Part 14
"When a distinct gradation of style is observable, it is natural to conclude, that these architectural varieties, emanating from one prototype, each clearly to be discriminated, yet dying into another by imperceptible shades, were successively developed at certain intervals of time. This reasoning, though it advances upon legitimate premises, may be fallacious, as is proved at Caen, where three coeval churches, probably erected by the same architect, are distinguished by such remarkable modifications of the Norman Romanesque style, that were we not acquainted with the facts, we might well suppose that they marked the progress of architecture during three half centuries.--St. Nicholas, the first of these edifices, was built by the monks of St. Stephen's Abbey some time between the years 1066 and 1083. The original lines are characterized by simplicity and regularity. All the capitals of the columns, embedded in the side walls, are of one order; and the capitals of the pier-columns, which nearly resemble the others, are equally uniform. The east end terminates by an apsis, of which the elevation resembles the exterior of the cathedral of Pisa. Three circular arches, supported by Corinthianizing pilasters, form the western portal. The original cross-vaulting of the side-aisles still remains: it is without groins, and of Roman construction, and the whole interior shews that the architect was endeavoring to recollect the models of the great city.--If we pass from hence to the adjacent abbey church of St. Stephen, erected at the same period, we shall observe that the conception of the architect is more Norman than in the church which we have quitted. The nave is divided into bays by piers, alternating with circular pillars of smaller diameter. The pier consists of a pilaster fronted by a cylindrical column, continuing to about four-fifths of the height of the roof. Two cylindrical columns then rise from it; so that from this point upwards, the pier becomes a clustered column: angular brackets sculptured into knots, grotesque heads, and foliage, are affixed to the bases of the derivative pillars. A bold double-billeted moulding is continued below the clerestory, whose windows adapt themselves to the binary arrangement of the bays of the nave; that is to say, a taller arch is flanked by a smaller one, on its right side, or on its left side, as the situation requires; these are supported by short massy pillars; and an embattled moulding runs round the windows. These features are Norman; but in other portions of the church, the architect Romanises again, as in St. Nicholas. The piers of the aisle-arches are of considerable width: the pillars at each angle are connected by an architrave, distinctly enounced, running along the front of the pier, and interposed between the capitals and the springing of the well-turned semi-circular arch. The triforium is composed of a tier of semi-circular arches, nearly of equal span with those below. The perspective of the building is grand and palatial. In the evening, when it is illuminated only by a few faintly-burning tapers, the effect of the gleams of light, reflected from the returns of the arches and pillars, is particularly fine. Beyond the central arch which supports the tower, all is lost in gloom, except that at the extremity of the choir, the star-light just breaks through the topmost windows above the altar.--In the church of St. Stephen, the leading ideas of the architect were still influenced by the Roman basilica; a third and more fanciful modification is to be observed in the coeval church of the Holy Trinity. Here the piers are narrower; the columns supporting the aisle-arches are consequently brought closer together, and the architrave is less prominent than at St. Stephen's: there the embattled moulding is confined to the clerestory; in the present church, it runs round the principal arches; and, instead of the lofty triforium which there surmounts the side-aisles, the walls which we now describe are threaded by a gallery supported by misproportioned pillars, whose capitals exhibit every possible variety of grotesque invention. The bold archivolts beneath the central tower are chased with the Norman lozenge: they are circular; but the eastern arch, which runs higher than the others, is obtusely pointed, though it is evidently of the same date with its companions."
