OUNDLE, 
 
 NORTHANTS., 
 
 Feb. 6th, 1906. 
 
 Dear 
 
 My brother, R. P. Brereton, who died 
 
 on January 2nd, left directions that " A souvenir of a 
 book or some personal effect," should be offered to any 
 friend who might care for it. His books are mostly 
 Architectural ; some on travel, such as Rome, Florence, 
 Switzerland, Italy, etc. May I ask if there is any one 
 that you would care to have, and of what character. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
SPECIMENS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 AECHITECTUEE OF NORMANDY. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2014 
 
 https://archive.org/details/specimensofarchiOObrit 
 
SPECIMENS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 ARCHITECTURE OF NORMANDY, 
 
 FROM THE XIth TO THE XVIth CENTURY. 
 MEASURED AND DRAWN 
 
 By AUGUSTUS PUGIN, Architect; 
 
 ENGRAVED BY JOHN AND HENRY LE KEUX. 
 WITH HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE NOTICES BY JOHN BRITTON, f.s.a. 
 
 NEW EDITION, EDITED BY 
 
 RICHARD PHENE SPIERS, a.k.i.b.a, 
 
 MASTER OF THE ARCHITECTURAL SCHOOL OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY; TRAVELLING STUDENT, ETC. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 BLACKIE & SON, PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS, EC; 
 GLASGOW AND EDINBUKGH. 
 1874 
 
GLASGOW : 
 W. G. BLACKIE AND CO., PRINTERS, 
 TILL AFIELD. 
 
I 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Though a number of years have elapsed since the first publication of 
 Pugin and Le Keux' Architectural Antiquities of Normandy, it is still 
 regarded as the chief standard Work on the architecture of that country; 
 and it would be difficult to select better examples for publication than 
 those which were chosen by Pugin, notwithstanding our far greater 
 knowledge of the country and its buildings at the present day. It would 
 scarcely be too much to assert that no work has appeared since, which by 
 the beauty of its engravings and the accuracy of the measured drawings 
 they represent, has a greater claim to the careful study of every archi- 
 tect, draughtsman, or archaeologist, who seeks to realize for himself the 
 development of French architecture in Normandy during five and a half 
 centuries. 
 
 In fact, when we consider the immense progress which has taken 
 place during the last forty years in the true knowledge of medieval archi- 
 tecture, and how, step by step, the vague theories of its rise and develop- 
 ment have been displaced by sound scientific knowledge, we are astoun- 
 ded that drawings, made so long ago, should not only show a perfect 
 mastery of rule and compass, but display the most intimate acquaintance 
 with all the artistic and scientific problems of the buildings represented. 
 In these drawings the formation of the ribs and webs of vaulting, their 
 true curvatures, and the constructive lines of every part of the buildings, 
 are indicated with a truth that few draughtsmen of the present day could 
 hope to rival; whilst the character and vigour of the foliage, and other 
 carved ornament, especially that of the Flamboyant period, has been ren- 
 
vi 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 dered in a manner that has never been equalled in any more recent 
 publication. 
 
 Photography and the development of lithographic drawing have now 
 unfortunately in this country almost superseded the more tedious and 
 expensive process of line engraving; but, whether for beauty and per- 
 fection of drawing, or for accuracy in the lines, the latter must ever be 
 pre-eminent. The great reputation of the Le Keuxs as architectural 
 engravers, is fully sustained by the admirable plates in this work on 
 the architecture of Normandy. 
 
 To the architectural student the work is of twofold interest. 
 
 1st. It shows the exact nature of the kind of drawing it is most 
 useful to make when engaged in measuring or delineating ancient work. 
 
 2d. The drawings give a succinct yet complete history of the successive 
 phases of the Norman style, of the development of Pointed Architecture, 
 and of its ultimate decadence in that province of France, which, to 
 British architects and archaeologists, is by far the most interesting. 
 Thus, in the illustrations of the " Abbaye aux Homines/' and " Abbaye 
 aux Dames," and the Church of St. Nicholas, at Caen — the Churches of 
 Thaon near Caen, of St. Loup near Bayeux, and portions of Bayeux Ca- 
 thedral — the student will find the most perfect series of the successive 
 phases of the Norman style; in the choirs of the " Abbaye aux Hommes," 
 Caen, and of Bayeux Cathedral — and in the tower of St. Peter's at Caen 
 — that variet}- of thirteenth-century architecture which prevailed in Nor- 
 mandy, and which, while it presents so many differences in detail and 
 execution from the architecture of the Isle of France, assimilates so 
 much to our own. 
 
 In the Plates of St. Ouen, Rouen, are presented a series of drawings 
 of the most complete and typical specimen of fourteenth-century French 
 Gothic; whilst in those of the Palais de Justice, the Fountains, the Hotel 
 Bourgtheroulde, the " Abbaye St. Amand," the staircases and other fea- 
 tures of Notre Dame, and the Church of St. Maclou, all at Rouen — the 
 
PREFACE. Vli 
 
 doorway of St. Michael, Vaucelles, in Caen — and the Church at Caudebec — 
 the application of the French Flamboyant architecture of the fifteenth 
 century, to both secular and ecclesiastical buildings, is delineated with 
 an accuracy and vigour to be fully appreciated only by those who have 
 attempted to transfer to paper its intricate and delicate forms. 
 
 In the choice of examples the selections for illustration are so made 
 and arranged that the student is led step by step through that develop- 
 ment of style which, starting with the simple, bold architecture of the 
 early Norman period, and passing through all those stages of progress in 
 which the pointed arch forms so essential a feature, arrives at the most 
 exquisite and elaborate forms of Flamboyant work, thence leading almost 
 imperceptibly into the early French Renaissance. 
 
 The emendations and additions made in this edition are as follows: 
 The plates have undergone a careful revision, and it will be found that 
 the impressions now furnished may compare with those in the first edi- 
 tion without disadvantage. With exception of two plates hitherto tinted 
 by hand, and which, from their crudeness of colour, were apt to deceive 
 rather than guide the student, the whole series, extending to seventy- 
 eight plates, is published in its integrity. A plan of the "Abbaye aux 
 Dames," Caen, measured and drawn by the Editor expressly for this 
 edition, forms an additional plate. With exception of a small woodcut 
 in a work by M. Ruprich Robert, no plan of this interesting building has 
 been published hitherto. 
 
 In the revision of the text the Editor has deemed it expedient to strike 
 out all those parts which subsequent investigations have shown to be 
 inexact and fallacious. The greater portion of the text is re-arranged, and 
 a more complete and satisfactory description of every building illustrated 
 is given, the dates being corrected where necessary. An account is also 
 added of the development of Gothic vaulting, tracing its history by 
 means of the illustrated examples. To a considerable extent the addi- 
 tional information is given in the form of extracts from the works of 
 
Viii PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 recent authors whose writings are considered authoritative. All the 
 additions, whether in the text or notes, are distinguished by being in- 
 closed in square brackets [ ]. With a view to this revision, the 
 Editor has visited the greater number of the buildings illustrated, and has 
 consulted all the books published on the subject, so far as he is aware of 
 their existence, and of these last he appends a list for the benefit of such 
 of his readers as may desire to pursue this study farther. 
 
 London, April, 1874. R. PHENE SPIERS. 
 
 PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION, 
 
 OMITTING SOME PORTIONS THAT HAVE CEASED TO BE OF INTEREST. 
 
 The present work originated with the Artists whose names appear in 
 the title-page; and who, from predilection for architectural antiquities, 
 and from some experience in the execution of works illustrative of the 
 ancient buildings in England, persuaded themselves that a series of 
 Engravings, which should define and clearly exemplify the Christian 
 Architecture of Normandy, would be at once useful and popular. Influ- 
 enced by corresponding feelings and conviction, the writer of this Preface 
 was induced to co-operate with his friends, and enter warmly and 
 zealously into the plan. He wrote a prospectus, assisted in arranging 
 and digesting the work, and advised with Mr. Pugin previous to his 
 visits to Normandy. It was also his intention, when he first engaged in 
 the work, to see and examine all the buildings delineated, and to write 
 the accounts of them after careful examination. 1 This intention was 
 
 1 This lias always been his practice with the Architectural and Cathedral Antiquities, in which works 
 he has devoted much time to local investigations, and many hundreds of pounds in collecting materials 
 and in travelling expenses. 
 
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 ix 
 
 frustrated by illness, at the very time when he had prepared for a 
 journey into Normandy. Thus disappointed, he wrote down particular 
 instructions, and sent them, with letters of inquiry, to distinguished 
 antiquaries in the province. Waiting for, and expecting answers, — 
 anxious to render the history and description of each building, and of 
 every variety of architecture, original, accurate, and discriminating, he 
 has delayed the publication, and even now has been impelled to hasten 
 it through the press, without obtaining the answers and information he 
 sought for, and consequently without satisfying himself in many parts 
 of its execution. 
 
 It may be necessary to explain the reason of affixing the word 
 Editor to the name of the writer of this Preface, — a thing so unusual 
 to him, — for there are still many persons, even in England, who do not 
 clearly discriminate the distinction between that and the word Author. 
 According to the most correct interpretation, the latter applies strictly 
 and exclusively to the writer of a book or literary essay; and Editor 
 means ^the person who superintends, directs, and occasionally writes a 
 part or parts of a miscellaneous publication, such as a newspaper, maga- 
 zine, review, &c. The Author, as Gibbon, Hume, Sir Walter Scott, &c, 
 is the writer, the sole composer, of a book, to which his name is attached: 
 whilst the Editor, as Campbell, Lockhart, Barnes, &c, is the director, and 
 partly the writer, of a periodical work, such as the New Monthly Maga- 
 zine, the Quarterly Review, The Times: by the same rule, the writer of 
 this Preface is Editor of the volume, and also author of its principal 
 contents. He likewise edited two former volumes of a corresponding 
 class, entitled "Specimens of Gothic Architecture;' but in that instance 
 did not insert his name in the title-page ; nor was he at all desirous of 
 announcing it, or taking the responsibility of the present publication. 
 Averse as he always has been to anonymous writings, he deemed it most 
 honourable to avow his name on this occasion, and be at once amenable 
 for defects as he is entitled to his fair portion of credit. He deems it 
 
X PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 merely justice to himself to make this explanation, which will also 
 account for the origin and completion of the volume ; and this he hopes 
 will give the student in ancient architecture more satisfaction than it 
 has afforded to himself. His views and wishes at the commencement 
 were to investigate the history, and definitely characterize the ancient 
 architecture, of Normandy, — to ascertain and point out what is really 
 indigenous and what is exotic, — to show when and by whom its various 
 changes of style were effected, and how these were progressively im- 
 proved, — to seek diligently and scrupulously to ascertain the origin of 
 the pointed style, and to compare and contrast the correspondencies and 
 varieties of the architecture of Normandy with the contemporary archi- 
 tecture of England. These points he considered to be desiderata in 
 English literature, and these he had marked out to himself as objects for 
 inquiry and for accomplishment. Thwarted in his wishes and intentions, 
 he looks forward with anxiety to The Society of Antiquaries of Nor- 
 mandy for the accomplishment of this, or for something of the like 
 nature; and from the Essays already published by that Society, and from 
 the zeal and knowledge some of its enlightened members have evinced, 
 he is persuaded that such a publication can be produced by them jointly, 
 if not by any single member. To that Society the writer of this Preface 
 tenders his best wishes and thanks, for the compliment they have paid 
 him in making him an Honorary Member. To John Coles, Esq., Dawson 
 Turner, Esq., and Mr. S. Tymms, he is also obliged for useful hints, and 
 to the latter gentleman for some of the ensuing Essays. 
 
 J. BRITTON. 
 
 London, June 20, 1828. 
 
LIST OF THE ENGRAVINGS, 
 
 ARRANGED IN NEARLY A CHRONOLOGICAL SERIES, ACCORDING TO THE TESTIMONIES OF 
 DIFFERENT AUTHORS. 
 
 CAEN, near. — Chapel of La Grande Maladrerie, Frontispiece. 
 . . . Window and Details. 
 
 Church of St. Stephen. — L'Abbaye aux Hommes, .... 
 . Ground Plan of the Abbey Church. 
 . Exterior Perspective View from the North-west. 
 . Interior, Perspective View. 
 
 . Nave, Exterior Elevation, Transverse Section, and Plan of 
 
 Compartment. 
 . Nave, Interior Elevation of two Compartments. 
 . Sacristy, Transverse Section, Plan, and Details. 
 . Sacristy, Longitudinal Section. 
 
 . Choir, Exterior and Interior, Elevation and Section of One Com- 
 partment. 
 
 . Apse, Elevation, Section, and Plan of One Compartment. 
 . Decorative Features, Details of. 
 
 Church of the Holy Trinity. — L'Abbaye aux Dames, . . 
 Entrance Gateway, Elevation, Section, and Plan. 
 Crypt beneath East End of the Choir, Plan, and Two Sections. 
 Capitals and Bases from the Crypt, Nave, and Transept. 
 Interior, Perspective View, looking East. 
 Ground Plan of the Abbey Church. 
 
 Nave, Interior, Elevation of a Compartment, Section, and Details. 
 
 • Church of St. Nicholas, 
 
 . Apse, Transverse Section, Plan, and Details. 
 
 . Apse, Exterior Elevation and Longitudinal Section. 
 
 near. — Thaon Church, 
 
 . South Elevation, Plan and Details. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 31 
 
xii 
 
 LIST OF THE ENGRAVINGS. 
 
 
 PLATE 
 
 XXI 
 
 XXII 
 
 Caen, near. — Thaon Church, 
 
 . . . East and West Ends, Elevation and Details. 
 . . . Tower, Elevation, Section, and Plans. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 
 BAYEUX near — Church of St Loup 
 
 55 
 
 XXIII 
 
 . . . Tower op the Church, Elevation, Plans, and Details. 
 
 
 
 
 56 
 
 XXV. XXVI.. . 
 
 XXVII 
 
 XXVIII. XXIX.. 
 
 XXX 
 
 XXXI. XXXII. . 
 
 XXXIII. XXXIV. 
 
 . . . West Front, Elevation. 
 
 . . . Interior, Perspective View from the West. 
 
 . . . Nave, Elevation, Section, and Plans of a Compartment. 
 
 . . . Choir, Transverse Section of Half of the Choir, Two Aisles, and 
 Crypt, with Plan. 
 
 . . . Choir, Elevation, Interior and Exterior of One Compartment, 
 with Crypt. 
 
 
 
 
 63 
 
 XXXV. XXXVI. 
 
 . . . Tower and Spire, Elevation, Section, and Plans 
 
 
 
 Ducal Palace at 
 
 64 
 
 XXXVII. . . . 
 
 . . . Exterior and Interior, Elevation and Section, with Plan. 
 
 
 
 
 65 
 
 XXXVIII. . . . 
 
 XXXIX. . . . 
 XL 
 
 XLI 
 
 XLII 
 
 XLIII 
 
 . . . Ground Plan of the whole Building. 
 
 . . . Nave, Elevation and Transverse Section of One Compartment, 
 with Aisle. 
 
 Sections. 
 
 
 
 
 69 
 
 XLIV 
 
 XLV 
 
 
 
LTST OF THE ENGRAVINGS. 
 
 ROUEN. — Nunnery of St. Clair, . . 
 . . . Gateway, Elevation, Section, &c. 
 
 Fountain de la Crosse, .... 
 . Elevation, Plan, and Details. 
 
 Stone Cross and Circular Turret, 
 . Elevation and Plan. 
 
 Palais de Justice, 
 
 Ground Plan of the whole Buildings, Elevation of South Side, 
 
 and Section of Salle des Procureurs. 
 Interior of the Court, Perspective View. 
 South Front, Elevation of a Compartment, Section, and Details. 
 TURRET on the North Side, Elevation, Plan, and Details. 
 Window, North End of Hall, Elevation, Section, and Details. 
 Salle des Procureurs, Staircase S.E. Angle, and Niche in do., 
 
 Elevations and Sections. 
 
 Hotel de Bourgtheroulde, . 
 . Front Elevation, Section, &c. 
 
 Elevation, Parts at large, and Details. 
 
 L'Abbaye St. Amand, . 
 
 Building on the N. Side of a Court, Exterior Elevation, and 
 
 Compartments at large. 
 Chimney Piece, Elevation, and Parts at Large. 
 
 Cathedral of Notre Dame, 
 
 Staircase in North Transept, Plan, Sections, and Details. 
 Staircase in North Transept, Elevation. 
 
 Doorway on the North Side of the Cloisters, Elevation and Section. 
 Gateway to the Cour des Libraires, Elevation, Section, and Details. 
 
 CAEN. — Church of St. Michael, Vaucelles, 
 . . . North Porch, Elevation, Section, and Details. 
 
 CAUDEBEC.— Church of, 
 
 Sacristy, Elevation, Section, and Details of Compartment. 
 Lady Chapel, Plan, with Section and Details of Roof and Pendant. 
 
xiv 
 
 LIST OF THE ENGRAVINGS. 
 
 PLATE 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 82 
 
 LXVI 
 
 . . . Two Turret Staircases, Elevations, Sections, and Plans. 
 
 82 
 
 LXVII 
 
 . . . Stone Staircase to Organ Loft, Elevation, Section, and Plans. 
 Palais de Justice and St. Andre Church, 
 
 83 
 
 LXVIII. . . . 
 
 . . . Two Wooden Doors from. 
 
 
 
 CAEN. — Notre Dame, St. Peter's, and St. Stephen's, .... 
 
 83 
 
 LXIX 
 
 . . . Three Wooden Doors from. 
 
 
 
 
 84 
 
 LXX 
 
 
 
 
 CAEN, near. — Chateau Fontaine-le-Henri, 
 
 85 
 
 LXXI 
 
 LXXII 
 
 LXXIII. . . . 
 
 . . . West Front, Perspective View. 
 
 . . . Window, West Front, on Ground Floor of Tower. 
 
 
 LXXIV. . . . 
 
 BAYEUX and ROUEN. — String-courses, from Notre Dame, Bayeux, 
 and from St. Ouen, Palais de Justice, and St. Nicholas, 
 
 87 
 
 LXXV 
 
 BAYEUX and CAEN. — Parapets, from the Cathedral, Bayeux, and 
 
 87 
 
 LXXV1. . . . 
 
 CAEN and ROUEN. — Decorative Details, from St. Ouen, Rouen, 
 and Chateau Fontaine-le-Henri 
 
 87 
 
 LXXVII. . . . 
 
 ROUEN.— Examples showing the Leading of Stained Glass, from 
 the Cathedral and St. Ouen, 
 
 88 
 
 LXXVIII. . . . 
 
 Examples showing the Leading of Stained Glass, from the 
 
 88 
 
BOOKS RELATING TO NORMANDY 
 
 AND ITS 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES. 
 
 The following is a List of the more important Books bearing directly on the subject. Those pub- 
 lished prior to the issue of the first edition of this Work in 1827 were all consulted by Britton, 
 and frequent reference is made to them; the others of subsequent dates have all been consulted 
 for the present edition, and contain information which may be useful to those who desire to 
 pursue the subject further. The titles of the Books are arranged chronologically in order of 
 their publication, and those marked with an asterisk (*) are the more important from an 
 architectural point of view: — 
 
 Pommeraye (Francis). — Histoire de l'Abbaye de St. Ouen de Rouen, . . . fol. Rouen, 1662 
 Do. Histoire de l'Eglise Cathedral de Rouen (Plates), . . 4to, Rouen, 1686 
 
 Ducarel (Andrew C.) — Anglo-Norman Antiquities (27 Copperplates), . . . fol. London, 1767 
 Gunn (William). — An Inquiry into the Origin and Influence of Gothic Architecture, 8vo, London, 1819 
 Turner (Dawson). — Account of a Tour in Normandy, chiefly for the purpose of 
 investigating its Architectural Antiquities; illustrated with numerous En- 
 gravings, ............. 8vo, London, 1820 
 
 De la Rue (M. TAbbe). — Essai Historique sur la Ville de Caen et ses Arron- 
 
 dissements, 8vo, Caen, 1820 
 
 Langlois (Eustache H.) — Description Historique des Maisons de Rouen (40 Plates), 
 
 2 vols. 8vo, Rouen, 1821 
 
 Stothard (Mrs.) — Letters written during a Tour through Normandy and Brittany, 8vo, London, 1821 
 DlBDlN (Rev. T. F.) — Bibliographical, Antiquarian, and Picturesque Tour in France, 
 
 with a vol. of illustrative Etchings by G. Lewis, ...... 8vo, London, 1821 
 
 JOLIMONT (F. T. de). — Monumens les plus remarquables de la Ville de Rouen 
 
 (30 Lithographs), fol. Paris, 1822 
 
 *COTMAN (J. S.) — Architectural Antiquities of Normandy, represented in a series of 
 
 100 Etchings, with descriptive Notices by Dawson Turner, .... fol. London, 1822 
 Nodier (Charles) and TAYLOR, I. J. S. — Voyages Pittoresques et Romantiques de 
 
 l'Ancienne France (Normandie); many fine Lithographs, .... fol. Paris, 1820-25 
 Jolimont (F. T. de). — Description historique et critique et Vues des Monuments 
 
 religieux et civils les plus remarquables du Calvados (18 Lithographs), . 4to, Paris, 1825 
 
xvi 
 
 BOOKS RELATING TO NORMANDY, ETC. 
 
 Langlois (Eustache H.) — Notice sur l'lncendie de la Cathedrale de Eouen en 1822, 8vo, Eouen, 1833 
 
 *KNIGHT (Gaily). — An Architectural Tour in Normandy, 8vo, London, 1836 
 
 Langlois (Eustache H.) — Stalles de la Cathedrale de Eouen (13 Copperplates), . Eouen, 1838 
 Cochet (Jean B. Desire). — Les Eglises de l'Arrondissement du Havre (12 Litho- 
 graphs), 2 vols. 8vo, Havre, 1846 
 
 Cochet (Jean B. Desire). — Les Eglises de l'Arrondissement de Dieppe (10 Plates), 2 vols. 8vo, Dieppe, 1846 
 Do. Les Eglises de l'Arrondissement d'Yvetot (Woodcuts), 2 vols. 8vo, Paris, 1852 
 
 Hippeau (Ch.)— St. Etienne de Caen (l'Abbaye aux Homines), .... 8vo, Caen, 1855 
 Caumont (Arcisse de). — Statistique routiere de la Basse Normandie, . . . 8vo, Paris, 1855 
 Trebutien (G. S.) — Caen: Precis de son Histoire et ses Monuments, . . . 8vo, Caen, 1855 
 
 Musgrave (George Musgrave). — A Eamble through Normandy, 8vo, Lond. 1855 
 
 Dion (A. de Laurent), Lasvtgnes (L.) et Flachat (E.)— Cathedrale de Bayeux et 
 
 la Eeprise en sous-ceuvre de la tour centrale (25 Copperplates), . . . 4to, Paris, 1861 
 
 Eickman (T.) — Tour in Normandy, 25th vol. Archcvologia 8vo, London, 1770-1862 
 
 Euprich-Eobert (V.)— L'Eglise St. Trinite (l'Abbaye aux Dames) et l'Eglise St. 
 
 Etienne (l'Abbaye aux Hommes) a Caen (Engravings on Wood), . . . 8vo, Caen, 1864 
 Mery (E.) et Cochet (J. B. D.) — Plan et Description de la Ville de Dieppe au XIV e siecle, 4to, Dieppe, 1865 
 Jolimont (F. T. de).— Les Principaux Edifices de la Ville de Eouen en 1525, 
 dessines a cette epoque . . . reproduits en facsimile, et publies avec Notes 
 
 par F. de J., 8vo, Paris, 1846-67 
 
 *Caumont (Arcisse de). — Statistiques Monumentales de Calvados, .... 8vo, Paris, 1846-67 
 Bouet (G.) — Analyse Architectural de l'Abbaye de St. Etienne de Caen (Plates), . 8vo, Caen, 1868 
 Bulletin Monumentale, Normandy. Edited by Arcisse de Caumont, . . 8vo, Caen, 1834-1873 
 
 GENEEAL WORKS CONTAINING REFERENCES TO NORMAN BUILDINGS. 
 
 Gentleman's Magazine, 1809-10. — Controversy on the Origin of Gothic Archi- 
 tecture between Dr. Whittington, Architect Amateur, and Dr. Milner, 8vo, Lond. 1809-1810 
 Quarterly Review, 1821. — Review of Books relating to Normandy, . . . 8vo, London, 1821 
 Caumont (Arcisse de). — Histoire Sommaire de l'Architecture du Moyen Age, . 8vo, Caen, 1834 
 Do. Cours d'Antiquites Monumentales, with atlas folio, 8vo, Paris and Caen, 1830-41 
 
 ChAPUY (N. F.) — Le Moyen Age Monumentale et Archseologique (240 Plates in lithog.), fol. 1843-46 
 
 Ramee (Daniel).— Histoire Generale de l'Architecture (Woodcuts), . . . 8vo, Paris, 1860 
 Parker (J. H.) — Abbey Churches of Caen. Gentlemen's Magazine, June, 1863, . 8vo, London, 1863 
 Do. Do. Transactions of the Royal Institute of 
 
 British Architects (Plates), 1862-63-64, 4to, Lond. 1862-64 
 
 Murray's Handbook for Travellers in France, 8vo, London, 1864 
 
 *Fergusson (J.), u.c.L., F.R.s.— History of Architecture in all Countries from the 
 
 Earliest Times to the Present Day (many Wood Engravings), . . . 8vo, London, 1865 
 Cassell's Topographical Guides (Normandy), ....... 8vo, London, 1865 
 
 Joanne (Adolphe L.) — Collection deo Guides Joannes, 12mo, Paris, 1866 
 
 *Viollet le Due (E.M.) — Dictionnaire Raisonnede l'Architecture Franchise du XP 
 
 au XVP siecle (many Wood Engravings), . ... 10 vols. 8vo, Paris, 1858-68 
 
ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES 
 OF NORMANDY. 
 
 A BRIEF REVIEW OF THE 
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE 
 
 IN NORMANDY. 
 
 T^OR the purpose of obtaining a complete history and ample illus- 
 J- trations of the Architectural Antiquities of Normandy, it would be 
 necessary to select various examples from all the different parts of the 
 province. Almost every distinct department, as well as every building, 
 presents some variations, either in the general design or subordinate 
 architectural details; and although each of these may not be sufficient 
 to mark a complete style or class, it constitutes an element which ought 
 to be known and characterized, to complete the history of the style. 
 In the present work we are only enabled to offer some evidences towards 
 this history; we can merely bring forward a few examples, faithfully and 
 geometrically delineated, as authentic documents to aid the critical his- 
 torian, or as materials for the professional architect; each of whom will 
 know how to apply them. 
 
