Architectural Antiquities of Normandy
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Title: Architectural Antiquities of Normandy
Author: John Sell Cotman
Dawson Turner
Release date: October 4, 2009 [eBook #30172]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY ***
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 FIRST.
[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.
[Illustration]
PREFACE.
An artist, engaged in the illustration of the Architectural Antiquities
of England, could scarcely do otherwise than often cast a wistful look
towards the opposite shores of Normandy; and such would particularly be
the case, if, like Mr. Cotman, to a strong attachment to his profession
and the subject, he should chance to add a residence in Norfolk. This
portion of the kingdom of the East-Angles, in its language and in its
customs, but especially in the remains of its ancient ecclesiastical
architecture, abounds in vestiges of its Teutonic colonists. The richly
ornamented door-ways of its village churches have, in particular, long
been the theme of admiration among antiquaries. Bred up in the midst of
these, and warmly partaking in the admiration of them, Mr. Cotman
devoted his pencil and his graver to the diffusion of their fame. Common
report, aided by the suffrages of the learned, and in some degree by
locality, designated them as Saxon: at the same time, when they were
compared with what is left in Britain, of workmanship avowedly Norman,
the points of dissimilarity appeared trifling or altogether vanished.
Was it then to be inferred that, between Norman and Saxon architecture,
there was really no difference; and, carrying the inference one step
farther, that the hordes of barbarians denominated by these different
appellations, although they might not have embarked at the same port,
were only cognate tribes of one common origin, if not in reality the
same? The solution of the first of these questions, the only one
immediately in view, seemed best to be sought in that province of
France, where the Norman power had been most permanently established,
and where it was therefore reasonably to be expected, that genuine
productions of Norman art might, if any where, be found. With this view,
Mr. Cotman crossed the channel; and the result of three successive
journies, in the years 1817, 1818, and 1820, is here submitted to the
public.
Those who find pleasure in inquiries of this description, will join in
the regret, that an undertaking like the present was so long delayed.
Incalculable had been the advantages, had it but commenced previously
to the period of the French revolution. That fearful storm burst with
tremendous violence upon the castles of barons, the palaces of kings,
and the temples of religion. Many of the most sumptuous edifices, which
had mocked the hand of time, and had been respected amidst the ravages
of foreign or domestic warfare, were then swept from the face of the
earth. Others, degraded, deserted, neglected, and dilapidated, are at
this moment hastening fast to their decay. Yet no small portion of what
is valuable has been happily left. The two royal abbeys of Caen, though
shorn of much of their former grandeur, are still nearly entire. Château
Gaillard, the pride of Richard's lion heart, and the noble castles of
Arques and of Falaise, retain sufficient of their ancient magnificence,
to testify what they must have been in the days of their splendor: the
towns and châteaus, which were the cradles of the Harcourts, Vernons,
Tancarvilles, Gurneys, Bruces, Bohuns, Grenvilles, St. Johns, and many
others of the most illustrious English families, are still in existence;
and, of more modern date, when the British Edwards and Henrys resumed
the Norman sceptre, numerous buildings of the highest beauty are every
where to be met with. In his researches after these, Mr. Cotman had the
advantage of being assisted by the kindness of three of the most
distinguished antiquaries of the present day, M. le Prevost, M. Rondeau,
and M. de Gerville, but particularly by the last, whose friendly help
has likewise extended towards the preparing of the letter-press for many
of the articles from the western part of the province. It were
ungrateful not to acknowledge the assistance derived from Mr. Cohen, in
the same department. The value of his aid, which has been most freely
contributed, can be duly appreciated by those alone who have had
opportunities of judging of the accuracy and extent of his knowledge.
In the selection of subjects for engraving, attention has been
principally paid to two points, excellence in the objects themselves,
and certainty as to dates; but the greatest stress has been laid upon
the latter. The author of a work which professes to be in any degree
didactic, can never impress too strongly upon his mind the value of the
Roman precept, "prodesse quàm delectare;" and an artist, accustomed by
his habits to the contemplation of the beautiful and the picturesque,
requires above all men to be warned on this head. Many of the buildings
here represented, might easily have been exchanged for others, more
perfect, more elegant, or more ornamented; but it is hoped that they
could not have been exchanged for those that would have been more
instructive. The main object of the publication has been to exhibit a
series of specimens of Norman architecture, as they actually exist in
Normandy itself; and, by taking those whose dates are best defined, to
enable the antiquary and the amateur of other countries, not only to
know the state of this extraordinary people, as to their arts, at the
epoch of their greatest glory, but also to compare what is in Normandy
with what they find at home. Another volume, devoted to the illustration
of the same description of architecture, in the south of France, in
Italy, and in Sicily, would fill a hiatus, whose existence has long been
regretted. In Germany, Denmark, and Sweden, it is to be feared that
little remains; and, thanks to the spirit of English artists and to the
patronage of the English public, what is in this country is already in
a great measure recorded. To an Englishman, it is hoped it may be a
source of venial self-congratulation, that the first publication upon
Norman architecture originates in his own island: he will likewise
probably not be displeased to find, that this collection of the finest
remaining specimens of Norman art upon the continent, contains nothing
which he cannot rival, indeed surpass, at home.
But, at the same time that the principal end proposed in this work has
been to set before the public those edifices, whether sacred, military,
or domestic, which were erected during the age most properly designated
as Norman, the æra anterior to the union of the ducal coronet with the
crown of France, it has been felt that, in whatever light the
publication might be regarded, it would be incomplete without the
addition of other buildings of a subsequent period. A farther number of
specimens has therefore been admitted, conducting the series through the
style of architecture, commonly termed Gothic, down to the time when
that style finally disappeared before an Italian model, more or less
debased.
In the descriptive portion of these volumes, attention has been almost
exclusively directed to two points, the historical and the
architectural. On the latter of these, so much has been said under each
separate article, that whatever might be added in this place could be
little more than repetition; and the history of Normandy, from the
establishment of the dukedom to the beginning of the thirteenth
century, is so interwoven with that of England, that it has been
considered needless here to insert an epitome of it, as had at first
been intended. In lieu of this, a Table is subjoined, exhibiting the
succession, marriages and progeny of the Norman Princes, copied from Du
Moulin; and such Table can scarcely be regarded otherwise than useful,
as bringing the whole under the eye in a single point of view: a
Chronological Index, it is hoped, may in a great measure answer the same
purpose as to architecture. It is only justice, however, to add, that,
in this Index, much has necessarily been left to conjecture; and, where
it is so, the author naturally expects that others will occasionally
differ from him in opinion; especially as no opportunity is afforded him
of detailing the grounds whereby he has formed his own. Upon the subject
most likely to create doubts and difficulties, the very early date
assigned to the employment of the pointed arch, he begs the attention of
the reader to those authorities, which, in his judgment, warrant the
conclusion he has drawn. If mistaken in this, or in any other point, he
will be most thankful for correction; and, in the language of that
author, who is, as he long has been and probably always will be, more
than any other the object of quotation, he takes leave, with the
well-known valedictory lines,
"Vive, vale; si quid novisti rectius istis,
Candidus imperti; si non, his utere mecum."
[Illustration: CHURCH OF QUERQUEVILLE NEAR CHERBOURG]
SUBJECTS CHRONOLOGICALLY ARRANGED.
In the following list, an Obelisk is affixed to the dates which depend
upon conjecture. Those preceded by an Asterisk denote the year of the
dedication of the building.
NO. OF PLATES. DATE.
53. _Rouen_, Crypt in the Church of St. Gervais before + 1000
13. _St. Sauveur le Vicomte_, Castle before + 1000
69. _Lillebonne_, Castle + 1000
48. _Caen_, Chapel in the Castle + 1000
89, 90. _Falaise_, Castle--Keep of + 1000
83. _St. Sanson sur Rille_, Church + 1020
67. _Anisy_, Church + 1030
68. _Perriers_, Church--Nave of + 1030
97. _Cerisy_, Abbey Church 1040
95. _Mount St. Michael_, Abbey Church--Nave of 1048
87, 88. _St. Lo_, Church of the Holy Cross--(some
of the sculpture probably of the ninth century) + 1050
1. _Arques_, Castle + 1050
84. _Foullebec_, Western door-way of the Church + 1050
70. _Briquebec_, Castle--(the multangular tower
probably of the fourteenth century) + 1050
5-10. _St. Georges de Bocherville_, Abbey Church 1050
92-94. _Coutances_, Cathedral * 1056
17. _Tamerville_, Church + 1060
44-46. _Léry_, Church + 1060
54. _Rouen_, Church of St. Paul + 1060
73-75. _Lisieux_, Church of St. Peter 1060
55, 56. _Caen_, Church of St. Nicholas 1066
24-33. _Ditto_, Abbey Church of the Holy Trinity * 1066
82. _Montivilliers_, Abbey Church--Towers and door-way + 1066
2, 3. _Jumieges_, Abbey Church * 1067
60, 61. _Fontaine-le-Henri_, Church + 1070
21-23. _Caen_, Abbey Church of St. Stephen * 1077
57. _Cheux_, Church + 1080
98. _Oyestraham_, Church + 1080
58, 59. _Bieville_, Church + 1080
* 33. _Caen_, Tombstone of Queen Matilda 1083
37. _Haute Allemagne_, Tower of Church + 1100
16. _Than_, Church + 1100
18. _Caen_, Tower of the Church of St. Michel de
Vaucelles + 1100
12. _Grâville_, Church 1100
99, 100. _Séez_, Cathedral * 1126
14. _St. Sauveur le Vicomte_, Abbey Church + 1130
96. _Mount St. Michael_, Knights' Hall 1130
39-41. _Gournay_, Church of St. Hildebert--Interior of
the nave, and capitals of columns + 1140
20. _Statue of William the Conqueror_ + 1150
91. _Creully_, Church + 1150
11. _St. Georges de Bocherville_, Sculpture in
the Chapter House 1170
42, 43. _Rouen_, Chapel of the Hospital of St. Julien + 1190
80, 81. _Château Gaillard_ 1195
51, 52. _Rouen Cathedral_, West front--Northern Tower 1200
47. _Colomby_, Church + 1200
68. _Perriers_, Church--Choir + 1230
38. _Gournay_, Church of St. Hildebert--West front + 1250
4. _Jumieges_, Entrance to the Knights' Hall + 1280
76. _Rouen_, Church of St. Ouen 1340
71. _Fécamp_, Southern entrance of the Church of
St. Stephen + 1340
35. _Dieppe_, Church of St. Jacques--Western
front--(the tower probably fifty years earlier) + 1350
72. _Eu_, Screen in the Church of St. Lawrence + 1360
66. _Tréport_, Church 1370
19. _Caen_, South Porch of the Church of
St. Michel de Vaucelles + 1380
82. _Montivilliers_, Abbey Church--Chapter-House 1390
36. _Dieppe_, Eastern end of the Church of St. Jacques + 1400
79. _Louviers_, South porch of the Church + 1420
85, 86. _Tancarville_, Castle + 1420
89, 90. _Falaise_, Castle--Talbot's Tower 1430
34. _Dieppe_, Castle + 1450
51, 52. _Rouen Cathedral_, Western front--Southern Tower 1485
95. _Mount St. Michael_, Abbey Church--Choir 1500
78. _Rouen_, Palace of Justice 1500
77. _Ditto_, Fountain of the Stone Cross 1500
68. _Caen_, House in the Rue St. Jean + 1500
62, 63. _Fontaine-le-Henri_, Château + 1500
49, 50. _Rouen Cathedral_, Southern Transept 1500
51, 52. _Ditto_, Western Front--Porch 1509
15. _Andelys_, Great House + 1530
64. _Rouen_, House in the Place de la Pucelle + 1540
PLATES IN THE FIRST VOLUME.
PLATE.
1. Castle of Arques to face page 1
2. Abbey Church of Jumieges, West Front 2
3. -- -- -- -- Parts of the Nave 3
4. -- -- -- -- Arch on the West Front 3
5. Abbey Church of St. Georges de Bocherville, West Front 4
6. -- -- -- -- -- -- General View 4
7. -- -- -- -- -- -- West Entrance 5
8. -- -- -- -- -- -- South Transept 5
9. -- -- -- -- -- -- Sculptured Capitals 5
10. -- -- -- -- -- -- Ditto 6
11. -- -- -- -- -- -- Sculptures in the
Cloisters 6
12. Church of Grâville 7
13. Castle of St. Sauveur le Vicomte 8
14. Abbey Church of St. Sauveur le Vicomte 11
15. Great House at Andelys 13
16. Church of Than 16
17. Church of Tamerville 17
18. Tower of the Church of St. Michel de Vaucelles, Caen 18
19. North Porch of Ditto 18
20. Statue of William, Duke of Normandy 20
21. \ Abbey Church of St. Etienne, Caen, West Front 21
22. /
23. -- -- -- -- Compartments of the Nave 24
24. Abbey Church of the Holy Trinity, Caen 27
25. -- -- -- -- East End 32
26. -- -- -- -- East End of Interior 32
27. -- -- -- -- North Side of the Choir 32
28. -- -- -- -- Arches under the central Tower 33
29. -- -- -- -- East Side of South Transept 33
30. -- -- -- -- Interior of the Nave 33
31. -- -- -- -- South Side of the Nave 34
32. -- -- -- -- Crypt 34
33. -- -- -- -- Capitals 34
33.* Inscription on the Tomb of Queen Matilda 35
34. Castle of Dieppe 35
35. Church of St. Jacques, at Dieppe, West Front 38
36. -- -- -- -- East End 38
37. Tower of the Church of Haute Allemagne, near Caen 39
38. Collegiate Church of St. Hildebert, at Gournay, West Front 39
39. -- -- -- -- -- -- View across
the Nave 41
40. -- -- -- -- -- -- Capitals 42
41. -- -- -- -- -- -- Capitals 42
42. Chapel in the Hospital of St. Julien, near Rouen, South Side 43
43. -- -- -- -- -- -- Interior 44
44. Church of Léry, near Pont de l'Arche, General View 45
45. -- -- -- -- -- West Front 46
46. -- -- -- -- -- Interior 46
47. Elevation of the Church of Colomby, near Valognes 47
48. Chapel in the Castle at Caen 48
49. \ Cathedral Church of Notre Dame, of Rouen, South Transept 50
50. /
51. \ -- -- -- -- -- -- West Front 51
52. /
53. Crypt in the Church of St. Gervais, at Rouen 56
54. Church of St. Paul, at Rouen, East End 57
GENEALOGY OF THE NORMAN DUKES.
===============
N. PRINCE OF LOWER DENMARK.
|
|
+----------+-----------+
| |
| GOURIN, killed
| in Denmark.
|
2nd wife, POPPEIA, ROLLO, 1st Duke = 1st wife, GISLA, daughter
daughter of Berenger, = of Normandy. of Charles the Simple,
Count of the Bessin. | A.D. 911. King of France.
|
+---+-----------------------+
| |
SPROTE, daughter of = WILLIAM, LONGA-SPATHA, GERLOC, wife to
the Count of Senlis. | 2nd Duke of Normandy. William, Count of
| A.D. 917. Poitiers.
+--------+
|
1st wife, EMMA, daughter = RICHARD I. 3rd = 2nd wife, GONNOR,
of Hugues le Grand, Duke Duke of Normandy. | originally his
of France. A.D. 944. | concubine.
|
+-----+-----------------+-----------+------+------+-------------+
| | | | | |
| ROBERT, MAUGER, EMMA, HAVOISE, MATILDA,
| Archbishop of Count of Queen of wife of wife of
| Rouen, Count Corbeil. England. Geoffrey, Eudes,
| of Evreux. Duke of Count of
+---------------------+ Brittany. Chartres.
|
2nd wife, = RICHARD II. called = 1st wife, JUDITH, da.
PAPHIE, or | THE GOOD, 4th | of Geoffrey, Duke of
POPPEA. | Duke of Normandy. | Brittany.
| A.D. 996. |
+------------+-+ |
| | |
MAUGER, WILLIAM OF ARQUES, |
Archbishop Count of Talou. |
of Rouen. |
+------------+---------+--------+---+--------+--------+--+
| | | | | | |
RICHARD III. WILLIAM, ALICE, ELEANOR, PAPIE, | N. died
5th Duke of Monk at wife of wife of wife | unmarried.
Normandy. Fécamp. Rinaldo, Baldwin, of Guibert |
A.D. 1026. Count of Count of of St. |
| Burgundy. Flanders. Vallery. |
| |
NICOLAS, Abbot of St. Ouen: and two daughters, one |
of them married to Walter of St. Vallery, the other |
to the Viscount of Bayeux:--all illegitimate. |
+----------------------------+
|
ROBERT, 6th = ARLETTE,
Duke of | daughter
Normandy. | of Foubert,
A.D. 1028. | citizen of
| Falaise.
|
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR, = MATILDA, daughter
7th Duke of Normandy, | of Baldwin, Count
and King of England. | of Flanders.
A.D. 1035. |
+-------+-------------+--------------+----+--+------+------+------+-----+
| | | | | | | | |
| RICHARD, WILLIAM RUFUS, | CECILIA. | | | |
| killed in King of England. | CONSTANCE. | | |
| the New | ALICE. | |
| Forest. +---------------+ AGATHA. |
| | |
| N. his = ROBERT, COURT-HOSE, = SIBILLA, |
| MISTRESS. | 8th Duke of | daughter |
| | Normandy. | of William, |
| | A.D. 1087. | Count of |
| | | Conversans. |
| +--------+------+--------+ +----------------------------+ |
| | | | | |
| RICHARD, WILLIAM, N. wife to N. da. of Marquis = WILLIAM, |
| died from a killed in Hélie de Renier, and sister Count of |
| surfeit, in the St. Saen. to the Queen of Flanders. |
| hunting. Crusades. France. +------------+
| |
| ADELA. = STEPHEN,
| | Count of
| | Blois.
| +------------+----------+---------------------+--+
| | | | |
| WILLIAM. THEOBALD, HENRY, STEPHEN, = MATILDA of
| Earl of Bishop of King of | Boulogne.
| Blois. Winchester. England. |
| +---------------+
| |
| EUSTACE, 10th Duke of
| Normandy. A.D. 1135.
|
+------------------------------------+
|
1st wife, = HENRY I. King = 2nd wife,
MATILDA, da. | of England, ADELIZA,
of Malcolm, | and 9th Duke daughter of
King of | of Normandy. the Duke of
Scotland. | A.D. 1107. Louvain.
+---------+-----------------+
| |
WILLIAM ADELIN, 1st hus. = MATILDA. = 2nd hus.
drowned after his HENRY V. | GEOFFREY,
marriage. Emperor. | Count of
| Anjou, and
| 11th Duke of
| Normandy.
| A.D. 1143.
+-------------------+------------+
| | |
ELEANOR, = HENRY PLANTAGENET, GEOFFREY, WILLIAM.
Countess of | 12th Count of
Poitiers and | Duke of Normandy. Nantes.
Duchess of | A.D. 1150:
Aquitaine. | Count of Anjou,
| Touraine,
| and Maine, and King
| of England.
+-----------++--------------+----------------+-----------+
| | | | |
WILLIAM. | RICHARD COEUR- | JOHN LACKLAND, King
| DE-LION, King of | of England, 14th
MARGARET, = HENRY THE England, and 13th | and last Duke of
of France. YOUNG, Duke of Normandy. | Normandy. A.D. 1199.
crowned King A.D. 1189. |
of England. +-----+
|
GEOFFREY, Count = CONSTANCE,
of Brittany. | daughter of
+----------+ Conan, Duke of
| Brittany.
|
ARTHUR, Duke of Brittany,
killed by his uncle John.
THE
ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES
OF
NORMANDY.
PLATE I.
CASTLE OF ARQUES.
[Illustration: Plate 1. CASTLE OF ARQUES.]
The town of Arques, situated in the immediate vicinity of Dieppe, is a
spot consecrated by the historical muse, and one upon which a Frenchman
always dwells with pleasure, as the place that fixed the sceptre in the
hands of the most popular monarch of the nation, Henry IV.
