I exhibit a plan and a general view of Brixworth Church, enlarged from drawings kindly lent me by Mr. Roberts, who has given the church the most careful study. We have documentary evidence of the erection of the church by the abbots of Peterborough, about 680. Being near the ruins of a Roman station, it contains much Roman brick.

The chancel, or rather the sanctuary, was apsidal, with a surrounding aisle, and raised high on a crypt of corresponding plan. This sanctuary and aisle open by three arches into a choir of 30 ft. square, and this, I think, by a single arch, into a nave about 30 ft. by 60 ft.

This nave had arcades opening into either aisles, or, as Mr. Roberts thinks, into cubicula or oratories, the foundation of which he has found. The arches are turned in Roman bricks, very strangely used; a steep skewback being formed for their springings to reduce the angle of convergence, and so moderate the thickness of the mortar-joint, which, in arches of such a depth, would have been inconvenient. The nave and choir have had a clerestory, the windows of which have arches of Roman bricks. This is thought by some to be a later addition, from the reduced thickness of the walls; but of this I feel far from certain. Mr. Roberts suggests it as possible that the wide nave was again subdivided by arcades; but I confess I much doubt this.

To this original church a western tower was subsequently added, in which the Roman brick does not take so prominent a place; and later still, though still in Anglo-Saxon days, a very large round stair-turret was added, west of the tower.

The alterations introduced when the tower was added are clearly visible, especially the introduction of a triple window with baluster pillars, looking from the second storey of the tower into the church.

I exhibit also a plan and other drawings of the till lately ruined church on the Castle-hill at Dover. Here, again, Roman bricks have been largely used, both for quoins and arches, and some other parts. The church is cruciform, with a central tower, the transepts being narrower and lower than the nave. Wide and lofty arches open into the tower on the east and west, but those on the sides were, no doubt, low and narrow, and consequently were replaced by larger

ones late in the twelfth century. The chancel is square-ended. The windows are of a very large size, and about equally splayed without and within, and had wood frames for the glass, the grooves for which were quite distinct (Fig. 210). The main doorway seems to have been that on the south side. It has stone jambs of long and short work running square through the wall, the door having been hung against the inner surface. The arch is of brick, and a pilaster strip flanked it on either side and ran round the arch. Similar, on a small scale, was a ruined doorway, found in the north transept, and now restored precisely to its original form. Similar, also, are the windows of the tower, which were treated like doorways, with a shutter within. At the west end stands the ancient Roman pharos, from which was a communication to the church, both on the floor-level and also above. The latter had a doorway in a very perfect state (Fig. 211), which opened into a western gallery, of which I found the holes for the insertion of the timbers. Beneath this gallery, on either side, was a small window, which, for want of room for an arch, was made square-headed, with splayed wooden lintels, of which the exact impressions of the ends were found, giving its precise form.[6]

The tower arches have the pilaster strips on either side, and continuing round the arches. Each has a stone impost with very abnormal mouldings (Fig. 212).

Several very curious balusters of Caen stone were found among the ruins (Fig. 213). They appear from their freshness to have been always internal, and, I fancy, formed parts of a screen under the western arch of the tower, of which some foundations apparently remain. Externally, the quoins are partly of Roman brick and partly of long and short work, with very large stones. This is, perhaps, the most nearly complete of all our pre-Norman churches. There is no clue to its date. Some call it a British church: some say that it was built by Eadbald, the son of Ethelbert, about 640, and others that it is of a much later period, to which opinion I confess that I incline.[7]

Another nearly complete church is that at Worth, in Sussex (Fig. 214). The plan may be said to be that of the Dover Church, omitting the central tower and adding an apse. The transepts, like those at Dover, are small, and their arches low and narrow; while the chancel arch assumes almost majestic proportions. The transept arches (now much mutilated) had the pilaster strip, both to jambs and arch, with a double square impost of massive proportions (Fig. 216). The chancel arch is more artistic in its treatment, having a large demi-column in either jamb, 2 ft. 6 in. in diameter, with a regularly formed, though plain, capital; while instead of the pilaster, a smaller semi-column is placed against the face of the wall on either side, and indirectly carried round the arch in the form of a square projection (Fig. 217). The arch itself is square in section, and runs without break, through the thickness of the wall. No doorway nor window of the original date remains. The walls of the nave are about 25 ft. high, and are divided at mid-height by a large string-course, above which the windows were probably placed. The angles have pilaster strips in long and short work, and similar strips are placed at intervals along the walls reaching up to the mid-height string-course, all of them standing on a continuous base of two massive courses of stone. The half-height string-course of the nave is continued round the transepts, as are the eaves courses, and run across their gable ends. The chancel was externally dealt with much as the nave, though a little less in height. This church had no tower, and, as a curious commentary on the fashionable opinion that the Anglo-Saxons nearly always built of timber and their successors in after-times of stone, we find a timber tower of the fifteenth century added to the stone church of Saxon date![8]

