"Intombed here one Cyfrevast does lie, Whom nature caused by death to yealde his due.

. . . . . . .

Lord of More-Crichel was he by —— Three hundred yeares possessed by line and descent."

Another of the same family, named John Cyfrevast, represented Dorsetshire in parliament, during the seventh, sixteenth, and eighteenth years of Edward II.; and Robert Cyfrevast had the same honor in the eighteenth and twentieth years of the following reign. About 1424, the fief of Chiffrevast at Tamerville, passed, by marriage, into the house of Anneville, which had also supplied a companion to the Conqueror; and this family continued to possess it till the moment of the revolution, the epoch of the abolition of all feudal rights.

In the burial-ground at Tamerville, have been found many coffins made of volcanic tuff: similar ones are by no means of unfrequent occurrence throughout the diocese of Coutances; but they are never met with, except in places which were formerly held in particular veneration.

NOTES:

[20] The reader will observe, that this pillar is probably imperfect; for that there seems reason to believe, that it was originally surmounted by a capital, which united with the moulding above.

[21] See Cotman's Architectural Antiquities of Norfolk, plate 37.



PLATES XVIII. AND XIX.

CHURCH OF ST. MICHEL DE VAUCELLES, AT CAEN.

(CENTRAL TOWER AND NORTH PORCH.)



The Abbe De la Rue, in his excellent publication upon the town of Caen,[22] does not furnish the satisfactory information which might have been hoped, relative to the date of the erection of the church of St. Michael, in the suburb of Vaucelles. He contents himself with observing,[23] that it is a work of different aeras: that the tower and its supporting pillars belong to a primitive church, of which no account remains; that a part of the nave may be seen, from the circular form of the arches having been obviously altered into pointed, to have belonged to the same church; that the choir was raised and increased during the sixteenth century; that the aisles are partly of the same century, and partly of the preceding; and that the other portion of the nave and the new tower, are productions of our own days.

In all this there is nothing definite; and, unfortunately, our knowledge of Norman architecture is not such as will justify us in attempting to fix precise aeras to the different specimens which are left us of it. As far, however, as it may be allowed to judge from corresponding edifices, Mr. Turner seems correct in his opinion, that "the circular-headed arches in the short square tower, and in a small round turret which is attached to it, are early Norman."[24] He subjoins the observation, that "they are remarkable for their proportions, being as long and as narrow as the lancet-windows of the following aera." The conical stone-roofed pyramid is, with the exception of its lucarne windows, most probably of the same date. With regard to the porch,[25] the subject of the nineteenth plate, its general resemblance in style to the southern porch of the church of St. Ouen, and its having, like that, its inner archivolt fringed with pendant trefoils, are circumstances that have likewise been pointed out in the work just referred to. Both porches may probably be of nearly the same date, the latter part of the fourteenth, or beginning of the fifteenth century. Caen, but a short time before the revolution, contained another very similar architectural specimen in the western portal of the church of St. Sauveur du Marche,[26] now replaced by an entrance altogether modern. The nave of the church of St. Sauveur was built, according to De la Rue, in the fourteenth century; and it may fairly be inferred, that the portal was also of the same date; but this porch wanted the pendant trefoils, and was altogether less ornamented than that of St. Michael, as the latter was than that at Rouen. Both those at Caen, however, agreed in the wall above the arch rising into a triangular gable covered with waving tracery, a very peculiar, and a very beautiful style of decoration.



Vaucelles is at this time the largest of the five parishes that compose the suburbs of Caen. It is separated from the town by the great canal of the Orne, the formation of which has somewhat circumscribed its limits; for these formerly extended into the Rue St. Jean, and included the hospital, called the Hotel Dieu, as well as that which derives its name from the Conqueror. During the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the presentation to the living of Vaucelles lay alternately between the two royal abbeys of Caen. Queen Matilda, previously to the year 1066, purchased a moiety of the patronage and of the tythes, together with a mill at Montaigu, and gave them to her abbey of the Trinity; and about eleven years afterwards, Ralph, the curate of Vaucelles, the hereditary proprietor of the other half, ceded his share to the abbey of St. Stephen, on condition of being himself received into that monastery. The latter establishment, within less than one hundred and fifty years, obtained the exclusive patronage, upon the consideration of their making the nuns an annual payment of twenty sols, and ninety-six bushels of barley.

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the parish of Vaucelles was in the hands of lords of its own; among whom, the most conspicuous were the Fitz-Herberts. An illegitimate son of Prince Henry, afterwards Henry I. by a daughter of Robert Corbet, was the origin of this family. To his own name, Herbert, he added that of Fitz-Henry: his sons became Fitz-Herberts; and each of their descendants, in every successive generation, commonly adopted the baptismal appellation of his respective father, by way of a family name; till, towards the close of the thirteenth century, the whole of them agreed upon Fitz-Herbert as a patronymic. Their possessions were extensive in Caen and the neighborhood; and the records of those early times make frequent mention of their riches and liberality. Thus, according to the Abbe De la Rue, from whom these historical particulars are derived, this noble family, still represented in our own country by the Earls of Pembroke, was not only derived from the town of Caen, but had an origin different from what is assigned to it by Dugdale, Collins, and Edmondson.[27] The first of the family noticed in England, appears to have lived in the time of King Stephen. In 1302, Vaucelles seems to have become exempt from all feudal conditions. It was in that year, that Philip le Bel sent William de Gilly to Caen, to liberate his own vassals and those of the lords, and to grant them all the privileges of burghers.

Among the ministers of this parish, was Roger, one of the most distinguished of our British prelates in the time of Norman rule. The tradition relates, that, during the wars for the succession among the Conqueror's sons, Henry, chancing to enter Caen with his small army upon a Sunday, stopped to hear mass at the church of Vaucelles; and that Roger performed the service with such spirit and rapidity, that the officers were unanimous in their wish that he should accompany the army. The invitation was accordingly given, and the priest consented; and he so completely gained the confidence of the prince, by recommending economy as the surest means of carrying his point, that he was soon appointed superintendant of the finances; and, in 1102, was honored with the mitre of Salisbury. At a subsequent period, he was created Chancellor of England; and, during the absence of the king in Normandy, constantly filled the high office of regent of the kingdom. William of Malmesbury, who dwells at much length, and with equal satisfaction, upon his history, states, that many of our noblest edifices arose from his munificence. In this respect, his greatest works were at Salisbury and Malmesbury: the former, long since levelled with the ground; the latter, still lovely and venerable in its ruins, and exhibiting, even in our days, one of the most noble remains of Norman architecture.

NOTES:

[22] Essais Historiques sur la Ville de Caen et son arrondissement. Caen, 1820. In 2 vols. 8vo.

[23] I. p. 279.

[24] Tour in Normandy, II. p. 181.

[25] Over the door-way within this porch is sculptured a figure of St. Michael, in high relief, of apparently the same date as the porch.

[26] Engraved in Ducorel's Tour in Normandy, p. 74.

[27] See Bankes' Extinct Baronage, I. p. 301.



PLATE XX.

STATUE OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR.

The statue here figured, has been introduced into this work altogether as an historical curiosity; and, though it may seem to be somewhat misplaced in a publication devoted to the elucidation of the Architectural Antiquities of Normandy, it is hoped, that a single deviation, and in favor of such a subject, may not only be deemed admissible, but may also be acceptable to the reader.

At the time when De Bourgueville wrote his Antiquites de la Ville de Caen, near the close of the sixteenth century, this statue was attached to the gate adjoining the church of St. Stephen: it has since been transferred to the wall of the church itself. The worthy old magistrate says of it, that "it represented William the Conqueror on horseback, as if in the act of entering the town, having under the feet of his horse the figure of the body of a young man; while, before him, are kneeling a man and woman, apparently in the act of demanding explanation respecting the death of their son." He adds, that "it is a remarkable piece of antiquity; but that he can tell nothing more of its history, than is represented by the figures." From the above account, the only one apparently left us, it is plain how much the statue, or rather group, has suffered in modern times; but at what particular period, or on what occasion, is unknown. It is equally plain, that the supposing of it to be intended to represent the greatest of the dukes who swayed the Norman sceptre, is by no means a fiction of the present day. This circumstance, however, and its age likewise, have of late been much disputed. The leading opinions upon these subjects, have been collected by Mr. Turner,[28] who inclines to think that it is really of the period of Norman dominion, and was actually designed for Duke William. He parallels it with a very similar piece of sculpture from the chapter-house of the abbey of St. Georges de Bocherville,[29] a performance of unquestionable antiquity. His remarks upon the subject are as follows:—"One of the most learned antiquaries of the present time has found a prototype for the supposed figure of the Duke among the sculptures of the Trajan column. But this, with all due deference, is far from a decisive proof that the statue in question was not intended for William. Similar adaptations of the antique model, 'mutato nomine,' frequently occur among the works of the artists of the middle ages; and there is at least a possibility that, had the face been left us, we might have traced some attempt at a portrait of the Norman duke. Upon the date of the sculpture, or the style of the workmanship, I dare not venture an opinion. There are antiquaries, I know, (and men well qualified to judge,) who believe it Roman: I have heard it pronounced from high authority, that it is of the eleventh century; others suspect that it is Italian, of the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries; while M. Le Prevost and M. De Gerville maintain most strenuously that it is not anterior to the fifteenth. De Bourgueville certainly calls it 'une antiquite de grand remarque;' but we all know that any object which is above an hundred years old, becomes a piece of antiquity in the eye of an uncritical observer; and such was the good magistrate."



