Architectural Antiquities of Normandy Part 12

NOTES:

[110] Figured in _Turner's Tour in Normandy_, I. p. 127.

[111] _Histoire de la Ville de Rouen_, v. p. 8.

[112] _Histoire de la decadence de l'Art_, pl. 10, _Sculpture_, fig.

4-7.

ARCHITECTURAL

ANTIQUITIES

OF

NORMANDY,

BY JOHN SELL COTMAN;

ACCOMPANIED BY HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE NOTICES BY DAWSON TURNER, ESQ. F.R. AND A.S.

VOLUME THE SECOND.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Coat of arms of the Duchy of Normandy.

Emblems of the towns of Rouen and Caen.]

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR JOHN AND ARTHUR ARCH, CORNHILL; AND J. S. COTMAN, YARMOUTH.

MDCCCXXII.

PLATES IN THE SECOND VOLUME.

PLATE.

55. Church of St. Nicholas, at Caen, West End to face page 59 56. -- -- -- -- East End 60 57. Church at Cheux, near Caen, from the North-East 62 58. Church at Bieville, from the North-West 63 59. -- -- Elevations and Details 64 60. Church at Fontaine-le-Henri, near Caen, North Side of Chancel 65 61. -- -- -- -- -- Elevations 66 62. Chateau at Fontaine-le-Henri, near Caen 67 63. -- -- -- -- -- Elevation of central Compartment 68 64. House in the Place de la Pucelle, at Rouen 69 65. House in the Rue St. Jean, at Caen 70 66. Tower of the Church at Treport, near Caen 71 67. Church of Anisy, near Caen 73 68. Church of Perriers, near Caen 74 69. Castle of Lillebonne 75 70. Castle of Briquebec 77 71. Church of St. Stephen's, at Fecamp 79 72. Screen in the Church of St. Lawrence, at Eu 81 73. Church of St. Peter, at Lisieux, West Front 83 74. / 75. -- -- -- -- South Transept 86 76. Abbey Church of St. Ouen, at Rouen 87 77. Fountain of the Stone Cross, at Rouen 90 78. Palace of Justice, at Rouen 91 79. Church of Louviers, South Porch 93 80. Chateau Gaillard, North-East View 95 81. -- -- South-West View 96 82. Abbey Church of Montivilliers, West End 97 83. Church of St. Sanson sur Rille 99 84. Church of Foullebec, West Door-way 100 85. Castle at Tancarville 101 86. Entrance to the Castle at Tancarville 103 87. Church of the Holy Cross, at St. Lo, West Door-way 104 88. -- -- -- -- -- Sculpture 106 89. Castle of Falaise, North-West View 107 90. -- -- North View 109 91. Interior of the Church of Creully 110 92. Cathedral Church of Notre Dame, at Coutances, West Front 111 93. / 94. -- -- -- -- -- -- Elevation of the Nave 115 95. Mount St. Michael, on the Approach from Pontorson 116 96. -- -- Interior of the Knights' Hall 120 97. Abbey Church of Cerisy, Interior of the Choir 121 98. Church at Oyestraham, West Front 122 99. Cathedral Church of Notre Dame, at Seez, West Front 123 100. -- -- -- -- -- Elevation of the Nave 125

The Figure referred to in the Note, p. 117, is inserted at the beginning of the Preface.--As a Vignette, at the end of the Preface, is introduced a View of the Church of Querqueville, near Cherbourg, a building of unquestionable antiquity, and here figured, as the only instance in Normandy, or possibly in existence, of a church whose transepts, as well as the chancel, terminate in a semi-circular form. In these parts, the walls are formed of herring-bone masonry, which is not the case with the tower or nave, which are more modern. The tower is, however, probably of the Norman aera; and the peculiar masonry which distinguishes the chancel, is still observable for a few feet above its junction with the nave. Its ornaments may be compared with those of St. Peter's church, at Barton-upon-Humber, and Earl's-Barton church, Northamptonshire, both of them figured in the _fifth_ volume of _Britton's Architectural Antiquities_, and both evidently Norman. The church of Querqueville has no b.u.t.tresses. Its length, from east to west, is forty-eight feet and six inches; from north to south, forty-three feet and four inches; the width of the nave is nine feet and nine inches.