The parish of St. Nicholas is placed without the walls of Caen, in that portion of the suburbs known by the name of _Le Bourg-l'Abbé_, as having been, before the revolution, under the jurisdiction of the abbot of St. Stephen. In the same quarter was also included the parish of St. Ouen, as was a portion of those of St. Stephen and St. Martin. The two last-mentioned churches were ceded, in the earliest period of the history of Caen, by the Chapter of the Cathedral of Bayeux, to Queen Matilda, in exchange for some other preferment, and were by her bestowed upon the nuns of her new convent of the Trinity. But the increasing power of the rival monastery, built by her husband, naturally caused its occupants to turn a wistful eye towards churches so immediately in their vicinity. Disputes succeeded; and the monks of St. Stephen erected the church of St. Nicholas, that their suburb might no longer be without a religious building which depended wholly upon themselves. Peace was at length restored by means of a charter from the Duke, dated in the year 1083, whereby St. Nicholas was recognized as parochial, an equivalent was given to the abbess by the extension of her power in her own quarter of St. Giles, and the respective parishes of St. Stephen and St. Martin were allowed to retain all they possessed in the Bourg-l'Abbé, except five families expressly designated in the charter. These five were transferred to St. Nicholas; and, to secure to the saint a certain increase of votaries hereafter, a proviso was added, enacting that every house which might be built in future, in that suburb, should belong to his parish. Hence, the two other saints retained nothing more than the ground covered by the tenements then standing, sixty-seven in number; and the necessary consequence was, that from that period till the year 1790, when the whole was remodelled, the limits of the several parishes were confused and irregular in the extreme. Not only did adjoining dwellings belong to different parishes, but the line frequently ran between the various apartments of the same house, or even separated the apartment themselves.
The church of St. Nicholas, as indebted for its existence to the monks of the abbey of St. Stephen, continued for some time to receive its pastors from among the brethren of that convent. At a subsequent period, the monks, after they had transferred to substitutes the performance of their religious duties, still endeavored to preserve their supremacy; but they were finally obliged to relinquish it; and the ministers of St. Nicholas enjoyed the same rights as the other clergy of Caen, though the ecclesiastical privileges of the abbot remained inviolate.
To the church of St. Nicholas was attached a guild, in the early lists of whose members were included names of the greatest distinction in the town and neighborhood. St. Nicholas was in remote times an object of especial devotion; and the company incorporated under his patronage, naturally partook of his celebrity. The Abbé De la Rue also states, that it was from within this church, that what were termed the _Apostolic decrees_, were delivered in the twelfth century. They derived their name from being pronounced by commissioners delegated by the Pope, to decide in matters touching the canon law; and the numerous appeals to the court of Rome, at that period, rendered the necessity for such decisions of frequent occurrence.
NOTES:
[113] _Tour in Normandy_, II. p. 176.
[114] _Antiquities of Ireland_, p. 151.
[115] _Quarterly Review for June_, 1821, p. 120.
PLATE LVII.
CHURCH OF CHEUX.
[Illustration: Plate 57. CHURCH OF CHEUX NEAR CAEN. _From the North East._]
The earliest mention which occurs of Cheux, a small country town, about nine miles to the west of Caen, is to be found in the charter, granted about the year 1077, by the Conqueror, for the foundation of his abbey of St. Stephen. The king, in this instrument, after a pious proem, reciting that he has been led to the holy task by the expectation of obtaining remission for his sins and a hundred-fold reward in heaven, places, as the very first of the gifts destined for the endowment of the rising monastery, the town of Cheux. He also expressly designates Cheux, and the four places immediately following, as _villas juris mei_, thereby meaning, as M. de Gerville justly remarks, to draw a distinction between those donations which came immediately from himself, and those which originated with any of his subjects, and stood in need of nothing more than a ratification on his part. Another remark may, perhaps, not impertinently be made upon this part of the charter, as curiously illustrative of the manners of the times as to the nature of feudal tenures, and the mode of recruiting the army. In the very next paragraph, a distinction is drawn between the rights of two different classes of men, the _coloni_ and _conditionarii_, the latter being explained by the words of the charter itself, to mean _free men_ ("_liberos homines_.") The Duke assigns to the abbey, the towns themselves, together with their inhabitants, mills, waters, meadows, pastures, and woods; and also with all the revenues and customs derivable from them, as they have been enjoyed by himself, or any of his predecessors. He likewise expressly stipulates, that such of the people of Cheux and Rotz, as do not hold _frank-tenements_, ("_qui francam terram non tenent_,") should be exclusively devoted to the service of the church and the monks, so as not to be subject to any call arising from military expeditions, or other cause, unless the Prince himself should personally, or by letter, direct the abbot to send them. Even in the latter case, he binds himself to summon each by name, and never to call them out, except the province should be invaded by a foreign foe; nor on any account to require their services beyond the limits of the duchy.
