The Cathedral Churches of England and Wales, Vol. 8: Descriptive, Historical, Pictorial (Classic Reprint) - Softcover

Thomas George Bonney

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0282675205 ISBN 13: 9780282675202

Publisher: Forgotten Books, 2020

Synopsis

Excerpt from The Cathedral Churches of England and Wales, Vol. 8: Descriptive, Historical, Pictorial

The chief architectural distinctions will be presently noticed. There is, how ever, another which should not be entirely forgotten - the distinction of site. The French cathedrals, as a rule, stand in the heart of the towns; they are hemmed in with houses, which in many cases actually rested against, and were encrusted upon their walls, an encroachment which seems to have been per mitted from a very early period. Thus, as it has been often remarked, not withstanding all that has been done of late years to clear away these encumbrances, it is extremely difficult to Obtain any good general view of the exterior, and it is only when at a distance from the town we see the huge mass of sculptured stone rising high above the subordinated roofs that we can fully appreciate its grand preportions and its vast dimensions. English cathedrals, on the contrary, are generally surrounded by ample Open Spaces; this may be in part due to the fact that they were almost invariably connected with some great monastery, that they were not only the mother churches of a diocese, but also what we might call college chapels, as is still the case with the Cathedral of Christ Church at Oxford. This connection appears much more rare in France except it be for an episcopa palace, one treads, on quitting the door of a French cathedral, upon the pavements of the streets, and passes abruptly from the peace within to the turmoil of the city. In this there may be a gain as well as a loss; perhaps we may have in it some ground for the mutual insulation, once very marked, of the cathedral and the townsfolk. But whether or not because they so commonly were incorporated into the spacious precincts of an important monastic foundation, the fact remains that the English cathedrals stand in spaces far more open than is usual in France, and frequently occupy sites remarkably beautiful.

The differences also in plan are considerable; these are less conspicuous in the older cathedrals, though even there a distinction may often be noticed. In those of Norman date in England the dominant ground - plan is almost always a Latin cross with well-developed arms. There is no trace whatever of the basilica type, though possibly this may once have been visible in the churches of earlier date in this country, as it is certainly more permanently impressed on those of France. But when we come to the cathedrals built in the Pointed styles, the difference is even more persistently marked. Contrast, for example, the ground plans of the Cathedrals of Paris, Amiens, Rheims, or Chartres with English buildings. All of these, even the last, cover spaces of ground large in proportion to their length; their area being in the case of Notre Dame (the smallest), feet, and of Amiens (the largest), feet. Salisbury, which is rather longer than Notre Dame, covers less ground by full feet; and York, which is quite fifty feet longer than Amiens, and is one of the most spacious of our cathedrals, occupies an area but slightly greater.

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Edition details

• Publisher: Forgotten Books
• Publication date: 2020
• ISBN 10: 0282675205
• ISBN 13: 9780282675202
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 368