Lectures on the rise and development of medieval architecture; vol. 2Scott, George Gilbert, Sir
History
Lectures on the rise and development of medieval architecture; vol. 2
Scott, George Gilbert, Sir
Architecture, Gothic; Architecture, Medieval
Of doorways, windows, etc., I will not now treat, though some of the
latter are of great beauty. Were it not that I limit myself during the
present lecture to buildings begun during the eleventh century, I should
here have noticed Peterborough, whose eastern end was a manifest
imitation of that of Abbot Symeon.
Abbot Symeon died at a hundred years of age in 1093. Of what a long
course of events had he been a contemporary or an eye-witness! He might
have remembered the congratulations called forth by the failure of the
prognostications of the world’s coming to an end in the year 1000. A
relative of the ducal family of Normandy, he might have witnessed, when
in early manhood, the arrival of Ethelred and Emma with the destined
king, confessor, and saint, when they fled from the ravages of King
Sweyn; and he might have even directed the education of the
Confessor-King. In architecture, he might have watched almost from its
rise the development of the Norman style, and have assisted, when at
early middle age, at the consecration of Duchess Judith’s Abbey Church
at Bernay, which is now our earliest specimen of what was then the
rising art of Normandy, and long subsequently became that of England,
and of which he and his brother,--now in their old age,--had become
respectively the founders of two of the noblest examples.
Before describing any other of the remaining works of the period, I will
carry you in imagination to one which has long ceased to exist. St.
Paul’s Cathedral in London was founded, as we have seen, early in the
seventh century, by Mellitus, the missionary bishop, and by Sebert, king
of Essex. Having been destroyed by fire, its rebuilding was commenced in
1083 by Bishop Maurice. The structure then commenced was of the most
ample dimensions. The elementary scale was larger even than that of
Winchester, for the width of the nave from centre to centre of the
pillars was 46 ft. 6 in., while that of Winchester was 42 ft. 6 in. The
nave was twelve bays in length, and each transept had five bays,
exceeding in this respect (so far as I know) any other Norman church,
excepting the Abbey at Bury St. Edmund’s. The transepts were doubly
aisled. The choir had, probably, four bays, but of its eastern
termination I know nothing.
The central tower must have been nearly 60 ft. square, and the length
of the transept 300 ft. The choir was raised high on an extensive crypt
(the successor, in all probability, of that which I have conjectured
Bishop Mellitus had constructed on the model of that of St. Peter’s at
Rome). Whether the two western towers, placed beyond the outer walls of
the aisles, like those of Abbot Paul at St. Alban’s, were of the
original date, I am uncertain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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