Architectural Antiquities of Normandy Part 24

Michael's Mount in 1819, his guide, Jacques Du Pont, referred to the subject, and called the beast "a monster of a Turk that ate the Christians." The figure represented on the wrapper of this work, was pointed out as a figure of the _identical_ monster. It was formerly on the outside of the wall in a niche; it is now just within the gate.

"There," said Jacques, "look at his teeth and his claws; how savage he is."--The tradition is certain; but the image is nothing more than a griffin grasping a shield charged with an armorial bearing; its date 15..

[215] A. D. 1759.

[216] Of old, says Brito, the place

...... "satis angelicis gaudebat tutus haberi Praesidiis, nullo dispendia tempore pa.s.sus; At simul aedificans muros ibi cura Johannis Praetulit humanas vires coelestibus armis, Quemque tuebatur coelesti milite Christus, Munivit sacrum humano munimine montem, Ex tunc causa loco pereundi inventa sacrato."

The author goes on to add, that the king

...... "ne fiat eis deinceps injuria talis, Praecipit ut pereat munitio toto Johannis; Et sua militiae coelesti castra resignans, Humanis bonus excubiis locra sacra resignat, Largifluaque manu monachos juvat in renovando Sarta tecta, libros, et caetera quae furor ignis Solverat in cinerem, quae n.o.biliore paratu Quam prius ext.i.terant jam restaurata videmus."

_Phillip._ lib. 8, l. 114.

[217] In the preamble of the statutes of this order, the monarch expresses himself in the following terms--"Nous, a la gloire de Dieu, notre createur Tout-puissant, et reverence de glorieuse Vierge Marie, et en l'honneur de Monseigneur St.-Michel Archange, premier Chevalier, qui pour la querelle de Dieu, d'estoc et de taille, se batt.i.t contre l'ennemi dangereux de l'humain lignage, et du Ciel le trebucha, et qui en son lieu et oratoire appelle Mont-St. Michel a toujours particulierement garde, preserve et defendu, sans etre pris, subjugue, ni mis es mains des anciens ennemis de notre royaume, et afin que tous bons et n.o.bles courages soient excites et plus particulierement emus a toutes vertueuses oeuvres; le 1er. jour d'Aout de l'an 1469 avons cree, inst.i.tue et ordonne, et par ces presentes creons, const.i.tuons et ordonnons un Ordre de fraternite ou amiable compagnie de certain nombre de Chevaliers, jusqu'a trente six, lequel nous voulons etre nomme l'Ordre de Saint-Michel."

PLATE XCVII.

ABBEY CHURCH OF CERISY.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate 97. ABBEY CHURCH OF CERISY.

_Interior of the Choir._]

Cerisy, a small market-town, upon the road leading from Bayeux to St.

Lo, and equally distant about four leagues from each of those places, is wholly indebted to its abbey for the celebrity it has enjoyed. In the secular history of the duchy, its name occurs upon only two occasions.

The lord of Cerisy is enumerated among the companions in arms of Robert, son of the Conqueror, in his expedition to the Holy Land, in 1009; and the abbot of Cerisy was one of the twenty-one ecclesiastics from the bailiwick of Caen, cited by Philip le Bel to the Norman exchequer, in the beginning of the fourteenth century.

The convent, which was at all times of the Benedictine order, is said to have been founded as early as the year 560. It was under the invocation of St. Vigor, ninth bishop of Bayeux; and, according to some authors, was established by that saint himself. Du Monstier, in the _Neustria Pia_, recites the history of its origin at great length: how the prelate, moved by the entreaties of a rich man, of the name of Volusian, destroyed, by virtue of the sign of the cross, a monstrous serpent that ravaged the country; and how Volusian, in grat.i.tude, ceded to him the domain of Cerisy, upon which he immediately erected a monastery, and endowed it with the revenues of the property. The annals of the convent being lost, what is recorded of its history is very short. After the general destruction of religious establishments by the Saxons and Normans, that of Cerisy appears to have been left in its ruins far longer than most others. No hand is said to have been lifted towards its restoration, till the reign of Robert, father of the Conqueror. By him the monastic writers all agree that a beginning was made towards the rebuilding of this monastery; and one of them, William of Jumieges, adds, that his care of it suffered no diminution from time or distance; for that, during his wars in the Holy Land, when the patriarch of Jerusalem rewarded his pious zeal with a present of some precious relics, he immediately directed them to be here deposited. His more ill.u.s.trious successor, in one of the first years of his reign, completed and richly endowed the convent begun by his father, whose remains he commanded should be brought from Palestine, for the express purpose of their being interred at Cerisy. But they were allowed to proceed no further than Apulia. In the _Neustria Pia_ is preserved a charter of King Charles VI. dated 1398, in which the various donations conferred upon the abbey of Cerisy, by the Norman Dukes, Robert, William, and Henry, are enumerated and confirmed. Its annual income, in the middle of the eighteenth century, was estimated by De Ma.s.seville at twenty thousand livres. The only property it appears ever to have possessed in England, was a priory of Benedictine monks at West Shirburne, in Hampshire.