The sovereign, fleeing from the superior forces of the league, here, in
the very confines of his kingdom, finally resolved to make his last
stand; urged to the measure by the Marshal de Biron, but doubtful in his
own mind, whether it would not be the wisest as well as the safest plan,
to seek refuge in the friendly ports of England. Reduced to the utmost
extremity, "a king without a kingdom, a husband without a wife, and a
warrior without money," he stopped at Arques, in a state bordering upon
despair; and yet, when the Count de Belin, who was brought in prisoner
shortly before the battle, assured his majesty, that, in two hours, an
army of forty thousand men would be upon him, and that he saw no forces
there to resist them, the king replied, with that gaity of mind that
never forsook him, "You see not all, M. Belin, for you reckon not God,
and my just claim, who fight for me."
Henry's whole army consisted of only three thousand infantry and six
hundred cavalry: the hostile forces amounted to more than thirty
thousand, commanded by the Duke of Mayenne, one of the ablest leaders of
the league, but the Fabius rather than the Marcellus of the party. The
occasion, however, needed the sword rather than the buckler: Henry's
soldiers fought with the courage of desperation; but every thing seemed
lost, when, according to the account given by Sully, the fog, which had
been very thick all the morning, cleared suddenly away, and afforded the
garrison in the castle of Arques a full view of the enemy's army,
against which they discharged four pieces of artillery with such effect,
as to kill great numbers of them. Their progress was thus effectually
stopped; and the guns from the castle continuing to play upon them, they
were soon thrown into disorder, and retreated to their original
position.
From this time, the aspect of the king's affairs changed: his well-known
laconic epistle to Crillon, "hang thyself, brave Crillon, for we have
fought at Arques without thee," shewed his own sense of the important
results that might be expected from the battle. The most important of
all was, that he was immediately joined by an auxiliary force of four
thousand English and Scotch, sent by Queen Elizabeth to his aid; and
that, almost immediately afterwards, another, still more considerable
reinforcement, was brought him by the Count of Soissons, Henry of
Orleans, Duke of Longueville, D'Aumont, and Biron; so that the Duke of
Mayenne was obliged to retreat in his turn, and Henry saw himself within
a few days under the walls of the capital; in a situation to dictate
terms to his rebellious subjects.
The castle of Arques had on this occasion essentially served the royal
cause; but it seems to have been suffered from that time forwards to
fall into decay. All mouldering, however, and ruined as it is, its
walls and towers may yet for many centuries bid defiance to wind and
weather, unless active measures are used for their demolition.
At the revolution the castle became national property, and as such was
sold: it has now fallen into the hands of a lady who resides in the
neighbouring town.
The present plate, which represents the principal entrance, will serve
to convey some idea of the general character of the building, as well as
of the immense size of the massy towers, and of the crumbling appearance
of their surface. Two piers only remain of the draw-bridge, by which
they were approached; and the three successive arches of the gateway are
torn into little more than shapeless rents. It would be very difficult
to convey, by means of any engraving, an adequate idea of the grand
character of the whole ruin, or of its imposing situation. Still more
difficult would be the attempt to represent its masonry. The walls have
certainly been in most places, and probably in all, covered with a
facing of brick, of comparatively modern date; and in some parts this
facing still remains, or, where it is torn off, nothing but rubble is
visible. In other places they appear to have been constructed of
alternate layers of brick and flint, disposed with the same regularity
as in Roman buildings; and the thin form of these bricks leads also to
the impression that they are of Roman workmanship.
If such a supposition may be allowed to be well founded, the first
establishment of a fortress in this situation is probably but little
posterior to the Christian æra; and many antiquarians are disposed to
believe that such was really the case. At the same time, even allowing
the truth of this surmise in its fullest extent, it is most probable
that the Roman castle had fallen into ruin and disuse long before the
Norman conquest.
Both William of Jumieges and the chronicle of St. Wandrille expressly
mention, that William, son to Duke Richard II. received from his nephew,
the conqueror, the earldom of Arques, and built a castle there. Other
writers ascribe the origin of the fortress to the eighth century, and
others to the latter part of the twelfth. Nothing is now left
sufficiently perfect to determine the point, nor any thing that can
justly be considered decisive of the style of its architecture.
The situation of the castle is very bold: it crowns the extremity of a
ridge of chalk hills of considerable height, which commencing to the
west of Dieppe, and terminating at this spot, have full command of the
valley below. The fosse which surrounds the walls is wide and deep. The
outline of the fortress is oval, but not regularly so; and it is varied
by towers of uncertain shape, placed at unequal distances. The two
entrance towers, and those nearest to them to the north and south, are
considerably larger than the rest. One of these larger lateral towers[1]
is of a most unusual form. It appears as if the original intention of
the architect had been to make it circular; but that, changing his
design in the middle of his work, he had attached to it a triangular
appendage, probably by way of a bastion. Three others adjoining this are
square, and indeed appear to partake as much of the character of
buttresses as of towers.
The castle is internally divided into two wards, the first of which, on
entering, is every where rough with the remains of foundations: the
inner, which is by far the largest, is approached by a square gate-house
with high embattled walls, and contains towards its farther end the
quadrangular keep, whose shell alone is standing. The walls of this are
of great height: in their perfect state they were carefully faced with
large square stones, but these are principally torn away. The crypts
beneath the castle are spacious, and may still be traversed for a
considerable length.
NOTES:
[1] See _Account of a Tour in Normandy_, I. p. 37, t. 3.
PLATES II. III. IV.
ABBEY CHURCH OF JUMIEGES.
Before the revolution despoiled France of her monastic institutions, the
right bank of the Seine, from Rouen to the British Channel, displayed an
almost uninterrupted line of establishments of this nature. Within a
space of little more than forty miles, were included the abbeys of St.
Wandrille, Jumieges, Ducler, and St. Georges de Bocherville.
[Illustration: Plate 2. ABBEY CHURCH OF JUMIEGES.
_West Front._]
The most illustrious of these was Jumieges; it occupied a delightful
situation in a peninsula, formed by the curvature of the stream, where
the convent had existed from the reign of Clovis II. and had, with only
a temporary interruption, caused by the invasion of the Normans,
maintained, for eleven centuries, an even course of renown; celebrated
alike for the beauty of its buildings, the extent of its possessions,
and the number and sanctity of its inmates. Philibert, second abbot of
Rebais, in the diocese of Meaux, was the founder of this monastery. He
migrated hither with only a handfull of monks; but the community
increased with such surprising rapidity, that in the time of Alcadrus,
his immediate successor, the number was already swelled to nine hundred,
and, except upon the occasion just mentioned, this amount never appears
to have experienced any sensible diminution.
The monastery of Jumieges reckoned among its abbots men of the most
illustrious families of France. In early times, Hugh, the grandson of
Charlemagne, held the pastoral staff: it afterwards passed through the
hands of Louis d'Amboise, brother to the cardinal, and of different
members of the houses of Clermont, Luxembourg, d'Este, and Bourbon.
The abbatial church, as it now stands, (if indeed it does now stand, for
in 1818, when drawings were made for these plates, its demolition was
proceeding with rapidity,) was chiefly built in the eleventh century, by
Robert the Abbot, who was translated from Jumieges to the bishopric of
London, and thence to the archiepiscopal throne of Canterbury. The
western front (_see plate 2_) is supposed to be certainly of that
period, and all very nearly of the same æra, though the southern tower
is known to be somewhat the most modern. The striking difference in the
plan of these towers, might justly lead to the inference, that there was
also a material difference in their dates, and that they were not both
of them part of the original plan; but there do not appear to be any
grounds for such a supposition. On the other hand, the contrary seems to
be well established; and those who are best acquainted with the
productions of Norman architects, will scarcely be surprised at
anomalies of this nature.
[Illustration: Plate 3. ABBEY CHURCH OF JUMIEGES.
_Parts of the Nave._]
The interior of the nave (_plate 3_) is also a work of the same period,
except the lofty pillars that support the cornice, and the symbols of
the evangelists that are placed near the windows of the clerestory.
These were additions made towards the latter end of the seventeenth
century. The pillars were rendered necessary by the bad state of the
roof: the symbols were added only by way of ornament. They are of
beautiful sculpture, and, as such, have lately been engraved upon a
larger scale, in an _Account of a Tour in Normandy, in 1818_, (II. p.
27) which work also contains a general view of the ruins of Jumieges,
and a representation of some ancient trefoil arches that are very
remarkable.
Of the square central tower one side only is now remaining. This tower
was despoiled of its spire in 1557. The Choir and Lady-Chapel are almost
entirely gone. They were of pointed architecture; and it appears that
they were erected during some of the latter years of the thirteenth
century, or at the commencement of the fourteenth.
In the Lady-Chapel lay the heart of Agnes Sorel, who died at the
neighbouring village of Mesnil, on the ninth of February, 1450, while
her royal lover, Charles VII. was residing at Jumieges, intent upon the
siege of Honfleur. Her body was interred in the collegiate church of
Loches in Touraine. Upon her monument at Jumieges was originally placed
her effigy, in the act of offering her heart to the Virgin. But this
statue was destroyed by the Huguenots, who are said to have been guilty
of the most culpable excesses in this monastery. Agnes' tomb remained
till the revolution, when it was swept away with all the rest, and,
among others, with one of great historical curiosity in the neighbouring
church dedicated to St. Peter; for the convent of Jumieges contained
two churches, the larger under the invocation of the Holy Virgin, and a
smaller by its side, sacred to the chief of the apostles.
The tomb here alluded to was called by the name of _le tombeau des
Enerves_, or _de Gemellis_; and so much importance was attached to it,
that it has even been supposed that the Latin name of Jumieges,
_Gemeticum_, was a corruption from the word _gemellis_. Upon the
monument were figures of two young noblemen, intended, as it is said, to
represent twin sons of Clovis and Bathilda, who, for sedition, were
punished by being hamstrung and confined in this monastery.
[Illustration: Plate 4. ABBEY OF JUMIEGES.
_Arch on the West Front._]
The third plate of Jumieges, which is copied from a drawing by Miss
Elizabeth Turner, represents a noble arch-way, the entrance to a porch
that leads to a gallery adjoining the former cloisters, and known by the
name of the _Knight's Hall_. It is a remarkably fine specimen of a very
early pointed arch, still preserving all the ornaments of the
semi-circular style, and displaying them in great richness and beauty.
There is no authority for the date of this gallery: nor does it appear
that any historical record is preserved respecting it. The style of the
architecture would lead to the referring of it, without much hesitation,
to the latter part of the thirteenth century.
PLATES V.-XI.
ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. GEORGES DE BOCHERVILLE.
[Illustration: Plate 5. ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. GEORGES DE BOCHERVILLE.
_West Front._]
In a work like the present, devoted expressly to the elucidation of the
Architectural Antiquities of Normandy, and more particularly intended to
illustrate that style of architecture which prevailed during the time
when the province was governed by its own Dukes, it has appeared
desirable to select one or two objects, and to exhibit them, as far as
possible, in their various details.
Under this idea, the abbey church of St. Georges de Bocherville has been
taken from the upper division of the province, and that of the Holy
Trinity at Caen from the lower. Both of these are noble edifices; both
are in nearly the same state in which they were left by the Norman
architects; and both of them are buildings whose dates may be cited with
positive certainty.
The abbey of St. Georges was situated upon an eminence on the right bank
of the Seine, two leagues below Rouen. It owed its origin to Ralph de
Tancarville, lord of the village, about the year 1050. A rage for the
building and endowing of monastic establishments prevailed at that
period throughout Normandy; and this nobleman, who had been the
preceptor to Duke William in his youth, and was afterwards his
chamberlain, unwilling to be outdone by his compeers in deeds of piety
and magnificence, founded this monastery and built the church in honor
of the Virgin and St. George. Both the conqueror and his queen assisted
the pious labour by endowments to the convent; and Ordericus Vitalis
relates how, upon the decease of the monarch, the monks of St. Gervais,
at Rouen, where he died, made a solemn procession to the church of St.
Georges de Bocherville, there to offer up their prayers for the soul of
their departed sovereign.
At the revolution the abbatial church was fortunate enough to become
parochial, and it thus escaped the ruin in which nearly the whole of the
monastic buildings throughout France were at that time involved. Its
previous good fortune in having been so very little exposed to injury or
to alteration, is even more to be wondered at.
[Illustration: Plate 6. ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. GEORGES DE BOCHERVILLE.
_General view._]
The general view of the church, (_plate 6_) for the drawing of which the
author is indebted to Miss Elizabeth Turner, is calculated to convey a
faithful idea of the effect of the whole. Whatever is here seen is
purely Norman, except the spire; and upon the subject of spires
antiquaries are far from being agreed: some regarding them as a
comparatively modern invention, while others, on the contrary, believe
that the use of them may be traced to a very remote period. The
semi-circular east end, with a roof of high pitch, the windows separated
by shallow buttresses, or by slender cylindrical pillars, and the
grotesque corbel-table, are, all of them, characteristics of the early
Norman style: a greater peculiarity of the present building, and one
indeed that is found in but few others, lies in the small semi-circular
chapels attached to the sides of the transepts.
The west front (_plate 5_) exhibits a deviation from the general style
of the church, in the two towers with which it is flanked. The shape of
the arches in these plainly indicates a later æra; but they are early
instances of pointed architecture. The grand entrance is displayed upon
a larger scale in the seventh plate. The ornaments to this door-way are
rich and varied, and there are but few finer portals in Normandy. But in
specimens of this description the duchy is far from being able to bear a
comparison with England. It would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to
assign a satisfactory reason for this circumstance; and yet the fact is
so obvious, that it cannot fail to have occurred to every one who has
paid any attention to the architecture of the two countries.
In the interior of the church there is scarcely an architectural anomaly
to be discovered. The only alterations are those which were rendered
necessary by the injuries done to the building in the religious wars,
during the sixteenth century; and the repairs on that occasion extended
only to a portion of the roof, and of the upper part of the wall on the
south side of the nave. As a satisfactory specimen of the character of
the whole of the inside, the south transept has been selected for the
subject of the eighth plate. In this, however, as well as in the
opposite one, there is a peculiarity which requires to be noticed; that,
within the church, at the distance of a few feet from the end wall, is
placed a column, from which an arch springs on either side, occupying
the whole width of the transept, and thus forming an open screen. The
screen terminates, above, in a plain flat wall, which is carried to but
a very short distance higher than the arches, so as to be nearly on a
line with the triforium. The same arrangement exists also in some other
churches in Normandy; as in that of the royal abbey of St. Stephen at
Caen, in the abbey church at Cerisy, in the abbey church at Fécamp, and
in the cathedral at Séez. In the two last mentioned buildings, it is
found connected with the pointed architecture. At Cerisy, a church,
erected A.D. 1030, by Robert, father to the Conqueror, the screen is
surmounted by a row of seventeen semi-circular arches, which rise to
about half the height of the columns of the triforium, and form an
elegant parapet. It is possible that there may have been originally some
decoration of the same kind at St. Georges. At Fécamp, the screen is
carried up to the roof by three tiers, each consisting of three arches;
and the recess thus made, is still used as a chapel, having an altar at
the east end, and, in the centre, an ancient font. Such may have been
originally the case at St. Georges; and thus we may account for the
small semi-circular additions to the transepts, one of which is visible
in the general view of the church. Mr. Cotman, however, suggests another
idea, which may have entered into the mind of the architect of St.
Georges; that, by means of this screen at the end of the transepts, the
aisles of the nave would receive apparent length; from the columns,
which form the screen, ranging in a line with those of the outer walls
of the church. Among our English ecclesiastical buildings, there are
similar screens in the transepts of Winchester cathedral[2], where the
portion of the church that remains in its original state, greatly
resembles, in its architecture, the church of St. Georges de
Bocherville, and is known to have been erected at nearly the same
date[3].
[Illustration: Plate 7. ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. GEORGES DE BOCHERVILLE.
_West entrance._]
[Illustration: Plate 8. ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. GEORGES DE BOCHERVILLE.
_South Transept._]
[Illustration: Plate 9. ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. GEORGES DE BOCHERVILLE.
_Sculptured Capitals._]
Within the spandrils of the arches, just mentioned, are two highly
curious bas-reliefs, figured here in the _tenth plate_, and marked A and
B. They are on square tablets, cut out of the solid stone, in the same
manner as the blocks of a stone engraving; the rims being left elevated,
so as to form rude frames. One of them represents a prelate, who holds a
crozier in his left hand, while the first two fingers of the right are
elevated in the action of giving the blessing. Below him are two small
heads; but it would be as difficult to conjecture what they are intended
to typify, or why they are placed there, as it would be to state the
meaning of the artist, in having represented the whole of his vestment
as composed of parallel diagonal lines. In the opposite bas-relief, are
seen two knights on horseback, in the act of jousting; as rude a piece
of sculpture, especially with respect to the size and form of the
steeds, as can well be imagined; and yet it possesses a degree of
spirit, worthy of a better age. The shields of the riders are oblong;
their tilting spears pointless; their conical helmets terminate in a
nasal below, like the figures in the Bayeux tapestry. "This
coincidence," as has been observed elsewhere[4], "is interesting, as
deciding a point of some moment towards establishing the antiquity of
that celebrated relic, by setting it beyond a doubt, that such helmets
were used anterior to the conquest; for it is certain, that these
basso-relievos are coeval with the building that contains them."
The nave of the church of St. Georges is, in its height, divided into
three compartments: the lowest consists of a row of square, massy piers,
varied only by a few small columns attached to their angles, and
connected by wide arches, which are generally without any other ornament
than plain fluted mouldings; the second compartment, or triforium, is
composed of a uniform series of small arches, broken, at intervals, by
the truncated columns; which, supporting the groinings of the roof
above, terminate abruptly below, nearly upon a level with the capitals
of the lowest arches; in the clerestory, the arches are also simple and
unornamented; their size nearly intermediate between those of the first
and second tiers. It is almost needless to mention, that, in a perfect
building, of such a date, the whole of the arches are semi-circular. The
same is equally the case in the choir; but this part of the edifice is
considerably richer in its architectural decorations; and the noble
arch, which separates it from the nave, is surrounded with a broad band
of the embattled moulding, inclosing two others of the chevron moulding.
A string-course, of unusual size, formed of what is called the cable
ornament, goes round the whole interior of the building.
The general effect of the semi-circular east end, shews a striking
resemblance between the church of St. Georges and Norwich cathedral; and
those who take pleasure in researches of this description, will do well
to trace the points of similarity through other parts of the edifices.
The two kingdoms can scarcely boast more noble, or more perfect
buildings, of the Norman style; and there is the farther advantage, that
the difference between the periods of their respective erection is but
small. Our English cathedral rose in the early part of the reign of
William Rufus, when his follower, Herbert de Losinga, who, not content
with having purchased the bishopric for £1900, bought also the abbacy of
Winchester for his father, for £1000, was cited before the Pope for this
double act of simony, and, with difficulty, retained his mitre, upon the
condition of building sundry churches and monasteries. Norwich has,
indeed, a superiority in its tower, in regard to which, it may safely be
put in competition with any edifice of the same style, in Normandy or in
England. For beauty, richness, variety, and purity of ornament, there is
nothing like it. On the other hand, Norwich has undergone various
alterations, as well in its interior, as its exterior[5], and it has no
decoration of the same description comparable with the capitals in the
church of St. Georges. These are so curious, that it has been thought
right to devote to them the _ninth_ and _tenth plates_ of this work[6].
The capitals near the west end of the church, are comparatively simple:
they become considerably more elaborate on advancing towards the choir;
and it is most interesting to observe in them, how the Norman architects
appear, in some instances, to have been intent upon copying the Roman
model, or even adding to it a luxury of ornament, which it never knew,
yet still preserving a classical feeling and a style of beauty, of which
the proudest ages of architecture need not be ashamed; while, in other
cases, the rudeness of the design and execution is such, that it can
scarcely be conceived, but that they were executed by a barbarous
people, just emerged from their hyperborean woods, and equally strangers
to the cultivation of art, and the finer feelings of humanity. And yet,
even in some of those of the latter description, attentive observation
may lead to traces of classical fables, or representations of the holy
mysteries of Christianity. Thus, one of the capitals[7] seems designed
to portray the good Shepherd and the Lamb; another[8] appears to allude
to the battle between the followers of Æneas and the Harpies. It would
not, perhaps, be going too far, to say, that many of the others have
reference to the northern mythology, and some of them, probably, to
Scandinavian history.
[Illustration: Plate 10. CAPITALS IN THE ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. GEORGES DE
BOCHERVILLE.]
[Illustration: Plate 11. ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. GEORGES DE BOCHERVILLE.
