Part 12

In almost all other parts the English cathedrals of this age are often richer than the French, as in the clustering of the columns, the richness of the arch mouldings, the beauty of their wall arcading, the importance and detail of the triforium, etc.; while, on the contra side, they have to yield greatly to the French in altitude, and in many cases in general scale, as well as in the amount of sculpture with which they are enriched.

My object in drawing these comparisons is not a wish to lay any claim to superiority for either, nor to shake the claims of our neighbours to general precedence, as I view Paris to have been, in a certain sense, the centre and metropolis of Mediæval art. It is rather to show that these were the arts of a great _period_, not of a single _people_; that all were labouring together in perfecting a great and glorious development of art, each knowing well what others were doing, each according to their means taking care to keep up to the standard already attained, and to add to the public treasury developments of their own; each making it his great endeavour to do his own work as well as it could possibly be done according to the means at command, and each people vying with its neighbours, not in the spirit of petty jealous competitors for praise, but each striving, with a noble and glorious emulation, to do the utmost in its power to further the great art which all had contributed in generating.

Having given, in this and my two preceding lectures, a rough and very imperfect sketch of the rise and perfecting of Gothic architecture, it is not my intention any further to pursue the subject historically; but--assuming the thirteenth century to be the great period of the style--I should wish, in any future lectures I may give, to illustrate and discuss its principles, and the many sections into which it divides itself, whether geographical varieties or the leading features of the buildings themselves. I may not be able to carry out this intention, but in my next lecture, the last of the present session, I purpose--after alluding to some of the most remarkable works of the period and with some slight description of their characteristics, and after calling attention to the all-pervading character of the art as it bore upon secular and other buildings, upon the allied arts, and upon the ordinary arts of common life--to found upon what we have had in review before us some general suggestions as to the practical lessons we ought to learn from what we have been considering, and the influence it ought to have upon our own artistic practice.

LECTURE V.

The Thirteenth Century--_continued_.

St. Saviour’s, Southwark--Choir of Temple Church, London--Chapel at Lambeth--Westminster Abbey--Its Italian mosaic work, monuments, and ancient reredos--Chapel of St. Ethelreda, Holborn--St. Alban’s Abbey--Priory Church, Dunstable--Stone Church near Gravesend--Waltham Cross--Jesus Chapel, Cambridge--Ely and Peterborough Cathedrals--Warmington Church--West Walton Abbey--Crowland Abbey--St. Mary’s and All Saints, Stanford--Ketton, Grantham, and Frampton Churches--Lincoln Cathedral--Southwell Minster--Newstead Abbey--York Cathedral--St. Mary’s Abbey, and St. Leonard’s Hospital, York--Skelton Church--Beverley and Ripon Minsters--Fountains, Rivaulx, Whitby, Kirkham, and Guisborough Abbeys--Chapel of the Nine Altars, Durham--Hexham and Dryburgh Abbeys--Chapel of Holyrood--Elgin and Glasgow Cathedrals--Furness Abbey--Southern examples--Most great churches in France vaulted, not so in England--Universal excellence of workmanship from 1175 to 1400--Domestic architecture of France, Germany, Italy, and England--Influence of thirteenth century work on our artistic practice.

In my last lecture I gave a hasty outline of the developed architecture of this great period.

I will now endeavour to give an equally hasty glance at some of its more marked creations, beginning--as in duty bound--at home. Their number, however, is so great, that one is perplexed to know where to begin, or in what order to take them. Perhaps the most profitable way will be to imagine the student to live in London, and to commence with the works of this century, which he may study within a walk of his home.

Let us begin, then, with the church of St. Saviour--formerly St. Mary Overie--in Southwark.

When I first knew this Church the whole of it was standing: externally, it is true, the aspect it presented was not very pleasing, for it had been cased almost throughout with red brick, and the Lady Chapel was little else than a ruin. The choir was then in course of restoration. The interior was a most noble structure, and was almost perfect, and nearly all of this century, though some small portions westward were earlier, and the south transept possibly a little later. The whole was on a very symmetrical design, that of the nave being very much the same with the choir.

Its character may easily be judged of from what remains. It was nobly massive and grand, not of lofty proportions, but still such as to satisfy the eye. The pillars were alternately round and canted squares, flanked with attached shafts; the triforium consisting of arcades, interrupted only by the vaulting shafts. At the east end is a beautiful Lady Chapel, vaulted on light clustered pillars.

