GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE, 



mouth, thai they tr.ndc differont journies to Rome, and (ludicd 

 the architcdiiire of the churchof .St. Peter's and otherchurchcs 

 there, and that they even hired workmen from thence to 

 f xecute their works in England. Thus it evidently appears, 

 that the ilylc of architecture, which is called the Saxon ftyle, 

 was not the invention of our anceftors, but was imported 

 from Italy in the feventh century ; and it is equally evident, 

 from various mommients, that the Italians in this and the fub- 

 fcquent ages built in the fame heavy manner, and made ufe 

 of the fame members and ornaments, that the Englilh Saxons 

 did. Still the architefture of our anceftors, previoufly to 

 the conqueft, thougli very heavy and rude, has been too 

 much depretiated by many Englifh writers. The Rev. Mr. 

 Bentham, in his " Hiftory of the Churcli of Ely," orrath-r 

 the poet Gray, who drew up the arehiteftural part ol that 

 work, refutes Somner,Staveley, and oilier authors, who deny 

 that the Saxon builders made ufe of llone for their buildings, 

 or knew how to turn an arch ; but tlien this very writer fails 

 to do them the juftice due to them, where he fignifies that 

 they were unacquainted with the ufe of towers, bells, and 

 • tranfepts, previoufly to the tenth century. It would have 

 .baen ttrange if they had not imported thefe amongll other 

 ecclehailical inventions from Italy during the preceding 

 centuries ; but we havcotherwife fufilcient proofs that they 

 had adopted each of them long before the tenth century. 



During a great part of the ninth and tenth centuries, Eng- 

 land and France were as much harafTed by invafions of the 

 Niu'thern barbarians, as their former inhabitants, the Gauls 

 and Britons, had been in the fifth century, by the anceftors 

 of the now civilized Saxons and French. Thefe turbulent 

 invaders, who were indiiTerently called Danes or Normans, 

 were guilty of much greater devaftalion upon the exifting 

 religious monumeqts, at leaft, than the Goths and Vandals 

 liad committed ; becaufe the latter were Chriftians, though 

 Arians, when they over-ran the civihzed world ; whereas the 

 . Danes and Normans, when they invaded England and France, 

 were perfecuting Pagans. So great was tiie dread of their 

 violence throughout the laft mentioned country, that the fol- 

 lowing petition was there added to the litany : " From the 

 fury of the Normans, O Lord deliverus." In fact, the Almigh- 

 ty was pleafed to deliver firft France and then England, from 

 the fcourge which had fo long and fo forely afthfted them ; 

 but_in a very different manner from whatthe Chr.flian inhabit- 

 ant^ expefted. Inftead of witncftlng tlic extermination or lub- 

 jugation of their barbarous enemies, they faw them bend their 

 necks to the yoke of Chrift, and become models of piety 

 and morality to themfelves and the other Chriftian nations. 

 Jvichat leail was tlie cafe with the Northern men, \\'ho fet- 

 tled iu that part of France, which from them has fuice been 

 railed Normandy. A lafting peace and tranquillity being, 

 llirough this happy event, retlored to the French provinces, 

 its princes and nobles began to rebuild their demolilhed 

 churches, and to ereft others witli incredible diligence. But 

 no people Ihewed lo much zeal in this undertaking as the 

 jirwiy converted Normans. The reader will be convinced of 

 this, when he is given to underftand that William the Con- 

 q-.ieror, during the few years that he reigned in Normandy, 

 previoully tohis invafion of England, built two noble churches 

 and abbeys, and his nobles, not fewer than thirty-eight, each 

 of them vieing with the reft, to make his building the moft 

 magniflcent and fplendid. Such were the Normans, the 

 .hraveft, moll indulirious, and nioft religious people, and the 

 u-'.oil adilifled, in particular, to ecclefiaftical architetf ure of 

 all Chriftian people, when William, their prince, with the 

 Rower of his nobles, his army, and his eccleliaftics, came to 

 fettle in p'ngland foon after the middle of the eleventh century. 

