Part 13

The church of St. Gervais is situated at a short distance without the walls of Rouen, upon a slight eminence, adjoining the Roman road to Lillebonne, and near a rising ground, commonly called the _Mont aux Malades_, as having been, in the eleventh century, the site of a monastery, destined for the reception of lepers. According to Farin,[106] the church was originally an abbey, and is expressly recognized as such in a charter of Duke Richard II. dated A.D. 1020; in which, among other donations to his favorite monastery at Fécamp, he enumerates, "item _Abbatiam_ Sancti Gervasii, quæ est juxta civitatem Rothomagum, et quicquid ad ipsam pertinet." The authors of the _Gallia Christiana_[107] add that, "at the time when this abbey was conferred upon Fécamp, it was taken from the monks of St. Peter at Chartres." Two centuries subsequently, St. Gervais appears to have sunk into the rank of a simple priory, under the immediate control of the monks of Fécamp, who assumed the title of its priors. In process of time, the still humbler name and dignity of a parochial church were alone left; but the period at which this last change took place, is not recorded. The abbot of Fécamp continued, however, till the period of the revolution, to exercise spiritual jurisdiction over what was termed the barony of St. Gervais; including not only this single parish; but some others dependent upon it. He nominated to the livings, directed the religious establishments, had entire control over the prisons, and was entitled to all privileges arising from the fair of St. Gervais, which was annually held at Rouen, in the Fauxbourg Cauchoise, on the twentieth of June. It is even on record, that in the year 1400, the abbot ventured upon the bold experiment of forbidding William de Vienne, then archbishop of Rouen, either to carry his cross, or to give his benediction within the precincts of his jurisdiction; but so daring an assumption of power was not to be tolerated, and the matter was accordingly referred to the parliament of Paris, who decided in this instance against the abbot.

[Illustration: Plate 53. CRYPT IN THE CHURCH OF ST. GERVAIS AT ROUEN.]

Adjoining to the church of St. Gervais, stood originally one of the palaces of the Norman Dukes and it was to this[108] that William the Conqueror caused himself to be conveyed, when attacked with his mortal illness, after having wantonly reduced the town of Mantes to ashes. Here, too, that mighty monarch breathed his last, and left a sad warning to future conquerors; deserted by his friends and physicians, the moment he was no more; while his menials plundered his property, and his body lay naked and deserted in the hall.

The ducal palace, and the monastic buildings, are now wholly destroyed. Fortunately, however, the church still remains, and preserves some portions of the original structure, more interesting from their features than their extent. The exterior of the apsis is very curious: it is obtusely angular, and faced at the corners with large rude columns, of whose capitals, some are Doric and Corinthian, others as wild as the fancies of the Norman lords of the country. None reach so high as the cornice of the roof; it having been the design of the original architect, that a portion of work should intervene between the summits of the capitals and this member. A capital to the north is remarkable for the eagles carved upon it, as if with some allusion to Roman power.

But the most singular part of this church is the crypt under the apsis, represented in the plate; a room about thirty feet long, by fourteen wide, and sixteen high, of extreme simplicity, and remote antiquity. Round it runs a plain stone bench; and it is divided into two unequal parts by a circular arch, devoid of columns or of any ornament whatever. Here, according to Ordericus Vitalis,[109] was interred the body of St. Mello, the first archbishop of Rouen, and one of the apostles of Neustria; and here his tomb, and that of his successor, Avitien, are shewn to this day, in plain niches, on opposite sides of the wall. St. Mello's remains, however, were not suffered to rest in peace; for, about five hundred and seventy years after his death, which happened in the year 314, they were removed to the castle of Pontoise, lest the canonized corpse should be violated by the heathen Normans. The existence of these tombs, and the antiquity of the crypt, recorded as it is by history, and confirmed by the style of its architecture, have given currency to the tradition, which points it out as the only temple where the primitive Christians of Neustria dared to assemble for the performance of divine service. Many stone coffins have also been discovered in the vicinity of the church. These sarcophagi serve to confirm the general tradition; they are of the simplest form, and apparently as ancient as the crypt; and they were so placed in the ground, that the heads of the corpses were turned to the east, a position denoting that the dead received Christian burial.

NOTES:

[106] _Histoire de la Ville de Rouen_, v. p. 1.

[107] XI. p. 124. A.

[108] The whole of the remainder of this article is transcribed from _Turner's Tour in Normandy_, I. p. 125.

[109] _Duchesne, Scriptores Normanni_, p. 558.

PLATE LIV.

CHURCH OF ST. PAUL, AT ROUEN.

