The Early Norman Period. A.D. 1060-1090
The Norman style was introduced into England in the time of Edward the Confessor; the king himself founded the great Abbey of Westminster, and many of the buildings were begun in his time. Of this church he had completed the choir and transepts, which were sufficient for the performance of divine service, and it was then consecrated, Dec. 28, 1065, a few days only before his death. As soon as the choir of a church was ready for Divine Service, it was usual to consecrate it: the nave was called the vestibule, and was not consecrated. The nave of Westminster at that time was not built: it is probable that a nave was built in the twelfth century, but of this church we have no remains. The dormitory was in all probability building at the same time, as the monks or canons who had to perform the service in the church must have required a place to sleep in. Of this dormitory the walls and the vaulted substructure remain. The refectory also was begun at the same period, and we have the lower part of the walls, with the arcade at the foot; the work is rude and clumsy Norman, with wide-jointed masonry, and the capitals left plain, to be painted or carved afterwards.
Soon after the Norman Conquest a great change took place in the art of building in England. On consulting the history of our cathedral churches, we find that in almost every instance the church was rebuilt from its foundations by the first Norman bishop, either on the same site or on a new one; sometimes, as at Norwich and Peterborough, the cathedral was removed to a new town altogether, and built on a spot where there was no church before; in other cases, as at Winchester, the new church was built near the old one, which was not pulled down until after the relics had been translated with great pomp from the old church to the new. In other instances, as at York and Canterbury, the new church was erected on the site of the old one, which was pulled down piecemeal as the new work progressed. These new churches were in all cases on a much larger and more magnificent scale than the old; they were also constructed in a much better manner, the Normans being far better masons than the Saxons B.
Notwithstanding this superiority of workmanship to that which had preceded it, the early Norman masonry is extremely rude and bad; the joints between the stones are often from one inch to two or three inches wide, and filled with mortar not always of very good quality. In consequence of this imperfect construction, many of the towers fell down within a few years after their erection. It is probable, however, that the workmen employed on these structures were for the most part Saxons, as the Normans must have been too much employed otherwise during the reign of the Conqueror to execute much masons’ work with their own hands. Nor were the Norman monks established in sufficient numbers to be able to superintend all the works which were going on at this period; the cathedrals and large monasteries must have occupied nearly all their attention. The ordinary parish churches which required rebuilding must have been left to the Saxons themselves, and were probably built in the same manner as before, with such slight improvements as they might have gleaned from the Norman works.
The Normans themselves were, however, but little in advance of the English in the building art: the style which we call Norman correctly for this country, is called by the French archæologists Anglo-Norman, and with reason; that style was developed as much in England as in Normandy.
Gundulph, Bishop of Rochester, was the great architect of the time of William the Conqueror. The first building of his that we have remaining is the keep of his castle at Malling, in Kent, called St. Leonard’s Tower, which was built about 1070. This is of earlier character than any keep in Normandy. M. de Caumont examined the sites of the castles of all the barons who came over to England with William, and he found no masonry of that period in any one of them. Their castles had consisted of very fine earthworks and wood only C. Soon after this time,
Gundulph built the keep of the castle in London called the White Tower, and the cathedral of Rochester, of which we have a part of the crypt, and some remains of the wall of the nave and north transept. The whole of this work is extremely rude; the construction is usually rubble. When of ashlar, the joints are very wide, and the capitals of the shafts clumsy.
St. Alban’s Abbey Church, built in the time of William the Conqueror and William Rufus, as distinctly recorded by contemporary historians, partakes of the Saxon character in many parts: we find baluster shafts in abundance, quantities of Roman tiles, and other features usually considered Saxon, but there is not the slightest doubt that the church was built from the foundations after 1077, when the work was commenced by Abbot Paul of Caen. The materials of an older church are used in it; they were probably brought from old Verulam, with the Roman flat bricks, which are largely used in the construction.
