Architectural Antiquities of Normandy Part 5

The Conqueror's sons confirmed the various donations made to the abbey by their parent. The eldest of them, Robert, his successor in the dukedom, added the privilege of a fair and a weekly market at Cheux.

William Rufus, the second, entered into a negociation with the monks, to re-purchase his father's royal ornaments, in exchange for the parish of c.o.ker, in Somersetshire; but he died before the completion of the treaty; and this was finally carried into effect by Henry I. with one only difference, that Brideton, (now called Burton) in Dorsetshire, was subst.i.tuted for c.o.ker. It was Henry, according to the Abbe De la Rue,[37] who raised the superb monument over his father's remains; but Ordericus Vitalis expressly attributes the work to William Rufus.[38]

Respecting its splendor, all writers are unanimous: the shrine placed upon the mausoleum, was a "mirific.u.m memoriale, quod ex auro et argento et gemmis competenter splenduit." The care of building the tomb was committed to a goldsmith at Caen, of the name of Otto, who had received from the Conqueror a grant of land in Ess.e.x; and whose descendants, under the name of Fitz-Othon, had the princ.i.p.al direction of the English mint, till the death of Thomas Fitz-Othon, the last of the family, in 1282.

Henry II. in a very long charter, confirmed the various endowments and privileges previously bestowed upon the convent, and added others of his own. From this time forward, it continued to increase in wealth and power. In the year 1250, its revenues, in Normandy, amounted to four thousand livres, a sum equivalent to eighty-two thousand and sixteen livres of the present day. In 1668, when money in France was of about half its present value, the abbot and monks divided an income of sixty-four thousand and four livres: and in 1774, this income had swelled to one hundred and ninety-two thousand livres, notwithstanding the immense losses suffered by the suppression of the alien priories in England. Thus an increase had taken place of nearly one hundred and ten thousand livres, in about five hundred and twenty years. The ecclesiastical patronage of the abbey, at the time of the revolution, extended over twelve churches. Its monks, who were of the order of St.

Benedict, continued till the year 1663 to belong to the cla.s.s of Benedictines, called _unreformed_; but the d.u.c.h.ess of Longueville, wife of the then abbot, introduced at that period the brethren of the congregation of St. Maur.

The privileges and immunities granted to the convent of St. Stephen, are detailed at considerable length by Du Moustier,[39] who has also carefully collected the particulars of the life of Lanfranc, and has given a catalogue, accompanied with short biographical notices, of the rest of the abbots. By far the greater number of these were men eminent for their rank or talents; and some of them were subsequently promoted to higher dignities. William de Bonne Ame, the second abbot, succeeded John de Bayeux in the metropolitan throne of Rouen; Hugh de Coilly, grandson of King Stephen, after being elected to preside over this monastery, was almost immediately transferred to the archbishopric of York;[40] and Charles de Martigni, abbot of St. Stephen's in the fifteenth century, was successively honored with two episcopal mitres.

It was by him that the prelacy was first held _in commendam_, an example too tempting not to be followed; and the abbey, thus constantly gaining in the dignity of its superiors, as constantly lost in their real value.

Seven cardinals, (among whom were the celebrated Cardinals of Richelieu, Mazarine and Fleury,) a natural son of King Henry IV. an archbishop of Lyons, two of Aix, and one of Rouen, were among its most modern abbots.

Another of them, John Le Got,[41] was present at the abjuration of Henry IV. in the church of St. Denys, on the twenty-fifth of July, 1593; and by virtue of his office as apostolical prothonotary, subscribed his name to the letter from the bishops to the Pope, declaring that nothing had taken place in the transaction, inconsistent with the reverence due to his holiness. A list of considerable length might also be made from among the monks of the convent, of those who have been enn.o.bled by their talents or dignities.

