eastern
termination I know nothing.
The central tower must have been nearly 60 ft. square, and the length
of the transept 300 ft. The choir was raised high on an extensive crypt
(the successor, in all probability, of that which I have conjectured
Bishop Mellitus had constructed on the model of that of St. Peter’s at
Rome). Whether the two western towers, placed beyond the outer walls of
the aisles, like those of Abbot Paul at St. Alban’s, were of the
original date, I am uncertain.
The architecture of the interior seems to have somewhat resembled that
of Winchester, but was more lofty and more ornate. The plan of the
pillars seems precisely the same; but the arches both of the main arcade
and of the gallery were moulded, and circumscribed apparently by an
enriched label. The triforium arches are not shown as subdivided, but I
think that this was owing to an alteration of the original work. The
clerestory had in each bay three openings. The aisle walls were,
internally, arcaded beneath the windows. Whether the circular windows,
which in Hollar’s view light the triforium storey, represent original
ones, such as those at Waltham, we cannot judge.
Of this stupendous edifice, William of Malmesbury, who saw it in its
unaltered state, remarks, that “such is the magnificence of its
decorations that it is reckoned worthy to be numbered among the most
illustrious edifices; such the extent of the crypt, such the capacity of
the temple above, that it seems capable of sufficing to hold any
multitude of people.”
Our old London cathedral, through the whole period of its existence,
appears to have been the largest in England, and one of the largest in
Europe,--its dimensions at a later date being 600 ft. from east to
west, 300 ft. from north to south, and 520 ft. in the height of its
spire.
One of the great builders of the first race of Anglo-Normans was
Gundulph, a monk of the famous Abbey of Bec, and the friend of Lanfranc,
who, in 1077, consecrated him as Bishop of Rochester.
He rebuilt his cathedral, originally founded by the missionary Bishop
Justus; but it is very doubtful whether any important part of his
cathedral now exists.[27] He founded, also, the Castle at Rochester,
though he did not build the magnificent keep usually attributed to him.
He did, however, build the still more stupendous keep of the Tower of
London, including the chapel already described, having been regularly
employed by the king as the surveyor of the work.[28] The existing
remains of Norman style at Rochester differ so entirely from this in
character that I am convinced that the parts of the cathedral which he
built were just the eastern portion,--raised high on its crypt,--which
were rebuilt again in the thirteenth century.
Though not precisely in order of date, I will take next the great
cathedral of East Anglia, which was erected, not on any ancient site,
but wholly anew at Norwich; and of which nearly the entire shell of the
original fabric has come down to our own day.