The secrets of a great cathedral
Date: 2025-11-08T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Gloucester Cathedral; Church architecture -- Europe; Architecture; Romanesque; Cathedrals -- Europe

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Title: The secrets of a great cathedral

Author: H. D. M. Spence-Jones

Release date: November 8, 2025 [eBook #77195]

Language: English

Original publication: London: J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd, 1914

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77195

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SECRETS OF A GREAT CATHEDRAL ***

This is companion to the preceding volume—
“The Dean’s Handbook to Gloucester Cathedral.”

Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Ravenna.
Circa A.D. 440.

THE SECRETS OF A
GREAT CATHEDRAL

BY THE VERY REV.
H. D. M. SPENCE-JONES, M.A., D.D.

Dean of Gloucester
Professor of Ancient History in the Royal Academy

LONDON: J. M. DENT & SONS, LTD.
NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.
1914

All rights reserved

This book, “The Secrets of a Great Cathedral,” is, after a fashion, the sequel to the Dean’s “Handbook to Gloucester Cathedral,” although it has no special reference to, no real connection with the former work.

These “Secrets” belong to no one solitary pile, but are the heritage of the many Cathedrals, at once the glory and the riddle of Catholic Europe. Still, references to one pile—Gloucester, the loved home of the writer of the book—will be found constantly to crop up and appear unexpectedly in the following pages.

Like King Charles the First in the “Memorial” of the immortal Mr. Dick in Dickens’ “David Copperfield,” so is Gloucester ever straying into the “Cathedrals” of the “Secrets.” Its haunting memory will not be kept out.

The reader must forgive, and perhaps forget, the writer’s fancy, and—quietly read on.

INTRODUCTORY

The quaint name which the writer has given to his little book, “The Secrets of a Great Cathedral,” is based upon his desire to answer briefly some of the leading questions which have been put to him in the long course of his office as chief custodian of one of the most notable of Romanesque cathedrals.

For after viewing with more or less interest and care the grey, time-worn pile of Gloucester, the visitors often long to learn something of the genesis and meaning of the several principal parts of the mighty church.

They ask first, naturally enough, what is the meaning of the term “Romanesque,” which they have often heard now and again popularly described as “Norman.” Whence then came this massive round-arch architecture? Is it not perhaps much older than the Norman period, which only dates from the eleventh and twelfth centuries? If so, who were the inventors of this widely diffused style? when and where did they live and work?

The writer of this little book answers the question, and tells the inquirer that this so-called “Romanesque” style is of very ancient date, and he traces its wonderful story back for some seven or eight hundred years before the coming of the Normans into England.

In late years not a few scholars[1] have dwelt with more or less detail on “the secret” of this wonderful and stately “Romanesque” round-arch architecture, of which so many splendid examples still remain in different lands. These scholars give us many important details, and they suggest various interesting theories on its origin and development.

But the most exhaustive histories that we possess of Romanesque architecture have quite lately appeared.[2] One of these belongs to Italy and is the work of Signor Rivoira; the other to England, and is from the pen of Sir Thomas Jackson, R.A. They both travel over much of the same ground, but with infinite varieties of detail and illustration—both, however, in their own way, telling the most interesting story that historical ecclesiastical architecture has ever had to tell. No one, after a careful study of these two great works, but will feel that the veil which has partly concealed “the secret” of Romanesque has at length been lifted.

But comparatively few, alas, find the leisure necessary to master the contents of these four massive quarto volumes.

One word on these great works, not of criticism but of legitimate comment, is called for.

Rivoira, the Italian scholar, throughout his great study of Romanesque, seeks and finds in Italy, the old home of Rome and the Empire, the inspiration and the cradle of all Romanesque. Sir T. Jackson, R.A., on the other hand, refers to Constantinople and the near East as the principal source of this the most famous and enduring of all architectural schools.

The Triforium.—The great gallery which appears in so many of the more important Anglo-Norman churches, and which in Gloucester Cathedral surrounds the choir, perplexes the student of the architecture of these mighty churches. What, is often asked, was the purpose of this striking feature? When and where was it first designed?

The story of the origin of a Triforium is sketched out; the reason for its exclusive ancient use in the Eastern Church is given, while in the West (Latin Christianity) it rarely, if ever, for many centuries appears.

Then its strange reappearance as a conspicuous and characteristic feature especially in Anglo-Norman Romanesque is discussed.

The Lady Chapel.—So well-known and frequent a feature in our more important mediæval cathedrals, abbeys and churches, notably in such English examples as Gloucester, Westminster Abbey, Salisbury, etc., often perplexes the inquirers. Whence, they ask, comes this striking “annexe” to the great religious piles of our forefathers? It seems to speak of a cult certainly unknown in the “inspired” writings—of a cult which is evidently a comparatively late development in Christian teaching.

The strange story of the “Lady Chapel” is traced in the pages of this little book.

The Crypt is by no means a universal feature even in Western Christendom, while in the East it is absolutely unknown. In the West, however, we frequently find a Crypt in the planning of the more important churches. The question often is put—What was its use? When and where was it first introduced? Is it not possibly “the memory” of some sacred spot once deeply revered and often visited in far-back days by tens of thousands from many distant lands? Emphatically a strange mystery hangs over those dark and gloomy Crypts which sleep beneath such great churches as the cathedrals of Gloucester and Canterbury, the mighty church of Chartres, the storied abbey of S. Benignus of Dijon. The true secret of the Crypt is a thrilling story and one that goes back to the earliest days of Christianity.

Some account is given of the Crypt of S. Peter’s, Rome, the “mother of Crypts,” and of the strange modern discoveries in that hallowed spot.

The Cloister, once so general a feature in the planning of the abbey and the cathedral church, and which even now has left not a few examples still striking with their scarred and often ruined beauty—the Cloister is to many the subject of perhaps a mute inquiry as to its origin and primitive use.

It is clearly a special adjunct to important Christian buildings, and was evidently once of the highest importance to the community of the abbey or the cathedral to which it was annexed.

It has a curious history, and one that is quickly and easily told; but this history is after all but very little known. It ranks emphatically as one of the secrets of a cathedral.

The Altar of S. Petronilla is a “memory” that belongs exclusively to Gloucester Cathedral, the home and the scene of work of the writer of this book. It is the earliest historical record in the many-coloured story of this great cathedral, and dates from the far-back early years of the eighth century. Its curious connection with the mighty church of the Severn Lands has suggested its inclusion in this work which deals with “the secrets” of a cathedral church.

The writer of these pages on “the secrets” of a cathedral has drawn much of his inspiration from the cathedral he loves so well. The story of S. Petronilla, so curiously and mysteriously linked with the fortunes of Gloucester Abbey some twelve centuries ago, possesses a deep and peculiar interest, as it tells of a sainted personage, now well-nigh forgotten, and round whom, for various reasons, modern criticism has been curiously busy.

The conclusions of modern critics, some of them of the first rank, if accepted, would destroy the supreme interest which in the early Christian centuries undoubtedly invested S. Petronilla with a halo of a rare and peculiar sanctity. The theories of modern critics have been refuted, mainly on historical grounds, in this study.

CONTENTS

Introductory (p. vii-xi)

The meaning of the title of this book, “The Secrets of a Great Cathedral,” is briefly explained.

The “Secrets” include the leading questions which are often put to the writer, who is the chief custodian of a great pile, partly Romanesque, partly Gothic, as to the signification and origin of certain prominent features of an important Mediæval Church.

These questions include the meaning and history of the term Romanesque architecture, sometimes mistakenly termed Norman.

The Lady Chapel.—The circumstances are discussed at some length, which gave rise to this comparatively late addition in the planning of a great church or abbey.

The Crypt.—A reply is given to the query—whence comes this remarkable and little understood feature in many of the cathedrals, abbeys and large churches—a feature only found in the churches of Western Christendom.

The Cloister.—The history of the “Cloister” is given with some detail—a sketch of what it evidently replaced is briefly written—some of the early criticisms on the elaborate ornamentation of Cloisters are discussed.

S. Petronilla.—This strange memory of a once famous, but now forgotten Saint—a memory which belongs especially to Gloucester Cathedral—is referred to. The true history of this Saint is sketched out.

Romanesque Architecture |
“Romanesque” a modern term—When first used—General signification of the word | 3

Romanesque—really a falling back on the ante-classical style of Roman architecture—Freeman’s definition—Parts of Diocletian’s palace of Spalatro, the earliest known example of Romanesque, where the Greek feature of the entablature is cast away, and the arches rest on capitals of columns

4

A brief review of the architectural story of Romanesque between the fourth and eleventh centuries—How Ravenna, from days of Honorius, became a great Art capital—The splendid Romanesque churches of Ravenna in the days of her glory—A list of Ravennese churches which have been preserved

6

After the Lombard conquest, a period of darkness in the Art world of Italy and the West set in—Renaissance of Art under the Lombard Queen Theodolinda—Two hundred years of Lombard rule—Who were the builders under the Lombards

13

History and appearance of the Comacine Guild of Architects | 14
The remains of earlier Comacine work under the Lombards—Lombard Comacine work under Charlemagne | 19
Romanesque, or the round-arch style, develops and penetrates into Gaul and even as far as England | 20
The Byzantine-domed Basilica. (A Note.) | 20
England. Lombardic work traced—its slow advance and progress before the Norman Conquest | 22
Germany. Little traces of early Romanesque save in the Palace-chapel of Aix-la-Chapelle | 22

The rare examples in Germany before the eleventh century—a few examples quoted, however, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries

24

Gaul—France. Tells us very little of Romanesque Art for many centuries, although there were many important buildings in the fourth and fifth centuries—We learn this from Sidonius Apollinaris, Gregory of Tours, etc. Very few Romanesque remains, however, exist dating from Merovingian and Carlovingian times

24

Something had happened in Gaul between the sixth and eleventh centuries to account for the absence of remains of early churches. In truth, the country was subjected, in a special degree, to disastrous invasions—by sea and land. (1) The Saracens. (2) The Northmen—Catalogue of devastated cities at hands of Northmen—Special reason for the complete destruction of churches in these raids—Rare facilities for these raids in Gaul

25

At the end of the tenth century, comparative stillness prevailed in France—Settlement of Northmen in Normandy and Northern France—We have in the eleventh and twelfth centuries many Romanesque buildings—not a few of an elaborate type

28

Varieties of Romanesque in the different Gallic provinces—Thus we find in Aquitaine and in the South-West the influence of Byzantine art very conspicuous, especially in the domed churches

29

In Provence Romanesque was largely inspired by memories of Imperial Rome—Here we find few examples of domed churches | 30

In Toulouse—and generally in Languedoc—exist fewer remains of Romanesque churches, owing to the Albigensian wars, so disastrous to the cities and their buildings

30

In Auvergne. A peculiar feature here in the Romanesque remains is the polychrome masonry of the ornamentation—The beautiful cloisters of Puy

31

Burgundy. The home “par excellence” of Monasticism so important in the eleventh century—especially in Cluny and Citeaux—The busy workshop of Cluny—The remarkable porches of certain of the churches—Progress of the new feature of vaulting—The vast Church of Cluny—Simplicity of Citeaux—its example is followed by the countless daughter Cistercian churches

31

The Royal Domain (l’Ile de France). Its narrow limits at first—Few Romanesque remains are found here owing to special ravages of the North-folk—The “Royal Domain” is greatly enlarged under Philip Augustus—It became the “cradle” of French Gothic—List of mighty Gothic cathedrals mostly completed in the thirteenth century

32

(In a Note.) Romanesque continued to hold its own in other provinces longer than in the Royal Domain—In the Royal Domain Gothic architecture superseded at an earlier date the older Romanesque type

33

Norman-Romanesque |

Norman-Romanesque—Its origin and rise—William of Volpiano the Lombard, a monk of Cluny—At the end of the tenth century he became Abbot and re-builder of S. Benignus of Dijon—His fame and story—Invited by Duke Richard II of Normandy, who appointed him Abbot of Fécamp—William of Volpiano and his pupils’ work in Normandy—Lombardic style generally followed with certain differences—List of some of the work of his school in Normandy. Lanfranc further develops it—His Church of S. Etienne at Caen—Some features of Norman work—It passed over into England with the Conqueror—Great development of Norman-Romanesque work in England—The enormous number and great size of churches and abbeys built under the influence of the Norman kings of England—Reasons for this building passion here—The famous English abbeys of expiation—all built under Norman inspiration

33

A brief recapitulation of the story of Romanesque from the beginning of the fourth century—Ravenna—Coming of the Lombards—Charlemagne, and the dark age which followed—Cluny and William of Volpiano—His school of architecture

40

Norman-Romanesque—A few words on the work of the Comacine Guild is repeated—Norman-Romanesque passes into England—Its glory—Variations in its style—One novel and important feature alluded to

41

On the Comacine symbol of Solomon’s knot—The interlaced line—Its meaning—Copied but not understood by Byzantine artists | 45
Comacine symbol of the Lion of Judah | 47
Romanesque—The Campanile or Bell Tower |

The Lombardic Romanesque Campanile Towers—the ancestors of the countless Bell Towers and Steeples of the Middle Ages—The Tower of San Satiro Milan, ninth century, probably the oldest example—The Campaniles of the ancient Ravenna churches, all of later date than the churches to which they are adjuncts

47

The Liturgical use of Bells—Goes back to the fifth century—Their use became gradually more marked—Their use at a later date in the East

48

Normandy especially famous for its Bells and Towers—Durandus of Mende on the symbolism of Bells—his fanciful derivations | 50

After the eleventh century the Bell became of greater importance—A short sketch of its history in the fifteenth century—The Bell now attained its great dimensions

51

List of the more famous Bells in the present day | 53
A few dates generally illustrative of Romanesque architecture | 53
The Passing of Romanesque |

A few memoranda on the transition of Romanesque into Gothic—The term “Gothic” a misnomer—Adopted in the Renaissance period as a term of reproach—Curious fallacy of Evelyn and others here—The term “Gothic” remained, though the old opprobrium was gradually removed—Gothic is really perfected Romanesque

54

Some of the new principles in Gothic architecture lightly sketched—The walls are slighter—The buttress now introduced—It does the work of the massive walls—The pointed arch—a principal outward and visible sign—This, however, really no new feature, for in the East it had been long used. The yet greater outward and visible feature of Gothic windows—More light needed for interiors—Glass, too, became less costly in twelfth and thirteenth centuries—Progress of art in stained glass demanded larger windows—The walls might now, owing to the support of buttresses, be safely pierced with large openings

56

Elaborate tracery in transoms and mullions of windows | 58
On the deeper inner meaning of Gothic architecture—France, as the original home of Gothic, selected as example here | 59

The exterior of great French cathedrals somewhat sacrificed to interior—where exceeding height was aimed at—Contrast with English great churches—The French cathedrals represent one continuous design, different to English cathedrals—Gloucester a good example here—where no one design exists, but original plan was constantly changed and added to

60

The French builders of the great cathedrals believed that in their wonderful height lay in part the secret of inspiring the worshippers with awe and reverence

62

As they built, their cathedrals were made higher and higher. The “splendid folly” of Beauvais was the climax of their striving here

62

The Beauvais Cathedral work briefly described | 62
The Triforium |
The question is often asked—What is the meaning and use of the great Triforium gallery? | 67

Suggested derivation of the word “Triforium”—Was a Triforium ever found in the great ancient churches of the West (in Latin Christianity)?

67

The real story of the reason of its appearance in the planning of an important church | 68
Note on Rivoira’s theory of a Pagan origin for this Byzantine feature of a great church | 68

The inquirer must go back to the age of Justinian, when the Basilicas of Constantinople and Salonica, etc., were built. In these great churches we ever find a gallery exclusively intended for women

68

In the Eastern Church the sexes were as a rule kept separate at Divine worship—Not so in the West—This separation was never a “Latin use.” Thus we never find a women’s gallery in the churches of Gaul and Italy, except these buildings were erected under direct Byzantine influences

69

But, strangely enough, the Triforium reappears in the West, especially in Anglo-Norman Romanesque, where it is a marked feature, although the original purpose for which it was designed no longer existed

70

Suggestions as to its possible use in these great later Romanesque piles: (1) Was it an ornamental architectural device? (2) Was it connected with pilgrimage—as affording a longer and more interesting procession for pilgrims? Neither of these suggestions, however, is fully satisfactory

71

General summary of the story of a Triforium | 71
The reason for the Anglo-Norman reappearance of the Triforium must remain a mystery | 72
The strange but remarkable theory of Mr. Hutton in his Ravenna is quoted | 73
The Lady Chapel |

Position of the Blessed Virgin Mary—In the New Testament, and in the oldest Liturgies—Estimate in the Eastern Church in the first half of sixth century

77

In the Western Church, in the days of Gregory the Great, the honour paid to her became more accentuated | 78

Men thought much on the state of the blessed dead—Gradual multiplication of Saints, almost deified in prayer—These were regarded as more accessible to prayer than the Persons of the ever blessed Trinity—Among these Saints, the Virgin Mary occupied naturally the chief position—Devotion to her gradually became a special cult

78

This cult was introduced into the life of the people, mainly through the Crusades—Chivalry in its religious aspect, especially in its regard for women, was one result of these strange wars, and the Virgin Mary became the object of passionate devotion to the great Crusading hosts

79

Detailed explanation of this—To her every Crusader looked for success in war—From the soldiers of the Crusading armies this passionate devotion passed to the people

80

Soon every important church after the period of the Crusades had its “Mary Chapel”—Hymns were written; Liturgies in her name were introduced—Thus a new adoration was added to Christian teaching—Ever higher and higher was the estimate conceived of her—The Lady Chapel soon became an important feature in a great church

81

The magnificent Gloucester Lady Chapel is a conspicuous and late example of this development in church planning | 81

A marked impulse was given to this novel cult in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries through the teaching of the Mendicant Orders, Franciscans and Dominicans; the Dominicans especially professed an intense devotion to the Virgin Mary—The famous “Rosary” prayer, which still holds its own, was “revealed” to S. Dominic—Yet some of the greatest mediæval masters, notably S. Bernard of Clairvaux, shrank from the extreme development of this strange novel cult

82

Art—its powerful testimony to the growth of this teaching | 83

The rare Catacomb pictures give it little or no support—In the very ancient Christian sarcophagi no prominent place is given to the Virgin Mary—Even in the ninth and tenth centuries, when the Crucifixion was often depicted in sculpture, the Virgin Mary and S. John are simply represented on either side of the Redeemer’s Cross

84

But in the middle of the twelfth century a marked change is noticeable—In sculpture or in painted glass, the Virgin Mary appears enthroned and crowned, with the Infant Christ in her arms

84

In the thirteenth century the Virgin Mary becomes a central figure—sometimes, though not always, with the Divine Child in her arms. But clearly it is to her that adoration was specially offered. And in the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, she appears in stained glass, in sculpture, in hymns and liturgies, portrayed as Queen of Heaven

85

A Short Appendix on certain remarkable Features in the Lady Chapel at Gloucester |

The east end of this great annexe to the cathedral, different to the original east end, is square-ended, not apsidal. It possesses also two little transepts. These are peculiarly English features

85

The square-ended form for churches was the ancient British “use,” and represents an independent tradition different to the Italian Basilican tradition of an apsidal or semi-circular end

86

The square end was general in the Irish oratories or little churches of remote antiquity, a few of which still remain. These were, of course, small and rough copies of the British churches which were all destroyed by the North-folk invaders in the fifth century. The only exception to this plan of the square end seems to have been in churches frequented by the Roman colonists and officials—Silchester is an example of these

86

After the coming of Augustine, A.D. 597, naturally the Italian apsidal end was introduced—But the old vogue of the traditional square end was rooted in the hearts of the dwellers in this Island, and largely reappeared in Saxon times

88

After the coming of the Normans, again, the apsidal end was adopted. But gradually the square end superseded the Italian apsidal end re-introduced by the Normans—A list is given of great English churches which now possess the square end—The exceptions are, comparatively speaking, rare

88

On the Continent of Europe the square end is hardly ever found. The few generally unimportant exceptions are quoted, and special causes are adduced for most of these exceptions

89

In England, the Abbey (Cathedral) of Gloucester is one of the notable exceptions—It has ever possessed an apsidal end | 90

But in 1457 when the present vast Lady Chapel was built, the architect determined to give it the square end—thus giving to the ancient abbey the original British form, which hitherto it had lacked

90

Another peculiar English use was the double transept. This, too, was added in the Lady Chapel, in the two little so-called Chantry Chapels of the Lady Chapel—Thus Gloucester in its latest additions became possessed of both the English special features—the square end, and the double eastern transepts

91

The recent discovery of two little churches on the north-west coast of Cornwall, hitherto buried in the sand, both dating from about A.D. 450. These lost churches are apparently the only survivors of the old British churches which were destroyed in the invasions of the North-folk—hence their importance. Some account of these long-lost Cornish churches or oratories is given. Both of these are built with the square end

91

The Crypt |

Meaning of the principal terms used in this chapter, viz. Crypt, Confessio, Memoria, Cubiculum, Catacomb—the last of these terms a curious misnomer

97

All the early and mediæval crypts are a “Memory” of the Crypt or Tomb of S. Peter | 97
The “Memoria” of Anacletus built over the Tomb of S. Peter | 97

Of the origin of the most celebrated of the Basilicas of Rome—They were all built over some famous martyr’s or confessor’s tomb

99

Of the “vogue” of the Crypt in the early Middle Ages—A few examples are given—This popular “vogue” came to an end about A.D. 1144—Reason for this giving up of the Crypt as part of the plan of important churches

101

The Crypt was entirely an ancient Latin and Western use—It never entered into the plan of the churches in the East—Reasons for this—It belonged exclusively to the Western School of Romanesque—In the later Middle Ages there were no Gothic crypts—In the early Mediæval age, a crypt was often planned in accordance with the vogue or fashion, even if no saint’s or martyr’s remains were interred in it—Gloucester Crypt is an example of this practice

103

The Crypt of S. Peter, Rome. The Story of the famous “Mother” Crypt |

The Crypt or Tomb of S. Peter with the “Memoria” of Anacletus above it, was the great object of all Western pilgrimage—it set the vogue in the planning of crypts in important churches in the West from the fourth century onwards

105

Position of Rome after the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 as the centre of Christendom, and chief object of pilgrimage from all lands

105

Position held by S. Peter (1) at Rome, (2) in all foreign Christian lands—The witness here of early Christian writers—Traditional memories of the Apostle at Rome

106

The respective estimation of the two Roman Basilicas of SS. Peter and Paul | 107

Early pilgrimages to the Tomb of S. Peter—What was the “Memoria” of Bishop Anacletus of Rome?—The sacred graves prepared by Anacletus round the Tomb of S. Peter for the dead who were laid there

108

How the little “Memoria” of Anacletus grew into the lordly Basilica of S. Peter | 108
The work of the Emperor Constantine in the Crypt of S. Peter | 109

Description of the Crypt after the work of Constantine—How access to the sarcophagus of the Apostle was preserved for several centuries

111

S. Gregory of Tours’ account of a visit of a pilgrim to the Tomb of S. Peter—Detailed examination of S. Gregory of Tours’ account

113

Of the costly offerings to the Tomb from A.D. 579 and onwards | 114
Visits of Charlemagne and of the Emperor Louis II (A.D. 845) to the Tomb | 115
How the sarcophagus was concealed before the expected plundering raid of the Saracens | 115

The magnificent sanctuary above the Tomb was partly restored by S. Leo IV and his successors, but never again was there any access to the Tomb itself—During the works connected with the Basilica of the new S. Peter, the sarcophagus was seen by Pope Clement VIII and three of his Cardinals

116

The little cemetery or group of graves prepared by Anacletus, discovered in the course of the works carried on under Urban VIII in the seventeenth century when the foundations of the great bronze Baldachino, or canopy over the High Altar, of Bernini were being strengthened

118

Description of the Baldachino of S. Peter’s—The care taken of the sacred graves after the discovery—A detailed description of the little cemetery of Anacletus

119

Official memoranda of Ubaldi, Canon of S. Peter’s, made during the excavation works | 119
Of the present state of the cemetery of Anacletus round the Tomb of S. Peter | 120
What was found there is carefully detailed in Ubaldi’s memoranda | 121
The Cloister |

After the Peace of the Church, in the fourth and fifth centuries, a court or open space, in the case of the principal churches, was arranged in front of the chief entrance—This was sometimes known as “Paradisus”—In time this “outer court,” for various reasons, was removed to a more secluded place at the side of the church or abbey, and then the court in question reappeared as the Claustrun (cloister, close)—Round this court were erected various buildings—such as a school—and dwellings and offices for the ministers of the church, etc., were erected

127

In the late years of the tenth century, after the great revival of monastic life at Cluny, the cloister of the Middle Ages attained its supreme importance—It was the place where the dwellers in the religious House spent much of their time in literary work, and in teaching—One general plan seems to have been usually adopted in the cloisters on the Continent as in England

129

A description of a cloister and its surroundings | 130
The adornment of these cloisters was not unfrequently very elaborate—Examples are cited of such ornamentation | 131
Early criticism of such elaborate adornment | 131
Apologia for this beautiful monastic work | 132

The great debt that men owe to the monk-scribes and scholars, who through a disturbed and war-harassed age preserved and transcribed all that we possess now of ancient classical and of early Christian literature

133

A sketch of the austere conditions under which these monk-scribes worked in these cloisters | 134
Cassiodorus’ comment on the importance of monastic transcribing labours | 135
Durandus, Bishop of Mende—On the symbolism of a cloister | 136
Note, with sketch of the vast influence of this once widely-read author | 136
Appendix |

On the curious traces of mediæval popular games played by novices and pupils of the monastery, recently noticed in certain cloisters—of which the Gloucester Cloister is a notable example

137

Appendix on S. Petronilla’s Altar (the earliest historical detail existing in connection with the Abbey of Gloucester) | 138

How we first hear of S. Petronilla in the monastic records of Gloucester of the year 710—and 735—Leland refers to this curious “entry” in the story of the abbey

138

Who now was S. Petronilla?—Bishop Lightfoot’s theory—Baronius and later De Rossi and other Italian scholars differ here from Lightfoot, though they, too, shrink from acknowledging her undoubted parentage

139

A probably true version of S. Petronilla’s story—Testimony of Siricius, Bishop of Rome A.D. 391, to the lofty position evidently held by this saint in the estimation of the early Church

139

The wanderings of the remains of S. Petronilla—At first they were laid in the Basilica of Siricius on the Via Ardeatina—Then on the request of Pepin the Frankish king they were removed for safety to the little Rotunda Chapel close to the side of the Basilica of S. Peter—This little chapel was an Imperial Mausoleum

141

The special veneration in which this saint was held by the Frankish people, no doubt was owing to her being considered the veritable daughter of S. Peter

142

The Rotunda Chapel, where her remains were deposited, was pulled down when new S. Peter’s was being built, and then for many years the sarcophagus of S. Petronilla lay neglected in the sacristy of the new Church of S. Peter

142

The sarcophagus now rests in the great Basilica of S. Peter at the end of the right transept—in a small chapel called S. Petronilla’s

142

The only other English reference to this saint, once so greatly honoured, is in the dedication of the Church of Whepstead, near Bury S. Edmunds, where the name is strangely abbreviated to S. Parnel

143

Index

144

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

COLOURED PLATES |
Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Ravenna | Frontispiece
S. Giovanni Evangelista, Ravenna | 8
S. Vitale, Ravenna | 50
S. Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna | 74
BLACK AND WHITE |
The Triforium of Gloucester Cathedral, looking into the Choir | 70
Annexe to Gloucester Cathedral—The Lady Chapel | 86
Church of S. Gwithian, Cornwall, as it appeared in 1894 | 92
The Central Part of the Crypt of Gloucester Cathedral | 104
The Cloister of Gloucester Cathedral | 136
LINE DRAWINGS IN THE TEXT |
Sarcophagus of the Emperor Honorius in the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia | 8
Interior of S. Apollinare in Classe, Ravenna | 11
Capital from S. Vitale, Ravenna | 12
Chartres.—“Nôtre Dame de la belle verrière.” (See pages 84 and 85) | 35
Solomon’s Knot | 46
S. Apollinare in Classe, Ravenna | 49

ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE

The word “Romanesque” (Architecture Romane) is quite a modern term; it was first generally used by the French savant M. de Caumont about the year 1825. De Caumont learned it from a contemporary Norman antiquarian of distinction, M. de Gerville, who adopted it as a fitting appellation for the “Round-Arch” style which prevailed in the countries which made up the Roman Empire roughly from the fifth century to the latter end of the twelfth century.

