Architectural Antiquities of Normandy Part 3

About forty miles, in a south-westerly direction from Rouen, upon the right bank of the Seine, and on the western frontiers of the ancient duchy of Normandy, stands the town of Great Andelys, so called, not by reason of its own positive magnitude, but to distinguish it from a village of the same name, situated in its immediate vicinity.

In early times, few places could boast to a greater degree than Andelys, "the odor of sanct.i.ty." It was indebted for its celebrity, and, probably also, for its existence, to a nunnery, founded here by St. Clotilda, which, in the seventh century, the time of the venerable Bede, enjoyed the highest reputation. But its fame was short-lived: it fell during the incursions of the Normans, and, unlike most others, seems to have possessed none of the phoenix-power of reviviscence. In its place, arose afterwards, a collegiate church, which M. de Harlay, Archbishop of Rouen, by a formal act, dated 1634, honored with the t.i.tle of first collegiate church of the diocese. The distinction, thus obtained, was due not only to its antiquity, but to the unusual number of its ecclesiastics, particularly those who composed its chapter.

Though St. Clotilda's convent, however, was destroyed, the inhabitants of Andelys continued to enjoy her especial protection. The church was under her invocation; but her favor was more eminently vouchsafed to an ancient chapel and an adjacent fountain, both of which bore her name.

The latter was, from the earliest times, celebrated for its miraculous qualities in the cure of various disorders; and it continues to be so to the present day. St. Clotilda, at the period of the erection of the monastery, turned its waters into wine, for the benefit of the fainting workmen. The clergy of Andelys, in commemoration of the miracle, used annually, before the revolution, upon the return of her festival, to pour large pitchers of wine into the spring. During the revolutionary fervor, St. Clotilda, together with the rest of the Romish hierarchy, lost her credit in France. She is now rapidly recovering it: miracles are again wrought at her shrine; and, in all probability, the time is not far distant, when the belief will be as strong, the processions as splendid, the throng of votaries as great, and the cures as certain, as ever. It is only to be hoped, that the good sense and the superior morality of the age, may prevent the recurrence of those indecent and scandalous scenes, which, we are told by eye-witnesses, were formerly too often practised on the occasion. Human nature must be strangely altered, before the mind of man will cease to prefer the surfeit of superst.i.tion, to the wholesome diet of sound religion: no one, but a fool or a rogue, would ever advise it to have recourse to the starvation of infidelity.

At the close of the eleventh century, Andelys appears with some historical notoriety, in the well-known exchange made between Richard Coeur-de-Lion and Walter, Archbishop of Rouen; when the king, desirous, as he states, to prevent the incursions of the enemy into his duchy, purchased of the prelate the town and manor of Andelys, by the cession of the towns of Dieppe, Bouteilles and Louviers, together with the forest of Aliermont, and the mills of Rouen. The bargain was a hard one; but the erection of Chateau Gaillard, in the immediate vicinity of Andelys, proved the correctness of the monarch's views. A subsequent treaty,[18] executed in the year 1200, between King John and the same archbishop, confirmed the exchange.

In modern times, Andelys has been celebrated on no other account, than as the birth-place of Poussin and Adrian Turnebus, and as the burial-place of Corneille.

