Middle Ages carried on extensive commercial dealings with the Levant,
and especially with Venice, which largely traded with the near East.
The leading special feature in Aquitanian Romanesque was the _Dome_. It
has been reckoned that in the province of Perigord some eighty domed
churches once existed; of these about fifteen are still with us.
_Provence_ has a history of its own here. Its Romanesque of the
eleventh and twelfth centuries was often inspired by memories of
imperial Rome, not unnatural in a district so closely connected with
the great Empire, and which is even still rich in mighty Roman remains.
In this province we do not find the _Dome_ as in Aquitaine--the old
Basilican plan is generally followed. The majority of all these French
Romanesque churches are vaulted, at least in part, with solid masonry.
_Toulouse and Languedoc._ Here our examples of the ancient churches
of the eleventh and twelfth centuries are sadly fewer. The terrible
Albigensian wars of religion waged against presumed heretics, desolated
the country, and many of the churches and ecclesiastical buildings
were ruthlessly destroyed. The stately Church of S. Sernin at Toulouse
is the most important of the Romanesque churches remaining in this
division of France which we still possess. The domical feature, though
not unknown here, is uncommon. The French feature of the “Chevet,” the
garland of chapels round the ambulatory at the east end, is developed
in these Romanesque Languedoc churches.
_Auvergne._ There are various local characteristics in the Auvergne
Romanesque churches--perhaps one of the most conspicuous peculiar
features is the polychrome masonry which ornaments them. There
is abundance of black basaltic rock in the district, and this is
frequently mixed with yellowish-white freestone laid in mosaic pattern
on the exterior walls, on the aisle, the frieze, etc. The effect is
curious and decidedly pleasing. Sir Thomas Jackson probably suggests
that this various coloured ornamentation, which specially distinguishes
the Auvergne Romanesque piles, suggests a partly oriental origin;
for Mosaic was a favourite Byzantine art. This striking feature is
absolutely peculiar to the Auvergne churches--only one other example of
polychrome masonry can be quoted among the churches in France built in
this period. The lovely cloisters at le Puy are an admirable instance
of this varied coloured “Mosaic” masonry.
_Burgundy._ This important province in the north-east of France was the
home of the remarkable revival of monasticism which played so great
a part in the wonderful religious movement of the eleventh century;
the world-renowned House of Cluny, and its famous daughter monastery
Citeaux, whence sprung the vast Cistercian Order, being situated in the
neighbourhood of Macon in Burgundy.[10]
It was in the workshops of Cluny that Romanesque architecture made
a fresh start in France. The craft of masonry possessed a marked
advantage here in the admirable stone which was quarried in Burgundy.
Among the characteristic features of Burgundian art, the splendid and
remarkable porches of certain of its more provincial churches deserve
mention.
A marked advance in the comparatively new feature of stone vaulting
belongs to the churches of this province. At Vézelay the great nave
was vaulted; hitherto this vaulting of great spaces had been generally
confined to the lesser vaults of the aisles and the crypts.
The mighty church of Cluny was the vastest church in the west of
Europe. Its nave was successfully vaulted with stone. At Citeaux,
the Mother Church of the Cistercian Order, the example, followed
certainly by the earlier churches of the famous order, was set of that
extreme simplicity and restriction in the matter of decoration which
characterises the numberless Cistercian churches which rapidly arose in
so many of the countries of western Europe.
_The Royal Domain_--l’Ile de France. During the eleventh and first
half of the twelfth centuries the “Royal Domain” was very confined,
and virtually was comprised in the district at present included in the
departments grouped round Paris. It was only enlarged at the expense
of the territories of the great Feudatories in the second half of the
twelfth century. It had long been terribly ravaged by the Northmen
raiders, and the Romanesque remains in these parts round Paris are
comparatively few and wanting in importance. But in the latter years
of the twelfth century, under King Philip Augustus, the Royal Domain
became greatly enlarged and included outlying provinces. It thus
became the more fitting appanage of the Over-lord of France.
But in the later years of the twelfth century the vogue of Romanesque
architecture was passing away and rapidly giving place to the new and
striking architectural school known as Gothic.
