CHAPTER XII

PAINTING

The origin of painting dates from remote antiquity, and the art had

already passed through many developments before it was applied by

Gothic architects to the decoration of their buildings.

"In the thirteenth century the architectonic painting of the Middle

Ages reached its apogee in France. The painted windows, the vignettes

of manuscripts, and the mural decorations of this period all denote

a learned and finished art, and are marked by a singular harmony of

tones, and a corresponding harmony with architectural forms. It is

beyond question that this art was developed in the cloister, and was a

direct product of Græco-Byzantine teachings."[38]

[38] Viollet-le-Duc, _Dictionnaire raisonné_, vol. vii.

From the archæological point of view, however, it is important to bear

in mind the considerable influence exercised upon continental art by

the manuscripts and miniatures of Irish monks, so early as the reign

of Charlemagne.

[Illustration: 116. PAINTINGS IN CAHORS CATHEDRAL. HORIZONTAL

PROJECTION OF THE CUPOLA WITH FORESHORTENED FIGURES AND THEIR

ARCHITECTURAL FRAMEWORK]

Towards the close of the twelfth century sculpture and painting alike

entered on a new phase, resulting from that process of architectural

evolution we have been considering. The hieratic tradition was set

aside for the direct teaching and inspiration of nature. But as the

mastery of the painter increased, the mural spaces available for

the application of his new methods diminished rapidly, till, by the

thirteenth century, the only wall surfaces left to him were those

beneath the windows, and some few triangular spaces in the vault,

where the interlacing network of arches became gradually closer and

closer. Finding themselves thus practically excluded from the new

Gothic buildings, the painters of the day turned their attention with

entire success to the decoration of ancient monuments by the new

naturalistic methods. The domes of great abbey churches such as St.

Front (Périgueux) offered immense bare surfaces, the concave forms

of which they utilised with extraordinary skill, adorning them with

compositions in which figure and ornament are so adroitly combined,

that they seem to be of normal proportions, in spite of their really

colossal size (Fig. 117).

[Illustration: 117. PAINTING IN CAHORS CATHEDRAL. FRAGMENT OF ONE OF

THE EIGHT SECTORS OF THE CUPOLA. THE PROPHET EZEKIEL]

Thanks to a discovery of mural paintings made in the Cathedral of

Cahors in 1890, of the greatest archæological importance, we are able

to verify these statements.

During the progress of certain works undertaken for the preservation

of the two domes, some paintings of great interest were laid bare on

the removal of several coats of whitewash from the western cupola.

Traces of similar decoration were found on the eastern cupola and its

pendentives, but these it was found impossible to preserve, the action

of the air causing them to peel at once from the surfaces. But the

western composition is intact, and though the brilliance of the colour

has no doubt suffered from time, we can still appreciate the learning,

vigour, and firmness of hand perceptible in the design, which is

outlined in black.

This western cupola, which is ovoid, and some fifty-three feet in

diameter, like that of the east, is divided by its pictorial scheme

into eight sectors, separated by wide bands of boldly-designed fruits

and flowers. Fig. 116 gives an exact idea of the general arrangement.

Eight colossal figures of prophets, varying in height from fifteen to

sixteen feet approximately, form the chief motives of the decoration.

David, the prophet king, and the four great prophets: Daniel to

the left of David; then in order, Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Ezekiel on

the right, towards the choir of the church, and the three minor

prophets--Jonah, Esdras, and Habakkuk--are painted in modulated tones,

the dark outline forming a setting, on a background varying from tawny

to deep red. The figures are enframed in a firmly-drawn architectural

setting. This architecture is painted in gray against the masonry,

the courses of which are indicated by double lines of brown upon the

pale ochre of the general surface. Each prophet holds a phylactery

or banderole inscribed with his name in beautiful thirteenth-century

characters.

The floriated bands which divide the sectors terminate above in a

circular frieze surrounding the crown of the cupola. The latter

represents a starry sky, the centre painted with the apotheosis of

St. Stephen, the patron of the cathedral. The frieze is painted

with scenes from the trial and stoning of the Saint; the life-size

figures are full of expression and grouped with great variety. In

these paintings there are evident leanings towards the naturalistic

evolution; and though the figures of the prophets are still hieratic

in certain respects, the poses, heads, and details all point to

evident research in the matter of physiognomy. This research is

carried very far in the figures of the circular frieze, where the

hands have evidently been carefully studied from nature.

[Illustration: 118. PAINTINGS IN CAHORS CATHEDRAL. FRAGMENT OF THE

CENTRAL FRIEZE OF THE CUPOLA]

Technically speaking, these paintings are not frescoes. "The medium

employed seems to have been egg, the white and yolk mixed, and the

method very analogous to that of water-colour painting.... The red

tones were laid over a bed of deep orange, the effect being one of

extraordinary vigour and brilliance, taking into account the means at

command. The use of a prepared ground was systematic, and was resorted

to whenever intensity of the tones or colour effects was desired.

Evident efforts in the direction of modelling are noticeable,

though these have been neutralised to a great extent by a lack of

concentration in the lights, and if it were not for the thick outline

in which each figure is set, there would be much in common between

the methods of these paintings and those renderings of diffused light

affected by our modern _plein-airistes_. The general tone is that of

the simpler paintings of the thirteenth century, that is to say, of

those in which no gold was used. The effect is warm and brilliant, the

dominant hue orange, heightened by reds of various tints."[39]

[39] From the technical notes of M. Gaïda.

According to the archæological records derived from various works of

the historians of Le Quercy, these paintings in the west cupola of

Cahors were carried out under the direction of the Bishops Raymond de

Cornil, 1280-93, Sicard de Montaigu, 1294-1300, Raymond Panchelli,[40]

1300-1312, or Hugo Geraldi, 1312-16, the friend of Pope Clement V. and

of Philip IV. of France, who was burnt alive at Avignon, or perhaps

even of Guillaume de Labroa, 1316-24, whose residence was at Avignon,

and who governed the diocese of Cahors through a procurator. From this

period onwards there was no further question of decorative works, the

successors of these bishops being fully occupied in maintaining the

struggle against the English invaders.

[40] Raymond Panchelli, or Raymond II., who in 1303 began to build the

Bridge of Valentré at Cahors.

It seems reasonable therefore to infer that the Cahors paintings

date either from the end of the thirteenth century or the beginning

of the fourteenth. In any case, these decorations are of very great

artistic merit, and of the highest interest as an unique example of

French decorative art at the finest period of the thirteenth century,

when Gothic architecture had reached its apogee, and was producing

masterpieces which served as models for contemporary artists, and even

more notably, for those of the early fourteenth century.

That vigilant guardian of our beautiful cathedrals and historic

monuments, the _Administration des Cultes_, has taken measures which

do it infinite honour in this matter. No attempt has been made to

restore the paintings, but all necessary steps have been taken to

ensure their preservation as they stand, so as to leave intact the

archæological value of these convincing witnesses to the genius of our

French mediæval painters.

The mural spaces available for fresco decoration having been gradually

suppressed, and decorative painting limited to the illumination of

certain subordinate members of the structure, the mediæval artists

began to apply themselves to the decoration of the great screens of

glass which, with their sculptured framework of stone, now filled

the entire spaces between the piers. In this new art, or rather this

incarnation of the spirit of decoration under a new form, we find a

fresh illustration of that supple assimilative genius which already

distinguished the French artist.

[Illustration: 119, 120. PAINTED WINDOWS OF THE EARLY TWELFTH CENTURY.

FROM ST. RÉMI AT RHEIMS[41]]

[41] Drawings lent by M. Ed. Didron, painter upon glass.

"It is in the nature of the material used, that painted windows

should greatly affect the character of the building they decorate.

If their treatment is injudicious, the intended architectural

effect may be greatly modified; if, on the other hand, they

are intelligently applied, they tend to bring out the beauty of

structural surroundings.... As is the case with all architectonic

painting, stained glass demands simplicity in composition, sobriety

in execution, and an avoidance of naturalistic imitation. It should

aim neither at illusion nor perspective. Its scheme of colour should

be frank, energetic, comprising few tints, yet producing a harmony

at once sumptuous and soothing, which should compel attention, but

seeks not to engross it to the detriment of the setting. Like a mural

mosaic, an Eastern carpet, or the enamelled goldsmith's work of the

twelfth and thirteenth centuries, a truly decorative window has no

affinities with a picture, a scene or landscape gazed at from an open

window, where the interest concentrates itself upon a particular

point, and where the illumination is not equally diffused throughout.

The fundamental law of decorative painting rests on a convention the

aim of which is the satisfaction of the eye, which finds its pleasure

to a far greater degree in the logical decoration of some structural

or useful object than in its realisation of natural phenomena.

Between painted windows and pictures a great gulf is fixed; and the

modern school, the heir of the Italian Renascence, seeking to bridge

it over, has seduced decorative art from the safe paths of sound

judgment."[42]

[42] _Le Vitrail à l'Exposition de 1889_, by Ed. Didron; Paris, 1890.

[Illustration: 121. PAINTED WINDOW OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY. CHURCH OF

BONLIEU (CREUSE)]

[Illustration: 122. PAINTED WINDOW OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. CHARTRES

CATHEDRAL]

The true functions of stained glass were never more admirably

understood than in the twelfth century. The artists of that day

had a perfect comprehension of those colour-harmonies, the subdued

splendour of which best accorded with the simple and vigorous forms

of Romanesque architecture. Upon his glass of various tints the

painter first outlined his figure or ornament in black. This outline

he supported with a flat half-tint which supplied a rough modelling

and allowed the forms expressed to make their fullest effect from a

distance. When, in the thirteenth century, the extreme austerity

of religious buildings began to relax, the splendour of the painted

windows increased proportionately; but the coloration, though it

increased in glow and vigour, still preserved its complete harmony

with its surroundings. An additional richness is perceptible in

work of the fourteenth century, at which period red glass began to

be used with a certain prodigality. The system of execution remains

unchanged so far; but the black outline is considerably attenuated,

and the half-tone which emphasises it loses much of its importance.

The figures, in place of the hieratic repose of an earlier period,

affect a certain grace and animation which herald a tendency towards

realistic imitation. These germs of naturalism soon bore fruit. At

the close of the fourteenth century the discovery of how to obtain

yellow from salts of silver, and the facility with which it could be

used to warm the grayer tones of glass by the help of the muffle,

caused a revolution in the art of glass-painting, and prepared the way

for polychromatic enamelling. This discovery, eminently useful when

discreetly applied, was to lead to regrettable exaggerations.

[Illustration: 123. PAINTED WINDOW OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.

