province, towards Brittany; to the south of Granville, the south-west of
Avranches, and the north of Pontorson and Dol. It is a conical mass of
granite, which, from a base of about one-fourth of a league in
circumference, towers to the height of above four hundred feet,
including the buildings that crown its summit. It stands insulated and
alone, except the neighboring rock of Tombeleine, in the midst of a
dreary level of white sand, that presents a surface of more than twelve
square leagues, extending on all sides, almost as far as the eye can
reach, and unvaried, unless where it is intersected with branches of
different rivers. The whole of this space is at high water entirely
covered with the sea, while the receding tide leaves it bare; yet still
so, that it is difficult and dangerous to traverse it without a guide.
The base of the mount is surrounded with high thick walls, flanked with
semi-circular towers all machicolated, and bastions. Towards the west
and north, its sides present only steep, black, bare, pointed rocks: the
portions that lie in an opposite direction, incline in a comparatively
easy slope, and are covered with houses that follow in successive lines,
leaving but a scanty space for some small gardens, in which the vine,
the fig-tree, and the almond, flourish in great luxuriance. The walls of
the castellated abbey impend, and jut out in bold decided masses; and
the whole is crowned by the florid choir of the abbey church. The
architects of the latter time seemed to have wished to adapt this
glorious building to its site. All its divisions of parts, windows, and
pinnacles, are narrower and more lofty than usual; and the projections
are bolder, so as to be distinctly visible from below. The stranger is
admitted to the mount by a gate, of the time of Louis XII. or Francis I.
He proceeds along the walls, which continue leading upwards; and,
traversing desolate towers, and staircases above staircases, hanging on
the sides of the rock, all forlorn, grassy, and mouldering, he is
conducted to the gate of the abbey. The outside of the first gate-way
has round towers: the second has a pointed arch. One pile of buildings
has a row of small arches round the top. The present population of the
town amounts to about two hundred and fifty inhabitants, who derive
their chief support from the fishery.
Of the church itself, a view is given in the Bayeux tapestry; rude
indeed, but curious, as coeval.--The following is a short chronological
summary of the principal events connected with the building:--
In 1103, the roof fell in, and involved in its ruins a portion of the
dormitory.
Ten years afterwards, on the twenty-third of April, 1113, the lightning
set fire to the abbey, which was wholly consumed, except the crypt and
the great columns of the nave, and some other parts of the church.
Roger, then abbot, repaired the injury, rebuilding the refectory and the
dormitory, and the splendid apartment, called the Knights' Hall.
[Illustration: Plate 96. MOUNT ST. MICHAEL.
_Interior of the Knights' Hall._]
Bernard, who was abbot from 1135 to 1140, rebuilt the north part of the
church, and erected the tower between the nave and the choir.
Of the works done at the beginning of the thirteenth century, in
consequence of the injuries received by the church during the wars of
Philip-Augustus, no particulars are preserved. It is only said in
general terms, that they were considerable.
Richard Turstin, abbot in 1275, began buildings upon an extensive scale,
between the extremity of the cloisters and the barracks.
On the thirteenth of July, 1300, the lightning again struck the church,
and great part of it was burned, and the bells melted, and many houses
in the town reduced to ashes.
The chapel of St. John the Evangelist was added by John De la Porte, the
twenty-seventh abbot, who died in 1334.
In 1350, a fresh injury was sustained from a tempest; but so great was
the zeal employed in repairing it, that the monastery is said to have
been, a very short time subsequently, in a better state than it had
almost ever been before: it raised its head, however, above these
misfortunes, only to experience new ones, and from the same source, in
1370. The damage was then greater, but was soon repaired; and the chapel
of St. Catherine was erected. This happened during the prelacy of
Geoffrey de Servin. Peter le Roy, the following abbot, is ranked among
the greatest benefactors to the convent: no one contributed more to the
diffusion of its fame, or the increase of learning within its precincts;
but he does not appear to have done any thing to its buildings. His
successor, Robert Jolivet, surrounded the mount with the walls and
towers that now remain, with the view of defending it against the
English, whom he afterwards joined.
In 1421, the whole roof of the choir fell in. The foundations of the new
choir, the remains of which are now standing, were laid by the Cardinal
d'Estouteville, in 1452; and he continued the work till his death,
which happened thirty years afterwards. During his prelacy, the chapels
of the choir were completed, and roofed with lead; and the choir and the
columns that surround the high altar, were raised to the height of the
chapels.
