tecture is, necessarily, a subject of curious enquiry and high interest. Notwithstanding the vicissitudes of many centuries; the rapine of those who followed in the wake of reformation; and the changes effected by fashion, or, rather, the improvements arising from a new creation in architectural manner, at once more scientific, captivating, and august; numerous magnificent vestiges of this commanding style are still remaining, in nearly every division of England, and in several parts of Wales.

In those splendid examples, on which the pride and talent of the conquerors lavished their resources-the cathedral edifices of this country-the relics of Anglo-Norman architecture are mingled with the light, and more beautiful, innovations of the pointed mode.

The monastic buildings of the Anglo-Normans (subject, in at least an equal degree, to the same intermixture) have nearly disappeared, even as sinking antiquities. Bereft of their endowments by the reforming spirit of Henry the Eighth, the buildings connected with religious foundations, which that arbitrary prince bestowed on greedy courtiers, as rewards for their acquiescence in his measures, or sold, for the gratification of his own avarice, were quickly despoiled of such constituent parts as were necessary to their preservation. Many of these desecrated structures were disjointed, for the value of their materials; parts of

some

(Description of Ely Cathedral, p. 17.) extends the prevalence of Anglo Norman architecture to the end of Richard the First's reign.

It will be obvious that no line of demarkation can be drawn with so nice a hand, as to exclude the last instance of the circular style, and embrace the earliest display of pointed architecture. Arches of the peaked, or pointed, character were, assuredly, blended with those of the more ancient form in numerous structures, long before the light and pointed mode obtained predominant favour, and was methodised into any resemblance of an architectural order. But it would appear that the heavy, circular, style of the Saxons and Normans was disused in buildings of leading importance, and discarded as a national fashion, sufficiently near the time noticed above, for any purpose connected with general enquiry.

some few were altered, and converted into dwellings for gentry subservient to the will of the monarch; and others, tenantless and friendless, were left to moulder quietly into dissolution; their materials affording help to the agricultural builder, or to the mender of the roads, as occasion might demand.

In some instances, however, these deserted remains have proved too massive for fortuitous efforts at demolition; or have escaped, through accidental forbearance, arising, perhaps, from a lingering feeling of ancient piety at first, and (although rarely) from antiquarian reverence afterwards. Such fragments unite with the crumbling masses of dismantled castles, in adorning this country, above all others, with ruinous but impressive memorials of the manners of past ages. Pictorial in the irregular beauty of their decay, they at once elevate the imagination and instruct the understanding. Enriched with these half-extinct works of art, the landscape imparts a lesson of pensive morality; and the buildings raised by superstition, teach, in the august spectacle of their progressive dissolution, a sound practical knowledge of the instability of all forms, modes, and institutions, which depend on human art or power.

Parochial churches, free from the dangerous honour of a collegiate endowment, were happily beyond the reach, or beneath the aim, of these reformists; and they present, in some instances, unaltered and uninjured specimens of the Anglo-Norman style; though, in humble and obscure buildings, the date of erection can rarely be ascertained with satisfactory precision.

It has been already stated, on the authority of William of Malmsbury,* (and that of other ancient historians might be cited to the same effect) that the Normans, on gaining possession of the sovereignty of this kingdom, ostentatiously displayed their pious zeal by erecting numerous churches and monasteries, not only in cities and populous towns, but in recluse villages. The same writer adds that the custom of expressing religious fervour

by

• Vide ante, p. 268-9.

by founding a church or monastic house, prevailed in so eminent a degree, "that a rich man would have imagined he had lived in vain, if he had not left such an illustrious monument of his piety and munificence."*

In the pride of their superiority over the Saxons of England, as to magnificent notions, and a more careful cultivation of the arts, (results, probably, of happier political circumstances) the Normans not only enriched this island with numerous structures of a new foundation, but supplanted with fresh edifices many ecclesiastical buildings of their predecessors, which had little need of substitution, as far as regarded intrinsic promise of durability. Influenced by this pride, in conjunction with their ardent zeal of piety, they affixed the marks of their massy vast architecture, to nearly every principal religious foundation throughout the conquered kingdom. "It is observable," says Mr. Bentham, “that

all

• The zeal with which the affluent contributed towards the erection of ecelesiastical buildings, and the means used for inciting a spirit of pious emuJation, are curiously detailed in the history of Croyland Abbey, Lincolnshire. From this history it appears that Joffred, Abbot of Croyland, under whose auspices the monastery was rebuilt, in the twelfth century, obtained of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, remission of a third part of all penances for irregularity of conduct, in favour of those who contributed to that pious undertaking. The most eloquent of his monks were dispatched, to request assistance in foreign countries, as well as in every part of Britain that promised a probability of succour; and large contributions were raised by means of those persuasive emissaries. But the day appointed for the ceremony of laying the first stone, afforded the great harvest of Benefaction. This propitious day was rendered holy in popular esteem, as the festival of the saintly virgins Pepetua and Felicitas. Multitudes of all ranks assembled; for devotion, pageantry, and feasting were blended in the ceremonials. When mass was ended, the abbot laid the first stone at the east end; and a stone towards the building was afterwards deposited by every affluent friend, together with a sum of money; a grant of land, tithes, or church-patronage; or a promise of materials towards the completion of the structure. The abbot then spread his blessing over the heads of the contributors, and invited the whole to a sumptuous repast. It is said that not less than five thousand persons were present at these solemnities.

all our cathedral, and most of the abbey churches, were either wholly rebuilt, or greatly improved, within less than a century after the conquest; and all of them by Normans, introduced into this kingdom; as will evidently appear on examining the history of their several foundations."* Those cathedrals, and other churches, which retain to the present day conspicuous marks of Norman design and execution, will be enumerated in future pages.

Although there is no room for doubt as to the mode of architecture in which the majority of these ecclesiastical buildings were erected, it has been supposed that there was cause for questioning whether it accorded, even in many important characteristics, with the early manner of the Anglo-Saxons. But it is

allowed

• The following note by Mr. Bentham, although not appended, in his work, to the above passage, affords some hints of information which may be useful in the present section of our enquiries: "The Saxon way of building was, as is observed by Sir Christopher Wren, very strong. There were many cathedral and conventual churches of that kind, at the time of the conquest, which might, therefore, probably have continued to this day, had they not been pulled down, or suffered to run to ruin by neglect; one principal cause of which was the removal of the bishops' sees (some of which had been placed in villages, or small towns) to cities and more populous places, by the council of London, A. D. 1078. This occasioned the old Saxon cathedrals in the deserted sees to be neglected, and fall to decay." (History of Ely cathedral, p. 31.)-Independent of the above cause, we may readily admit that the substitution of Norman structures for those erected by the Saxons, did not absolutely imply the unsuitable meanness of such discarded buildings, when we remember that the more extensive and magnificent piles raised by the Normans were subsequently destroyed, or altered, in their turn, to give place to a new mode of architecture. Contributions towards such erections, and an observ. ance of their procedure, assisted in keeping vivid the religious spirit of the laity. New buildings were certainly honourable to all ecclesiastics concerned, and, perhaps, profitable to some. An augmentation of structure was generally attended by an extension of funds, for the support of sacerdotal dignity. It is said that parts of cathedrals, upon the continent, have been designedly left unfinished, with a view of perpetuating a liveliness of attention to the interests of the church.

allowed that the same method of building was practised in this island, even before the advent of the Normans, it being introduced by King Edward the Confessor, who passed much time in Normandy, and was greatly attached to the manners of that country.

William of Malmsbury, who wrote in the 12th century, and finishes his historical work with the reign of Stephen, describes Edward the Confessor, as having introduced, in the instance of the abbey church of Westminster, "a new style of building;” and Matthew Paris, who died in the year 1259, repeats this assertion. Both authorities add, that the style then exhibited was adopted by many subsequent builders of churches, and the former mentions it as the manner prevailing in his own time.

This intelligence has caused some perplexity to the investigators of our ancient architecture. From a description of the abbey church of Westminster, as erected in the reign of Edward the Confessor, which is said to be copied from an ancient manuscript, it would appear that the structure possessed no peculiarity of ground-plan or elevation.* Indeed the testimony of such a manuscript is scarcely necessary, since we have abundant instances of the mode of ecclesiastical architecture prevailing in the early part of the 12th century, with which the building in question is expressly said to have assimilated by one of the authorities noticed above.

The ecclesiastical architecture then in fashion, was of the heavy eircular kind, deviating in few particulars from that which we are accustomed to consider as the style that prevailed in this country previous to the reign of Edward the Confessor.

Many intelligent writers concur in an endeavour to account for the ambiguous intimation contained in William of Malmsbury and Matthew Paris, by supposing that the novelty introduced to the church-architecture of this country, by Edward the Confes

sor,

The original Latin, together with a translation, is given in Hawkins's History of the Origin of Gothic Architecture, p. 108-9.