CHARTRES CATHEDRAL]

[Illustration: 124. PAINTED WINDOW OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. CHURCH

OF ST. GERMER, TROYES]

In the fifteenth century the figures of saints were usually drawn

upon glass so tinted as to be of a soft white tone; the hair, beards,

head-dresses, jewels, trimmings, and embroideries were painted in

yellow. The figures stood out in bold relief against a background

of blue or red, and were divided by a damasked drapery of green or

purple. Vast architectural motives were introduced enframing the

figures and filling up the immense window spaces of the latest period

of mediæval art. The transformation was radical. It is of interest to

note that the final development of the Gothic style ought logically

to have brought about a recrudescence of vigour in the coloration

of stained glass; but the exact reverse was the case; and a marked

modification took place in the glowing effects won by a diversity of

strong tints. The sort of _camaïeu_ which was the result obliged the

painter to insist more strongly on the modelling of the figures, and

to give less importance to the black outline, which was eventually

suppressed altogether.

[Illustration: 125. PAINTED WINDOWS OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. CHURCH

OF ST. URBAIN AT TROYES]

In the sixteenth century painted glass became to a certain extent

translucent pictures, in which architectural fitness was no longer

respected. Composition lost its simplicity. A subject spread from

panel to panel, regardless of the intervening tracery. Nevertheless,

we forget the defects of this luxuriant development, and cease to

wonder at its popularity, in view of that broad and vigorous execution

and beauty of colour which give it a special decorative value of its

own.

[Illustration: 126. PAINTED GLASS OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. HEAD OF

ST. PETER. CATHEDRAL OF CHÂLONS-SUR-MARNE]

Enamelling is so closely allied to glass-painting as to claim a

word for itself. Here, again, the decorative art of the Middle Ages

was characteristically displayed, and though the process is more

specially applicable to the ornamentation of goldsmith's work than to

the decoration of large surfaces, it is one of the most brilliant and

exquisite of the auxiliary arts.

[Illustration: 127. PAINTED WINDOW OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. ÉVREUX

CATHEDRAL]

The earliest enamels are _champlevé_ and _cloisonné_. By the

_champlevé_ process a hollow, the edges of which outlined the

figures or ornaments, was cut in the field or ground of metal for

the reception of the fusible enamel; for _cloisonné_, _cloisons_, or

slender walls of metal were fixed upon the field to separate flesh

from draperies, and one tint generally from another. The background,

the _cloisons_, and the flesh were gilt and burnished; details were

defined by engraved lines, so that the draperies only were enamelled.

[Illustration: 128. ENAMEL OF THE ELEVENTH CENTURY. PLAQUE COVER OF A

MS. HEIGHT 4-3/4 IN., WIDTH 2-9/16 IN.]

Fig. 128 reproduces an enamel of the close of the eleventh century, in

which these various characteristics may be studied. The inscriptions

on either side of the cross are formed by letters vertically

superposed, which read downwards.

From the beginning of the thirteenth century enamels were executed by

the process known as _taille d'épargne_. By this method the ground

was cut out, as described above, for the reception of the various

ingredients which, after undergoing the process of firing, formed

the enamel; the draperies, hands, and feet of the figures which were

_épargnés_ (_spared_ or left) were modelled and chased in very low

relief; but the central figure, such as the Christ, and the heads of

the subordinate personages or attendant angels, were always in high

relief, vigorously modelled, and chased.

Fig. 129, a plaque forming the cover of an evangelium, is a

characteristic example of this class of enamel. It dates from the

early thirteenth century, and is a production of the _ateliers_

founded at Limoges by the monks of Solignac.

[Illustration: 129. ENAMEL OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. PLAQUE COVER OF

AN EVANGELIUM. HEIGHT 7-2/16 IN., WIDTH 6-11/16 IN.]

The reliquary figured No. 130 is also a work of the Limousin

enamellers. The methods employed are identical, but the carving of the

figures is less delicate, indeed almost rudimentary, the modelling

being replaced by hasty strokes of the graver. The lower panel of this

reliquary represents the martyrdom of Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of

Canterbury, the upper part his apotheosis. It is crowned by a ridge

roof of two sides.

[Illustration: 130. ENAMEL OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY. RELIQUARY SHRINE

OF ST. THOMAS À BECKET]

As is well known, Thomas à Becket was canonised two years after his

tragic death, which had aroused general reprobation throughout

Christendom. The universal feeling expressed itself at Limoges by

the manufacture of a great number of reliquaries destined to receive

relics of the sainted martyr.

In the details of the draperies and hands of those portions of

Fig. 129 which are carved in low relief, we may trace the germs of

those low-relief enamels known as translucent, or to be more exact,

transparent enamels. This process originated in Italy, and was

commonly employed in France, and even in Germany throughout the

fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, more especially the latter.

These enamels could only be executed on gold and silver. The method

consisted in modelling the design in very low relief on the face of

the plate, which was then covered with a transparent enamel of few

colours. The process was a slow and difficult one; the pieces were

consequently very costly, and the demand for them proportionately

restricted.

[Illustration: 131. ENAMEL OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. OUR LADY OF

SORROWS]

The enamellers of the sixteenth century, especially those who

flourished at its beginning, were evidently inspired by these

low-relief enamels to seek the same brilliant opalescence of effect

by more scientific and less costly methods. But the simplification of

the process degenerated into vulgarisation, and its original qualities

gradually faded out. Fig. 131, representing Our Lady of Sorrows, and

signed I. C. (Jehan Courteys or Courtois), gives some idea of the

design, at least, of the painted enamels executed by the Limousin

artists of the early sixteenth century.

Gothic architecture, more especially in its religious manifestations

from the twelfth to the fifteenth century, made its prolific influence

felt, not only by the structural qualities of its vast and numerous

buildings, but by those various arts created, perfected, or at least

developed, for their decoration. We have traced a bare outline of

its activities, regretting that space fails us to make an exhaustive

study of their various manifestations. The priceless fragments which

illustrate these offshoots of an art essentially French are now the

chief ornaments not only of French, but of all European museums.

They take rank as factors of the first importance in art education,

pointing the way to fresh masterpieces of French genius.

PART II

MONASTIC ARCHITECTURE

CHAPTER I

MONASTIC ARCHITECTURE: ITS ORIGIN

The origin of monastic architecture is of no greater antiquity than

the fourth century of the Christian era. The hermits and anchorites of

the earliest period made their habitation in the caves and deserts of

the Thebaïd; their sole monument is the record of their virtues, which

have outlived any buildings they may have raised during their years

of solitude. But the first Christians who banded themselves together

under a common rule, and discarded anchoritism for the cenobitic life,

marked their worldly pilgrimage by monuments, traces of which are

still to be found in historic records or fragmentary remains.

The history of abbey churches is identical with that of

cathedrals.[43] The architectural evolutions and transformations

which succeeded each other in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries

manifested themselves in both. Like the cathedrals, the abbey churches

were the creation of monkish architects, and were carried out either

under their immediate direction or that of their pupils.

[43] See Part I., "Religious Architecture."

But a kindred field of study offers itself in the abbeys themselves,

their organisation and adaptation to the domestic needs of their

be-frocked inmates.

[Illustration: 132. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. CLOISTER (THIRTEENTH

CENTURY. FROM A DRAWING BY ED. CORROYER)]

Monastic institutions date from the Roman era. The first abbeys were

those established in France in the fourth century, by St. Hilary of

Poitiers and St. Martin of Tours. These religious associations or

corporations, which eventually became so powerful, by reason not only

of their numbers, but of the spirit which animated them, must be

reckoned as among the most beneficent forces of the Middle Ages. Even

from the philosophical side alone of the religious rule under which

they flourished, by virtue of which enlightened men wielded supreme

power, they were admirable institutions.

To instance one among many, the so-called _Rule_ of St. Benedict

is in itself a monument, the basis of which is _discipline_, the

coping-stone _labour_. These are principles of undying excellence, for

they are the expression of eternal truths. And from them our modern

economists, who so justly exalt the system of co-operation, might even

in these latter days draw inspiration as useful and as fruitful as

that by which men were guided in the days of Benedict.

Three great intellectual centres shed their light on the first

centuries of the Middle Ages. These were Lérins, Ireland, and Monte

Casino. Their most brilliant time was from the fourth century to

the reign of Charlemagne, by which period they may be said to have

prepared the way for successive evolutions of human knowledge, by

assiduous cultivation of the sciences and arts, more especially

architecture, in accordance with the immutable laws of development and

progress.

_Lérins._--St. Honoratus and his companions, when they landed in the

archipelago, built on the principal island a chapel surrounded by the

cells and buildings necessary for a confraternity. This took place

about 375-390 A.D. The members of the budding community were learned

monks, who had accepted the religious rule which had now become their

law. They instructed neophytes sent them from the mainland, and their

reputation grew so rapidly that Lérins soon took rank as a school of

theology, a seminary or nursery whence the mediæval church chose the

bishops and abbots best fitted to govern her.

The school of Lérins was so esteemed for learning that it took

an active part in the great Pelagian controversy which agitated

Christendom at the time,[44] and zealously advocated the doctrines of

semi-pelagianism, but this tendency was finally subdued by St. Vincent

of Lérins, whose ideas were more orthodox. The theological teaching of

Lérins seems to have dominated, or at least to have directed religious

opinion in Gaul down to the sixth century.

[44] _Pelagianism_ was the heresy of the monk Pelagius, who flourished

in the fourth century. He contested the doctrine of original sin,

as imputed to all mankind from the fall of Adam, and taught that

the grace of God is accorded to us in proportion to our merits.

_Semi-pelagianism_ taught that man may begin the work of his own

amelioration, but cannot complete it without Divine help.

_Ireland._--So early as the sixth century Ireland was the centre

of art and science in the West. The Irish monks had followed the

oriental tradition as modified by its passage through Scandinavia;

they exercised a considerable influence on continental art by their

manuscripts and illuminations, and prepared the way for the renascence

of the days of Charlemagne, to which such importance was given by the

monuments of the Romanesque movement.

St. Columba was a monk of the seminary of Clonard in Ireland,

whence towards the close of the sixth century he passed over to

the continent, founding the Abbeys of Luxeuil and Fontaine, near

Besançon, and later that of Bobbio, in Italy, where he died in 615.

His principal work was the _Rule_ prescribed to the Irish monks who

had accompanied him, and those who took the vows of the monasteries he

had founded. In this famous work he did not merely enjoin that love of

God and of the brethren on which his _Rule_ is based; he demonstrated

the utility and beauty of his maxims, which he built upon Scriptural

precepts, and upon fundamental principles of morality. The school

of Luxeuil became one of the most famous of the seventh century,

and, like that of Lérins, the nursery of learned doctors and famous

prelates.

_Monte Casino._--In the sixth century St. Benedict preached

Christianity in the south of Italy, where, in spite of Imperial

edicts, Paganism still prevailed among the masses. He built a chapel

in honour of St. John the Baptist on the ruins of a temple of Apollo,

and afterwards founded a monastery to which he gave his _Rule_ in 529.

This was the cradle of the great Benedictine order.