In 1509, another accident arose from lightning: the steeple, and the
bells, and the wood-work of the nave, were destroyed; but the damage was
soon repaired by William de Lamps, then abbot, who also built the
abbatial palace and alms-house, and raised the part of the church that
was unfinished, as high as the second tier of windows.--The choir was
completed under the prelacy of his brother, John de Lamps, who was next
but one to him in the succession, and wore the mitre from 1513 to 1523.
From that time forward, till the period of the revolution, the abbacy of
St. Michael's Mount was held in commendam; and the abbots, regardless of
a charge in which they did not feel themselves personally concerned,
ceased to bestow care or expense upon the buildings. Some of them even
refused to do the necessary repairs; and more than one instance is on
record, where they resisted the decrees of the Norman parliament to that
effect.
From the preceding details, it will easily be imagined, that the church
upon St. Michael's Mount can scarcely fail to present a medley of
different kinds of architecture. Two, however, predominate: in the
choir, which was finished at the beginning of the sixteenth century, all
is pointed and lofty: the naves and transepts are Norman. Beneath are
crypts, which extend under every part of the church, supported upon
short columns with capitals of foliage, &c. the arches mostly ribbed,
and circular.
The shortening of the nave has destroyed the western front. The
cloister, according to the observations of a friend of the author, is
strangely moresque in its appearance. The position of the pillars in it
he regards as quite unique.
The Knights' Hall, (see _plate ninety-six_,) is an arched chamber,
ninety-eight feet in length, by sixty-eight in width, noble and
church-like in its aspect. Its groined stone roof rests upon eighteen
cylindrical columns, with bases and capitals; the latter, in very high
relief, of beautiful design and delicate execution.
NOTES:
[213] It may be allowed, that this idea receives a certain degree of
confirmation from the present name of the neighboring rock,
_Tombeleine_, the natural derivation of which appears to be _Tumba
Beleni_.
[214] The tradition of the mount speaks of the monster that haunted the
drowned forest; and when the author's friend, Mr. Cohen, visited St.
Michael's Mount in 1819, his guide, Jacques Du Pont, referred to the
subject, and called the beast "a monster of a Turk that ate the
Christians." The figure represented on the wrapper of this work, was
pointed out as a figure of the _identical_ monster. It was formerly on
the outside of the wall in a niche; it is now just within the gate.
"There," said Jacques, "look at his teeth and his claws; how savage he
is."--The tradition is certain; but the image is nothing more than a
griffin grasping a shield charged with an armorial bearing; its date
15..
[215] A. D. 1759.
[216] Of old, says Brito, the place
...... "satis angelicis gaudebat tutus haberi
Præsidiis, nullo dispendia tempore passus;
At simul ædificans muros ibi cura Johannis
Prætulit humanas vires coelestibus armis,
Quemque tuebatur coelesti milite Christus,
Munivit sacrum humano munimine montem,
Ex tunc causa loco pereundi inventa sacrato."
The author goes on to add, that the king
...... "ne fiat eis deinceps injuria talis,
Præcipit ut pereat munitio toto Johannis;
Et sua militiæ coelesti castra resignans,
Humanis bonus excubiis locra sacra resignat,
Largifluâque manu monachos juvat in renovando
Sarta tecta, libros, et cætera quæ furor ignis
Solverat in cinerem, quæ nobiliore paratu
Quàm priùs extiterant jam restaurata videmus."
_Phillip._ lib. 8, l. 114.
[217] In the preamble of the statutes of this order, the monarch
expresses himself in the following terms--"Nous, à la gloire de Dieu,
notre créateur Tout-puissant, et revérence de glorieuse Vierge Marie, et
en l'honneur de Monseigneur St.-Michel Archange, premier Chevalier, qui
pour la querelle de Dieu, d'estoc et de taille, se battit contre
l'ennemi dangereux de l'humain lignage, et du Ciel le trébucha, et qui
en son lieu et oratoire appellé Mont-St. Michel a toujours
particulièrement gardé, préservé et défendu, sans être pris, subjugué,
ni mis ès mains des anciens ennemis de notre royaume, et afin que tous
bons et nobles courages soient excités et plus particulièrement émus à
toutes vertueuses oeuvres; le 1er. jour d'Août de l'an 1469 avons créé,
institué et ordonné, et par ces présentes créons, constituons et
ordonnons un Ordre de fraternité ou amiable compagnie de certain nombre
de Chevaliers, jusqu'à trente six, lequel nous voulons être nommé
l'Ordre de Saint-Michel."
PLATE XCVII.
ABBEY CHURCH OF CERISY.
[Illustration: Plate 97. ABBEY CHURCH OF CERISY.
_Interior of the Choir._]
Cerisy, a small market-town, upon the road leading from Bayeux to St.
Lo, and equally distant about four leagues from each of those places, is
wholly indebted to its abbey for the celebrity it has enjoyed. In the
secular history of the duchy, its name occurs upon only two occasions.
The lord of Cerisy is enumerated among the companions in arms of Robert,
son of the Conqueror, in his expedition to the Holy Land, in 1009; and
the abbot of Cerisy was one of the twenty-one ecclesiastics from the
bailiwick of Caen, cited by Philip le Bel to the Norman exchequer, in
the beginning of the fourteenth century.
The convent, which was at all times of the Benedictine order, is said to
have been founded as early as the year 560. It was under the invocation
of St. Vigor, ninth bishop of Bayeux; and, according to some authors,
was established by that saint himself. Du Monstier, in the _Neustria
Pia_, recites the history of its origin at great length: how the
prelate, moved by the entreaties of a rich man, of the name of Volusian,
destroyed, by virtue of the sign of the cross, a monstrous serpent that
ravaged the country; and how Volusian, in gratitude, ceded to him the
domain of Cerisy, upon which he immediately erected a monastery, and
endowed it with the revenues of the property. The annals of the convent
being lost, what is recorded of its history is very short. After the
general destruction of religious establishments by the Saxons and
Normans, that of Cerisy appears to have been left in its ruins far
longer than most others. No hand is said to have been lifted towards its
restoration, till the reign of Robert, father of the Conqueror. By him
the monastic writers all agree that a beginning was made towards the
rebuilding of this monastery; and one of them, William of Jumieges,
adds, that his care of it suffered no diminution from time or distance;
for that, during his wars in the Holy Land, when the patriarch of
Jerusalem rewarded his pious zeal with a present of some precious
relics, he immediately directed them to be here deposited. His more
illustrious successor, in one of the first years of his reign, completed
and richly endowed the convent begun by his father, whose remains he
commanded should be brought from Palestine, for the express purpose of
their being interred at Cerisy. But they were allowed to proceed no
further than Apulia. In the _Neustria Pia_ is preserved a charter of
King Charles VI. dated 1398, in which the various donations conferred
upon the abbey of Cerisy, by the Norman Dukes, Robert, William, and
Henry, are enumerated and confirmed. Its annual income, in the middle of
the eighteenth century, was estimated by De Masseville at twenty
thousand livres. The only property it appears ever to have possessed in
England, was a priory of Benedictine monks at West Shirburne, in
Hampshire.
Architecturally considered, the church of Cerisy is an interesting relic
of Norman workmanship. The certainty of its date, not far removed from
the year 1032, and the comparatively few alterations it has undergone,
render it one of those landmarks, by the aid of which the observer of
the present day can alone attain to any certainty in his inquiries into
ancient art. And yet, in the portion here selected for engraving, the
upper row of windows is of an æra posterior to the rest; and the great
arch in front has evidently changed its semi-circular form for a pointed
one. Its height is unusual and impressive. Both taken collectively and
in its parts, the church bears a strong resemblance to that nearly
coeval at St. Georges; like which, it is now appropriated to parochial
purposes, and is still of great size,[218] though the whole of the
portion originally parochial, and which extended one hundred and
twenty-four feet beyond what remains of the nave, has been recently
pulled down. The principal front of the building, which faced the north,
its position being north and south, has been consequently destroyed. The
style of the edifice is characterized by a noble and severe simplicity:
the capitals of the columns are, indeed, enriched with sculptured
foliage or animals, or occasionally with small heads placed in the
middle of a surface otherwise plain; but elsewhere the decorations are
very sparingly distributed. They are confined to the chevron and billet
mouldings; the latter the most ancient and most rare among the Norman
ornaments. Both the transepts are parted off, as at St. Georges, by
screens near the extremities: these screens at Cerisy are surmounted by
an elegant parapet of semi-circular arches, a singular and very
beautiful addition.
NOTES:
[218] The following are the dimensions of the church, according to Mr.
Cotman.
FEET.
Length of the nave 98
Ditto of choir 64
Ditto of transepts and intervening part of the nave 118
Width of nave 73
Ditto of transepts 31
Ditto of choir, without the side-chapels 28
Height of nave 70
Before the demolition of the western extremity, the nave was two hundred
and twenty-six feet long, and the total length of the building two
hundred and ninety feet.
PLATE XCVIII.
CHURCH AT OYESTRAHAM.
[Illustration: Plate 98. CHURCH OF OYESTRAHAM.