At the same time that the Conqueror's children confirmed all the donations made by their father to the abbey of St. Stephen, Robert, his successor upon the ducal throne, added the privilege of an annual fair at Cheux, and a weekly market: the latter was held upon a Sunday, during the twelfth century, but was afterwards, by an order from King John, changed to a Tuesday. Upon the accession of Henry II. to the dukedom, another charter of great length was granted in favor of the royal abbey; and in this, Cheux is again mentioned. The King not only follows the example of his predecessors, in renouncing all right to it, but he gives his royal assent, in the following terms, to two purchases which had been made in it:--"Concedo emptionem, quam fecit Willelmus Abbas, Joanni, filii Conani, Canonico Bajocensi, scilicet, totam terram suam de Ceusio, quæ est de feudo S. Stephani; 23 libr. annual; et emptionem quam fecit Willelmus Abbas, a Radulpho, fratre Vitalis, scilicet, sex acras terræ, quam tenebat in feodu de prædicto sancto in Ceusio, pro quibus faciebat serraturas portarum Ceusii, pro C. solid. census."
From that time to the revolution, Cheux continued to be one of the principal domains of the abbot of St. Stephen. According to the territorial division of ancient France, it formed a part of what was termed the _Election_ of Caen, and was included in the archdeaconry of Bayeux, and the deanery of Fontenay. The revolution, introducing a new arrangement, together with a new set of terms, has placed it in the _arrondissement_ of Caen, and in the _canton_ of Tilly.
The church is a fine specimen of Norman architecture; remarkable as to its plan, in having the choir of considerably greater width than the nave. The portion east of the tower is composed of three distinct parts, unequal in size, the central being the narrowest, as is strikingly the case in the church at Great Yarmouth; but all of the same height, and each of the lateral ones exactly equalling in its width the length of the transept to which it is attached; and thus, also, the choir and transepts, taken collectively, form nearly a square, except that, to the end of the middle compartment, is attached a circular apsis, of an unusually small size; and, seen from the inside of the church, this disproportion becomes even more conspicuous: the great thickness of the wall necessarily subtracting much from the space. It even strikes the eye as being less than it really is, from being subdivided into a number of small arches; which, with the vaulted roof, lighted by the extremely narrow windows below, and the larger ones above, give this end of the church a very peculiar appearance.
PLATE LVIII. AND LIX.
CHURCH OF BIEVILLE.
[Illustration: Plate 58. CHURCH OF BIEVILLE NEAR CAEN. _From the North West._]
It is only when considered as a curious relic of ancient ecclesiastical architecture, that the church of Bieville can lay claim to any attention whatever. History, even in its lowest department, topography, is altogether silent with regard both, to the building and the parish, except so far as to record that the church was among the dependencies of the royal abbey of St. Stephen, at Caen; though even in this character, it does not appear till the middle of the fourteenth century, when it is mentioned in one of the registers of the diocese of Bayeux. Its situation is about four miles north of Caen.
Taken as a whole, the church of Bieville has probably no parallel in Normandy or in England. The upper story of the tower alone is of a subsequent æra, and _that_, the earliest style of pointed architecture: all the rest of the structure is purely Norman, and of extreme simplicity. The church of St. Peter, at Northampton, said to have been erected by Simon de St. Liz, during the reign of William the Conqueror, is encircled at the height of the clerestory by a row of small arches, similar in their proportions and decorations to those at Bieville; but they are there continued in an uninterrupted line round the building, while at Bieville they occupy only a comparatively small portion of it. In the nave of this latter church, they are disposed regularly in triplets, the central one only pierced for a window, and each three separated by a flat Norman buttress.
