Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/222

208 a gloomy magnificence in a fine Norman building which is highly impressive; its walls seem as firmly fixed in the earth as the iron foot of the Conqueror was on the neck of a prostrate nation.

The characteristics of Norman architecture are the following:—

—These are in general rather low for their breadth. They are more massive than the Saxon ones which preceded them, and this is particularly the case with the later buildings. Many of the church towers which were built soon after the Conquest have very much of the Saxon character remaining, and are proportionably taller than those of later date, but the workmanship is better. A large belfry window, divided by a shaft, in the upper storey, is a common feature; and the surface of the tower is frequently ornamented with stages of intersecting or plain arcades, and sometimes the whole surface is covered with ornament. The angles of the tower are strengthened by flat buttresses having but little projection, which sometimes reach to the top of the building, and sometimes only to the first or second storey. The parapets of most Norman towers are destroyed, and it is consequently difficult to say what they were originally; but it seems probable that the towers terminated in a pointed roof. Staircases were of common occurrence, and are frequently made very ornamental features.

—These are universally round-headed, except in the transition period. The simplest form is a narrow round-headed opening, with a plain dripstone; but they are frequently wider and divided into two lights by a shaft, and richly ornamented with the zigzag and other mouldings.

—These are the features on which the most elaborate workmanship was bestowed by the Norman architects, and it is perhaps to be attributed to this, that so many of them have been preserved; the Norman doorway having frequently been retained when the church was rebuilt. They are always, except in the transition period, semicircular, and are very deeply moulded. They are frequently three or four times recessed, and are richly ornamented with the peculiar decorations of the style, the most characteristic of which is the zigzag or chevron moulding. A peculiar head having a bird's beak, and called a "beak-head," is frequently used, and medallions of the signs of the zodiac are not uncommon. The jambs of the door are ornamented with shafts which are sometimes richly ornamented, and have elaborately sculptured capitals. The doorway itself is frequently square-headed, and the tympanum or space between this and the arch is filled with sculpture representing the Trinity, the Saviour, saints, or some symbolical design or monstrous animal, and sometimes nearly foliage. There are a few doorways which are trefoil-headed instead of circular.

—The Norman porch is in general little more than a doorway, the little projection it has from the wall being intended chiefly to give greater depth to the doorway, which is very deeply recessed, and it is in these porches that we find the richest doorways, the arches and shafts being overlaid with the utmost profusion of ornament, which, though sometimes rude, always produces a fine effect, and there is scarcely any architectural feature which is so universally admired; other styles may be more chaste and more finished, but there is a grandeur about a rich Norman doorway which is peculiarly its own.

—The semicircular is the characteristic form of the Norman arch, but there are few early examples in which the pointed arch was used, supported by massive piers; they are not likely to be mistaken for those of the next style. In the transition the pointed arch is very frequently used. Sometimes the arch is brought in a little at the impost, when it is called a horse-shoe arch; and sometimes the spring of the arch is above the impost, and is carried down by straight lines. They are then said to be stilted.

—The piers in early buildings were very massive, consisting frequently merely of heavy square masses of masonry with nothing but the impost moulding to relieve their plainness. Sometimes they were recessed at the angles, and sometimes they were circular, with capitals and bases, but still of very large diameter. As the style advanced they were reduced in thickness, and had richly sculptured capitals and bases, frequently ornamented with sculpture at the angles. In the transition period the pillars became slender and clustered, with little to distinguish them from the next style. The Galilee at Durham is an excellent example of late Norman; the round arch and the zigzag mouldings are still retained, but the pillars are as slender as those of the early English.

—The capital is the member by which the styles are more easily distinguished than by any other. In the Saxon style we have seen that the Corinthian capital was rudely imitated; and we find in the early Norman this imitation continued, but with more resemblance to the original, as will be better shown when we come to describe the specimen from the White Tower (3), and this imitation was more and more complete as the style advanced.



The general form of the plain capital is that of a hemisphere cut into four plain faces; this form is called a cushion capital. This may be considered as the fundamental form from which other varieties are worked. It is sometimes doubled or multiplied, and sometimes highly ornamented, as in the examples from Durham, where they are so overlaid with ornament that it is difficult to distinguish the original form. The abacus, or upper member of the capital, will at once distinguish the Norman from all other styles, and throughout Gothic architecture it is the feature most to be depended on in distinguishing one style from another. In the Norman it is square in section, with the corner edge sloped or chamfered off. It is