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Early dwellings Caves Subterranean built chambers Galleries in
Orkney Early strongholds of wood Circular hill forts Some very
remarkable Cathertun Barmekyn of Echt Vitrified forts Picts'
houses "Druid's circles" Some of their purposes Sculptured
monuments Symbols of unknown meaning Limitation of the sculptured
monuments, as to place (Lowland Scotland) and time (eighth and ninth
centuries) Earliest Christian buildings Round towers History of
art depending on architecture Attempt to fix eras of architectural
style Old Whithern and Iona quite gone First style extant, Norman or
Romanesque Its date Next, "First Pointed" Third, "Middle Pointed"
Later style Collegiate churches Ornamental arts subserving
architecture A word about heraldry Stained glass Symbolical
meaning of church architecture Workmanship in iron and wood Timber
roofs Stucco ceilings Wood carving Dunblane King's College,
Aberdeen Tiles Ancient seals, baronial and ecclesiastical Coins
A charter of 1159 with portraits of David I. and Malcolm IV. Hoard of
silver ornaments found in Orkney Its date fixed to the ninth century
Architectural art as applied to domestic buildings Scotch castles of
the time of David I. and earlier, all gone Remains of those of the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries Kildrummy Lochindorb Bothwell
Baronial tower of the fifteenth century Causes of its poor style
Subsequent additions Ornate style introduced by James IV. and James V.
Stirling Linlithgow New style of castle mansion Lord Dunfermline
and Earl of Strathmore its leaders Fyvie Pinkie Glammis Spread
especially in Aberdeenshire Castle Fraser Craigievar Crathes
Craigston, etc. Dwellings of the people Never retrograding Change
and improvement Constant and still continuing Burgh domestic
architecture.
Let us examine a little how
our forefathers dwelt and were lodged, the mechanical contrivance shown in
their habitations, and the rude but interesting beginnings of constructive
and masonic skill, which required great development before they deserve
the name of Art. At the same time we shall find it convenient to consider
that class of antiquities which are at least akin to habitations, the
structures of an early age for defence, for religious and legal meetings;
and monolithic monuments, whether for commemorating the dead, ascertaining
boundaries of estates, or preserving the memory of some historical event.
In thus approaching the
proper ground of the antiquary, I trust I may escape falling into the
common error of that respectable class. I will not ask my readers to form
a rash determination upon any or those points, regarding which, it
requires extensive comparison as well as much previous study to justity
any expression, even of confident opinion. There are many remains of
antiquity, many classes of such in this country, which are much less
known, and, as to their purposes, much more mysterious than the Cyclopian
remains of Greece or the barrows and (now) subterranean palaces of Nimroud
and Nineveh. I feel that I shall disappoint my younger readers when I pass
by such interesting relics without pronouncing decidedly upon their dates
and, still more, upon their original design and use. I cannot help it. The
proper study of antiquities is hardly begun among us; and much of the
discredit and ridicule that have fallen upon it and its votaries, arises
from the crude and presumptuous judgments passed upon individual cases and
objects as they arise, instead of investigating each with reference to the
family to which it belongs. To do this well requires much previous
learning, a knowledge of the history and antiquities of cognate nations,
especially a familiar acquaintance with their historical collections. But
above all, it requires a careful and patient examination of similar
remains, where they exist in our own country. That, at least, the public
has a right to demand before adopting a theory or explanation, which may
not be untenable as applied to one instance, and yet may become palpably
absurd when tried by its application to others.
We do not know from which
side the first stream of colonizers took possession of Scotland. If our
Celtic forefathers arrived from the South, it must have required all their
skill to make it a comfortable habitation. In some districts, perhaps, the
native forest furnished the early squatters with materials for their huts
and wigwams. And of these we must not look for any vestiges. But on our
eastern coast, where wood is scarce, and yet the soil and neighbouring
sea, its fishing and harbours, were attractive, the new-arrived strangers
would seek their shelter from the weather, their protection against beasts
of prey, as well as concealment from other hostile settlers, in those
caves which are sufficiently abundant everywhere. Many such, unassisted by
art, are yet found, not unfitted for human dwellings. Where the rock is
dry, and the vault spacious enough, these were habitations ready and
commodious. Where the arch of the great architect, Nature, was too low for
their purpose, their rude tools of stone or brass enabled them to enlarge
it. Caves showing abundant traces of this artificial enlargement are to be
seen in many districts. I need hardly put you in mind of those of
Hawthornden. On the banks of the little river Ale, which falls into Teviot
at Ancrum, are a wonderful number of similar caves, all more or less
showing the hand-work of their ancient occupants.
From such habitations which
they disputed with their legitimate possessors, the bears and wolves, the
natives of this country swarmed off into new hives, not very dissimilar in
appearance, nor superior in comfort. These were the under-ground chambers
which are still found in several places in Scotland. There are some of
these of great size, and well defined, near Airlie in Angus. I am
acquainted with some in the heights of Aberdeenshire on the high
moorland which separates the valley of the Don from Strathbogie, not far
above the ancient castle of Kildrummie. They are almost invisible from
without. Within, they are cased with rough stones, and roofed with the
same materials, gradually converging and supported by the pressure of the
earth upon their outer extremity, with no approach to the principle of the
arch. In the Orkney islands such apartments are found, somewhat more
artificial in construction. An officer, now engaged in the survey of the
northern coast, has bestowed some of the forced leisure of those stormy
seas upon opening up some of the remarkable souterains of Orkney. I have
seen his drawings and very accurate plans of these, which exhibit a more
advanced state of society if we may use the term for that mole or rabbit
sort of existence than any I have met with elsewhere. One consists of a
pretty long gallery, with apartments branching off it. The height of the
gallery could admit of a man of Orkney stature standing and walking
upright. The apartments on either hand, if human dwellings, were for night
use. But observe in that region of storm, and placed between a coast
constantly strewed with drift-wood, and an exhaustless supply of peat fuel
on the moor there is no vestige of a chimney, nor any means of admitting
light. At the end of the green hillock, under which he supposes the
ancient Orcadians to have lived, Captain Thomas assured me he found the
remains of ashes of wood or peat, that must have been accumulated for many
years; and interspersed among them, the remains of bones of animals and of
the horns of a deer, which he concluded were used for the food of the
inhabitants.