_Sculpture in the Cloisters._]
In the chapter-house, which stands between the church and the monastic
buildings, the capitals are decidedly historical, and exhibit an
apparent connection very unusual in similar cases. The _eleventh plate_
contains some of these[9]. Another, and of the greatest curiosity, now
lost, has been etched in Mr. Turner's _Tour in Normandy_, from a drawing
by M. Langlois, a very able and indefatigable artist of Rouen. It
represents a series of royal minstrels, playing upon different musical
instruments. This part of the building is known to have been erected
towards the close of the twelfth century, and is consequently an hundred
years posterior to the church. It is now extremely dilapidated, and
employed as a mill. The capitals here figured, are taken from three
arches that formed the western front. The sculpture in the upper line,
and in a portion of the second, most probably refers to some of the
legends of Norman story: the remainder seems intended to represent
the miraculous passage of Jordan and the capture of Jericho, by the
Israelites, under the command of Joshua. The detached moulding on the
same plate, is copied from the archivolt of one of these arches: the
style of its ornament is altogether peculiar. To the pillars that
support the same arches, are attached whole-length figures, in high
relief, of less than the natural size. Two of them represent females;
the third, a man; and one of the former has her hair disposed in long
braided tresses, that reach on either side to a girdle. All of them hold
labels with inscriptions, which fall down to their feet in front. The
braided locks, and the general style of sculpture, shew a resemblance
between these statues and those on the portals of the churches of St.
Denys and Chartres, as well as those which stood formerly at the
entrance of St. Germain des Prés, at Paris, all which are figured by
Montfaucon, in his _Monumens de la Monarchie Française_, and by him
referred to the sovereigns of the Merovingian dynasty; but have been
believed, by subsequent writers, to be the productions of the eleventh
or twelfth century, an opinion which the statues at St. Georges may be
considered to confirm.
NOTES:
[2] See _Britton's Winchester Cathedral_, ground plan and plate 12.
[3] _Milner's Winchester_, I. p. 194.--Other authors, I am well aware,
and those of great weight, have said much with regard to the _Saxon
work_ at Winchester; but, though I have examined the building itself,
and the various publications respecting it, with some care, I confess I
have met with no portion that did not appear to me to be truly Norman.
[4] _Turner's Tour in Normandy_, II. p. 10.
[5] The complete uniformity of style throughout the church of St.
Georges, joined to the absence of all screens or other objects whatever,
that might intercept the sight from west to east, produces an effect,
not only grand, but altogether deceptive. It is impossible not to admit
the superior judgment of the French, in thus keeping their religious
edifices free from incumbrances; it is scarcely possible, too, not to
feel persuaded, that the Norman church is larger than the English,
though their respective dimensions are in reality as follows:
NORWICH. ST. GEORGES.
Length of nave 200 feet 135 feet
-------- choir 183 92
-------- transepts 180 102
Width of the nave with aisles 70 64-1/2
[6] In the former of these plates, the capitals, marked Nos. 1, 6, 8, 9,
10, and 12, are taken from the exterior of the east end; Nos. 2, 6, and
7, from the nave; and Nos. 3, 4, and 11, from the door-way. In the
latter plate, the exterior of the east end has supplied Nos. 1, 2, 3, 6,
7, 8, and 10; the nave, Nos. 4 and 9; and the door-way, No. 5.
[7] Plate 10, No. 8.
[8] Plate 10, No. 5.
[9] It may be well to remark, that this plate contains five capitals,
the extent of each of which may be distinguished by the small crosses
above.
PLATE XII.
CHURCH OF GRÂVILLE.
(END OF THE NORTH TRANSEPT.)
[Illustration: Plate 12. CHURCH OF GRÂVILLE.]
The church of Grâville, like that of St. Georges de Bocherville, though
now parochial, was, before the revolution, monastic, being attached to
the priory of the same name, beautifully situated on an eminence near
the mouth of the Seine, at the distance of half a league from Havre de
Grâce. The origin of this monastery is referred, in the _Neustria
Pia_[10], to about the year 1100; but nothing is known with certainty
respecting it till 1203, when Walter, Archbishop of Rouen, confirmed, by
his approbation, the foundation of regular canons established here by
William Malet, lord of the village, which is called in the Latin of
those times, _Girardi Villa_, or _Geraldi Villa_. The modern name of
Grâville is supposed to be an abbreviation of these. The canons thus
fixed here, had been brought from St. Barbe in Auge, and were endowed by
the founder with all the lands he possessed in Normandy and England. By
subsequent deeds, one of them dated as late as the end of the fifteenth
century, different members of the same family continued their donations
to the priory. The last mentioned was Louis Malet, admiral of France,
whose name is also to be found among the benefactors to Rouen cathedral,
as having given a great bell of six hundred and sixty-six pounds weight,
which, previously to the revolution, hung in the central tower.
William Malet, the founder of Grâville, was one of the Norman chieftains
who fought under the Conqueror at the battle of Hastings[11]; and he is
said to have been selected by his prince, on that occasion, to take
charge of the body of Harold, and see it decently interred. Writers,
however, are not agreed upon this point: Knighton, on the authority of
Giraldus Cambrensis, asserts that, though Harold fell in the battle, he
was not slain; but, escaping, retired to a cell near St. John's church,
in Chester, and died there an anchoret, as was owned by himself in his
last confession, when he lay dying; in memory whereof, they shewed his
tomb when Knighton wrote. Rapin, on the other hand, in his _History of
England_ observes, that an ancient manuscript in the Cottonian library,
relates, "that the king's body was hard to be known, by reason of its
being covered with wounds; but that, it was at last discovered by one
who had been his mistress, by means of certain private marks, known only
to herself; whereupon the duke sent the body to his mother without
ransom, though she is said to have offered him its weight in gold."
Nearly the same story is told in the _Gesta Gulielmi Ductis_[12],
written by William, archdeacon of Lisieux, a contemporary author.
Ordericus Vitalis[13] mentions William Malet two years afterwards, as
commanding the Conqueror's forces in York, when besieged by the Danes
and a large body of confederates, under the command of Edgar Atheling
and other chieftains; and we find that his son, Robert, received from
the same king, the honor of Eye, in Suffolk, together with two hundred
and twenty-one lordships in the same county; and many others in
Hampshire, Essex, Lincoln, Nottingham, and York. This Robert held the
office of great chamberlain of England, in the beginning of the reign of
Henry I; but, only in the second year of it, he attached himself to the
cause of Robert Curthose, for which he was disinherited and banished.
With him appears to have ended the greatness of the family, in England.
The church of Grâville was dedicated to St. Honorina, a virgin martyr,
whose relics were preserved there in the times anterior to the Norman
invasion; but were then transported to Conflans upon the Marne. Peter de
Natalibus, copious as he is in his Hagiology, has no notice of Honorina,
whose influence was nevertheless most extraordinary in releasing
prisoners from fetters; and whose altars were accordingly hung round
with an abundance of chains and instruments of torture. The author of
the _Neustria Pia_, who attests many of her miracles of this
description, relates, that her sanctity extended even to the horse which
she rode, insomuch, that, when the body of the beast was thrown, after
its death, as carrion to the dogs, they all refused to touch it; and the
monks, in commemoration of the miracle, employed the skin for a covering
to the church door, where it remained till the middle of the seventeenth
century.
Except towards the west end, which is in ruins, and has quite lost the
portal and towers that flanked it, the church of Grâville still
continues tolerably entire: in its style and general outline, but
particularly in its central tower and spire, it bears a considerable
resemblance to that of St. Georges de Bocherville. Architecturally
regarded, however, it is very inferior to that noble edifice; but the
end of the north transept, selected for the subject of the present
plate, will, in point of interest, scarcely yield to any other building
in Normandy. The row of sculptures immediately above the windows, is
probably unique: among them is the Sagittary, very distinctly portrayed;
and near him, an animal, probably designed for a horse, whose tail ends
in a decided fleur-de-lys, while he holds in his mouth what appears
intended to represent another. The figure of the Sagittary is also
repeated upon one of the capitals of the nave, which are altogether of
the same style of art, as the most barbarous at St. Georges, and not
less fanciful. The interlaced arches, with flat surfaces, that inclose
the windows immediately beneath the sculptures, may be matched by
similar rows in the exterior of the abbey church of St. Stephen, at
Caen, and on the end of the north transept of Norwich cathedral. It
appears likewise, from Mr. Carter's work on _Early English
Architecture_, (_plate 23_) that others, resembling them, line the
lowest story of the east end of Tickencote church, in Rutlandshire. This
circumstance is the rather mentioned here, as that able antiquary
regards the church as a specimen of true Saxon architecture; whereas it
may safely be affirmed, that there is no part of it, as figured by him,
but may be exactly paralleled from Normandy. The same may also be said
of almost every individual instance that he has produced as
illustrations of the style in use among our Saxon progenitors. In
Grâville, a series of similar arches is continued along the west side of
the north transept; and, judging from the general appearance of the
church, it may be believed that it is of a prior date to any of the
others just mentioned.
A considerable portion of the monastic buildings is still remaining; but
they are comparatively modern.--A lithographic plate of this monastery
was published at Paris, by Bourgeois, in 1818.
NOTES:
[10] P. 861.
[11] _Bankes' Extinct Peerage_, I. p. 126.
[12] _Duchesne, Scriptores Normanni_, p. 204.
[13] Ibid. p. 512.
PLATE XIII.
CASTLE OF ST. SAUVEUR LE VICOMTE.[14]
The origin of the castle, here figured, is coeval with the establishment
of the Normans, in the province which now bears their name. The
inventory of the ancient barony of St. Sauveur, shews that, in 912, the
year when Charles the Simple ceded Normandy to Rollo, the new duke
granted this great lordship, under the common obligations of feudal
tenure, to Richard, one of the principal chieftains who had attended him
from Norway. In 913, Richard founded in his castle a chapel, which, in
the following year, was dedicated to the Holy Trinity, by Herbert,
Bishop of Coutances. Many of the descendants of Richard bore the name of
Néel; and it was upon the first of those so called, that Duke William
Longue Epée conferred the title of viscount, about the year 938. In 998,
Richard, the second of that name, established in his castle of St.
Sauveur, with the sanction of Hugh, Bishop of Coutances, a collegiate
church, consisting of four prebends. At the beginning of the reign of
William the Conqueror, Néel de St. Sauveur took up arms against the
disputed title of that sovereign, in consequence of which, his lands
were confiscated, and he himself compelled to seek an asylum in
Brittany. This is supposed to have happened in 1047; but the anger of
the offended duke was short-lived; for the very next year, there is an
account of William's restoring to Néel the lordship of St. Sauveur, "in
consideration of the services he had rendered him." The same lenity,
however, was not shewn with regard to Néel's lordship of Nehou; for this
was permanently alienated, and was granted to the family of Riviers, or
Redvers, who, some years afterwards, became powerful in England, where
they had a grant of the Isle of Wight, in fee, and were created, by
Henry I. Earls of Devonshire. The collegiate church, founded in the
castle of St. Sauveur during the preceding century, was suppressed in
1048, on account of some umbrage taken by the chieftain at the conduct
of the canons; and he established, in their room, a convent of
Benedictines, whose successors, removing without the precincts of the
fortress, erected the abbey, the subject of the following plate.
[Illustration: Plate 13. CASTLE OF ST. SAUVEUR LE VICOMTE.]
The name of St. Sauveur is to be found in the list of officers who
accompanied the Conqueror to England; and the records of those times
also preserve the remembrance of one Néel, who was slain at Cardiff, in
1078. The troops, however, of the Côtentin, were at the conquest,
commanded by Robert, Count of Mortain, half-brother to the duke, who,
most probably, was indebted to this near degree of relationship for so
proud a mark of distinction. The family of Néel did not retain much
longer possession of St. Sauveur: the lord of the castle died in 1092,
leaving only a daughter, named Lætitia, who married Jourdain Taisson, or
Tesson, and brought to him these possessions as her dowry. After the
expiration of about a century, a similar event deprived the Taissons of
St. Sauveur. Jane, the last of that family, formed an alliance with the
Harcourts, and with them the lordship remained till the middle of the
fourteenth century, when the domains of Géoffroy d'Harcourt were
confiscated for felony, and the castle would have passed into the hands
of a new master, had not the successes of our sovereign, Edward III.
interfered, and stopped the effects of the confiscation.
History, from this time forward, speaks more decidedly as to the
strength of the fortress: at the time of the battle of Poitiers,
Géoffroy d'Harcourt maintained himself here, at the head of a numerous
garrison, composed of troops from England and Navarre, and, not only
bade defiance to the superior force of the French generals, but extended
his ravages over the whole of Lower Normandy. The abbey of Lessay, and
cathedral of Coutances, particularly suffered from his attacks. To the
latter, he had actually laid siege, when a detachment sent against him,
by the regent and the states of the kingdom, obliged him to turn his
attention homeward; and his forces were defeated, and himself slain. The
castle, on this occasion, afforded safe shelter to the fugitives; and,
in consequence of Harcourt's death, passing into the hands of the King
of England, was, by him, supplied with a garrison of four hundred men,
under the command of Jehan Lisle, and was almost immediately afterwards
bestowed, by Edward, upon Sir John Chandos, as a reward for his eminent
services. The fortifications, under the care of this able captain,
underwent a thorough repair in the year 1360; and it is believed that,
upon this occasion, the keep was principally, if not altogether,
rebuilt; the same broad square tower, which is now standing, and is the
principal feature in the ruins. The labor thus bestowed upon St.
Sauveur, rendered it one of the principal posts of the duchy. Rymer, by
whom it is repeatedly mentioned, expressly states, that our countrymen
maintained in it a numerous garrison, who, after the battle of Auray,
lorded it without restraint over the neighboring parts, and were guilty
of such excesses, that, in 1374, Charles V. then King of France, was
induced to send against them a powerful armament, both by sea and land,
under Sir John of Vienne, admiral of the kingdom, assisted by all the
barons and knights of Brittany and Normandy. St. Sauveur was, at that
time, in the hands of Sir Aleyne Boxhull, to whom Edward had given it,
after the death of Sir John Chandos; but he, himself, was then in
England; and, according to Froissart[15], he had left there as governor
a squire, called Carenton, or Katrington, with Sir Thomas Cornet, John
de Burgh, and the three brothers Maulevriers, with whom there might be
about six score companions, all armed, and ready for defence. This
handful of men made a long and obstinate resistance, which, at length,
terminated in a truce for six weeks, accompanied with a stipulation,
that, unless previously relieved, the fortress should be surrendered
upon a certain day of July, 1375. The time came; no relief arrived; and
the French took possession of St. Sauveur; though not without many
remonstrances on the part of the besieged, who contended, that the
treaty of Bruges, which had been signed in the interim by the two
sovereigns, and had established a general truce, ought also to have the
effect of superseding all partial treaties.
Mention is made, upon this occasion, of a considerable sum of money,
which was to be paid to the garrison, upon their evacuating the castle.
The fact, though unnoticed by Froissart and Holinshed, could not but
have been notorious; for it appears, that John of Vienne assembled the
three states of the province at Bayeux, for the purpose of raising the
money; and Rymer tells us, that the papal legates were appointed by the
respective parties, as depositaries, both of the money and the castle,
till all the stipulations should be fulfilled. In this circumstance, we
find an explanation of the death of Katrington, on which Holinshed
dwells at considerable length, giving a most curious and interesting
account of the circumstances attending it[16]. Sir John Anneslie, who
had married the niece of Sir John Chandos, and, on that account, claimed
the inheritance of St. Sauveur, with the lands appertaining to the
castle, charged Katrington with treason, in the matter of the surrender;
and, after considerable difficulties, prevailed upon King Richard II in
the third year of his reign, to suffer the point to be established by
single combat. The event of the contest was considered to make good the
charge. According to Holinshed, Katrington, who was a very strong man,
while his adversary was much the contrary, was so grievously wounded in
the fight, that he died the following day. Dugdale and Fabian, however,
state, that he was dragged to Tyburn, and there hanged for his treason.
The King of France, upon recovering possession of St. Sauveur, conferred
the lordship upon Bureau de la Riviere, his chamberlain: from him, it
passed, in 1392, into the hands of John Charles, Lord of Evry, who still
held it in 1417, when our King Henry once more brought it under the sway
of the English sceptre. During the succeeding unfortunate reign, this
castle shared, in 1450, the fate of all the other British possessions in
Normandy; and, like most of the rest, it offered but a feeble resistance
to the victorious arms of France. A few days' siege was sufficient to
induce its garrison, of two hundred men, to surrender, what the
contemporary historians admit to have been one of the finest and
strongest places in the duchy. St. Sauveur, from this time, is no longer
celebrated in history, as a fortress; nor, indeed, does it even appear
to be mentioned as such, except in the Memoirs of Marshal de Matignon,
where a demand is stated to have been made for thirty men to garrison
it. In all probability, the change produced in the art of warfare, by
the introduction of cannon, caused it silently to pass into
insignificance, and then gradually to sink into its present wretched
state of dilapidation. Towards the close of the seventeenth century, an
hospital was established within its walls; and the same still subsists,
but in great poverty, in consequence of the funds having been alienated,
or lost, during the revolution.
Of the ancient fortifications of the castle, the greater part exists,
either entire, or sufficiently so to be traced. The most important of
all, the keep, is perfect in its exterior, but has been so completely
gutted within, that the original situation of the floors and beams is
not to be discovered without difficulty. The two ballia likewise remain:
the larger, which defended the keep; the lesser, in the form of a
crescent, designed to oppose the approach of an enemy on the side of the
town. Towards the north, the small river, the Ouve, formed a natural
defence. On the south, are still to be seen two gates, of which, that
leading to the dungeon was considerably the stronger. It was defended by
the works, commonly employed from the fourteenth to the sixteenth
century, for the protection of the entrances to fortresses; and, under
it, there yet remain, on either side, freestone seats, designed for the
guard, capable of containing from fifteen to twenty persons. The rest
of the outworks, which were many, have now disappeared; but people are
still living in the town, who remember to have seen the fosses filled
with water. At present they are obliterated; and their site is occupied
by houses and gardens.
The following is a list of the lords of St. Sauveur, from the year 1450,
to the revolution.--Charles VII. when first he wrested the castle from
the English, conferred it, together with its extensive domain, upon
Andrew de Villequier, and his heirs male; and it remained in this family
till 1536, when, from default of such heirs, it reverted to the crown,
and was kept in the hands of Francis I. and his successors, till 1572.
At that time Charles IX. granted it to Christopher de Bassompierre, from
whom it passed to Francis de Bassompierre, Marshal of France. In 1612,
it again returned to the throne, then filled by Mary of Medicis, widow
of Henry IV. whose son, Louis XIII. alienated it in 1620, to John
Phélipeaux de Villesavey, and he held it till 1631. After him, the
families of De la Guiche and Géran were, for thirty-eight years,
possessors of St. Sauveur. At the expiration of this term, the lordship
became once more incorporated in the royal domain, till Louis XIV. in
1698, conferred it upon his natural son, the Count of Toulouse, whose
son, Louis Jean Marie de Bourbon, Duc de Penthievre, succeeded to it, by
inheritance, in 1727. He shortly after gave it, in part of her portion,
to his daughter, who married Louis Philippe Joseph d'Orleans, Duc de
Chartres; and it thenceforward continued in the possession of the
Orleans family, till the period of the revolution.
NOTES:
[14] The author has to express his acknowledgments, and he begs to do it
in the strongest terms, to the kindness of M. de Gerville of Valognes,
for very many communications towards the furtherance of this work; but
particularly for those relating to the church and abbey of St. Sauveur
le Vicomte, which have been so copious, that little has been necessary,
but to translate them into English.
[15] _Johnes' Translation_, octavo edit. IV. p. 268.
[16] Quarto edit. II. p. 726.
PLATE XIV.
ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. SAUVEUR LE VICOMTE.
(NORTH-EAST VIEW.)
[Illustration: Plate 14. ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. SAUVEUR LE VICOMTE.]
The remains of the abbey of St. Sauveur le Vicomte, are situated within
a very short distance of the castle of the same name, in the department
of La Manche, near the western extremity of Normandy, about eighteen
miles south of Valognes, and fifty north of Coutances. The addition of
the term _Vicomte_, to the appellation of this domain, may have been
owing to a two-fold cause;--to denote the importance of its possessor,
and to distinguish the monastery from other religious establishments in
the duchy, also dedicated to the Holy Savior, especially from the
nunnery of St. Sauveur, at Evreux.
