11
Fig. 4.
and deficiency of individuality and religious character in our modern Churches.[1]
The opposite of all this, both in principle and practice, prevailed in the middle ages, and with results as splendid as those of our departure from them are miserable. The true requirements of a Church were then so well known that a Church builder could no more overlook them than a modern architect could neglect to provide for the wants and comforts of a family in designing a private house. There were certain principles which appear to have obtained universal acceptance amongst all professors of ecclesiastical art—such as solidity, or, as it has been termed, “reality” of construction; the prohibition of features, which were essential to construction in one place, in places where
- ↑ Sometimes we find arrangements so far outraging all ecclesiastical propriety and architectural principles, even to the rendering of the buildings incommodious for the worshippers, that they cannot be reduced to any general class or description. Figures 5 and 6 will illustrate one of these strange vagaries. The idea of the designer was, to cover in a great area with one roof, unsupported by pillars of any sort, so that the altar, placed against the side wall, would be conspicuous from all parts of the building, three sides of which were to be encumbered by enormous galleries. He succeeded, of course, in placing the altar in a wrong position; but the enormous span of the roof is now causing it to sink, and the much-dreaded columns must be introduced, to prevent its fall and the utter ruin of the fabric.
