century, with smaller portions both of earlier and of later date. On
entering the church, we find that the long western limb is not all
strictly nave, the choir, by an arrangement more common in England than
in France, stretching itself west of the central tower. The whole of
this western limb is built in the simplest and severest form of that
earliest French Gothic, which to an English eye seems to be simply an
advanced form of the transition from Romanesque. Even at Amiens, amid
all the splendours of its fully-developed geometrical windows, the
pillars and arches, in their square abaci and even in the sections of
their mouldings, have what an Englishman calls a Romanesque feeling
still hanging about them. At Fecamp this is far stronger. The large
triforium, the untraceried windows, the squareness of everything except
a few English round abaci in some bays of the triforium, the external
heaviness and simplicity, all make the early Gothic of Fecamp little
more than pointed Romanesque. We do not say this in disparagement. This
stage was a necessary stage for architecture to pass through, and the
Transitional period is always one of the most interesting in
architectural history. And when work of that date is carried out with
such excellence both of composition and detail as it is at Fecamp, it is
much more than historically interesting, it is thoroughly satisfactory
in artistic effect. We say nothing against the style, except that, as
being essentially imperfect and not realising the ideal of either of the
two styles between which it comes historically, we cannot look on it as
a proper model for modern imitation. Several diversities of detail may
on minute examination be seen in the different bays of the nave of
Fecamp, just as in the contemporary nave of Wells. Just as at Wells, the
western part--in this case the five western bays--is slightly later than
the rest. And, as at Wells, the distinction between the older and newer
work is easily to be remarked by those who look for it, though it is a
distinction which makes no difference in the general effect and which
might pass unnoticed by any but a very minute observer. In truth it is,
in both cases, a difference not of style but of taste. The eastern limb
of Fecamp--strictly the presbytery and not the choir--is more remarkable
in some ways than the nave. It is here that we find the only remains of
an earlier church, and these are of no very remarkable antiquity. M.
Bouet, in a short account of Fecamp, addressed to the Norman Antiquarian
Society, records his disappointment at finding at Fecamp no traces of
the days of the early Dukes, or even of days earlier still, such as he
found at Jumieges. This oldest part of Fecamp is part of a church begun
so late as 1085. One bay of its presbytery and two adjoining chapels
have been spared. The style is a little singular. There is something not
quite Norman about the very square arches of a single order, and the
capitals are not the usual Norman capitals of the second half of the
eleventh century. Except this bay, the presbytery has been rebuilt in
essentially the same style as the nave, though naturally a little
earlier. But on the south side a singular change took place in the
fourteenth century. As at Waltham, the builders of that day cut away the
triforium and threw the two lower stages into one. But what was done at
Waltham in the most awkward and bungling way in which anything ever was
done anywhere, was at Fecamp at least done very cleverly. Without
meddling with the vaulting or the vaulting-shafts, the pier-arches and
triforium range of the thirteenth century have been changed into arches
of the fourteenth, resting on tall slender pillars, almost recalling the
choir of Le Mans. Whether this change was an improvement or not is a
question of taste, but there can be no question as to the wonderful
skill, aesthetical and mechanical, with which the change was made, and it
is the more striking from the contrast with the wretched "botch" at
Waltham.
The church is finished to the east by a fine Flamboyant Lady Chapel. The
contrast between it and the earlier work suggests the effect of Henry
the Seventh's Chapel at Westminster, though the contrast is not quite so
strong. Altogether there can be no doubt of the claim of the church to a
place in the very first rank of the great minsters of a province
specially rich in such works.
We have dwelt so long on the position and the architecture of Fecamp
that we have no space left to add anything on its history. But the local
history of Fecamp naturally connects itself with several other more
general points at which we shall perhaps have some future opportunity of
glancing.
FOOTSTEPS OF THE CONQUEROR
1868
Many of the great events of Norman history, many of the chief events in
the life of the Great William, happened conveniently in or near to the
great cities of the Duchy. But many others also happened in somewhat out
of the way places, which no one is likely to get to unless he goes there
on purpose. The Conqueror received his death-wound at Mantes, he died in
a suburb of Rouen, he was buried at Caen. All these are places easy to
get at. Perhaps we should except Mantes, which in a certain sense is not
easy to get at. All the world goes by Mantes, but few people stop there.
