Book Reviews

Canterbury Cathedral sAndits Roman- up to date by summarising recent scholar- pulpitum,in his new scheme seems to be a esque Sculpture. By Deborah Kahn. 230 ship on the architectural iconography of matter of deduction rather than record. pp. + 278 b. & w. ills. (Harvey Miller, the crypt, the date of its sculpture, and In fact the account rolls explicitly state London, 1991), ?38. ISBN 0-905203-18-6. the Imperialpedigree of the cushioncapital. that Eastry'srefurbishment included a new The subjectof the remainderof this chapter pulpitumand its inner western opening is Our present understanding of English is less well-trodden ground, namely the still in place. romanesque sculpture has been shaped surviving capital sculpture of the external The alternative suggestion, favoured by very largely by the writings, over some blank arcading of Anselm's choir. This is Woodman and others, that the fragments four decades, of George Zarnecki. His will interesting and little-known material and formed part of the twelfth-century cloister remain the great work of synthesis. It falls it could well have been treated in greater superseded by the one in whose structure to his followers either to elaborate on his detail, given the author's particularlyclose they were re-used, is rather summarily dis- model, with perhaps a little fine-tuning, association with it. missedby Kahn. There are, afterall, healthy or to try to approach the material in some The principal contribution which De- precedents for the redeployment of dis- radically different way, always at the risk borah Kahn has already made to our mantled twelfth-century cloister parts in of destabilising the edifice and possibly knowledge of the cathedral and monastic whatever structure replaced them on the of reducing it yet again to fragments. In complex concerns the architectural sculp- same site, be it a new cloister (Norwich in her book on the romanesque sculpture of ture produced during the priorate of the fourteenth century) or domestic build- Deborah Kahn Canterbury Cathedral, Wibert (1152/3-67). The third chapter of ings (Chflons-sur-Marnein the eighteenth). pursuesthe formercourse; its lavish format the book, in which the pace and density of In the twelfth century, ornate sculpture notwithstanding, this is a careful, unpre- the text markedly increase, covers this was oftenlavished on the conventualcloister tentious and conventional study of one of period. Kahn brings to the fore and clarifies or its furnishings. If not from the arcades the major ensembles of English roman- the extent, character and chronology of of a cloister, might not the fragments have esque sculpture. the sculpture of church and precinct in come from a lavatorium,perhaps that de- After a brief introduction, the author the 1150s and 60s. In so doing, she identi- picted in the main cloister in the famous embarks on an account of the surviving fies an undeniableand hithertounremarked Water Works drawing ofc. 1165? romanesque architectural sculpture of filiation between capital sculptureat Christ JILL A. FRANKLIN Christ Church Canterbury from c.1070 to Church and that of the nave vault responds 1180, dealing in three successive chapters of La Trinit&, Caen. This is no mean with the major building campaigns of the achievement in two such well-studied period: the first post-Conquest cathedral, monuments.It exemplifies,too, the author's the new crypt and choir of Archbishop unerring visual acuity (witness also her The Gothic Cathedral. The Architec- Anselm, and the enlargement of the mon- stunning comparison of capitals on the ture of the Great Church 1130-1530. astic complex under Prior Wibert. In a Great Gate at Canterbury with one from By Christopher Wilson. 340 pp. + 221 fourth chapter, she discusses the building the Rhineland, ills.222-23). line drawings and b. & w. ills. (Thames and of the furnishing revolutionary gothic This book inevitably invites comparison and Hudson, London, 1990), ?20. ISBN choir begun after the conflagrationof 1174. with the last major monograph on the 0-500-34105-2. Finally there are short appendices on the Cathedral, FrankWoodman's TheArchitec- Infirmary complex and on the twelfth- turalHistory of CanterburyCathedral (1981). 'To generalise' said Blake 'is to be an century reliefs of Thomas Becket. A suc- In many respects, the two could hardly idiot'. This important book avoids all the cinct outline of the relevant political and differ more. Woodman's is a provocative pitfalls of the synoptic survey by meticulous ecclesiastical history is provided through- and engaging book, wider in scope and scholarship and exceptional grasp of detail. out the book, which is generouslyillustrated usefully recklessin some of its pronounce- The result is a personal, at times idio- (although there is, surprisingly, only one ments. Kahn deftly deals with various syncratic, revision of the whole picture of plan) and fully annotated. points of contention between them (e.g. gothic architecture in Europe. Chapter I, covering the sculpture of the the date of the reinforcementof the radial Right from the start, Wilson shakes up time of Archbishop Lanfranc, is inevitably chapels in the crypt). However, one such the conventional divisions and periodisa- shortfor the materialremains of the Norman issue remains