PLATES LV. AND LVI.

CHURCH OF ST. NICHOLAS, AT CAEN.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate 55. CHURCH OF ST. NICHOLAS, AT CAEN.

_West end._]

The Abbe De la Rue, in his _Historical Essays upon Caen_, contents himself with remarking, with regard to the church of St. Nicholas, that it is the only specimen of real Norman architecture now left entire in the town; for that the abbatial church of the Holy Trinity, a building of the same period and style, has been so disguised by the alterations made with the view of adapting it to its present purpose, that, considered as a whole, it is no longer to be recognized as a type of the religious edifices of the Normans. Such being the case, it is the more to be lamented that the church here figured, should not only have been degraded from its original application, but should have been appropriated to an object eminently liable to expose it to injury. It is now used as a stable for cavalry; but, fortunately, it has still been suffered to remain entire; and hopes are entertained, that it may yet be one day again employed as a place of worship.

The exterior of the building has not altogether escaped uninjured or unaltered. In the western front, (see _plate fifty-five_,) both the lateral towers have lost their original terminations, and have been reduced to a level with the roof of the nave. One of them still remains in a state of dilapidation: to the other has been added a square tower, of rather elegant proportions, surmounted by a small crocketed pinnacle, the workmanship probably of the fourteenth century. The rest of this part of the church is as it was first built, except that the great arches of entrance are entirely blocked up. The whole is of extreme simplicity, and vies in that respect with the same portion of the adjoining church of the abbey of St. Stephen; the different members of the two being nearly the same, though disposed in a dissimilar manner.

The central tower of the church of St. Nicholas is square and small, and so low as to admit only a single tier of semi-circular-headed windows, four on each side. It terminates in a ridged roof, and apparently, never was higher; though, as far as may be judged from a.n.a.logy, a greater elevation was probably designed by the architect. Along the sides of the church, immediately beneath the roof, runs a bold projecting cornice, of antique pattern, formed of numerous horizontal mouldings; and, under this, the corbel-table presents only a row of plain k.n.o.bs, instead of the monsters commonly found in Norman buildings. The clerestory, throughout both the nave and choir, is filled with narrow arches, alternately pierced for windows, and left blank. All these arches, as well as the windows of the transepts and of the projecting aisles below, are without the accompaniment of pillars or ornaments of any description, excepting a broad flat moulding of the simplest kind, which wholly encircles them. The disposition of the windows in the lower part of the nave, differs from that of those above, in their being separated from each other by shallow b.u.t.tresses, which hold the place of the blank arches. A plain string-course also is continued the whole length of the church beneath the windows, as in the west front. On the south side is a door, the only one now in use in the church, which is entered by a very n.o.ble Norman arch, composed of a great number of cylindrical mouldings, arranged in three broad bands, but without pillars or capitals, and with no other variation than that of size, and of the addition of the billet-moulding to the outer row. The transome-stone of this arch is unquestionably coeval with the arch itself, the sculpture of the masonry being interwoven with it. Attached to the eastern side of both the transepts, is a circular chapel, as in the churches of St. Georges, of St. Taurin at Evreux, of Fecamp, of Cerisy, and in several other ancient religious buildings in Normandy. Nor is England altogether without specimens of the same kind: a similar chapel, now in a ruinous state, and called by Blomefield, "the s.e.xterie or ancient vestry," is joined to the north transept of Norwich cathedral; and near the eastern extremity of the same church, are four others. But the princ.i.p.al characteristic of those at St. Nicholas', is the extremely high pitch of the stone roof, a peculiarity equally observable in the roof of the choir; and hence the following remarks on the part of Mr. Turner[113]:--"Here we have the exact counterpart of the Irish stone-roofed chapels, the most celebrated of which, that of Cormac in Cashel cathedral, appears, from all the drawings and descriptions I have seen of it, to be altogether a Norman building. Ledwich a.s.serts that 'this chapel is truly Saxon, and was erected prior to the introduction of the Norman and Gothic styles.'[114]

If we agree with him, we only obtain a proof, that there is no essential difference between Norman and Saxon architecture; and this proposition I believe, will soon be universally admitted. We now know what is really Norman; and a little attention to the buildings in the north of Germany, may terminate the long-debated questions relative to Saxon architecture, and the stone-roofed chapels in the sister isle."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate 56. CHURCH OF ST. NICHOLAS, AT CAEN.

