Architectural Antiquities of Normandy Part 1

Architectural Antiquities of Normandy.

by John Sell Cotman.

PREFACE.

An artist, engaged in the ill.u.s.tration of the Architectural Antiquities of England, could scarcely do otherwise than often cast a wistful look towards the opposite sh.o.r.es of Normandy; and such would particularly be the case, if, like Mr. Cotman, to a strong attachment to his profession and the subject, he should chance to add a residence in Norfolk. This portion of the kingdom of the East-Angles, in its language and in its customs, but especially in the remains of its ancient ecclesiastical architecture, abounds in vestiges of its Teutonic colonists. The richly ornamented door-ways of its village churches have, in particular, long been the theme of admiration among antiquaries. Bred up in the midst of these, and warmly partaking in the admiration of them, Mr. Cotman devoted his pencil and his graver to the diffusion of their fame. Common report, aided by the suffrages of the learned, and in some degree by locality, designated them as Saxon: at the same time, when they were compared with what is left in Britain, of workmanship avowedly Norman, the points of dissimilarity appeared trifling or altogether vanished.

Was it then to be inferred that, between Norman and Saxon architecture, there was really no difference; and, carrying the inference one step farther, that the hordes of barbarians denominated by these different appellations, although they might not have embarked at the same port, were only cognate tribes of one common origin, if not in reality the same? The solution of the first of these questions, the only one immediately in view, seemed best to be sought in that province of France, where the Norman power had been most permanently established, and where it was therefore reasonably to be expected, that genuine productions of Norman art might, if any where, be found. With this view, Mr. Cotman crossed the channel; and the result of three successive journies, in the years 1817, 1818, and 1820, is here submitted to the public.

Those who find pleasure in inquiries of this description, will join in the regret, that an undertaking like the present was so long delayed.

Incalculable had been the advantages, had it but commenced previously to the period of the French revolution. That fearful storm burst with tremendous violence upon the castles of barons, the palaces of kings, and the temples of religion. Many of the most sumptuous edifices, which had mocked the hand of time, and had been respected amidst the ravages of foreign or domestic warfare, were then swept from the face of the earth. Others, degraded, deserted, neglected, and dilapidated, are at this moment hastening fast to their decay. Yet no small portion of what is valuable has been happily left. The two royal abbeys of Caen, though shorn of much of their former grandeur, are still nearly entire. Chateau Gaillard, the pride of Richard's lion heart, and the n.o.ble castles of Arques and of Falaise, retain sufficient of their ancient magnificence, to testify what they must have been in the days of their splendor: the towns and chateaus, which were the cradles of the Harcourts, Vernons, Tancarvilles, Gurneys, Bruces, Bohuns, Grenvilles, St. Johns, and many others of the most ill.u.s.trious English families, are still in existence; and, of more modern date, when the British Edwards and Henrys resumed the Norman sceptre, numerous buildings of the highest beauty are every where to be met with. In his researches after these, Mr. Cotman had the advantage of being a.s.sisted by the kindness of three of the most distinguished antiquaries of the present day, M. le Prevost, M. Rondeau, and M. de Gerville, but particularly by the last, whose friendly help has likewise extended towards the preparing of the letter-press for many of the articles from the western part of the province. It were ungrateful not to acknowledge the a.s.sistance derived from Mr. Cohen, in the same department. The value of his aid, which has been most freely contributed, can be duly appreciated by those alone who have had opportunities of judging of the accuracy and extent of his knowledge.

In the selection of subjects for engraving, attention has been princ.i.p.ally paid to two points, excellence in the objects themselves, and certainty as to dates; but the greatest stress has been laid upon the latter. The author of a work which professes to be in any degree didactic, can never impress too strongly upon his mind the value of the Roman precept, "prodesse quam delectare;" and an artist, accustomed by his habits to the contemplation of the beautiful and the picturesque, requires above all men to be warned on this head. Many of the buildings here represented, might easily have been exchanged for others, more perfect, more elegant, or more ornamented; but it is hoped that they could not have been exchanged for those that would have been more instructive. The main object of the publication has been to exhibit a series of specimens of Norman architecture, as they actually exist in Normandy itself; and, by taking those whose dates are best defined, to enable the antiquary and the amateur of other countries, not only to know the state of this extraordinary people, as to their arts, at the epoch of their greatest glory, but also to compare what is in Normandy with what they find at home. Another volume, devoted to the ill.u.s.tration of the same description of architecture, in the south of France, in Italy, and in Sicily, would fill a hiatus, whose existence has long been regretted. In Germany, Denmark, and Sweden, it is to be feared that little remains; and, thanks to the spirit of English artists and to the patronage of the English public, what is in this country is already in a great measure recorded. To an Englishman, it is hoped it may be a source of venial self-congratulation, that the first publication upon Norman architecture originates in his own island: he will likewise probably not be displeased to find, that this collection of the finest remaining specimens of Norman art upon the continent, contains nothing which he cannot rival, indeed surpa.s.s, at home.

