The Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture Part 10

[Ill.u.s.tration: Window, Duffield Church, Derbyshire.]

CHAPTER IX.

OF THE DEBASED ENGLISH STYLE.

Q. When did this style commence, and how long did it prevail or continue?

A. It may be said to have commenced about the year 1540, and to have continued to about the middle of the seventeenth century; but it is difficult to a.s.sign a precise date either for its introduction or discontinuance.

Q. Why is this style called the DEBASED?

A. From the general inferiority of design compared with the style it succeeded, from the meagre and clumsy execution of sculptured and other ornamental work, from the intermixture of detail founded on an entirely different school of art, and the consequent subversion of the purity of style.

Q. What may be considered as one great cause of this falling off?

A. The devastation of the monasteries, religious houses, and chantries, which followed their suppression, discouraged the study of ecclesiastical architecture, (which had been much followed by the members of the conventual foundations, who were now dispersed, in their seclusion,) and gave a fatal blow to that spirit of erecting and enriching churches which this country had for many ages possessed.

Q. How could this be the cause?

A. The expenses of erecting many of our ecclesiastical structures, or different portions of them, from time to time, in the most costly and beautiful manner, according to the style of the age in which such were built, were defrayed, some out of the immense revenues of the monasteries, which at their suppression were granted away by the crown, and others by the private munificence of individuals who frequently built an aisle, with a chantry chapel at the east end, partly inclosed by screen-work, or annexed to a church, a transept, or an additional chapel, endowed as a chantry, in order that remembrance might be specially and continually made of them in the offices of the church, according to the then prevailing usage; which chantries having been abolished, one motive for church-building was gone.

Q. What concurrent causes may also be a.s.signed for this change?

A. The almost imperceptible introduction and advance, about this period, of a fantastic mode of architectural design and decoration, which is very apparent in the costly though in many respects inelegant monuments of this age, and in which details of ancient cla.s.sic architecture were incorporated with others of fanciful design peculiar to the latter part of the sixteenth and early part of the seventeenth centuries.

Q. What are the characteristics of this style?

A. A general heaviness and inelegance of detail, doorways with pointed-arched heads exceedingly depressed in form, and also plain round-headed doorways, with key stones after the Roman or Italian semi-cla.s.sic style now beginning to prevail; square-headed windows with plain vertical mullions, and the heads of the lights either round or obtusely arched, and generally without foliations; pointed windows clumsily formed, with plain mullion bars simply intersecting each other in the head, or filled with tracery miserably designed, and an almost total absence of ornamental mouldings. Indications of this style may be found in many country churches which have been repaired or partly rebuilt since the Reformation. In the interior of churches specimens of the wood-work of this style are very common, and may be perceived by the shallow and flat carved panelling, with round arches, arabesques, scroll-work, and other nondescript ornament peculiar to the age, with which the pews, reading-desks, and pulpits are often adorned. The screens of this period are constructed in a semi-cla.s.sic style of design, with features and details of English growth, and are often surmounted with scroll-work, shields, and other accessories. Of this description of work the screen in the south aisle of Yarnton Church, Oxfordshire, constructed A. D. 1611, may be instanced as a curious specimen.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Arabesque.]

Q. What peculiarity may be noted in the alterations and additions of this era?

A. A very common practice prevailed, from about the middle of the sixteenth century, when any alteration or addition was made in or to a church, of affixing a stone in the masonry, with the date of such in figures. Thus over the east window of Hillmorton Church, Warwickshire, (which is a pointed window of four lights, formed by three plain mullions curving and intersecting each other in the head, which is filled with nearly lozenge-shaped lights, but all without foliations,) is a stone bearing the date of 1640. In the south wall of the tower of the same church (which is low, heavy, and clumsily built, without any pretension to architectural design) is a stone to denote the period of its erection, which bears the date of 1655. Pulpits, communion-tables, church chests, poor-boxes, and pewing of the latter part of the sixteenth and of the seventeenth century, also very frequently exhibit, in figures carved on them, the precise periods of their construction.