unresolved, namely the tions. His account of the origins of French Kingdom's firstcathedral are few. Roughly provenance of a group of finely carved gothic does not begin with St-Denis, and one quarter of the total text, on the other fragments, most of which came to light his analysis of early gothic in England hand, is devoted to an examination of the during repairs to the present cloister some ends, instead of starting, with the choir of design and decoration of the crypt, the twenty years ago. A discussion of this Canterbury. He redresses the old bias to- eastern extension of Lanfranc's church question constitutes the final section of the wards the 'high middle ages' by his long begun by his successor,Anselm, after 1093. book. section on late gothic, including a searching This section makesextensive use of material The propositionthat the fragmentscome account of French Flamboyant, and the first studied and published forty years ago; from the pulpitumof the documented choir best short analysis - in any language - of those familiar with Zarnecki's work will screen of 1180 is not a new one but is that terra incognita, the late gothic of the find the parallelsbetween capital sculpture argued here in detail for the first time, Low Countries. Most drastically, he de- and broadly contemporary, sometimes and supported by some interesting com- motes French high gothic to the status of a locally executed, manuscript decoration parative material. For this assertion to be transitional episode, and elevates rayonnant as striking as ever. Such is the similarity plausible, it must be unequivocallydemon- as the pivotal epoch, the normative style, between motifsin the two media that Kahn strated that the twelfth-century pulpitum in the history of gothic. is led to suggest both were produced by survived in situ until the rebuilding of the Wilson's revisionism also includes a one and the same group of people. She cloister, incorporating the fragments, be- general reluctance, against the current of insists, too, on the dependence of capital gan under Prior Chillenden (1390-1411). much recent scholarship, to explain the sculpture on manuscript illumination. In The superstructureof the side walls of the great church in terms of the concerns of these views she is far from alone, but one 1180 screen was replaced by Prior Eastry the patron. This does not mean that the wonders if the truth of the matter is not at the beginning of the fourteenthcentury. book ignores historical and cultural con- more elusive and complex. Kahn brings us That Eastry retained the western wall, the texts; on the contrary, architectural de-

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This content downloaded from 81.130.200.251 on Tue, 19 Nov 2013 06:29:06 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions BOOK REVIEWS cisions are firmly anchored to urban politics medieval architect he shows to be into the now recognised only in sculpture and (Barcelona cathedral), mercantile inde- ranks of the bourgeoisie, not the intelligent- painting. pendence (St Mary Liibeck), and episcopal sia. On matters of technique and construc- Behind Wilson's elegant and polished wealth (the English dioceses). Nor does it tion Wilson's sharp eye for detail comes narrative runs a sharp polemical current mean that Wilson ignores the patron's in- into its own. How many architectural his- which is bound to provoke disagreement. fluence; in exceptional cases (Bernard of torians have spotted the remains of original His predilection for rayonnant may explain Castelnau, Alan of Walsingham) he shows wooden planking under the cells of a vault why he locates the 'visionary quality' of that patrons actually determined style. in Lincoln? or the existence of the tufa vaults French gothic in tracery windows, and Wilson has little to say about ritual and mentioned by Gervase in the Canterbury not, as Robert Branner argued, in the scale devotional use - apart from such obvious choir? or the rainwater disposal system at and massiveness of high gothic. But the usages as the placing of the choir east of Bayeux? And his set-piece analysis of the thirteenth-century author of the Metrical the crossing in England, and a long way geometrical ratios (largely the square root Life of St Hugh obviously saw space as a west of it in Spain - simply because he of two) informing the choir of Beverley sign of transcendence when he described sees little interaction between form and minster is an original contribution to our the height of the new choir at Lincoln as function. Thus the recent liturgical inter- knowledge of English proportional systems. 