Norman church

“ It is a most beautiful and interesting building. Doubtless there originally stood here a twelfth-century Norman church, consisting of nave with aisles and chancel, of which two arches remain in the south arcade of the nave. Then in the thirteenth century the church was rebuilt, as we see it, and very beautiful it is, in its Early English dress, passing into Decorated, in the chancel and transepts. ”

“ Once more the man in the cocked hat becomes prominent as he steps into the open space between the transepts and tolls the big bell in the tower above. Then a smaller and much more cheerful bell is rung, and fearing the arrival of another collecting priest we slip out of the swinging doors into the twilight that has now almost been swallowed up in the gathering darkness.
The consecration of the splendid Norman church of St Gervais took place in the presence of Henry I. but there is nothing particularly English in any part of the exterior. ”

“ Romain's tower of the cathedral and an early bit of the abbey-church of Saint-Ouen still body forth the unbroken continuity of the Norman past.
The Norman church throughout the period of our study stands in the closest relation to the general conditions of Norman society. The monasteries and churches of the region had been almost completely wiped out by the northern invasions, and while the Northmen soon adopted the religion of their new neighbors, it was many years before ecclesiastical life and discipline again reached the level of the other dioceses of France. ”

“ When all this was done there remained of the old Norman church only the transepts and the nave. The transepts remain to us still, but the nave was transformed, in the very beginning of the Perpendicular time. It was transformed not rebuilt. Bishop William of Wykeham has obliterated Bishop Walkelin, but fundamentally the nave of Winchester remains Norman still. The Perpendicular work is only a lovely mask, or rather just the sunlight of the fourteenth century which has come into the dark old Norman building. ”

“ Period III. Anglo-Norman Church.—The influx of numerous foreigners, especially from Normandy and Lorraine, which preceded, accompanied and followed the Conquest, and the occupation by them of the highest posts in church as well as state had a distinct effect on the liturgy of the English church. These foreign ecclesiastics brought over with them a preference for and a habit of using certain features of the Gallican liturgy and ritual, which they succeeded in incorporating into the service-books of the church of England. ”

“ There is also, even in the churches that most resemble English structures, a strangeness that assails one unless familiarity has taken the edge off one’s perceptions. Though not the case with all the fine churches and cathedrals of Normandy, yet with an unpleasantly large proportion—unfortunately including the magnificent Church of St Ouen at Rouen—there is beyond the gaudy tinsel that crowds the altars, an untidiness that detracts from the sense of reverence that stately Norman or Gothic does not fail to inspire. ”

“ The church at Creully is one of the most curious we have seen. The nave, side-aisles, and choir, are all purely Norman, except at the extremities. The piers are very massy; the arches wide and low; the capitals covered with rude, but most remarkable sculpture, which is varied on every pillar. Round the arches of the nave runs a band of the chevron ornament; and over them is a row of lancet windows, devoid of ornament, and sunk in a wall of extraordinary thickness. Externally, all is modernized. ”

“ The average baron was very willing to atone for his misdeeds by the foundation of a new religious house, or by benefactions to an old one, and the immortal church had time on its side. In Normandy, at least, the disorder of William’s minority coincided with the foundation of new monasteries in almost every diocese in the Norman church; and the promulgation of the Truce of God in 1042 gave a wide extension to the competence of ecclesiastical jurisdiction in relation to secular affairs. ”

“ Norman and Perpendicular church. Note fine oak panelled ceiling.
[Across the Adur valley, 21⁄2 miles west is the interesting church at Wisborough Green. The situation is delightful and the antiquarian interest more than ordinary. Kemble identifies the mound on which the church is built as being the site of a temple dedicated to Woden (Wisc or "Wish") . Restoration brought to light early Norman (perhaps Saxon) remains in this late Norman church. The chancel is Early English. Notice the tower walls inside. There are some ancient frescoes, a stoup, and other interesting details.] ”

“ The church, in its present state, is a medley of many different styles and ages: the nave alone retains vestiges of early architecture, in its massy piers and semi-circular arches: these are evidently of Norman workmanship, and are probably part of the church erected by Henry.—All the rest is comparatively modern.—The western front is of a debased Palladian style, singularly ill adapted to a Gothic cathedral. ”

“ Relations with the lay power which once rested on local Norman custom come to be formulated in the sharper terms of the canon law of the universal church; appeals to Rome and instructions from Rome increase rapidly in volume and importance; the Norman clergy attend assemblies of the clergy of neighboring lands; and by the end of the Plantagenet period the Norman church is ready to be absorbed into the church of France. ”

“ Her effigy in white marble, praying before a fald-stool, has also been spared.
The church itself is a spacious building, consisting of a nave and two aisles, with chapels beyond, separated by lofty pointed arches, supported on clustered pillars, to each of which is still attached a tabernacle; but the statues have been destroyed. The choir is altogether in a different style of architecture: that portion of it which immediately surrounds the altar, is early Norman, and most probably belonged to the original structure. Its arches vary remarkably in width. ”

“ Lodgings in Vicar's Close, leisurely strolls through the gardens of the Bishop's Palace, hours of revery in choir and chapter-house and Lady Chapel,—it is so that one is taken to the heart of all this holy beauty. The foundation dates back to the beginning of the eighth century, but Saxon church melted into Norman, and Norman into Early English,—substantially the cathedral of to-day, with that wonderful façade of which Fuller truly said: "England affordeth not the like." The story of the city is the story of the church, and [313] the story of the church is one of honour and untroubled peace. ”