Such were no doubt the
abodes of the people, chosen for concealment, and little capable of
protecting cattle, or bulky property. Their early, and indeed aboriginal
strongholds, again, varied with, the situation and material. We have the
green mound, steeply escarped, and giving barely room on its summit, for
the wooden castle of which the material was supplied by the neighbouring
forest the little island of firm land in midst of a mountain lake, or
still more impracticable morass sometimes a structure of piles in the
lake where there was no natural island the circular redoubt, like a
larger pen for cattle, placed high on a hill side to guard against
surprise, surrounded with a wall of heaped earth, or of stone, and a dry
ditch, such as afforded protection for the cattle and their owners,
against the hurried onslaught of a foraging enemy. Some of these forts are
more elaborate and remarkable. One stands on the striking height of
Cathertun, looking across the valley of Strathmore. Another, nearly
similar, I had an opportunity of inspecting carefully very lately. It is
called the "Barmekyn," and crowns the summit of a conical hill of perhaps
300 feet high, which rises from the hollow of Echt, in Mar. The interior
of the fort is not levelled it is oval, 120 by 100 yards, surrounded by
no less than five walls, three of earth, two of stone, and these defences
occupying altogether 20 yards across. The outer wall of stone, though much
weather worn, appeared to have been built of stones rudely squared, but
without mortar. It stands in places still 8 feet high. The entrances to
the east, west, and south, were curious. The narrow path of approach is
made to wind in a zigzag through the walls, so as not to have the openings
of any two of the walls opposite to each other.
Of the same class, were the
vitrified forts which crown the tops of many of our hills, and which have
exercised the ingenuity of antiquarians too much, and with too little
success, for me to speculate upon their mode of formation. I may observe,
however, that the vitrified wall in no cases rises to any considerable
height, seldom more than a few inches, and that the vitrification is
generally very partial; from which I infer, only, that it was caused by
the use of fires for other purposes, and not lighted for saving mortar and
producing a concrete and solid wall.
But however these curious
vitrifications were produced, all that class of strengths are such as a
people in the infancy of the arts would have recourse to. There is little
skill or ingenuity shown in their structure. We have a rude outer fence,
and no remains nor appearance of any building or habitations for the
people who trusted to it in time of need.
Considerably different from
these, and still more perplexing as to their origin and purpose, are the
bell-shaped circular buildings, vulgarly called, "Picts' Houses," and
which are met with, round our northern and western coasts, and in the
islands. They are frequently found, several in the same vicinity, and
often three or four within sight of each other. The most perfect I have
seen, and I believe the most perfect that exists, is on the little island
of Mousa in Shetland. The chambers, if they may be called so, of this
tower are in the thickness of the walls. There is no appearance that the
centre space was ever roofed over; and what adds to the difficulty of
appropriating this singular building to any purpose, there is no chimney
nor fire-place anywhere, which seems to shut out the possibility of its
being used as a permanent residence in the northern climate and exposed
situation in which it, and most of the same class are placed. It seems
more likely that they were places of occasional resort, perhaps for
storing the property or the plunder of a people spending their lives in
coasting piratical expeditions; but this leaves the very artificial and
uniform shape of these "Picts' Houses" altogether unaccounted for. Mr.
Worsaae, a Dane, and most intelligent and learned in the antiquities of
Scandinavia, assures me there is nothing at all resembling them in the old
land of the North-men. One of these towers near Dunrobin was carefully
examined lately, and, in particular, the rubbish removed from the chambers
and galleries; and in one of these was found a skeleton. The ground of the
centre area was removed to a good depth, and the search produced only
remains of fire in the middle space, and several of the common small
querns or hand-mills.
I must be pardoned for this
unsatisfactory way of raising difficulties without furnishing or seeking a
theory for their solution. I stated in the beginning that it must be so;
for in no other country has so little been done for throwing light on
national antiquities as in Scotland. No one has even taken the trouble to
visit and compare all the specimens of each class in our own country,
still less to compare them with the existing monuments of neighbouring or
cognate nations. But each pretender blurts out his own crude and
undigested theory, formed from a specimen or two nearest to himself, and
which is overturned as soon as a few other instances force themselves on
the student's observation.
Much more is this rash and
ignorant way of observing and theorising of our antiquaries to be
regretted in reference to another and still more interesting class of
Scotch monuments I mean those erect sculptured stones of high antiquity
which meet us everywhere in the northern shires.
I wish to distinguish
between them and the circles of standing stones commonly, though
improperly, called Druids' circles, found over all Scotland, and of which
the Stones of Stennes, in Orkney, are the type and grandest specimen.
Those circles vary in size and number and height of the stones, and in
having or wanting avenues of stones leading to them, and, more rarely,
concentric circles. But for the most part they will be found, where the
soil has not been disturbed, to have cairns of sepulture around them. Many
of them have a stone laid flatways in the circumference of the circle,
which is generally considered as an altar; and, I believe invariably, the
stones are undressed by the mason's tool, and altogether without
inscription or sculpture. There is evidence of history or record to show
that some of these circles were used, even within a comparatively recent
period, as places of public meeting and of justice; and there is reason to
believe they were originally the places of those assemblies common to all
the Teutonic peoples, where the tribe met to discuss its common affairs,
to devise laws, and to administer law. That they were in some way
consecrated, and served for temples of religion also, is indeed most
probable, though we have no evidence on the subject. But we cannot easily
conceive a primitive society which does not blend religion and its rites
with law the lawgiver and the judge with the priest. In this view, the
cairns and marks of sepulchre will appear as appropriate to these places
of legal and religious meeting, as a cemetery to a Christian church. In
one of those circles on the bank above Inverness was dug up a rod of gold,
simply crooked at the top like a rude crozier or an ancient lituus. A few
miles distant, at Clava, in the rocky valley of the water of Nairn, there
are the remains of quite a little city of such circles, of small size,
some having in their circumference what were long thought to be mere
cairns of loose stones, but are now found to cover rudely-formed chambers,
the roofs formed by converging stones without arches. A similar chamber
has been discovered in the centre of the great circle in the Lews. It
would be a considerable boon for our antiquities if any student of our
history were to endeavour to fix the limits of the districts of those
stone circles ; and important results might he derived from it for the
history of our original peoples. I have not myself found them in the West
Highlands, the ancient territory of the proper Scots; while the greatest
and most remarkable are in Orkney and the Lews.