 The accompanying illustrations are chiefly of Church Architecture, and 
 mostly belong to an early class of buildings. There are a few of a late or 
 decorated style, called the Burgundian in the Quarterly Review; 1 whilst 
 some represent the domestic buildings dissimilar to anything in England, 
 and which are certainly of singular characteristic features. The truly 
 
 I" 5 Review of books relating to Normandy. Quarterly Review, April to July, 1821.] 
 
2 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY. 
 
 Norman specimens will be examined with much interest by the English 
 antiquary, who seeks to deduce from them evidences either to confirm his 
 own theories respecting the disputed distinctions between Saxon and 
 Norman architecture, or to confute the theories of others. % 
 
 Of the lancet, or first pointed style, our illustrations are not so nume- 
 rous as could be wished; for the critical antiquary wants a mass of mate- 
 rials to exemplify and unfold the history of this essential novelty and beauty 
 of architecture. 1 The origin and the progressive growth of the pointed 
 style during nearly four centuries — its fanciful varieties and endless com- 
 binations — the latitude it gave to genius, and the numerous beauties of 
 art and science which it has bequeathed to us, are so many claims on our 
 curiosity and admiration. Whether it germinated in the East, in Italy, 
 France, Normandy, Germany, or Britain, is a point not likely to be easily 
 settled; nor is it worthy of jealous or envious contention. [It would take 
 too long to trace the origin of the pointed arch, for the best account of 
 which we refer the reader to a paper 2 by Mr. James Fergusson; a portion 
 of which may be quoted here, as it sets at rest the question of the intro- 
 duction of the pointed arch into Europe. Mr. Fergusson remarks, "With 
 regard to the true Gothic, the view I take of the question is this: as 
 every one knows, who is at all familiar with the Norman or round Gothic 
 styles, the architects tried numberless expedients to get over the diffi- 
 culties of using intersecting vaults with round arches; they stilted the 
 smaller arches, depressed the larger ones; they tried quadripartite, sexa- 
 partite, and domical vaulting, and fifty other expedients, but without 
 
 1 Mons. Caumont contends that the circular style was generally abandoned towards the end of the 
 first half of the twelfth century, about 1140, and the pointed adopted. "Everything of the romance 
 style disappeared, and the Gothic fashion was exclusively adopted." Our learned antiquary, however, 
 qualifies this opinion, in a note, by saying, "The pointed style had existed at Coutances, Mortain, Seez, 
 and Fecamp, ever since the eleventh century; but there are exceptions to the general rule; and Fecamp, 
 for instance, is extremely heavy." I must venture to differ with Mons. Caumont respecting the Gothic 
 fashion being exclusively adopted at the middle of the twelfth century; for we continually find the first 
 pointed blended with the circular style in arches, mouldings, ornaments, &c, in England, and I am 
 persuaded the same prevails in Normandy. See the upper parts of the towers at Bayeux Cathedral, the 
 east end of Canterbury Cathedral, &c. 
 
 [ 2 Read before the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1849, and published in the Builder 
 of June 23d and 30th of that year.] 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE. 3 
 
 ever attaining perfect or even satisfactory success. The curves of the ribs 
 of the vaults were generally unpleasing, frequently waving and apparently 
 crippled; and indeed the problem seemed almost insoluble. Still they 
 seemed determined to persevere in the same path, rather than use the 
 broken or pointed arch, in lieu of the graceful sweep of their unbroken 
 curves. 
 
 " When things were in this state the Crusades took place; half Europe 
 visited the East, and a Latin kingdom was established over the pointed- 
 arch people of the Levant; and when they had thus become familiar with 
 it, there can be little doubt but that they would perceive that so far from 
 being necessarily ugly, the pointed arch could be worked into forms 
 of as great beauty and elegance as the circular one ; and had besides a 
 lightness, and, for some purposes, an appropriateness the other did not 
 possess. Once convinced of the fact, the problem was solved; the pilgrim 
 architects returned from the Holy Land, and immediately applied this 
 discovery to their western churches; once the prejudice was overcome 
 they adopted it everywhere and in everything, and I need not add with 
 what success. 
 
 " In adopting such a view of the question as this, there are two things 
 to be guarded against: the first confounding the invention of the Gothic 
 style with that of the pointed arch — a mistake too often fallen into; the 
 former is a purely indigenous and native elaboration from Roman art, 
 without any trace of copying or even imitation. The latter is a mere 
 subordinate characteristic of that style, and not at all entitled to the 
 rank it has hitherto assumed in the controversy. 
 
 " The other mistake is to assume that it was copied from the East for 
 copying sake; the truth being, if we admit the above view, that the hint 
 was given by the East, but nothing more; it was applied in Gothic build- 
 ings in a manner in which it had never been used in the East, and was 
 so incorporated with and worked into the native style, that it soon lost 
 all trace of its origin, and became as native as any other part of the true 
 Gothic. 
 
 "Though, therefore, I do not think it can be denied but that the 
 origin of the pointed arch is from the East, it must, I think, at the 
 
4 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY. 
 
 same time be admitted that all its appropriateness and all its beauty, 
 as found in our mediaeval cathedrals, is wholly due to the talent and 
 ingenuity of our northern architects, who wrought it into those forms of 
 beauty and grace which we all now so fully appreciate and so universally 
 admire."] 
 
 It certainly behoves the historian of art to ascertain where and when 
 the pointed style was systematized, and by whom and in what building 
 it was employed throughout all the parts and members of the edifice. 
 The adoption of an arch with a pointed apex, as at Malmesbury, in St. 
 John's Church, Devizes, in Buildwas Abbey, 1 &c., does not prove that the 
 architects were familiar with, or had introduced it as a member of an 
 established style, but merely as a new feature in the formation of an 
 opening in the wall, and adapted to the particular proportion of the 
 edifice. 2 The lateral columns, the walls, the mouldings, continued nearly 
 as before; and even the triforium openings, and windows of the aisles, as 
 at Malmesbury and at Buildwas, were finished Avith semicircular heads. 
 In the apsidal end of Canterbury Cathedral we recognize the pointed 
 system or style, introduced not merely in the open arches between the 
 centre and aisles, but in the slender shaft, with its capital and base, in 
 the window, the buttress, the groining of the roof, &c. The circular arch 
 was not then wholly abolished, nor were its analogous mouldings and 
 details. The date of this part of the building is fortunately well authen- 
 ticated (1176); and we have also very satisfactory evidence of successive 
 and progressive improvements in the same style through the reigns of 
 kings Richard I., John, and Henry III., in the cathedrals of York, Wells, 
 Rochester, Salisbury, &c. 
 
 " It is in Normandy that the first pages of the architectural annals 
 of this island (England) must be read. According to our most judicious 
 antiquaries, no one structure, scarcely any one fragment, in Great Britain, 
 
 1 See The Architectural Antiquities of Great Britain, where these buildings are represented and 
 described. 
 
 2 In the east end of Canterbury Cathedral it was judiciously made to suit the proportion of the 
 intercolumns; at St. John's Church, Devizes, from the difference in the width of the tower at its two 
 sides, one being much wider than the other, and yet the heights of the arches range together. 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 5 
 
 is now in existence that can be referred with certainty to the Saxon era. 1 
 Neither can we quote any architectural examples in Normandy of an 
 earlier period than the eleventh century; at least if we wish to guide our- 
 selves in our researches with any degree of satisfactory evidence or con- 
 jecture. The duchy of Normandy does not possess the monuments of 
 Neustria. 2 The fury of the Northmen destroyed all the memorials both 
 of Roman magnificence and of Christian piety, by which the province had 
 been adorned, when they wrested it from the Carlo vingian empire. Nought 
 remained but scathed and mouldering walls, and these were afterwards 
 lost in the edifices raised by the piety of the converted subjects of Rollo. 
 A few insignificant remains — a tomb at Lisieux, a crypt at Rouen, a chapel 
 at Jmnieges, which probably ought to be dated before the Norwegian 
 conquest, are of little moment in a general view of the subject, and do 
 not connect themselves in the general series of specimens. It is useless 
 to descant on relics of more dubious antiquity, which receive their date 
 from untenable opinions; for the Norman archaeologists, like our own, 
 have often wrongly imagined that old age and ugliness must necessarily 
 be synonymous. Thus, the abbey church of St. Lo, on account of its 
 clumsy sculpture, has been considered as a temple of Isis, a deity who 
 in France appears to claim all antiquarian estrays; and the church 
 of Bemieres is sometimes attributed by the Norman antiquaries to the 
 old inhabitants of the ' Saxon shore/ though the marguilliers of the 
 parish, with most reason, are satisfied that it owes its origin to Duke 
 William." 3 
 
 " The principal features of the Norman style are sufficiently familiar. 
 Originating with the attempts which were successfully made to adapt the 
 architecture of Rome to the uses of a Christian community, the order 
 of which the Norman is merely a modification, acknowledges, in all its 
 
 [ x Fergusson (Hist. Arch., p. 844) qualifies this statement where he says: "There is no one instance 
 of a complete Saxon church built before the Conquest; in some there is a tower, in others a fragment 
 of walling, in others only a door or a window."] 
 
 2 Before the Norwegians, under Eollo, took possession of the north-western territory of France, at 
 the commencement of the tenth century, it was called Neustria. 
 
 [ 3 It is doubtful whether any visible portion of the present church be older than the middle of the 
 twelfth century; the tower, spire, and western porch date from the thirteenth century.] 
 
 B 
 
(j 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY. 
 
 varieties, the parent stock from which it sprang. Mr. Gunn proposes to 
 distinguish this style by the name of the Romanesque} 
 
 " The Norman style being marked by some minor peculiarities which 
 seem to distinguish it from the coeval modes of architecture used on the 
 Continent, it might be the subject of conjecture whether the Norman 
 buildings vary from their prototypes in consequence of any vestiges or 
 reminiscences of the rude art of the first Norwegian settlers. Sacred 
 structures were built in Scandinavia by the heathens. The flinty remains 
 of the sacellum adjoining the cathedral church of Upsala, which is thought 
 to have been dedicated to the sanguinary worship of the 'King of men,' 
 are perforated by round Roman arches. Peringskiolld has given a repre- 
 sentation of this edifice; but if anybody chooses to dispute its original 
 destination, we shall not be inclined to fight very strenuously for the 
 authenticity of Odin's Temple. We are not in the number of those who 
 swear implicitly by the books of northern archaeologists, who are usually 
 fattened by erudition, at the expense of common sense and-judgment." 2 
 
 Religion has been invariably considered the most influential power of 
 a nation: it is, therefore, to the edifices appropriated to the observance of 
 its ordinances that we must look for specimens of the skill and taste of a 
 people. The earliest churches, both in Normandy and in Britain, were 
 extremely simple in their plan, scarcely differing from the basilica, or 
 courts of justice, belonging to all the great cities of the Roman empire, 
 many of which were, on the introduction of the religion of the Cross, con- 
 verted into Christian churches, by order of the emperor Constantine. 
 These basilicse had their porticoes within the building — in that respect 
 differing from the tenrples, which had them without, and consequently 
 exposed to the weather, — and the end porticoes, in their width, were con- 
 fined to the dimensions of the centre or oblong square of the building. 
 The principal entrance was at one end, and the other was generally ter- 
 minated in a semicircular form. In this plan are observable all the 
 features of the early or primeval Christian churches. In the body of the 
 basilica we distinctly trace the nave and aisles, in the chief entrance we 
 recognize our west end, and in the termination our semicircular apse. 
 
 [' A term since generally adopted.] 2 Quarterly Review, June, 1821. 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 In those places where the Romans had established themselves, 1 and 
 erected houses or temples, we find that their peculiar brick was made 
 use of, and specimens of these may now be seen in the crypt of the church 
 of St. Gervais at Rouen, which some consider to be altogether of Roman 
 workmanship. The masonic construction was also imitated. The masonry 
 of the walls at Vindomi (Silchester), Verukwiium (St. Alban's), and Oam- 
 aldockmum (Colchester) — stations established by the Romans — appears to 
 have been disposed in a zigzag or herring-bone direction: and similar 
 walls occur in the Norman churches of Anisy, Perriers, St. Matthieu, St. 
 Croix at St. Lo, and St. Hildebert at Gournai. Others of the like kind 
 are to be found in England, in the castles of Colchester, Corfe, Tamworth, 
 etc. M. de Caumont, a French antiquary, speaking of the works of the 
 Romans, says, that when they employed flat or rough stones they arranged 
 them diagonally, and sloped in each alternate tier to the right and left; 2 
 but when they made use of cut stones they laid them horizontally; and 
 we may remark, that the latter were small, and nearly of the same size. 
 We also observe that the stones are sometimes disposed so as to resemble 
 a chess-board; as at Ver, Mouen, the Abbaye aux Dames, Caen; tower 
 of Steyning Church, Sussex, &c. 
 
 The extreme solidity of the materials, and the almost total absence of 
 ornament, induce us to believe that the only aim of the architects was to 
 erect edifices that should last for many ages; as at the church of Le'ry, 
 near Pont de TArche, the interior of which is remarkable for those qua- 
 lities. 3 They also appear to have been fearful of weakening the lateral 
 
 1 It was far from being uncommon to find the edifices of that people mutilated and destroyed to 
 furnish materials for new buildings; — metals were melted down, marbles were torn away, capitals and 
 bases separated from their shafts and entablatures, &c. And this is not a subject of wonder, when 
 we find that the senate of Rome had set the example, by plundering the ancient buildings for the 
 decoration of the Triumphal Arch of Constantine. [ 2 Herring-bone masonry.] 
 
 3 A double row of pillars and arches separate the body of the church into three parts of unequal 
 width, and another arch of greater span divides it from the chancel. The arches are in every instance 
 devoid of mouldings, the capitals altogether without ornamental sculpture of any description, and the 
 pillars without bases — [a peculiarity confined to the ancient Grecian Doric, in classic architecture.] 
 Indeed, the pillars are nothing more than rounded piers; and they are not less remarkable for their 
 proportions than for their simplicity, their diameter being equal to full two-thirds of their height. 
 These are in windows in the nave; but a series of statues adorn each side, resting on brackets between 
 the arches. — Cotman, Arch. Antiq. of Normandy, vol i. pi. xlvi. 
 
8 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY. 
 
 walls by piercing them for windows of any considerable dimensions, as 
 we find the latter are but few, and those only narrow openings, of an 
 oblong form. Their apses were also plain, as we may judge from the 
 semicircular terminations of the church of Querqueville, near Cherbourg; 
 and the apertures which were caused by the scaffolding were left, as 
 appears throughout the whole of the body of Anisy Church, where, it is 
 very remarkable, they are edged with freestone. The inconveniences con- 
 sequent upon the narrow single-light openings must have compelled suc- 
 ceeding architects to provide for more light. Accordingly we notice, that 
 the windows, from being narrow externally, expanded in wddth through 
 the whole thickness of the wall, and formed a comparatively wide embra- 
 sure within. Normandy presents many specimens of the long and narrow 
 semicircular-headed windows — resembling in size the lancet ones of the 
 pointed style — in the short, square tow r er of St. Michael's Church, 
 Vaucelles; and the examples are numerous of long cylindrical columns 
 at small intervals, with small semicircular arches, and low massive 
 cylinders supporting wider arches. 
 
 About the latter part of the ninth, or the commencement of the 
 tenth century, 1 it is highly probable that the use of bells gave occasion 
 to the first and most considerable alteration that was made in the 
 general plan of our churches, by the necessity it induced of having 
 strong and high-raised towers for their reception. These from being 
 necessary soon became ornamental, and a lofty and light form was given 
 to them, which was calculated to inspire those sentiments of aw T e which 
 usually accompany admiration and surprise. About the same period 
 
 1 I am aware that M. Caumont, in his Essays on the Religious Architecture of Normandy, adduces 
 a passage from Anastas. Biblioth. in Vita Steph. III., proving the erection of a tower in the eighth 
 century by that pope to the Church of St. Peter, to contain bells; but it was not till the period 
 A-si^iied above that the use of towers became indispensable, from the size of the bells. Mr. Whitaker, 
 in his Ancient Cathedral of Cornwall, vol. ii. 152, and Mr. Faulkner, in his History of Kensington, have 
 entered into ample dissertations on the origin and history of towers, bells, &c. [M. Viollet le Due, 
 in his Dictionnaire Raisonne", points out that no bells of any great size were cast before the twelfth 
 century, and that previous to that epoch small belfries on the gable ends would have amply sufficed 
 to hold the then comparatively small bells. He is inclined, therefore, to look upon these stron"- and 
 lofty towers as emblems of the feudal power of the cathedral and abbeys, or of the richness and 
 importance of the towns, and notices that it is principally in those countries where the secular 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 9 
 
 the churches began to be built in the form of a cross, a plan materially 
 tending to heighten the general effect of the whole edifice, and which 
 continued throughout the era in which the pointed style prevailed. 
 
 [Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries.'] — In the eleventh century a new and 
 most interesting era in the history of architecture commenced, for in it 
 and the following century the Norman style may be said to have attained 
 nearly to the summit of its grandeur: it will therefore deserve our 
 serious and minute investigation. During this period the plan of the 
 churches differed but little from those of the preceding century, being 
 that of a cross, with the transepts extending north and south, and the 
 east end marked by the semicircular -ending, or apse. The principal 
 entrance was at the west end of the nave, and a tower was usually 
 raised on each side of it, to coincide with and terminate the aisles. 
 Another tower was frequently placed at the intersection of the cross, 
 where it added to the solidity by pressing on the centre, against which 
 the walls and arches abutted. The form of the towers was square, 
 and they were pierced by semicircular arches more or less narrow, 
 and variously distributed, sometimes duplicated, at others intersected; 
 and again with two smaller arches within a larger one. About the 
 latter part of the eleventh century, during the reign of William I. of 
 England, the towers became larger in their square, more lofty, and had 
 a proportionate degree of enrichment, being completely adorned on each 
 side with two or three ranges, one above another, of small arcades, 1 of 
 shallow depth, and sometimes interlacing each other to the number 
 of twenty; thus producing an agreeable effect of richness and relief. 
 Sometimes round towers are found, as at Tankerville; these were joined 
 
 feudalism had raised its most important castles that the cathedrals and abbeys, and later on the 
 villages, erected their numerous and magnificent towers. M. Viollet le Due suggests also that these 
 towers were erected as a means of defence, and hence their position over the western doors ; and that 
 the raising of the bells into them was a matter of secondary importance only. (See article "Cloches," 
 vol. iii. p. 286.)] 
 
 1 Similar decorations are observable on the. exterior of the body of the church. Thaon Church has 
 a series of twenty -nine arches, every sixth of which, from the westward, is narrower than the rest, 
 and pierced with a window. The surface of the blank ones is cut into squares, which are alternately 
 depressed. Examples occur at the abbey churches of Tewkesbury and St. Albans, &c. 
 
 C 
 
10 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY. 
 
 to the edifice, and the most ancient are comparatively low, whilst the 
 pyramidal roofs that surmount them are stunted as at Ver, 
 
 The buttresses present the same appearance at the church of Fontaine 
 le Henri ; and they are occasionally decorated with angle-shafts, though 
 this generally indicates that the work is late. 1 Cylindrical buttresses 
 are occasionally observed. At the church of Cheux, on the north side 
 of the east end, is one; and on the southern side of the round tower 2 
 of Tankerville, one runs nearly to the top of the first story. 
 
 The western entrances were,, in the commencement of the eleventh 
 century, very plain, with the exception of the principal doorways, the 
 archivolts of which were enriched with numerous ornaments, of greater 
 or less elaboration, according to the splendour of the building and the 
 imagination of the architect. The church of St. Georges de Bocherville, 5 
 "the most genuine and the most magnificent specimen of the circular 
 style in Upper Normandy/' has a doorway with as many as five orders 
 of mouldings, all highly worked, and presenting almost every pattern 
 commonly found in such parts of Norman buildings. According to Mr. 
 D. Turner, Normand}^ does not contain a richer arch than this; but in 
 England numbers are to be found, even in obscure parish churches, 
 which are equal to it, if not superior in richness. 4 At Bieville and 
 Perriers there are square-headed doorways, the lintels of which are cut 
 into the shape of pediments, with semicircular relieving arches. That 
 at Bieville is surrounded by only a single, flat, and plain moulding; 
 whilst the one at Perriers displays some pleasing decorations. We 
 frequently find that where a square-headed doorway occurs under an 
 
 [ x The broad shallow buttress is one of the chief characteristics of Norman work. It was doubtless 
 derived from the pilasters of classic architecture, and, like them, seems to have been used more for the 
 purposes of decoration than for any actual support to the walls. This is especially the case in all the 
 Lombard churches and in those on the Rhine. The Norman buttress is generally not divided into 
 stages, but continues of the same breadth and depth from bottom to top, and either dies into the wall 
 with a slope just beneath the corbel-table (Plate V.) or assists to carry it (Plate XIX.)] 
 
 2 The round towers are more properly the productions of a century later. There is one at 
 St. Ouen, Rouen, built by Abbot William Balot in 112G. 
 
 [ 3 Illustrated very fully in Nodier's Voyages Pitloresque de France (Normandie) and in Cotman's 
 Architectural Antiquities of Normandy.'] 
 
 4 At Iffley, Tutbury, Ely, Malmesbury, &c. 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 II 
 
 arfch, the tympanum or intermediate space between the arch and the 
 stone lintel is filled with bas-reliefs, rudely carved, as at Marigny and 
 Colville, in the district of Bayeux; Urville, in the department of La 
 Manche; and Bully and Cambe, in the district of Caen. Sometimes, 
 but the examples are very rare, we find arched doors without columns 
 — though the early windows are commonly so — and adorned with orna- 
 ments the whole height. 1 At Frenouville, Busly, Plessis-Grimoult, is a 
 kind of doorway, which, according to M. de Caumont, has round the 
 arches one or more rows of stone, generally cut in the form of a wedge, 
 and arranged so as to be jointed one within the other. These are 
 commonly decorated by a profusion of delicately sculptured stars [known 
 as " Stars of Bethlehem"], frequently with undulating points. Speci- 
 mens of similar work may be seen in the churches of the pointed style, 
 and in the monuments of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. 
 
 The walls, from the western towers to the transept, form a parallel- 
 ogram on plan, which is divided by ranges of arches into three unequal 
 compartments, the nave and two aisles. The columns, or piers, and the 
 semicircular arches producing these divisions, are more or less orna- 
 mented, according to the antiquity of the edifice and the importance 
 of the building. At the abbey church of Jumieges the arches alternately 
 spring from round pillars and from square piers, with semicylindrical 
 columns affixed to each of their sides ; and at Pavilly they are supported 
 by clustered columns, with unadorned capitals and enormous hexagonal 
 bases. Sometimes we observe duplicated columns, that is, two isolated 
 columns rising from one base, and crowned by one capital, as in the 
 Abbaye aux Hommes at Caen, at Canterbury, &c. The columns of the 
 era of which we are treating had no fixed proportions, being either 
 heavy and short, or very tall and light, and some rising to a considerable 
 height: they are all of equal thickness from top to bottom, and in 
 general have a sort of plinth for a base, sometimes only a few inches 
 
 1 The inner archivolt of the western entrance at Foullebec is carved into flower-work, whilst the 
 outer moulding has the plain embattled fret of considerable size, and some grotesque carving, besides 
 two sculptural pieces, representing the lamb and flag, and a man on an ass — probably our Saviour riding- 
 through Jerusalem. 
 
12 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY. 
 
 high, and at others one or two feet: but this was varied in different 
 ages. The base is sometimes composed of a plinth and a torns: and 
 in one or two instances may be seen a near approximation to the Attic 
 
 base. 
 
 The capitals of the columns appear to be extremely rude imitations 
 of the various orders of classic architecture. 1 The most ancient are 
 miserably executed Tuscan and Doric, grotesquely carved; but the Cor- 
 inthian and Composite are the most commonly imitated : the rarest is 
 that of the Ionic. The church of St. Georges de Bocherville has a pleas- 
 ing variety of specimens; for we there find the receding abacus and 
 richly sculptured foliage of the Corinthian, as well as a mixture of 
 grotesque. In the church of the Holy Trinity, at Caen, the capitals are 
 ornamented with rams' heads, the horns of which form the volutes, 
 curling out from beneath the abacus. From the rich display of diversi- 
 fied capitals to be found at St. Georges de Bocherville, St. Hildebert at 
 Gournay, &c, we are enabled to form some idea of the extent to which 
 the caprice and imagination of the architects led them. Some of these 
 represent gryphons, lacs d'amour, grotesque heads, or monsters with 
 their heads turned behind them, and biting their tails, some of which 
 are cloven towards the end. Besides the chimeras, serpents, dragons, 
 and all the inexplicable creations of the imaginative fancy, we discern 
 some allegorical figures and subjects from religious history, the most 
 esteemed of all adorned capitals. The arches springing from these 
 columns have sometimes very enriched archivolts. As the mouldings 
 which serve to decorate them are similar to those employed in the arches 
 of the western and other entrances, and in the enriched windows, we 
 have thrown into a note a list of many of them, with references to the 
 churches where they are to be met with. 2 
 
 1 The capitals of the columns remaining at St. Sanson, we are informed by Mr. Joseph Woods, 
 resemble those of the temple of Bacchus at Teos. [There are none published of this temple which 
 resemble those of St. Sanson, but similar examples are found in the temples of Minerva Polias at Priene, 
 ;md Apollo Didym;eus near Miletus ; with this difference, however, that the Greek examples are capitals 
 of square piers; those of St. Sanson, of circular columns. In Pompeii also are many similar capitals.] 
 
 2 The most common ornament is that of the chevron, or zigzag, which seems to have been the earliest 
 used, and latest abandoned (see Plate I.) When there are many rows of them they are called, according 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 13 
 
 Above the arches, between the nave and aisles, usually runs a string- 
 course, separating the lower arches from those of the next story, called 
 the triforium, the arches of which are sometimes of nearly the same width 
 as those below, though less in height, as at the abbey church of Jumieges, 
 where they are devoid of either archivolts or mouldings. They seldom 
 or ever were pierced with windows, but generally formed a kind of com- 
 munication with the tower and roof of the edifice. They are subject to 
 all the varieties which distinguish the Norman arches, as well in distri- 
 bution as in plan and decoration. Above the triforium was a range of 
 windows called the clerestory, which are in general devoid of pillars, are 
 unadorned, and narrower externally than they are within. 
 