This style had received various names, such as Lombardic, Saxon, Norman, Byzantine. The French archæologists were of opinion that one general term could fairly be given to the various schools of “round-arch” architecture, and considering the original Roman parentage of the style, fixed upon “Romanesque” (Romane) as a fairly accurate title for this widely disseminated architectural school of building, which, with its various differences in detail, held its own as the architecture par excellence of the West, and with certain important variations and additions, of the near East, for so many centuries.

The appellation “Romanesque” (Architecture Romane) has been generally if not universally adopted in the West for “round-arch” architecture during the last eighty years. In the near East the term “Byzantine” has been usually applied to the “round-arch” style of the vast majority of buildings erected from the age of Justinian and afterwards, until the period of the conquest and supremacy of the Ottoman Turks in the fifteenth century. Constantinople fell A.D. 1453.

Professor Freeman, with great truth, tells us that Romanesque architecture is not, as many affirm, a corruption of the architecture of classical Rome, but that it is a falling back on the earliest—the ante-classical form of Roman architecture, which was the true Roman form, before the original Roman architecture had given way to a foreign (a Greek) influence.

The great scholar and archæologist cites as an example of ante-classical Roman architecture the ruins of the Emporium by the Tiber, a magazine for merchandise which had been built before the days of the Emperors. There we see a simple round-arch construction on which no Greek element has intruded—a perfect foreshadowing of any later unadorned Romanesque building of the eleventh century. Of this earlier style, the so-called classical Roman, with its marked Greek features, is in fact a corruption.

A consistent round-arched style begins again when the Greek feature of the entablature is cast away, when the architect designed an arcade where the arches rest not on the entablature or cornice, but immediately on the capitals of the columns.

Such a beginning of consistent round-arched architecture is to be found in the famous palace of Diocletian at Spalatro at the beginning of the fourth century. There in the arcades of the great peristyle, the gorgeous capitals of the Corinthian order have found for themselves a new work; they bear up no longer the dead entablature or heavy cornices, but the living arch. When this great step had once been taken, the full development of Romanesque architecture was only a work of time. The splendid basilicas of Ravenna of the fifth and sixth centuries exhibit essentially the same type—Greek conceptions have disappeared. The elaborate Greek entablature[3] has vanished, and the arches now rest simply on the capitals of the columns.[4]

Freeman mentions the famous Palace of Diocletian at Spalatro, circa A.D. 305, as the beginning of consistent round-arched architecture, a building which in various portions has gone back to the old pre-classical forms, suppressing the Greek entablature, and leaving to the delicate Corinthian capitals their new work of bearing up the arches and the weight above the arches.

The century which followed the abdication of Diocletian was the first Christian century; in it Rome gradually faded away from its old position of mistress of the world.

Honorius, the son and successor of the great Theodosius in the Western Empire, dismayed at the rapid advance of the barbarian hordes, finally transferred the imperial seat of government from Rome to Ravenna, circa A.D. 404.

Almost at once in Ravenna flamed up a new architectural impulse, and Romanesque architecture in the famous Ravennese churches appears. Several of these great piles, with much of their beautiful ornamentation, are with us still.

For about 160 years Ravenna, under its different rulers, the Emperor Honorius and his sister Galla Placidia, Theodoric the Ostro-Goth and the Emperor Justinian, with his famous lieutenants Belisarius and Narses, remained a great Art capital, the virtual centre of the new school of consistent round-arched construction, the Greek feature of the entablature being laid aside. Ravennese art preceded the great development of art in Constantinople, for the splendid tomb of Galla Placidia, completed before A.D. 450, was already gleaming with the gold and colour of its beautiful mosaics long before the erection of the great basilica of S. Sophia at Constantinople by Justinian (A.D. 532-537). But the glory of Ravenna as an Art capital faded away after a duration of about 160 years, when Alboin the Lombard overran and conquered Northern and most of Central Italy.

In the early years of the fifth century the best craftsmen of Rome and Milan naturally flocked to Ravenna, whither the imperial court of Honorius had migrated; these skilled artisans being attracted to Ravenna by the numerous works of importance which Honorius and Galla Placidia had set on foot.

We will give a few details of the age which produced these wonderful works undertaken and completed in Ravenna during the 160 years, some few of which, although sadly shorn of their ancient splendour, are to this day the objects of our wonder and admiration.

We can fairly divide those 160 years roughly into three periods. The first, the age of Honorius and his sister Galla Placidia. The romantic story of this famous princess, the inspirer of the marvellous Ravennese art, is well known. She was the daughter of the great Emperor Theodosius, and was the sister of Honorius, and of Arcadius the Emperor of the East. In A.D. 414 she married Ataulphus, the brother and successor of Alaric, the Visigothic conqueror. After the assassination of Ataulphus at Barcelona and a short period of captivity among his murderers, she returned to Ravenna and her brother Honorius in A.D. 416, and married Constantius, a distinguished general of Honorius, who after his marriage was eventually associated with Honorius in the Empire of the West, and received the title of Augustus, but Constantius only survived his elevation a few months.

The influence of Placidia in Ravenna over her brother Honorius was very marked, but a deadly feud sprang up between the brother and sister soon after Constantius’s death in 421, and Galla Placidia fled to Constantinople to her nephew, the reigning Emperor of the East. Honorius died in A.D. 423. Then, aided by the armed legions of her nephew the Emperor Theodosius II, Placidia returned to Ravenna, and bearing the title of Augusta, became paramount in Ravenna and Italy for some twenty-five years, first as Regent and then as the all-powerful adviser of her son Valentinian II.

Sarcophagus of the Emperor Honorius in the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Ravenna (fifth century).

It was no doubt during this long period of Placidia’s reign that several of the great Ravennese churches, some of which are still among the glories of this strange city, were built—viz. S. Giovanni Evangelista, S. Francesco, S. Agata and the Church of the Holy Cross; the last-named has disappeared, but its beautiful annexe, known as the mausoleum of Placidia, where Placidia was buried, still remains, glittering with its splendid mosaics. In this magnificent royal tomb house are also the great sarcophagi which contain the ashes of Honorius her brother, and of Constantius her husband, and of her son Valentinian II.

S. Giovanni Evangelista, Ravenna.
Circa A.D. 425.

The second period of building belongs to the reign of Theodoric the Ostrogoth. After the death of Placidia and her son Valentinian II, who only survived his mother for a little while (he was murdered in A.D. 455), apparently the building of great churches in Ravenna ceased for a time. Ravenna and Italy in this interregnum were ruled over by a group of shadowy Emperors; the last who bore the great title in the West, Romulus Augustulus, who closed the group, was deposed in A.D. 476. Then followed the reign of Odoaces, the barbarian chief who, under the title of Patrician, ruled in Italy until A.D. 493, when Theodoric the Ostrogoth became the dominant power in Italy. Ravenna was his capital city.

The famous Arian king Theodoric, Procopius tells us, was “an extraordinary lover of justice, and adhered rigorously to the laws; he guarded the country from barbarian invasions, and displayed the greatest intelligence and prudence. He reigned for some thirty years or more, leaving a deep regret for his loss in the hearts of his subjects.” Among his good deeds was his care for the great monuments of the Empire. His zeal for the adornment of Ravenna was remarkable.

Theodoric was a great builder. We possess still his magnificent Arian Church of S. Apollinare Nuovo, which was originally called S. Martin; it was known as “de Coelo Aureo” because of its beautiful gilded roof. It is, after all these years, the noblest church in Ravenna. This church received its present name in the ninth century, when the remains of S. Apollinare were translated from the neighbouring suburb of Classis. The glorious mosaics which now adorn it probably replaced the original work of Theodoric; these mosaics we now admire were placed there as early as the sixth century, when the Arian basilica was transformed into a Christian church.

We have with us another great Arian church which he built, now called the Spirito Sancto. It was originally named S. Theodore. Very little of the original portion of this church remains.

Theodoric died in A.D. 536. Then followed a short time of confusion. Amalasuntha, Theodoric’s daughter, succeeded to her father’s power in Italy as guardian of her son Athalaric, but Athalaric died in his eighteenth year, and Amalasuntha was eventually murdered.

The great Justinian was now reigning in Constantinople, and resolved to reconquer Italy and to unite it with the Eastern Empire. This he accomplished through the instrumentality of his famous generals Belisarius, and later Narses. The Goths after two long wars were completely defeated, and Ravenna became a city of the Eastern Empire A.D. 540.

Interior of S. Apollinare in Classe, Ravenna.
Circa A.D. 533-549.

Then may be said to have commenced the third period of building and adorning Ravenna. In this period, under the inspiration of Justinian, the mighty churches, still standing, of S. Vitale and S. Apollinare in Classe,[5] were erected, and magnificently adorned with the mosaics which we now wonderingly admire in their scarred but unspoiled loveliness.

What we term the third period of the erection of Ravennese works of art roughly lasted from A.D. 540 to A.D. 568, when Alboin the Lombard with his strange and savage hordes descended upon Italy.

Capital from S. Vitale, Ravenna, showing Romanesque Pulvino.

Although Ravenna and a certain territory more or less adjacent to it, known as the Exarchate, for a long time remained attached to the Eastern or Byzantine Empire, we have no record of any important building or art work in the Ravenna of the Exarchs of the Eastern Empire.

The stranger pilgrim visiting Ravenna, the city of so many memories and of world-famed churches, now, alas, will not see these marvellous Basilicas of Galla Placidia, of Theodoric and Justinian, in their ancient glory. Their great age, some fourteen to fifteen centuries, desolating wars and sieges, long periods of neglect, the unskilful hand of various restorers, have sadly changed them. For the most part they have been largely rebuilt. But the exquisite Romanesque plan, the long unbroken rows of pillars, mostly of precious marbles, with the Ravennese pulvins, the great invention of Romanesque architecture, supporting the overhanging arches, thus supplanting the Greek entablature, and the beautiful Romanesque capitals are still there. In several of the churches the wonderful mosaics of the great builders and artists to this day look down on us, gleaming well-nigh as fresh and lovely as they were some fourteen hundred years back.

One singular feature must be touched upon. The outside of these noble Romanesque piles is ever unadorned and strangely unattractive. This is noticeable in all Byzantine as well as in Ravennese (and Italian) Romanesque churches. The outside of S. Sophia in Constantinople, for example, is singularly disappointing, but, on the other hand, alike in Ravenna and in Constantinople, a Romanesque Basilica emphatically is “all glorious within.”

After the Lombard conquest followed a short period of almost total darkness in the Art world of Italy and the West.

A slow renaissance of architectural art, however, soon showed itself under the influence of Queen Theodolinda, a Bavarian Christian princess who was married in succession to two Lombard kings, Autharis and Agilulf.

Then, all through the Lombard domination, a period lasting roughly 200 years, a gradual revival of church building went on. Not a few churches were built in these 200 years under the influence of the Lombard kings. We have only scanty remains of their work, but still enough to show us that the old spirit of the Ravenna school inspired the builders, and the round-arch style was generally adopted.

Of course these Lombard churches were sadly inferior to the glorious Ravennese piles of Galla Placidia, Theodoric and Justinian, but the spirit of the same school of thought evidently inspired the architects employed by the Lombard rulers, which had dwelt among the builders of the churches of Ravenna in the days of her glory.

Now who were the builders and architects of the Lombard churches which arose in these 200 years? The Lombard buildings were evidently not the work of the Lombards themselves. They had no stone buildings before Alboin and his hordes crossed the Alps.

I think we can answer the question.

In the Code of the Lombard King Rotharis, A.D. 636-652, for the first time appears the expression “Magistri Comacini.” In this Code of Laws the Magistri Comacini appear as Master-Masons with unlimited powers to make contracts for building, and to enrol members in their Guild, and these Comacini are mentioned again in an official document of King Liutbrand, A.D. 712-744, which treats of architecture and carving carried out by the Comacine Guild in question.

Now this Guild cannot have sprung into existence full-grown, and as it were by magic, in the days of King Rotharis, A.D. 636. It must have been already in existence, and have been too of some importance, before Alboin’s descent on Italy, A.D. 568, which was followed by the reign of the Lombard kings. Who now were these Comacini? There is little doubt that they were the successors of the Master-Masons who in the days of the vanished Empire had directed the operations of the Roman Collegia, especially devoted to building, and who had survived the barbarian invasions which were so disastrous to Italy in the years which preceded the accession of Rotharis to the Lombard throne. When Honorius migrated from Rome to Ravenna, this Guild of Masons apparently had made its head-quarters at Ravenna; had designed and carried out the magnificent Ravenna buildings; then eventually, in the general upheaval which followed the invasion of Alboin, the Guild removed to the comparatively safe asylum of Como—a district singularly fitted for the home of a building fraternity, owing to the stone and marble quarries and yards for which it was celebrated.

Como had been long an important and a flourishing city when the Lombard hordes descended into Italy. In the days of the Empire it had held the rank of a colony, and was governed by a Prefect. Pliny the Younger had held this office, and for a time lived in the beautiful city in his Villa “Comoedia.” Catullus also made his home in Como. Indeed, Como and the Comacine islands might be considered a privileged territory.

After Alboin the Lombard—A.D. 568—had invaded and conquered Northern and much of Central Italy, the city of Como for a long time preserved its independence, and was resorted to by many of the fugitives from the Lombard raiders, as a haven of security; among these fugitives from Ravenna and other centres were included many members of the famous Guild of Roman Architects and Builders whose head-quarters had been Ravenna in the days of her prosperity and glory under the Emperor Honorius, his sister Placidia, Theodoric the Ostrogoth and the lieutenants of Justinian.

For many years Como held out against the barbarian invaders. In the end, however, it fell before the forces of the Lombard sovereign Autharis.

The Lombard conquerors, as we have seen, favoured the Guild or brotherhood of architects which they found in Como; they gave this building fraternity, the successors of the ancient Roman Guild of Architects, great privileges, as we see from the Edict of the Lombard King Rotharis, circa A.D. 636, and employed them in their many and important building works.

Como continued to be the head-quarters of this trained architectural Guild, and from this city, their permanent traditional home, they derived their name, by which for long centuries they were known—the Comacine builders—Magistri Comacini. This expression appears first in the above quoted Edict of the Lombard King Rotharis, circa A.D. 636.

It is clear that under the Lombard domination these Comacine builders possessed a legal monopoly in the Lombard sphere of influence, from the early years of the occupation of their conquerors.

This famous Comacine Guild or brotherhood continued to exist and to flourish for many centuries, indeed until the disappearance of the Lombard style of round-arch architecture, which style they had perfected, somewhere about the close of the twelfth century.[6]

Very soon after their settlement in conquered Italy, the victorious Lombards passed under the magic spell of Italy, and became themselves lovers of art, and under the influence of the Christianity which they adopted as their religion, proceeded to build churches and even cathedrals. They made use of this Comacine Guild, and by their patronage and favour revived the fading tradition of this most ancient building and architectural fraternity and Guild. This was the beginning of the famous Lombardic style we usually term Romanesque.

At first, under the Lombard kings, the Comacine artists worked with, comparatively speaking, poor art, little skill and imagination; they retained, it is true, their old traditions, but they had fallen out of practice during the period of unrest and disorder which followed the Lombard invasion, but with the new impulse given by the Lombard rulers to Art, they progressed in architectural design and ornament, and gradually transformed the old Roman and later Romanesque development into a new style still possessing many of the old round-arch features, a new style generally termed Lombardic—which is now generally known as Romanesque.

Although time (some 1300 years back), the devastation of endless wars, many restorations, and even rebuilding, have obliterated so much of the very ancient Lombardic work, there is no doubt that as early as in the days of Queen Theodolinda, the wife of King Autharis, A.D. 571-91, and later of King Agilulf, a number of churches were erected in the Lombardic dominions. Theodolinda, as we have stated, was a Bavarian princess.

This queen may fairly be reckoned as the one who rekindled in Northern and Central Italy the dying embers of fine Arts, and especially of architecture.

After the time of this Lombard queen, who among other works built the first cathedral of Monza, no sovereign, during the 200 years of Lombard rule, can be quoted who did not help to keep alive the spirit of fine art, especially the art of architecture, which seems to have been especially cultivated among the Lombard peoples from an early date after their settlement in Italy.

The learned Muratori with great force bears his testimony here, when he tells us that if more of the ancient Lombard buildings had survived, they would have presented a striking, and by no means a rough and barbaric appearance. The great scholar supports his conclusions here by a striking reference to the contemporary Lombard writer, the well-known Paulus Diaconus, whose admiration for the churches of his country was evoked by a personal knowledge of them and their distinguishing features.

Paulus Diaconus was well able to form an accurate opinion of these buildings, for he must have been very familiar with the magnificent churches of Rome and Ravenna, which in his day and time still preserved much of their original magnificence.[7]

Rivoira cites and describes the present condition of a very few of the undoubted remains of these ancient Lombard churches. Other Italian scholars, however, instance more which they think belong to this first age of Lombardic art.

We possess few remains of the earlier Comacine work; they become, however, more numerous as time went on.

The following very early churches are now generally dated as erected in the eighth century and earlier, and still remain intact, in part at least, and they fairly represent the gradual development of the Lombardic style during the period of the rule of the Lombardic kings: San Salvatore, Brescia, circa A.D. 753, is the best known instance; the parish church of Arliano, near Lucca, somewhat earlier; San Pietro, Toscanella; San Giorgio in Valpolicella; S. Teuteria, Verona, are also cited by Rivoira.

After the fall of the Lombard rule, in the time of Charlemagne, A.D. 774, the Comacine Guild had the opportunity of working in a wider field, and were no doubt employed in most of the few important buildings erected by that monarch; we can trace their handiwork and the peculiar signs of their craft all through the ninth and tenth centuries, and we notice the gradual advance they made in Art, even in that dark and troubled age.

But in spite of this advance in the beauty and ornamentation of their buildings, it was not until the close of the first quarter of the eleventh century that these famous architects really recovered the lost Roman secret of vaulting large churches; hitherto they had, save in rare instances, confined themselves to covering small spaces, such as the apses and crypts of churches, with vaults.

Through those darkest of the early Middle Ages, the seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth centuries, the Romanesque or round-arch style again slowly developed in Lombardy. It penetrated into Gaul, into Germany, and even to distant England.[8]

In England, the presence of Italian (Lombardic) influences, from a very early period, is undoubted; but the remains we possess of churches erected before the Conquest are, after all, but scanty.

Some writers maintain with great probability that the few churches built shortly after the arrival of Augustine’s mission (A.D. 597) in England were the work of Italian craftsmen. The first clearly dated churches erected in England under Italian (Lombardic) influence, however, belong to a somewhat later period. They are: S. Peter, Monkwearmouth, built in A.D. 675 by Benedict Biscop, first Abbot of Wearmouth and Jarrow, as Bede tells us, “in the Roman style.”

S. Paul’s, Jarrow, by Benedict Biscop, A.D. 684.

Bishop Wilfred, the energetic Roman champion, erected the Basilica of S. Andrew, Hexham, between A.D. 672-678; a building which in his day was famous for its size and splendour, though no doubt the contemporary eulogies here were owing to the great poverty of ecclesiastical structures in England at this time.

S. Peter’s, Ripon, A.D. 671-678, was also the work of Wilfred; the Crypt of his church is still with us. S. Andrew, Corbridge, is also reputed to have been erected by Wilfred.

Direct Italian (Lombardic) influence, however, ceased when the Archbishop’s chair at Canterbury was no longer filled by foreign ecclesiastics; and at the close of the seventh century, and from the early years of the beginning of the eighth century, for a somewhat lengthened period architecture in England pursued its own course without external aid. But the round-arch Lombardic style still remained general, though the buildings were rough and somewhat uncouth. Brixworth Church—A.D. 654—is a fair example of the churches of this disturbed period.

We have little to guide us here until the days of Alfred, A.D. 871-891, when foreign influences again were dominant in the realm of the great Anglo-Saxon king. In the days of Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, circa A.D. 943-988, a strong current of foreign (Italian) influence passed over England. A similar current is notable in the reign of Ethelred II (the Unready), A.D. 978-1016. This current became stronger and stronger. Under Edward the Confessor, A.D. 1041-1066, the new style of architecture—the Lombardo-Norman—made its appearance in England. We shall dwell at considerable length on this important school which produced so many world-famous works.

No doubt before the coming of the Lombardo-Norman (Romanesque) style, many of the English churches were constructed of wood. This material was plentiful, as much of the country consisted of forest land. These have disappeared. We possess, however, one remarkable example of these Anglo-Saxon timber-constructed buildings in the interesting little chapel near Aungre (Chipping Ongar), built on the occasion of the translation of the relics of S. Edmund from London, circa A.D. 1013.

The first great monument of the coming of Lombardo-Norman architecture into England is undoubtedly the Abbey Church of S. Peter, known as Westminster Abbey. This famous church was built, in part at least, by Edward the Confessor, circa A.D. 1051-1065. Its completion was the work of William the Conqueror.

In Germany, until the period of Charlemagne, we have no proof that any considerable churches were built. This great conqueror and organiser erected, A.D. 796-804, at Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle) the famous Palace-chapel subsequently known as the cathedral, generally after the model of San Vitale at Ravenna; but it stands alone. It was not imitated, and his feeble successors, the Carolingian princes, did little to advance or to foster architecture in their broad dominions. This important building at Aachen remained, it must be confessed, as far as its influence was concerned, a solitary appearance in Germany. It is said that its great founder Charlemagne hoped this Palace-chapel at Aachen might have served as a model for other German churches, but it is clear that his influence in architecture was as ephemeral as the mighty Empire which he was unable to endow with permanent vitality.

The Sepulchral Chapel at Lorsch, A.D. 876; perhaps the Crypt and some of the remains at Quedlinburg, A.D. 936; the old Cathedral at Cologne, A.D. 781; the Church of S. Michael at Fulda, A.D. 818; the Church of Steinbach, A.D. 815; parts of the more important Church of Gernrode, S. Cyriacus, A.D. 968, are among the very few examples which can be cited of Romanesque work in Germany, until the rise of the Lombardo-Rhenish style in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

Rivoira well characterises the Lombardo-Rhenish basilicas of the eleventh and twelfth centuries as the highest expression of German architecture. It was, he says, an outward and visible sign of the Imperial idea brought back to life among the Teutonic people by Otto the Great in the last half of the tenth century.

The erection of these great churches is synchronous with the mighty wave of church building which passed over Northern and Central Europe in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. One great peculiarity in this style was the general adoption of flat ceilings (trabeated) over the wide spaces. It was not until the latter part of the twelfth century that cross vaulting over the naves and wide spaces began to be adopted in the great German churches.

In their general features, however, these imposing Rhenish churches of the eleventh and immediately following centuries, largely followed Lombardic models.

Among other notable piles, the undermentioned Lombardo-Rhenish churches rose in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. In Cologne: S. Maria im Capitol, A.D. 1094. S. Martin and the Church of the Apostles and S. Gereon, eleventh and twelfth centuries. The Cathedral of Spires, eleventh and twelfth centuries. The Cathedral of Mainz, eleventh and twelfth centuries. S. Castor of Coblenz, eleventh and twelfth centuries. The Cathedral of Worms, eleventh and twelfth centuries. The Minster Church of Bonn, twelfth century.

But what of Gaul—the France of mediæval and modern days, the fairest, the richest, the most important of the provinces of the Roman rule—greater and more influential in wealth as in culture by far than any part of the dominions of the western world of Rome—equalled by none of the countries of the far or nearer East of the great Empire—second only to Italy, the mother-land of the Roman Empire?

What does this Gaul tell us of the rise and progress of Romanesque architecture? Strangely little, we reply, for many centuries. It is not by any means that this famous division of the mighty Empire was ever wanting in noble and sumptuous buildings, civil and ecclesiastical. To give a few notable historical examples as far back as the fifth and sixth centuries. Sidonius Apollinaris, Bishop of Clermont, gives us a vivid picture of a stately country house in the Auvergne of his day, one of many such lordly villa residences. Gregory of Tours describes at some length the Church of Clermont Ferrand, as it existed in the sixth century, and dwells on its forty-two windows, its seventy columns, on its walls decorated with mosaics and many coloured marbles. A still vaster and more famous ancient church was the venerable and far-famed Basilica of S. Martin at Tours, so eloquently pictured by the same historian, S. Gregory of Tours. Another stately church we know adorned the great city of Lyons. The Lyons church was erected before the period of the church building activities of Justinian which culminated in the superb S. Sophia at Constantinople—one of the wonders of the Roman world of the East. This Lyons church was a building contemporary with the noble Ravennese Basilicas of Honorius and Galla Placidia. But every vestige of all these, and of many others of later date, has disappeared. Quicherat strikingly asks, “Where are all the churches of France which were erected before the year of grace 1000?”

The most careful investigation of modern archæologists can only discover some four or five at most, poor reliquiæ of Merovingian and Carlovingian times, and these few scanty remains consist of a solitary crypt or two, or of a small and unimportant chapel, once evidently a part of some more considerable building now utterly vanished.

Something more than time, though measured by centuries, must have been at work here. Evidently a ruthless destroyer’s hand has passed over France and swept away all these monuments of religious zeal and devoted piety. Quicherat, Viollet le Duc, Guizot and Villemain, Sir James Stephen, Palgrave and other modern historians, in their picture of the story of France in the sixth and following centuries, tell us how all this havoc and destruction came about.

No country like France has suffered so deeply from hostile raids and disastrous invasions—from the seventh century onwards. As early as in the first years of the eighth century have the Saracens harried the southern districts of the fair Gallic province—the great Mediterranean Sea for a long season appeared destined to become a Moslem Lake, whose masters were Saracenic pirates. On land these Eastern depredators were even more destructive. Nothing daunted by the crushing defeat they suffered at the hands of Charles Martel near Tours, they persisted in treating Aquitaine and Provence as a country to which they had a positive claim, and they long continued to burn and plunder churches, monasteries and cities at their will.

As time went on, a yet more systematic course of destruction in middle and northern France, and even in the southern districts, must be chronicled in the Gesta Romanorum—the dread recital of the harryings of the North-folk, the Jutes, the Angles, the Saxons, the Danes, the Frisians. These invasions began before the close of the eighth century—even in the days of Charlemagne—and when the strong hand of the mighty Emperor was removed, we come indeed upon a terrible catalogue of the woes and ruin wrought in Gaul by the Northern robbers all through the ninth and tenth centuries.

The sad catalogue of cities ruined, raided, devastated and partly burnt by these dread hordes of Northern pirates, includes well-known places such as Aix-la-Chapelle, Treves, Cologne, Metz, Toul, Verdun, Tournai, Rouen, Orleans, Auxerre, Troyes, Tours, Chartres, Poitiers, Angoulême, Bordeaux, Toulouse; besides many solitary monasteries.

