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130 A N N U A L  R E G I S T E R

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Improvements in Architecture by the Normans: from Bentham's History and Antiquities of the Conventual and Cathedral Church of Ely.

THE observation made on rebuilding St. Paul's in King William Rufus's time, by Mauritius, Bp. of that fee, Viz. "That the plan was so extensive, and the design so great, that most people who lived at the time censured it as a rash undertaking, and judged that it would never be accomplished,"-is in the some measure applicable to most of the churches begun by the Normans.-Their plan was indeed great and noble, and they laid out their whole design at first; scarcely, we may imagine, with a view of ever living to see it compleated in their life-time -their way therefore was, usually, to begin at the east end, or the choir part; when that was finished, and covered in, the church was often consecrated, and the remainder carried on as far as they were able, and then left to their successors to be completed: and it is very observable, that all our cathedrals, and most of our abbey churches, besides innumerable parochial churches, were either wholly rebuilt, or greatly improved within less than a century after the conquest, and all of them by Normans introduced into this kingdom; as will evidently appear on examining the history of their several foundations, It was the policy of the first Norman kings to remove the English or Saxons from all places of trust or profit, and admit none but foreigners; insomuch that Malmesbury [[?]], who lived in the reign of Henry the First, observes,

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"That in his time there was not an Englishman that possessed of any post of honour or profit under the government, or of any considerable office in the church." The bishop-pricks and all the best ecclesiastical preferments, were filled by those foreigners, and the estates of the Saxon nobility were divided among them. Thus being enriched and furnished with the means, it must be owned, they spared neither pains nor cost in erecting churches, monasteries, castles, and other edifices both for public and private use, in the most stately and sumptuous manner. And, I think, we may venture to say, that the circular arch, round-headed doors and windows, massive pillars, with a kind of regular base and capital, and thick walls, without any very prominent buttresses, were universally used by them to the end of king Henry the First's reign, and are the chief characteristics of their stile of building: and, among other peculiarities that distinguish it, we may observe, that the capitals of their pillars were generally left plain, without any manner of sculpture; though instances occur of foliage and animals on them, as those at the east-side of the south transept at Ely.-The body or trunk of their vast massive pillars were usually plain cylinders, or set off only with small half columns united with them; but sometimes, to adorn them, they used the spiral-groove winding round them, and the Net or Lofenge-work overspreading them; both of which appear at Durham, and the first in the undercroft at Canterbury.-As to their arches, though they were for the most part plain and simple, yet some of their prin-

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For the Y E A R 1772. 131

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principal ones, as those over the chief entrance at the west end, and others most exposed to view, were abundantly charged with sculpture of a particular kind: as the Cheveron-work or Zigzag-moulding, the most common of any; and various other kinds of rising and falling, jetting out and receding inward alternately, in a waving or undulating manner: -the Embattled-frette, a kind of ornament formed by a single round moulding, traversing the face of the arch, making its returns and crossings always ay right-angles, so forming the intermediate spaces into squares alternately open above and below; specimens of this kind of ornament appear on the great arches in the middle of the west front at Lincoln, and within the ruinous part of the building adjoining to the great western tower at Ely.-the Triangular-frette, where the fame kind of moulding at every return forms the side of an equilateral triangle, and consequently encloses the intermediate spaces in that figure:-the Nail-head, resembling the heads of grat nails, driven in at a regular distance; as in the nave of old St. Paul's, and the great tower at Hereford; (all of them found also in more ancient Saxon buildings,)-the Billeted-moulding, as if a cylinder should be cut into small pieces of equal length, and these stuck on alternately round the face of the arches; as in the choir of Peterborough, at St. Crofs[[?]], and round the windows of the upper tire on the outside of the nave at Ely: -this latter ornament was often used, (as were also some of the others) as a Falcia, Band, or Fillet, round the outside of their buildings -Then, to adorn the inside walls

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below, they had rows of little pillars and arches; and applied them also to decorate large vacant spaces in the walls without: -and the Corbel-table, consisting of a series of small arches without pillars, but with heads of men and animals, serving instead of corbels or brackets to support them which they placed below the parapet, projecting over the upper, and sometimes the middle tire of windows: -the Hatched moulding used both on the faces of the arches, or for a Falcia on the outside; as if cut with the point of an ax at regular distances, and so left rough: -and the Nebule, a projection terminated by an undulating line [[wavey line]], as under the upper range of windows at Peterborough. -To these marks that distinguish the Saxon or Norman style, we may add, that they had no Tabernacles (or Niches)
with canopies, or pinnacles, or spires, or indeed any statues, to adorn their buildings on the outside, which are the principal grace of what is now called the Gothic; unless those small figures we sometimes meet with over their doorways, such is that little figure of Bishop Herebert Losing[[?]], over the north transept door at Norwich, seemingly of that time, or another small figure of our saviour over one of the south doors at Ely, &c. may be called so. But these are rather mezzo-relievos than statues; and it is known, that they used reliefs sometimes with profusion; as in the Saxon or Norman gateway at Bury, and the two south doors at Ely. Escutcheons of arms are hardly (if ever seen in these fabricks, though frequent enough in after-times; -neither was there any tracery in their vaultings. -
K2 These

Transcription Notes:
first ?: I'm not sure if it's Malmefbury or Malmesbury. second ?:crofs or cross Third ?: Losing or Lofing