_West Front._]
Oyestraham, or, as it is more commonly written, Estreham, is a village
situated upon the left bank of the Orne, near its confluence with the
channel. Its name, derived from the Saxon,[219] seems to point it out as
a settlement made by those daring invaders: its church, one of the first
objects that presents itself to the English traveller, on his
entering France in the direction of Caen, is well calculated to impress
him with a forcible idea of the magnificence of the Norman lords of the
duchy. That it was built in the time of their sway, is a fact which
cannot be doubted; but, in an architectural point of view, it is so full
of anomalies, that opinions would be likely to vary considerably with
regard to the actual date of its erection. And here, unfortunately, no
records remain to guide the judgment. In the western front, indeed!
(_the subject of the plate_) the whole is of the semi-circular style,
and uniform. The upper tier of arches will find a parallel in the towers
of the abbey of Jumieges, built during the reign of the Conqueror; and
most of the other members and decorations are of frequent occurrence in
erections of the same æra. A peculiarity is alone observable in the
smaller arches of the second row, in which the artist has indulged
himself in what may be termed an architectural conceit, lengthening, to
a very disproportionate degree, and almost in the moorish fashion, the
part above the capital, in order that the whole might range in a line
with the larger arch in the centre. The truncated appearance of the wall
on either side, leads to the obvious inference, that either this front
had originally towers, like the church of St. Nicholas, at Caen, or that
it was intended there should have been such. A central tower now alone
remains, of square form, with massive buttresses of unusual size,
projecting towards the south. This tower, as well as the portion of the
church to the east of it, exhibits the Norman and Gothic architecture
mixed in a very uncommon manner. Of three rows of arches, the lowest and
highest belong to the latter style; the central one only to the former.
In the nave, all is Norman, excepting only two lancet windows of the
upper tier, placed near the west end, on the south side, and excepting
also the flying buttresses that extend from between the windows of the
clerestory to the projecting aisles below. Within the choir, the
trefoil-headed arch takes, in some instances, the place of the pointed
in the lower row, which is wholly blank; and the capitals of the
pillars, according to Mr. Cotman, shew an extraordinary playfulness of
design. The arches above them are pierced for windows. Both the
semi-circular ones of the second tier, and the pointed ones above, are
extremely narrow, seen from without, but widen greatly within; the wall
being of more than ordinary thickness. The piers of the nave are six
feet five inches in diameter, while the intervening spaces scarcely
exceed ten feet.
NOTES:
[219] On this subject, see _Huet, Origines de Caen_, p. 299.--"Estreham
est le nom d'un bourg situé à l'embouchure de l'Orne, et d'un autre dans
le Bessin. Mr. Bochart le faisoit, venir d'_Easter_, Déesse des anciens
Saxons. Et comme il avoit entrepris de rapporter les anciennes origines
à la langue et à la doctrine des Phéniciens il prétendoit que cette
Easter étoit la même qu'Astarté. Ses sacrifices se faisoient au
commencement du printems; et de la vient que les Saxons appellerent
Easter le mois auquel se célebre la Pâque. Skinnerus ne s'éloigne pas
beaucoup de ce sentiment dans son Etymologique de la langue Angloise.
Mr. Valois tire le nom d'Estreham du Latin _Strata_, et de l'Allemand
_Hamum_, pour marquer une Demeure bâtie sur un chemin public, ou au bout
d'un chemin public, comme si le bourg d'Estreham étoit sur un grand
chemin, ou au bout d'un chemin public: et qu'il ne fût pas sur une
extrêmité de terre qui ne mene à rien, ayant la mer d'un côté, et
l'embouchure de la riviere d'Orne de l'autre: ou comme si tous les
villages du monde ne pouvoient pas être censez terminer des grand
chemins. Mais ces opinions sont détruites par l'ancienne orthographe du
nom d'Estreham, qui est constamment écrit dans les vieux Titres, et par
Mr. de Bras, Oistreham, pour Westerham, c'est-à-dire, Village
Occidental: car il se trouve placé à l'West de l'embouchure de l'Orne."
PLATE XCIX. AND C.
CATHEDRAL CHURCH AT SÉEZ.
[Illustration: Plate 99. CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF NOTRE DAME, AT SÉEZ.