The restoration of the choir was carried out by the late Mr. George Gwilt, aided by his sons; and it is impossible too warmly to praise the zeal and ardour with which they pursued the work, their study of the style then so little understood, or the untiring pains they took to render their restoration accurate. All these ardent lovers of ancient art are now deceased, and I feel a melancholy pleasure in bearing witness to their merits. I was intimately acquainted with one of the sons, and never did I meet a man more enthusiastically devoted to the style on which his artistic education had been founded. He absolutely adored everything which was Early English; and, in carrying out restorations--in one of which he aided me--so faithfully did he reproduce the whole work, that nothing could induce him to alter even the positions of the jointing of the ashlar work.

The pains which Mr. Gwilt took in restoring the choir disgusted the heartless parishioners, who, on proceeding to the transepts, placed the work in other hands; but, on the Lady Chapel being undertaken by private individuals, Mr. Gwilt nobly undertook the work gratuitously, and carried it out with the same care he had bestowed on the choir.

Shortly after this, a report having arisen that the nave roof was decayed, a surveyor was employed to examine it, who, recklessly condemning it as unsafe, it was taken off, and none put on in its place. The walls, being of chalk, became shattered by exposure to the frost of several winters; and when the restoration of the nave was proposed to the parishioners, that enlightened body of men negatived it, and, taking down the glorious old structure, erected the present abject monstrosity in its place.[43]

Happily, however, the interiors of the choir and Lady Chapel are still perfect. Let us hope and pray that their widowhood may not be of much longer duration, but that a reproduction of the noble nave may be substituted for its unworthy supplanter.

I should mention that the nave was entered on the south side by a very noble double doorway, of great height and depth, though when I knew it its decorative features had perished. I will only add that if measured drawings of this church are in the possession of the family of Mr. Gwilt, it would be most desirable that they should be deposited among public archives, to await the time when they _must_ be wanted as a guide to the re-erection of the lost portions. In the meantime let me beg of you to study well what remains.[44]

Next in importance, and probably in date, comes the choir of the Temple Church, which was consecrated in 1240--a more fortunate building than the last, and not needing from me any chronicle of its restoration. It is, in idea, a magnified transcript of the Lady Chapel at St. Saviour’s, being, like it, vaulted throughout upon pillars of equal height, and is probably about the most perfect specimen in England of this beautiful mode of construction.

The only other important instance I recollect in London of the earlier portion of our style is the chapel at Lambeth--a very good Early English chapel, though somewhat dishonoured by plaster vaulting, the ribs of which I myself saw being prepared for by a core of spikes and tar-cord. Let us hope that this is the last instance of such construction, especially of its introduction in a time-honoured building like this!

We now come to one of the noblest of England’s temples--the Abbey Church of Westminster; and you will readily excuse me from dishonouring this truly glorious temple by attempting its description in the course of a hasty catalogue like that I am now giving. As you all know, it was commenced in 1245 by King Henry III., and the eastern portions finished about 1269. This makes it contemporary, in a certain sense, with Amiens; for though the latter was commenced in 1220, it was not completed till 1288. There can be no doubt that the cathedral at Amiens was, at the time of its erection, viewed as the most perfect development of the style; for it is clear that it was made, in many instances, the model on which the designs of other churches were formed.

Cologne Cathedral, for instance, was commenced in 1248, during the erection of that at Amiens, and is manifestly a free copy of it so far as concerns its earlier portions;[45] and though Westminster Abbey is by no means built on the model of Amiens, it was probably influenced by it. That prodigious pile, carried forward through so long a series of years, would be a great object of interest to all contemporary church-builders; and Henry, who was much in France, would naturally send the architect of his own sacred mausoleum to see the great work of his day.

Westminster Abbey is a church built on a French ideal, but with English detail--a great French thought expressed in excellent English.

The windows are of the perfected bar tracery, which had not yet been much used in England; but in other respects I cannot find a distinctively French detail--or scarcely any--in the building, excepting the work of a single French foliage carver. Even the plan, which is purely French in idea, is carried out in a manner quite different from that of any French church I have seen.

In the architecture the union of the manners of the two nations is most happy. The pillars are nearly like those of the great French cathedral, but the side shafts, instead of being attached, are separate shafts of Purbeck marble, the nucleus and the capitals and bases being all of the same beautiful material. The use of this hard stone led to that of moulded unfoliated capitals, in which they lose in effect when compared with those at Amiens; but the nobler material would more than compensate for this.