The parish of St. Stephen, at Caen, is generally distinguished by the epithet of the old, whence an opinion has commonly prevailed, that its church was one of those founded by St. Regnobert, in the middle of the fourth century; and that the present edifice, if not actually in part the same, is at least raised upon its foundations, and is certainly one of the most ancient in Caen. This belief has been, in a measure, countenanced by De Bourgueville and Huet, relying upon what appears to have been an inaccurate translation from Robert Cenalis[30] But, on the contrary, it appears from the Abbe De la Rue, that the author in question makes no mention whatever of this parish, and that the appellation was first given it by the Conqueror, by way of distinguishing its church from the more sumptuous one erected by himself, and also dedicated to the protomartyr; a circumstance, from which the Abbe justly observes, that nothing more is to be deduced, than that a church existed here anterior to his time; but by no means necessarily of great antiquity. The present building is of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; a medley of debased Gothic and corrupted Roman.

NOTES:

[28] Tour in Normandy, II. p. 174.

[29] See plate 11, of this work, right-hand figures in the upper line; see also Turner's Tour in Normandy, II. p. 11, with a figure.

[30] Essais Historiques sur Caen, I. p. 225.



PLATES XXI.—XXIII.

ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. STEPHEN.

(WEST FRONT, AND ELEVATION OF COMPARTMENTS OF THE NAVE.)



The two royal Abbeys of Caen, long the pride of the town, while France, not yet revolutionized, suffered them to exist in their glory, and while her sons felt honored by the monuments of the piety and greatness of their ancestors, are still, in their present state of degradation, among the most interesting edifices which the province or the kingdom can boast The building and the endowment of them are often mentioned with admiration by the monastic historians of Normandy, one of whom, William of Jumieges, gives the following account of their origin.

The marriage of Duke William with Matilda, daughter of Baldwin, Count of Flanders, the son of his father's sister,[31] was within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity, and greatly scandalized the clergy of the duchy. They frequently remonstrated with their sovereign upon the subject, and at length they succeeded so far, that he was induced to dispatch ambassadors to Rome, to consult the Pope upon the steps necessary to be adopted. His Holiness, prudently considering that a divorce would in all probability be followed by war between the Flemings and Normans, determined to have recourse to a more pacific expedient; and consented to grant them absolution, upon condition of their performing penance. The penance enjoined upon the occasion was the erection of two monasteries; one for the religious of either sex.—Gratefully, we are told, did the noble pair accept the proffered terms; and instantly did they apply themselves to the fulfilment of their task.

The abbey, undertaken by the Duke, the subject of these plates, is stated by Huet, and authors in general, to have been completed in 1064, two years prior to the conquest of England:[32] according to Ordericus Vitalis, it was not dedicated till 1077. But upon this latter point authors are not agreed: some say that the dedication took place in 1073; and others, in 1081. However this may be, it seems certain that the foundation-charter was granted subsequently to the year 1066; for in it William takes the title of king, and among his many princely donations are enumerated various properties and privileges in different parts of Britain; decisive proofs that he was at that time in possession of the island, and considered himself firmly fixed upon its throne. The abbey thus raised, was, during the whole of the monarch's life, honored with his especial favor; and at his death, he bequeathed it other lands, together with his sceptre, the crown he wore upon occasions of the highest solemnity, his hand of justice, a cup made of precious stone, his golden candlesticks, and all the royal ornaments which usually appertain to the crown. Still further to manifest his gracious regard, he directed that the abbatial church should be the depository of his mortal remains; and that a foundation, so rich in worldly wealth, might not lack the more precious possessions of sanctity, he bought, as we are told by the early writers,[33] at no small price, a portion of the relics of the proto-martyr, consisting of a part of his arm, which was preserved in the city of Besancon, and a small phial containing some drops of blood, averred to have flowed from the same limb. At a subsequent time, the King added to these a lock of the Saint's hair, together with a portion of the skin of his head, and the stone with which he was killed.[34] The hair was white, and as fresh as if it had only then been severed; and it was kept in a beautiful crystal vessel; so that, to use the words of a contemporary manuscript, "totum fuit pulchrum: capilli albi et pulchri; lapis etiam unde percussus fuit albus; vas pulchrum et album; et aspicientibus rem adeo pulchram magnam faciunt admirationem."

The first abbot of the convent was Lanfranc, a native of Italy, who had established himself in the neighboring monastery of Bec, where the fame of his talents had acquired him a most extensive celebrity; and the zeal with which he had applied himself to the task of education,[35] had increased it to a degree, of which, in these days, we have little idea. But he held the pastoral staff only a very short time, for he was, as early as the year 1070, translated to the more important post of Archbishop of Canterbury; and it was reserved to his successor, William de Bonne Ame, to have the honor of presiding over the community, at the period when John of Avranches, Archbishop of Rouen, assisted by his suffragan bishops, as well as by Lanfranc himself, with Thomas, his brother metropolitan, and many abbots, and a wonderful throng of people, performed the ceremony of the dedication.[36]

The Conqueror's sons confirmed the various donations made to the abbey by their parent. The eldest of them, Robert, his successor in the dukedom, added the privilege of a fair and a weekly market at Cheux. William Rufus, the second, entered into a negociation with the monks, to re-purchase his father's royal ornaments, in exchange for the parish of Coker, in Somersetshire; but he died before the completion of the treaty; and this was finally carried into effect by Henry I. with one only difference, that Brideton, (now called Burton) in Dorsetshire, was substituted for Coker. It was Henry, according to the Abbe De la Rue,[37] who raised the superb monument over his father's remains; but Ordericus Vitalis expressly attributes the work to William Rufus.[38] Respecting its splendor, all writers are unanimous: the shrine placed upon the mausoleum, was a "mirificum memoriale, quod ex auro et argento et gemmis competenter splenduit." The care of building the tomb was committed to a goldsmith at Caen, of the name of Otto, who had received from the Conqueror a grant of land in Essex; and whose descendants, under the name of Fitz-Othon, had the principal direction of the English mint, till the death of Thomas Fitz-Othon, the last of the family, in 1282.

Henry II. in a very long charter, confirmed the various endowments and privileges previously bestowed upon the convent, and added others of his own. From this time forward, it continued to increase in wealth and power. In the year 1250, its revenues, in Normandy, amounted to four thousand livres, a sum equivalent to eighty-two thousand and sixteen livres of the present day. In 1668, when money in France was of about half its present value, the abbot and monks divided an income of sixty-four thousand and four livres: and in 1774, this income had swelled to one hundred and ninety-two thousand livres, notwithstanding the immense losses suffered by the suppression of the alien priories in England. Thus an increase had taken place of nearly one hundred and ten thousand livres, in about five hundred and twenty years. The ecclesiastical patronage of the abbey, at the time of the revolution, extended over twelve churches. Its monks, who were of the order of St. Benedict, continued till the year 1663 to belong to the class of Benedictines, called unreformed; but the Duchess of Longueville, wife of the then abbot, introduced at that period the brethren of the congregation of St. Maur.

The privileges and immunities granted to the convent of St. Stephen, are detailed at considerable length by Du Moustier,[39] who has also carefully collected the particulars of the life of Lanfranc, and has given a catalogue, accompanied with short biographical notices, of the rest of the abbots. By far the greater number of these were men eminent for their rank or talents; and some of them were subsequently promoted to higher dignities. William de Bonne Ame, the second abbot, succeeded John de Bayeux in the metropolitan throne of Rouen; Hugh de Coilly, grandson of King Stephen, after being elected to preside over this monastery, was almost immediately transferred to the archbishopric of York;[40] and Charles de Martigni, abbot of St. Stephen's in the fifteenth century, was successively honored with two episcopal mitres. It was by him that the prelacy was first held in commendam, an example too tempting not to be followed; and the abbey, thus constantly gaining in the dignity of its superiors, as constantly lost in their real value. Seven cardinals, (among whom were the celebrated Cardinals of Richelieu, Mazarine and Fleury,) a natural son of King Henry IV. an archbishop of Lyons, two of Aix, and one of Rouen, were among its most modern abbots. Another of them, John Le Got,[41] was present at the abjuration of Henry IV. in the church of St. Denys, on the twenty-fifth of July, 1593; and by virtue of his office as apostolical prothonotary, subscribed his name to the letter from the bishops to the Pope, declaring that nothing had taken place in the transaction, inconsistent with the reverence due to his holiness. A list of considerable length might also be made from among the monks of the convent, of those who have been ennobled by their talents or dignities.

