CHAPTER VIII.FRANKISH ARCHITECTURE.
CONTENTS.
CONTENTS.
CONTENTS.
Historical notice—The pointed arch—Freemasonry—Mediæval architects.
Thearchitectural history of the Central or Frankish province is widely different from that of any of those we have yet examined. At the end of the 5th century the whole of the North of France was overrun by Clovis and his Franks, and on his death in 511 his dominions were divided into four kingdoms, of which Metz, Paris, Soissons, and Orleans, were the capitals. If we take these cities as centres, and add their districts together, they correctly represent the limits of the architectural province we are now entering upon. With various fluctuations, sometimes one kingdom, sometimes two or even three being absorbed in one, they were at last united under Pepin in 748, only to make way for the accession of Charlemagne and his universal empire over the whole Gothic districts of Europe, with the exception of England and Spain.
With the Merovingian kings we have nothing to do; they have not left one single building from which to judge of the state of the art during their ascendency—(they must have been Aryanspur sang)—nor can our history with propriety be said even to begin in France with Charlemagne. His accession marks the epoch towards which an archæologist may hope to trace back the incunabula of the style, but as yet no single building has been found in France which can with certainty be ascribed to his reign. The nave at Montier-en-Der, the Basse Œuvre at Beauvais, and other buildings, may approach his age in antiquity, but we must travel down to the time of Capet (987) ere we find anything that can be considered as the germ of what followed.
This may in a great measure be owing to the confusion and anarchy that followed on the death of Charlemagne; and to the weakness of the kings, the disorganisation of the people, and the ravages of the Northmen and other barbarians, from which it resulted that no part of France was in a less satisfactory position for the cultivation of the arts of peace than that which might have been expected to take the lead inall. Thus, while the very plunder of the Central province enabled the Normans to erect and sustain a powerful state on the one side, and to adorn it with monuments which still excite our admiration, and the organisation of the monks of Burgundy on the other hand promoted the cultivation of arts of peace to an extent hardly known before their time in Northern Europe, Central France remained incapable even of self-defence, and still more so of raising monuments of permanent splendour.
There must no doubt have been buildings in the Romanesque style in this province, but they were few and insignificant compared with those we have been describing, either in the South or in Normandy and Burgundy. Even in Paris the great church of St. Germain des Prés, the burial-place of the earlier kings, and apparently the most splendid edifice of the capital, was not more than 50 ft. in width by 200 in length before the rebuilding of its chevet in the pointed style, and it possessed no remarkable features of architectural beauty. St. Geneviève was even smaller and less magnificent; and if there was a cathedral, it was so insignificant that it has not been mentioned by any contemporary historian.
Several of the provincial capitals probably possessed cathedrals of some extent and magnificence. All these, however, were found so unsuited to the splendid tastes of the 12th and 13th centuries, that they were pulled down and rebuilt on a more extended scale; and it is only from little fragmentary portions of village churches that we learn that the round Gothic style was really at one time prevalent in the province, and possessed features according to its locality resembling more or less those of the neighbouring styles. So scanty indeed are such traces, that it is hardly worth while to recapitulate here the few observations that might occur on the round Gothic styles as found within the limits of the province.[33]
This state of affairs continued down to the reign of Louis le Gros, 1108-1136, under whom the monarchy of France began to revive. This monarch, by his activity and intelligence, restored to a considerable extent the authority of the central power over the then independent vassals of the crown. This was carried still further under the reign of his successor, Louis le Jeune (1137-1179), though perhaps more was owing to the abilities of the Abbé Suger than to either of these monarchs. He seems to have been one of those great men who sometimes appear at a crisis in the history of their country, to guide and restore what otherwise might be left to blind chance and to perishfor want of a master mind. Under Philip Augustus the country advanced with giant strides, till under St. Louis it arrived at the summit of its power. For a century after this it sustained itself by the impulse thus given to it, and with scarcely an external sign of that weakness which betrayed itself in the rapidity with which the whole power of the nation crumbled to pieces under the first rude shock sustained in 1346 at Crecy from the hand of Edward III.