The triforium is far superior to that at Amiens both in design and detail, and the whole internal design, though inferior in size and altitude, is to my eye far more pleasing; and when its varied materials retained their colour, and the Purbeck marble, which pervades every part, preserved its polish, there cannot be a doubt as to the superior magnificence of its effect.

The parts, too, are much better proportioned, with perhaps, the one exception of the too acute form of the main arches; the wall arcading is much more beautiful, and the details generally more richly moulded. We have, then, here, at our doors, a building whose interior is equal to that of any existing Gothic building, and we have no excuse if we do not avail ourselves of so noble an opportunity of study.

Of the exterior I will say nothing. All its old features had perished by the end of the seventeenth century, when they were vilely renewed, and this base restoration is now in its turn decayed.

The chapter-house is a splendid but melancholy relic, little more than a ruin, and that not like those ruins which seem to do honour to the memory of their bygone glory by the picturesque loveliness which graces their decay. It is choked up with presses, chests, galleries, huge sacks of parchment, and every possible obstruction and disfigurement. Its beautiful windows--which filled the entire width of its sides--are walled up, and its elegant vaulting destroyed. Just enough remains to render its restoration practicable. I have, with great labour, traced out all the old details, and only wish for the chance of restoring it in some degree to its pristine beauty.[46] I should mention that the splendid encaustic floor is still perfect, and that very fine specimens of wall painting still remain. The vestibule and staircase by which it is approached are beautifully designed, and the doorway from the cloister is among the most splendid relics of English art. The latter is in a dreadful state of decay, but I am happy to say that it has just been stereotyped in its present state by the application of an invisible solution, which will prevent the further progress of disintegration, and which has set and hardened the crumbling particles, which the gentlest touch would have before displaced.

The foliated carving in Westminster Abbey unites the two great types which characterise this century--the conventional and the natural--and contains some of the best of each. I commend it to your careful study, and will mention that all within reach has been indurated in the manner I have just alluded to. What remains of the figure sculpture is also of great merit, especially four angelic figures in the triforium of the transept,[47] and two full-length figures in the chapter-house, one of which I had the great happiness of discovering.

The internal proportions of the church seem to me to surpass those of any other I have seen. They appear to be generally founded upon the equilateral triangle, and a comparison of this with many other churches will confirm the truth of what I have heard has been stated by an ancient Freemason--that the square will furnish good proportions, but the equilateral triangle much better.

The introduction of Italian mosaic-work[48]--both porphyry mosaic on the pavement, and glass mosaic on the tombs of the builder and rebuilder of the Abbey--is a fact of great interest, as showing the high estimation in which the arts peculiar to Italy were then held, so much so as to lead to the bringing to England of two master mosaic-workers--Odorico and Pietro[49] (each, no doubt, with his staff of workmen)--to carry out the two branches of the art. Both artists were from Rome, as the inscriptions still testify; but their work was put together here, as is proved by the use of Purbeck marble, both as the groundwork of the pavement and for the architecture of the tombs. This architecture is not very elegant in its details, excepting only the beautiful spiral pillars, and some of the surface patterns prepared for the mosaic; and the introduction of an art so inferior to their own, for the sake of the rich inlaying it contained, still more strongly proves their appreciation of the merits of the mosaic art. Let us follow the example more wisely, and when we import any foreign specialty, let us not bring with it any of the demerits which chance to accompany it, but unite it with the best art we are masters of.

I know few, if any, churches which possess the same internal beauty as Westminster Abbey. More modern art has done its worst to ruin it, but its intrinsic loveliness overrides every such attempt, and reigns triumphant over every disfigurement. One characteristic it possesses almost alone--I mean the virgin privilege of perpetual exemption from the brush of the whitewasher. It probably owes this unique happiness to its having been built on the principles of constructive polychromy. It has materials of at least four varieties of colour, and these, in some degree, systematically and artistically used; and this fact has been sufficient to keep the whitewasher at bay. We are told that it is un-English and fantastic to care anything about the colours of our materials; but let it never be forgotten that the churches which could boast of the chaste dignity of their unvaried stone colour, have been, both at home and abroad, made over periodically to the tender mercies of the monochromist, while this, at least has been spared,--and that on account of the “un-English” phantasy of using more than one natural colour in its construction. These colours are now nearly concealed by smoke, but they still show modestly through, and still aid in rendering the tone more solemn and striking than that of any church I have seen, excepting that very different one--St. Mark’s at Venice.