“ The furnishing of the interior savours so much of the Roman church that one might easily imagine oneself on the other side of the Channel. One notices a bell conspicuous on the altar steps, and 'sacred' pictures, with candles and half-withered floral offerings in front of them, are placed on the pillars and elsewhere! Is the Bishop of Oxford aware of these strange reversions to the practices condemned by the Protestant Church of England for the last four centuries? The leaden font is of Norman workmanship, and is a comparatively rare object. ”

“ Before the battle, in which King Harold fell, William vowed to build an abbey on the spot if he should prove victorious, and in 1094 the consecration took place with great pomp. The gatehouse, forming a picturesque termination to the main street of the town, is Decorated; and there also remain parts of the foundations of the Norman church, of the Perpendicular cloisters, and of the Early English refectory. A mansion occupies part of the site, and incorporates some of the ancient building. The church of St Mary is of various dates, the earliest portions being transitional Norman. ”

“ But no one can pass down that great avenue of elms to the glorious north porch, a master-work of the thirteenth century, without rejoicing that when all is said the church was saved to us. The great Norman nave, with its thirteenth-century clerestory, and alas, modern stucco vaulting, the Norman aisles and north transept, are too reverent for destruction, the fifteenth-century choir and eastern chapels too lovely. ”

“ No trace is left of Edward's Norman monastery, save the foundations of some of the pillars and a round arch in the cloisters; but we know that his church was nearly on the same place as the present Abbey, and that the old Norman nave stood for many hundred years joined on to the choir and transepts of the new Early English building, and was pulled down bit by bit as the later church grew. For the beautiful Abbey which we see before us now, in the heart of a busy thoroughfare, is the work, not of one generation, but of five hundred years. ”

“ In the apse and the transepts, in the lofty screen to the west of the stalls, suggesting a hidden nave beyond, and in the glimpses of the Lady Chapel across the eastern ambulatory, he would see the completed choir of some collegiate church, of which the principal architectural features suggested an ancient foundation. It is true that, in the church of fifty years ago, the Norman details were still very distinct, though the round arches of the arcades had been parodied by the Georgian windows of the east end, and by the plastered romanesque reredos ”

“ The sturdy and grey old church which has seen so many centuries of change and decay in the life around it, which has even seen the very face of nature alter in the haven beneath, has not changed in any essential since the great De Braose of the eleventh century built it on the foundations of its Saxon predecessor, whose massive walls still support a goodly part of the Norman building. ”

“ But surviving instances of churches wholly or mainly Norman are rare: the best examples are Compton Martin, Christon, and Stoke-sub-Hamdon. There is herring-bone work at Elm and Marston Magna. Of Norman chancel arches and doorways retained when the body of the church has been re-constructed the examples are numerous; noteworthy are those at Glastonbury, Milborne Port, Stoke-Courcy, Lullington, Huish Episcopi, Portbury, St Catherine, South Stoke, Flax Bourton, Langridge, Clevedon, Chewton Mendip, Englishcombe. ”

“ This splendid Norman building is the church of the Abbey built in the middle of the eleventh century by Raoul de Tancarville who was William's Chamberlain at the time of the conquest of England. The abbey buildings are now in ruins but the church has remained almost untouched during the eight centuries and more which have passed during which Normandy was often bathed in blood, and when towns and castles were sacked two or three times over. ”

“ Norwich Cathedral is justly celebrated for the beauty of its interior. Entering from the upper close by the north aisle door, and then taking a position immediately under the great west window, facing east, there is before one the long perspective of the Norman nave, the choir and presbytery, while overhead comes the later vault, telling richly by contrast with the severe plainness of the earlier work below. The extreme length of the cathedral is about 407 feet. The nave, always long in Norman churches, is here over 200 feet from the west door to the choir screen. ”

“ The Norman work of this period is the earliest of which any traces remain in the present church, unless the doubtful signs on a shaft in the exterior are to be taken as evidence of Saxon workmanship. This shaft is attached to the north wall of the Chapel of St. John-the-Divine (now used as a clergy vestry) , which is perhaps the oldest part of the fabric. The undoubted Norman remains consist of three arches in the same chapel, where their outline is just discernible among the brickwork; the fragment of a string-course, with billet moulding, on the inner wall of the north transept ”

“ At the north-east corner of the cloisters we find the door into the chapel.
This bears little resemblance to the conventional College Chapel, being a cruciform church of the ordinary Norman shape, with a central tower. Very little of the work, however, is Norman, for the nuns did not get far on with their design (p. 149) till the twelfth century had come in and the Early English period had commenced. A beautiful gem of this style the chapel is, and, for once in a way, the drastic "restoration" to which it was subjected in early Victorian days is matter of real thankfulness. ”

“ There is no need to describe anew a building so well known as the cathedral church of Coutances. There is no need to argue against, there is hardly need to wonder at, the strange belief against which Gally Knight and others had to fight, that this beautiful example of the fully developed Early Gothic was really the work of that Bishop Geoffrey who blessed the Norman host on its march from Hastings to Senlac. ”

“ Even as regards the more subordinate features of the Hildebrandine reformation, simony and the celibacy of the clergy, the response of the Norman and English churches to the demand for reformation had been incomplete and half-hearted, and not even the beginning of a papal party had shown itself in either country. This exceptional position is to be accounted for by the great strength of the crown, and also by the fact that the sovereign in his dealings with the Church was following in both states the policy marked out by a long tradition. ”

“ It was not till 1888 that the plaster was removed from the walls, and these arches exposed to view. It was then obvious that they had been part of a permanent church, and not merely temporary doorways for the convenience of Norman masons. Rough as they seem, to the expert they bear marks of care and repair, of having been, in fact, preserved as a specially venerated part of the church. As an instance of this, Mr. Park Harrison points out that one of the supporting stones is quite two feet long (longer than any other in the cathedral) , and has Norman tooling upon it. ”