The number of St. Benedict's disciples grew apace. He had imposed on

them, together with the voluntary obedience and subordination which

constitute _discipline_, those prescriptions of his _Rule_, which

demanded the partition of time between prayer and work. He proceeded

to make a practical application of these principles at Monte Casino,

the buildings of which were raised by himself and his companions.

Barren lands were reclaimed and transformed into gardens for the

community; mills, bakehouses, and workshops for the manufacture of

all the necessaries of life were constructed in the abbey precincts,

with a view to rendering the confraternity self-supporting; auxiliary

buildings were reserved for the reception of the poor and of

travellers. These, however, were so disposed that strangers were kept

outside the main structure, which was reserved exclusively for the

religious body.

The great merit of St. Benedict, apart from his philosophical

eminence, lies in his comprehension of the doctrine of labour. He was

perhaps the first to teach that useful and intelligent work is one

of the conditions, if not indeed the sole condition, of that moral

perfection to which his followers were taught to aspire. If he had no

further title to fame, this alone should ensure his immortality.

"The apostles and first bishops were the natural guides of those who

were appointed to build the basilicas in which the faithful met for

worship. When at a later stage they carried the faith to distant

provinces of the empire, they alone were able to indicate or to mark

out with their own hands the lines on which buildings fitted for

the new worship should be raised.... St. Martin superintended the

construction of the oratory of one of the first Gallic monasteries

at Ligujé, and later of that of Marmoutier, near Tours, on the banks

of the Loire. In the reign of Childebert, St. Germain directed the

building of the Abbey of St. Vincent--afterwards re-named St.

Germain-des-Près--in Paris. St. Benedict soon added to his _Rule_ a

decree providing for the teaching and study of architecture, painting,

mosaic, sculpture, and all branches of art; and it became one of the

most important duties of abbots, priors, and deans to make designs for

the churches and auxiliary buildings of the communities they ruled.

From the early centuries of the Christian era down to the thirteenth

century, therefore, architecture was practised only by the clergy, and

came to be regarded as a sacred science. The most ancient plans now

extant--those of St. Gall and of Canterbury--were traced by the monks

Eigenhard and Edwin.... During the eleventh and twelfth centuries

there rose throughout Christendom admirable buildings due to the art

and industry of the monks, who, bringing to bear upon the work their

own researches, and the experience of past generations, received a

fresh stimulus to exertion in this age of universal regeneration, by

the enthusiasm with which their kings inspired them for the vast ruins

of the ninth century."[45]

[45] Albert Lenoir, _L'Architecture Monastique_; Paris, 1856.

From the earliest centuries of the Christian era communities both male

and female had been formed with the object of living together under

a religious rule; but it seems evident that the greater number of

monasteries owed their fame and wealth, if not their actual origin,

to the reputation of their relics. These attracted the multitude.

Pilgrimages became so frequent, and pilgrims so numerous, that it was

found necessary to build hospices, or night-refuges, in various towns

on their routes. A confraternity of the _Pilgrims of St. Michael_ was

formed in the beginning of the thirteenth century in Paris, where the

confraternity of _St. James of Pilgrims_ had already built its chapel

and hospital in the Rue St. Denis, near the city gate.

From the seventh to the ninth century important abbeys flourished

in nearly all the provinces now comprised in modern France. Later,

under the immediate successors of Charlemagne, great monasteries were

founded in all the countries which made up his dominions. Charlemagne

himself had greatly contributed to the development of religious

institutions by his reliance on the bishops, and more especially the

monks who represented progress, supported his policy, and enforced

his civilising mission. But after his death the study of art and

science declined so rapidly that a radical reform became necessary in

the tenth century, a reform which seems to have had its birth in the

Benedictine Abbey of Cluny, established in Burgundy about the year 930.

From this hasty sketch of monastic organisation some idea may be

gathered of the importance of religious institutions in the eleventh

and twelfth centuries, and of the immense services they had rendered

the State by diligent and useful toil, among the chief fruits of which

must be reckoned the revival of agriculture, and the development of

the sciences and arts, more especially architecture.

Monastic architecture exercised a great and decisive influence upon

national art by its vast religious buildings, the precursors of our

great cathedrals.

Until the middle of the twelfth century science, letters, art,

wealth, and above all, intelligence--in other words, omnipotence on

earth--were the monopoly of religious bodies. It is bare historic

justice to remember that the Middle Ages derived their chief title to

fame, and all their intellectual enlightenment, from the abbeys, and

that the great religious houses were in fact schools, the educational

influence of which was immense. It must be borne in mind that if the

great cathedrals of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were not

actually constructed by the monks, their architects were nevertheless

the pupils of monks, and that it was in the abbey schools, so

generously opened to all, that they imbibed the first principles of

the art they afterwards turned to such marvellous account.

The study of architecture in particular was not merely theoretical. It

was demonstrated by the monks in their important monastic buildings,

the crowning point of which was the abbey church, a structure often

larger and more ornate than contemporary cathedrals.

On the plan commonly adopted, the cloister, a spreading lawn adorned

with plants, adjoined the church on the north, and sometimes on the

south. An open arcade surrounded the cloister, by means of which

communication with all the necessary domestic offices was provided.

Of these the principal were: the refectory, generally a fine vaulted

hall, close to the kitchens; the _chapter-house_, a building attached

to the church, the upper story of which was the dormitory of the

monks; the vaulted cellars and granaries, above which were the

lodgings provided for strangers; the storerooms were connected with

stables, cattle-stalls, and various outdoor offices, often of great

extent. All these dependencies for the service of the community were

kept strictly separate one from another, thus all necessary measures

were taken to provide for the needs and duties of hospitality without

any disturbance of the religious routine.

The abbeys of the Romanesque period were largely used as models in

their day. They were modified by lay architects or monkish builders

who, however, were careful to abate nothing of their perfection; they

partook of the developments which marked the middle of the thirteenth

century, and were subjected to that progressive transformation, the

great feature of which was the adoption of the Angevin intersecting

arch, the distinguishing characteristic of Gothic architecture.

CHAPTER II

THE ABBEY OF CLUNY--CISTERCIAN ABBEYS

The Benedictines, the Cistercians, the Augustinians, the

Premonstrants, and notably the congregation of Cluny were all

energetic builders, and the vast and magnificent structures of their

creation were reckoned the most perfect achievements of their day. The

study of their buildings--the church, the dwelling-places of abbot and

monks, with all their dependencies--is most instructive. It fills us

with admiration for the learning and judgment of the monkish builders

who, accepting the limitations imposed by climate, locality, material,

the numbers of their inmates, and the resources of their order, turned

them all to account as elements of beauty and harmony.

The architects of the first abbeys undoubtedly adopted the

constructive methods of the period, and built in the Latin, Roman,

or Gallo-Roman manner. The double gateway of the Abbey of Cluny, the

architect of which was probably Gauzon, sometime Abbot of Beaune,

who laid the foundations of the famous monastery, is an interesting

proof of this assertion. But monastic architecture underwent the same

modifications to which ecclesiastical architecture had been subjected

under those various influences which manifested themselves in the

glorious monuments built from the eleventh to the thirteenth century,

when Gothic architecture reached its apogee.

The abbots of the many abbeys of various orders built throughout

this period were too enlightened to disregard the progress of their

contemporaries, and they promptly applied the new principles to the

construction or embellishment of their monasteries.

[Illustration: 133. ABBEY OF CLUNY. GATEWAY]

The Abbey of Cluny was founded in 909 by William, Duke of Aquitaine,

and declared independent by Pope John XI., who in 932 confirmed

the duke's charter. Its rapid development and growth in power is

sufficiently explained by the social and political circumstances of

its origin. At the beginning of the tenth century Norman invasions

and feudal excesses had destroyed the work of Charlemagne. Western

Christendom seemed to lapse into barbarism after the havoc made by

the Saracens and Northern pirates among towns and monasteries. Civil

society and religious institutions had alike fallen into the decay

born of a conflict of rights and a contempt of all authority.

Cluny rapidly became a centre round which all the intelligence which

had escaped submersion in the chaos of the ninth century grouped

itself. Its school soon attained a distinction equal to that which

marked the first great seats of learning at the beginning of the

Middle Ages. Thanks to the _Rule_ of St. Benedict, on which the

Benedictines of Cluny had grounded their community, the abbey

developed greatly in extent and wealth. Throughout the eleventh and

twelfth centuries it seems to have been the prolific nursery-ground

whence Europe drew not only teachers for other monastic schools,

but specialists in every branch of science and of letters, notably

architects, who aided in the expansion of Cluny and its dependencies,

and further practically contributed to the construction of the

numerous abbeys founded by the Benedictines throughout Western Europe,

and even in the East, the cradle of Christianity.

While this struggle of intelligence against ignorance was in progress,

a social revolution had accomplished itself by the enfranchisement of

the communes, a development of the utmost importance in its relation

to science, art, and material existence, in a word, to the whole

social system.

Architecture, that faithful expression of the social state which had

its origin in Pagan civilisation, became Christianised by its culture

in the abbeys, and in its new development rose to that pre-eminence

the marvels of which we have already studied in the first part of this

work. But though the successes achieved by the architecture of this

period were rapid and dazzling, its decadence was profound, for it was

induced by too radical an emancipation from antique principles, the

superiority of which had been established in the first centuries of

the Middle Ages.

The Abbey of Cluny soon became too small for the increasing number of

monks. St. Hugh undertook its reconstruction in the closing years of

the eleventh century, and the monk Gauzon of Cluny began the works in

1089 on a much more extensive plan, indeed on a scale so magnificent

that the church of the new abbey was esteemed the first in importance

among Western buildings of the kind.

The plan (Fig. 134) shows the arrangement of the abbey at the close

of the eleventh century, when the monastic buildings had been

reconstructed some time previously. The ancient church was intact; the

choir had been begun in the time of St. Hugh, but the building had not

been consecrated till 1131. The chapel which precedes it on the west

was completed so late as 1228 by Roland I., twentieth abbot of Cluny.

[Illustration: 134. ABBEY OF CLUNY. PLAN]

At A on the plan stood the entrance, the Gallo-Roman gateway which

still exists. At B, in front of the church, a flight of steps led

up to a square platform, from which rose a stone cross; a flight of

broad steps gave access to the chapel entrance at C, an open space

between two square towers. The northern tower was built to receive the

archives; that on the south was known as the Tower of Justice. The

ante-church or narthex at D seems to have been set apart for strangers

and penitents, who were not allowed to enter the main building. Their

place of worship was distinct from the abbey church, just as their

lodging was separated from the buildings reserved for the brotherhood,

who were permitted no intercourse with the outer world. At E was the

door of the abbey church, which was only opened to admit some great

personage whose exceptional privilege it was to enter the sanctuary.

At Cluny, as at Vézelay, one of the dependencies of Cluny, the

Galilee, which is found in all Benedictine abbeys, was built

with aisles and towers on the same scale as an ordinary church.