Q. What specimens are there of this style of late or debased and mixed Gothic?

A. Annexed to Sunningwell Church, Berkshire, is a singular porch or building, s.e.xagonal in form, at the angles of which are projecting columns of the Ionic order supporting an entablature. On each side of this building, except that by which it communicates with the church, and that in which the doorway is contained, is a plain window of the Debased Gothic style, of one light, with a square head and hood moulding over. The doorway is nondescript, neither Roman or Gothic. This building is supposed to have been erected by Bishop Jewell. The chapel of St. Peter's College, Cambridge, finished in 1632, exhibits in the east wall a large pointed window, clumsily designed, in the Debased style, and divided by mullions into five princ.i.p.al lights, round-headed, but trefoiled within; three series of smaller lights, rising one above the other, all of which are round-headed and trefoiled, fill the head of the window, the composition of which, though comparatively rude, is ill.u.s.trative of the taste of the age. On each side of the window, on the exterior, is a kind of semi-cla.s.sic niche. In Stowe Church, Northamptonshire, are a number of windows inserted at a general reparation of the church in 1639; these are square-headed, and have a label or hood moulding over, and are mostly divided into three obtusely pointed-arched lights, without foliations.

Under the windows of the south aisle is a string-course, more of a semi-cla.s.sic contour than Gothic. On the south side is a plain round-headed doorway, inserted at the same period. The tower and south aisle of Yarnton Church, Oxfordshire, erected by Sir Thomas Spencer, A. D.

1611, have the same kind of square-headed window, with arched lights without foliations, as those of Stow. Stanton-Harold Church, Leicestershire, erected A. D. 1653, is perhaps the latest complete specimen of the Debased Gothic style. Towards the end of this century Gothic mouldings appear not to have been understood, as in the attempt to reconstruct portions of churches in that style we find mouldings of cla.s.sic art to prevail. Such is the case with respect to the tower of Eynesbury Church, St. Neot's, Huntingdonshire, rebuilt in a kind of Debased Gothic and mixed Roman style, in 1687. Other instances of the kind might also be enumerated. At the commencement of the eighteenth century the Roman or Italian mode appears to have prevailed generally in the churches then erected, without any admixture even of the Debased Gothic style.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Window, Ladbrook Church, Warwickshire.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Stoup, South Door, Oakham Church, Rutlandshire.]

CONCLUDING CHAPTER.

ON THE INTERNAL ARRANGEMENT AND DECORATIONS OF A CHURCH.

The churches of this country were anciently so constructed as to display, in their internal arrangement, certain appendages designed with architectonic skill, and adapted purposely for the celebration of ma.s.s and other religious offices.

At the Reformation, when the ritual was changed and many of the formularies of the church of Rome were discarded, some of such appendages were destroyed; whilst others, though suffered to exist, more or less in a mutilated condition, were no longer appropriated to the particular uses for which they had been originally designed.

On entering a church through the porch on the north or south side, or at the west end, we sometimes perceive on the right hand side of the door, at a convenient height from the ground, often beneath a niche, and partly projecting from the wall, a stone basin: this was the _stoup_, or receptacle for holy water, called also the _aspersorium_, into which each individual dipped his finger and crossed himself when pa.s.sing the threshold of the sacred edifice. The custom of aspersion at the church door appears to have been derived from an ancient usage of the heathens, amongst whom, according to Sozomen[154-*], the priest was accustomed to sprinkle such as entered into a temple with moist branches of olive. The stoup is sometimes found inside the church, close by the door; but the stone appendage appears to have been by no means general, and probably in most cases a movable vessel of metal was provided for the purpose; and in an inventory of ancient church goods at St. Dunstan's, Canterbury, taken A. D. 1500, we find mentioned "a stope off lede for the holy wat^r atte the church dore." We do not often find the stoup of so ancient a date as the twelfth century; one much mutilated, but apparently of that era, may however be met with inside the little Norman church of Beaudesert, Warwickshire, near to the south door.

