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Early Architecture in Great Britain.

Review of the developments in the early Architecture of our own land--Recent research in Central Syria--Examples in Northern Europe previous to the eleventh century--Early remains in Scotland and Ireland--Anglo-Saxon Architecture--Churches founded by St. Augustine--Canterbury and York--Churches at Hexham and Ripon--Ramsey Abbey--Winchester Cathedral--Destruction of Churches by Sweyn--Restoration and building by Canute--Roman models--Characteristics of Anglo-Saxon work--Brixworth Church, Northamptonshire Church on the Castlehill, Dover--Worth Church, Sussex--Bradford Church, Wilts--Chancel of Saxon Church at Jarrow-on-the-Tyne--Churches of Monk Wearmouth and Stow--Crypts at Wing, Repton, and Lastingham--Towers of St. Benet's, Cambridge: Trinity Church, Colchester: Earls Barton: Barnach: Barton-on-Humber--Sompting, Sussex: and Clapham, Bedfordshire--Chapel at Greensted, Essex--Classification into periods of this form of Architecture Page 1

Chapel of St. John, Tower of London--St. Alban's Abbey--St. Stephen's at Caen--Cathedrals of Winchester, Ely, London, Rochester, and Norwich--Abbey Church at Bury St. Edmund's--Gloucester Cathedral--Tewkesbury Abbey--Cathedrals of Worcester and Durham--Waltham Abbey--Christchurch, Hants Page 92

The Practical and Artistic Principles of Early Architecture in Great Britain.

The Principles of Vaulting.

The Dome.

Non-existence of the Dome in our old English architecture--Highly developed forms in France, Germany, and Italy, contemporary with our great Mediaeval edifices--Suggestions for its introduction into our revived and redeveloped Neo-mediaeval style--So-called Tomb of Agamemnon at Mycenae--The Pantheon--Temple of Minerva Medica--Torre dei Schiavi--Temples of Vesta at Rome and Tivoli--Temple of Jupiter in Diocletian's Palace, Spalatro--Tomb of St. Constantia--Baptistery at Nocera--Baptistery at Ravenna--Important domical development--"Pendentive Domes"--Early specimens--Pendentive domes the special characteristic of the Byzantine style--How this originated--Further domical developments--Cathedral at Florence--Churches of SS. Sergius and Bacchus, the Apostles, and St. Sophia, Constantinople Page 228

Architectural Art in reference to the Past, the Present, and the Future.

Early Architecture in Great Britain

Review of the developments in the early Architecture of our own land--Recent research in Central Syria--Examples in Northern Europe previous to the eleventh century--Early remains in Scotland and Ireland--Anglo-Saxon Architecture--Churches founded by St. Augustine--Canterbury and York--Churches at Hexham and Ripon--Ramsey Abbey--Winchester Cathedral--Destruction of Churches by Sweyn--Restoration and building by Canute--Roman models--Characteristics of Anglo-Saxon work--Brixworth Church, Northamptonshire Church on the Castlehill, Dover--Worth Church, Sussex--Bradford Church, Wilts--Chancel of Saxon Church at Jarrow-on-the-Tyne--Churches of Monk Wearmouth and Stow--Crypts at Wing, Repton, and Lastingham--Towers of St. Benet's, Cambridge: Trinity Church, Colchester: Earls Barton: Barnach: Barton-on-Humber: Sompting, Sussex: and Clapham, Bedfordshire--Chapel at Greensted, Essex--Classification into periods of this form of Architecture.

In my previous lectures I have given an outline of the development of Pointed architecture from the preceding round-arched style, and followed on with some practical suggestions as to the study of these phases of architecture. In them I have treated equally of foreign and English buildings, or have, perhaps, dwelt more at length on the former, and have carefully traced the connection of English with French architecture as they grew up, side by side, from the common germ, each to its glorious perfection.

I purpose now to fall back upon the commencement of this series of developments, and, while I go more in detail into the varied features of the architecture of these periods, to limit myself, during the present session at least, very much to its English productions.