The western front, represented in _plate fifty-eight_, is divided by plain string-courses into three stories of irregular height: the basement contains only the door, which is entered by a richly-ornamented arch, (see _plate fifty-nine, fig. B_.) surmounted by a broad drip-stone, decorated with quatrefoils, and terminating at each end in a human head of classical character. The lowest moulding of this arch is considerably more flattened than the upper, a peculiarity that is likewise observable in the interior arch to the great door-way at Castle-Acre Priory, in Norfolk.[116] In the second story are six arches, supported by eight pillars, with capitals and bases of ordinary character: even these, contiguous as they stand, are divided into two equal sets, by the intervention of a flat space in the centre, so narrow, as to wear the appearance of a pilaster. Here, too, as in the nave, the central arch of each compartment is alone pierced for a window.--The upper story has only a single window, precisely resembling those below, but flanked on each side by a circular one, similar to that in the front of the neighboring chapel of the _Délivrande_:[117] or, if a comparison be sought among Norman edifices in England, to those in the tower of Norwich cathedral;[118] in the same part of the church of St. James, at Bury St. Edmunds;[119] and in the east end of the church of the Hospital of St. Cross.[120] In point of general character, the western front of the church of Bieville may not unaptly be compared with that of the chapel of the _Délivrande_, or of the hospital of St. Leonard, at Stamford, as figured by Carter.[121] The tower of the church at Bieville is well calculated to serve as a specimen of the towers of the village churches, comprized in a circuit of twenty miles round Caen. Among others, those of Soumont, Ifs, Soulangy, Potigny, and the Lower Allemagne, to the south, and of Lyons, Oyestraham, and several more, to the north, greatly resemble it.
[Illustration: Plate 59. CHURCH OF BIEVILLE NEAR CAEN. _Elevation and Details._]
_Plate fifty-nine_, as being altogether architectural, will best be understood by a set of regular references to the different subjects it embraces.
A. _Door-way on the north side of the nave_, remarkable for its lintel or transom-stone in the figure of a pediment, from which the arch rises, encircled with a single, wide, plain, flat moulding. There is a similar instance in the church of Martinvast, near Cherbourg; but the pediment there assumes a form more decidedly conical.[122] Transom-stones occur frequently in Normandy, and are variously sculptured; from the rude cross, either alone or encompassed with the cable-moulding, to the elaborate representations of the crucified Saviour, or other subjects from holy writ. Profane subjects, which are of so frequent occurrence on transom-stones in England, are very seldom found in the duchy: the writer of the present article never recollects to have met with any; and Mr. Cotman's more extensive researches have brought him acquainted only with a single instance, a centaur, in the act of discharging his arrow at a stag, in the church of Urville, near Valognes.
B. _Great western entrance_, (already described.)
C. _First compartment of the nave from the west_, showing the structure and disposition of the arches, and the very flat buttresses with a double projection, the first only equalling that of the corbels. The square-headed door is modern. Several of the sculptures on the corbels are close imitations of those upon the church of the Holy Trinity, at Caen.
D. and E. _Portions of other compartments of the nave_, to obtain a complete idea of which, it is only necessary to produce the dotted lines below, to the same length as that at C; the parts and their disposition being precisely the same, with the exception of the door.
F. _Elevation of the choir_, which is divided into two equal portions by a flat buttress, flanked on each side by a slender cylindrical column. Of these parts, one is quite plain, except only the corbel-table and ornamented frieze below. The other has two arches, recently blocked up, similar to those of the nave, but with a richer exterior moulding. The door below these has the same peculiarity, in the drip-stone rising from sculptured heads, as in the western entrance. The frieze beneath the corbels very much resembles that in the same situation in the church of the Holy Trinity, (see _plate thirty-one_,) and is likewise continued over the buttresses, as well as along the receding part between.
NOTES:
[116] Figured in _Britton's Architectural Antiquities_, III. pl. 2.
[117] Figured in _Turner's Tour in Normandy_, II. p. 295.
[118] _Britton's Norwich Cathedral_, p. 33, pl. 6.
[119] _Britton's Architectural Antiquities_, III. p. 80.