 The choir and sacrarium usually terminate with a semicircular apse; 
 but instances occur, as at Fontaine le Henri, and at Thaon, of square 
 east ends. The churches of the Holy Trinity and of St. Nicholas at 
 Caen (Plate XIX.), and at Cheux, may be considered as good specimens 
 of the general features of the exterior of these apses, being divided by 
 slender cylindrical pillars into several compartments, and by string- 
 courses into three stories, the basement one occupied by a range of small 
 arcades, the heads of which are hewn out of a single stone, and the others 
 
 to the numbers, double, triple, quadruple, zigzags. &c. A specimen of the chevron, disposed in a triple 
 row, occurs at the church of St. Giles, at Evreux, now used as a stable. Their angles are more or less 
 acute; and sometimes we see two rows of zigzags with the angles opposite one another (Plate XXIII.) 
 This is called by M. de Caumont the zigzag counter ,:ig:ag. A specimen may be seen in Bayeux Cathe- 
 dral (Plate XXVIII.) The embattled fret is formed by a single round moulding, traversing the face of the 
 arch, making its returns, and crossing at right angles, so forming the intermediate spaces into squares, 
 alternately open above and below (see Plates VI. and XVII.) In England we frequently observe a triangular 
 fret, where the same kind of moulding at every return forms the side of an equilateral triangle, and 
 incloses the intermediate space in that figure. Billets resemble a cylindrical piece of wood, sawed into 
 many pieces of equal length (see Plates XII. and XVII.) The nail-head resembles the heads of great 
 nails, driven in at regular distances. This is so rare an ornament for the string-course in Normandy, 
 that Mr Cotman recollects no other instance of it than in the church of Lery, near Pont de l'Arche. 
 The hatched moulding appears to have its origin from the circumstance of the workmen making indents 
 in the mortar with their trowels, and is accordingly a very general ornament of the string-course. 
 Nebules, or undulating lines. Of the dog-tooth a specimen exists at the church of St. Georges de Bocher- 
 ville. Cable, or twisted mouldings (Plate XVII.) A line of qaatrefoils may be seen at the church of St. 
 Giles, at Evreux. This ornament, so exceedingly common in the pointed style, is said to be met with 
 on this one Norman building only. Birds' heads and beaks were sometimes placed round the arches; 
 and a great variety of foliage, besides many indescribable combinations, likewise appear. 
 
 D 
 
14 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY. 
 
 pierced by windows, variously diversified; the whole terminated by roofs 
 of very high pitch: the corbel tables 1 are grotesquely sculptured. The 
 choir of Cheux is remarkable for being wider than the nave. The portion 
 east of the tower is of three distinct parts, unequal in size, the central 
 being the narrowest, but all of the same height, and each lateral one 
 exactly equalling in its width the length of the transept to which it is 
 attached, and thus, also, the choir and transepts collectively form nearly 
 a square, except that to the end of the middle compartment is attached 
 a semicircular apse. 
 
 From the north and south sides, between the nave and choir, and 
 producing a cruciform arrangement of plan, project the transepts, at the 
 northern and southern extremities of which chapels are placed across. 
 The general features of these transverse chapels (which were vaulted at 
 the level of the aisle vault, and usually dedicated to some saint) accorded 
 with the style of the nave, when of the same era; but at the abbey 
 churches of Fecamp, St. Stephen at Caen {Plate II.), and Cerisy, in the 
 cathedral of Se'ez, and at St. Georges de Bocherville, the transept chapels 
 are separated by screens, by means of which Mr. Cotman considers that 
 the architects intended that the aisle of the nave should receive ap- 
 parent length from the columns which form the screen ranging in a line 
 with the outer walls of the aisles. To the eastern end of these transverse 
 chapels it was customary to affix small semicircular chapels, as at St. 
 Nicholas at Caen, St. Taurin at Evreux, &c, in Normandy, and at Can- 
 terbury, Norwich, and elsewhere, in England. 
 
 [Thirteenth Century.'] — The circular style, which may be said to have 
 reached its maturity in Normandy about the middle of the twelfth cen- 
 tury, was destined during the thirteenth to give way to a new phase 
 more adapted to the immense development of religious rites. But this 
 
 1 This feature was derived originally from the jutting out or projection of the joists of the roof 
 underneath the cornice or eaves. They were carved and ornamented with a great variety of patterns, 
 as heads of monsters, gryphons, birds, &c. The most ancient are highly projecting, and are surmounted 
 by a heavy flat cornice, and others of subsequent date support small arcades (see Plate XX.) The cornice 
 over the corbels is often adorned with zigzags, billets, &c. At first, like the corbels, they projected 
 considerably, but gradually diminishing, they were superseded by the light parapets of the pointed 
 style. 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 L5 
 
 was not effected without a struggle, and was done neither simultaneously 
 nor uniformly; for we frequently find that in the buildings of the end 
 of the twelfth century the two styles are variously intermixed. When 
 the pointed arch began to be introduced, the ornaments which had been 
 used to decorate the archivolts of the semicircular arches were retained 
 and applied to the new ones; as at the abbey church of Jumieges, where 
 are frets, cables, clustered columns, ornamented capitals, pointed arches, 
 Sec. 1 Another illustration of the intermixture of styles appears at the 
 west end of St. Peter's Church at Lisieux, where are windows composed 
 of two small pointed arches resting on a cylindrical column in the centre, 
 and inclosed by a larger arch resting on clustered columns with Norman 
 sculptured capitals. 
 
 At the beginning of the thirteenth century the circular arch and 
 cylindrical column seem wholly to have been disused, and the pointed 
 arch and slender shafts substituted in their places. These shafts 
 were clustered, and consisted of a larger one in the centre, with others 
 either wholly detached or separated in the shafts, and joined in the 
 capitals and bases. They were variously adorned with sculpture.' 2 The 
 vaulting, or webs, in the early pointed style were generally made of 
 chalk, or soft stone, for lightness; but the arches and principal ribs were 
 formed of more durable materials. The greatest distinguishing marks 
 of all eras are the windows. In those of the thirteenth century we 
 observe them long, narrow, sharj>poiDted, and decorated on the inside 
 and outside with small shafts. The order and disposition of the windows 
 varied in some measure according to their position. Thus in the clere- 
 story, or uppermost story of a building, we should find a triplet, or three 
 windows grouped together, the centre one being higher than those on 
 each side. The story beneath, or triforium, would have two within the 
 
 [ l This admixture of styles is well illustrated in the choir of the Abbaye aux Hommes, which, erected 
 at the close of the twelfth or beginning of the thirteenth century, displays its transition features in the 
 decoration of the pointed arch ribs, with the Norman chevron or zigzag ornament (Plate IX.) The same 
 feature is found in the choir of Canterbury.] 
 
 2 Some of the clustered columns are annulated, that is, fixed or tied together in the middle by 
 rings, as at Bayeux, St. Stephen's at Caen, &c, and in Westminster Abbey Church, Salisbury Cathedral, 
 the Temple Church, &c, in our own country 
 
11. 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY. 
 
 same space; and the lowest only one window, usually divided by a pillar 
 or rather mullion, and often ornamented on the top with a trefoil, single 
 rose, or some such simple decoration. The walls were less in thickness 
 than in the circular style, but were strengthened by buttresses of much 
 greater projection, which terminated in pinnacles adorned with crockets, 
 and finished with a handsome flower of four petals, called a finial. 
 
 The distinctive character of the architecture of this early era lies in 
 its simplicity; but when ornaments were introduced, they were usually 
 bold and w T ell-executed — especially the foliated capitals of pillars, and 
 the scrolls of foliage with which the spandrils of the arches were some- 
 times filled. Towards the latter end of this century the pillars became 
 more solid, the lights of the windows were enlarged, and the slender 
 detached shafts in a great measure laid aside. The four-sided pyramid, 
 which usually terminated the towers during the continuance of the cir- 
 cular style, was superseded by the octagonal spire, the base of which 
 was relieved, and its beauty heightened, by the introduction of richly 
 decorated pinnacles at each of the angles of the cornice of such towers. 1 
 
 {Fourteenth Century.'] — The church of St. Ouen, at Rouen, affords a 
 most pleasing and perfect specimen of the more decorated style which 
 prevailed in the fourteenth century. By examining the Plates of this 
 edifice {X X XVII I. -X LI II.) we shall perceive flying-buttresses end in 
 richly crocketed pinnacles, supported by shafts of unusual height. 
 The triple tiers of windows seem to have superseded the solid wall- 
 work of the building. The vaulting is more decorated than before: 
 and the ribs are usually ornamented at their intersections with gilded 
 orbs, carved heads, figures, and other sculptured work. The columns 
 retained something of the general form already described, that is, an 
 assemblage of small pillars or shafts; but these decorations were now 
 not detached or separated from the body of the column or pier, but 
 made part of it; and being closely united and wrought up together, 
 formed one entire, firm, slender, and elegant column. The windows were 
 now greatly enlarged, and divided into several lights by stone mullions, 
 running into various ramifications above, [and forming what is now 
 
 [ l See notice of the spires of Normandy, page 22 et srq.] 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 17 
 
 kuown as flamboyant tracery j ; and more particularly the great eastern 
 and western windows (which became fashionable about this time) took 
 up nearly the whole breadth of the nave, and were carried up almost 
 as high as the vaulting; and being set off with stained glass, of vivid 
 colours, had a solemn and imposing appearance. [In fact generally, at 
 this period the whole of the available space under the vault and between 
 the clustered piers was occupied by windows filled with stained glass ; 
 showing how the architects of that day sought to diminish the size of 
 the main supports of the building and to increase the space allotted to 
 stained glass. The object of this is apparent: the climate of northern 
 France not always rejoicing in the bright, clear atmosphere of more 
 eastern climes, the interiors of these great cathedrals and churches would 
 have appeared cold and gloomy were it not for the brilliant colours 
 which the rays of light piercing through the stained glass spread 
 throughout the church. The multiplication of rays of various colours 
 had also the effect of increasing the apparent size of the building, so 
 that this church of St. Ouen, for instance, though of comparatively 
 moderate dimensions, appears as vast as a cathedral. {Viollet le Due, 
 vol. ix.)] Large circular windows, sometimes known by the name of 
 rose-windows and marigold-windows, prevail in the Norman and French 
 churches of the pointed style of the fourteenth century. Few among 
 the cathedrals or conventual churches in France are without them; 
 but in England the specimens are very few. In the church of St. Ouen 
 these windows are more than commonly beautiful. That in the west 
 front is fully delineated in Plates XL/I. XL II I.; whilst another, in the 
 northern transept, is almost as rich. Others in the cathedral church of 
 Rouen are still more elaborate in their tracery. 
 
 The arches of doorways, of monuments, &c, were often very richly 
 ornamented with foliage and crockets, and the pinnacles were enriched 
 in the same manner. This elegant and peculiar ornament, the crocket, 
 is prevalent during the whole of the pointed style. In the early part of 
 the fourteenth century the arches were also frequently adorned with 
 running foliated ornament in the hollow mouldings. (Plate XL I.) 
 
 A parapet of open quatrefoils runs round the aisles and body of the 
 
 E 
 
L8 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY. 
 
 church of St. Ouen; and the centre tower, which is almost wholly 
 composed of open arches and tracery, terminates, like the south tower 
 of the cathedral, with an octangular crown of fleurs-de-lis. This armorial 
 symbol of France, which in itself is a form of great beauty, was often 
 introduced by the French architects of the middle ages amongst the 
 ornaments of their edifices, and that with a very pleasing and satis- 
 factory result. 
 
 [Fifteenth Century.'] — The same style and manner of building pre- 
 vailed during the early half of the fifteenth century, when it verged 
 into a more florid description of architecture, which may be said to have 
 led to its decadence. The ribs of the vaulting were divided into an 
 infinite number of mouldings, issuing from the vaulting shafts, some- 
 times without capitals or imposts, and enriched with a profusion of 
 sculpture, and with clusters of pendant ornaments. In this century, and 
 in the beginning of the following, the bosses of the vaulted roofs were 
 wrought into filagree, the work extending over the intersection of the 
 ribs which are seen through its reticulation. The w r all surfaces were 
 also very frequently covered with abundance of rich tracery, giving them 
 the appearance of embroidery. The heads of the windows were more 
 richly ornamented with tracery; and the jambs were formed into niches 
 or tabernacles, with enriched canopies, the soffits of which were minutely 
 adorned with filagree work. The large windows were usually divided by 
 two bold mullions into three parts, which were again subdivided into 
 smaller compartments. Indeed, the architecture of this century lost all 
 its religious grandeur and sublime solemnity; but what it lost in that 
 respect, it gained in richness and exuberance of ornament. Every part 
 of the edifice, however minute, was loaded with delicate mouldings : and 
 while we may admire the fancy displayed in frittering the surface of a 
 building into such toyish decoration, we cannot but regret the extinction 
 of that pleasing simplicity which alone is in accordance with projniety 
 and good taste. [In secular architecture the forms of the arches became 
 more and more obtuse, till they were in some cases almost flat, the four- 
 centred arch, which abounds in our Tudor style, being rarely found, 
 otherwise the characteristics of the two styles in France and England 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 if) 
 
 arc very similar. The introduction of the ogee arch label over windows 
 and doors in secular and ecclesiastical work dates also from this period.] 
 
 Of the churches at Coutances, Lisieux, Seez, and others, in which the 
 early pointed style prevails in its genuine simplicity, and evincing its 
 lofty and elegant characteristics, we regret that we are unable to offer 
 the antiquarian architect any engraved examples. He will find, however, 
 some interesting illustrations of parts of all these edifices in Mr. Cotman's 
 valuable work, as well as judicious essays on the ages and styles of each. 
 "The church of Se'ez," says Mr. Turner, "may be compared in its archi- 
 tecture with those of Coutances and Lisieux: they are unlike, indeed, 
 but by no means different. Severe simplicity characterizes Lisieux : 
 Coutances is distinguished by elegance, abounding in decoration; Seez, 
 at the same time that it unites the excellencies of both, can rival neither 
 in those which are peculiarly its own. In the interior it exhibits a series 
 of noble lofty arches: below, the moresque ornament, like those at 
 Bayeux and Coutances, in the spandrils ; the double lancet arches of the 
 triforium placed in triplets; and the larger pointed arches above, 
 arranged two or three together, and increased with arches of the Norman 
 form, though not of the Norman style." 1 
 
 In the middle of the fifteenth century, and at the commencement of 
 the sixteenth, an admixture of the Italian with that of the florid Gothic 
 style produced a somewhat inconsistent and not altogether harmonious 
 style of architecture, which Mr. Dawson Turner has designated by the 
 appellation of the Burgundian. 2 This almost distinctive species of 
 architecture seems to have been wholly employed in domestic buildings. 
 Specimens must therefore be sought for among that class of edifices; 
 and we accordingly find some very fine illustrations in the mansion of 
 Chateau Fontaine le Henri {Plates LXXI.-LXXIII), in the Palais de 
 Justice at Rouen (Plates XLIX.-LIV), and in the Hotel de BourgtheroiihL- 
 in the Place de la Pucelle, at Rouen (Plates LV. L VI.) This last is the 
 
 1 Architectural Antiquities of Normandy, vol. ii. p. 125. 
 
 2 So called because supposed to have originated in the dominions of Philip the Good. No distinct 
 example of it can be dated anterior to his reign, and buildings bearing its characteristics are found in 
 all the states which were united under his authority. Its peculiar features are also displayed in Philip's 
 palace at Dijon. 
 
20 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY 
 
 richest specimen, being entirely divided into compartments by slender 
 and lengthened buttresses and pillars. The intervening spaces are filled 
 with basso-relievos, some of which are rich and fanciful and represent 
 the labours of the field and of the vineyard. Here also, though of much 
 later date, is a series of bas-reliefs, executed in marble tablets, displaying 
 the royal interview between Henry VIII. and Francis I. on the Field of 
 the Cloth of Gold {Champ du Drap d'Or). The windows are in general 
 square-headed, and divided into four parts by a perpendicular stone 
 mullion and a transom, and are decorated with a series of plain mould- 
 ings, extending round all the four sides, and giving them the appearance 
 of being in panel. Where pointed (generally in the upper stories), they 
 are particularly rich, being finished with angular pediments supported 
 by buttresses, terminating in pinnacles highly crocketed, and surmounted 
 by bold finials. The tympana are commonly occupied by armorial 
 bearings, and a range of foliage runs in the hollow of the arch mouldings. 
 
 Thus we have endeavoured to trace the progress of architecture in 
 Normandy from its infancy to perfection, and from perfection to a species 
 of enervated second childhood. With the gradual decline of the massive 
 Norman, rose the beautiful pointed style, a description of architecture 
 less understood by the French than by the English antiquaries, and of 
 which Normandy presents some good specimens, though mostly far 
 inferior in the taste and execution of the detail to some that might be 
 cited in England. 1 We have seen the elegant assemblage of ornaments 
 which the pointed style displayed in its height of grandeur; and we 
 have had to contemplate, with feelings of regret and mortification, its 
 barbaric fall into that inharmonious, disagreeable jumble of styles and 
 
 1 A few portions of some English buildings resemble others in France — Canterbury choir, for 
 instance; but no entire building is found in France which can be compared to one of entirely English 
 
 b sign. In the arrangement of the structure, in the style of the ornaments, in the elevation, in the 
 section, in the plan — in short, in some part or feature, a diversity will always be found, which, without 
 destroying the genuine Gothic character, designates a specific class. The continental churches nearly 
 all terminate in a semicircular or polygonal apse. Westminster, Canterbury, Tewkesbury, Norwich, &c, 
 in England, are built on this plan, but English examples of this special feature are by no means 
 .iiinici-uus. The foreign churches have often four side aisles, and as the churches thus became very broad, 
 the extremities of the transepts usually range within the walls of the side aisles, instead of projecting 
 
 ■ \ ond them. ' If such magnificence we have but few examples in England. 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 2i 
 
 orders, which began to prevail, and seemed to satisfy the public taste, in 
 the sixteenth century. Happy indeed was it for the credit of the country 
 and for the fame of its artists, when Italian architecture, introduced with 
 greater perfection, was released from the shackles of a debased taste, 
 and allowed to claim its due place and its meed of praise. In the 
 present day, though it is painful to observe the general want of refined 
 taste, as well in England as on the Continent, it is gratifying to find that 
 the science of architecture is making rapid strides, is becoming familiar 
 to the enlightened few, and is considered a necessary part of the edu- 
 cation of the man of taste and the scholar. With the following appo- 
 site remarks from the Quarterly Review, let us terminate this introductory 
 essay. 
 
 " The Anglo-Norman style appears in its native country with slight 
 variations. Generally speaking, the Norman doorway is less enriched 
 than the English portal, though it is of larger dimensions; and the same 
 remark applies to the other parts of the front of the edifice. The 
 windows are larger. No building now exists with a flat bordered roof, 
 as at Peterborough and St. Albans; 1 though it is possible that some may 
 have thus been originally constructed. In such of the Norman buildings 
 as bear the appearance of being built by the more scientific architects of 
 the age, the arches spring from piers, except in the apses, and they are 
 locked by a keystone. This construction shows that the architect did 
 not forget the lessons of a better age. The masonry is always excellent ; 
 the stones seldom exceed a foot in length, with about a third of an inch 
 of mortar in the joints. All ornaments composed of foliage, or of mathe- 
 matical lines, are well sculptured ; but the artist did not always succeed 
 in the representation of animal life. Spires are not an uncommon 
 feature in Norman architecture ; we may instance the square pyramid at 
 Vaucelles, and in the suburbs of Bayeux; they are well built of stone, 
 and invariably carved into an imitation of shingles. 
 
 [ J The Abbaye aux Hommes had originally a wooden roof, a description of which, written by 
 M. Bouet, will be found in the Bulletin Momnnentah of the Society of Antiquaries, Normandy, vol. xxix.; 
 and also in a paper read by Mr. J. H. Parker, Jan. 26, 1863, before the Royal Institute of British 
 Architects, and published in their Transactions of the years 1862-63.] 
 
 F 
 
22 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF- NORMANDY. 
 
 "As we have no instance of the Norman spire in England, those 
 examples are valuable. At St. Nicholas the roof is wholly of stone and 
 the pitch is very high. Mr. Turner observes, 'that we have here the 
 exact counterpart of the Irish stone-roofed chapels, the most celebrated 
 of which, that of Cormac, in Cashel Cathedral, appears, from all the 
 drawings and descriptions which I have seen of it, to be altogether a 
 Norman building.'" 
 
 THE SPIRES OF NORMANDY. 
 
 Mr. J. H. Parker, in his paper on the Abbaye aux Homines, Caen, 
 already referred to, makes the following general observations on the 
 spires of Normandy, while describing those of Caen. 
 
 It should be observed that in nearly all the spires in this district 
 the surface of the stone is cut to imitate wooden shingles or tiles, a clear 
 proof that there were earlier spires of wood from which these were 
 copied ; indeed there is little doubt that all the Norman towers either- 
 had or were intended to have spires of some kind. The frequent burning 
 of the wooden spires, and the natural decay of the material in such an 
 exposed situation, has caused them to disappear; and in England the 
 towers have gradually been left with their square tops calling in vain for 
 spires. In this part of Normandy, where the building stone is so abun- 
 dant and so easily worked, stone spires were very generally introduced 
 in place of the wooden ones. 
 
 I am very much inclined to believe that Europe is indebted to Caen 
 and its neighbourhood for that very interesting feature in mediaeval 
 architecture — the Gothic spire of stone. I know of no other district in 
 which we can trace such a series of steps leading up by a natural 
 succession and progress to this object, as the pyramids which form a 
 common termination of the church towers of this neighbourhood. Begin- 
 ning with the very remarkable and curious low pyramid of Thaon 
 (see Plate XX), which may fairly be assigned to the end of the eleventh 
 century, we can here readily trace the successive changes at intervals 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 -2:5 
 
 not exceeding ten years from each other, in a series gradually becoming 
 more lofty, better executed, and evidently later in character, until we 
 come first to the square spire, and then by a natural and easy transition 
 to the octagonal spire with its groups of pinnacles and spire-lights 
 (lucarnes) at the base. To begin then with Thaon; in this remarkable 
 structure the surface is not made even in one gradual slope, as was 
 afterwards the case, but the pyramid is built in a succession of steps 
 with the angles chamfered off; and within the stones are not cut, but left 
 rough and overhanging one another, like the Irish cairns and bee-hive 
 houses; and at the base of the pyramid a large piece of timber was 
 introduced, like the wall-plate on top of a wall, as if to bind the tower 
 together, and make a secure base to construct the pyramid upon. — The 
 next pyramid in date is probably that of Comornes, near Bayeux, which 
 is a tall tower possessing some curious features of quite the beginning 
 of the twelfth century or the end of the eleventh. The pyramid itself 
 is low and very early-looking. It is built of ashlar, the upper part has 
 been repaired, and has unfortunately had a window and a bell put on 
 the top. The next which occurs to me is Basly, near Caen, which 
 belongs to near the middle of the twelfth century, and Rosel, which 
 follows very soon after. These are simple pyramids without any corner 
 pinnacles; the latter has a round moulding on the angles, a finial, and 
 spire-light. 
 
 Huppeau, near Bayeux, may come next. It is considerably taller 
 than those that have gone before, but appears to be nearly if not quite 
 as early. It has a large roll-moulding on the angles, and the surface 
 is cut in imitation of shingles. At each of the four corners is a sort 
 of rude large crocket, the lower edges of the pyramid resting upon a 
 corbel-table, as is usually the case, and these corbels are very rudely 
 carved, but the cutting is deep. Vaucelles, in the suburbs of Caen, has 
 been repaired, but copied with tolerable fidelity, and belongs to this 
 period. St. Loup at Bayeux, which has been engraved by Pugin 
 (Plate XXIII.), is another very fine example of this class. St. Contest, 
 near Caen, has also had the pyramid rebuilt in modern times, but 
 faithfully copied, and may be classed here. Bons is a fine example of 
 
24 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY. 
 
 transitional character, which may be called either a very tall pyramid or 
 a square spire ; it has no corner pinnacles, but has lucarnes in the centre 
 
 of each face. 
 
 Douvres may be taken next: it is octagonal, but very early, quite of 
 transitional character, and stands on a tower of the same period. The 
 small square spires at the east end of St. Stephen's, at Caen, have been 
 already mentioned, and should perhaps come before Douvres. Ducy is a 
 very elegant, lofty, octagonal spire, with square pinnacles, and is a little 
 earlier than the western spires of St. Stephen's, Caen. 
 
 The spires of the Cathedral of Bayeux (Plates XX V. XX VI.) are so 
 much of the same character as those of St. Stephen's, Caen (Plate III.), 
 that they were probably building at the same time. They are not equally 
 elegant, and the corner pinnacles are not so open, which gives them 
 rather an earlier appearance. Secqueville has a fine spire of nearly the 
 same character, possibly a little earlier, having no corner pinnacles, but 
 it has lucarnes, and these correspond closely with the others. 
 
 Those of Bretteville, Bernieres, and Langrune follow in this order, 
 and bring us to about the middle of the thirteenth century. They are 
 all admirable examples of elegant design and wonderfully light construc- 
 tion, and each is of itself a study for a young architect. After these 
 come the unfinished spires of Norrey and Audrieu, which brings us to the 
 end of the century. Norrey is one of the most beautiful of this district 
 of beautiful churches; it is often said to be copied from St. Stephen's, 
 Caen, but it is almost an exact copy of the Cathedral of Bayeux on a 
 small scale, quite a little model of a cathedral. It was intended to be 
 made far more rich on the exterior, but was never completed. The small 
 portions that are finished are exquisite pieces of Gothic detail and carving, 
 but it is of considerably later date, near the end of the century. The 
 spire was never completed, but it is carried above the top of the pinnacles, 
 which are finished, and show what was intended to be. At the east end 
 a whimsical fancy has been introduced; the two apsidal chapels have each 
 a half spire carried up for a roof, so that they look as if the two had been 
 split asunder, and ought to be joined together again. The effect is very 
 bad, and even ludicrous, and this seems to show that when the architect 
 
ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF VAULTING. 
 
 25 
 
 deviated from his model he was not to be trusted, although the workmen 
 possessed wonderful skill. 
 
 This brings us to the spires of the fourteenth century, of which St. 
 Peter's, at Caen (Plates XXXV. XXXVI), is the favourite type, and 
 which is commonly quoted as the perfection of a spire, although some 
 prefer the earlier type, of which St. Stephen's affords the most perfect 
 example. The spire of St. Saviour's, at Caen, would rank very high if it 
 were not so near to St. Peter's, to which it is not quite equal." 
 
 ON THE OKIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF VAULTING. 
 
 LY THE EDITOR. 
 
 The history of the transition from Norman to Pointed architecture 
 would scarcely now be considered complete without some special reference 
 to those magnificent vaults, the development of which gave so great an 
 impetus to the style, and constituted in fact its chief characteristic. 
 
 As in all perfected architectural styles, the method of covering in or 
 vaulting over large interiors will be found to have given the key-note to 
 the formation of each style, so in the vaults of the middle ages may we 
 trace the great development of the principal features of Gothic architecture. 
 