More than a century of anarchy and confusion followed this great event, and perhaps the period of the English wars may be considered as the most disastrous of the whole history of France, as the previous two centuries had been the most brilliant. When she delivered herself from these troubles, she was no longer the same. The spirit of the Middle Ages had passed away. The simple faith and giant energy of the reigns of Philip Augustus and St. Louis were not to be found under Louis IX. and his inglorious successors. With the accession of Francis I. a new state of affairs succeeded, to the total obliteration of all that had gone before, at least in art.
The improvement of architecture, keeping pace exactly with the improved political condition of the land, began with Louis le Gros, and continued till the reign of Philip of Valois (1108 to 1328). It was during the two centuries comprised within this period that pointed architecture was invented, which became the style, not only of France, but of all Europe during the Middle Ages; and is,par excellence, the Gothic style of Europe. The cause of this pre-eminence is to be found partly in the accident of the superior power of the nation to which the style belonged at this critical period, but more to the artistic feelings of their race; and also because the style was found the most fitted to carry out certain religious forms and decorative principles which were prevalent at the time, and which will be noted as we proceed.
The style, therefore, with which this chapter is concerned is that which commenced with the building of the Abbey of St. Denis, by Suger,A.D.1144,[34]which culminated with the building of the Sainte Chapelle of Paris by St. Louis, 1244, and which received its greatest amount of finish at the completion of the choir of St. Ouen at Rouen by Mark d’Argent, in 1339. There are pointed arches to be found in the Central province, as well as all over France, before the time of theAbbé Suger; but they are only the experiments of masons struggling with a constructive difficulty, and the pointed style continued to be practised for more than a century and a half after the completion of the choir of St. Ouen, but no longer in the pure and vigorous style of the earlier period. Subsequent to this it resembles more the efforts of a national style to accommodate itself to new tastes and new feelings, and to maintain itself by ill-suited arrangements against the innovation of a foreign style which was to supersede it, and the influence of which was felt long before its definite appearance.
The sources from which the pointed arch was taken have been more than once alluded to in the preceding pages. It is a subject on which a great deal more has been said and written than was at all called for by the real importance of the question. Scarcely anything was done in pointed architecture which had not already been done in the round-arch styles. Certainly there is nothing which could not have been done, at least nearly as well, and many things much better, by adhering to the complete instead of to the broken arch. The coupling and compounding of piers had already been carried to great perfection, and the assignment of a separate function to each staff was already a fixed principle. Vaulting too was nearly perfect, only that the main vaults were either hexapartite or six-celled, instead of quadripartite, as they afterwards became; an improvement certainly, but not one of much importance. Ribbed vaulting was the greatest improvement which the Mediæval architects made on the Roman vaults, giving not only additional strength of construction, but an apparent vigour and expression to the vault, which is one of the greatest beauties of the style. This system was in frequent use before the employment of the pointed arch. The different and successive planes of decoration were also one of the Mediæval inventions which was carried to greater perfection in the round Gothic styles than in the pointed. Indeed, it is a fact, that except in window tracery, and perhaps in pinnacles and flying buttresses, there is not a single important feature in the pointed style that was not invented and in general use before its introduction. Even of windows, which are the important features of the new style, by far the finest are the circular or wheel windows, which have nothing pointed about them, and which always fit awkwardly into the pointed compartments in which they are placed. In smaller windows, too, by far the most beautiful and constructively appropriate tracery is that where circles are introduced into the heads of the pointed windows. But, after hundreds of experiments and expedients had been tried, the difficulty of fitting these circles into spherical triangles remained, and the unpleasant form to which their disagreement inevitably gave rise, proved ultimately so intolerable, that the architects were forced to abandon the beautiful constructive geometric tracery for the flowing or flamboyant form; and this last was so ill adapted to stone construction,that the method was abandoned altogether. These and many other difficulties would have been avoided, had the architects adhered to the form of the unbroken arch; but on the other hand it must be confessed that the pointed forms gave a facility of arrangement which was an irresistible inducement for its adoption; and especially to the French, who always affected height as the principal element of architectural effect, it afforded an easy means for the attainment of this object. Its greatest advantage was the ease with which any required width could be combined with any required height. With this power of adaptation the architect was at liberty to indulge in all the wildness of the most exuberant fancy, hardly controlled by any constructive necessities of the work he was carrying out. Whether this was really an advantage or not, is not quite clear. A tighter rein on the fancy of the designer would certainly have produced a purer and severer style, though we might have been deprived of some of those picturesque effects which charm so much in Gothic cathedrals, especially when their abruptness is softened by time and hallowed by associations. We must, however, in judging of the style, be careful to guard ourselves against fettering our judgment by such associations. There is nothing in all this that might not have been as easily applied to round as to pointed arches, and indeed it would certainly have been so applied, had any of the round-arched styles arrived at maturity.