Quicherat graphically speaks of the work of these savage raiders as a veritable feu-de-joie, and with great force points out how thoroughly they were able to carry out their fell work of destruction, especially in ecclesiastical buildings, owing to the abbeys and churches being universally covered with wooden roofs; the destructive work of these Northern pirates, bitter foes of Christianity, was thus rendered comparatively easy. The interior fittings of the church were first fired; quickly the flames reached the timber of the roofs, and very soon the entire building became a very furnace, and the whole pile was soon completely destroyed.

All this continuous burning and raiding, which went on for nigh two miserable centuries, accounts for the strange absence of any remains of the once sumptuous and in many cases stately Merovingian and Carlovingian churches and abbeys of the sixth and following centuries.

The great wealth, the many and opulent cities of Gaul, marked out this province of the Empire as presenting a specially attractive country for the invasions and raids of these hordes of sea-pirates. Gaul too was in the neighbourhood of the home of these Northern adventurers, and the navigable Gallic rivers which emptied themselves into the Northern Sea, the Channel which divided Gaul from Britain, and into the Atlantic Ocean which washed the long western sea-board, the Rivers Scheldt, Seine, Loire and Garonne; the Rhone, too, which flowed into the Mediterranean, where the ships of the Northmen were no uncommon sight—gave ample facilities for these formidable fleets with their dark sails to penetrate into the very heart of the great Gallic province.

Modern archæologists and historians, such as Quicherat, Rivoira, and Sir Thomas Jackson, comment sadly on this almost total absence of even a remnant of the ancient Gallic churches. Viollet le Duc, in his monumental Dictionary, well sums up the story of this sad gap in the architectural history of the past of France, by telling us that “we possess only very vague ideas of the primitive churches on the soil of France, and that it is only from the tenth century downwards that we can form a passably exact conception of what they were like.”

So terrible, so widespread, so constantly recurring were the depredations of these dreaded sea-pirates, that a new supplication was introduced into the Gallican liturgies—“A furore Normannorum libera nos.” The bitter hostility of these Northmen raiders to Christianity is well known; something more than a mere love of plunder influenced their method of treatment of churches and monasteries, and moved them especially to select churches as the first objects of their passion for burning and destroying.

The last years of the tenth century and the first half of the eleventh, however, witnessed a new state of things. The raids of the Northern pirates grew fewer and gradually came to an end.

The more formidable bands of these sea-robbers settled finally in the northern part of Gaul, and there founded a new realm, called, after them, Normandy. These invaders quickly adapted themselves to the civilisation of the conquered provincials, and thus materially contributed to the general quietness which settled over the long-harassed Gallic province. Raoul Glanber, the Monk Chronicler of the Cluny Monks, in a famous and often-quoted passage, relates how “the world—his world, started from its death-sleep and from the year 1000 put on its white robe of churches.”

There is no doubt but that an extraordinary reaction in Church life must be dated from this period. Various causes contributed to this remarkable renaissance of religion, the outward and visible sign of which was in the vast number of churches and abbeys which were built in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The comparative “stillness” of Western Christendom was perhaps the dominant factor. But the enormous and ever-growing influence of Cluny and the vast number of its daughter Monastic Houses must not be overlooked.

In France, all the existing Romanesque churches date from this period. We style them accurately as Romanesque—but it must be borne in mind that while they all possess the leading features of this great school of architecture—notably the “round arch”—in each of the provinces of France in details they differed very considerably.[9]

We will give a brief summary of these differences in the details.

Aquitaine.—This great division of France included the south-western and west central districts—Poitou Limousin—Guienne—and later Gascony. Here the influence of Byzantine Art on the Romanesque School was very noticeable—the famous Church of S. Front at Périgueux is a well-known example, and had many imitators on a smaller scale. S. Front was evidently designed on the plan of the Byzantine Church of S. Mark’s at Venice.

Aquitaine and the south and south-west of France during the early Middle Ages carried on extensive commercial dealings with the Levant, and especially with Venice, which largely traded with the near East.

The leading special feature in Aquitanian Romanesque was the Dome. It has been reckoned that in the province of Perigord some eighty domed churches once existed; of these about fifteen are still with us.

Provence has a history of its own here. Its Romanesque of the eleventh and twelfth centuries was often inspired by memories of imperial Rome, not unnatural in a district so closely connected with the great Empire, and which is even still rich in mighty Roman remains. In this province we do not find the Dome as in Aquitaine—the old Basilican plan is generally followed. The majority of all these French Romanesque churches are vaulted, at least in part, with solid masonry.

Toulouse and Languedoc. Here our examples of the ancient churches of the eleventh and twelfth centuries are sadly fewer. The terrible Albigensian wars of religion waged against presumed heretics, desolated the country, and many of the churches and ecclesiastical buildings were ruthlessly destroyed. The stately Church of S. Sernin at Toulouse is the most important of the Romanesque churches remaining in this division of France which we still possess. The domical feature, though not unknown here, is uncommon. The French feature of the “Chevet,” the garland of chapels round the ambulatory at the east end, is developed in these Romanesque Languedoc churches.

Auvergne. There are various local characteristics in the Auvergne Romanesque churches—perhaps one of the most conspicuous peculiar features is the polychrome masonry which ornaments them. There is abundance of black basaltic rock in the district, and this is frequently mixed with yellowish-white freestone laid in mosaic pattern on the exterior walls, on the aisle, the frieze, etc. The effect is curious and decidedly pleasing. Sir Thomas Jackson probably suggests that this various coloured ornamentation, which specially distinguishes the Auvergne Romanesque piles, suggests a partly oriental origin; for Mosaic was a favourite Byzantine art. This striking feature is absolutely peculiar to the Auvergne churches—only one other example of polychrome masonry can be quoted among the churches in France built in this period. The lovely cloisters at le Puy are an admirable instance of this varied coloured “Mosaic” masonry.

Burgundy. This important province in the north-east of France was the home of the remarkable revival of monasticism which played so great a part in the wonderful religious movement of the eleventh century; the world-renowned House of Cluny, and its famous daughter monastery Citeaux, whence sprung the vast Cistercian Order, being situated in the neighbourhood of Macon in Burgundy.[10]

It was in the workshops of Cluny that Romanesque architecture made a fresh start in France. The craft of masonry possessed a marked advantage here in the admirable stone which was quarried in Burgundy.

Among the characteristic features of Burgundian art, the splendid and remarkable porches of certain of its more provincial churches deserve mention.

A marked advance in the comparatively new feature of stone vaulting belongs to the churches of this province. At Vézelay the great nave was vaulted; hitherto this vaulting of great spaces had been generally confined to the lesser vaults of the aisles and the crypts.

The mighty church of Cluny was the vastest church in the west of Europe. Its nave was successfully vaulted with stone. At Citeaux, the Mother Church of the Cistercian Order, the example, followed certainly by the earlier churches of the famous order, was set of that extreme simplicity and restriction in the matter of decoration which characterises the numberless Cistercian churches which rapidly arose in so many of the countries of western Europe.

The Royal Domain—l’Ile de France. During the eleventh and first half of the twelfth centuries the “Royal Domain” was very confined, and virtually was comprised in the district at present included in the departments grouped round Paris. It was only enlarged at the expense of the territories of the great Feudatories in the second half of the twelfth century. It had long been terribly ravaged by the Northmen raiders, and the Romanesque remains in these parts round Paris are comparatively few and wanting in importance. But in the latter years of the twelfth century, under King Philip Augustus, the Royal Domain became greatly enlarged and included outlying provinces. It thus became the more fitting appanage of the Over-lord of France.

But in the later years of the twelfth century the vogue of Romanesque architecture was passing away and rapidly giving place to the new and striking architectural school known as Gothic.

These years and the earlier part of the thirteenth century—a great building age—saw the foundation of the mighty Gothic cathedrals of Paris, Chartres, Bourges, Laon, Soissons, Meaux, Noyon, Amiens, Rouen, and others, mostly situated in the now enlarged Royal Domain:[11] these magnificent Gothic piles were for the most part completed before the end of the thirteenth century.

Indeed this “Domaine Royale,” in its enlarged form, has been with justice termed the cradle of French Gothic architecture.

NORMAN-ROMANESQUE

In the early years of the eleventh century, a new style of Romanesque arose in northern and north-western Gaul, which was soon known as “Norman-Romanesque”—a distinct and remarkable variety of the common Romanesque family.

It began thus. In the latter years of the tenth century, the great monastic community of the Benedictines of Cluny, in Burgundy, was at the height of its power and influence; it occupied a unique position among the religious houses of the west, owing its great position largely to the long series of distinguished men who for more than a century controlled its destinies, and directed its vast and far-reaching activities.

Among its monks, when Maieul, one of the most distinguished of the rulers of Cluny, reigned as Abbot, A.D. 948-999, was a young Italian known as William of Volpiano,[12] A.D. 961-1031. He attracted attention owing to his great learning, his devoted piety, and his rare skill as an architect. Under the Cluny influence, at a comparatively early age, he was appointed Abbot of the ancient foundation of S. Benignus of Dijon. That once famous church had fallen into decay, and was virtually a ruin.

As Abbot of S. Benignus of Dijon, William of Volpiano became known far and wide, as an earnest and successful reformer of monasteries, and, above all, as a great architect. Among other works he rebuilt S. Benignus at Dijon, and the new Abbey Church became famous as one of the most magnificent in France, and was dedicated afresh in A.D. 1018. It contained many of the characteristic features of the Lombardic school of the Comacine builders; but it also borrowed some of the features known as Byzantine; these probably he had become acquainted with from his knowledge of the churches of Aquitaine and southern France, into whose churches certain Byzantine features had been introduced. A portion of S. Benignus, for instance, was roofed with a dome. Beautiful and striking as the Dijon Abbey was, its great architect did not repeat it. It was too complicated a structure and too costly.

Chartres.—“Nôtre Dame de la belle verrière.”
Early Thirteenth Century.
Showing the Virgin Mary crowned and enthroned, with the Infant Jesus in her arms.

In the early years of the eleventh century Richard II (le Bon), surnamed “l’ami des moines,” was Duke of Normandy. Normandy, under this eminent ruler, occupied a prominent position of power and influence in Northern and Central France. Duke Richard II invited to his Court the famous Benedictine Abbot, the architect of the restored Abbey of S. Benignus, and with some difficulty induced William of Volpiano to make his home in the great Duchy, as Abbot of Fécamp. A number of Norman abbeys were built under the direction of Abbot William and his pupils, and these churches were the beginning of what is known as the Norman-Romanesque style.

We have a few of these churches with us still—some with later additions—others simply ruins; some, alas, desecrated by being applied to other uses. We would instance Jumiéges, Fécamp, S. Ouen (Rouen), Bernay, Mont S. Michel, Cerisy le Fôret, these originally being the work of William of Volpiano and the pupils of his school. We have cited only a few prominent examples, but in the first half of the eleventh century, some forty new churches, including abbatial churches, are recorded to have been built by this school of architects. As the eleventh century advanced Lanfranc (subsequently Archbishop of Canterbury) and his pupils further developed the Norman-Romanesque of William of Volpiano in such churches as S. Etienne and, somewhat later, the church of the Trinité at Caen, erected under the auspices of Duke William of Normandy the Conqueror of England, and his queen, Matilda.

All these Romanesque round-arched churches contain many characteristics of the Lombardic architecture, but they have, too, certain distinctive features; they present generally the aspect of a rugged severe majesty; the proportions are noble, but most of them are poor in mouldings and carving;[13] they are remarkable, not for the elegance of their decorations or the grace of their forms, but the severe lines, the noble proportions and the grandeur of the whole effect especially distinguish the early Norman churches and abbeys of the Benedictine architect of Cluny, William of Volpiano, and his school.

The internal arrangement of these Norman churches is interesting; the form of the perfect Latin cross (crux immissa) was generally adopted, and then finally the type was fixed which, amid all the varieties of style, prevailed through the whole mediæval period.

But the glory of Norman-Romanesque only really appeared in England shortly after the conquest by Duke William of Normandy in A.D. 1066.

The style in England became rapidly a distinctive and even an independent development of the Lombardic round-arch architecture. The impetus which church building received, when once more stillness prevailed in conquered England, is marvellous; there was nothing comparable to it in any of the countries of northern Europe. It is computed that in the days of the Conqueror after A.D. 1070, some 45 new monastic or abbatial churches were erected in England; in the reign of William Rufus, his son and successor, 25; in the days of Stephen as many as 122; under Henry II, the first Plantagenet, 124; when his son, Cœur de Lion, was King, 44; under King John, 62.

And not only was England, in the days of the Conqueror and his immediate successors and kinsmen, covered with this enormous number of sacred buildings, but many of these piles were of vast size, far greater than any of those lately erected in Normandy and the adjacent countries, by the Lombardic school of William of Volpiano.

The question has often been put, Whence came the resources out of which these, in many cases, magnificent churches of vast size, were built in our island? The answer is—this mighty and strange impulse in church building in England arose from a feeling among the Norman conquerors that a terrible wrong had been inflicted by the Conquest upon the Anglo-Saxon peoples, and to atone for the awful sin, the Norman nobles and chiefs, their sons and heirs, who had forcibly entered into possession of the conquered people’s lands and property, in many cases erected these churches, abbeys, and monastic houses as expiatory offerings to Almighty God; they were intended as an atonement for the grievous sin and wrong perpetrated in the Norman conquest of England.

This is no fanciful dream of an historian. The enormous confiscations of King William have been computed as amounting to an almost incredible number; 60,000 knights, it is said, received their fees, or rather their livings, from the Conqueror. These numbers are no doubt exaggerated, but it is certain that the race of Anglo-Danish and English (Saxon) nobility, the Earls and the greater Thegns disappeared. It is indisputable that there was an untold amount of bitter oppression and cruel wrong inflicted by the Norman kings on the great masses of Anglo-Saxon society, especially on its higher grades.

This was soon fully recognised. As early as A.D. 1072, a general penance was decreed by the Norman prelates and confirmed by the See of Rome, on all who had shared in the deeds which followed the establishment of Duke William on the English throne. The chroniclers Orderic,[14] Wace and Matthew Paris, with more or less detail, dwell on King William’s penitence when dying, for the cruel wrong he and his men-at-arms had done to conquered England.

The expression above used of these splendid piles in England is therefore strictly accurate. They were in good truth in most part “Abbeys of Expiation.”

To resume the story of Norman-Romanesque architecture: The following is a list of some few of the principal English cathedrals and abbatial churches erected in the very early years after the Norman occupation—

| Approximate date. | | By whom built.
| | A.D. | |
(Cathedral) | Canterbury | 1070-1077. | | Lanfranc, Prior of S. Etienne, Caen.
(Abbey) | St. Albans | 1077-1088. | | Paul, Monk of S. Etienne, Caen.
(Cathedral) | Rochester | 1077-1108. | | Gundulph, pupil of Lanfranc.
” | Winchester | 1079-1093. | | Walkelin, Monk of S. Etienne, Caen.
” | Ely | 1083-1106. | | Simeon, Monk of S. Ouen, Rouen.
(Abbey) | Gloucester | 1089-1100. | | Serlo, Monk of Mont S. Michel, Normandy.
(Cathedral) | Durham | 1093-1183. | | William of S. Carileph, formerly priest of Bayeux.
” | Norwich | 1096 | | Herbert of Losinga, Prior of Fécamp.
(Abbey) | Tewkesbury | 1102-1123. | | (Probably copied from Gloucester.)
” | Southwell | 1108. | | Guimond, Chaplain of Henry I (Beauclerc).
” | Oxford (Christ Ch.) | 1111. | |

”

Peterborough

1114-1133-5-75.

John, Abbot of Séez.
Martin, Abbot of Bec.

The inspirer and leader of these Norman monk-architects of so many of the great English churches was Lanfranc of Pavia, a monk of Bec in Normandy, then Prior of S. Stephen, Caen, then Archbishop of Canterbury. He rebuilt Canterbury Cathedral, 1070-1077, subsequently much altered and in part rebuilt, but some of Lanfranc’s work still remains.

To recapitulate. We have very briefly and somewhat roughly traced the evolution of Romanesque from its beginnings in the first years of the fourth century, when we date the “Renaissance” of the pre-classical style which did away with the Entablature and the Greek features which obscured the old pre-classical round-arch architecture.

The glory of the Ravenna school, which best represented this “Renaissance” of the pre-classical style, came to an end when the Lombards descended upon Italy—and became masters of Northern and part of Central Italy.

But a remnant of the skill of the Ravenna and old Roman School of architects was preserved by the so-called Comacine Guild,[15] who, under the protection of the Lombard kings, again worked and built during the two hundred years, or rather less, of the Lombard sway in Italy.

Under Charlemagne, A.D. 774, a temporary and partial building impulse in Dalmatia, Germany, and in Italy must be chronicled. Then darkness, during about two hundred years, settled over Northern and Central Europe.

During these two disturbed centuries (ninth and tenth), however, the Comacine Guild, which had been employed by the Lombard sovereigns, continued to work and to develop their “round-arch” style of Lombardic architecture, at Milan and in other centres, of course more or less fitfully, whenever a ruler arose who had breathing time to devote himself to the fine arts, especially to architecture.

The Comacine Guild in this period addressed itself to the study of vaulting construction, and to the art of counterbalancing the thrust of the roof. The external buttress began to be more and more extensively used. But the progress of vaulting large spaces, such as the naves of important churches, was but slow.

In this dark and disturbed period one very notable feature, we might almost term it “invention,” appeared in the Comacine school of architecture. This was the addition of the Campanile or lofty Bell Tower, attached or closely adjacent to the main building of the church.

The earliest dated appearance of this novel and notable feature seems to have been at Milan about the middle of the ninth century, in the Churches of San Satiro, and in the so-called Monks’ Tower of Sant Ambrogio in Milan.

The Bell Tower, or Campanile, of San Satiro at Milan can fairly claim to have been the prototype of the Lombard Campanile, the virtual ancestor of the countless towers and steeples of the Middle Ages.

In the great Church revival of the third quarter of the tenth century, the famous Monastery of Cluny sent out one of its brotherhood, the Lombard Monk William of Volpiano, trained in the Lombard traditions of the Comacine school, who rebuilt, on a magnificent scale, the Abbey of S. Benignus at Dijon. Richard II, Duke of Normandy, sent for and employed this William of Volpiano, who, with his pupils, during the first half of the eleventh century, built a goodly number of churches in Normandy and developed the Romanesque round-arch style of Lombardy into Norman-Lombardic.

With the coming of Duke William the Conqueror, this Norman school of Romanesque passed into England, where, as we have seen, under peculiar circumstances of advantage, the Norman-Romanesque became a national and distinct style, a perfectly independent development; and a vast number of churches and abbeys, some of them of great size, arose in England during the last quarter of the eleventh century and all through most of the years of the twelfth.

The Norman-Romanesque in England, aided by almost inexhaustible resources, and in the hands of brilliant and skilful architects, in these years rose to the perfection of the Norman-Romanesque style, and when no further progress seemed possible, the Romanesque passed gradually into what is termed now—Gothic. Of this last evolution we shall presently speak.

In England, during the years of the rule of William the Conqueror and his sons and kinsmen, an almost innumerable number of Norman-Romanesque churches, abbeys and cathedrals were built, as we have stated, all in the round-arch Lombard style, many of them quite small village and town churches; others of vast size and of great importance. It was the old Lombard style, but it had grown imperceptibly into something new and independent. The more important buildings were, indeed, on a great scale, such as had not been dreamed of in the pioneer churches of Normandy, the work of William of Volpiano and his school, the size of which, with perhaps the solitary exception of the Abbey of Jumiéges, was not excessive.

The Lombardic round-arch style in England still held its own, but the variations were many: for example, the simple austere grandeur of St. Albans was quite different from the more elaborate work of Norwich and Lincoln. Winchester and Ely were purely Romanesque conceptions, but they were utterly different from those we have just quoted. The small and massive cylindrical piers of Malvern Abbey were again another departure, and were more or less copied in many other churches, some quite small, others greater, like Hereford Cathedral, and were reproduced in Gloucester and Tewkesbury Abbeys by cylindrical piers of enormous, almost of an exaggerated, height. The effect in these varieties of English or Norman Romanesque is remarkable and different.

Durham, perhaps, is the most striking example of English Romanesque; the result of William of S. Carileph’s design, this has been well described as “a Church all glorious within, Presbytery, Lantern and Nave unequalled in their stately and solemn majesty, the mighty channelled piers avoiding a mere massiveness which seems to grovel upon the earth, and avoiding, too, the attempt at an exaggerated soaring height, such as we see in Gloucester and in Tewkesbury. No Romanesque building in England, or beyond the sea, can compare with the matchless pile of Durham.” It was never surpassed, and the perfected Romanesque was not superseded by, but imperceptibly passed into “Gothic.”

That all the splendid network of Romanesque churches which rapidly covered England directly after the Norman Conquest came from Norman inspiration, a glance at the little list of notable English churches we have given above will show.

For most of the original buildings, with scarcely an exception, were designed and completed under the Norman kings by Norman ecclesiastics—by men who came from Caen, Bayeux, Rouen, Fécamp, Séez, Mont S. Michel, Bec-Herlouin, etc., pupils of, and belonging to, the school founded by the Lombard-trained Monk of Cluny—William of Volpiano.

One important special feature of the great Norman-Romanesque churches of England must be referred to. In the planning of these buildings, at the east end generally, a spacious ambulatory, or circumambient aisle, was arranged.

This peculiar feature was not derived from Normandy, or from the Romanesque school of Lombardy—the direct ancestor of the Norman-Romanesque builders; but was derived from the original plan of the great Pilgrim Church of S. Martin of Tours, originally built in A.D. 472 by Bishop Perpetuus, and which was destroyed by fire in the last year of the tenth century, and then rebuilt generally on the old lines with great magnificence early in the eleventh century.

This comparatively novel feature of the Lombardo-Romanesque churches was designed for the accommodation of pilgrims, who were thus enabled to pass round the shrine of the saint, usually placed at the east end of the church, without retracing their steps, thus obviating the dangers attendant upon the excessive number of pilgrim visitors to the shrine of the popular saint.

The Comacine Symbol of the Interlaced Line popularly known as “Solomon’s Knot”

“It would be difficult,” writes Leader Scott, in that curious and interesting work The Cathedral Builders,[16] “to find any church or sacred edifice, or even altar, of the Comacine work under the Lombards, which is not signed, as it were, by some curious interlaced knot formed of a singular tortuous line” (intreccio).

Now was this “endless knot,” which seems to have been the favourite symbol of the Comacine builders, the heritage of a far-back tradition dating from the days of the building the Temple of Jerusalem by King Solomon? This question cannot be exhaustively or satisfactorily answered; but the tradition is there, and is at least worthy of consideration.

The “knot” in question, popularly termed “Solomon’s knot,” is an unbroken line with neither end nor beginning, and which the Comacines, as the centuries passed, developed into wonderful intrecci (interlaced work). It was evidently a sign of the inscrutable and infinite ways of God, whose nature is unity. The mysterious “Solomon’s Knot” was an emblem of the manifold ways of the power of the one God, who has neither beginning nor end.

It was copied, was this famous Comacine symbol, by the Byzantine artists, but with this striking difference. In Byzantine work it was reproduced rather for effect—viz. to get a plain surface well and picturesquely covered. The Byzantine knots and scrolls are often beautifully finished and clearly cut, but the line is not continuous. It is merely a pretty feature repeated over and over again, but it has no suggestion of meaning such as was evidently in the mind of the Comacine builders.

We can trace this strange knot of the Comacine builders back to the early Christian Collegia of Rome, as we see by the “plutei” in S. Clementi and S. Agnes, and on the door of a chapel in S. Prassede (Rome), and through these early Christian Collegia of builders it was transmitted to their successors, the Lombardic Comacine schools.

Leader Scott remarks that after the eleventh century the interlaced work, or Solomon’s Knot, generally ceased to be the sign of Comacine work, and the ancient sign or seal of the great Guild after this date was commonly replaced by the “Lion of the tribe of Judah.” There was scarcely a church after this date built by the Comacine Guild of Masons, in which this “Lion of Judah” was not prominent.

“Solomon’s Knot,” composed of one strand.
S. Ambrogio, Milan.

THE CAMPANILE OR BELL TOWER

It is to the Comacine builders of Lombardy that the Bell Towers, afterwards so great a church feature in the Middle Ages, are owing. Italy is rightly styled the birthplace of the Campaniles forming part of the structure of a church, or rising close beside it. So these Lombardic Campanile Towers were the ancestors, so to speak, of the innumerable Bell Towers and steeples of the West, erected in the Middle Ages.

The majestic Bell Tower, or Campanile of San Satiro at Milan, Rivoira considers to have been the oldest example of such a structure. The date of its erection was A.D. 876. The Campanile Towers of the ancient churches of Ravenna, such as the Towers of Sant Apollinare Nuovo, of Sant Apollinare in Classe, of San Giovanni Evangelista, must be ascribed to a date much later than the original churches themselves. The great Ravennese churches were built in the fifth and sixth centuries; their Campanile Towers were only erected in the ninth and tenth centuries.

The liturgical use of Bells can be traced as far back as the fifth century. For the first three hundred years of the Christian era the naturally secret and private exercise of the religion of Jesus of course forbade any outward and visible sign of Christian gatherings, such as the noise of bells. In Italy and the West the size and tone of church bells became gradually more and more marked. Hence the Lombardic invention, it may fairly be termed, of the important Bell Tower or Campanile as a distinct feature in church building. The ninth century, as we have stated, is probably the date of the first appearance of these remarkable Campaniles.

In the near East, the use of church bells at all seems to have been unknown before the ninth century; the first time we hear of them in the East was late in that century, when a present of bells was sent to the Emperor Basil in Constantinople by the Venetian Republic—and even then, for some time, they were but little used, for as late as A.D. 1200 the great Basilica of S. Sophia at Constantinople was without them. In Syria they were not introduced before the end of the eleventh century; they were no doubt brought into Eastern lands by the Crusaders after the fall of Jerusalem.

S. Apollinare in Classe, Ravenna. Sixth Century. Showing Campanile added in Tenth Century.

In the few examples of early churches which can be quoted as possessing one or two smaller towers, as was probably the case in certain of the important early Ravennese Basilicas, notably in San Vitale, such small towers were not intended for bells, but simply contained staircases.

Viollet le Duc in his long and exhaustive article on “Cloches” especially calls attention to the fact that in the eleventh century Normandy was remarkable for the number and dimensions of its church bells and bell towers; but the famous French writer and scholar does not seem aware of the reason for this marked feature in their churches. They were evidently part of the Lombardic tradition brought into Normandy by the great church builder William of Volpiano, the pupil of the Lombard Comacine architects, the story of whose coming into Normandy at the invitation of Duke Richard le Bon has been related in detail above.

S. Vitale, Ravenna.
Circa A.D. 526-547.

ON BELLS

The Bell, however, was not unknown to the Greeks and Romans, but in those far-back times it seems to have been, comparatively speaking, of small dimensions.

Durandus, Bishop of Mende (Mimatensis), Languedoc, thirteenth century—the great liturgical writer of the Middle Ages—in his Rationale Divinorum Officiorum, has several pages devoted to the symbolism of bells, much of which is most curious and interesting, though, as usual with this learned writer, often not a little fanciful. For instance, he tells us how he looks on bells as symbols of preachers, who, after the manner of bells, are appointed to remind the faithful of the “Faith.” The clapper, he says, represents the preacher’s tongue, the wooden beam to which the bell is hung typifies the Cross of our Lord.

