Account of a Tour in Normandy Volume Ii Part 1

Account of a Tour in Normandy.

Vol. II.

by Dawson Turner.

LETTERS FROM NORMANDY.

LETTER XIV.

DUCLER--ST. GEORGES DE BOCHERVILLE--M. LANGLOIS.

(_Ducler, July_, 1818.)

You will look in vain for Ducler in the _livre des postes_; yet this little town, which is out of the common road of the traveller, becomes an interesting station to the antiquary, it being situated nearly mid-way between two of the most important remains of ancient ecclesiastical architecture in Normandy--the abbeys of St. Georges de Bocherville and of Jumieges.--The accommodation afforded by the inns at Bocherville and Jumieges, is but a poor subst.i.tute for the hospitality of the suppressed abbeys; and, as even the antiquary must eat and perhaps sleep, he who visits either St. George or the holy Virgin, will do well to take his _fricandeau_ and his bed, at the place whence I am writing.

At a period when the right bank of the Seine from Harfleur to Rouen displayed an almost uninterrupted line or monastic buildings, Ducler also boasted of a convent[1], which must have been of some importance, as early as the middle of the seventh century.--King Childeric IInd, granted the forest of Jumieges to the convent of the same name and that of St. Vandrille; and St. Ouen was directed by the monarch to divide the endowment between the two foundations. His award did not give satisfaction to St. Philibert, the abbot of Jumieges, who maintained that his house had not received a fair allotment. The proposition was stoutly resisted by St. Lambert, abbot of St. Vandrille; and the dispute was at length settled by the saints withdrawing their claims, and ceding the surplus land to the abbey of Ducler. St. Denys was the patron of this abbey; and to him also the present parochial church is dedicated: it is of Norman architecture; the tower is surrounded by a row of fantastic corbels; and a considerable quant.i.ty of painted gla.s.s yet remains in the windows. The village itself (for it is nothing more than a village, though honored by French geographers with the name of a _bourg_), consists of a single row of houses, placed immediately under the steep chalk cliff which borders the Seine. The face of the cliff is also indented by excavations, in which the poorer inhabitants dwell, almost like the Troglodytes of old. The situation of Ducler, and that of the two neighboring abbeys, is delightful in summer and in fine weather.

In winter it must be cold and cheerless; for, besides being close to a river of so great breadth, it looks upon a flat marshy sh.o.r.e, whence exhalations copiously arise. The view from our chamber window this morning presented volumes of mist rolling on with the stream. The tide was setting in fast downwards; and the water glided along in silent rapidity, involved in clouds.

The village of Bocherville, or, as it is more commonly called, of St.

Georges, the place borrowing its name from the patron saint of the abbey, lies, at the distance of about two leagues from Rouen. The road is exceedingly pleasing. Every turning presents a fresh view of the river; while, on looking back, the city itself is added to the landscape; and, as we approach, the abbey-church is seen towering upon the eminence which it commands.

The church of St. Georges de Bocherville, called in old charters _de Baucherville_, and in Latin _de Balcheri_ or _Baucheri villa_, was built by Ralph de Tancarville, the preceptor of the Conqueror in his youth, and his chamberlain in his maturer age. The descendants of the founder were long the patrons and advocates of the monastery. The Tancarvilles, names ill.u.s.trious in Norman, no less than in English, story, continued during many centuries to regard it as under their particular protection: they enriched it with their donations whilst alive, and they selected it as the spot to contain their remains when they should be no more.

The following portion of the charter, which puts us in possession of the indisputable ra of the erection of the church, is preserved by Mabillon[2]. It is the Conqueror who speaks.--"Radulfus, meus magister, aulque et camer princeps, instinctu divino tactus, ecclesiam supradicti martyris Georgii, qu erat parva, re-edificare a fundamentis inchoavit, et ex proprio in modum crucis consummavit."

