Part 2

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.” 35 (_See pages 84 and 85_)

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

[Illustration: 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.

[Illustration: 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.

[Illustration: 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.

[Illustration: 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.

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