The monastic buildings appertaining to the Abbey of St. Stephen were begun in 1704, and completed after a period of twenty-two years. They are now attached to the royal College of Caen, to which establishment they were appropriated at the revolution; and, provided as they were with noble gardens, they were an accession of the utmost importance to the institution. But the value of the gift has, within the ten last years, been considerably lessened, by the municipality having robbed the college of the greater part of the gardens, for the purpose of converting them into an open square. The plan of the buildings was furnished by a lay-brother of the Benedictine order, named William De la Tremblaye, who also erected those of the sister Convent of the Trinity, at Caen; and those of the Abbey of St. Denis. During the storms of the revolution, the abbatial church happily suffered but little. Fallen, though it be, from its dignity, and degraded to parochial, it still stands nearly entire. Not indeed as it came from the hands of the Norman architect, but as it was left by the Huguenots in the sixteenth century, when, with the violence which marked the transactions of that aera, doors, windows, floors, wood-work, lead, iron, marble, manuscripts, and books, were given up to indiscriminate destruction: bells were broken, roofs stripped, altars profaned, the very tombs opened; and, as if no point had been gained, so long as aught was suffered to remain, the central tower was undermined, in the hope that its fall would involve the ruin of the whole edifice. And fall, indeed, it did; but happily only carried away with it a portion of the eastern end. From this circumstance, however, have arisen discrepancies of style, for which it would be difficult, without such knowledge, to account. The nave and the transepts are the only pure remains of the original building: the choir and aisles are of pointed architecture, and are, consequently, not of equal antiquity. Even the western front partakes, in a measure, of the same mixture. All, to the top of the towers, is genuine Norman, and of the eleventh century: the spires, with their surrounding turrets, are of a later aera.[42] At the same time it may reasonably be doubted how far the Abbe De la Rue is right in ascribing them to the fourteenth century. To differ from so able an antiquary and so competent a judge in matters of this description, is always hazardous; but the author of this article must, nevertheless, be allowed to hesitate before he gives a full assent. It is known that the choir was enlarged, and the apsis built as it now exists, during the prelacy of Simon de Trevieres, which extended from the year 1316 to 1344; but history is silent as to any other additions made at that period to the church; and the style of the architecture of the spires does certainly appear to be earlier than that of the parts just mentioned. No argument is to be drawn from the general aspect of the building; for such is the great excellence of the Caen stone, and so little has it suffered in an atmosphere untainted by coal smoke, and in a climate probably superior to our own, that all the parts appear to be in equally good preservation, and the whole looks as fresh as if but yesterday hewn from the quarry. An opinion has commonly prevailed, that an epitaph, still visible on the exterior of the apsis, is that of the builder of the church. Facsimiles of it have been given by Ducarel[43] and Gough,[44] the former of whom seems to have no doubt of the fact. Such, however, cannot be the case; the very shape of the characters sufficiently disproves it: they are altogether unlike those used on Queen Matilda's tomb, a relic, whose authenticity was never called in question. The character of the architecture of the chapel affords a still more decisive contradiction. Indeed, after what has already been said, it needs scarcely be added, that the building itself did not exist at the period assigned by Ducarel to the epitaph, which is most probably that of the person who erected the apsis, and made the other alterations in the fourteenth century.

The western front of the church exhibits two different characters: below, all is simple, almost to meanness: the upper part abounds in ornament; and here the good sense of the architect, who added the pinnacles and spires, merits commendation, in having made them correspond so well in their decorations with the towers. The plate sufficiently explains all that is to be said of this part of the building, excepting as to the more minute ornaments of the door-ways, which deserve to be exhibited in detail. The architrave is composed of several bands of the simplest moulding, inclosed within three of a different style; the two outermost being formed of the chevron ornament, with its angles unusually acute; the inner, of the billet moulding. The capitals of the pillars are studded with small heads, placed under the Ionic volute, exhibiting a mixture of classical and barbarous taste, which is likewise to be found at Cerisy, and upon one of the capitals in the abbey church of the Trinity.

Along the exterior of the upper part of the nave, runs a row of twenty-four semi-circular arches, with imposts and bases, and all uniform, except that eight of them are pierced for windows. This portion of the building is entirely without buttresses. Upon the extremity of the north transept are three very shallow buttresses, which rise from the ground to the bottom of the clerestory windows, unbroken by any interruption whatever, but here meet with a string-course, beyond which the two outer ones are continued, unchanged in form and appearance, to the summit of the ends of the gable, while the centre one, though it is raised to an equal height, loses more than half its width, and is also much reduced in depth. Over this latter buttress is a window; and between the buttresses are six others, arranged in a double row. Each pair differs in size from the rest: those nearest the ground are the largest, and those immediately above them the least. The lowest pair on each side is inclosed within a spacious arch, which occupies nearly two-thirds of the gable. Eastward of the transepts is a series of blank intersecting arches, remarkable for their mouldings, which consist of a flat, wide, and very shallow band;[45] and here the mixture of the pointed with the semi-circular architecture commences. This portion of the building altogether resembles the cathedral of Coutances in the disposition of its parts.



It would be difficult to describe the interior of the church in clearer or more comprehensive terms, than has been done by Mr. Cohen in Mr. Turner's Tour,[46] from which work the following account is, therefore, extracted.—"Without doubt, the architect was conversant with Roman buildings, though he has Normanized their features, and adapted the lines of the basilica to a barbaric temple. The Coliseum furnished the elevation of the nave;—semi-circular arches surmounted by another tier of equal span, and springing at nearly an equal height from the basis of the supporting pillars. The architraves connecting the lower rows of pillars are distinctly enounced. The arches which rise from them have plain bold mouldings. The piers between each arch are of considerable width. In the centre of each pier is a column, which ascends as usual to the vault. These columns are alternately simple and compound. The latter are square pilasters, each fronted by a cylindrical column, which of course projects farther into the nave than the simple columns; and thus the nave is divided into bays. This system is imitated in the gothic cathedral at Sens. The square pilaster ceases at about four-fifths of its height: then two cylindrical pillars rise from it, so that, from that point, the column becomes clustered. Angular brackets, sculptured with knots, grotesque heads, and foliage, are affixed to the base of these derivative pillars. A bold double-billeted moulding is continued below the clerestory, whose windows adapt themselves to the binary arrangement of the bays. A taller arch is flanked by a smaller one on the right or the left side, as its situation requires. These are supported by short massy pillars: an embattled moulding runs round the windows.—In the choir the arches become pointed, but with Norman mouldings: the apsis is a reconstruction. In that portion of the choir which seems original, there are pointed windows formed by the interlacing of circular arches: these light the gallery.—The effect produced by the perspective of the interior is lofty and palatial. The ancient masonry of the exterior is worthy of notice. The stones are all small, perhaps not exceeding nine or twelve inches: the joints are about three-quarters of an inch."

To this description, it may be well to add the following particulars concerning the dimensions of the church, taken from the exterior:—

FEET. Length from east to west 871 Height of western towers 145 ———————————- with their spires 262 ———— nave on the western front, to the point of the gable 98 ———— northern transepts 84 Width of ditto 42

It may also not be amiss to observe, that the nave is on either side divided into nine compartments, the second and third of which, reckoning from the west, on the south side, form the subject of the twenty-third plate. The rest, though diversified in their ornaments, are uniform in their plan, except only the one on either side, immediately adjoining the entrance: each of these contains a slender shallow arch, not pierced to the transepts, and rising from the pavement nearly to the top of the upper windows. In that part of the church, two peculiarities will not fail to be remarked: the greater width of the arches of the triforium, than that of those below; and the balustrade of quatrefoils, which is continued throughout this portion of the building. Immediately upon entering the church, a doubt involuntarily suggests itself, how far this balustrade may not be an addition of comparatively modern date. But, upon the whole, there seems no reason to consider it so. Precisely the same ornament is found upon the tomb of Berengaria, wife to Richard Coeur-de-Lion, which Mr. Stothard has lately figured, and believes to be coeval with the queen whom it commemorates.

The monument raised to William the Conqueror, in the middle of the choir of this church, was violated and broken to pieces by the Calvinists, and its contents wantonly destroyed, towards the close of the sixteenth century. The account of the outrages then committed are given at length, and with great naivete, as well as feeling, by De Bourgueville,[47] who was present on the occasion; and they have lately been translated into English,[48] with the addition of some interesting details that accompanied the death and funeral of the monarch. Nearly a hundred years before that time, a cardinal, upon a visit to Caen, had opened the tomb through curiosity. After the tumults caused by the Huguenots had subsided, the monks of the convent, who had gotten possession of one of the thigh-bones that had been preserved by the Viscount of Falaise, re-interred it, and, out of gratitude to their founder, raised, in 1642, a new monument of black marble, at great expense. One side of it bore the original metrical epitaph, composed by Thomas, Archbishop of York, beginning with the following line:—

"Qui rexit rigidos Normannos atque Britannos;"

on the other side, was an inscription[49] commemorative of the circumstances attendant on the tomb; but this second tomb was also taken away in 1742, by virtue of an order from Louis XV. empowering the governor of Caen to remove the monarch's remains into the sanctuary, as interfering, in their original position, with the ceremonies of the church. A flat stone, in front of the high altar, succeeded to the monument; and even this, the democrats of 1793 tore up. It was, however, replaced by General Dugua, while Prefect of Caen, and it still holds its situation.[50] There are no other monuments of any kind in the church.

Extensive buildings were attached to the abbey of St. Stephen; and, among the rest, what was generally supposed to have been a royal palace, and passed commonly under the name of the Palace of the Conqueror. As every thing connected with the abbey was naturally referred by the public to that sovereign, it will not appear surprising that this edifice was so likewise, however little ground there may have been for the appellation. Its having been called a palace, arose probably from the circumstance of the French monarchs always residing in this monastery, during their visits to Caen. The names of St. Louis, of John, of Henry V. and of Francis I. are to be found in the list of those who honored it with their presence. The greater part of the palatial buildings were destroyed by the Huguenots; but portions of them were standing in 1752, when Ducarel made his tour in Normandy; and he has figured them. Among these was the most interesting part of the whole, the great hall, the place in which the States of Normandy used to assemble, as often as they were convened at Caen; and where the Exchequer repeatedly held its sittings, after the recapture of Normandy, by the kings of France, from its ancient dukes. This hall even escaped the fury of revolutionists as well as Calvinists; but it was in the year 1802 altered by General Caffarelli, the then prefect, into rooms for the college; and its superb painted windows were destroyed, together with its pavement of glazed tiles, charged with heraldic bearings. The tiles have long afforded scope for the learning and ingenuity of antiquaries, some of whom have believed them coeval with the Conqueror; while others, who hesitate about going quite so far, have regarded them as bearing the arms of his companions. In the Gallia Christiana, the placing of them is attributed to Robert de Chambray, who is there stated to have been abbot from 1385 to 1393, a fact which the Abbe De la Rue utterly disbelieves. He, however, is of opinion, that the tiles are of nearly the same date, or a little earlier; and he considers them as belonging to the families who had supplied abbots and monks to the convent.