The monastic buildings appertaining to the Abbey of St. Stephen were begun in 1704, and completed after a period of twenty-two years. They are now attached to the royal College of Caen, to which establishment they were appropriated at the revolution; and, provided as they were with n.o.ble gardens, they were an accession of the utmost importance to the inst.i.tution. But the value of the gift has, within the ten last years, been considerably lessened, by the munic.i.p.ality having robbed the college of the greater part of the gardens, for the purpose of converting them into an open square. The plan of the buildings was furnished by a lay-brother of the Benedictine order, named William De la Tremblaye, who also erected those of the sister Convent of the Trinity, at Caen; and those of the Abbey of St. Denis. During the storms of the revolution, the abbatial church happily suffered but little. Fallen, though it be, from its dignity, and degraded to parochial, it still stands nearly entire. Not indeed as it came from the hands of the Norman architect, but as it was left by the Huguenots in the sixteenth century, when, with the violence which marked the transactions of that aera, doors, windows, floors, wood-work, lead, iron, marble, ma.n.u.scripts, and books, were given up to indiscriminate destruction: bells were broken, roofs stripped, altars profaned, the very tombs opened; and, as if no point had been gained, so long as aught was suffered to remain, the central tower was undermined, in the hope that its fall would involve the ruin of the whole edifice. And fall, indeed, it did; but happily only carried away with it a portion of the eastern end. From this circ.u.mstance, however, have arisen discrepancies of style, for which it would be difficult, without such knowledge, to account. The nave and the transepts are the only pure remains of the original building: the choir and aisles are of pointed architecture, and are, consequently, not of equal antiquity. Even the western front partakes, in a measure, of the same mixture. All, to the top of the towers, is genuine Norman, and of the eleventh century: the spires, with their surrounding turrets, are of a later aera.[42] At the same time it may reasonably be doubted how far the Abbe De la Rue is right in ascribing them to the fourteenth century. To differ from so able an antiquary and so competent a judge in matters of this description, is always hazardous; but the author of this article must, nevertheless, be allowed to hesitate before he gives a full a.s.sent. It is known that the choir was enlarged, and the apsis built as it now exists, during the prelacy of Simon de Trevieres, which extended from the year 1316 to 1344; but history is silent as to any other additions made at that period to the church; and the style of the architecture of the spires does certainly appear to be earlier than that of the parts just mentioned. No argument is to be drawn from the general aspect of the building; for such is the great excellence of the Caen stone, and so little has it suffered in an atmosphere untainted by coal smoke, and in a climate probably superior to our own, that all the parts appear to be in equally good preservation, and the whole looks as fresh as if but yesterday hewn from the quarry. An opinion has commonly prevailed, that an epitaph, still visible on the exterior of the apsis, is that of the builder of the church. Facsimiles of it have been given by Ducarel[43] and Gough,[44] the former of whom seems to have no doubt of the fact. Such, however, cannot be the case; the very shape of the characters sufficiently disproves it: they are altogether unlike those used on Queen Matilda's tomb, a relic, whose authenticity was never called in question. The character of the architecture of the chapel affords a still more decisive contradiction. Indeed, after what has already been said, it needs scarcely be added, that the building itself did not exist at the period a.s.signed by Ducarel to the epitaph, which is most probably that of the person who erected the apsis, and made the other alterations in the fourteenth century.

The western front of the church exhibits two different characters: below, all is simple, almost to meanness: the upper part abounds in ornament; and here the good sense of the architect, who added the pinnacles and spires, merits commendation, in having made them correspond so well in their decorations with the towers. The plate sufficiently explains all that is to be said of this part of the building, excepting as to the more minute ornaments of the door-ways, which deserve to be exhibited in detail. The architrave is composed of several bands of the simplest moulding, inclosed within three of a different style; the two outermost being formed of the chevron ornament, with its angles unusually acute; the inner, of the billet moulding. The capitals of the pillars are studded with small heads, placed under the Ionic volute, exhibiting a mixture of cla.s.sical and barbarous taste, which is likewise to be found at Cerisy, and upon one of the capitals in the abbey church of the Trinity.