I wish to distinguish from
those circles of unhewn stones, a somewhat later, hut more interesting and
yet more mysterious class of our national antiquities the sculptured
monuments, standing singly or in small irregular groups, which are found
chiefly in the North, hut of which the most interesting and also the most
numerous specimens occur in Strathmore at Glammis, at Meigle, at
Aberlemno. In chronicles and ancient Church records we find mention of
setting up great stones and stone crosses to mark the place of death of
some great man (Fordun relates that the place of Alexander III.'s fatal
fall was marked by a stone cross), and of others to distinguish the
boundaries of estates and jurisdictions. Thus the Steward of Scotland
marked the marches between the monks of Paisley and his chace of Fereneze;
and Lesmahagu, the church of St. Machutus, had the extent of its girth or
sanctuary defined by four crosses which stood around it. We could have no
difficulty, then, in accounting for the ancient stone cross, was it not
often accompanied by a species of hieroglyphics which set the speculations
of the antiquary at nought. You must not suppose that it is the mere
ornaments of the artist, however grotesque, that appear inexplicable, or,
indeed, that excite our curiosity. There is a class of symbols represented
on these stones, of such constant recurrence as to preclude the
possibility of their being the work of chance, and yet of forms which
suggest no feasible explanation or meaning. For the most part, those
symbolic sculptures are conjoined with carved crosses (though generally on
the other side of the stone), suggesting the idea that they may have
existed as monuments before, and that the symbol of Christianity may have
been superinduced over those of pagan times. Others have thought that the
stones being boundary stones, the cross on one side denoted the possession
of the Church, while the figures on the reverse had reference to the
occupations or dignities of the conterminous lay lord. I must say,
however, that the person who has devoted most study to this subject has
arrived at the conclusion that these sculptured pillars are in all cases
sepulchral. The sculpture is not in general in a style of good art; but I
have been much struck with the freedom, spirit, and grace of some figures
of horses and horsemen on the stones in the church-yard of Meigle. There,
too, occurs the interesting representation of a chariot the only real
evidence to support the ancient historians who make the inhabitants of
rocky, boggy, woody Scotland, a race of charioteers. The more ancient and
ruder of those monuments have no other sculpture but the symbolical
figures I have already alluded to. Such are "the Maiden Stone" in the
Garioch, Aberdeenshire, and the older of the stones of Aberlemno in Angus.
The later have ornaments of
different kinds; processions as that really majestic monument at Forres
battles, and hunting scenes; but over and through all these
representations, the ever-recurring symbols of unknown meaning. [The Stone
of Forres is without the mysterious symbols.]
One of these monuments is
interesting on several accounts. It is preserved at the church of St.
Vigeans in Angus. Owing to having been buried in the ground till lately,
it is particularly fresh and sharp in its sculpture, but I think it is of
later workmanship than most of the others bearing the symbols. Here, they
are as distinct as if cut only yesterday. The animals appear to me
curious; we have good figures of the tusked boar and the bear, both, no
doubt, objects of the chase. But the most interesting peculiarity of this
stone is that it gives a short inscription in legible letters. When I
speak of this as a singular instance of an inscribed stone of this class,
I should mention the well-known stone at the manse of Ruthwell, decyphered
by the lamented Mr. Kemble. It is inscribed in what we are now desired to
call Saxon Runes, and it resembles monuments found in Man, and also in
Scandinavia quite a distinct family from our northern Scotch sculptured
monuments.
But while I profess that
nothing is yet ascertained regarding this class of monuments; that no
theory or plausible conjecture has been offered respecting their purpose,
the meaning of those constantly recurring symbols, the people who made
them, you are not to suppose that intelligent inquiry directed to an
object is ever without some results. We have learned to limit and define
the district in which these symbolical monuments occur. They are confined
to the eastern lowland of Scotland, extending from the garden of Dunrobin
to the base of Largo Law. In no other country are they found, nor in any
other district of Scotland. In the short time to which any attention has
been directed to these singular antiquities, it is something to have
ascertained that the Irish antiquary is as ignorant of them as the
Scandinavian, and that among the monuments of Wales and Bretagne, however
nearly they may be approached in general design, there is nothing
apparently the same, or equivalent to the two most remarkable of their
mysterious symbols.
Secondly, by comparison of
the ornaments of those sculptured monuments with works of art, and
especially with illuminations of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, we can nearly
limit the period of their production to the eighth and ninth centuries.
There remain in some of the
remotest of the Western isles, ruins of buildings of the rudest kind,
without chiselled stone, without mortar, but plainly ecclesiastical. No
history nor real tradition touches these. We love to associate them with
the early followers of Saint Columba, the apostles of those isles, and
they may be ranked as the most ancient of our Christian edifices.
Great uncertainty, at one
time, prevailed regarding the purpose and the era of the round towers of
Ireland. That has lately been much removed by the careful researches of
Mr. Petrie. The two similar buildings of Scotland, at Brechin and at
Abernethy, may now be without hesitation placed after the introduction of
Christianity; and whatever other purpose they were intended to serve,
there can be little doubt that, as has been proved of those in Ireland,
they were used as belfreys; probably before bells were hung in buildings,
and when the mode of assembling a congregation was by a hand bell rung
from the top of the bell tower. No record alludes to the erection of these
two venerable Scotch towers. They are now surrounded with buildings,
which, though of some antiquity, are modern as compared with them. To
judge from c the comparison of the masonry alone, with the most ancient of
our other ecclesiastical buildings, they cannot be ascribed to a lower age
than the tenth, or even the ninth century.
I trust it is not expected
that I should attempt anything like a detailed or systematic history of
Scotch art. Meagre as our materials are for such a history, they would
extend far beyond the space which I can devote to the subject. All that I
can hope to do is to direct attention to a few of the proper objects of
intelligent interest, connected with the arts, at each period of our
history, rather to furnish matter of speculation and inquiry, than in the
hope or wish of bringing forward fully considered and definite results.
The buildings of a people are perhaps always the oldest specimens of art
among them; and the religious buildings called forth so much of the zeal
of early Christians, that all the other arts may be considered as
ancillary to architecture. Even painting, which now stands so high among
the fine arts, was first used only as one of the means of church
embellishment. In all discussions upon early art, then, we must look to
architecture, not only as the foundation, but as the great end to which
other arts were directed, and it is of the greatest consequence to aim at
some precision in the history and dates of the successive styles of
architecture, as they developed themselves in this country.
