Cathedral by St. Athelwold has been preserved, which is very magniloquent, but leaves no doubt that the material was stone, that it had a crypt, and was considered one of the most magnificent works of that age in England; yet within a century afterwards this church was so much out of repair, or then considered so small, that Bishop Walkelyn found it necessary to build an entirely new one on another site. At the end of this century many churches were again destroyed by the Danes, who overran sixteen counties, and besieged London. It is most probable also that at this period the Christians in England partook of the general belief of Christendom, that the world was to come to an end in the year 1000, and of the lethargy which accompanied that belief.

6. Tower-arch of the supposed Saxon character, Barnack, Northamptonshire.

THE

CHAPTER II.

The Eleventh Century.

HE architecture of the Middle Ages, from the eleventh to the sixteenth century, is usually divided into certain periods, or styles, for the convenience of classification and to assist the memory. These styles are by no means arbitrary, they are strictly historical periods, during which certain characters prevailed, succeeding each other in a regular, natural, and well-ascertained order. The change from one style to another was not immediate, it generally took about a quarter of a century to effect the transition; and the last quarter of each of the five centuries, from the eleventh to the fifteenth, was such a period of change or transition. Buildings of the last ten years of a century often belong in style rather to that which follows.

1. To the eleventh century belong the greater part of the buildings supposed to be Saxon. In the last quarter of the century the Norman style was introduced.

2. In the twelfth century the buildings belong chiefly to the Norman style. In the last quarter, the transition from the Romanesque, or Norman, to the Early English, or first Gothic style, took place.

3. In the thirteenth century the buildings belong to the style which is usually called Early English; the last quarter is the period of transition to the Decorated style.

4. In the fourteenth century the general character is Decorated; the last quarter is the period of transition from the Decorated to the Perpendicular style.

5. In the fifteenth century the Perpendicular style prevailed, and this continued during the first quarter of the sixteenth century, though not without symptoms of a change even before the close of the fifteenth.

6. In the sixteenth century the Roman style was revived, and the period was called the Renaissance. In Italy it was called Cinque Cento, from the Italian mode of reckoning: Cinque Cento in Italian signifies what we call the sixteenth century. In England this style assumed a character of its own, and is usually called the Elizabethan style.

This nomenclature and this classification of the styles are alike confined to England and English work. The names of First Pointed, Middle Pointed, and Third Pointed are general, and were intended by their authors to be applied to all Europe. But the progress of the art was not entirely simultaneous, and it would be entering on too wide a field to attempt to point out the character in each country at each period. It will therefore be more convenient to confine our attention to England, and to make use of the received terms, which are most generally understood, and most applicable to the peculiar features of our own buildings.

The name of Pointed applied to the Gothic styles is further objectionable as being calculated to mislead beginners in the study, who are thereby led to attach far too much importance to the form of the arch, which is not a safe guide at any period. Many very good Gothic buildings, especially castles and houses, have scarcely any pointed arches in them, even as late as the Edwardian castles; and, on the other hand, the pointed arch is found in buildings of early Norman character, of the time of Henry I., and becomes more common than the round arch before the end of the twelfth century, in the time of Henry II. The First Pointed style in England is therefore the style of the twelfth century, and in the south of France of the eleventh. The inventors of this nomenclature applied it to the buildings of the thirteenth century, the earliest period at which the use of Gothic mouldings and details was fully established; but the introduction of these was not simultaneous with that of the pointed arch.

Immediately after the year 1000, when the long dreaded millennium had passed, the Christian world seems to have taken a new start, and was seized with a furore for erecting stone buildings. The Chronicles of the period everywhere bear testimony to the same facts. Radulphus Glaber, who died in 1045, and appears to relate what he had seen, says that so early as the year 1003 the number of churches and monasteries which were building in almost all countries, more especially in Italy and in France, was so great, that the world appeared to be putting off its old dingy attire and putting on a new white robe. "Then nearly all the bishops' seats, the churches, the monasteries, and even the oratories in the villages, were changed for better ones "."

In the year 1017 Canute succeeded to the throne, and soon began to restore the monasteries which had been injured or destroyed by the military incursions of himself and of his father: "He built churches in all the places where he had fought, and more particularly at Aschendune, and appointed ministers to them, who, through the succeeding revolutions of ages, might pray to God for the souls of the persons there slain." This edifice is called in the Latin text Basilica, and is ex

a "Igitur infra supra dictum millesimum, tertio jam fere imminente anno, contigit in universo pene terrarum orbe præcipue tamen in Italia et in Galliis innovari ecclesiarum basilicas, licet pleræque decenter locatæ minimi indiquissent æmulabatur tamen quæque gens Christi-colarum adversus alteram decentiore frui. Erat enim instar ac si mundus ipse excutiendo semet rejecta vetustate, passim candidam ecclesiarum vestem indueret. Tunc denique episcopalium sedium ecclesias pene universas, ac cætara quæque diversorum sanctorum monasteria, seu minora villarum oratoria in meliora quique permutavere fideles."-Glabri Radulphi Historiæ, lib. iii. cap. 4, ex bibl. Pithæi, fol. Francof., 1506, p. 27.

pressly mentioned as being of stone and lime; at the consecration of it, Canute was present himself, and the English and Danish nobility made their offerings. All these circumstances shew that it was a building of considerable importance at that time. Yet William of Malmesbury, writing about a century afterwards, says that in his time it was 66 an ordinary church, under the

care of a parish priest "."

In 1041 Edward the Confessor succeeded to, and carried on, the good work of restoration which had been begun by Canute. Many churches and monasteries were now rebuilt, and new ones founded, and as the masonry and the art of building were improved by practice, and by the importation of Norman workmen, it is probable that we have some churches of this period still remaining.

Leofric and his wife Godiva built many monasteries in this reign; among them Stow in Lincolnshire is mentioned; and of the present church at Stow it is probable that the lower part of the walls of the transepts, with the jambs of the arches on the north and south sides of the tower, are of this date. It is a curious and interesting cruci. form church: the nave is early Norman, the chancel late Norman, and a Norman clerestory has been added upon the Saxon walls of the transepts; later arches have also been introduced within the old ones, either to reduce the size of the tower, or because the builders were afraid to trust the old arches, though these are Norman, built upon the Saxon jambs.

The church of Deerhurst, in Gloucestershire, may also be safely assigned to this period, at least the tower of it. The chancel-arch isnow built up, the original chancel was destroyed in the civil wars, and a stone, with an inscription recording the dedication of the church in 1053, was dug up on the site of the chancel, and sent to Oxford, where it is now preserved among the Arundel marbles. The

b William of Malmesbury, Sharpe's translation, p. 228.

C