Durandus considers that the bell was first invented at Nola, a city of Campania, whence came the terms “Campanæ” for the larger bells, and “Nolæ” for the smaller. Various other writers have adopted this curious derivation, amongst others S. Anselm. But this must be considered fanciful.

During the first three centuries, naturally bells would be unused in Christian churches; as we have stated, quiet and privacy of worship being in the ages of persecution, for all assemblies for Christian worship, an indispensable condition.

They were, however, certainly used before the seventh century; there is a tradition that Pope Sabinianus, A.D. 604, directed that a bell shall be rung to give notice of the hours of the “offices.” Bells are alluded to in the Rule of S. Benedict. Bede mentions them in England in the eighth century.

But it was not until the period of the great revival of religion in the eleventh century that the bell began to assume the position of importance in the furniture of a church which we find it occupying in the Middle Ages. The size of the bell gradually increased, and the care bestowed on its casting became greater as the twelfth century advanced.

In the eleventh century we read, for instance, of a bell then remarkable for its size, being presented to the Church of S. Agnan at Orleans by King Robert of France. This bell, probably the largest then known, weighed as much as 2,600 pounds.

As the Middle Ages advanced, the vogue of bells in churches became more pronounced. There were few parish churches but possessed one or two bells, or even more, while the abbeys and cathedrals continued to erect towers to hang bells of various sizes and powers.

In the thirteenth century we find notices of bells of very considerable size and importance. It was not, however, until the fifteenth century that the bell attained to the vast dimensions we are accustomed to associate with the more considerable of these popular and well-loved instruments of music.

Gloucester Cathedral is singularly fortunate in the possession of some very ancient bells of rare sweetness and power; one of these, “Great Peter,” being of considerable size and importance.

This great mediæval bell has now bidden the citizens to prayer for several hundred years.

Various ornaments, usually of a sacred character, were engraved on the mediæval bells. More interesting, though, are the inscriptions, which not unfrequently run round the bell.

The size, however, of the famous Great Peter in Gloucester Cathedral is not comparable with other of the more celebrated bells now in use in various parts of the world—as will be seen from the following table setting forth the enormous weight of many of these great bells.

The largest of these—the Tsar Kolokol of Moscow—said to weigh 440,000 pounds, was never rung. It was broken apparently in the casting—and is now used as a chapel.

Moscow, however, still boasts what probably is the greatest bell in the world; its weight is 128 tons.

Of the other huge bells, we would enumerate—

| Weight.
The bell in the Kioto monastery in Japan | 76 | tons.
The Kaiser bell in the Cathedral of Cologne | 25 | ”
The chief bell in Notre Dame, Paris | 17 | ”
Big Ben in the Parliament Houses, London | 13 | ”
Amiens Cathedral—Its principal bell | 11 | ”
Great Tom, Oxford | 7 | ”

DATES

A few important approximate dates are given to illustrate this sketch of Romanesque Architecture: The round-arch style. At Ravenna—then among the Lombards—the Rise of the Lombardic-Norman school of Romanesque builders, and the evolution of Gothic architecture.

| | | circa A.D.

The glory
of
Ravenna

Diocletian—Palace at Spalatro
Honorius—Emperor of the West
Galla Placidia—(half-sister of Honorius)
Theodoric—the Ostrogothic king of Italy
Justinian—Emperor of the East

300-305
393-423
408-451
493-526
527-565

Lombardy | | Alboin—The Lombard Conqueror | 568

Rotharis—The Lombard King. His code
referring to privileges of Comacine
builders.

636-652

Charlemagne—Emperor. His conquest of
Lombardy. His Palace-chapel of
Aachen

796-804

Pupil of
Comacine builders

William of Volpiano—Monk of Cluny.
Invited by Duke Richard to Normandy

961-1031

Lanfranc of Bec—First Norman archbishop
of Canterbury. His works in Normandy
and England

1086

Rise and Progress in England of the Norman-Lombardic style

Eleventh century (last part), twelfth century.

The “Coming” and “Rise” of the Gothic style

Roughly in the second part of the twelfth century. Its rapid and general adoption in the thirteenth century.

PASSING OF ROMANESQUE

We only propose to give a very short summary here; all we shall do is to just sketch in a few memoranda which will throw light on the reasons for the extraordinarily rapid transition from Romanesque to Gothic. The early years of the twelfth century witnessed what we have termed the perfected Romanesque style; the closing years of the same twelfth century witnessed “the passing” of Romanesque (the round-arch mode) and the almost universal substitution of a new style, generally known as Gothic.

And first:—the term “Gothic,” now everywhere adopted as the expression for that school of architecture which prevailed throughout the countries of Northern Europe for some four centuries is a curious misnomer.

The term “Gothic,” which was used certainly before the seventeenth century, belongs to the Renaissance period, and was in the first instance, strangely enough, regarded as a term of opprobrium.

Those who invented it were quite clear as to what they intended by the expression. They meant it was something barbarous, because non-classical; some believed it was actually invented by the Goths who overthrew the Roman Empire. Evelyn, for instance, writes, that “the ancient Greek and Roman architecture answered all the perfections required in a faultless and accomplished building, and that the Goths and Vandals demolished these, and introduced in their stead a certain fantastical manner of building, congestions of heavy, dark, melancholy monkish piles, without any just proportion, use or beauty.”[17]

But in time, men came to recognise the glory of what the Renaissance devotees at first scoffed at; but the old term of opprobrium, “Gothic,” remained; and now is universally used to express that splendid school of mediæval architecture which arose out of Romanesque and prevailed for so long a period; the beauty and fitness of which, perhaps somewhat tardily, all the Northern nations have come to recognise with an ungrudging, at times possibly even with an exaggerated admiration.

After all, the leading writers on architecture have come to the conclusion that, different though the Gothic schools are to the Romanesque, they are but one style—Gothic is simply perfected Romanesque. “L’architecture Gothique n’est que la perfectionnement de celle qu’on appelle Romane,” wrote Enlart. Gothic, as Mr. Bond expresses it, “has not supplanted Romanesque, but is its supreme result, the last stage in its development, its apogee, consummation and accomplishment.” So, too, De Lasterie defines “Gothic.”

To sum up certain of the new principles of Gothic architecture. The walls of the Gothic buildings became much slighter—thinner; these walls no longer acted as the thrusts which counteracted the weight of the stone vaults which had become gradually more generally used even in Romanesque buildings, but the weight or thrusts of these stone vaults were stopped by buttresses. In other words, Gothic architecture has been with some justice defined as the art of erecting buttressed buildings.

The principal outward and visible sign of Gothic architecture, however, was the pointed arch. This novel feature, and much of the ornamentation which was rapidly introduced, no doubt came from the East, and must be referred largely to the influence of the Crusades; it was, no doubt, borrowed through acquaintance with Saracenic work in Egypt and Syria. These strange Crusading wars had opened a new world of Art to the Western nations.

The pointed arch was no new feature in the East. As early as A.D. 879 the great Mosque of Tulun had pointed arcades. The principal gateway of the palace of Ctesiphon (fifth century) is pointed. The pointed arch appears in the great aqueduct near Constantinople of the time of Justinian. In many districts in the East it had been for centuries as much the normal form as the round-arch in Europe.

But other outward and visible signs characterised Gothic architecture, which supplanted Romanesque.

Gothic windows became much larger; there was a desire to obtain more light in the churches than had been possible to obtain through the smaller Romanesque windows. These were necessarily small and comparatively inconspicuous for two reasons: the one was, the Romanesque builders trusted, as we have seen, to the vast thickness of their walls to counteract the weight or thrust of the roofs and the upper portions of the buildings, and dreaded any unnecessary weakening of these massive walls by the introduction of large windows.

The other main reason for the smallness of the Romanesque windows was the preciousness and cost of glass in the tenth, the eleventh, and preceding centuries. Glass in the second half of the twelfth century became a much cheaper and less costly material. Then, too, the rapid progress in the art of stained and painted glass in that same century demanded for the display of this new and beautiful art, larger and ever larger windows. The artists in glass painting were no longer content with the small and cramped Romanesque windows, and the general passion for painted glass at once compelled the builders to devise without delay larger spaces in the walls for the display and exercise of the art.

The new large Gothic windows became at once a conspicuous and distinctive feature in the new school. The general introduction of the buttress feature superseded the necessity of depending on the thickness and massiveness of the walls, thus permitting the larger openings that are required for the larger Gothic windows.

The pointed arch brought in its train many novel decorations as well as new constructive features. A new system of mouldings and other ornaments was gradually worked out in the last quarter of the twelfth and even in the earlier years of the thirteenth century.

The massive piers of Romanesque architecture were exchanged for clustered pillars, detached or banded, and crowned with elaborate capitals.

But perhaps one of the most conspicuous changes in the new style was, after all, the beautiful and elaborate tracery which supported and adorned the new windows, ever increasing in size and importance. The old Romanesque windows, small and inconspicuous, were supplanted by the great windows which soon distinguished the new Gothic school, and these windows soon became what is termed traceried windows. The necessary supports of these, known as transoms and mullions, were worked into new and beautiful forms, usually called “Decorated Tracery”; these were divided into geometrical, curvilinear, or flowing tracery, but we avoid in this very short sketch of “Gothic” such technical terms, and simply call attention to certain of the new important features here, which mark the substitution of Gothic for Romanesque form—and term them generally traceried windows.

Later, in England, the more elaborate earlier window tracery was abandoned, and the simpler rectilinear tracery was generally adopted, and a new style of Gothic, known as the “Perpendicular,” became the vogue in our Island.

On reading over the above brief notes on Gothic Architecture, the writer, while conscious that the few details above given were, as far as they went, strictly accurate—felt that something more was wanting—if only a few words—which might suggest that there was a deep inner meaning in Gothic architecture. To express this, some reference must be made to France and the great French church builders; for France—especially the “Domaine Royale”—l’Ile de France—was the native country, the original home of the Gothic school.

The early French Gothic masters in the craft looked upon the building of churches as the most serious of arts, and, as it has been well expressed, the churches they planned were to be “the centre of the life of men, and compared with them, man himself and all his worldly affairs was counted as nothing; their purpose was to provide a place of worship, when worship was held to be the highest function of men, and the problem they set themselves to solve was to make a place worthy of the God to be worshipped.”

The same lofty purpose without doubt inspired the Gothic masters in England and other western countries, though their designs somewhat differed from the great French architects on whose methods and planning we are just now dwelling, as presenting in some respects a marked contrast with the methods and planning of the English Gothic architects.

Now, a most prominent characteristic feature of the grand Gothic cathedrals of France was their exceeding height; to attain this no sacrifice was too great. It has been accurately remarked that the matchless sublimity of the interior of a noble French Cathedral was purchased at the sacrifice of the exterior. And the architects, as time went on, made their churches higher and ever higher.

Again, to quote another’s words:[18] “The interior sublimity of a French cathedral seems to be a triumphant defiance of the attraction of gravity. We know that the slender shafts that soar so straight and high, could not support the vault; but outside there is no concealment of the manner in which it is upheld. Indeed the outside, for all its beauty, is the wrong side of a French cathedral, and is, as it were, a mass of permanent scaffolding to keep all the stones of the interior in their places ... and it is, and it looks a complex mass of straining effort, as the interior looks an effortless miracle.” The innumerable flying buttresses carrying the thrust of the lofty vault to the huge buttresses of the aisles, and so to the ground, have been somewhat quaintly termed “walls standing in slices at right angles to the building which they support but do not enclose, seeming to push and thrust with all their power to keep up the enormous height; all this is very wonderful and beautiful, but it leaves a sense of constant effort to overcome difficulties.”

“What a difference is there in the peace of the long low English cathedral with its insignificant buttresses and unambitious lines ... and, except for the upward pointing of its central tower or spire, seemingly content to remain on earth.”[19]

One of the chief beauties of the Choir of Gloucester is its exceptional “soaring” height, which in common with Westminster Abbey and York, follows the example of the great French cathedrals, though at a great distance, it must be confessed, from the lofty height aimed at and attained in such churches as the Cathedrals of Bourges and Chartres, Amiens, Notre Dame of Paris and Beauvais.

Again, each of the sublime interiors of the Gothic cathedrals of France were, as a rule, the design of one mind—and that of a master-mind. They have been roughly but not inaccurately described as “all of a piece,” as the result of one great effort. “These glorious interiors, each possessing a wonderful unity or harmony, the result of a great and original idea conceived and carried out throughout by one individual genius. For most of the mighty cathedrals in France show a closely reasoned design, and the result presents a marvellous temple for worship.

“Very different indeed are the English Gothic cathedrals; we see here no continuous design, no single idea; we are sensible of no one mighty impulse which in France, sweeping ruthlessly away all that had gone before, planned to raise a building complete and harmonious all through.”

For the English builders, on the other hand, preserved all that had gone before, however imperfect in their eyes, and added here, and changed there, content to suffice for the needs and ideas of the present, “with no sign of anxious ambition for the future; incapable of perfection, because began and ended incessantly, and always without continuous design, yet breathing out an indescribable charm of sympathy almost human in its loving reverence for the results of all past human effort.” Gloucester Cathedral is an admirable example of this loving conservative spirit; with its massive Romanesque Nave, its “decorated” South Aisle, its superb aery Perpendicular Choir, partly veiling, it is true, but not destroying the work of bygone Norman builders; its graceful and exquisite Perpendicular Lady Chapel—the last addition to this great pile—being perfectly different to any other part of the cathedral.

The Gothic builders of France believed, that in raising the interior of their cathedrals to that wonderful height on which successive generations have gazed with awe and admiration, they had found something of the secret of inspiring the worshippers with the feeling that they were indeed worshipping in a Holy House almost worthy of the God they sought; nor were they content with their earlier noble efforts, but kept making their soaring churches, as they built them, higher and ever higher.

The climax of this strain and restless striving was reached in the middle of the thirteenth century, when Eudes de Montreuil, the architect of S. Louis, designed the “splendid folly,” as men love to style it, of Beauvais; there a choir was built higher than any in the world, and with the slenderest support that had ever yet been seen.

It was finished in about thirty years, and twelve years later the vault fell, making a ruin of the whole church, circa A.D. 1284. This superb choir—for the nave was never built—can still be seen and wondered at; the ruin has been skilfully and cleverly repaired, and new supports have been devised, and though the original design is sadly marred and altered, it tells us of that master-mind “who, greatly daring, had planned the mighty structure complete and harmonious, the absolute expression of an ideal of future perfection, but forced to remain incomplete at the last, for the architect longed for the impossible.”

True artist, in spite of his failure, for he aimed at expressing a something higher than himself, which should draw up in sympathy with him all that was best and noblest in those around him. “But Beauvais was a structural impossibility, and the ideal of Beauvais was beyond his reach, and the mighty remains of its solitary choir tells a story of mistaken enterprise and wasted heroism.” It is truly a dream of heaven—but alas! it is only a dream.

THE TRIFORIUM

The question is often asked by a stranger, as he wanders through an English cathedral, wondering at the size and striking appearance of the great Triforium or Gallery—for instance, the immense Triforium in the Choir of Gloucester. What is the meaning and use of this vast gallery? Has it any story or tradition attached to it?

The derivation of the word Triforium is uncertain. The date of the word is unknown, it is not of great antiquity, but probably belongs to the mediæval period. That the Triforium of the great Anglo-Norman piles was used in pre-Reformation times in the ritual of the Church apparently for processions and the like, is clear from the several chapels which lead out of it, and from the easy access to it by fairly broad staircases on either side.

But such an occasional use is not by any means sufficient to account for the presence of so important an adjunct in the planning of the church.

Now what is the true story of its existence in so many of our great churches?

And first, as to the derivation and meaning of the word “Triforium.” Some scholars think it can be traced to the post-classical term “transforare,” to pierce through. Here, for instance, it is said to have pierced through the wall. “Opus triforiatum” was applied to perforated work of various kinds, such as in lock plates, etc.

It is, however, something more than a passage in the thickness of the wall which the above derivation, if it be adopted, would seem to suggest. But it has a history which is very generally unknown.

The true secret of the Triforium is as follows: Far back in the annals of Christianity we know that generally in the churches built by Justinian in the sixth century in Constantinople, Thessalonica, and in other populous centres, a large and separate place was arranged for the women worshippers. In important churches such as the Church of the Holy Apostles and the Basilica of S. Sophia at Constantinople, a great gallery was constructed, exclusively for women; this gallery was reached by stairs leading from the narthex (the narthex was a long porch or ante-church, extending all across the west front). Where there was no narthex, or gallery, the women were still separated; they then sat on one side of the nave and the men on the other. The women’s gallery was usually known as the gynæconitis or matronium. It can be seen still, a very prominent object in the desecrated Mosque of S. Sophia. This women’s gallery, so universal and so important a feature in the greater churches of the East, became in time the Triforium, so marked an arrangement in the Norman-Romanesque churches of England.[20]

The women’s gallery in its original purpose belonged exclusively to the East, where the sexes were separated.

In the West, no such custom prevailed. In the West, as a rule, there was no separation of the sexes. The custom of the Latin Church adopted no such separation.

This fact is curiously confirmed in the planning of the churches of the West; no women’s gallery, or Triforium (to use the later coined word), save perhaps occasionally in a very diminutive form, appears in the abbeys and churches of Aquitaine, Provence, or Auvergne. The same may be said generally of the churches in all the southern and central provinces of Gaul (France).

Of these Western churches, where as a rule we rarely find an important “Triforium,” a notable exception may be quoted in the celebrated Palace-chapel of Aix-la-Chapelle, now the cathedral. But this was erected by Charlemagne and largely designed after S. Vitale at Ravenna, a church in great part modelled under Byzantine influences.

A still more notable exception is the vast Cathedral of Tournai with its Romanesque Nave. It has the very large Triforium of the Norman-Romanesque churches; and above it, again, there is a little gallery.

The same absence of the Triforium feature is observable in Italy, save where the building was erected under Byzantine or Eastern influences—as S. Mark’s, Venice, which is to some extent a copy of S. Vitale at Ravenna. S. Vitale largely followed the plan of SS. Sergius and Bacchus built at Constantinople by Justinian before the erection of S. Sophia. There is another striking tradition connected with S. Mark’s at Venice, which relates how this magnificent church was a copy of the Emperor Justinian’s vanished Church of the Holy Apostles, which was designed to act as the Mausoleum of the Byzantine Emperors.

This Constantinopolitan Basilica of “the Apostles” certainly contained great galleries for women worshippers, probably similar to those still existing in S. Sophia.

The Triforium of Gloucester Cathedral, looking into the Choir. XI, XII, XIV Centuries.

But among the important Western churches, strangely enough, when we come to the Anglo-Norman Romanesque abbeys and cathedrals of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the Triforium gallery, so exclusively an Eastern feature, reappears; indeed a great Triforium is positively a characteristic feature in Norman-Romanesque work in England—the Cathedrals of Ely, Peterborough, Norwich, Southwell, Winchester, Durham, and the Triforium of the famous Choir of Gloucester, may be cited as conspicuous examples.

It is hard to explain this striking reappearance of a great Triforium gallery. It is absolutely, as far as we can see, of no possible use, for, different to the East, as we have observed, in the West the sexes are not separated in divine worship; and a gallery for women, therefore, was never required.

What was in the mind here of the great Anglo-Norman builders of the eleventh and twelfth centuries when they arranged a Triforium gallery in their churches is really unknown to us. Was is simply a graceful and striking ornamental architectural device, to enhance the beauty of the interior of these great churches? This it undoubtedly does. Was it any way connected with the visits of pilgrims, so notable a practice in these centuries? Was it in some way intended to multiply the interest of their visit, by providing them with a larger and far more extended procession round and about the church? Something of this kind possibly may account for the strange reappearance of a great Triforium gallery in buildings, for the most part resorted to by great crowds of pilgrims, when the original purpose of a Triforium no longer existed.

That the growing passion for pilgrimage was considered in the planning of these vast Anglo-Norman abbeys and minsters is indisputable, for we find in the design of important abbeys such as Gloucester a large ambulatory or processional aisle, introduced as a prominent feature in these great churches. Such an aisle was doubtless designed for the convenience of pilgrims who frequently thronged these piles. The Triforium gallery possibly, then, was introduced in view of these crowds of pilgrims. We cannot, however, at all pronounce for a certainty that this was the main reason for its introduction in the North and West—quite an unaccustomed feature, but which at once strikes the eye in the Anglo-Norman minsters.

It is an unexplained difficulty, and must be left with these interesting but scarcely satisfactory suggestions.

To sum up: When the great Triforium of an Anglo-Norman cathedral is wondered at, and the question is asked, When was this striking portion of the church first designed, and what was the original purpose which it was intended to serve; and to what uses was it ever put? the inquirer must be told at once to carry his thoughts back to the age of the Emperor Justinian, perhaps somewhat earlier, when the great churches of Constantinople and Salonica were planned and built, when in the planning of these churches a great gallery was designed for the exclusive use of the women worshippers. It was in such a gallery, at S. Sophia, where the Empress Theodora sat and listened when Chrysostom preached, and denounced with his fiery eloquence the vices of the court and society of his age.

This was undoubtedly the origin of the Triforium in Eastern churches which now excites the wonder of the inquirer as to what purpose it was designed and used for. Then the inquirer must be reminded that in the West and North—in Gaul and Italy, indeed throughout the Latin Church—where, different to the Eastern Church, no separation of the sexes was contemplated—no Triforium gallery was, as a rule, planned. It is true that in the important Anglo-Norman cathedrals and abbeys this ancient oriental feature again made its appearance.

But for what special purpose that great school of Norman-Romanesque builders again brought back this striking feature when they planned their mighty piles, will probably for ever remain an undiscovered secret.

On the unexplained secret of the reappearance of the Triforium gallery in certain of the great mediæval churches of the West, notably in the Anglo-Norman Romanesque piles of the eleventh and twelfth centuries—a very remarkable suggestion appears in Mr. Edward Hutton’s eloquent work on Ravenna.

He is describing the great Romanesque Basilica of S. Apollinare Nuovo, the work of Theodoric, the Ostro-Gothic king.

The Mosaics, probably in large part the work of the artists of Justinian, are of an extraordinary and exceptional beauty. They represent upon both sides, through the whole length of the nave, as it were, two long processions of saints—on the one side a procession of Martyrs—some twenty-five figures (men), SS. Clement, Sixtus, Laurence, Cyprian, etc.; on the other side a procession of Virgin Martyrs—Pelagia, Agatha, Eulalia, Cecilia, etc., some twenty-one figures. Mr. Edward Hutton writes here “that there is nothing in Christendom to compare with these Mosaics; they are unique, and, as I like to think, in their wonderful significance are the key to a mystery which has for long remained unsolved.

“For these long processions of saints, representing that great crowd of witnesses, of which S. Paul speaks, stand there above the arcade and under the clerestory where in a Gothic church the triforium is set. But the triforium is the one inexplicable and seemingly useless feature of a Gothic building. It seems to us, in our ignorance of the mind of the Middle Age, of what it took for granted, to be there simply for the sake of beauty, to have no use at all.

“But what if this church in Ravenna, the work indeed of a very different school and time, but springing out of the same spiritual tradition, should hold the key?

“What if the triforium of a Gothic church should have been built as it were for a great crowd of witnesses—the invisible witnesses of the Everlasting Sacrifice, the Sacrifice of Calvary, the Sacrifice of the Mass?

“It is not only in the presence of the living, devout or half indifferent, that that great Sacrifice is offered through the world, yesterday, to-day and for ever, but be sure in the midst of the chivalry of heaven, a multitude that no man can number, none the less real because invisible, among whom one day we too are to be numbered—not for the living only, but for the whole Church men offer that Sacrifice, pro redemptione animarum suarum, pro spe salutis et incolumitatis suæ—Memento etiam Domine, famulorum famularumque tuarum qui nos præcesserunt cum signo fidei et dormiunt in somno pacis.... Here in S. Apollinare, at any rate, for ever they await the renewal of that moment.

“Those marvellous figures that appear in ghostly procession upon the walls of S. Apollinare in Ravenna are really indescribable; they must be seen, if the lovely significance of their beauty is to be understood. What can one say of them?”

Mr. Hutton alludes to the Triforium of a Gothic church, but this unexplained and strange feature of the Triforium in the West reappeared in the great early Anglo-Norman Romanesque piles—in the Choir of Gloucester and in many others.

The Gothic churches, where such a Triforium exists, have simply copied their Anglo-Norman predecessors.

The author of this work by no means must be thought to endorse the above singular explanation of the “secret” of the Triforium which so strangely reappeared in certain of the churches of the West. But he judged it fitting to quote here the striking and remarkable words of the author of Ravenna. He cannot, however, recall any quotation from a mediæval writer in support of the theory in question. It is to him a perfectly novel thought—a thought at once strange and haunting—and here as an interesting and novel suggestion he must leave it.

S. Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna.
Circa A.D. 519.

THE LADY CHAPEL

The date of the first appearance in the Eastern Church of the mediæval estimate of the Virgin Mother is uncertain. In the Latin or Western Church the development of Mariolatry, as it has been termed, was somewhat slower than in Eastern Christianity, but, as we shall see, it became eventually even more accentuated in the West than in the East.

All signs of this exalted estimate of the Virgin Mary are notoriously absent in the New Testament books, and when a new feeling as to the position of the blessed Virgin appeared in the oldest liturgies of the Church, it was of a nature widely different from the mediæval estimate of Mary. To take a well-known example. In the very ancient liturgy of S. John Chrysostom, still in use in the Eastern Church, the Virgin Mary is prayed for. In this venerable liturgy we read: “We offer unto Thee (God the Father) this reasonable service for the faithful dead, our forefathers, patriarchs, prophets, apostles ... martyrs and confessors, but especially for our most holy, immaculate and blessed Lady the Mother of God and ever Virgin, Mary.”

This most ancient liturgy, in the form we now find it, has without doubt been altered and added to since the days of Chrysostom in the latter years of the fourth century, but certainly not in the direction of lowering the position of the Virgin, a position which in the teaching of the Eastern Church grew more and more definitely exalted as the ages passed, till such a place of eminence was ascribed to her, that no loftier one, outside the blessed Trinity, is conceivable. Similar testimony is given in the ancient liturgies of SS. Basil, Gregory Nazianzus, and Cyril.

Very exalted indeed was the estimation in which the Virgin Mary was held in the Eastern Church as early as in the first half of the sixth century, when in the great building age of the Emperor Justinian many noble churches arose, dedicated to the “Mother of God.” In the seventh century the Emperor Heraclius blazoned the Virgin Mary on his banner of war. To the tutelar protection of the Virgin, Constantinople looked against the Saracens.

In the Western or Latin Church, as we have said, the development of Mariolatry was somewhat slower, still as early as the time of Gregory the Great, early in the seventh century, the honour paid to the Virgin Mother in Christian worship became more and more accentuated.

The state and influence of the blessed dead, at a comparatively early period, occupied the minds of Christian teachers. Such glorified human beings after a time began to be looked upon as powerful intercessors at the Throne of Grace for those still on earth. As S. Bernard of Clairvaux expresses it, “They who have come out of great tribulation, shall they not recognise those who still continue in it?”

Gradually the numbers of these glorified Saints became multiplied and even well-nigh deified. These blessed ones having been human, were conceived as still endowed with human sympathies, and were looked upon as more accessible to human prayer and supplication than the three co-eternal Persons of the Trinity in their unapproachable solitude and awful majesty. In a way, these glorified Saints intercepted the worship of the ever blessed Trinity, and to them, rather than through them, in time prayer was addressed.