NOTES:

[31] Duchesne, Scriptores Normanni, pp. 277 and 282.

[32] So says Huet, in his Origines de Caen, p. 175, upon the authority of the Chronicle of the Abbey of Bec; and no attempt was made to controvert this fact, till the recent publication of the Abbe De la Rue's Essais Historiques, in which it is attempted to be proved, from various indirect testimonies, that the building could not have been finished till after the year 1070; indeed, that it could not even have been begun at the time fixed by Huet for its completion, inasmuch as the foundation charter, which must be of a date posterior to 1066, uses the following expression.—"Ego Guillelmus, Anglorum Rex, Normannorum et Coenomanorum princeps, Coenobium in honorem Dei ac Beatissimi prothomartyris Stephani, intra Burgum, quem vulgari nomine vocant, Cadomum, pro salute animae meae, uxoris, filiorum ac parentum meorum, disposui construendum."

[33] See Neustria Pia, p. 639.

[34] Dom Blanchard, a Benedictine Monk, who left an unpublished history of this monastery, says, "that the Conqueror obtained about the same time from Constantinople, St. Stephen's skull; and that the translation of it into the abbatial church was celebrated by an annual festival on the eighth of October." The Cathedral of Soissons boasted of the possession of the same relic; and of having also procured it from Constantinople.—"Too much confidence," it is prudently observed by a catholic writer on this subject, "must not be placed in the authenticity of those relics, which cannot be traced to the date of St. Gregory of Tours, the sixth century!"

[35] Lanfranc, after having for some time directed at Bec the first school ever established in Normandy, upon his translation to Caen, opened another in that town. In the Lives of the Abbots of Bec, written in latin verse, in the twelfth century, by Peter, a monk of the convent of Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives, particular honor is given to Lanfranc on the subject of his school at Caen, which had produced many men eminent for their proficiency in sacred and secular literature, and was at that time flourishing. The Abbe De la Rue gives a long list of them. Essais Historiques, II. p. 70.

[36] Ordericus Vitalis, in Duchesne's Scriptores Normanni, p. 549.

[37] Essais Historiques, II. p. 64.

[38] Duchesne, Scriptores Normanni, p. 663.

[39] Neustria Pia, p. 640.

[40] Gallia Christiana, II. p. 425.

[41] His name is not to be found in the list of abbots given in the Neustria Pia; but the authors of the Gallia Christiana say, (XI. p. 480,) "that he was nominated to the prelacy upon the resignation of the thirty-fourth abbot, Charles d'O, and was confirmed in it by the States of Blois. It is admitted, however, that, notwithstanding his appointment in 1596, his predecessor continued to receive the emoluments of the office, till 1624, and enjoyed a large pension arising from them, till his death, in 1627."

[42] In speaking of these, the Abbe De la Rue takes occasion to lay down a general rule, (Essais Historiques, II. p. 61) that "on ne trouve ordinairement en Normandie, que des arcades semi-circulaires dans les Xe. XIe. et XIIe. siecles; au contraire, les arcades en pointes des nefs, des fenetres et des portes des eglises, autrement les arcades en ogive, n'ont eu lieu chez nous que dans le XIIIe. siecle et les suivans. On trouve egalement ces deux styles en Angleterre et aux memes epoques, et leur difference est une des principales regles qui servent aux antiquaires Anglois, pour discerner les constructions Normandes et Anglo-Normandes, des constructions d'un autre genre."—But Mr. Turner, in his inquiries respecting the former cathedral of Lisieux, (Tour in Normandy, II. p. 131) appears to have proved that the pointed arch must have had existence at a considerably earlier period in France; and it is expected, that some instances which will be adduced in the sequel of the work, will have the effect of confirming his opinion.

[43] Anglo-Norman Antiquities, p. 57.

[44] Sepulchral Monuments, I. p. 247, t. 30.—The epitaph, which, in the original, is full of contractions, it is supposed by the Abbe De la Rue, should be read as follows:—

"Guillelmus jacet hic, petrarum summus in arte: Iste novum perfecit opus; det premia Christus. Amen."

[45] A similar row of arches is found on the north transept of Norwich Cathedral, between the first and second tier of windows.—See Britton's Norwich Cathedral, plate 10.

[46] II. p. 195.

[47] Antiquites de Caen, p. 171.

[48] Turner's Tour in Normandy, II. p. 203.

[49] See Neustria Pia, p. 656.

[50] The inscription upon it, which details the various events that had befallen the tomb, is given in Turner's Tour in Normandy, II. p. 197.



PLATES XXIV.—XXXIII.

ABBEY OF THE HOLY TRINITY, AT CAEN.



Mention has already been made, under the preceding subject, of the origin of the convent of the Holy Trinity, whose church, though not an equally extensive building as that of the monastery of St. Stephen, is infinitely more rich in its decorations, and has been left almost entirely in its original form. A more perfect example of a Norman abbatial church, is perhaps no where to be found; and, as this edifice had the farther advantage of having been raised at the period when the province was at the acme of its power, of having been erected by an individual of the highest rank, and of having owed its existence to an occasion peculiarly calculated to call forth the exercise of the utmost liberality and splendor, it has been conceived that the object of a work like the present, could not be better answered, than by exhibiting such a building in its fullest details.

With the churches of the Trinity and of St. Georges before him, the reader will best be enabled to judge what Norman architecture really was: no difficulty or doubt can arise as to the history or the date of either; and he may rest satisfied, that whatever has been selected from them, is, as far as human observation can decide, exactly in the state in which it was left by the original builder.

The abbey of the Holy Trinity was founded in 1066, by Matilda of Flanders, wife to William II. Duke of Normandy; and its church was dedicated on the eighteenth of June of the same year, by Maurilius, Archbishop of Rouen, assisted by the bishops and abbots of the province, and in the presence of the duke and duchess, together with their principal barons. The sovereign, upon the same day, presented at the altar his infant daughter, Cecilia, devoting her to the service of God in this monastery, in which she was accordingly educated, and was its first nun and second abbess. History has recorded the name of the first abbess, Matilda, and relates that she was of one of the most noble families of the duchy; but no farther particulars are known respecting her. The foundation-charters of this convent, which bear date in the years 1066 and 1082, are full of donations in every respect princely; and these, not only on the part of the sovereign, but also of his nobles, whose signatures are likewise attached to the instruments. The queen, also, at her decease, left the monastery her crown, sceptre, and ornaments of state;[51] thus setting the example, which was shortly afterwards followed by her royal consort, with regard to the abbey of St. Stephen. Robert, the Conqueror's successor in the dukedom, was not behind-hand with his father in his liberality to the convent of the Trinity. The latter, in his charter, dated 1083, had reserved to himself the right of the fishery of the Orne, together with sundry possessions outside the walls of the town, in the direction of the suburb of Vaugeux. All these were ceded by the new duke to his sister; and out of the various grants, on the part of the father and son, was formed what was denominated the Bourg l'Abbesse, or Barony of St. Giles. Duke Robert did yet more; for, after having distinguished himself at the capture of Jerusalem, and refused the crown of the Holy Land, he brought home with him, on his return to France, and deposited in the abbatial church founded by his mother, the great standard of the Saracens, wrested from them by his valor in the field of Ascalon.

Among the privileges conferred upon the abbey of the Trinity, by the Norman princes, was the right of holding a fair upon Trinity-Sunday and the days that immediately preceded and followed it. The abbess, during these days, was entitled to all the town dues; and, to leave no doubt of her right, she was in the habit of sending some of her officers at vespers time on the Friday, to affix her armorial bearings to every entrance of the town. The same officers also attached their own boxes for the receipt of customs to the gates, in lieu of those of the farmer-general. Water alone could be brought in without payment of toll. As long as the fair lasted, the abbess was likewise treated with military honors; the commandant of the garrison, whatever his rank, was bound to apply to her, in person, for the parole of the day. The Abbe De la Rue, from whose work most of the historical facts concerning this convent are extracted, states, that he has himself seen the Marechal de Harcourt, while governor of Normandy, wait upon the abbess for the purpose; and he is of opinion, that the custom existed from the very foundation of the monastery.