The porch was often of a considerable size, and had frequently a groined ceiling, with an apartment above; it was anciently used for a variety of religious rites, for before the Reformation considerable portions of the marriage and baptismal services, and also much of that relating to the churching of women, were here performed, being commenced "ante ostium ecclesiae," and concluded in the church; and these are set forth in the rubric of the Manual or service-book, according to the use of Sarum, containing those and other occasional offices.

Having entered the church, the font is generally discovered towards the west end of the nave, or north or south aisle, and near the princ.i.p.al door; such, at least, was in most cases its original and appropriate position: this was for the convenience of the sacramental rite there administered; part of the baptismal service (that of making the infant a catechumen) having been performed in the porch or outside the door[156-*], he was introduced by the priest into the church, with the invitation, _Ingredere in templum Dei, ut habeas vitam aeternam et vivas in saecula saeculorum_; and after certain other rites and prayers the infant was carried to the font and immersed therein thrice by the priest, in the names of the three Persons of the Holy Trinity. By an ancient ecclesiastical const.i.tution a font of stone or other durable material, with a fitting cover, was required to be placed in every church in which baptism could be administered[156-]; and it was, as Lyndwood informs us, to be capacious enough for total immersion. Some ancient fonts are of lead, as that in Dorchester Church, Oxfordshire, and that in Childrey Church, Berkshire; both of these are cylindrical in shape, and of the Norman era, encircled with figures in relief; those on the font at Dorchester representing the twelve apostles, whilst those on that of Childrey are of bishops. Leaden fonts are also to be met with in the churches of Brookland, Kent; Wareham, Dorsetshire; and Walmsford, Northamptonshire. Square and cylindrical or truncated cone-like shaped fonts, of Norman design, supported on a bas.e.m.e.nt by one or more shafts, and either plain or sculptured, are numerous; we sometimes find on them figures of the twelve apostles, sculptured in low relief; the baptism of our Saviour also was no uncommon representation. Fonts subsequent to the Norman era are not so frequently covered with sculptured figures, though such sometimes occur; they are s.e.xagonal, septagonal, or octagonal in shape; and the different styles are easily ascertained by the architectural decorations, mouldings, tracery, and panel-work, with which they are more or less covered. On the sides of rich fonts of the fifteenth century representations of the seven sacraments were not unfrequently sculptured, as on that in Farningham Church, Kent. The covers to some rich fonts, especially to some of those of the fifteenth century, were very splendid, in shape somewhat resembling that of a spire, but the sides were covered with tabernacle-work, and decorated at the angles with small b.u.t.tresses and crockets. Fonts with rich covers of this description are to be found in the churches of Ewelme, Oxfordshire; of North Walsham and of Worstead, Norfolk; and of Sudbury and of Ufford, Suffolk.[158-*]