 The researches which have been made by M. Viollet le Due and M. de 
 Caumont in France, and by Professors Willis, Whewell, and G. G. Scott, 
 and Messrs. J. Fergusson and J. H. Parker in England, and the books and 
 essays that have appeared since the first publication of Pugin's Normandy. 
 have placed the subject on an entirely different footing from that laid 
 down in the first quarter of this century ; and the theories of Dr. Milner. 
 Whittington, and others, have been altogether set aside. There is no 
 phase in the history of pointed architecture fraught with more interest 
 to the student than that which is displayed in the introduction of ribbed 
 vaulting; and seeing that in the churches of the Abbaye aux Hommes 
 
 G 
 
26 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY. 
 
 and the Abbaye aux Dames, the cathedral of Bayeux, and the church of 
 St. Ouen at Rouen (all of which are illustrated in this volume), will be 
 found four of the principal varieties of stone vaults, we have thought 
 the subject worthy of a separate chapter. 
 
 The earliest system to which it is necessary to revert is that of the 
 simple barrel- vault of the Romans, with or without intersections. These 
 were constructed, as M. Viollet le Due has shown, on somewhat similar 
 principles to the Gothic vault; 1 that is to say, that at certain distances 
 were erected centres, planks being laid between; over these centres 
 were voussoirs of bricks or tiles, placed on end, forming ribs, the spaces 
 between being filled with mortar and light rubble work, and occasionally 
 a single layer of flat bricks or tiles underneath ; the whole surface being 
 afterwards covered with stucco, and painted or decorated with mosaics. 
 No great difficulty was experienced in the formation of the quoins of 
 these intersecting barrel-vaults, so long as the latter were of the same 
 diameter and with their springing on the same level; when, however, as 
 was often the case in the great halls of the Roman baths, the main vault 
 was intersected by smaller ones with either the apex or the springing 
 at a different level, the quoin or intersecting angle became a double 
 curve, and exceedingly awkward to construct, presenting also disagreeable 
 forms to the eye. 
 
 The introduction of the rib, no longer to be hidden from view as in 
 the Roman vault, but as a primary and leading feature on which the 
 main vault itself was to be laid, and from which it was to take its form, 
 constituted a new solution of the problem, and the chief and leading 
 characteristic of Gothic architecture. The advantages of this introduction 
 were twofold; first, it enabled the builder to erect his arched ribs on a 
 simple system of centering in one plane, in most cases probably to do 
 away with centering altogether for the main vault or arch; and secondly, 
 
 1 " Si Ton prend la peine d'analyser ces largcs voutes romaines, berceaux, vofttes d'aretes, coupoles, 
 on constate que ces surfaces courbes, en apparence uniformes et homogenes, sont formees d'une suite de 
 nerfs et meine de cellules de brique dont les intervalles sont remplis par un blocage compose de pierres 
 legeres et de mortier. Ainsi pour fermer une tres-grande voute, suffisait-il de poser un certain norabre 
 de cintres de charpente, relativement restreint et d'une force mediocre, de les reunir par une forme de 
 planches sur lesquelles la voute etait construite." — (Didionnaire Baisonnd, vol. ix. p. 405). 
 
ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF VAULTING. 
 
 27 
 
 it concentrated with more accuracy the thrust of the whole vault in 
 certain well denned directions. 
 
 It is true that in the Pantheon and Roman baths the masonry which 
 counterbalanced the thrusts of their vaults was grouped in masses at the 
 most important points, and so far corresponded to the comparatively thin 
 walls, with occasional buttresses and flying-buttresses of the middle ages; 
 but the Romans regarded these constructive expedients as unpleasant 
 necessities, and therefore either carefully hid them from view, as in the 
 Pantheon, or, as in their vaulted temples, made use of pilasters and 
 columns, which were intended to be looked upon as decorative, whilst 
 they were really constructive features, though not intended for the pur- 
 pose to which they were thus applied. The mediceval architects, on the 
 contrary, frankly accepted the buttress, and invented new forms for it, 
 which were not only in accordance with the constructive requirements 
 it was called upon to fulfil, as a resistance to thrust, but were graced 
 with all those decorative features which constitute its chief beauty. 
 
 As far back as the first and second century we find the simple trans- 
 verse rib used by the Romans, in the vaulting of their piscina?; its adop- 
 tion, however, did not become general till the tenth century; and even 
 after that date the Roman vault without ribs was still employed, as seen 
 in the crypt of the Abbaye aux Dames at Caen (Plate XIV.), dating from 
 1066. In the same church, but later on, we find the side aisles and choir 
 vaulted in square compartments, with transverse but no diagonal ribs: 
 and there is every reason to believe that the aisles of the Abbaye aux 
 Homines at Caen were vaulted over in like manner. Up to the twelfth 
 century no attempt had been made to vault over the naves or transepts 
 of those early Norman churches, and they were, as in England, covered 
 with wooden roofs; when therefore the experiment was first made in the 
 Abbaye aux Hommes, that great change was effected to which we have 
 before alluded; in the place of the Roman method, in which circular 
 barrel-vaults were employed, the quoin or groin being determined by the 
 intersection of these vaults, an entirely new system was introduced; the 
 ribs were erected first, being 'circular or elliptical in form, and between 
 and resting on them were light stone vaults or webs, which derived their 
 
28 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY. 
 
 shape mainly from the contour of the ribs. Independently, however, of 
 its nature, another difficulty presented itself in the vaulting of the nave, 
 in relation to that of the side aisles; the latter had been vaulted with 
 square compartments; but as the nave was twice the width of the aisles, 
 or nearly so, every two bays were taken to form the square compartment; 
 the immense span, however, of this vault, and the existence of an inter- 
 mediate pier in each bay serving no purpose, would seem to have suggested 
 the introduction of a supplementary rib across the nave, the web being 
 tilled in between this and the diagonal ribs, and this formed what is known 
 as the hexapartite vault (see plan and section, &c, Plates II. IV V and 
 VI.) This vault, however, had two inconveniences: in the first place, the 
 diagonal rib, by its greater projection, hid a portion of one side of the 
 windows; and in the second, the main thrust of the vault was exerted on 
 every alternate pier only. It was true that additional strength could 
 be given to these piers; and the windows, by being brought closer together 
 towards the central rib, would not have had their light interfered with 
 by the diagonal ribs; the former was done at the Abbaye aux Hommes, 
 giving a lopsided appearance to the clerestory openings (see Plate VI), 
 the latter would have placed the windows out of the axis of these in the 
 side aisles, which were naturally in the centre of each square compart- 
 ment. The next step taken, therefore, appears in the first bay of the 
 nave of the Abbaye aux Dames; 1 and in the transept (Plates XVI a and 
 X VII), where, instead of the square hexapartite vault, we have an oblong 
 compartment, whose width is equal to half its length, and with diagonal 
 and transverse ribs only, forming what is called the quadripartite vault. 
 
 Up to this epoch the transverse rib of the nave had been circular, the 
 diagonal rib generally an ellipse. This form of arch was not only difficult 
 to erect and to form the centre for, but was essentially weak in construc- 
 tion, requiring very considerable abutment to resist its thrust: besides 
 this, in order that the formerets or wall-ribs (which in these oblong com- 
 partments were half the width only of the transverse ribs) should be of 
 
 1 With the exception of this first bay, the nave is vaulted in a peculiar manner, which is neither 
 hexapartite nor quadripartite, the intermediate rib in this case carries an arch, which, rising to the apse 
 of the vault, serves but to support the keystone of the diagonal ribs and the upper ridge of the web. 
 
ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF VAULTING . 
 
 29 
 
 equal height with the transverse and diagonal ribs, they were obliged to 
 be stilted to so great an extent, that the web between became extremely 
 awkward to construct, and was ungainly in form. These difficulties were 
 all met by the introduction of the pointed arched rib, a stronger form, 
 which exerted less thrust, and accommodated itself at once to all the 
 problems of ribbed vaulting, chiefly from the fact that any number of 
 arches of the same height could be struck from the same springing. It 
 is probably to this introduction of the pointed arch rib that the Gothic 
 style owes its chief impetus. The constructive principle of the pointed 
 arch had long been known; it was used by the Assyrians for their subter- 
 ranean vaults; it was introduced by the Arabs in their mosques from the 
 ninth century; but its employment in ribbed vaulting dates from the 
 twelfth century — the choir of the abbey of St. Denis (a.d. 1140) being 
 probably the earliest example. After the introduction of the pointed rib, 
 the elliptical arch was abandoned; circular arches were employed for the 
 diagonal ribs, and pointed ones for the transverse and wall ribs. There 
 are cases where even the diagonal ribs are pointed, as in Bayeux Cathe- 
 dral (Plates XXVIII. XXIX. XXXIII. XXXIV.) and the church of 
 St. Ouen (Plate XL.), as also where the wall-ribs are stilted ; but these 
 form exceptions. 
 
 But slight subsequent modifications are to be found in French vault- 
 ing; except in the elaboration of the rib mouldings, and in some cases the 
 application of decorative pendants and other ornaments to the ribs, as 
 found in the church of St. Jacques at Dieppe, and in the choir and eastern 
 chapels of St. Pierre at Caen. In England already in the thirteenth cen- 
 tury was introduced the ridge rib; and, in later periods, other supple- 
 mentary ribs, for the best description of which, and the ultimate grouping 
 of them into the fan-vault (a combination entirely confined to England), 
 we would refer the student to Professor G. G. Scott's lectures delivered 
 at the Royal Academy in 1870, and published in the professional journals 
 of that year. 
 
 It would scarcely be possible here also, without copious diagrams, to 
 enter into the difference in the formation of the web in English and 
 French vaults. In this country they were formed in courses of stone, of 
 
 H 
 
30 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY. 
 
 equal depth throughout the course, so that they dipped towards the 
 diagonal ribs, as in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey. In France they 
 were laid horizontal, or nearly so, according to whether the keystones of 
 the transverse or wall ribs were at the same level, or lower than those 
 of the diagonal ribs; besides this difference, the form of the English web 
 was cylindrical, of the French domical. At Bayeux it was as nearly as 
 possible cylindrical, being an exception to the general rule. The domical 
 form of it is shown in the church of St. Ouen {Plate XL.) 
 
 We have hitherto taken no notice of the means adopted to resist the 
 thrust of the vault. In the Roman period they trusted almost entirely 
 to the thickness of their walls; or, such buttresses as were employed were 
 concealed, as in the Pantheon, or masked under the forms of decorative 
 columns. 
 
 In the Abbaye aux Hommes they employed a demicylindrical or half- 
 barrel vault over the triforium gallery, as shown in Plate V.; this con- 
 tinuous vault, however, was really not required throughout its whole 
 length, the thrust of the vault being concentrated through the ribs at 
 their springing, or a little above it. In the Abbaye aux Dames, there- 
 fore (the next example in point of date in Normandy), we find a simple 
 flying-buttress thrown across above the aisles and at the foot of each rib. 1 
 In both these cases the aisle roof covered over and hid these constructive 
 forms; and the cathedral of Bayeux shows us the first example in this 
 publication of the flying-buttress as an external feature, and decorated 
 accordingly (Plates XXVIII. XXIX. XXXI XXXII) In this instance 
 the thrust of the vault is twice transmitted to the outer walls, in conse- 
 quence of the side and choir chapels. In the church of St. Ouen at 
 Rouen (Plate XL.), we see the single flying-buttress, though the elliptical 
 form of its arch is not pleasing. 
 
 1 For reasons given in our description of this church, this flying-buttress was not of sufficient power, 
 nor was it placed high enough, and the vault began to push out the walls, necessitating its destructior, 
 and the insertion of a wooden vault painted in imitation of stone in its place (see Plate XJ7.) 
 
DESCRIPTION OF THE PLATES, 
 
 WITH NOTICES OF 
 
 THE BUILDINGS DELINEATED. 
 
 CHAPEL OF LA GRANDE MALADRERIE, NEAR CAEN. 
 PLATE L, Frontispiece. 
 
 THE frontispiece to this volume contains the representation of an 
 entrance doorway, and some architectural details, from a church in 
 the village of St. Germain de Blanche-Herbe, commonly called "La Mala- 
 drerie/' from a lazar-house founded there by Henry II. a.d. 1161. The 
 village is situated about one mile west of Caen, and the ornamental 
 detail of the doorway principally consists of an archivolt richly adorned 
 with a sharp chevron moulding, interspersed with foliage and grotesque 
 heads, each angle of the chevron being filled with a different design. The 
 string-courses placed beneath the doorway consist of two different pat- 
 terns, as also the corbel-table above. The sunk panels in the angle are 
 taken from another building. [This chapel of La Maladrerie is situated 
 in the village, and must not be confounded with the chapel attached to 
 the ancient lazar-house, which was destroyed in 1826 (after Pugin's visit 
 to it), to make way for the new " Maison centrale de detention."] 
 
 In the vicinity of this village, and at a place on the opposite side of 
 the river, are the celebrated quarries from which the noted Caen-stone is 
 now, and has for many centuries been, obtained. This stone, like that of 
 Bath, in England, is soft, and easily worked; but it is of a more compact 
 substance and of finer grain: its weight is 150 pounds to the French 
 cubic foot in the quarry. The quarries are worked in the manner of 
 
32 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY. 
 
 caves, and thus guarded against exposure to the weather, to preserve the 
 surface of the rocks from frost. Most of the stone is obtained from a 
 stratum between 20 and 36 feet from the surface. The mode of working 
 the quarries is by excavating chambers of 25 feet, at the extremities of 
 which solid piers are left to support the roof, which is 20 feet in height. 
 The stones are raised through shafts, at the top of which are large wheels, 
 turned by two or three men. The ground landlord usually lets a piece 
 of land, measuring 200 by 100 French feet, on lease for nine years. 
 During the Norman dynasty in England, the Caen-stone was imported 
 into this island in large quantities. It is related that it was employed 
 in London Bridge, the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, Canterbury 
 Cathedral, &c. Ducarel has quoted some charters showing the estimation 
 in which it was held. 
 
 [According to the late Mr. C. W. Smith, the Caen-stone as now quarried 
 and used both in Normandy and England, is much inferior to that which 
 was used in the abbeys and churches of Caen from the eleventh to the 
 fifteenth century. In order to ascertain the exact truth of the matter, 
 Mr. Smith visited Caen, and made a careful examination of the buildings 
 there and in the vicinity, and having obtained an old map of the locality, 
 he found places named in French " The Hollow Way," " The Old Quarry," 
 " The New Quarry," " The Little Quarry," all . situated in the immediate 
 vicinity of the great churches and castle of Caen; there were in fact 
 quarries almost underneath the churches, all of which had been deserted 
 for three or four centuries. On going inside them he found stone pre- 
 cisely similar to that of which the old churches were built; and which, 
 though belonging to the same geological series, were very different in 
 point of durability from that Caen-stone of which the modern buildings 
 in London were constructed. In one church, " St. Pierre," the elaborate 
 stone work of the fifteenth century was in an almost perfect state of 
 preservation; no stone, however, at present brought from Caen, would 
 bear anything like that degree of weathering, as it was far from being 
 equally durable with that of bygone times.] 
 
 The stones known in France by the name of Carreaux d'AUemagne are 
 much used for floors of rooms in Normandy, and nearly all over the 
 
ABBA YE AUX HOMMES, CAEN. 
 
 33 
 
 kingdom. Great quantities are also exported. A fossil crocodile was 
 found in these quarries in 1817, perfect in form, with the scales clearly 
 defined. It consequently excited much curiosity amongst geologists. 
 
 ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. STEPHEN, L'ABBAYE AUX HOMMES, CAEN. 
 
 PLATES II.— XII. 
 
 The church belonging to this abbey is stated by Huet 1 to have been 
 built by William, Duke of Normandy, in 1064; but the Abbe' de la Rue 
 argues, from the phraseology of the foundation charter, that the edifice 
 was not commenced till after the conquest of England, in 1066. 2 Lan- 
 franc, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, was appointed the first abbot, 
 and he began the building of the church; 3 which was completed under 
 his successor, William de Bonne Ame; and, according to the testimony 
 of Ordericus Vitalis, a contemporary historian, it was dedicated in 1077. 4 
 Some writers have indeed referred this event to the year 1073, while 
 others date the dedication of the church in 1081 or 1086; 5 but the pre- 
 cise and circumstantial narrative of Ordericus gives superior probability 
 to the date which he has advanced, and which De la Rue has adopted. 
 
 [Mr. Parker remarks: 6 — "It is rather singular that, notwithstanding 
 
 1 Huet, Origines de Caen, 2d edit. 1706, p. 175. 
 
 2 Essais Historiques sur la Ville de Caen, torn. ii. p. 52 In the foundation charter William takes the 
 title of "Rex Anglorum," and bestows on the monastery much English property: in reference to the 
 building of the abbey he says, disposui construendum; words which imply that the work was not executed 
 when the charter was granted. See Neustria Pia, p. 626. 
 
 3 In the chartulary of St. Stephen, among several contracts entered into by Lanfranc, while abbot, is 
 one relating to four acres of land whence stone was procured to build the monastery ("unde lapides 
 extrahuntur ad opus monaster ii"). Huet asserts that the stone used for this edifice was brought from the 
 quarries of Vaucelles and Allemagne, near Caen; which statement is objected to by De la Eue, who, how- 
 ever, does not mention the place whence the stone was obtained.— Orig. de Caen, p. 179; Essais Historiques, 
 tome ii. p. 59. 
 
 4 Orderici Hist. Eccles. lib. v. ad ann. 1077. 5 Huet, Orig. de Caen, p. 175; and Dumonstier, p. 625. 
 [ 6 Paper read before the Royal Institute of British Architects, Jan. 26th, 1863, and published in their 
 
 Transactions 1862-63.] 
 
34 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY. 
 
 the notoriety of those foundations, it is difficult to ascertain the exact 
 year in which the buildings were commenced; the authorities differ con- 
 siderably in the dates, both of foundation and of consecration: 1064, 1066, 
 and 1070 are mentioned for the foundation; and 1071, 1073, 1077, and 
 1078 for the dedication of St. Stephen's. Lanfranc was sent to Rome in 
 1059 to make peace with the pope, Nicholas II., and returned in 1060 
 with the pardon and its conditions agreed upon : the foundation, there- 
 fore, could not have been before that year, and as Lanfranc was made 
 abbot of St. Stephen's in 1066, it is probable that some of the buildings 
 were then ready, although the consecration of the church did not take 
 place until eleven years afterwards, in 1077. Trinity Church (Abbaye 
 aux Dames) is said to have been consecrated in 1066. Possibly it 
 was not convenient to carry on these two large works at the same 
 time, and Matilda's church may have been finished before William's 
 was commenced; or what is more probable is that either a temporary 
 wooden church was the one consecrated in 1066, or that only just as 
 much as was necessary for performing the service was then ready, 
 and the altar was consecrated — the papal bull of foundation, granting 
 special privileges to the abbey of St. Stephen, is dated in 1068. 
 The abbey was richly endowed with lands both in Normandy and 
 England. Lanfranc was made Archbishop of Canterbury in 1070, leaving 
 the buildings of his abbey very incomplete, to be carried on by his 
 successors." 
 
 As will be seen on referring to Plate II, the plan of the church con- 
 sists of — a vestibule at the west end, to which entrance is obtained through 
 three doorways — a nave of eight bays with side aisles — a chapel of three 
 bays at the north-west end — a transept of five bays (two of which have 
 each at the north and south extremities respectively a chapel with an 
 intermediate vault of two bays at the level of the aisle vault) — a small 
 apse on the eastern side of the southern chapel, and a third bay to 
 the northern chapel — a choir of four bays and the apse with side aisles 
 round, and a series of thirteen chapels, seven of which form the chevet. 
 This choir and chevet, dating from the thirteenth century, replaced the 
 original choir of the eleventh century, which consisted, according to 
 
ABBAYE AUX HOMMES, CAEN. 
 
 35 
 
 Mr. Fergusson 1 (and taken by him from Rame'e, Histoire Generale de 
 V Architecture), of two apses at the north and south ends of the transept, 
 and a central choir of two bays and the apse, the side aisles being con- 
 tinued to the north and south of the two bays, and terminating by a 
 straight wall. No authority is given for this termination, and as in 
 Romsey abbey church, where a similar arrangement occurs, internally 
 the aisle terminates with an apse, this may possibly have been the case 
 in the original choir of the Abbaye aux Hommes. 
 
 2 The earliest parts of the abbey church now remaining are — the east 
 wall of the central tower — the outer walls of the transepts and nave — 
 and the original west front, which forms the back of the present western 
 towers. These parts were probably built between 1073, when the original 
 choir was finished, and the conclusion of the reign of William I., in 1087; 
 and they do, in fact, comprise the main structure of the present nave and 
 transepts, but so much disguised and altered in appearance by the inser- 
 tion of the vault that considerable care is required to distinguish the 
 original parts. The west front was long considered as the especial type 
 of the Norman style at the time of the Conquest; it now appears from the 
 close examination of M. Bouet, that it cannot possibly belong to that 
 period, but is the work of the next generation, when the art of building- 
 had considerably improved and the masons had become more skilful. 
 The upper portion of the towers belongs to the latter part of the eleventh 
 century, the spires are of the thirteenth, being amongst the earliest 
 Gothic spires. The vaults of the nave transept date from the twelfth 
 century, great changes having then been made in the arrangement of the 
 clerestory, to which we shall allude farther on. Mr. Parker remarks: 
 "There is no direct historical evidence of the period at which the central 
 vault was constructed, but large benefactions to the abbey are recorded in 
 the time of Henry II. about 1160-1165, and the architectural character of 
 the details of the vault agrees perfectly with other buildings of that period." 
 
 The exact date of the reconstruction of the choir is not known. It 
 has been erroneously attributed to the middle of the fourteenth century, 
 
 [ l Fergusson's History of Architecture.] 
 
 [ 2 The principal dates and facts here are taken from Mr. Parker's paper already referred to.] 
 
36 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY. 
 
 during the administration of Simon de Trevieres; this, however, would be 
 much too late a date for it, and M. Bouet has shown that the traditions 
 setting it down as his work refer probably to the construction of the 
 Chapelle Halbout (called morning chapel on Plate II ), which was some- 
 times used as a choir during alterations in the actual choir. Mr. Parker 
 assigns 1230 to 1250 as the probable period, though the character of the 
 detail is such that it might safely be ascribed to the beginning of the 
 thirteenth or even the end of the twelfth century. 
 
 The central tower or lantern fell down in 1566, leaving the eastern 
 wall only standing; the western side was rebuilt in 1602, and the two 
 eastern piers of the nave along with it. At the same period, or during 
 the next twenty years, were reconstructed, according to M. Bouet, 1 
 the vault of the nave tribune, originally built at the same time as the 
 nave vault, the vaulting of the side aisles, and the pierced balustrade of 
 the tribune. 
 
 In the seventeenth century also were rebuilt the northern side of the 
 clerestory and tribune of the choir, the southern side of the latter, together 
 with the vaulting, and some of the vaulting also of the choir aisle on the 
 north side. In the eighteenth century the upper portions of the south- 
 west spire, injured by lightning, were rebuilt; and in the commencement 
 of this century much restoration throughout, including, unfortunately, a 
 general scraping of the wall surfaces, rendering it very difficult to dis- 
 tinguish the older parts from the new. 
 
 Returning now to a description of the building in detail, the western 
 front exhibits different characters according to the period of its erection. 
 The lower portion, built towards the close of the eleventh century, and 
 added to the original west facade, is extremely plain, the decoration 
 being confined to the archivolts of the doorways, which consist of two 
 orders and a label moulding.] 
 
 Above these entrances is a double range of semicircular windows. 
 The central compartment, corresponding to the nave in width, is finished 
 by a high pointed gable, and the two lateral ones are carried up into 
 lofty towers, supporting octagonal spires. The towers consist of three 
 
 [ l Analyse Architedurale de VAbbaye de St. Etienne de Caen, by G. Bouet, p. 134.] 
 
ABBAYE AUX HOMMES, CAEN. 37 
 
 stories, the lowest of which, on each face, has a range of seven blank 
 arcades, without any mouldings or imposts; the second has five arches of 
 a larger size, two of which are pierced, and have shafts, capitals, and 
 bases. The third and uppermost story exhibits two large arches, rising 
 from clustered shafts, and inclosing smaller arches, which are also 
 pierced with windows. The towers are finished by a cornice, above 
 which rise sixteen rich perforated pinnacles, surrounding the base of 
 the spire, the form and tracery of the pinnacles being different on each 
 tower. The north-east angle of the northern tower is flanked by a semi- 
 circular buttress, or staircase-turret, partaking throughout of the charac- 
 teristics of the square faces of the tower. [The spire itself has angle rolls, 
 and is decorated with bands of five courses of stone cut in imitation of 
 shingles, three plain courses of stone intervening between each band. 
 
 The external wall of the side aisles and triforium gallery is strengthened 
 by flat buttresses, the relieving arch between, however, being pointed and 
 not circular, as shown in the drawing (Plate V.). The lower portion 
 of this wall is now masked by the classic corridor of the Lycee or school 
 attached to the abbey church. The exterior of the clerestory of the nave 
 is decorated with a continuous arcade, consisting of twenty- two arches, 
 eight of which are pierced with windows.] 
 
 At the extremity of the north transept are three very shallow but- 
 tresses, which rise from the ground to the sills of the clerestory windows, 
 unbroken by any interruption, but here they meet with a string-course, 
 above which the two outer ones are continued to the summit of the ends 
 of the gable, while the centre one is reduced in depth. Over this latter 
 buttress is a window; and between the buttresses are six other windows, 
 arranged in double rows. Eastward of the transepts is a series of blank 
 arches, remarkable for their mouldings, which consist of a flat, wide, and 
 very shallow band; and here the mixture of the pointed with the Norman 
 or circular architecture commences. 1 
 
 [The external decoration of the choir will be best understood by 
 reference to Plates IX. X. and XL, the only part not shown being the 
 elevation of the chevet chapels, these on plan form a series of convex 
 
 1 Cotman's Architectural Antiquities of Normandy, vol. i. p. 23. 
 
 K 
 
38 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY. 
 
 curves with buttresses in the angles of their junction; from these but- 
 tresses to the centre of each chapel wall arches are thrown across to carry 
 the cornice and parapet, 1 which becomes one large semicircle on plan ; 
 a somewhat similar arrangement is to be found in the choirs of Bayeux 
 and Coutances cathedrals. 
 
 Returning now to the nave (the interior of which is represented in 
 Plates IV. V. and VI.) we find it to be divided into eight bays, each bay 
 being divided vertically into three stories. The lower one has semi- 
 circular arches of two orders and stilted, carried on attached columns 
 and piers, and opening to the side aisles. The middle story has similar 
 arches not stilted, on columns of less height, and opening to the triforium 
 gallery; and the upper story, or clerestory, has lofty and narrow arches 
 decorated with the embattled fret ornament, with windows behind, and 
 sub- or smaller arches on the side of the intermediate rib only. 
 
