HOLY ISLAND PRIORY.

BY HENRY CLARKE, M.D.[15]

I have been induced to draw up the following sketch of the Priory of Holy Island, from its being the most beautiful fragment of antiquity in the district to which our researches are confined, as well as from its presenting one of the most remarkable architectural remains of the period to which it belongs in the kingdom.

It need scarcely be mentioned that, in the earlier periods of Christian history, the choice of so unattractive a site was in obedience to the idea which indicated the remote and scarcely accessible island, and the lone and unfrequented desert, as spots peculiarly fitted for that contemplative life, and withdrawal from the world, in which the perfection of religion was supposed to consist.

When the monastic system was introduced into the West, this was its leading and characteristic feature, and the same spirit which had selected the inhospitable island of Iona, induced the monk who issued thence for the conversion of Northumberland, to prefer the bleak sands of Lindesfarne to the present valleys of the adjacent continent.

It would be needless also to dwell upon the advantages derived from monastic establishments during the darker periods of history—their preservation of literature and religion—the solace they afforded to the way-farer and the pilgrim—the asylum they furnished to the poor, the sick, the impotent, and the aged—the influence which they exerted in alleviating, where they could not prevent, the various evils incident to a barbarous age—the peaceful arts which they cultivated, and especially that which enabled them to raise those august and sumptuous edifices, which still remain the grandest examples of architectural skill, and defy all approaches of the moderns to a parity of excellence.

The exercise of these and kindred virtues ought to redeem the monastic institution, when reviewed in a candid and equitable spirit, from the unmeasured obloquy and censure which the license and misrule of some of its branches in later times have drawn down upon it.

There is no doubt, however, that the very virtues, which originally inspired awe and attracted esteem, tended, by a natural process, frequently renewed, and always with similar results, to the gradual corruption and final overthrow of the monastic system.

Long before the Reformation the elements of discontent had been at work, and the clamour against the monasteries had been gradually acquiring force and fixedness, when in the person of

“the majestic lordWho broke the bonds of Rome,”

“the majestic lord

Who broke the bonds of Rome,”

was found a fitting instrument for the expression of the popular will.

In the year 1536, the lesser monasteries were doomed to destruction by the execrable tyrant who wielded the sceptre of England, and the Priory of Holy Island was included in the general wreck.

From that hour it dates its gradual decay and present state of irretrievable ruin. Sir Walter Scott has thus described it in “Marmion:”

“In Saxon strength that abbey frown’d,With massive arches broad and roundThat rose alternate row on row,On ponderous columns short and low,Built ere the art was known,By pointed aisle and shafted stalk,The arcades of an alley’d walk,To emulate in stone.”

“In Saxon strength that abbey frown’d,

With massive arches broad and round

That rose alternate row on row,

On ponderous columns short and low,

Built ere the art was known,

By pointed aisle and shafted stalk,

The arcades of an alley’d walk,

To emulate in stone.”

The latter part of the stanza is a complimentary allusion to the fanciful theory of Sir James Hall concerning the origin of the pointed arch. The application of the termSaxon, it would be impossible to verify or substantiate.

There are no buildings in this country with the characteristic forms of this church, or the distribution into nave and aisles, that belong to so early a period. A few rude structures there certainly are which may have been erected by Saxon architects, one of which occurs in our own district—the tower of Whittingham Church, Northumberland—characterised by a peculiar sort of quoining—consisting of long and short stones, placed alternately over each other—small round-headed apertures divided by a rude balastre, and the absence of buttresses. The term Norman may be safely used, if it be understood simply to designate a style which appeared in this country at the conquest, and prevailed for 125 years, during the Norman rule; but it is in reality Roman, and was derived from the imperial city by the architects who diffused it over Europe, with the religion to which these structures were consecrated. It flourished during the first thousand years of the Christian era, with long interruptions during the dark ages, but its rudiments maybe discerned at this day in the Temple of Peace at Rome, erected during the first century, and in the Halls of the Baths—those colossal structures in which the grandeur of thought and magnificent aims of the Roman people are most conspicuously combined. In these edifices we perceive the general arrangement of our Norman and Gothic churches—a wide central space arched over at top, with the vaults resting on pillars corresponding to our nave; between these pillars lofty arches open into as many vaulted apartments on either side intercommunicating by similar archways and constituting side-aisles. The roof of the side-aisles being considerably lower than that of the central vault, admits the insertion of lights in the main wall looking into the cave, which correspond with our clerestory windows.