Architecturally considered, the church of Cerisy is an interesting relic of Norman workmanship. The certainty of its date, not far removed from the year 1032, and the comparatively few alterations it has undergone, render it one of those landmarks, by the aid of which the observer of the present day can alone attain to any certainty in his inquiries into ancient art. And yet, in the portion here selected for engraving, the upper row of windows is of an aera posterior to the rest; and the great arch in front has evidently changed its semi-circular form for a pointed one. Its height is unusual and impressive. Both taken collectively and in its parts, the church bears a strong resemblance to that nearly coeval at St. Georges; like which, it is now appropriated to parochial purposes, and is still of great size,[218] though the whole of the portion originally parochial, and which extended one hundred and twenty-four feet beyond what remains of the nave, has been recently pulled down. The princ.i.p.al front of the building, which faced the north, its position being north and south, has been consequently destroyed. The style of the edifice is characterized by a n.o.ble and severe simplicity: the capitals of the columns are, indeed, enriched with sculptured foliage or animals, or occasionally with small heads placed in the middle of a surface otherwise plain; but elsewhere the decorations are very sparingly distributed. They are confined to the chevron and billet mouldings; the latter the most ancient and most rare among the Norman ornaments. Both the transepts are parted off, as at St. Georges, by screens near the extremities: these screens at Cerisy are surmounted by an elegant parapet of semi-circular arches, a singular and very beautiful addition.

NOTES:

[218] The following are the dimensions of the church, according to Mr.

Cotman.

FEET.

Length of the nave 98 Ditto of choir 64 Ditto of transepts and intervening part of the nave 118 Width of nave 73 Ditto of transepts 31 Ditto of choir, without the side-chapels 28 Height of nave 70

Before the demolition of the western extremity, the nave was two hundred and twenty-six feet long, and the total length of the building two hundred and ninety feet.

PLATE XCVIII.

CHURCH AT OYESTRAHAM.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate 98. CHURCH OF OYESTRAHAM.

_West Front._]

Oyestraham, or, as it is more commonly written, Estreham, is a village situated upon the left bank of the Orne, near its confluence with the channel. Its name, derived from the Saxon,[219] seems to point it out as a settlement made by those daring invaders: its church, one of the first objects that presents itself to the English traveller, on his entering France in the direction of Caen, is well calculated to impress him with a forcible idea of the magnificence of the Norman lords of the duchy. That it was built in the time of their sway, is a fact which cannot be doubted; but, in an architectural point of view, it is so full of anomalies, that opinions would be likely to vary considerably with regard to the actual date of its erection. And here, unfortunately, no records remain to guide the judgment. In the western front, indeed!

(_the subject of the plate_) the whole is of the semi-circular style, and uniform. The upper tier of arches will find a parallel in the towers of the abbey of Jumieges, built during the reign of the Conqueror; and most of the other members and decorations are of frequent occurrence in erections of the same aera. A peculiarity is alone observable in the smaller arches of the second row, in which the artist has indulged himself in what may be termed an architectural conceit, lengthening, to a very disproportionate degree, and almost in the moorish fashion, the part above the capital, in order that the whole might range in a line with the larger arch in the centre. The truncated appearance of the wall on either side, leads to the obvious inference, that either this front had originally towers, like the church of St. Nicholas, at Caen, or that it was intended there should have been such. A central tower now alone remains, of square form, with ma.s.sive b.u.t.tresses of unusual size, projecting towards the south. This tower, as well as the portion of the church to the east of it, exhibits the Norman and Gothic architecture mixed in a very uncommon manner. Of three rows of arches, the lowest and highest belong to the latter style; the central one only to the former.

In the nave, all is Norman, excepting only two lancet windows of the upper tier, placed near the west end, on the south side, and excepting also the flying b.u.t.tresses that extend from between the windows of the clerestory to the projecting aisles below. Within the choir, the trefoil-headed arch takes, in some instances, the place of the pointed in the lower row, which is wholly blank; and the capitals of the pillars, according to Mr. Cotman, shew an extraordinary playfulness of design. The arches above them are pierced for windows. Both the semi-circular ones of the second tier, and the pointed ones above, are extremely narrow, seen from without, but widen greatly within; the wall being of more than ordinary thickness. The piers of the nave are six feet five inches in diameter, while the intervening s.p.a.ces scarcely exceed ten feet.