It will not be matter of surprise, that an establishment, thus gifted and distinguished, should have been tenanted by the children of those who had contributed to the endowment. The names of the daughters and nieces of the chief Norman barons, will be found in the catalogue of the first nuns. Such, however, was at that period the state of society, that even an abbey, so founded, endowed, and occupied, was doomed to afford a remarkable instance of the capricious barbarity of the times. No sooner was the death of the Conqueror known, than the very nobles, who, but a few years previously, had been foremost as benefactors to the convent, assumed the opposite character, and did every thing in their power to despoil, and to destroy it. They had themselves subscribed the following denunciation:—"Si quis vero horum omnium, quae praedictae S. Trinitatis ecclesiae data ostensa sunt, temeraria praesumptione aliquando, (quod absit) violator effectus, in sua impudenti obstinatione perstiterit: Noverit ille se anathema factum a Domino, sancta ac beata fidelium omnium communione privatum Divino judicio, perpetualiter esse plectendum."—But no consideration, human or divine, could restrain their rapacity: they pillaged the lands; seized the corn and cattle belonging to the monastery; imprisoned some of the tenants and vassals, and put others to the sword. These, and many other facts, most curiously illustrative of the manners of the age, are to be found in the collection of the charters of the abbey. They prove indisputably, (if such a fact needs proof) that the days of chivalry were far from being days of honesty. But they also shew, what the reader may not be equally prepared to see, that among these plunderers was Henry himself, the Conqueror's youngest son, who did not scruple to lay waste the lands given to the abbey by his mother; and who, as the Abbe de la Rue remarks, had probably, even at that early period, conceived the intention of seizing upon his paternal territory, and might be engaged in the amassing of those pecuniary resources, by the aid of which he ultimately succeeded in his usurpation of the throne.

Among the possessions of the abbey of the Holy Trinity, were several estates[52] and advowsons in England; for the better administration of which, the presence of the abbess was occasionally required on this side of the water. The names of more than one of the holy ladies are on record, who honored our island with their presence. The journal of the tour of the abbess, Georgette du Molley Bacon, states her to have embarked at Caen, on the sixteenth of August, 1570, with fifteen persons in her suite, and to have landed in London, and proceeded to her manor-house at Felsted, in Essex, from which she did not return to Normandy till Trinity-Sunday in the following year.

Hence it may be easily inferred, that the rules of the convent were not of the strictest description. The establishment indeed was, from its origin, under the regulation of the order of St. Benedict, but the nuns, though they lived under the same roof, were not bound by vows: they were accustomed to receive their friends in their own apartments; and many of them had nieces or other relations with them, whom they brought up. The refectory was common; and they ate meat several days in the week. There were also stated times, on which it was allowable for them to take the air in a garden at a short distance from the convent. The abbess herself had her Country-house at Oistreham, where she frequently resided; and upon the occasion of those festivals which are distinguished by public processions, the whole body of the community used to go in procession to each of the different churches of Caen. Sometimes too the abbess attended with a party of her nuns at the performance of any mystery or similar scenical representation. The account of the revenues of the monastery in 1423, shews how Nicole de Rupalley, then abbess, was present at the acting of the Miracle of St. Vincent, and rewarded the performers with a gratuity of ten sols, a sum equivalent, at that time, to ten bushels of wheat.

About the year 1515, an attempt was made by the superior, Isabel of Bourbon, to curtail the indulgences of the sisterhood, by keeping them more closely confined, increasing the number of fast-days, and generally introducing a system of greater rigor. But the nuns remonstrated against the innovation, and had recourse to the Bishop of Bayeux, alledging the injustice of their being called upon to submit themselves to regulations, to which they had not originally subscribed. The prelate, who felt the point to be a delicate one, refused to decide; and the matter ended in an appeal to the Pope, who, finally, allowed the nuns to retire into other convents, where they might enjoy the freedom they claimed.

When, after the capture of Caen by Edward, in 1346, the inhabitants resolved upon fortifying the town anew, the abbeys of St. Stephen and of the Trinity, both of which lay in the suburbs, were excluded from the line of circumvallation; and the consequence was their exposure to insults and pillage. The monks and nuns were therefore obliged to look to their own defence; and, upon King John's coming to Caen, eight years afterwards, they obtained from him letters patent, authorizing them to encircle their convents with walls, towers, and fosses of their own. Hence originated the strange anomaly of a fortress and nunnery within the same precincts. The sisterhood, alarmed at their situation, sold their plate, and even the shrines of their relics, to provide for their safety; and permission was afterwards granted them to levy contributions upon their vassals, for the purpose of expediting and completing the task.—In the reign of Henry VI. during the wane of the British power in France, orders were issued by the monarch for the dismantling of the fort of the Trinity, lest it should be seized by the inhabitants of the neighborhood, who were endeavoring to get possession of Caen. But the abbess resisted the royal edict; and, under an apprehension, lest the attempt to carry it into effect should induce her to open the gates to the insurgents, her resistance was allowed to be effectual.—King Charles repeatedly took up his quarters in this monastery, while his army was laying siege to Caen, in 1450, and mention continues to be made of the fortress till the commencement of the following century; but after that time, it appears to have been suffered to go to ruin.

M. De la Rue rejects, as unfounded, the statement of the Bishop of Avranches, which has obtained general credence, that the spires of the western towers of the abbey were destroyed in 1360, by Charles the Bad, on account of their use for the detecting of the approach of an enemy. His principal argument against the fact is, that the King of Navarre was at that very time at peace with France; and therefore, supposing it to be certain that they were taken down by that prince, he is of opinion, that their demolition must have been ordered to prevent them from serving as landmarks to the English. At the same time, he is evidently inclined to think that the towers were never surmounted by spires at all; and he observes, with much apparent justice, that, if there really were any, and if they were really destroyed at the period alledged, the towers must have been left for a long time in a ruined state, as their present termination is known to be the work of the eighteenth century.

The original charters and title-deeds of the abbey of the Trinity were lost during the revolution. They perished in consequence of the extreme care of the last abbess, who, full of anxiety for their preservation, secured them in trunks, and hid them in the ceiling of the church. But, in those disastrous times, the lead that covered the churches was among the earliest objects of plunder; and the consequence was, that the roof was stripped; the boxes exposed to the rain; the wood and paper wholly destroyed; and the tin cases that held the charters so eaten by rust, that their contents were rendered illegible. It was in this state that they were found by the Abbe De la Rue, who was in possession of the secret, and who, on his return to France, after the cessation of the troubles and the death of the abbess, obtained permission from the prefect for the search to be made.

The church of the abbey of the Trinity had its own peculiar rites; and, till the period of the revolution, the community were in the habit of printing their liturgy annually in latin. A very beautiful quarto volume, containing the ritual, was published at Caen, in 1622, by the order of Laurence de Budos, then abbess. It was probably from pride at a privilege of this nature, and from a confidence in their strength, that the nuns persisted in celebrating the ridiculous, or, it might almost be called, blasphemous Fete des Fous, for a hundred years after the Council of Basle had decreed the suppression of it throughout Christendom. In imitation too of the Boy-Bishops of Bayeux, Salisbury, and other churches, the nuns of the Holy Trinity had their Girl-Abbesses. The ancient rolls of the monastery make mention, under the head of expenses in 1423, of six sols given, by way of offering, on Innocents'-Day, "aux petites Abbesses." This was the day on which the Girl-Abbess was elected: the superior of the convent resigned to her the abbatial stall and crozier at vespers, as soon as they came to the verse of the Magnificat, beginning "Deposuit potentes de sede;" and the farce was kept up till the same hour the succeeding evening. The Abbe De la Rue, who mentions this fact, observes with justice, that another circumstance, which appears from these accounts, is still more extraordinary;—that, even as late as 1546, the abbess was in the habit of making an annual payment of five sols to the cathedral of Bayeux, for its Boy-Bishop. The entry is in the following terms: "Au petit eveque de Bayeux, pour sa pension, ainsi qu'il est accoutume, V. sous." During the early part of the preceding century, the abbot of St. Stephen was also accustomed to pay twenty sols per annum, on the same account; but his payment was probably discontinued immediately after the edict of the Council of Basle, though the ceremony of the Boy-Bishop was not suppressed at Bayeux till 1482. Indeed, only six years before that time, the inventory of the sacristy of the cathedral enumerated, among its other valuables,

"Two mitres for the Boy-Bishop, The crozier belonging to the Boy-Bishop, The Boy-Bishop's mittens, And four small copes of scarlet satin, for the use of the singing-boys on Innocents'-Day."

The abbess of Caen, through the medium of her official, exercised spiritual jurisdiction over the parishes of St. Giles, Carpiquet, Oistreham, and St. Aubin-d'Arquenay, by virtue of a privilege granted by the bishops of Bayeux, as well for herself and her nuns, as for the vassals of the several parishes. This privilege, however, extended no farther than to an exemption from certain pecuniary fines, which the diocesans, in the middle ages, exacted from their flocks; and even in this confined acceptation, it was more than once the subject of litigation between the convent and the see. In like manner, the civil and criminal jurisdiction claimed by the abbess over the same parishes, brought her occasionally into disputes with the bailiff and viscount of Caen: her rights were repeatedly called in question, and she was obliged to have recourse to legal tribunals to establish them. The following very extraordinary suit is at once illustrative of the fact, and of the character of the times:—In the year 1480, an infant was eaten up in its cradle, by a bestia porcina, within the precincts of the parish of St. Giles. The abbess' officers seized the delinquent, and instituted a process for its condemnation before the seneschal of the convent. During the time, however, that the question was pending, the king's attorney-general interfered. He summoned the abbess before the high-bailiff, and, maintaining that the crime had been committed within the cognizance of the bailiwick, he claimed the beast, and demanded that its trial should take place before one of the royal tribunals. Debates immediately arose as to the limits of their respective jurisdictions: inquiries were set on foot; memorials and counter-memorials were presented; and the abbess finally succeeded in carrying her point, only by dint of proving that she had, some years previously, burned a young woman in the Place aux Campions, for having murdered a man in the self-same house where the hog devoured the child.

