Read Ebook: Account of a Tour in Normandy Volume 2 by Turner Dawson

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Ebook has 331 lines and 81558 words, and 7 pages

Ducler--St. Georges de Bocherville--M. Langlois

Abbey of Jumieges--Its History--Architectural Details--Tombs of Agnes Sorel and of the Enervez

Gournay--Castle of Neufmarch?--Castle and Church of Gisors

Andelys--Fountain of Saint Clotilda--La Grande Maison--Ch?teau Gaillard--Ecouis

Evreux--Cathedral--Abbey of St. Taurinus--Ancient History

Vicinity of Evreux--Ch?teau de Navarre--Cocherel--Pont-Audemer-- Montfort-sur-Risle--Harfleur--Bourg-Achard--French Wedding

Moulineaux--Castle of Robert the Devil--Bourg-Theroude--Abbey of Bec--Brionne

Bernay--Broglie--Orbec--Lisieux--Cathedral--Ecclesiastical History

Site and Ruins of the Capital of the Lexovii--History of Lisieux--Monasteries of the Diocese--Ordericus Vitalis--M. Dubois--Letter from the Princess Borghese

French Police--Ride from Lisieux to Caen--Cider--General Appearance and Trade of Caen--English resident there

Historians of Caen--Towers and Fortifications--Ch?teau de la Gendarmerie--Castle--Churches of St. Stephen, St. Nicholas, St. Peter, St. John, and St. Michel de Vaucelles

Royal Abbeys of the Holy Trinity and St. Stephen--Funeral of the Conqueror, Exhumation of his Remains, and Destruction of his Monument

Palace of the Conqueror--Heraldic Tiles--Portraits of William and Matilda--Museum--Public Library--University--Academy--Eminent Men--History of Caen

Vieux--La Maladerie--Chesnut Timber--Caen Stone--History of Bayeux--Tapestry

Cathedral of Bayeux--Canon of Cambremer--Cope of St. Regnobert--Odo

Church and Castle of Creully--Falaise--Castle--Churches--Fair of Guibray

Rock and Chapel of St. Adrien--Pont-de-l'Arche--Priory of the two Lovers--Abbey of Bonport--Louviers--Gaillon--Vernon

LIST OF PLATES.

Plate 26 Sculpture upon a capital in the Chapter-House at St. Georges

Plate 27 M. Langlois

Plate 28 Musicians, from the Chapter-House at St. Georges

Plate 29 Distant View of the Abbey of St. Jumieges

Plate 30 Ancient trefoil-headed Arches in ditto

Plate 31 Distant of the Castle of Gisors

Plate 32 Banded Pillar in the Church of ditto

Plate 33 Distant View of Ch?teau Gaillard

Plate 34 Gothic Puteal, at Evreux

Plate 35 Leaden Font at Bourg-Achard

Plate 36 Ancient Tomb in the Cathedral at Lisieux

Plate 37 Head-Dress of Females, as Caen

Plate 39 Tower and Spire of St. Peter's Church, at ditto

Plate 40 Sculpture upon a Capital in ditto

Plate 41 Tower of St. John's Church, at Caen

Plate 42 Monastery of St. Stephen, at ditto

Plate 43 Fireplace in the Conqueror's Palace, at Ditto

Plate 44 Profile of M. Lamouroux

Plate 45 Figure from the Bayeux Tapestry

Plate 46 Sculpture at Bayeux

Plate 47 Ornaments in the Spandrils of the Arches in Bayeux Cathedral

Plate 48 Castle of Falaise

Plate 50 Font at Magneville

LETTERS FROM NORMANDY.

DUCLER--ST. GEORGES DE BOCHERVILLE--M. LANGLOIS.

At a period when the right bank of the Seine from Harfleur to Rouen displayed an almost uninterrupted line or monastic buildings, Ducler also boasted of a convent, which must have been of some importance, as early as the middle of the seventh century.--King Childeric IInd, granted the forest of Jumieges to the convent of the same name and that of St. Vandrille; and St. Ouen was directed by the monarch to divide the endowment between the two foundations. His award did not give satisfaction to St. Philibert, the abbot of Jumieges, who maintained that his house had not received a fair allotment. The proposition was stoutly resisted by St. Lambert, abbot of St. Vandrille; and the dispute was at length settled by the saints withdrawing their claims, and ceding the surplus land to the abbey of Ducler. St. Denys was the patron of this abbey; and to him also the present parochial church is dedicated: it is of Norman architecture; the tower is surrounded by a row of fantastic corbels; and a considerable quantity of painted glass yet remains in the windows. The village itself , consists of a single row of houses, placed immediately under the steep chalk cliff which borders the Seine. The face of the cliff is also indented by excavations, in which the poorer inhabitants dwell, almost like the Troglodytes of old. The situation of Ducler, and that of the two neighboring abbeys, is delightful in summer and in fine weather. In winter it must be cold and cheerless; for, besides being close to a river of so great breadth, it looks upon a flat marshy shore, whence exhalations copiously arise. The view from our chamber window this morning presented volumes of mist rolling on with the stream. The tide was setting in fast downwards; and the water glided along in silent rapidity, involved in clouds.

