Part 29

[42] It is very difficult to understand precisely where these hangings were found. M. Aymard, a distinguished antiquary at Le Puy, in the _Album Photographique d’Archéologie Religieuse_, speaks of the painting on the wall of the _Salle des États_, and then, in another place, says that the tapestries given by Jean de Bourbon served to decorate the _Salle des États_ of Velay, and after the regrettable destruction of that hall the remains of them were preserved part in the cathedral and part in the museum. Possibly he refers to the removal of the floor below the _Salle des États_, for the hall itself has not been destroyed.

[43] M. Mallay, of Clermont, says that the mosaic work of the church of Notre-Dame-du-Port, Clermont, was all set in red mortar originally.

[44] See further observations on this subject, page 223.

[45] The predecessor in the See, Stephen II., uncle of Bishop Peter I., was buried at Lavoulte-Chilhac.

[46] A diploma of A.D. 1146 is dated from the “Ville d’Anis” (i.e. Le Puy) and fixes the date at which this “cité” received the name of “ville.”

[47] See M. Aymard’s _Album Photographique d’Archéologie Religieuse_, and a communication from the same gentleman in the _Bulletin Archéol._ vol. ii. p. 645. M. Aymard mentions one other example, a diptych, figured in Montfaucon (_L’Antiquité Expliquée_) vol. iii. p. 89, which dates from about A.D. 900. The hand at Le Puy is larger than life, and has a double nimbus round it, the inner yellow, the outer dark red; the hand is white and the ground within the nimbus dark blue. The Secretary of the Comité Historique des Arts et Monuments considers that this representation of the Greek mode of giving the benediction makes it certain that the work at Le Puy is Byzantine in its origin. But one may, I think, be allowed to doubt whether this conclusion is to be absolutely depended on.

[48] M. Aymard. See footnote on preceding page.

[49] The spire-lights in the cathedral steeple are very similar, and the same form is seen in the steeple of the church of S. Marie des Chases, in Auvergne.

[50] Also the octagonal church, surrounded by an octagonal cloister, of the Templars at Eunate in Navarre, and the church of Vera Cruz at Segovia.--G. G. K.

[51] The elevation of one bay of the nave of this church is almost exactly the same as that of S. Petronio, Bologna, though of course on a very reduced scale. The plan is Italian also, the nave groining-compartments being square, whilst those of the aisles are very oblong; the contrary arrangement is, as I need hardly say, almost invariable in northern Gothic plans.

[52] The cathedral of Clermont-Ferrand, a fine fourteenth-century church, is said to have been originally on the same plan as Notre-Dame-du-Port; excavations have proved this to have been the case. The present cathedral is almost precisely similar in plan to those of Narbonne and Limoges (see Viollet-le-Duc, _Dictionnaire_), and is said to have been commenced in A.D. 1248 by Bishop Hugues de la Tour.

[53] I give a list of some of the churches which either belong to or illustrate the Auvergnat type, with their dates, as nearly as I can ascertain them:--Conques, completed by A.D. 1060. S. Étienne, Nevers, commenced A.D. 1063, consecrated A.D. 1097. S. Eutrope, Saintes, consecrated in A.D. 1096. S. Genés, A.D. 1016-A.D. 1120. S. Front, Périgueux, A.D. 984 to A.D. 1047. Angoulême, A.D. 1109–1136. Fontevrault, A.D. 1100. S. Hilaire, Poitiers, A.D. 1049; Moustier-neuf, ditto, A.D. 1069–1096; S. Radegonde, ditto, A.D. 1099. Riom (S. Amable), A.D. 1077–1120. S. Sernin, Toulouse, _circa_ A.D. 1150. Cluny, commenced A.D. 1089; consecrated A.D. 1131. Dorat (Hte. Vienne) and Bénévent (Creuse), _circa_ A.D. 1150–1200. S. Germain-des-Prés, Paris, consecrated A.D. 1163. Le-Moûtier (suburb of Thiers), A.D. 1016. S. Saturnin, Volvic, Issoire, S. Nectaire, N.-D.-du-Port, Clermont, _circa_ A.D. 1080–1160. Brioude, _circa_ A.D. 1200. Orcival.

[54] St. Gregory of Tours (Hist. Francorum) says that in A.D. 440 a church was erected in Clermont by the Bishop Namacius, 150 feet in length, 60 feet wide, 50 feet high from the seat of the bishop to the vault; a circular gallery surrounded the choir, and on each side were two aisles elegantly constructed. The church was in the form of a cross, had 42 windows, 70 columns, and 8 doors.--_L’Auvergne au Moyen Age._

[55] S. Hilaire at Poitiers and Angoulême cathedral have only four chapels.

[56] At Mozat is a magnificent shrine of copper, enamelled, and at S. Nectaire a variety of precious relics, crosses, reliquaries, and the like, of which M. Mérimée has given a list.

[57] See M. Mallay’s _Essai sur les Églises Romanes et Romano-Byzantines du département du Puy-de-Dôme_. Moulins, 1838.

[58] St. Mark’s, Venice, was commenced in A.D. 977.

[59] Plans (to a uniform scale) of S. Mark’s Venice, and of S. Front, Périgueux, are given in _Transactions_, Vol. IV. n.s. Illustn. xxviii., pp. 172–173.

[60] Mr. Fergusson gives a section of a church at Granson on the Lake of Neufchâtel, in which the aisles and nave are roofed in the same way as at Conques and in the Auvergne churches. He says that the date of this church is the end of the eighth or beginning of the ninth century, but I do not know what his authority for this very early date is.

[61] The Abbaye-aux-Hommes, Caen, has its aisles roofed with transverse barrel-vaults.

[62] I ought to mention that this dome and the western part of S. Julien at Brioude are much older than the choir, to which I have before referred in speaking of the date of the church.

[63] This qualification is necessary, for the curious evidence which M. Verneilh has given of the existence in the tenth century of a Venetian colony at Limoges would be enough to make it probable that, though S. Front is the earliest complete example extant of a French domed church, others may have been built before it and that some of those which M. Verneilh supposes to have been derived from S. Front may really have been derived more directly from the East.

[64] There is no end to the diversity of the countries in which they are found. In the cathedral at Worms there are squinches formed by semi-domes. In S. Nicodime at Athens they are identical with those of S. Étienne at Nevers, and the same form is repeated in the domical vault of the steeple at Auxerre cathedral. At Notre-Dame-du-Port, Clermont, the dome is circular, but the squinches below are octagonal in plan, and the circle (which is not, however, a true circle) is set upon the octagon.

[65] This statement must of course be made with caution, inasmuch as the invariable whitewashing of the interior makes it very difficult to say what was the exact nature of the decorations with which they were adorned.

[66] The subject of this paper, the probable identity of the architect of S. Mary’s with that of Westminster, interested Street greatly, and he refers to it often. The careful description of conscientious restoration has an interest for us as well. I have therefore reprinted the greater part of it without troubling the reader by indicating the trifling omissions.

[67] Will of John Bokeland, p. 10.

[68] One of these windows is still left in the south wall of the chancel.

[69] It appears from a note by Mr. Heathcote, a former Rector, in the parish book, that the church and chancel were ceiled in the year 1777. This is the only note in these books which refers to the building, if I except an entry in regard to the erection of a western gallery, which has been removed in the course of restoring the church. The old parish books are all destroyed, and no record exists earlier than the end of the last century.

[70] “Less usual,” but not unique. The church at East Barnet afforded another example of the same mode of spending money in the palmy days of ample church-rates and irresponsible church-wardens.

[71] John Bokeland, in his will, talks of the chancel door: I believe he means the door in the Rood-screen, from the nave into the chancel.

[72] The central shaft and part of the internal tracery of this window are destroyed, and we have been unable yet to restore them.

[73] I see no evidence of the existence of a clerestory; and the columns are so delicate that I think it is impossible that it can ever have been intended to erect one.

[74] I cannot express my vexation at finding that in spite of my earnest injunctions to the workmen to be careful, this painted cross was destroyed. It is often absolutely impossible for an architect to stop wilful destruction of this kind. I have sometimes thought that it might be a good plan to draw up a contract for church restorations, inflicting a heavy fine on the contractor for any such destruction of any old feature.

[75] See particularly papers by me on _Some Churches in Kent, Surrey, and Sussex_, in the _Ecclesiologist_ of 1850, and _On the Middle-Pointed Churches of Cornwall_, in the _Transactions_ of the Exeter Architectural Society, vol. iv.

[76] There are one or two points which appear to me to make it possible that the sculpture of foliage was not done at Stone, but wrought elsewhere and sent there to be fixed. The northernmost spandrel in the east wall should be examined with a view to this point.

[77] I need not say, to those who know the north of Germany, that the arrangement of this church is, after all, only an exaggeration of a not uncommon plan. The cathedrals at Hildesheim and Naumburg, the Liebfrauen-Kirche at Halberstadt, and many others, have crypts, whose floor is but little lower than the floor of the church, whilst the floors of their choirs are raised immensely, and so shut in with solid stone screens and parcloses, that little can be seen of them from the naves. The crypt at Wimborne Minster is a rare instance of the same kind of thing in England; but this is a middle-pointed contrivance for _creating_ a crypt in a first-pointed church, which was never intended to have anything of the kind.

[78] It is owing to this arrangement of the nave, and the consequent uselessness of the aisles, that several of the old altars still remain, one in each bay, against the north aisle wall, and one or two against the south aisle wall.

[79] I have given a drawing of these candlesticks for the _Instrumenta Ecclesiastica_. They are not movable candlesticks, but regular fixtures to the pavement, and made in some kind of white metal.

[80] I have given a drawing of this vat in the _Instrumenta Ecclesiastica_.

[81] It must be understood that these are not the original curtains; but that the Lutherans have here preserved an old arrangement is very evident.

[82] On the south side of this steeple still hang the iron cages in which John of Leyden and his confrères were suspended before their execution.

[83] This paper was read before the Oxford Architectural Society, in 1857.--G. G. K.

[84] Street was not yet familiar with the Spanish churches, in which it is the dominant native form. Cf. _Gothic Architecture in Spain_, new edition, I, 58.--G. G. K.

Transcriber’s Notes

Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed. Inconsistencies between the Index and the text it referenced were resolved by changing the Index to match the text.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced quotation marks retained.

Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained; occurrences of inconsistent hyphenation have not been changed.

Index not checked for proper alphabetization or correct page references.

In Footnote 3, the symbol following “openings of this kind” is a Maltese Cross.