The Monarch and his Queen condescended to gratify a faithful and favorite servant, by endowing his establishment. The corpse of the sovereign himself was also brought hither from St. Gervais, by the monks and clergy, in solemn procession, before it was carried to Caen[3] for interment.

Ralph de Tancarville, however, was not fortunate in the selection of the inmates whom he planted in his monastery. His son, in the reign of Henry Ist, dismissed the canons for whom it was first founded, and replaced them by a colony of monks from St. Evroul. Ordericus Vitalis, himself of the fraternity of St. Evroul, commemorates and of course praises the fact. Such changes are of frequent occurrence in ecclesiastical history; and the apprehension of being rejected from an opulent and well-endowed establishment, may occasionally have contributed, by the warning example, to correct the irregularities of other communities. A century later, the abbot of St. Georges was compelled to appeal to the pope, in consequence of an attempt on the part of his brethren at St. Evroul, to degrade his convent into a mere cell, dependent upon theirs.--The chronicle of the abbey is barren of events of general interest; nor do its thirty-one abbots appear to have been men of whom there was much more to be said, than that they arrived at their dignity on such a year, and quitted it on such another. Of the monks, we are told that, in the fifteenth century, though their number was only eight, the dignitaries included, the daily task allotted them was greater than would in any of the most rigid establishments, in latter days, have been imposed upon forty brethren in a week!

Inconsiderable as is the abbey, in an historical point of view, the church of St. Georges de Bocherville is of singular importance, inasmuch as it is one of the land-marks of Norman architecture. William, in his charter, simply styles himself _Dux Normannorum_; it therefore was granted a few years before the conquest. The building has suffered little, either from the hands of the destroyers, or of those who do still more mischief, the repairers; and it is certainly at once the most genuine and the most magnificent specimen of the circular style, now existing in Upper Normandy.--The west front is wholly of the time of the founder, with the exception of the upper portion of the towers that flank it on either side. In these are windows of nearly the earliest pointed style; and they are probably of the same date as the chapter-house, which was built in the latter part of the twelfth century. The effect of the front is imposing: its general simplicity contrasts well with the rich ornaments of the arched door-way, which is divided into five systems of mouldings, all highly wrought, and presenting almost every pattern commonly found in Norman buildings. A label encircles the whole, the inner edge of which is indented into obtuse pyramids, erroneously called lozenges. The capitals of the columns supporting the arch are curiously sculptured: upon the second to the left, on entering, are Adam and Eve, in the act of eating the forbidden fruit; upon the opposite one, is represented the Flight into Egypt. Normandy does not contain, I believe, a richer arch; but very many indeed are to be seen in England, even in our village churches, superior in decoration, though not, perhaps, in size; for this at St.

Georges is on a very large scale: on each side of it is a smaller blank arch, with a single moulding and a single pillar. Two tiers of circular-headed windows of equal size fill up the front.--The rest of the exterior may be said to be precisely as it was left by the original builders, excepting only the insertion of a pointed window near the central tower.

The inside is at least equally free from modern alterations or improvements. No other change whatever is to be traced in it than such as were required to repair the injuries done it during the religious wars; and these were wholly confined to a portion of the roof, and of the upper part of the wall on the south side of the nave. The groined roof, though posterior to the original date of the building, is perhaps of the thirteenth century. The nave itself terminates towards the east in a semi-circular apsis, according to the custom of the times; and there, as well as at the opposite extremity of the building, it has a double tier of windows, and has columns more ma.s.sy than those in the body of the church. The aisles end in straight lines; but, within, a recess is made in the thickness of the wall, for the purpose of admitting an altar. Both the transepts are divided within the church, at a short distance from their extremities, into two stories, by a vaulted roof of the same height as the triforium.--M. Le Prevost, who has very kindly communicated to me the princ.i.p.al part of these details, has observed the same to be the case in some other contemporary buildings in Normandy. On the eastern side of each transept is a small chapel, ending, like the choir, in a semi-circular apsis, which rises no higher than the top of the bas.e.m.e.nt story. A cable moulding runs round the walls of the whole church within.--You and I, in our own country, have often joined in admiring the ma.s.sy grandeur of Norman architecture, exemplified in the nave of Norwich cathedral: at St. Georges I was still more impressed by the n.o.ble effect of semi-circular arcades, seen as they are here on a still larger scale, and in their primitive state, uninterrupted and undebased by subsequent additions.

