BOOK XII. In 627 Paulinus built the first Christian church, in Northumbria, of wood; it was afterwards rebuilt on a larger scale, and with stone: he also built a stone church at Lincoln. His church at York was not very skilfully erected; for in less than a century afterwards, Wilfrid found its stony offices half destroyed; its roof was permeable to moisture. It had windows of fine linen cloth, or latticed wood-work; but no glazed casements, and therefore the birds flew in and out, and made nests in it. So Bede says of his church at Lincoln, that though the walls were standing, the roof had fallen down.38 In 676 Benedict sought cementarios, or masons, to make a church in the Roman manner, which he loved. But the Roman manner seems not to express the Roman science and taste, but rather a work of stone, and of the large size which the Romans used. It was 'finished in a year after its foundation.39 At this period glass-makers were not known among the Saxons. But Benedict had heard of them, and he sent to Gaul for some, to make latticed windows to the porticoes and cænaculum of the church. From those whom he employed the Saxons learned the art.4° In the 7th century, Cuthbert built a monastery, which is described. From wall to wall it was of four or five perches. The outside was higher than a standing man. The wall was not made of cut stone, or bricks and cement, but of unpolished stones and turf, which they had dug from the spot. Some of the stones four men could hardly lift. The roofs were made of wood and clay." As their architectural practice improved, they chose better materials. Thus Firman took from the church at Durham its thatched roof, and covered it with plates of lead.** About 709, Wilfrid flourished. He, like many others, had travelled to Rome, and of course beheld the most valuable 27 Malmsb. 149. 29 lb. p. 295. 4o Bede, p. 295. 42 Ib. 25 V. specimens of ancient art. He brought thence some masons CHAP and artificers. Though he could not imitate these, he sought to improve the efforts of his countrymen. The church of Paulinus at York he completely repaired. He covered the roof with pure lead, he washed its walls from their dirt, and by glass windows (to use the words of my author) he kept out the birds and rain, and yet admitted light. At Ripon he also erected a church with polished stone, adorned with various columns and porticoes. At Hexham he made a similar building. It was founded deep, and made of polished stones, with many columns and porticoes, adorned with great length and height of walls. It had many windings, both above and below, carried spirally round. It was superior to any edifice on this side of the Alps. In the inside was a stony pavement, on which a workman fell from a scaffold of enormous height.** In 716, we read of Croyland monastery. The marshy ground would not sustain a stony mass. The king therefore had a vast number of piles of oak and alders fixed in the ground, and earth was brought in boats nine miles off to be mingled with the timber and the marsh, to complete the foundation." In 969, a church was built. The preceding winter was employed in preparing the iron and wooden instruments, and all other necessaries. The most skilful artificers were then brought. The length and breadth of the church were measured out, deep foundations were laid on account of the neighbouring moisture, and they were strengthened by frequent percussions of the rams. While some workmen carried stones, others made cement, and others raised both aloft by a machine with a wheel. Two towers with their tops soon rose, of which the smaller was visible on the west in the front of the church. The larger in the middle with four spires, pressed on four columns, connected together by arches passing from one to the other, that they might not separate." 43 Malmsb. lib. iii. Eddius Vita Wilfridi, 59-63. VOL. II. 45 Ingulf, p.4. 46 3 Gale, 399. 3 H ВООК It is supposed that many specimens of ancient Saxon architecture yet remain; as part of St. Peter's at Oxford, part of St. Alban's abbey church, Tickencote church, near Stamford in Lincolnshire, the porch on the south side of Shireburn minster, Barfreston church, in Kent, Iffley church, and some others. But the works and delineations of professional men must be consulted on this subject. CHA P. VI. Their Sciences. VI. THE most enlightened nations of antiquity had not made CHAP. much progress in any of the sciences but the mathematical, During the Anglo-Saxon period they were nearly extinct in Christian Europe. Happily for mankind, they were attended to in this æra more efficiently in the Mahomedan kingdoms, in Spain; and the Arabian mind had the merit of preparing that intellectual feast which we are now lavishly enjoying, and perpetually enlarging. The history of the sciences among the Anglo-Saxons can contain little more information than that some individuals successively arose, as Aldhelm, Bede, Alcuin, Joannes Scotus, and a few more, who endeavoured to learn what former ages had known, and who freely disseminated what they had acquired. Besides the rules of Latin poetry and rhetoric, they studied arithmetic and astronomy as laborious sciences. In their arithmetic, before the introduction of the Arabian figures, they followed the path of the ancients, and chiefly studied the metaphysical distinctions of numbers. They divided the even numbers into the useless arrangement of equally equal, equally unequal, and unequally equal; and the odd numbers into the simple, the composite, and the mean. They considered them again, as even or odd, superfluous, defective, or perfect, and under a variety of other distinctions, still more unnecessary for any practical application, which may be seen in the little tracts of Cassiodorus and Bede. Puzzled and perplexed with all this mazy jargon, Aldhelm might well say, that the labour of all his other acquisitions was small in the comparison with that which he endured in studying arithmetic. BOOK XII. Their astronomy was such as they could comprehend in the Greek and Latin treatises which fell into their hands on this subject. Bede was indefatigable in studying it, and his treatises were translated into the Anglo-Saxon, of which some MSS. exist still in the Cotton Library. All the studious men applied to it more or less, though many used it for astrological superstitions. It was perhaps on this account, rather than from a love of the nobler directions of the science, that our ancient chroniclers are usually minute in noticing the eclipses which occurred, and the comets and meteors which occasionally appeared. Their geographical knowledge must have been much improved by Adamnan's account of his visit to the Holy Land, which Bede abridged; and by the sketch given of general geography in Orosius, which Alfred made the property of all his countrymen, by his translation and masterly additions. The eight hides of land given by his namesake for a MS. of cosmographical treatises,' of wonderful workmanship, may have been conceded rather to the beauty of the MS. than to its contents. But, notwithstanding these helps, the most incorrect and absurd notions seem to have prevailed among our ancestors concerning the other parts of the globe, if we may judge from the MS. treatises on this subject, which they took the trouble to adorn with drawings, and sometimes to translate. Two of these are in the Cotton Library, and a short notice of their contents may not be uninteresting, as a specimen of their geographical and physical knowledge. The MS. Tib. B. 5. contains a topographical description of some eastern regions, in Latin and Saxon. From this we learn there is a place in the way to the Red Sea which contains red hens, and that if any man touches them, his hand and all his body are burnt immediately: also, that pepper is guarded by serpents, which are driven away by fire, and this makes the pepper black. We read of people with dogs' heads, boars • Bede, 299. |