It would, no doubt, be very
desirable in such an attempt to rear the architectural edifice upon
historical ground, to produce evidence of the foundation of each church,
to warrant the assertion we make of its antiquity, and fix even a precise
date. But in Scotland, this is not to be hoped for, and we are obliged to
take the rudiments of our chronology of architecture from the richer
record stores, and longer and more learned investigation of the subject by
the scholars of England. We know, indeed, from the best authority, that
Saint Ninian, in the fourth century, built his church of stone, contrary
to the custom of that time, whose white walls, shining over the waters of
the Solway, obtained its name for Whithern, the cathedral of the bishops
of Galloway. But that structure and all vestiges of it have long
disappeared.
In like manner, the
historical and legendary memorials of Iona furnish no clue to the date of
the existing architectural remains, or only give negative assistance.
Whatever may have been the edifice that cradled the Faith in that stormy
region, wave after wave of the Pagan Norsemen had long obliterated that
gloriosum cζnobium all that had been hallowed by the presence of Columba
and his disciples. We know historically, or rather by the superior
evidence of charters, that none, even calling themselves successors of the
old "family of Columba," tenanted his little island in the twelfth
century. Early in that century the Cluniac monks were introduced into
Scotland, planted first at Paisley by the Stuarts, and before the end of
it, had obtained possession of Iona. The remains of ecclesiastical
buildings on the island are theirs, and the church is a well-marked
specimen of the period of transition between the Norman or Romanesque, and
the succeeding style of "first pointed," which we need not hesitate to
place in its true date, the beginning of the thirteenth century.
I could be well pleased to
travel onward in this manner, endeavouring to reconcile the facts of
history with the existing appearances of architectural remains; and with
later buildings it gets both easier and more satisfactory; but I must not
occupy your time with these researches, when I fear I shall hardly be able
to communicate some of the foundations of such study, already elaborated
to our hands.
The first period of our
architecture has been usually named the Norman, and perhaps more
appropriately the Romanesque. It came into England, as is now admitted, a
short time before the Norman conquest. In its early stages it is plain and
extremely massy.
Short circular pillars, and
arches semicircular or inclining to the horse-shoe, are the
distinguishing-marks of this style, which preserves its character
singularly during an extraordinary progress of mere ornamental
embellishment. The style which, at its commencement, was the most simple,
like the cavern hewn from the rock the first efforts of men unused to
wield the chisel became, before it was superseded, ornate, and
absolutely overwhelmed in ornaments, mouldings of wonderful variety in the
arches, capitals of the most fantastic design, and the walls striped with
rows of niches and pannels, often taking the pretty form of arcades of
interlacing arches. Even the pillar shafts were broken, sometimes, into
zigzag and spiral lines, which did not produce that lightness which seems
to have been missed; and the invention of artists could go no farther in
mere surface ornament. Through all, the character is preserved the massy
round pillar, the semicircular arch, the unbuttressed wall and not to be
confounded with any subsequent style, any more than a Grecian portico with
the architecture of Delhi or of the Alhambra.
The period of this style
extends in English examples from a little before the Conquest till late in
the twelfth century. Speaking roughly, we may assign to it in Scotland all
the twelfth century.
Of this period in Scotland,
we can point with some certainty to the nave of Dunfermline, which we know
to have been dedicated in 1150; St. Rule's tower at St. Andrews, a very
curious and somewhat anomalous specimen, though historically fixed between
1127 and 1144; the cathedral of St. Magnus of Kirkwall, founded about
1138, but taking long years in building, and displaying the changes of
style of that period in its architecture; the chancel and the western
gable of the abbey church of Jedburgh. Leuchars in Fife, and Dalmeny on
this side of the Firth, are two interesting specimens of rural parish
churches, both of rich, late Eomanesque work, and both exhibiting the
peculiarity of the circular apse, which must have been common of old, but
of which I am acquainted with very few Scotch specimens still entire.
Still later in this style, we have the choir of the cathedral of St.
Andrews, begun in 1162; Kelso; a little part of Coldingham; several
fragments of the rural churches of the Merse; the western gable of
Arbroath; a beautiful remnant preserved within the park at Tyninghame; a
single arch, seen on the southern side of the chancel of Holyrood; the
little chapel of St. Margaret in our castle; a few arches of Kinloss in
Moray, which, if placed in this period, are, I think, the only specimen of
Romanesque work in the North.
If you would impress on
your minds the character of that most peculiar style, compare these with
the specimens fixed and chronologized in England. Or, whoever is happy
enough to have leisure for such studies, and opportunity to follow them in
England, will find fine specimens of the earliest and severest Norman in
the Tower of London, especially in the chapel in the top of the white
tower, the white washing of which formed an item in the expenditure of
Henry II., in the crypt of Winchester Cathedral, built before 1100; or,
nearer and more cognate, in the gigantic nave of Durham, founded by our
own kings, and the kingly lords of Northumbria and Lothian, which is so
evidently the pattern and type, on a grander scale, of our Dunfermline. Of
the later Norman, the English examples are innumerable. There are none
more striking than the beautiful parish church of Ifftey, looking up the
vale of the Isis to the towers of Oxford; or the Galilee of the cathedral
of Durham.
II. The next century gave a
new order of architecture; and it is very important for us in Scotland to
understand it, since that was the great age of church building in this
country. Here again the public history of the country gives and receives
light from the study of art. You have seen that the real golden age of
Scotland the time of peace with England of plenty in the land of
foreign trade flourishing of internal police of law and justice was
the period of a full century following the treaty between William the Lion
and Richard Coeur de Lion, comprehending the reign of William and the long
reigns of the second and third Alexanders. Now, that century is the time
when we can ascertain most of our fine and great churches to have been
built, and their style is what Rickman calls the "Early English," and
later artists the "First Pointed."
To this period we owe
undoubtedly a large part of the magnificent cathedral of Elgin, though so
roughly handled by the Wolf of Badenoch in the end of the fourteenth
century, that the bishops called their restoration a rebuilding. There
are, worthy of note, also, the cathedrals of Brechin, Dunblane (of
beautiful work, and still very entire), Whithern, Dornoch; the abbey
churches of Arbroath (sadly decayed, and still more spoilt by ignorant
restoration), Paisley, Coldingham, Kilwinning, Inchcolm, Restennot,
Dundrennan, Feme, Cambusken-neth, Inchmahome, Sweetheart, Pluscardine; the
later parts of Dunfermline and Jedburgh, Holyrood, Dryburgh, and, more
important, the great cathedrals of St. Andrews and Glasgow.
