Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 1.djvu/41

Rh parts of the same building, and from Norman architecture in general, that they have not hesitated to attribute them to our Anglo-Saxon forefathers. These characteristics are chiefly observed in massy steeple towers, such as those of Sompting in Sussex, and Earl's Barton in Northamptonshire; and it is probable that the tower was the strongest and most durable part of an Anglo-Saxon parish church, and would therefore be most likely to be preserved amid Anglo-Norman repairs.

There is a source of information on the subject of Anglo-Saxon Architecture which has hitherto been neglected, and which has always appeared to me to be of great importance. I mean, illuminated manuscripts; and it is the object of the present essay to shew how remarkably they support the belief that the remains just alluded to are Anglo-Saxon. Illuminated manuscripts are, for the middle ages, what the frescoes of Pompeii and Herculaneum, and the paintings of the Egyptian pyramids, are for more ancient times: they throw more light than any other class of monuments on the costume and on the domestic manners of our forefathers. These manuscripts, which extend through the whole period of the middle ages, are full of architectural sketches. At the time when they are most abundant, i. e. subsequent to the twelfth century, these sketches are of less value, because the monuments themselves are numerous, and their dates more easily established; still they afford much information on domestic and military architecture. But at an earlier period, they furnish data which we have no other means of obtaining. It may be observed that the medieval artists, whatever subject they treated, represented faithfully and invariably the manners and fashions of the day; and that from the language and character of the writing we are enabled to fix their date with great nicety. The manuscript to which attention is now called, is a fine copy of Alfric's Anglo-Saxon translation of the Pentateuch, now preserved in the British Museum, MS. Cotton. Claudius B. IV. It was written in the closing year of the tenth century, or at the beginning of the eleventh, i. e. about the year 1000 or very shortly after, and is filled with pictures, containing a great mass of architectural detail. The proportions are often drawn incorrectly, (the universal fault of the Anglo-Saxon artists,) but the architectural character is perfectly well defined.