 It is to be obferved, that the moft celtbrated fchocls uf 

 4 



literature and the arts, and more particularly of arcliiteifluvp 

 in Europe, at this pA'riod, were the abbeys of Bee and 

 Caen in Normandy, the former of \%-hIch produced thof* 

 three great architefts, Lanfranc and Anftim, fucceftively 

 archbhliops of Canterbury, and Gundulph, biflnip of Ro- 

 chefter. But indeed all the Norman prelates and abbots ap- 

 pear to have been able architects ; for there was hardly a 

 Cathedral or abbey church in England which was not re- 

 built by one or other of them, in the courfe of thirty or forty 

 years after the conqueft. The charafters which they aimed 

 at in tliefe ftruftures were evidently the iubliir.e and beauti- 

 ful. To produce the former cffcfl, they built tlieir churches 

 asking and as lofty as poffible ; to produce the latter effetf, 

 they not only built in a much more neat and perlecf manner 

 than the Saxons had done, but alio th.ey made ufe of certain 

 new invented ornaments in their ftrudtures. Of thefe tlie 

 moft oftenlible and ordinary was the arcade or ferles ot arches 

 which, in one or other of its various forms, is to be met 

 with in all the exifting Norman churches. From the con- 

 tinued eflbrts of thefe indefatigable and ingenious architefta, 

 to make their churches as awful and as beautiful as poflible, 

 before tlie middle of the twelfth century, a new ftyle tvf 

 building was produced, calkd " the Pointed Style." It 

 certainly appeared, for the firft time, cither in England or 

 in France ; neverthelefs, the firft afcertaiiied inftance of it 

 which has hitherto been produced, claims the honour of tf« 

 invention fortius country. But before we proceed to give a 

 more particular account of the rife and progrefs of this lingu- 

 lar ftyle of building, it will be proper to detail the various 

 other fyilenis which have been publKhed refpefting it. 



It has been fccn above, that Mr. Evelyn and fir Chrifto- 

 pher Wren defcribe the architefture of the middk ages, in 

 general, whetlKr circular or pointed, under the opprobrious 

 term of Gothic, as being the real invention of the Goths and 

 other barbarians. The former of thefe wnttrs, as quoted 

 with applaule by the latter, fays, in his " Parentalia :'' 

 " The Goths and Vandals having demoliftied the Greek and 

 Roman architefture, /H/zW/zcf;/, in its ftead, a certain fantaill- 

 cal and licentious manner of building, which we have finne 

 called modern Gothic, of the greateft induftry and expen- 

 five carving, full of fret and lamentable imagery, fparing 

 neither pains norcoft." We fee that the writer here fpeaks 

 of the light pointed ornamental ftyle of our anceftors no 

 lels clearly than he does in another paftage, quoted above, 

 of the plain heavy circular ftyle, called the Saxon ; and 

 that he iuppoies the foi-mer bo lefs than the latter to have 

 been really introduced into the countries, which had formed 

 the Roman empire, by the Goths and Vandals, who fubdued 

 them. How little reafon there is for afcribing the Saxon 

 fiyle to thefe barbarians has been (liewn above ; and, with 

 refpecl to the pointed ftyle, it is fuff.cient to obferve that 

 this appeared in no part of Chrlftendom before the twelfth 

 century ; whereas the Goths and Vandals committed what- 

 ever depredations on the monuments of Roman art, which 

 they did commit, in the fifth century, and that their pov.'er 

 was every wheiT crullied, and their very name extinguifticd 

 in the courfe of the iixth century, except, indeed, in Spain, 

 where the name of Gothic remained attached to the reigning 

 family, till the beginning of the eighth century and no longer. 

 So groundlels and ab.urd, in every refpcit, is the term 

 Gothic, as applied to pointed architefture ! 



At the fame time that fir Chrlllopher commends the fyftem 

 of his friend Mr. Evelyn, he himfelf departs from it, fince 

 he prefers the word Saracenic to denote the pointed ftyle. 

 " What we now vulgarly call the Gothic," he fays, " ought 

 properly and truly to be named Siiraceulc architefture, refined 

 by the Chriftians. which firft vf all began in the Eaft, after 



the 



