Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 7.djvu/229

 ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS IN IVEll CHURCH, BUCKS. 153 cliurcli, as would be involved in the supposition that Ave have here two pure Norman dates ; for though I should place the arches later than Mr. Scott does, they are certainly pure Norman, and not transitional. The case is briefly this ; we have unmistakeable Norman work ; we have also something else, at once earlier in date and different in character. The inference seems unavoidable. But though I l)elieve the shell of the nave at Ivor to be Anglo-Saxon, I see no reason to attribute to it any great antiquity. I conceive it to belong to the early part of the third of those architectural divisions, into wdiich, in my History of Architecture, I have ventured to partition the Anglo-Saxon period of our history. There are no signs of wooden construction on the one hand, no approximation to distinctively Norman w^ork on the other. Perhaps the latter half of the tenth century, just before the beginning of that French connexion, of which the marriage of iEthelred w^ith iElfgifu-Emma may be considered as one of the earliest instalments, might be as likely a point as any. But, of course, to assign dates to Anglo-Saxon remains w^ithout documentary evidence is simple guess-work. All that we can do is to trace out the chronological sequence of the three j)eriods : in the present state of our knowdedge, one cannot ascertain the duration of each, much less the dates of individual buildings. I observed above, that the questions of Saxon date and Saxon style are quite distinct. The real question is, whe- ther the English before the Conquest possessed a national style distinct from Norman, in the same sense as other forms of Romanesque are distinct from it. In this sense it does not prove a building to be Norman to sliow^ that it was built after 1066, or to be Saxon that it was built before. Edward the Confessor certainly, Harold himself not improbably, built in the Norman style before that period ; and in obscure places one cannot doubt but that Saxon churches were built for some time after. Even St. Alban's Abbey is in many respects distinctively Saxon in character. And I am well pleased to find these facts taken up under this aspect in Mr. Parker's newdy published Introduction to Gothic Archi- tecture. He there says that " the ordinary parish churches which required rebuilding [soon after the Conquest] must have been left to the Sn.vovs t/i^u/sclces. and trcre 'prohahli/