Читать книгу Cathedral Cities of England - George Walker Gilbert - Страница 5

NGLO-SAXON.—Anglo-Saxon may be briefly summed up as an inferior style of Romanesque, more especially the latter part, when it was considered necessary to build in imitation of the Roman way. In the early years of this period the advantages of stone, due to inconvenience of its carriage or lack of skill, were not widely known in England. For the most part the buildings were composed of wood with a thatched roof. Though it is true several buildings were also constructed of stone, and glass was used, yet it was only with advanced knowledge, introduced by Continental workmen, who came over in the seventh century, that architecture approached anything like a definite style.

It reached this stage just a few years before the Norman Conquest. The arches were usually plain, and always semi-circular. The columns were cylindrical, hexagonal, or octagonal, and thick in proportion to their height. The towers, as a rule, were square, and not very lofty. They were strongly but crudely worked, strip pilasters, i. e., slender columns, being introduced. Circular-headed openings served as upper windows of these towers. They were divided into two lights by rounded balusters, sometimes with caps heavily projected.

Norman.—The Norman churches were mostly cruciform in plan, with a central tower. The east end was frequently terminated by an apse. Vast columns, either circular, octagonal, or simply clustered, separated the aisles from the naves. The arches were chiefly semi-circular, the round arch being used everywhere for ornament. The Norman towers are also generally square, with a somewhat stunted appearance. Many have no buttresses whatever, whilst others are served with broad, flat, shallow projections, which assert themselves more for show than for utility. The reason for this is that the Normans built their buildings with walls immensely thick with an eye to stability. The heavy appearance of their towers is cleverly relieved by the introduction of arcades around them, as at St. Albans, and occasionally richly ornamented, as shown at Norwich and Winchester.

At one of the angles there is frequently a stone staircase. The upper windows of these towers differ little from the Anglo-Saxon, except in that the two lights are separated by a shaft or short column in place of the rounded baluster.

The Norman doorways are a great feature. They are generally adorned with a series of columns with enriched arch mouldings spanning from capital to capital.

Their vaults were heavily constructed at no great height from the ground, and generally applied to the aisles of churches. They exerted a greater thrust on the walls than the later Gothic vaults.

Norman.—These churches are generally to be found perched on commanding sites, chosen as natural places of defence. Often a river wound round the base, and where it led short, a moat was constructed on the landward side, and borrowed its water from the river.

The activity of the Norman builders is astounding, and forms a great contrast to the few years before their advent. For a short time architecture suffered a paralysis. Not till the much-dreaded Millennium (1000 A.D.), when it was thought the world would certainly come to an end, had passed did people take heart again, and architects make up for lost time.

Early English.—In this period the massive Norman walls gave way to walls reduced in thickness. The buttresses became of more structural significance. Also, flying-buttresses gradually came into use to strengthen the weakness of the upper works, caused by the reduction of the walls in thickness. The pillars were elongated, and of slight construction. The doorways, windows and arcades were built with polished marble obtained from the Isle of Purbeck.

The science of vaulting became more advanced.

The towers were taller and more elegant, with plain parapets. They were generally furnished with windows. The lower ones resembled much the arrow-slit formation of the Norman style. The upper windows were grouped in twos and threes.

The broach-spire now came into notice. It was added on to the square tower, and at the early part of this style was low in height, but gradually became taller.

The circular-headed windows of the Normans gave place to the narrow-pointed lancets of the Early English. These admitted little light, and necessitated a greater number of windows, which were grouped into couplets or triplets.

Geometrical.—The window, by the gradual process of piercing the vacant spaces in the window-head, carrying mouldings around the tracery (or ornamental filling-in), and adding cusps (the point where foliations of tracery intersect), gave rise to Geometrical work.

The earliest work of this kind is found in Westminster Abbey.

Decorated.—The towers are made to appear lighter by the parapets being either embattled or pierced with elegant designs, and pinnacles placed on them.

The broach-spires gave place to spires springing at once from the octagon. The buttresses are set angularly. In this period the architects failed to maintain the vigour of the Geometrical period. The Decorated windows are formed of portions of circles, with their centres falling on the intersection of certain geometrical figures.

There is a glorious example afforded by the west window at York.

Perpendicular.—The towers are generally richly panelled throughout; the buttresses project boldly—sometimes square, or sometimes set at an angle, but not close to each other.

The pinnacles are often richly canopied. The battlements panelled, and frequently pierced. In the middle of the parapet now and then is placed a pinnacle or a canopied niche.