The reason is manifest. The traveller who goes by Mantes commonly has in
his pocket a ticket for Paris, which enables him to spend a day at
Rouen, but not to spend a day at Mantes. People very anxious to stop at
Mantes, and to muse, so to speak, among its embers, have had great
searchings of heart how to get there, and have not accomplished their
object till after some years of reflection. And the interest of Mantes,
after all, is mainly negative. The town stands well; its river, its
bridges, its islands, suggest the days when Scandinavian pirates sailed
up the Seine and encamped with special delight on such _eys_ or _holms_
as that between Mantes and Limay. A specially prolonged fit of musing
may perhaps lead one to regret the prowess of Count Odo, and to wish
that Paris also had received that wholesome Northern infusion which
still works so healthily between the Epte and the Coesnon. But Mantes,
as regards William, is something like Mortemer as regards William's
rival King Henry. Mantes can show no traces of William or his age, for
the simple reason that William took good care that no such traces should
be left. By perhaps the worst deed of his life, a deed which awakened
special indignation at the time, he gave Mantes to destruction to avenge
a silly jest of its sovereign. At Mantes he held his churching and
lighted his candles, and their blaze burned up houses, churches,
whatever was there. Therefore, because William himself was there in only
too great force, it is that Mantes has no work of man to show on which
William can ever have looked. The church, whose graceful towers every
one has seen from the railway, is a grand fabric a hundred years or more
later than William's time, but to Norman and English eyes it might
seem that, with such a height as it has, the building ought to have
fully doubled its actual length. The third tower, that of a destroyed
church, is worth study as an example of a striking kind of cinque-cento,
the design being purely Gothic and the details being strongly
Italianised. But, after all, the architectural inquirer will be best
pleased with the fine Romanesque tower in the suburb of Limay, and the
lover of picturesque effect will not fail to dwell on the mediaeval
bridge which leads thither from the town.
[Illustration: Limay Church, Tower, S.E.]
So much for the spot, beyond the limits of his own Duchy, where William,
in the words of our Chronicles, "did a rueful thing, and more ruefully
it him befel." Of the points within Normandy which his name invests with
their main interest, we have already spoken of his birthplace at
Falaise--where the brutal work of "restoration," _i.e._ of scraping and
destroying, is still going on in full force--of the field of his early
victory at Val-es-dunes, and of the victory won for him by others at
Mortemer. We may, however, suggest that any one who visits Val-es-dunes,
will not do amiss if he extends his ramble as far as the churches of
Cintheaux and Quilly. Cintheaux is one of the best of the small but rich
twelfth-century churches which are so common in the district. And its
worthy cure, the historian of Val-es-dunes, is doing his best to bring
it back to its former state, without subjecting it, like Falaise or
like one of the spires of Saint Stephen's, to the cruel martyrdom of the
apostle Bartholomew. Quilly is more remarkable still, as possessing a
tower containing marked vestiges of that earlier Romanesque style of
which Normandy contains so much fewer examples than either England or
Aquitaine. Cintheaux=Centella, has also a certain historic interest in
the generation after William. There, in 1105, King Henry and Duke
Robert, "_duo germani fratres_," had a conference. We forget who it was
who translated "_duo germani fratres_" by "two German brothers," and
went on to rule that the Henry spoken of must have been the Emperor
Henry the Fourth, and to remark that the conference happened not very
long before his death. Cintheaux, however, has carried us from the age
of William into the age of his sons, and we must retrace our steps
somewhat. The sites connected with William himself will easily fall into
three classes--those which belong to his wars with France and Anjou,
those which figure in the Breton campaign which he waged in company with
Earl Harold, and those which have a direct bearing on the Conquest of
England. The second class we may easily dispose of. Of Dol and Dinan we
have said somewhat already, and Dinan especially is a place familiar to
many Englishmen. But we may remark that, though Dinan contains few
remains of any great antiquity, few places better preserve the general
effect of an ancient town. It still rises grandly above the river,
spanned both by the lowly ancient bridge and the gigantic modern
viaduct; the walls are nearly perfect, and houses, partly through the
necessities of the site, have not spread themselves at all largely
beyond them. We may add that the good sense of the inhabitants has found
out a way to make excellent boulevards without sacrificing the walls to
their creation. Rennes, the furthest point reached by the two comrades
so soon to become enemies, is now wholly a modern city. Saint Michael's
Mount has become a popular lion, which can only be seen under the
vexatious companionship of a guide and a "party." It is therefore
impossible to study the interior with much comfort or profit. Yet one
has still time to wonder at the strange effect produced by crowding the
buildings of a great monastery on the top of the rock, an effect which
reaches its highest point when we go up a staircase and find ourselves
landed in a cloister of singular beauty. But the rock and the
buildings--nowhere better seen than from the Mount of Dol--are still
there, a most striking object from every point of the landscape, Saint
Michael "in peril of the sea" seeming to watch over the bay which bears
his name, as from his height at Glastonbury he seems to watch over the
flats and the hills peopled with the names alike of British and of
West-Saxon heroes. And the vast expanse of sand brings vividly before
us the scene in the Tapestry where the giant strength of the English
Earl is shown lifting with ease the soldiers who found themselves
engulfed in the treacherous stream.