NOTES:

[219] On this subject, see _Huet, Origines de Caen_, p. 299.--"Estreham est le nom d'un bourg situe a l'embouchure de l'Orne, et d'un autre dans le Bessin. Mr. Bochart le faisoit, venir d'_Easter_, Deesse des anciens Saxons. Et comme il avoit entrepris de rapporter les anciennes origines a la langue et a la doctrine des Pheniciens il pretendoit que cette Easter etoit la meme qu'Astarte. Ses sacrifices se faisoient au commencement du printems; et de la vient que les Saxons appellerent Easter le mois auquel se celebre la Paque. Skinnerus ne s'eloigne pas beaucoup de ce sentiment dans son Etymologique de la langue Angloise.

Mr. Valois tire le nom d'Estreham du Latin _Strata_, et de l'Allemand _Hamum_, pour marquer une Demeure batie sur un chemin public, ou au bout d'un chemin public, comme si le bourg d'Estreham etoit sur un grand chemin, ou au bout d'un chemin public: et qu'il ne fut pas sur une extremite de terre qui ne mene a rien, ayant la mer d'un cote, et l'embouchure de la riviere d'Orne de l'autre: ou comme si tous les villages du monde ne pouvoient pas etre censez terminer des grand chemins. Mais ces opinions sont detruites par l'ancienne orthographe du nom d'Estreham, qui est constamment ecrit dans les vieux t.i.tres, et par Mr. de Bras, Oistreham, pour Westerham, c'est-a-dire, Village Occidental: car il se trouve place a l'West de l'embouchure de l'Orne."

PLATE XCIX. AND C.

CATHEDRAL CHURCH AT SeEZ.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate 99. CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF NOTRE DAME, AT SeEZ.

_West Front._]

The city of Seez, though dignified by being the seat of a bishopric, is in itself small and unimportant, its population not exceeding five thousand five hundred inhabitants. Of the early history of either the town or the diocese, little is known with certainty; and authors have scarcely felt it worth their while to exercise their ingenuity, or to display their learning, upon a subject ill calculated to add dignity to their researches. Those who have entered upon the inquiry, have given it as their opinion, that the _Civitas Sagiorum_, mentioned in the earliest _Not.i.tia Galliae_, as the fifth in rank among the cities of the province, _Lugdunensis Secunda_, was no other than the modern Seez; and, carrying their conjecture one step farther, they have inferred from locality, that the _Sagii_, otherwise called _Saii_, must have been the _Sesuvii_ of Caesar's Commentaries. Hence, in more modern _Latinity_, Seez has generally acquired the name of _Sagium_; though Ordericus Vitalis occasionally calls it _Salarium_, and Magno, _Saius_. In some maps it is likewise styled _Saxia_, whence an idea has arisen that it owed its origin to the Saxons; and that the words, _Saii_ and _Sagii_, were in reality nothing more than a corruption of _Saxones_ or _Sa.s.sones_.

The favorers of this opinion have brought Seez within the limits of the _Otlingua Saxonia_, a district in Normandy, whose situation and extent has been the subject of much literary controversy. The learned Huet, alluding to this very point,[220] observes, with great justice, that "it is more easy to tell what is not, than what is; and that, though the limits of bishoprics serve in general to mark the divisions of the ancient Gallic tribes, yet length of time has introduced many alterations. Able men," he adds, "have been of opinion, that Hiesmes was originally an episcopal see, and that its diocese was afterwards dismembered into three archdeaconries; one of them fixed at Seez, a second at Lisieux, and a third at Bayeux." Such, however, he says, is not his own belief; but he thinks that Hiesmes was originally the seat of the bishopric of Seez. A report to the same effect will be found in the _Concilia Normannica_; and it is adopted by Rouault,[221] who argues in its favor; first, that Seez was too insignificant, at the time of the preaching of the gospel in Neustria, to be dignified with the presence of a bishop; the apostles and earliest popes having directed that bishops should only be appointed to considerable towns: and, secondly, that Hiesmes was really then a place of importance, and probably continued so till the nineteenth year of the reign of King Henry I. of England, when that prince destroyed it, as a punishment upon the inhabitants for their revolt.

