Plate LX. and LXI. — Church of Fontaine-le-Henri, Near Caen
The parish of Fontaine-le-Henri lies about eight miles north of Caen, immediately adjoining Than, whose church has already been figured in this work. The register of the livings appertaining to the diocese of Bayeux, made about the year 1350, and commonly known by the name of the livre pelut, (liber pelutus, or the parchment book,) contains only the following brief notice of it:—“Ecclesia de Fontibus Henrici lx Libras.—Dnus dicte ville.—Archidiaconatus de Cadomo.—Decanatus de Dovra.” In the Gallia Christiana, and other similar works, no mention whatever is made of this parish.
According to the modern division of France, Fontaine-le-Henri is included in the canton of Creüilly: the name of the village, to whose deanery it formerly appertained, cannot fail to strike the ear of an Englishman, as being the same with that of the celebrated harbor in his own island, the common landing-place from Calais. But the English Dover, from having been originally a Roman station, is generally supposed to have derived its appellation from the Romans; and Darell, in his History of the castle, published by Grose,123 gives it as his opinion that, among the ancient Britons, it was called Rupecester, but, on the Roman invasion, got the new name of Dofris, Dobris, or Doris, “in consequence of the filling or damming up of the harbor;” “Doafer,” as he observes a few pages before, “signifying, in the language of those times, a harbor shut up, or of difficult access.” A still higher authority, the learned Bishop Huet,124 classes the word, Douvres, among those whose origin is to be sought in the ancient language of Gaul, and proposes two derivations: one from Dufyrrha, a rising ground; the other from Dvvr, the term for water. Thus, without giving any opinion of his own, he leaves the matter to his reader, with a “utrum horum mavis elige.”
The Norman village of Douvres is celebrated upon more than one account: it was the birth-place of Thomas of Dover, almoner to the Conqueror, and by him created archbishop of York in 1070; of Sampson of Dover, his brother, made bishop of Worcester in 1097; and of a second Thomas of Dover, nephew to the first of the name, who, in 1109, had the singular honor of being elected at once to the episcopal throne of London, and the archiepiscopal throne of York; the latter of which he accepted. His brother, Richard, wore at the same time the mitre of Bayeux.—Douvres was the principal place of one of the seven baronies, which formed the episcopal manse of the bishops of Bayeux. During the thirteenth, and the two following centuries, it was also selected for their country-seat. Within its limits stands the chapel of the Délivrande,125 said to have been founded by St. Regnobert, the second bishop of the diocese, and still held in the highest repute for its sanctity.
Of the church of Fontaine-le-Henri, the architecture is decidedly Norman, and is distinguished by a bold and noble style, resembling in its general character, as well as in its individual features, the abbatial churches of St. George, and of the Trinity. Hence, though no record is left of the actual founder, there is little room for doubt as to the æra of the foundation. It may be observed on this occasion, that in Normandy, as in England, it very seldom happens that information is to be obtained on these particulars, when the same individual united in his person the characters of lord of the village and patron of the living. It was only where benefices were in the hands of religious houses, that events so generally unimportant as the building and repairing of village churches, were considered deserving of being recorded.
With regard to the various proprietors of Fontaine-le-Henri, much information is to be gleaned from Laroque’s History of the House of Harcourt. The laborious author, after having completed his general account of the Norman nobility, in a single folio volume, devoted four others to the genealogy and fortunes of this one illustrious family. From him it appears that, during the period when Normandy was under the sway of its own Dukes, the parish of Fontaine-le-Henri was in the hands of the family of Tilly, one of whom is to be found among the companions of the Conqueror, in his descent upon England. Early in the thirteenth century, during the reign of King John, they held the lordship of Fontaine-le-Henri conjointly with the castellany of Tilly. Mention of them occurs repeatedly in the Ecclesiastical History of Ordericus Vitalis, as well as in the annals of the abbeys of St. Stephen and of Ardennes, near Caen; and it was from the baptismal name of Henry, commonly borne by that branch of them, who were possessors of Fontaine, that the parish took its present distinctive appellation; a distinction not a little needed, considering that there are fifteen other places in Normandy, called by the general name of Fontaine. John de Tilly, the last of the male line of the family, who were lords of Fontaine-le-Henri, died about the year 1380: he was succeeded in the inheritance by his sister, Jane, who, in 1382, married Philip D’Harcourt, and thus added the property to the immense domains of the Harcourts.