Far more important than the introduction of the pointed arch was the invention of painted glass, which is really the important formative principle of Gothic architecture; so much so, that there would be more meaning in the name, if it were called the “painted-glass style,” instead of the pointed-arch style.
In all the earlier attempts at a pointed style, which have been alluded to in the preceding pages, the pointed arch was confined to the vaults, pier arches, and merely constructive parts, while the decorative parts, especially the windows and doorways, were still round-headed. The windows were small, and at considerable distances, a very small surface of openings filled with plain white glass being sufficient to admit all the light that was required for the purposes of the building, while more would have destroyed the effect by that garish white light that is now so offensive in most of our great cathedrals. As soon, however, as painted glass was introduced, the state of affairs was altered: the windows were first enlarged to such an extent as was thought possible without endangering the safety of the painted glass, with the imperfect means of supporting it then known.[35]All circular plans were abandoned, and polygonal apses and chapels of the chevet introduced; and lastly, the windows being made to occupy as nearlyas was possible the whole of each face of these polygonal apses, the lines of the upper part of the window came internally into such close contact with the lines of the vault, that it was almost impossible to avoid making them correspond the one with the other. Thus the windows took the pointed form already adopted for constructive reasons in the vaults. This became even more necessary when the fashion was introduced of grouping two or three simple windows together so as to form one; and when those portions of wall which separated these windows one from the other had become attenuated into mullions, and the upper part into tracery, until in fact the entire wall was taken up by this new species of decoration.
So far as internal architecture is concerned, the invention of painted glass was perhaps the most beautiful ever made. The painted slabs of the Assyrian palaces are comparatively poor attempts at the same effect. The hieroglyphics of the Egyptians were far less splendid and complete; nor can the painted temples of the Greeks, nor the mosaics and frescoes of the Italian churches, be compared with the brilliant effect and party-coloured glories of the windows of a perfect Gothic cathedral, where the whole history of the Bible was written in the hues of the rainbow by the earnest hand of faith.
Unfortunately no cathedral retains its painted glass in anything like such completeness; and so little is the original intention of the architects understood, that we are content to admire the plain surface of white glass, and to consider this as the appropriate filling of traceried windows, just as our fathers thought that whitewash was not only the purest, but the best mode of decorating a Gothic interior. What is worse, modern architects, when building Gothic churches, fill their sides with large openings of this glass, not reflecting that a gallery of picture-frames without the pictures is after all a sorry exhibition; but so completely have we lost all real feeling for the art, that its absurdity does not strike us now.
It will, however, be impossible to understand what follows, unless we bear in mind that all windows in all churches erected after the middle of the 12th century were at least intended to be filled with painted glass, and that the principal and guiding motive in all the changes subsequently introduced into the architecture of the age was to obtain the greatest possible space and the best-arranged localities for its display.