The village of Bocherville, or, as it is more commonly called, of St. Georges, the place borrowing its name from the patron saint of the abbey, lies, at the distance of about two leagues from Rouen. The road is exceedingly pleasing. Every turning presents a fresh view of the river; while, on looking back, the city itself is added to the landscape; and, as we approach, the abbey-church is seen towering upon the eminence which it commands.

The following portion of the charter, which puts us in possession of the indisputable aera of the erection of the church, is preserved by Mabillon. It is the Conqueror who speaks.--"Radulfus, meus magister, aulaeque et camerae princeps, instinctu divino tactus, ecclesiam supradicti martyris Georgii, quae erat parva, re-edificare a fundamentis inchoavit, et ex proprio in modum crucis consummavit."

The Monarch and his Queen condescended to gratify a faithful and favorite servant, by endowing his establishment. The corpse of the sovereign himself was also brought hither from St. Gervais, by the monks and clergy, in solemn procession, before it was carried to Caen for interment.

Ralph de Tancarville, however, was not fortunate in the selection of the inmates whom he planted in his monastery. His son, in the reign of Henry Ist, dismissed the canons for whom it was first founded, and replaced them by a colony of monks from St. Evroul. Ordericus Vitalis, himself of the fraternity of St. Evroul, commemorates and of course praises the fact. Such changes are of frequent occurrence in ecclesiastical history; and the apprehension of being rejected from an opulent and well-endowed establishment, may occasionally have contributed, by the warning example, to correct the irregularities of other communities. A century later, the abbot of St. Georges was compelled to appeal to the pope, in consequence of an attempt on the part of his brethren at St. Evroul, to degrade his convent into a mere cell, dependent upon theirs.--The chronicle of the abbey is barren of events of general interest; nor do its thirty-one abbots appear to have been men of whom there was much more to be said, than that they arrived at their dignity on such a year, and quitted it on such another. Of the monks, we are told that, in the fifteenth century, though their number was only eight, the dignitaries included, the daily task allotted them was greater than would in any of the most rigid establishments, in latter days, have been imposed upon forty brethren in a week!

The inside is at least equally free from modern alterations or improvements. No other change whatever is to be traced in it than such as were required to repair the injuries done it during the religious wars; and these were wholly confined to a portion of the roof, and of the upper part of the wall on the south side of the nave. The groined roof, though posterior to the original date of the building, is perhaps of the thirteenth century. The nave itself terminates towards the east in a semi-circular apsis, according to the custom of the times; and there, as well as at the opposite extremity of the building, it has a double tier of windows, and has columns more massy than those in the body of the church. The aisles end in straight lines; but, within, a recess is made in the thickness of the wall, for the purpose of admitting an altar. Both the transepts are divided within the church, at a short distance from their extremities, into two stories, by a vaulted roof of the same height as the triforium.--M. Le Prevost, who has very kindly communicated to me the principal part of these details, has observed the same to be the case in some other contemporary buildings in Normandy. On the eastern side of each transept is a small chapel, ending, like the choir, in a semi-circular apsis, which rises no higher than the top of the basement story. A cable moulding runs round the walls of the whole church within.--You and I, in our own country, have often joined in admiring the massy grandeur of Norman architecture, exemplified in the nave of Norwich cathedral: at St. Georges I was still more impressed by the noble effect of semi-circular arcades, seen as they are here on a still larger scale, and in their primitive state, uninterrupted and undebased by subsequent additions.

The most curious sculptures, however, in the church, are two square bas-reliefs, opposite to one another, upon the spandrils of the arches, in the walls that divide the extremities of the transepts into different stories. They are cut out of the solid stone, in the same manner as the subjects on the block of a wood-engraving: one of these tablets represents a prelate holding a crosier in his left hand, while the two fore-fingers of the right are elevated in the act of giving the blessing; the other contains two knights on horseback, jousting at a tournament. They are armed with lance and buckler, and each of them has his head covered with a pointed helmet, which terminates below in a nasal, like the figures upon the Bayeux tapestry.--This coincidence is interesting, as deciding a point of some moment towards establishing the antiquity of that celebrated relic, by setting it beyond a doubt that such helmets were used anterior to the conquest; for it is certain that these basso-relievos are coeval with the building which contains them.

This church affords admirable subjects for the pencil. It should be drawn in every part: all is entire; all original; the corbel-stones that support the cornice on the exterior are perfect, as well along the choir and nave, as upon the square central steeple: each of the sides of this latter is ornamented with a double tier of circular arches. The buttresses to the church are, like those of the chapel of St. Julien, shallow and unbroken; and they are ranged, as there, between the windows. At the east end alone they take the shape of small semi-cylindrical columns of disproportionate length.

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