 The side aisles M. Bouet has shown were originally covered with half- 
 barrel vaults intersected and without ribs. In the seventeenth century 
 a new vault was constructed with pointed ribs, thus raising the floor 
 of the triforium gallery and hiding the bases of the columns and piers 
 there. The balustrade pierced with quatrefoils belongs also to this period. 
 The half-barrel vault of the triforium, reconstructed in the seventeenth 
 century, was copied from that which was erected probably at the same 
 time as the nave vaults, and served as an abutment for them; the original 
 covering being a wooden roof.' 2 
 
 Previous to the investigations of Mr. J. H. Parker, M. Ruprich Robert, 
 and M. Bouet, it had been supposed that the existing clerestory wall, 
 with its openings, was of the same date as the lower walls of the nave. 
 The discovery, however, of two arches above the web of the present vault 
 by Mr. Ruprich Robert, in 1860, pointed out that, with the arches in 
 front of the windows, there were in each double bay of the nave a series 
 of four arches carried on columns. It had also been assumed that the 
 
 f 1 See drawing in Institnti- Tniiismliovs, Jan. 2<1, 18G3, attached to Mr. Parker's paper, and taken 
 from the Monastictw GnHiannun, K>84; on this drawing will also be seen the central tower, the upper 
 portion of which was rebuilt in the .seventeenth century, as well as four other towers containing the 
 stun,- which lead to the roof. 2 Bouet, Analyst' Arcli'rfeclnruh, p. 221.] 
 
ABBAYE AUX HOMMES, CAEN. 
 
 39 
 
 nave and transepts were vaulted in the first instance, whereas now it is 
 generally agreed that the first church (as all churches in the north of 
 France at this epoch) was covered with a wooden roof. The exact nature 
 of this wooden roof and its relation to the four arched openings, and to 
 the vaulting shafts, has been the subject of much conjecture. These 
 vaulting shafts (see plan Plates II. and V.) consist alternately of a three- 
 quarter detached column with and without a pilaster; they are both of 
 the same date as the nave walls, and one of the points in dispute turns 
 upon the original object in the difference of their form. 
 
 Mr. Parker believes that the shaft with pilaster was made more 
 important in order to carry an arch spanning the nave, as in the abbey 
 church of Cerisy, near Bayeux, thus serving the purpose of a truss, the 
 intermediate shaft carrying a secondary truss : he does not explain, how- 
 ever, how this intermediate shaft was coupled to the central column of 
 the four arcades above-mentioned. 
 
 M. Ruprich Robert points out that the absence of any external but- 
 tresses to the clerestory of Abbaye aux Hommes is a sufficient reason 
 that there should be no arch inside, and that the buttresses of Cerisy, its 
 later date than that supposed, and other differences in the arrangement 
 of the arcades, preclude the possibility of its being taken as a precedent 
 for the Abbaye aux Hommes. He believes that the difference in the 
 vaulting shafts is due to the fact of its having been originally intended 
 to have a principal and secondary trusses only and no arch, and assumes 
 that the two central arcades were the result of an after- thought, there 
 being only two projected at first, viz. those in front of the windows. 
 
 M. Bouet, we believe, originated Mr. Parker's opinion as regards the 
 arch spanning the nave; he seems, however, in his Analyse Architecturale 
 (p. 35), to entertain the idea that it was intended from the beginning to 
 vault over the nave with quadripartite vaults, taking in two bays each, and 
 he points out in support of this theory the means taken to counterbalance 
 the thrust of this nave vault by the conjunction of the inner and outer 
 wall of the clerestory with solid masonry on each side of the main ribs, 
 and the isolation of the four arcades in the centre of each double bay, 
 whilst at Cerisy the arcade fills up the whole width. This, however, does 
 
40 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY. 
 
 not explain the use of the intermediate shaft. Between these various 
 opinions it is difficult to draw any line; we believe, however, on the 
 whole, that M. Ruprich Robert is right, and that Mr. Parker's sugges- 
 tion of the arch is not tenable. This becomes the more evident when we 
 examine the elevations of the original clerestory walls as restored in M. 
 Bouet's and M. Ruprich Robert's works, for in both of them the pilaster 
 and shaft are carried up to the level of the springing of the four arcades, 
 far above, therefore, any possible springing of an arch spanning the nave. 
 Mr. Parker himself allows "that the difference in the size and form of the 
 alternate piers is, taken by itself, no positive proof that there were 
 original transverse arches of stone to carry the roof, as at Cerisy; the 
 same arrangement occurs at Winchester and at Waltham, which were not 
 vaulted, and had no transverse arches ; so that they must have been used 
 for carrying the principal timbers only;" on the other hand, the strength 
 of the original walls behind the transverse ribs of the present vault 
 would be an argument in favour of the transverse arch were it not for 
 the continuation of this shaft above-mentioned. 
 
 The Halbout chapel at the north-west end of the church, built in the 
 commencement of the fourteenth century, was in great part destroyed by 
 the Protestants, and "the present tracery of the windows," M. Bouet 
 remarks, "may date from 1620, though portions have been restored in 
 this century." 
 
 At the northern and southern extremities of the transept are small 
 chapels of two bays each vaulted at the level of the aisle vault; this was 
 a common feature both in Normandy and EDgland at this period (eleventh 
 century). These chapels were terminated on the eastern side by small 
 apses, one of which probably forms the foundation of the present apse 
 (now used as a sacristy) on the south side; the other apse has been 
 replaced by what we may regard as a third bay to the chapel. 
 
 The first of these two, as will be seen from the drawings (Plates VII 
 and VIII), is an extremely beautiful example of early thirteenth century 
 work. The lower portion of the chapel may be looked upon as a dado 
 or base, on which are placed the columns and coupled shafts carrying 
 the vault; these columns and shafts are detached from the wall, leaving 
 
ABU A YE AUX HOMMES, CAEN. 41 
 
 a narrow corridor behind at a height of 9 ft. 6 in. from the floor, thus 
 giving a light and elegant appearance to the chapel. 
 
 It is singular that notwithstanding the immense importance of the 
 choir of the Abbaye aux Hommes, there should be no record of its date. 
 Previous to the investigations of M. Bouet and Mr. Parker it had usually 
 been assigned to the fourteenth century, being attributed, as before 
 stated, to Abbot Simon, 131 4-1 344.' M. Hippeau, however, has shown' 2 
 that in the epitaph of the Abbot Simon there is no mention of the choir, 
 which would certainly have been made if it had been executed during 
 his abbacy ; and M. Bouet points out that the form of letter on the tomb 
 of the architect of the choir accords so far with the style of work as to 
 bring back the date to the commencement of the thirteenth century, or 
 even the last years of the twelfth. " In fact," he says, " although at first 
 sight the choir appears to be entirely Gothic, there still remain a suffi- 
 cient number of details purely Norman in their style to render this last 
 date admissible. For instance, the zigzags in the choir-arches and in 
 the wall-ribs of the choir recall to mind those in the cathedral of 
 Canterbury, in those portions built about 1178 by William of Sens. 3 
 
 Referring to the similarity between these two buildings, Prof. Willis, 
 in his work on the latter, remarks : " Now Lanfranc, before he was made 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, was the first abbot of the monastery of St. 
 Stephen at Caen, the church of which was built under his direction, being- 
 begun in 1064, and dedicated in 1077, after his appointment to Canterbury. 
 The two churches were therefore building at the same time. The church 
 at Caen, like that at Canterbury, has its original choir replaced by 
 one in the thirteenth century, probably for a similar reason — enlarge- 
 ment. The portions which it retains are alike in plan and arrangement 
 to the corresponding parts of Canterbury, alike in the number of piers, 
 in having western towers, transepts without aisles, a central tower, 
 eastern chapels to the transepts, and the pillar and vault at the end 
 of each transept. In some of the churches erected in England by the 
 
 [ 1 Mr. Britton, however, in his first edition, protests against this date, judging from the style 
 of architecture alone.] 
 
 [ 2 Monographic- de V Abbaye, de St. Etiennc, p. 340. 3 Analyse Architecturalc, Bouet, p. 70.] 
 
42 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY. 
 
 Bishop of Durham, Hugues de Pinsit (vulgo Puclsey), we find capitals 
 decorated with leaves, terminated by small volutes; 1 similar leaves to 
 these are found in the frieze and capitals of the choir of St. Stephen 
 {Plates IX. XII). In another church (Sherburn Chapel, 1183), built by 
 the same prelate, is a capital very similar to one in the Abbaye aux 
 Homines. It is therefore natural to suppose that these edifices belong 
 to about the same period/' 
 
 On the other hand, M. Hippeau (p. 340)' 2 remarks "that in 1250 the 
 abbey was in debt to the fourth part of its revenue; may we not, there- 
 fore," says he, speaking of these debts, "attribute them with certainty to 
 the expenses caused by the construction of the choir?" 
 
 Mr. Parker, 3 in endeavouring to fix the date, compares the work in 
 the choir of St. Stephen with that of the cathedral of Lisieux, and comes 
 to the conclusion that " the style of the choir and apse of St. Stephen's at 
 Caen evidently comes between the nave and the apse of Lisieux, the latter 
 being pure Norman Gothic, and in the opinion of the best Norman anti- 
 quaries the date cannot be put before 1200, and between that and 1220 
 is the probable date. The only vestige of the Romanesque style is the use 
 of the zigzag ornament in the moulding of the arches of the choir, and, 
 perhaps, the very singular use of plain segmental arches to carry the 
 vault of the triforium gallery, partly enriched by the ornamental heads 
 of the arches of the arcade in front of them. This is a clumsy piece of 
 construction, which would hardly have been used after the Gothic style 
 was established." 
 
 The new choir was erected in consequence of the demand for a much 
 greater space than had hitherto been required for the church services. 
 The number of reliques also brought from the East at the epoch of the 
 Crusades called for the erection of numerous chapels, and the choir-aisle 
 to give access to them. 
 
 The new choir proper consisted of four bays and the apse, the side 
 aisles were continued round the latter, and a series of thirteen chapels, 
 seven of which formed the chevet, were added. The division walls 
 
 [> See Plate in M. Bouet's work, p. 72. (Tynemouth.)] 
 
 [ 2 Monographic de V Abbaye de St. Eiienne. 3 Paper in Transactions. R. I. B. A., 18G5-GG.] 
 
ABBAYE AUX H0MMES, CAEN. 
 
 43 
 
 between these chevet chapels were carried to a height of only six feet, so 
 that, as it were, a double colonnade was formed (see plan), producing a 
 very beautiful effect. The extreme lightness and elegance of this part 
 of the church, the variety in the perspective, and the play of light and 
 shade, constitute in this chevet one of the finest specimens of early French 
 architecture in Normandy. 
 
 Reference to the drawings (Plates IX. X. XI.) will show the nature 
 of the interior of this new choir. The main heights of the nave are 
 carried through. The arches of the seven bays of the apse are stilted to 
 bring them to the same height as those in the choir; a similar arrange- 
 ment is found at Canterbury, in contradistinction to the lancet-arches 
 of the apses of most of our cathedrals. The coupled columns of the apse 
 are similar to those of Canterbury. The arches, however, of the triforium 
 gallery are far lighter and more elegant in the Abbaye aux Hommes. 
 In the choir these arches are semicircular, inclosing two pointed arches; 
 in the apse they are pointed. In the clerestory there are two windows 
 to each bay of the choir, one to each of the apse. In front of the former 
 is a central pointed and two half arches carried on slender columns, there 
 being a narrow corridor behind them. 
 
 It is only of late years that the subsequent history of this choir has 
 been thoroughly investigated; and M. Bouet has shown in his analysis 
 of the present structure that a considerable portion was rebuilt in the 
 seventeenth century. 
 
 This reconstruction was necessitated by the ravages caused by the 
 Protestants, for, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, the whole 
 church was a perfect wreck compared with its present condition. The 
 choir, in fact, was in so bad a state that its rebuilding was deemed ho]3e- 
 less, and permission had been given to make use of its old materials in 
 the restoration of the nave and other parts of the church. Fortunately, 
 however, this was not done ; and so much care was taken in the recon- 
 struction as to render it a difficult task to distinguish between the old 
 work and the new. 
 
 The investigations of M. Bouet have shown that the nave-vault, the 
 half-barrel vault over the triforium gallery, the balustrades to the same, 
 
44 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY. 
 
 the side-aisle vault, the greater portion of the roofs, a portion of the 
 Halbout chapel before referred to, the two great piers of the central 
 tower adjoining the nave, the northern side of the clerestory and triforium 
 gallery of the choir, the southern side of the latter, together with the 
 vaulting, and some of the vaulting of the choir-aisle on the north side, 
 were restored, if not rebuilt, in the first quarter of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury; many changes being afterwards made in the roofs. 
 
 In the commencement of the eighteenth century the western front 
 and towers were restored, and the choir and chapels were enclosed with 
 magnificent "grilles," all of these latter having been destroyed at the 
 time of the Revolution. The establishment of the Lycee or "departe- 
 mental" school in Caen at the beginning of this century called for the 
 destruction of many of the old abbey buildings, which is much to be 
 regretted; at the same time, however, since thirty years, the church 
 has been intrusted to the care of intelligent architects, M. Guy and 
 M. Ruprich Robert, under whose hands the present fabric bids fair to be 
 properly preserved and cared for.] 
 
 CHURCH OF THE HOLY TRINITY, L'ABBAYE AUX DAMES, CAEN. 
 
 PLATES XIII.— XVII. 
 
 If the testimonies of Ordericus Vitalis. and William of Jumieges are 
 to be implicitly credited, this church must have been commenced, if not 
 far advanced, before the year 1064 f and it is said to have been dedicated 
 in June, 1066, by Mauritius, Archbishop of Rouen. With the annexed 
 abbey, it was endowed with ample revenues by Matilda, wife of Duke 
 William, who, about the same time, founded and established the neigh- 
 bouring monastery of St. Stephen, for monks. The royal pair had 
 married in contravention of a canon of the church, which prohibits 
 
 1 These historians state that the first abbess, Matilda, died in 1112, after governing the abbey more 
 than forty-seven years. — See Huet, Origines de Caen, p. 177. 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE. 
 
ABBAYE AUX DAMES, CAEN. 
 
 45 
 
 marriages between persons of certain degrees of kindred. 1 That of the 
 Trinity was founded for nuns of the Benedictine order, and was invested 
 with extensive manorial rights, privileges, and immunities. 2 Its annual 
 revenue was estimated at 70,000 livres. The abbesses were of distin- 
 guished rank and of high connection. Among them we find the names 
 of Bourbon, Valois, Albret, Montmorency, and Cecily, the youngest 
 daughter of the founder, who, it is related, was devoted by her parents 
 to the monastic life on the day of dedicating the church. The nuns 
 of this house were mostly of noble birth, and were invested with many 
 privileges and exemptions. They were not bound by vows, were allowed 
 to see their friends in private apartments, had the charge of younger 
 relatives, and were permitted to eat meat at their meals on days when 
 fasting was enjoined in other houses. 
 
 [Researches made at intervals since the year 1850 show that with the 
 exception of the crypt, scarcely any portion of the first church founded 
 in 1064 remains. M. Ruprich Robert, however, the architect employed 
 by the French government to superintend the restoration, has made the 
 most careful examination of the building, and has published a pamphlet 3 
 
 1 William, Duke of Normandy, commonly and inaccurately called the Conqueror, married his first 
 cousin, Matilda, daughter of Baldwin, Count of Flanders. This offended the clergy, and particularly 
 Lanfranc, then resident at Bee, who ventured to reprehend the duke in rather harsh terms. Indignant 
 at his clerical insolence, the duke banished the " proud priest." An interview again occurred, and 
 Laufranc engaged to visit the supreme pontiff, who granted a dispensation to the duke and his duchess 
 on their founding two abbeys, respectively for nuns and monks. [Mr. Parker, in his paper before 
 quoted, draws attention to a communication made by the late Mr. Stapleton to the .Irrhu ohujiral Juin itul, 
 vol. iii., in which he endeavours to show that there was another cause for this besides consanguinity — 
 that Matilda, had previously been married to Gerbodo, the avouc of St. Bertin, and that the issue of this 
 marriage were Gerbodo, Earl of Chester, Frederick, and Gundrada, wife of William Warren and foundress 
 of Lewes Prioiy. He endeavours to show that the cause of their excommunication was that the Pope 
 had refused to consent to her divorce from her first husband, and consequently that her marriage with 
 William would have been null, if they had not succeeded in making their peace with the Pope.] 
 
 2 By the Domesday Survey it appears that it possessed many estates in the counties of Essex, 
 Dorset, Devon, and Gloucester, in England. These distant lands were occasionally visited by the lady 
 abbess. M. de la Hue tells us that he saw a diary of the Abbess Georgetta du Molley Bacon, in which 
 it is recorded that she embarked at the Fort of Caen, Aug. 1G, 1370, with fifteen attendants, and landed 
 at London, whence she proceeded to Felsted, in Essex; and that she returned home the following year. — 
 Essais Historiques, &c, torn. ii. p. 19. 
 
 P VEglise St. Trinitd (Abbaye aux Dames) et I'Eglhc St. Eticnne (Abbave aux Homines) h Cam. 
 Caen, 1864, 8vo.] 
 
 M 
 
46 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY. 
 
 on the abbey church, from which we are able to glean the following 
 particulars. 
 
 The nave is composed of two rows of piers, and two walls forming the 
 side aisles. The line of these walls is not parallel to that of the piers : 
 that on the north side inclining inwards as it approaches the transept ; 
 that on the south side slightly outwards. It would seem therefore as 
 if a more ancient nave had existed, and that in its reconstruction the 
 central axis had been deviated from its original line. The arches also 
 of the nave are carried only on single shafts, except at the transept and 
 the western tower ends, where they rest on two shafts side by side (see 
 Plate XVI a .), a disposition which seems to belong to another design. 
 The side-aisle walls are pierced with circular headed windows, the axes of 
 which do not correspond with the side-aisle vaulting; and flat buttresses 
 now destroyed (though restored in plan, Plate XVI a ., from M. Ruprich 
 Robert's woodcut) were placed pretty regularly between these windows. 
 These buttresses therefore were not situated in line with or opposite to 
 the nave-piers. "We may therefore conclude that the nave-piers were 
 not built at the same time as the side-aisle walls, but are of later date. 
 These facts and the difference in the style of the capitals and bases of 
 the crypt, the lower part of the towers, and of the nave -piers, have led 
 M. Ruprich Robert to place in the following chronological order those 
 parts of the church which are Norman in style. 
 
 To the first period belong the crypt, the central tower up to the roof 
 of the church, the lower portion of the western towers and front, the 
 walls of the transept, and the side-aisle walls of the nave. 
 
 To the second period: the piers of the nave, the vaults of the side 
 aisle, the upper portion of the towers, a part of the transept walls (tri- 
 forium), and the choir. 
 
 To the third period : the walls of the nave above the nave-arches, 
 the vaulting shafts and clerestory of the transept, and the vaulting of 
 the nave and transepts, with the flying-buttresses under the aisle roof. 
 
 The work of the first period M. Robert assigns as that of Matilda, 
 as well as four apses, two on either side of the choir ; two of these to 
 the north, shown on plan, have been rebuilt on the old foundations ; the 
 
ABBAYE AUX DAMES, CAEN. 
 
 47 
 
 remains of the two others on the south side have been discovered under 
 the thirteenth century chapel (salle capitulaire). 
 
 Possibly from the difficulty of carrying on two such large works as 
 the Abbaye aux Hommes and the Abbaye aux Dames at the same time, 
 the continuation of the latter may have been deferred till the end of the 
 eleventh century, the date of the second period. Considerable changes 
 were then made, as already pointed out, in the position of the nave-piers. 
 The choir was also built at this period. Its plan does not accord with the 
 ancient crypt, the axes of the windows do not correspond, and the walls 
 are built within those of the crypt. The vault of the choir is groined, 
 without ribs, and belongs to the same epoch as that of the side aisles. 
 
 When in the middle of the twelfth century (the third period) it was 
 determined to vault both nave and transept, great additions and altera- 
 tions were made in the existing structure. In the transept a new 
 clerestory wall was built, and vaulting shafts were added. In the nave 
 the whole of the wall above the arches was rebuilt, including triforium 
 and clerestory ; simple shafts to carry the trusses of the original wooden 
 roof had existed, to these were added and carried on corbels small vault- 
 ing shafts to receive the diagonal ribs of the vault. The upper order of 
 the nave-arches was added, and decorated with the embattled fret orna- 
 ment similar to that round the clerestory windows of the Abbaye aux 
 Hommes. The triforium gallery which runs beneath the clerestory 
 windows necessitated an increased thickness of the nave-wall, which was 
 obtained by throwing arches 1 across between the piers. In order to resist 
 the thrust of the new vault flying-buttresses were built across the aisles ; 
 as however these buttresses were placed too low, and no buttresses were 
 added to the old aisle walls, the vault began to push out the nave- walls, 
 rendering necessary the destruction of the stone vault and its replace- 
 ment by a vault in wood and plaster, 2 painted to represent stone. 
 
 [ l We have added to Pugin's plate (XVII.) the flying-buttress and supporting arch here mentioned, 
 taking them from M. Ruprich Robert's pamphlet. The vault of the side aisles is a circular barrel-vault, 
 and not pointed as shown in the illustration.] 
 
 [ 2 This wooden and plaster vault is shown in Pugin's drawing {Plate XVI.) Since 1859 it has been 
 replaced by a vault in hollow brick and light stone ribs, and new buttresses have been added to the 
 aisle walls.] 
 
48 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY. 
 
 The towers of the west fagade were in the twelfth century sur- 
 mounted by stone spires; these were destroyed in 1360 when the abbey 
 was fortified. 
 
 In the thirteenth century the central tower, which had been partially 
 destroyed, was restored, and the story with three pointed-arch windows 
 on each face was added. At the same time was built the chapel on the 
 south side of the choir, which served as the chapter-house. On the 
 north 1 side another chapel was constructed ; this was destroyed probably 
 when the hospital buildings were erected under Louis XIV. 
 
 Returning now to a description of the plates, the first (Plate XIII.) 
 represents the entrance-gateway to the abbey. This has now been 
 destroyed to make way for the new street leading direct up to the 
 hospital gates. It was placed to the south-west of the abbey church, 
 at about 50 yards distance from it. 
 
 The crypt, the oldest portion of the abbey church, is shown in Plate 
 XIV.; the vaulting is groined, without ribs, and is carried on sixteen 
 columns and eighteen semi-detached shafts: the capitals, two of which 
 are drawn to a larger scale in Plate X V, show clearly their classic origin 
 in the volutes and rows of leaves above the necking. 
 
 The plan, Plate XVI'., which has been added to this edition, will 
 serve to explain the peculiar nature of the vaulting of this church. The 
 vestibule, or narthex, is vaulted over by a hexapartite vault; the first 
 bay of the nave with an oblong quadripartite vault; and the eight 
 succeeding bays with four quadripartite vaults, and an intersecting rib 
 and arch. We have already, in our Introductory Essay on Vaulting, 
 drawn attention to the peculiarity of this latter feature, which serves 
 only to carry out the division of the double bay of the nave without 
 materially assisting to carry the vault. It is difficult to understand 
 why, when in the Abbaye aux Homines the use of such an intermediate 
 rib had been found out, viz. to divide and assist in carrying legitimately 
 
 I 1 The terms north, south, east, and west have been hitherto adopted to indicate the relative positions 
 of the various parts of the church. The principal axis, however, does not run from west to east, as is 
 usual, but inclines towards the south. The same disposition is found in three other churches of Caen, 
 viz. St. Pierre, St. Gilles, and St. Sauveur.] 
 
ABB A YE AUX DAMES, CAEN. 
 
 49 
 
 the web, it should have been neglected here; and we were inclined to 
 believe that this was the first attempt at the subdivision of the double 
 quadripartite bay. M. Ruprich Robert, however, judging from the more 
 careful workmanship of the ribs, and the introduction of a flying-buttress 
 only at the position required to resist thrust, places the construction of 
 this vault after that of the Abbaye aux Hommes, where, it will be 
 remembered, the thrust is overcome by a continuous half-barrel vault. 
 The main difference in the two examples is found in the formation of 
 the web. The intermediate rib in the Abbaye aux Dames carries a 
 vertical wall, which, rising to the apex of the vault, serves only to 
 support the keystones of the web (which is quadripartite in principle); 
 in the Abbaye aux Hommes the web is formed between the diagonal 
 and intermediate ribs, or, in other terms, forms a conical vault between 
 them (see Plates XVI. and IV.) 
 
 The centre bay of the transept is a square quadripartite vault; the 
 northern and southern bays have additional ribs carried on vaulting 
 shafts in the centre of the north and south walls of the transept 
 respectively. 
 
 The choir consists of two square bays, and the apsidal end with heavy 
 transverse but no diagonal ribs; the triforium is not carried into the 
 choir, there being no aisles. In the apse are two stories with five 
 arcades each, the arches being carried on detached columns with richly 
 carved capitals (Plate XVI); it is vaulted with a semi-dome; and in the 
 centre of the choir is the tomb of the foundress. The erection of the 
 south chapel with three pointed arch openings necessitated the cutting 
 away of the vaulting shafts of the transept, which are now carried above 
 the central arch on corbels. This chapel is a good specimen of thirteenth 
 century work ; the vaulting is carried on two piers, with eight attached 
 columns or shafts to each. 
 
 The two apses on the north side were rebuilt by M. Ruprich Robert 
 on the old foundations, and, under the chapel above mentioned have been 
 found the traces of two similar apses on the south side, determining the 
 original plan of the east end of the church. M. Robert believes that 
 these four apses and the crypt only -were built in Matilda's time, and 
 
50 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY. 
 
 that no central choir and apse was erected till the end of the eleventh 
 century. 
 
 Externally the west front is flanked by two towers; entrance to the 
 church is obtained through three doorways; the two under the towers 
 have circular headed arches of one order, and a tympanum decorated with 
 diaper ; the central doorway has circular headed arches of three orders : 
 and the tympanum is decorated with sculpture and supported by a 
 central pier. Over this doorway is an arcade of three arches pierced with 
 windows; and above an arcade of four arches, the two centre ones only 
 carried on columns and pierced, the two side ones being decorative only 
 with the tympanum decorated with diaper. The gable above this has a 
 single circular headed opening, and its whole surface is decorated with 
 diaper. The stories of the towers do not correspond with those in the 
 central bay of the facade, being loftier; over the doorway in each case is 
 a small circular headed window, above on each face three blank arcades 
 carried on coupled columns; over this and above the level of the nave-roof 
 the tower is decorated on each face with an arcade of six arches carried 
 on columns, windows being pierced in two of them only. The upper 
 portions of these towers were destroyed, as has already been noted, in 
 the thirteenth century. At present they are surmounted by a Renais- 
 sance balustrade and corbels. It is purposed (1872) to restore this part 
 of the tower, to add an additional story with two circular headed 
 windows, and spires in the style of the thirteenth century. At the 
 south-east end of the south tower is a circular staircase, which now 
 rises to the height it is intended to carry the towers — this also will have 
 a conical spire. 
 
