The Building of England: How the History of England Has Shaped Our Buildings. Simon Thurley
and most spectacular projects was substantially boosted by the financial muscle of a really famous saint. Although in many cathedrals Anglo-Saxon saints had been translated to Anglo-Norman buildings, their setting was now regarded as insufficiently magnificent. So through the 13th and 14th centuries the east ends of dozens of great churches were extended to provide suitably spectacular shrines for Anglo-Saxon and contemporary saints, as well as space for visiting pilgrims. This movement was given a huge boost by the new setting for the relics of St Thomas Becket at Canterbury. Thus between 1190 and 1220, for example, work started on building new eastern arms at Beverly, Ely, Hereford, Lichfield, Lincoln, Southwell, Winchester and Worcester.
As the English economy and infrastructure strengthened and towns grew, secular and ecclesiastical lords rebuilt their castles and cathedrals in new styles. Churches developed in response to changing liturgy, while the great secular residences remained much as they had done for generations, reflecting a more stable way of life for royalty and nobility. For richer ordinary people life also improved, and their houses became more sturdy, commodious and permanent.
As the second generation of Normans felt more English, so the great cathedrals, abbeys, castles and houses then under construction became increasingly distinct from their counterparts in France. Architecture had been through an intense period of experimentation from 1150 to 1170, but by about 1200 there was an increasingly uniform approach to large-scale building. Some of the excesses of late Anglo-Norman decoration were forgotten and the new Gothic style adopted simpler, but bold and deeply cut, pointed arches. Yet it was rooted in what had gone before: English cathedrals clung to the thick wall technique often with masonry 13ft thick. This not only characterised early English Gothic but influenced the proportions and scale of everything that came after. As cathedrals were rebuilt and extended they embodied the Anglo-Norman structural techniques. Thus from a European perspective early English Gothic was rich, insular and distinctive.
English architecture in the period from 1220 to 1350 displays the confidence that comes with wealth and independence.
Introduction
The hundred years after 1250 are among the most energetic, inventive and extravagant periods of building in English history, a time in which English architecture became as distinctive as its national character. The building boom that started in the 1220s continued strongly up to about 1300 (fig. 87). This almost precisely mirrored an extraordinary period of economic growth and national prosperity that was underpinned by rapid population growth (fig. 88).
Yet the period was not one of political stability. Politically it was characterised by a struggle between the Crown and the aristocracy. In 1215 King John had been forced to sign Magna Carta, a charter that protected barons, freemen and the Church against the arbitrary actions of the king, emphasising that royal power was held under the law. This, and the struggles to enforce it during subsequent reigns, are hugely important for England. Unlike France, where the king answered only to God, in England monarchs were not only below God but also subject to the law of the land.
John’s reign descended into chaos and civil war. He died in 1216, to be succeeded by his son Henry III, who was only nine. Most of the country was in the hands of the nobility, who were in revolt against John, and in London resided their ally, Prince Louis, heir to the French throne, whom they wished to crown king. But after the Battle of Lincoln in 1217 Henry and his party soon regained control, and Henry was to go on to reign for 46 unstable and quarrelsome years. The crisis of 1216–17, Henry’s subsequent favouritism towards foreign advisors, and the heavy-handed exercise of papal jurisdiction were important components in a strengthening sense of English identity during his reign. The process of national definition continued under Edward I, who came to the throne in 1272 at the age of 33. Edward was entirely different to his father; the first 20 years of his rule were characterised by decisiveness and determination, and saw the conquering of North Wales and almost continual war with Scotland. These years also saw persistent and heavy taxation, strengthening the role of parliament. Yet English national identity was also strengthened, partly in counterpoint to resurgent identities in Scotland and Wales.1
Fig. 87 Graph showing volume of cathedral and abbey building in England 1100–1500. The upper curve represents the average trend of 40 major building campaigns in each decade; the lower curve the average trend of campaigns started by decade at 85 buildings.
Fig. 88 The estimated population of England 1086–1786. The catastrophic effects of the Black Death in 1348 can be clearly seen.
Edward II, who came to the throne on Edward’s I death in 1307, was completely unsuited to kingship; weak, vindictive and directionless, he squandered the goodwill of the aristocracy, who had supported his father. He was deposed in 1327 and replaced by his son Edward III. On Edward III’s accession the monarchy was ineffectual and unpopular, and the king was only fourteen. Yet Edward went on to forge a reputation as one of England’s greatest warrior kings. John and Henry III had lost all the Crown’s great continental possessions except Gascony, which Henry had agreed to hold from the French king. Tension over this, and Edward’s claim to the French throne, led to the Anglo-French wars of 1337 to 1453, known as the Hundred Years’ War.
Beliefs and Ideas
The way buildings look is governed by the way people think. During the 13th century there were some significant changes in the way people thought about God and about the relationship between the Church and society. These were European streams of thought and doctrine that had varying impacts on the appearance of buildings across Europe. In terms of English architecture, however, there were three particularly important theological developments.
The first came out of the Fourth Lateran Council held at the Lateran Basilica in Rome by Pope Innocent III in 1215 that promulgated the doctrine of transubstantiation – the transformation of bread and wine into Christ’s body and blood during the Eucharist. Transubstantiation, which could only be effected by an ordained priest, further elevated priestly status above the congregation and put even greater weight on the significance of the chancel, the part of the church in which communion was celebrated. The statutes of the council made a direct contribution to a movement in England that saw, from around 1200, pressure to rebuild the chancels of churches to provide a suitable setting for the proper celebration of the Eucharist.
The second – another formal definition of an accepted belief – came out of the Council of Lyon in 1274. The council defined purgatory as the place where the soul rested between death and the Last Judgement while being refined by the prayers of the living. Prayers for the dead were now accepted as being as effective as prayers for the living – if not more so. This had a powerful influence on those rich enough to be able to guarantee prayers for themselves after they had died, and led, after 1300, to a huge upsurge in the foundation of perpetual chantries. At one end of the social and economic scale a chantry could simply be an endowment for a priest to say Mass for an individual’s soul; at the other it could be the foundation of a large college, school or hospital with a dozen or more secular priests.
At the highest levels of society those with sufficient means founded a college of priests in their own residences. Henry III did this at Westminster (St Stephen’s) and at Windsor (St George’s). Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, did the same at his mighty castle at Kenilworth. These chantries and colleges did not replace the monasteries. Monasteries continued to be very important, especially to those who could not afford customised care of their souls in private institutions. Yet, as a result, few new enclosed monastic houses were founded after about 1300.