The general character of Holy Island Priory is Norman, or to speak more correctly, Romanesque. The West front is almost perfect—remarkably so when we consider that, in buildings of that period, this part has generally undergone a change, by the insertion of windows of a later style, leaving only the Norman door below to point to the real date of the structure. Here, we have a door of great depth and richness of effect from the number and boldness of the ornaments. On either side are plain semicircular blank arches—but not intersecting—and the whole were flanked by towers, one of which still exists. Of the nave, the southern portion as well as the south aisle, is entirely gone, but that on the north is tolerably complete. The piers, with their capitals, which bore up the arches, are of various patterns, channelled, lozenged, shafted, and shewing in their sculptured surfaces, and the various fretwork of the arches, that is, in the only decoration which the style admitted—the germ of that inexhaustible variety and multiplicity of ornament which was in the sequel to characterize the Gothic.

The nave, as well as aisles, has been vaulted in stone, as is evidenced from the vaulting shafts, and commencing springers still seen at the junction of the nave and transepts, and from the curve of the vault itself, yet traceable at the west end, but denuded of its ribs. This is a remarkable and almost singular instance of the centre aisle of a Norman building receiving a vault of stone. Both in England and on the Continent, the nave was covered simply by a flat boarded roof, to which were in a great degree owing the frequent and destructive fires of our early churches.

There are six arches in the nave, but the last is of smaller dimensions than the rest. This peculiarity is not unfrequent in Norman and Gothic churches, as if the architect had not previously calculated the space to be occupied by his arcade. The effect here has been to produce a horse-shoe instead of a semicircular arch, from its being of the same height, but lesser span, than the others. This arch is very rare, even in Norman buildings.

Above the pier-arches there has existed a triforium, of which the only remains are a single shaft at either end of the nave, the beginning and termination of the arcade. The Norman triforium is in England simply a row of openings or pannels in the wall, to fill up, ornamentally, what would otherwise have been a blank space. In Germany it is a real gallery, and appropriated to the young men, and called the Männer-chor.

Of the vaulting of the north aisle one arch still remains, but flattened at top, and only retained in its position by the wedge-form of the stones which compose it. This will soon fall, and yet might be easily preserved. The vaulting was quadripartite—the piers, with their cushioned capitals, and transverse ribs, are yet seen. In one or two places, the vaulting from pier to pier yet remains, though the ribs which would have appeared to support it are gone. This is a proof that the ribs used in vaulting were introduced merely to satisfy the mind byappearingto support the arches above, and that the eye, which had been accustomed to strong lines in every other part of the building, should not here rest in a blank surface.

We now reach the intersection of the nave and transepts. Here in the strong and massive piers, we have slender circular shafts set in square recesses—a style of transition from the short and heavy Norman to the loftiness and exility of the Gothic, by which the weights above being distributed to different and independent props, an air of lightness and grace is produced without any diminution of security or strength.

Above, arose the tower which crowned the whole structure, but of its existence the only remaining evidence is the most singular and beautiful feature of the ruin. It is the great cross rib traversing the vault diagonally from N.W. to S.E., and spanning the mid-air free and unconnected with the building but at its spring. Had this been a pointed arch, it would have fallen with its superstructure, but the pressure of the round arch being only at the sides, it is likely to endure as long as the parts which buttress it up.

The chancel beyond the transepts had originally a semicircular termination, as is still discernible on the floor—a feature retained in all the Norman churches abroad. In this part of the edifice, it is to be regretted, is a departure from the unity of style which pervades the rest of the fabric—the circular apse has given place to a rectangular, lighted by pointed windows, in compliance with the fashion of the day, and in violation of the grave simplicity of the rest of the structure.

Buttresses of slight projection run all round the building. They were scarcely needed by the Norman architects, from the enormous thickness of their walls, and their inferior height; but in them we may trace the rudiments of what became, in the hands of the Gothic builders, so beautiful and necessary a member, shooting up into airy pinnacles and spires, and impressing a lofty and majestic character upon the whole.

Of the conventual buildings the traces are few and indistinct. The most important to their comforts—the vast kitchen chimney yet remains in all its original strength and completeness. The large walled space adjoining was probably the Refectory, with which the kitchen would communicate by the buttery-hatch.

The building is now secured from violence and wanton dilapidation, and as it has only to contend against the silent erosion of lichen and wallflower, we may hope that it will long continue to adorn our district—a monument of a far distant age and far different state of society, and a beautiful and affecting link between the past and the present.

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