My reason for this is, that we have of late been directing our attention too exclusively to foreign buildings, greatly to the neglect of our own,--so much so, that many of our architectural students seem to be as little acquainted with the Mediaeval works of their own country as if they were brought up in Italy or France.

In reviewing the changes in the architecture of our own country, it may be wholesome to begin early:--to "look at the rock whence we were hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence we were digged." A retrospect such as this gives rise to some curious reflections. At one time we feel perplexed by the depth of antiquity into which we are directing our view, and at another with the very reverse of this. When we go beyond the Norman Conquest,--beyond the destructive ravages of the Danes,--through the half-mythic times of the Heptarchy and the heroic age of the Pagan Saxons; and, again, beyond the destruction of the Roman arts; through the mystic and hazy age which intervened between the withdrawal of the Roman and the conquest by the Saxon; again, through the four centuries of Roman domination into the unknown abyss of prehistoric Britain, what a vast lapse of time does it represent! Yet the earliest period we thus reach is, nevertheless, some four centuries subsequent to the close of the Old Testament history and the period of Pericles and Phidias, and perhaps fifteen centuries subsequent to many of the great monuments of Egypt!

Archaic art seems to have the power of reproducing itself; and even the ages of heroic and barbaric myth may re-occur after periods in which society and civilisation may appear to have worn themselves out by over-refinement; and thus, when we attempt to trace out the early Christian architectural arts of the nations of Northern Europe, we find ourselves as much in the mist of antiquity as if we were prying into that which preceded the Pyramids or the earliest palace of Nimroud, though we are in reality examining works subsequent to the time when the empire of Rome fell to pieces from sheer old age.

In taking an enlarged view of Mediaeval architecture, we must view it in two distinct but at the same time united aspects; we must view it as the architecture indigenous to the modern as distinguished from the ancient civilisation; but we must also view it as having been developed upon an antique nucleus.

In some districts there may have been a tradition remaining of some old method of building which had prevailed among the Pagan, Celtic, or Teutonic tribes; but the germ may generally be said to have been Roman or Byzantine, founded on reminiscences, and aided, from time to time, by direct communication.

Different, however, as is the general aspect of a Byzantine and Romanesque building,--especially when the former assumes its crowning feature, the dome,--it cannot be denied that they are, nevertheless, the same style in two phases; and that there is no such contradiction between them as to forbid their amalgamation to any extent. In proof of this, we have the not incongruous character of the Crusaders' buildings in the East, in which the dome was not forbidden; the similarity to Romanesque of such of the Byzantine buildings as do not happen to have domes; the introduction into France of the domed architecture by a colony of Greeks; the admission of much that is Byzantine into the Romanesque buildings of Germany; and finally, the very extensive use of purely Byzantine foliage and other forms of ornamentation into the buildings of Western Europe in the twelfth century. This last-named circumstance I have dwelt upon at length in one of my former lectures, and I shall, no doubt, have frequent occasions again to allude to it. The fact is, that the ornamentation of the later examples of the Romanesque style is for the most part rather Byzantine than Roman in its origin: even the acanthus-leaves in the capitals and cornices more resembling those of the monument of Lysicrates than those of any Roman building; while the surface ornaments--so profusely used--are often traceable to the patterns of the various manufactures of the East, so largely imported into Western Europe.

Much light has recently been thrown upon the Byzantine style, especially in respect of its secular productions, through the discovery by the Count de Vog?? of a vast number of ruined towns in the mountains of Central Syria, which have remained almost untouched just as they were deserted in the seventh century on the approach of the first Mahometan invaders. These remarkable remains give us the connecting link between Classic and Mediaeval art, though greatly influenced by the traditional mode of building belonging to Syria. It is a subject which would need a separate lecture to deal with it as it deserves, and I only mention it here for the sake of saying that the carved ornamentation of these remarkable buildings is Greek in its feeling, and not Roman, and that it is evidently allied to that imported at a much later period into Western Europe; and which especially characterises the buildings of the twelfth century in France, and in England; all tending to establish the essential unity of the round-arched architecture of the early Middle Ages, and the fact that the East and the West were much more united in artistic affinity than has generally been admitted.