But, at the same time that the princ.i.p.al end proposed in this work has been to set before the public those edifices, whether sacred, military, or domestic, which were erected during the age most properly designated as Norman, the aera anterior to the union of the ducal coronet with the crown of France, it has been felt that, in whatever light the publication might be regarded, it would be incomplete without the addition of other buildings of a subsequent period. A farther number of specimens has therefore been admitted, conducting the series through the style of architecture, commonly termed Gothic, down to the time when that style finally disappeared before an Italian model, more or less debased.

In the descriptive portion of these volumes, attention has been almost exclusively directed to two points, the historical and the architectural. On the latter of these, so much has been said under each separate article, that whatever might be added in this place could be little more than repet.i.tion; and the history of Normandy, from the establishment of the dukedom to the beginning of the thirteenth century, is so interwoven with that of England, that it has been considered needless here to insert an epitome of it, as had at first been intended. In lieu of this, a Table is subjoined, exhibiting the succession, marriages and progeny of the Norman Princes, copied from Du Moulin; and such Table can scarcely be regarded otherwise than useful, as bringing the whole under the eye in a single point of view: a Chronological Index, it is hoped, may in a great measure answer the same purpose as to architecture. It is only justice, however, to add, that, in this Index, much has necessarily been left to conjecture; and, where it is so, the author naturally expects that others will occasionally differ from him in opinion; especially as no opportunity is afforded him of detailing the grounds whereby he has formed his own. Upon the subject most likely to create doubts and difficulties, the very early date a.s.signed to the employment of the pointed arch, he begs the attention of the reader to those authorities, which, in his judgment, warrant the conclusion he has drawn. If mistaken in this, or in any other point, he will be most thankful for correction; and, in the language of that author, who is, as he long has been and probably always will be, more than any other the object of quotation, he takes leave, with the well-known valedictory lines,

"Vive, vale; si quid novisti rectius istis, Candidus imperti; si non, his utere mec.u.m."

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHURCH OF QUERQUEVILLE NEAR CHERBOURG]

PLATE I.

CASTLE OF ARQUES.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate 1. CASTLE OF ARQUES.]

The town of Arques, situated in the immediate vicinity of Dieppe, is a spot consecrated by the historical muse, and one upon which a Frenchman always dwells with pleasure, as the place that fixed the sceptre in the hands of the most popular monarch of the nation, Henry IV.

The sovereign, fleeing from the superior forces of the league, here, in the very confines of his kingdom, finally resolved to make his last stand; urged to the measure by the Marshal de Biron, but doubtful in his own mind, whether it would not be the wisest as well as the safest plan, to seek refuge in the friendly ports of England. Reduced to the utmost extremity, "a king without a kingdom, a husband without a wife, and a warrior without money," he stopped at Arques, in a state bordering upon despair; and yet, when the Count de Belin, who was brought in prisoner shortly before the battle, a.s.sured his majesty, that, in two hours, an army of forty thousand men would be upon him, and that he saw no forces there to resist them, the king replied, with that gaity of mind that never forsook him, "You see not all, M. Belin, for you reckon not G.o.d, and my just claim, who fight for me."

Henry's whole army consisted of only three thousand infantry and six hundred cavalry: the hostile forces amounted to more than thirty thousand, commanded by the Duke of Mayenne, one of the ablest leaders of the league, but the Fabius rather than the Marcellus of the party. The occasion, however, needed the sword rather than the buckler: Henry's soldiers fought with the courage of desperation; but every thing seemed lost, when, according to the account given by Sully, the fog, which had been very thick all the morning, cleared suddenly away, and afforded the garrison in the castle of Arques a full view of the enemy's army, against which they discharged four pieces of artillery with such effect, as to kill great numbers of them. Their progress was thus effectually stopped; and the guns from the castle continuing to play upon them, they were soon thrown into disorder, and retreated to their original position.