It communicated with the buildings set apart for guests over the

storehouses of the abbey to the west of the cloister at F on the

plan. From the Galilee access to the abbey church was obtained at

E, by means of a single doorway, which from descriptions seems to

have resembled the great door of the monastery church at Moissac in

arrangement and decoration.

[Illustration: 135. ABBEY OF CLUNY. INTERIOR OF NARTHEX, WITH DOOR

LEADING INTO ABBEY CHURCH]

The special characteristic of the Abbey Church of Cluny is its double

transept, an arrangement we shall find reproduced in the great abbey

churches of England, notably at Lincoln. According to a description

written in the last century, the Abbey Church of Cluny was 410 feet

long. It was built in the form of an archiepiscopal cross, and had

two transepts: the first nearly 200 feet long by 30 feet wide; the

second, 110 feet long and wider than the first. The basilica, 110

feet in width, was divided into five aisles, with semi-circular

vaults supported on sixty-eight piers. Over three hundred narrow

round-headed windows, high up the wall, transmitted the dim light that

favours meditation. The high altar was placed immediately beyond the

second transept at G, and the retro-choir and altar at H. The choir,

which had two rood screens, occupied about a third of the nave. It

contained two hundred and twenty-five stalls for the monks, and in

the fifteenth century was hung with magnificent tapestries. A number

of altars dedicated to various saints were placed against the screens

and the piers of nave and side aisles. At a later period chapels were

constructed along the aisles and on the eastern sides of the two

transepts.

Above the principal transept rose three towers roofed with slate; the

central, or lantern tower was known as the lamp tower, because from

the vaults of the crossing below it were suspended lamps, or coronas

of lights which were kept burning day and night over the high altar.

To the south of the abbey, at F on the plan, was a great enclosure,

surrounded by a cloister, some vestiges of which still remain. K and

L mark the site of the abbatial buildings which were restored in the

fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; M and N the structures raised last

century over the primitive foundations. To the east lay the gardens

and the great fish-ponds which still exist, with portions of their

enclosures. Another surviving fragment is a building of the thirteenth

century, said to be the bakery, and marked O on the plan.

The abbots who succeeded St. Hugh were unable to preserve the

primitive conditions of the foundation. The excessive luxury resulting

from over-prosperity brought about demoralisation, and by the end of

the eleventh century discord was rife at Cluny.

Peter the Venerable, who was elected abbot in 1112, restored order

for a time, and established a chapter general, consisting of two

hundred priors and over twelve hundred other monks. In 1158, at the

time of Peter's death, these numbers had increased by more than four

hundred, and the order had founded monasteries in the Holy Land and at

Constantinople.

_The Abbey of Citeaux._--The reform of the Benedictine orders became

a pressing necessity, and St. Robert, Abbot of Solesmes, entered upon

the task about 1098. St. Bernard continued it, after having quitted

his abbey, with twenty-one monks of the order, to take refuge in

the forest of Citeaux, given him by Don Reynard, Vicomte of Beaune.

His main achievement was reorganisation of such a nature as to deal

effectually with the decay of primitive simplicity throughout the

order, which had completely lost touch with monastic sentiment.

"Frequent intercourse with the outside world had demoralised the

monks, who attracted within their cloister walls crowds of sightseers,

guests, and pilgrims. The monasteries which, down to the eleventh

century, were either built in the towns, or had become centres of

population in consequence of the Norman and Saracen invasions,

retained their character of religious seclusion only for a certain

number of monks, who devoted themselves to intellectual labours.

Besides which, the brethren had become feudal lords, holding

jurisdiction side by side with the bishops, and St. Germain-des-Près,

St. Denis, St. Martin, Vendôme, and Moissac owned no over-lordships

but that of the Pope. Hence arose temporal cares, disputes, and even

armed conflicts, among them. The greed and vanity of the abbots at

least, if not of their monks, made itself felt even in religious

worship, and in the buildings consecrated thereto."[46]

[46] Anthyme St. Paul, _Histoire Monumentale de la France_.

St. Bernard, in an address to the monks of his day, reproves their

degeneracy, and censures the exaggerated dimensions of the abbey

churches, the splendour of their ornamentation, and the luxury of

the abbots. O vanity of vanities! he exclaims, and folly great as

vanity! The Church is bedecked in her walls, but naked in her poor!

She overlays her stones with gold, and leaves her children without

raiment! The curious are given distractions, and the miserable lack

bread! It was to suppress such abuses that the Cistercian order was

founded by St. Robert and St. Bernard, and also to put an end to

the disputes arising from ecclesiastical jurisdiction by making the

new abbeys dependencies of the bishoprics. They were to be built in

solitary places, "and to nourish their inmates by agriculture. It

was forbidden to found them over the tombs of saints, for fear of

attracting pilgrims, who would bring worldly distractions in their

train. The buildings themselves were to be solid, and built of good

freestone, but without any sort of extraneous ornament; the only

towers allowed were small belfries, sometimes of stone, but more

usually of wood."[47]

[47] _Ibid._

The Cistercian order was founded in 1119, and St. Robert imposed

the _Rule_ of St. Benedict in its primitive severity. To mark his

separation from the degenerate Benedictines, whose dress was black, he

gave his monks a brown habit. After determining their religious duties

he gave minute instructions as to the arrangement of the buildings.

The condition chiefly insisted upon was that the site of the monastery

should be of such extent and so ordered that the necessaries of life

could be provided within its precincts. Thus all causes of distraction

through communication with the outside world were removed. The

monasteries, whenever possible, were to be built beside a stream or

river; they were to contain, independently of the claustral buildings,

the church and the abbot's dwelling, which was outside the principal

enclosure, a mill, a bakehouse, and workshops for the manufacture of

all things requisite to the community, besides gardens for the use and

pleasure of the monks.

The Abbey of Clairvaux was an embodiment of the reforms brought about

by St. Robert, and later by St. Bernard. The general arrangement and

the details of service were almost identical with those of Citeaux,

just as Citeaux itself had been modelled upon Cluny in all respects,

save that a severe observance of the primitive Benedictine rule

was insisted upon in the disposition of the later foundation. All

superfluities were proscribed, and the rules which enjoined absolute

seclusion as a means towards moral perfection were sternly enforced.

The result is undoubtedly interesting as a religious revival; but we

may be permitted to regret that the intellectual impetus given to art

progress by the great Benedictine lords spiritual of Cluny should have

been checked by the frigid utilitarianism to which architecture--then

an epitome of all the arts--was reduced by the purists of Citeaux in

its application to the monasteries of the reform.

The Cistercian monuments are not, however, wanting in interest.

Of Clairvaux and Citeaux little remains but fragments embedded in

a mass of modern buildings, for the most part restorations of the

last century. As records these are less to be relied upon than the

historical and archæological documents which guided Viollet-le-Duc

in his graphic reconstruction of famous Cistercian abbeys, an essay

not to be bettered as a piece of lucid demonstration (see his

_Dictionary_, vol. i. pp. 263-271).

CHAPTER III

ABBEYS AND CARTHUSIAN MONASTERIES

In the eleventh century a large number of monasteries had been built

throughout Western Europe by monks of various orders, in imitation

of the great monastic schools of Lérins, Ireland, and Monte Casino.

Among the famous abbeys of this period may be mentioned "Vézelay and

Fécamp, sometime convents for women, afterwards converted into abbeys

for men; St. Nicaise, at Rheims; Nogent-sous-Coucy, in Picardy; Anchin

and Annouain, in Artois; St. Étienne, at Caen; St. Pierre-sur-Dives,

Le Bec, Conches, Cerisy-la-Forêt,[48] and Lessay, in Normandy; La

Trinité, at Vendôme; Beaulieu, near Loches; Montierneuf, at Poitiers,

etc."[49]

[48] _L'Architecture Romane_, by Ed. Corroyer, chap. iii. part ii.

[49] Anthyme St. Paul, _Histoire Monumentale de la France_.

The Abbeys of Fulda, in Hesse, and of Corvey, in Westphalia, the

latter founded by Benedictine monks from the Abbey of Corbie, in

Picardy, were in their day the chief centres of learning in Germany.

In England St. Alban's Abbey, in Hertfordshire, was built in 1077 by a

disciple of Lanfranc, the illustrious abbot of the famous Abbey of Le

Bec, in Normandy. A large number of monasteries were founded later

on by various orders, notably the Benedictines--Croyland, Malmesbury,

Bury St. Edmund's, Peterborough, Salisbury, Wimborne, Wearmouth,

Westminster, etc., not to mention the abbeys and priories which had

existed in Ireland from the sixth century.

[Illustration: 136. ABBEY OF ST. ÉTIENNE AT CAEN. FAÇADE]

The mother abbey of Citeaux gave birth to four daughters--Clairvaux,

Pontigny, Morimond, and La Ferté.

The importance of Clairvaux was much increased in the first years

of the twelfth century by the fame of her abbot, St. Bernard, that

most brilliant embodiment of mediæval monasticism. His influence was

immense, not alone in his character of reformer and founder of an

important order, but as a statesman whom fortune persistently favoured

in all enterprises tending to the increase of his great reputation.

St. Bernard distinguished himself in the theological controversies

of his century at the Council of Sens in 1140, and in successful

polemical disputations with Abélard, the famous advocate of free will,

and other heterodox philosophers who heralded the Reformation of the

sixteenth century. Somewhat later he took an active part in promoting

the hapless second Crusade under Louis VII., and in 1147, a few years

before his death, he entered vigorously into the Manichæan controversy

as a strenuous opponent of the heresy which was then agitating the

public mind and preparing the way for the schism which, at the

beginning of the thirteenth century, brought about the terrible war of

the Albigenses, and steeped Southern France in blood.

The monastic fame of St. Bernard was established not only by the

searching reforms he instituted at Clairvaux among the seceding monks

of Cluny and Solesmes, but by the success of the Cistercian colonies

he planted in Italy, Spain, Sweden, and Denmark, to the number of

seventy-two, according to his historians.

[Illustration: 137. ST. ALBAN'S ABBEY (ENGLAND)]

[Illustration: 138. ABBEY OF MONTMAJOUR (PROVENCE). CLOISTERS]

During his lifetime the poor hermitage of the _Vallée d'Absinthe_

(which name he changed to Claire-Vallée, Clairvaux) had become a vast

feudal settlement of many farms and holdings, rich enough to support

more than seven hundred monks. The monastery was surrounded by walls

more than half a league in extent, and the abbot's domicile had become

a seignorial mansion. As the fount of the order, and mother of all

the auxiliary houses, Clairvaux was supreme over a hundred and sixty

monasteries in France and abroad. Fifty years after the death of St.