It has been necessary, under the preceding article, briefly to allude to
the establishment of this convent, which took its rise from the
collegiate church, founded in the year 998, in the castle of St.
Sauveur, by Richard Néel, the second viscount; a foundation, which, only
fifty years afterwards, was suppressed, and replaced by a society of
Benedictines from Jumieges. Changes of this description were by no means
unfrequent in those unsettled times: indeed, regarding the character of
the chieftains and the clergy, it is rather matter of surprise, that
they did not occur more commonly; and greater astonishment may be
entertained at the Viscount of St. Sauveur having suffered a body of
men, naturally imperious, and necessarily guided by interests different
from his own, to remain about a century under his roof, than to find him
afterwards removing them to the spot which they subsequently continued
to occupy. The original charter, granted by Néel to the monks from
Jumieges, is preserved among the documents in the _Gallia Christiana_.
His brother, Roger, is said to have superintended the erection of the
new monastery, in which pious task, he was assisted by Lætitia, his
niece, sole heiress of Néel, and now married to Jourdain Taisson, who
had, in her right, become lord of St. Sauveur. This Jourdain, with his
wife, and their three sons, was present at the dedication of the church;
so that the building of it may safely be referred to the early part of
the twelfth century. M. de Gerville, upon the authority of the Memoirs
of the Harcourt Family, states, that some of these latter also assisted
in the construction; and yet he is unwilling to admit that any portion
of it was erected in the following century, when the Harcourts became
possessed of the domain. He contends, that "the whole style of the
building indicates a period approaching the year 1100; at which time the
struggle existed between the pointed and the semi-circular
architecture." Setting aside the long-contested question concerning the
date of the introduction of the pointed arch, I cannot help, for my own
part, suspecting, that the Lady-Chapel was a subsequent erection, and,
probably, of the æra of the Harcourts. Its narrow trefoil-headed windows
above, and the plainer ones below, seem decisively to indicate such a
period; and the deep buttresses afford another, not less positive, mark.
The lower part of this portion of the church, exhibits an architectural
peculiarity deserving of notice: the wall is considerably widest, where
it unites with the ground; after which, it gradually decreases in size,
by successive tiers, for a few feet upwards, and then it rises
perpendicularly.
What remains of the western portal, is of the earlier style. It was
entered by a semi-circular arch, bordered by a fillet of the nail-head
moulding. In the nave, the lower arches, with the columns and their
capitals, as well as the false row of arches in the triforium, are
wholly Norman; while the windows of the clerestory and their
accompanying ornaments, are as completely gothic. The transepts and the
choir shew a similar medley.
The Harcourts, who held St. Sauveur till the middle of the fourteenth
century, bestowed much pains upon the preservation of the abbey; but the
last of this noble family was scarcely dead, when the convent was
exposed to all the calamities of war. It was repeatedly pillaged by the
contending parties, and was finally almost destroyed by the orders of
King Edward III. who foreseeing, from the unfortunate complexion of
affairs, that the French would be likely soon to besiege the castle, was
desirous at least to deprive them of the advantage they might derive
from having possession of the monastery. The heterogeneous character of
the architecture of the church, is attributable to the injuries received
on this occasion, and to those inflicted during the wars in the
following century. The lower portion of the building, most probably,
remained for a considerable length of time in the same ruined and
neglected state in which it had been left after the execution of the
orders of Edward III.; the clerestory and arches above, were not added
till the return of a tranquil æra.
Indeed, it is matter of historical notoriety, that the finances of the
monastery were, at this period, in the same state of dilapidation as the
walls; insomuch, that Thomas du Bigard, who was elected abbot in 1376,
and held the post for fourteen years, lay all that time under a papal
interdict for the non-payment of his annats; nor did his successor,
Denis Loquet, venture to accept the crozier, till he had made a journey
to Avignon, and obtained, from Clement VII. the remission of what was
due, as well on the election of his predecessor, as on his own. In 1422,
the official of Valognes was charged by the three states of Normandy,
assembled at Vernon, with the consent of the Duke of Bedford, to make
inquiry into the losses sustained by the abbey. His report upon the
subject is a curious historical document, little known, and,
unfortunately, nearly twenty feet long. M. de Gerville has kindly
supplied the following extracts from it. "Sylvester de la Cervelle, Yvon
de Galles, and Bertrand de Glesquin, were, with the admiral, John de
Vienne, in command of the army, at the siege of the castle of St.
Sauveur, A.D. 1375.--The English had, previously to the siege, destroyed
the abbey and the adjacent buildings, lest their enemies should
establish themselves there, and annoy them.--The monks of St. Sauveur
had, at first, taken refuge in the abbey of the Vow, near Cherbourg, and
afterwards in Jersey, where the convent had some property: certain among
them had also retired to foreign monasteries, there to seek a
subsistence, which their own could no longer afford them.--At their
return, the abbot and the clergy found their buildings destroyed; and,
at the period of the inquisition, notwithstanding all their efforts and
the money they could raise, they were still obliged to celebrate divine
service in the refectory.--The monks and abbot, who had sought shelter
at Jersey, had been obliged to quit that retreat, because the King of
England put their property there under sequestration.--Those who
returned first to the monastery, built themselves sheds against a wall,
and there made a fire to dress, their victuals, while, for
lodging-places, they had recourse to some vaults that were still
left.--So great was their poverty, that it is stated by one of the
witnesses, in his deposition, that they had not wherewithal to buy
_peciam mutonis vel aliarum carnium_.--Another deposes that, during the
siege, the French fired with such violence at one of the towers, that it
was destroyed, _fueruntque combustæ novæ campanæ, quarum una habebat
octo buccellos ad mensuram Sti. Salvatoris_."
After the final expulsion of the English, John Caillot, who was
appointed abbot in 1451, "rebuilt," to use the words of the _Gallia
Christiana_, the monastery destroyed by our countrymen; and the credit
must be given him of having endeavoured to make his additions in a style
conformable to the original. But the difference in the workmanship is
obvious to the eye; and various ornaments have been added, inconsistent
with the simplicity of early times.
The length of the church was about two hundred French feet.--A list of
forty-three abbots is given in the _Gallia Christiana_;[17] and, from
the time of the publication of that work, till the breaking out of the
revolution, there were two others, of whom M. de Nicolai was the last.
NOTES:
[17] XI. p. 923.
PLATE XV.
HOUSE AT GREAT ANDELYS.
[Illustration: Plate 15. GREAT HOUSE.
_Andelys._]
About forty miles, in a south-westerly direction from Rouen, upon the
right bank of the Seine, and on the western frontiers of the ancient
duchy of Normandy, stands the town of Great Andelys, so called, not by
reason of its own positive magnitude, but to distinguish it from a
village of the same name, situated in its immediate vicinity.
In early times, few places could boast to a greater degree than Andelys,
"the odor of sanctity." It was indebted for its celebrity, and, probably
also, for its existence, to a nunnery, founded here by St. Clotilda,
which, in the seventh century, the time of the venerable Bede, enjoyed
the highest reputation. But its fame was short-lived: it fell during the
incursions of the Normans, and, unlike most others, seems to have
possessed none of the phoenix-power of reviviscence. In its place, arose
afterwards, a collegiate church, which M. de Harlay, Archbishop of
Rouen, by a formal act, dated 1634, honored with the title of first
collegiate church of the diocese. The distinction, thus obtained, was
due not only to its antiquity, but to the unusual number of its
ecclesiastics, particularly those who composed its chapter.
Though St. Clotilda's convent, however, was destroyed, the inhabitants
of Andelys continued to enjoy her especial protection. The church was
under her invocation; but her favor was more eminently vouchsafed to an
ancient chapel and an adjacent fountain, both of which bore her name.
The latter was, from the earliest times, celebrated for its miraculous
qualities in the cure of various disorders; and it continues to be so to
the present day. St. Clotilda, at the period of the erection of the
monastery, turned its waters into wine, for the benefit of the fainting
workmen. The clergy of Andelys, in commemoration of the miracle, used
annually, before the revolution, upon the return of her festival, to
pour large pitchers of wine into the spring. During the revolutionary
fervor, St. Clotilda, together with the rest of the Romish hierarchy,
lost her credit in France. She is now rapidly recovering it: miracles
are again wrought at her shrine; and, in all probability, the time is
not far distant, when the belief will be as strong, the processions as
splendid, the throng of votaries as great, and the cures as certain, as
ever. It is only to be hoped, that the good sense and the superior
morality of the age, may prevent the recurrence of those indecent and
scandalous scenes, which, we are told by eye-witnesses, were formerly
too often practised on the occasion. Human nature must be strangely
altered, before the mind of man will cease to prefer the surfeit of
superstition, to the wholesome diet of sound religion: no one, but a
fool or a rogue, would ever advise it to have recourse to the starvation
of infidelity.
At the close of the eleventh century, Andelys appears with some
historical notoriety, in the well-known exchange made between Richard
Coeur-de-Lion and Walter, Archbishop of Rouen; when the king, desirous,
as he states, to prevent the incursions of the enemy into his duchy,
purchased of the prelate the town and manor of Andelys, by the cession
of the towns of Dieppe, Bouteilles and Louviers, together with the
forest of Aliermont, and the mills of Rouen. The bargain was a hard
one; but the erection of Château Gaillard, in the immediate vicinity of
Andelys, proved the correctness of the monarch's views. A subsequent
treaty,[18] executed in the year 1200, between King John and the same
archbishop, confirmed the exchange.
In modern times, Andelys has been celebrated on no other account, than
as the birth-place of Poussin and Adrian Turnebus, and as the
burial-place of Corneille.
The _Great House_ at Andelys, the subject of the plate, existed in 1818,
as it is here represented, shorn, indeed, of much of its ancient
splendor, reduced from the residence of a nobleman to a granary, and
most probably curtailed of full two-thirds of its size, as retaining
apparently little more than that portion of the square which fronted the
court-yard, together with a small part of one of its wings. It can now
(in 1821) only be spoken of as a building that did exist: last year saw
it levelled with the ground. The following description of it is
transcribed from Mr. Turner's _Tour in Normandy_:[19] "Andelys possesses
a valuable specimen of ancient domestic architecture. The _Great House_
is a most sumptuous mansion, evidently of the age of Francis I.; but I
could gain no account of its former occupants or history. I must again
borrow from my friend's vocabulary, and say, that it is built in the
'Burgundian style.' In its general outline and character, it resembles
the house in the _Place de la Pucelle_, at Rouen. Its walls, indeed, are
not covered with the same profusion of sculpture: yet, perhaps, its
simplicity is accompanied by greater elegance.--The windows are disposed
in three divisions, formed by slender buttresses, which run up to the
roof. They are square-headed, and divided by a mullion and transom.--The
portal is in the centre: it is formed by a Tudor arch, enriched with
deep mouldings, and surmounted by a lofty ogee, ending with a crocketed
pinnacle, which transfixes the cornice immediately above, as well as in
the sill of the window, and then unites with the mullion of the
latter.--The roof takes a very high pitch.--A figured cornice, upon
which it rests, is boldly sculptured with foliage.--The chimneys are
ornamented by angular buttresses.--All these portions of the building
assimilate more or less to our Gothic architecture of the sixteenth
century; but a most magnificent oriel window, which fills the whole of
the space between the centre and the left-hand divisions, is a specimen
of pointed architecture in its best and purest style. The arches are
lofty and acute. Each angle is formed by a double buttress, and the
tabernacles affixed to these are filled with statues. The basement of
the oriel, which projects from the flat wall of the house, after the
fashion of a bartizan, is divided into compartments, studded with
medallions, and intermixed with tracery of great variety and beauty. On
either side of the bay, there are flying buttresses of elaborate
sculpture, spreading along the wall.--As, comparatively speaking, good
models of ancient domestic architecture are very rare, I would
particularly recommend this at Andelys to the notice of every architect,
whom chance may conduct to Normandy.--This building, like too many
others of the same class in our own counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, is
degraded from its station. The _great house_ is used merely as a
granary, though, by a very small expense, it might be put into habitable
repair. The stone retains its clear and polished surface; and the massy
timbers are undecayed.--The inside corresponds with the exterior, in
decorations and grandeur: the chimney pieces are large and elaborate,
and there is abundance of sculpture on the ceilings and other parts
which admit of ornament."
NOTES:
[18] Copies of both these instruments are preserved in the _Gallia
Christiana_, XI. _Inst._ pp. 27 and 30.
[19] II. p. 55.--In a note to this passage, Mr. Turner states an
intention, on the part of Mr. Cotman, to devote a second plate to this
building, for the purpose of doing more justice to the beauty and
elaborate decorations of the oriel window; and it is very much to be
desired that such should be the case; but it is feared that the number
and importance of other subjects, will prevent the intention from being
realized.
PLATE XVI.
CHURCH OF THAN.
(ELEVATION AND DETAILS.)
[Illustration: Plate 16. CHURCH OF THAN.
_Elevation and details._]
The small village of Than lies about ten miles distant from Caen, in a
north-easterly direction, in a valley washed by the diminutive stream,
the Meu, a little to the north of the road which leads to Bayeux. Of its
"short and simple annals," few have come to the knowledge of the writer
of this article; and for those few, he is wholly indebted to the
kindness of M. de Gerville, who, last year, discovered at Mortain the
book containing the charters of the abbey of Savigny, many of which make
mention of the church of Than. The following is an extract from the most
important among them: the deed itself is without a date, but is clearly
of the time of Henry I. Its being anterior to 1135, is distinctly proved
by the title of Earl of Mortain, which it gives to Stephen of
Blois.--"In nomine Ste et individue trinitatis, notum sit universis tam
presentibus quam futuris, qd. ego Guillelmus de Sto Claro, concedente
Hamone fratre meo et cis, dono et concedo in perpetuam elimosinam ecclie
Ste trinitatis de Savigneio et monachis ibidem Deo servientibus totam
possessionem de Thaun, quam ego et antecessores mei, sive in terra
dominica sive in hominibus sive in quibuslibet aliis rebus, unquam
habuimus omnino quietam, ab omni consuetudine absolutam, perpetuo jure
ab eadem ecclesia possidendam. Predictam autem donacionem concessit et
ab omnib. consuetudinibus absolutam confirmavit Stephanus Comes
Moritonii, ad cujus feodum predicta possessio pertinet, &c."--In
addition to the information contained in the above charter, there is
only to be added, that Cardinal Le Moine, when dean of Bayeux, at the
close of the thirteenth century, founded here a chapel, dedicated to St.
John; and that a lord of Than was among the companions of the Conqueror
in his descent upon England.
The church has been selected by Mr. Cotman as a specimen of a religious
edifice in the true Norman style, unaltered, and also uninjured, except
by the loss of the southern aisle; and the removal of this is so far
fortunate, as it affords an opportunity of shewing the form and
disposition of the columns and arches of the nave, seen, as they are, in
the lower part of the left-hand side of the plate, imbedded in the
modern wall, which now constitutes the exterior of the building.
Subjects like this, however necessary for a work expressly devoted to
architectural antiquities, obviously afford no room for picturesque
beauty, or for an attempt, on the part of the artist, to produce what is
called _effect_. Horace's line is altogether applicable to them, that
"Ornari res ipsa negat, contenta doceri."
The great hope to be entertained is, that they may be rendered
intelligible; and this, it is trusted, will be effected by means of the
following references; though the multitude of parts that it seemed
necessary to introduce, may have given rise to an appearance of
confusion, which the author could only have avoided, by subjecting his
subscribers to the expense of an additional plate.
* * * * *
A.A.A. _Elevation of the tower, nave, and chancel._
The roof of the tower is of stone; and the angles are faced with slender
cylindrical columns, as in the part below, terminating, in both
instances, in little hooks, beneath which, the pillars are banded to the
part adjoining. This kind of termination, or, as it might almost be
denominated, decoration, is in itself remarkable, and perhaps unique;
but it is rendered considerably more interesting, if regarded as the
probable origin of the crocket, one of the most distinguished ornaments
in the decorated style of pointed architecture. The date of the
introduction of the crocket, and the source whence it sprung, have been
the subject of many inquiries among antiquaries: neither Mr Cotman, nor
the writer of these remarks, recollects to have seen any other approach
to it in Norman buildings; though the towers of many churches in Lower
Normandy are capped with stone roofs of similar form, and of undoubted
antiquity. Such, in particular, are those of Haute Allemagne, of Basse
Allemagne, and of St. Michel de Vaucelles, at Caen: such also is the
roof at the east end of the church of St. Nicholas, in the same town;
and, in the three last-mentioned specimens, the angles are edged with
the same small pillars by way of moulding.
It is farther to be observed of this church, that the windows of the
tower are simple, bold, and, for the elegance of their proportions,
scarcely to be surpassed by those of any other Norman building; that the
capitals of the pillars throughout the church are destitute of
sculpture; and that the walls of the clerestory are altogether without
buttresses. This last peculiarity is likewise observable in the nave of
the church at Tollevast, an edifice of the plainest and earliest
architecture. At Than, the clerestory is externally decorated with
twenty-nine arches, of which every sixth (reckoning from the westward,)
is narrower than the rest, and is pierced with a window. The surface of
the blank ones is cut into squares, which are alternately depressed. On
the corbels are not only represented grotesque heads, but some of the
simplest heraldic charges, as the chief, chief indented, pale, bend,
bendlets undy, fess, saltier, crosses of various kinds, chevron, &c.
Such ordinaries occasionally occur in similar situations on other Norman
religious edifices, but only on the most ancient. They are to be seen at
Tollevast, Martinvast, the church of St. Croix at St. Lo, St. Matthieu,
and Octeville. At St. Matthieu, they are found in conjunction with other
sculptures, fit only for a temple dedicated to Priapus; and at
Octeville, with what is probably the earliest representation of the
Lord's Supper, that is known to exist from the hand of a Norman artist.
B. _Elevation of the west front._
The lower part of the door-way is considerably sunk in the ground.
C. _Elevation of the east end._
The irregularity of the architecture of this part of the building
requires to be noticed. In the two lower compartments, the southern
portion is left quite plain, while the northern is decorated with a
double tier of arches, very much resembling those which still exist in
the outer wall of the chancel, and which, most probably, were originally
continued along the wall of the nave that is now destroyed. The broad
shallow buttress which divides the east end into two parts, is not
placed in the centre. Here, and indeed throughout the building, each
small arch is hewn out of a single block of stone. One of the upper ones
in this front, is surmounted with a broad square band, made in the
imitation of a drip-stone, composed of quatrefoils, of a form not known
to exist in Norman architecture, though of common occurrence in the
succeeding style.
D. _Portion of the clerestory in the nave._
E. _Portion of the clerestory in the chancel._
F. _Capital and part of the arch of the western door-way._
G.G.G. _String-mouldings._
PLATE XVII.
CHURCH OF TAMERVILLE.
[Illustration: Plate 17. CHURCH OF TAMERVILLE.]
This church is situated at the distance of half a league from the town
of Valognes, near the road which leads to Barfleur and La Hougue.
The whole building is ancient, with the exception of the western portal
and a chapel to the north of the choir. Its general style of
architecture, the columns which support the tower, the buttresses, the
corbels, and the small windows of the nave, especially those fronting
the north, are all indicative of a production of the early days of
Norman rule, and, probably, of the period immediately preceding the
descent upon England. This period of comparative peace and tranquillity
was a time, when, to use the language of two nearly contemporary
historians, "the noblemen of Normandy emulated each other in erecting
churches upon their domains: they thus filled their continental
territory; and they shortly afterwards did the same in England."
The steeple represented in the plate is in excellent preservation: it is
of beautiful proportions; and, to an architect, is peculiarly
interesting for the cylindrical buttress, which runs nearly to the top
of the first story on the southern side, and is probably the only
instance of the kind known to exist.[20] To an English antiquary,
however, it may be allowed to have a claim to greater interest, on
account of its general shape and proportions. In these respects it
forcibly recalls the round-towered churches of Norfolk and Suffolk, most
of them surmounted by octagonal lanterns. Two of the churches of the
former county, those at Toft-Monks, and at Bokenham,[21] preserve the
octagonal shape down to the ground; but, in both instances, it is in
conjunction with early pointed architecture; and the church of
Tamerville, it is feared, would not be of itself sufficient, as being an
insulated specimen, to justify the assigning of a Norman origin to those
just mentioned. No churches with round towers have yet come under the
author's knowledge in Normandy; and yet they might certainly have been
expected in the duchy, if there be any truth in the tradition which
ascribes those in England to the Danes. On the other hand, supposing
such report to be altogether void of foundation, it seems quite
unaccountable that not one of them probably exists, which does not
retain some traces of Norman architecture.