_West Front._]
The city of Séez, though dignified by being the seat of a bishopric, is
in itself small and unimportant, its population not exceeding five
thousand five hundred inhabitants. Of the early history of either the
town or the diocese, little is known with certainty; and authors have
scarcely felt it worth their while to exercise their ingenuity, or to
display their learning, upon a subject ill calculated to add dignity to
their researches. Those who have entered upon the inquiry, have given it
as their opinion, that the _Civitas Sagiorum_, mentioned in the earliest
_Notitia Galliæ_, as the fifth in rank among the cities of the province,
_Lugdunensis Secunda_, was no other than the modern Séez; and, carrying
their conjecture one step farther, they have inferred from locality,
that the _Sagii_, otherwise called _Saii_, must have been the _Sesuvii_
of Cæsar's Commentaries. Hence, in more modern _Latinity_, Séez has
generally acquired the name of _Sagium_; though Ordericus Vitalis
occasionally calls it _Salarium_, and Magno, _Saius_. In some maps it is
likewise styled _Saxia_, whence an idea has arisen that it owed its
origin to the Saxons; and that the words, _Saii_ and _Sagii_, were in
reality nothing more than a corruption of _Saxones_ or _Sassones_.
The favorers of this opinion have brought Séez within the limits of the
_Otlingua Saxonia_, a district in Normandy, whose situation and extent
has been the subject of much literary controversy. The learned Huet,
alluding to this very point,[220] observes, with great justice, that "it
is more easy to tell what is not, than what is; and that, though the
limits of bishoprics serve in general to mark the divisions of the
ancient Gallic tribes, yet length of time has introduced many
alterations. Able men," he adds, "have been of opinion, that Hiesmes was
originally an episcopal see, and that its diocese was afterwards
dismembered into three archdeaconries; one of them fixed at Séez, a
second at Lisieux, and a third at Bayeux." Such, however, he says, is
not his own belief; but he thinks that Hiesmes was originally the seat
of the bishopric of Séez. A report to the same effect will be found in
the _Concilia Normannica_; and it is adopted by Rouault,[221] who argues
in its favor; first, that Séez was too insignificant, at the time of the
preaching of the gospel in Neustria, to be dignified with the presence
of a bishop; the apostles and earliest popes having directed that
bishops should only be appointed to considerable towns: and, secondly,
that Hiesmes was really then a place of importance, and probably
continued so till the nineteenth year of the reign of King Henry I. of
England, when that prince destroyed it, as a punishment upon the
inhabitants for their revolt.
Ecclesiastical history refers the establishment of the bishopric of Séez
to the fourth or fifth century. The earliest, however, of the prelates,
of whom any certain mention is to be found, is Litaredus, whose name
appears, under the title of _Oximensis Episcopus_, subscribed to the
council of Orleans in 511. Azo, who succeeded to the mitre in one of the
last years of the tenth century, erected the first cathedral that is
upon record at Séez. William of Jumieges relates of him, that he
destroyed the walls of the city, and with their stones built a church in
honor of St. Gervais, the martyr, "ubi sedes episcopalis longo post
tempore fuerat." The same author tells that, in consequence of this
church having been turned into a place of refuge by some rebels, about
fifty years afterwards, Ivo, the third from Azo upon the episcopal
throne, set fire to the adjoining houses for the purpose of dislodging
them, and the church fell a victim to the flames. The act, though
unintentional, brought upon the prelate a severe reprimand from the
pope; and Ivo, to repair his fault, undertook a journey to his relatives
and friends in Apulia and Constantinople, whence he returned, loaded
with rich presents, by the aid of which he undertook the erection of a
new church upon so large a scale, that "his successors, Robert, Gerard,
and Serlo, were unable to complete it in fifty years." The cathedral
then raised is said to be the same as is now standing; and, according to
what has already been recorded of the cathedrals of Lisieux and
Coutances, there is nothing in its architecture to discredit such an
opinion. The first stone was laid about the year 1053: the dedication
took place in 1126. Godfrey, archbishop of Rouen, performed the ceremony
in the presence of Henry, then duke, who, at the same time, endowed the
church with an annual income of ten pounds.
The diocese of Séez is surrounded by those of Lisieux, Evreux, Mans, and
Bayeux. According to De Masseville,[222] it extended, before the
revolution, twenty-five leagues in length, and from eight to ten in
width, comprising the districts of _le Houme_, _les Marches_, and a part
of _le Perche_. The towns of Séez, Alençon, Argentan, Falaise, Hiesmes,
Mortagne, and Bellême, together with several smaller towns, and five
hundred villages, were also included in its limits; as were five
archdeaconries, six rural deaneries, and many abbeys and other religious
houses. The episcopal revenue was estimated at only ten thousand livres.
The late concordat, by reducing the number of the Norman dioceses, has
of course added to the extent of those that remained.