Chapter III: Romanesque or Norman

As foliage sculpture is mostly concentrated on capitals, and sculpture to some extent is modified by the shapes of the surfaces which it ornaments, it will be well before going into sculptural details to note that English capitals are of four descriptions: (i) cushion, (ii) scalloped, (iii) bell, and (iv) cup-or bowl-shaped (Pl. 1).

Norman are mostly cushion or scalloped, but those of the French Corinthian type are bells. Early English are mostly bells. Decorated sometimes revert not to the cushion, but to a modification of it, which we have called cup-shaped, the abacus being no longer square but circular, or octagonal (Pl. 71).

The cushion is a cube with the lower corners chamfered off in such a manner as to make the four sides semi-circular, the diameter being at the top. Below the semi-circles the chamfers slope in to the necking of the shaft.

The bell is the shape of a bell or trumpet-mouth. The profile of the capital is concave from the necking up to the larger diameter of the top adjoining the abacus.

In scalloped capitals the four sides of the capital, if square, or the circumference if round, are subdivided into a series of semi-circles, instead of having one on each face as in the cushions.

Cup-shaped capitals are the opposite of bells, having a convex instead of a concave profile, say the shape of a tea-cup or bowl.

When Norman capitals are sculptured, whether with figure or foliage sculpture, the character of the sculpture is Lombardic or Romanesque. There is nothing especially English about it. The schools of carving being mostly either in or under the control of the monasteries, and the monasteries being cosmopolitan, the carving was so also, and followed traditions which were mostly Classical in origin, but modified by suggestions from painted illuminations, needlework, wicker-work, wood-carving, and metal-work, both in iron and precious metals. Through what are called the Dark Ages this type of carving had been kept up chiefly on sarcophagi and ivory crosses and caskets, upon which the best work is found.

Some cushion capitals at Christchurch have the Greek anthemion (Pl. 5) and others the profile leaf, carved quite after the Greek manner.

The chancel arch respond at Hemel Hempstead has strands coming out of the mouth of a human face, with similar profile leaves, beaded (Pl. 6). At Hereford Cathedral there are interlaced spiral strands (beaded) mixed up with animals and Greek anthemia. At Durham the capitals of a doorway in the south aisle show winged monsters with long necks (beaded) intertwined with foliage, while on the abacus is a row of anthemia. The carving on the capitals is suggestive of Norse wood-carving. The same character belongs to some capitals from the ruins of Reading Abbey. A cushion capital at St Peter’s, Northampton, shows somewhat similar characteristics, but some of the sprays end in triplets of profile leaves (Pl. 7). Other capitals in the same church show animals mixed with the sprays which are sometimes bound together by what look like iron bands. Similar features appear on the base of the font at Aylesbury (Pl. 8). We might multiply instances of this class of foliage to almost any extent, but it does not lead us on to any further development. It consists merely of variations of the old tradition derived from Lombardic sources and exhibits no sign of vitality. We will therefore content ourselves with showing one more rather remarkable specimen from Oxford Cathedral. It puzzled antiquaries for a time, as it was thought to be pre-Conquest in date, and yet it appears on the capital of a rather late Norman column, thus illustrating the continuance or revival of traditions in spite of the Conquest (Pl. 9).

The ornament on a doorway at Malmesbury consists of profile half-opened leaves just like those on the Christchurch capitals, but, arranged as they are here, back to back, they look more like halves of a Greek anthemion or palmette.

Fonts sometimes show foliage sculpture. At Deerhurst is a font usually considered Anglo-Saxon, on which the main part of the bowl is ornamented with spirals without any leafage, but the borders, above and below, have graceful sprays with leaves and flowers (Pl. 10). The type is interesting, especially as a thirteenth-century capital in the same church is evidently copied from it (Pl. 11).

Somewhat similar, but more clumsy, sprays occur on fonts at St Stephen’s, Launceston, and Sidlington. In the Library of Durham Cathedral there are some fragments containing conventional representations of trees, which are a mixture of beaded straps and leaves, some attempts at naturalism, others conventional palmettes or “acanthus” leaves (Pl. 12).