My main object at the present time is to trace the history, and investigate the character of those branches of this great round-arched style which have developed themselves in our own country: and my purpose in the foregoing remarks has been to lead you to view our own architecture, not as an essentially separate style, but as a part of that which pervaded Christian Europe, and extended till the Mahometan invasion, far both into Asia and Africa, which was the nucleus even of the Mahometan styles, and which in Sicily again met and coalesced with its infidel offshoot, and produced by this reunion the noble architecture of Palermo, and other cities of Northern Sicily.

Among all the races of Northern Europe, who were either conquered by Rome, or aided in the overthrow of her empire, I do not know that any has left a vestige of what may be viewed as indicating, in any intelligible manner, the previous existence among them of a distinctive style of architecture. Stonehenge and the cromlechs can hardly be viewed as exceptions; and, when the Angles and Saxons invaded Britain, they found, so far as we know, no architecture but the Roman, nor brought with them any of their own; while, to make matters worse, they seem to have devoted themselves to the destruction of what they found.

What was the character of their buildings while they continued Pagan, we have no means of judging. We have proofs that timber was their most customary material, though it would be unreasonable to suppose that they were unable to build in stone. It is likely enough that their houses were generally of wood, for such was the case throughout the Middle Ages, and continues to be so to this day, where timber is abundant. Many of the churches afterwards were of the same material; but such also has at all periods been the case when dictated by local circumstances, and is still frequent in our colonies, so that it is insufficient to disprove the contemporary use of stone.

They were colonists, though conquerors. They were, no doubt, but very partially civilised; and, settling down as strangers in a country from which they had driven out the old inhabitants, and whose towns they had in great measure destroyed, they were likely to make the largest use of the material most ready to their hand, and to defer to more settled times the use of a more permanent manner of building.

The paucity of remains of buildings of the period between the dissolution of the Roman Empire in the West and the eleventh century, is by no means peculiar to our own country. Throughout Northern Europe the same fact prevails. The earlier waves of northern invaders were absorbed in the old civilisation, but each successive wave made a deeper and a deeper inroad into the remaining arts of the old world. It was natural then, that, on the return of art and civilisation, the works of this dark period should be deemed unworthy of preservation, and were replaced by new erections. In our own country the Romans had not been overcome, but had simply withdrawn, so that the dissolution of art was a more rapid work than in most other parts of the old empire, while the early efforts of the Saxons were over and over again destroyed by the yet uncivilised and unchristianised Scandinavians, from the last of whose devastations there was hardly time to recover before the Anglo-Saxon monarchy was overthrown by the Normans. No wonder, then, that the conquerors, though but then become adepts in architecture themselves, should disdainfully reconstruct nearly all the churches and greater edifices of their predecessors in that new manner of building in which they had been so recently instructed, and for the carrying out of which their conquest had supplied them with such ample means.

It would be a curious and interesting investigation to trace out the history of what may be styled the Primitive Romanesque architecture of Northern Europe; or, in other words, to examine into the style of building which prevailed during the long interval between the overthrow of the Roman power in the fifth century and the final establishment of that family of nations which for the last eight or nine centuries has been the embodied representative of Europe.

The thousandth year of our era seems as if it were the beginning of a new state of things: as if what succeeded it were in the open daylight, while the six preceding centuries could only be viewed by the glimmer of twilight. This is especially the case as regards our own art. How little do we know of the architecture of Western Europe, north of the Alps, during that long interval! Only here and there a building equally obscure in character and date,--a dull ray of light only just sufficing to render the darkness visible. No doubt a careful investigation would increase the number of known examples on the Continent. At present they are but few, such as the Basse-oeuvre at Beauvais; the Church of St. Jean at Poictiers; that of Quenqueville in Normandy; the church at Lorsch, on the Rhine, and the older parts of St. Pantaleon at Cologne; all of which possess a character so distinct from that which prevails among the buildings of succeeding times as quite to sever from all which followed the architecture of these primitive ages,--this gulf which divides the ancient from the modern world. Our business, however, at present, is not with the Continent, but with the sister islands of Britain.