High above this host of Saints was seated the Queen of Heaven, for to this strange position, dating certainly from the days of Gregory the Great in the West, the Virgin was gradually raised.

Still it was not until the eve of the wonderful awakening of Church life in the West, toward the close of the eleventh century, that the cult of the Virgin attained the strange prominence which it maintained all through the later Middle Ages. Very lofty indeed was the place ascribed to the Virgin Mother, but something yet was needed, however, in the form of a great popular movement to introduce into the every-day life of the people this strange cult which so powerfully influenced the Christianity of the Middle Ages.

This great impulse was given by the Crusades, those marvellous religious wars which took so mighty a hold of the popular imagination in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It came about in this fashion.

Chivalry, at least the religious aspect which chivalry assumed in all its acts, language and ceremonies, may be said to have been the result of the Crusades, for before the Crusades, chivalry, if it existed at all, appears to have had no special reference to religion. But war was now sanctified by religion, and men were taught that the noblest end to which they could dedicate their lives was the rescue of the Redeemer’s sepulchre at Jerusalem from the hands of the infidel conquerors, the disciples of the false prophet Mahommed.

The inescapable duty of a Christian knight was self-devotion for others, especially for the defenceless and weak; thus courtesy to and protection of the weaker sex became the imperative duty, as well as the privilege of knighthood. “The love of God and the ladies was enjoined as the paramount duties in the teaching of chivalry. Thus was formed that strange amalgam of religious and military feeling which was formed around women in the age of chivalry which was, in fact, the age of the Crusades, and which no succeeding change of habit or belief has wholly destroyed.”[21]

“There was one Lady of whom, high above and beyond all, every knight was the vowed servant, the Virgin Mother of that blessed Saviour,” the rescue of whose sacred sepulchre was the primary object of the Crusades.

Thus the adoration of the Virgin, long inculcated by theologians, became popularised among the Crusaders of varied ranks and orders, and through them, among all Western peoples who, during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, supplied the vast armies of the Cross; and this popular devotion to the Virgin continued to grow through the Middle Ages, till it influenced and coloured Christian worship in all the countries of Western Christendom.

“And so it came to pass that religious chivalry, that strange outcome of the Crusades, seemed to array the Christian world as the Church militant of the Virgin, and it was to her that the knight looked especially for success in battle. From the soldier to the people was but a little step, and very soon this sentiment of adoration became universal. The Redeemer passed gradually into a more remote and awful Godhead; the Virgin Mary seemed a nearer, a more familiar and sympathetic object of adoration.”

Soon every cathedral and abbey, every important church had its “Mary” Chapel. Hymns were written and everywhere sang in her honour. Liturgies in which her name was the principal feature were introduced. Manuals of private and of public devotion, in which the name of Mary the Mother of the Lord was conspicuous above every name, were copied and recopied in every monastic Scriptorium or Cloister. A new and startling theological adoration was thus generally added to all popular Christian teaching. “The incommunicable attributes of the Godhead were even assigned to Mary. She was positively represented as sitting between the Cherubim and Seraphim, as commanding by her maternal influence, if not by her authority, her Eternal Son. The idea of the ‘Queen of Heaven’ became a familiar one in popular theology.” This new devotion was largely called into being, as we have shown, by the influence of the Crusades, and showed the mighty hold it had obtained over the popular mind in the erection and lavish adornment of those often splendid and costly shrines known as the Lady Chapels, of which the splendid annexe at the east end of Gloucester Cathedral is a conspicuous and well-known example. This Lady Chapel may even be cited as the crowning instance of this outward and visible sign of the strange novel cult, as we might venture to term it. The Lady Chapel of Gloucester was one of the last great examples of these new additions to the great churches of the mediæval period, for the years which witnessed its completion were the years which historians consider closed the long and many-coloured story of the Middle Ages.

We resume our sketch of the progress of the Cult of the Virgin.

In the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries Mariolatry received another vast impulse through the teaching of the great and popular mendicant orders of S. Francis and S. Dominic. One of the most interesting chapters in mediæval Church history is filled with the story of the “coming” of the new orders of mendicant Friars, among whom the Franciscan and Dominican were by far the most numerous and influential. Widespread was the influence exercised by these Friars over the masses of the people.

And in the teaching of both these great communities the Virgin Mary occupied a peculiar and lofty position. Exalted as was the position claimed by the Franciscans for Mary; if possible the Dominicans professed a yet greater devotion to the blessed Virgin, whom the disciples of Dominic even were pleased to regard as the special protectress of their famous Order. According to a well-loved tradition of their schools, it was Mary herself who revealed to S. Dominic that form of prayer known as the “Rosary” which from the years 1212-1215 became alike among rich and poor the popular badge of Catholic devotion—“The ‘Rosary,’ that curious and novel form of prayer, with the refrain ‘Ave Maria’ (Hail, Mary) repeated again and again. A prayer which has maintained in Roman Catholic countries its wonderful popularity down to our own days and times, and which perhaps has done more to perpetuate the popular cult of her whom Roman Catholic teachers, with an insistence pathetic as it is historically baseless, love to term the ‘Queen of Heaven’ than all the rhapsodies of mystics, or learned treatises of doctors or authoritative pronouncements of the See of Rome.”

But this novel form of Christian dogma, with its ever-multiplying developments, it must be confessed, excited even in the hearts of some of the most ardent devotees of the New Cult, now and again qualms and hesitations—for instance, Bernard of Clairvaux in the middle of the twelfth century—the glory of the Cistercian Order, one of the most influential and loved monks that ever lived, whilst professing the deepest tenderness towards, and affection and admiration for the Mother of his Lord, wrote in a spirit of indignant remonstrance against the doctrine of the “Immaculate conception of the Virgin” which in the twelfth century had already been suggested for acceptation. “Are we more instructed,” wrote S. Bernard, “or more devout than the fathers?... It is perilous presumption in us, when their prudence in such things is exceeded. The Royal Virgin needs no fictitious honours.” Aquinas, Peter Lombard, Albertus Magnus, Bonaventura, denied this doctrine, or at least hesitated before adopting it.[22]

The testimony of Art to this strange development in Christian doctrine is striking and instructive. Art, it must be remembered, is ever the expression of popular opinion. Outside the Catacomb pictures which here are indeed few in number and very simple, and give no support whatever to the lofty mediæval conceptions of Mary;[23] the earliest representations of the Virgin are found in ancient Christian sarcophaguses; there the Virgin, when she is represented at all, occupies a place less prominent than that given to the Apostles. A conspicuous position is only accorded to her in the Western Church, towards the eighth and ninth centuries, when the Crucifixion began to be a popular subject in the design of ornamentation. The Virgin is depicted in these scenes at the foot of the Cross on the right side, S. John occupying a similar place on the left.

But in the twelfth century, a marked change in Art appears in the presentment of the Virgin. Dating from about the year 1140, Mary becomes a prominent figure in sculpture and in painted glass; she now appears commonly seated on a throne and wearing a crown, but ever holding on her knees the infant Saviour. In her right hand she often holds a sceptre. An aureole of glory surrounds her head and the head of the Child Christ. No doubt this new fashion of representing Mary was borrowed from the Greek and Byzantine pictures and sculptures, of which a large number were brought from the East by returning Crusaders. Still in these early representations, the Child Christ remains the principal figure, and He is depicted on His mother’s knees in the attitude of blessing with an outstretched little hand.

But a change even here is soon observable. In the thirteenth century, save in a scene picturing the adoration of the Magi, the Virgin is rarely depicted in a sitting posture with the Child Christ in her arms. She now generally appears standing, crowned and triumphant; if she holds the Child in her arms, it is simply to mark the source and origin of the power and authority which she is evidently portrayed as exercising. But emphatically in these thirteenth century and later statues and glass pictures, she is the central figure, and to her, not to the Divine Child, is adoration unmistakably offered and prayer addressed. Very different indeed from the humble and grief-stricken Mary of the seventh and eighth centuries kneeling with S. John at the foot of the Cross, is the crowned and sceptred Queen of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; her head encircled with an aureole of glory, accepting the devout homage of Christian worshippers, and listening to their supplications addressed to her.

It is thus during the thirteenth and two following centuries, she appears in unnumbered instances, alike in jewelled window as on the carved porch of the house of God, unmistakably, as the popular hymns and liturgies were everywhere teaching, “the Queen of Heaven.”

Annexe to Gloucester Cathedral—The Lady Chapel, XV Century—showing the little South Transept and the square east end.

An Appendix on two remarkable Architectural Features in the Lady Chapel of Gloucester.

In the Lady Chapel of Gloucester there are two remarkable features which have, I believe, generally escaped attention. The stranger standing on the grass lawn which forms the outside pavement of the cathedral, perhaps notices that the east end of the great Lady Chapel is square—rectangular; and looking down the pile perceives two small transepts; then as the eye travels down the great building beyond the Lady Chapel, it is again arrested by two more transepts of far greater size.

There is a special interest in these peculiar features, especially in the square east end; they have a story of their own. The great majority of the great English churches, it is well known, are not apsidal, or circular at the east end, but square, and it would seem that some very ancient tradition must be at the root of that striking English feature. Now we have good reason to believe that the majority of ancient British churches were so constructed. In Ireland a few very ancient little churches or oratories are still with us; some of these without doubt date from the fifth century, that is, from the days when Ireland was first Christianised from Britain; they therefore undoubtedly represent the type of church architecture common in Britain before the coming and subsequent havoc of the North-folk invaders, in the fifth and sixth centuries—the Saxon, the Engle and the Jute.

Without exception these very early little Irish churches, or oratories, are square-ended, not apsidal or semi-circular ended. They evidently represent an independent Christian tradition, something quite different to the Basilican, especially Italian tradition of an apsidal or semi-circular end. The conclusion then forced upon us is that Christianity came originally to this Island from another centre than Rome or Italy.

This square-ended form for churches, impressed upon Britain by unknown missionaries, is of immemorial antiquity. The teaching has never been forgotten, but has, through all the changing fortunes of the Church in our Island, remained the English favourite form. We will briefly trace its remarkable story.

The first period of the existence of the Church in Britain may be dated roughly from some time in the second century, and may be said to have lasted until the coming of the North-folk in the middle of the fifth century. (The exact date of the first preaching of Christianity in Britain is unknown.) Ireland received the faith from Britain somewhere about A.D. 397, and judging from the invariable square east end form of the early Irish churches, and oratories, we may assume that the British churches (these have all[24] disappeared owing to the sweeping havoc of the Northmen invaders), like their daughter Irish churches, must have been, as a rule, square-ended.

There were, however, it is certain, some rare exceptions to this rule, for when Christianity after A.D. 313 became the recognised religion of the Empire, in some centres in Britain the churches of the Roman colonists and officials were built on the Basilican mode of the great capital of the Roman world, with apsidal or semi-circular sanctuaries. An example of such an exception has been lately discovered in the purely Roman city of Silchester (near Reading), built in the fourth century especially for Roman provincials and officials. The little Silchester church, as might have been expected, has an apsidal or semi-circular end.

The second period of the Church in Britain may be dated from the arrival of Augustine from Italy, A.D. 597, and may be roughly reckoned as lasting until the coming of the Normans in A.D. 1066. Augustine and his companion missionaries, as may have been expected, introduced the Italian or Basilican type, but gradually we find the square end, as the Saxon period wore on, again forcing its way into general use, the old traditional type of church building somehow being deeply rooted in the hearts of the dwellers in our Island.

The Norman conquest once more, after A.D. 1066, gave an artificial and temporary victory to the Italian (Basilican) or apsidal-ended churches. Westminster Abbey, which was a purely Norman church, built under Edward the Confessor’s auspices—Gloucester, and other well-known famous abbeys, were constructed with apsidal and semi-circular east ends. But strangely enough, in spite of the all-powerful Norman influence, nothing could eradicate the old taste for the primitive British type of church, and when once the conquerors and the conquered began to be welded into one people, the square end once more gradually superseded its Roman apsidal rival. By the thirteenth century the victory of the old square-ended type was pretty well complete, and it became par excellence the special English form.

The well-known example of the “restored” Westminster Abbey, which with its apse and striking chevet of chapels at the east end, and which might justly be cited as an important contrary instance, is really exceptional, that glorious abbey owing its Roman and Continental form to the special circumstances under which it was restored and rebuilt. The foreign influences to which Henry III, who mainly carried out the new Westminster work was subjected, are purely responsible here. Durham, on the other hand, where English influences were at work, actually saw its Norman apse destroyed, A.D. 1236-1241, and the beautiful creation known as the Nine Altars commenced. This Chapel of the Nine Altars at the east end of Durham may be cited as the noblest instance existing of a square-ended termination of a great English abbey. A somewhat similar transformation was also effected in the famous Priory Church of Lindisfarne, with its undying memories, hard by Durham.

Among the great churches of England, either through original construction, or through partial transformation or subsequent additions, the following will be found to possess the square, or rectangular east end, that peculiar form derived from the ancient British type, adopted in the Island before the coming of the North-folk: York, Exeter, Worcester, Salisbury, Christ Church (Oxford), Winchester, Hereford, Rochester, Lincoln, Ely, Chichester, Chester, Carlisle, Bangor; and Old Sarum may be added to the list.

But, on the other hand, very few traces of this peculiarly English (British) form, with its striking and interesting tradition handed down from an immemorial antiquity, and bearing its voiceless testimony to some original centre of Christianity, other than Rome or Italy, are found in the great continental churches.

In the vast and populous province of the old Empire known as Gaul, which includes modern France, the Low Countries, etc., among its numerous splendid cathedrals and abbatial churches, only one can be cited with a square-ended east end—the cathedral of Laon. To Laon may be added the important church of Dol. Square-ended churches, comparatively small and unimportant, are, however, not unfrequent in the little country towns of the north of France and in the Burgundian country. Are not these latter exceptions probably referable to an undying memory of the influence of Columba, the great Irish (Celtic) missionary, and his school?

The magnificent and stately mediæval cathedrals on the Continent of Europe, different from their sister churches in England, are, as a rule, characterised by the feature of a great apse, semi-circular or polygonal, with a chevet of chapels.

In England, Gloucester Cathedral is one of the notable exceptions, in this striking particular, to the general English type of square-ended churches, with its eastern apse almost semi-circular, and its chevet of chapels, of which there are three distinct storeys, one over the other, containing in all nine chapels.

But in the year 1457, when Abbot Hanley was ruling in the important Benedictine House of Gloucester, it was determined that a new and superb Lady Chapel should be built as an “annexe” to the stately abbey of Serlo and Aldred. But in the beautiful design for this new and exquisite eastern annexe, the Benedictine architect determined to give to his historic abbey that peculiar English feature which it had hitherto lacked, viz. a square or rectangular termination.

Hence it came about, that in its last architectural transformation, Gloucester has become square-ended, thus preserving in the mighty abbey of the Severn Lands, the immemorial tradition of the square end, handed down from the third century, and brought originally to this Island by early Christian teachers from the East, not from Italy and Rome.

Nor was the master-architect who designed the present Lady Chapel of Gloucester content with only expressing this peculiar and most ancient British type of church architecture upon his loved abbey. Hitherto S. Peter’s Abbey had possessed but one pair of transepts. The secondary or eastern transepts were another feature peculiarly English. They are found in the great piles of Canterbury, Lincoln, Salisbury, Beverley and York, but not in the great Houses of Prayer in France (Gaul). One solitary Gallic instance can be cited in the vast abbey of Cluny in Burgundy, now, alas, razed to the ground; Cluny, strangely enough, possessed the English feature of the double transepts.

The architect of the new chapel of “our Lady” at Gloucester determined that his abbey should henceforth boast too of this peculiar English feature, and so wove into his beautiful design those two singular and striking projections, usually described simply as Chauntry Chapels, surmounted by minstrel galleries, but which are really two little transepts.

A glance at the ground-plan of Gloucester Cathedral, as it now stands, will show the accuracy of this apparently novel, and perhaps to some students, startling deduction. So Gloucester, in its last and final transformation in the fifteenth century, became possessed of both the special English architectural features—the square end, and the double eastern transepts.

The Churches or Oratories of “S. Gwithian” and “Perranzabuloe” on the north coast of Cornwall.

Since writing the above little historical sketch of the utter destruction of the ancient churches of Britain in the sixth century by the North-folk—the Jute, the Saxon and the Engle—worshippers of Odin and Thor—Mr. Lach Szyrma, the well-known Cornish scholar, has called my attention to the curious but little-known remains of two most ancient churches, or oratories, on the north coast of Cornwall, S. Gwithian and Perranzabuloe; both dating from circa A.D. 450. One of them, “S. Gwithian,” perhaps slightly earlier.

In each of these, the Sanctuary has a square ending. These little churches without doubt were the work of the old British community—and apparently are the only survivors of the British churches swept away by the North-folk invaders.

Of these two churches or oratories, S. Gwithian was erected in a very exposed situation, and the sand from the sea-shore is blown upon the site in clouds; as much as a depth of five feet of sand will come up in one night. It was covered up in this way at a very remote date.

This “lost” church was dug out of the sand, circa A.D. 1830-1835. Since then it has several times been partially uncovered, but it has gradually been completely filled up again with sand. It is now completely buried in the sand, and only a few stones of the west wall are visible above ground.

The length of the Church of S. Gwithian is circa fifty feet, and the breadth circa twenty feet. The walls are dry-built.

The building is rectangular (square-ended), with a door on the south side away from the sea.

Church of S. Gwythian, Cornwall—VI Century—as it appeared in A.D. 1894, before it was again covered with sand.

The church or oratory of Perranzabuloe (S. Peran in Sabulo; S. Peran in the Sand) was only discovered circa A.D. 1880. Its previous existence was suspected owing to a very faint local tradition, when it suddenly partly reappeared in consequence of a storm uncovering a small portion of it, the sand mound which completely covered it being partly swept away.

It had been buried in the sand at an unknown, but very early date, yet the tradition of its existence lingered on through the centuries. This church or oratory of Perranzabuloe is smaller than the church of S. Gwithian above described. It is only about twenty-five feet long by twelve and a half feet broad. The chancel at the east is square-ended. The little building forms a perfect double square.

It is now accessible—and quite recent care has entirely covered the ancient edifice with an enclosing building, leaving a passage all round, between the old walls and the new wall which encircles it. The present Vicar says: “It is a rather ugly arrangement, but it is the best that could be done with the funds collected for the conservation of the precious relic. At any rate,” its guardian says, “the old church is now protected from wind and weather.”

This most ancient church is built of unhewn stones without mortar. Attached to the east wall is a stone altar five feet three inches long by two feet three inches wide. About eight inches above the altar is a niche some twelve inches high by eight inches wide, in which most probably was once placed the shrine of S. Peran.

The church or oratory of Perranzabuloe is in the midst of a stretch of sand-dunes reaching from Perranporth to Newquay, on the north coast of Cornwall, eight miles from Newquay, one and a half miles from Perranporth.

The strange reappearance of these two most ancient British churches, dating certainly from before the sixth century, apparently the solitary survivors of the destroyed churches of the old inhabitants of Britain before the coming of the North-folk, bear out the theory above advanced, that the British churches or oratories erected before the disastrous conquest of the North-folk, like the Irish churches or oratories which faithfully reproduced their peculiar architectural features, were all square-ended churches.

THE CRYPT

Of the principal terms used in this study on the Crypt.

Crypt is derived from the Greek κρύπτειν to hide, to conceal.

Confessio—The Confession. The burial chamber or vault where lay the remains of one who had “confessed” and borne witness to his Faith by his blood. The “Confessio” is sometimes termed “Martyrium.” Sometimes the word is used for the chamber immediately contiguous to the actual vault of the tomb beneath it, as is the case in the Crypt of S. Peter at Rome.

Memoria.—The chamber or chapel erected over the “Confessio” or burial place of the Martyrs—originally used for the gathering place of the Faithful, pilgrims or others who came to visit and pray over the grave of the Saint buried beneath. The first “Memoria” that we are acquainted with was erected over the vault which held the body of St. Peter. This “Memoria” was built by Anacletus,[25] the successor of Linus; Anacletus is generally reckoned as third Bishop of Rome. It served as a church for the faithful, in which the Eucharist could be celebrated, and a small congregation gathered together. This Memoria of Anacletus was erected shortly after A.D. 70. It is mentioned in the Liber Pontificalis under the record of Pope Anacletus in the following words: “Memoriam beati Petri construit et composuit.”

The “Memoria” of Anacletus was no doubt referred to by the Presbyter Caius in A.D. 210, who calls it the “Tropæum”—the visible monument of the Apostle S. Peter. Tertullian also, as early as the end of the second century, refers to it as an object of pilgrimage from all parts of the world.

Cubiculum.—This was a little burial chamber leading out of the galleries of the Roman Catacombs. These “Cubicula” were hewn out of the rock, generally at right angles to the gallery in which were cut the countless niches each holding one or more corpses.

The “Cubiculum” was intended for the more conspicuous persons in the Church, and especially for those who had through martyrdom, or through any very distinguished work for the Church, merited this special distinction after death; not a few of these “Cubicula” were occupied by the bodies of the men and women who had witnessed a good confession by shedding their blood for Christ’s sake. Many of these little chapels which held the remains of such illustrious dead, became, as time went on, places highly venerated by the congregation.

Catacombs.—The modern name of “Catacombs,” now universally applied to ancient underground Crypts where the dead were interred in the early days of Christianity, and especially used for that vast network of subterranean corridors filled by the Christian dead beneath the suburbs of old Rome, was totally unknown to the original Christian communities who hewed out of the solid rock this mighty cemetery of the Roman dead. The term “Catacomb” is derived from the Greek words κατά κύμβη, the latter word signifying “hollow” or valley.

The district on the Appian Way where the little basilica of S. Sebastian now stands, was especially known as “ad catacumbas” or “the Hollows.”

In the earlier part of the ninth century, the bodies of the more prominent Saints and Martyrs were removed for security’s sake from their original resting-places outside the walls of the city, to the safer custody of the Roman churches within the city, and the once famous subterranean cemeteries in the suburbs gradually ceased to be objects of pilgrimage.

But the one suburban cemetery of S. Sebastian, owing to the tradition that the bodies of SS. Peter and Paul had reposed in the Crypt beneath S. Sebastian for some years when persecution had rendered their original resting-places insecure, ever remained an object of devout pilgrimage.

This Crypt was known as “Cemeterium ad Catacumbas,” and on the re-discovery of the great underground City of the Dead at Rome, late in the sixteenth century, the popular name “ad Catacumbas” came to be applied to all subterranean cemeteries, and especially to the great cemeteries beneath the Roman suburbs.

But it must be borne in mind that, after all, this universally used appellation, when given to the subterranean cemeteries in general, is a curious misnomer, and was unknown, in its present universal signification, in ancient times.

Now it may be positively assumed that all Crypts are generally a memory of, are reminiscent of the sacred and venerated burying-places of the Martyrs and Saints of the age of persecution, notably of the Crypt of S. Peter.

Thanks to the industry of a few modern scholars, the details of S. Peter’s tomb on the Vatican Hill are fairly well known. The sacred remains of the great Apostle and Martyr, ever venerated as the founder of the Roman congregation, were originally laid in a little vault or crypt on the Vatican Hill hard by the place of his martyrdom.

From the first, this spot was visited by pilgrims from many lands, an ever-increasing number, but the place of interment was very small and difficult of access. So Anacletus, traditionally the third Bishop of the Church of Rome, in order to accommodate these numerous visitors to the tomb, built directly over the vault where the Apostle’s body rested, the little chapel known in history as the “Memoria” of Anacletus.

Over this humble Chapel or “Memoria,” the first Christian Emperor Constantine erected the lordly basilica generally known in history as “Old S. Peter’s.” In the same age, or a very little later, various other basilicas or churches were built directly over the “Cubicula” or burial chambers leading out of the Catacomb galleries, where lay the remains of the more prominent Saints and Martyrs interred in the Catacombs of Rome.

In those far-back days, the grave of a Martyr was ever regarded with the deepest reverence, and was constantly visited by pilgrim visitors. No more appropriate spot, it was considered, could be chosen for the celebration of divine service than the chamber which held the Martyr’s grave; but these graves were sunk deep in the ground, and the “Cubicula” of the Catacombs were utterly incapable of containing the officiating clergy and the crowd of the faithful who would wish to worship in these hallowed spots. It was generally considered in the early Church that the remains of the Martyrs and Saints ought not to be removed, for such a removal would be deemed an impious act; never—so taught the teachers of the first age—must the sainted relics of the dead Confessors be translated or disturbed.

To overcome this difficulty, the rock over and round the grave must be cut away, and room must thus be gained as was sufficient for the erection of a basilica or church, large or small, directly over the Crypt or Cubiculum, which contained the Martyr’s tomb. The damage done to such catacombs, thus cut away by the builders of these basilicas, was incalculable; thousands of early Christian graves must have been sacrificed for the preservation of the one grave specially selected for peculiar honour.

This, Lanciani tells us, is the origin of the greatest Sanctuaries of Christian Rome; such as the Churches of S. Paul on the Via Ostiensis, S. Sebastian on the Via Appia, S. Petronilla on the Via Ardeatina, S. Agnes on the Via Nomentana, S. Lorenzo on the Via Tiburtina; these and other sacred historical structures owe their existence to the martyr’s grave over which these churches were built, a grave which no human hand was allowed to touch or to transfer to another and more convenient place.

This was the genesis, the origin of the idea of the Crypt beneath the church. The desire to possess a Crypt in early mediæval times was widely spread. As a rule, though, as we shall presently explain, not always was the Crypt the resting-place of some noted martyr. In Gaul and on the banks of the Rhine these crypts were fairly general in the early Middle Ages: their retention, enlargement, and reconstruction was largely due to the sentiment and tradition of the very early age of Christianity.

In Gaul, in the Merovingian period, in the more important churches they seem to have been very usual; for instance, we still possess the Crypts of S. Avitus of Orleans (sixth century), the Crypt of Jouarre and parts of the Crypt of Vézelay, supposed to contain the remains of S. Mary Magdalene, S. Medard of Soissons; large portions of the vast Crypt of Chartres, the Crypt of the Cathedral of Auxerre, and certain parts of the Crypt of the famous Church of S. Benignus of Dijon, one of the largest existing. The underground Church of S. Seurin of Bordeaux dates, however, from the eleventh century, as does also the famous and vast Crypt of S. Eutropius of Saintes.

On the banks of the Rhine and in the Eastern districts of Gaul, dating from the eleventh century, and even somewhat earlier, we may cite as prominent examples the Crypts of Besançon and Strasburg, and the great underground Church of Spires.

In Anglo-Saxon England, we have the Crypts of Ripon and Hexham, both the work of Wilfred in the seventh century, a little later that of Wing in Buckinghamshire, and somewhat later still, Repton.

In the early Norman period we have in England the important Crypts of Winchester, Worcester, Rochester, Gloucester and Canterbury (in parts). The Oxford and York Minster Crypts were built as late as in the last part of the twelfth century.

But then they came to an end. The vogue of building Crypts ceased soon after the famous action of Suger, Abbot of S. Denys near Paris, who, in A.D. 1144, probably owing to the impossibility of providing for the vast crowds of pilgrims to the Shrines of S. Denys and his two companions SS. Rusticus and Eleutherus in the Crypt of the abbey, brought up from the underground Church of S. Denys the remains of the three saints, and placed them near the high altar of the church above, where they could be more easily seen and visited by the pilgrim crowds.