The institution of freemasonry is another matter on which, like the invention of the pointed arch, a great deal more has been said than the real importance of the subject at all deserves. Still this subject has been considered so all-important, that it is impossible to pass itover here without some reference, if only to explain why so little notice will be taken of its influence, or of the important names which are connected with it.
Before the middle of the 12th and beginning of the 13th century, it is generally admitted that the corporation of freemasons was not sufficiently organised to have had much influence on art. At that time it is supposed to have assumed more importance, and to have been the principal guiding cause in the great change that then took place in architecture. Those who adopt this view, forget that at that time all trades and professions were organised in the same manner, and that the guild of masons differed in no essential particulars from those of the shoemakers or hatters, the tailors or vintners—all had their masters and past-masters, their wardens, and other officers, and were recruited from a body of apprentices, who were forced to undergo years of probationary servitude before they were admitted to practise their arts.
But though their organisation was the same, the nature of their pursuits forced one very essential distinction upon the masons, for inasmuch as all the usual trades were local, and the exercise of them confined to the locality where the tradesmen resided, the builders were, on the contrary, forced to go wherever any great work was to be executed.
Thus the shoemakers, tailors, bakers, and others, lived among their customers, and just in such numbers as were required to supply their usual recurring wants. It is true the apprentices travelled to learn their profession and see the world before settling down, but after that each returned to his native town or village, and then established himself among his friends or relatives, where he was known by all, and where he at once took his station without further trouble.
With the mason it was different: his work never came to him, nor could it be carried on in his own house; he was always forced to go to his work; and when any great church or building was to be erected in any town, which was beyond the strength of the ordinary tradesmen of the place to undertake, masons were sent for, and flocked from all the neighbouring towns and districts to obtain employment.
At a time when writing was almost unknown among the laity, and not one mason in a thousand could either read or write, it is evidently essential that some expedient should be hit upon by which a mason travelling to his work might claim the assistance and hospitality of his brother masons on the road, and by means of which he might take his rank at once, on reaching the lodge, without going through tedious examinations or giving practical proof of his skill. For this purpose a set of secret signs was invented, which enabled all masons to recognise one another as such, and by which also each man could makeknown his grade to those of similar rank, without further trouble than a manual sign, or the utterance of some recognised pass-word. Other trades had something of the same sort, but it never was necessary for them to carry it either to the same extent nor to practise it so often as the masons, they being for the most part resident in the same place and knowing each other personally. The masons, who thus from circumstances became more completely organised than other trades, were men skilled in the arts of hewing and setting stones, acquainted with all recent inventions and improvements connected with their profession, and capable of carrying out any work that might be entrusted to them, though they never seem to have attempted to exercise their calling except under the guidance of some superior personage, either a bishop or abbot, or an accomplished layman. In the time of which we are speaking, which was the great age of Gothic art, there is no instance of a mason of any grade being called upon to furnish the designs as well as to execute the work.
It may appear strange to us in the 19th century, among whom the great majority really do not know what true art means, that six centuries ago eminent men, not specially educated to the profession of architecture, and qualified only by talent and good taste, should have been capable of such vast and excellent designs; but a little reflection will show how easy it is to design when art is in the right path.
If for instance we take a cathedral, any one of a series—let us say of Paris; when completed, or nearly so, it was easy to see that though an improvement on those which preceded it, there were many things in its construction or design which might have been better. The side-aisles were too low, the gallery too large, the clerestory not sufficiently spacious for the display of the painted glass, and so on. Let us next suppose the Bishop of Amiens at that period determined on the erection of his cathedral. It was easy for him or his master-mason to make these criticisms, and also to perceive how these mistakes might be avoided; they could easily see where width might be spared, especially in the nave, and where a little additional height and a little additional length would improve the effect of the whole. During the progress of the Parisian works also some capitals had been designed, or some new form of piers adopted, which were improvements on preceding examples, and more confidence and skill would also have been derived from the experience gained in the construction of arches and vaults. All these of course would be adopted in the new cathedral; and without making drawings, guided only by general directions as to the plan and dimensions, the masons might proceed with the work, and, introducing all the new improvements as it progressed, they would inevitably produce a better result than any that preceded it, without any especial skill on the part either of the master-mason or his employer.