In early times, the barons of this great province seldom, if ever, used
a family name. Like the chieftains of the Scottish clans of our own
days, they generally adopted for their surname, that of their parish or
fief. The fief or manor of Tamerville had, from before the conquest,
borne the appellation of Cyfrevast, or Sifrevast, (Sifredi Vassum;) and
down to the period of the revolution, the possessors of that fief were
patrons of the advowson of the parochial church. One of them, and,
probably, the very one who built the church now standing, followed the
Conqueror into England, and obtained from him considerable grants in
Oxfordshire and in Dorsetshire. In the latter county, the family
continued long to flourish. Hutchins states, that the branch of them,
established at More-Crichel, bore for their arms, _argent, three bars
gemels azure_; and he quotes the epitaph of one of them, who died in
1581, from which the following is an extract:--
"Intombed here one Cyfrevast does lie,
Whom nature caused by death to yealde his due.
. . . . . . .
Lord of More-Crichel was he by ----
_Three hundred yeares possessed by line and descent._"
Another of the same family, named John Cyfrevast, represented
Dorsetshire in parliament, during the seventh, sixteenth, and eighteenth
years of Edward II.; and Robert Cyfrevast had the same honor in the
eighteenth and twentieth years of the following reign. About 1424, the
fief of Chiffrevast at Tamerville, passed, by marriage, into the house
of Anneville, which had also supplied a companion to the Conqueror; and
this family continued to possess it till the moment of the revolution,
the epoch of the abolition of all feudal rights.
In the burial-ground at Tamerville, have been found many coffins made of
volcanic tuff: similar ones are by no means of unfrequent occurrence
throughout the diocese of Coutances; but they are never met with, except
in places which were formerly held in particular veneration.
NOTES:
[20] The reader will observe, that this pillar is probably imperfect;
for that there seems reason to believe, that it was originally
surmounted by a capital, which united with the moulding above.
[21] See _Cotman's Architectural Antiquities of Norfolk_, plate 37.
PLATES XVIII. AND XIX.
CHURCH OF ST. MICHEL DE VAUCELLES, AT CAEN.
(CENTRAL TOWER AND NORTH PORCH.)
[Illustration: Plate 18. TOWER OF THE CHURCH OF ST. MICHEL DE VAUCELLES,
CAEN.]
The Abbé De la Rue, in his excellent publication upon the town of
Caen,[22] does not furnish the satisfactory information which might have
been hoped, relative to the date of the erection of the church of St.
Michael, in the suburb of Vaucelles. He contents himself with
observing,[23] that it is a work of different æras: that the tower and
its supporting pillars belong to a primitive church, of which no account
remains; that a part of the nave may be seen, from the circular form of
the arches having been obviously altered into pointed, to have belonged
to the same church; that the choir was raised and increased during the
sixteenth century; that the aisles are partly of the same century, and
partly of the preceding; and that the other portion of the nave and the
new tower, are productions of our own days.
In all this there is nothing definite; and, unfortunately, our knowledge
of Norman architecture is not such as will justify us in attempting to
fix precise æras to the different specimens which are left us of it. As
far, however, as it may be allowed to judge from corresponding edifices,
Mr. Turner seems correct in his opinion, that "the circular-headed
arches in the short square tower, and in a small round turret which is
attached to it, are _early Norman_."[24] He subjoins the observation,
that "they are remarkable for their proportions, being as long and as
narrow as the lancet-windows of the following æra." The conical
stone-roofed pyramid is, with the exception of its lucarne windows, most
probably of the same date. With regard to the porch,[25] the subject of
the _nineteenth plate_, its general resemblance in style to the southern
porch of the church of St. Ouen, and its having, like that, its inner
archivolt fringed with pendant trefoils, are circumstances that have
likewise been pointed out in the work just referred to. Both porches may
probably be of nearly the same date, the latter part of the fourteenth,
or beginning of the fifteenth century. Caen, but a short time before the
revolution, contained another very similar architectural specimen in the
western portal of the church of St. Sauveur du Marché,[26] now replaced
by an entrance altogether modern. The nave of the church of St. Sauveur
was built, according to De la Rue, in the fourteenth century; and it may
fairly be inferred, that the portal was also of the same date; but this
porch wanted the pendant trefoils, and was altogether less ornamented
than that of St. Michael, as the latter was than that at Rouen. Both
those at Caen, however, agreed in the wall above the arch rising into a
triangular gable covered with waving tracery, a very peculiar, and a
very beautiful style of decoration.
[Illustration: Plate 19. CHURCH OF ST. MICHEL DE VAUCELLES, CAEN.
_North Porch._]
Vaucelles is at this time the largest of the five parishes that compose
the suburbs of Caen. It is separated from the town by the great canal of
the Orne, the formation of which has somewhat circumscribed its limits;
for these formerly extended into the Rue St. Jean, and included the
hospital, called the Hôtel Dieu, as well as that which derives its name
from the Conqueror. During the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the
presentation to the living of Vaucelles lay alternately between the two
royal abbeys of Caen. Queen Matilda, previously to the year 1066,
purchased a moiety of the patronage and of the tythes, together with a
mill at Montaigu, and gave them to her abbey of the Trinity; and about
eleven years afterwards, Ralph, the curate of Vaucelles, the hereditary
proprietor of the other half, ceded his share to the abbey of St.
Stephen, on condition of being himself received into that monastery. The
latter establishment, within less than one hundred and fifty years,
obtained the exclusive patronage, upon the consideration of their making
the nuns an annual payment of twenty sols, and ninety-six bushels of
barley.
In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the parish of Vaucelles was in
the hands of lords of its own; among whom, the most conspicuous were the
Fitz-Herberts. An illegitimate son of Prince Henry, afterwards Henry I.
by a daughter of Robert Corbet, was the origin of this family. To his
own name, Herbert, he added that of Fitz-Henry: his sons became
Fitz-Herberts; and each of their descendants, in every successive
generation, commonly adopted the baptismal appellation of his respective
father, by way of a family name; till, towards the close of the
thirteenth century, the whole of them agreed upon Fitz-Herbert as a
patronymic. Their possessions were extensive in Caen and the
neighborhood; and the records of those early times make frequent mention
of their riches and liberality. Thus, according to the Abbé De la Rue,
from whom these historical particulars are derived, this noble family,
still represented in our own country by the Earls of Pembroke, was not
only derived from the town of Caen, but had an origin different from
what is assigned to it by Dugdale, Collins, and Edmondson.[27] The first
of the family noticed in England, appears to have lived in the time of
King Stephen. In 1302, Vaucelles seems to have become exempt from all
feudal conditions. It was in that year, that Philip le Bel sent William
de Gilly to Caen, to liberate his own vassals and those of the lords,
and to grant them all the privileges of burghers.
Among the ministers of this parish, was Roger, one of the most
distinguished of our British prelates in the time of Norman rule. The
tradition relates, that, during the wars for the succession among the
Conqueror's sons, Henry, chancing to enter Caen with his small army upon
a Sunday, stopped to hear mass at the church of Vaucelles; and that
Roger performed the service with such spirit and rapidity, that the
officers were unanimous in their wish that he should accompany the army.
The invitation was accordingly given, and the priest consented; and he
so completely gained the confidence of the prince, by recommending
economy as the surest means of carrying his point, that he was soon
appointed superintendant of the finances; and, in 1102, was honored with
the mitre of Salisbury. At a subsequent period, he was created
Chancellor of England; and, during the absence of the king in Normandy,
constantly filled the high office of regent of the kingdom. William of
Malmesbury, who dwells at much length, and with equal satisfaction, upon
his history, states, that many of our noblest edifices arose from his
munificence. In this respect, his greatest works were at Salisbury and
Malmesbury: the former, long since levelled with the ground; the latter,
still lovely and venerable in its ruins, and exhibiting, even in our
days, one of the most noble remains of Norman architecture.
NOTES:
[22] _Essais Historiques sur la Ville de Caen et son arrondissement.
Caen, 1820._ In 2 vols. 8vo.
[23] I. p. 279.
[24] _Tour in Normandy_, II. p. 181.
[25] Over the door-way within this porch is sculptured a figure of St.
Michael, in high relief, of apparently the same date as the porch.
[26] Engraved in _Ducorel's Tour in Normandy_, p. 74.
[27] See _Bankes' Extinct Baronage_, I. p. 301.
PLATE XX.
STATUE OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR.
The statue here figured, has been introduced into this work altogether
as an historical curiosity; and, though it may seem to be somewhat
misplaced in a publication devoted to the elucidation of the
Architectural Antiquities of Normandy, it is hoped, that a single
deviation, and in favor of such a subject, may not only be deemed
admissible, but may also be acceptable to the reader.
At the time when De Bourgueville wrote his _Antiquités de la Ville de
Caen_, near the close of the sixteenth century, this statue was attached
to the gate adjoining the church of St. Stephen: it has since been
transferred to the wall of the church itself. The worthy old magistrate
says of it, that "it represented William the Conqueror on horseback, as
if in the act of entering the town, having under the feet of his horse
the figure of the body of a young man; while, before him, are kneeling a
man and woman, apparently in the act of demanding explanation respecting
the death of their son." He adds, that "it is a remarkable piece of
antiquity; but that he can tell nothing more of its history, than is
represented by the figures." From the above account, the only one
apparently left us, it is plain how much the statue, or rather group,
has suffered in modern times; but at what particular period, or on what
occasion, is unknown. It is equally plain, that the supposing of it to
be intended to represent the greatest of the dukes who swayed the Norman
sceptre, is by no means a fiction of the present day. This circumstance,
however, and its age likewise, have of late been much disputed. The
leading opinions upon these subjects, have been collected by Mr.
Turner,[28] who inclines to think that it is really of the period of
Norman dominion, and was actually designed for Duke William. He
parallels it with a very similar piece of sculpture from the
chapter-house of the abbey of St. Georges de Bocherville,[29] a
performance of unquestionable antiquity. His remarks upon the subject
are as follows:--"One of the most learned antiquaries of the present
time has found a prototype for the supposed figure of the Duke among the
sculptures of the Trajan column. But this, with all due deference, is
far from a decisive proof that the statue in question was not intended
for William. Similar adaptations of the antique model, 'mutato nomine,'
frequently occur among the works of the artists of the middle ages; and
there is at least a possibility that, had the face been left us, we
might have traced some attempt at a portrait of the Norman duke. Upon
the date of the sculpture, or the style of the workmanship, I dare not
venture an opinion. There are antiquaries, I know, (and men well
qualified to judge,) who believe it Roman: I have heard it pronounced
from high authority, that it is of the eleventh century; others suspect
that it is Italian, of the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries; while M.
Le Prevost and M. De Gerville maintain most strenuously that it is not
anterior to the fifteenth. De Bourgueville certainly calls it 'une
antiquité de grand remarque;' but we all know that any object which is
above an hundred years old, becomes a piece of antiquity in the eye of
an uncritical observer; and such was the good magistrate."
[Illustration: Plate 20. STATUE OF WILLIAM DUKE OF NORMANDY.
_South side of the Parish Church of St. Etienne at Caen._]
The parish of St. Stephen, at Caen, is generally distinguished by the
epithet of _the old_, whence an opinion has commonly prevailed, that its
church was one of those founded by St. Regnobert, in the middle of the
fourth century; and that the present edifice, if not actually in part
the same, is at least raised upon its foundations, and is certainly one
of the most ancient in Caen. This belief has been, in a measure,
countenanced by De Bourgueville and Huet, relying upon what appears to
have been an inaccurate translation from Robert Cenalis[30] But, on the
contrary, it appears from the Abbé De la Rue, that the author in
question makes no mention whatever of this parish, and that the
appellation was first given it by the Conqueror, by way of
distinguishing its church from the more sumptuous one erected by
himself, and also dedicated to the protomartyr; a circumstance, from
which the Abbé justly observes, that nothing more is to be deduced, than
that a church existed here anterior to his time; but by no means
necessarily of great antiquity. The present building is of the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; a medley of debased Gothic and
corrupted Roman.
NOTES:
[28] _Tour in Normandy_, II. p. 174.
[29] See plate 11, of this work, right-hand figures in the upper line;
see also _Turner's Tour in Normandy_, II. p. 11, with a figure.
[30] _Essais Historiques sur Caen_, I. p. 225.
PLATES XXI.--XXIII.
ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. STEPHEN.
(WEST FRONT, AND ELEVATION OF COMPARTMENTS OF THE NAVE.)
[Illustration: Plates 21-22. ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. ETIENNE, CAEN.]
The two royal Abbeys of Caen, long the pride of the town, while France,
not yet revolutionized, suffered them to exist in their glory, and while
her sons felt honored by the monuments of the piety and greatness of
their ancestors, are still, in their present state of degradation, among
the most interesting edifices which the province or the kingdom can
boast The building and the endowment of them are often mentioned with
admiration by the monastic historians of Normandy, one of whom, William
of Jumieges, gives the following account of their origin.
The marriage of Duke William with Matilda, daughter of Baldwin, Count of
Flanders, the son of his father's sister,[31] was within the prohibited
degrees of consanguinity, and greatly scandalized the clergy of the
duchy. They frequently remonstrated with their sovereign upon the
subject, and at length they succeeded so far, that he was induced to
dispatch ambassadors to Rome, to consult the Pope upon the steps
necessary to be adopted. His Holiness, prudently considering that a
divorce would in all probability be followed by war between the Flemings
and Normans, determined to have recourse to a more pacific expedient;
and consented to grant them absolution, upon condition of their
performing penance. The penance enjoined upon the occasion was the
erection of two monasteries; one for the religious of either
sex.--Gratefully, we are told, did the noble pair accept the proffered
terms; and instantly did they apply themselves to the fulfilment of
their task.
The abbey, undertaken by the Duke, the subject of these plates, is
stated by Huet, and authors in general, to have been completed in 1064,
two years prior to the conquest of England:[32] according to Ordericus
Vitalis, it was not dedicated till 1077. But upon this latter point
authors are not agreed: some say that the dedication took place in 1073;
and others, in 1081. However this may be, it seems certain that the
foundation-charter was granted subsequently to the year 1066; for in it
William takes the title of king, and among his many princely donations
are enumerated various properties and privileges in different parts of
Britain; decisive proofs that he was at that time in possession of the
island, and considered himself firmly fixed upon its throne. The abbey
thus raised, was, during the whole of the monarch's life, honored with
his especial favor; and at his death, he bequeathed it other lands,
together with his sceptre, the crown he wore upon occasions of the
highest solemnity, his hand of justice, a cup made of precious stone,
his golden candlesticks, and all the royal ornaments which usually
appertain to the crown. Still further to manifest his gracious regard,
he directed that the abbatial church should be the depository of his
mortal remains; and that a foundation, so rich in worldly wealth, might
not lack the more precious possessions of sanctity, he bought, as we
are told by the early writers,[33] _at no small price_, a portion of the
relics of the proto-martyr, consisting of a part of his arm, which was
preserved in the city of Besançon, and a small phial containing some
drops of blood, averred to have flowed from the same limb. At a
subsequent time, the King added to these a lock of the Saint's hair,
together with a portion of the skin of his head, and the stone with
which he was killed.[34] The hair was white, and as fresh as if it had
only then been severed; and it was kept in a beautiful crystal vessel;
so that, to use the words of a contemporary manuscript, "totum fuit
pulchrum: capilli albi et pulchri; lapis etiam unde percussus fuit
albus; vas pulchrum et album; et aspicientibus rem adeo pulchram magnam
faciunt admirationem."
The first abbot of the convent was Lanfranc, a native of Italy, who had
established himself in the neighboring monastery of Bec, where the fame
of his talents had acquired him a most extensive celebrity; and the zeal
with which he had applied himself to the task of education,[35] had
increased it to a degree, of which, in these days, we have little idea.
But he held the pastoral staff only a very short time, for he was, as
early as the year 1070, translated to the more important post of
Archbishop of Canterbury; and it was reserved to his successor, William
de Bonne Ame, to have the honor of presiding over the community, at the
period when John of Avranches, Archbishop of Rouen, assisted by his
suffragan bishops, as well as by Lanfranc himself, with Thomas, his
brother metropolitan, and many abbots, and a wonderful throng of people,
performed the ceremony of the dedication.[36]
The Conqueror's sons confirmed the various donations made to the abbey
by their parent. The eldest of them, Robert, his successor in the
dukedom, added the privilege of a fair and a weekly market at Cheux.
William Rufus, the second, entered into a negociation with the monks, to
re-purchase his father's royal ornaments, in exchange for the parish of
Coker, in Somersetshire; but he died before the completion of the
treaty; and this was finally carried into effect by Henry I. with one
only difference, that Brideton, (now called Burton) in Dorsetshire, was
substituted for Coker. It was Henry, according to the Abbé De la
Rue,[37] who raised the superb monument over his father's remains; but
Ordericus Vitalis expressly attributes the work to William Rufus.[38]
Respecting its splendor, all writers are unanimous: the shrine placed
upon the mausoleum, was a "mirificum memoriale, quod ex auro et argento
et gemmis competentèr splenduit." The care of building the tomb was
committed to a goldsmith at Caen, of the name of Otto, who had received
from the Conqueror a grant of land in Essex; and whose descendants,
under the name of Fitz-Othon, had the principal direction of the English
mint, till the death of Thomas Fitz-Othon, the last of the family, in
1282.
Henry II. in a very long charter, confirmed the various endowments and
privileges previously bestowed upon the convent, and added others of his
own. From this time forward, it continued to increase in wealth and
power. In the year 1250, its revenues, in Normandy, amounted to four
thousand livres, a sum equivalent to eighty-two thousand and sixteen
livres of the present day. In 1668, when money in France was of about
half its present value, the abbot and monks divided an income of
sixty-four thousand and four livres: and in 1774, this income had
swelled to one hundred and ninety-two thousand livres, notwithstanding
the immense losses suffered by the suppression of the alien priories in
England. Thus an increase had taken place of nearly one hundred and ten
thousand livres, in about five hundred and twenty years. The
ecclesiastical patronage of the abbey, at the time of the revolution,
extended over twelve churches. Its monks, who were of the order of St.
Benedict, continued till the year 1663 to belong to the class of
Benedictines, called _unreformed_; but the Duchess of Longueville, wife
of the then abbot, introduced at that period the brethren of the
congregation of St. Maur.
The privileges and immunities granted to the convent of St. Stephen, are
detailed at considerable length by Du Moustier,[39] who has also
carefully collected the particulars of the life of Lanfranc, and has
given a catalogue, accompanied with short biographical notices, of the
rest of the abbots. By far the greater number of these were men eminent
for their rank or talents; and some of them were subsequently promoted
to higher dignities. William de Bonne Ame, the second abbot, succeeded
John de Bayeux in the metropolitan throne of Rouen; Hugh de Coilly,
grandson of King Stephen, after being elected to preside over this
monastery, was almost immediately transferred to the archbishopric of
York;[40] and Charles de Martigni, abbot of St. Stephen's in the
fifteenth century, was successively honored with two episcopal mitres.
It was by him that the prelacy was first held _in commendam_, an example
too tempting not to be followed; and the abbey, thus constantly gaining
in the dignity of its superiors, as constantly lost in their real value.
Seven cardinals, (among whom were the celebrated Cardinals of Richelieu,
Mazarine and Fleury,) a natural son of King Henry IV. an archbishop of
Lyons, two of Aix, and one of Rouen, were among its most modern abbots.
Another of them, John Le Got,[41] was present at the abjuration of Henry
IV. in the church of St. Denys, on the twenty-fifth of July, 1593; and
by virtue of his office as apostolical prothonotary, subscribed his name
to the letter from the bishops to the Pope, declaring that nothing had
taken place in the transaction, inconsistent with the reverence due to
his holiness. A list of considerable length might also be made from
among the monks of the convent, of those who have been ennobled by their
talents or dignities.