The general situation of the tower or campanile is at the west end of the nave; it is sometimes, however, found in a different position, as at the west end of a side aisle, which is the case with respect to the churches of Monkskirby and Withybrooke, Warwickshire; or on one side of the church, as at Eynesbury Church, Huntingdonshire, and Alderbury Church, Salop; and the tower of the latter church is covered with what is called the saddle-back roof, having two gables--a peculiarity to be found in some few other churches. In cross churches the tower was generally, though not always, erected at the intersection of the transept, and between the nave and chancel. In the towers the church bells were hung, with the exception of one; without these no church was accounted complete; they were anciently consecrated with great ceremony, named and inscribed in honour of some saint, and the sound issuing from them was supposed to be of efficacy in averting the influence of evil spirits. Bells appear to have been introduced into this country in the latter part of the seventh century, but comparatively few bells are now remaining in our churches of an earlier date than the seventeenth century, since the commencement of which century most of our present church bells have been cast. Towers were also occasionally used, up to the fourteenth century, as parochial fortresses, to which in time of sudden and unforeseen danger the inhabitants of the parish resorted for awhile. The tower of Rugby Church, Warwickshire, a very singular structure built in the reign of Henry the Third, appears to have been erected for this purpose; it is of a square form, very lofty, and plain in construction, and is without a single b.u.t.tress to support it; the lower windows are very narrow, and at a considerable distance from the ground; some of them are, in fact, mere loop-holes; the belfry windows are _square-headed_, of two lights, simply trefoiled in the head, and divided by a plain mullion; the only entrance was through the church; it has also a fire-place, the funnel for the conveyance of smoke being carried up through the thickness of the wall to a perforated battlement, and it altogether seems well calculated to resist a sudden attack. Other church towers of early date appear to have been erected for a double purpose: that of a campanile, as well as to afford temporary security. The towers of Newton Arlosh Church, of the Church of Burgh on the Sands, and of Great Salkeld Church, c.u.mberland, appear to have been constructed with a view to afford protection to the inhabitants of those villages upon any sudden invasion from the borders of Scotland, and for that purpose were strongly fortified[160-*]. Some church towers, especially in the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, are round and batter, or gradually decrease in diameter as they rise upwards; most of these are of the Norman, though some are in the Early English, style; that at Little Saxham Church, Suffolk, may be adduced as a specimen. Spires in some instances appear to have served as landmarks, to guide travellers through woody districts and over barren downs. The spire of Astley Church, Warwickshire, now destroyed, was so conspicuous an object at a distance, that it was denominated the lantern of Arden. The spires of the churches of Monkskirby and Clifton, in the same county, now also destroyed, were formerly noticed as eminent landmarks.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Little Saxham Church Tower, Suffolk.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Open Seat, Culworth Church, Northamptonshire.]

Anciently the body of the church appears to have contained no other fixed seats for the congregation than a solid ma.s.s of masonry raised against the wall, and forming a long stone bench or seat. A bench of this description runs along great part of the north, west, and south sides of the Norman church of Parranforth, Cornwall. In the Norman conventual church of Romsey plain stone benches of this description occur; they are likewise to be met with in Salisbury and other cathedrals; also in some of our ancient parish churches, as in the south aisle of Kidlington Church, Oxfordshire.

Seats for the use of the congregation are noticed in the synod of Exeter, held A. D. 1287. Open wooden benches or pew-work are rarely, if at all, met with of an earlier era than the fifteenth century, when the practice of pewing the body of the church with open wooden seats, if not then introduced, began to prevail. In 1458 we meet with a testamentary bequest of money "to make seats called puying," and several of our churches still retain considerable remains of the ancient open seats of the fifteenth century. At Finedon, in Northamptonshire, the body of the church and aisles are almost entirely filled with low open seats, with carved tracery at the ends, disposed in four distinct rows; so that the whole of the congregation might sit facing the east. Similar seats occur in Culworth Church, in the same county, and these are likewise of the fifteenth century. The pulpit was anciently disposed towards the eastern part of the body of the church, but not in the centre of the aisle. Pulpits are now rarely to be found of an earlier date than the fifteenth century, when they appear to have been introduced into many churches, though not to have become a general appendage. Ancient pulpits of that era, whether of wood or stone, are covered with panel-work tracery and mouldings; and some exhibit signs of having been once elaborately painted and gilt. Mention, however, is made of pulpits at a much earlier period; for in the year 1187 one was set up in the abbey church, Bury St. Edmund's, from which, we are told, the abbot was accustomed to preach to the people in the vulgar tongue and provincial dialect[164-*]. The most ancient pulpit, perhaps, existing in this country, is that in the refectory of the abbey (now in ruins) of Beaulieu, Hampshire: it is of stone, and partly projects from the wall, and is ornamented with mouldings, sculptured foliage, and a series of blank trefoiled pointed arches, in the style of the thirteenth century. The church of the Holy Trinity, at Coventry, contains a fine specimen of a stone pulpit of the fifteenth century. In Rowington Church, in the county of Warwick, is a stone pulpit of the same age as that at Coventry, but much plainer in design. At Long Sutton Church, Somersetshire, is a splendid wooden pulpit of the fifteenth century, painted and gilt; and the sides are covered with ogee-headed niches, with angular-shaped b.u.t.tresses between; but the pulpits of this era may be distinguished without difficulty by the peculiar architectural designs they exhibit.