Along the exterior of the upper part of the nave, runs a row of twenty-four semi-circular arches, with imposts and bases, and all uniform, except that eight of them are pierced for windows. This portion of the building is entirely without b.u.t.tresses. Upon the extremity of the north transept are three very shallow b.u.t.tresses, which rise from the ground to the bottom of the clerestory windows, unbroken by any interruption whatever, but here meet with a string-course, beyond which the two outer ones are continued, unchanged in form and appearance, to the summit of the ends of the gable, while the centre one, though it is raised to an equal height, loses more than half its width, and is also much reduced in depth. Over this latter b.u.t.tress is a window; and between the b.u.t.tresses are six others, arranged in a double row. Each pair differs in size from the rest: those nearest the ground are the largest, and those immediately above them the least. The lowest pair on each side is inclosed within a s.p.a.cious arch, which occupies nearly two-thirds of the gable. Eastward of the transepts is a series of blank intersecting arches, remarkable for their mouldings, which consist of a flat, wide, and very shallow band;[45] and here the mixture of the pointed with the semi-circular architecture commences. This portion of the building altogether resembles the cathedral of Coutances in the disposition of its parts.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate 23. ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. ETIENNE, CAEN.

_Elevation of compartment of the Nave._]

It would be difficult to describe the interior of the church in clearer or more comprehensive terms, than has been done by Mr. Cohen in Mr.

Turner's Tour,[46] from which work the following account is, therefore, extracted.--"Without doubt, the architect was conversant with Roman buildings, though he has Normanized their features, and adapted the lines of the basilica to a _barbaric_ temple. The Coliseum furnished the elevation of the nave;--semi-circular arches surmounted by another tier of equal span, and springing at nearly an equal height from the basis of the supporting pillars. The architraves connecting the lower rows of pillars are distinctly enounced. The arches which rise from them have plain bold mouldings. The piers between each arch are of considerable width. In the centre of each pier is a column, which ascends as usual to the vault. These columns are alternately simple and compound. The latter are square pilasters, each fronted by a cylindrical column, which of course projects farther into the nave than the simple columns; and thus the nave is divided into bays. This system is imitated in the gothic cathedral at Sens. The square pilaster ceases at about four-fifths of its height: then two cylindrical pillars rise from it, so that, from that point, the column becomes cl.u.s.tered. Angular brackets, sculptured with knots, grotesque heads, and foliage, are affixed to the base of these derivative pillars. A bold double-billeted moulding is continued below the clerestory, whose windows adapt themselves to the binary arrangement of the bays. A taller arch is flanked by a smaller one on the right or the left side, as its situation requires. These are supported by short ma.s.sy pillars: an embattled moulding runs round the windows.--In the choir the arches become pointed, but with Norman mouldings: the apsis is a reconstruction. In that portion of the choir which seems original, there are pointed windows formed by the interlacing of circular arches: these light the gallery.--The effect produced by the perspective of the interior is lofty and palatial. The ancient masonry of the exterior is worthy of notice. The stones are all small, perhaps not exceeding nine or twelve inches: the joints are about three-quarters of an inch."

To this description, it may be well to add the following particulars concerning the dimensions of the church, taken from the exterior:--

FEET.

Length from east to west 871 Height of western towers 145 ----------------------- with their spires 262 -------- nave on the western front, to the point of the gable 98 -------- northern transepts 84 Width of ditto 42

It may also not be amiss to observe, that the nave is on either side divided into nine compartments, the second and third of which, reckoning from the west, on the south side, form the subject of the _twenty-third plate_. The rest, though diversified in their ornaments, are uniform in their plan, except only the one on either side, immediately adjoining the entrance: each of these contains a slender shallow arch, not pierced to the transepts, and rising from the pavement nearly to the top of the upper windows. In that part of the church, two peculiarities will not fail to be remarked: the greater width of the arches of the triforium, than that of those below; and the bal.u.s.trade of quatrefoils, which is continued throughout this portion of the building. Immediately upon entering the church, a doubt involuntarily suggests itself, how far this bal.u.s.trade may not be an addition of comparatively modern date. But, upon the whole, there seems no reason to consider it so. Precisely the same ornament is found upon the tomb of Berengaria, wife to Richard Coeur-de-Lion, which Mr. Stothard has lately figured, and believes to be coeval with the queen whom it commemorates.