Bernard the importance of the order had become colossal. During

the thirteenth century, and from that time onwards, the Cistercian

or Bernardine monks built immense abbeys, and decorated them with

royal magnificence. Their establishments contained churches equal in

dimension to the largest cathedrals of the period, abbatial dwellings

adorned with paintings, and boasting oratories which, as at Chaâlis,

were _Stes. Chapelles_ as splendid as that of St. Louis in Paris. The

very cellars held works of art in the shape of huge casks elaborately

carved.

[Illustration: 139. CHURCH AT ELNE IN ROUSSILLON. CLOISTERS]

Thus, by a strange recurrence of conditions, the settlements founded

on a basis of the most rigorous austerity by the ascetics who had

fled from the splendours of Solesmes and Cluny to the forest, became

in their turn vaster, richer, and more sumptuous than those the

magnificence of which they existed to rebuke. With this difference,

however: the ruin brought about by the luxury of the Cistercian

establishment was so complete that nothing of their innumerable

monasteries was spared by social revolution but a few archæologic

fragments and historic memories.

[Illustration: 140. ABBEY OF FONTFROIDE (LANGUEDOC). CLOISTERS]

The influence of the Cistercian foundation extended to various

countries of Europe. It was manifested in Spain, at the great Abbey of

Alcobaco, in Estramadura, said to have been built by monkish envoys

of St. Bernard; in Sicily, in the rich architectural detail of the

Abbey of Monreale; and in Germany, in the foundation of such abbeys

as those of Altenberg in Westphalia, and Maulbronn in Wurtemberg. In

1133 Everard, Count of Berg, invited monks of Citeaux to settle in

his dominions, and in 1145 they founded a magnificent abbey on the

banks of the Dheen, which was held by the Cistercian order down to the

period of the Revolution, when it shared the fate of other religious

houses.

The Cistercian Abbey of Maulbronn is the best preserved of those

which owed their origin to St. Bernard throughout the twelfth and

thirteenth centuries. The abbey church, the cloister, the refectory,

the chapter-house, the cellars, the storerooms, the barns, and the

abbot's lodging, the latter united to the other buildings by a covered

gallery, still exist in their original condition. More manifestly

even than Altenberg does the Abbey of Maulbronn prove that simplicity

marked the proceedings of the Benedictines during the first years

of the twelfth century, under the rule or influence of St. Bernard.

From this period onward Cistercian brotherhoods multiplied with great

rapidity in the provinces which were to form modern France.

In the Ile-de-France the ruins of Ourscamp, near Noyon, of Chaâlis,

near Senlis, of Longpont and of Vaux-de-Cernay, near Paris, bear

witness to the monumental grandeur of once famous and important

abbeys. The monasteries and priories of the twelfth century are

numerous in Provence; we may name Sénanque, Silvacane, Thoronet, and

Montmajour, near Arles, at the extremity of the valley of Les Baux.

Among the abbeys founded in the thirteenth century were Royaumont,

in the Ile-de-France; Vaucelles, near Cambrai; Preuilly-en-Brie;

La Trappe, in Le Perche; Breuil-Benoît, Mortemer, and Bonport, in

Normandy; Boschaud, in Périgord; l'Escale-Dieu, in Bigorre; Les

Feuillants, Nizors, and Bonnefont, in Comminges; Granselve and

Baulbonne, near Toulouse; Floran, Valmagne, and Fontfroide, in

Languedoc; Fontenay, in Burgundy, etc.

[Illustration: 141. CISTERCIAN ABBEY OF MAULBRONN (WURTEMBERG). PLAN]

Towards the close of the eleventh and the beginning of the twelfth

century other fraternities had been formed in the same spirit as

that of Citeaux; "in the first rank of these was the Order of the

Premonstrants, so named from the mother abbey founded in 1119 by St.

Norbert at Prémontré, near Coucy."[50]

[50] Anthyme St. Paul, _Histoire Monumentale de la France_.

To this order the monastery of St. Martin at Laon, and others in

Champagne, Artois, Brittany, and Normandy owed their origin.

[Illustration: 142. ABBEY OF FONTEVRAULT. KITCHEN]

[Illustration: 143. CATHEDRAL OF PUY-EN-VELAY. CLOISTERS]

In the early part of the twelfth century Robert d'Arbrisselles founded

several double monasteries for men and women, on the model of those

built in Spain in the ninth century; that of Fontevrault was not

more successful as a monastic experiment than the rest, but it gave

rise to a number of superb buildings. The abbey itself contributed

in no slight degree to the progress of architecture, which developed

in Anjou at the dawn of the twelfth century, and manifested itself

principally at Angers in works the supreme importance of which we have

dwelt upon in the early part of this volume.

The episcopal churches also owned claustral buildings for the

accommodation of the cathedral clergy who lived together in

communities according to the ancient usage which obtained down to the

fifteenth century. The Cathedrals of Aix, Arles, and Cavaillon, in

Provence, of Elne, in Roussillon, of Puy, in Velay, of St. Bertrand,

in Comminges, still preserve their cloisters of the twelfth century.

The Abbey of La Chaise Dieu, in Auvergne, founded in the eleventh

century, was one of the monastic schools which rose to great

importance, mainly through the talents of its monkish architect and

sculptor, Guinamaud, who established its reputation as an art centre.

By the close of the twelfth century La Chaise Dieu was turning out

proficients in sculpture, painting, and goldsmith's work.

The buildings of La Chaise Dieu were reconstructed in the thirteenth

and fourteenth centuries.

The order of preaching friars, founded by St. Dominic in the early

part of the thirteenth century, is noted rather for its intellectual

than for its architectural achievements; the fame of the Dominicans

rests upon their preaching and writings, not upon the number or

magnificence of their monasteries.

About the same period St. Francis of Assisi founded the order of minor

friars, who professed absolute poverty--a profession which, however,

did not prevent their becoming richer at last than their forerunners.

These two orders--preaching and mendicant friars, apparently formed

in protest against the supremacy of the Benedictines--were strongly

supported by St. Louis, who also protected other orders, such as the

Augustinians and Carmelites, by way of balancing the power of the

Clunisians and Cistercians.

[Illustration: 144. ABBEY OF LA CHAISE DIEU (AUVERGNE). CLOISTERS]

To the preaching friars St. Louis granted the site of the Church of

St. Jacques, in the Rue St. Jacques, Paris--whence the name _Jacobin_

as applied to monks of the Dominican order,--and here they built in

1221 the Jacobin monastery, the church of which, like those of Agen

and Toulouse, has the double nave peculiar to the churches of the

preaching friars.

From the thirteenth century onwards the arrangement of the abbeys

diverges more and more from the Benedictine system in the direction

of secular models. The daily life of the abbots had come to

differ but little from that of the laymen of their time, and as a

natural consequence, monastic architecture lost its distinguishing

characteristics.

The Rule of the Carthusian Order, founded towards the close of the

eleventh century by St. Bruno, was of such extreme austerity, and

was so persistently adhered to down to the fifteenth century, at

least, that we need not wonder to find no vestiges of buildings

erected by this community contemporaneously with those of other great

foundations. The Carthusians clung longer than any of their brethren

to the vows of poverty and humility which obliged them to live like

anchorites, though dwelling under one roof. Far from living in common,

on the cenobitic method, after the manner of the Benedictines and

Cistercians, they maintained the cellular system in all its severity.

Absolute silence further aggravated the complete isolation which

encouraged them to scorn all that might alleviate or modify the

rigours of their religious duties.

In time, however, the Carthusians relaxed something of this extreme

asceticism in their monastic buildings, if not in their religious

observances. Towards the fifteenth century they did homage to art by

the construction of monasteries which, though falling short of the

Cistercian monuments in magnificence, are of much interest from their

peculiarities of arrangement.

The ordinary buildings comprised the gate-house, giving access by a

single door to the courtyard of the monastery, where stood the church,

the prior's lodging, the hostelry for guests and pilgrims, the

laundry, the bakehouse, the cattle sheds, storerooms, and dovecote.

The church communicated with an interior cloister, giving access to

the chapter-house and refectory, which latter were only open to the

monks at certain annual festivals. The typical feature of St. Bruno's

more characteristic monasteries is the great cloister, on the true

Carthusian model--that is to say, rectangular in form, and surrounded

by an arcade, on which the cells of the monks open. Each of these

cells was a little self-contained habitation, and had its own garden.

The door of each cell was provided with a wicket, through which a lay

brother passed the slender meal of the Carthusian who was forbidden to

communicate with his fellows.

The Rule of St. Bruno, as is commonly known, enjoins the life of an

anchorite; the Carthusian must work, eat, and drink in solitude;

speech is interdicted; on meeting, the brethren are commanded to

salute each other in silence; they assemble only in church for certain

services prescribed by the Rule, and their meals, none too numerous at

any time, were only taken in common on certain days in the year.

The severity of these conditions explains the extreme austerity of

Carthusian architecture. It had, as we have already said, no real

development until the fifteenth century, and then only as regards

certain portions of the monastery, such as the church and its

cloister, which were in strong contrast with the compulsory bareness

of the great cloister of the monks.

The ancient _Chartreuse_ of Villefranche de Rouergue, either built

or reconstructed in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, still

preserves some remarkable features. The plan, and the bird's-eye view

(Figs. 145 and 146) from _L'Encyclopédie de l'Architecture et de la

Construction_, gives an exact idea of the monastery. Some of the cells

are still intact, also the refectory, and certain other portions of

the primitive structure.

[Illustration: 145. CHARTREUSE OF VILLEFRANCHE DE ROUERGUE. PLAN]

In spite of the rigidity of the _Rule_ of St. Bruno certain

foundations of his order became famous, notably the monastery

established by the Carthusians on the invitation of St. Louis in the

celebrated castle of Vauvert, beyond the walls of Paris, near the

_Route d'Issy_. The castle was regarded with terror by the Parisians,

who declared it to be haunted by the devil, whence the popular

expression: _aller au diable Vauvert_, which later was corrupted

into _aller au diable au vert_. The Carthusians, nevertheless, took

up their quarters in the stronghold, and enriched it with a splendid

church built by Pierre de Montereau, the foundation stone of which

was laid by St. Louis in 1260. The _Chartreuse_ of Vauvert developed

greatly, and became one of the most famous of the order. It was in

the lesser cloister of this monastery that the artist Eustache Le

Sueur painted his famous frescoes from the life of St. Bruno in the

beginning of the seventeenth century.

[Illustration: 146. CHARTREUSE OF VILLEFRANCHE DE ROUERGUE.

BIRD'S-EYE VIEW]

[Illustration: 147. GRANDE CHARTREUSE. THE GREAT CLOISTER]

The most famous Carthusian monasteries of Italy are those of Florence,

which dates from the middle of the fourteenth century, and is

attributed in part to Orcagna, and of Pavia, founded at the close of

the fourteenth century by Giovanni Galeazzo Visconti.