These years and the earlier part of the thirteenth century--a great
building age--saw the foundation of the mighty Gothic cathedrals of
Paris, Chartres, Bourges, Laon, Soissons, Meaux, Noyon, Amiens, Rouen,
and others, mostly situated in the now enlarged Royal Domain:[11] these
magnificent Gothic piles were for the most part completed before the
end of the thirteenth century.
Indeed this “Domaine Royale,” in its enlarged form, has been with
justice termed the cradle of French Gothic architecture.
NORMAN-ROMANESQUE
In the early years of the eleventh century, a new style of Romanesque
arose in northern and north-western Gaul, which was soon known as
“Norman-Romanesque”--a distinct and remarkable variety of the common
Romanesque family.
It began thus. In the latter years of the tenth century, the great
monastic community of the Benedictines of Cluny, in Burgundy, was
at the height of its power and influence; it occupied a unique
position among the religious houses of the west, owing its great
position largely to the long series of distinguished men who for more
than a century controlled its destinies, and directed its vast and
far-reaching activities.
Among its monks, when Maieul, one of the most distinguished of the
rulers of Cluny, reigned as Abbot, A.D. 948-999, was a young Italian
known as William of Volpiano,[12] A.D. 961-1031. He attracted attention
owing to his great learning, his devoted piety, and his rare skill as
an architect. Under the Cluny influence, at a comparatively early age,
he was appointed Abbot of the ancient foundation of S. Benignus of
Dijon. That once famous church had fallen into decay, and was virtually
a ruin.
As Abbot of S. Benignus of Dijon, William of Volpiano became known
far and wide, as an earnest and successful reformer of monasteries,
and, above all, as a great architect. Among other works he rebuilt S.
Benignus at Dijon, and the new Abbey Church became famous as one of the
most magnificent in France, and was dedicated afresh in A.D. 1018. It
contained many of the characteristic features of the Lombardic school
of the Comacine builders; but it also borrowed some of the features
known as Byzantine; these probably he had become acquainted with from
his knowledge of the churches of Aquitaine and southern France, into
whose churches certain Byzantine features had been introduced. A
portion of S. Benignus, for instance, was roofed with a dome. Beautiful
and striking as the Dijon Abbey was, its great architect did not repeat
it. It was too complicated a structure and too costly.
[Illustration: _Chartres._--“Nôtre Dame de la belle verrière.” Early
Thirteenth Century. Showing the Virgin Mary crowned and enthroned, with
the Infant Jesus in her arms.]
In the early years of the eleventh century Richard II (le Bon),
surnamed “l’ami des moines,” was Duke of Normandy. Normandy, under this
eminent ruler, occupied a prominent position of power and influence
in Northern and Central France. Duke Richard II invited to his Court
the famous Benedictine Abbot, the architect of the restored Abbey of
S. Benignus, and with some difficulty induced William of Volpiano to
make his home in the great Duchy, as Abbot of Fécamp. A number of
Norman abbeys were built under the direction of Abbot William and his
pupils, and these churches were the beginning of what is known as the
Norman-Romanesque style.
We have a few of these churches with us still--some with later
_additions_--others simply _ruins_; some, alas, desecrated by being
applied to other uses. We would instance Jumiéges, Fécamp, S. Ouen
(Rouen), Bernay, Mont S. Michel, Cerisy le Fôret, these originally
being the work of William of Volpiano and the pupils of his school.
We have cited only a few prominent examples, but in the first half
of the eleventh century, some forty new churches, including abbatial
churches, are recorded to have been built by this school of architects.
As the eleventh century advanced Lanfranc (subsequently Archbishop of
Canterbury) and his pupils further developed the Norman-Romanesque of
William of Volpiano in such churches as S. Etienne and, somewhat later,
the church of the Trinité at Caen, erected under the auspices of Duke
William of Normandy the Conqueror of England, and his queen, Matilda.
All these Romanesque round-arched churches contain many characteristics
of the Lombardic architecture, but they have, too, certain
_distinctive_ features; they present generally the aspect of a rugged
severe majesty; the proportions are noble, but most of them are poor in
mouldings and carving;[13] they are remarkable, not for the elegance of
their decorations or the grace of their forms, but the severe lines,
the noble proportions and the grandeur of the whole effect especially
distinguish the early Norman churches and abbeys of the Benedictine
architect of Cluny, William of Volpiano, and his school.