'rushing towards the clouds, the roof towards pretations for the odd piers in the eastern Such devices are seen as part of the the stars'. Wilson runs against the present nave bays at Laon, for the regularities of creative friction between technical solutions trend to down-grade the importance of Salisbury, or for the small size of the Wells and formal invention. Wilson is an em- Chartres and promote that of Soissons in west portals are all dismissed in favour, piricist. Design is not a matter of realising the creation of high gothic, but to suggest respectively, of stylistic, economic and an already-formed artistic vision, but of that Chartres may also have inspired the symbolic explanations. solving practical and aesthetic problems. three-storey elevation ofBourges is to press Symbolic interpretations present their The creative process can be recaptured the chartrain claim too far, especially when own challenges because medieval forms 'by reconstructing the situations of choice (despite Branner's efforts) the chronology shift their meanings, and the iconographic and constraint in which they (the architects) of Bourges is still an open question. If programmes of sculpture and furnishings worked'. Not surprisingly, Wilson is wary anything, Bourges seems the earlier of the do not necessarily impinge on the meaning of the usual pre-occupation of general two cathedrals. Wilson argues that Master of the architecture (an illuminating analysis surveys with large-scale evolutionary pat- Gerhard, the architect of Cologne choir, here of the choir of Cologne cathedral). terns. He is at his most penetrating when was really 'Gerard', a Frenchman. But Wilson picks his way through this semiotic dealing with classes of structure where 'Gerhardus' or 'Gerardus' was a common quagmire by distinguishing between 'local' empirical constraints are always strong - enough name in thirteenth-century Cologne, symbols (the dome as instrument of mu- for example, French gothic facades (see and the fact that Cologne closely follows nicipal rivalry at Siena and Florence; the his ingenious analysis of Laon's), and that the design of Amiens, but not its new stone- cream and pink stones of the Trinity chapel most empirical of styles, English fourteenth- cutting techniques, suggests that Gerhard in Canterbury as symbols of Becket's vir- century architecture. The Ely octagon, the was a German observer at the French shop, ginity, martyrdom, brains and blood!), south transept and choir at Gloucester, not a native participant. Although stone and 'universal' symbols, which include the east parts of Wells, and St Stephen's cutting was probably the responsibility of Salomonic columns (Senlis transept), tall chapel are analysed brilliantly as 'one-off' the German warden at Cologne, it is likely towers as 'many-towered Sion' (e.g. Laon), responses to specific briefs. Indeed, Wilson that Gerard, if French, would have insisted and large clerestories, which he discovers explains not just individual buildings, but on all the advantages of Amiens's new to have been called 'lanterns' in the later whole national attitudes to style, as the production methods. middle ages, a term suggesting beacons and responses of gothic architects to the older Wilson's audacious reconstructions of visions. Wilson also rehabilitates number romanesque buildings which they had to flying buttresses around Suger's choir at symbolism as a central concept informing accommodate. St-Denis, and the original choir of Laon, the proportions, columns and window Wilson's appreciation of the great church may raise sceptical eyebrows. It is a pleasure grouping of buildings as diverse as St-Remi as a visual and technical totality is evi- to see Wilson drive the last, and sharpest, at Reims, Beverley minster, and St George's denced, for example, in his long analysis nail into the coffin of the old myth asserting in chapel Windsor. And he is the first to of the choir ofSt-Remi at Reims. He extends that exposed flyers first appeared the suggest that the popularity of Perpendicular Paul Frankl's concept of gothic 'partiality' nave of Notre-Dame in Paris. I am certainly may lie in the celestial symbolism of its by recognising that the unity of the gothic persuaded by most of his arguments for start prolific arch-panel motifs, derived from interior depends on the quality of the pointed the existence of flyers right from the over canopies over altars and shrines. He draws arch to increase the number of constituent at Laon, but question marks hover at the equally suggestive conclusion that the elements, while reducing their autonomy. his conjectural reconstruction of flyers forms of metalwork were seen as specifically But the author's sharp eye for the particular, St-Denis. He must have entertained, and Christian and Western, and their use in and his taste for styles that value precision, rejected, the possibility that the present buttresses and portals was symptomatic of delicacy and elegance, ensures that his best buttresses rose above the wall head to sup- the increasing resistance to alien cultures analysis centres on detail and decoration port nothing more than buttress walls, their in the early thirteenth century. - on Perpendicular and rayonnant tracery, tops protruding above the gallery roofs. And For Wilson, however, the decisive rl1e or the micro-architectural textures of the odd alignments of the inter-apsidal in the shaping of the great church was Flamboyant facades. It is no coincidence buttresses would have meant that five of played by the architect. In the face of that he is the first to recognise that the the eight flyers would have been bent in much recent argument about the nature of starting point of English Decorated was not order to hit the clerestorey at the bay the medieval mason, Wilson convincingly tracery or the ogee arch, but the adoption divisions - a dangerous procedure, though reaffirms the creative intelligence of the of the miniature canopies found on French it occurs at