[Illustration: 148. GRANDE CHARTREUSE. GENERAL VIEW]

The French Carthusian monasteries of greatest interest after Vauvert,

which had the special advantage of royal protection, are those of

Clermont, in Auvergne, Villefranche de Rouergue (Figs. 145 and 146),

Villeneuve-lez-Avignon, and Montrieux, in Var. The _Chartreuse_ of

Dijon is one of the most ancient, not only as to its buildings, which

are the work of the Duke of Burgundy's architects, but in respect of

its famous sculptures of the tomb of Philip the Bold, and his wife,

Margaret of Flanders, and those of the _Well of Moses_, carved by the

Burgundian brothers, Claux Suter, who flourished at the close of the

fourteenth century, and had much to do with the revival of art at that

period.[51]

[51] See Part I., "Sculpture."

But the most imposing of all, and the most famous, if not the most

beautiful, is that in the mountains near Grenoble, universally known

as _La Grande Chartreuse_.

The original monastery is said to have been founded by St. Bruno. It

consisted merely of a humble chapel and a few isolated cells, which

are supposed to have occupied the site in the _Desert_, on which the

Chapels of St. Bruno and St. Mary now stand. The existing buildings

were reconstructed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in the

manner of the day, of which the arcades of the great cloister are good

examples. The present church, which is extremely simple in design, has

preserved nothing of its sixteenth-century decoration but the choir

stalls. The great cloister consists of an arcaded gallery, on which

the sixty cells of the monks open. It is arranged in strict accordance

with the Rule of St. Bruno as regards its connection with the main

buildings, the chief features of which we have already pointed out.

CHAPTER IV

FORTIFIED ABBEYS

The monasteries built throughout the twelfth century were provided

with outer walls, by means of which the claustral buildings, offices,

workshops, and even farms of the community were enclosed. Thus all

the necessaries of life were produced within the precincts, and all

communication with the outside world was avoided.

But by the end of the century the great abbeys had become feudal

castles; and fortified walls were raised around them, often embracing

the town which had grown up under their protection and shared their

fortunes. This was the case at Cluny, and the town acknowledged its

obligations to the monks by the payment of tithes.

In the reign of Philip Augustus and St. Louis the abbots were not

only the heads of their monasteries but feudal chieftains, vassals

of the royal power, and as such obliged to furnish the sovereign

with men-at-arms in time of war, and to maintain a garrison when

required.[52]

[52] See Part III., "Military Architecture," Abbey of Mont St. Michel.

The Abbey of Tournus was, like Cluny, surrounded by walls connected

with the city ramparts.

The Abbey of St. Allyre, in Auvergne, near Clermont, was defended

by walls and towers, which seem to have been added to the original

structure of the ninth century at some period during the thirteenth,

when such fortification of religious houses became necessary.

[Illustration: 149. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. GENERAL VIEW FROM THE

ROCKS OF COUESNON, TAKEN IN 1878, BEFORE THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE DYKE]

In many other monasteries a system of defence more or less elaborate

was adopted; but the most famous of all the abbeys built by the

Benedictines was unquestionably Mont St. Michel, which, for boldness

and grandeur of design, is unique among military and monastic

monuments from the eleventh to the close of the fifteenth century.

[Illustration: 150. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. PLAN AT THE LEVEL OF THE

GUARD-ROOM, ALMONRY, AND CELLAR

_Key to Plan._--A. Tower known as the _Tour Claudine_. Ramparts.

B. Barbican. Entrance to the abbey. B´. Ruin of the stairway

known as the _Grand Degré_. C. Gate-house. D. Guard-room known

as _Bellechaise_. E. Tower known as the _Tour Perrine_. F.

Steward's lodging and Bailey. G. Abbot's lodging. G´. Abbatial

buildings. G´´. Chapel of St. Catherine. H. Courtyard of the

church, great stairway. I. Courtyard of the _Merveille_. J,

K. Almonry, cellar (of the _Merveille_). L. Formerly the

abbatial buildings. M. Gallery or crypt known as the _Galerie

de l'Aquilon_ (of the North Wind). N. Hostelry (Robert de

Thorigni). O. Passages connecting the abbey with the hostelry.

P, P´. Prison and dungeon. R, S. Staircase. T. Modern wall of

abutment. U. Garden, terraces, and covered way. V. Body of rock.]

[Illustration: 151. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. PLAN AT THE LEVEL OF

THE LOWER CHURCH, THE REFECTORY, AND THE CHAPTER-HOUSE, OR KNIGHTS'

HALL.--_For Key to Plan see opposite page._

_Key to Plan._--A. Lower church. B, B´. Chapels beneath the

transepts. C. Substructure of Romanesque nave. C, C´, and C´´.

Charnel-house or burying-place of the monks, and substructure

of south platform. D. Formerly the cistern. E. Formerly the

claustral buildings. Refectory. F. Formerly the cloister or

ambulatory. G. Passage communicating with the hostelry. H,

I. Hostelry and offices (Robert de Thorigni). J. Chapel of

hostelry (St. Étienne). K, K´, L, M. Refectory. Tower known

as the _Tour des Corbins_ (Tower of Crows). Chapter-house, or

hall of the knights, Galilee or narthex (_Merveille_). N. Hall

of the military executive, or hall of the officers. O. Tower

known as the _Tour Perrine_. P. Battlements of the gate-house.

Q. Courtyard of the _Merveille_. R, S. Staircase and terrace

of the apse. T. Courtyard of the church. U. Fortified bridge

connecting the lower church with the abbey buildings. V, X.

Abbot's lodging. Accommodation for guests. Y, Y´. Cisterns of

the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Z. Body of rock.]

The Abbey of Mont St. Michel was founded in 708 by St. Aubert,

according to tradition. At the close of the tenth century it was

restored by Richard Sans Peur, third Duke of Normandy, with the help

of the Benedictine monks from Monte Casino, whom he had installed at

St. Michel in 966. It increased greatly in wealth and extent in the

eleventh century, and by the end of the twelfth was in the full tide

of its prosperity. Its buildings, however had not yet that importance

to which they attained in the following century.[53] In the twelfth

century they consisted of the church, which was built between 1020

and 1135[54] and the monastic buildings proper (_lieux réguliers_),

with lodgings for servants and guests to the north of the nave, at

G, G´, and F on the plan, Fig. 152. To these, which were restored

or reconstructed in a great measure by the Abbot Roger II. at the

beginning of the twelfth century, additions were made on the south and

south-east by Robert de Thorigni from 1154 to 1186.

The monastery was not then fortified.

[53] _Description de l'Abbaye du Mont St. Michel_, by Ed. Corroyer;

Paris, 1877. This work was crowned by the Institute in 1879, at the

_Concours des Antiquités Nationales_.

[54] See _L'Architecture Romane_, by Ed. Corroyer; Paris, Maison

Quantin, 1888.

[Illustration: 152. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. PLAN AT THE LEVEL OF THE

UPPER CHURCH, THE CLOISTERS, AND THE DORMITORY

_Key to Plan._--A, A´, A.´´ Church, choir, and transepts. B,

B´, B´´. Three first bays of nave, destroyed in 1776. C, C´,

C´´. Towers and porch (Robert de Thorigni). D. Tomb of Robert

de Thorigni. E. Formerly the terrace in front of the church.

F. Formerly the chapter-house. G, G´. Formerly the claustral

buildings. Dormitory. H. Platform at the southern entrance

of the church. I. Ruin of the hostelry (Robert de Thorigni).

J. Infirmary. K. Dormitories of the thirteenth century

(_Merveille_). K´. Tower, known as the _Tour des Corbins_

(thirteenth century, _Merveille_). L, L´. Cloister and archives

(thirteenth century, _Merveille_). M. Vestry (thirteenth

century, _Merveille_). N. Abbot's lodging. O. Accommodation for

guests. P. Courtyard of the _Merveille_. P´. Terrace of the

apse. Q. Courtyard of the church and great staircase.]

Built on the summit of a rock, the impregnable steepness of which

provided a natural rampart north and west, it depended solely upon

the advantages of its position for defence. Its situation in the

midst of a treacherous sandy plain--a position which gave rise to the

mediæval name, _Le Mont St. Michel au Péril de la Mer_--secured it

against attempts at investiture, and even to a great extent against

sudden assaults. Enclosures of stone or wooden fences surrounded it at

those points on the east where the less rugged nature of the surface

rendered access comparatively easy, and where stood the entrance,

with the various habitations which had grouped themselves round it.

The so-called _town_ had been founded in the tenth century by a few

families decimated by the Normans, in their raids upon Avranches and

its neighbourhood after the death of Charlemagne. In the thirteenth

century it consisted of a small number of houses which, by way of

security against the vagaries of the sea, were built upon the highest

point of the rock to the east.

In 1203 the greater part of the abbey, the church excepted, was

destroyed during the wars between Philip Augustus, King of France, and

John, King of England.

Historic records prove conclusively that the abbey had no defensive

works properly so-called in the twelfth and early part of the

thirteenth century.

From this period onwards abbeys, more especially those of the

Benedictine orders, were transformed into regular fortresses capable

of sustaining a siege. The abbots, in their character of feudal lords,

fortified their monasteries to ensure them against disasters such as

had marked the early years of the thirteenth century. Mont St. Michel

is one of the most curious examples of such fortification.

The original architects of the abbey seem to have been unwilling to

diminish the height of the mount by levelling. Resolving to detract in

no degree from the majesty of so splendid a base for their church,

they set about their work on the same principle as the pyramid

builders. Our illustrations show how the buildings were raised partly

on plateaux circumscribing the apex of the mount, partly on that apex

itself. The result is that the monastery, as we see it, has a core of

rock rising at its highest point to the very floor of the church. The

ring of lower stories rests upon walls of great thickness, and upon

piers united by vaults, the whole forming a substructure of perfect

solidity.

The section made through the transept (Fig. 153) gives an exact idea

of the portion which dates from the eleventh and twelfth centuries,

and of the buildings which gradually grouped themselves round this

nucleus, such as the so-called _Merveille_ (Marvel) to the north, and

the abbot's lodging to the south.

[Illustration: 153. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. TRANSVERSE SECTION, FROM

NORTH TO SOUTH[55]]

[55] _Description de l'Abbaye du Mont St. Michel et de ses Abords_, by

Ed. Corroyer; Paris, 1877.

[Illustration: 154. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. LONGITUDINAL SECTION,

FROM WEST TO EAST]

The longitudinal section (Fig. 154) shows the crypt, or lower church.

This was not, as has been frequently asserted, actually hollowed

out of the rock; it was, however, very ingeniously contrived in the

fifteenth century over the ruins of the Romanesque church in the

space between the declivity of the mount and the artificial plateau

of the earlier architects. The substructures of the Romanesque church

which were enlarged by Robert de Thorigni in the thirteenth century

are indicated in this diagram. They are of gigantic proportions,

especially towards the west.