[Illustration: Plate 54. CHURCH OF ST. PAUL, AT ROUEN. _East End._]

Next to the church of St. Gervais, that of St. Paul is the most interesting relic of ancient architecture among the ecclesiastical buildings at Rouen. Indeed, it may be considered as the only other of an early date; the round tower attached to the abbatial church of St. Ouen[110] being altogether inconsiderable, and indebted for its principal interest to its connection with an abbey endowed with such extensive possessions, and gifted with so much reported sanctity.

The foundation of the church of St. Paul is of very remote antiquity: it is said to have been laid by St. Romain, in memory of his great victory over heathenism, when, triumphant, he erected the banner of the cross upon the ashes of the temple of Venus. Impure was the goddess, and most impure were her rites; so that, to use the words of Taillepied, in speaking of this same temple, "là dedans la jeunesse, à bride avallée, souloit se souiller et polluer par ordre luxure et paillardise abominable, ne ayant égard qu'auprès de ce lieu y avoit un repaire de malins esprits qui faisoyent sortir une fumée tant puante et infecte que la mortalité s'en ensuyvoit par après."

This very remark concerning the infectious vapor, seems decisive as to the feet of the church of St. Paul occupying the site of the pagan fane. It stands without the walls of the town, upon elevated ground, at a very short distance to the right of the barrier below Mont St. Catherine, on the road to Paris, in the immediate vicinity of some mineral springs, strongly impregnated with iron. Prior to the revolution, the church was under the jurisdiction of the monastery of Montivilliers. The abbess had the right of nomination to the vacant benefice; and, till the middle of the seventeenth century, she was in the habit of regarding St. Paul's as a priory, and fixing there a colony of her nuns. But they were all recalled in 1650, and were never afterwards succeeded by a fresh establishment.

Respecting the various changes of the edifice, Farin contents himself with the brief remark, "that it was repeatedly destroyed during the wars, and rebuilt by the liberality of the Norman Dukes."[111] The eastern part of what is now standing is evidently of Norman time; and, architecturally considered, it is a most curious specimen, being probably the only church in existence which terminates to the east in three semi-circular compartments. Of these, the central division is considerably the most lofty, as well as the most prominent; and the arrangement of the corbel-table, which is carried equally round them all, proves that it must always have been so. The sculpture of this corbel-table is viewed by the Norman antiquaries with peculiar interest: some of the heads, with widely distended jaws, beset with teeth of enormous size, represent wolves; others, with human features and whiskered upper lips, are supposed to be intended for the Saxon foe, who, at the time of the Norman invasion, were induced, we are told, by the smooth faces of their opponents, to entertain the erroneous belief, that the approaching host was but an army of priests. Mr. Cotman, who has observed in similar situations, in many other parts of Normandy, faces equally shadowed with whiskers, has been led to the suspicion, that they were intended in derision of the Saxons.

Internally, the triple circular ending of the church is no longer observable. Both of the lateral divisions are parted off at the extremity, and formed into distinct apartments: the southern is applied to the purpose of a sacristy, while the northern serves merely as a lumber-room. The nave, which is thrice the width of the chancel, and is clearly of a date comparatively modern, is separated from the more eastern portion of the building by a semi-circular arch. The sculpture upon the capitals appears of Roman design: that on one of them, exhibits a row of graceful figures in a pure classical taste, intent upon some action, but so much mutilated, that it would be now no easy task to conjecture the object of the artist. The aisles of the chancel are divided from the central compartment by double arches, a larger and a smaller being united together, all of them semi-circular, and all of the Norman style of architecture. Attached to the eastern end of the church, within the lumber-room just mentioned, stands a piece of Roman sculpture, supposed by M. Le Prevost to have served originally for an altar. Mr. Turner has given a figure of it in his Tour; and he conjectures, that it was of the workmanship of the fourth century; a supposition founded upon the resemblance borne by its ornaments, to those upon the pedestal of the obelisk raised by Theodosius, in the Hippodrome at Constantinople, as represented in the elaborate publication of the late M. Seroux d'Agincourt.[112]

NOTES:

[110] Figured in _Turner's Tour in Normandy_, I. p. 127.

[111] _Histoire de la Ville de Rouen_, v. p. 8.

[112] _Histoire de la décadence de l'Art_, pl. 10, _Sculpture_, fig. 4-7.

ARCHITECTURAL

ANTIQUITIES

OF

NORMANDY,

BY JOHN SELL COTMAN;

ACCOMPANIED BY HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE NOTICES BY DAWSON TURNER, ESQ. F.R. AND A.S.

VOLUME THE SECOND.

[Illustration: Coat of arms of the Duchy of Normandy. Emblems of the towns of Rouen and Caen.]