This was the era of those
enthusiastic fraternities or associations for church building which
assisted in erecting most of the beautiful churches of Europe, and which
undoubtedly bestowed that singular uniformity which characterizes the
ecclesiastical buildings of the same era, during the twelfth and following
centuries. We find notice of a society of this kind having for its chief
object the restoration of the cathedral of Glasgow, after it had been
burnt down in the reign of William the Lion. It was instituted by Bishop
Jocelin about the year 1190, and had a special charter of protection from
King William the Lion.
Among the accounts of the
building of churches of that period, it seems remarkable that we never
hear of the architect or the artist who furnished the plan; and yet the
symmetry and fine proportions of those old churches bespeak no common
design nor vulgar workmen. It is common among us to say those beautiful
churches must have been built, or at least designed by foreign artists.
But the same defect of information is found in other countries, and this
has driven foreign antiquaries to the conclusion that churchmen studied
architecture (for which they have indeed some other foundation), and were
for the most part the architects of their own buildings, aided and no
doubt counselled, in matters of taste, by the members of the
church-building fraternities.
The "First Pointed" period
is recognized by the pointed arch the tall and more slender pillar,
composed of clustered shafts round a circular pier, often divided by one
or more bands, and with capitals plain or wrought in infinite variety
the long, narrow, lancet-headed window, without much feathering, and none
at all till towards the end of the period, but often in pairs, or three
together bold buttresses, at first unbroken in height, but towards the
end of the period divided into stages The roof high in the pitch when
of stone, groined, and with the crossings richly ornamented with bosses
wooden roofs frequent, and tall steeples coming into fashion. A frequent
and distinguishing ornament of this style is the toothed ornament.
Speaking roughly again, the style of Early English, or First Pointed,
lasted during the thirteenth century.
III. The style which
succeeded is that which Packman christened "the Decorated," while later
writers have named it, more appropriately, "the Second or Middle Pointed."
It was known in England from the beginning of the reign of Edward L, but
was chiefly prevalent in the reigns of his successors, Edward II. and
III.; and this, the perfection of English Gothic, may be said to have
terminated with the fourteenth century. That was not an age of building of
churches in Scotland. Occupied with continual wars with a foreign enemy,
or domestic feuds and troubles arising from a weak government, people saw
with indifference the magnificent churches of the previous age fall
rapidly to ruin; while the poor monks of the once venerated convents were
turned out to beg the bread which they had long shared liberally with the
poor. A few instances, we have, however, serving to mark the perfect
parallelism, during the first part of that time, of the art in England and
Scotland.
You recognize the Middle
Pointed style by its window-tracery, at first in regular geometrical
figures, circles, quatrefoils, etc.; latterly, flowing in elegant waving
lines; weather-mouldings, or drip stones, over door and window; often
running into triangular canopies richly crocketed; niches everywhere,
especially in the buttresses. The mouldings are quite peculiar. Frequent
ornaments are a four-leaved flower, and a ball-cup, taking the place of
the toothed ornament peculiar to the previous style.
I need hardly mention
Melrose as the splendid type of this most perfect style. Its building
extended over the latter half of the fourteenth century, and the first
half of the fifteenth.
Of this style, too, we have
the northern cathedrals of Fortrose and Aberdeen; the latter begun in
1366, and not finished for about a hundred years.
But here I must notice two
peculiarities of Scotch architecture:
1. Some of the features of
the Norman style in particular, the semicircular arch and the round
pillar, though not generally in conjunction, continue with us much lower
than in England, and break out occasionally through well-defined specimens
of ( all the later styles.
2. We cannot assign so
definite a termination to the "Middle Pointed" style as the English do.
With us, it did not so plainly give way before the prevalence of the
"Perpendicular," as the next English style is called, but rather underwent
a modification in the latter part of the fourteenth century, from our
greater communication with France, which introduced a sort of imitation of
what has been called the "Flamboyant" style, the architecture of France
contemporary with the "Perpendicular" of England. The English architects
do not admit this as a separate style, but pronounce it a degenerate
"Decorated;" and it has most of the features of "Decorated," running,
however, more into extremely waving lines, thin and weak mullions, and
groining ribs, and generally inelegant combinations of mouldings. Part of
the importation from France was the polygonal apse, not known before in
Scotland, and rare in England; while in France and Germany they are of
common occurrence.
A fine specimen of the
Scotch Middle Pointed period is the Douglases foundation of Linclouden,
built before 1400. The cathedral church of Dunkeld, we know from Abbot
Milne, its historian, was not begun till 1400, though to a hasty examiner
this interesting ruin has an earlier appearance.
Another of much interest,
and to which we look back with regret, was our own Trinity Church or
College Kirk, the foundation of the piety of Queen Mary of Gueldres, which
has lately been swept away to give room for a railway coal-store.
Most of our collegiate
churches of Scotland came within this period of "Decorated," or Flamboyant
belonging to the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries. I
need not point out to you Dalkeith and Linlithgow; each within half an
hour's distance. Other specimens are Corstorphine, and St. Duthacs of Tain.
You will find almost all this class -running into the three-sided apse,
with double doorways having flattened heads enclosed within a Pointed
arch. Battlements are comparatively rare, and the corby-stepped gable
begins to prevail towards the end of the period, with gabled or
saddle-backed towers.
Hitherto I have said
nothing of what may be called the surface ornament of our old churches. I
hope it will not alarm any one if I venture merely to allude to the
science of heraldry a study which of old engaged the attention of all
that were gentle-born which is now left to the tender mercies of the
lapidary and the coach-painter. Requiescat! I shall not try to unfold the
mysteries of the noble art of blazon. I might indeed suggest the great
importance of some knowledge of heraldry to the student of historical
antiquities. For the pursuit of family history of topographical and
territorial learning of ecclesiology of architecture, it is altogether
indispensable; and its total and contemptuous neglect in this country is
one of the causes why a Scotchman can rarely speak or write on any of
these subjects without being exposed to the charge of using a language he
does not understand.