Fig. 155 shows the so-called _Galerie de l'Aquilon_ (Gallery of the

North Wind), one of the upper stories of the claustral buildings to

the north of the church constructed by Roger II., eleventh abbot

(1106-1122).

[Illustration: 155. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. GALERIE DE L'AQUILON

(GALLERY OF THE NORTH WIND)]

[Illustration: 156. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL, NORTH FRONT. GENERAL

VIEW FROM THE SEA]

[Illustration: 157. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. THE ALMONRY. PERSPECTIVE

VIEW LOOKING WEST. THE CELLAR BEYOND]

After the fire of 1203, when the abbey had become a feof of the royal

domain, the Abbot Jourdain and his successors rebuilt it almost

entirely, with the exception of the church.

As the peculiarities of the site made it impossible to adhere strictly

to the Benedictine system of direct communication between the main

buildings and the church, the _lieux réguliers_, or accommodation

reserved for the monks, were disposed above the magnificent building

to the north of the church, which, from the time of its foundation,

was known as _La Merveille_ (the Marvel).

[Illustration: 158. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. NAMES OF THE ARCHITECTS

OR SCULPTORS OF THE CHOIR]

[Illustration: 159. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. CELLAR. PERSPECTIVE VIEW

FROM WEST TO EAST. THE ALMONRY BEYOND]

This vast structure fairly takes rank as the grandest example of

combined religious and military architecture of the finest mediæval

period.

The _Merveille_ consists of three stories, two of which are vaulted.

The lowest contains the almonry and cellar; the intermediate story

the refectory and the knights' hall; the third the dormitory and

cloister. The building consists of two wings running east and west;

the apartments are superposed as follows:--In the east wing the

almonry, the refectory, and the dormitory; in the west the cellar, the

knights' hall, and the cloister.[56]

[56] _Description de l'Abbaye du Mont St. Michel et de ses Abords_, by

Ed. Corroyer; Paris, 1877.

This splendid structure is built entirely of granite. It was carried

out by one continuous effort, under the inspiration of an incomparably

bold and learned design of the Abbé Jourdain, to which his successors

religiously adhered.

The undertaking was entered upon in 1203 and finished in 1228, the

final achievement being the cloister, the architects or sculptors of

which are commemorated by an inscription in the spandril of one of the

arcades in the south walk.

[Illustration: 160. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. REFECTORY]

[Illustration: 161. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. CHAPTER-HOUSE, CALLED

THE HALL OF THE KNIGHTS]

To fully appreciate this stupendous monument, we must realise the

extraordinary energy which enabled its architects to complete it in

the comparatively short space of twenty-five years. We must take

into account the conditions of its growth, its situation on the very

summit of a rugged cliff, cut off from the mainland at times by

the sea, at other times by an expanse of treacherous quicksand. We

must consider the enormous difficulties of transporting materials,

seeing that all the granite used was quarried by the monks from the

neighbouring coast. It is true that an unimportant quota of the stone

was dug from the base of the rock itself. But though the passage

across the sands was by this means avoided, the difficulties of

raising great masses of stone to the foot of the _Merveille_, the

foundations of which are over 160 feet above the sea-level, had still

to be met. It seems certain that the east and west buildings of which

the _Merveille_ consists were built at the same time, for though

certain differences are perceptible in the form of the exterior

buttresses, they evidently result from the interior formation of the

various apartments. A study of the plans, sections, and façades of the

buildings is convincing on this head, and the general arrangements,

notably that of the staircase, all point to the same conclusion. This

staircase is a spiral in the thickness of the buttress which, with its

crowning octagonal turret, forms the point of junction between the two

buildings. It winds from the almonry of the eastern ground-floor to

the knights' hall on the west, passing through the dormitory of the

eastern block to terminate in the northern embattlement above.

[Illustration: 162. ST. MICHAEL'S MOUNT, CORNWALL]

The eastern and northern façades of the _Merveille_ are models of

severe and virile beauty; a massive grandeur characterises them,

especially striking and impressive in the northern front as viewed

from the sea. The vast walls of granite (the material used throughout,

save in the inner walk of the cloister) are pierced with windows

varying in shape according to the character of the rooms they light.

Those of the dormitory are very remarkable. They are long and narrow,

and affect the aspect of loopholes, deeply splayed outwards; the

peculiar form of the honeycombed window-heads suggests a reminiscence

of Arab types seen by the French Crusaders in Palestine. The

thrusts of the interior vaulting are met on the exterior by massive

buttresses, the vigorous profiles of which contribute greatly to the

nobility of the general effect.

These formidable façades were practically fortifications, but the

_Merveille_ was further defended to the north by an embattled wall,

flanked by a tower which served as a post for watchmen, to which the

covered ways running round the base of the western buildings converged.

In the middle, on a level with the north-west angle of the

_Merveille_, a _châtelet_, or miniature keep, now destroyed, guarded

the rugged passage between embattled walls which led to the Fountain

of St. Aubert, and was known as the _Passage du Degré_ (passage of the

stairway).

The various buildings of the abbey which were added in the fourteenth

century, after the construction of the _Merveille_, are: the abbot's

lodging, with its offices on the south, and certain military works

which completed the defensive system. In the fourteenth and fifteenth

centuries these were gradually extended to the walls of the town, as

we shall see in Part III., "Military Architecture."

PART III

MILITARY ARCHITECTURE

CHAPTER I

CIRCUMVALLATION OF TOWNS

The distinctive character of military architecture in the Middle Ages

must be sought in defensive fortification. In all other respects

its constructive methods were identical with those employed in

architectural works generally. The few ornamental features of military

buildings, as, for instance, the interior vaults and the profiles of

consoles and cornices, diverge but slightly from the accepted types of

such features in the churches, monasteries, and domestic structures of

the period.

The Latin, Roman, Gallo-Roman, Romanesque, and Gothic architects

were versed in every department of the art they practised. The same

architect was called upon to construct the church and the fortress,

the abbey, and the ramparts which were often its necessary complement,

the donjon, and castle, the town hall, the hospital, the rural

barn, and the urban dwelling. He was responsible not only for the

inception of every class and form of building, but for its successful

elaboration; on him alone the responsibility of its execution rested;

no scientific specialist checked his conclusions and verified his

calculations as in our own time. The system by which the architect and

the engineer have each their separate functions and responsibilities

in the construction of the same building was unknown. The builder, or

mason, as some would have him called, was an architect in the fullest

sense; he himself traced the diagrams of his conceptions, and directed

the execution of every detail, careful alike of stability and beauty.

[Illustration: 163. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. GATE-HOUSE]

It is a curious and disheartening phenomenon that such a direct

contravention of the principles of mediæval art as the modern

system of divided responsibility implies, should obtain only

among the French, the very people to whom Western Europe owes its

initiation into those principles. In England, in Belgium, in Holland,

Switzerland, and Germany the architect is also the engineer; the

science and the art of his craft are inseparable. "This intimate

union of qualities gives an individuality to certain productions of

these nations which we might well lay to heart and make the subject

of serious comparative study. We must needs admit to begin with that

we ourselves have become disciples rather than pioneers in a great

movement."[57]

[57] "L'Art à l'Exposition," _L'Architecture_, by Ed. Corroyer; Paris.

_L'Illustration_, for 25th May 1889.

The one preoccupation of the modern engineer seems to be the

satisfaction of imperious necessity. He is inclined to neglect all

that mathematics cannot give him. And yet he has brought about a very

sensible progress by his mathematical application of modern science.

He has unquestionably excelled in industrial masterpieces perfectly

adapted to the needs of the moment, if wanting in the qualities

that make for immortality. We accept with qualified admiration

his marvellous bridges and kindred works in metal--marvellous yet

ephemeral; but we accept them merely as a temporary substitute for the

more solid if less showy stone bridges of our early architects.

We would not have the servant of yesterday the master of to-morrow.

We protest against the degradation of the architect from his high

and noble estate to the rank of a mere decorator, however skilful.

We would not witness the extinction of the ancient French traditions

which inspired so many masterpieces, and to which we look as the

source of many yet to come.

It appears, moreover, that the general acceptation of the word

_ingénieur_ (engineer) is a totally mistaken one. It is derived from

the mediæval term _engigneur_, which was very differently applied.

The architect and the engineer of our own day are both _constructors_,

but with a difference. The architect loves and cultivates his art; the

engineer, with few exceptions, despises, or affects to despise, his.

In the Middle Ages their functions were perfectly distinct. The

architect constructed what the _engigneur_ used his utmost cunning

to destroy. The architect built ramparts and strengthened them with

towers; the _engigneur_ undermined them if attacking, or countermined

them if defending. It was his business to invent or direct the use of

engines of war, such as rams, mangonels, arblasts, and machines for

the slinging of enormous projectiles, or grenades. He constructed the

portable wooden towers which the besieging party brought up against

the walls for an escalade, directed the sappers who undermined them,

and, in fact, superintended the manufacture of all such offensive

engines as were necessary in the conduct of a siege, a process

which, before the invention of firearms, necessitated preparations

as prolonged and tedious as they were complicated and uncertain.

In short, the architect was the constructor of fortifications, the

_engigneur_ their assailant or defender. It was not until the time

of Vauban that military engineers were called upon to exercise

functions so much more extensive. At an earlier period there were,

however, specialists in construction who undertook such works as the

circumvallation of Aigues-Mortes, but their labours had little in

common with those of modern engineers.

[Illustration: 164. CITY OF CARCASSONNE. RAMPARTS TO THE SOUTH-EAST]

Before the feudal period the fortifications of camps consisted

either of earthworks, of walls built of mud and logs, or of

palisades surrounded by ditches, in imitation of the Roman methods

of castrametation. The _enceintes_ of towns fortified by the Romans

were walls defended by round or square towers. These walls were built

double; a space of several yards intervened, which was filled up with

the earth dug from the moat or ditch, mixed with rubble. The mass was

levelled at the top and paved to form what is technically known as a

covered way, or terrace protected by an embattled wall rising from the

outer curtain.

That portion of the _enceinte_ of Carcassonne which was built by the

Visigoths in the sixth century is thus constructed on the Roman model.

"The ground on which the town is built rises considerably above that

beyond the walls, and is almost on a level with the rampart. The

curtains[58] are of great thickness; they are composed of two facings

of dressed stones cut into small cubes, which alternate with courses

of bricks; the intervening space is filled not with earth, but with

a concrete formed of rubble and lime."[59] The flanking towers which

rise considerably above the curtains were so disposed that it was

possible to isolate them from the walls by raising drawbridges. Thus

each tower formed an independent stronghold against assailants.

[58] The wall space between the towers.

[59] Viollet-le-Duc, _La Cité de Carcassonne_.

Fig. 165 shows a portion of the north-west ramparts of the city of

Carcassonne, with the first round tower; to the left of the drawing is

the Romano-Visigothic tower, flanking right and left the curtains of

the same period.