The _Great House_ at Andelys, the subject of the plate, existed in 1818, as it is here represented, shorn, indeed, of much of its ancient splendor, reduced from the residence of a n.o.bleman to a granary, and most probably curtailed of full two-thirds of its size, as retaining apparently little more than that portion of the square which fronted the court-yard, together with a small part of one of its wings. It can now (in 1821) only be spoken of as a building that did exist: last year saw it levelled with the ground. The following description of it is transcribed from Mr. Turner's _Tour in Normandy_:[19] "Andelys possesses a valuable specimen of ancient domestic architecture. The _Great House_ is a most sumptuous mansion, evidently of the age of Francis I.; but I could gain no account of its former occupants or history. I must again borrow from my friend's vocabulary, and say, that it is built in the 'Burgundian style.' In its general outline and character, it resembles the house in the _Place de la Pucelle_, at Rouen. Its walls, indeed, are not covered with the same profusion of sculpture: yet, perhaps, its simplicity is accompanied by greater elegance.--The windows are disposed in three divisions, formed by slender b.u.t.tresses, which run up to the roof. They are square-headed, and divided by a mullion and transom.--The portal is in the centre: it is formed by a Tudor arch, enriched with deep mouldings, and surmounted by a lofty ogee, ending with a crocketed pinnacle, which transfixes the cornice immediately above, as well as in the sill of the window, and then unites with the mullion of the latter.--The roof takes a very high pitch.--A figured cornice, upon which it rests, is boldly sculptured with foliage.--The chimneys are ornamented by angular b.u.t.tresses.--All these portions of the building a.s.similate more or less to our Gothic architecture of the sixteenth century; but a most magnificent oriel window, which fills the whole of the s.p.a.ce between the centre and the left-hand divisions, is a specimen of pointed architecture in its best and purest style. The arches are lofty and acute. Each angle is formed by a double b.u.t.tress, and the tabernacles affixed to these are filled with statues. The bas.e.m.e.nt of the oriel, which projects from the flat wall of the house, after the fashion of a bartizan, is divided into compartments, studded with medallions, and intermixed with tracery of great variety and beauty. On either side of the bay, there are flying b.u.t.tresses of elaborate sculpture, spreading along the wall.--As, comparatively speaking, good models of ancient domestic architecture are very rare, I would particularly recommend this at Andelys to the notice of every architect, whom chance may conduct to Normandy.--This building, like too many others of the same cla.s.s in our own counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, is degraded from its station. The _great house_ is used merely as a granary, though, by a very small expense, it might be put into habitable repair. The stone retains its clear and polished surface; and the ma.s.sy timbers are undecayed.--The inside corresponds with the exterior, in decorations and grandeur: the chimney pieces are large and elaborate, and there is abundance of sculpture on the ceilings and other parts which admit of ornament."

NOTES:

[18] Copies of both these instruments are preserved in the _Gallia Christiana_, XI. _Inst._ pp. 27 and 30.

[19] II. p. 55.--In a note to this pa.s.sage, Mr. Turner states an intention, on the part of Mr. Cotman, to devote a second plate to this building, for the purpose of doing more justice to the beauty and elaborate decorations of the oriel window; and it is very much to be desired that such should be the case; but it is feared that the number and importance of other subjects, will prevent the intention from being realized.

PLATE XVI.

CHURCH OF THAN.

(ELEVATION AND DETAILS.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate 16. CHURCH OF THAN.

_Elevation and details._]

The small village of Than lies about ten miles distant from Caen, in a north-easterly direction, in a valley washed by the diminutive stream, the Meu, a little to the north of the road which leads to Bayeux. Of its "short and simple annals," few have come to the knowledge of the writer of this article; and for those few, he is wholly indebted to the kindness of M. de Gerville, who, last year, discovered at Mortain the book containing the charters of the abbey of Savigny, many of which make mention of the church of Than. The following is an extract from the most important among them: the deed itself is without a date, but is clearly of the time of Henry I. Its being anterior to 1135, is distinctly proved by the t.i.tle of Earl of Mortain, which it gives to Stephen of Blois.--"In nomine Ste et individue trinitatis, notum sit universis tam presentibus quam futuris, qd. ego Guillelmus de Sto Claro, concedente Hamone fratre meo et cis, dono et concedo in perpetuam elimosinam ecclie Ste trinitatis de Savigneio et monachis ibidem Deo servientibus totam possessionem de Thaun, quam ego et antecessores mei, sive in terra dominica sive in hominibus sive in quibuslibet aliis rebus, unquam habuimus omnino quietam, ab omni consuetudine absolutam, perpetuo jure ab eadem ecclesia possidendam. Predictam autem donacionem concessit et ab omnib. consuetudinibus absolutam confirmavit Stepha.n.u.s Comes Moritonii, ad cujus feodum predicta possessio pertinet, &c."--In addition to the information contained in the above charter, there is only to be added, that Cardinal Le Moine, when dean of Bayeux, at the close of the thirteenth century, founded here a chapel, dedicated to St.