But my present object is
very limited; nothing more than to bid you observe how heraldic blazoning
is mixed up with almost all the fine arts of the middle ages. In
architecture it soon took a prominent place among what may be called
surface ornament not affecting the shape and frame, the type and style
of building, but furnishing in infinite variety subjects of embellishment,
mixed with much of personal interest. If the shield of rich blazoning, or
the cognizance of some old name, covered with dust and dirt, still creates
an interest on the wall of a ruined church, or as part of the tracery of a
monumental tomb, we may imagine what effect was produced by the brilliant
colours of the old herald's "tinctures," adorning not only the walls, but
repeated in the tiles of the pavement, and glowing in the gorgeous
colouring of the windows; when each bearing and difference the square
banner of the knight and the squire's pennon told a universally
understood history of the founders and benefactors of the church, and
perhaps called up some memory of battle or siege, and of honour won in the
field or tourney-yard.
Of stained glass we have
scarcely a fragment remaining in Scotland. All that have come under my own
observation are a few handfuls of broken pieces, dug out from the rubbish
around our old churches none of it serving to hint the subject of the
painting, but showing often the broad, bold handling, the rich and full
colour, the masses of shadow and light in short, the knowledge of
effect, which seemed, until lately, altogether to have deserted the modern
worker in this beautiful art.
While the walls and roofs
of churches were adorned with heraldic escutcheons and devices, and the
windows glowed with the brilliant colours of the herald, and the higher
artist thought it no unworthy object to devote himself to the decoration
of God's house, all the details of the building became matter of minute
and scrupulous attention, which, in later ages, may have sometimes run
into superstitious observance. Not only the disposition of the altar and
its furniture, the shapes of windows, the position of fonts and screens,
the whole form and structure of the sacred edifice, were all studied, as
having deep and important symbolical meaning
 speaking a
language known to the initiated.
The effect of this was
evidently to inspire a sentiment, to raise the aim, and improve the taste,
not only of the chief artist, the architect himself, but of all those
designing or working in the subordinate departments. Under such an
influence, even the carpenter and smith become something more than men of
rule and hammer. Accordingly old locks, keys, and hinges, old chandeliers
and iron railings, though often of workmanship which a Sheffield artisan
would contemn, are frequently of admirable and effective designs. Whoever
has seen the iron rail that tops the lordly pile of Glammis Castle, will
easily understand what I mean.
So it was with the worker
in wood. You may sometimes meet with an old church chest, more frequently
with doors, with pannels, and with chairs or stools that had been made and
used for church purposes; and I cannot think it is the charm of antiquity
alone that places these, as works of design, so immeasurably above the
conveniences of our modern workshop. Of timber roofs I need not speak.
They are often of admirable design, and requiring great scientific skill
in their construction. Those of our ancient churches where, however,
timber roofs were not very common were no doubt planned and directed by
the architect, and not left to the invention of the carpenter; while the
later roofs of this sort those of Darnaway great hall and our Edinburgh
Parliament-house are of a period subsequent to our present inquiry, and
one of them at least probably both the work of foreign artists. In
passing, I may allude to the beautiful stucco ceilings of the seventeenth
century, though that also is below our period. The castle of Craigievar,
in Aberdeenshire Glammis, in Strathmore some of the apartments in
Holyrood, and many of our old country houses in Angus, Fife, and the
Lothians especially in and around Edinburgh furnish excellent
specimens of that art, requiring more artistic taste than our stucco work
of the present day; for you will observe the old work was done by the hand
and tool, without the common use of moulds.
But that which chiefly
exercised the skill of the worker in wood, and still preserves memorials
of exquisite taste and of most dexterous handiwork, is the carving
whether of screens, of stalls, or of pannels that adorned our ancient
churches. Some fine old stall work is still preserved though most of it
not in situ in Dunblane Cathedral; but it is in King's College,
Aberdeen, that we have perhaps the most beautiful wood-work that now
remains in Scotland. There we find both canopied stalls and a fine open
screen of very delicate cutting, and pannels covered with exquisite
tracery of varied patterns. The date of this work is the very beginning of
the sixteenth century.
Inferior, perhaps, work of
art, but not of less effect as an architectural aid and ornament, was that
manufacture of paving-tiles with which we know that many I may say, all
of our churches were more or less paved. Of their various kinds it is
unnecessary to speak. In many places of Scotland they have been found
plain or glazed, but I believe only in one have they been discovered
enriched with patterns or designs. These are part of what covered the
chapel floor of the Abbey of North Berwick. They are of fine bold designs
not heraldic and with the pattern raised in such relief that, if
really used for the floor, they must have been very inconvenient to walk
over.
Another shape or offspring
of the architectural taste of the early ages, are the ancient seals, which
form an important section of mediaeval antiquities. In those of laymen
king, earl, baron, and knight we can trace the first introduction of
heraldic device, and, onwards, all the refinements of heraldry; while the
Church seal-cutters have used for their ornaments tracery adopted from the
shrine and window work of churches; and in many specimens you find that
heraldry and that Gothic tracery combined with the same happy effect which
is so often found in the heraldic adornments of our old churches. As mere
works of art, these old seals show great skill in figure and combination,
and evince undoubtedly a clear perception of the beautiful. But when you
consider that in them we read the first adoption of the cognizance of each
noble name the descent and alliances of most of our old families while
the arms, though commonly surrounded simply with the name and style of the
individual, are sometimes in combination with the proud battle-cry of the
race, or with a motto of peace and affection, approaching to the sentiment
on a modern lady's seal-ring, you will see that a knowledge of them is not
only calculated to give precision to history, but to throw light upon the
modes of life and thought of our ancestors. In both respects they seem to
me more important than the useful study of medals.
Of the artists of our
earlier coins we know nothing, except a few of their names; as, for
instance, in the reign of William the Lion Adam and William the moneyers
of Berwick, Adam and Hugh of Edinburgh, Folpolt or Folpold of Perth, Raul
of Roxburgh, etc.
We have no coins, probably,
of earlier date than those of David I., which are rude indeed, but not
much inferior to those of the contemporary monarchs of England. In the
reign of William the Lion, in-like manner, the coinage, now abundant and
of many different mints, keeps parallel, and similar to that of England.