[Illustration: 165. CITY OF CARCASSONNE. NORTH-WEST RAMPARTS.

ROMANO-VISIGOTHIC TOWER (FIRST ON THE LEFT)]

In accordance with the Roman tradition the _enceinte_ of a town,

formed, as we have seen, of ramparts strengthened by towers, were

further defended by a citadel or keep, of which we shall have more to

say in the following chapter. This keep commanded the whole place,

which was usually situated on the slope of a hill above the bank of

a river. The bridge which communicated with the opposite bank was

fortified by a gate-house or _tête de pont_, to guard the passage.

The circumvallation of towns often consisted of a double enclosure,

divided by a moat. By the close of the twelfth century architects had

caught the inspiration of the great military works of the Crusaders in

the East, and military architecture had progressed on the same lines

as religious and monastic architecture.

The territories, conquered by the Crusaders in the course of

establishing the Christian supremacy in the East, had been divided

into feofs as early as the twelfth century. These soon boasted

castles, churches, and monastic foundations, of the Cistercian and

Premonstrant orders among others.

According to G. Rey, the following abbeys and priories were built in

the neighbourhood of Jerusalem at this period:--The monasteries of

Mount Sion, Mount Olivet, Jehoshaphat, St. Habakkuk, and St. Samuel,

etc., and in Galilee, those of Mount Tabor and Palmarée. The military

organisation was regulated by the _Assises de la haute Cour_ (Assizes

of the Supreme Court), which determined the number of knights to be

furnished by each feof for the defence of the kingdom, and in like

manner, the number of men-at-arms required from each church and each

community of citizens.... The middle of the twelfth century was the

period at which the Christian colonies of the Holy Land were most

flourishing. Undeterred by the wars of which Syria was the theatre,

the Franks had promptly assimilated the Greek and Roman tradition as

manifested in Byzantine types of military architecture. The double

enclosure flanked by towers, one of the main features of Syrian

fortresses built by the Crusaders, was borrowed from the Greeks.

Many of their strongholds, notably Morgat, the so-called _Krak_ of

the knights, and Tortosa, were of colossal proportions. They may be

divided into two classes. In the first, the buildings are of the

Frankish type, and seem to be modelled on the French castles of the

eleventh and twelfth centuries. The flanking towers are nearly always

round; they contain a defensive story, while their summits and those

of the intervening curtains are crowned with battlements in the French

fashion. Other features subsequently introduced were: the double

_enceinte_, borrowed from the Byzantines, the inner line of which

commanded the outer, and was sufficiently near to allow its defenders

to engage, should assailants have carried the first barrier;

secondly, stone machicolations in place of the wooden _hourds_ or

timber scaffoldings which were retained in France till the close of

the thirteenth century; and finally, the talus, a device by which

the thickness of the walls was tripled at the base, thus affording

increased security against the arts of the sapper and the earthquake

shocks so frequent in the East.

[Illustration: 166. FORTRESS OF KALAAT-EL-HOSN IN SYRIA (KRAK OF THE

KNIGHTS). SECTION, AS RESTORED BY M. G. REY.]

[Illustration: 166A. FORTRESS DE KALAAT-EL-HOSN IN SYRIA (KRAK OF THE

KNIGHTS). AS RESTORED BY M. G. REY]

The buildings of the second class belong to the school of the Knights

Templars. Their characteristic features are the towers, invariably

square or oblong in shape, and projecting but slightly from the

curtains. The fortress of Kalaat-el-Hosn,[60] or _Krak_ of the

knights, commanded the pass through which ran the roads from Homs

and Hamah to Tripoli and Tortosa, and was a military station of

the first importance. Together with the castles of Akkar, Arcos, La

Colée, Chastel-Blanc, Areynieh, Yammour, Tortosa, and Markab, and the

various auxiliary towers and posts, it constituted a system of defence

designed to protect Tripoli from the incursions of the Mahometans,

who retained their hold on the greater part of Syria.... The _Krak_,

which was built under the direction of the Knights Hospitallers, has a

double _enceinte_, separated by a wide ditch partly filled with water.

The inner wall forms a reduct, and rising above the outer enclosure

commands its defences. It also encompasses the various dependencies of

the castle, the great hall, chapel, domestic buildings, and magazines.

A long vaulted passage, easy of defence, was the only entrance to the

place. To the north and west the outer line consisted of a curtain

flanked by rounded turrets, and crowned by machicolations, which

formed a continuous scaffolding of stone along the greater part of the

_enceinte_.

[60] _Étude sur les Monuments de l'Architecture Militaire des croisés

en Syrie_, by G. Rey; Paris, 1871.

[Illustration: 167. CITY OF CARCASSONNE. PLAN (THIRTEENTH CENTURY)]

The action of the East upon the West was manifested in the thirteenth

and fourteenth centuries by the application to the fortification of

Carcassonne and Aigues-Mortes of methods in use among the Crusaders in

Syria.

This oriental influence is apparent at Carcassonne in the double

_enceinte_ borrowed from Syrian fortresses.

The city of Carcassonne stands upon a plateau commanding the valley

of the Aude, the site of an ancient Roman _castellum_. In the sixth

century it fell into the hands of the Visigoths, who fortified it.

It increased considerably in extent during the tenth, eleventh, and

twelfth centuries, but in the time of Simon de Montfort (1209) and of

Raymon de Trancavel (1240) the _enceinte_ was not nearly so important

as it became under St. Louis. By the middle of the thirteenth century

the king had begun the construction of defensive works on a vast

scale, and built the outer _enceinte_, which still exists, as may

be seen on the plan (Fig. 167) taken from Viollet-le-Duc's _Cité de

Carcassonne_.

[Illustration: 168. CITY OF CARCASSONNE. RAMPARTS. SOUTH-WEST ANGLE]

The primary object of the _enceinte_ was to secure the place against

a sudden attack during the completion or enlargement of its interior

defences. The additions of St. Louis, which were carried on by Philip

the Bold, rendered Carcassonne impregnable in the general estimation.

"As a fact, it was never invested, and did not open its gates to

Edward the Black Prince till 1355, when all Languedoc had submitted to

him."[61]

[61] Viollet-le-Duc, _La Cité de Carcassonne_.

[Illustration: 169. RAMPARTS OF AIGUES-MORTES, NORTH AND SOUTH]

Oriental influences are equally evident at Aigues-Mortes. The Genoese

Guglielmo Boccanera, who constructed the _enceinte_, was apparently

familiar with the system of fortification adopted by the Crusaders in

Syria. The machicolations which here make their first appearance in

Languedoc (in the reign of Philip the Bold), proclaim the filiation

of Aigues-Mortes to the Syrian fortresses. Italian influences are

also perceptible in the square plan of the flanking towers. French

architects had always preferred the round tower, as more solid in

itself, and less open to attack from sappers, who, in advancing

against a building of this form, were fully exposed to the missiles of

the defenders from the curtains adjoining; while, on the other hand,

the angles of the square tower gave a certain protection to assailants

advancing against its front.

[Illustration: 170. RAMPARTS OF AVIGNON. CURTAIN, TOWERS, AND

MACHICOLATIONS]

The ramparts of Avignon, which date from the fourteenth century, seem

to have been constructed on Italian methods. The curtains are flanked

by square towers, open towards the town, and surmounted by embattled

parapets corbelled out from the walls, and machicolated so as to

command their bases.

In the thirteenth century walls and towers were provided with movable

wooden scaffoldings, as shown at A in the figure. Spaces were left

in the masonry of the walls for the insertion of wooden beams, which,

projecting from the curtain, supported an overhanging gallery. This,

being pierced with traps or apertures in the flooring, commanded

the base of the wall, and was an important element in defensive

operations. But as it was found that these timber galleries were

easily set on fire by assailants, they were replaced in the fourteenth

century by stone machicolations, as shown at B, consisting of corbels,

supporting an embattled parapet. Between the inner face of the parapet

and the outer face of the curtain the supporting corbels alternated

with openings for the defence of the base, as already described. This

arrangement, among the earliest examples of which are the square

towers of Avignon, was soon generally adopted by architects in the

construction of city ramparts.

[Illustration: 170A. MACHICOLATIONS]

"The art of fortification, which had made great advances at the

beginning of the thirteenth century, remained almost stationary to

the end of it. During the Hundred Years' War, however, it received a

fresh impetus. When order had been restored in the kingdom, Charles

VII. set about the restoration or reconstruction of many fortresses

recaptured from the English. In the defensive works of such towns

and castles, and in various new undertakings of a like nature,

we recognise the method and regularity proper to an art based on

well-defined principles, and far advanced towards mastery."[62]

[62] Viollet-le-Duc, _Dictionnaire_, vol. i.

In the Abbey of Mont St. Michel the successive modifications applied

to military _enceintes_ from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century,

are illustrated in the fullest and most interesting manner.

[Illustration: 171. RAMPARTS OF ST. MALO (FIFTEENTH CENTURY)]

Of the fourteenth century fortifications, which surrounded the

original town at the summit of the rock, connecting the ramparts with

the _Merveille_ on the north, and the abbey buildings on the south,

some fragments still remain. The tower on the north is intact. The

walls are crowned with machicolations, in accordance with the then

novel system of massing the defences at the top of the ramparts.

The gate of the _enceinte_ was to the south-east, judging from the

miniatures in the _livre d'heures_ of Pierre II., Duke of Brittany,

which show the arrangement of the original _enceinte_ at the close of

the fourteenth century.

The abbey was at this time governed by Pierre Le Roy, one of its

ablest abbots and most famous constructors. He rebuilt the summit of

the _Tour des Corbins_ (_merveille_), restored, and re-roofed the

abbey buildings to the south of the church, which, begun by Richard

Justin in 1260, were carried on at intervals by his successors till

they were partially destroyed by the fire of 1374. He completed the

eastern defences by the addition of the square tower at O on the plan

(Fig. 151), in which he built several rooms for the accommodation of

his soldiers. The tower is known as the _Tour Perrine_, in memory of

its author. We have seen that the abbots gradually became great feudal

chieftains; the Abbot of Mont St. Michel was further commandant of the

place for the king; and he was empowered to bestow feofs on the nobles

of the province, who bound themselves in return to keep guard over the

mount in certain contingencies, enumerated in the following rendering

of a Latin text:--[63]

[63] Ed. Corroyer, _Description de l'Abbaye du Mont St. Michel et de

ses Abords_.

"The tenure of these vavassories was by faith and fealty, and their

holders were bound to furnish relief and thirteen knights, each

of whom was to come in person to guard the gate of the abbey when

necessary--that is to say, in time of war; each to keep guard for

the space of the ebb and flow of the sea--that is to say, during

the rising and falling of the tide; and each to be provided with

gambeson, casque, gauntlets, shield, lance, and all requisite arms;

and further to present themselves thus armed yearly at the feast of

St. Michael in September."