_East end._]

In the east end of the church of St. Nicholas, (see _plate fifty-six_,) may be remarked a sensible approximation in point of style, to the same part in the church of the Trinity. The circular apsis is divided into compartments by slender cylindrical pillars; and each intercolumniation is filled by a couple of windows of comparatively large size, placed one above the other, while a row of narrow blank arches occupies the lower part. The head of each of these smaller arches is hewn out of a single stone. The height of the roof, in this part of the church, is so much greater than in the choir, as almost to justify the suspicion that it was no part of the original plan, but was an addition of a subsequent, though certainly not of a remote, aera. Were the line of it continued to the central tower, it would wholly block up and conceal the windows there. The discrepancy observable in the style of its architecture, may also possibly be regarded as enforcing the same opinion. But, indeed, as has already been more than once observed in this work, no inferences drawn from style must be admitted without the utmost hesitation. A very sensible discussion upon this point, as ill.u.s.trated by the church of St.

Nicholas itself, and the two adjoining churches of the Trinity and of St. Stephen, has lately appeared in one of the most popular English periodical publications, from the pen of a writer possessed of the deepest knowledge of the subject, and gifted with the most comprehensive and clearest views[115]. It were an injustice to the readers of this work, not to extract it upon the present occasion. It will supersede the necessity of any labored description of the interior of the building.--

"When a distinct gradation of style is observable, it is natural to conclude, that these architectural varieties, emanating from one prototype, each clearly to be discriminated, yet dying into another by imperceptible shades, were successively developed at certain intervals of time. This reasoning, though it advances upon legitimate premises, may be fallacious, as is proved at Caen, where three coeval churches, probably erected by the same architect, are distinguished by such remarkable modifications of the Norman Romanesque style, that were we not acquainted with the facts, we might well suppose that they marked the progress of architecture during three half centuries.--St. Nicholas, the first of these edifices, was built by the monks of St. Stephen's Abbey some time between the years 1066 and 1083. The original lines are characterized by simplicity and regularity. All the capitals of the columns, embedded in the side walls, are of one order; and the capitals of the pier-columns, which nearly resemble the others, are equally uniform. The east end terminates by an apsis, of which the elevation resembles the exterior of the cathedral of Pisa. Three circular arches, supported by Corinthianizing pilasters, form the western portal. The original cross-vaulting of the side-aisles still remains: it is without groins, and of Roman construction, and the whole interior shews that the architect was endeavoring to recollect the models of the great city.--If we pa.s.s from hence to the adjacent abbey church of St. Stephen, erected at the same period, we shall observe that the conception of the architect is more Norman than in the church which we have quitted. The nave is divided into bays by piers, alternating with circular pillars of smaller diameter. The pier consists of a pilaster fronted by a cylindrical column, continuing to about four-fifths of the height of the roof. Two cylindrical columns then rise from it; so that from this point upwards, the pier becomes a cl.u.s.tered column: angular brackets sculptured into knots, grotesque heads, and foliage, are affixed to the bases of the derivative pillars. A bold double-billeted moulding is continued below the clerestory, whose windows adapt themselves to the binary arrangement of the bays of the nave; that is to say, a taller arch is flanked by a smaller one, on its right side, or on its left side, as the situation requires; these are supported by short ma.s.sy pillars; and an embattled moulding runs round the windows. These features are Norman; but in other portions of the church, the architect Romanises again, as in St. Nicholas. The piers of the aisle-arches are of considerable width: the pillars at each angle are connected by an architrave, distinctly enounced, running along the front of the pier, and interposed between the capitals and the springing of the well-turned semi-circular arch. The triforium is composed of a tier of semi-circular arches, nearly of equal span with those below. The perspective of the building is grand and palatial. In the evening, when it is illuminated only by a few faintly-burning tapers, the effect of the gleams of light, reflected from the returns of the arches and pillars, is particularly fine. Beyond the central arch which supports the tower, all is lost in gloom, except that at the extremity of the choir, the star-light just breaks through the topmost windows above the altar.--In the church of St. Stephen, the leading ideas of the architect were still influenced by the Roman basilica; a third and more fanciful modification is to be observed in the coeval church of the Holy Trinity. Here the piers are narrower; the columns supporting the aisle-arches are consequently brought closer together, and the architrave is less prominent than at St. Stephen's: there the embattled moulding is confined to the clerestory; in the present church, it runs round the princ.i.p.al arches; and, instead of the lofty triforium which there surmounts the side-aisles, the walls which we now describe are threaded by a gallery supported by misproportioned pillars, whose capitals exhibit every possible variety of grotesque invention. The bold archivolts beneath the central tower are chased with the Norman lozenge: they are circular; but the eastern arch, which runs higher than the others, is obtusely pointed, though it is evidently of the same date with its companions."