John; and that a lord of Than was among the companions of the Conqueror in his descent upon England.

The church has been selected by Mr. Cotman as a specimen of a religious edifice in the true Norman style, unaltered, and also uninjured, except by the loss of the southern aisle; and the removal of this is so far fortunate, as it affords an opportunity of shewing the form and disposition of the columns and arches of the nave, seen, as they are, in the lower part of the left-hand side of the plate, imbedded in the modern wall, which now const.i.tutes the exterior of the building.

Subjects like this, however necessary for a work expressly devoted to architectural antiquities, obviously afford no room for picturesque beauty, or for an attempt, on the part of the artist, to produce what is called _effect_. Horace's line is altogether applicable to them, that

"Ornari res ipsa negat, contenta doceri."

The great hope to be entertained is, that they may be rendered intelligible; and this, it is trusted, will be effected by means of the following references; though the mult.i.tude of parts that it seemed necessary to introduce, may have given rise to an appearance of confusion, which the author could only have avoided, by subjecting his subscribers to the expense of an additional plate.

A.A.A. _Elevation of the tower, nave, and chancel._

The roof of the tower is of stone; and the angles are faced with slender cylindrical columns, as in the part below, terminating, in both instances, in little hooks, beneath which, the pillars are banded to the part adjoining. This kind of termination, or, as it might almost be denominated, decoration, is in itself remarkable, and perhaps unique; but it is rendered considerably more interesting, if regarded as the probable origin of the crocket, one of the most distinguished ornaments in the decorated style of pointed architecture. The date of the introduction of the crocket, and the source whence it sprung, have been the subject of many inquiries among antiquaries: neither Mr Cotman, nor the writer of these remarks, recollects to have seen any other approach to it in Norman buildings; though the towers of many churches in Lower Normandy are capped with stone roofs of similar form, and of undoubted antiquity. Such, in particular, are those of Haute Allemagne, of Ba.s.se Allemagne, and of St. Michel de Vaucelles, at Caen: such also is the roof at the east end of the church of St. Nicholas, in the same town; and, in the three last-mentioned specimens, the angles are edged with the same small pillars by way of moulding.

It is farther to be observed of this church, that the windows of the tower are simple, bold, and, for the elegance of their proportions, scarcely to be surpa.s.sed by those of any other Norman building; that the capitals of the pillars throughout the church are dest.i.tute of sculpture; and that the walls of the clerestory are altogether without b.u.t.tresses. This last peculiarity is likewise observable in the nave of the church at Tollevast, an edifice of the plainest and earliest architecture. At Than, the clerestory is externally decorated with twenty-nine arches, of which every sixth (reckoning from the westward,) is narrower than the rest, and is pierced with a window. The surface of the blank ones is cut into squares, which are alternately depressed. On the corbels are not only represented grotesque heads, but some of the simplest heraldic charges, as the chief, chief indented, pale, bend, bendlets undy, fess, saltier, crosses of various kinds, chevron, &c.

Such ordinaries occasionally occur in similar situations on other Norman religious edifices, but only on the most ancient. They are to be seen at Tollevast, Martinvast, the church of St. Croix at St. Lo, St. Matthieu, and Octeville. At St. Matthieu, they are found in conjunction with other sculptures, fit only for a temple dedicated to Priapus; and at Octeville, with what is probably the earliest representation of the Lord's Supper, that is known to exist from the hand of a Norman artist.

B. _Elevation of the west front._

The lower part of the door-way is considerably sunk in the ground.

C. _Elevation of the east end._

The irregularity of the architecture of this part of the building requires to be noticed. In the two lower compartments, the southern portion is left quite plain, while the northern is decorated with a double tier of arches, very much resembling those which still exist in the outer wall of the chancel, and which, most probably, were originally continued along the wall of the nave that is now destroyed. The broad shallow b.u.t.tress which divides the east end into two parts, is not placed in the centre. Here, and indeed throughout the building, each small arch is hewn out of a single block of stone. One of the upper ones in this front, is surmounted with a broad square band, made in the imitation of a drip-stone, composed of quatrefoils, of a form not known to exist in Norman architecture, though of common occurrence in the succeeding style.