At Bradford, in Wilts, a very complete church has but recently been discovered; having previously been so surrounded by buildings that its character was unnoticed. I give drawings of it, made by my friend Mr. Irvine, a zealous antiquary, who has also sent to the Academy a cast of some uncouth sculpture found there.[9] The church consists of a nave and chancel, and has every characteristic of Anglo-Saxon work strongly developed.[10]

At Jarrow-on-the Tyne the chancel of the Saxon church remains. It has few characteristic features. The windows are of a very pristine form, in this case with no external splay, the jambs of upright stones with horizontal stones for imposts, and arches cut out of single stones. They had been walled up at a very early date to a certain thickness from the exterior with very small perforations,—some circular and some more elongated,—in the filling up wall. This, I fancy, was as a means of defence. There is one doorway, which is a plain arched opening running square through the wall, the door having been hung as usual against its inner face, and the jambs formed of large stones facing the reveal. There are some signs of an apse having existed, but of this I cannot speak with any certainty. A tower was erected between the nave and the chancel—as I am informed by a local antiquary—in the reign of the Conqueror. The nave has long since perished, but in the walls of a modern erection on its site were found, used as building material, about twenty baluster columns, some 2 ft. 3 in. high and a foot in diameter (Fig. 220). This was in all probability the very church erected by Benedict Biscop, and in which the Venerable Bede worshipped.

At Monk Wearmouth are the remains of the other church of Benedict Biscop.

This church was burnt, as also was that at Jarrow, by the Danes in 867, and both remained in ruins till about 1074, when (or a few years later) both churches were re-roofed and restored to their sacred use. It was at this time that the tower at Jarrow was erected.

The most interesting portion of the church at Wearmouth is its western end. From this projects a tower evidently of Anglo-Saxon date. This tower has arches on three sides of its lower storey, which, till recently, were not only walled up, but almost buried in the accumulated earth.

In September 1866 they were excavated, and the western entrance opened out by the local Archæological Society, with the help of Mr. Johnson, architect, of Newcastle. The side doorways were found to have monolith jambs, 6 in. wide on the face, which are notched into a continuous cill, and support massive imposts, from which the arch springs, with very bold voussoirs. The western entrance, which is 6 ft. 4½ in.

to the springing and 4 ft. 8½ in. wide, has an arch springing from massive abaci 10½ in. thick, which are supported by baluster-shafts very similar to those found at Jarrow, two of which occupy the width of the wall on either side, and stand upon jambs each of a long and a short stone, the reveal of which is curiously sculptured with entwined serpents. This is decidedly the most remarkable doorway of this kind yet known. Above the doorway runs a band or string sculptured with animals and edged with the cable mould. At the same time, the two lower storeys of the tower were found to have originally formed a gabled porch,—two windows, of construction very similar to the side arches above described, having been stopped up in the end of the church by the conversion of this porch into a tower. Baluster-shafts have been discovered in the internal jambs of these windows.

At Jarrow, amongst many curious fragments discovered, is a stone in which is sculptured, as a continuous ornament, a long row of the balusters represented on a miniature scale, as if they were so established an architectural element as to be imitated just as arcades and windows are in Gothic architecture as a mere ornament.

The church at Stow, in Lincolnshire, contains extensive remains of Anglo-Saxon work, but of doubtful date. The church was founded about the time of Paulinus, as a cathedral for the Bishops of Lindsey, but was burnt by the Danes, as it is believed, in 870. It was re-founded about 1040. The tower arches and transepts are in one style, but of which date is doubtful. I confess I think the preponderance of evidence is in favour of the earlier date. Foundations have been discovered of aisles to the nave, clearly of the same age with the transepts. The older parts show everywhere marks of fire, and the transepts have been heightened in Saxon times; and, as I should think probable, at the time of the second foundation. The present nave and chancel are Norman.