Among the obligations originally imposed upon this convent, was that of giving a dinner annually, on Trinity Sunday, to such of the inhabitants of the parish of Vaux-sur-Saulles and their domestics, as had resided there a year and a day. The repast was served up within the abbey walls, and in the following manner:—After the guests had washed their hands in a tub of water, they seated themselves on the ground, and a cloth was spread before them. A loaf, of the weight of twenty-one ounces, was then given to each individual, and with it a slice of boiled bacon, six inches square. To this was added a rasher of bacon, fried; and the feast concluded with a basin of bread and milk for every person, all of them having likewise as much beer and cider as they could drink. The dinner, as may naturally be supposed, lasted from three to four hours; and it will also not be difficult to imagine, that the entertaining of such a motley throng on such a day, could not fail to be attended with great annoyance to the nuns, and with various inconveniences. The convent had therefore, from a very early date, endeavored to free themselves from the obligation, by the payment of a sum of money; and, in times of war, the town of Caen had occasionally interposed, and forced the people to accept the composition, from an apprehension, lest the enemy should gain possession of the fort of the Trinity, by introducing themselves into it among the authorized guests. It appears that, in 1429, the abbess purchased an exemption at the price of thirty livres, a sum equivalent to thirty-seven and a half quarters of corn, at a time when wheat sold for two sols the bushel; and twenty-two years subsequently, Charles VII. then King of France, granted his letters patent, abolishing the dinner altogether, upon condition of a like sum being annually paid to the parochial chest.

To the abbey church of the Trinity were attached several chapels, as well without as within its walls: the most remarkable of these was that of St. Thomas, generally known by the name of St. Thomas l'Abattu, in the suburb of St. Giles. It was, in its original state, an hospital, and was called the Hospital of St. Thomas the Martyr in the fields, whence De la Rue infers that it was built in commemoration of Thomas-a-Becket, and was probably erected immediately after his canonization in 1173. Huet, on the contrary, tells us, that it had existed "from time immemorial;" and Ducarel, who has described and figured it,[53] appears to have also regarded it as of very high antiquity. The gradual disappearance of leprosy had caused it to be long since diverted from its original purpose. In 1569, it was pillaged by the Huguenots; and, as no pains were taken to repair the injuries then done, it continued in a state of dilapidation, imperceptibly wasting away, till the period of the revolution, when it was sold, together with the other national property; and even its ruins have now disappeared.

Happily, the abbatial church of the Trinity was at that time more fortunate: it was suffered to continue unappropriated, till, upon the institution of the Legion of Honor, Napoleon applied it to some purposes connected with that body, by whom it was a few years ago ceded for its present object, that of a workhouse for the department. The choir alone is now used as a church: the nave serves for work-rooms; and, to render it the better applicable to this purpose, a floor has been thrown across, which divides it into two stories.

It has been observed in a recent publication,[54] that "a finer specimen of the solid grandeur of Norman architecture, is scarcely to be found any where than in the west front of this church," (the subject of the twenty-fourth plate.) "The corresponding part of the rival abbey of St. Stephen, is poor when compared to it; and Jumieges and St. Georges equally fail in the comparison. In all these, there is some architectural anomaly: in the Trinity none, excepting indeed the balustrade at the top of the towers; and this is so obviously an addition of modern times, that no one can be misled by it.[55] This balustrade was erected towards the beginning of the seventeenth century, when the oval apertures and scrolls, seen in Ducarel's print,[56] were introduced."—It may be well to take the present opportunity of making a general observation, that though, in speaking of this and of other churches, the term, west front, may commonly be applied to the part containing the principal entrance; yet that this term must be received with a certain degree of latitude. The Norman religious edifices are far from being equally regular in their position as the English. With a general inclination to the west, they vary to every point of the compass.[57] The church of the abbey of the Trinity fronts the north-west—The architrave of the central door-way is composed of many surfaces of great depth: two-thirds of them are flat and plain, and recede so little, as to afford but small opportunity for light and shade. Its decorations are few and simple, consisting almost wholly of the billet and chevron moulding, the former occupying the exterior, the latter the interior, circles. In the outermost band, the billets form a single row, and take the curve of the arch; the succeeding circle exhibits them with an unusual arrangement, placed compound, and all pointing to the centre of the door. These, with the addition of quatrefoils, and of some grotesque heads, which serve as key-stones to the mouldings over the windows of the triforium, are the only ornaments which this front can boast. The capitals throughout it are of the simplest forms, being in general little more than inverted cones, slightly truncated, for the purpose of making them correspond with the columns below. Some few of them have the addition of small projecting knobs immediately below the angles of the impost; while those in the square towers are formed by a short cylinder, whose diameter exceeds that of the shaft, surmounted by a square block, by way of abacus. The towers and buttresses decrease in size upwards.—An architectural peculiarity deserving of notice in this front, lies in the triangular mouldings, observable in the spandrils of the arches of the clerestory. The same are occasionally, though rarely, found in other buildings of unquestionably Norman origin, as in the church at Falaise, and in Norwich Cathedral[58] in our own country. They are here more particularly noticed, as serving to illustrate what has been considered an anomaly in the architecture of some of the round-towered churches in Norfolk and Suffolk,[59] where the windows are formed with heads of this shape. Antiquaries, unwilling to admit that the flat-sided arch, as it has been called by a perversion of terms, was introduced into England prior to the fourteenth century, have labored to prove that such windows were alterations of that period, contrary to the evidence of every part of the building.



The east-end of the choir (plate twenty-five) presents a bold termination, pierced with ten spacious windows, that give light to the choir, each of them encircled with a broad band, composed of the same ornaments as are found in the rest of the exterior of the edifice. This part of the church is divided in its elevation into three compartments, the lower containing a row of small blank arches, while in each of the upper two is a window of an unusual size for a Norman building, but still without mullions or tracery. The windows ore separated by thick cylindrical pillars, which rise from immediately above a row of windows that give light to the crypt. The heads of these windows are level with the surface of the ground; and the wall, in this subterranean part of the building, is considerably thicker than it is above. The balustrade of quatrefoils above appears coeval with the rest, and may be regarded as tending to establish the originality of that in the nave of the abbey church of St. Stephen.[60]





The twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh plates shew the interior of the choir, as the thirty-third does the most remarkable of its capitals. This part of the church, in its general arrangement, very much resembles the same portion in St. Georges and in Norwich Cathedral. The second, however, of these buildings, retains the original groinings of the roof, which in our English church have been sacrificed, to make room for large pointed windows; while in the church of the Trinity they have given place to a spacious dome, painted with a representation of the Assumption. In the foreground of this picture, is seen the royal foundress of the abbey; and, according to common tradition, the portrait of a female dressed in the habit of a nun, on the north side of the high altar, is also intended for her. But traditions of this nature are too vague for much reliance to be placed upon them. The altar-piece itself is an Adoration of the Shepherds, not devoid of merit.—The plain arches, with their truncated columns, seen in the upper part of plate 26, near the front on either side, and repeated in the following plate, are those which terminate the flat part of the choir. The wide unvaried extent of blank surface beneath them is attributable to modern masons, who have filled up and covered arches without mercy or discretion, and have pierced the walls anew with plain mean door-ways. The windows are lofty, and of fine proportions. Their glazing is probably of the time of Louis XIV. when the gorgeous splendor of painted glass gave way to the less beautiful and less appropriate ornaments, supplied by the fancy of the plumbers.[61] The narrow passage formed in the thickness of the wall, with its small arches variously decorated, surrounds the whole building; choir, nave, and transepts. In the architectural arrangement of this portion of the edifice, where every large arch of the windows is flanked by two lesser ones of the triforium, the church of the Trinity agrees with the cathedral at Oxford, as figured in Mr. Carter's work on ancient architecture[62] and there treated as a genuine Saxon building, erected by King Ethelred, after the destruction of the monastery by the Danes in 1004. But the capitals of the columns in the two churches bear only a slight resemblance to each other. Those at Oxford[63] are among the most beautiful left us by early architects, consisting chiefly of foliage; and, in one instance, of a very elegant imitation of a coronet. In the abbatial church at Caen, they display the same mixture of Grecian and barbarous taste, the same beauties, the same monstrosities, and the same apparent aim at fabulous or emblematic history, as has been previously remarked at St. Georges. On the angles of one, which contains four storks, arranged in pairs, will be found an obvious representation of the heraldic fleur-de-lys. In that, figured below it on the plate, is a head placed over two lions, commonly believed to be intended for a portrait of the Conqueror.





The twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth plates are devoted to the transepts: the first of them exhibits two of the arches which support the central tower. Finer specimens of the kind are scarcely to be seen in Normandy; and the decoration of them is very peculiar, consisting altogether of numerous bands of quatrefoils in bas-relief. The sculpture of the capitals is likewise remarkable: that of one of them represents entire rams; while the opposite one has only the heads of the same animal at its angles, accompanied with an ornament, which the writer of this article does not remember to have met with elsewhere. The arch that separates the tower from the nave,[64] rises higher than any of the rest, and is obtusely pointed; but its decorations correspond with those of the others, and it appears to be of the same date.[65] For the purpose of more effectually marking the connection of the twenty-eighth plate with the preceding, it may be well to observe, that the string-course, seen in the former through the first arch and adjoining the base of the truncated column, is the same which, in plate twenty-seven, forms the base-line of the windows. The same string-course in the choir runs immediately below the gallery; but in the transepts, this gallery is upon a different line, being elevated by the interposition of a very beautiful range of small blank arches, between the larger arches below and the windows of the clerestory; and these latter, in conjunction with the small arches, only occupy the same space as the windows of the choir. The southern transept has been here selected for publication, as being the most perfect. Had the opposite one been equally so, it would have been preferable, from the curious character of its capitals, many of which are taken from scripture-history. But these are, unfortunately, much mutilated.



In the thirtieth plate is given a general view of the upper half of the interior of the nave, shewing the western extremity, with the three compartments nearest to it on either side; and here, as in the two preceding plates, it is impossible not to regret the existence of the floor, which, by dividing the church into different stories, greatly injures the effect of the whole. Neither in this nor in any other part of the building, are there side-chapels or aisles. The architecture of the nave, in its general arrangement, resembles that of the transepts; except as to the arches of the second row, which are peculiar. Upon an attentive examination too, it will be found that, notwithstanding the apparent uniformity, no two compartments are precisely alike, while the capitals are infinitely varied. This playfulness of ornament is remarkable in a building, whose architect appears, at first view, to have contemplated only grandeur and solidity. At the farther end of the nave, are seen the five windows of the principal front, together with a portion of the great arch of entrance. The remaining part of this arch, as well as of the others of the lower tier, with the pillars that support them, are concealed by the floor. The gallery, it will be remarked, sinks at the western end, as in the choir, and is connected with the sides by a staircase. The roof is only of lath and plaster, painted in imitation of masonry.



The thirty-first plate exhibits three of the eight compartments of the clerestory, on the south side of the nave, as seen externally. The cloisters and conventual buildings hide the whole of the opposite side of the church; and, perfect as is the part here represented, there is nothing to be seen below; for a range of work-shops and of sheds has obstructed the view of the exterior, as effectually as the floor has of the corresponding portion within. The corbel-table, with its monsters of all descriptions, affords a curious specimen of the sculpture of the age. The string-course above it is rich and beautiful. The same is also the case with the decorations of the windows, as well as of the blank arches with which they are flanked, while the intervening flat buttresses, edged by slender cylindrical pilasters, likewise indicate a degree of care and of taste which is very pleasing, and which is the more remarkable, when considered in union with the architecture of the exterior of the contemporary abbey of St. Stephen.



The crypt (plate thirty-two) occupies the space under the choir. The Abbe De la Rue, who terms it "une jolie chapelle," says that, in the fifteenth century, it was denominated the subterranean chapel of St. Nicholas; but previously to the revolution, had assumed the name of the chapel of the Holy Trinity. It was originally entered by two narrow staircases from the transepts. Its length from east to west is about thirty feet: its width, about twenty-seven. The simple vaulted roof is supported by thirty-two slender columns, sixteen of them half imbedded in the wall, and rising from a stone bench, with which this crypt is surrounded, in the same manner as that of the church of St. Gervais, at Rouen. This chapel was, till lately, paved with highly-polished vitrified bricks, each about two inches square, diversified with very vivid colors, but of a description altogether unlike those in the Conqueror's palace. It is lighted by narrow windows, which widen considerably inwards, the wall being here of great thickness; and, according to all probability, there were originally eleven of them, though the greater part are now closed. One of them was lately filled with bones, and bricked up. Upon the place it occupied is to be seen the following inscription, placed between a couple of vases of antique form:—"Ossemens trouves dans l'ancien chapitre des dames de la Trinite, et deposes dans ce lieu le IV. Mars, MDCCCXVIII."



In the same year, at the time when these drawings were made, no tombs whatever existed in the church of the Trinity. There had formerly been many here; but the revolution had swept them all away.[66] Among the rest were those of the royal foundress, of her daughter Caecilia, the first abbess, and of two other daughters of English kings, who likewise wore the ducal coronet of Normandy. The most celebrated of all was that of Matilda: according to Ordericus Vitalis, it was of exquisite workmanship, and richly ornamented with gold and precious stones. But the Calvinists demolished it in 1562; and, not content with plundering the monument of all that was valuable, tore open the Queen's coffin, and dispersed her remains. Towards the close of the same century, Anne de Montmorenci, then abbess, caused the royal bones to be collected, and again to be deposited in the original stone coffin; and things continued in this state till the year 1708, when the abbess, Gabrielle Francoise Fronlay de Tesse, raised a second altar-tomb of black marble, a representation of which has been preserved by Ducarel. In addition to this, she inclosed the bones of the princess for greater security in a leaden box, which she laid in the coffin; and these happily escaped violation in 1793, when the revolutionists destroyed the monument, because the arms of Normandy, with which it was ornamented, sinned against the doctrines of the liberty and equality of man. France being once more settled under a monarchical form of government, a fresh search was instituted in March, 1819, by the prefect of the department, in the presence of the bishop of the diocese and Mr. Spencer Smythe, for the discovery of Matilda's remains; and they were found and verified, and re-interred in their original situation.—Another tomb, similar to that which was destroyed at the revolution, is also raised over them. The engraved stone in plate twenty-six, marks the place which it occupies. Upon it is laid the original slab with the epitaph, which, by great good fortune, escaped unhurt from the hands both of democrats and Huguenots; and, as many of the subscribers to this work have expressed a desire that a fac-simile of it should be inserted, as illustrative of the form of the letters, as well as of the manner of writing in use at that period, Mr. Cotman has had a pleasure in meeting their wishes, at the same time, that he has not considered it as sufficiently belonging to the publication, to justify him in making it an object of charge. The inscription, divided into lines, and written in modern characters, is as follows:—

"Egregie pulchri tegit hec structura sepulcri Moribus insigne germen regale Matildem Dux Flandrita pater huic extitit Adala mater Francor gentis Rotberti filia regis Et soror Henrici regali sede potiti Regi magnifico Wlllelmo juncta marito Presentem sedem presente fecit et edem Tam multis terris quam multis rebus honestis A se ditatam se procurante dicatam Hec consolatrix inopum pietatis amatrix Gazis dispersis pauper sibi dives egenis Sic infinite petiit consortia vite In prima mensis post primam luce Novembris."



NOTES:

[51] The will of the Queen has been printed by the Abbe De la Rue, (Essais Historiques II. p. 437) from a manuscript in the royal library at Paris; but the writer of the present article is not aware that it has ever yet appeared in any English publication; and he therefore considers it desirable here to reprint it, for the antiquaries of his own country.—"Ego Mathildis Regina do Sanctae Trinitati Cadomi casulam quam apud Wintoniam [Winchester] operatur uxor Aldereti, et clamidem operatam ex auro quae est in camera mea ad cappam faciendam, atque de duabus ligaturis meis aureis in quibus cruces sunt, illam quae emblematibus est insculpta, ad lampadem suspendendam coram Sancto altare, candelabraque maxima quae fabricantur apud Sanctum Laudum, coronam quoque et sceptrum, calicesque ac vestimentum, atque aliud vestimentum quod operatur in Anglia, et cum omnibus ornamentis equi, atque omnia vasa mea, exceptis illis quae antea dedero alicubi in vita mea; et Chetehulmum [Quetehou en Cotentin] in Normannia, et duas mansiones in Anglia do Sanctae Trinitati Cadomi. Haec omnia concessu domini mei Regis facio.

"Ex cartulario Sanctae Trin. Bibl. Reg. Paris. no. 5650."

[52] The annual income arising from these, is stated by Odon Rigaud, Archbishop of Rouen, in the proces-verbal of his visit to this abbey in 1250, to have amounted to one hundred and sixty pounds sterling; a sum nearly equivalent to eighty thousand livres of the present day.

[53] Anglo-Norman Antiquities, p. 75, t. 7.—In this figure, which represents the south side of the building, a striking resemblance will be observed with the architecture of the church of Than, figured in this work, pl. 16.—Ducarel, in speaking of the pillars in the inside of the chapel, says they are of a peculiar construction, and widely different from all others that have fallen under his consideration; but he has unfortunately furnished no engraving of them, and has even omitted to mention wherein their peculiarity lay.

[54] Turner's Tour in Normandy, II. p. 184.

[55] Still less can any one be so by the alteration of the arches of entrance into modern windows, which Mr. Turner did not think it worth while to mention.

[56] Anglo-Norman Antiquities, plate 5.

[57] See Turner's Tour in Normandy, II. p. 171.

[58] See Britton's Norwich Cathedral, plate 4, F. p. 32.

[59] Hadisco church, figured in Cotman's Architectural Antiquities of Norfolk, plate 38, affords an excellent specimen of these windows.

[60] See plate 23.

[61] See Turner's Tour in Normandy, II. p. 252, under the head of Bayeux Cathedral, the windows of which are remarkable for the complicated patterns of the lead-work.—See also Carter's Ancient Architecture, I. plate 79, p. 54, where this laborious author states himself to have collected nearly all the remains of this description of art in England. He is inclined to refer it to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.—In the second volume of the same work, plate 27, fig. F. 2, is represented one of the borders of the west window of the nave in York Cathedral, which almost exactly resembles one of these at Caen.

[62] I. plate 28, fig. A.

[63] See Britton's Oxford Cathedral, plate 4.

[64] In Mr. Turner's Tour in Normandy, II. p. 186, this arch is, by a lapsus calami, called the eastern, instead of the western.

[65] Mr. Cotman thought that he could discover visible traces of its having been originally semi-circular, and subsequently raised and pointed: and it is certainly most probable that such has been the case.

[66] Drawings of them all are fortunately preserved by the Abbe De la Rue; and it is hoped some French antiquary will be found sufficiently patriotic to cause them to be engraved.



PLATES XXXIV.—XXXVI.

CASTLE AND CHURCH OF ST. JAMES, AT DIEPPE.