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR JOHN AND ARTHUR ARCH, CORNHILL; AND J. S. COTMAN, YARMOUTH.

MDCCCXXII.

PLATES IN THE SECOND VOLUME.

PLATE.

55. Church of St. Nicholas, at Caen, West End to face page 59 56. -- -- -- -- East End 60 57. Church at Cheux, near Caen, from the North-East 62 58. Church at Bieville, from the North-West 63 59. -- -- Elevations and Details 64 60. Church at Fontaine-le-Henri, near Caen, North Side of Chancel 65 61. -- -- -- -- -- Elevations 66 62. Château at Fontaine-le-Henri, near Caen 67 63. -- -- -- -- -- Elevation of central Compartment 68 64. House in the Place de la Pucelle, at Rouen 69 65. House in the Rue St. Jean, at Caen 70 66. Tower of the Church at Tréport, near Caen 71 67. Church of Anisy, near Caen 73 68. Church of Perriers, near Caen 74 69. Castle of Lillebonne 75 70. Castle of Briquebec 77 71. Church of St. Stephen's, at Fécamp 79 72. Screen in the Church of St. Lawrence, at Eu 81 73. \ Church of St. Peter, at Lisieux, West Front 83 74. / 75. -- -- -- -- South Transept 86 76. Abbey Church of St. Ouen, at Rouen 87 77. Fountain of the Stone Cross, at Rouen 90 78. Palace of Justice, at Rouen 91 79. Church of Louviers, South Porch 93 80. Château Gaillard, North-East View 95 81. -- -- South-West View 96 82. Abbey Church of Montivilliers, West End 97 83. Church of St. Sanson sur Rille 99 84. Church of Foullebec, West Door-way 100 85. Castle at Tancarville 101 86. Entrance to the Castle at Tancarville 103 87. Church of the Holy Cross, at St. Lo, West Door-way 104 88. -- -- -- -- -- Sculpture 106 89. Castle of Falaise, North-West View 107 90. -- -- North View 109 91. Interior of the Church of Creully 110 92. \ Cathedral Church of Notre Dame, at Coutances, West Front 111 93. / 94. -- -- -- -- -- -- Elevation of the Nave 115 95. Mount St. Michael, on the Approach from Pontorson 116 96. -- -- Interior of the Knights' Hall 120 97. Abbey Church of Cerisy, Interior of the Choir 121 98. Church at Oyestraham, West Front 122 99. Cathedral Church of Notre Dame, at Séez, West Front 123 100. -- -- -- -- -- Elevation of the Nave 125

The Figure referred to in the Note, p. 117, is inserted at the beginning of the Preface.--As a Vignette, at the end of the Preface, is introduced a View of the Church of Querqueville, near Cherbourg, a building of unquestionable antiquity, and here figured, as the only instance in Normandy, or possibly in existence, of a church whose transepts, as well as the chancel, terminate in a semi-circular form. In these parts, the walls are formed of herring-bone masonry, which is not the case with the tower or nave, which are more modern. The tower is, however, probably of the Norman æra; and the peculiar masonry which distinguishes the chancel, is still observable for a few feet above its junction with the nave. Its ornaments may be compared with those of St. Peter's church, at Barton-upon-Humber, and Earl's-Barton church, Northamptonshire, both of them figured in the _fifth_ volume of _Britton's Architectural Antiquities_, and both evidently Norman. The church of Querqueville has no buttresses. Its length, from east to west, is forty-eight feet and six inches; from north to south, forty-three feet and four inches; the width of the nave is nine feet and nine inches.

PLATES LV. AND LVI.

CHURCH OF ST. NICHOLAS, AT CAEN.

[Illustration: Plate 55. CHURCH OF ST. NICHOLAS, AT CAEN. _West end._]

The Abbé De la Rue, in his _Historical Essays upon Caen_, contents himself with remarking, with regard to the church of St. Nicholas, that it is the only specimen of real Norman architecture now left entire in the town; for that the abbatial church of the Holy Trinity, a building of the same period and style, has been so disguised by the alterations made with the view of adapting it to its present purpose, that, considered as a whole, it is no longer to be recognized as a type of the religious edifices of the Normans. Such being the case, it is the more to be lamented that the church here figured, should not only have been degraded from its original application, but should have been appropriated to an object eminently liable to expose it to injury. It is now used as a stable for cavalry; but, fortunately, it has still been suffered to remain entire; and hopes are entertained, that it may yet be one day again employed as a place of worship.