We have a strong confirmation of this in the city of Lincoln: the Conqueror having taken possession of about a quarter of the old city to build a castle upon, and Bishop Remigius having purchased nearly another quarter to build a cathedral and monastery, the Saxon inhabitants were driven down the hill on which the old city stands, and took possession of some swampy land at the foot of the hill, which they drained, and redeemed from the fens or marshes of which nearly all the low country then consisted. On this new land they built several churches. One of these, St. Peter’s at Gowts (or at the Sluices), remains nearly entire, and St. Mary le Wig-ford has retained the tower built at this period. This is an important and interesting fact in the history of architecture, as it confirms what was before only a natural supposition, and it enables us to fill up a gap: we appeared to have scarcely any parish churches of the early Norman period, but it is now evident that many of the long list of churches of the Anglo-Saxon type belong to a period subsequent to the Conquest. The tower of St. Michael’s Church, Oxford, is one of those included by Rickman as of the character supposed to be Saxon, but the imposts of the window-arches are quite of Norman character, and it was built after the Conquest. The tower of Oxford Castle was built by Robert D’Oyly in the time of William Rufus, but it has much of the appearance of the Saxon buildings, and the tower of St. Michael’s Church is part of the work of his time. Round towers built of rubble-stone are of several periods, generally early, but in a mere rubble wall there is nothing to go by as to the date; they may be of any period.
It is customary to date the introduction of the Norman style into England from the Norman Conquest, in 1066, although that important event had no immediate effect on the style of Architecture, and perhaps the remainder of the eleventh century may be considered as a period of transition, just as the last quarter of each of the three following centuries was a period of transition from one style to another; and it may be well to observe, that in all such periods, not only were buildings of a mixed character erected, but some buildings were almost entirely in the old style, others altogether in the new one: this has been called by Professor Willis “an overlapping of the styles,” and generally lasts from twenty to thirty years. In treating of the Norman period we must bear in mind that Normandy was then a province of the same kingdom, and that the intercourse between Kent and Normandy was at least as frequent and as easy as between Yorkshire and Devonshire; so that although there are certain marked provincialisms, there is no real difference or priority of style in one province over the other, after the Norman power was fully established in England. It is customary to point to the two great abbey churches at Caen, founded and endowed by William and Matilda, as models to be referred to, and as proving the great advance of Normandy over England; but this is, in a great degree, a mistake, arising from the common error of confusing the date of the foundation of a monastery with that of the erection of the existing church: a small part only of the church of St. Stephen at Caen is of the time of the Conqueror, and a still smaller part of that of the Holy Trinity, the present building of which is considerably later than the other. In both of these fine churches, the vaults, and the upper parts of the structure, were built late in the twelfth century; they had originally wooden roofs only.
The most important buildings of the time of the Conqueror and of William Rufus were the Norman castles or keep-towers, but most of these were rebuilt in the following century. The earliest Norman keep existing is the one built immediately after the Conquest, by Gundulph, at Malling in Kent, miscalled St. Leonard’s tower, as already mentioned [see page 17]. There are still some Norman keeps of this period remaining, as London; but Dover and Rochester in Kent, Newcastle in Northumberland, Appleby and Carlisle in Cumberland, Brougham in Westmoreland, Richmond and Conisborough in Yorkshire, Porchester in Hampshire, Guildford in Surrey, Goodrich in Herefordshire, Norwich and Castle Rising in Norfolk, Hedingham and Colchester in Essex, are later, and belong chiefly to the twelfth century; but most of them, if not all, were founded at this early period. Rochester has been entirely rebuilt on another site. From the uniformity of plan—a massive square tower, with a square turret at each angle of small projection, and a flat buttress up the centre of each face—and the general plainness of the work, it requires a careful examination of each of these buildings to ascertain to which period it belongs. The only parts where any ornament is to be found are usually the entrance-doorway and staircase, and the chapel, and these are commonly rather late Norman. There is frequently a solid wall in the middle, dividing the keep into two portions, with no communication in the lower parts. The passages for communication between one part of the building and another are made in the thickness of the wall, the central part having been divided by floors only, and not vaulted, in the earlier examples. Groined stone vaults, of rough stone, were introduced towards the end of the eleventh century in castles as well as churches; but rib-vaulting of cut stone not before the twelfth.
The number of churches which were commenced in the reign of the Conqueror and his successor was so great, that it is impossible to notice them all: but few of them were completed until after 1100; it was not, indeed, until after 1080 that the country was sufficiently settled for much building to be begun.
