Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 3.djvu/323

Rh could be obtained for the purpose, or as the masons could proceed with their undertaking, frequently commenced by one person and finished by his successor, or built by one, and improved and decorated by another. An instance in proof of this occurs in the church of Stratford in Suffolk; the lower part of the north aisle shewing in the flint-work the name of the builder and the date of 1430, whilst the porch where the inscription terminates is marked 1432. This will at once explain why incongruities so frequently exist, why we see such perpetual modifications and adaptations, and it will supply the reasons for those transitional appearances that exist at Romsey, at St. Alban's, and at many other of our most important edifices. Nor is it undeserving consideration, when chronological difficulties arise, that many of our parish churches were built by country workmen, by men who had little creative genius, and few opportunities of examining the purest ecclesiastical models, and who therefore were constrained to copy the best things near them, (which I think will at once help to account for local styles,) and whilst they were necessarily to a certain extent imitators, they would often, through negligence or through a want of fully appreciating the merits of the original, disfigure their own works by introducing into them some of its defects, probably reducing the depth of the mouldings, or disregarding the relative proportions on which much of its beauty might depend, or depriving it of those decorations which enchanted the eye, and caused it to dwell with admiration on the harmony that prevailed throughout the whole structure.

There is also another reason why we should be cautious in drawing direct and positive conclusions respecting the age of village churches, namely, that the styles were always in advance in cathedral or collegiate, whilst they were retrograde in parochial buildings. It was with architectural taste as with modern fashions, the rural population were the latest in catching the new mode.

It has, indeed, often excited astonishment, that so many beautiful fabrics should have been erected in the middle ages, when the difficulty of finding resources to build a church at the present day is so well known that the fact only needs stating. But the surprise will be diminished upon considering the altered circumstances of each period. When monastic buildings and parish churches were erected, the ecclesiastics