From such vile representations of humanity, we pass downwards, regularly
and steadily improving, both in design and execution marking, I think,
that we could not be much indebted to foreign artists. At some periods,
however, we do find foreigners employed, and we can still point to some of
our early gold of good workmanship, minted by Bonaccio of Florence, in the
reign of Robert III. But such foreign superintendence must have ceased
long before the best period of our coinage; and I cannot see any reason to
doubt that it is to native skill and taste, we owe those beautiful coins
of James V., which may bear a comparison with those of any country at any
time.
Without inquiring too
curiously whether this is its right place, I must be allowed now to notice
among the objects of art of the twelfth century in Scotland, one of
singular interest. I have given some specimens of our ancient charters,
which were usually very brief and very small. In some instances, however,
as charters of foundation, or general confirmations to religious houses,
the king or chancellor of the day, indulged in greater verbosity and
breadth of parchment. When Malcolm IV. saw fit to ratify all former
endowments to his grandfather's great abbey of Kelso, it seems to have
been his wish to do it with all solemnity. The writing of charters of that
period is always careful and elegant; but this great charter was to be
distinguished by a novel ornament. The Gothic initial M of the king's
name, formed of intertwined serpents, as is common in Anglo-Saxon MSS., is
made to serve as a frame of two compartments, in each of which is painted
a portrait of a crowned king in his royal state, in the most brilliant
colours, and relieved with gold. On the right hand sits an aged monarch
with a beard of venerable length, bearing in his hands the sword and globe
of sovereignty. On the other, a youthful king with fair beardless face,
holding in his right hand the sceptre of actual rule, and having the sword
of office laid across his knees. This superb charter is dated in 1159.
David I., the venerable founder of the Abbey, had died, full of days and
of honour, six years before. Malcolm the IV., the reigning king, was then
seventeen; and when we consider the object of the charter, and the
circumstances in which it was granted, it really leaves no room for the
most sceptical to doubt that these are portraits executed in 1159 of the
reigning prince and of his grandfather, who must have been still fresh in
the memory of his people.
It is seldom that we can
have a work of art of so high antiquity, stamped thus precisely with its
date and subject. One other instance I may mention of art, of yet more
early date, well ascertained. I wish I could fix the place or country of
manufacture c as definitely.
In the summer of 1857, some
boys playing on the sands of the Bay of Skaill, in Orkney, turned up
several small pieces of metal which they showed, and soon discovered to be
silver. There was speedily no want of diggers, and the little cache on the
Orkney sea-shore, produced in all about sixteen pounds weight of silver.
It was chiefly in the shape of torques and massive mantle-brooches, worked
with careful, and sometimes pretty ornaments ; but with a singular
uniformity of design, as if the artist had but little invention, or
considered himself bound to a conventional type or style. There were a few
little ingots or bars of silver suggesting the idea that the deposit
contained the treasure of a silversmith's work-shop and there were
(fortunately) a number of silver coins. Some of the coins are Oriental, of
that kind which were in common currency over Northern Europe in the middle
ages. One is a coin of Khalif Al Motadhed, bearing to be struck at Al
Thash (a town of Transoxiana) in the 283d year of the Hegira,
corresponding with a.d. 896. But two of the coins are English, of which
one, a "St. Peter's penny," coined at the city of York, numismatists
place, with confidence, in the early part of the tenth century; the other,
bearing the impress "Ζthehtan rex totius Britanniζ," is limited by that
king's reign to the years 925-941.
It was not a case of old
wreck. There were a few grey stones ingeniously disposed, so as to point
and lead to the spot, when one knew where about to look, and that is all.
I conjecture it to have been the hoard of a northern pirate of the tenth
century, fresh from the plunder of a good town where the silversmith's
booth had naturally attracted his chief attention, who had buried his
spoil to wait his return from another cruise, and had returned no more.
The silver brooches and ornaments the best and most authentic guide we
have to Northern art of the tenth century and the coins found along with
them, are now in the museum of the Scotch Antiquaries.
To return from this long
digression from the subject of architectural art our field is much
narrowed when we come to civil and domestic architecture. Of the rude
dwellings of our aborigines I have already spoken. In them is little art,
and nothing that can be called architecture. But in the reign of David I.,
and even earlier, history and contemporary charters notice numerous royal
castles, and we cannot doubt that the masons who were erecting Dunfermline
and St. Rule's for the saintly king, must have applied their new-born art
to constructing those places of dwelling and defence for their patron, and
for many of his Southern followers each a prince in possessions and
magnificence. We can point where those dwellings were. We know that on the
rocks of Edinburgh and Stirling at Roxburgh, Perth, Forfar, and other
usual residences of royalty, as well as at the chief places of the greater
earldoms, March, Fife, Athol, Angus, Strathern, Mar castles were built
for security and enjoyment, at the time when such sumptuous fabrics were
erecting for the Church here in Scotland; and while castles and houses
were building in England for the very brothers and cousins of our Northern
settlers. But of such civil structures of the Norman or Romanesque period,
we have only the vestiges remaining a mass of shapeless masonry,
disclosing marvellous strong mortar, or more frequently a mere foundation,
faintly distinguishable through the green sward. I believe that, of the
secular buildings of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, we have not a
fragment affording any architectural feature.
Of the thirteenth and the
following century, we have somewhat more. That was the age of those.
stately garrison piles, still the pride of England and Wales, and it was a
time when men's minds were more turned to castles than to church building.
Many of the events of the wars of Wallace and Bruce turn upon the attack
and defence of our Scotch castles. Barbour has thrown a romantic interest
around Turnberry, Douglas, Brodick, Bothwell, Kildrummy; and the history
of that glorious war perpetuates Dunstaffnage, Forfar, Brechin, Linlithgow,
not to mention the great strengths of the kingdom, Edinburgh, Roxburgh,
Stirling, Dunbar, and indeed a royal castle, as the proper and almost
necessary accompaniment of each royal burgh. Most of those castles of
residence and defence were sacked and burnt and demolished many times
during that fierce struggle. But the masonry of that time was much
enduring; and enough remains of Kildrummy, of Lochindorb, of Bothwell, of
Caerlaverock, to show the style and plan of those fortresses, and to
satisfy us that they followed the English model in everything but size.