The circumstances of the various portions of the British Isles differed in those early times so much one from another, that it is difficult to view them at all systematically. South Britain, early overspread with Roman art, civilised and Christianised, while Scotland and Ireland were yet barbarous and Pagan, became again, in its turn, both Pagan and barbarous when Ireland and Scotland had received the light of Christianity and civilisation.

Early in the fifth century these blessings had been conveyed to Ireland from then Christian Britain, and in the next century South Britain was sunk in almost impenetrable darkness, and was subsequently beholden to Ireland and the Irish race dwelling in Scotland, on the one side, and to missionaries from Rome on the other, for rekindling the extinguished lamp of religion and knowledge.

It was early in the fifth century that Patricius or St. Patrick , went from the northern parts of Roman Britain to instruct the then Pagan Irish, or, as they were more generally called, Scots. It was about the time when the invasion of Alaric had compelled the Emperor Honorius to withdraw his legions from Britain; and was, consequently, at the precise moment when our country was about to pass from the age of Roman subjection into that of mythic confusion,--beginning with the frightful devastations of the Picts and Scots, and subsequently of the Saxons; passing on through the semi-fabulous days of Vortigern, King Arthur, and Merlin, and ending with the flight of Cadwallader from desolated Britain; the driving out of the ancient inhabitants; the destruction of Christian churches and Roman cities, and the re-establishment of Paganism.

As there seems good reason to believe that, among the existing remains in Ireland, some are actually of the age of St. Patrick, it follows that in them we possess remains two centuries earlier than any left us by our own Anglo-Saxon forefathers, and that their type may be founded on that of the lost British buildings, though no doubt far humbler in scale and mode of building than those erected in South Britain with Roman aid. The Early Irish remains are mainly of three classes: the cells and other domestic buildings of the monks: the oratories and churches; and the round towers. The former class are of the rudest and most ascetic description, and seem to be founded on the customary dwellings of the Pagan inhabitants. The monks evidently eschewed all pretensions to personal comfort, and took up at once with the scale of dwelling common among their flock. They lived in stone huts, built without mortar, and vaulted over; more like ovens than human habitations, and so small as only to be sufficient for one person. With these they surrounded their churches, adding a few buildings, similar in character but somewhat larger, for more general purposes. Some, even of their oratories, were almost as pristine in their construction; and the churches themselves, though less rude, were of the most severe simplicity.

The form of dwelling indicated by the Cells or "Kills" which I have alluded to is not wholly alien to that still existing in the distant island of St. Kilda, excepting that the cells were for one person while the St. Kilda houses are for a family. Dr. Edward Daniel Clark thus describes these houses in 1797:--"The construction of their dwelling-houses differs from that of all the western islands. They consist of a pile of stones without cement, raised about 3 feet or 4 feet from the ground, forming a small oblong enclosure, over which is raised a covering of straw, bound together with transverse ropes of bent.... Round the walls of their huts are one or more arched apertures, according to the number of the family, leading to a vault, like an oven, arched with stone, and defended strongly from the inclemency of the weather; in this they sleep. I crawled on all-fours, with a lamp, into one of these, and found the bottom covered with heath; in this, I was informed, four persons slept. There is not sufficient space in them for a tall man to sit upright, though the dimensions of these vaulted dormitories varied in each hut, according to the number it was required to contain, or the industry of the owners."

The central apartment he describes as without either chimney or window, but with two holes, some 7 inches square, to let out a little of the peat smoke.

The cells of the monks differed but little from this, excepting in being quadrangular within, though round or oval without. It would appear that some of the Irish monasteries had whole towns of such insulated cells, and it was from the great number of these erected by St. Columba that his name received the affix of "Kill," and which caused his famous foundation in Iona to be called "I Colmkill."

The earlier oratories seem frequently to have been a development of the construction of these cells, "built of uncemented stones admirably fitted to each other, and their lateral walls converging from the base to their apex in curved lines."