The parish of St. Nicholas is placed without the walls of Caen, in that portion of the suburbs known by the name of _Le Bourg-l'Abbe_, as having been, before the revolution, under the jurisdiction of the abbot of St.

Stephen. In the same quarter was also included the parish of St. Ouen, as was a portion of those of St. Stephen and St. Martin. The two last-mentioned churches were ceded, in the earliest period of the history of Caen, by the Chapter of the Cathedral of Bayeux, to Queen Matilda, in exchange for some other preferment, and were by her bestowed upon the nuns of her new convent of the Trinity. But the increasing power of the rival monastery, built by her husband, naturally caused its occupants to turn a wistful eye towards churches so immediately in their vicinity. Disputes succeeded; and the monks of St. Stephen erected the church of St. Nicholas, that their suburb might no longer be without a religious building which depended wholly upon themselves. Peace was at length restored by means of a charter from the Duke, dated in the year 1083, whereby St. Nicholas was recognized as parochial, an equivalent was given to the abbess by the extension of her power in her own quarter of St. Giles, and the respective parishes of St. Stephen and St. Martin were allowed to retain all they possessed in the Bourg-l'Abbe, except five families expressly designated in the charter. These five were transferred to St. Nicholas; and, to secure to the saint a certain increase of votaries hereafter, a proviso was added, enacting that every house which might be built in future, in that suburb, should belong to his parish. Hence, the two other saints retained nothing more than the ground covered by the tenements then standing, sixty-seven in number; and the necessary consequence was, that from that period till the year 1790, when the whole was remodelled, the limits of the several parishes were confused and irregular in the extreme. Not only did adjoining dwellings belong to different parishes, but the line frequently ran between the various apartments of the same house, or even separated the apartment themselves.

The church of St. Nicholas, as indebted for its existence to the monks of the abbey of St. Stephen, continued for some time to receive its pastors from among the brethren of that convent. At a subsequent period, the monks, after they had transferred to subst.i.tutes the performance of their religious duties, still endeavored to preserve their supremacy; but they were finally obliged to relinquish it; and the ministers of St.

Nicholas enjoyed the same rights as the other clergy of Caen, though the ecclesiastical privileges of the abbot remained inviolate.

To the church of St. Nicholas was attached a guild, in the early lists of whose members were included names of the greatest distinction in the town and neighborhood. St. Nicholas was in remote times an object of especial devotion; and the company incorporated under his patronage, naturally partook of his celebrity. The Abbe De la Rue also states, that it was from within this church, that what were termed the _Apostolic decrees_, were delivered in the twelfth century. They derived their name from being p.r.o.nounced by commissioners delegated by the Pope, to decide in matters touching the canon law; and the numerous appeals to the court of Rome, at that period, rendered the necessity for such decisions of frequent occurrence.

NOTES:

[113] _Tour in Normandy_, II. p. 176.

[114] _Antiquities of Ireland_, p. 151.

[115] _Quarterly Review for June_, 1821, p. 120.

PLATE LVII.