Some remaining parts, such as the round tower and chapel, of the ill-used
castle of Kildrummy (which has served as a quarry for the country round),
and some parts of Bothwell and Dirleton, all reaching back to the period
we are studying, and all, be it observed, in striking situations, show the
characteristic architecture of that castle-building age with much beauty
of composition and detail. But like Edward's Welsh castles, those Scotch
thirteenth and fourteenth century castles, are too much of the nature of
fortresses for receiving garrisons, to furnish what we are chiefly
seeking, some indications of domestic life.
These are found much more
in the fifteenth century baronial tower, so peculiar to our country,
although evidently built after the model of the primitive Norman donjon,
long antiquated and disused in England. Take the middle of the fifteenth
century the chief time of these square towers and observe the
condition of Scotland. Since the death of Robert Bruce, a century of cruel
wars and the most wretched misgovernment had impoverished the country
almost to starvation. Many of our great families were extinguished ; all
the old grand way of life forgotten. The chivalrous manners the noble
simplicity of knights and ladies, so charmingly, and I think so truly,
painted by Barbour had been swept away. When again, with some breathing
time of peace, and by the efforts of James I., agriculture had a little
revived, and the Government encouraged building and "policy" in the
desolate country the buildings were like the people, poor and mean in
taste. The chief thing aimed at was security against marauding bands and
unfriendly neighbours. I need not describe to you the Scotch castle of
that time the single, square, gaunt tower, rising story above story,
each floor consisting of but one apartment, the door placed high for
safety, the walls thick, the window-openings narrow and jealous. Such a
dwelling, and we have plenty of them, though few in their unmitigated
bareness, recalls the time when the rural baron and his family visitors,
vassals, retainers, servants rural and domestic, lived and scrambled for
their food, all crowded together in the one hall a gloomy cold apartment
when the offal of the board was fought for by the dogs below it, and the
garbage was hid among the foul straw which might be renewed when harvest
produced a supply when the furniture was limited to the moveable boards
on which the meat was served, and a few stools and settles of deal when
carpets, curtains, window-glass, comfort, cleanliness, were unknown when
the women had no separate apartment but their sleeping-room, and no tastes
that made such life irksome.
This style, which contrasts
so unfavourably with the ruins of that which had preceded it by a century,
fortunately did not continue long in its utter rude nakedness. As security
increased, and the education and tastes of the people improved,
dwelling-houses of more comfort were built up beside the sixteenth century
tower tall, lean, high-roofed, single dwellings, full of small rooms and
small windows; and such additions and re-additions were constantly taking
place in the century which succeeded the period of square towers, and
preceded the next marked change of domestic architecture. James III. was
addicted to masonry and other art, and his son and grandson were men of
princely taste, and showed it in their dwellings Witness the remains of
old Holyrood, Falkland, Stirling, and Linlithgow. But, except by one or
two great courtiers, such palatial architecture could not be imitated; and
it required skilful modification to adapt that over ornate style to the
modest means of the Scotch gentry. It was not till the storm of the
Reformation had subsided under the peaceful sway of James VI. scarcely,
indeed, before his accession to the English throne had given stability to
government, and opened a way of riches to many a Scotch lord and laird
that a style of country house was introduced in Scotland, which,
preserving the rude ancestral tower, surrounded it with graceful ornament,
and added convenient accommodation in good keeping with the now decorated
castle. The two leaders of the new style were their own architects, and
both men of excellent taste. The Lord Chancellor (Alexander Seton, Lord
Dunfermline) taking as his nucleus two ancient ecclesiastical mansions,
produced the beautiful house of Pinkie, and the lordly pile of Fyvie,
besides minor edifices at Elgin and elsewhere. His rival in architecture,
the first Earl of Strathmore, applied his taste may we not call it
genius? to supplementing, raising, grouping, lighting, ornamenting
without, decorating within, the rude mass of an old Scotch keep. His first
essay was upon his tower in the Carse of Gowrie, then known as Castle
Lyon, now called Castle Huntly. But his great triumph was in producing
from such materials the castle of Glammis, an edifice out of the common
rules of art, and perhaps contrary to them, but which no artist can
approach without admiration.
Those two master builders
were but the type of their age. Castle-building, or castle-adorning, was
in high fashion in the beginning of the seventeenth century; and,
strangely, it fixed on Aberdeenshire as its favourite field, where castle
mansions of Frasers, Gordons, Forbeses, Burnetts, and Urquharts still
exist to teach our presumptuous age a lesson of humility. All those
chateaux, and the less adorned country houses of that period, mark a great
improvement in the comfort and in the tastes of our gentry. We cannot
figure houses like Castle Fraser to have been built and inhabited by any
who were not gentlemen and ladies, in the best sense of the word.
I wish it were possible to
trace changes in the dwellings of the people the middle and lower ranks
corresponding to those well marked steps of progress in the higher. But
the cottage and the old farm house were of too perishable materials to
furnish the outline of their history. One thing is sure. Looking back
through all the time that record or chronicle can show us, the manner of
life of the labourer may have been depressed by wars and famine, and
pestilence may have been kept stationary by hopelessness; but, as
compared with the unlabouring class, it has never retrograded. This is not
the place to notice the efforts of the modern Scotch agriculturist which
have not only increased beyond all former belief the produce of the soil,
but are mitigating our climate, and improving the health of the people.
The improvement in their own dwellings was slow to follow; but it has
come. Old men still remember when the dwelling of the Scotch peasant
farmer was not secure against wind or rain with no window, or none made to
open with the damp earth for floor, with dunghill and green pestilent
pool at the door. The "black hut" that is still to be seen in a few glens
of the Highlands, is a less unhealthy abode than the houses of the
yeomanry and peasantry of three-fourths of Scotland were half a century
ago. The change is still going on universally over Scotland, not in fancy
cottages, dressed up to please the lord or the lady, but in the
acquisition of habits of cleanliness and comfort, which require better
accommodation for our cattle now than was bestowed on human beings in the
last generation.
Of burgh domestic
architecture, I suppose we have none older than the sixteenth century. But
of that we have good specimens around us, in those solid stately houses
that seem likely to survive many changes of fashion, and which show that
the burgess of the Reformation period lived in greater decency and comfort
than the laird, though without the numerous following, which no doubt gave
dignity if it diminished food. I am not sure that this class has gone on
progressively, either in outward signs of comfort, or in education and
accomplishment, equal to their neighbours. The reason, I suppose, is
obvious. The Scotch burgher, when successful, does not set himself to
better his condition and his family within the sphere of his success, but
leaves it and seeks what he deems a higher. |
