Architecture And Archæology

ARCHITECTURE AND ARCH ? OLOGY

ON THE ARCHITECTURE OE THE ELEVENTH CENTURY * The eleventh century forms a very important era hi tho history of architecture , and yet it is one which has been commonly overlooked . We have long been in the habit of

considering building as either Eoman or Early Saxon , ofthe time of Bede and Augustine , or else Norman ; but there is strong ground for believing that the usual habit of the Anglq-Saxon people was to build in wood only , and that stone buildings before the 11 th century were extremely rare . The language itself affords good evidence of this : the Anglo-Saxon word for building of any kind is iymbre ; and

to build is yetymberea . There is also good ground to believe that the inhabitants of Gaul were very little in advance of those in England at the same time .

During the 10 th century the general belief in the Millennium is supposed to have exercised considerable influence , and made people averse to any substantial building . In the words of Dean Milman : — "In many parts of Christendom there prevailed a deep and settled apprehension that with the 1000 th year of Christ the world would como to an end . Hen hastened to propitiate the coming—almost

present—Judge , by the sacrifice of their ill-gotten , now useless possessions . The deeds of the time , the donations of estates , aucl of all other gifts to the Church , arc inscribed with the significant phrase , 'the end of the world being at haiid . '" f Eudiuphus Glater , who wrote in the early part of the 11 th century , records under _ the year 1003 that , " All over the world , but especially in Italy and Gaulthe number of

, new buildings that were being erected of stone was so great that it appeared as if the world were clothing itself with a new white robe . In every town and village , churches , monasteries , or bishops' seats were in the course of erection ; and even in the hamlets small oratories . "

From the beginning of tho 11 th . century the history of Media ? val architecture reall y begins . Whatever the cause was , whether tho disturbed state of all the countries of Europe , during the two previous centuries , iu which we read of nothing but warfare and pillage everywhere , or whether the general belief in tho Millennium , and the prophecies of Bernard the Hermit really had much influence , —the fact is

certain that ive have scarcely any remains of buildings of tho ninth and tenth centuries in Europe , and very few records of any having been built during that period . At Rome itself we do not find a single building recorded , from the middle of the 9 th century to the beginning of the 12 th , the great revival being there a century later than in France and England . In all the rest of Italy we have

only two on record of the 9 th century , and two of the 10 th . In France , the examples of this dark period are scarcely more numerous , and from the time of Charlemagne to the beginhing of the eleventh century is almost a blank . In England , where our records aro more perfect than in any other country , we havo just seven churches recorded to have been built of stone during the same periodin terms

, which show that the building a stone church was an event to be recorded . But we find no mention of the building of castles , or palaces , or houses ; and many other churches are mentioned in such terms as to show that they were built of wood only . In 1032 , Canute ' s charter to Glastonbury is dated from the wooden church there . As this was one of the most wealthy and important abbeys in England , situated

in one of tho most fertile aud peaceful districts , the case is rendered particularly strong by this evidence , that such was the general custom . It follows thafc ivhen a people hadbcen accustomed for two centuries or more to build almost entirely of wood , the arts of quarrying stone , of cutting it smooth , and still more of carving it , must havo been almost lost . The appearance of the buildings which we find coincides exactly ivith what we

ave thus led to expect , both in England and France . All the buildings of the early part of the eleventh century are a rude imitation of such Eoman buildings as were then standing ; and in particular parts of France a provincial character was formed , during the eleventh and twelfth centuries , from the imitation ofthe particular Eoman buildings in each province . In England the Eoman buildings had

been so generally destroyed , that , when the fashion of building in stone was revived , there was a difficulty in finding models to copy from , as well as workmen capable of executing- them .

The long-dreaded year 1000 having passed , it was concluded thafc the world had been granted a new lease , and the people now become anxious to build in the most substantial and permanent maimer . In England , their effortswere , at first , very rude , and the work appears more likethat of carpenters than of masons ; some of the earl y towers , such as Earls Barton , look as if they were copied

from timber buildings ; and one of the characteristics of the Anglo-Saxon buildings , technically called long-andshort-work , in ' which one long stone is placed up the angle and another through the wail as a bond , is more like carpentry than masonry . Our fathers called all our Norman buildings Saxon , and ,, by a natural reactionwe have gone to the opposite extreme

, , and called everything of this style 11 th century . There are ,, however , a numerous class of buildings which really belong to the 11 th ; and the gradual development of the skill of the workmen from their first rude efforts when the building movement commenced , at the beginning of this contm-y , to the consummate science ofthe 18 th , affords a remarkable interesting subject for study .

At first , from ignorance of tlio quality of their building material , stone , they thought ) they could hardly build their walls thick enough , or make their pillars heavy enough ; the masonry , also , is very rough , and the joints of mortarvery wide . A gradual , slow improvement takes place in all these respects , and before the end of the 11 th century we have very good masonry , and walls and pillars of more moderate thickness , as the workmen gradually acquired more confidence in their own skill , and in the strength of their material .

These general remarks apply to Franco quite as much as to England . In some part of France , the progress was more rapid than in others ; and during this century Aquitaine and the western provinces appear to have taken a decided , lead , probably from their more intimate connection with Byzantium , one of the high roads of commerce being at that period through those provinces ; and a settlement of

Byzantine merchants appears to have been established at Limoges and Porigueux . The inhabitants of England were actuated by tho samespirit as their nei ghbours on the Continent , and were equally anxious to erect substantial buildings of a permanentcharacter , but , for want of models , were driven more upon their own resources and inventionand soon developed a

, style of their own , the idea of which being taken chiefly from the wooden structures to which they were accustomed ; their towers are of a more lofty character than the buildings of the corresponding period in Normandy , although the masonry is nofc so good . The Norman masons had the immense advantage of an excellent building stoneeasilworkedand found in the

, y , cliffs of the navigable river Orne , so that it was easily transported by water carriage , and a good deal of it was brought over to England even before the Conquest . In a great part of Aquitaine these early masons had the same advantage . The stone of Angoulome and some other . - quarries is as good and as accessible as the better-known Caen stone .

Considering the comparative disadvantages wifch which the English had to contend , their buildings of this period are remarkably good , and have an original character which we find nowhere else . Their towers have been compared to the campaniles of Italy , but tho resemblance is very slight : both arc tall and slender , but that is all . In Italy they areall of brick and all of ono stereotyped pattern , and not one ; of them is of this period : some may possibly be earlier ; many are certainly later ; and all , from the earliest to the-