The exterior of the building has not altogether escaped uninjured or unaltered. In the western front, (see _plate fifty-five_,) both the lateral towers have lost their original terminations, and have been reduced to a level with the roof of the nave. One of them still remains in a state of dilapidation: to the other has been added a square tower, of rather elegant proportions, surmounted by a small crocketed pinnacle, the workmanship probably of the fourteenth century. The rest of this part of the church is as it was first built, except that the great arches of entrance are entirely blocked up. The whole is of extreme simplicity, and vies in that respect with the same portion of the adjoining church of the abbey of St. Stephen; the different members of the two being nearly the same, though disposed in a dissimilar manner.

The central tower of the church of St. Nicholas is square and small, and so low as to admit only a single tier of semi-circular-headed windows, four on each side. It terminates in a ridged roof, and apparently, never was higher; though, as far as may be judged from analogy, a greater elevation was probably designed by the architect. Along the sides of the church, immediately beneath the roof, runs a bold projecting cornice, of antique pattern, formed of numerous horizontal mouldings; and, under this, the corbel-table presents only a row of plain knobs, instead of the monsters commonly found in Norman buildings. The clerestory, throughout both the nave and choir, is filled with narrow arches, alternately pierced for windows, and left blank. All these arches, as well as the windows of the transepts and of the projecting aisles below, are without the accompaniment of pillars or ornaments of any description, excepting a broad flat moulding of the simplest kind, which wholly encircles them. The disposition of the windows in the lower part of the nave, differs from that of those above, in their being separated from each other by shallow buttresses, which hold the place of the blank arches. A plain string-course also is continued the whole length of the church beneath the windows, as in the west front. On the south side is a door, the only one now in use in the church, which is entered by a very noble Norman arch, composed of a great number of cylindrical mouldings, arranged in three broad bands, but without pillars or capitals, and with no other variation than that of size, and of the addition of the billet-moulding to the outer row. The transome-stone of this arch is unquestionably coeval with the arch itself, the sculpture of the masonry being interwoven with it. Attached to the eastern side of both the transepts, is a circular chapel, as in the churches of St. Georges, of St. Taurin at Evreux, of Fécamp, of Cerisy, and in several other ancient religious buildings in Normandy. Nor is England altogether without specimens of the same kind: a similar chapel, now in a ruinous state, and called by Blomefield, "the sexterie or ancient vestry," is joined to the north transept of Norwich cathedral; and near the eastern extremity of the same church, are four others. But the principal characteristic of those at St. Nicholas', is the extremely high pitch of the stone roof, a peculiarity equally observable in the roof of the choir; and hence the following remarks on the part of Mr. Turner[113]:--"Here we have the exact counterpart of the Irish stone-roofed chapels, the most celebrated of which, that of Cormac in Cashel cathedral, appears, from all the drawings and descriptions I have seen of it, to be altogether a Norman building. Ledwich asserts that 'this chapel is truly Saxon, and was erected prior to the introduction of the Norman and Gothic styles.'[114] If we agree with him, we only obtain a proof, that there is no essential difference between Norman and Saxon architecture; and this proposition I believe, will soon be universally admitted. We now know what is really Norman; and a little attention to the buildings in the north of Germany, may terminate the long-debated questions relative to Saxon architecture, and the stone-roofed chapels in the sister isle."

[Illustration: Plate 56. CHURCH OF ST. NICHOLAS, AT CAEN. _East end._]

In the east end of the church of St. Nicholas, (see _plate fifty-six_,) may be remarked a sensible approximation in point of style, to the same part in the church of the Trinity. The circular apsis is divided into compartments by slender cylindrical pillars; and each intercolumniation is filled by a couple of windows of comparatively large size, placed one above the other, while a row of narrow blank arches occupies the lower part. The head of each of these smaller arches is hewn out of a single stone. The height of the roof, in this part of the church, is so much greater than in the choir, as almost to justify the suspicion that it was no part of the original plan, but was an addition of a subsequent, though certainly not of a remote, æra. Were the line of it continued to the central tower, it would wholly block up and conceal the windows there. The discrepancy observable in the style of its architecture, may also possibly be regarded as enforcing the same opinion. But, indeed, as has already been more than once observed in this work, no inferences drawn from style must be admitted without the utmost hesitation. A very sensible discussion upon this point, as illustrated by the church of St. Nicholas itself, and the two adjoining churches of the Trinity and of St. Stephen, has lately appeared in one of the most popular English periodical publications, from the pen of a writer possessed of the deepest knowledge of the subject, and gifted with the most comprehensive and clearest views[115]. It were an injustice to the readers of this work, not to extract it upon the present occasion. It will supersede the necessity of any labored description of the interior of the building.--