"The early Irish churches are of two very simple types, being either oblong , with a door at the west, and a window at the east end,--a mere development, with upright walls, of the oratories just described,--or a double oblong, forming a nave and chancel, and united by a chancel arch.... The one doorway is always west, and one of the windows to the east, though side windows are also introduced, all apparently without glass; the doorway usually square-headed, the windows round-arched, or triangular-headed." "In all cases the sides of doorways and windows incline, like the doorways in the oldest remains of Cyclopean buildings, to which they bear a singularly striking resemblance." "In the smaller churches the roofs were frequently formed of stone, but in the larger ones were always of wood."

The doorways are, however, sometimes arched. The apsidal termination is, I believe, wholly unknown in these churches; and it would appear from this fact that the square end of the majority of English chancels is a tradition from the ancient British churches: the apse, which so frequently made its appearance and was again so frequently removed, being a foreign importation, against which the national feeling rebelled, as if opposed to local tradition. Of a piece with this feeling was the indignant protest of a Scotchman against the intention of one St. Malachy to erect a church in an unaccustomed style. "Good man, what has induced you to introduce this novelty into these regions? we are Scots, not Gauls; why this levity? Was ever work so superfluous, so proud!" This feeling, rather than the poverty of the country, may have occasioned the rigid severity of these early churches in Ireland, the largest of which rarely exceeded 60 feet in length,--the very length prescribed by St. Patrick for one of his churches, and which Mr. Petrie thinks was his usual dimension for churches of the largest class. This was also the length of the original church at Glastonbury, probably the first erected in Great Britain, while it differs but slightly from that of the naves of Brixworth Church, Worth Church, and that on the Castlehill at Dover, three of our oldest remaining pre-Norman English churches.

The difficulty naturally arising from the limited size of the churches and the unlimited numbers of the monks, appears to have been met by multiplying the number of the former. Thus we find several--up to seven--churches continually forming a single group. Just as at Glastonbury, there were at one time three in immediate proximity, though subsequently united into one.

Besides the more or less numerous cells which surrounded the churches, or groups of churches, there were usually houses for the abbots, hardly less ascetic in their construction than the cells of the monks; halls for strangers, refectories, and kitchens. Of the abbots' houses we have several remaining, especially those of St. Columba at Kells, and of St. Kelvin at Glendalough. These were single rooms, about 18 feet to 25 feet long, by 15 or 16 feet wide, vaulted and covered by a stone roof, with a window and a door of very small size, all perfectly plain, but skilfully constructed.

All such groups of buildings were surrounded by a high and thick wall of defence, with strong gateways, and somewhere at hand was often erected a round tower, at once the bell-tower of the monastery and the place of refuge in case of attack.

We know nothing of the internal arrangement of the churches, excepting that in some cases there is a stone bench across the east end, the altar standing a little in advance; a square version of the Basilican arrangement; for, be it remembered, the apse possibly only came into use when secular Basilicae were converted into churches, while those under consideration were probably founded upon the traditions of churches which existed in Britain before the time of Constantine, so that our English square east-end may after all be the more primitive type, and if such were the case, it would appear that the seats of the clergy were at first along the eastern wall and behind the altar, as in the apsidal churches. To these views, however, I will not pledge myself, as we do not know how soon apses came into use.

Some, however, in Scotland, were of stone, like those of Ireland.

It was in these establishments,--so severely simple in their architecture,--that the lamp of piety and learning was preserved during the darkest period of our history; sending forth its light not only among the British islands but to Continental Europe; and here were followed up even the decorative arts,--as illumination, embroidery, and jewellery. Such, no doubt, was the famous monastery of Iona, which, as an able historian says, "soon became, morally and religiously, a spectacle as glorious as any that Christendom could afford.... The school, of whatever knowledge, sacred or profane, was then within the reach of the northern people,--the nursery of many arts, the centre of a Christian colony, and the mother of priests and missionaries."

It was on landing here that Dr. Johnson exclaimed:--"We are now treading that illustrious island which was once the luminary of the Caledonian regions, whence savage clans and roving barbarians derived the benefits of knowledge and the blessings of religion.... That man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona."