If a third cathedral were to be built after this, it would of coursecontain all the improvements made during the progress of the second, and all the corrections which its results suggested; and thus, while the art was really progressive, it required neither great individual skill nor particular aptitude to build such edifices as we find.
In fine arts we have no illustration of this in modern times; but all our useful arts advance on the same principles, and lead consequently to the same results. In ship-building, for instance, as mentioned in the Introduction (page45), if we take a series of ships, from those in which Edward III. and his bold warriors crossed the channel to the great line-of-battle ships now lying at anchor in our harbours, we find a course of steady and uninterrupted improvement from first to last. Some new method is tried; if it is found to succeed, it is retained; if it fails, it is dropped. Thus the general tendency constantly leads to progress and improvement. And, to continue the comparison a little further, this progress in the art is not attributable to one or more eminent naval architects. Great and important discoveries have no doubt been made by individuals, but in these cases we may generally assume that, the state of science being ripe for such advances, had the discovery in question not been made by one man, it soon would have occurred to some other.
The fact is, that in a useful art like that of ship-building, or in an art combining use and beauty like that of architecture—that is, when the latter is a real, living, national art—the progress made is owing, not to the commanding abilities of particular men, but to the united influence of the whole public. An intelligent sailor who discusses the good and bad qualities of a ship, does his part towards the advancement of the art of ship-building. So in architecture, the merit of any one admirable building, or of a high state of national art, is not due to one or to a few master minds, but to the aggregation of experience, the mass of intellectual exertion, which alone can achieve any practically great result. Whenever we see any work of man truly worthy of admiration, we may be quite sure that the credit of it is not due to an individual, but to thousands working together through a long series of years.
The pointed Gothic architecture of Germany furnishes a negative illustration of the view which we have taken of the conditions necessary for great architectural excellence. There the style was not native, but introduced from France. French masons were employed, who executed their work with the utmost precision, and with a perfection of masonic skill scarcely to be found in France itself. But in all the higher elements of beauty, the German pointed Gothic cathedrals are immeasurably inferior to the French. They are no longer the expression of the devotional feelings of the clergy and people, and are totally devoid of the highest order of architectural beauty.
The truth of the matter is, that the very pre-eminence of the greatmasonic lodges of Germany in the 14th century destroyed the art. When freemasonry became so powerful as to usurp to itself the designing as well as the execution of churches and other buildings, there was an end of true art, though accompanied by the production of some of the most wonderful specimens of stone-cutting and of constructive skill that were ever produced. This, however, is “building,” not architecture; and though it may excite the admiration of the vulgar, it never will touch the feelings of the true artist or the man of taste.
This decline of true art had nowhere shown itself during the 13th century, with which we are concerned at present. Then architecture was truly progressive: every man and every class in the country lent their aid, each in his own department, and all worked together to produce those wonderful buildings which still excite our admiration. The masons performed their part, and it was an important one: but neither to them nor to their employers, such as the Abbé Suger, Maurice de Sully, Robert de Lusarches, or Fulbert of Chartres, is the whole merit to be ascribed, but to all classes of the French nation, carrying on steadily a combined movement towards a well-defined end.
In the following pages, therefore, it will not be necessary to recur to the freemasons nor their masters—at least not more than incidentally—till we come to Germany. Nor will it be necessary to attempt to define who was the architect of any particular building. The names usually fixed upon by antiquaries after so much search are merely those of the master-masons or foremen of the works, who had nothing whatever to do with the main designs of the buildings. The simple fact that all the churches of any particular age are so like to one another, both in plan and detail, and so nearly equal in merit, is alone sufficient to prove how little the individual had to do with their design, and how much was due to the age and the progress the style had achieved at that time. This, too, has always proved to be the case, not only in Europe, but in every corner of the world, and in every age when architecture has been a true and living art.