[Illustration: Domfront Castle]
The wars of William with Geoffrey of Anjou and Henry of Paris introduce
us to several points, striking in the way both of nature and of art. Few
among them surpass Domfront, William's first conquest beyond the bounds
of his own Duchy, the fortress which he won by the mere terror of his
name after the fearful vengeance which he had inflicted on the rebels of
Alencon.[17] The spot reminds one in some degree of his own birthplace
at Falaise. That is to say, the castle crowns one rocky hill, and looks
out on another, still wilder and more rugged, with a pass between them,
through which runs the stream of the Varenne, a tributary of the
Mayenne, as that is in its turn of the Loire. But the position of the
two towns is different. Though the castle of Falaise occupies so
commanding a site, the town itself is anything but one of the
hill-towns, while Domfront is one of the best of the class. Not that it
is the least likely to be an ancient hill-fort, like Chartres, Le Mans,
or Angers; both Falaise and Domfront are, beyond all doubt, towns which
have gathered round their respective castles in comparatively modern
times. Both, there can be no doubt, date, in their very beginnings,
from a time later than the Norman settlement. Still Domfront is
practically a hill-town; the walls simply fence in the top of the
height, and the town, never having reached any great size, has not yet
spread itself to the bottom. A more picturesque site can hardly be
found. Of the castle, the chief remnant is a shattered fragment of the
keep, most likely the very fortress which surrendered to William's
youthful energy.[18] As for churches, the only one within the walls is
worthless, but the church of Notre-Dame at the foot of the hill is one
of the best and purest specimens of Norman work on a moderate scale to
be found anywhere. The original work is nearly untouched, except that
the barbarism of modern times has removed about half the nave.
[Illustration: Eu Church, S.E.]
After Domfront had submitted to William and had become permanently
incorporated with Normandy, he himself founded the fortress of Ambrieres,
as a border stronghold.[19] A fragment of the castle still overlooks the
lower course of the Varenne, but the ground is no longer Norman. Some
way further on the same road we reach Mayenne, a town whose name
suggests far later warfare, but which was an important conquest of
William's in the days when Maine was the border ground, and the
battle-field, of Norman and Angevin.[20] The site of Mayenne, sloping,
like that of Mantes, down to a large river, has caused quite another
arrangement. The river is here the main point for attack and defence as
well as for traffic. The castle therefore does not crown the highest
point of the town, but flanks the stream with a grand range of bastions,
a miniature of the mighty pile of Philip Augustus at "black Angers."
This lower position of castles, thus returned to in later times, seems
however to have been the usual position for the fortresses of the
earliest Norman time. Before the Scandinavian conquerors were fully
settled in the country, the great point was to occupy sites commanding
the sea and the navigable rivers; it was a sign of quite another state
of things when the lord of the soil perched himself on the crest of an
inland hill. Of the earlier type of fortress we have an example in the
castle of Eu, a name whose associations may seem to be wholly modern,
but which is, in truth, as the border fortress of Normandy towards
Flanders and the doubtful land of Ponthieu between them, one of the most
historic sites in the Duchy. Eu figures prominently in the wars of Rolf;
in its church William espoused his Flemish bride; in its castle he first
received his renowned English guest.[21] The church of William's day has
given way to a superb fabric of the thirteenth century, which needs only
towers, which are strangely lacking, to rank among the finest minsters
in Normandy. The castle where William and Harold met has given way to
that well-known building of the House of Guise which lived to become the
last home of lawful royalty in France. But the site still reminds one of
the days of Rolf rather than of the days of William. It can hardly be
said to command the town; it is itself commanded by higher ground
immediately above it; town, church, castle, all seem from the
surrounding hills to lie together in a hole. But it is admirably placed
for commanding the approaches from the sea and from the low, and in
Rolf's time no doubt marshy, ground lying between the town and the
water. In exact contrast to Eu, stands the noble hill-castle of Arques,
near Dieppe, the work of William's rebellious uncle and namesake, which
he had to win by the slow process of hunger from Norman rebels and
French auxiliaries.[22] The little town, with a church of later date,
but of striking outline, lies low, lower than Eu; but the castle soars
above it, crowning a peninsular height which forms the extremity of a
long range of higher ground. The steep slopes of the hill might have
seemed defence enough, but Count William did not deem his fortress
secure without cutting an enormous fosse immediately within its circuit,
so that any one who climbed the slope of the hill would find a deep gulf
between himself and the fortress, even if he were lucky enough to escape
falling headlong. The building has been greatly enlarged in later
times, but the shell of Count William's keep, a huge massive square
tower, is still here, as perhaps are some portions of his gateway and of
his surrounding walls. The view is a noble one, and it takes in the site
of that later battle of Henry of Navarre to which Arques now owes most
of its renown, and which has gone some way to wipe out the memory of
both Williams, Count and Duke alike.