On closer examination, the barbarous style of the sculpture forces itself upon the eye. Towards the western end of the building the capitals are comparatively plain: they become more elaborate on approaching the choir. Some of them are imitations or modifications (and it may even be said beautiful ones) of the Grecian model; but in general they are strangely grotesque. Many represent quadrupeds, or dragons, or birds, and commonly with two bodies, and a single head attached to any part rather than the neck. On others is seen "the human form divine,"

here praying, there fighting; here devouring, there in the act of being devoured; not uncommonly too the men, if men they must be called, are disfigured by enormous heads with great flapping ears, or loll out an endless length of tongue.--One is almost led to conceive that Schedel, the compiler of the _Nuremberg Chronicle_, had a set of Norman capitals before his eyes, when he published his inimitable series of monsters.

His "homines cynocephali," and others with "aures tam magnas ut totum corpus contegant," and those again whose under lips serve them as coverlids, may all find their prototypes, or nearly so, in the carvings of St. Georges.

The most curious sculptures, however, in the church, are two square bas-reliefs, opposite to one another, upon the spandrils of the arches, in the walls that divide the extremities of the transepts into different stories[4]. They are cut out of the solid stone, in the same manner as the subjects on the block of a wood-engraving: one of these tablets represents a prelate holding a crosier in his left hand, while the two fore-fingers of the right are elevated in the act of giving the blessing; the other contains two knights on horseback, jousting at a tournament. They are armed with lance and buckler, and each of them has his head covered with a pointed helmet, which terminates below in a nasal, like the figures upon the Bayeux tapestry.--This coincidence is interesting, as deciding a point of some moment towards establis.h.i.+ng the antiquity of that celebrated relic, by setting it beyond a doubt that such helmets were used anterior to the conquest; for it is certain that these ba.s.so-relievos are coeval with the building which contains them.

This church affords admirable subjects for the pencil. It should be drawn in every part: all is entire; all original; the corbel-stones that support the cornice on the exterior are perfect, as well along the choir and nave, as upon the square central steeple: each of the sides of this latter is ornamented with a double tier of circular arches. The b.u.t.tresses to the church are, like those of the chapel of St. Julien, shallow and unbroken; and they are ranged, as there, between the windows. At the east end alone they take the shape of small semi-cylindrical columns of disproportionate length.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Sculpture upon a capital in the Chapter-House at St.

Georges]

The monastic buildings, which were probably erected about the year 1700, now serve as a manufactory. Between them and the church is situated the chapter-house, which was built towards the end of the twelfth century, at a period when the pointed architecture had already begun to take place of the circular style. Its date is supplied in the _Gallia Christiana_, where we read, that Victor, the second abbot, "obiit longvus dierum, idibus Martii, seu XVIII calendas Aprilis, ante annum 1211; sepultusque est sub tabul marmore in capitulo quod erexerat."