D. _Portion of the clerestory in the nave._

E. _Portion of the clerestory in the chancel._

F. _Capital and part of the arch of the western door-way._

G.G.G. _String-mouldings._

PLATE XVII.

CHURCH OF TAMERVILLE.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate 17. CHURCH OF TAMERVILLE.]

This church is situated at the distance of half a league from the town of Valognes, near the road which leads to Barfleur and La Hougue.

The whole building is ancient, with the exception of the western portal and a chapel to the north of the choir. Its general style of architecture, the columns which support the tower, the b.u.t.tresses, the corbels, and the small windows of the nave, especially those fronting the north, are all indicative of a production of the early days of Norman rule, and, probably, of the period immediately preceding the descent upon England. This period of comparative peace and tranquillity was a time, when, to use the language of two nearly contemporary historians, "the n.o.blemen of Normandy emulated each other in erecting churches upon their domains: they thus filled their continental territory; and they shortly afterwards did the same in England."

The steeple represented in the plate is in excellent preservation: it is of beautiful proportions; and, to an architect, is peculiarly interesting for the cylindrical b.u.t.tress, which runs nearly to the top of the first story on the southern side, and is probably the only instance of the kind known to exist.[20] To an English antiquary, however, it may be allowed to have a claim to greater interest, on account of its general shape and proportions. In these respects it forcibly recalls the round-towered churches of Norfolk and Suffolk, most of them surmounted by octagonal lanterns. Two of the churches of the former county, those at Toft-Monks, and at Bokenham,[21] preserve the octagonal shape down to the ground; but, in both instances, it is in conjunction with early pointed architecture; and the church of Tamerville, it is feared, would not be of itself sufficient, as being an insulated specimen, to justify the a.s.signing of a Norman origin to those just mentioned. No churches with round towers have yet come under the author's knowledge in Normandy; and yet they might certainly have been expected in the duchy, if there be any truth in the tradition which ascribes those in England to the Danes. On the other hand, supposing such report to be altogether void of foundation, it seems quite unaccountable that not one of them probably exists, which does not retain some traces of Norman architecture.

In early times, the barons of this great province seldom, if ever, used a family name. Like the chieftains of the Scottish clans of our own days, they generally adopted for their surname, that of their parish or fief. The fief or manor of Tamerville had, from before the conquest, borne the appellation of Cyfrevast, or Sifrevast, (Sifredi Va.s.sum;) and down to the period of the revolution, the possessors of that fief were patrons of the advowson of the parochial church. One of them, and, probably, the very one who built the church now standing, followed the Conqueror into England, and obtained from him considerable grants in Oxfordshire and in Dorsetshire. In the latter county, the family continued long to flourish. Hutchins states, that the branch of them, established at More-Crichel, bore for their arms, _argent, three bars gemels azure_; and he quotes the epitaph of one of them, who died in 1581, from which the following is an extract:--

"Intombed here one Cyfrevast does lie, Whom nature caused by death to yealde his due.

Lord of More-Crichel was he by ---- _Three hundred yeares possessed by line and descent._"

Another of the same family, named John Cyfrevast, represented Dorsetshire in parliament, during the seventh, sixteenth, and eighteenth years of Edward II.; and Robert Cyfrevast had the same honor in the eighteenth and twentieth years of the following reign. About 1424, the fief of Chiffrevast at Tamerville, pa.s.sed, by marriage, into the house of Anneville, which had also supplied a companion to the Conqueror; and this family continued to possess it till the moment of the revolution, the epoch of the abolition of all feudal rights.

In the burial-ground at Tamerville, have been found many coffins made of volcanic tuff: similar ones are by no means of unfrequent occurrence throughout the diocese of Coutances; but they are never met with, except in places which were formerly held in particular veneration.

NOTES: