The Building of England: How the History of England Has Shaped Our Buildings. Simon Thurley
third development was an increasing interest in the veneration of the Virgin Mary. Before the Conquest the English had shown a strong devotion to the Virgin, but in the 13th century this developed into a national obsession. The Virgin Mary was the universal saint – she could be worshipped anywhere, free from specific geographical or personal associations and, of course, she appealed to women. Lady chapels were increasingly built to honour Mary, and became major parts of monasteries and cathedrals.
To these theological developments we need to add a fourth, of a different and more amorphous nature – chivalry. From the time of the Norman Conquest the upper classes began developing a code of behaviour – manners, if you like – that centred on physical prowess, generosity, courtesy and loyalty. How these values, which are understandable in the context of the knightly hall or the tournament, applied to the gruesome world of medieval warfare is hard to comprehend. But this exotic aristocratic culture was the way that the Church rationalised the activities of a militaristic society. In this way the brutality of the Crusades, for instance, could be fitted into a Christian world.
Entry to the chivalric world demanded excellent horsemanship, and was therefore restricted to those with the means to equip their steeds and to perfect equestrian techniques. Mounted knights practised their art in peacetime at tournaments, initially to the death but later as a form of chivalric festival. In this the cult of King Arthur and his knights was an important component, with kings and knights modelling themselves on the legendary king and his companions.2 Edward I ordered the construction of the ‘Arthurian’ round table that still hangs in Winchester Castle great hall; in 1344 his grandson, Edward III, outdid him when he constructed a building 200ft in diameter at Windsor to contain a great round table as the centrepiece of a festival at which he founded the Order of the Round Table. Arthurian legend and contemporary court life were inextricably connected.3
These romantic and militarised ideas were converted into architectural style. In this violent and warlike world castles were designed to defend their occupants from aggressors but their individual elements were often stylised. Turrets, battlements, machicolations, drawbridges and moats were as much elements of a chivalric style as functional components. Just as the 18th-century noble had a Corinthian portico, reflecting his self-image as an ancient Roman senator, so the 13th-century magnate had his machicolations, reflecting his as a heroic knight; thus from the reign of Edward I fortification was often as much a style as a form of defence.4
Fig. 89 Butley Priory, Suffolk. The early fourteenth century gatehouse is encrusted in heraldic shields representing the badges of donors and supporters.
The most obvious external sign of the chivalric mind was heraldry. Heraldic badges and devices originated with the need for identification in battle, but a more coherent system began to develop from the 1140s, and English kings adopted the red shield with three gold leopards in 1198. By this stage broad rules for using heraldic devices were being developed and, as the 13th century progressed, people further down the social scale began to use them too. In due course heraldic devices began to identity everything from vast buildings to miniature jewellery.
It was Henry III’s use of his own arms and those of his royal connections at Westminster Abbey that set the fashion for using heraldry in architectural display. Once used as a decorative element in the 1260s, heraldry remained a dominant part of English architectural decoration into the 19th century. Butley Priory, Suffolk, is not the first, but is perhaps the most spectacular use of heraldic decoration in the early 14th century. The gatehouse is the sole surviving part of a priory founded by Ranulph de Glanville, justiciar of Henry II, and was built between 1320 and 1325. On the north front is a panel with 35 shields in five rows, including the arms of the builders and a litany of arms of the great and the good, ending with a list of East Anglian gentry (fig. 89).5
Landscapes of Power
By 1220 a traveller moving across England would have seen the hand of man everywhere. The whole landscape was managed to a greater or lesser degree and few places remained untamed. The most apparent unit of economic and social management was the estate. Estates, whether owned by the monarch, the Church, the great barons or the monasteries, organised the countryside for economic advantage. But the medieval landscape was not merely a money-making machine; the buildings and structures within it had meaning to the people who owned and looked at them.
Castles had a special meaning. In theory only the king could license the construction of a defendable fortress, as in the reign of King John a system had developed whereby magnates wishing to build a fortified residence applied for a royal licence to do so. The possession of a licence, whether it resulted in a building or not, was a sign of wealth and royal favour. It was also a sign of the times. All great houses in the 13th century were, to a greater or lesser extent, defendable. They had to be. It was not only residences on the south coast or the Welsh or Scottish borders that were vulnerable to raiders. Theft, vendetta and social unrest were all potential threats to the comfort and security of the well-off. High walls and towers were thus a sign of a man who could afford them, as well as an indication that he had something worth protecting.6
For those who could not afford to build a castle or obtain a licence there was the option of digging a moat. Moats had been dug from at least the 1150s, but during the period covered by this chapter as many as 3,500 moats were dug. Some of these were dug around manor houses, some around the houses of richer peasants. Not all parts of England were suitable for moats; they tended to be concentrated in Suffolk, Essex, Hertfordshire and in the central midlands, where there was a clay subsoil. Some moated houses were in the centre of villages, others were more isolated farmsteads.
| The now deserted medieval hamlet of Winteringham, Cambridgeshire, had three moated houses, one of which was excavated between 1971 and 1972. The site of the excavated house had been occupied by two earlier houses before the moat was dug in around 1250. The former houses were simpler and humbler, and the increasing wealth of the family who owned them is apparent by their desire to build a larger, more modern house and surround it with a moat. The house itself consisted of a hall and residential cross-wing, with a detached kitchen, a bower, a storeroom and a circular dovecot (fig. 90). The buildings were connected by cobbled paths. This was not the house of the lord of the manor, but of a substantial and prosperous farmer who wanted to protect his possessions from ill-doers and demonstrate his wealth by sporting a moat.7 |
| There was, of course, a huge gap between the aspirations of the owners of Winteringham and those of the great magnates. The magnates saw themselves as soldiers and their interests were in the governance of state and Church. Culturally their priorities were, loosely speaking, chivalric, expressed in mighty residences set in extensive and beautiful hunting parks. Hunting was fundamental to the life of the aristocracy. It was the activity, above all others, that defined aristocratic rank. It took great skill, it was dangerous, and it was run through with chivalric, religious and sexual symbolism. |
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All medieval residences of any pretensions were surrounded by hunting parks, 1,900 of which were created between 1200 and 1350. Most parks were between 100 and 200 acres in extent, the size of the park reflecting the wealth of its owner.8 The largest park in 13th-century England was the royal park of Clarendon, Wiltshire, covering 4,292 acres. It was surrounded by an impressive earthwork 10 miles long and more than 10ft high, topped with oak paling. The park was divided into three areas: pasture to the north, woodland in a band across the middle and wood pasture to the south. In addition to the palace there were eight lodges – some guarded the gates, others provided special services, such as accommodating the royal kennels. Every part of the land was productive. The woods were bounded by banks, ditches and hedges to keep the deer out and allow coppicing. Slow-growing oaks were also cultivated as a crop, and oxen and cows would graze on the wooded pasture in the south. The northern pasture supported deer and included man-made ponds for drinking and wallowing, troughs for feeding and deer houses for winter shelter. |