The chapel in the White Tower, London, is one of the best and most perfect examples of this period; its character is massive and plain, though the work is well executed. Its plan is oblong, consisting of a nave with narrow aisles which stand on the thickness of the walls: the walls have passages in them also in the other parts; the nave has plain barrel-vaults; the pillars are short and thick, and most of the capitals are plain, but some have a little ornament carved upon the abacus and capital, apparently some time after the construction was completed, being within easy reach.
The nave and transepts of Ely were erected by Abbot Simeon, brother of Bishop Walkelyn. Part of the west front of Lincoln was built by Bishop Remi, or Remigius, 1085-1092: the small portion which remains of this work is a very valuable specimen of early Norman, the more so that the insertion of later and richer Norman doorways by Bishop Alexander, about fifty years afterwards, enables us to compare early and late Norman work, while the jointing of the masonry leaves no doubt of the fact that these doorways are insertions, and therefore confirms the early date of the three lofty arches under which they are inserted. A comparison of the capitals and details of these two periods, thus placed in juxtaposition, is extremely interesting. The wide-jointing of the masonry and the shallowness of the carving distinguish the old work from the new. Several capitals of the later period are inserted in the older work, as is shewn on careful examination by the jointing of the masonry, and by the form of the capitals themselves: the earlier capitals are short, and have volutes at the angles, forming a sort of rude Ionic; the later capitals are more elongated, and have a sort of rude Corinthian, or Composite foliage.
The crypt and transepts of Winchester Cathedral are of this period, built by Bishop Walkelyn on a new site. Early in the twelfth century occurred the fall of the tower of this Cathedral, celebrated from the peculiar circumstances with which it was accompanied, which are thus described by William of Malmesbury, who was living at the time:—“A few countrymen conveyed the body [of the king, William Rufus], placed on a cart, to the cathedral of Winchester, the blood dripping from it all the way. Here it was committed to the ground within the tower, attended by many of the nobility, but lamented by few. The next year [1097] the tower fell; though I forbear to mention the different opinions on this subject, lest I should seem to assent too readily to unsupported trifles; more especially that the building might have fallen through imperfect construction, even though he had never been buried there.” That this was really the case, the building itself affords us abundant evidence, and proves that even the Normans at this period were still bad masons, and very imperfectly acquainted with the principles of construction. The tower which was rebuilt soon after the fall is still standing, and the enormous masses of masonry which were piled together to support it, and prevent it from falling again, shew such an amazing waste of labour and material as clearly to prove that it was the work of very unskilful builders.
This example is valuable to us also in another respect: the two transepts were only partially injured by the fall of the tower; the greater part of both of them belongs to the original work; the junction of the old work and the new can be distinctly traced; and here we begin to find a difference of character in the new work, and a mark by which we can readily distinguish one from the other: the joints between the stones in the old work are wide, filled with a great thickness of mortar; in the new work they are comparatively fine, often leaving room for scarcely more than to pass a knife: the one is called “wide-jointed masonry,” the other “fine-jointed masonry,” and this is the best and safest distinction between early and late Norman work; the rule is almost of universal application. In confirmation of this we may cite another passage from William of Malmesbury, describing the work of his own time, and what he had probably seen himself:—“He [Roger, Bishop of Salisbury] was a prelate of great mind, and spared no expense towards completing his designs, especially in buildings; which may be seen in other places, but more particularly at Salisbury and at Malmesbury, for there he erected extensive edifices at vast cost, and with surpassing beauty, the courses of stone being so correctly laid that the joint deceives the eye, and leads it to imagine that the whole wall is composed of a single block.” The buildings here alluded to were erected between 1115 and 1139, this may then fairly be considered as the turning-point between early and late Norman work; and here it will be convenient to pause in our history, and describe the characteristic features of early Norman work.
St. John’s Church at Chester, which was the seat of the Bishop, or cathedral, until the time of Henry VIII., was built A.D. 1075-1095, and is one of the finest examples of the Early Norman style. (See 29.)
No clear line of distinction can be drawn between the three periods into which the Norman style is naturally divided. They run into each other, and overlap each other continually; there is no broad line between them: yet there is a very marked difference between the early Norman of the original parts of Westminster Abbey, shewn at pp. 11 and 13, of the time of Edward the Confessor, and the rich doorways and windows of Iffley, Cuddesdon, and Middleton Stoney, shewn at pp. 45 and 49, which are of the time of Henry II., or rather more than a century after those of Westminster Abbey.