There exist several crypts beneath chancels, which are of this date. Among these, besides the fragmentary remains at Brixworth, I will mention one not generally known, at Wing, in Buckinghamshire. It is of excessive rudeness, being built only of very rough stone; but it is notable for the completeness of its plan, being apsidal, with two ranges of piers, and as having remains of the two doorways through which it was approached by steps from either side of the chancel arch.

The apse in this case is polygonal, with pilaster strips up its angles, and parts of the nave are of pre-Norman date, and show clear evidence of its having had aisles.

The crypt at Repton is famous for the finished and decorative form of its architecture. I give a drawing of it.

The crypt at Lastingham is not of Saxon date, but its Norman successor. The original church was destroyed by the Danes. Its foundation I have already noticed.

The most numerous of the Anglo-Saxon remains are the bell-towers. These have almost always the peculiar characteristics which I have already noticed. Their number is so great that it would be impossible to enter into any enumeration of them. One of the best known, perhaps, is that of St. Benet’s, Cambridge. It has pilaster strips up each angle, with long and short work. The string-courses are merely square courses: each storey recedes a little in width. The belfry windows are double, divided by a mid-wall baluster and bracket; and there are plain windows again over their spandrels. The intermediate surfaces were plastered. The tower arch is of strangely rude design. The tower of Trinity Church, Colchester, is peculiar, as being, to a great extent, of Roman brick.[11] (Fig. 225).

Earls Barton tower is the most remarkable of its class, uniting the profuse use of pilaster strips, diagonal strips, arched strips, long and short work, baluster columns, and other characteristics of the style (Fig. 226). I have noticed here that the majority of the arches are so in form rather than in construction, some being cut out of the solid, some built up with horizontal courses projecting one over the other, and others, again, formed by a number of flat stones set on edge one behind another, and the arched opening cut through them all.

Barnach Tower is something like it, though with less variety,—a more Cyclopean look.[12] (Fig. 228).

The tower at Barton-upon-Humber bears considerable resemblance to that of Earls Barton, though with less profusion of the usual characteristics and less rudeness of construction. This tower is rendered remarkable by having attached to it a very large and lofty western porch, apparently of about the same date (Fig. 227).

Among the most remarkable towers, however, is that at Sompting, in Sussex (Fig. 229). Its most striking characteristic is, that its sides are each gabled, and it is roofed like the typical steeples on the Rhine. I am told that an instance of this also existed at Flixton, in Suffolk. The details at Sompting are somewhat elaborate.

The tower of Clapham Church, in Bedfordshire, is chiefly remarkable for its great height and plainness. The chancel arch, of great simplicity, here remains, as did one window of the chancel (a small bonnet-arched opening like some in the tower itself) till destroyed recently by a stupid builder.

One more building, I must notice. It has often been mentioned that our Anglo-Saxon forefathers built largely of timber; and, strange to say, after the lapse of more than eight centuries, we have one of their timber structures remaining!

Edmund, king of East Anglia, who had been slain by the Danes in the ninth century, had been canonised; and on the invasion by Sweyn, more than a century later in 1011, his relics were removed from Bury St. Edmund’s to London for security. On their being

carried back in 1013, an old register of Bury informs us, “he was also sheltered near Aungre, where wooden chapel remains as a memorial unto this day.”

This chapel still exists at Greensted, near Ongar (Figs. 230, 231). It consists of cleft oak-trees grooved and tongued together by their edges, and let into grooves in horizontal cills and heads. The exterior of the trees was exposed on the outside of the church, the sapwood of which having long since perished, the furrowed and gnarled heart is now seen, presenting a most ancient and interesting appearance. It is more than thirty years since I visited this most venerable relic. Since then it has been repaired; but I trust that its antiquity has not been compromised, and that it will long remain as a relic of the royal saint, and a visible exponent of the old Anglo-Saxon verb getymbrian—to build.

I must not, however, go on enumerating specimens: they will be found in great numbers in several publications, as Mr. Bloxam’s Principles of Gothic Architecture, Mr. Parker’s Glossary, Britton’s Antiquities, and elsewhere; while very interesting articles have been written on them by Mr. Freeman, Mr. Ayliffe Poole, Mr. Paley, and others. In my own practice I every now and then fall in with minor specimens not mentioned in books, and often walled up and hidden from view, to make way for later work.