St-Germain-des-Pr~s. individual architect, whose expertise and rayonnant portals and buttresses. This The question of decorative vaults, and professionalism gave him a tactical advan- command of detail brings with it a wealth the wider issue of English influence on the tage over his clients. Indeed, the central of new insights. Toledo cathedral, for formation of German late gothic seem to aim of the book is to retrieve, even if only example, assumes a new importance for me to be one of the more problematic approximately, the architect's creative later Spanish gothic; and by convincingly areas of Wilson's work, for they also raise processes. To do this Wilson has to re- re-dating the south transept fagade of questions about the book's restriction to evaluate the architect's practice and status. s'Hertogenbosch to c. 1430-40, and for the 'great church' architecture. Wilson argues In one of the most interesting sections of first time establishing its debt to German for the importance of English centralised the book, the author rejects the current late gothic, Wilson can secure it as a source chapter house vaults in the creation of conviction that drawings were a novelty of for Netherlandish late gothic, and trace decorative vaulting, but I find it difficult the mid-thirteenth century, and that they the influence of those Netherlandish designs to see the source for the 'crazy' vaults at were the cause, not the effect, ofrayonnant in later fifteenth-century great churches Lincoln in the tri-radial vaults of a putative linearity. The social promotion of the high in France and Spain, an influence until chapter house, planned at Lincoln c. 1192

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but never realised, when a more likely Each age builds its own gothic cathedral. the next volume of the Survey, regards as inspiration was the ambulatory of the Frankl and his contemporaries venerated the beginning of a new phase of illumi- original choir, which probably had to use the great churches as the sublime embodi- nation. They would have fitted equally tri-radials to negotiate awkward points of ments of an avant-garde Kunstwollen, as well with the later manuscripts in this support, and in a 'back-to-back' manner symbols of transcendence from the limita- volume. In fact many features characteristic that may have clearly prefigured the choir tions of present and past. Wilson's more of the three and a half decades under dis- vaults. high Nor am I convinced that the circumspect vision of the cathedrals as in- cussion simply carry on into the period of houses chapter of Cistercian Dore and genious solutions by imaginative individuals the next volume, for example the French- Margam were the sources for Villard's to a diversity of problems will surely be influenced figure style or types of border drawing of a chapter house (although welcomed by a post-modern generation decoration, as well as the book of hours or Villard was aufait with Cistercian ideas), eager to revalue human achievement within the illustrated apocalypse. since isolated tri-radials had already ap- the constraints of tradition. Morgan's wide-ranging Introduction is in peared French chapter houses of the PAUL CROSSLEY provided with full references, and the thirteenth c. early century (Hambye 1230). CourtauldInstitute of Art thorough catalogue entries are followed by Wilson's of cathedral long analysis Prague rich bibliographies. The tables of apoca- is brim-full of his usual and insights felicities, lypse illustrations and of apocalypse texts but the by underestimating importance of and commentaries are very valuable, as cross-rib units in the vaults he fails to see are the extensive indices, especially those the sources for the choir vault high in of manuscripts and oficonography. Morgan Bohemian before Peter gothic Parler, and has also made a point of extending the in Parler's own earlier Its buildings. 'split' book's scope by mentioning and indexing a bosses do indeed resemble those in the considerable number of other manuscripts vault of the Wells but choir, also echo of the period in addition to those selected those in the old wooden barrel vault of Early Gothic Manuscripts [II] 1250- for the Catalogue. the 'Rittersaal' of the Cologne town hall. 1285. By Nigel Morgan. (A Survey of One of the reasons for the volume's size I have elsewhere that of the argued many Manuscripts Illuminated in the British is that Morgan takes a commendably broad features in come 'English' Prague about Isles: General Editor, JJ.G. Alexander.) view of the interest of these manuscripts. an internal fortuitously through process of 374 pp. + 8 col. pls. + 454 b. & w. ills. Both Introduction and Catalogue include ingenious problem-solving. Indeed Peter (Harvey Miller, London, 1988), ?78. ISBN many valuable observations on texts and Parler in and Michael of Prague Canterbury 0-905203-53-4. on iconography. The illuminated manu- at St started out with Stephen's chapel scripts are seen as a mirror reflecting to the same of to problem having alter the The volumes of the invaluable Surveyof various degrees developments in cultural conventional elevation in- rayonnant by Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles and intellectual life, and are interpreted But whereas corporating interior sculpture. could