The internal arrangement of these Norman churches is interesting; the
form of the perfect Latin cross (crux immissa) was generally adopted,
and then finally the type was fixed which, amid all the varieties of
style, prevailed through the whole mediæval period.
* * * * *
But the glory of Norman-Romanesque only really appeared in England
shortly after the conquest by Duke William of Normandy in A.D. 1066.
The style in England became rapidly a distinctive and even an
independent development of the Lombardic round-arch architecture.
The impetus which church building received, when once more stillness
prevailed in conquered England, is marvellous; there was nothing
comparable to it in any of the countries of northern Europe. It is
computed that in the days of the Conqueror after A.D. 1070, some 45 new
monastic or abbatial churches were erected in England; in the reign of
William Rufus, his son and successor, 25; in the days of Stephen as
many as 122; under Henry II, the first Plantagenet, 124; when his son,
Cœur de Lion, was King, 44; under King John, 62.
And not only was England, in the days of the Conqueror and his
immediate successors and kinsmen, covered with this enormous number
of sacred buildings, but many of these piles were of vast size, far
greater than any of those lately erected in Normandy and the adjacent
countries, by the Lombardic school of William of Volpiano.
The question has often been put, Whence came the resources out of which
these, in many cases, magnificent churches of vast size, were built in
our island? The answer is--this mighty and strange impulse in church
building in England arose from a feeling among the Norman conquerors
that a terrible wrong had been inflicted by the Conquest upon the
Anglo-Saxon peoples, and to atone for the awful sin, the Norman nobles
and chiefs, their sons and heirs, who had forcibly entered into
possession of the conquered people’s lands and property, in many cases
erected these churches, abbeys, and monastic houses as _expiatory
offerings_ to Almighty God; they were intended as an atonement for the
grievous sin and wrong perpetrated in the Norman conquest of England.
This is no fanciful dream of an historian. The enormous confiscations
of King William have been computed as amounting to an almost incredible
number; 60,000 knights, it is said, received their fees, or rather
their livings, from the Conqueror. These numbers are no doubt
exaggerated, but it is certain that the race of Anglo-Danish and
English (Saxon) nobility, the Earls and the greater Thegns disappeared.
It is indisputable that there was an untold amount of bitter oppression
and cruel wrong inflicted by the Norman kings on the great masses of
Anglo-Saxon society, especially on its higher grades.
This was soon fully recognised. As early as A.D. 1072, a general
penance was decreed by the Norman prelates and confirmed by the
See of Rome, on all who had shared in the deeds which followed the
establishment of Duke William on the English throne. The chroniclers
Orderic,[14] Wace and Matthew Paris, with more or less detail, dwell
on King William’s penitence when dying, for the cruel wrong he and his
men-at-arms had done to conquered England.
The expression above used of these splendid piles in England is
therefore strictly accurate. They were in good truth in most part
“_Abbeys of Expiation_.”
To resume the story of Norman-Romanesque architecture: The following
is a list of some few of the principal English cathedrals and abbatial
churches erected in the very early years after the Norman occupation--
_Approximate date._ _By whom built._
A.D.
(Cathedral) Canterbury 1070-1077. Lanfranc, Prior of S. Etienne,
Caen.
(Abbey) St. Albans 1077-1088. Paul, Monk of S. Etienne,
Caen.
(Cathedral) Rochester 1077-1108. Gundulph, pupil of Lanfranc.
” Winchester 1079-1093. Walkelin, Monk of S.
Etienne, Caen.
” Ely 1083-1106. Simeon, Monk of S. Ouen,
Rouen.
(Abbey) Gloucester 1089-1100. Serlo, Monk of Mont S.
Michel, Normandy.
(Cathedral) Durham 1093-1183. William of S. Carileph,
formerly priest of Bayeux.
” Norwich 1096 Herbert of Losinga, Prior of
Fécamp.
(Abbey) Tewkesbury 1102-1123. (Probably copied from
Gloucester.)
” Southwell 1108. Guimond, Chaplain of Henry
I (Beauclerc).
” Oxford
(Christ Ch.) 1111.
” Peterborough } John, Abbot of Séez.
1114-1133-5-75. } Martin, Abbot of Bec.
The inspirer and leader of these Norman monk-architects of so many
of the great English churches was Lanfranc of Pavia, a monk of Bec
in Normandy, then Prior of S. Stephen, Caen, then Archbishop of
Canterbury. He rebuilt Canterbury Cathedral, 1070-1077, subsequently
much altered and in part rebuilt, but some of Lanfranc’s work still
remains.
To recapitulate. We have very briefly and somewhat roughly traced the
evolution of Romanesque from its beginnings in the first years of the
fourth century, when we date the “Renaissance” of the pre-classical
style which did away with the Entablature and the Greek features which
obscured the old pre-classical round-arch architecture.
The glory of the Ravenna school, which best represented this
“Renaissance” of the pre-classical style, came to an end when the
Lombards descended upon Italy--and became masters of Northern and part
of Central Italy.
But a remnant of the skill of the Ravenna and old Roman School of
architects was preserved by the so-called Comacine Guild,[15] who,
under the protection of the Lombard kings, again worked and built
during the two hundred years, or rather less, of the Lombard sway in
Italy.
Under Charlemagne, A.D. 774, a temporary and partial building impulse
in Dalmatia, Germany, and in Italy must be chronicled. Then darkness,
during about two hundred years, settled over Northern and Central
Europe.
During these two disturbed centuries (ninth and tenth), however, the
Comacine Guild, which had been employed by the Lombard sovereigns,
continued to work and to develop their “round-arch” style of Lombardic
architecture, at Milan and in other centres, of course more or less
fitfully, whenever a ruler arose who had breathing time to devote
himself to the fine arts, especially to architecture.
The Comacine Guild in this period addressed itself to the study of
vaulting construction, and to the art of counterbalancing the thrust of
the roof. The external buttress began to be more and more extensively
used. But the progress of vaulting large spaces, such as the naves of
important churches, was but slow.
In this dark and disturbed period one very notable feature, we might
almost term it “invention,” appeared in the Comacine school of
architecture. This was the addition of the Campanile or lofty Bell
Tower, attached or closely adjacent to the main building of the church.
The earliest dated appearance of this novel and notable feature seems
to have been at Milan about the middle of the ninth century, in the
Churches of San Satiro, and in the so-called Monks’ Tower of Sant
Ambrogio in Milan.
The Bell Tower, or Campanile, of San Satiro at Milan can fairly claim
to have been the prototype of the Lombard Campanile, the virtual
ancestor of the countless towers and steeples of the Middle Ages.
In the great Church revival of the third quarter of the tenth century,
the famous Monastery of Cluny sent out one of its brotherhood, the
Lombard Monk William of Volpiano, trained in the Lombard traditions of
the Comacine school, who rebuilt, on a magnificent scale, the Abbey
of S. Benignus at Dijon. Richard II, Duke of Normandy, sent for and
employed this William of Volpiano, who, with his pupils, during the
first half of the eleventh century, built a goodly number of churches
in Normandy and developed the Romanesque round-arch style of Lombardy
into Norman-Lombardic.
With the coming of Duke William the Conqueror, this Norman school of
Romanesque passed into England, where, as we have seen, under peculiar
circumstances of advantage, the Norman-Romanesque became a national and
distinct style, a perfectly independent development; and a vast number
of churches and abbeys, some of them of great size, arose in England
during the last quarter of the eleventh century and all through most of
the years of the twelfth.
The Norman-Romanesque in England, aided by almost inexhaustible
resources, and in the hands of brilliant and skilful architects, in
these years rose to the perfection of the Norman-Romanesque style,
and when no further progress seemed possible, the Romanesque passed
gradually into what is termed now--Gothic. Of this last evolution we
shall presently speak.
* * * * *
In England, during the years of the rule of William the Conqueror and
his sons and kinsmen, an almost innumerable number of Norman-Romanesque
churches, abbeys and cathedrals were built, as we have stated, all in
the round-arch Lombard style, many of them quite small village and
town churches; others of vast size and of great importance. It was
the old Lombard style, but it had grown imperceptibly into something
new and independent. The more important buildings were, indeed, on a
great scale, such as had not been dreamed of in the pioneer churches of
Normandy, the work of William of Volpiano and his school, the size of
which, with perhaps the solitary exception of the Abbey of Jumiéges,
was not excessive.