Fragments of Saxon crosses are frequent. They are usually covered with that plaited ornament so frequent in the illuminations of the period.

In proof of their early age, we often find them imbedded, as mere material, in Norman walls. In St. Peter’s, at Northampton, I found the base of one of the Norman columns to be wrought out of a piece of one of these crosses; and at Jarrow there are several portions of them built into the tower, which was itself erected in the reign of the Conqueror.[13]

Though this form of architecture spread over a period of some 470 years, we have little or no means of classifying it into distinct divisions of date. It would seem that the system of rapid change which characterises the centuries succeeding the tenth had not then commenced, and that much the same manner of building pervades long spaces of time.

On a conjectural view of the case, one would look, perhaps, for the following divisions:—

1st. From the arrival of Augustine to the earlier devastations of the Danes.

2nd. From the time of Alfred to that of Dunstan.

3rd. The period of the general establishment of Benedictine rule up to that of the devastations of the Northmen under Sweyn.

4th. That from the accession of Canute to the Norman conquest.

Mr. Freeman divides the style into three:—

1st. The direct but rude imitations of Roman work, of which Brixworth is an instance.

2nd. The developed Saxon manner, with its high towers, its pilastered strips, and suggestion of imitated timber-work, as at Earls Barton, etc.

3rd. That in which Norman features are introduced or anticipated.

I may mention, however, that we have proofs, as at Deerhurst, which is said to have been rebuilt in 1056, and elsewhere, that the style remained with little modification to the last.

I shall show you in my next lecture (in which I propose to treat of the earlier Norman buildings, erected by those who actually came over in the days of the Conqueror or of his companions) that the two styles overlapped; that there were pre-conquestal Norman and post-conquestal Saxon buildings. I will, however, at present detain you no longer; and if I have trespassed upon the rules of the Academy by giving a lecture more on archæology than on art, I must apologise on the ground that I have treated of our own early efforts in architecture; of buildings whose bold and archaic rudeness was so strangely accompanied by exquisite skill in other arts,—as in illumination, in embroidery, in jewellery; and the contemplation of which, to use the eloquent words of Mr. Freeman, “Should raise a thrill of patriotism in the heart of every genuine Englishman,” ... “whose barbaric grandeur breathes in its fulness the spirit of England’s ancient days of freedom and isolation,” and reminds us “of the long roll of our native saints and heroes; of holy bishops and no less holy princes; of Ina, and Alfred, and Athelstan; of Bede ... and the martyred Alphege; of Harold and Gurth, and Leofwine; of St. Wolstan and Abbot Frederick; of the battle-axe of Hereward and the martyr-block of Waltheof; and all the glorious train of the ‘England of saints’ ere yet she bowed beneath the yoke of a foreign lord.”

LECTURE XI.

The Transition.

I am not sure, too, whether in sculpture the pre-Norman English may not have succeeded better than in architecture,—quaint and untechnical though their productions were.

I fear, however, that we must admit that, in our own particular art of architecture, we have little to learn from their buildings, however interesting and quaintly picturesque; and that, though belonging to a branch of the great round-arched family, they fail—almost of all effort, certainly of any success—in developing that manner of building into a style of art.

That fearful deluge, whose destructive waves swept with such overwhelming fury over our land after the decease of the last—the sainted—monarch of England’s older dynasty, may be likened to the sudden breaking down of its banks by some mighty river, which, while it sweeps from the earth the crops and the homesteads, leaving nothing but devastation on its track, yet deposits, in subsiding, a film of foreign substance upon the deluged soil, which adds to it a new productiveness, and, in time, far more than compensates for the loss and havoc which accompanied it.

So it was (at the least with architecture), after the Norman conquest. The old manner of building which, during a course of nearly five centuries, had failed to generate any development of a truly artistic character, was swept once and for ever from the face of the earth, so much so that some have denied its very existence; but there was substituted for it a style which, if at first little less rude than its predecessor, contained within itself the germs of a thoroughly sound artistic system, which speedily germinated into a series of developments, the most glorious which, perhaps, man has ever yet seen.

We have the clearest evidence, both from the statements of old writers, and such as we derive from our own observation, that the style of building introduced into England by the Normans, was viewed as a distinctly new one—a “novum genus compositionis,” and in no degree as a development of that which preceded it in this country.