The monument raised to William the Conqueror, in the middle of the choir of this church, was violated and broken to pieces by the Calvinists, and its contents wantonly destroyed, towards the close of the sixteenth century. The account of the outrages then committed are given at length, and with great navete, as well as feeling, by De Bourgueville,[47] who was present on the occasion; and they have lately been translated into English,[48] with the addition of some interesting details that accompanied the death and funeral of the monarch. Nearly a hundred years before that time, a cardinal, upon a visit to Caen, had opened the tomb through curiosity. After the tumults caused by the Huguenots had subsided, the monks of the convent, who had gotten possession of one of the thigh-bones that had been preserved by the Viscount of Falaise, re-interred it, and, out of grat.i.tude to their founder, raised, in 1642, a new monument of black marble, at great expense. One side of it bore the original metrical epitaph, composed by Thomas, Archbishop of York, beginning with the following line:--

"Qui rexit rigidos Normannos atque Britannos;"

on the other side, was an inscription[49] commemorative of the circ.u.mstances attendant on the tomb; but this second tomb was also taken away in 1742, by virtue of an order from Louis XV. empowering the governor of Caen to remove the monarch's remains into the sanctuary, as interfering, in their original position, with the ceremonies of the church. A flat stone, in front of the high altar, succeeded to the monument; and even this, the democrats of 1793 tore up. It was, however, replaced by General Dugua, while Prefect of Caen, and it still holds its situation.[50] There are no other monuments of any kind in the church.

Extensive buildings were attached to the abbey of St. Stephen; and, among the rest, what was generally supposed to have been a royal palace, and pa.s.sed commonly under the name of the Palace of the Conqueror. As every thing connected with the abbey was naturally referred by the public to that sovereign, it will not appear surprising that this edifice was so likewise, however little ground there may have been for the appellation. Its having been called a palace, arose probably from the circ.u.mstance of the French monarchs always residing in this monastery, during their visits to Caen. The names of St. Louis, of John, of Henry V. and of Francis I. are to be found in the list of those who honored it with their presence. The greater part of the palatial buildings were destroyed by the Huguenots; but portions of them were standing in 1752, when Ducarel made his tour in Normandy; and he has figured them. Among these was the most interesting part of the whole, the great hall, the place in which the States of Normandy used to a.s.semble, as often as they were convened at Caen; and where the Exchequer repeatedly held its sittings, after the recapture of Normandy, by the kings of France, from its ancient dukes. This hall even escaped the fury of revolutionists as well as Calvinists; but it was in the year 1802 altered by General Caffarelli, the then prefect, into rooms for the college; and its superb painted windows were destroyed, together with its pavement of glazed tiles, charged with heraldic bearings. The tiles have long afforded scope for the learning and ingenuity of antiquaries, some of whom have believed them coeval with the Conqueror; while others, who hesitate about going quite so far, have regarded them as bearing the arms of his companions. In the _Gallia Christiana_, the placing of them is attributed to Robert de Chambray, who is there stated to have been abbot from 1385 to 1393, a fact which the Abbe De la Rue utterly disbelieves. He, however, is of opinion, that the tiles are of nearly the same date, or a little earlier; and he considers them as belonging to the families who had supplied abbots and monks to the convent.

NOTES:

[31] _d.u.c.h.esne, Scriptores Normanni_, pp. 277 and 282.

[32] So says Huet, in his _Origines de Caen_, p. 175, upon the authority of the Chronicle of the _Abbey of Bec_; and no attempt was made to controvert this fact, till the recent publication of the Abbe De la Rue's _Essais Historiques_, in which it is attempted to be proved, from various indirect testimonies, that the building could not have been finished till after the year 1070; indeed, that it could not even have been begun at the time fixed by Huet for its completion, inasmuch as the foundation charter, which must be of a date posterior to 1066, uses the following expression.--"Ego Guillelmus, Anglorum Rex, Normannorum et Coenomanorum princeps, Coen.o.bium in honorem Dei ac Beatissimi prothomartyris Stephani, intra Burgum, quem vulgari nomine vocant, Cadomum, pro salute animae meae, uxoris, filiorum ac parentum meorum, _disposui construendum_."

[33] See _Neustria Pia_, p. 639.

[34] Dom Blanchard, a Benedictine Monk, who left an unpublished history of this monastery, says, "that the Conqueror obtained about the same time from Constantinople, St. Stephen's skull; and that the translation of it into the abbatial church was celebrated by an annual festival on the eighth of October." The Cathedral of Soissons boasted of the possession of the same relic; and of having also procured it from Constantinople.--"Too much confidence," it is prudently observed by a catholic writer on this subject, "must not be placed in the authenticity of those relics, which cannot be traced to the date of St. Gregory of Tours, the sixth century!"

