ST. MARTIN'S. (From an Old Print.)ST. MARTIN'S.(From an Old Print.)
(From an Old Print.)
"And so we leaveSt. Martin's. Only we wish that for the venerable antiquity of the Church and some time Episcopal estate of the place—things that have much dignified both—it may always flourish in the maintenance of its due rights and respects." With these words of an old writer, we may conclude our description of the church. In anAppendixwe have summed up a few remarks on the controversy that has been raging for the last few years as to the exact origin of the building. Those who argue against its Roman date bid us be content with the assurance that it is undoubtedly the oldest church in England, and tell us that, when St. Augustine knew it, it was small, but quite large enough for the small body of Christians who came over here with Queen Bertha, that it was probably built for her and them, thoughit may have been on the site of a British church. This gives us a continuous record of 1300 years and more. But we arenotcontent! for we believe that it is the oldest existing church inEurope. Older than the churches of St. Maria Maggiore and St. Pudenziana in Rome; than St. Croce, St. Francisco, St. Vitale, St. Apollinare in Classe and St. Apollinare Nuovo at Ravenna. Such churches as St. John Lateran, St. Paolo fuori le Mura and St. Clemente cannot enter into the comparison, for they have been almost entirely rebuilt—and in France and Germany nothing has survived down to our own time, except a few fragments of the many large churches constructed during the Roman occupation. We all desire thattruthshould prevail; but that truth must be established by intimate acquaintance with every detail of the building and a knowledge of the latest explorations, and not depend on facts accepted from hearsay, or a desire to establish any preconceived theory.
Whatever be the decision ultimately arrived at, none can doubt thatSt. Martin'sis one of our grandest historical monuments. Small as it is, it may yet vie with the magnificent cathedral of Christ Church in the glorious associations that have clustered round its hallowed walls, and in point of antiquity surpasses it by several centuries. It has witnessed the progress of the English nation from barbarism to civilisation. The ever-widening stream that has continued to flow from that tiny spring cannot fail to impress the earnest Christian with a lesson of trust in the mysterious ways of Providence. It has preserved its light burning almost continuously from the time of the small band of British Christians, of the worship of pious Queen Bertha and the great St. Augustine, down to that solemn commemoration of 1897, when within its sacred walls were gathered the representatives of the English Church which has spread into all quarters of the civilised and uncivilised world.
Thomas Bolterexchanged withJohn Vag, who was incumbent of the chantry in the hospital of St. Thomas at Eastbridge, in the city of Canterbury.
John Skyeexchanged withJohn Bernard. He had formerly been rector of Dibdin, Hants.
John Browne, a chaplain, became rector on the resignation of John Skye.
William Heynyssigned the Renunciation of the Papal Supremacy in 1534-5.
Eustace Ffrenshambecame insane.
The revelation of fresh features of interest in the church by the recent explorations has attracted wide attention, and revived the controversy as to the probable date of the building. The whole subject was discussed in the spring of 1896 at a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries in London, after an able paper read by Mr W. H. St. John Hope. The question was also brought prominently forward at the Canterbury meeting of the Royal Archæological Institute in July 1896. What the newspapers called "The Battle of St. Martin's" raged with unabated vigour during the week, and, although many opinions were expressed with thatpositivenesswhich is said to mark the true antiquary (a positiveness not always founded on personal knowledge), yet by some well-known experts no pains were spared, and no special and professional attainments were wanting, to determine the issue on a scientific basis. It may be true to the experience of human nature, but yet it seems a feeble conclusion, if we confess that after all this apparently exhaustive debate, the controversy on the main point is as much alive as ever.
Premising that by "the Chancel" is meant the original chancel extending 20 feet eastward from the nave, we may state the following four as the only theories that now hold the field:—
(1) A Roman date for the chancel, and a later Roman date for the nave.
(2) A Roman date for the nave, and a later Roman date for the chancel.
(3) A Roman date for the chancel, and a Saxon date for the nave.
(4) An early Saxon date for the chancel, and a later Saxon date for the nave.