Ecclesiastical history refers the establishment of the bishopric of Seez to the fourth or fifth century. The earliest, however, of the prelates, of whom any certain mention is to be found, is Litaredus, whose name appears, under the t.i.tle of _Oximensis Episcopus_, subscribed to the council of Orleans in 511. Azo, who succeeded to the mitre in one of the last years of the tenth century, erected the first cathedral that is upon record at Seez. William of Jumieges relates of him, that he destroyed the walls of the city, and with their stones built a church in honor of St. Gervais, the martyr, "ubi sedes episcopalis longo post tempore fuerat." The same author tells that, in consequence of this church having been turned into a place of refuge by some rebels, about fifty years afterwards, Ivo, the third from Azo upon the episcopal throne, set fire to the adjoining houses for the purpose of dislodging them, and the church fell a victim to the flames. The act, though unintentional, brought upon the prelate a severe reprimand from the pope; and Ivo, to repair his fault, undertook a journey to his relatives and friends in Apulia and Constantinople, whence he returned, loaded with rich presents, by the aid of which he undertook the erection of a new church upon so large a scale, that "his successors, Robert, Gerard, and Serlo, were unable to complete it in fifty years." The cathedral then raised is said to be the same as is now standing; and, according to what has already been recorded of the cathedrals of Lisieux and Coutances, there is nothing in its architecture to discredit such an opinion. The first stone was laid about the year 1053: the dedication took place in 1126. G.o.dfrey, archbishop of Rouen, performed the ceremony in the presence of Henry, then duke, who, at the same time, endowed the church with an annual income of ten pounds.

The diocese of Seez is surrounded by those of Lisieux, Evreux, Mans, and Bayeux. According to De Ma.s.seville,[222] it extended, before the revolution, twenty-five leagues in length, and from eight to ten in width, comprising the districts of _le Houme_, _les Marches_, and a part of _le Perche_. The towns of Seez, Alencon, Argentan, Falaise, Hiesmes, Mortagne, and Belleme, together with several smaller towns, and five hundred villages, were also included in its limits; as were five archdeaconries, six rural deaneries, and many abbeys and other religious houses. The episcopal revenue was estimated at only ten thousand livres.

The late concordat, by reducing the number of the Norman dioceses, has of course added to the extent of those that remained.

Seven of the early bishops of Seez are inscribed among the saints of the Roman calendar: in later times, no names appear of greater eminence than those of Frogerius and John de Bertaut. The first of these prelates was much in the confidence of Henry II. to whom he rendered acceptable service in his unfortunate disputes with Thomas-a-Becket. He was not only one of the very few bishops who then preserved their fidelity to their sovereign inviolate, but he undertook a mission to the French king, for the purpose of remonstrating upon the favorable reception given to the primate, on which occasion he received the following memorable answer:--"Tell your master, that if he cannot submit to the abolition of the ordinances, which he designates as the customs of his ancestors, because he thinks it would compromise the dignity of his crown, although, as it is reported, they are but little conformable to the will of G.o.d, still less can I consent to sacrifice a right that has always been enjoyed by the kings of France. I mean the right of giving shelter to all persons in affliction, but princ.i.p.ally to those who are exiled for justice sake, and of affording them, during their persecution, all manner of protection and a.s.sistance."--John de Bertaut lived in the beginning of the seventeenth century: he was princ.i.p.al almoner to Mary de Medicis, and was afterwards in high favor with Henry IV. to whose conversion he is said to have mainly contributed. He likewise distinguished himself as a poet.--A third bishop of Seez, Serlo, already mentioned, was a man of such commanding eloquence, that, when he had the honor of preaching before Henry I. and his court, at Carentan, in 1106, he declaimed with so much effect against the effeminate custom of wearing long beards and long hair, that the sovereign declared himself a convert, and the bishop, "_extractis e mantica forcipibus, primo regem tum caeteros optimates attondit_."[223]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate 100. CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF NOTRE DAME, AT SeEZ.

_Elevation of the Nave._]

The church of Seez may be compared in its architecture with those of Coutances and of Lisieux: they are unlike, indeed, but by no means different. The points of resemblance exceed those of a contrary description.

"facies non omnibus una, Nec diversa tamen, qualem decet esse sororum."

Severe simplicity characterizes Lisieux: Coutances is distinguished by elegance, abounding in decoration: Seez, at the same time that it unites the excellencies of both, can rival neither in those which are peculiarly its own. On the first view of the church, its mean and insignificant western tower strikes the spectator with an unfavorable impression, which, on a nearer approach, the mutilated and enc.u.mbered state of the western front is by no means calculated to remove. And yet this western front, all degraded as it is, cannot fail to derive importance from the great depth of the central door-way, which is no less than forty-seven feet,[224] a projection exceeding that of the galilee of Peterborough cathedral. It is in the interior that the beauty of the church of Seez is conspicuous. The n.o.ble lofty arches below; the moresque ornament, like those at Bayeux and at Coutances, in the spandrils; the double lancet arches of the triforium placed in triplets; and the larger pointed arches above, arranged two or three together, and encircled with arches of the Norman form, though not of the Norman style;--all these beauties, added to the enrichments of the sculptured walls and windows of the aisles, render the cathedral, if not the first of Norman religious buildings, at least in the number of those of the first cla.s.s,

"Extremi primorum, extremis usque priores."