The Saxon Church at Bradford-on-Avon. 377 



investigation and reached conclusions from which no serious 

 student will hereafter be able to differ. 



In his first volume he surveys the whole field of the life and 

 manners, the arts and architecture, of our Saxon forefathers, and 

 proves to demonstration that they were neither so rude nor so 

 barbarous as they have been hitherto supposed. He discusses the 

 introduction and the spread of Christianity throughout the country, 

 and shows the place which the ecdcsia, the ecdesiola, and the capcUa 

 held in the life and estimation of the people. 



The whole volume is a most admirable example of the value of 

 first-hand research in historical subjects. 



In the second volume the author proceeds to discuss the existing 

 remains of the ecclesiastical architecture of the Anglo-Saxon period 

 in England, and of these he enumerates no less than three hundred 

 and fifty. One hundred and eighty-three of these are shown on 

 the map which accompanies this volume ; and it is noticeable that 

 while the majority are to be found within the confines of North- 

 umbria and Mercia, they are fairly evenly distributed over East 

 Anglia and Wessex, and in other parts of the country numerous 

 examples are in existence.^ 



A close study of these one hundred and eighty-three ecclesiastical 

 edifices, each containing more or less of Saxon work, has led him 

 to certain criteria, by means of which he is enabled to discriminate 

 between three main periods within the style, which may be roughly 

 described as being before, during, and after the Danish incursions. 

 These periods he distinguishes by the letters A, B, and C: A extending 

 from 600 to 800 ; b from 800 to 950 ; c from 950 to 1066. 



Of these three, the last is again subdivided into c 1, c 2, c3. 



' Saxon architecture proper is confined to England, and is more especially 

 represented in the Eastern and Midland Counties. Examples, if they exist 

 at all, are very infreqvient on the western side of the Pennine chain from 

 Cumberland to the Mersey (Strathclyde), in Stafford and Cheshire, and in 

 Monmouth, Somerset, Dorset and Devon. This may, of course, be explained 

 in great part by the late and gradual Teutonising of the western part of the 

 country ; but it is not a little remarkable to find in Shropshire a kind of 

 wedge of Saxon architecture, driven, so to say, into the midst of the " district 

 in whose early ecclesiology Celtic traditions were predominant." — Op.cit., 

 p. 80. 



VOL. XXXIV. — NO. CVI. 2 D 



