TRACES OF EARLY TIMES IN THE CHURCHES
1. In most villages the =church= is the chief old building in the
place, and it is a good thing to be able to tell the time to which
its different parts belong. It will help us to fix in our minds the
different periods, or steps, in the history of our country. Never be
ashamed to ask questions about an old building. It will be a very
strange thing, indeed, if you cannot find, in every town and village,
_somebody_ who has a keen interest in old buildings, and who will
delight in pointing them out to you. Nearly every local newspaper in
the country, from time to time, prints odds and ends connected with
the history of the neighbourhood. If there is anything about an old
building that you want explained, you can easily write a short letter
to the editor of the paper, and there is sure to be someone who will
take the trouble to answer your question, and help you to understand.
[Illustration: Architectural Features
Long and Short Work (Saxon); Anglo-Saxon Doorway; Anglo-Saxon; Double
Window; Norman Curving; Norman Doorway; Lancet Windows; Doorway, 14th
Century; Window, 15th Century]
2. An old parish church has a good deal to tell us about the history of
the parish and its people, and if you know something of the history of
the place in which you live, you will know something _worth knowing_ of
the history of your country, which will help you to be a good citizen.
3. There are, as we said in a former chapter, some few churches which
have little bits of Saxon work left in their walls and windows. In a
great many more we shall see some Norman work, especially in pillars
and arches and doorways. That Norman Period takes in the reigns of all
the kings from William I to the time of King John, from the middle of
the eleventh century to the end of the twelfth, down to the time of
Magna Carta.
4. When we come to the time of Magna Carta we are in the thirteenth
century, when pointed arches came into use. Through the reigns of King
Henry III and King Edward I a great deal of building in that style
went on. In almost every parish some alteration was made in the church
in that century; and probably in the chancel there are one or two old
windows, which will be pointed out to you as having been first put in
during that century.
5. You may, perhaps, find a very old battered figure of a man in chain
armour, the sort of armour in which King Edward I went fighting in the
Third Crusade, in Wales, and in Scotland; in which Simon de Montfort
and Wallace and the Bruce fought. Some of these effigies have the legs
crossed--some at the ankles, some at the knees, and some at the thighs.
It used to be said that these represented crusaders; but nobody seems
really to know what was the meaning of the cross-legged effigies.
[Illustration: Effigy with Crossed Legs in the Temple Church, London]
6. Then there are some flat stones, lying in the pavement, with
inscriptions running round the edge in strange worn letters, with
perhaps an ornamental cross also cut the whole length of the stones.
These are the cover-stones of the graves where some great baron or
land-owner was buried, and they belong to the thirteenth century, and
some are even of earlier date. They are called =incised slabs=.
7. In this same century another kind of cover-stone for a grave came
into use, especially in the southern and eastern parts of England.
Metal was fixed in the incised slabs, and the portrait of the knight
and his lady, the merchant or the lawyer, the bishop or priest was
engraved on the metal, showing the person in the kind of dress he wore
during life. It is said that there are about 4000 of these =brasses=
still left in England. Some of them have been sadly damaged and worn.
They do not all belong to the thirteenth century, as this kind of
memorial of the dead was used during several centuries--in fact, well
on into Queen Elizabeth's reign, at the end of the sixteenth century.
The oldest brass in England, showing a man in armour, is in Surrey, in
Stoke D'Abernon Church. Brasses are very valuable, as they show us the
kinds of armour and dress worn in particular centuries.
=Summary.=--There is not much Saxon work left in any of the old
churches, but a good deal of Norman work, in round-headed arches
and doorways. The Norman period lasted from King William I to
King John. Pointed arches then came in, and in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries there was much church-building and alteration.
Battered _effigies_ of cross-legged figures in armour belong to
this period. _Incised slabs_ were originally the cover-stones of
graves. In the thirteenth century _brasses_ came into fashion, and
they show us changes in costume, as they were used down to the
time of Queen Elizabeth.