 The side-aisle walls are extremely simple, they have the original 
 circular headed windows I have spoken of; new buttresses have been 
 added to assist in the support of the nave-vault, whose thrust is trans- 
 mitted across the aisles by flying-buttresses ; the clerestory (Plate X VII.) 
 has flat buttresses, a corbel table, and in each division, corresponding 
 with the bays of the nave, a large window with semicircular arches of 
 two orders, and blank sub-arches on each side. The Norman work of 
 the central tower shows itself in the arcade carried round and partially 
 
ABBAYE AUX DAMES, CAEN. 
 
 51 
 
 cut into by the nave-roof; above is the thirteenth century story before 
 alluded to, the whole being crowned by a fifteenth century balustrade, 
 and an octagonal slate roof. It is proposed to remove this balustrade 
 and erect a loftier slate roof with corresponding corner pinnacles. Very 
 little of the transept is visible in consequence of the modern abbey build- 
 ings, but the arcading of the nave clerestory is carried round. The apse 
 has similar arcading in two stories corresponding to the interior, with 
 windows in each bay : all this part is inclosed in the abbey buildings. 
 
 The following is a summary of the restoration carried out since 1857, 
 under M. Ruprich Robert: — 
 
 Entire reconstruction (copied from the old work) of the western 
 fagade between the two towers. 
 
 The aisle -walls have had new buttresses and corbel - tables with 
 cornice added. 
 
 The nave-piers have been rebuilt up to the capitals of the nave- 
 arches, the vaults of the nave have been reconstructed with light stone 
 ribs and hollow brick webs. 
 
 In the south transept the insertions under Louis XIV. have been 
 removed, and the original features, such as windows and vaulting shafts, 
 string-courses, &c, established in their place. The nmllions of the 
 windows of the Gothic chapel are new. 
 
 In the south transept all the decorative features had been destroyed ; 
 these have all been restored, and the two apsidal chapels rebuilt. A 
 restored view of the abbey is given in M. Ruprich Robert's work, to 
 which the reader is referred for further information.] 
 
 CHUECH OF ST. NICHOLAS, CAEN. 
 
 PLATES XVIII. and XIX. 
 
 This edifice is situated in the district of Bourg-Fabbe, so called from 
 belonging to the abbey of St. Stephen, in the same town. [It is com- 
 
52 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY. 
 
 monly cited as a dated example, built in 1083, but Mr. Parker has 
 shown 1 " that this date, like many others, must be received with caution, 
 and requires explanation. The only historical evidence for it is that 
 of a charter in which Duke William grants to the abbey of St. Stephen 
 a certain piece of waste land outside the walls of Caen, and near to that 
 abbey. This district was then formed into a parish, and the church of 
 St. Nicholas built by the monks of St. Stephen's upon it. All that the 
 historical evidence proves, therefore, is that no part of the church can be 
 earlier than that date ; but how long it was building, or when it was 
 consecrated, we have no evidence. The district granted was so extensive 
 that within it were already two small parishes with churches, which had 
 previously been given to the abbey of the Holy Trinity. This led to a 
 lawsuit, in which it was ultimately decided that the parishes belonging 
 to the nuns were confined to the houses built previous to the grant, but 
 all the rest belonged to the monks. In after times this led to much con- 
 fusion when the houses were rebuilt and new ones erected, but it proves 
 that there was no parish of St. Nicholas before that time, or the bound- 
 aries of it would have been known. The early capitals in the church of 
 St. Nicholas are of the same character as those in St. Stephen's of the 
 second period, as in the western towers the resemblance is so close that 
 they may reasonably be supposed to be the work of the same hands, and 
 they are excellent examples of that rude Ionic before mentioned as one 
 of the characteristic features of the last quarter of the eleventh century/'] 
 The general form of this church is that of the Latin cross, divided into 
 a nave and choir, and having, at the intersection of these with the tran- 
 sept, a low tower, surmounted by a gabled roof. The most remarkable 
 part of the edifice is the semi-circular apse which terminates the choir, 
 resembling that of the church of the Holy Trinity, but covered by a 
 conical roof, rising higher than the other parts of the church. Mr. Turner 
 says, "The height of this roof is so much greater than in the choir, as 
 almost to justify the suspicion that it was no part of the original plan, 
 but was an addition of a subsequent, though certainly not of a remote, 
 era. Were the line of it continued to the central tower, it would wholly 
 
 I 1 In a paper read before the Royal Institute of British Architects, before referred to.] 
 
ECCU5S1AST1CAL AHCHTTE CTTJ11X PI XXI 
 
 THAOU CHTRCII NEAR CAEX 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTOBJE. Fl.XXH. 
 
CHURCH OF ST. NICHOLAS, CAEN. 53 
 
 block up and conceal the windows there. The discrepancy observable in 
 the style of its architecture may also possibly be regarded as enforcing 
 the same opinion/' 1 
 
 [Mr. Fergnsson (Hist. Arch.) remarks: "It is the only church so far 
 as I know in Normandy that retains the original external covering of its 
 apse. This consists of a high pyramidal roof of stone, following to the 
 eastward the polygonal form of the apse, and extending one bay towards 
 the west" (as shown in Plate XIX. of this book). "From an examination 
 of the central tower it is clear that this was not the original pitch of the 
 church roof, which was nearly as low in all Norman churches as in those 
 of Auvergne. In this instance the roof over the apse was a sort of semi- 
 spire placed over an altar to mark externally the importance of the 
 portion of the church beneath it." M. de Caumont also writes that 
 " having examined the church, he noticed on the gable which terminates 
 the nave the traces of the old roof, which was much less elevated than 
 the present conical termination; and this observation applies equally to 
 the stone covering of the apsidal chapels on the east elevation of the two 
 transepts." 
 
 The upper portion of the western tow T er, which is corbelled out and 
 has a saddle-back roof, is an addition of the fifteenth century.] The 
 engravings (Plates XVIII. and XIX.) represent a ground plan of the 
 semi-eircular or apsidal end of the church ; also an elevation of part of 
 the exterior of the same, two sections, and capitals and bases. 
 
 CHURCH OF THAON. 
 
 PLATES XX.— XXII 
 
 The village of Thaon, in which is the fragment of a church delineated 
 in the three Plates XX. — XXII, is situated about ten miles north-east 
 of Caen. As a specimen of genuine Norman architecture, this building 
 
 1 Architectural Antiquities of Normandy, vol. ii. p. 60. 
 
 
 
54 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY. 
 
 cannot fail to engage the attention of the antiquary. It consists of a 
 nave and choir, divided by a central tower which rises through the roof 
 of the church, with two stories, the lower one partially concealed by the 
 nave and choir roofs. From the engraved plans, elevations, sections, and 
 details, the reader will be able to understand the whole characteristic 
 features of this building. It will be seen that the walls, to the west of 
 the tower between columns, are additions to the original design, as it 
 may be inferred that the arches on each side were formerly open to 
 aisles. Mr. Cotman intimates that there was only a south aisle ; but the 
 accompanying plan shows that there are columns and arches on both 
 sides. Externally these arches are plain, and without any ornaments or 
 mouldings; 1 while internally they are adorned with three rows of zigzag, 
 or chevron (see Plate XXI. No. 3.) In the interior the clerestory 
 window is bounded by a string-moulding, which forms a hood to the 
 arch, and extends round the whole church. The exterior of the western 
 and eastern ends are shown at Nos. 1 and 2 on the same Plates, as well 
 as the section of the walls and some of the details, more at large. The 
 flat buttresses, arcades without columns, the small windows, also without 
 columns or ornamental dressings — are all evidences of a simple and 
 systematic style of architecture ; and the experienced antiquary will not 
 fail to perceive an analogy between the east end and the chancel of 
 Barfreston Church, in Kent. 2 In both these edifices early pointed or 
 lancet windows are introduced. There will also be found a coincidence 
 in the nave of this church and that of St. Peter's at Northampton; par- 
 ticularly in the range of arcades and small windows to the clerestory, as 
 well as in the block cornice, or corbel-table. These two English churches 
 were raised, we have every reason to believe, soon after the Norman 
 colonization of Britain. In Plate XXII., the design, construction, and 
 architectural character of the tower are clearly elucidated. The con- 
 
 1 " On the corbels ara 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." — Architectural Antiquities of Normandy, vol. ii. p. 1G. 
 
 2 See Architectural Antiquities of Great Britain, for engravings and accounts of this building and of 
 that at Northampton. 
 
CHURCH OF THAON. 
 
 55 
 
 struction of its roof or pyramid will not escape the notice of the English 
 antiquary, who will also examine the projecting heads at the angles of 
 the roof, called crockets in Mr. Cotman's work. 
 
 CHURCH OF ST. LOUP, NEAR BAYEUX. 
 
 PLATE XXIII. 
 
 [This church belongs in its origin (according to De Caumont) to the 
 Norman style of the twelfth century. The nave measures 69 feet long 
 by 17 feet 9 inches wide. On the south wall are traces of two Norman 
 arches with their voussoirs decorated with zigzags, which indicate (as 
 well as the toothing left in the west facade wall) the former existence of 
 a south aisle. It is not certain, however, whether this was ever built, 
 though in a small chapel to the west of the tower is a piscina of suffi- 
 ciently early date to warrant the supposition that the south wall of this 
 chapel was the original aisle-wall. Externally also the masonry of the 
 chapel bonds in with the Norman work of the tower. The archway open- 
 ing to this chapel from the nave is fifteenth century, and has probably 
 taken the place of a third Norman aisle arch. The choir, rebuilt in the 
 thirteenth century, is 45 feet long by 20 feet wide, and at the west end 
 of it are remains on either side of two transition doorways. The elegant 
 tower, illustrated in Plate XXIII, shows us an interesting and well- 
 preserved specimen of Norman work, though various changes have con- 
 siderably modified the primitive condition of the church to which it is 
 attached. The tower is composed of three stories surmounted by a spire, 
 whose stones are carved in imitation of shingles. On the west side is a 
 doorway (fig. 3, Plate XXIII) decorated with zigzags, and a bas-relief 
 in the tympanum representing, according to the legend, the patron saint 
 (St. Loup) subduing the dragon which devastated the country. This 
 tower is placed at the south-east end of the nave, and on the opposite 
 side of the latter is a fifteenth century chapel, 21 feet square.] 
 
56 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY. 
 
 CATHEDRAL OF BAYEUX. 
 
 PLATES XXIV.— XXXIV. 
 
 Among the architectural antiquities of the famous city of Bayeux, 1 
 its cathedral is not only a prominent but a most important object. 
 Occupying a sacred spot, which apjDears to have been dedicated to 
 Christianity as early as the third century, it exhibits various styles and 
 peculiarities of Norman and pointed architecture. [The history of the 
 cathedral is as follows: — After the destruction of the building erected by 
 Rollo, Bishop Hugues in the commencement of the eleventh century 
 began a new church, dying, however, before it was completed. Odo, who 
 succeeded him in 1050, continued the work, making considerable aug- 
 mentations, and it was finished and dedicated in 1077, King William I. 
 of England and his queen being present.] At the time of its dedication 
 Odo enriched the church with various gifts, one of which was of peculiar 
 value and splendour. This was a sort of chandelier, in the shape of a 
 crown, composed of wood and copper, and covered with silver plates. It 
 measured 16 feet in height by 38 feet in diameter; — was diversified with 
 ornaments in the shape of crowns or towers, and was intended to hold 
 " an immense number of tapers," or candles, which were lighted on high 
 festivals. It was suspended from the roof in the nave, opposite the 
 great crucifix, and is said to have continued there till 1562, when the 
 Huguenots committed havoc in the church. If, however, the building- 
 was destroyed in the time of Henry I., it is not likely that this 
 sumptuous ornament was saved. [In 1106 the cathedral was burned 
 by the soldiers of Henry I. of England. On the termination of the war 
 in 1107, it was restored by Henry, and remained in this state until 1159, 
 
 1 The history of this city is intimately connected with that of England. It was here that Duke 
 William, on being nominated by Edward the Confessor his successor to the English crown, caused 
 Harold to attend and do him homage in the name of the nation. Here, also, Henry I. was detained 
 prisoner by his eldest brother; in revenge for which, on coming to the throne, he laid siege to the city 
 and burned it. (See Archceologia, vol. xvii. p. 911.) Again, Edward III. attacked and nearly destroyed 
 Bayeux in 1356. Henry VI. brought from this city a large collection of Norman charters, which are 
 now preserved in the Tower of London. The Bayeux Tapestry is a relic of great importance as an 
 historical document. 
 
.( ( t.KSlASTK Al. AKCHITEC-niRK 
 
I 
 
•I B 
 
 CmnpaxtmiTit cm South. 
 
CATHEDRAL OF BAYEUX. 
 
 r>7 
 
 when it was again burnt. To these two constructions of Odo and 
 Henry I. may be attributed all that is Norman in the cathedral, viz. 
 the nave arcades, the towers of the west front up to the base of the 
 spires, and the lower portion of the central tower. (It is possible that 
 the crypt, with its Roman groined vault and classic capitals, belong 
 to the early construction of Bishop Hugues. The capitals certainly 
 resemble more their classic prototypes than those of the crypt of the 
 Abbaye aux Dames, which date from 1064). 1 The level of the pavement 
 of the ancient church was about 4 feet below the present one, the choir 
 being raised 3 feet above the nave. After the fire of 1159, Philippe de 
 Harcourt, Bishop of Bayeux (1 142-1 1G4), strenuously set to work on 
 the reconstruction of the present cathedral; and his successor, Henry 
 of Salisbury (1165-1205), continued the works, which were terminated 
 by Robert des Ableges (1205-1231). 
 
 Between 1161 and 1231 were built the upper part of the nave with 
 the side aisles (excepting the side chapels), the whole of the choir with 
 its radiating chapels (including the lady chapel), and the sacristy of two 
 stories. To the same period belongs also the masonry, which enveloped 
 the nave-piers as well as the delicate capitals surmounting them, and 
 the Norman sculptured arches. In fact, the surface decoration on the 
 stone of the tympana and archivolts differs essentially from the older 
 work. The stones have not been touched since they were first laid, but 
 the parts added have been made to agree, and now present similarity of 
 workmanship with that of the side aisles in the Gothic style. The 
 mouldings of the circular-headed arches are the same as those of the 
 pointed arches which cover the side aisles of the nave. The sculpture of 
 the capitals also shows remarkable coincidences in the form, finish, and 
 execution of its work with that of the rest of the construction. 
 
 The chapter- house, some of the chapels to the south of the nave, and 
 perhaps also the north transept, are the work of the end of the thirteenth 
 century. At the same time the north tower of the west front was 
 strengthened by additions and restorations in the pointed style, in order 
 to render it capable of carrying the spire with which it was terminated. 
 
 1 [See Plates III. IV. and XXXI.-XXXIV] 
 
58 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY. 
 
 These constructions mask the external Norman work up to one-third of 
 its height. 
 
 In the fourteenth century the other chapels of the nave were erected, 
 the south tower spire, the south transept, and the masonry enveloping 
 the piers of the transept. This latter work was executed not only to 
 modify the Norman parts of the church, whose simplicity clashed with 
 the luxury of the later additions, but also to give to those piers that 
 extra strength necessary to support the weight of a central tower more 
 important than that which then existed. The ancient piers of Odo's 
 church became, therefore, the newels of the new piers, and it seems, from 
 excavations lately made, that the foundations of the parts added were 
 laid on the debris filled up round the old piers, and without going down 
 to the foundations of these latter on terra firmd. At this period were 
 rebuilt all the lower arcades near these central piers, excepting those on 
 the side of the choir. The great Norman arcades also of the central 
 tower, too low in comparison with the rest of the new work, were 
 replaced by others of pointed form, cut out in the wall of the Norman 
 tower, and with their springing 13 feet above that of the Norman arches. 
 
 Toward the end of the fourteenth century, the interior of the church 
 was, generally, in the same condition as previous to the restoration 
 in 1855; in succeeding ages slight modifications had been made, such 
 as restorations caused by the discovery of the ancient crypt in 1512, 
 and alterations in the windows of the nave-chapels. In the fifteenth 
 century (1425-27) the central tower, for which the piers had been 
 strengthened, was erected by Monsignor Hubert ; and fifty years after- 
 wards the beautiful octagonal lantern which now exists was erected by 
 Louis de Harcourt, Bishop of Bayeux, at a cost of £4092, 125. 6d. Louis 
 cle Harcourt seems to have had some fear for the stability of the edifice, 
 from the fact of his taking care to state that he should not feel himself 
 responsible if the tower fell down, in consequence of the additional 
 weight piled upon it: — "Ne si (quod Deus avertat) ex hac dicta supersedi- 
 ficatione aliquid ruinse in posterum contingeret sibi et suse huic devotioni 
 quoquomodo valeat imputari." 
 
 This octagonal lantern was crowned with a cupola of wood framing 
 
CATHEDRAL OF BAYEUX. 
 
 59 
 
 and lead, which was destroyed by fire in 167(1; and in 1714, a new 
 cupola in stone, crowned by a small lantern with Roman Doric columns, 
 was erected by the architect Moussard : excepting in detail, it accorded 
 very fairly with the rest of the work. 
 
 These subsequent additions, however, very nearly led to the total 
 ruin of the central tower. As far back as the fifteenth century, and 
 prior to Louis de Harcourt's erection, great cracks had become visible in 
 the four central and side piers, and in 1714, Moussard had deemed it 
 expedient to modify his original design (his lantern was to have been 
 17 feet higher) in order not to increase them. Many attempts were 
 made to persuade the existing government of France to undertake the 
 restoration of the tower, but in vain, until by command of the Emperor 
 Napoleon III., M. Flachat (from whose work we have abridged this 
 description) was instructed to report upon the state of the cathedral. 
 For a description of the restoration, which was commenced towards 
 the close of 1855, we must refer the reader to his work 1 (published in 
 conjunction with M. Dion), which contains the most complete account 
 of the extraordinary means it was found requisite to adopt, in order 
 to support the central tower (weighing upwards of 4000 tons) whilst the 
 ruinous piers were being removed and rebuilt. 
 
 The works w T ere completed in 1863, costing upwards of £15,000, 
 which was defrayed chiefly by the emperor, out of his civil list. The 
 only difference in the appearance of the work now completed lies 
 in the cupola, which has been built in a style more in accordance 
 with the tower beneath it ; Moussard's cupola having been pulled down 
 in 1855.] 
 
 Plate XXIV. is a valuable ground plan of the church, with its series 
 of chapels, &c.; the dimensions of which in French feet are thus stated 
 by Be'ziers: — Height of the central tower, 224 feet; of the two western 
 ditto, 230 feet; length of the interior of the church, 296 feet; width of 
 ditto, 76 feet; height of ditto, 76 feet; length of the nave, 140 feet; width 
 of the nave, 38 feet; ditto of side aisles, 17 feet; ditto of chapels, 15 feet; 
 length of the transepts, 113 feet; width of ditto, 33 feet; length of the 
 
 P Dion (A. de Laurent) and Flachat (E.), Cathedral de Bayeux, 1861, Paris, 4to.] 
 
GO 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY. 
 
 choir, 118 feet; width of ditto, 36 feet. Its measurements in English 
 feet may be ascertained by the scale on the engraved plan. 
 
 The elevation of the west front {Plate XXV, XXVI.) shows an 
 interesting portion of the edifice. The lower part of the front is occupied 
 by a screen, divided into five compartments, with pointed arches. The 
 several orders of the arches, and the inclosed tympana, are richly 
 decorated with historical sculpture. 
 
 In the two exterior compartments the arches are unpierced, and are 
 flanked by a profusion of clustered columns : over each of the four lateral 
 arches are gables, crocketed, the tympana of which are pierced by a 
 variety of quatrefoils, trefoils, and other ornaments, within circular 
 mouldings. Above the central arch is a flat balustrade of quatrefoils, 
 behind which rises a large pointed window, of very rich tracery. Over 
 this window is a row of statues of saints, placed in niches, and arranged 
 in pairs, with a highly-pointed gable above each pair. [The two 
 flanking towers are bold and massive, the casing of the lower portion 
 adding considerably to this effect; the circular windows or openings ot 
 the original towers are still visible here and there, and the upper story 
 retains its Norman features, the three circular-headed windows which 
 are of great beauty of proportion and detail.] The towers have fine corbel 
 tables and are surmounted by spires of very ancient date, at the bases 
 of which spring pinnacles of corresponding design. 
 
 The exterior of the nave presents a specimen of the ornamented 
 pointed style, whilst the pointed architecture of the choir is elegant 
 and simple. An elevation of the exterior of one of the compartments 
 of the choir shown on Plate XXXIII, XXXIV, will convey a clear idea 
 of the execution of the whole design: but even in this part there is a 
 want of uniformity; some of the windows are deeply imbedded in the 
 walls, whilst others are nearly on a level with the surface. The southern 
 portal is bold and appropriate, though not in the purest style. On each side 
 of the doorway were originally three statues, whose tabernacles remain, 
 though the saints have been unniched. Over the door is a bas-relief, con- 
 taining numerous figures, disjoosed in three compartments, and represent- 
 ing some legendary tale or events, which it is not very easy to decipher. 
 
CATHEDRAL OF BAYEUX. 
 
 61 
 
 The interior of the church consists of a nave, lateral aisles, and a 
 transept, and a choir, with aisles and chapels. The six piers of the nave 
 are massive, with clustered shafts. The arches above them are semi- 
 circular, of four orders, the outer one enriched with the chevron moulding, 
 diamonds, etc. ; and examples occur of the square embattled, the lozenge, 
 with acorns, the lotus, and leaves occupying the triangular interstices, 
 and with other ornaments. On one of them is a curious border of heads 
 with beards, and some with elongated and upright ears, and some with 
 crowns. These and other specimens of the decorative mouldings are 
 shown in Plate XXX. The wall above the arches is adorned with a 
 species of tessellated work cut in the stone, of varied patterns, some 
 interwoven, others reticulated : the lines indented in the stones, as well 
 as the joints which form the pat terns, are filled with a black cement, 
 or mastic, so as to form a kind of niello. This may be seen in the Plate 
 just referred to; where also the capitals of the pillars are shown to be 
 an imitation of classic examples. 
 
 In the nave there is no triforium, but above the richly-decorated 
 string-course or cornice of the lower story runs a light gallery, below the 
 windows of the clerestory: the fagade of this gallery consists of a range 
 of trefoil-headed arches, with trefoils in the spandrils, and immediately 
 below the corona, as well as under the cornice beneath, is a range of 
 quatrefoils, as may be seen in Plates XXVIII, XXIX. and XXX. 
 The windows of the clerestory are, in the opinion of Mr. Turner, the 
 loftiest ever seen in a similar situation. The very tall arches that 
 support the central tower are likewise pointed; as are those of the 
 transept, the choir, the side-aisles, and the chapels. Of the choir, an 
 elevation of the exterior and interior of one of the compartments may 
 be seen in Plate XXXIII, XXXIV., and a transverse section in 
 Plate XXXI, XXXII The capitals of the columns supporting the 
 pointed arches bear some resemblance to those of the Norman pillars; 
 and the spandrils are adorned with circular ornaments, having a 
 resemblance to small rose- windows with their tracery. Some are merely 
 in bas-relief; in others the central circles are deeply perforated, whilst 
 the ribs are composed of delicate tracery. The triforium consists of a 
 
62 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY. 
 
 series of pointed arches, each inclosing a smaller pair under a larger 
 one occupying the whole width of the lower arch : the clustered pillars 
 have capitals, and the angles between the arches are occupied by trefoils, 
 circles, and other delicate ornaments. The spandrils of the arches are 
 relieved by circles with sculptured figures. Each of the three stories is 
 separated from one another by a string-course of foliage, of very elegant 
 design and execution. The stalls of the choir are beautifully executed in 
 oak, and beneath them are misereres, variously carved. Upon the roof 
 of the choir are still to be seen the portraits of the first twenty-one 
 bishops of Bayeux, each with his name. The walls of the chapels of the 
 choir were covered with large fresco paintings, now nearly obliterated. 
 Indeed, the whole of the cathedral at one time displayed a profusion of 
 works of art. 
 
 Beneath the choir is a subterraneous chapel, or crypt, dedicated to St. 
 Manvieu, of a similar character to that of the Holy Trinity at Caen. 
 The walls are covered with paintings, probably of the fifteenth century; 
 but those upon the springing of the arches above the pillars appear to be 
 considerably older. Over the only window that gives light to this crypt, 
 is preserved an inscription to the memory of Bishop de Boissy. 
 
 The canons of this place once possessed the celebrated piece of needle- 
 work, now known as the Bayeux Tapestry, but heretofore as the " Toile de 
 St. Jean." Since the time it was unrolled and publicly exhibited 1 by 
 Bonaparte, it has been kept at the hotel of the prefecture. This inter- 
 esting tapestry, the work of Queen Matilda, has been amply illustrated 
 in the Archceologia, and Vetusta Monumenta, of the Society of Anti- 
 quaries. [A very careful and elaborate series of photographs, coloured 
 after the original, has since been made; it was exhibited in the Interna- 
 tional Exhibition at South Kensington, and belongs to the department 
 of Science and Art.] 
 
 [ x The Tapestry was publicly exhibited throughout the large provincial towns of France, in order 
 to incite the people to war with England.] 
 
CHURCH OF ST. PETER, CAEN. 
 
 03 
 
 CHURCH OF ST. PETER, CAEN. 
 
 PLATES XXXV. and XXXVI. 
 
 St. Regnobert, who preached the gospel to the Saxons in the seventh 
 century, is supposed to have been the original founder of a church on the 
 site of the present one dedicated to St. Peter. 1 The present edifice is the 
 work of various ages. The choir and a part of the nave were erected 
 very late in the thirteenth century; and the remainder of the nave and 
 the bell-tower were built in 1308. Mr. Turner says, that "the tower 
 and spire were built in the year 1308, under the direction of Nicolle 
 V Anglo is, a burgher of Caen, and treasurer of the church." Ducarel 
 asserts, from the name, that he was a native of England. The portal 
 under the tower, which is of the date of 1384, 2 was restored and orna- 
 mented with statues in 1608; and it has undergone some alterations in 
 modern times, not at all to the improvement of the original work. Here 
 were to be seen many bas-reliefs, representing memorable events in the 
 history of St. Peter, which, says De la Rue, were defaced by the Vandals 
 of 1793.' 
 