[120] _Antiquarian and Topographical Cabinet_, V.
[121] _Ancient Architecture_, pl. 24.--In the description of this building, page 33, Mr. Carter speaks of it as being of _Saxon_ origin; and, in the chronological table attached to his work, he classes it in the third of the four æras into which he divides his specimens of _Saxon_ architecture.
[122] A still more remarkable example occurs in Essington church, Gloucestershire, figured by Carter, in his _Ancient Architecture_, pl. XV. fig. X. The transom-stone is there formed of part of an octagon, rising from an horizontal torus moulding, which finishes in a spiral direction round two heads. A lion and a griffin fill the space within.
PLATE LX. AND LXI.
CHURCH OF FONTAINE-LE-HENRI, NEAR CAEN.
[Illustration: Plate 60. CHURCH OF FONTAINE-LE-HENRI NEAR CAEN. _North side of the Chancel._]
The parish of Fontaine-le-Henri lies about eight miles north of Caen, immediately adjoining Than, whose church has already been figured in this work. The register of the livings appertaining to the diocese of Bayeux, made about the year 1350, and commonly known by the name of the _livre pelut_, (_liber pelutus_, or the _parchment book_,) contains only the following brief notice of it:--"Ecclesia de Fontibus Henrici LX Libras.--Dnus dicte ville.--Archidiaconatus de Cadomo.--Decanatus de Dovra." In the _Gallia Christiana_, and other similar works, no mention whatever is made of this parish.
According to the modern division of France, Fontaine-le-Henri is included in the canton of Creüilly: the name of the village, to whose deanery it formerly appertained, cannot fail to strike the ear of an Englishman, as being the same with that of the celebrated harbor in his own island, the common landing-place from Calais. But the English Dover, from having been originally a Roman station, is generally supposed to have derived its appellation from the Romans; and Darell, in his History of the castle, published by Grose,[123] gives it as his opinion that, among the ancient Britons, it was called _Rupecester_, but, on the Roman invasion, got the new name of _Dofris_, _Dobris_, or _Doris_, "in consequence of the filling or damming up of the harbor;" "Doafer," as he observes a few pages before, "signifying, in the language of those times, a harbor shut up, or of difficult access." A still higher authority, the learned Bishop Huet,[124] classes the word, Douvres, among those whose origin is to be sought in the ancient language of Gaul, and proposes two derivations: one from _Dufyrrha_, a rising ground; the other from _Dvvr_, the term for water. Thus, without giving any opinion of his own, he leaves the matter to his reader, with a "utrum horum mavis elige."
The Norman village of Douvres is celebrated upon more than one account: it was the birth-place of Thomas of Dover, almoner to the Conqueror, and by him created archbishop of York in 1070; of Sampson of Dover, his brother, made bishop of Worcester in 1097; and of a second Thomas of Dover, nephew to the first of the name, who, in 1109, had the singular honor of being elected at once to the episcopal throne of London, and the archiepiscopal throne of York; the latter of which he accepted. His brother, Richard, wore at the same time the mitre of Bayeux.--Douvres was the principal place of one of the seven baronies, which formed the episcopal manse of the bishops of Bayeux. During the thirteenth, and the two following centuries, it was also selected for their country-seat. Within its limits stands the chapel of the _Délivrande_,[125] said to have been founded by St. Regnobert, the second bishop of the diocese, and still held in the highest repute for its sanctity.
Of the church of Fontaine-le-Henri, the architecture is decidedly Norman, and is distinguished by a bold and noble style, resembling in its general character, as well as in its individual features, the abbatial churches of St. George, and of the Trinity. Hence, though no record is left of the actual founder, there is little room for doubt as to the æra of the foundation. It may be observed on this occasion, that in Normandy, as in England, it very seldom happens that information is to be obtained on these particulars, when the same individual united in his person the characters of lord of the village and patron of the living. It was only where benefices were in the hands of religious houses, that events so generally unimportant as the building and repairing of village churches, were considered deserving of being recorded.