We found it in a most ruinous and dilapidated state, yet extremely curious; indeed not less so than the church. Its front to the west exhibits a row of three semi-circular arches, with an ornament on the archivolt altogether different from what I recollect to have seen elsewhere[5]. The inside corresponds in profuse decoration with this entrance; but the arches in it are all pointed. An entablature of beautiful workmans.h.i.+p is carried round the whole building, which is now used as a mill: it was crowded with dirty children belonging to the manufactory; and the confusion which prevailed, was far from being favorable to the quiet lucubrations of an antiquary. In no part of the church is the sculpture equally curious; and it is very interesting to observe the progress which this branch of the art had made in so short a time. Two or three of the capitals to the arches in front, seem to include one continued action, taken apparently from the history of Joshua. Another capital, of which I send you a sketch from the pencil of M. Le Prevost, is a great curiosity. The group which it contains, is nearly a duplicate of the supposed statue of William the Conqueror at Caen. In all probability it represents some legendary story, though the subject is not satisfactorily ascertained. Against the pillars that support these arches, were affixed whole-length figures, or cariatides, in alto-relievo. Three of them still remain, though much mutilated; two women and a man. They hold in their hands labels, with inscriptions that fall down to their feet in front. One of the females has her hair disposed in long braided tresses, which reach on either side to her girdle. In this respect, as well as in the style of the sculpture and costume, there is a resemblance between these statues and those on the portals at St. Denys and at Chartres, as well as those formerly on that of St. Germain des Prs, at Paris, all which are figured by Montfaucon in his _Monumens de la Monarchie Franaise_, and are supposed by him to be of the times of the Merovingian or Carlovingian dynasty; but subsequent writers have referred them to the eleventh or twelfth century.

[Ill.u.s.tration: M. Langlois]

It was in this chapter-house that M. Langlois[6] found, among a heap of stones, a most interesting capital, that had formerly been attached to a double column. By his kindness, I inclose you two drawings of it. One of them shews it in its entire form as a capital; the other exhibits the bas-relief carved upon it[7].

[Ill.u.s.tration: Bas-relief on capital]

The various injuries sustained by the building, render it impossible to ascertain the spot which this capital originally occupied; but M. Le Prevost supposes that it belonged to some gate of the cloister, which is now destroyed. A more curious series of musical instruments is, perhaps, no where to be found; and it is a subject upon which authors in general are peculiarly unsatisfactory. I am told that, in an old French romance, the names of upwards of twenty are enumerated, whose forms and nature are quite unknown at the present day; while, on the other hand, we are all of us aware that painting and sculpture supply figures of many, for which it would be extremely difficult or impossible to find names[8].

[Ill.u.s.tration: Musicians, from the Chapter-House at St. Georges]

The chapter-house, previously to the revolution, contained a tomb-stone[9], uninscribed and exhibiting only a sculptured sword, under which it was supposed that either Ralph de Tancarville himself, the founder of the abbey, or his grandson, William, lay interred. It is of the latter that the records of the monastery tell, how, on the fifth day after he girded himself with the military belt, he came to the church, and deposited his sword upon the altar, and subsequently redeemed it by various donations, and by confirming to the monks their right to the several benefices in his domain, which had been ceded to them by his grandfather.--Here then, I quit you: in a few days I shall have paid my devotions at the shrine of Jumieges:--meanwhile, in the language of the writers of the elder day, I close this sheet with.

EXPLICIT FELICITER Stus. GEORGIUS DE BOCHERVILLA; DEO GRATIAS.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: _Histoire de la Haute Normandie_, II. p. 266. VOL. II.]

[Footnote 2: _Ann. Benedict._ III. p. 674, 675.--This charter was not among the archives of the monastery; but I am informed by M. Le Prevost, that several are still in existence, most of them granted by the family of the founder, but some by Kings of England. One of the latter is by Richard Coeur de Lion, and his seal of red wax still remains appended to it, in fine preservation. The seal, on one side, represents the king seated upon his throne, with a pointed beard, having his crown on his head, and a sword in one hand, and sceptre in the other: on the other side, he is on horseback, with his head covered with a cylindrical helmet, surmounted with a very remarkable crest, in the form of a fan: on his s.h.i.+eld are plainly distinguishable the three lions of England.--From among the charters granted by the Tancarville family, M.