Many of the architectural details bearing on the subject are so minute, and so highly technical, that they are not suitable to the character of this Appendix. We propose, therefore, to confine ourselves chiefly to broadgeneral features, and to narrow the controversy, in the first place, to the question whether there still exists in the church anyRomanworkmanship, or whether even the most ancient part of it must be assigned to theSaxonperiod. It is difficult to avoid recapitulation of many points alluded to in the handbook, but we may summarise the principal arguments in favour of theRomandate of portions of the church as follows: (1)History.—It is distinctly mentioned by Bede that there was (in 597) a church dedicated to St. Martin, built while the Romans still occupied Britain. Now this is direct testimony, to which great weight must be assigned, when we consider the character and authority of the writer. He was born in 673—i.e.only seventy-six years after the mission of Augustine, and sixty-nine years after his death, and wrote his "Ecclesiastical History" in the first part of the eighth century, taking the greatest possible pains to make it worthy of his subject. His information with regard to the history of Christianity in Kent was derived from Albinus, Abbot of St. Augustine's, who was himself a pupil of Theodore (Archbishop of Canterbury in 668) the great consolidator of the English Church. We are told that Albinus referred to the records in his keeping, and sent Nothelm, a priest of London, to search the Archives at Rome, where were preserved many valuable letters of Gregory the Great and subsequent Popes. Considering, then, the extreme carefulness of Bede, and the sources from which he derived his materials, we cannot imagine any evidence (short of first-hand) more trustworthy and valuable. That he should have written as he did, making a positive statement that the Church was built during the Roman occupancy of Britain, while all the time it owed its foundation to Queen Bertha or Augustine, is perfectly incredible. The theory as to its foundation by Queen Bertha has nothing whatever to justify it; and were the idea, that it was founded by Augustine, true, would it not in Bede's time have been an easily ascertained fact, capable probably of documentary proof, especially among those who were inmates of Augustine's own monastery, and would have claimed St. Martin's Church as a precious inheritance—the legacy of their founder? No one impugns the general accuracy of Bede's narrative, and the value of such historical evidence cannot be too strongly insisted upon, for it is infinitely more weighty than anya prioriarguments or negative criticism.
Let us then assume that there was a Roman church in existence on St. Martin's Hill when Augustine came to Canterbury. Is there any evidence to strengthen this assumption in the present building? And, first, as regards the Nave. We have already alluded to what we consider the valuable evidence supplied by the style and texture of thepinkplaster, also the variation of the mortar in the construction of the west windows fromwhitemortar in the joints topinkmortar in the voussoirs of the arch, as well as the Roman-like character of the windows themselves. The objection that "Roman windows were never splayed" may be met (a) by the general statement that the introduction of light by means of a splay is so natural that the idea could not have escaped a Roman builder, especially in countries where there was less light than in Italy. Isidore of Seville, a contemporary of Gregory the Great, living in the midst of Roman work, must be describing what were the distinctive features of windows around him when he says "Fenestræ sunt quibus pars exterior angusta, et interior diffusa est"; and (b) Mr Roach Smith, in his "Collectanea Antiqua" gives several illustrations of Roman splayed windows at Aries, Vienne, etc.,and we are informed that there is one at South Shields, mentioned by Mr Robert Blair, F.S.A.
The character of the walls in the nave of St. Martin's seems to us to agree pretty closely with the technical description of Roman masonry in this country as "chiefly constructed of stone or flint, according to the part of the country in which one or the other material prevailed, embedded in mortar, and bonded at certain intervals throughout with regular courses or layers of large flat bricks or tiles, which, from the inequality of thickness and size, do not appear to have been shaped in any regular mould."