The monastic buildings appertaining to the Abbey of St. Stephen were
begun in 1704, and completed after a period of twenty-two years. They
are now attached to the royal College of Caen, to which establishment
they were appropriated at the revolution; and, provided as they were
with noble gardens, they were an accession of the utmost importance to
the institution. But the value of the gift has, within the ten last
years, been considerably lessened, by the municipality having robbed the
college of the greater part of the gardens, for the purpose of
converting them into an open square. The plan of the buildings was
furnished by a lay-brother of the Benedictine order, named William De la
Tremblaye, who also erected those of the sister Convent of the Trinity,
at Caen; and those of the Abbey of St. Denis. During the storms of the
revolution, the abbatial church happily suffered but little. Fallen,
though it be, from its dignity, and degraded to parochial, it still
stands nearly entire. Not indeed as it came from the hands of the Norman
architect, but as it was left by the Huguenots in the sixteenth century,
when, with the violence which marked the transactions of that æra,
doors, windows, floors, wood-work, lead, iron, marble, manuscripts, and
books, were given up to indiscriminate destruction: bells were broken,
roofs stripped, altars profaned, the very tombs opened; and, as if no
point had been gained, so long as aught was suffered to remain, the
central tower was undermined, in the hope that its fall would involve
the ruin of the whole edifice. And fall, indeed, it did; but happily
only carried away with it a portion of the eastern end. From this
circumstance, however, have arisen discrepancies of style, for which it
would be difficult, without such knowledge, to account. The nave and the
transepts are the only pure remains of the original building: the choir
and aisles are of pointed architecture, and are, consequently, not of
equal antiquity. Even the western front partakes, in a measure, of the
same mixture. All, to the top of the towers, is genuine Norman, and of
the eleventh century: the spires, with their surrounding turrets, are
of a later æra.[42] At the same time it may reasonably be doubted how
far the Abbé De la Rue is right in ascribing them to the fourteenth
century. To differ from so able an antiquary and so competent a judge in
matters of this description, is always hazardous; but the author of this
article must, nevertheless, be allowed to hesitate before he gives a
full assent. It is known that the choir was enlarged, and the apsis
built as it now exists, during the prelacy of Simon de Trevieres, which
extended from the year 1316 to 1344; but history is silent as to any
other additions made at that period to the church; and the style of the
architecture of the spires does certainly appear to be earlier than that
of the parts just mentioned. No argument is to be drawn from the general
aspect of the building; for such is the great excellence of the Caen
stone, and so little has it suffered in an atmosphere untainted by coal
smoke, and in a climate probably superior to our own, that all the parts
appear to be in equally good preservation, and the whole looks as fresh
as if but yesterday hewn from the quarry. An opinion has commonly
prevailed, that an epitaph, still visible on the exterior of the apsis,
is that of the builder of the church. Facsimiles of it have been given
by Ducarel[43] and Gough,[44] the former of whom seems to have no doubt
of the fact. Such, however, cannot be the case; the very shape of the
characters sufficiently disproves it: they are altogether unlike those
used on Queen Matilda's tomb, a relic, whose authenticity was never
called in question. The character of the architecture of the chapel
affords a still more decisive contradiction. Indeed, after what has
already been said, it needs scarcely be added, that the building itself
did not exist at the period assigned by Ducarel to the epitaph, which is
most probably that of the person who erected the apsis, and made the
other alterations in the fourteenth century.
The western front of the church exhibits two different characters:
below, all is simple, almost to meanness: the upper part abounds in
ornament; and here the good sense of the architect, who added the
pinnacles and spires, merits commendation, in having made them
correspond so well in their decorations with the towers. The plate
sufficiently explains all that is to be said of this part of the
building, excepting as to the more minute ornaments of the door-ways,
which deserve to be exhibited in detail. The architrave is composed of
several bands of the simplest moulding, inclosed within three of a
different style; the two outermost being formed of the chevron ornament,
with its angles unusually acute; the inner, of the billet moulding. The
capitals of the pillars are studded with small heads, placed under the
Ionic volute, exhibiting a mixture of classical and barbarous taste,
which is likewise to be found at Cérisy, and upon one of the capitals in
the abbey church of the Trinity.
Along the exterior of the upper part of the nave, runs a row of
twenty-four semi-circular arches, with imposts and bases, and all
uniform, except that eight of them are pierced for windows. This portion
of the building is entirely without buttresses. Upon the extremity of
the north transept are three very shallow buttresses, which rise from
the ground to the bottom of the clerestory windows, unbroken by any
interruption whatever, but here meet with a string-course, beyond which
the two outer ones are continued, unchanged in form and appearance, to
the summit of the ends of the gable, while the centre one, though it is
raised to an equal height, loses more than half its width, and is also
much reduced in depth. Over this latter buttress is a window; and
between the buttresses are six others, arranged in a double row. Each
pair differs in size from the rest: those nearest the ground are the
largest, and those immediately above them the least. The lowest pair on
each side is inclosed within a spacious arch, which occupies nearly
two-thirds of the gable. Eastward of the transepts is a series of blank
intersecting arches, remarkable for their mouldings, which consist of a
flat, wide, and very shallow band;[45] and here the mixture of the
pointed with the semi-circular architecture commences. This portion of
the building altogether resembles the cathedral of Coutances in the
disposition of its parts.
[Illustration: Plate 23. ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. ETIENNE, CAEN.
_Elevation of compartment of the Nave._]
It would be difficult to describe the interior of the church in clearer
or more comprehensive terms, than has been done by Mr. Cohen in Mr.
Turner's Tour,[46] from which work the following account is, therefore,
extracted.--"Without doubt, the architect was conversant with Roman
buildings, though he has Normanized their features, and adapted the
lines of the basilica to a _barbaric_ temple. The Coliseum furnished the
elevation of the nave;--semi-circular arches surmounted by another tier
of equal span, and springing at nearly an equal height from the basis of
the supporting pillars. The architraves connecting the lower rows of
pillars are distinctly enounced. The arches which rise from them have
plain bold mouldings. The piers between each arch are of considerable
width. In the centre of each pier is a column, which ascends as usual to
the vault. These columns are alternately simple and compound. The latter
are square pilasters, each fronted by a cylindrical column, which of
course projects farther into the nave than the simple columns; and thus
the nave is divided into bays. This system is imitated in the gothic
cathedral at Sens. The square pilaster ceases at about four-fifths of
its height: then two cylindrical pillars rise from it, so that, from
that point, the column becomes clustered. Angular brackets, sculptured
with knots, grotesque heads, and foliage, are affixed to the base of
these derivative pillars. A bold double-billeted moulding is continued
below the clerestory, whose windows adapt themselves to the binary
arrangement of the bays. A taller arch is flanked by a smaller one on
the right or the left side, as its situation requires. These are
supported by short massy pillars: an embattled moulding runs round the
windows.--In the choir the arches become pointed, but with Norman
mouldings: the apsis is a reconstruction. In that portion of the choir
which seems original, there are pointed windows formed by the
interlacing of circular arches: these light the gallery.--The effect
produced by the perspective of the interior is lofty and palatial. The
ancient masonry of the exterior is worthy of notice. The stones are all
small, perhaps not exceeding nine or twelve inches: the joints are about
three-quarters of an inch."
To this description, it may be well to add the following particulars
concerning the dimensions of the church, taken from the exterior:--
FEET.
Length from east to west 871
Height of western towers 145
----------------------- with their spires 262
-------- nave on the western front, to the point of the gable 98
-------- northern transepts 84
Width of ditto 42
It may also not be amiss to observe, that the nave is on either side
divided into nine compartments, the second and third of which, reckoning
from the west, on the south side, form the subject of the _twenty-third
plate_. The rest, though diversified in their ornaments, are uniform in
their plan, except only the one on either side, immediately adjoining
the entrance: each of these contains a slender shallow arch, not pierced
to the transepts, and rising from the pavement nearly to the top of the
upper windows. In that part of the church, two peculiarities will not
fail to be remarked: the greater width of the arches of the triforium,
than that of those below; and the balustrade of quatrefoils, which is
continued throughout this portion of the building. Immediately upon
entering the church, a doubt involuntarily suggests itself, how far this
balustrade may not be an addition of comparatively modern date. But,
upon the whole, there seems no reason to consider it so. Precisely the
same ornament is found upon the tomb of Berengaria, wife to Richard
Coeur-de-Lion, which Mr. Stothard has lately figured, and believes to be
coeval with the queen whom it commemorates.
The monument raised to William the Conqueror, in the middle of the choir
of this church, was violated and broken to pieces by the Calvinists, and
its contents wantonly destroyed, towards the close of the sixteenth
century. The account of the outrages then committed are given at length,
and with great naïveté, as well as feeling, by De Bourgueville,[47] who
was present on the occasion; and they have lately been translated into
English,[48] with the addition of some interesting details that
accompanied the death and funeral of the monarch. Nearly a hundred years
before that time, a cardinal, upon a visit to Caen, had opened the tomb
through curiosity. After the tumults caused by the Huguenots had
subsided, the monks of the convent, who had gotten possession of one of
the thigh-bones that had been preserved by the Viscount of Falaise,
re-interred it, and, out of gratitude to their founder, raised, in 1642,
a new monument of black marble, at great expense. One side of it bore
the original metrical epitaph, composed by Thomas, Archbishop of York,
beginning with the following line:--
"Qui rexit rigidos Normannos atque Britannos;"
on the other side, was an inscription[49] commemorative of the
circumstances attendant on the tomb; but this second tomb was also taken
away in 1742, by virtue of an order from Louis XV. empowering the
governor of Caen to remove the monarch's remains into the sanctuary, as
interfering, in their original position, with the ceremonies of the
church. A flat stone, in front of the high altar, succeeded to the
monument; and even this, the democrats of 1793 tore up. It was, however,
replaced by General Dugua, while Prefect of Caen, and it still holds its
situation.[50] There are no other monuments of any kind in the church.
Extensive buildings were attached to the abbey of St. Stephen; and,
among the rest, what was generally supposed to have been a royal palace,
and passed commonly under the name of the Palace of the Conqueror. As
every thing connected with the abbey was naturally referred by the
public to that sovereign, it will not appear surprising that this
edifice was so likewise, however little ground there may have been for
the appellation. Its having been called a palace, arose probably from
the circumstance of the French monarchs always residing in this
monastery, during their visits to Caen. The names of St. Louis, of John,
of Henry V. and of Francis I. are to be found in the list of those who
honored it with their presence. The greater part of the palatial
buildings were destroyed by the Huguenots; but portions of them were
standing in 1752, when Ducarel made his tour in Normandy; and he has
figured them. Among these was the most interesting part of the whole,
the great hall, the place in which the States of Normandy used to
assemble, as often as they were convened at Caen; and where the
Exchequer repeatedly held its sittings, after the recapture of Normandy,
by the kings of France, from its ancient dukes. This hall even escaped
the fury of revolutionists as well as Calvinists; but it was in the year
1802 altered by General Caffarelli, the then prefect, into rooms for the
college; and its superb painted windows were destroyed, together with
its pavement of glazed tiles, charged with heraldic bearings. The tiles
have long afforded scope for the learning and ingenuity of antiquaries,
some of whom have believed them coeval with the Conqueror; while others,
who hesitate about going quite so far, have regarded them as bearing the
arms of his companions. In the _Gallia Christiana_, the placing of them
is attributed to Robert de Chambray, who is there stated to have been
abbot from 1385 to 1393, a fact which the Abbé De la Rue utterly
disbelieves. He, however, is of opinion, that the tiles are of nearly
the same date, or a little earlier; and he considers them as belonging
to the families who had supplied abbots and monks to the convent.
NOTES:
[31] _Duchesne, Scriptores Normanni_, pp. 277 and 282.
[32] So says Huet, in his _Origines de Caen_, p. 175, upon the authority
of the Chronicle of the _Abbey of Bec_; and no attempt was made to
controvert this fact, till the recent publication of the Abbé De la
Rue's _Essais Historiques_, in which it is attempted to be proved, from
various indirect testimonies, that the building could not have been
finished till after the year 1070; indeed, that it could not even have
been begun at the time fixed by Huet for its completion, inasmuch as the
foundation charter, which must be of a date posterior to 1066, uses the
following expression.--"Ego Guillelmus, Anglorum Rex, Normannorum et
Coenomanorum princeps, Coenobium in honorem Dei ac Beatissimi
prothomartyris Stephani, intra Burgum, quem vulgari nomine vocant,
Cadomum, pro salute animæ meæ, uxoris, filiorum ac parentum meorum,
_disposui construendum_."
[33] See _Neustria Pia_, p. 639.
[34] Dom Blanchard, a Benedictine Monk, who left an unpublished history
of this monastery, says, "that the Conqueror obtained about the same
time from Constantinople, St. Stephen's skull; and that the translation
of it into the abbatial church was celebrated by an annual festival on
the eighth of October." The Cathedral of Soissons boasted of the
possession of the same relic; and of having also procured it from
Constantinople.--"Too much confidence," it is prudently observed by a
catholic writer on this subject, "must not be placed in the authenticity
of those relics, which cannot be traced to the date of St. Gregory of
Tours, the sixth century!"
[35] Lanfranc, after having for some time directed at Bec the first
school ever established in Normandy, upon his translation to Caen,
opened another in that town. In the _Lives of the Abbots of Bec_,
written in latin verse, in the twelfth century, by Peter, a monk of the
convent of Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives, particular honor is given to Lanfranc
on the subject of his school at Caen, which had produced many men
eminent for their proficiency in sacred and secular literature, and was
at that time flourishing. The Abbé De la Rue gives a long list of them.
_Essais Historiques_, II. p. 70.
[36] _Ordericus Vitalis_, in _Duchesne's Scriptores Normanni_, p. 549.
[37] _Essais Historiques_, II. p. 64.
[38] _Duchesne, Scriptores Normanni_, p. 663.
[39] _Neustria Pia_, p. 640.
[40] _Gallia Christiana_, II. p. 425.
[41] His name is not to be found in the list of abbots given in the
_Neustria Pia_; but the authors of the _Gallia Christiana_ say, (XI. p.
480,) "that he was nominated to the prelacy upon the resignation of the
thirty-fourth abbot, Charles d'O, and was confirmed in it by the States
of Blois. It is admitted, however, that, notwithstanding his appointment
in 1596, his predecessor continued to receive the emoluments of the
office, till 1624, and enjoyed a large pension arising from them, till
his death, in 1627."
[42] In speaking of these, the Abbé De la Rue takes occasion to lay down
a general rule, (_Essais Historiques_, II. p. 61) that "on ne trouve
ordinairement en Normandie, que des arcades semi-circulaires dans les
Xe. XIe. et XIIe. siècles; au contraire, les arcades en pointes des
nefs, des fenêtres et des portes des églises, autrement les arcades en
ogive, n'ont eu lieu chez nous que dans le XIIIe. siècle et les suivans.
On trouve également ces deux styles en Angleterre et aux mêmes époques,
et leur différence est une des principales règles qui servent aux
antiquaires Anglois, pour discerner les constructions Normandes et
Anglo-Normandes, des constructions d'un autre genre."--But Mr. Turner,
in his inquiries respecting the former cathedral of Lisieux, (_Tour in
Normandy_, II. p. 131) appears to have proved that the pointed arch must
have had existence at a considerably earlier period in France; and it is
expected, that some instances which will be adduced in the sequel of the
work, will have the effect of confirming his opinion.
[43] _Anglo-Norman Antiquities_, p. 57.
[44] _Sepulchral Monuments_, I. p. 247, t. 30.--The epitaph, which, in
the original, is full of contractions, it is supposed by the Abbé De la
Rue, should be read as follows:--
"Guillelmus jacet hic, petrarum summus in arte:
Iste novum perfecit opus; det premia Christus.
Amen."
[45] A similar row of arches is found on the north transept of Norwich
Cathedral, between the first and second tier of windows.--See _Britton's
Norwich Cathedral_, plate 10.
[46] II. p. 195.
[47] _Antiquités de Caen_, p. 171.
[48] _Turner's Tour in Normandy_, II. p. 203.
[49] See _Neustria Pia_, p. 656.
[50] The inscription upon it, which details the various events that had
befallen the tomb, is given in _Turner's Tour in Normandy_, II. p. 197.
PLATES XXIV.--XXXIII.
ABBEY OF THE HOLY TRINITY, AT CAEN.
[Illustration: Plate 24. ABBEY CHURCH OF THE HOLY TRINITY, CAEN.
_West front._]
Mention has already been made, under the preceding subject, of the
origin of the convent of the Holy Trinity, whose church, though not an
equally extensive building as that of the monastery of St. Stephen, is
infinitely more rich in its decorations, and has been left almost
entirely in its original form. A more perfect example of a Norman
abbatial church, is perhaps no where to be found; and, as this edifice
had the farther advantage of having been raised at the period when the
province was at the acme of its power, of having been erected by an
individual of the highest rank, and of having owed its existence to an
occasion peculiarly calculated to call forth the exercise of the utmost
liberality and splendor, it has been conceived that the object of a work
like the present, could not be better answered, than by exhibiting such
a building in its fullest details.
With the churches of the Trinity and of St. Georges before him, the
reader will best be enabled to judge what Norman architecture really
was: no difficulty or doubt can arise as to the history or the date of
either; and he may rest satisfied, that whatever has been selected from
them, is, as far as human observation can decide, exactly in the state
in which it was left by the original builder.
The abbey of the Holy Trinity was founded in 1066, by Matilda of
Flanders, wife to William II. Duke of Normandy; and its church was
dedicated on the eighteenth of June of the same year, by Maurilius,
Archbishop of Rouen, assisted by the bishops and abbots of the province,
and in the presence of the duke and duchess, together with their
principal barons. The sovereign, upon the same day, presented at the
altar his infant daughter, Cecilia, devoting her to the service of God
in this monastery, in which she was accordingly educated, and was its
first nun and second abbess. History has recorded the name of the first
abbess, Matilda, and relates that she was of one of the most noble
families of the duchy; but no farther particulars are known respecting
her. The foundation-charters of this convent, which bear date in the
years 1066 and 1082, are full of donations in every respect princely;
and these, not only on the part of the sovereign, but also of his
nobles, whose signatures are likewise attached to the instruments. The
queen, also, at her decease, left the monastery her crown, sceptre, and
ornaments of state;[51] thus setting the example, which was shortly
afterwards followed by her royal consort, with regard to the abbey of
St. Stephen. Robert, the Conqueror's successor in the dukedom, was not
behind-hand with his father in his liberality to the convent of the
Trinity. The latter, in his charter, dated 1083, had reserved to himself
the right of the fishery of the Orne, together with sundry possessions
outside the walls of the town, in the direction of the suburb of
Vaugeux. All these were ceded by the new duke to his sister; and out of
the various grants, on the part of the father and son, was formed what
was denominated the _Bourg l'Abbesse_, or _Barony of St. Giles_. Duke
Robert did yet more; for, after having distinguished himself at the
capture of Jerusalem, and refused the crown of the Holy Land, he
brought home with him, on his return to France, and deposited in the
abbatial church founded by his mother, the great standard of the
Saracens, wrested from them by his valor in the field of Ascalon.
Among the privileges conferred upon the abbey of the Trinity, by the
Norman princes, was the right of holding a fair upon Trinity-Sunday and
the days that immediately preceded and followed it. The abbess, during
these days, was entitled to all the town dues; and, to leave no doubt of
her right, she was in the habit of sending some of her officers at
vespers time on the Friday, to affix her armorial bearings to every
entrance of the town. The same officers also attached their own boxes
for the receipt of customs to the gates, in lieu of those of the
farmer-general. Water alone could be brought in without payment of toll.
As long as the fair lasted, the abbess was likewise treated with
military honors; the commandant of the garrison, whatever his rank, was
bound to apply to her, in person, for the parole of the day. The Abbé De
la Rue, from whose work most of the historical facts concerning this
convent are extracted, states, that he has himself seen the Maréchal de
Harcourt, while governor of Normandy, wait upon the abbess for the
purpose; and he is of opinion, that the custom existed from the very
foundation of the monastery.