From this time, the aspect of the king's affairs changed: his well-known laconic epistle to Crillon, "hang thyself, brave Crillon, for we have fought at Arques without thee," shewed his own sense of the important results that might be expected from the battle. The most important of all was, that he was immediately joined by an auxiliary force of four thousand English and Scotch, sent by Queen Elizabeth to his aid; and that, almost immediately afterwards, another, still more considerable reinforcement, was brought him by the Count of Soissons, Henry of Orleans, Duke of Longueville, D'Aumont, and Biron; so that the Duke of Mayenne was obliged to retreat in his turn, and Henry saw himself within a few days under the walls of the capital; in a situation to dictate terms to his rebellious subjects.

The castle of Arques had on this occasion essentially served the royal cause; but it seems to have been suffered from that time forwards to fall into decay. All mouldering, however, and ruined as it is, its walls and towers may yet for many centuries bid defiance to wind and weather, unless active measures are used for their demolition.

At the revolution the castle became national property, and as such was sold: it has now fallen into the hands of a lady who resides in the neighbouring town.

The present plate, which represents the princ.i.p.al entrance, will serve to convey some idea of the general character of the building, as well as of the immense size of the ma.s.sy towers, and of the crumbling appearance of their surface. Two piers only remain of the draw-bridge, by which they were approached; and the three successive arches of the gateway are torn into little more than shapeless rents. It would be very difficult to convey, by means of any engraving, an adequate idea of the grand character of the whole ruin, or of its imposing situation. Still more difficult would be the attempt to represent its masonry. The walls have certainly been in most places, and probably in all, covered with a facing of brick, of comparatively modern date; and in some parts this facing still remains, or, where it is torn off, nothing but rubble is visible. In other places they appear to have been constructed of alternate layers of brick and flint, disposed with the same regularity as in Roman buildings; and the thin form of these bricks leads also to the impression that they are of Roman workmanship.

If such a supposition may be allowed to be well founded, the first establishment of a fortress in this situation is probably but little posterior to the Christian aera; and many antiquarians are disposed to believe that such was really the case. At the same time, even allowing the truth of this surmise in its fullest extent, it is most probable that the Roman castle had fallen into ruin and disuse long before the Norman conquest.

Both William of Jumieges and the chronicle of St. Wandrille expressly mention, that William, son to Duke Richard II. received from his nephew, the conqueror, the earldom of Arques, and built a castle there. Other writers ascribe the origin of the fortress to the eighth century, and others to the latter part of the twelfth. Nothing is now left sufficiently perfect to determine the point, nor any thing that can justly be considered decisive of the style of its architecture.

The situation of the castle is very bold: it crowns the extremity of a ridge of chalk hills of considerable height, which commencing to the west of Dieppe, and terminating at this spot, have full command of the valley below. The fosse which surrounds the walls is wide and deep. The outline of the fortress is oval, but not regularly so; and it is varied by towers of uncertain shape, placed at unequal distances. The two entrance towers, and those nearest to them to the north and south, are considerably larger than the rest. One of these larger lateral towers[1]

is of a most unusual form. It appears as if the original intention of the architect had been to make it circular; but that, changing his design in the middle of his work, he had attached to it a triangular appendage, probably by way of a bastion. Three others adjoining this are square, and indeed appear to partake as much of the character of b.u.t.tresses as of towers.

The castle is internally divided into two wards, the first of which, on entering, is every where rough with the remains of foundations: the inner, which is by far the largest, is approached by a square gate-house with high embattled walls, and contains towards its farther end the quadrangular keep, whose sh.e.l.l alone is standing. The walls of this are of great height: in their perfect state they were carefully faced with large square stones, but these are princ.i.p.ally torn away. The crypts beneath the castle are s.p.a.cious, and may still be traversed for a considerable length.

NOTES:

[1] See _Account of a Tour in Normandy_, I. p. 37, t. 3.

PLATES II. III. IV.

ABBEY CHURCH OF JUMIEGES.

Before the revolution despoiled France of her monastic inst.i.tutions, the right bank of the Seine, from Rouen to the British Channel, displayed an almost uninterrupted line of establishments of this nature. Within a s.p.a.ce of little more than forty miles, were included the abbeys of St.

Wandrille, Jumieges, Ducler, and St. Georges de Bocherville.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate 2. ABBEY CHURCH OF JUMIEGES.