The example of Abbot Suger seems to have been largely followed, notably at Canterbury, where the body of S. Thomas à Becket, a most popular object of pilgrimage, was removed from the under to the upper church in A.D. 1248.

This general removal of the remains of the saints and confessors from their original place beneath the church, to a position hard by the high altar of the main building above, seems to have taken away completely the traditional interest of the Crypt. It now was never constructed. In the planning of an abbey or of any considerable church the Crypt found no place; and thus the vogue which had prevailed for so many centuries passed away completely.

Singularly enough the great Cluniac Brotherhood of Benedictines, with its two thousand churches, scattered over the countries of the West, never seems to have adopted the Crypt as a part of any of their many homes of prayer. There is little doubt that the example of so mighty and influential a section of the Church of the twelfth century also contributed largely to the disuse of this most ancient and interesting feature, which for some ten centuries or more had occupied a place in the planning of so many of the more important abbeys and homes of prayer in the West.

To sum up, the Crypt was entirely a Latin and Western use; it was virtually unknown, and practically non-existent outside the broad area of Latin Christianity. The custom of the Eastern Church received it not. It belonged exclusively to the Western school of Romanesque architecture. It is interesting to remember that as the school of Romanesque building gave place to another and different school of architecture, the Crypt virtually disappeared. No purely Gothic Crypt can be quoted or referred to.

In the first place it was undoubtedly understood to be the resting-place of the remains of the famous saint or confessor after whom, in so many cases, the church built over the Crypt in question was named, and to whose honoured memory the church was dedicated. But it came to pass, when the vogue or fashion of constructing a Crypt or under-church became very general, that not unfrequently we find this under-church, sometimes of considerable size and importance, designed and planned without the presence of any of these hallowed remains dating from far-back days. Such, for instance, was the vast Gloucester Crypt. No tradition exists in Gloucester of the remains of any saint or confessor ever having been laid to rest in the wide ambulatory or in the central division of that most venerable and solemn under-church which lies beneath the stately Cathedral of Gloucester.

The central part of the Crypt of Gloucester Cathedral. XI Century.

THE CRYPT OF S. PETER ON THE VATICAN HILL
The Story of a Tomb

There was one Crypt of remarkable sanctity—that of S. Peter at Rome. It was the favourite object of all Western pilgrimage from the last years of the first century—and it retained its far-reaching popularity for many centuries.

This Crypt which contains the remains of the great Apostle, with the “Memoria” of Anacletus immediately above it, may justly be considered to have set the vogue which prevailed in the planning of a Crypt in so many important churches of Western Christianity, from the fourth until the end of the twelfth century.

The immense and enduring estimation in which this Crypt of S. Peter at Rome was held for so many centuries, has determined the writer of these studies to describe it with some detail—and to tell its eventful and striking story at some length.

In the year of grace 70, Jerusalem and her glorious temple were burnt and destroyed by Titus and his Legions, who saw in Jerusalem, the sacred city and citadel not only of the rebel Jews, but also of the hated Christian sect. There is no doubt but that from the year of the great catastrophe Rome gradually became the acknowledged centre and metropolis of Christendom—it had no longer any recognised centre when Jerusalem was destroyed.

This position has been altered and the influence of Rome has been dimmed, and to a certain extent materially diminished by certain other centres of Christianity which have arisen. But she holds it to a certain extent still. Constantinople the home of the widespread Eastern or Greek Christianity, and later Moscow after the fall of Constantinople, were important religious centres. London among the far-reaching Anglo-Saxon peoples may claim, with some reason, the lofty title of the Metropolis of the Christian world.

Yet after all these great religious centres have been reckoned with, Rome, though her old fame and influence has been sadly tarnished and dimmed, still ranks first. The Eastern or Greek Church, changeless in the midst of change, silently watches her loved metropolis of Constantinople all spoiled and desecrated, in the hands of unbelievers. The Protestant Churches dear to the Anglo-Saxon and Teutonic peoples, reluctantly perhaps, sadly without doubt, in their hearts still think of Rome as the centre or metropolis of that living faith in the Crucified which has been adopted as the religion of the fairest and most powerful portion of the world.

S. Peter is regarded by Roman Catholic writers (as might have been expected) as the founder of the Roman congregation—many too among Anglo-Saxon and Teutonic scholars now accept this view. This conclusion undoubtedly is supported: (1) by the general testimony of early Christian writers mostly of the second century; (2) by the important traditional “Memories” of the presence and preaching of S. Peter in Rome. Some of these “Memories,” it is true, are purely traditional, others have clearly an historical foundation; but taken all together, they constitute an argument of no little weight. In the written testimonies, as well as in the “Memories” which hang round the figures of SS. Peter and Paul in Rome, who are generally joined together as founders of the great Church of the Metropolis of the Empire, it is notable that Peter, not Paul, ever is the principal figure; (3) the place which the two mighty Basilicas of S. Peter and S. Paul have ever occupied in the minds and hearts not only of the dwellers in Rome, but also of all the innumerable pilgrims in all ages to the sacred shrines of Rome, seems accurately to measure the respective positions which the two great Apostles have ever held in the estimate of the Roman congregation.

The comparative neglect of S. Paul’s Basilica in Rome when measured with the undying reverence bestowed on the sister Basilica of S. Peter, is due, not to any want of reverence and regard for the great Apostle of the Gentiles, but solely because Rome itself and the innumerable pilgrims to the Queen City were conscious of the special debt of Rome to S. Peter, who was evidently in all ages regarded as the first and real founder of the mighty Church of the Capital.

This great and revered teacher S. Peter suffered martyrdom about the year 66-67. Somewhere about A.D. 69, when the violence of the terrible persecution of Nero, who perished A.D. 68, was dying away, the Christian worshippers in Rome prepared a tomb in the nearest available spot to the place of his martyrdom on the Vatican Hill. This tomb was a vaulted chamber almost entirely subterranean.

This sacred sepulchre was visited from very early days by ever large and increasing numbers of the faithful, not only belonging to the Roman congregations, but including pilgrims from all parts of the Roman world who wished to pray at the sacred tomb; these visitors were undeterred by any danger of arrest and death. Pilgrimage to the holy places of Jerusalem was impossible since a heathen temple had arisen on the site of the Holy Sepulchre. It was therefore to Rome, and especially to the tomb of S. Peter, that the early pilgrim devotees of Christendom chiefly turned.

But the original sepulchre or vault where the remains of S. Peter rested[26] provided but little space for pilgrims, and was not indeed very easy of access. So Anacletus, who followed Linus as Bishop of the Roman Church, A.D. 79-87, built a “Memoria” or upper chamber immediately above the tomb to serve as a little church or meeting-place for the ever-increasing numbers of pilgrim visitors. This “Memoria” of Anacletus was constructed by simply raising the walls of the tomb or crypt to a higher level, and was of the same shape as the vault itself; thus, as it were, providing a chamber for the pilgrim visitors on the floor immediately above the actual tomb.

This little upper chamber of the tomb, which was above ground, is the “Tropæum” spoken of by Caius the presbyter, when, in A.D. circa 210, he writes as follows: “I can show you the trophies of the Apostles, for whether you go to the Vatican or on the Ostian Way you will meet with their ‘trophies’” (i. e. of SS. Peter and Paul who founded the Church in Rome).

But in addition to building the little upper chamber or “Memoria” of the tomb itself, Bishop Anacletus prepared places, or graves, in which he himself and a certain number of his successors might be buried round S. Peter.

In this sacred burying-place, in these graves prepared by Anacletus round the Apostle’s tomb, were the early second-century Bishops of Rome laid, close to the resting-place of S. Peter, and it is these graves which were laid open in the excavations of which we shall presently speak, in the year 1626.

There is no record of the exact date of the building of the Basilica of S. Peter, but there can be no doubt that it was really, as immemorial tradition has asserted, the work of Constantine the Great after he became absolute master of the Roman world.

We should put the date probably shortly after A.D. 324, in which year the yet earlier Basilica of the Lateran was consecrated. The inscription which still runs along the west front of the Lateran Church—

“Sacrosancta Lateranensis ecclesia, omnium urbis
et orbis ecclesiarum Mater et Caput”—

voices the ancient tradition that the consecration of the great Lateran Church preceded the building of S. Peter.

The venerable dedicatory inscription originally on the principal arch which spanned the nave of S. Peter recorded the name of its imperial builder:

“Quod duce Te Mundus Surrexit Ad Astra Triumphans

Hanc Constantinus Victor Tibi Condidit Aulam.”

The entry in the Liber Pontificalis, presently quoted, tells of the first Christian Emperor’s special work in the vault or crypt of the Apostle’s tomb.

It was over this sacred tomb and the little “Memoria” above it that Constantine erected the magnificent church known as Old S. Peter’s. Before the days of Constantine, the humble “Memoria” of Anacletus represented the church above the tomb. Under the first Christian Emperor, the little “Memoria of Anacletus” grew into the magnificent Basilica[27] renowned for centuries through the Western world.

But here we have only to do with the tomb and the immediate work above it in the “Memoria” of Anacletus. The entry in the Liber Pontificalis gives us a precise account of what the Emperor Constantine did in the vault of the tomb.

“He hid away the stone coffin which contained the body after this manner: He enclosed the coffin altogether in bronze, and then built up (i. e. filled the vault) with masonry. After this manner he enclosed the body of the blessed Peter and hid it away.”

There is no doubt, however, that the Emperor, in enclosing the sarcophagus of the Apostle with solid masonry, left clear a little space actually above the coffin in the ceiling of the vault, for the same entry goes on to tell us that Constantine made a gold cross and placed it above the bronze covering of the coffin. This gold cross was seen gleaming through an opening as late as A.D. 1594. We know too that in the early Middle Ages, objects of devotion were occasionally lowered from the church above, through the ceiling, and these objects were revered as bonâ fide precious relics of the Apostle whose coffin they had touched.

Here the entry in the Liber Pontificalis ends, and the particulars of any work which Constantine carried out in the “Memoria” of Anacletus, which had been built above the tomb, we can only learn from its present appearance and from detached notices which occur in later entries of the Liber Pontificalis which tell us of the splendid gifts made to this “Memoria” by the Popes and others in the following centuries.

Directly above the “Memoria” it is clear that Constantine, when he built the great church, placed a heavy stone altar. This had to be supported by strengthening the comparatively slender walls of the “Memoria.” The vault of the tomb filled up, save directly above the sarcophagus, with solid masonry, provided a firm foundation, and the “Memoria,” which was now divided into two chambers, was made strong with additional masonry. The lower of the two chambers was completely filled up save for a small opening or passage which led directly down to the vault of the tomb.

The walls of the upper chamber of the “Memoria” were also strengthened with masonry sufficient to support the great altar placed immediately above it, but enough space was left to form the Confessionary, part of which still exists beneath the great altar.

Thus direct communication with the sacred vault of the tomb itself existed by means of the narrow opening or passage through the lower chamber above mentioned, by means of which handkerchiefs or similar objects could be let down so as to touch the sarcophagus in which lay the remains of the Apostle. This opening or passage was closed with two small gratings carefully locked. These gratings are generally known by the term “cataracts”—the one at the lower end, which was in fact the ceiling of the vault, which ceiling consisted of one or more marble slabs; the other on the top of the opening or passage, on the floor of the upper chamber of the “Memoria”—which became the well-known Confessionary.[28]

We possess in the writings of S. Gregory of Tours a vivid description of the manner in which pilgrims to Rome revered the sacred shrine in early times. The description in question was given to S. Gregory by his deacon Agiulphus who had made the pilgrimage. The account is given us by S. Gregory in his book called In gloriâ Martyrum, written about the year of grace 595. We append a translation of the words here of S. Gregory—

“S. Peter is buried in a church called from ancient times the Vatican.... His sepulchre, which is placed under the Altar, is exceedingly rarely entered. However, if any one desires to pray, the gates by which the place is fenced are opened, and he goes in above the sepulchre, and then, having opened a little window, puts his head within and makes request concerning his needs.

“Nor is the result delayed, if only the petition be a just one. For if he desires to carry away with him some blessed memorial, he throws within a little handkerchief that has been carefully weighed, and then watching and fasting, he prays most fervently that the Apostle may give an effectual answer to his devotion. Wonderful to say, if the faith of the man prevails, the handkerchief when it is raised from the tomb, is so filled with divine virtue that it weighs much more than it did before, and then he who has raised it knows that he has obtained the favour which he sought.

“Many also make golden keys to unlock the gates of the blessed sepulchre, and then they take away those which were used before, as a sacred treasure, and by these keys the infirmities of the afflicted are cured. For true faith can do all things.”

Mgr. Barnes in his work on S. Peter’s tomb gives a detailed explanation of the above report of Agiulphus to S. Gregory of Tours.

“The actual sepulchre, the subterranean chamber in which the sarcophagus (of S. Peter) was placed, was scarcely ever opened, and was not, even at that early date (late in the sixth century), accessible to ordinary worshippers. The most that they could hope for, was to visit the Confession under the Altar ... the pilgrim passes on, throws himself with his body prostrate within the recess, raises the little window or grating which closed the aperture in the floor, and so puts himself in communication, not indeed with the tomb itself, but with the space which intervened between the Confession and the vault, which space had once formed the lowest part of the old upper chamber or ‘Memoria’ of Anacletus.”

From the vault and the actual sepulchre he was still shut off by a second grating or cataract—which was unlocked for him.

Through these two gratings, when opened, the handkerchief or other object was lowered so as to touch the tomb, and this could be carried away as a precious relic.

By the early Popes and Bishops of Rome, and other illustrious persons, notably by Pelagius II, A.D. 579-590; S. Gregory, A.D. 590-604; Sergius, A.D. 687-701; S. Gregory III, A.D. 731-741; Paul I, A.D. 757-768; Hadrian I, A.D. 772-795; and S. Leo III—Hadrian’s successor—were magnificent and costly offerings bestowed upon the sacred shrine. These decorated with unexampled magnificence the Confession, the Altar and the canopy above.

In the reign of Paul I, King Pepin of France was also a munificent donor to this famous shrine.

These gifts consisted in gold and silver coverings for the canopy of the altar—in costly mosaics—in precious marble columns—in pavements of silver—in railings and gates of gold—in superb candelabra. Many of these costly gifts are chronicled with much care and detail in entries in the Liber Pontificalis.

A specially interesting entry in the Liber Pontificalis tells us how Charlemagne, accompanied by Pope Hadrian, was permitted to enter the vault of the tomb—the only visit to the sepulchre itself that is recorded. The few words which tell of this, perhaps solitary, visit of the great Frankish sovereign and the Pope are memorable—

“Descendentes pariter ad Corpus beati Petri.”

In the time of Pope Sergius II, we read of another imperial visit to Rome. The Emperor Louis II, A.D. 845, was received with the same ceremonial respect as his great predecessor Charlemagne. He, too, prayed before the Confession, but there is no allusion to any visit to the body of S. Peter. The sacred vault indeed seems to have been, even in these far-back centuries, very rarely if ever entered. Charlemagne’s visit was probably never repeated.

Only two years after Louis II’s visit occurred the destructive raid of the Saracens. For several years these Mahommedan invaders, who had taken possession of Sicily, had ravaged the Italian coasts. They had plundered the great Monastery of Monte Cassino, and in A.D. 847 appeared before Rome. This raid was not unexpected, for some of the treasures seem hastily to have been removed to a more secure home within the walls of the city.

No attempt to move the great bronze-covered sarcophagus was evidently thought of, but the entrance to the vault was concealed by pouring down stones and rubble through the upper opening below the Confession, completely filling up the space between the two cataracts or gratings, which thus escaped the notice of the plundering invaders, who, however, carried off many of the treasures, the gifts of the Popes and other distinguished persons to which we have alluded above, which adorned the shrine.

The Saracens only stayed in the vicinity of S. Peter’s for some eight days, and then retreated. There is little doubt but that the “earthing up” the narrow passage which led to the sacred vault where the sarcophagus lay, the filling it up with the stones and rubbish which still effectually blocks up all access to the tomb itself, must be dated from the period of this raid of the Saracens in A.D. 847.

Much was done by S. Leo IV, A.D. 847-855, and his successors in the Papacy, to restore the damage done and the havoc wrought by the Saracenic raiders; but the passage to the tomb itself was never again opened. Many beautiful and costly gifts were often made to the shrine, and especially to the Confession, by various Popes and illustrious visitors and pilgrims, among whom the Anglo-Saxon Ethelwolf, the father of Alfred, must be included. But in spite of these efforts and gifts the shrine never again reached anything like the glory and magnificence which it possessed before the terrible incursion of the Saracen invaders in A.D. 847.

For more than a thousand years there has been no access to the vault of the tomb; and no serious attempt, for various reasons, has ever been made to restore the original communication which once evidently existed between the floor of the Confession and the sacred chamber which held, and no doubt holds still, the bronze-covered sarcophagus of S. Peter.

We possess no accurate contemporary details of this disastrous Saracenic raid, as the manuscripts of the Liber Pontificalis are deficient here.

A story of surpassing interest is told by Bonanni (Templi Vaticani historia), the authenticity of which is accepted by Marucchi, Lanciani, Barnes and other scholars and experts.

In the spring of A.D. 1594, when the works connected with the new S. Peter’s were going on, Giacomo della Porta, the architect in charge, reported to Pope Clement VIII that a portion of the ground in the vicinity of the tomb had given way, and through an aperture thus uncovered the interior of the chamber of the tomb could be seen.

The Pope, accompanied with three Cardinals, at once visited the spot, and with the aid of a lighted torch the sarcophagus was visible, with the great golden cross of Constantine lying upon it. Clement VIII, after viewing the strange sight, immediately ordered the aperture to be closed with cement in his presence. The names of the Cardinals, who were well known, were Bellarmine, Antoniano and Sfondriato.

The building of the new S. Peter’s was slowly drawing to its completion, when in A.D. 1607 Pope Paul V planned to bring the ancient Confession of S. Peter into sight. In the new planning of the church, this Confession was concealed in the Crypt, and any access to it was almost impossible.

Maderno, the artist and architect, designed and carried out the present arrangement of the great church, which provided for the worshippers an approach to the old Confession—the recess under the high altar. In these works of Maderno, the workmen employed came upon the forgotten cemetery of the Vatican, arranged in the first century by Bishop Anacletus. The “find” was one of extraordinary interest. Torrigio, a “beneficiato” of the basilica, was present when the discovery of this most ancient cemetery was made, and has left us an account of what he saw. Accompanying his description was a plan drawn by Benedetto Drei, the clerk of Maderno’s works.

Of the rare plan in question, a rough drawing has been preserved, and has been of the greatest use in elucidating the more detailed and accurate description of the sacred spot, which description was made a few years later, circa A.D. 1626, when under Urban VIII (Cardinal Barberini), Pope from A.D. 1623-1644, it became necessary to strengthen the foundations of the new mighty bronze Baldachino of Bernini, and elaborate and careful work was undertaken in this sacred spot.

What was then discovered in the ancient cemetery of Anacletus has been told us by Ubaldi, a Canon of S. Peter’s. Ubaldi saw with his own eyes the wonderful things then discovered, and his account is of the greatest value to the historian of the very early days of Christianity in Rome. These precious memoranda of Ubaldi were deposited in the Vatican archives and were only found in quite late days by Palmieri, one of the keepers of these archives; the well-known scholar Armellini has since published them.

We will give a few specially interesting particulars from Ubaldi’s memoranda. The story of these excavations is as follows—

Pope Urban VIII was dissatisfied with the adornment of the high altar, which he deemed quite unworthy of the conspicuous position it occupied in the glorious new Church of S. Peter’s; and he entrusted the decoration to the architect Bernini of Florence. Bernini designed the great Baldachino or canopy of the altar which we see now.

It was an enormous and striking work. Its great size is imperfectly grasped by the ordinary visitor. The vastness of S. Peter’s, it has been well said, dwarfs everything that is in it. This massive Baldachino or canopy of the high altar is composed of bronze largely taken from the portico of the Pantheon originally built by Agrippa, the son-in-law of the Emperor Augustus. It is ninety-five feet in height, and is computed, with its pillars, to weigh nearly one hundred tons.

To carry this tremendous weight of metal, it was considered necessary to place the pedestals of the supporting columns upon a solid and firm foundation, but how to excavate such foundations in the immediate neighbourhood of the tomb of S. Peter, in the midst of the holy graves quite recently discovered surrounding the tomb in the ancient cemetery of Anacletus, for some time seriously perplexed the Pope and his counsellors, and they long hesitated before commencing the work. At last it was decided upon, but the excavations were ordered to be carried out with the utmost care and reverence considering the holy ground where they were to be made; a guard of priests and ministers of the Church was deputed to watch every grave as it was disturbed, and reverently to replace every body and all the dust and ashes which had to be removed. It was from the memoranda made on the spot by one of these watching priests, the Canon Ubaldi, that the striking story, some extracts of which we are about to give, is taken.

A few words descriptive of the spot where the excavations were made will be useful before we speak of the strange and wonderful “find” itself.

It must be remembered that the actual vault of the tomb or crypt in which was the sarcophagus of S. Peter, embedded in the solid masonry of Constantine, lies deep in the ground beneath the locality of the excavations.

The “Memoria” of Anacletus was built originally above, on the walls of the vault of the tomb. Part of the “Memoria” must once have been above ground. Round this “Memoria” Anacletus arranged the little cemetery of the Vatican Hill. In this cemetery, as close as possible to the walls of the “Memoria” above the tomb, were the graves dug for the nine or ten first Bishops of Rome. In other graves in that sacred little God’s acre were coffins containing the remains of certain of the martyrs and confessors of the first and second centuries. It is these graves, in the ancient cemetery round the “Memoria” walls, which were disturbed in the course of the excavations, and whose sacred contents are described in the Memoranda of Ubaldi.

The vault itself or crypt of the Tomb of S. Peter which lay deep below the “Memoria,” was never interfered with.

In this work of excavation necessary for the foundations of the great Baldachino of Bernini, the workmen employed found themselves at once in the ancient cemetery of Anacletus.

Among the graves necessary to be touched, they found close to the wall of the “Memoria,” still in situ, coffins of marble made of single slabs of different sizes. Only one of these slabs seems to have borne an inscription, and that was the solitary word “Linus.” This was most probably a portion of the coffin of the first Bishop who followed S. Peter—the “Linus” saluted by S. Paul in 2 Tim. iv, 21. These coffins placed close to the “Memoria” walls were no doubt belonging to the first Bishops of Rome.

Other coffins were found near, of terra-cotta, containing ashes and bones charred with fire. “It was evident,” writes Ubaldi, “that all the earth on these coffins was mixed with ashes and tinged with blood” (probably the blood of the first martyrs).

These are some among the sacred historical reliquiæ discovered in digging the first foundation.

In digging for the second foundation, a singularly interesting “find” is recorded. Ubaldi relates how a very large coffin, made of great slabs of marble, was uncovered. “Within the coffin were ashes, with many bones, all adhering together and half burned. These brought to mind the famous fire in the time of Nero, three years before S. Peter’s martyrdom, when the Christians, being falsely accused of causing the fire, ... afforded in the circus of the gardens of Nero, which were situated just here on the Vatican Hill, the first spectacle of martyrdom. Some were put to death in various cruel ways, while others were set on fire, and used as torches in the night.... These were buried close to the spot where they suffered martyrdom and gave the first occasion for the religious veneration of this holy spot.... We therefore revered these holy bones as being the first founders of the great Basilica, and having put back the coffin, allowed it to remain in the same place.”

The memorandum on the third foundation contains no detail of any very special interest.

On the fourth foundation, Ubaldi made the following note: “Almost at the level of the pavement, there was found a coffin made of fine and large slabs of marble.... This coffin was placed just as were the others which were found on the other side ... in such a manner that they were all directed towards the altar (of the ‘Memoria’ of Anacletus) like spokes towards the centre of a wheel. Hence it was evident, with much reason, that the place merited the name of ‘the Council of Martyrs.’” These bodies surrounded S. Peter.

Apparently we have here the remains of the first Bishops of Rome for whom Anacletus made special provision when he arranged this earliest of Christian cemeteries. Their names are Linus, the lid of whose coffin lies apart but still close to the Apostle’s vault or crypt, Anacletus, Evarestus, Sixtus I, Telesphorus, Hyginus, Pius I, Eleutherius and Victor. Victor was laid here in A.D. 203. After him no Bishop of Rome was interred in the Cemetery of Anacletus—for by that date it was quite filled up, and the successors of Bishop Victor were, with rare exceptions, buried in a chamber appropriated to them in the Cemetery of S. Callistus in the great Catacomb so named on the Appian Way.

The other interments in the sacred Vatican Cemetery in the immediate neighbourhood of the Apostle’s tomb, noticed in the Ubaldi memoranda, were apparently the remains of martyrs of the first and second centuries of the Christian era; or, in a few cases, of distinguished Confessors of the Faith whose names and story are forgotten, but of whom Prudentius, the well-known Christian poet of the end of the fourth century, writes in his Peristephanon, i. 73—

“O vetustatis silentis obsoleta oblivio

Invidentur ista nobis, fama et ipsa extinguitur.”

On the whole we may sum up as our estimate of the Ubaldi memoranda, that it is without doubt an invaluable record of what lies beneath the High Altar and the Western or more sacred part of the great Mother Church of Christendom.

It is very remarkable that the practice of planning crypts only prevailed in important churches of Western Christendom. An imitation of the Crypt of S. Peter at Rome was in these churches of the West constantly aimed at.

In the East, in the near as in the far-East, this “vogue” of planning crypts beneath the churches, never was introduced; for the veneration of S. Peter in the Eastern divisions of Christianity never attained to the popularity we notice in the West. In the East, other Saints, especially S. Mary, the Virgin Mother of the Lord, were revered with a special reverence. This is very marked in Constantinople and in other important centres of Eastern Christianity.

THE CLOISTER

In a great monastic establishment such as Gloucester, the most important and interesting portion of the buildings surrounding the church, belonging to the religious community, was undoubtedly the Cloister.

The history of the origin and development of the Cloister is full of interest. In the years (fourth and fifth centuries) which immediately followed the ratification of the peace of the Church under Constantine the Great, in the more important churches, built often after the Basilican model, it was usual to arrange for a court or open space in front of the principal entrance.

This open court, which corresponded to the Roman atrium, was for the most part surrounded by a portico, or covered walk termed “triporticus” or “quadriporticus,” according as the portico consisted of three or four sides. This court was in the earlier days put to various uses. In it were often gathered the Catechumens, those not yet formally received into the congregation who worshipped within the church itself. Here also were wont to assemble penitents who for some grave offence had been excluded from the society of believers, but who sought readmission. Now and again it was used for the interment of the more distinguished Christians associated with the congregation worshipping in the adjoining Basilica. Hence came the name by which this outer court was sometimes known—“Paradisus”—whence was derived the mediæval term of “Parvis,” which in later times was often attached to the “square or place” lying under the shadow of the chief entrance to the church, as for instance in Paris, “The Parvis Nôtre Dame.”

In the centre or side of this court or atrium, usually was found a well. The Holy Water stoup always found near the entrance of Roman Catholic churches is a “memory” of this atrium well.

In the Cloister Garth, which with the Cloister itself was the immediate successor of this atrium, with rare exceptions, such a well is almost always to be found. To give an example, in the Gloucester Cloister Garth, which is carefully preserved, the old well is still in existence.

As time went on, the original purposes for which this fore-court or atrium was intended existed no longer. The conditions of the Christian society became largely modified, the Catechumen class in many cases almost entirely disappeared, Church discipline became relaxed, the number of penitents shut out from worship in the church became very small—only notorious sinners were excluded.