How far the Norman style was distinct from the Romanesque of other parts of the north of France is a question which it would be curious, though difficult, to investigate. I think it might be shown that architecture, both in France and other countries of Western Europe, made a sudden forward start after the thousandth year of our era; possibly owing to the relief experienced at finding the futility of the prevalent fears that the world was to come to an end in that year. If such a simultaneous impulse did take place, it would be especially felt by a young and energetic race like the Normans, newly admitted into the Christian European family, recently reclaimed from the savage barbarism of Scandinavia, and grafted on to the old and comparatively civilised stock of France. Unlike, too, the other portions of France, Normandy had lost, in all probability, a large proportion of her ancient churches by the devastation of this very race while yet pagan; and nothing would be more natural than that, when Christianised, settled down, and instructed in the arts of their new neighbour, they would feel a special impulse towards repairing the effects of their own devastations, and would, while doing so, take a vigorous course in developing the manner of building in which they had been so newly instructed. I would not, however, wish to claim for the Normans any great degree of originality in architecture. Different districts of France each possessed their own local variety of Romanesque, though all clearly of one family; and Normandy, like the others, had its own variety, and that a vigorous one; and to ourselves the most interesting, as having been transplanted into our own country and become the parent of all our architectural developments. What was the form of Romanesque which prevailed in Neustria before it was overrun by the Northmen and transformed into Normandy, I think we have no means of judging,[14] the relics of its buildings being so few and fragmentary as to offer no distinct evidence; but just as the converted Northmen in the days of Canute were in this country the earnest restorers and builders of churches, so did those who had settled in France become the vigorous promoters of the art which they had once destroyed; while, by a remarkable coincidence, they were the means of bringing over in a succeeding generation to those of their own and kindred race in England the developments which they had generated under more favourable circumstances and guidance in the country which had for a century and a half adopted them into its own family.

If, however, the more vigorous pursuit of the building arts in France dates, as I have conjectured, from the opening of the eleventh century, and was contemporary with the revived impulse in this country under Canute, it follows that the mode of building introduced by the Normans was not only to the English, but in reality, a novum genus compositionis.

Quite in accordance with this is the character of what we call in this country Early Norman. Had Norman architecture been fully matured before its transplantation into England, we should not recognise its earlier productions by evidences founded upon rudeness and immaturity; yet such is unquestionably the case. Noble and vigorous as are the works of the Normans of the early days of their occupation of England, they undoubtedly bear evidences of an early and archaic stage of their form of art; and, even in Normandy itself, we do not find buildings of great architectural importance of dates much antecedent to those of the first structures built by the invaders of England. Early Norman in England would still be Early Norman, if in Normandy; so that we may consider the style, though generated on French soil, to have run the greater part of its course pari passu in both countries.

The investigations made and recently published by M. Bouet, of Caen, into the architectural history and changes of the abbey church of St. Stephen, founded in that city by the Conqueror, fully bear out this view, and show that the church, as built by William, was a very different and much more archaic structure than that which we now see; a large proportion of the more prominent features of which are proved to be the overlayings of later, though still Romanesque, times.[15]

As it is not my purpose, generally, to illustrate my description of the Norman style by its productions on its native soil, I shall select the church just named as the point de départ, by means of which I shall transfer my consideration of the style from Normandy to England. There are several churches of earlier date than this, such as parts of the abbey churches of Jumièges and Bernay,[16] but St. Stephen’s is clearly the great connecting link. In the first place, it was built by the Conqueror, and was in actual progress when he invaded England; and, in the second place, Lanfranc, the first abbot of St. Stephen’s, which was built under his direction, was also the first metropolitan of England appointed under the Norman dynasty, and immediately on his assumption of the see of Canterbury,—only four years after William’s arrival,—he commenced the rebuilding of the cathedral (then lying in ruins), after the almost precise design of his own abbey church at Caen. This abbey church, then, at Caen, and the metropolitan church of England, were built under the influence of the same monarch and at the same time; for, though St. Stephen’s was first begun, it would appear that Canterbury was finished first: they were built under the direction of the same ecclesiastical head, and in all leading features were on the same design, their plans being absolutely identical. The only difference of importance was the existence at Canterbury of the crypt, on which the choir was raised by many steps,—a reminiscence of the church built by St. Augustine, described in my last lecture, while such did not exist at St. Stephen’s. Both churches had naves of eight bays in length, in addition to which both had a western façade, with two flanking towers.