[35] Lanfranc, after having for some time directed at Bec the first school ever established in Normandy, upon his translation to Caen, opened another in that town. In the _Lives of the Abbots of Bec_, written in latin verse, in the twelfth century, by Peter, a monk of the convent of Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives, particular honor is given to Lanfranc on the subject of his school at Caen, which had produced many men eminent for their proficiency in sacred and secular literature, and was at that time flourishing. The Abbe De la Rue gives a long list of them.

_Essais Historiques_, II. p. 70.

[36] _Ordericus Vitalis_, in _d.u.c.h.esne's Scriptores Normanni_, p. 549.

[37] _Essais Historiques_, II. p. 64.

[38] _d.u.c.h.esne, Scriptores Normanni_, p. 663.

[39] _Neustria Pia_, p. 640.

[40] _Gallia Christiana_, II. p. 425.

[41] His name is not to be found in the list of abbots given in the _Neustria Pia_; but the authors of the _Gallia Christiana_ say, (XI. p.

480,) "that he was nominated to the prelacy upon the resignation of the thirty-fourth abbot, Charles d'O, and was confirmed in it by the States of Blois. It is admitted, however, that, notwithstanding his appointment in 1596, his predecessor continued to receive the emoluments of the office, till 1624, and enjoyed a large pension arising from them, till his death, in 1627."

[42] In speaking of these, the Abbe De la Rue takes occasion to lay down a general rule, (_Essais Historiques_, II. p. 61) that "on ne trouve ordinairement en Normandie, que des arcades semi-circulaires dans les Xe. XIe. et XIIe. siecles; au contraire, les arcades en pointes des nefs, des fenetres et des portes des eglises, autrement les arcades en ogive, n'ont eu lieu chez nous que dans le XIIIe. siecle et les suivans.

On trouve egalement ces deux styles en Angleterre et aux memes epoques, et leur difference est une des princ.i.p.ales regles qui servent aux antiquaires Anglois, pour discerner les constructions Normandes et Anglo-Normandes, des constructions d'un autre genre."--But Mr. Turner, in his inquiries respecting the former cathedral of Lisieux, (_Tour in Normandy_, II. p. 131) appears to have proved that the pointed arch must have had existence at a considerably earlier period in France; and it is expected, that some instances which will be adduced in the sequel of the work, will have the effect of confirming his opinion.

[43] _Anglo-Norman Antiquities_, p. 57.

[44] _Sepulchral Monuments_, I. p. 247, t. 30.--The epitaph, which, in the original, is full of contractions, it is supposed by the Abbe De la Rue, should be read as follows:--

"Guillelmus jacet hic, petrarum summus in arte: Iste novum perfecit opus; det premia Christus.

Amen."

[45] A similar row of arches is found on the north transept of Norwich Cathedral, between the first and second tier of windows.--See _Britton's Norwich Cathedral_, plate 10.

[46] II. p. 195.

[47] _Antiquites de Caen_, p. 171.

[48] _Turner's Tour in Normandy_, II. p. 203.

[49] See _Neustria Pia_, p. 656.

[50] The inscription upon it, which details the various events that had befallen the tomb, is given in _Turner's Tour in Normandy_, II. p. 197.

PLATES XXIV.--x.x.xIII.

ABBEY OF THE HOLY TRINITY, AT CAEN.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate 24. ABBEY CHURCH OF THE HOLY TRINITY, CAEN.

_West front._]

Mention has already been made, under the preceding subject, of the origin of the convent of the Holy Trinity, whose church, though not an equally extensive building as that of the monastery of St. Stephen, is infinitely more rich in its decorations, and has been left almost entirely in its original form. A more perfect example of a Norman abbatial church, is perhaps no where to be found; and, as this edifice had the farther advantage of having been raised at the period when the province was at the acme of its power, of having been erected by an individual of the highest rank, and of having owed its existence to an occasion peculiarly calculated to call forth the exercise of the utmost liberality and splendor, it has been conceived that the object of a work like the present, could not be better answered, than by exhibiting such a building in its fullest details.