The anonymous author of the History of Dieppe,[67] published towards the close of the last century, traces the origin of the town as high as the year 809, when Charlemagne visited this part of the coast of his empire, and, observing how much it was exposed to hostile attacks, ordered the construction of a fort upon the beach. The fort was honored with the name of the emperor's daughter, Bertha; and as the protection thus afforded, joined to the advantageous nature of the position, caused the fortress, within a short time, to be surrounded by the cottages of the neighboring fishermen, an establishment insensibly grew up, which acquired the appellation of Bertheville.

But the irruptions of the Normans, towards the close of the same, or the commencement of the succeeding, century, gave a new color to affairs in Neustria: places changed their names with their masters; and, no respect being paid to the emperor or his descendants, Bertheville ceased to be known under any other denomination than that of Dyppe, a Norman word, expressive of the depth of water in its harbor. Under Rollo, we are told that Dieppe became the principal port in the duchy. That politic sovereign was too well versed in nautical affairs, not to be aware of the importance of such a station; and he had the interest of his newly-acquired territory too much at heart, not to labor at the improving of it. It was at Dieppe that he embarked the troops, which he dispatched, in 913, for the assistance of his countrymen, the Danes, in their attempts to conquer England; and the town flourished under his sway, and then laid the foundation for that maritime greatness to which it has subsequently risen.

From this time forward, Dieppe is frequently mentioned in history: William the Conqueror honored it with his presence in 1047, and received in person the homage of its inhabitants, on his return from Arques, when the surrender of that important fortress by his uncle, Telo, put an end to the troubles occasioned by the illegitimacy of his birth. The same monarch, during the preparations for his descent upon Britain, made a particular call on the people of Dieppe, to arm their vessels for the transport of his troops. They obeyed the summons; and they boast that their ships were the first that arrived at the place of rendezvous. No port in Normandy derived equal advantage from the conquest: the intercourse between the sister countries was naturally conducted through this channel; and such continued the case till 1194, when Richard Coeur-de-Lion, defeated under the walls of Arques, was compelled to leave this part of the province a prey to the victorious arms of Philip-Augustus. Upon this occasion, the French monarch appears to have singled out Dieppe as an object of particular vengeance, and he conducted himself towards it with a cruelty for which it would be difficult to assign an adequate reason. Not content with burning the town and its shipping, he transported the inhabitants into the ulterior parts of France, that they might never re-assemble and raise it from its ashes. Brito, at the same time that he glosses over the more flagrant part of the transaction, tells enough to leave no doubt of its truth; and his passage upon the subject deserves attention, particularly as being decisive with regard to the state of Dieppe at that period:

"Haud procul hinc portus fama celeberrimus atque Villa potens opibus florebat nomine Deppen. Hanc primum Franci sub eodem tempore gazis Omnibus expoliant, spoliatam denique totam In cinerem redigunt; et sic ditatus abivit Coetus ovans, quod tot villa non esse vel urbe Divitias aut tam pretiosas diceret unquam."—

In the course of the succeeding year, the treaty of Gaillon restored Dieppe and Arques, with their dependencies, to Richard, who almost immediately afterwards surrendered the former town to Walter, Archbishop of Rouen, as one of the articles of compensation for the injury done to that prelate, by the erection of Chateau Gaillard upon his territory. Dieppe appears to have recovered itself with surprising rapidity: a new church, under the invocation of St. James, was erected in 1250, that of St. Remi being no longer sufficient for the accommodation of its inhabitants; and these, however cruelly they had been injured by Philip-Augustus, were among the foremost in their demonstrations of loyalty to him as their sovereign, when the cold-blooded tyranny of John had bereft him of the Norman diadem. In one of the first years of the succeeding century, John Baliol, more properly called De Bailleul, a fugitive from Scotland, sought refuge in Dieppe, and finally retired to his paternal domain in the valley of the Yaulne, five leagues distant from the port. The remainder of his days were spent here in the village that bears his name; and the parochial church, which still contains his ashes, was, till lately, ornamented with his tomb, charged with an inscription, reciting the various events of his life.

During the wars of Edward III. the ships from Dieppe took the lead in the great naval engagement in 1337; and their admiral, Behuchet, so distinguished himself, as to draw down upon him the marked resentment of that prince. He was himself made prisoner and hanged; and a detachment of English and Flemings was dispatched to destroy the harbor. The injuries, however, now sustained, were repaired with the same rapidity as before: Philip shewed himself no less ready to reward services, than his opponent had been to resent offences. His letters patent, bearing date in February, 1345, exempted the inhabitants from the payment of all taxes and dues, for the purpose of enabling them to rebuild their walls.—Dieppe, in 1412, was again attacked by the English, and, on this occasion, both by land and sea; but the inhabitants made a gallant and an effectual resistance.

Their opposition, though unavailing, was not at all less spirited in the following reign, when they were compelled, in common with the rest of France, to acknowledge the power of the fifth Henry. But they again disengaged themselves from the English crown in 1431, after having remained in subjugation to it for eleven years; and the subsequent siege, conducted by Talbot himself in person, in 1442, only added to their military character. During this siege, which was of great length, the English general erected the formidable fortress, known by the name of the Bastille, in the suburb of Pollet. The following year saw the French become in their turn the assailants: Louis II. then dauphin, joined the troops of the Comte de Dunois in Dieppe, and the Bastille fell, after a most murderous attack. It was afterwards levelled with the ground in 1689, though, at a period of one hundred and twenty years after it was originally taken and dismantled, it had again been made a place of strength by the Huguenots, and was still farther fortified under Henry IV. The pious dauphin, who ascribed the capture of this almost impregnable castle to the especial grace of the Virgin Mary, would not quit Dieppe without leaving behind him an equally signal mark of gratitude on his part. He accordingly repaired in person to the church of St. James, there to place the town under her especial protection; and, not content with this, he instituted the Guild of the Assumption, charging the members annually to commemorate the day of their deliverance by a solemn festival.[68]

After this time, Dieppe appears to have been exposed to no farther calamities from warfare, except what it suffered, in common with a great part of France, during the religious troubles, and also excepting the bombardment by the English fleet in 1694. From the earliest rise of Calvinism in France, the inhabitants of Dieppe had distinguished themselves in favor of the reformation; and they were already prepared to go to the utmost lengths in its support, when John Knox, one of the most devoted apostles of the new faith, landed there in 1560, on his way from Scotland to Geneva. The presence of such a man produced the effect which might naturally be expected, of kindling the spark into a flame; and Dieppe continued for two years in open rebellion to the court. The inhabitants, in 1562, alarmed by the capture of Rouen, consented to receive a garrison from our Queen Elizabeth, rather than submit to renounce their creed; but they were obliged, in the course of the same year, to surrender to the royal troops. Notwithstanding all this, the Protestants of Dieppe, through the wisdom and moderation of the governor, escaped unhurt from the massacre of St. Bartholomew. The town was nevertheless one of the first in France to declare, in 1589, for Henry IV. when, pursued by the victorious forces of the league, he sought shelter in these walls, and here collected the handful of troops, with which he almost immediately afterwards gained the important victory of Arques. The same prince also retired hither three years subsequently, and remained ten days in the midst of ses bons Dieppois, as he was in the habit of styling them, to be cured of the wounds received in the battle of Aumale.

Among the various royal personages, with whose presence Dieppe has been honored on different occasions, were Mary of Guise, widow of James V. of Scotland, and mother to the unfortunate princess of the same name, who succeeded her on the Scottish throne. She landed here in 1549, and was immediately joined by Henry II. who was at that time at Rouen. In 1564, Catherine of Medicis came hither, attended by her son, Charles IX. with a view of healing the wounds occasioned by the religious dissentions; and, in 1618, Louis XIII. after holding an assembly of the states of Normandy at the capital of the duchy, repaired to Dieppe, to visit one of the most important sea-ports of his kingdom. The same attention was shewn to the town twenty-nine years subsequently, by Louis XIV. then in his minority, accompanied by the Queen Regent; and, in our own days, it has been equally distinguished by Napoleon.

In this short outline of the principal events connected with the history of Dieppe, no notice has been taken of the honor acquired by its sailors, who have, however, on all occasions, distinguished themselves. They did so particularly in the year 1555, when, unassisted by their king, or by any other part of France, they armed their merchant vessels, and attacked and defeated, and nearly destroyed, the Flemish fleet, consisting of twenty-four sail of ships of war. At all times they have been considered as supplying some of the best men to the French navy, so that the President de Thou pronounced them to be entitled to the highest glory in nautical affairs. They lay claim to the honor of having first planted the standard of Christianity upon the coast of Guinea, where they established a settlement in the fourteenth century; of having been the first who discovered the great river of the Amazons; and also the first who sailed up that of St. Lawrence. Even to the present day, they carry on a considerable traffic in small ornaments made of ivory, a humiliating memento of their connection with Senegal: but all the rest of their commerce is dwindled into the fishery, and a small portion of coasting-trade.

The castle, (the subject of plate thirty-four,) stands upon a steep hill; and, on approaching the town from the sea, has a grand and imposing appearance. Its walls, flanked with towers and bastions, cause it to retain the look of strength, the reality of which has long since departed. The earliest portion of the building is probably a high quadrangular tower, with lofty pointed pannels, in the four walls. Even this, however, cannot have been erected anterior to the year 1443; for it is upon record that the Sieur des Marets, the first governor of the place, then began to build a castle here, to protect the town from any farther attacks on the part of the English army. The inhabitants, during the reign of Henry IV. obtained permission to add to it a citadel; but the whole was suffered almost immediately afterwards to fell into decay.