_West Front._]

The most ill.u.s.trious of these was Jumieges; it occupied a delightful situation in a peninsula, formed by the curvature of the stream, where the convent had existed from the reign of Clovis II. and had, with only a temporary interruption, caused by the invasion of the Normans, maintained, for eleven centuries, an even course of renown; celebrated alike for the beauty of its buildings, the extent of its possessions, and the number and sanct.i.ty of its inmates. Philibert, second abbot of Rebais, in the diocese of Meaux, was the founder of this monastery. He migrated hither with only a handfull of monks; but the community increased with such surprising rapidity, that in the time of Alcadrus, his immediate successor, the number was already swelled to nine hundred, and, except upon the occasion just mentioned, this amount never appears to have experienced any sensible diminution.

The monastery of Jumieges reckoned among its abbots men of the most ill.u.s.trious families of France. In early times, Hugh, the grandson of Charlemagne, held the pastoral staff: it afterwards pa.s.sed through the hands of Louis d'Amboise, brother to the cardinal, and of different members of the houses of Clermont, Luxembourg, d'Este, and Bourbon.

The abbatial church, as it now stands, (if indeed it does now stand, for in 1818, when drawings were made for these plates, its demolition was proceeding with rapidity,) was chiefly built in the eleventh century, by Robert the Abbot, who was translated from Jumieges to the bishopric of London, and thence to the archiepiscopal throne of Canterbury. The western front (_see plate 2_) is supposed to be certainly of that period, and all very nearly of the same aera, though the southern tower is known to be somewhat the most modern. The striking difference in the plan of these towers, might justly lead to the inference, that there was also a material difference in their dates, and that they were not both of them part of the original plan; but there do not appear to be any grounds for such a supposition. On the other hand, the contrary seems to be well established; and those who are best acquainted with the productions of Norman architects, will scarcely be surprised at anomalies of this nature.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate 3. ABBEY CHURCH OF JUMIEGES.

_Parts of the Nave._]

The interior of the nave (_plate 3_) is also a work of the same period, except the lofty pillars that support the cornice, and the symbols of the evangelists that are placed near the windows of the clerestory.

These were additions made towards the latter end of the seventeenth century. The pillars were rendered necessary by the bad state of the roof: the symbols were added only by way of ornament. They are of beautiful sculpture, and, as such, have lately been engraved upon a larger scale, in an _Account of a Tour in Normandy, in 1818_, (II. p.

27) which work also contains a general view of the ruins of Jumieges, and a representation of some ancient trefoil arches that are very remarkable.

Of the square central tower one side only is now remaining. This tower was despoiled of its spire in 1557. The Choir and Lady-Chapel are almost entirely gone. They were of pointed architecture; and it appears that they were erected during some of the latter years of the thirteenth century, or at the commencement of the fourteenth.

In the Lady-Chapel lay the heart of Agnes Sorel, who died at the neighbouring village of Mesnil, on the ninth of February, 1450, while her royal lover, Charles VII. was residing at Jumieges, intent upon the siege of Honfleur. Her body was interred in the collegiate church of Loches in Touraine. Upon her monument at Jumieges was originally placed her effigy, in the act of offering her heart to the Virgin. But this statue was destroyed by the Huguenots, who are said to have been guilty of the most culpable excesses in this monastery. Agnes' tomb remained till the revolution, when it was swept away with all the rest, and, among others, with one of great historical curiosity in the neighbouring church dedicated to St. Peter; for the convent of Jumieges contained two churches, the larger under the invocation of the Holy Virgin, and a smaller by its side, sacred to the chief of the apostles.

The tomb here alluded to was called by the name of _le tombeau des Enerves_, or _de Gemellis_; and so much importance was attached to it, that it has even been supposed that the Latin name of Jumieges, _Gemetic.u.m_, was a corruption from the word _gemellis_. Upon the monument were figures of two young n.o.blemen, intended, as it is said, to represent twin sons of Clovis and Bathilda, who, for sedition, were punished by being hamstrung and confined in this monastery.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate 4. ABBEY OF JUMIEGES.

_Arch on the West Front._]

The third plate of Jumieges, which is copied from a drawing by Miss Elizabeth Turner, represents a n.o.ble arch-way, the entrance to a porch that leads to a gallery adjoining the former cloisters, and known by the name of the _Knight's Hall_. It is a remarkably fine specimen of a very early pointed arch, still preserving all the ornaments of the semi-circular style, and displaying them in great richness and beauty.

There is no authority for the date of this gallery: nor does it appear that any historical record is preserved respecting it. The style of the architecture would lead to the referring of it, without much hesitation, to the latter part of the thirteenth century.