One point more. Round the lower course of the Dive all sorts of
historical associations centre. The stream divides the older and the
later Normandy, but of these the later is the truer, the land where the
old speech and the old spirit lingered longest. By its banks was fought
the battle in which Harold Blaatand rescued Normandy from the Frank, and
in which the stout Dane took captive with his own hands Lewis King of
the West-Franks, the heir and partial successor of Charles.[23] There,
too, are the causeway and bridge of Varaville, marking the site of the
ford where William's well-timed march enabled him to strike almost as
heavy a blow against the younger royalty of Paris as the Danish ally of
his forefathers had struck against the elder royalty of Laon.[24] The
French invaders of Normandy, King Henry at their head, had gorged
themselves with the plunder of the lands west of the Dive and were now
carelessly advancing towards the high ground of Auge in the direction of
Lisieux. The King with his vanguard had already climbed the hill, when
he looked round, only to behold the mass of his army cut to pieces
before the sudden onslaught of the irresistible Duke. William had
marched up from Falaise and had taken them at the right moment, almost
as Harold took his Norwegian namesake at Stamford bridge. It is one of
those spots where the story is legibly written on the scene. The
causeway is still there, and it is easy to realise the King looking on
the slaughter of his troops, and hardly withheld from rushing down to
give them help which must have proved wholly in vain. The heights from
which he looked down stretched to the sea, by the mouth of the river.
The port of Dive, now nearly choked up with sand, was then a great
haven, and there the fleet of William, assembled for the conquest of
England, lay for a whole month, waiting for the favourable winds which
never came till they had changed their position for the more auspicious
haven of Saint Valery.
THE COTENTIN
1876
The "pagus Constantinus," the peninsular land of Coutances, is, or ought
to be, the most Norman part of Normandy. Perhaps however it may be
needful first to explain that the Latin "pagus _Constantinus_" and the
French _Cotentin_ are simply the same word. For we have seen a French
geography-book in which _Cotentin_ was explained to mean the land of
_coasts_; the peninsular shape of the district gave it "trois cotes,"
and so it was called _Cotentin_. We cannot parallel this with the
derivation of Manorbeer from "man or bear";[25] because this last is at
least funny, while to derive Cotentin from _cote_ is simply stupid. But
it is very like a derivation which we once saw in a Swiss
geography-book, according to which the canton of Wallis or Valais was
so called "parce que c'est la plus grande _vallee_ de la Suisse." And,
what is more, a Swiss man of science, eminent in many branches of
knowledge, but not strong in etymology, thought it mere folly to call
the derivation in question. It was no good arguing when the case was as
clear as the sun at noon-day. Now, in the case of Wallis, it is
certainly much easier to say what the etymology of the name is not than
to say what it is; but in the case of the Cotentin one would have
thought that it was as clear as the sun at noon-day the other way. How
did he who derived Cotentin from _cote_ deal with other names of
districts following the same form? The _Bessin_, the land of Bayeux,
might perhaps be twisted into something funny, but the _Avranchin_ could
hardly be anything but the district of Avranches, and this one might
have given the key to the others. But both _Cotentin_ and _Bessin_
illustrate a law of the geographical nomenclature of Gaul, by which,
when a city and its district bear the same name, the name takes two
slightly different forms for the city and for the district. Thus we have
Bourges and Berry, Angers and Anjou, Perigueux and Perigord, Le Mans and
Maine.[26] So _Constantia_ has become Co_u_t_a_nces; but the adjective
_Constantinus_ has become C_o_t_e_ntin. City and district then bear the
same Imperial name as that other Constantia on the Rhine with which
Coutances is doomed to get so often confounded. How often has one seen
Geoffrey of Mowbray described as "Bishop of Constance." In an older
writer this may be a sign that, in his day, Coutances was spoken of in
England as Constance. In a modern writer this judgment of charity is
hardly possible. It really seems as if some people thought that the
Conqueror was accompanied to England by a Bishop of the city where John
Huss was burned ages afterwards.
We have called the Cotentin a peninsula, and so it is. Sir Francis
Palgrave points out, with a kind of triumph, that the two Danish
peninsulas, the original Juetland and this of the Cotentin, are the only
two in Europe which point northward. And the Cotentin does look on the
map very much as if it were inviting settlers from more northern parts.
But the fact is that the land is not really so peninsular as it looks
and as it feels. The actual projection northward from the coast of the
Bessin or Calvados is not very great. It is the long coast to the west,
the coast which looks out on the Norman islands, the coast which forms a
right angle with the Breton coast by the Mount of Saint Michael, which
really gives the land its peninsular air. We are apt to forget that the
nearest coast due west of the city of Coutances does not lie in Europe.
We are apt further to forget that the whole of that west coast is not
Cotentin. Avranches has its district also, and the modern department of
Manche takes in both, as the modern diocese of Coutances takes in the
older dioceses of Coutances and Avranches.