It will not be matter of surprise, that an establishment, thus gifted
and distinguished, should have been tenanted by the children of those
who had contributed to the endowment. The names of the daughters and
nieces of the chief Norman barons, will be found in the catalogue of the
first nuns. Such, however, was at that period the state of society, that
even an abbey, so founded, endowed, and occupied, was doomed to afford a
remarkable instance of the capricious barbarity of the times. No sooner
was the death of the Conqueror known, than the very nobles, who, but a
few years previously, had been foremost as benefactors to the convent,
assumed the opposite character, and did every thing in their power to
despoil, and to destroy it. They had themselves subscribed the following
denunciation:--"Si quis verò horum omnium, quæ prædictæ S. Trinitatis
ecclesiæ data ostensa sunt, temerariâ præsumptione aliquando, (quod
absit) violator effectus, in suâ impudenti obstinatione perstiterit:
Noverit ille se anathema factum a Domino, sanctâ ac beatâ fidelium
omnium communione privatum Divino judicio, perpetualitèr esse
plectendum."--But no consideration, human or divine, could restrain
their rapacity: they pillaged the lands; seized the corn and cattle
belonging to the monastery; imprisoned some of the tenants and vassals,
and put others to the sword. These, and many other facts, most curiously
illustrative of the manners of the age, are to be found in the
collection of the charters of the abbey. They prove indisputably, (if
such a fact needs proof) that the days of chivalry were far from being
days of honesty. But they also shew, what the reader may not be equally
prepared to see, that among these plunderers was Henry himself, the
Conqueror's youngest son, who did not scruple to lay waste the lands
given to the abbey by his mother; and who, as the Abbé de la Rue
remarks, had probably, even at that early period, conceived the
intention of seizing upon his paternal territory, and might be engaged
in the amassing of those pecuniary resources, by the aid of which he
ultimately succeeded in his usurpation of the throne.
Among the possessions of the abbey of the Holy Trinity, were several
estates[52] and advowsons in England; for the better administration of
which, the presence of the abbess was occasionally required on this side
of the water. The names of more than one of the holy ladies are on
record, who honored our island with their presence. The journal of the
tour of the abbess, Georgette du Molley Bacon, states her to have
embarked at Caen, on the sixteenth of August, 1570, with fifteen persons
in her suite, and to have landed in London, and proceeded to her
manor-house at Felsted, in Essex, from which she did not return to
Normandy till Trinity-Sunday in the following year.
Hence it may be easily inferred, that the rules of the convent were not
of the strictest description. The establishment indeed was, from its
origin, under the regulation of the order of St. Benedict, but the nuns,
though they lived under the same roof, were not bound by vows: they were
accustomed to receive their friends in their own apartments; and many of
them had nieces or other relations with them, whom they brought up. The
refectory was common; and they ate meat several days in the week. There
were also stated times, on which it was allowable for them to take the
air in a garden at a short distance from the convent. The abbess herself
had her Country-house at Oistreham, where she frequently resided; and
upon the occasion of those festivals which are distinguished by public
processions, the whole body of the community used to go in procession to
each of the different churches of Caen. Sometimes too the abbess
attended with a party of her nuns at the performance of any mystery or
similar scenical representation. The account of the revenues of the
monastery in 1423, shews how Nicole de Rupalley, then abbess, was
present at the acting of the _Miracle of St. Vincent_, and rewarded the
performers with a gratuity of ten sols, a sum equivalent, at that time,
to ten bushels of wheat.
About the year 1515, an attempt was made by the superior, Isabel of
Bourbon, to curtail the indulgences of the sisterhood, by keeping them
more closely confined, increasing the number of fast-days, and generally
introducing a system of greater rigor. But the nuns remonstrated against
the innovation, and had recourse to the Bishop of Bayeux, alledging the
injustice of their being called upon to submit themselves to
regulations, to which they had not originally subscribed. The prelate,
who felt the point to be a delicate one, refused to decide; and the
matter ended in an appeal to the Pope, who, finally, allowed the nuns to
retire into other convents, where they might enjoy the freedom they
claimed.
When, after the capture of Caen by Edward, in 1346, the inhabitants
resolved upon fortifying the town anew, the abbeys of St. Stephen and of
the Trinity, both of which lay in the suburbs, were excluded from the
line of circumvallation; and the consequence was their exposure to
insults and pillage. The monks and nuns were therefore obliged to look
to their own defence; and, upon King John's coming to Caen, eight years
afterwards, they obtained from him letters patent, authorizing them to
encircle their convents with walls, towers, and fosses of their own.
Hence originated the strange anomaly of a fortress and nunnery within
the same precincts. The sisterhood, alarmed at their situation, sold
their plate, and even the shrines of their relics, to provide for their
safety; and permission was afterwards granted them to levy contributions
upon their vassals, for the purpose of expediting and completing the
task.--In the reign of Henry VI. during the wane of the British power in
France, orders were issued by the monarch for the dismantling of the
fort of the Trinity, lest it should be seized by the inhabitants of the
neighborhood, who were endeavoring to get possession of Caen. But the
abbess resisted the royal edict; and, under an apprehension, lest the
attempt to carry it into effect should induce her to open the gates to
the insurgents, her resistance was allowed to be effectual.--King
Charles repeatedly took up his quarters in this monastery, while his
army was laying siege to Caen, in 1450, and mention continues to be made
of the fortress till the commencement of the following century; but
after that time, it appears to have been suffered to go to ruin.
M. De la Rue rejects, as unfounded, the statement of the Bishop of
Avranches, which has obtained general credence, that the spires of the
western towers of the abbey were destroyed in 1360, by Charles the Bad,
on account of their use for the detecting of the approach of an enemy.
His principal argument against the fact is, that the King of Navarre was
at that very time at peace with France; and therefore, supposing it to
be certain that they were taken down by that prince, he is of opinion,
that their demolition must have been ordered to prevent them from
serving as landmarks to the English. At the same time, he is evidently
inclined to think that the towers were never surmounted by spires at
all; and he observes, with much apparent justice, that, if there really
were any, and if they were really destroyed at the period alledged, the
towers must have been left for a long time in a ruined state, as their
present termination is known to be the work of the eighteenth century.
The original charters and title-deeds of the abbey of the Trinity were
lost during the revolution. They perished in consequence of the extreme
care of the last abbess, who, full of anxiety for their preservation,
secured them in trunks, and hid them in the ceiling of the church. But,
in those disastrous times, the lead that covered the churches was among
the earliest objects of plunder; and the consequence was, that the roof
was stripped; the boxes exposed to the rain; the wood and paper wholly
destroyed; and the tin cases that held the charters so eaten by rust,
that their contents were rendered illegible. It was in this state that
they were found by the Abbé De la Rue, who was in possession of the
secret, and who, on his return to France, after the cessation of the
troubles and the death of the abbess, obtained permission from the
prefect for the search to be made.
The church of the abbey of the Trinity had its own peculiar rites; and,
till the period of the revolution, the community were in the habit of
printing their liturgy annually in latin. A very beautiful quarto
volume, containing the ritual, was published at Caen, in 1622, by the
order of Laurence de Budos, then abbess. It was probably from pride at a
privilege of this nature, and from a confidence in their strength, that
the nuns persisted in celebrating the ridiculous, or, it might almost be
called, blasphemous _Fête des Fous_, for a hundred years after the
Council of Basle had decreed the suppression of it throughout
Christendom. In imitation too of the Boy-Bishops of Bayeux, Salisbury,
and other churches, the nuns of the Holy Trinity had their
Girl-Abbesses. The ancient rolls of the monastery make mention, under
the head of expenses in 1423, of six sols given, by way of offering, on
Innocents'-Day, "_aux petites Abbesses_." This was the day on which the
Girl-Abbess was elected: the superior of the convent resigned to her the
abbatial stall and crozier at vespers, as soon as they came to the verse
of the _Magnificat_, beginning "_Deposuit potentes de sede_;" and the
farce was kept up till the same hour the succeeding evening. The Abbé De
la Rue, who mentions this fact, observes with justice, that another
circumstance, which appears from these accounts, is still more
extraordinary;--that, even as late as 1546, the abbess was in the habit
of making an annual payment of five sols to the cathedral of Bayeux, for
its Boy-Bishop. The entry is in the following terms: "_Au petit évêque
de Bayeux, pour sa pension, ainsi qu'il est accoutumé, V. sous._" During
the early part of the preceding century, the abbot of St. Stephen was
also accustomed to pay twenty sols per annum, on the same account; but
his payment was probably discontinued immediately after the edict of the
Council of Basle, though the ceremony of the Boy-Bishop was not
suppressed at Bayeux till 1482. Indeed, only six years before that time,
the inventory of the sacristy of the cathedral enumerated, among its
other valuables,
"Two mitres for the Boy-Bishop,
The crozier belonging to the Boy-Bishop,
The Boy-Bishop's mittens,
And four small copes of scarlet satin, for the use
of the singing-boys on Innocents'-Day."
The abbess of Caen, through the medium of her official, exercised
spiritual jurisdiction over the parishes of St. Giles, Carpiquet,
Oistreham, and St. Aubin-d'Arquenay, by virtue of a privilege granted by
the bishops of Bayeux, as well for herself and her nuns, as for the
vassals of the several parishes. This privilege, however, extended no
farther than to an exemption from certain pecuniary fines, which the
diocesans, in the middle ages, exacted from their flocks; and even in
this confined acceptation, it was more than once the subject of
litigation between the convent and the see. In like manner, the civil
and criminal jurisdiction claimed by the abbess over the same parishes,
brought her occasionally into disputes with the bailiff and viscount of
Caen: her rights were repeatedly called in question, and she was obliged
to have recourse to legal tribunals to establish them. The following
very extraordinary suit is at once illustrative of the fact, and of the
character of the times:--In the year 1480, an infant was eaten up in its
cradle, by a _bestia porcina_, within the precincts of the parish of St.
Giles. The abbess' officers seized the delinquent, and instituted a
process for its condemnation before the seneschal of the convent. During
the time, however, that the question was pending, the king's
attorney-general interfered. He summoned the abbess before the
high-bailiff, and, maintaining that the crime had been committed within
the cognizance of the bailiwick, he claimed the beast, and demanded that
its trial should take place before one of the royal tribunals. Debates
immediately arose as to the limits of their respective jurisdictions:
inquiries were set on foot; memorials and counter-memorials were
presented; and the abbess finally succeeded in carrying her point, only
by dint of proving that she had, some years previously, burned a young
woman in the _Place aux Campions_, for having murdered a man in the
self-same house where the hog devoured the child.
Among the obligations originally imposed upon this convent, was that of
giving a dinner annually, on Trinity Sunday, to such of the inhabitants
of the parish of Vaux-sur-Saulles and their domestics, as had resided
there a year and a day. The repast was served up within the abbey walls,
and in the following manner:--After the guests had washed their hands in
a tub of water, they seated themselves on the ground, and a cloth was
spread before them. A loaf, of the weight of twenty-one ounces, was
then given to each individual, and with it a slice of boiled bacon, six
inches square. To this was added a rasher of bacon, fried; and the feast
concluded with a basin of bread and milk for every person, all of them
having likewise as much beer and cider as they could drink. The dinner,
as may naturally be supposed, lasted from three to four hours; and it
will also not be difficult to imagine, that the entertaining of such a
motley throng on such a day, could not fail to be attended with great
annoyance to the nuns, and with various inconveniences. The convent had
therefore, from a very early date, endeavored to free themselves from
the obligation, by the payment of a sum of money; and, in times of war,
the town of Caen had occasionally interposed, and forced the people to
accept the composition, from an apprehension, lest the enemy should gain
possession of the fort of the Trinity, by introducing themselves into it
among the authorized guests. It appears that, in 1429, the abbess
purchased an exemption at the price of thirty livres, a sum equivalent
to thirty-seven and a half quarters of corn, at a time when wheat sold
for two sols the bushel; and twenty-two years subsequently, Charles VII.
then King of France, granted his letters patent, abolishing the dinner
altogether, upon condition of a like sum being annually paid to the
parochial chest.
To the abbey church of the Trinity were attached several chapels, as
well without as within its walls: the most remarkable of these was that
of St. Thomas, generally known by the name of _St. Thomas l'Abattu_, in
the suburb of St. Giles. It was, in its original state, an hospital, and
was called the Hospital of St. Thomas the Martyr in the fields, whence
De la Rue infers that it was built in commemoration of Thomas-à-Becket,
and was probably erected immediately after his canonization in 1173.
Huet, on the contrary, tells us, that it had existed "from time
immemorial;" and Ducarel, who has described and figured it,[53] appears
to have also regarded it as of very high antiquity. The gradual
disappearance of leprosy had caused it to be long since diverted from
its original purpose. In 1569, it was pillaged by the Huguenots; and, as
no pains were taken to repair the injuries then done, it continued in a
state of dilapidation, imperceptibly wasting away, till the period of
the revolution, when it was sold, together with the other national
property; and even its ruins have now disappeared.
Happily, the abbatial church of the Trinity was at that time more
fortunate: it was suffered to continue unappropriated, till, upon the
institution of the Legion of Honor, Napoléon applied it to some purposes
connected with that body, by whom it was a few years ago ceded for its
present object, that of a workhouse for the department. The choir alone
is now used as a church: the nave serves for work-rooms; and, to render
it the better applicable to this purpose, a floor has been thrown
across, which divides it into two stories.
It has been observed in a recent publication,[54] that "a finer specimen
of the solid grandeur of Norman architecture, is scarcely to be found
any where than in the west front of this church," (the subject of the
_twenty-fourth plate_.) "The corresponding part of the rival abbey of
St. Stephen, is poor when compared to it; and Jumieges and St. Georges
equally fail in the comparison. In all these, there is some
architectural anomaly: in the Trinity none, excepting indeed the
balustrade at the top of the towers; and this is so obviously an
addition of modern times, that no one can be misled by it.[55] This
balustrade was erected towards the beginning of the seventeenth century,
when the oval apertures and scrolls, seen in Ducarel's print,[56] were
introduced."--It may be well to take the present opportunity of making a
general observation, that though, in speaking of this and of other
churches, the term, _west front_, may commonly be applied to the part
containing the principal entrance; yet that this term must be received
with a certain degree of latitude. The Norman religious edifices are far
from being equally regular in their position as the English. With a
general inclination to the west, they vary to every point of the
compass.[57] The church of the abbey of the Trinity fronts the
north-west--The architrave of the central door-way is composed of many
surfaces of great depth: two-thirds of them are flat and plain, and
recede so little, as to afford but small opportunity for light and
shade. Its decorations are few and simple, consisting almost wholly of
the billet and chevron moulding, the former occupying the exterior, the
latter the interior, circles. In the outermost band, the billets form a
single row, and take the curve of the arch; the succeeding circle
exhibits them with an unusual arrangement, placed compound, and all
pointing to the centre of the door. These, with the addition of
quatrefoils, and of some grotesque heads, which serve as key-stones to
the mouldings over the windows of the triforium, are the only ornaments
which this front can boast. The capitals throughout it are of the
simplest forms, being in general little more than inverted cones,
slightly truncated, for the purpose of making them correspond with the
columns below. Some few of them have the addition of small projecting
knobs immediately below the angles of the impost; while those in the
square towers are formed by a short cylinder, whose diameter exceeds
that of the shaft, surmounted by a square block, by way of abacus. The
towers and buttresses decrease in size upwards.--An architectural
peculiarity deserving of notice in this front, lies in the triangular
mouldings, observable in the spandrils of the arches of the clerestory.
The same are occasionally, though rarely, found in other buildings of
unquestionably Norman origin, as in the church at Falaise, and in
Norwich Cathedral[58] in our own country. They are here more
particularly noticed, as serving to illustrate what has been considered
an anomaly in the architecture of some of the round-towered churches in
Norfolk and Suffolk,[59] where the windows are formed with heads of this
shape. Antiquaries, unwilling to admit that the _flat-sided arch_, as it
has been called by a perversion of terms, was introduced into England
prior to the fourteenth century, have labored to prove that such windows
were alterations of that period, contrary to the evidence of every part
of the building.
[Illustration: Plate 25. ABBEY CHURCH OF THE HOLY TRINITY, CAEN.
_East End._]
The east-end of the choir (_plate twenty-five_) presents a bold
termination, pierced with ten spacious windows, that give light to the
choir, each of them encircled with a broad band, composed of the same
ornaments as are found in the rest of the exterior of the edifice. This
part of the church is divided in its elevation into three compartments,
the lower containing a row of small blank arches, while in each of the
upper two is a window of an unusual size for a Norman building, but
still without mullions or tracery. The windows ore separated by thick
cylindrical pillars, which rise from immediately above a row of windows
that give light to the crypt. The heads of these windows are level with
the surface of the ground; and the wall, in this subterranean part of
the building, is considerably thicker than it is above. The balustrade
of quatrefoils above appears coeval with the rest, and may be regarded
as tending to establish the originality of that in the nave of the abbey
church of St. Stephen.[60]
[Illustration: Plate 26. ABBEY CHURCH OF THE HOLY TRINITY AT CAEN.
_East end, interior._]
[Illustration: Plate 27. ABBEY CHURCH OF THE HOLY TRINITY AT CAEN.
_North side of the Choir, upper compartment._]
The _twenty-sixth_ and _twenty-seventh plates_ shew the interior of the
choir, as the _thirty-third_ does the most remarkable of its capitals.
This part of the church, in its general arrangement, very much resembles
the same portion in St. Georges and in Norwich Cathedral. The second,
however, of these buildings, retains the original groinings of the roof,
which in our English church have been sacrificed, to make room for large
pointed windows; while in the church of the Trinity they have given
place to a spacious dome, painted with a representation of the
Assumption. In the foreground of this picture, is seen the royal
foundress of the abbey; and, according to common tradition, the portrait
of a female dressed in the habit of a nun, on the north side of the high
altar, is also intended for her. But traditions of this nature are too
vague for much reliance to be placed upon them. The altar-piece itself
is an _Adoration of the Shepherds_, not devoid of merit.--The plain
arches, with their truncated columns, seen in the upper part of _plate
26_, near the front on either side, and repeated in the following plate,
are those which terminate the flat part of the choir. The wide unvaried
extent of blank surface beneath them is attributable to modern masons,
who have filled up and covered arches without mercy or discretion, and
have pierced the walls anew with plain mean door-ways. The windows are
lofty, and of fine proportions. Their glazing is probably of the time of
Louis XIV. when the gorgeous splendor of painted glass gave way
to the less beautiful and less appropriate ornaments, supplied by the
fancy of the plumbers.[61] The narrow passage formed in the thickness of
the wall, with its small arches variously decorated, surrounds the whole
building; choir, nave, and transepts. In the architectural arrangement
of this portion of the edifice, where every large arch of the windows is
flanked by two lesser ones of the triforium, the church of the Trinity
agrees with the cathedral at Oxford, as figured in Mr. Carter's work on
ancient architecture[62] and there treated as a genuine Saxon building,
erected by King Ethelred, after the destruction of the monastery by the
Danes in 1004. But the capitals of the columns in the two churches bear
only a slight resemblance to each other. Those at Oxford[63] are among
the most beautiful left us by early architects, consisting chiefly of
foliage; and, in one instance, of a very elegant imitation of a coronet.
In the abbatial church at Caen, they display the same mixture of Grecian
and barbarous taste, the same beauties, the same monstrosities, and the
same apparent aim at fabulous or emblematic history, as has been
previously remarked at St. Georges. On the angles of one, which contains
four storks, arranged in pairs, will be found an obvious representation
of the heraldic fleur-de-lys. In that, figured below it on the plate, is
a head placed over two lions, commonly believed to be intended for a
portrait of the Conqueror.
[Illustration: Plate 28. ABBEY CHURCH OF THE HOLY TRINITY AT CAEN.
_Arches under the central Tower looking from the South Transept._]
[Illustration: Plate 29. ABBEY CHURCH OF THE HOLY TRINITY AT CAEN.
_East side of the South Transept._]
The _twenty-eighth_ and _twenty-ninth plates_ are devoted to the
transepts: the first of them exhibits two of the arches which support
the central tower. Finer specimens of the kind are scarcely to be seen
in Normandy; and the decoration of them is very peculiar, consisting
altogether of numerous bands of quatrefoils in bas-relief. The sculpture
of the capitals is likewise remarkable: that of one of them represents
entire rams; while the opposite one has only the heads of the same
animal at its angles, accompanied with an ornament, which the writer of
this article does not remember to have met with elsewhere. The arch that
separates the tower from the nave,[64] rises higher than any of the
rest, and is obtusely pointed; but its decorations correspond with those
of the others, and it appears to be of the same date.[65] For the
purpose of more effectually marking the connection of the _twenty-eighth
plate_ with the preceding, it may be well to observe, that the
string-course, seen in the former through the first arch and adjoining
the base of the truncated column, is the same which, in _plate
twenty-seven_, forms the base-line of the windows. The same
string-course in the choir runs immediately below the gallery; but in
the transepts, this gallery is upon a different line, being elevated by
the interposition of a very beautiful range of small blank arches,
between the larger arches below and the windows of the clerestory; and
these latter, in conjunction with the small arches, only occupy the same
space as the windows of the choir. The southern transept has been here
selected for publication, as being the most perfect. Had the opposite
one been equally so, it would have been preferable, from the
curious character of its capitals, many of which are taken from
scripture-history. But these are, unfortunately, much mutilated.