As a place, too, for public interments, save in rare instances, the portico was disused. In many cases, especially in cities, the large space in front of the church was urgently needed for houses, while on the other hand, new arrangements became necessary for the monastic life which grew up round the ancient churches and abbeys. The Canons and other persons connected with the service of cathedrals and the more important churches, required accommodation.

To meet these new requirements, the outer court—the Atrium or Portico—was removed from its original position in front of the church to a quieter and more secluded place at the side of the cathedral or abbey; and under the well-known mediæval name of Cloister, the “Claustrum,” or enclosed space, this old portico or atrium reappeared, and at once assumed an important, even an indispensable place, among the mediæval abbatial or cathedral buildings.

At first the “Cloister” was little more than a cluster or block of buildings, erected round an enclosed spot immediately under the great house of prayer—mostly buildings designed as the dwelling-place of the Canons and of the minor officials engaged in the services of the church.

The modern term “close” is derived directly from this usage. In very early times a school, where various kinds of learning, profane as well as sacred, existed in connection with the abbey or cathedral, found a home in this cluster of dwellings.

This in England was the case of York in the seventh and eighth centuries; in Canterbury in the days of Theodore and Hadrian; in Winchester in the time of Ethelwolf, in the latter part of the tenth century.

It was, however, in the Western Monasteries after the great revival inaugurated by the important religious House of the Benedictines of Cluny in the tenth century, that the “Cloister” of the Middle Ages attained to its supreme importance. It served many purposes. It was the heart of the community. It was the place where the dwellers in the religious House spent many hours of their quiet life in meditation, in literary work, in teaching. It was there that the novices were often instructed. In the Cloister, too, the copyists of manuscripts plied their various crafts, many simply copying the more ancient and often perishable MSS. in their beautiful and careful handwriting, and thus preserving accurate copies of what the world already possessed of books. How few of the old treasures of literature would have been handed down to the printing presses of the sixteenth century had not this useful work gone on in these quiet cloisters? Certain of the monks, too, were occupied in original research, and in composing and arranging monastic and historical records.

One general plan, with occasional modifications, seems usually to have been adopted in the great Cloisters of the Western Church on the Continent as in England. In the Cloisters were doors leading to the principal chambers and offices connected with the every-day life of a monastic community, such as the Refectory where the monks dined, the dormitory where they slept, during those few hours allotted to them for rest, the Chapter House where they met daily, and consulted together on the business public and private of their House, and on their varied Mission work outside. Other doors in the Cloister led to the Infirmary, where the sick and the aged monks received the tenderest care and attention; to the Abbot or Prior’s special lodgings, to smaller cloisters, sometimes termed a slype (the derivation of this word is unknown), leading into outer courts and separate buildings; such as the guest-chambers, kitchens and store rooms, into the Cemetery of the religious House, into the garden. Two large doors besides, as a rule, opened from the Cloister alleys directly into the church.

In the centre of the Cloister invariably was a small garden—the garth; sometimes simply turfed, sometimes bright with flowers and shaded with trees. In it as a rule the well above referred to was found. The windows of the Cloister walls were, in some cases, especially in the later Middle Ages, wholly or in part, glazed, sometimes with rich stained glass.

Very frequently, in the more wealthy monastic foundations, and also in the case of some cathedrals, the Cloister was richly adorned with sculpture, and in some instances ornamented with colour.

Occasionally costly marbles were used for the pillars and their capitals; indeed, no portion of the sacred building itself received greater attention than did many of these mediæval Cloisters.

As examples of specially beautiful and costly Cloister work, we would cite the well-known Cloisters of S. Paul, outside the walls of Rome, and S. John Lateran. In Sicily the vast and splendid Cloisters of Monreale are noteworthy. In France, the Cloister alleys of the Cathedral of Rouen, S. Trophimus of Arles, the Abbey of Moissac (Tarn-et-Garonne), the Abbey of Montmajeure (near Arles), Mont S. Michel (Normandy), the Cathedrals of Toul, Soissons, and many others, might be instanced. In England the beautiful cloisters of Westminster Abbey are well known. Norwich, too, possesses a notable example.

But the most famous by far in England are the Cloisters of Gloucester. In some respects they are the most beautiful in Northern Europe, none possessing a roof comparable in richness and in general effect; the glory of the fan-tracery of the Gloucester roof gives a special character to the whole of this admirably preserved and perfect Cloister.

So costly and elaborate indeed were the decorations often lavished on this most important part of the monastic buildings of the Middle Ages, that the wonderful display of art in the adornment of the Cloister now and again seems to have excited hostile criticism. As early as in the thirteenth century, we read in the curious poem of Rutebeuf, a writer who was welcome at the Court of S. Louis of France, a bitter note of disapprobation of the splendour and magnificence of these costly works of art which so frequently adorned the Cloisters of the monks in his day and time.

“These monks”—he writes—“who possessed nothing”—these men who “fors l’aumosne n’avoient rien”—yet adorned their austere home with—

“ymages li monstrent bien fètes
bien entaillies et portrêtes
mult orent cousté, ce li semble.”

Then after an elaborate description, the poet adds, that these things—

“ne font pas la religion
mes la bone composition.”

And yet in spite of the stern criticism of the austere poet of the Court of S. Louis, that precursor of our English Wyclif and of the Puritans of a yet later time, few will be found now, even among the sternest critics of mediæval religion, who would dare to find fault with the tender and graceful fancies with which the monastic orders adorned the scenes of their solitary life-work, a work which, according to their light, was wholly dedicated to God.

The Art world and its mighty teaching power would indeed be poorer if some of the men who built and adorned these fair homes of prayer and study, had not, among the many crafts which they cultivated with such untiring zeal and conspicuous success, devoted themselves especially to architecture and its many exquisite developments, outside as well as inside the walls of their church—architecture which in their skilful hands became in their day and time one of the most effective instruments of popular education.

In our days, too, we must never forget that few indeed would have been the remains of the great writers and teachers of Greece and Rome, had it not been for the patient industry of the monks working in their silent Cloister alleys.

It must be remembered that there was no printing press, no scribes save these monks, to hand down the priceless literary treasures of a bygone age. It was their patient industry alone which preserved for us the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament, and the precious words of men who had talked with the Apostles and the pupils of the Apostles, of teachers such as Clement and Irenæus, Origen and Tertullian, Cyprian, Augustine and Jerome. Most of the writings of that long line of illustrious fathers and doctors of the Catholic Church of the first Christian centuries would have been lost irretrievably, had not generation after generation of monkish scholar-scribes toiled unweariedly in their still and often deadly cold Monastic Cloisters.

We who live in the restless evening (is it the evening?) of the world, enjoy the fruits of their labours, and gaze with pathetic interest on the comparatively few undisturbed remains of these once famous homes of learning where so much good and useful work was done. In the quiet beautiful Gloucester Cloister we possess one of these precious relics of that almost forgotten past, to which we owe so much—one of the most perfect that exists in England, perhaps in the whole of Northern Europe.

In such a Cloister as that of Gloucester, some idea can be gathered of the conditions under which the monk-scribes carried on their work of transcribing and editing—a work which, as we have shown, has been of such inestimable value to us. The Cloister architecture might have been, not unfrequently was, a marvel of grace and beauty, but it was utterly devoid of what in modern phraseology is termed “comfort.” There they ever toiled amidst the circumstances of an austere self-denying life. The cold in England and in other countries of Northern Europe, so rich in Monasteries of the first rank, was very severely felt in these cloister-carrels or recesses such as we see in Gloucester. They often wrote with straw heaped round their legs to protect them from the effects of the searching damp and cold, although in the later mediæval period glazing seems to have been somewhat largely introduced with the view of rendering more tolerable the condition of these toilers for God. In the books they transcribed and preserved for us, and adorned with such rare art and skill, we occasionally light upon silent pathetic testimonies to the hardships endured by these tireless scholar-scribes. Montalembert in his Monks of the West, (Vol. VI, Book XVIII, chap. iv), gives us some of these curious and interesting reflections of long-forgotten monk-scribes. We will quote two or three specimens of these Cloister notes.

“Nauta rudis pelagi ut saevis ereptus ab undis

In portum veniens, pectora laeta tenet;

Sic scriptor fessus, calamum sub calce laboris

Deponens, habeat pectora laeta quidem.”

This was found at the end of a Gospel Book of the eleventh century.

The Monk Louis of Wissobrun wrote at the end of the copy he had made of S. Jerome’s Commentary on Daniel—

“Sedibus externis hic librum quem mode cernis

Dum scripsit, friguit, et quod cum lumine solis

Scribere non potuit, perfecit lumine noctis:

Sis Deus istorum merces condigna laborum.”

In a Latin MS. of the Carlovingian epoch, a scribe named Garimbert wrote at the end of his book—

“Sicut navigantibus dulcis est portus, ita scriptori novissimus versus.”

Cassiodorus thus quaintly but touchingly writes of the true aim of the vast work of transcription carried on by the dwellers in these still and silent cloisters—

“What a glorious labour is that which enables us to preach to men by the hands as well as by the voice, to use our fingers in place of our tongues, to place ourselves in relation with the rest of the world, without breaking silence, and to combat with pen and ink the lawless suggestions of the devil! for each word of Holy Scripture written by the scholar-monk is a wound given to Satan ... a reed shaped into a pen, as it glides over the page and traces the divine word there, repairs, as it were, the wrong done by that other reed with which, on the day of the Passion, the devil caused the head of the Lord to be struck.”

Durandus, Bishop of Mende, in his great work Rationale Divinorum officiorum, written in the latter years of the twelfth century, gives us in his customary picturesque language, the symbolical significance of the “Cloister”: “The diversity and variety of the dwellings and occupations connected with the Cloister, and the buildings and offices leading from it, are symbolical of the many mansions and various rewards provided for the Faithful, in the kingdom of the hereafter. ‘For in my Father’s house are many mansions.’”

In a deeper sense the same Durandus[29] adds—“The Cloister represents the state of contemplation of the soul, when it withdraws itself from the world, after it has done away with earthly thoughts and aspirations, and only meditates upon heavenly things.”

The Cloister of Gloucester Cathedral, showing Romanesque and Gothic work. (The doorway leads into the Chapter House.) XI, XII, XIV Centuries.

APPENDIX

Traces of Games played by Novices and Boys in the Cloisters

It is only in the last thirty years that the curious reliques of games played in the Middle Ages by Novices and boys placed under the tuition and care of the Monks were observed by J. T. Micklethwaite, the late erudite architect of Westminster Abbey.

Several good examples of these game-boards occur in the Gloucester Cloister, especially in the Cloister Alley appropriated to the Novices.

The games in question generally were “Nine Men’s Morris” and varieties of the game of “Fox and Geese.”

Similar game-boards have been also found in the Benedictine Cloisters of Westminster Abbey, Canterbury, Norwich and Durham, and in the secular Cloisters of Chichester and of Salisbury.

These are generally found in what must have been the Novices’ quarters. In some instances, however, they exist in places where they were probably made by the builders of the walls or stairs, to play on during their leisure time. Examples of these latter have been discovered in Scarborough Castle and in Norwich Castle. An admirable example has been quite recently found by the writer of these Notes, on the stair of the South-Eastern turret of the S. Transept, Gloucester Cathedral.

There is little doubt but that in these game-boards we have reliques of the mediæval games of the fourteenth century and even of a yet earlier date. If careful search is made in Cloisters which have not been destroyed or restored, it is probable that other interesting examples will come to light.

A careful and exhaustive paper by Mr. Micklethwaite on these mediæval games will be found in the Archæological Journal, xlix.

S. PETRONILLA’S ALTAR

The earliest Historical Detail existing in connection with the Gloucester Abbey

The earliest detail connected with the Abbey of Gloucester that we possess is connected with this once famous but now well-nigh forgotten Saint. In the Historia Monasterii S. Petri Gloucestriæ, a very ancient collection of documents belonging to the great Benedictine House put together by Abbot Froucester, circa A.D. 1381, we find an entry which relates how Kyneburg, the sister of King Osric, who built the first Gloucester Church, after ruling the Religious House founded by her brother for twenty-nine years, was buried before the Altar of S. Petronilla in the year of grace 710.

Another entry in the same Historia tells us that Queen Eadburg, the widow of Wulphere, King of the Mercians, the second Abbess, A.D. 710 to A.D. 735, was buried by the side of Kyneburg before S. Petronilla’s Altar. King Osric himself, who built the first church and founded the religious House, and who died in A.D. 729, was also buried according to the same record “in ecclesia Sancti Petri coram altari sanctae Petronillae in aquilonari parte ejusdem Monasterii.”

Leland, the secretary of King Henry VIII, writing of his official visit to Gloucester after the suppression of the religious House, circa A.D. 1540—sums up the immemorial tradition in the following words—“King Osric (the founder) first laye in S. Petronell’s Chapel of the Gloucester Abbey.”

Professor Freeman, the historian, comments on these various notes and entries as follows: “It is certain that there was a church of some kind, a predecessor, however humble, of the great Cathedral Church of Gloucester that now is, at least from the days of Osric (circa A.D. 729). But more than that we cannot say, except that it contained an altar of S. Petronilla.”

Now who was this S. Petronilla who was thus intimately connected with our church in the earliest years of its existence?

We believe without any hesitation that she was the daughter of S. Peter, the Lord’s Apostle and follower. Modern scholarship, however, represented by Bishop Lightfoot of Durham, denies this, and asserts that the immemorial derivation of Petronilla from Petro (Petrus), is etymologically wrong, and that the name Petronilla is connected, not with Petro but with Petronius—the founder of the imperial Flavian family. Lightfoot then proceeds to suggest that Petronilla was a member of the Flavian House, and became an early convert to Christianity, and was subsequently buried with other members of the Flavian family in the Domitilla Cemetery, where her tomb was recently discovered by De Rossi, the Roman archæologist, to whose life-long labours we owe so much of the Catacomb lore which has excited so much interest in recent days.

Curiously enough, late Roman Catholic scholars and writers join hands here with Bishop Lightfoot in denying the paternity of the great Apostle, but on different grounds. Modern Roman Catholic theology shrinks from acknowledging that S. Peter had a daughter at all, preferring to believe that S. Peter was free from all family and home ties.

De Rossi, however, with other Italian scholars, sweeps away the etymological difficulty[30] pressed by Lightfoot, and while declining to give up the ancient “Petrine” tradition, maintains that Petronilla was a daughter, but simply a spiritual daughter of the Apostle, in other words merely an ordinary convert of S. Peter. This curious explanation of what later theology felt was a difficulty seems to have been first suggested by Baronius.

The etymological difficulty pressed by Bishop Lightfoot and other scholars, and the more important doctrinal question which has perplexed the later Roman Catholic theologians, in no way seems to have weighed with scholars and divines in earlier times; this will be seen from a brief examination of the estimation in which S. Petronilla has been ever held.

As early as the closing years of the fourth century, Siricius, Bishop of Rome, A.D. 391-395, built the important Basilica lately discovered in the Domitilla cemetery or catacomb on the Via Ardeatina, but although the Basilica in question contained the historic tombs of the famous martyrs SS. Nereus and Achilles, as well as the remains of S. Petronilla, Siricius dedicated the Basilica in question to S. Petronilla. Surely the Bishop of Rome (Siricius) would never have dedicated this important and very early church to a comparatively unknown member of the Flavian House, still less would he have called it by the name of a simple convert of the great Apostle. Petronilla in his days must have possessed some very especial title to honour.

In Siricius’ eyes there was evidently no shadow of doubt that the Petronilla for whom he had so deep a veneration was the veritable daughter of S. Peter, and as time went on the devotion which for many centuries was paid to her remains, is a clear indication of the view which was universally taken of her illustrious lineage. We will give some striking examples of this.

The Wanderings of the Remains of S. Petronilla

The sarcophagus which contained the body of S. Petronilla rested in its original position in the Basilica of Siricius until A.D. 787, when it was removed to one of the little Rotunda Chapels which once stood adjacent to the south side of the great Church of S. Peter on the Vatican Hill. The reason for this first translation is singularly interesting, and shows in a remarkable way the deep veneration in which the remains of the daughter of S. Peter were held. S. Peter was specially honoured by the Frankish nation, and S. Petronilla his daughter, sharing in this special devotion, was styled by Pope Paul I, circa A.D. 757, the “auxiliatrix” of Pepin, the king of the Franks, and when Pope Stephen II, circa A.D. 752, was on a visit to Pepin’s court, he promised as a pledge of the alliance between the Papacy and the Franks against the Lombards, to remove the body of S. Petronilla, who was evidently specially venerated by the Frankish people, of course owing to her illustrious parentage, from the Basilica of Siricius on the Via Ardeatina, where it was exposed to the profanities of Barbarian raiders, to the more secure shelter of the walls which protected the Church of S. Peter.

This promise was carried out by Paul I, the brother and successor of Stephen II, circa A.D. 757, and the sarcophagus of S. Petronilla was placed in the Rotunda Chapel above mentioned. This Rotunda Chapel contained the ashes of the wife of Honorius, Maria the daughter of Stilicho, and other Imperial remains, but after the translation of the remains of S. Peter’s daughter it was known as the Chapel of S. Petronilla, and it was especially placed under the care of the kings of France.

There the body of Petronilla rested until A.D. 1471, when in consequence of a restoration undertaken at the cost of Louis XI of France, the sacred sarcophagus was seen and the ancient simple inscription on it, “Aureliæ Petronillae fil dulcissimae” was copied. Early in the fourteenth century, when Old S. Peter’s was demolished, the Rotunda Chapel was pulled down, and the sarcophagus of S. Petronilla lay for many years neglected in the Sacristy of New S. Peter’s. It was subsequently ruthlessly broken up when so many ancient monuments perished in the building work of the New S. Peter’s, and the pieces of the sarcophagus were used as a pavement.

The remains, however, of the Saint were transferred to a new coffin and were eventually, circa A.D. 1606, placed under the altar where they now rest. The spot in question is known as the Chapel of S. Petronilla. It is in the extreme end of the right transept of S. Peter’s. Above the resting-place of the Saint is a large mosaic copied from Guercino’s picture of Petronilla raised from the tomb.

There is a curious custom belonging to this Chapel, bearing upon the ancient tradition connecting France and S. Petronilla. The French Ambassador, after presenting his credentials to the Pope, used at once to visit this Chapel of S. Petronilla in S. Peter’s.

Again reverting to the eighth century testimony above referred to in the case of the action of Popes Stephen II and Paul I, when the remains of S. Petronilla were translated from the Basilica of Siricius to the Rotunda Chapel by the great church—there was a striking witness to what was the general belief of that age in the parentage of the then famous Saint, in an inscription on an altar at Bourges dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary and other saints, an inscription attributed to Alcuin, the Minister of Charlemagne, circa A.D. 790. The inscription consists of eight hexameter lines. One line runs thus: “Et Petronilla patris praeclari filia Petri.”

In England, besides the famous reference to the Altar and Chapel of S. Petronilla in the ancient church of Osric at Gloucester, there is only one church known to be dedicated to S. Petronilla; it is at Whepstead, near Bury S. Edmunds, where her name is curiously abbreviated as S. Parnel.

The close connection between the Royal Mercian and Northumbrian family of Osric, the founder of the Abbey (Cathedral) of Gloucester, and S. Petronilla, the daughter of S. Peter, the Saint so strangely venerated by the Frankish peoples, is unknown.

INDEX

Aachen, Palace-chapel of, 22, 23, 53
“Abbeys of Expiation,” 39
Agatha, 73
Agilulf, King of the Lombards, 14, 18
Aix-la-Chapelle, 27
Aix-la-Chapelle, Palace-chapel of, 22, 23, 69
Alaric, 7
Albertus Magnus, 83
Albigensian Wars, 30
Alboin the Lombard, 6, 12, 14, 15, 53
Alcuin (the Minister of Charlemagne), 143
Alfred, King, 22
Amalasuntha, 10
Amiens, Cathedral of, 33, 53, 61

Anacletus, 97, 97 note 25, 98, 100, 105, 108, 109, 110, 111, 114, 118, 119, 120, 122

Angles, 26
Anglo-Saxons, 38, 39
Angoulême, 27
Anselm, S., 51
Antoniano, Cardinal, 117
Apollinaris, Sidonius, Bishop of Clermont, 25
Apostles, Church of the (Cologne), 24
Appian Way, 99, 122
Aquinas, 83
Aquitaine, 26, 29, 30, 33 note 11, 36, 69
Arcadius, 7
Arliano, Church of (near Lucca), 19
Armellini, 118
Ataulphus, 7
Athalaric, 10
Augustine, 21, 88, 133
Augustus, Emperor, 10 note 5, 68 note 20
Aungre (Chipping Ongar), Chapel near, 22
Autharis, King of the Lombards, 14, 16, 18
Auvergne, 25, 69
Auxerre, 27
Auxerre, Crypt of Cathedral of, 102
“Ave Maria,” the, 82
Bangor, 89
Barberini, Cardinal. See Urban VIII
Barcelona, 7
Barnes, Mgr., 112 note 28, 113, 117
Baronius, 140
Basil, Emperor, 48
Bayeux, 44
Beauvais Cathedral, 61, 62
Bec-Herlouin, 44
Becket, S. Thomas à, 103
Bede, 21, 51
Belisarius, 6, 10
Bellarmine, Cardinal, 117
Benedict, S., 51
Benedictines, the, 19 note 7, 138
Benedictines of Cluny, 34, 103, 129
Bernay, Church at, 36
Bernini, 118, 119, 120
Besançon, Crypt of, 102
Beverley, 92
Big Ben (Houses of Parliament, London), 53
Biscop, Benedict, 21
Bonanni, 117
Bonaventura, 83
Bond, Mr., 56
Bonn, Minster Church of, 24
Bordeaux, 27, 102
Bourges, Cathedral of, 33, 61
Brescia, 19
Brixworth Church, 21
Builder, The, quoted, 60 note 19
Burgundy, 31, 32, 90

Byzantine Empire, Artists, etc., 12, 13, 20, 47

Caen, 37, 44
Caius, Presbyter, 98, 109
Cambridge, 21

Canterbury, Canterbury Cathedral, and Crypt, 21, 40, 91, 102, 103, 129, 137

Carlisle, 89
Carolingian princes, 23
Cassiodorus, 135
Catacombs, the, 84 note 23, 101
Catechumens, 127
Caumont, M. de, 3
Cecilia, 73
Cerisy le Fôret, Church at, 36
Charlemagne, 19, 22, 23, 26, 41, 53, 69, 115

Chartres, and Cathedral, and Crypt of, 27, 33, 61, 102, 136 note 29

Cherubim, 81
Chester, 89
Chichester, and Cloisters of, 89, 137
Chipping Ongar, 22
Christ Church, Oxford, 40, 89
Christianity in Britain, 86, 87, 88, 90
Chrysostom, S. John, 77
Cistercians, 31, 32, 83
Citeaux, 31, 32
Classis, 9, 10 note 5
Clement, 133
Clement VIII, 117
Clermont Ferrand, Church of, 25

Cluny, and Abbey and Monks of, 29, 31, 31 note 10, 32, 34, 34 note 12, 37, 42, 44, 91, 103, 129

Coblenz, 24
Cologne, 24, 27
Cologne Cathedral, 23, 53
Columba, 90

Comacine Builders and Guild, the, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 34, 41, 42, 45, 47, 50, 53, 54

Comacine Islands, 15

Como, 15, 16

Constantine, 100, 109, 110, 111, 117, 120, 127

Constantinople, 4, 6, 7, 10, 13, 20, 20 note 8, 25, 50, 57, 68, 68 note 20, 70, 72, 78, 106, 123

Constantius (Augustus), 7, 8
Creighton, Bishop, 110 note 27
Crusades, 50, 56, 79, 80, 81, 84
Ctesiphon, Palace of, 56
Cyprian, 133
Dalmatia, 41
Danes, 26
De Lasterie, 56
De Rossi, 139, 140
Diaconus, Paulus, 18, 18 note 7, 19 note 7

Dijon, Abbey of S. Benignus at, 34, 36, 42, 102

Diocletian, 4, 5, 53
Dol, Church of, 89
Dominicans, 82
Domitilla Cemetery, 139, 140
Drei, Benedetto, 118
Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, 22

Durandus, Bishop of Mende (Mimatensis), 50, 51, 135, 136, 136 note 29

Durham Cathedral, 40, 44, 70, 89, 137
Eadburg, Queen, 138
Edward the Confessor, 22, 88
Egypt, 56
Eleutherius, 122
Eleutherus, S., 102
Ely Cathedral, 40, 43, 70, 89
Emporium by the Tiber, 4

England, 20, 21, 22, 33 note 11, 38, 42, 54, 58, 61

Engles, 86, 92
Enlart, 56
Ethelred II (the Unready), 22
Ethelwolf, 116, 129
Eudes de Montreuil, 62
Eulalia, 73
Evarestus, 122
Evelyn, 5 note 3, 55
Exarchate, the, 12
Exeter, 89
Fécamp, 36, 44
Flavian family, 139, 141

France, 25, 26, 28, 32, 33 note 11, 59, 61, 62, 69, 90, 91, 131, 142, 143

Franciscans, 83
Franks, the, 141, 142, 143
Freeman, Professor, 4, 5, 5 note 4, 20, 139
Frisians, 26
Froucester, Abbot, 138
Fulda, 23
Garimbert, 135
Garonne, River, 27
Gascony, 29

Gaul, 20, 20 note 8, 24, 26, 27, 28, 33, 69, 72, 89, 91, 101, 102

Germany, 20, 22, 23, 24, 41
Gernrode, 23
Gerville, M. de, 3
Giacomo della Porta, 117
Glanber, Raoul, 29

Gloucester Abbey, 40, 43, 44, 71, 88, 138, 139

Gloucester Cathedral, 52, 60, 61, 62, 67, 70, 74, 81, 85, 86, 90, 91, 102 (Crypt), 104 (Crypt), 104, 127, 128, 131, 133, 134, 137, 143

Goths, 10, 55

“Great Peter” (Bell in Gloucester Cathedral), 52

Great Tom (Oxford), 53
Greece, 50, 84, 133
Greek architecture, 55
Greek or Eastern Church, 106
Gregory of Tours, 25
Gregory the Great, 79
Guéranger of Solesmes, Dom, 136 note 29
Guercino, 142
Guienne, 29
Guimond, Chaplain of Henry I, 40
Guizot, 26
Gundulph, 40
Hadrian I, Pope, 114, 115, 129
Hanley, Abbot, 90
Henry II of England, 38
Henry III of England, 88
Heraclius, Emperor, 78
Heralds’ College, the, 55
Herbert of Losinga, Prior of Fécamp, 40
Hereford Cathedral, 43, 89
Hexham, Basilica of S. Andrew, 21
Hexham, Crypt of, 102

Holy Apostles, Church of the (Constantinople), 68, 70

Holy Cross, Church of (Ravenna), 8
Honorius, 6, 7, 8, 15, 16, 25, 53, 142
Hood, Thomas, 55 note 17
Hook, Theodore, 55 note 17
Hutton, Edward, 73, 74
Hyginus, 122
Ile de France, 32, 59
Ireland, 86
Irenæus, 133
Italy, 6, 7, 9, 15, 17, 41, 48, 72, 86, 90