Among the monuments in the Abbey belonging to this century I will mention--in addition to the Italian works already alluded to--the effigy of William de Valence, an oak figure plated with enamelled copper, the enamels on which are of magnificent workmanship; the beautiful bronze effigies of Henry III. and Queen Eleanor, with the marble altar-tomb of the latter, and its beautiful iron grille (Fig. 114); the pretty little altar-tomb of some of the royal children, and the gorgeous monuments to Edmund Earl of Lancaster, and Aveline, his countess: the latter have been among the most splendidly decorated works of their day, and are worthy of the very closest study, both by the architect and the architectural painter.

I will call attention to one other object in the Abbey--I mean the remarkably ancient retable or movable reredos formerly belonging to the high altar. It is a wonderful work of art, and I call attention to it especially in this place, because it contains the most beautiful specimen of very early painting remaining in this country. The pictures are probably by an Italian artist, several of whom are known to have been brought over about this time; but I confess I have seen no work of its age in Italy which I thought equal to it, an opinion confirmed by an Italian professor of architecture to whom I once showed it. It is, I believe, contemporary with the early days of Giotto.

I will now pass on to a far humbler building, and one very little known or visited; I mean the Chapel of St. Etheldreda, in Ely Place, Holborn.

This was the chapel of the splendid town palace of the Bishops of Ely, and was built by Bishop De Luda soon after 1290. The destruction of the palace you will, I dare say, recollect to have been celebrated by Pugin in his “Contrasts.” It was sold during the last century, and the present untempting-looking street built on its site--a place where one would as little expect to find a gem of ancient art as the ripe strawberries which Dickon of Gloucester saw growing there and begged for.

The chapel is in a wretched plight; its side windows have lost both tracery and mullions, its west window is in great measure boarded up, the cradled roof plastered, the whole galleried around and fitted up with pewing which would disgrace a tabernacle of the last century; yet through all this its beauty still shows. The chapel is, as was so usual with private chapels, elevated on an overground crypt, so as to bring it to a level with the principal apartments of the palace. Curiously enough, this crypt is not vaulted, but has over it the original floor of massive timber.

The east and west windows, of five lights each, are among the finest of their period and size.[50] The side windows, denuded of their tracery, retain, internally, their beautiful jamb mouldings, and the wall between them has a graceful canopied and crocketed panel to each intervening pier, which gives the sides a very rich effect. I had long and often lamented their mutilated condition, and was one day trying to get at some clue to the design of their tracery, by examining the scars where it had been amputated, when the thought struck me that the two westernmost of them being blocked up by the adjoining houses, might, if opened out, be found to retain their decorative features. I applied for permission to do this; and what was my delight, on removing the material which obstructed them, to find the old window--mutilated, indeed, and shattered--but still retaining every element needful to the restoration of its design!

The doorway to the chapel is very beautiful, and its foliated ornament well worthy of study. The internal dimensions are about 90 feet by 30--a favourite size, it would seem, and not differing much from the dimensions of St. Stephen’s Chapel, that at Temple Balsal, or the Sainte Chapelle at Paris (reckoning the latter in French feet).

The architecture of the chapel is nearly allied to that of a series of sepulchral monuments I alluded to in my former lecture, and some of them again in this. One of these is that of its own founder at Ely; the second and third are those of Edmund and Aveline, at Westminster Abbey; and the fourth is that of Archbishop Peckham, at Canterbury. All these date between 1290 and 1300, and are works of exquisite beauty and of the richest decorative art.

I will now lead you on a short excursion out of London, to a glorious old temple which was, in the days of my pupilage, considered to be within walking distance, and can now be reached in less than an hour by railway. I mean the venerable Abbey Church of St. Alban.

You probably know the general history of this church: founded over the tomb of the protomartyr of England, within ten years of his martyrdom, and rebuilt on a larger scale by Offa, King of Mercia, it was again rebuilt of its present enormous dimensions by the earlier of the Norman abbots, using the materials excavated from the ruined city of Verulam.

The Roman brick was not a material very suggestive of ornamental architecture, and we accordingly find the original portions to be plain and massive in the extreme, but, nevertheless, highly impressive and interesting. In the work of a later Norman abbot we find this unshapely material cased with stone-work, and of richly decorative details; but the church in general retained its severe simplicity undisturbed till the accession of Abbot John De Cella, in the reign of King Richard I.

This worthy abbot was more a man of taste than of business, and his temperament more sanguine than calculating. He had no sooner taken possession of the abbacy than he embarked on a magnificent project for rebuilding the western façade of his abbey church; only a prelude, probably, to the reconstruction of the whole in the new style.