never have been entirely consistent in in the light of such phenomena as changing Michael of is Wilson Canterbury praised by their coverage, even if such series did not devotional practices, the greater influence for his radical and exploratory achieve- have an in-built tendency to grow.' The of the laity, and anti-semitism. The limited Parler's ments, similarly empirical approach surviving manuscripts (and other evidence) evidence for patronage is carefully tends to be examined, submerged, despite Wilson's become progressively more abundant not only for its own sake but also as a of his recognition 'brilliantly original' ele- through the middle ages, and the cata- possible explanation for variations in content in a account of his eclectic vations, long logues of manuscripts in the later volumes (for example of the apocalypses), or in from borrowings England, Spain, and have had to be increasingly selective. Nigel style or quantity of decoration, as well as itself. Germany Morgan's volume on the early gothic in the language of the texts. Full and expert Part of the in this case lie problem may manuscripts has been subdivided into two account is taken of the evidence for dating, in Wilson's decision to restrict himself to very substantial Parts, covering the years localisation and patronage of liturgical texts the church'. There is no doubt that 'great 1190 to 1250 and 1250 to 1285 respectively. and especially of calendars and litanies. late where gothic Germany, creativity Morgan's book, with its generous text (The reader will share Morgan's that flowered outside hope largely great churches, and illustrations, is not only valuable as he will publish his research on English has suffered most from this exclusion. For an up-to-date survey of the best known thirteenth-century calendars.) Wilson, cathedral is a Prague 'one-off, manuscripts of the period, such as the il- There are full discussions of the dating to over the head of local looking England lustrated apocalypses, the Oscott Psalter, evidence for individual manuscripts. In German traditions as a member of a kind the Life of Edward the Confessor or the Part I Morgan maintained that it was of elite club of international churches. great work of the 'Sarum Master'; it is also able normally posible to date a manuscript by I would to trace much of the prefer vitality to set these against an extensive exploration using all types of textual and art historical of to a Prague thriving class of smaller- of many of their less well known con- information to 'within a period of about scale church building in Germany and temporaries. The bringing together of so twenty years (i.e. ? 10 years from a circa Bohemia, which, lies outside much familiar and unfamiliar by definition, material date)'. Although there is only one precisely the of this book. makes the scope study of manuscript illumination dated or dateable book in Part II (the But are bound to of this much easier for general surveys tempt period both the Bible of William of Hales), this is probably their reviewers into mounting old hobby- beginner and the specialist. about right providing that the 'circa date' horses. Wilson's book is the The and Quite simply, beginning end of the period selected is in the middle of the probable most original and account are not marked important general by any obvious breaks or date range, which in this book it usually of architecture to gothic appear in English major changes in style. The works with is. The discussion of chronology is refresh- since Paul Frankl's Gothic Architectureof which the Catalogue opens, for example ingly undogmatic and the Introduction and will 1960, certainly have a much larger the drawings added to the Westminster concludes with the expectation that it will than that eccentric following text. The Psalter or the painting of the 'Sarum need revision in the light of further research. book reads exceptionally well, though its Master', are the culmination of the early Morgan also carefully weighs the evi- of and the of the density detail, intricacy and gothic style first volume. Nor has dence for attributing books to a particular of Wilson's compactness wnriting, suggest the cut-off point of 1250 between Parts I centre and often wisely leaves the a much and II been question larger work pushing up against rigidly adhered to. It has open at the end. Only 15 of the 74 references the limits of its small-scale format. Thames sensibly decided to group Matthew Paris's in the index of Places of and Hudson have served the author hand- Origin appear work in Part I and the apocalypses in without a question mark. This is as it should with a somely reasonably-priced, beautifully- Part II, although they overlap the division. be, given that the evidence is often no designed product. Most of the drawings The terminal year, 1285, seems to have more than circumstantial. This caution and are new been chosen as it is photographs (a large number the approximate date does not, however, imply agnosticism: half of both the and the of the by author), carefully- Alphonso Psalter and the Ashridge of the attributions are to just two centres, chosen illustrations are which author sharply reproduced. Comestor, Lucy Sandler, of London (15) and Oxford (22), although

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