At somewhat later periods the severity of the Irish architecture became gradually relaxed, while its leading types remained unaltered. As the dates of the more decorative buildings are unsettled, I will not enter upon the discussion how far their ornamentation was indigenous, and how far derived from other countries. Towards the Norman period, we find features agreeing with the details of that style united with Irish forms and mixed with ornamental details,--such as those which decorate the well-known Irish crosses, and are common on the monumental slabs in the monastic cemeteries. We also find the jambs of doorways, windows , and chancel arches, losing the square form extending through the thickness of the walls, which characterises the earlier examples , and becoming divided into separate orders, with decorative mouldings, and shafts with caps and bases, and thus exhibiting the most important elements of the advanced Romanesque and "Gothic" styles. These features increase in distinctness till we reach examples known to be contemporary with our own Norman works, and culminate in the charming Chapel of St. Cormac at Cashel, which, though in outline evincing an adherence to Irish tradition, is in all its details distinctly Norman, and is known to have been erected in the twelfth century. Mr. Petrie thinks that these decorative features are in many instances of very early date. I cannot quite agree with him where Norman details appear; for, though a system of ornamentation may appear early in a particular country, it is impossible that it should anticipate the precise forms elaborated much later by a regular course of progression elsewhere.

There is in Scotland at least one specimen of parallel character to these later of the old Irish churches. I allude to the church of St. Regulus, which stands side-by-side with the cathedral at St. Andrews; just as that of St. Cormac does with the cathedral at Cashel.

I will not dwell on the Irish crosses, and the round towers,--time not permitting,--though both are among the most remarkable features of early Irish art. The towers agree precisely in their architectural details with the churches, and never appear but in connection with them. They are known in the Irish language by a name signifying a belfry, and were no doubt the campaniles of the monasteries, their unique type showing the originality of invention of these early architects. Their doors were placed at a considerable height for the sake of security; they were divided into several stories, each with a single window except the upper one, which had four or more,--all pointing out their double object of bell towers and places of defence. Two similar towers remain in Scotland.

The Irish and Iona crosses are works of extreme beauty, and of very decorative detail. I shall have to allude to their anti-types in England when speaking of Anglo-Saxon architecture, to the consideration of which I will now proceed.

The historical notices of the erection of churches during the Anglo-Saxon period are more frequent than descriptive.

On the arrival of Augustine, he found the Church of St. Martin, Canterbury, already used by the Christian Queen Bertha. This was, no doubt, a Romano-British structure. He found also a second, but in ruins; and this he made the nucleus of his metropolitan cathedral. He constructed also a third, afterwards called by his own name. We know, too, that in his day were also founded the cathedrals of Rochester and London; and there is no reason to doubt that all of these were of stone. I am not aware that we hear anything more, in Anglo-Saxon days, of St. Martin's, or that we have any description of St. Augustine's, but we have a strong light thrown on the subsequent history of the cathedral up to the Norman Conquest in the writings of one Eadmer, a singer at the cathedral, who wrote early in the twelfth century.

Recapitulating the account of its having been erected by St. Augustine on the site of a Roman church, he proceeds to say that in the days of Archbishop Odo, in the tenth century, the roof had become so decayed as to require renewal; that Odo took the opportunity of increasing the height of the walls, and that the work occupied three years. He also tells us that a church dedicated to St. John the Baptist had been added by Archbishop Cuthbert in the eighth century near the east end of the Church, for baptisms, etc. He says that the church escaped the destruction threatened by the army of King Sweyn in 1011; but was subsequently burnt down by accident, and remained in ruins until rebuilt by Lanfranc.

He further gives a very clear description of the church, from which it appears that it was built in some degree on the model of the Basilica of St. Peter at Rome. He minutely describes the eastern altar space as greatly raised above the general level of the church, and having beneath it a crypt or confessionary, made in the likeness of that of St. Peter's at Rome. He further describes an oratory and altar to St. Mary at the western end raised on steps, behind which was the pontifical throne. Also two towers, the one on the north and the other on the south side of the nave, projecting beyond the aisles, and containing chapels.

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