TheNavethen has strong claims to Roman origin, without any reference to theChancel. Mr Livett, however, claims that, whatever be the date of the nave, the brickwork of the originalChancelis certainly earlier, and contends that "the oldest portion of the existing building comprises (1) the side walls of the chancel, extending for 20 feet; (2) the foundations of the destroyed Adjunct that once stood on the south side of the chancel; (3) a portion of the east wall of the nave on either side of the chancel-arch, and (4) certain foundations under the floor of the nave, supposed to be a continuation of the chancel side-walls." It is possible that he is rather too sanguine in concluding that a general agreement has been reached on these points. But, assuming (for the sake of argument) that the chancel is the earlier, then, if we can establish a reasonable probability of a Roman date for the nave,cadit quæstio, so far as the "pro-Saxon" controversialists are concerned. On the other hand, even though it be proved that theNaveis post-Roman, yet still theChancelmay be Roman, since it is in their opinion of confessedly greater antiquity.
Is there anything in theChancelto militate against its Roman origin? It is built inopus lateritium, bricks laid evenly upon one another, an ordinary style of Roman masonry; for instances of which we may refer to remains found at the Roman villas at Wingham and Darenth, at the Studfall Roman castrum at Lympne, the blocked sluice-gate in the Silchester city wall, and countless other places. Allusion has been already made to Mr Micklethwaite's paper on "Saxon Church Building," in which, perhaps somewhat too confidently, he assigns to the Saxon periods the churches of Reculver, Brixworth, St. Pancras, etc. etc. It is a remarkable fact that the plan of St. Martin's Church (either with or without its reputed eastern apse) does not in many essential points agree with the plan of a single one of the churches therein described. And yet, if we accept the date of St. Martin's as post-Roman, it must have been built within less than a hundred years of most of them. He lays special stress on the apparent identity of character between the work atSt. Pancrasand in theChancel of St. Martin's, saying that the "date of one must be very near to that of the other," and as he does not believe that St. Pancras can be Roman, therefore the same may be predicated of St. Martin's. But he makes many assumptions to prove this, taking imaginary sketches and theories for ascertained facts. Even so, the shape of the supposed apse is different in the two, and there is no north porch at St. Martin's as there is at St. Pancras, and if it can be established (as seems likely from recent discoveries) that there was an original chancel-arch at St. Martin's west of the side-chapel, the dissimilarity is even more apparent.
It is outside our purpose to discuss the date of St. Pancras, thoughmany authorities maintain the possibility of its Roman origin. But, granting (for the moment) that St. Pancras' Church was built or restored by Augustine (and this is the latest date assigned to it), the identity in plan and character of the two churches is disputable. Of course, taking St. Martin's as it now exists, there is no similarity whatever, either in regard to the masonry of the nave, or the general outline. There is more similarity (with the exception of the points above mentioned) between St. Pancras and the assumed shape of St. Martin's chancel. But here, too, are points of difference. The walls ofSt. Pancrasare only1 ft. 10 in.in thickness; they are constructed almost entirely of broken bricks, roughly cut to a triangular shape and fitted together in the core, the interstices being filled up with small bits of brick. The walls of St. Martin's chancel are2 ft. 2 in.thick, and contain a much larger proportion of whole bricks, about 12 inches wide, laid side by side in each course, the interval between them being filled up with mortar and small stones. We may mention also the difference in the treatment of the division between nave and chancel. In the churches of St. Pancras, Reculver, Brixworth, Peterborough, Lympne, and Rochester there was a triple chancel-arch. In St. Martin's the space is too narrow to admit of any such arrangement. If we carry back the original building of St. Pancras to Roman times (and we must remember that King Ethelbert is said by Bede to have allowed the Italian Missionaries to build and repairchurchesin all places) we do away with the difficulty as "to the temple of the heathen god being built after the fashion of a Christian church."
We may pass over, as unworthy of serious discussion, the argument that St. Martin's cannot be a Roman church, because no existing Roman churches have yet been discovered in this country! and that it is not Roman because its ground-plan does not tally with the ground-plan of the Roman Church at Silchester. In the first place, we do not know what the original ground-plan of St. Martin's was, and it has not yet been definitely settled whether it may not have possessed side-aisles. And secondly, to contend that it cannot be Roman because it is unlike the church at Silchester would be to limit the capabilities of Roman builders to one monotonous design, perpetually and exactly reproduced for a century or more, which would be contrary both to reason and experience.
There is, however, one objection remaining which must be faced, because it is put forward with all the professional knowledge of a skilful architect. The nave of the church is described as "being built of old stuff used anyway just as it came to hand, and tells of a time when there were ruins near, at which the builders were free to help themselves—a state of things unlikely in Roman Kent, but likely enough after, the wars which accompanied the English occupation." This seems a forcible argument, but it is not altogether borne out by facts, neither is it a fair description. That a great part of St. Martin's Nave is patchy and rudely built no one can deny; but let us consider what periods of destructiveness and neglect it would have passed through, supposing it to have been built in Roman times. Durovernum (Canterbury) was abandoned by the Britons flying before the Jutish invasion, and was at first left unoccupied by the conquerors themselves. Its site lay for many a year uninhabited and desolate; its very name was forgotten, and the church would naturally have fallen into a state of partial ruin. Restored at the coming of Queen Bertha, probably ravaged by the Danes,repaired and enlarged to a great extent in the Early English period, gradually falling once more into decay, in what condition should we expect its walls to be? Even within the last thirty years some interesting features have been destroyed, and the walls have been carelessly patched. When we consider all this, are we surprised if parts of it look like old stuff used anyway? But (as we have stated) this is not a correct description of the lower portion of the walls, especially where they have been comparatively preserved behind the woodwork of the present pews. And even if the description "old stuff," etc., be applicable to portions of the nave walling, the same description would equally apply to the undoubted Roman work in the Pharos at Dover.
Is there not, too, such a thing as a period of decadence in any style? Just as there is good and bad Saxon work, good and bad Norman work, so must there have been good and bad Roman work. We are told in an account of the Roman excavations at Silchester that "examination showed that the rubble masonry of the whole western range (of the basilica) was of avery poor character." "The stones (in a part of the Roman wall of London) form a mere skin, between the tile bonding courses, to the thickirregularrubble core." In the same wall, above the bonding course of three rows of tiles at the ancient ground-level, "the body of the wall is composed throughout its height of masses of ragstone, with now and then a fragment of chalk, beddedvery roughlyin mortar which has been pitched in, not run in, sometimes with so little care as to leave occasional empty spaces amongst the stones." It seems useless to multiply quotations for the purpose of establishing an obvious fact—viz. that granting a generalideaand method pervading a building (as, we believe, there is clearly in St. Martin's nave), it is quite possible that at a time of decadence, and in the hands of inferior (perhaps British) workmen, this idea should be somewhat roughly carried out. This would be eminently the case if we attribute the erection of the nave towards the close of the fourth century—not so very long before the Roman evacuation of Britain.
Since writing the above, we have been informed by Mr Micklethwaite that he places the nave of St. Martin's as dating from the seventh century—but he gives no reason for doing so, except that he thinks the form of the western windows and some other things about the work indicate that period—and he acknowledges that there is nothing to fix the date closer. We have, however, at some length, pointed out reasons that seem to us to militate against his theory, and they need not be re-stated. Though his opinion is deservedly weighty, he has not been able to be present at any of the excavations.
Mr Livett has addressed to us the following communication with reference to the probability of there having been an eastern apse in the church, and has furnished the subjoined sketches to illustrate his remarks:—
Tracings of Apse (Livett's three sketches)
"No doubt exists in my mind that in the western half of the chancel we have the oldest part of the existing church of St. Martin's, and I am inclined to think that it is part of the first church built upon the site. We must recognise, however, the possibility that the foundations of a still earlier church remain undiscovered, either under the present nave or elsewhere in the churchyard.
"The form of theground-planof theearly-brickbuilding (a term we have agreed to use in reference to the masonry at the western half of the existing chancel) has not been positively determined. Its eastern termination wasdestroyed in the extension of the building in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, and its western end disappeared at a far earlier date.