 The north aisle of the nave was erected in 1410, and the south aisle 
 some years afterwards. The apse of the choir, and the vaulted roof of 
 the choir and of its aisles, were executed by Hector Sohier, architect of 
 Caen, in 1521. 4 
 
 The elevation, section, and plans of the tower and spire, Plate 
 XXXV, XX XVI., will furnish every information as to the design, 
 style, and architectural features of this portion of the building. The 
 doorway is finished by a lofty gable of the altitude of half of the second 
 story, and is pierced by three windows, and has two niches, under an 
 arch moulding. Over it, and in the tympanum of the gable, is another 
 niche, of plain workmanship. The remainder of the second story is 
 relieved by a series of blank arcades with gable ends, their tympanums 
 
 1 De la Rue, Essais, &c, tome i. p. 95. 
 
 2 In a record of the year 1384, the great entrance is called the " Portail Neuf." Ib. p. 9G. 
 
 3 Ut supra. 
 
 4 Huet, Orig. de Caen, p. 193. 
 
64 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY. 
 
 being occupied by trefoils. A string-course of quatrefoil in panel divides 
 it from the next story, which consists of lancet-arches, some glazed and 
 others blank, of very elaborate workmanship. This is crowned by an 
 open parapet of quatrefoil, which is adorned at each angle and in the 
 centre with pinnacles, having niches for statues, &c. The spire, which is 
 very lofty, is pierced by trefoils, quatrefoils, and other similar openings, 
 distributed in alternate compartments, the intermediate spaces being 
 occupied by broad bands of several rows of the dog-tooth ornament. 
 On this tower and spire Mr. Turner remarks (vol. ii. p. 178): — "The 
 elevation is hardly inferior to that of the spire of Salisbury Cathedral. 1 
 Elegance, lightness, and symmetry are the general characters of the 
 whole, though the spire has peculiar characters of its own/' 
 
 A wooden door from this church is shown in Plate LXIX. No. 2. It 
 is very plain, and divided horizontally into two compartments, distributed 
 into panels with trefoil-headed arches, within ogee arches crocketed. 
 Those of the upper compartment are gabled; and the whole of the 
 panels are separated by plain buttresses, terminated by pinnacles. 
 
 DUCAL PALACE, CAEN. 
 
 PLATE XXXVII. 
 
 [This building, better known under the name of the "Salle des 
 Gardes," is attached to the Ecole Normale, Caen, and is at present used 
 as a gymnasium. It dates from the early part of the fourteenth century, 
 
 1 This opinion may be adduced as one of the instances of the erroneous inferences we are liable 
 to in judging of the relative heights of objects, without taking pains to form something like a scale. By 
 the figured measures on the engraving it will be seen that the whole altitude of the tower and spire of 
 St. Peter's is only 242 English feet, whereas that of Salisbury is 404 feet from the floor. Of the com- 
 parative beauty in proportions of the two towers and spires, I must differ in opinion from my esteemed 
 friend ; he giving the preference to St. Peter's, I to that of Salisbury. In the former the spire is too 
 large and heavy. It should be remarked, that the tower of St. Peter's is seen to rise immediately 
 from the ground — whereas that of Salisbury is only seen above the roof of the church. [Salisbury tower 
 (upper portion only), and spire were erected in 1331. — Hickman.'] 
 
KC U'.SIAS II CM. AliflllTKCTI'KK 
 
PLIWX. 
 
 CHURCH OF ST OUKX ROTTEN - . 
 
 ^Nave looking- east. 
 
 Blackic & Son London. Qiasa cm- k F.dutburgh 
 
eccussu.sticai. ABCHaaBcannys . 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE 
 
 n.xin 
 
E'C CLE S 1AS.TICAL 
 
CHURCH OF ST. OUEN, ROUEN. 
 
 65 
 
 and formed part of the ancient " Abbaye aux Homines/' The ground floor 
 is vaulted, the vault being carried by two rows of columns : , this portion 
 is now divided up by a series of walls. The upper part, used as the 
 gymnasium, is a magnificent hall 104 ft. long by 31 ft. wide, and 26 ft. 
 6 in. up to the tie-beams of the roof. The floor was at one time decorated 
 with glazed tiles, many of which are still preserved in the Antiquaries' 
 Museum and the Town Library. This hall is now ceiled at the level of 
 the tie-beams, the space in the roof being used as a granary. Traces of 
 painted decoration of the fourteenth century are still visible in the roof. 
 Small staircases at the four angles of the building formerly led to the 
 roof for repairs or in case of fire, and a fine staircase to the north-east of 
 the building is supposed by M. Bouet to have led to the main floor of the 
 hall. A restoration of this staircase (exterior perspective only) is given 
 in the Institute Transactions, illustrating Mr. Parker's paper, read Jan. 26; 
 1863, and the same woodcut is also to be found in M. Bouet's work on 
 the abbey. 1 M. Bouet remarks 2 that he has restored the roofs of the 
 four turrets in stone, as in Pugin's plate, but that he believes they 
 were originally in wood; at all events they were destroyed in 1684.] 
 
 CHURCH OF ST. OUEN, ROUEN. 
 
 PL A TES XXX VIII.— XL III. 
 
 Among the numerous specimens of splendid ecclesiastical architecture 
 in Normandy and other parts of France, the Church of St. Ouen ranks 
 pre-eminent. From its richness of decoration, its exuberance of fancy, 
 and its elaborate execution, it cannot fail to attract the attention and 
 admiration of all travellers, and must prove peculiarly interesting 
 to the architectural antiquary. Although the accompanying Plates 
 (XXXVIII — XL III) do not constitute a complete illustration of the 
 church, they will serve to show its prevailing features, and furnish the 
 
 p Analyse arcUtecturah de V Abbaye tie Saint Etienne de Caen, p. 98. 2 P. 99.] 
 
66 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY. 
 
 artist with materials for practical purposes or historical inference. The 
 foundation of the present building was laid in 1318 by the Abbot Jean 
 Roussel, better known by the name of Marc d'argent, by whom it was 
 advanced as far as the transept; the remainder was the work of 
 subsequent periods, and the building was continued to the beginning 
 of the sixteenth century; — it is not even now completed. [According to 
 Mr. Fergusson (Hist. Arch.) the work of building "was carried on unin- 
 terruptedly for twenty-one years by Marc d'argent. At his death the 
 choir and transepts were completed, or very nearly so. The English 
 wars interrupted at this time the progress of this, as of many other 
 buildings; and the works of the nave were not seemingly resumed till 
 about 1490, and twenty-five years later the beautiful west front was 
 commenced." Mr. Fergusson goes on to say, "Except that of Limoges, 
 the choir is almost the most perfect building of its age; and being 
 contemporary with the choir at Cologne (1276-1321), affords a means 
 of comparison between the two styles of Germany and France at that 
 age, and entirely to the advantage of the French example, which, though 
 very much smaller, avoids all the more glaring faults of the other. 
 
 Nothing indeed can exceed the beauty of proportion of this most 
 elegant church; and except that it wants the depth and earnestness 
 of the earlier examples, it may be considered as the most beautiful thing 
 of its kind in Europe. The proportion too of the nave, transepts, and 
 choir to one another is remarkably happy, and a most striking contrast 
 to the very imperfect proportions of Cologne. Its three towers, also, 
 would have formed a perfect group as originally designed; but the 
 central one was not completed till so late that its details have lost the 
 aspiring character of the building on which it stands, and the western 
 spires, as rebuilt within the last ten years, are incongruous and inappro- 
 priate; whereas had the original design been carried out according to 
 the drawings which still exist, 1 it would have been one of the most 
 beautiful facades known anywhere. The diagonal position of the towers 
 
 \} The west front was terminated (184G-52) by the addition of two flanking stopples, surmounting 
 three deep-set portals, but effecting a change from the original desiqn, which is preserved in the Town 
 Library.— (Murray).] 
 
CHURCH OF ST. OUEN", ROUEN. 
 
 07 
 
 met most happily the difficulty of giving breadth to the facade, without 
 placing them beyond the line of the aisles, as is done in the cathedral 
 of Rouen, and at the same time gave a variety to the perspective which 
 must have had the most pleasing effect. Had the idea occurred earlier, 
 few western towers would have been placed otherwise ; but the invention 
 came too late, and in modern times the very traces of the arrangement 
 have been obliterated."] 
 
 The ground plan (Plate XXX VIII.) gives an idea of the extent and 
 dimensions of the church; 1 and the view of the nave, looking east (Plate 
 XXXIX.) shows the impressive perspective of the interior. The arches of 
 the interior are of great height and fine proportions, and its entire aspect 
 is excessively light and lofty; the mouldings of the arches are shallow, 
 and the building seems all window. The lightness of effect is consider- 
 ably aided by the clerestory gallery opening to the glazed tracery of the 
 windows, behind, the mullions of the one corresponding with those of the 
 other. To each of the clustered columns of the nave are attached two 
 tabernacles, consisting of canopies and pedestals, for the reception of 
 statues of saints. These are shown in the interior view, and also in 
 the elevation and section of one of the compartments of the nave. 
 Plate XL. The pillars of the choir do not appear to have been, similarly 
 ornamented; but upon one of them, serving as a corbel to a truncated 
 column, is a head of our- Saviour, and on the opposite pillar, another of 
 the Virgin ; the former exhibiting a remarkably fine antique character. 
 
 The capitals of the pillars in the choir were formerly gilt, and the 
 spandrils of the arches painted with angels — now nearly effaced. Round 
 the choir, as shown in the plan, is a series of chapels, or oratories, 
 the walls of which have been covered with fresco paintings of figures and 
 foliage. In the chapel of St. Agnes is an inscribed stone commemorating 
 the melancholy death of Alexander Berneval, the master mason of the 
 building, who, it is traditionally said, murdered his apprentice from 
 jealousy, he having executed the very splendid circular window in the 
 
 1 The following .are the dimensions of the interior in French feet, as given in Mr. Turner's Tour: — 
 Length of the church, 41 G ft.; ditto, nave, 234 ft.; ditto, choir, 108 ft.; ditto, lady chapel, GG ft,; ditto, 
 transept, 130 ft.; width of ditto, 34 ft,; ditto, nave without the aisles, 34 ft.; ditto, including aisles, 78 ft.; 
 height of roof, 100 ft,; ditto, of tower, 240 ft. 
 
68 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY. 
 
 northern transept, which is generally allowed to be superior to that on 
 the southern side, which was the workmanship of the envious master. 
 This window exhibits in its tracery the produced pentagon, or combina- 
 tion of triangles, called the pentalpha. These large circular windows, 
 sometimes known by the name of rose or marigold windows, are 
 beautiful characteristic features of French ecclesiastical architecture. 
 In this church, besides those in the transepts, there is a very fine 
 specimen in the great west window, which is fully delineated in Plates 
 XLIL XLIII. 
 
 The flying-buttresses end in richly crocketed pinnacles, supported by 
 shafts of unusual height; one of them is shown in Plate XL. with the 
 section of a compartment of the nave. The triple tiers of windows seem 
 to have occupied nearly all the wall work of the building. Balustrades 
 of various quatrefoils run round the aisles and body. The centre 
 tower, which is wholly composed of open arches and tracery, terminates, 
 like the south tower of Rouen Cathedral, with an octangular crown of fleurs- 
 de-lis. The elegance of the south porch and transept is unrivalled. This 
 portion of the church was always finished with care: it was the scene 
 of many religious ceremonies, particularly of espousals. The bold and 
 lofty entrance of this porch is surrounded within by pendent trefoil 
 arches, springing from carved bosses, and forming an open festoon of 
 tracery. The vaulting within is ribbed, and ornamented with richly 
 carved pendants, and the portal, which it shades, is covered with a 
 profusion of sculpture: the death, entombment, and apotheosis of the 
 Virgin, form the principal groins. Mr. Turner considers them, both in 
 design and execution, far superior to any specimens of the corresponding 
 era in England. On the same side of the church is an interesting door- 
 way, a representation of which is given in Plate XLI. It exhibits an 
 arch of late flamboyant form, richly crocketed, and terminating in a finial 
 of very beautiful design, and a pointed arch similarly ornamented with 
 crockets, and the mouldings decorated by a continued range of vine 
 leaves, which descends some way down the jambs. 
 
 Several specimens of painted glass from this church are engraved 
 (Plates LXXVIL LXXVIIL), to show the design. It is a singular but 
 
CHURCH OF ST. VINCENT, ROUEN. 
 
 69 
 
 a happy circumstance, that the church preserves the whole of its original 
 glazing. Each intermullion contains one whole-length figure, represented 
 upon a diapered ground, good in design, though the artist seems to have 
 avoided the employment of brilliant hues. The sober light harmonizes 
 with the gray, unsullied stone work, and gives a most pleasing unity 
 of tint to the receding arches. 
 
 CHURCH OF ST. VINCENT, ROUEN. 
 
 PLATES XLIV. XLV. 
 
 [The most remarkable part of this church is the western porch, of 
 which we give illustrations in Plates XLIV. and XLV. The centre 
 and side archways, which are unusually lofty in proportion to their 
 width, have a few simple mouldings, with foliage and a crocketed ogee 
 label. The intrados of the arch is richly decorated with trefoiled cusps, 
 which extend some 5 feet below the springing. This archway is flanked 
 by buttresses richly adorned with niches, and canopies surmounted by 
 elaborate crocketed pinnacles. The plan of the porch is very curious, 
 reminding us somewhat of that at Ratisbon Cathedral, except that 
 here there are three archways instead of two only, as in the latter 
 example. The two side archways are placed at an obtuse angle with the 
 central one, so as to form, as it were, a more easy access to those who 
 approached it from the north or south: the porch of St. Maclou has a 
 somewhat similar arrangement. The outer order of the doorway to the 
 church is decorated with a series of seated statues with canoj^ies over 
 them, and the tympanum is filled with a bas-relief, somewhat mutilated, 
 and apparently representing the last judgment. Much of the rest of 
 the church is posterior to the sixteenth century. The east end is now 
 undergoing restoration; a new chapel and a '•' sacristie " being added. 
 The church contains much fine glass.] 
 
 s 
 
70 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY. 
 
 NUNNERY OF ST. CLAIR, ROUEN. 
 
 PLATE XL VI. 
 
 [This convent was founded in 1481 by Jean d'Estonville, and dedicated 
 to the Holy Virgin and St. John Baptist. Its architecture, with the 
 exception of the entrance doorway (an illustration of which we give in 
 Plate XL VI), is not of any great note; the form of arch, however, is 
 interesting from the contrast it presents to our four-centred arch of 
 English work of the same period, or a little later ; the crown of the arch, 
 it will be observed, is segmental and struck from one centre instead 
 of two as in England ; a four-centred arch is very rare in France, and in 
 fact it frequently happens, when a relieving arch is formed over the door- 
 way, as in this instance, that the crown of the lower arch is horizontal, 
 with voussoirs radiating to a centre; the extreme ends on either side 
 being semicircular. The tomb of the founder, who died in 1484, lies in 
 the centre of the church.] 
 
 FOUNTAIN DE LA CROSSE, ROUEN. 
 
 PLATE XL VI I. 
 
 This fountain, so called from its proximity to a house where formerly 
 hung as a sign the crosier belonging to the monks of Notre Dame de l'lle 
 Dieu, is situated in the Rue de l'Hopital. 1 It is an interesting specimen 
 of the architecture of the fifteenth century. Its general design may be 
 understood by referring to Plate XL VII, which shows a plan, an 
 elevation, and details. The fountain projects from a wall like a bow- 
 window, and its sides are richly decorated with niches surmounted by 
 rich canopies of fanciful tracery. The fountain has a concave pyramidal 
 
 1 Rouen is noted for the number of its fountains, there being not less than thirty for the use of the 
 public, supplied with water from five different springs, and conveyed into the city by canals. 
 
CATV. WAY OT THE NI'NNKHY OF ST CLATB 
 ROUEN. 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE . Tl.XLVE . 
 
 FONTAINE -DF. LA CROSSE, IN RTTE DE i' HOSPITAL, 
 R ITE ~N . 
 
 filazkU & Son, Ix/tuinn,, Glasgow <£ tdini/urgh, . 
 
HC'C|.KSI.\STIC,\I, A K C'urj'KCT I ' 1; K 
 
JMW it 
 
DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 FILE 
 
DOMESTIC .AE.CBITECTOK.E . Fl.LUL. 
 
 "WINDOW AT THE N. END OF THE HALL 
 PAJ.AIS 1XE JUSTICE— E.OUEN. 
 
THE PALAIS DE JUSTICE, ROUEN. 
 
 71 
 
 cover in stone, which in Millin's time was surmounted by a royal 
 crown. [The fountain has been restored, or rather rebuilt, within the 
 last ten years.] 
 
 FOUNTAIN DE LA CROIX DE PIERRE, ROUEN. 
 
 PLATE XL VII I. 
 
 This fountain stands at the junction of three streets, in the Carrefour 
 St. Vivienne, which, previous to the reign of St. Louis, were without the 
 walls of the city. [It was erected in the year 1500, under the auspices 
 of the Cardinal d'Amboise, whose tomb lies in the cathedral, and has 
 some resemblance to the crosses erected to the memory of Queen Eleanor, 
 in England.] As shown in the plans and elevation, Plate XL VIII, it 
 consists of three stories, of varied design, raised on a plain basement. 
 In the first and second stories are canopied niches, with pedestals, &c. 
 [This fountain is being rebuilt on the original model : the old one being 
 too much dilapidated to allow of any partial restoration.] 
 
 THE PALAIS DE JUSTICE, ROUEN. 
 
 PLATES XLIX.—LIV. 
 
 In this interesting edifice the three estates composing the Duchy of 
 Normandy — viz. the deputies of the church, the nobility, and the good 
 towns — formerly held their meetings. Here, also, the Court of Exchequer 
 had its sittings. Where the states once deliberated, the electors of the 
 department now assemble, for the purpose of naming the deputies who 
 represent them in the great council of the nation. The palace, in its 
 present state, is composed of three distinct buildings, erected at different 
 
72 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY. 
 
 times, and forming collectively three sides of a parallelogram, whose 
 fourth side is merely an embattled wall, with an elaborate gateway. 
 One of these buildings, named the Salle des Procureurs, was erected in 
 1497, six years anterior to that more properly called the Palais de 
 Justice, but was subsequently annexed to the palace. The exterior of 
 the Salle des Procureurs, 1 the south elevation of which, with a ground 
 plan and section, are shown on Plate XLIX., is comparatively simple: 
 the most highly decorated part of it is the gable, which is flanked by two 
 octangular turrets, shown in the same Plate. The roof is of a very high 
 pitch, in which are dormer windows, of rich execution. Between the 
 square windows, in the body of the hall, are buttresses with tracery. 
 
 The interior is a fine large hall, with a wooden roof boarded under the 
 braces. It is 150 feet long and 50 feet wide, and now serves the same 
 purpose as our Westminster Hall, viz. a salle des pas perdus: beneath 
 the hall is a prison. 
 
 The southern building, erected exclusively for the sittings of the 
 Exchequer, is very sumptuous in its decorations, both without and within. 
 Here the windows in the body of the building have flattened elliptical 
 heads ; and are divided by a mullion and a transom. The mouldings 
 are highly wrought and enriched with foliage, and are nearly counterparts 
 of those in the chateau at Fontaine le Henri. The dormer windows, 
 vieing with those in the Place de la Pucelle, are of a different design, and 
 form the most characteristic feature of the front : they are pointed, and 
 enriched with mullions and tracery, and are placed within triple canopies 
 of nearly the same form, flanked by square pillars, terminating in tall 
 crocketed pinnacles; some of them are fronted with open arches, crowned 
 with statues. A most superb specimen may be seen on reference to the 
 engraved Plate of the elevation, section, and plan of the south front, 
 Plate XLIX., and the other print, Plate LI., which must be valuable to 
 the architect. A polygonal bay-window, of highly enriched workmanship, 
 projects into the court, and varies the elevation. Much of the interest of 
 the Palais de Justice has been destroyed by its not having been allowed 
 to continue in its original state ; for one half of it has been degraded by 
 
 I 1 Built originally as an exchange for native and foreign merchants.] 
 
PI IS. 
 
DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE 
 
 Drawn & Measured hyA 
 
 HOTEL DE BOURGTHEROULDE PLACE UEr.APrrr.LLr. !) ORLEANS -ROUEN 
 
HOTEL DE BOURGTHEROULDE, ROUEN. 
 
 73 
 
 alterations, or stripped of its ornaments. The room in which the 
 parliament formerly met, and which is now employed for the trial 
 of criminal causes, still remains comparatively uninjured. 1 Its ceiling 
 of oak, nearly as black as ebony, divided into numerous compartments, 
 and covered with a profusion of carving and gilt ornaments, affords 
 a gorgeous example of the taste of the times when constructed. The 
 open-work bosses of this ceiling are gone, as are the doors enriched 
 with sculpture, and the ancient chimney-piece, and the escutcheons 
 charged with sacred devices, and the great painting by which, before 
 the Revolution, witnesses were made to swear. Around the apartment 
 are several sentences, in letters of gold, reminding judges, jurors, 
 witnesses, and suitors, of their duties. [The ancient wainscotting round 
 the room, painted over with arabesques and old mottoes, has since been 
 taken down or effaced by whitewash.] The room itself is said to be the 
 most beautiful in France for its proportions and quantity of light. [A 
 new wing in the style of the rest of the building has been erected 
 opposite to the Salle des Procureurs, thus completing three sides of the 
 great court, the fourth side being inclosed by railings.] 
 
 HOTEL DE BOURGTHEROULDE, ROUEN. 
 
 PLATES LV. L VI. 
 
 In the Place de la Pucelle d' Orleans is a large house of stone, &c, 
 partly of the same era as the Palais de Justice, but richer in its 
 sculptures. It is the only house of the kind remaining at Rouen, and 
 may be regarded as the most curious specimen of domestic architecture in 
 Normandy. This hotel was erected in 1506 by Guillaume de Roux, the 
 twelfth of that name, Lord of Bourgtheroulde, and finished in 1537 by his 
 son the Abbe' d'Aumale, whose arms are emblazoned in various parts of 
 the edifice. The entire front is divided into compartments by slender 
 
 [ l Since this was written the whole ceiling has been restored by M. Viollet le Due] 
 
7-4 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY. 
 
 buttresses or pilasters. The intervening spaces are filled with bas- 
 reliefs, evidently executed by different masters ; and there is not a single 
 square foot of this extraordinary building which has not been orna- 
 mented. 
 
 The principal facade of the court, represented in Plate LV., is also 
 decorated with bas-reliefs, very rich in their composition and execution, 
 which extend under all the windows of the first story, and also below 
 those of the upper tier. A banquet beneath a window in the first floor 
 is in a good cinque-cento style. Others represent the labours of the field 
 and the vineyard, fishing, &c; all are rich and fanciful in costume. The 
 salamander, the emblem of Francis I., appears several times very con- 
 spicuously amongst the ornaments. Many of the bas-reliefs are engraved 
 and minutely described by E. H. Langlois in his Description Historique des 
 Maisons de Rouen. On the north side, and joining the octagonal tower, 
 extends a spacious gallery, the architecture of which is rather in Holbein's 
 manner. Foliaged and swelling pilasters, like antique candelabra, decorate 
 the jambs of the windows. Beneath is the well-known series of bas-reliefs, 
 executed on marble tablets, representing the interview between Francis 
 I. of France and Henry VIII. of England, in the Champ du Drap d'Or, 
 between Guisnes and Ardres; the heads of these kings are placed within two 
 niches on each side of the gateway entering the court. They were first 
 discovered by the venerable Father Montfaucon, who had them engraved 
 for his Monumens de la Monarchie Francaise. These sculptures are 
 much mutilated, and so obscured by smoke and dirt, that the details 
 cannot be easily understood. The corresponding tablets, above the win- 
 dows, are even in a worse condition, and appear to have been almost 
 unintelligible in the time of Montfaucon, who conjectured that they were 
 allegorical, and intended to represent the triumph of religion. Each 
 tablet contains a triumphal car, drawn by different animals, and crowded 
 with mythological figures and attributes. The finial of one of the tower 
 roofs is composed of a group of leaden thistles, which has proved a puzzle 
 to antiquaries. (See Plate L V. b.) 
 
 [Very little now (1874) remains of the external elevation, a small 
 drawing of which is given in Plate L VI. ; the corner turret fell down some 
 
ABBEY ST. AMAND, ROUEN. 
 
 75 
 
 twenty years ago, and about that time the entrance doorway was refaced 
 with stone, with the intention of copying the ancient flamboyant 
 ornamental details; this, however, has not yet been done, so that the 
 stone is left in block. The rest of the building is in very fair condition.] 
 
 THE ABBEY" ST. AM AND, ROUEN. 
 
 PLATES LVII. LVIII. 
 
 Whatever may have been the character and beauty of this build- 
 ing originally, very little now remains, and that is of comparatively 
 modern date. [The earliest monastery was a dependency of St. Ouen; 
 and was several times devastated. It was founded in 1030, destroyed 
 by fire in 1126 and in 1562, and ceased to exist as a monastic establish- 
 ment in 1569.] The illustrations in Plates LVII. and LVIII. represent 
 the style of decoration prevailing in the house which belonged to the 
 abbess, and which is in a great degree in ruins. What remains, how- 
 ever, is very curious; and is perhaps the oldest specimen of domestic 
 architecture in Roueir It is partly of wood, the front carved with 
 arches and other sculpture in bas-relief, and partly of stone. The 
 building surrounds a courtyard, at one angle of which is a polygonal 
 turret, with the arms of the abbess, Marie d'Annebaut, who governed 
 here in 1532. The northern side of the court was built at the end of the 
 fifteenth century, under the abbacy of Thomasse Daniel. The facade, 
 except the ground floor, is entirely of timber, richly adorned with panels, 
 tracery, &c, and with windows of painted glass. On the first story is a 
 room having two chimneys, with a ceiling of timber, divided into squares 
 and painted scroll-work. The whole of this apartment is decorated with 
 carvings, executed with the greatest delicacy. The mantle-piece of one 
 of the fireplaces is imitative of a hurdle, and has the arms of the Daniels, 
 much mutilated. The whole is crowned by a frieze of arabesques, in the 
 midst of which are the arms of Guillemette d'Assy, who was abbess in 
 
76 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY. 
 