The transepts of both churches were of two unequal bays, and the outer bay of each had a gallery all across it, supported by a massive pillar (as at Winchester); in each there was in both transepts an apsidal chapel repeated on the triforium level; and though both have lost their original choirs, the probability is that both were of two bays long, with the addition of a simple apse. Professor Willis has shown that their very dimensions were nearly identical.

It has been discovered that at St. Stephen’s the western towers were a subsequent addition, though so early that little difference can be observed in their details. I judge from this that the towers at Canterbury were a deviation from the design of St. Stephen’s, which was at once rectified by adding them to the prototypic building.

The piers of St. Stephen’s are oblong masses, divided at each end into groups of three large shafts. To these are added, on the side facing the nave, shafts, alternately single and triple, which ran up to the roof. The triforium storey is almost a repetition, to a less height, of the main arcade; though, where it passes the western towers, it is divided into two sub-arches by a single shaft. Mr. Parker, whose excellent paper on the subject will be found among the Transactions of the Institute of British Architects, seems to think that the triforium floor was of timber, and the aisle unvaulted. Professor Willis was under the impression that it had had no floor, but that the two storeys were united, as is now the case at Rochester. This, I think, seems disproved by Mr. Parker’s paper, and by M. Bouet’s drawings, which show a doorway opening into the triforium storey. This storey is at present vaulted above with a half-barrel vault. This Mr. Parker thinks an addition; but M. Bouet shows a remnant of it embedded in the east wall of the transept, where the old choir aisle has been removed, which seems to suggest its being original.

The greatest alteration which the older portions of the church have undergone is the addition of vaulting to the nave and the entire transformation of the design of the clerestory in a later Norman style, which, to a casual observer, seems to work in so well with the older parts as to appear original. M. Bouet and Mr. Parker have found the remnants of the original arcade,—which were uniform in height and incompatible with vaulting,—both in the nave and transepts, proving that vaulting was not contemplated in the first erection.

I am, however, rather anticipating my history, and must fall back upon a somewhat earlier period; for, though Canterbury Cathedral was probably the first church erected in England after the Norman Conquest, it was nevertheless by no means the first Norman church; for it was in a Norman minster that the Conqueror had, full four years before the works at Canterbury were begun, received at the hands of an English archbishop the crown of England.

You will remember that as early as 1013 Ethelred and Emma, the parents of King Edward the Confessor, had fled with their children from the fury of King Sweyn to the court of Richard le Bon, duke of Normandy. It followed that the education and tastes of the future king were Norman; and long subsequently, after he ascended the throne, England so swarmed with Normans as not only to excite discontent but to give occasion to civil war. It was, then, natural that, when King Edward determined (about 1050) to refound the Abbey of Westminster, he should adopt for his new work a Norman rather than an English design. We accordingly find it spoken of by William of Malmesbury (writing in the following century) as “That church which he, the first in England, had erected in that mode of composition which now nearly all emulate in its costly expenditure.” Matthew Paris,—a century later,—says that Edward “was buried in the church which he had constructed in that new mode of composition from which many of those afterwards constructing churches, taking example, had emulated it in its costly expenditure.” These notices by men of whom the one knew most, and the other might have known all, of the Norman churches in England, are sufficient to prove the Confessor’s church to have been not of Anglo-Saxon but of Norman architecture; and, as they thought, the earliest of its style in this country.

Whether that erected by Earl Harold at Waltham, and consecrated in 1060, was in the same style, we cannot ascertain. His proclivities were certainly not Norman, yet he may have adopted the fashion just coming into vogue, though we find that other churches built nearly as late, and some even subsequent to the Conquest, still retained the older and more national character.

The church built by the Confessor at Westminster is thus described by a contemporary writer:—

“The house (domus) of the principal altar, constructed with very lofty vaultings, is compassed round with squared (stone) work uniformly jointed: the aisle[17] around the building itself is shut off by a double tier of arches from either side, the continuity of the work being firmly consolidated in every direction.

“Further, the cross (crossing) of the temple which would enclose the choir of those singing the praises of God in its midst, and by its two-fold support on either side would sustain the lofty apex of the central tower, rises at first simply with a low and massive vaulting; it then swells out with several staircases, skilfully ascending with many windings; then, with a plain wall, it runs up to the roof, which is of wood, carefully covered with lead.

“Below, however, and above are arranged in order chapels (domicilia), which are to be consecrated through their altars in commemoration of apostles, martyrs, confessors, and virgins.

“This multiplicity of a work so vast was, however, begun at such a distance from the east of the ancient temple, that even some part of the nave which was to lie between them, intervened with ample space, lest the brothers occupying it should be interrupted from the service of Christ.”

Another contemporary writer describes the church as “upheld by diverse columns, and vaulted everywhere with multiplicity of arches.”

From these accounts we may gather:—

1st. That the church was apsidal.

2d. That the aisles were of two storeys, and each of them vaulted.

3d. That there was a lofty central tower under which the choir sat, and that this had winding staircases, and was covered with a timber roof and leaded.

4th. We further learn that the church contained numerous chapels and altars placed both below and above, and that in the eyes of one who had, perhaps, lived to see several of the new Norman churches commenced, it appeared a work of vast size and great multiplicity.

Lastly, we find that it was placed so far to the east of the ancient church, that not only were the services in that church never discontinued, but that a portion of the nave of the new church might be erected. The latter proves, of course, that the entire nave was not completed by the Confessor himself, as he died within a few days after the consecration.

A writer of the thirteenth century, in a poetical Life of the Confessor, thus describes his works at Westminster:—

“Now he laid the foundations of the church with large square blocks of grey stone; its foundations were deep; the front towards the east he makes round; the stones are very strong and hard; in the centre rises a tower, and two at the west front, and fine and large bells he hangs there. The pillars and entablatures are rich without and within, at the bases and capitals; the work rises grand and royal; sculptured are the stones and storied the windows; and when he finished the work, with lead the church completely he covers. He makes there a cloister, a chapter-house in front towards the east, vaulted and round, ... refectory, dormitory, and offices, in due order.”

This description adds to what I have before stated, that there were two western towers, though these were not really erected till later, but were, nevertheless, in all probability a part of the first design. It tells us also of the monastic buildings.

Of the scale of this first Anglo-Norman church we have some indirect means of judging. In the first place, it is unlikely that a church of royal foundation, built in juxtaposition with the palace, and intended as the burial-place of its founder, built also in substitution for a pilgrimage which he had vowed to make, should be other than of similar scale to the great churches erected at the time in the country whence he borrowed his architecture. In confirmation of this we have several evidences, not necessary here to state, that it differed but little in scale from the present church; indeed, had it been otherwise, the succeeding historians would hardly have spoken of it in the terms which they make use of.

As to its architectural character, we have little to guide us. We have the extensive substructure of the dormitory and the lower part of the refectory. From these we find that the offices were of the plainest variety of Norman; indeed, the pillars of the first-named structure are of the very extreme of massive simplicity, and the shafts of the refectory arcading have cushion capitals of the most normal type.

We have recently discovered, beneath the pavement of the altar space, the bases of two of the great piers of the Sanctuary: from which we find that they were clustered, not unlike those at St. Stephen’s at Caen. The bases consist of a double hollow, precisely like one from that church. The work is by no means so rough as that common in early Norman buildings; a circumstance which I have noticed in several pre-conquestal works.

Having noticed this one building in which Norman architecture was used in England before the Conquest, I will mention one or two instances of Anglo-Saxon architecture being used subsequently to that event.

I refer especially to two churches (St. Mary’s and St. Peter’s, at Gowts,) in the lower town of Lincoln. This portion of the city did not exist till after the Conquest; when, owing to the expulsion of many of the inhabitants of the old, or upper, city to make way for the Norman Castle and Cathedral, they were obliged to build below the hill, where they founded these two churches; building them in their own old English manner, while the castle and minster were being erected by the Normans in conformity with their own taste above. There are a number of towers between Lincoln and the Humber which correspond so closely in style with these as to lead one to assign to them the same date. Nothing can more manifestly prove the distinctness of the two styles than that the most marked church of the period was built by the Norman-loving Anglo-Saxon king in Norman architecture before the Conquest, and that old-fashioned English people still built in the Anglo-Saxon manner in the days of the Norman Conqueror.

It is time now that we should consider what were the distinguishing characteristics of the Norman style.

