with the Roman materials which had been collected from the laborious and continued excavations of many years, by Abbots Ealdred and Eadmar, among the ruins of the ancient city of Verulamium[1]. Most of the church-steeples supposed to be Anglo-Saxon, contain belfry windows with colmnns of this description. For the sake of comparison, I give two examples (figs. 5 and 6) from the towers of Earl's Barton church in
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(Fig. 5.) Earl's Barton. Northamptonshire. |
(Fig. 6.) St. Benet's Cambridge. |
Northamptonshire, and St. Benet's in Cambridge. They have only that difference in design from the specimens selected from the Cottonian manuscript, which we might expect to find between the columns of a small window in a parish church-steeple, and the larger ornamental columns of a doorway.
One of the most striking, and constantly recurring characteristics of the architecture of our Anglo-Saxon manuscript, is the triangular-headed door-way. We have already seen an
- ↑ It has been observed, I think by Rickman, that the great quantity of tiles observed in the old parts of St. Alban's church renders it probable that they were not taken from older Roman buildings, but made for the occasion. I think, however, that this assumption is by no means of sufficient strength to outweigh the distinct testimony of the old chronicler relating to the excavations carried on during the lives of the two successive abbots, both of whom, he says, collected in this manner the tiles and stones for the building: of Abbot Ealdred, he states, Tegulas vero integras et lapides quos invenit, aptas ad ædificia seponens, ad fabricam ecclesiæ reservavit (M. Paris. Hist. Abb. p. 40); and of his successor Eadmar, Et cum abbas memoratus profundiora terræ ubi civitatis Verolamii apparuerunt vestigia diligentur perscrutaretur, et antiquos tabulatus lapideos eum tegulis et columnis inveniret, quæ ecclesiæ fabricandæ fuerunt necessaria, sibi reservaret, &c. (p. 41). It may be observed that the Anglo-Saxon tegel, our tile, signified tiles and bricks of whatever description (if made of baked earth): hrof-tegel was the term used for the tiles used to cover roofs of buildings.