We now approach the division between the nave or body of the church and the chancel or choir: this was formed by a beautiful and highly decorated screen, sometimes of stone, but generally of wood, panel and open-work tracery, painted and gilt: above this was a cross-beam, which formed a main support to the rood-loft, a gallery in which the crucifix or rood and the accompanying images of the blessed Virgin and St. John were placed so as to be seen by the parishioners in the body of the church, and also in accordance with the traditional belief that the position of our Saviour whilst suspended on the cross was facing the west. The pa.s.sage to the rood-loft was generally up a flight of stone steps in the north or south wall of the nave; but as the rood-loft frequently extended across the aisles, we sometimes meet with a small turret annexed to the east end of one of the aisles for the approach. Though the introduction of the lattice-work division between the chancel and nave may be traced in the eastern church to the fourth century, we possess in our own churches few remains of screen-work of earlier date than the fifteenth century; and it appears probable that wooden screen-work before that period was not common, and that in most instances a curtain or veil was used for the purpose of division. The rood-loft generally projected in front, so as to form a kind of groined cove, the ribs of which sprang or diverged from the princ.i.p.al uprights of the screen beneath. In Long Sutton Church, Somersetshire, is a splendid wooden rood-loft, elaborately carved, painted, and gilt, which extends across the whole breadth of the church, and is approached by means of a staircase turret on the south side of the church. In the churches of Great Handborough, Enstone, Great Rollwright, and Hook Norton, Oxfordshire, are considerable remains of the ancient rood-loft, and numerous other instances where it is still retained could be adduced. Sometimes this gallery was so small as to admit of the rood and two attendant images only, and had no apparent access to it, as that in Wormleighton Church, Warwickshire. Hardly a rood-loft is, however, remaining of earlier date than the fifteenth century; prior to that period, and in many instances even during it, the crucifix or rood and its attendant images appear to have been affixed to a transverse beam extending horizontally across the chancel arch; this was sometimes richly carved, and a beam of this description still exists in the chancel of Little Malvern Church, Worcestershire. An earlier date than the eleventh century can hardly be a.s.signed for the introduction of the rood, with the figures of St. Mary and St. John, into our churches, though in illuminated ma.n.u.scripts somewhat before that period we find such figures pourtrayed with the crucifix[167-*]. In the abbey church, Bury St. Edmund's, the rood and the figures of St. Mary and St. John, which were placed over the high altar, were (as we are informed by Joceline, who wrote his Chronicle in the twelfth century) the gift of Archbishop Stigand[167-]. Gervase, in describing the work of Lanfranc in Canterbury Cathedral, as it appeared before the fire, A. D. 1174, notices the rood-beam, which sustained a large crucifix and the images of St. Mary and St. John, as extended across the church between the nave and central tower[168-*].

[Ill.u.s.tration: Rood, Sherborne Church, Dorsetshire.]

All the carved wooden roods appear to have been destroyed at the Reformation in compliance with the injunctions issued for that purpose.