The Lombardic round-arch style in England still held its own, but the
variations were many: for example, the simple austere grandeur of St.
Albans was quite different from the more elaborate work of Norwich and
Lincoln. Winchester and Ely were purely Romanesque conceptions, but
they were utterly different from those we have just quoted. The small
and massive cylindrical piers of Malvern Abbey were again another
departure, and were more or less copied in many other churches,
some quite small, others greater, like Hereford Cathedral, and were
reproduced in Gloucester and Tewkesbury Abbeys by cylindrical piers
of enormous, almost of an exaggerated, height. The effect in these
varieties of English or Norman Romanesque is remarkable and different.
Durham, perhaps, is the most striking example of English Romanesque;
the result of William of S. Carileph’s design, this has been well
described as “a Church all glorious within, Presbytery, Lantern and
Nave unequalled in their stately and solemn majesty, the mighty
channelled piers avoiding a mere massiveness which seems to grovel upon
the earth, and avoiding, too, the attempt at an exaggerated soaring
height, such as we see in Gloucester and in Tewkesbury. No Romanesque
building in England, or beyond the sea, can compare with the matchless
pile of Durham.” It was never surpassed, and the perfected Romanesque
was not superseded by, but imperceptibly passed into “Gothic.”
That all the splendid network of Romanesque churches which rapidly
covered England directly after the Norman Conquest came from Norman
inspiration, a glance at the little list of notable English churches we
have given above will show.
For most of the original buildings, with scarcely an exception,
were designed and completed under the Norman kings by Norman
ecclesiastics--by men who came from Caen, Bayeux, Rouen, Fécamp, Séez,
Mont S. Michel, Bec-Herlouin, etc., pupils of, and belonging to,
the school founded by the Lombard-trained Monk of Cluny--William of
Volpiano.
One important special feature of the great Norman-Romanesque churches
of England must be referred to. In the planning of these buildings, at
the east end generally, a spacious ambulatory, or circumambient aisle,
was arranged.
This peculiar feature was not derived from Normandy, or from
the Romanesque school of Lombardy--the direct ancestor of the
Norman-Romanesque builders; but was derived from the original plan of
the great Pilgrim Church of S. Martin of Tours, originally built in
A.D. 472 by Bishop Perpetuus, and which was destroyed by fire in the
last year of the tenth century, and then rebuilt generally on the old
lines with great magnificence early in the eleventh century.
This comparatively novel feature of the Lombardo-Romanesque churches
was designed for the accommodation of pilgrims, who were thus enabled
to pass round the shrine of the saint, usually placed at the east
end of the church, without retracing their steps, thus obviating the
dangers attendant upon the excessive number of pilgrim visitors to the
shrine of the popular saint.
THE COMACINE SYMBOL OF THE INTERLACED LINE POPULARLY KNOWN AS
“SOLOMON’S KNOT”
“It would be difficult,” writes Leader Scott, in that curious and
interesting work _The Cathedral Builders_,[16] “to find any church or
sacred edifice, or even altar, of the Comacine work under the Lombards,
which is not signed, as it were, by some curious interlaced knot formed
of a singular tortuous line” (intreccio).
Now was this “endless knot,” which seems to have been the favourite
symbol of the Comacine builders, the heritage of a far-back tradition
dating from the days of the building the Temple of Jerusalem by King
Solomon? This question cannot be exhaustively or satisfactorily
answered; but the tradition is there, and is at least worthy of
consideration.
The “knot” in question, popularly termed “Solomon’s knot,” is an
unbroken line with neither end nor beginning, and which the Comacines,
as the centuries passed, developed into wonderful intrecci (interlaced
work). It was evidently a sign of the inscrutable and infinite ways
of God, whose nature is unity. The mysterious “Solomon’s Knot” was
an emblem of the manifold ways of the power of the one God, who has
neither beginning nor end.
It was copied, was this famous Comacine symbol, by the Byzantine
artists, but with this striking difference. In Byzantine work it was
reproduced rather for effect--viz. to get a plain surface well and
picturesquely covered. The Byzantine knots and scrolls are often
beautifully finished and clearly cut, but the _line_ is not continuous.
It is merely a pretty feature repeated over and over again, but it
has no suggestion of meaning such as was evidently in the mind of the
Comacine builders.