Le Prevost has sent me copies of two which have never yet been printed; but which appear to deserve insertion here. One is from Lucy, daughter of William de Tancarville, and grand-daughter of Ralph, the chamberlain.--"Notum sit Ricardo de Vernon and Willelmo Camerario de Tancarvilla, et veteribus et juvenibus, qud Lucia, filia Willelmi, Camerarii de Tancarvilla, pro anim su et pro animabus antecessorum suorum, ad ecclesiam Sti. Georgii de Bauchervilla dedit molendinum de Waldinivilla, quod est subter aliud molendinum et molendinum de Waldinval, liber et quiet, et insupr ecclesiam de Seonvilla, salv elemosin Roberti sacerdotis in vit su, si dignus est habendi eam. Et post mortem Willelmi capellani sui de Sancto Flocello, ad ecclesiam supr dictam dedit decimam de vava.s.soribus de Seolvilla, quam dedit in elemosin habendam Willelmo capellano tot vit bene et in pace et secur, et decimas de custodiis totius terre sue que est in Constantino.--Ego Lucia do hanc elemosinam pro anim me et pro antecessoribus ad ecclesiam Sanctii Georgii; et qui auferet ab e et auferetur ab eo regnum Dei. Amen.--Testibus, Ricardo de Haia et Matille uxore su et Nigello de Chetilivilla et hominibus de Sancto Flocello."--To this is added, in a smaller hand-writing, probably the lady's own autograph, the following sentence:--"Et precor vos qud ecclesia Sancti Georgii non decrescatur in tempore vestro pro Dei amore et meo de elemosinis patris mei neque de meis."--There is still farther subjoined, in a different hand-writing, and in a much paler ink:--"Hc omnia Ricardus de Vernon libenter concessit."--The other charter was granted by William the Younger, and details a curious custom occasionally observed in the middle ages, in making donations:--

"Universis sancte ecclesie fidelibus. Willelmus junior camerarius in domino salutem. Notum sit presentibus et futuris, quod ego Willelmus junior camerarius quinto die post susceptum militie cingulum veni apud Sanctum Georgium, ibique c.u.m honorific processione susceprunt me Abbas Ludovicus et monachi c.u.m magno gaudio letantes; et ibi obtuli gladium meum super altare Sti. Georgii, et tunc consilio et admonitione sociorum meorum n.o.bilium virorum qui mec.u.m venerant, scilicet Roberti des Is, dapiferi mei, et Rogerii de Calli, et Johannis de Lunda, et aliorum plurium, redemi gladium meum per dona et confirmationem plurium ecclesiarum, quas ipso die concessi eisdem meo dono, et, sicut avus meus, fundator illius monasterii dederat, confirmavi; scilicet ecclesiam de Abetot et ecclesiam de Espretot c.u.m decim, et ecclesiam Sancti Romani c.u.m duabus partibus decime, et similitr ecclesiam de Tibermaisnil: confirmavi etiam dona militum meorum et amicorum qu dederunt ipso die abbatie in perpetuam elemosynam, Rogerius de Calli dedit XX Sot. annuatm; Robertus de Mortomari X Sot.; Robertus des Is X solidos; Johannes de Lunda, cognatus meus X Sot.; Andreas de Bosemuneel X solidos, vel decimam de una carrucatura terre ... Humfridus de Willerio X solid.; Willelmus de Bodevilla X acras terre; Garinus de Mois V solid.; Adam de Mirevilla X solid.; Robert. de Fuschennis X solid.; Lesra de Drumara I acram terre."]

[Footnote 3: The following are the words of Ordericus Vitalis, upon the subject:

"Religiosi tandem viri, Clerici et Monachi, collectis viribus et intimis sensibus, processionem ordinaverunt: honest induti, crucibus et thuribus, ad Sanctum Georgium processerunt, et animam Regis, secundum morem sanct Christianitatis Deo commendaverunt."--_d.u.c.h.esne, Scriptores Normanni_, p. 661.]

[Footnote 4: See _Cotman's Architectural Antiquities of Normandy_, t.

10. f. A. and B.]

[Footnote 5: See _Cotman's Architectural Antiquities of Normandy_, t.

11. last figure.]

[Footnote 6: My readers will join with me, I trust, in thanks to M.