 1518. The mantle-piece, also similarly charged, has columns decorated 
 with capitals, singularly composed of heads of cherubim. The gateway 
 to this ancient abbey, which was founded in 1030, was in the Rue 
 St. Amand, near the parish church, and opposite the Rue de la Chalne. 
 It is of the time of Louis XIV., was built in the ancient walls of the 
 convent, and is now in the same state as it was in 1792. [The abbey 
 is now occupied by the Hotel St. Amand, Rue Imperiale, No. 35. 
 Mr. W. Burges, in his folio of architectural drawings, gives a Plate 
 representing the wainscotting which lined one of the rooms in this abbey, 
 and makes the following remarks: "Until late years the buildings 
 of the Abbey of St. Amand presented three objects of interest to the 
 student. The first was a wooden house, the timbers of which were 
 carved into buttresses, pinnacles, and mouldings, and carved tracery 
 panels were employed for the filling in" (illustrated in Plate LVII.). 
 "This building, I believe, still exists. 1 The second object was a beautiful 
 tourelle of the very best time of the Renaissance. . . . The third thing was 
 a room entirely lined with wainscotting. . . . On the chimney occurred the 
 arms of Guillemette d'Assy, 1518; but on the painting are those of the 
 house of Souvre', of which there were no less than three abbesses, a long 
 time after Guillemette d'Assy. For this reason, E. H. Langlois (Maisons de 
 Rouen) thinks that the painting must be far later than the wainscotting ; 
 but after all, these arms might merely indicate a renewal of the colours 
 on the rails and stiles, as these latter were found eventually to have 
 been several times repainted. In 1853, almost immediately after my 
 visit, the place was destroyed, to make room for a new wide street. The 
 wooden house still remains, but the tourelle and panelling were bought 
 by a speculating builder, who has put them up in a modern suburban 
 villa, where they were to be seen a few years ago, restored and spoiled."] 
 
 J The piercing of the Rue Imperiale (now Rue de la Republique), and the rebuilding of the houses on 
 a larger scale in consequence, has almost destroyed the whole of this very fine timber facade.] 
 
/ ECCLESIASTICAL .AR.CIUTE CTUKE 
 
mm. 
 
CATHEDRAL OF NOTRE DAME, ROUEN. 
 
 77 
 
 THE CATHEDRAL OF NOTRE DAME, ROUEN. 
 
 PLATES LIX.-LXII. 
 
 The date of the foundation is uncertain, but an edifice was built on 
 this site in 1063, when Duke William attended at the dedication. 
 [M. Viollet le Due says (Diet. Raisonne, vol. ii. p. 361), "The Cathedral of 
 Rouen, already in the twelfth century occupied all the ground it now 
 covers. Rebuilt for the third time during the eleventh century, it was 
 again reconstructed during the second half of the twelfth century in the 
 transition style. Of these constructions there remains only the tower 
 called St. Romain, on the north side of the western porch, the two 
 apsidal chapels, those of the transepts, and the two doorways of the 
 facade, opening into the nave aisles ; these last portions would seem to 
 belong to the end of the twelfth century. When Richard Coeur de Lion 
 died, therefore, in 1199, the cathedral occupied the whole of the present 
 site. Shortly after the seizure of Normandy by Philip Augustus in 
 1204, and its union to the crown of France, great works were under- 
 taken; the nave, transepts and choir were rebuilt after a fire which 
 probably damaged considerably the twelfth-century church. Towards 
 the end of the thirteenth century chapels were built between the 
 buttresses of the nave aisles. In 1302 was commenced the reconstruction 
 of the Lady Chapel on a larger scale than the twelfth-century chapel 
 previously existing; and about this period the two gables of the north and 
 south transepts (portail de la Calende et portail des Libraires) were 
 reconstructed. These works of the beginning of the fourteenth century 
 surpass both in richness of design and beauty of execution all we know 
 of the same kind and belonging to this period. In 1430 the windows 
 of the choir were enlarged to obtain more light, and the windows of the 
 nave, a considerable portion of the exterior cornices, &c, and the interior 
 galleries were also modified during the fifteenth century. In 1485 was 
 commenced the construction of the tower known as the tour de Beurre, 
 and in 1509 the Cardinal Georges d'Amboise commenced the reconstruction 
 
 of the western facade, which has never been completed. In the thir- 
 
 u 
 
78 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY. 
 
 teenth century, on the pillars of the intersection of nave and transept, 
 there existed already a lofty square tower, of which two stories still 
 remain. These were injured by the wind in 1353, repaired afterward, 
 and burned in 1514. They were a second time restored, and surmounted 
 with an immense fleche or spire of wood, covered with lead, which was 
 completed in 1544. This spire was destroyed by lightning in 1821;" 
 and we regret to say replaced by one of the most hideous features ever 
 conceived — a cast-iron spire, inclined out of the perpendicular, and still 
 wanting some 20 feet more in height and a finial to complete it.] In 
 1538 Cardinal Georges d'Amboise, the great benefactor, restored the roof 
 of the choir, which had been injured in 1514 by the destruction of the 
 spire.] 
 
 On the northern side of the cathedral is the cloister-court, only a few 
 arches of which now remain. This appears on the eastern side to have 
 consisted of a double aisle or ambulatory. In Plate LXI. is engraved one 
 of the doorways on the north side of this cloister, and it will be found 
 to be an interesting specimen. From a series of small clustered columns 
 rises a pointed arch, richly ornamented, and decorated with crockets. 
 The doors are square-headed, and divided by a pier or cluster-column 
 (trumeau), and the upper part of the arch is filled up and relieved by 
 trefoils and a quatrefoil, in which, from a sculptured bracket, rises a 
 headless saint, holding a book. There is another saint on the apex of 
 the arch, and two female figures are placed, one on each side, at the 
 springing of the arch. The northern transept is approached through a 
 gloomy court, once occupied by the shops of the transcribers and calli- 
 graphists, the Libraires of ancient times, and from them it has derived 
 its name. The Cour des Libraires is entered beneath a gateway of beau- 
 tiful and singular architecture, composed of two lofty pointed arches, of 
 equal height, crowned by a row of smaller arcades; and is flanked 
 by buttresses decorated with niches, with canopies and pediments, and 
 other buttresses terminating in finials. One of the gateways is engraved 
 in Plate LXIL, where are also some sections, plans, and mouldings, 
 in detail; and in Plate LXVIII. a representation is given of one 
 half of the wooden door, which is most highly adorned with panelling 
 
iTCCIESIASTICAl ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 f LI. XII I 
 
CHURCH OF ST. MICHAEL HE VAUCELLES. 
 
 79 
 
 and tracery. The staircase in the north transept and adjoining the 
 doorway is peculiarly delicate and beautiful (see Plates LIX. and LX.) 
 Its date being well ascertained, we may note it as an architectural 
 standard. It was erected by the Archbishop Cardinal d'Etouteville, about 
 14G0, forty years subsequently to the building of the room above. 
 
 CHURCH OF ST. MICHAEL DE VAUCELLES, CAEN. 
 
 PLATE LXIII. 
 
 Vaucelles is at this time the largest of the five parishes composing 
 the faubourgs of Caen, from which town it is separated by the canal 
 of the Orne. Of the precise date of the church, which is situated on 
 an eminence, forming a picturesque object in a distant view, we have no 
 accurate information: it exhibits specimens of many of the styles of 
 architecture which prevailed between the tenth and sixteenth centuries. 
 The ancient tower, and the piers supporting it, belong to an ancient 
 church of the eleventh or twelfth century. The tower is square and 
 massy, and surmounted by a pyramidal stone roof or stunted spire. The 
 basement story is plain, and only pierced by one single window of very 
 small dimensions. A second story extends from the cornice of the body 
 of the church to the pitch of the roof, and is decorated by small semi- 
 circular arches, without either mouldings or imposts. Each face of the 
 upper story is occupied by a series of three long and narrow Norman 
 arches, supported by columns having bases and capitals, as are those 
 of the small round turret at the angle of the tower. It is probable that 
 a part of the nave is of the same age as this tower, for some of the 
 arches appear originally to have been of the semicircular form. 1 [The 
 choir and chapels belong, according to De Caumont, to the fifteenth 
 century, the nave and side aisles to the sixteenth, and the subsequent 
 additions to the nave, the west facade, and a second tower, date from 1780.] 
 
 1 A beautiful etching of this tower appears in Cotman's Architectural Antiquities of Normandy. 
 
80 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY. 
 
 The north porch, 1 with the chapel attached to it, is an interesting and 
 singular specimen of the decorative style of the latter part of the 
 fourteenth century. Plate LXIII. represents an elevation of the front 
 and flank, with measurements and some details. It is entered through 
 a pointed arch elaborately decorated and having its inner archivolt 
 fringed with pendant trefoils, a series of which adorn the two cop- 
 ings of the gable: the exterior corbel of the archivolt is crocketed, 
 and finishes in a pinnacle, which serves for the base of a statue placed 
 in the tympanum of the gable, which is filled in with flowing tracery. 
 The pointed arch is flanked by graduated buttresses, cut into panels, 
 decorated with tabernacle work, and surmounted by pinnacles, which 
 in the Plate are restorations. The vaulting is ribbed; and the entrances 
 into the church are by two flat elliptical arches under crocketed ogee 
 canopies, between which is a piece of sculpture standing on a bold 
 pedestal. This is said to represent St. Michael, the patron saint. 
 
 THE CHURCH AT CAUDEBEC. 
 
 PLATES LXIV. LXV. 
 
 The church at Caudebec, a town seated on the eastern bank of the 
 river Seine, about eighteen miles north of Rouen, is an interesting speci- 
 men of that style of architecture in which the transition from fifteenth- 
 century Flamboyant to sixteenth-century Renaissance is foreshadowed, as 
 may be seen in the engraving, Plate LXIV. [The church being erected in 
 the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, was commenced in the Gothic, and 
 terminated in the Renaissance style. It consists of nave and side aisles, 
 with chapels, and a choir with radiating chapels. The greater portion of 
 the church dates from 1450, and the architect, who died in 1484, lies buried 
 in the church. The tower on the north side of the church was begun in 
 1426, and rises with its spire to a height of 320 feet, the flamboyant tracery 
 in it taking the form of fleurs-de-lis.] 
 
 1 This porch nearly resembles the southern porch to the church of St. Ouen at Rouen. 
 
Blackie Sc Son, London, Glasgow & Edinburgh. 
 
CHURCH AT CAUDEBEC. 
 
 8] 
 
 The engraving, Plate LXIV., shows one compartment of the sacristy 
 externally, also a section and details at large. The windows and orna- 
 ments of this part of the building are unlike anything we have in England, 
 and seem to belong rather to the domestic than to the ecclesiastical archi- 
 tecture, as may be seen by referring to the engravings of Fontaine le 
 Henri and the Hotel de Bourgtheroulde, Plates LXXI. — LXXIII. and 
 LV.L VI. In Plate LX V. there is given a plan and section of a part of the 
 church, called the Lady Chapel, which was chosen for delineation on 
 account of the singularly constructed pendantive roof. 1 Dr. Dibdin says, 
 'The church has numerous side chapels and figures of patron saints. The 
 entombment of Christ, in white marble, at the end of the Chapel of the 
 
 [ 1 An interesting correspondence relative to the section of this pendantive roof, Plate LXV., 
 appeared in the Builder in 1871, in consequence of some doubts having been expressed as to its 
 •>xact correctness, from the difficulty of obtaining entrance to the hollow space or pocket between the 
 upper and lower webs, and the explanations of Mr. Benjamin Ferrey and Mr. Talbot Bury, who accom- 
 panied Mr. Pugin aud measured the whole chapel, are of considerable interest, not only placing beyond 
 dispute the accuracy and correctness of the measured drawings, but showing the eager interest in 
 mediasval art which Pugin was able to impart to others. Mr. Ferrey writes, p. 1042, vol. xxviii., "I have 
 a most vivid recollection of the intense interest which the elder Pugin felt in the construction of the 
 great pendant of this chapel. I can answer for it that there is nothing in his illustration of it as shown 
 in Plate LXV. but what is perfectly correct. An opening being made through the tufa of the groining 
 at the top, some of us got in, and no little trouble was it to get out again: but, with a light, there was 
 no difficulty in ascertaining the sizes of the voussoirs resting upon the huge keystone of the groining, 
 a monolith of upwards of seventeen feet long. There may be some conjecture as to the sizes of the 
 voussoirs built into the external angular buttresses, but in all probability they would correspond with 
 those visible to the eye. The striking feature, however, of the Lady Chapel, both in execution and effect, 
 is this surprising pendant; its appearance looks quite perilous, and until Pugin, with his wonted 
 energy, had a hole made and found out the exact nature of the construction, all sorts of notions were 
 prevalent, many believing that iron suspension-rods, &c, were employed." Mr. Talbot Bury, in p. 20, 
 vol. xxix., who measured the chapel, confirms Mr. Ferrey's statements, and writes, "I have a very vivid 
 recollection of everything connected with the remarkable pendant of this chapel, and had additional cause 
 for it, as, having got into a hole made in the inner arch, for the purpose of examining this pendant, I ran 
 the risk of immolation for the cause of Gothic art, by a total inability for some time to get out again — 
 thus nearly converting that very interesting groining into a very uninteresting mausoleum for myself. . . . 
 I am able to take the responsibility on myself" (viz. of the correctness of the drawing), "as the plate of 
 the Lady Chapel published in Pugin's Architecture of Normandy was drawn by me from my own sketches 
 and measurements, in which there is but one omission, and that is— the junction of the large arch with 
 the wall was filled in and weighted to hinder the upward thrust. The section of this groin in Gwilt, 
 Supplement to the Encyclopaedia of Architecture (published in 1851), does not fully explain its peculiarities, 
 and would lead to the supposition that the whole of the top of the groining is three feet one inch in 
 thickness, whereas there are only six large ribs of that size starting from the internal angles, meeting in 
 the centre, and holding up this pendant stone of seventeen feet long, from which the moulded groinings 
 
 x 
 
82 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY. 
 
 Virgin, is rather singular, inasmuch as the figure of Christ is ancient, 
 and exceedingly fine in anatomical expression; but the usual surrounding 
 figures are modern, and proportionally clumsy and inexpressive." 1 
 
 THE ARCHBISHOP'S PALACE, ROUEN. 
 
 PLATE LXVL 
 
 • ... 
 
 Of this once noted edifice our illustration is confined to elevations, and 
 a series of plans and sections of two turrets, which are interesting speci- 
 mens of ancient domestic architecture, and both are appropriated to stairs. 
 The principal facade of this palace was built about the middle of the 
 fifteenth century by the Cardinal d'Etouteville, and consisted of several 
 apartments, surrounding a large square court. At one angle of this area 
 is a spacious gateway, of rustic work, in the Tuscan style: this is con- 
 nected with a staircase, which leads to a state-gallery. [This palace has 
 lately been restored, as well as the two turrets above mentioned.] 
 
 CHURCH OF ST. MACLOU, ROUEN. 
 
 PLATE LXVIL 
 
 [This church, the third in importance among Rouen churches, was 
 built on the foundations of a chapel dating from the commencement of 
 
 and ornament are suspended. Mr. Pugin's plate gives two sections, one showing how the spaces between 
 these large ribs are arched in with tufa of six inches thick, and into this a small hole was made by 
 which I got into the space, where by candle-light I could examine and measure it all. I must further 
 state that a part of the high-jointed roof was taken off to allow of entrance to top of groining. Having 
 explained how the examination was made, I must direct attention to the very bold and yet careful 
 construction here carried out. To avoid any pressure on the moulded ribs of the interior of the chapel 
 from the subsidence of the large arch, a space has been left between them, and this has had the desired 
 effect, for the joints of the moulded groining were as perfect when I saw it as if the hand of the mason 
 had just left it ; and all glory to those of the mediaeval men who designed so beautifully and built 
 so well."] 
 
 l Dibdin (Rev. T. F.), A Bibliographical, Antiquarian, &c, Tour, vol. i. p. 210. 
 
WOODEN DOORS AT ROUEN AND CAEN. 
 
 83 
 
 the thirteenth century, and several times burnt; though mainly built 
 between the years 1432-79, it was not terminated till the beginning of 
 the sixteenth century. Its western porch is certainly one of the finest 
 and most elaborate of the fifteenth century; it occupies the whole of the 
 western facade, and is especially interesting on account of the peculiar 
 arrangement by which it accommodates itself to the surrounding streets. 
 The two side porches are placed at slight angles with the central one, to 
 afford, as it were, a more easy access to those who came from the right 
 or left. We have noticed a similar arrangement in the Church of St. 
 Vincent, but here the porch is not detached from the church, but forms 
 its west facade, the side porches opening directly into the side aisles of the 
 nave.] Within this church, near the western entrance, is the unique 
 staircase, delineated in Plate LXVII., which represents it in elevation, 
 section, and by plans, whereby its general design and subordinate details' 
 may be fully understood. It formerly conducted to the organ-loft. The 
 elegant carved doors of this church were executed by Jean Goujon, the 
 eminent sculptor." [Within the last twelve years a fleche has been added 
 to the central tower. The design for it was taken from a model in card- 
 board of the fifteenth century, which may now be seen in the " Musee 
 departemental d'Antiquites." To M. Barthelemy, the architect to the 
 cathedral, was intrusted the construction of this fleche.] 
 
 WOODEN DOORS AT ROUEN AND CAEN. 
 
 PLATES LXVIII. LXIX. 
 
 [The framing of these doors is unfortunately not shown, so that we are 
 able to deal with their decoration only. This, however, seems to follow 
 the construction of the doors; in other words, the vertical lines repre- 
 senting piers and buttresses may be taken to represent the stiles, and the 
 horizontal cills and string-courses the rails of the framing, 
 
 1 Mr. Turner states, that it was constructed in 1512, and, according to common phraseology, by- 
 voluntary subscriptions, although the volunteers were bribed by the assurance of forty days' and one 
 hundred days' indulgences. 
 
84 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY. 
 
 Portions of the decorative work would seem to have been nailed on 
 afterwards, the linen pattern and probably the tracery in the panels 
 having been carved out of the solid. 
 
 The earliest example is that from St. Peter's at Caen, Plate LXIX., 
 No. 2, which dates from the second half of the fourteenth century; the 
 others are fine specimens of Flamboyant woodwork, the intersecting of 
 the vertical and horizontal mouldings being very characteristic of the style. 
 
 The treatment of the linen pattern in the middle panels of the door 
 from Notre Dame at Caen is more than usually naturalistic, and would 
 go far to prove the truth of M. Viollet le Due's argument {Dictionnaire 
 Renaissance, vol. vi. page 360) that this ornament was derived from 
 a custom in vogue previous to the fifteenth century of suspending skins 
 and tapestry in the panels of furniture.] 
 
 CHURCH OF ST. JACQUES, DIEPPE. 
 
 PLATE LXX. 
 
 [This church stands on the south side of the "Grande Place" of 
 Dieppe. The present building was commenced in 1250, on the remains 
 of an ancient monastic establishment, and was dedicated to St. Jacques 
 in 1282. The chapels, nineteen in number, were not completed till 1354. 
 The tower at the south-west end dates from 1443, and much of the interior 
 vaulting is intermixed with Renaissance work. The lady chapel, though 
 very pure in design, is still one of the latest specimens of Gothic work, 
 the bosses of the ribbed vaulting are elaborately carved, and the ribs 
 have small pendants at their intersections; the windows of this lady 
 chapel are acutely pointed, and have horizontal transoms, an unusual 
 feature in French architecture.] 
 
 Of this very interesting edifice we have only one engraving, represent- 
 ing part of a very elaborate stone screen in the north transept, or "aisle of 
 the choir;" it incloses a chantry chapel, which, like the lady chapel, 
 exhibits a singular mixture of pointed forms with Renaissance features: 
 
DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE. I'L LXXJJ 
 
CHATEAU F0NTAINE-LE-HEN1U. 
 
 85 
 
 parts of it are said to resemble the tomb of Bishop Fox, at Winchester. 1 ] 
 The plate (LXX.) shows the two doorways of the screen with rich pierced 
 tracery above; on one half of the drawing the setting out lines only are 
 indicated. In Mr. Cotman's Architectural Anticpdties are views of the 
 western front of this church, and also the east end, both of which display 
 a profusion of enriched sculpture, in crockets, finials, tracery, double 
 flying buttresses, an elegant rose window, &c. At the south angle of the 
 west front is a square tower, of handsome design, and highly decorated 
 with ornaments. 
 
 CHATEAU FONTAINE-LE-HENRI. 
 
 PLATES LXXL-LXXIIL 
 
 The chateau or mansion represented in these Plates is situated about 
 eight miles north of Caen. 
 
 The view of the whole front {Plate LXXL), and elevations of two of 
 its windows, will fully elucidate the external features of this chateau: 
 it appears to belong to several epochs; the most ancient part is that on 
 the right, which may date from the end of the fifteenth or beginning of 
 the sixteenth century. The left wing probably belongs to the time of 
 Francis I., there being in fact a date of 1537 on one of the windows. 
 
 Speaking of this house, and of two others of similar character in Caen 
 and Rouen, Mr. Turner remarks: "Specimens like these are curious in 
 the history of the arts; they show the progress that architecture had 
 made in Normandy at one of the most interesting periods in French 
 history : they also show its relative state as respectively applied to civil 
 and religious purposes." 2 "This chateau," says the same author, "is a 
 noble building, and a characteristic specimen of the residences of the 
 French noblesse during the latter part of the fifteenth century, at which 
 period there is no doubt of its having been erected, although no records 
 whatever are left upon the subject. Fontaine le Henri was then still in 
 
 1 Architectural Antiquities of Normandy, vol. ii. p. 38. 
 
 2 Cotman's Architectural Antiquities of Normandy, vol. i. p. 68. 
 
86 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY. 
 
 the possession of the family of Harcourt, whose fortune and consequence 
 might naturally be expected to give rise to a similar building. As com- 
 pared with the mansions of the English nobility, this chateau may be 
 advantageously viewed in conjunction with Longleat, in Wiltshire/ the 
 noble seat of the Marquis of Bath. The erection of the latter was not 
 commenced till the year 1567, thus leaving an interval of at least half a 
 century between them; a period probably much the same as may be 
 presumed from other documents to have intervened between the intro- 
 duction of the Italian style of architecture in France and England. 
 Longleat was built by John of Padua — Fontaine Henri was also the 
 work of Transalpine architects — both of them bear decided marks of the 
 nation to which they owe their origin; but in the English mansion the 
 Italian features are more decidedly enounced, while in the French they 
 are strikingly modified by the peculiarities of their adopted country; 
 and this remark would apjny generally to all the introductions of foreign 
 styles into our country when compared with those in France/' Most of 
 the exterior surface of this building is covered with " medallions, scrolls, 
 friezes, canopies, statues, and arabesques, in bas-relief, worked with 
 extraordinary care and great beauty. Their style is that of the loggia 
 of Raphael; or, to compare them with another Norman subject of the 
 same era, of the sculptures upon the mausoleum raised to the Cardinal 
 d'Amboise, in Rouen Cathedral." 2 
 
 [In Plates LXXII. and LXXIII. are given details of the window on 
 ground floor, and of the. upper part of the tower. They are interesting 
 as showing the utter decadence of the Flamboyant style previous to 
 the introduction of the Renaissance. The repetition of the cold and 
 senseless blank tracery above the window and in the friezes, string-courses, 
 cornice, and balustrade of the upper portions of . the tower, serve as 
 the best apology that can be made for the introduction of the Renais- 
 sance ; a comparison of these two details with the altar-pieces and vaulted 
 ceilings of the chapels of St. Pierre, Caen, or the cathedral at Senlis, 
 or again with the magnificent monument of the Cardinal d'Amboise in 
 
 1 Figured and described in Britton's Architectural Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 105, &c. 
 
 2 Turner's Tour in Normandy, -vol. i. p. 157. 
 
STRING-COURSES, PARAPETS, ETC. 
 
 87 
 
 the Cathedral of Rouen before referred to, cannot fail to impress the 
 student that the Gothic style had died out in France, and that the 
 Renaissance, with its graceful and artistic detail, supplied that innate 
 craving for beautiful forms which distinguishes nearly all the architecture 
 of the period of Francis I.] 
 
 STRING-COURSES, PARAPETS, &c, FROM VARIOUS BUILDINGS. 
 
 PLATES LXXTV.—LXXVI. 
 
 [The ornamental details represented in these Plates are from the 
 various buildings, of which fuller illustrations have been already given. 
 Most of them must be taken as examples of the later and more deca- 
 dent period of Gothic art in Normandy, and show how the dexterity of 
 the French sculptors led them in the fifteenth and sometimes in the 
 sixteenth century to too close an imitation of nature. Thus we see in an 
 example from St. Ouen (No. 1, Plate LXXIV.), the vine and grapes 
 conventionally arranged, it is true, but copied as faithfully as it was 
 possible, far beyond, however, the proper limits of stone carving. This 
 is the more conspicuous in a series of examples in Plate LXXVI., 
 where the oak, the thistle, and other plants are all portrayed with 
 extreme exactness. Nos. 3, 4, 2, 6, in Plate LXXIV. represent string- 
 courses, in which the vegetable forms are properly conventionalized, 
 and these are the examples to which we would call more particularly 
 the student's notice, as exemplifying that treatment which is equally 
 in accordance with the principles of nature and the materialistic proper- 
 ties of stone. The sunken quatrefoils underneath the string-courses of 
 the Bayeux example is found also in the nave of the same cathedral. 
 Another example exists in the upper part of the tower of St. Peter's 
 Church, Caen. Three of the examples in these Plates are taken from 
 secular buildings; they are all geometrical in their ornamental details, 
 and the latter two particularly are essentially secular in their character. 
 
88 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY. 
 
 Of the four types of balustrades and parapets given in Plate 
 LXXV. three belong to the Flamboyant period, and are amongst the 
 finest specimens in Normandy. The decoration in the string-courses, 
 above and below them, are other specimeus of naturalistic foliage. 
 
 The fourth example, from the Cathedral of Bayeux, is earlier and 
 much more severe in style, though without the grace and beautiful flow 
 of line which distinguishes the Flamboyant examples.] 
 
 SPECIMENS OF STAINED GLASS. 
 
 PLATES LXXVIL LX XVIII. 
 
 [As announced in the prospectus the coloured Plates of these examples 
 have been omitted in the present edition, being calculated rather to mis- 
 lead students than to assist them, from the difficulty of obtaining the 
 actual tones of colour in the original glass. 
 
 The immense progress in the manufacture of stained glass which has 
 taken place in England during the last thirty years, and the numerous 
 works which have appeared illustrating old work has somewhat set aside 
 the value which these Plates possessed, at a time when the revival of 
 the manufacture by the second Pugin for various churches, and more 
 especially for the Houses of Parliament, had not been thought of, so that 
 these two Plates must rather be taken as suggestive of various methods 
 of leading up glass than as models to be copied.] 
 
 THE END. 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL ARCH.T-T JJ C TtTRE 
 
 FROM THE CATHEDRAL A AHKEY CHURCH OF S T OUEN ROUEN.