We occasionally meet, however, with bas relief sculptures of our Saviour extended on the cross, with a figure on each side representing the Virgin and St. John, but in a mutilated condition. On the outside of the west wall of the south transept of Romsey Church, Hants, and close to the entrance from the cloisters into the church, is a large stone rood or crucifix sculptured in relief, with a hand above emerging from a cloud[169-*]: this is apparently of the twelfth century. Small sculptured representations of the rood, with the figures of St. Mary and St. John, still exist on one of the b.u.t.tresses near the west door of Sherborne Church, Dorsetshire; over a south doorway of Burford Church, Oxfordshire; and in the wall of the tower of the church of St. Lawrence, Evesham.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Sanctus Bell, Long Compton Church, Warwickshire.]

Outside the roof of some churches, on the apex of the eastern gable of the nave, is a small open arch or turret, in which formerly a single bell was suspended: this was the _sanctus_ or _sacringe_ bell, thus placed that, being near the altar, it might be the more readily rung, when, in concluding the ordinary of the ma.s.s, the priest p.r.o.nounced the _Ter-sanctus_, to draw attention to that more solemn office, the canon of the ma.s.s, which he was now about to commence; it was also rung at a subsequent part of the service, on the elevation and adoration of the host and chalice, after consecration[171-*]; but though the arch remains on the gable of the nave of many churches, the bell thus suspended is retained in few; amongst which may be mentioned those of Long Compton, Whichford, and Brailes, in Warwickshire, where this bell is still preserved hung in an arch at the apex of the nave, with the rope hanging down between the chancel and nave[171-]. Mention of this bell is thus made in the Survey of the Priory of Sandwell, in the county of Stafford, taken at the time of the Reformation: "Itm the belframe standyng betw: the chauncell and the church, w^t. a litle _sanct_^m bell in the same."

Generally, however, a small hand-bell was carried and rung at the proper times in the service, by the acolyte; and in inventories of ancient church furniture we find it often noticed as "_a sacringe bell_;" but in an inventory of goods belonging to the chapel of Thorp, Northamptonshire, it is described as "a litle _sanctus bell_." A small sacringe bell, of bell-metal, with the exception of the clapper, which was of iron, was in 1819 discovered on the removal of some rubbish from the ruins of St.

Margaret's Priory, Barnstable; and within the last few years a small sanctus bell was found on the site of a religious house at Warwick[172-*].

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ancient Sanctus Bell, found at Warwick.]

Pa.s.sing under the rood-loft, we enter the chancel: this was so called from the screen or lattice-work (cancelli) of stone or wood by which it was separated from the nave, and which succeeded the curtain or veil which anciently formed this division of the church[173-*].

[Ill.u.s.tration: Stalls and Desk, St. Margaret's Church, Leicester.]

We often perceive in the choirs of conventual churches, as in our cathedrals, on either side of the entrance, facing the east, and also on the north and south sides, a range of wooden stalls divided into single seats, peculiarly constructed, the _formulae_ or forms of which were movable, and carved on the _subselliae_ or under-sides with grotesque, satirical, and often irreverend devices: these were appropriated to the monks or canons of the monastery or college to which the church was attached. The form of each stall, when turned up so as to exhibit the carved work on the under-part, furnished a small kind of seat or ledge, constructed for the purpose of inclining against rather than sitting on; and this was called the _misericorde_ or _miserere_. The _formulae_ or forms when down, and the misericordes when the forms were turned up, were used as the season required for penitential inclinations[174-*]. In front of these stalls was a desk, ornamented on the exterior with panelled tracery; and over the stalls, especially of those of cathedral churches, canopies of tabernacle work richly carved were sometimes disposed. In Winchester Cathedral we have perhaps the most early, chaste, and beautiful example of the canons' stalls, with canopies over, that are to be met with, although a greater excess of minute carved ornament may be found in the canopies which overhang the stalls in other cathedrals. In old conventual churches, now no longer used as such, the stalls have been often removed from their original position to other parts of the church, and they appear to have varied in number according to that of the fraternity.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Misericorde, All Souls' College, Oxford.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Bra.s.s Reading Desk, Merton College Chapel, Oxford.]