Jackson, Sir Thomas, 28, 29 note 9, 31, 33 note 11

Jarrow, 21

Jerome, 133

Jerusalem, and the Temple of, 45, 50, 79, 105, 106, 108

Jesus Christ, 108 note 26
John, Abbot of Séez, 40
John, King of England, 38
Jouarre, Crypt of, 102
Julia, Basilica (Roman Forum), 68 note 20
Julius II, Pope, 110 note 27
Jumiéges, Abbey of, 43
Jumiéges, Church at, 36

Justinian, 3, 6, 10, 13, 14, 16, 20, 25, 53, 57, 68, 68 note 20, 70, 72, 73, 78

Jutes, 26, 86, 92
Kaiser Bell in Cathedral of Cologne, 53
Kioto Monastery, Japan, 53
Kyneburg, 138
Lanciani, 101, 117
Lanfranc, 36, 37, 40, 54
Languedoc, 30
Laon, Cathedral of, 33, 89
Leland (Secretary to King Henry VIII), 138
Leo IV, Pope, 116

Lightfoot, Bishop of Durham, 139, 140, 140 note 30

Lincoln, 43, 89, 91
Lindisfarne, Priory Church of, 89
Linus, Bishop, 97, 108, 121, 122
“Lion of the tribe of Judah,” 47
Liutbrand, King, 14
Loire, River, 27
Lombard, Peter, 83
Lombards, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 141
Lombardy, 20, 53
London, 22, 106
Lorsch, Sepulchral Chapel at, 23
Louis of Wissobrun, 135
Louis II, Emperor, 115
Louis XI of France, 142
Lucca, 5 note 4, 19
Lyons, 25
Macedonia, 20 note 8
Macon, 31
Maderno, 117
Magi, or Wise Men, 84 note 23, 85
Mahommed, 79
Maieul, 34
Mainz, Cathedral of, 24
Malvern Abbey, 43
Maria (daughter of Stilicho), 142
Martel, Charles, 26
Martin, Abbot of Bec, 40
Marucchi, 117

Mary, the Virgin, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 123, 143

Matilda (queen of William I), 37
Meaux, Cathedral of, 33
Mediterranean Sea, 26
Metz, 27
Micklethwaite, J. T., 137, 138
Milan, 6, 41, 42, 48
Milman, Dean, 80 note 21
Moissac, Abbey of (Tarn-et-Garonne), 131
Monkwearmouth, 21
Monreale, Cloisters of (Sicily), 131
Mont S. Michel, 44
Mont S. Michel, Church at, 36
Montalembert, 134
Monte Cassino, 19, 115
Montmajeure, Abbey of, 131
Moscow, 52, 53, 106
Muratori, 18
Narses, 6, 10
Nero, 107, 121

New Monthly Magazine (Colburn), quoted, 55 note 17

Newquay, 93
Nicodemus, 108 note 26
Nola, 51
Norman Conquest of England, 38, 39
Normandy, 28, 33 note 11, 36, 43, 50, 54
Normans, the, 88
Northmen, 27, 32, 87, 89, 94
Norwich Castle, 137
Norwich Cathedral, 40, 43, 70, 131, 137
Notre Dame of Paris, 61
Notre Dame, Paris, Bell in, 53
Noyon, Cathedral of, 33
Odin, 92
Odoaces, 9
Old Sarum, 89
Old S. Peter’s Church (Rome), 103, 110, 142
Origen, 133
Orleans, 27, 52, 102
Osric, King, 138, 139
Osric, Church of (Gloucester), 143
Ostian Way, 109
Otto the Great, 23
Oxford, Crypt of, 102
Palgrave, 26
Palmieri, 118
Pantheon, the, 119
Paris, 32, 128
Paris, Cathedral of, 33
Paris, Matthew, 39, 39 note 14
Parvis Notre Dame of Paris, 128
Paul I, Pope, 114, 141, 142, 143
Paul V, Pope, 117
Paul, Monk of S. Etienne, Caen, 40
Pavia, 18
Pelagia, 73
Pelagius II, 114
Pepin, King of France, 114, 141
Périgueux, 30
Perigord, 30
Perpetuus, Bishop, 45
Perranporth, 93
Perranzabuloe, Church of, 92, 93
Peterborough, Abbey of, 40
Peterborough Cathedral, 70
Petronius, 139
Philip Augustus, King, 32
Piedmont, 34 note 12
Pisa, 5 note 4
Pius I, 122
Pius IX, Pope, 83 note 22
Placidia, Galla, 6, 7, 8, 13, 14, 16, 25, 53
Pliny the Younger, 15
Poitiers, 27
Poitou Limousin, 29
Procopius, 9
Provence, 26, 30, 33 note 11, 69
Prudentius, 122
Puritans, the, 132
Pusey, Dr., 83 note 22
Quedlinburg, Church at, 23
Quicherat, 25, 26, 27, 28

Ravenna, 5, 5 note 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 10 note 5, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 41, 48, 50, 53, 69, 70, 72, 74, 136 note 29

Repton, Crypt of, 102
Rhine, River, 101, 102
Rhone, River, 27
Richard I of England, 38

Richard II (le Bon), Duke of Normandy, 36, 42, 50, 54

Ripon, S. Peter’s, and Crypt of, 21, 102

Rivoira, 19, 20 note 8, 23, 28, 48, 68, 69 note 20

Robert, King of France, 52
Roberto, Lord of Volpiano, 34
Rochester Cathedral and Crypt of, 40, 90, 102
Rodelinda, Queen, 18
Roman Architecture, 55
Roman Architects and Builders, Guild of, 16
Romans, 50

Rome, 4, 6, 15, 18, 24, 47, 69 note 20, 86, 90, 97-101, 105-109, 115, 133

Romulus Augustulus, 9

“Rosary” (form of prayer), 82

Rotharis, King of the Lombards, 14, 15, 16, 53

Rouen, 27, 44
Rouen, Cathedral of, 33, 131
Rutebeuf, 132
Sabinianus, Pope, 51
S. Achilles, 140
S. Agata, Church of (Ravenna), 8
S. Agnan, Church of (Orleans), 52
S. Agnes, Church of (Rome), 47, 101
S. Agnese, Church of (Rome), 69 note 20
S. Albans, Abbey at, 40, 43
S. Ambrogio, Church of (Milan), 42
S. Andrew, Basilica of (Hexham), 21
S. Andrew’s Church, Cambridge, 21
S. Apollinare, 9

S. Apollinare in Classe, Church of (Ravenna), 10, 10 note 5, 48

S. Apollinare Nuovo, Church of (Ravenna), 9, 48, 73, 74

S. Avitus, Crypt of (Orleans), 102

S. Basil, 79

S. Benigno de Fruttuaria, Monastery of (Piedmont), 34 note 12

S. Benignus, Abbey of (Dijon), 34, 36, 42
S. Benignus, Crypt of Church of (Dijon), 102
S. Bernard of Clairvaux, 79, 84
S. Callistus, Cemetery of, 122
S. Castor, Church of (Coblenz), 24
S. Clement, 73
S. Clementi, Church of (Rome), 47
S. Cyprian, 73
S. Cyriacus, Church of (Gernrode), 23
S. Cyril, 78
S. Denys, Church of (near Paris), 102, 103
S. Dominic, 82
S. Edmund, 22
S. Etienne, Church at, 37
S. Eutropius, Crypt of (Saintes), 102
S. Francesco, Church of (Ravenna), 8
S. Francis, 82
S. Front, Church of (Périgueux), 30
S. Gereon, Church of (Cologne), 24
S. Giorgio, Church of (Valpolicella), 19

S. Giovanni Evangelista, Church of (Ravenna), 8, 48

S. Giulia, Island of, 34 note 12
S. Gregory I, Pope (the Great), 79
S. Gregory III, Pope, 114
S. Gregory of Tours, 112, 113
S. Gwithian, Church of, 91, 92, 93
S. John, 84, 85
S. John Lateran, Cloisters of, 131
S. Laurence, 73
S. Leo III, 114
S. Lorenzo, Church of (Rome), 69 note 20, 101
S. Louis, 62, 63, 132
S. Maria im Capitol, Church of (Cologne), 24
S. Mark’s, Church of (Venice), 30, 70
S. Martin, Church of (Cologne), 24

S. Martin (S. Apollinare Nuovo), Church of (Ravenna), 9

S. Martin, Church of (Tours), 25, 45
S. Mary Magdalene, 102
S. Medard of Soissons, Crypt of, 102
S. Michael, Church of (Fulda), 23
S. Michel, Mont, Abbey (Normandy), 131
S. Nazianzus, 78
S. Nereus, 140
S. Ouen (Rouen), Church at, 36
S. Parnel, Church of (Whepstead), 143
S. Paul, 73, 99, 107, 109, 121
S. Paul’s Church, Jarrow, 21
S. Paul, Church of (Rome), 101, 131
S. Peran in Sabulo, 92, 93

S. Peter, 99, 105-113, 115, 121, 122, 123, 139-141, 143

S. Peter’s Abbey (Gloucester), 91

S. Peter, Abbey Church of (Westminster Abbey), 22

S. Peter’s Church, Monkwearmouth, 21

S. Peter’s Church, Ripon, 21

S. Peter’s Church (Rome), 97, 97 note 25, 99, 109, 110, 110 note 27, 117, 118, 119, 141, 142, 143

S. Peter at Rome, Crypt of, 105-123
S. Peter’s tomb, 100
S. Petronilla, Church of (Rome), 101

S. Petronilla and S. Petronilla’s Altar, 138-143

S. Pietro, Church of (Toscanella), 19

S. Prassede, Church of (Rome), 47

S. Quatuor Coronati, Church of (Rome), 69 note 20

S. Rusticus, 102
S. Salvatore, Church of (Brescia), 19
S. Salvatore, Church of (Spoleto), 69 note 20
S. Satiro, Church of (Milan), 42, 48
S. Sebastian, Basilica (Rome), 99
S. Sebastian, Church of (Rome), 101
S. Sernin, Church of (Toulouse), 30
S. Seurin, Church of (Bordeaux), 102
S. Sixtus, 73
S. Sophia, Basilica of (Constantinople), 6

S. Sophia, Church of (Constantinople), 13, 20 note 8, 25, 50, 68, 70, 72

S. Sophia, Church of (Salonica), 20 note 8
S. Teuteria, Church of (Verona), 19
S. Theodore (Spirito Sancto), Church of, 10
S. Trophimus of Arles, Abbey of, 131

S. Vitale, Church of (Ravenna), 10, 23, 50, 69, 70

SS. Sergius and Bacchus, Church of (Constantinople), 70

Saintes, 102
Salisbury Cathedral, 89, 91, 137
Salonica, 20 note 8, 68 note 20, 72
Saracens, 26, 56, 78, 115, 116, 117
Saxons, 26, 86, 92
Scarborough Castle, 137
Scheldt, River, 27
Scott, Leader, 45, 47
Séez, 44
Seine, River, 27
Seraphim, 81
Sergius I, Pope, 114
Sergius II, Pope, 115
Serlo, Monk of Mont S. Michel, Normandy, 40
Serlo and Aldred, Abbey of, 90
Sfondriato, Cardinal, 117
Sicily, 115, 131
Silchester, 87
Simeon, Monk of S. Ouen, Rouen, 40
Siricius, Bishop of Rome, 140, 141, 142, 143
Sixtus I, 122
Soissons Cathedral, 131
Soissons, Cathedral of, 33
Solomon, King, 45
Solomon’s Knot, 47
Southwell Abbey, 40
Southwell Cathedral, 70
Spalatro, 4, 5, 53
Spires, Church of, 102
Spires, Cathedral of, 24
Spirito Sancto, Church of, 10
Spoleto, 69 note 20
Steinbach, Church at, 23
Stephen, King of England, 38
Stephen II, Pope, 141, 142, 143
Stephen, Sir James, 26
Strasburg, Crypt of, 102
Suger, Abbot of S. Denys near Paris, 102
Syria, 50, 56
Szyrma, Mr. Lach, 92
Telesphorus, 122
Tertullian, 98, 133
Teutons, 106
Tewkesbury Abbey, 40, 43, 44
Theodolinda, Queen, 13, 14, 18
Theodora, Empress, 72

Theodoric the Ostrogoth, 6, 8, 9, 10, 13, 14, 16, 53, 73

Theodosius I, the Great, 6, 7
Theodosius II, 7
Thessalonica, 68
Thor, 92
Times, The, quoted, 60 note 18
Titus, 105
Torrigio, 118
Toscanella, 19
Toul, 27
Toul Cathedral, 131
Toulouse, 27, 30
Tournai, 27
Tournai, Cathedral of, 69
Tours, 26, 27, 45
Treves, 27
Trinité, Church of the (Caen), 37
Troyes, 27
Tsar Kolokol of Moscow Bell, 52, 53
Tulun, Mosque of, 56
Turks, 4
Ubaldi, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123
Urban VIII (Cardinal Barberini), 118
Valentinian II, 7, 8, 9
Valpolicella, 19
Vandals, 55

Vatican Hill, the, 100, 107, 109, 113, 118, 121

Venice, 30, 70
Verdun, 27
Verona, 19
Vézelay, 32, 33 note 11
Vézelay, Crypt of, 102
Via Cæsarea, the, 10 note 5
Victor, Bishop of Rome, 122
Villemain, 26
Viollet le Duc, 26, 28, 50, 136 note 29
Vitruvius, 5 note 3

Volpiano, William of, 34, 34 note 12, 36, 37, 38, 42, 43, 44, 50, 54

Wace, 39
Walkelin, Monk of S. Etienne, Caen, 40
West, Dr., 60 note 19
Westminster Abbey, 22, 61, 88, 141
Whepstead, 143
Wilfred, Bishop, 21, 102
William I of England, 22, 37, 39, 42, 43
William II of England, 38
William of S. Carileph, 40, 44
Winchester, 129
Winchester Cathedral, 40, 43, 70, 89
Winchester, Crypt of, 102
Wing, Crypt of, 102
Worcester (Church of), Crypt of, 90, 102
Worms, Cathedral of, 24
Wulphere, King of the Mercians, 138
Wyclif, 132
York, 129
York Cathedral, 61, 89, 91
York Minster, Crypt of, 102

Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, London and Bungay.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Notably Quicherat, Viollet le Duc, de Caumont, Corroyer, in France; in our England, Freeman, Jackson, and Bond; Rivoira in Italy, only to mention a few notable names.

[2] Signor Rivoira, Le Origini dell Architectura Lombarda, 2 vols. 4to: Roma. Sir Thomas Graham Jackson, R.A., Byzantine and Romanesque Architecture, 2 vols. 4to: Cambridge.

[3] A word or two explanatory of the term “entablature” will be useful for those who are not familiar with architectural terminology. The term belongs to the Renaissance period; it seems to have been first used by Evelyn (A.D. 1664). Vitruvius has no single term to express the group of members of which the “entablature” is composed. He writes of “Membra quae supra columnas imponuntur.” These include the architrave, frieze and cornice.

[4] Freeman remarks here that in the buildings of Ravenna (fifth, sixth and seventh centuries) and in other Romanesque piles, a solid member is thrust in between the abacus and the capital, in order to guard the often delicate capital from the pressure of the arch it supports. The Italian name for this member is pulvino, which is sometimes translated now as pulvin. This pulvino, especially in Byzantine work, often grows into a double capital. The English scholar deems this an unsightly feature in Romanesque architecture, and suggests that the true remedy is found in the noble buildings of Lucca and Pisa, where the abaci are heavier—heavy enough to protect the capital from being crushed. The usual English equivalent for Pulvino is Dosseret, or Impost.

[5] Classis—Classe—was the port, perhaps the chief harbour of the Roman fleet, and was built by the Emperor Augustus. It was in the great days of Ravenna a vast port and arsenal, and possessed various important churches, of which the magnificent Basilica of S. Apollinare in Classe alone remains. Classis was joined to Ravenna by a long suburb, the Via Cæsarea, nearly three miles long; but Classis and Cæsarea have all disappeared, and the lonely Basilica of S. Apollinare stands now by itself in the marshes.

The sea, which once bathed the walls of Classis, has retreated some two miles, leaving what was once Classis empty and desolate. In the days of Ravenna’s glory and prosperity the three towns, Ravenna, the long suburb of Cæsarea, and the vast port of Classis, must have appeared as one great city.

[6] Certain writers place the vanishing of the Comacine builders at a somewhat later date.

[7] Writing of the importance of certain of the works of this far-back age of Lombardic art, Paulus Diaconus dwells on the “Basilica of the Mother of God,” outside the walls of Pavia, erected by Queen Rodelinda, circa A.D. 686, and describes it in the following words: “Opere mirabili condidit, ornamentisque miraficis decoravit” (Hist. Langobardorum). Paulus Diaconus was a monk, and most probably wrote his history in the great Monastery of the Benedictines at Monte Cassino. He was born circa A.D. 723 and died about A.D. 800.

[8] We are not dealing here with Byzantine architecture. Constantinople and the Eastern empire, while maintaining generally the round-arch style, had her own great architectural invention, the Cupola, which under Justinian in the sixth century was brought to perfection in the great Church of S. Sophia; this was copied in many a famous church in the Eastern empire. It influenced later some of the architecture in the Southern Provinces of Gaul (France).

Freeman, however, is scarcely accurate in styling the Cupola as the great architectural invention of the Byzantine masters.

The Byzantine-domed Basilica, as it appeared in the time of Justinian, as Rivoira accurately tells us, was the result of a gradual but tolerably rapid evolution. It was really a creation of the Latin mind, and is based upon the old Roman-domed buildings. The Byzantine-domed church appears first in Macedonia, where we find it notably in Salonica in the Church of S. Sophia in that city; it received its present development at Constantinople, in the mighty Basilica of S. Sophia, and may justly be termed the principal characteristic feature of the round-arch style of Byzantine architecture.

The dome or Cupola was, however, by no means unknown or unused in the Lombardic School of the Comacine builders. But it never really took root in Italy and in the West, save, perhaps, later in certain districts in the south of France. It is in Constantinople and in the near East that it was developed and adopted as the main prominent feature of the Byzantine style.

[9] In this little summary of French Romanesque churches of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the careful classification of Sir Thomas Jackson, R.A., has been generally followed. A considerable portion of his work on Romanesque and Byzantine architecture is devoted to this Romanesque work in France.

[10] For the rise and development of Norman-Romanesque, its passing into England and its connection with the great Burgundian Monastery of Cluny, see below, p. 36.

[11] In these great Gothic cathedrals traces of the old Romanesque style remain, but the round-arch and other Romanesque features were evidently rapidly giving place to the new and generally favoured Gothic school. In other parts of France, Sir Thomas Jackson well summarises as follows; when this movement towards a new style in the “Royal Domain” took place in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, we find Romanesque art still running its course. In Vézelay (Burgundy), for instance, although the pointed arch had been admitted, the general design still clung to the ancient tradition, and the round-arch still ruled the design. In Auvergne it still reigned supreme.... In Aquitaine the domed style continued to prevail. In Normandy and England the round-arched style followed a line of its own. In Provence, too, Romanesque held its own for a longer period than in the “Royal Domain.”

[12] William of Volpiano was born circa A.D. 961, on the Island of Santa Giulia in the Lago di Orta—part of the Lago Maggiore. He was the son of Roberto, Lord of Volpiano. He also founded the Monastery of S. Benigno de Fruttuaria in Piedmont. He became one of the brotherhood of Cluny towards the end of the tenth century.

[13] Of the capitals of the columns, the most usual were what is commonly termed cushion capitals; these were not invented by the Norman architects, but under their hands put on a character of their own.

[14] Orderic’s words which he puts into the mouth of the dying conqueror are remarkable—

“Sic multa millia pulcherrimæ gentis, proh dolor! funestus trucidavi.”

Matthew Paris repeats, in other words, the same statement.

[15] An account of this “Comacine” Guild will be found on p. 14-17.

[16] Leader Scott, The Cathedral Builders, the story of a great Masonic Guild, 1899.

[17] How hardly this popular misconception of “Gothic” died away amongst us, is curiously exemplified in a statement which appeared in the once widely-read New Monthly Magazine (Colburn), 1841, edited by Theodore Hook and then by Thomas Hood. We read here, “The Heralds’ College knocked up a shield containing the armorial bearings of both the families.... The College tacked the tail of the sea woman to the head of a griffin—as everything ugly and unnatural is valued in Heraldry and Gothic architecture. This incongruous monster told well.”

[18] They will be found, with many like words, in a most interesting and suggestive series of papers on “French Cathedrals,” which appeared in the Times of August and September 1912.

[19] Compare a remarkable lecture of Dr. West, before the “Architectural Association,” reported in the Builder of Feb. 17, 1906.

[20] Rivoira will not allow that the women’s galleries of the Eastern Church, so notable a feature in the churches of Constantinople and Salonica of Justinian, and other great Byzantine church builders, was a pure invention of these architects. But he believes that these galleries, so universal in the planning of Eastern Basilicas, were in the first instance imitated from an older model, viz. from certain of the Pagan civil galleried Basilicas, such as the Basilica Julia in the Roman Forum, which even before its rebuilding by Augustus in A.D. 12 possessed a gallery occupied on the occasion of important trials.

He also dates a very few ancient examples of the existence of such a gallery in churches of the Latin type, notably in the Churches of S. Salvatore (Spoleto), fifth century; S. Lorenzo (Rome), sixth century; SS. Quatuor Coronati (Rome), seventh century; S. Agnese (Rome), seventh century.

Still, granting the strict accuracy of Rivoira’s interesting account of the genesis of the Byzantine introduction of the women’s galleries, the general deductions given above will not be affected.

The adoption of the women’s galleries in Byzantine churches was, without doubt, referable to the Eastern use of the separation of the sexes in divine worship; still, in spite of the existence of certain rare exceptions, it was never really a Latin practice.

The planning of great churches in the West, until the “coming” of the Anglo-Norman school of architects, was emphatically without this gallery. But the Byzantine great women’s galleries were indisputably the origin of the Triforium, which really only reappeared in parts of the West in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

[21] Dean Milman of S. Paul’s, Latin Christianity. Book VII, chap. vi; Book XIV, chap. ii.

[22] This startling doctrine, it will be remembered, was defined and clothed with authority by a Papal Bull in A.D. 1854 by Pope Pius IX. The words of Dr. Pusey (Liddon’s Life of Pusey, II, xxxiv), are very remarkable, and coming from such a source, specially interesting: “There are very serious things in the Roman Communion which ought to keep us where we are. I would instance chiefly the system as to the blessed Virgin as the Mediatrix and dispenser of all present blessings to mankind; I think nothing short of a fresh revelation would justify this.”

[23] The Virgin and Child are in the Catacombs delineated in a certain number of instances, but generally with the accompanying figures of the Magi or Wise Men with their offerings; but in these instances the Holy Child is the central figure of the group. But even these pictures are after all but few in number. The truth is that in the first three centuries the hearts and minds of the Christians were so aflame with love for the Lord Jesus, that there was little place for any delineation of the Apostles or even for the blessed Virgin.

[24] Two remarkable exceptions in Cornwall are quoted later, see pp. 92-95.

[25] A detailed description of the “Memoria” of Anacletus and the tomb or crypt of S. Peter, the “mother” of all the crypts since constructed, will be found in the following chapter, pp. 106-124.

[26] There was no difficulty raised in the early days of Christianity in getting possession of the bodies of martyrs. The custom of the Roman Government was in every case to give over the bodies of those who had been put to death, to those who had loved them in life. This we see in the case of our Lord when the sacred body was at once given to Nicodemus and the friends of Jesus.

It was only at a later date, when Christianity became a real terror to the Roman Government, that this favour was taken away, and when every effort was made by the authorities to prevent the Christians from obtaining possession of the relics of their martyrs.

[27] It was of this ancient church of Constantine that Bishop Creighton in his eloquent History of the Papacy, thus writes of its demolition under Pope Julius II, circa A.D. 1506—

“The basilica of S. Peter’s had been for ages the object of pilgrimage from every land; outside it gleamed with mosaics; inside its pavement was a marvel of mosaic art; its monuments told the history of the Roman Church for centuries. Men may praise at the present day the magnificence of the (New) S. Peter’s; they forget what was destroyed to make room for it. No more wanton or barbarous act of destruction was ever deliberately committed.”

[28] These details have been worked out by Mgr. Barnes in his elaborate and exhaustive work on the Tomb of S. Peter, who gives in his scholarly and able book many more particulars of the sacred spot.

No words of praise are sufficient to express the thanks of the historian and archæologist, who is interested in this most famous of Christian sanctuaries, to Mgr. Barnes for his labours here.

[29] Durandus, Bishop of Mende (Mimatensis) in Languedoc—born A.D. 1230 and died A.D. 1296—was a most distinguished Canonist. He filled various ecclesiastical dignities, amongst them the Deanery of Chartres, and was largely consulted by the popes of his time. In later life he declined the archbishopric of Ravenna. He was the author of various works which had an enduring success. Amongst these the Rationale above quoted, a vast and exhaustive compilation, is the best. During the early years of printing, this, the greatest of mediæval liturgical treatises, was printed and reprinted more often than any book (excepting, of course, the Holy Scriptures). It is computed that more than ninety printed editions in different languages of the Rationale appeared between the second half of the fifteenth century and the close of the seventeenth.

Viollet le Duc, in his Dict. de l’Architecture (“Architecture”), thus sums up his estimate of the Rationale: “Que l’on ne saurait trop lire et méditer, lorseque qu’on veut connaitre le moyen age catholique.”

Dom Guéranger of Solesmes calls it “le dernier mot du age sur le mystique du culte divin.”

[30] The etymological difficulty suggested by Lightfoot can hardly be pressed, considering the very free and rough way in which the Latin tongue was treated at a comparatively early date in the story of the Roman Empire, when grammar, spelling and prosody were frequently more or less disregarded, save in highly cultured circles. This striking disregard of all rules is very conspicuous in the numberless inscriptions and epitaphs found in the Roman Catacombs.

The early entries in the so-called Liber Pontificalis show the same utter disregard of grammar and spelling.

Transcriber’s notes.

Evident typographical and punctuation errors have been corrected silently. Inconsistent spelling/hyphenation has been normalised.

The usage of Jumiéges (Jumièges) and Sant (Sant’) is the author’s.

A new sub-heading “Norman-Romanesque” has been introduced at page 33 to reflect the table of contents.

Half-titles and reiterations of chapter titles have been discarded.

End of page footnotes have been sequentially numbered and relocated to the end of the book.

Index references to “note” have been modified to include the relevant note number.

At the index entry for Diaconus, a duplicate footnote reference (19 note) has been discarded.

Illustrations have been relocated between paragraphs. Page numbers in the List of Illustrations may no longer be relevant, but will link to the image location.

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Table of Contents

- THE SECRETS OF A GREAT CATHEDRAL
- INTRODUCTORY
- CONTENTS
- LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
- ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE
- NORMAN-ROMANESQUE
- THE CAMPANILE OR BELL TOWER
- PASSING OF ROMANESQUE
- THE TRIFORIUM

- THE LADY CHAPEL

- An Appendix on two remarkable Architectural Features in the Lady Chapel of Gloucester.

- The Churches or Oratories of “S. Gwithian” and “Perranzabuloe” on the north coast of Cornwall.

- THE CRYPT

- Of the principal terms used in this study on the Crypt.

- THE CRYPT OF S. PETER ON THE VATICAN HILL The Story of a Tomb

- THE CLOISTER

- APPENDIX

- Traces of Games played by Novices and Boys in the Cloisters

- S. PETRONILLA’S ALTAR

- The earliest Historical Detail existing in connection with the Gloucester Abbey

- The Wanderings of the Remains of S. Petronilla

- INDEX
- FOOTNOTES:
- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE