[Illustration: Fig. 264.--Plan, Norwich cathedral.]
Losinga, who (_O tempora! O mores!_) had, among other acts of simony,
purchased the see of the sacrilegious Rufus for £1900!--a sum equal in
our money to nearly £40,000. His apologist excuses this on the ground
that it is lawful for the clergy to purchase the rights of the church if
they cannot obtain them otherwise, adding the apostolic words,
“Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” The Pope, however, did
not take this view, and sentenced him, for his simoniacal practices, to
build a number of churches at his own cost, of which this stupendous
edifice would appear to have been one, for it is distinctly stated that
he built it at his own charges,--a most amazing fact, though he held the
see for twenty-eight years; and our surprise is increased when we
recollect that the stone of which it is constructed was transported from
Northamptonshire.
The plan of the church (Fig. 264) differs from that of St. Alban’s
mainly in there being only one apsidal chapel to each transept, the
aisle being continuous round the great apse, and in the projection
therefrom of three chapels; also in the absence of western towers. Two
of the chapels last named remain, and are of remarkable plan, a circle,
from the eastern part of which projects an apse. The nave attains the
vast number of fourteen bays; each transept has four; and the eastern
arm a like number to the commencement of the apse. The length is 420 ft.
without the eastern chapel, now lost; that of the transept is 195 ft.
Like St. Alban’s, we have here the original central tower rising to its
full height of 135 ft. It is richly decorated, both without and within,
with ranges of arcading and other ornamental features. Within it rises a
lofty lantern, round which are triforium passages on two levels. The
angle buttresses without consist of a group of numerous shafts forming
an octagon, and ending in turrets now terminated in another style. The
upper part of the walls is curiously filled up with two ranges of large
circles. The tower is a very noble work, though somewhat eccentric in
its design.
We find here the aisle and its gallery, or triforium, of about equal
height, and occupying about three-fourths of the height of the wall; the
remainder being given to the clerestory. The triforium arches are
undivided, and very much resemble those of the main arcade; differing
chiefly in being generally uniform, with a slight alternate variety,
while those below are subjected to frequent changes.
[Illustration: Fig. 265.--Part of Nave, Norwich Cathedral.]
The usual pier on the triforium level has three shafts in a row in its
reveal, carrying a wide and plain soffite, while the angles have
alternately one and two recessed shafts, and the piers have alternately
single and couple shafts running up their front.
The piers below are in some cases like those above, in others a portion
of a vast round pillar is substituted for the row of three-shafts, the
rest remaining as before described; and in one instance, on each side
is a simple round column with spiral flutings, as at Durham, Waltham,
etc. (Fig. 265).
[Illustration: Fig. 266.--Plan of Abbey Church, Bury St. Edmund’s.]
The zigzag and billet appear in the arches, and mouldings are, though
sparingly, introduced. The capitals are mostly either of the cushion
type, or varieties of the form I have shown you from the Tower of
London, Caen, and Lincoln.
The whole internal effect is magnificent and noble in a very high
degree.
The transept-fronts are divided here into three bays instead of two, as
in the churches hitherto described. The arcades of the eastern arm
differ considerably from those of the nave, while those of the apse
unite in a very pleasing manner into a continuous range. Beneath the
central arch are still remaining the shattered vestiges of the original
episcopal throne.
I may mention in passing the remarkable plan of the great East Anglian
abbey church at Bury St. Edmund’s. I exhibit a ground-plan, from which
its remarkable features and extraordinary magnitude may be judged (Fig.
266). The length was 500 ft, and that of its western façade 250 ft. The
latter is of a unique type, being flanked by two vast octagonal towers.
A very different type of the same age is found at Gloucester, the
erection of which commenced in 1089. Here, as was so usual where the
foundation was of the Anglo-Saxon period, the sanctuary has a vast crypt
beneath it (Fig. 267).
[Illustration: Fig. 267.--The Crypt, Gloucester Cathedral.]
The peculiarities of this church are two,--first, the triforium or
gallery of the eastern arm is vaulted with a demi-vault, and from it
opened repetitions of the apsidal chapels, which are placed somewhat as
at Norwich; and second, no such gallery exists to the nave, but the
height is there thrown into the aisle; so that we have a very lofty
aisle of one storey to the nave, and two ranges of aisle of very low
proportions to the eastern arm, the two arrangements coming face to face
in the transepts. The piers throughout were vast cylindrical columns,
with very plain and uncouth round capitals.
This remarkable type was followed, with minor variations, in the two
neighbouring monastic churches of Tewkesbury and Pershore. In all it has
been greatly altered; but, by comparing one with another, the same
scheme is shown to have prevailed in all three. In none were there
aisles to the transepts.
The church at Tewkesbury was built just at the same time with
Gloucester, and retains a feature which Gloucester has lost, a
magnificent Norman central tower.
This church is of peculiar value from its retaining, like those of St.
Alban’s and Norwich, so much of the original Norman outline, and few
there are which exceed it in the solemn dignity of its external aspect.
Of the neighbouring cathedral of Worcester, as rebuilt about this time
or a little earlier by St. Wolstan,--one of the few English bishops who
retained their sees under the Normans,--we have only the crypt,[29]
which is wonderfully perfect in its design and preservation, and the
arches which led into the eastern chapels of the transepts. We have also
the unique and beautiful circular chapter-house of about the same
period.[30] Against the south transept, in an arched passage, we find
either a reminiscence of the Saxon baluster or some from the older
cathedral used again. St. Wolstan would, no doubt, have been glad of any
such memento of good old times; remembering which, while watching the
progress of his Norman Church, he could not restrain his feelings, and
exclaimed, “We wretched people destroy the works of the saints, that we
may get praise for ourselves. That age of happy men knew not how to
construct pompous edifices, but they knew well how, under such roofs as
they had, to sacrifice themselves to God, and to set a good example. We,
alas! strive that we may pile up stones, neglecting, the while, the care
of souls.”
I will not detain you by describing Hereford, built by the more pious
relative and namesake of Losinga, of Norwich;[31] nor Chichester,
commenced about 1089, a few years after the removal of the ancient see
from Selsey, and which was a very perfect Norman cathedral on a minor
scale, with its eastern end arranged much as that of Norwich, but with
two western towers. Its original features are excellent specimens of the
early period.
Let us now travel far northwards, and visit St. Cuthbert’s glorious
shrine; but, after entering upon the great Northern road, let us step
aside and pay a passing tribute to the memory of England’s last Saxon
king, Harold Infelix, in the church of his own founding, at Waltham.
When the nave, now standing, was erected, let us not too curiously
inquire. It is a question on which some of our keenest antiquaries have
differed, and let us not dispute over a site so sacred in England’s
history. Right goodly is the remaining fragment, by whomsoever erected.
I confess to a belief that it was the work of some who still loved the
memory of Harold, after living long under Norman sway; and if, in after
years, the chieftains of Norman lineage delighted to trace their names
in the roll of Battle Abbey, that proud memento
Of Hasting’s fatal field,
Where shiver’d was fair England’s spear,
And broken was her shield,
be it rather for Englishmen to take a mournful pleasure in the spot
whither were borne from that fatal field the mangled remains of
England’s native but unhappy king.
The two are alike mementos of national humiliation; but let us rejoice
that, though the triumphal thank-offering of the Conqueror is now a
desolate ruin, the remnant of Harold’s foundation, however reduced, is
still a church, and has been in our day rescued from much of its
humiliation, and been made the subject of thoughtful and artistic care.
Its architecture has some resemblance to the glorious work which we have
next to consider; for, like Durham, its bays are arranged in couplets.
In one instance, on either side, the intermediate pier is a round
column, pure and simple, with spiral flutings; in the others, the same
form but with attached shafts towards the aisles, so that the two
buildings which I have thus accidentally taken--the one on our
pilgrimage to the other--are so much alike in internal design that one
might fairly attribute them to the same architect.
[Illustration: Fig. 268.--Waltham Abbey.]
At Durham we have a glorious temple erected by Norman bishops, over the
shrine of a British saint. The body of St. Cuthbert, after many
journeyings and sojournings, had eventually become domiciled at Durham;
for,
“After many wanderings past,
He chose his lordly seat at last,
Where his cathedral, huge and vast,
Looks down upon the Wear;
There, deep in Durham’s Gothic shade,
His reliques are in secret laid.”
The existing cathedral was commenced in 1093, by the Norman Bishop de
St. Carileph. Malcomb, king of Scotland, and his true-hearted English
queen, Margaret, assisted in laying the first stones.
Sir Francis Palgrave tells us that Bishop de St. Carileph obtained the
design abroad during three years’ exile from his see. I know not of any
church like it abroad, but this is no refutation of the statement, which
seems by no means an unlikely one, and is, I think, founded on ancient
authority. However this may be, a design more noble can scarcely be
conceived, and I think it must be admitted that, among all the churches
erected by the Normans in England, this is the noblest though far from
being the first in size.
Its great beauty is internal, and arises from the carrying throughout
the principle of alternating clustered piers and vast round columns, the
latter having their shafts decorated with spiral, zigzag, intersecting,
and vertical flutes.
This principle, in an isolated form, we find elsewhere: as in two bays
at Norwich, and a similar number at Selby, and more perfectly at
Waltham, and at Lindisfarne; Durham, however, seems to have taken the
lead in carrying it throughout the church. But still more remarkable is
the stupendous scale and noble proportions in which it is produced.
Though the church was begun by Carileph, he only survived its
commencement for three years, and a like interval of vacancy followed
his decease. During this time the monks, under their zealous prior,
Turgot, carried on the work, which, on the succession of Ralph Flambard
to the see, in 1099, is said to have been completed.
It is clear that the general design had been laid down under Carileph,
as the choir, transepts, and nave agree in their leading idea; so that,
whatever influence the previous building experience of Flambard obtained
during his holding the deanery of St. Paul’s or elsewhere may have had
upon the details of his nave at Durham, we must award the honour of the
scheme, as a whole, to Carileph’s architect, who had supplied him the
design during his exile in Normandy. Both bishops were as far as may be
from the _beau ideal_ of
[Illustration: Fig. 269.--Plan, Durham Cathedral.]
an unworldly ecclesiastic, but one would regret to attribute a work so
noble to the unscrupulous and wicked agent of the oppressions of Rufus.
In plan (Fig. 269), the church, being arranged in coupled bays, two such
couplets are given to its choir and two to either transept (the latter
much narrower than the former). The nave consists of three couplets,
after which comes a single bay, and then the bay which represents the
western façade; or, in other words, it consists of four couplets, the
westernmost of which is disturbed by the substitution of a complex pier
on either side to carry the towers, in the place of what would have been
its round column. This seems an imperfection; for four couplets, clear
of the tower bay, would appear a more perfect arrangement.
The transept has only an eastern aisle. The eastern termination of the
church is lost. It was apsidal, and probably with a circumscribing
aisle. The dimensions of the entire building are not quite equal to some
of those which we have reviewed, being probably at first about 430 ft.
in length by 200 ft. from north to south of the transept. The width from
centre to centre of columns is 40 ft. The bays of nave and choir,
similarly measured, vary from 23 ft. to 26 ft.
The piers are of prodigious size, the clusters and round pillars being
respectively about 11 ft. and 7 ft. in diameter. The magnificent
grandeur of the interior arises as well from the extreme nobleness of
the design of these couplets of bays, as from their continuous use
throughout the church. Nothing can exceed the noble simplicity and
grandeur with which they are treated, nor the happiness of their
proportion (Fig. 270).
The main arcade assumes a much more commanding altitude than in most of
the churches already described, occupying, what became in after-times
its received proportion, of one-half of the height of the wall, the
other half being pretty equally divided between the triforium and
clerestory.
[Illustration: Fig. 271. Durham Cathedral.]
The great columns are precisely like those at Winchester, excepting that
the three-fold group of shafts, which there occupies the lateral
portion, is precisely repeated on the front and back faces, making a
perfectly uniform group in all directions (Fig. 271). This arrangement
produces great grandeur, owing to the noble group of shafts it carries
up to the vaulting of the central space. The arches are boldly moulded,
with rolls and hollows, and enriched with the chevron. The triforium,
piers, and arches are of three orders; the lower one dividing into two
arches on a centre shaft. The clerestory is usually of three unequal
arches.
The capitals are all of the cushion type; those to the great cylindrical
columns being octagonal. The chevron is here freely used, and the
doorways are magnificently rich. One most marked feature in this
cathedral is, that its central space is everywhere vaulted.
It is known that this was a subsequent work; but, in the nave at least,
it appears equally clearly to have
[Illustration: Fig. 270.--Part of Nave, Durham Cathedral.]
been contemplated from the first, a portion of the transverse ribs
having been built with the walls. In the transept, however, the evidence
seems to be the other way, though I think the question has been hardly
sufficiently investigated. The sister church at Lindisfarne, built
almost on the same design, seems, from the views one sees of it, to have
been vaulted from the first, or, at least, to have been so designed.
Externally, a peculiarity occurs at Durham in the gabled roofing
originally covering the aisles (Fig. 272). This does not now exist, but
the evidences of it are indisputable.
[Illustration: Fig. 272.--Durham Cathedral. Gabled roofing to the
Aisles.]
The awful grandeur of the interior of this cathedral, and its noble
effect from without,--standing, as it does, on a rocky promontory nearly
surrounded by the deep ravine of the river, and, as a quaint old writer
says--“So envyroned with hilles, that he that hath seen the situation of
this city hath seen the mapp of Sion, and may save himself a journey to
the Holy Land,”--must ever cause it to rank among the grandest of our
Mediæval remains: and its influence seems to have been proportioned to
its merits; for, as Sir Francis Palgrave tells us, it “became the normal
model of ecclesiastical architecture throughout the ancient diocese of
Aidan and Finan, far beyond the Tweed.”
I will only notice one more building in the present lecture, and that in
the farthest south; and I make this long stride,--from the Wear to the
New Forest,--for the sake of noticing the other great work of the
notorious prime minister of Rufus. Mr. Ferrey, who has every right to
judge of all that relates to Christchurch, has traced out certain
resemblances between Christchurch and Durham. The difficulty in
connecting such resemblances with the influence on each of Bishop
Flambard, is (as I have before said) that Durham was commenced, and had
made great progress before his succession to the see. I am, however,
disposed to think that it was Durham that influenced Christchurch,--as
it was not while dean, but subsequently, when patron of Christchurch,
that Flambard rebuilt that church; and this was contemporaneous with his
holding the see of Durham.
Flambard’s Church is extremely bold and simple in its parts, and well
studied in its proportions. The clerestory and vaulting are of a later
date; but Mr. Ferrey gives reasons for thinking the latter to have been
from the first intended. The details are good and well considered; the
capitals are of the cushioned form, and of that type noticed in the
Tower of London and elsewhere. Some appear to have been subsequently
carved with exquisite taste, in a manner which reminds one of Greek
foliage. The windows of the triforium gallery, with the corbel tabling
over them, still remain, and are of excellent, though simple, design;
while the beautifully arcaded stair-turret to the northern transept is
one of the choicest relics of the Norman style (Fig. 273).
[Illustration: Fig. 273.--Stair-turret, North Transept, Christchurch,
Hants.]
The buildings I have thus imperfectly described I have selected as
having been all commenced within the eleventh century. I trust I may be
able during the next session to follow on the style through its
subsequent and more ornate stages, and on again through the interesting
period of its transition into the Pointed style; and, while doing this,
I hope to illustrate my remarks by means of many of the smaller
creations of the style, and by some which are other than
ecclesiastical.[32]
For the present,--after travelling over an eventful period of nearly
seven centuries, and tracing out the rise of British[33] architecture
through many phases,--I must bring my course for this session to a
close, apologising if I have, in the warmth of patriotism, been induced
to lead you out of the beaten and accredited track of art; though at the
same time convinced that the architecture we have been considering will
be found on close examination to contain germs and principles which have
been and may again be made to germinate into styles of art of the
highest and noblest character.