The first of the plates appropriated to this building, embraces only a portion of the western compartment of the south side of the chancel, drawn in rapid perspective, the view being taken from immediately beneath the corbel-table, for the sake of embracing the soffit of the arches, and the projecting mouldings. Here, as at Bieville, the lintel or transom-stone of the arch of entrance126 assumes the form of a pediment, but rests upon the jambs of the door-way, on a level with the capitals. To the instances of a similar formation, adduced under the preceding article, should be added the very remarkable one at Pen church, in Somersetshire, figured in the Antiquarian and Topographical Cabinet. On the lintel is sculptured the Lamb bearing the Cross, enclosed within a circle, flanked on either side by a nondescript animal; the whole supported by two crowned heads placed in niches in the jambs.
The following is a description of the different parts of plate sixty-one:127—
A. East end of the chancel.—The central buttress, flanked, like the two lateral ones, with cylindrical pillars, divides this portion of the church into two equal portions. The general appearance of these buttresses, and the circumstance of their being supported upon a fillet and plinth, would almost warrant the calling of them pilasters; and those upon the northern side of the chancel,
Figure B, assume that character even more decidedly, having no projection beyond the cornice, which they support as an entablature.—It will be remarked, that the whole building is raised upon a plinth of a bold character; and Mr. Cotman justly observes, that the chancel may be regarded as a model for beautiful proportions and exquisite finishing. As respecting Norman buttresses, he is of opinion, that the edifices of highest antiquity will be found to be altogether without any; and that they were first added merely by way of ornament, to break the monotonous appearance of a long uninterrupted space of level wall. Indeed, the Norman walls, commonly from six to ten feet in thickness, could scarcely require any additional strength from extrinsic objects; and least of all, could they receive it from a projection of not more than the same number of inches. Even where buttress has been added to buttress, as in the north side of the chapel of the hospital of St. Julien, near Rouen,128 and in some other instances, it may almost be questioned, if support was the only circumstance contemplated by the architect. The double buttresses at St. Julien’s, could scarcely fail to be coeval with the building, as appears from the string-course being continued in an unbroken line over them, a fact that was omitted to be noticed in the description of the chapel.
Footnotes
123 History of Dover Castle, p. 8.
124 Origines de Caen, p. 315.
125 See Turner’s Tour in Normandy, II. p. 295; where this chapel is described and figured.
126 Mr. Cotman observes, that much might be said in connection with this door-way, upon the subject of the decorations of the semi-circular-headed arches in Normandy and in England. But, confining himself to heads of the peculiar grotesque character, sculptured upon the arch at Fontaine-le-Henri, he remarks, that such, though far from being very uncommon in Britain, are of extremely rare occurrence in the duchy; insomuch, that he can recal no other specimens of them, than those upon a large arch which separates the nave from the chancel, in the church of Berigny, near St. Lo, and upon another on the south side of the church of Bracheville près le Grand. The heads, in this last instance, are precisely like those at Iffley church, in Oxfordshire, (see Britton’s Chronological and Historical Illustrations of Ancient Architectures;) but they are confined to the archivolt alone, while, at Iffley, they are disposed in a double row, and form broad bands, that encircle the pillars as well as the top of the arch. In England are the following instances, most of them figured in the works of Britton and Carter:—
South door-way of St. Peter’s church, Oxford.
——St. Peter’s church, at Rasen, in Lincolnshire.
——Earls-Barton church, Northamptonshire.
North door-way of Lullington church, Somersetshire.
Architrave on the east side of the cemetery-gate, Canterbury cathedral.
West door-way of Kenilworth church.
South door-way of Moorvinstowe church, Cornwall.
Arches in the nave of ditto.
———Wymondham church, Norfolk.
West door-way of the church of Barton St. Mary, ditto.
127 In the title of this plate, it is unfortunately stated to represent the East end of the south side of the chancel, instead of the East end and the north side of the chancel.