A variety that stands by itself is seen at King’s Walden. It is sometimes called water-leaf (Pl. 13). It also occurs under slightly different arrangement at Fountains, and at Oxford Cathedral it is combined with other experimental sprays.

These experiments at Oxford (Pl. 14) mark an important stage. Hitherto we have come across nothing in the way of novelty. All the designs have been copies--mostly debased copies--of Classical conventional forms. The masons at Oxford were tired of this and attempted something different. Their attempts were not altogether successful and did not lead to any further development; the only feature that survived or was afterwards revived was the rising of stalks from the necking.

During the same period the re-building of Canterbury choir took place after the disastrous fire of 1174. The monks of Canterbury belonged to the Traditional rather than the Progressive school, and they entrusted the work to a French master-mason, William of Sens, instead of to English masons who were feeling their way to such work as within a few years is found fully developed in St Hugh’s choir at Lincoln. Up to this time the French masons had adopted the Roman Corinthian type of capital. This admits of considerable variety of details, and, after the middle of the twelfth century, the French introduced not only Roman conventional foliage, but also foliage of a more naturalistic kind. The capitals in the Choir (Pl. 15) and especially in Trinity Chapel at Canterbury contain much of both kinds, well executed and highly finished. This Romanesque work is very beautiful, but it is not English, and has no place in the continuous development of English foliage.

The French Corinthian type never made much progress in England. It requires the square abacus to be effective, and the square abacus was almost entirely abandoned here in favour of the round by the beginning of the thirteenth century. A rather good example occurs at Ducklington, Oxon, and an interesting juxtaposition of the Saxon type and the French Corinthian is to be seen at Broadwater, Sussex (Pl. 16). Before passing on to follow up the development of the stiff-leaf convention, it may be interesting to note some early attempts to copy Corinthian. On a respond of the tower arch at Sompting Church is a curious instance of this, probably pre-Norman in date. It consists of a triple row of crockets, apparently intended to copy acanthus, while the volutes resemble ram’s horns, perhaps placed upside down, with clusters of grapes encircled in them (Pl. 17). At Southrop, Glos, is a very primitive sort of capital with volutes rising from a central stem, and below parallel leaves rising from the necking. In Canterbury crypt there are several such capitals (Pl. 18), some better and some worse executed. They appear to have been carved _in situ_ on capitals that were originally cushions. The feature that is of most interest in all these early attempts is the parallel leaves rising from the necking. There is nothing new about this arrangement. It is, in fact, precisely similar to that on the Lysicrates monument at Athens, but it seems to have some affinity both to scallops and stiff-leaf stems.

The scalloped form of capital is an English type. It is formed by dividing each semi-circular face of the cushion capital into two or more semi-circles, and carrying the channel between each semi-circle down to the necking, so that each convexity is a half-cone. A very simple example is a scalloped capital at the Tower of London, in which each face is bisected. The capitals illustrated in Pl. 1 and Pls. 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 will show the shape better than any amount of description. The nave capitals at Hemel Hempstead show the effect of scallops on large square capitals. In this case variety is given by cutting out the corners. The great round capitals at Malmesbury have scallops with the semi-circles moulded. At Black Bourton, Oxon (Pl. 19), the scallops are curved and the semi-circles made circular and ornamented with quatrefoils. At Kimpton not only are the semi-circles moulded but the scallops themselves have great leaves cut upon them (Pl. 20). At King’s Walden, close by, spiked leaves rise from the necking between the scallops (Pl. 21). At Romsey there are some very richly carved scalloped capitals, with faces in the semi-circles and foliage all over the scallops (Pl. 22). At Cuddington a round capital has curved scallops, the semi-circles ornamented with a round hole, and plain sharply-pointed leaves rising from the necking between the scallops (Pl. 23).

The chief significance of scalloping in connexion with the development of stiff-leaf is the rising of straight lines from the necking. We have already mentioned the Oxford experiments in which this feature is prominent.