Langlois, for his drawings; and will not be sorry to see, accompanying his sketch of the bas-relief, a spirited one of himself. Normandy does not contain a more ardent admirer of her antiquities, or one to whom she is more indebted for investigating, drawing, and publis.h.i.+ng them. But, to the disgrace of Rouen, his labors are not rewarded. All the obstacles, however opposed by the "durum, pauperies, opprobium," have not been able to check his independent mind: he holds on his course in the ill.u.s.tration of the true Norman remains; and to any antiquary who visits this country, I can promise a great pleasure in the examination of his port-folio.]

[Footnote 7: Its size at top is fourteen inches and a half, by six inches and two-thirds.]

[Footnote 8: This difficulty, in the present instance, has yielded to the extensive researches of Mr. Douce, who has afforded a.s.sistance to me, which, perhaps, no other antiquary could have bestowed. He has unravelled all the mysteries of minstrelsy with his usual ability; and I give the information in his own words, only observing that the numbers begin from the left.--"No. 1 was called the _violl_, corresponding with our _Viol de Gamba_. As this was a larger violin, though the sculptor has not duly expressed its comparative bulk, I conceive it was either used as a tenor or base, being perfectly satisfied, in spite of certain doubts on the subject, that counterpoint was known in the middle ages.--No. 2 is the largest instrument of the kind that I have ever seen, and it seems correctly given, from one part of it resting on the figure, No. 3, to support it. Twiss mentions one that he saw sculptured on the cathedral, at Toro, five feet long. The proper name of it is the _rote_, so called from the internal wheel or cylinder, turned by a winch, which caused the _bourdon_, whilst the performer stopped the notes on the strings with his fingers. This instrument has been very ignorantly termed a _vielle_, and yet continues to be so called in France. It is the modern Savoyard _hurdy-gurdy_, as we still more improperly term it; for the hurdy-gurdy is quite a different instrument.

In later times, the _rote_ appears to have lost its rank in concert, and was called the _beggar's lyre_.--No. 4 is evidently the _syrinx_, or _Pan's pipe_, which has been revived with so much success in the streets of London.--Twiss shewed me one forty years ago, that he got in the south of France, where they were then very common.--No. 5 is an instrument for which I can find no name, nor can I immediately call to memory any other representation of it. It has some resemblance to the old Welsh fiddle or _crowth_; but, as a bow is wanting, it must have been played with the fingers; and I think the performer's left hand in the sculpture does seem to be stopping the strings on the upper part, or neck, a portion of which has been probably broken off.--I suspect it to be the old _mandore_, whence the more modern _mandolin_. The rotundity of the sounding-board may warrant this conjecture.--No. 6 was called the _psalterion_, and is of very great antiquity, (I mean as to the middle ages).--Its form was very diversified, and frequently triangular. It was played with a _plectrum_, which the performer holds in his right hand.--No. 7 is the _dulcimer_, which is very common in sculpture. This instrument appears, as in the present case, to have been sometimes played with the fingers only, and sometimes with a _plectrum_.--No. 8 is the real _vielle_, or _violin_, of very common occurrence, and very ancient.--No. 9 is a female tumbler, or _tomllesterre_, as Chaucer calls them. This profession, so far as we can depend on ancient representation, appears to have exclusively belonged to women.--No. 10.

A _harp_ played with a _plectrum_, and, perhaps, also with the left hand occasionally.--No. 11. The figure before the suspended _bells_ has had a hammer in each hand with which to strike them, and the opposite, and last, person, who plays in concert with him, has probably had a harp, as is the case in an ancient ma.n.u.script psalter illumination that I have, prefixed to the psalm _Exaltate Deo_.--I have seen these bells suspended (in illumination to the above psalm) to a very elegant Gothic frame, ascending like the upper part of a modern harp."]

[Footnote 9: _Gallia Christiana_, XI. p. 270.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Distant View of the Abbey of St. Jumieges]