Chapter VII: Medieval Ecclesiology (3)

The consecutive view given above of the progressive development of the various styles of ecclesiastical architecture, accompanied as it is with some few elements for the construction of a chronological series of examples, is sufficient, at least, to bear out the views advanced in reference to the independent character and individuality of Scottish Ecclesiology. It would be easy to multiply references to examples of the various peculiar features referred to, but what is far more wanted is the ascertainment of a larger number of well authenticated dates of existing work. Even of the cathedrals and great abbeys scarcely anything is known, though now that so many of the Scottish chartularies are published, and as a valuable adjunct to them, their seals are being systematically described, we may hope to discover, by a comparison with the armorial sculpture of our ecclesiastical structures, a sufficient number of dated examples by which to test the whole. Meanwhile, the following table is offered with great diffidence, and merely as some probable approximation to the true chronological arrangement of the Scottish styles, placing alongside of it the English classification of Rickman, as adopted with some later modifications, in the Fifth Edition of the Glossary of Architecture, to shew the extent of coincidence or disagreement. I shall be glad to find it speedily superseded by a system much more complete; but anything which supplies the elements of a recognised nomenclature and orderly classification will be of some use as a help towards cooperation among Scottish ecclesiologists. The styles distinguished here as _First-pointed_ and _Geometric_ are to some extent synchronous, depending perhaps on the native or foreign education of the ecclesiastics by whom the works were prosecuted;--a remarkable circumstance, and probably without a parallel in the history of medieval art. We find William de Bondington of Glasgow, for example, in the last year of his episcopate, adopting the ritual and customs of Sarum as the constitution of his cathedral.[662] It need not therefore excite our surprise to find the portion of the nave executed under his superintendence bearing an equally close affinity to the Sarum model, then in progress. Scottish First-pointed differs very little from the Early English, whereas the Scottish Geometric has no parallel elsewhere, and in Scotland entirely superseded the other at a very early date. It is, therefore, manifestly indispensable to the prosecution of Scottish Ecclesiology, that what is peculiar to it shall receive a nomenclature of its own. It can only lead to uncertainty and confusion to continue to apply the term First-pointed[663] to such work as the east end of St. Magnus's Cathedral, where not only the pier and triforium arches are semicircular, but even the arch of the great east window is filled in with a rose of twelve leaves, and being left unpierced above, it is practically a round-headed light. A much more elaborate treatment of the subject would be necessary than is possible within the limits of a single chapter, in order to shew the peculiar mouldings and other characteristic details. In the Scottish Decorated, for example, cylindrical and octagonal piers are by no means uncommon; both pier arches and windows are very frequently composed simply of two or three plain chamfer orders. Square-edged hood-mouldings and string-courses are also common; and in the more ornamental piers the double-roll, and the roll and fillet mouldings almost invariably predominate. In the windows also--among the most expressive features of every style of Gothic architecture--one harmonious feeling is observable throughout the endless varieties of tracery, giving to them a national aspect not less marked than the physiognomy of their builders. The most prevailing characteristics are well represented in the example figured above, from one of the beautiful series of St. Michael's, Linlithgow. Similar windows, though varying in detail, occur at St. Monance, Fife, St. Mary's, Leith, at Mid-Calder and Duddingston, in the Abbey Church, Haddington, in the collegiate churches of Seton, Crichton, and Roslin, in Melrose Abbey, and the ancient church tower of Dundee. They also existed in both the collegiate churches of St. Giles and the Holy Trinity at Edinburgh; and are even found amid the traces of declining art in the beautiful chapels of King's College, Aberdeen, and Heriot's Hospital, Edinburgh--the latter of which has been assigned, without a shadow of evidence, as the work of Inigo Jones, the architect having in reality been William Wallace, styled in the treasurer's accounts and other authentic documents relating to its erection, by the old name of Master Mason. Such are some of the genuine characteristics of our native styles; but at Dunfermline, Dunblane, Corstorphine, or wherever the hand of the modern restorer has been, we find them displaced by perpendicular tracery, English mouldings and details, and the like evidences of irreverent ignorance.

MEDIEVAL ECCLESIOLOGY

|-------------------+---------+--------------+-----------------------|
| SCOTTISH ECCLESIOLOGY. |
|-------------------+---------+--------------+-----------------------|
|REIGN. | A.D. | STYLE. |EXAMPLES. |
|-------------------+---------+--------------+-----------------------|
|Kings of the | | | |
|Northern and | 400-843 |Scoto-Italian.|St. Magnus, Egilshay. |
|Southern Picts, | | | |
| | | | |
|Kenneth MacAlpin |843-1057 | Scottic. |Round Tower, |
|to Malcolm Canmore,| | |Abernethy. Round |
| | | |Tower, Brechin. |
| | | | |
|Donald Bane, | 1093 | Romanesque, |Dunfermline |
| | | 1070-1170, |Abbey--Nave. |
|Edgar, | 1097 | prevailed |Inchcolm Abbey--part |
| | | about |of the Dormitories |
|Alexander I. | 1106 | 100 years. |St. Rule's Church. |
|David I. | 1124 | |Jedburgh Abbey. |
|Malcolm IV. | 1153 | |Kelso Abbey. |
|William the Lion, |1165-1170| |Dalmeny Church. |
| | | |Leuchars Church. |
| | | | |
|William, |1170-1214|First-pointed,|Glasgow |
| | | 1170-1242, |Cathedral--Crypt and |
| | | prevailed |Choir. |
|Alexander II. | 1214 | about 70 |Dunblane |
| | | years. |Cathedral--Nave. |
|Alexander III. | 1249 | |Kilwinning Abbey. St. |
| | | |Blane's, Bute--the |
| | | |Chancel. |
| | | | |
|Margaret, Maid of | 1285 | Scottish |Aberbrothoc Abbey. |
| Norway, | | Geometric, | |
|John Baliol, |1292-1296| 1178-1285, |Paisley Abbey--Nave. |
|Interregnum, |1296-1306| prevailed |Kirkwall |
| | | about 100 |Cathedral--east end of |
| | | years. |Choir. |
| | | |Sweetheart Abbey, |
| | | |Kirkcudbright. |
| | | | |
|Robert I. | 1306 | Scottish |Dunkeld |
| | | Decorated, |Cathedral--Nave Aisles.|
|David II. | 1329 | 1300-1500, |Melrose Abbey--Nave. |
|Robert II. | 1370 | prevailed |Fortrose Cathedral. |
|Robert III. | 1390 | about |St. Monance Church, |
| | | 200 years. |Fife. |
|Regency of Albany, | 1407 | |Bothwell Church. |
|James I. | 1424 | |Lincluden College. |
|James II. | 1436 | |St. Michael's, |
| | | |Linlithgow. |
|James III. | 1460 | |Trinity College, |
| | | |Edinburgh. |
|James IV. |1488-1500| | |
| | | | |
|James IV. |1500-1513|Perpendicular,|Melrose Abbey--Chancel.|
|James V. | 1513 | 1500-1513. |Ladykirk. |
|-------------------+---------+--------------+-----------------------|

|------------+---------+---------------|
| ENGLISH. |
|------------+---------+---------------|
|REIGN. | A.D. | STYLE. |
| | | |
|Heptarchy. | 457-800 | |
| | | |
|Egbert to |800-1066 | Saxon. |
|Harold II. | | |
| | | |
|William I. | 1066 | Norman, |
|William II. | 1087 | or English |
|Henry I. | 1100 | Romanesque, |
|Stephen. | 1135 |prevailed about|
|Henry II. |1154-1189| 124 years. |
| | | |
|Richard I. | 1189 |Early English, |
|John. | 1199 |prevailed about|
|Henry III. |1216-1272| 100 years. |
| | | |
|Edward I. | 1272 | Decorated |
|Edward II. | 1307 | English, |
|Edward III. |1327-1377|prevailed about|
| | | 100 years. |
| | | |
|Richard II. | 1377 | Perpendicular |
|Henry IV. | 1399 | English, |
|Henry V. | 1413 |prevailed about|
|Henry VI. | 1422 | 169 years. |
|Edward IV. | 1461 | |
|Edward V. | 1483 | |
|Richard III.| 1483 | |
|Henry VII. | 1485 | |
|Henry VIII. |1509-1546| |
|------------+---------+---------------|

FOOTNOTES:

[627] Sim. Dunelm. p. 201. Hailes' Annals.

[628] Liber Cart. Sanct. Andree, p. 43.

[629] Raine's North Durham, App. p. 38.

[630] Registrum Episcopatis Aberdonensis, Pref. xii.-xvi. Keith's Bishops, Append.

[631] Sinclair's Statistical Account, vol. xvii. p. 443.

[632] Not having had an opportunity of personally inspecting this interesting but little heeded Scottish relic, I have had to depend on the kindness of a local correspondent for the description of its present state. It appears to be early and exceedingly plain Romanesque work, with some later and many modern additions. Both in style and singularity of proportions it bears very considerable resemblance to the simple little Romanesque chapel of Kilcolmkill, in the parish of Southend, Argyleshire.

[633] Regist. de Dunferm. Pref. xxv.

[634] Wyntownis Cronykil, b. vii. chap. x.

[635] Regist. de Dunferm., p. 184.

[636] The reference is no doubt also to so large a portion of the original structure having been left entire, including the present nave: "Licet ecclesia vera post consecracionem ipsius per nobilioris structuræ fabricam fuit augmentata quia tamen proponitis quod antiqui parietes ejus pro majori parte in pristino statu perdurent. Vobis auctoritate præsentium indulgemus ut eisdem parietibus in pristino statu perdurantibus nonnullis vos compellere valeat ad eandem Ecclesiam propter hoc denuo consecrandam," &c.

[637] Memorials of Edinburgh in the Olden Time, vol. i. p. 128.

[638] Barbour's Bruce, book vii. l. 1037; Dr. Jamieson's Edition, vol. i. p. 211.

[639] Memorials of Edinburgh, vol. i. p. 127. Notices of both chapels repeatedly occur in the Chamberlain's Rolls; but with an obvious confusion of the two--explicable perhaps on the supposition that the chaplain was bound to serve both altars. A curious notice of a meeting held in the chapel of the Castle of Edinburgh in 1447 occurs in the _Registrum Episcopatus Glasguensis_, vol. i. p. 367, No. 351.

[640] Macbeth, Act IV. Scene 3.

[641] The dimensions of the choir of St. Rule's Church, as it now stands with the chancel demolished, are, extreme length externally thirty-one feet eight inches, breadth twenty-five feet, breadth of chancel arch within the inner pillars nine feet, present height of the chancel arch, the base of the pillars being covered, twenty-one feet four and three-quarter inches, present height of external wall thirty feet. The windows are small, round-headed, and quite plain, with a deep internal splay, and an external one of little more than one-fourth of the whole thickness of the wall. They measure in the daylight, or place for inserting the glass frame, six feet five inches high, and one foot eight inches broad.

[642] The marks of three successive roofs are traceable on the east wall of the tower.

[643] Wyntownis Cronykil, book vii. chap. 7.

[644] It might perhaps better coincide with the newer English nomenclature to characterize the Romanesque as _First-round_, the succeeding style as First-pointed; and then the Scottish style resulting from the two, as _Second-round_; and the peculiarly national style into which it was finally developed as _Second-pointed_. The great objection is the necessity of speaking in either case of _Round-pointed_, or of _Pointed-round_ arches.

[645] However the proposed nomenclature of English ecclesiologists may answer their native style, it is impossible to adapt it to Scotland. First-pointed is undoubtedly preferable to Early English, when we can shew still earlier Scottish. Middle-pointed, however, is a most inconvenient and unsuitable term to our Scottish Decorated, where many of its most characteristic forms are circular; and Third-pointed becomes a misnomer, where, as in the nave and transept of South Queensferry the only pointed arch is a small plain benatura on the east side of the door, which is placed on the south side of the nave. The windows are square-headed, and the door round-headed. The roof has been open timber work.

[646] Regist. Monast. de Passelet. Preface.

[647] Vitæ Episcoporum Dunkel., p. 16.

[648] Historie of the House of Seytoun.

[649] The choir of the cathedral, now utterly demolished, appears to have been the work of Bishop Alexander de Kyninmund, 1356-1380. An interesting indenture relating to its progress is printed in _Regist. Episcop. Aberdon_. A.D. 1366, vol. ii. p. 59. The same collection contains two Papal bulls, granting indulgences to contributors towards the building of the nave, A.D. 1379, 1380. The succeeding bishop Henry de Lichtoun completed the nave, and built the west towers.

[650] Vitæ Episcoporum Dunkel. p. 13.

[651] Wyntown, b. ix. c. vii.

[652] Maitland's Hist. of Edin. p. 270.

[653] Tytler, vol. ii. p. 427. Hume of Godscroft's House of Douglas, p. 118.

[654] Archæol. Scot. vol. i. p. 375.

[655] The armorial shields on the pillars include the Royal arms, those of France, of the Queen Dowager Mary of Gueldres, who died in 1462, of the celebrated Bishop Kennedy, of Alexander Napier of Merchiston, comptroller of the household, and vice-admiral of Scotland,--Temp. James I. and II., (erroneously ascribed by me in the Memorials of Edinburgh, vol. ii. p. 162, to the Countess of Lennox,) of Thomas de Cranston, _Scutifer Regis_ to James II., &c.

[656] Drummond of Hawthornden's History of the Jameses, p. 61.

[657] Antiq. of Free Masonry in England. J. O. Halliwell, Esq.--Archæol. vol. xxviii. p. 444.

[658] "On certain marks discoverable on the stones of various buildings erected in the Middle Ages." By G. Godwin, Esq.--Archæol. vol. xxx. p. 117, accompanied with plates of masons' marks.

[659] Archæol. vol. xxx. Plates VI. VII. IX. X.

[660] Ruskin's Seven Lamps of Architecture, p. 179.

[661] Hope's Historical Essay on Architecture, p. 458.

[662] Registrum Episcopatus Glasguensis, vol. i. p. 166.

[663] It is so described in the "Ecclesiological Notes on the Isle of Man," &c., an interesting and intelligent note-book, (p. 96); but no reader would ever guess from the description, that excepting in some of the minor details, it bears no resemblance to any known specimen of English First-pointed work.