"The probability that this early-brick building terminated eastward in an apse is established by a careful consideration of the existing remains of the south-east angle of that building, marked at the present time by a narrow pilaster-buttress facing south, near the middle of the south wall of the chancel. This buttress has been modernised, with its Caen-stone quoins: but its foundations, lately exposed, prove that it accurately represents, in dimension and position, an original early-brick buttress. The sketches (given above) illustrate the features which indicate an apsidal termination of the original building.No. 1is a plan of part of the existing south wall of the chancel. It shows the buttress, and, immediately east of it, the junction of the twelfth-century wall with the early-brick wall. To complete the description of existing features, it may be added that the inner face of the wall (above some apparent foundations there underneath the floor of the chancel) is rough—an evident sign that early-brick masonry attached to this face was removed when the extension of the chancel was made. Towards the east there are no signs to indicate where the destroyed masonry stopped; but towards the west there are, in the arrangement of the bricks, marks of a vertical bonding-line, exactly corresponding in position with the western face of the buttress on the outside. In that place, then, the destroyed masonry originally rose with a clear face looking west. How far that masonry ran towards the north there is nothing to show. It is a significant fact—proved by the hole lately made through the twelfth-century wall, at its junction with the earlier work—that the end of the early-brick wall is in plane with the eastern face of the external buttress, and that no buttress ever existed on the eastern face of the angle.
"All these features are consistent with the supposition that the early-brick building terminated eastwards in an apse, and consistent with that supposition only. Had the east end been square, the natural treatment would have been as shown inSketch No. 2—there would remain indications of a buttress on the eastern side of the angle, the vertical bonding-joint would be seen farther west, to allow for an end wall of the same thickness (2 ft. 2 in.) as the side-wall—and the existing buttress, instead of being narrow, would probably be of the same breadth as the walls.
"Sketch No. 3shows the natural treatment of an apsidal termination. It explains the absence of a buttress on the eastern face of the angle, such buttress being unnecessary in the case of an apse: and it explains the use of the existing narrow buttress on the southern face, as serving to counter-act the thrust of the facing-arch of the apse. No argument can be drawn from the patch of foundations found under the floor near the wall—and they do not at present run across the chancel; but probably they did so run originally, whether the end were square or apsidal, and have been removed in the centre, to make room for burials.
"The position and arrangement of the west end of the early-brick building cannot at present be determined. That there was a cross-wall along the line of the present chancel-arch is certain. This is sufficiently proved by unmistakable signs of a vertical bonding-joint on the face of the north wall of the chancel, 2-½ inches from the east face of the northern joint of the chancel-arch. This joint allows for a cross-wall of exactly the normal thickness of the early-brick walling. Moreover, you tell me that you haveseen bricks in such a position under the floor in this corner as to suggest a cross-wall. All signs of the corresponding vertical bonding-joint on the opposite side of the chancel have been removed in the patching of alterations which need not here be discussed ... I omitted to say that the evidence of the cross-wall is further strengthened by the remains of an external buttress embedded in the east wall of the nave on the south side. Similar evidence on the north side has been destroyed by the insertion of the small doorway leading from the nave into the modern vestry.
"With regard to the original arrangement of this part of the early-brick building, I am unable to make any conjecture that would satisfactorily explain all these features. The cross-wall may possibly have been the west wall of a small church: in which case the signs of building to the west of it must be connected with a porch oratrium. I think it more likely, however, that the cross-wall was the original division between the chancel and a destroyed nave, and contained a single chancel-arch. The original line of division between chancel and nave has, in most cases, though not invariably, been preserved throughout all enlargements of our churches. It may simply be said that there was a cross-wall as described: the evidence for it is final.
"Theadjunct, the foundations of which were recently exposed, on the south side is important in this consideration: but I have not referred to it, partly because it has been fully dealt with elsewhere, and partly because (as I have said) I have no satisfactory suggestion for the entire restoration of the ground-plan; nor do I venture to suggest dates either for the early-brick building or for the nave. I am convinced that the nave is of later date than the early-brick work" (of the chancel).