CHAPTER VII

ANGLO-SAXON AND ANGLO-NORMAN ARCHITECTURE

In Great Britain, even more than on the Continent, the architecture of the past reflects national character, its distinctive peculiarities having been the outcome of local conditions differing widely from those that obtained elsewhere, which largely modified the styles introduced from without. On the arrival of the Romans in the first century of the Christian era, there were, with the exception of the monoliths on Salisbury plain known as Stonehenge and other prehistoric relics, the origin of which has never yet been discovered, no buildings of greater pretension than mud huts or circular stone or wooden houses with a hole in the tapering roof through which air was admitted and smoke dispersed. The houses, palaces, and churches erected by the invaders were, as proved by the remains at Silchester, Wroxeter, and elsewhere, of the type of those of Imperial Rome, and on them many British masons were employed, who thus acquired a knowledge of the principles of construction that stood their successors in good stead. Those successors, however, showed no desire to perpetuate the style introduced by the conquerors, and when the latter withdrew in the 5th century the buildings they left behind them were allowed to fall into rapid decay.

Very quickly too did most of the converts to Christianity relapse into heathenism, and although the lamp of faith was long kept burning in Ireland and in Scotland, no trace exists of the churches in which the little remnant of the followers of the Redeemer met for worship. Of those built later under the auspices of Saints Augustine, Paulinus, and other early bishops, not one escaped destruction, but there is strong evidence to prove that they were of the basilican apsidal plan, that never took very deep root in England, but was in many cases ousted by the sanctuary with a square-shaped eastern extension.

It is usual to give the term Anglo-Saxon to all relics of buildings in Great Britain, that can be proved to date from between the early 7th century and 1066, but Pre-Conquest would be more strictly accurate, Anglo-Saxon architects having contributed but little to the evolution of style, for they were wanting in initiative, rarely trying experiments with new features as was the constant custom of their Norman successors. To this, however, there was one brilliant exception in Bishop Wilfrid of York, who greatly improved the primitive church, built by King Edwin in the capital of his see, that was later destroyed by fire, and erected noble minsters at Hexham and Ripon, of which the fine crypts with massive pillars still remain beneath the considerably later buildings. In the south of England, too, there was considerable architectural activity in the 7th and 8th centuries, whilst in the 9th the return of King Egbert from his long exile at the Court of Charlemagne appears to have led to the introduction in Wessex of the Oriental branch of the Romanesque style to which the cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle belongs.

The chief characteristics of the so-called Anglo-Saxon style are the great height in comparison with the length and breadth of a building, a rectangular plan, massive square towers, unadorned angular or semicircular arches, stunted clumsy-looking columns with roughly carved or plain capitals, long narrow round-headed deeply recessed windows, massive walls without internal decoration, with on the exterior a somewhat ornate surface ornamentation, combined with a series of peculiar clamps known as quoins at the angles of the walls, greatly strengthening the structure. There were no aisles or transepts in early Anglo-Saxon buildings, but the chancel was divided from the nave by an arch sometimes with and sometimes without carving.

It is supposed that most of the early Anglo-Saxon churches were built of wood, and at Greenstead in Essex an example remains of the mode in which such buildings were constructed, though the probability is that none of the original material remains. Of the stone buildings that succeeded those in the more perishable material a few only are still in existence, including the Abbey Church of Deerhurst near Towkesbury, the oldest consecrated building still in use in England, the Tower of Earl's Barton Church in Northamptonshire, parts of Barfreston Church, Kent, that has a fine Norman doorway: Sompting Church, with the unusual feature of a gabled tower with a spire, and that of Worth, both in Sussex, the latter with rudimentary transepts and a semicircular apse, with which may be mentioned S. Lawrence at Bradford-on-Avon, Wilts, of somewhat uncertain but probably later date than any of these, for it has a square Eastern end and decorative arcading on the upper portion of the walls, prophetic of coming changes.