According to Mr. Petit and Mr. Fergusson, the Norman is rather an early stage of Gothic than strictly Romanesque; and, though this may be said to be rather a question of nomenclature than of distinctive principle, I am inclined to think there is much real truth in it. I would rather, however, put it thus: that, among the many branches of the great Romanesque tree, this was one,—as the Anglo-Saxon was not one,—of those which contained the intrinsic elements of the future Gothic style. I gave my reasons, in one of my earlier lectures[18] (while not desiring a change of nomenclature), for holding the completed round-arch style to be, in a certain sense, one with the earlier-pointed, and for rather favouring Mr. Fergusson’s custom of calling them respectively round-arched and pointed-arched Gothic. It is better, however, in an historical sketch, to view each phase on its own bearing, and not to judge of it by anticipation of its subsequent results.

Norman architecture, then, judging of it from its principles, and throwing aside imperfections resulting from its development occurring in comparatively rude times, may, in the first place, be said to be an almost perfect carrying out into a style of art the arcuated system of construction; using, also, the simplest and most obvious form of arch, the semicircle. Roman buildings, when divested,—as in the case of aqueducts,—of Grecian or trabeated accompaniments, displayed often a perfect system of arched construction; but, in such works, one cannot say that it had been developed into a style of art.

To effect this, both the arch and its supports and accompaniments must be moulded into artistic elements; their natural crudenesses softened; their mere normal character relieved; and each part subjected to a system of decoration suited to its proper character and conditions. The parts, too, which have been thus dealt with, must be studied as to their grouping. They must not be viewed as isolated objects, but as parts of an architectural work; each contributing to the beauty and consistency of the whole; and that also, by such combinations as are dictated by the varied suggestions arising from the purposes and demands of the buildings of which they form parts.

All this required time; and the length of time was, no doubt, increased by the rudeness of the ages during which the process had been going on.

Among the earliest approaches to so reasonable a result, the Lombard style had taken, perhaps, the lead in Western Europe; and, during the days when the three Othos governed Northern Italy as well as Germany, the good seed had spread from Lombardy into Germany, and it there grew into an almost perfect development.

Somewhat similarly, a well-considered development seems to have originated in Central France, and spread towards the north. Probably these two varieties may have come in contact, and in some degree influenced each other; for the early Norman architects, though mainly developing upon French models, appear to have been acquainted with those of the Rhine. However this may be, it is certain that they developed for themselves a variety of Romanesque at once eminently reasonable, and susceptible of highly artistic treatment and combinations.

The elements of such a style are often not, as taken singly, peculiar to itself, but may be found in other and in earlier works: it is the aggregation of many such elements, and their judicious and artistic utilisation that constitutes the merits of a style.

Among the most important of these may be placed the sub-ordination of arches, by means of which, instead of going square through the thickness of a wall, they recede in orders or arched rims, each narrower than that above it, so as to give the entire arch or section of alternate salient and receding angles. This is the primary element; and it at once produces the second,—the breaking of the section of the bearing pier into a similar form to that of the arch. This, in the Anglo-Saxon style, was hardly known; while in the Norman it is the key-note.

At St Alban’s, where the unmanagable nature of the material,—the Roman brick,—rendering finished architecture unattainable, we find these two principles supplying all architectural requirements, and producing results certainly rude, but not unpleasing in their effect. This building is often said to partake of “Saxon” character. I think the very reverse of this; for the one thing to which it trusts for effect is that which scarcely exists in Anglo-Saxon buildings, while it is the leading principle in Norman ones. This error is the natural result of looking to rudeness of workmanship and homeliness of material, instead of the principles of design, as the evidences of early style.

The next principle is merely the resultant of those already named. It is the decoration by mouldings of the salient divisions of the arch and the substitution of decorative shafts for those of the pier.

These principles do not necessarily accompany one another. An arch-order may be moulded or otherwise decorated, while the corresponding pier-order may remain square, the two being parted by an impost; or the decorations of the arch may, without the intervening impost, be continued through the pier; or, again, a shaft may be substituted for the pier-order, while the arch-order remains plain. The above principles, thus variable in their application, supply the most marked features in the perfected Romanesque style, nor can any arched architecture be perfect without them. To illustrate their effects let us take a doorway of the older English period, and contrast it with a Norman doorway.