[Illustration: Plate 30. ABBEY CHURCH OF THE HOLY TRINITY AT CAEN.
_Interior of the Nave looking west._]
In the _thirtieth plate_ is given a general view of the upper half of
the interior of the nave, shewing the western extremity, with the three
compartments nearest to it on either side; and here, as in the two
preceding plates, it is impossible not to regret the existence of the
floor, which, by dividing the church into different stories, greatly
injures the effect of the whole. Neither in this nor in any other part
of the building, are there side-chapels or aisles. The architecture of
the nave, in its general arrangement, resembles that of the transepts;
except as to the arches of the second row, which are peculiar. Upon an
attentive examination too, it will be found that, notwithstanding the
apparent uniformity, no two compartments are precisely alike, while the
capitals are infinitely varied. This playfulness of ornament is
remarkable in a building, whose architect appears, at first view, to
have contemplated only grandeur and solidity. At the farther end of the
nave, are seen the five windows of the principal front, together with a
portion of the great arch of entrance. The remaining part of this arch,
as well as of the others of the lower tier, with the pillars that
support them, are concealed by the floor. The gallery, it will be
remarked, sinks at the western end, as in the choir, and is connected
with the sides by a staircase. The roof is only of lath and plaster,
painted in imitation of masonry.
[Illustration: Plate 31. ABBEY CHURCH OF THE HOLY TRINITY AT CAEN.
_South side of the Nave, exterior._]
The _thirty-first plate_ exhibits three of the eight compartments of the
clerestory, on the south side of the nave, as seen externally. The
cloisters and conventual buildings hide the whole of the opposite side
of the church; and, perfect as is the part here represented, there is
nothing to be seen below; for a range of work-shops and of sheds has
obstructed the view of the exterior, as effectually as the floor has of
the corresponding portion within. The corbel-table, with its monsters of
all descriptions, affords a curious specimen of the sculpture of the
age. The string-course above it is rich and beautiful. The same is also
the case with the decorations of the windows, as well as of the blank
arches with which they are flanked, while the intervening flat
buttresses, edged by slender cylindrical pilasters, likewise indicate a
degree of care and of taste which is very pleasing, and which is the
more remarkable, when considered in union with the architecture of the
exterior of the contemporary abbey of St. Stephen.
[Illustration: Plate 32. ABBEY CHURCH OF THE HOLY TRINITY AT CAEN.
_Crypt._]
The crypt (_plate thirty-two_) occupies the space under the choir. The
Abbé De la Rue, who terms it "_une jolie chapelle_," says that, in the
fifteenth century, it was denominated the subterranean chapel of St.
Nicholas; but previously to the revolution, had assumed the name of the
chapel of the Holy Trinity. It was originally entered by two narrow
staircases from the transepts. Its length from east to west is about
thirty feet: its width, about twenty-seven. The simple vaulted roof is
supported by thirty-two slender columns, sixteen of them half imbedded
in the wall, and rising from a stone bench, with which this crypt is
surrounded, in the same manner as that of the church of St. Gervais, at
Rouen. This chapel was, till lately, paved with highly-polished
vitrified bricks, each about two inches square, diversified with very
vivid colors, but of a description altogether unlike those in the
Conqueror's palace. It is lighted by narrow windows, which widen
considerably inwards, the wall being here of great thickness; and,
according to all probability, there were originally eleven of them,
though the greater part are now closed. One of them was lately filled
with bones, and bricked up. Upon the place it occupied is to be seen the
following inscription, placed between a couple of vases of antique
form:--"_Ossemens trouvés dans l'ancien chapitre des dames de la
Trinité, et déposés dans ce lieu le IV. Mars, MDCCCXVIII._"
[Illustration: Plate 33. ABBEY CHURCH OF THE HOLY TRINITY AT CAEN.
_Capitals in the Choir._]
In the same year, at the time when these drawings were made, no tombs
whatever existed in the church of the Trinity. There had formerly been
many here; but the revolution had swept them all away.[66] Among the
rest were those of the royal foundress, of her daughter Cæcilia, the
first abbess, and of two other daughters of English kings, who likewise
wore the ducal coronet of Normandy. The most celebrated of all was that
of Matilda: according to Ordericus Vitalis, it was of exquisite
workmanship, and richly ornamented with gold and precious stones. But
the Calvinists demolished it in 1562; and, not content with plundering
the monument of all that was valuable, tore open the Queen's coffin, and
dispersed her remains. Towards the close of the same century, Anne de
Montmorenci, then abbess, caused the royal bones to be collected, and
again to be deposited in the original stone coffin; and things continued
in this state till the year 1708, when the abbess, Gabrielle Françoise
Fronlay de Tessé, raised a second altar-tomb of black marble, a
representation of which has been preserved by Ducarel. In addition to
this, she inclosed the bones of the princess for greater security in a
leaden box, which she laid in the coffin; and these happily escaped
violation in 1793, when the revolutionists destroyed the monument,
because the arms of Normandy, with which it was ornamented, sinned
against the doctrines of the liberty and equality of man. France being
once more settled under a monarchical form of government, a fresh search
was instituted in March, 1819, by the prefect of the department, in the
presence of the bishop of the diocese and Mr. Spencer Smythe, for the
discovery of Matilda's remains; and they were found and verified, and
re-interred in their original situation.--Another tomb, similar to
that which was destroyed at the revolution, is also raised over them.
The engraved stone in _plate twenty-six_, marks the place which it
occupies. Upon it is laid the original slab with the epitaph, which, by
great good fortune, escaped unhurt from the hands both of democrats and
Huguenots; and, as many of the subscribers to this work have expressed a
desire that a fac-simile of it should be inserted, as illustrative of
the form of the letters, as well as of the manner of writing in use at
that period, Mr. Cotman has had a pleasure in meeting their wishes, at
the same time, that he has not considered it as sufficiently belonging
to the publication, to justify him in making it an object of charge. The
inscription, divided into lines, and written in modern characters, is as
follows:--
"Egregie pulchri tegit hec structura sepulcri
Moribus insigne germen regale Matildem
Dux Flandrita pater huic extitit Adala mater
Francor gentis Rotberti filia regis
Et soror Henrici regali sede potiti
Regi magnifico Wlllelmo juncta marito
Presentem sedem presente fecit et edem
Tam multis terris quam multis rebus honestis
A se ditatam se procurante dicatam
Hec consolatrix inopum pietatis amatrix
Gazis dispersis pauper sibi dives egenis
Sic infinite petiit consortia vite
In prima mensis post primam luce Novembris."
[Illustration: Plate 33*. _A fac simile of the inscription upon the
tomb of Queen Matilda in the Abbey Church of the Holy Trinity at
Caen._]
NOTES:
[51] The will of the Queen has been printed by the Abbé De la Rue,
(_Essais Historiques_ II. p. 437) from a manuscript in the royal library
at Paris; but the writer of the present article is not aware that it has
ever yet appeared in any English publication; and he therefore considers
it desirable here to reprint it, for the antiquaries of his own
country.--"Ego Mathildis Regina do Sanctæ Trinitati Cadomi casulam quam
apud Wintoniam [Winchester] operatur uxor Aldereti, et clamidem operatam
ex auro quæ est in camera mea ad cappam faciendam, atque de duabus
ligaturis meis aureis in quibus cruces sunt, illam quæ emblematibus est
insculpta, ad lampadem suspendendam coram Sancto altare, candelabraque
maxima quæ fabricantur apud Sanctum Laudum, coronam quoque et sceptrum,
calicesque ac vestimentum, atque aliud vestimentum quod operatur in
Anglia, et cum omnibus ornamentis equi, atque omnia vasa mea, exceptis
illis quæ antea dedero alicubi in vita mea; et Chetehulmum [Quetehou en
Cotentin] in Normannia, et duas mansiones in Anglia do Sanctæ Trinitati
Cadomi. Hæc omnia concessu domini mei Regis facio.
"Ex cartulario Sanctæ Trin. Bibl. Reg. Paris. no. 5650."
[52] The annual income arising from these, is stated by Odon Rigaud,
Archbishop of Rouen, in the _procés-verbal_ of his visit to this abbey
in 1250, to have amounted to one hundred and sixty pounds sterling; a
sum nearly equivalent to eighty thousand livres of the present day.
[53] _Anglo-Norman Antiquities_, p. 75, t. 7.--In this figure, which
represents the south side of the building, a striking resemblance will
be observed with the architecture of the church of Than, figured in this
work, _pl. 16_.--Ducarel, in speaking of the pillars in the inside of
the chapel, says they are of a peculiar construction, and widely
different from all others that have fallen under his consideration; but
he has unfortunately furnished no engraving of them, and has even
omitted to mention wherein their peculiarity lay.
[54] _Turner's Tour in Normandy_, II. p. 184.
[55] Still less can any one be so by the alteration of the arches of
entrance into modern windows, which Mr. Turner did not think it worth
while to mention.
[56] _Anglo-Norman Antiquities_, plate 5.
[57] See _Turner's Tour in Normandy_, II. p. 171.
[58] See _Britton's Norwich Cathedral_, plate 4, F. p. 32.
[59] Hadisco church, figured in _Cotman's Architectural Antiquities of
Norfolk_, plate 38, affords an excellent specimen of these windows.
[60] See plate 23.
[61] See _Turner's Tour in Normandy_, II. p. 252, under the head of
Bayeux Cathedral, the windows of which are remarkable for the
complicated patterns of the lead-work.--See also _Carter's Ancient
Architecture_, I. plate 79, p. 54, where this laborious author states
himself to have collected nearly all the remains of this description of
art in England. He is inclined to refer it to the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries.--In the second volume of the same work, plate 27,
fig. F. 2, is represented one of the borders of the west window of the
nave in York Cathedral, which almost exactly resembles one of these at
Caen.
[62] I. plate 28, fig. A.
[63] See _Britton's Oxford Cathedral_, plate 4.
[64] In Mr. Turner's _Tour in Normandy_, II. p. 186, this arch is, by a
_lapsus calami_, called the _eastern_, instead of the _western_.
[65] Mr. Cotman thought that he could discover visible traces of its
having been originally semi-circular, and subsequently raised and
pointed: and it is certainly most probable that such has been the case.
[66] Drawings of them all are fortunately preserved by the Abbé De la
Rue; and it is hoped some French antiquary will be found sufficiently
patriotic to cause them to be engraved.
PLATES XXXIV.--XXXVI.
CASTLE AND CHURCH OF ST. JAMES, AT DIEPPE.
[Illustration: Plate 34. CASTLE AT DIEPPE.]
The anonymous author of the _History of Dieppe_,[67] published towards
the close of the last century, traces the origin of the town as high as
the year 809, when Charlemagne visited this part of the coast of his
empire, and, observing how much it was exposed to hostile attacks,
ordered the construction of a fort upon the beach. The fort was honored
with the name of the emperor's daughter, Bertha; and as the protection
thus afforded, joined to the advantageous nature of the position, caused
the fortress, within a short time, to be surrounded by the cottages of
the neighboring fishermen, an establishment insensibly grew up, which
acquired the appellation of Bertheville.
But the irruptions of the Normans, towards the close of the same, or the
commencement of the succeeding, century, gave a new color to affairs in
Neustria: places changed their names with their masters; and, no respect
being paid to the emperor or his descendants, Bertheville ceased to be
known under any other denomination than that of _Dyppe_, a Norman word,
expressive of the depth of water in its harbor. Under Rollo, we are told
that Dieppe became the principal port in the duchy. That politic
sovereign was too well versed in nautical affairs, not to be aware of
the importance of such a station; and he had the interest of his
newly-acquired territory too much at heart, not to labor at the
improving of it. It was at Dieppe that he embarked the troops, which he
dispatched, in 913, for the assistance of his countrymen, the Danes, in
their attempts to conquer England; and the town flourished under his
sway, and then laid the foundation for that maritime greatness to which
it has subsequently risen.
From this time forward, Dieppe is frequently mentioned in history:
William the Conqueror honored it with his presence in 1047, and received
in person the homage of its inhabitants, on his return from Arques, when
the surrender of that important fortress by his uncle, Telo, put an end
to the troubles occasioned by the illegitimacy of his birth. The same
monarch, during the preparations for his descent upon Britain, made a
particular call on the people of Dieppe, to arm their vessels for the
transport of his troops. They obeyed the summons; and they boast that
their ships were the first that arrived at the place of rendezvous. No
port in Normandy derived equal advantage from the conquest: the
intercourse between the sister countries was naturally conducted through
this channel; and such continued the case till 1194, when Richard
Coeur-de-Lion, defeated under the walls of Arques, was compelled to
leave this part of the province a prey to the victorious arms of
Philip-Augustus. Upon this occasion, the French monarch appears to have
singled out Dieppe as an object of particular vengeance, and he
conducted himself towards it with a cruelty for which it would be
difficult to assign an adequate reason. Not content with burning the
town and its shipping, he transported the inhabitants into the ulterior
parts of France, that they might never re-assemble and raise it from its
ashes. Brito, at the same time that he glosses over the more flagrant
part of the transaction, tells enough to leave no doubt of its truth;
and his passage upon the subject deserves attention, particularly as
being decisive with regard to the state of Dieppe at that period:
"Haud procul hinc portus famâ celeberrimus atque
Villa potens opibus florebat nomine _Deppen_.
Hanc primùm Franci sub eodem tempore gazis
Omnibus expoliant, spoliatam denique totam
In cinerem redigunt; et sic ditatus abivit
Coetus ovans, quòd tot villâ non esse vel urbe
Divitias aut tam pretiosas diceret unquam."--
In the course of the succeeding year, the treaty of Gaillon restored
Dieppe and Arques, with their dependencies, to Richard, who almost
immediately afterwards surrendered the former town to Walter, Archbishop
of Rouen, as one of the articles of compensation for the injury done to
that prelate, by the erection of Château Gaillard upon his territory.
Dieppe appears to have recovered itself with surprising rapidity: a new
church, under the invocation of St. James, was erected in 1250, that of
St. Remi being no longer sufficient for the accommodation of its
inhabitants; and these, however cruelly they had been injured by
Philip-Augustus, were among the foremost in their demonstrations of
loyalty to him as their sovereign, when the cold-blooded tyranny of John
had bereft him of the Norman diadem. In one of the first years of the
succeeding century, John Baliol, more properly called De Bailleul, a
fugitive from Scotland, sought refuge in Dieppe, and finally retired to
his paternal domain in the valley of the Yaulne, five leagues distant
from the port. The remainder of his days were spent here in the village
that bears his name; and the parochial church, which still contains his
ashes, was, till lately, ornamented with his tomb, charged with an
inscription, reciting the various events of his life.
During the wars of Edward III. the ships from Dieppe took the lead in
the great naval engagement in 1337; and their admiral, Béhuchet, so
distinguished himself, as to draw down upon him the marked resentment of
that prince. He was himself made prisoner and hanged; and a detachment
of English and Flemings was dispatched to destroy the harbor. The
injuries, however, now sustained, were repaired with the same rapidity
as before: Philip shewed himself no less ready to reward services, than
his opponent had been to resent offences. His letters patent, bearing
date in February, 1345, exempted the inhabitants from the payment of all
taxes and dues, for the purpose of enabling them to rebuild their
walls.--Dieppe, in 1412, was again attacked by the English, and, on this
occasion, both by land and sea; but the inhabitants made a gallant and
an effectual resistance.
Their opposition, though unavailing, was not at all less spirited in the
following reign, when they were compelled, in common with the rest of
France, to acknowledge the power of the fifth Henry. But they again
disengaged themselves from the English crown in 1431, after having
remained in subjugation to it for eleven years; and the subsequent
siege, conducted by Talbot himself in person, in 1442, only added to
their military character. During this siege, which was of great length,
the English general erected the formidable fortress, known by the name
of the Bastille, in the suburb of Pollet. The following year saw the
French become in their turn the assailants: Louis II. then dauphin,
joined the troops of the Comte de Dunois in Dieppe, and the Bastille
fell, after a most murderous attack. It was afterwards levelled with the
ground in 1689, though, at a period of one hundred and twenty years
after it was originally taken and dismantled, it had again been made a
place of strength by the Huguenots, and was still farther fortified
under Henry IV. The pious dauphin, who ascribed the capture of this
almost impregnable castle to the especial grace of the Virgin Mary,
would not quit Dieppe without leaving behind him an equally signal mark
of gratitude on his part. He accordingly repaired in person to the
church of St. James, there to place the town under her especial
protection; and, not content with this, he instituted the Guild of the
Assumption, charging the members annually to commemorate the day of
their deliverance by a solemn festival.[68]
After this time, Dieppe appears to have been exposed to no farther
calamities from warfare, except what it suffered, in common with a great
part of France, during the religious troubles, and also excepting the
bombardment by the English fleet in 1694. From the earliest rise of
Calvinism in France, the inhabitants of Dieppe had distinguished
themselves in favor of the reformation; and they were already prepared
to go to the utmost lengths in its support, when John Knox, one of the
most devoted apostles of the new faith, landed there in 1560, on his way
from Scotland to Geneva. The presence of such a man produced the effect
which might naturally be expected, of kindling the spark into a flame;
and Dieppe continued for two years in open rebellion to the court. The
inhabitants, in 1562, alarmed by the capture of Rouen, consented to
receive a garrison from our Queen Elizabeth, rather than submit to
renounce their creed; but they were obliged, in the course of the same
year, to surrender to the royal troops. Notwithstanding all this, the
Protestants of Dieppe, through the wisdom and moderation of the
governor, escaped unhurt from the massacre of St. Bartholomew. The town
was nevertheless one of the first in France to declare, in 1589, for
Henry IV. when, pursued by the victorious forces of the league, he
sought shelter in these walls, and here collected the handful of troops,
with which he almost immediately afterwards gained the important victory
of Arques. The same prince also retired hither three years subsequently,
and remained ten days in the midst of _ses bons Dieppois_, as he was in
the habit of styling them, to be cured of the wounds received in the
battle of Aumale.
Among the various royal personages, with whose presence Dieppe has been
honored on different occasions, were Mary of Guise, widow of James V. of
Scotland, and mother to the unfortunate princess of the same name, who
succeeded her on the Scottish throne. She landed here in 1549, and was
immediately joined by Henry II. who was at that time at Rouen. In 1564,
Catherine of Médicis came hither, attended by her son, Charles IX. with
a view of healing the wounds occasioned by the religious dissentions;
and, in 1618, Louis XIII. after holding an assembly of the states of
Normandy at the capital of the duchy, repaired to Dieppe, to visit one
of the most important sea-ports of his kingdom. The same attention was
shewn to the town twenty-nine years subsequently, by Louis XIV. then in
his minority, accompanied by the Queen Regent; and, in our own days, it
has been equally distinguished by Napoléon.
In this short outline of the principal events connected with the history
of Dieppe, no notice has been taken of the honor acquired by its
sailors, who have, however, on all occasions, distinguished themselves.
They did so particularly in the year 1555, when, unassisted by their
king, or by any other part of France, they armed their merchant vessels,
and attacked and defeated, and nearly destroyed, the Flemish fleet,
consisting of twenty-four sail of ships of war. At all times they have
been considered as supplying some of the best men to the French navy, so
that the President de Thou pronounced them to be entitled to the highest
glory in nautical affairs. They lay claim to the honor of having first
planted the standard of Christianity upon the coast of Guinea, where
they established a settlement in the fourteenth century; of having been
the first who discovered the great river of the Amazons; and also the
first who sailed up that of St. Lawrence. Even to the present day, they
carry on a considerable traffic in small ornaments made of ivory, a
humiliating memento of their connection with Senegal: but all the rest
of their commerce is dwindled into the fishery, and a small portion of
coasting-trade.
The castle, (the subject of _plate thirty-four_,) stands upo
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