Certain portions of St. Martin's Church, Canterbury, notably a doorway in the chancel and parts of the foundations, are supposed to have belonged to a Saxon church of earlier date than the crypts of Hexham and Ripon already referred to, and which was preceded by an even more ancient building, one of the very first places of Christian worship erected in England.

The so-called Pyx House in Westminster Abbey, a low narrow solemn-looking vaulted room with a row of massive pillars in the centre, and a single archway in the south transept, are all that are left of the noble sanctuary built under the direction of the last of the Saxon kings, but these relics, with a few conventual buildings, suffice to connect with Anglo-Saxon times a church that is perhaps more intimately associated than any other with the history of England from the close of the 11th to the middle of the 16th century, it having been added to under every successive occupant of the throne.

The Anglo-Norman style, that succeeded the Saxon, prevailed in Great Britain from the conquest to the last decade of the 12th century, becoming at that time either merged in or superseded by the earliest phase of the Gothic.

Always most enthusiastic builders, the Normans found in the land of their adoption fuller scope for their energies than in their own, and before they became absorbed in the race they had conquered, they left their impress throughout the length and breadth of their new domain, monasteries, cathedrals, and parish churches, castles, and dwelling houses rising up in every direction, all stamped with a most distinctive character, the result of the welding into one of Anglo-Saxon and Norman traditions, and the modification of a foreign style by local conditions of material and environment. In many cases somewhat crude and heavy, Norman work has yet always an imposing dignity, and is, as a general rule, admirably suited to the site it occupies and the purpose for which it is intended.

The chief characteristics of Anglo-Norman ecclesiastical buildings are a cruciform plan; the great length in comparison with the breadth of the nave, which joins the choir without the intervention of a screen, such screens as are _in situ_ being of much later date than the churches in which they are found; columns of greater girth and height than the Saxon type, some circular, others six or eight sided, the circular type occasionally clustered in groups of six or more, with roughly carved capitals of which the so-called cushion form is of most frequent occurrence, upholding arches of wide span, massive walls, those of the nave with rows of purely ornamental arcading, beautifully proportioned triforia and clerestories; long, narrow, round-headed windows, two or three being often grouped together; deeply recessed and finely decorated doorways; strong external buttresses; twin western towers and a loftier central one rising from the intersection of nave and transepts. With certain notable exceptions referred to below, Norman churches have flat timber roofs, but those of the crypt beneath them are generally of groined stone with plain or only slightly ornamented ribs.

Another very distinctive characteristic of the Norman style is the richness of the surface decoration of the interiors of cathedrals and churches, the bases, shafts, and capitals of the columns, the arches, headings of windows, mural arcades, &c. being all enriched with mouldings of an infinite variety of form, including the so-called cable resembling a rope, the billet not unlike short bits of rounded wood, the chevron or zig-zag, the fret or fillet, the lozenge, the trellis, the cone, the scollop, and wave with the so-called torus, a convex swelling, and the cavetto, a hollow moulding, the last two used almost exclusively on the bases of columns.

Among noteworthy existing examples of the Anglo-Norman style are the nave, transepts and western doorway of Hereford Cathedral; the choir, transepts, and nave of Peterborough Cathedral; the naves of Gloucester, Exeter, Chichester, and Ely Cathedrals; certain portions of Canterbury Cathedral, including the choir chapels, part of the cloisters, the baptistery tower, S. Anselm's Tower, and a fine staircase leading up from the Close; the Chapter House of Worcester Cathedral; the greater part of Norwich Cathedral, which, though it has the French chevet at the eastern end, combines with it the distinctive English characteristics of a nave of great length and long transepts, the former with fourteen noble bays; the naves of S. Alban's Abbey, Southwell Minster, and the Priory Church of Christchurch, Hants; portions of the nave and transepts and the central tower of Christchurch Cathedral, Oxford; the beautiful portal of Tewkesbury Abbey, the finest in England, and the doorway of Hales Church, Norfolk, on which may be seen many of the characteristic mouldings enumerated above.

Somewhat later in date and even more distinctively Anglo-Norman than the examples quoted above, is the noble Cathedral of Durham, in which the style reached its fullest culmination. It remains, with the exception of the so-called Chapel of the Nine Altars that replaces the original apse, very much what it was when first completed, and reflects the national unity that was becoming ever more and more complete whilst it was being erected. A very noteworthy feature of this most effective building, in which every detail is subordinated to the general effect, is the vaulted roof of the nave, one of the very few dating from Norman times, significant of the approaching revolt against the flat roofs that had so long been looked upon as essential. In spite of certain crudities of structure it harmonises well alike with the vaulting of the aisles and transepts of earlier, and of the choir of somewhat later date. The great clustered piers alternating with cylindrical columns, the fine arches spanning them, the beautiful triforia and clerestories, and above all the long vista of nave and choir, combine to place Durham Cathedral in the very highest rank amongst contemporary buildings either in England or on the Continent, whilst in the Galilee Chapel, to which a porch, replacing an earlier entrance, gives access, the details of the transitional Norman style can be very clearly studied, the graceful intersecting arches, upheld by slender coupled columns, recently supplemented by additional supports, enriched with characteristic mouldings, shadowing forth the approaching change to the early English phase of Gothic.

Winchester Cathedral, originally a very typical Norman building designed by William of Wykeham, retains its Norman framework, covered over, as it were, with a drapery of detail in the latest development of English Gothic, and with it may be named as characteristic Norman buildings with Gothic additions, Peterborough Cathedral, all Norman except the west front and eastern extremity of the choir; Malmesbury Abbey, with a flat-roofed nave and vaulted aisles, the latter with pointed arches; the Cathedral of Exeter; the Minster of Sherbourne; and portions of Westminster Abbey.

Many parish churches, too, including those of Kilpeck in Herefordshire, a very typical Norman building; Tickencote in Lincolnshire, with intersecting pointed arches; S. Peter's in the East, Oxford, with a groined vaulted roof; Barfreston Church, Kent, with a very beautiful recessed doorway; Goring and Iffley in Oxfordshire; and above all, S. Bartholomew's in London, date from Norman times, and, though they have all been more or less modified by restoration, retain the general characteristics of the period to which they belong.

Anglo-Norman secular architecture is characterised by much the same qualities as ecclesiastical, the castles and residences of the sovereigns and the nobles having been of dignified and impressive appearance, well proportioned, and thoroughly in harmony with their surroundings. During the reigns of the Conqueror and his successors many noble strongholds were erected on points of vantage. The most important feature, and in every case the first to be built, having been the lofty central keep or donjon, the home of its owner in peace, and the last refuge of a besieged garrison in time of war. In it was a fine hall, in which the host received his guests, with a raised platform known as the dais for the use of those of high rank, and the approach to it was protected by a complex series of defences, including deep ditches or fosses, walls with towers and turrets at intervals, forming two distinct enclosures known as the outer and inner baileys, often covering a vast extent of ground, the whole encircled by a deep moat that could be filled with water when necessary. The great main entrance was flanked by towers, and in connection with the heavy doors of solid oak was a portcullis, that is to say, a grating of timber and iron bristling with spikes, that could be drawn up from within, cutting off all access to the inner precincts.

Some few Norman castles, all considerably modified to suit modern requirements, are still in use as residences or public buildings, including those of Windsor, Warwick (both specially typical), Norwich, Dover, Richmond in Yorkshire, and the Tower of London; the keep of the last named (known as the White Tower) and the chapel dedicated to S. John being amongst the best examples of the Anglo-Norman style in existence; whilst at Rochester, Colchester, Croft, Headingham, and Kenilworth are extensive remains of other strongholds, that before they fell into decay, must have equalled in grandeur those of Windsor and Warwick. A very remarkable example of a private residence dating from Norman times is Haddon Hall in Derbyshire, the seat of the Duke of Rutland, which retains the original great hall with a dais and minstrels' gallery, and a number of fine suites of rooms to which various wings were added during the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries, affording an excellent opportunity for the study of the development of English domestic architecture.