Brixworth and the English Basilica

Brixworth and the English BasilicaAuthor(s): Edward GilbertSource: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 47, No. 1 (Mar., 1965), pp. 1-20Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3048231 .

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BRIXWORTH AND THE ENGLISH BASILICA EDWARD GILBERT

I

B RIXWORTH church, of which the original dedication is lost, lies a few miles north of

Northampton in the center of the old Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia, of which it is one of the greatest ornaments. It is the least local and most international of the early

English churches, and is in every respect one of the most important early Saxon churches extant, both in itself and in its bearings on Continental work, being in fact the most perfectly preserved example of the early English church of the classical revival of the early Middle Ages. Indeed it is not far from being the most perfectly preserved of the entire European classical revival of the late eighth and early ninth centuries. It seems likely moreover that it antedates any of the Continental survivors. As evidence of the nature and drift of that revival it has been surprisingly neglected by the Continental critics. As we shall see, the inspiration of Brixworth does not come from Italy, but from the Middle East. It represents a classical revival based on what may be called "Syrian" influences, using the term as generic for all Middle Eastern types, rather than Italian influences. It is no accident that when Clapham wanted a historical example for Brix- worth he chose Kalb Lauzeh in Syria.' The probable date of Brixworth is not the traditional seventh century, but about the middle of the eighth, for which reasons are fully given below. It should be therefore about contemporary with Fulrad's Saint-Denis, and still somewhat pre- Carolingian. It would seem therefore that, pari passu with a Continental revival, there went a

Syrian revival, or else that the Italian character of the Carolingian renaissance has been over- stressed. This is the kind of question which Brixworth raises and to which it demands an answer, which has not yet been given.

THE PLAN

If Brixworth is examined (text figs. I, 2) it will be seen that it is apparently an aisled basilica with a single eastern polygonal apse and with a Syrian-type narthex, i.e., in three compartments, at the west end. We must discuss all the elements involved, beginning with the apse. In

pI o r ti cu o s

stair o

turret

V . N nave presbytery n C

p or tr t scu

SEnglish basilica (partly from foundations) 730-780 Es English basilica (restoration) I--5 Carolingian additions

c:-3 Conjectural i. Northants, Brixworth church, Plan (based on Clapham)

i. A. W. Clapham, English Romanesque Architecture before the Conquest, Oxford, 1930, fig. 9. The case for the Romaniz-

ing character of the Carolingian renaissance is most clearly

stated in R. Krautheimer's outstanding article, "The Caro-

lingian Revival of Early Christian Architecture," ART BUL-

LETIN, XXIV, 1942, pp. 1-38.



2 THE ART BULLETIN

its present form, this is enlarged, as is shown by the way it overhangs the crypt walls beneath, and blocks the windows of the presbytery lying west of it. The original apse was obviously carried by the inner wall of the corridor crypt below, and, as that is also polygonal it follows that the original apse was polygonal like the present one. This is categorically stated by Clapham in a statement from which there is no good reason to dissent.2 The polygonal apse introduces us immediately to the Eastern element, for it is the characteristic Eastern apse as against the semi-

-0:3 8th century

1l3E 9th century

2. Brixworth church, diagram showing conjectural outline of elevation ca. 850

circular Italian apse. The exact form here, which is seven-sided on the exterior and circular within, is Ravennate, again as noted by Clapham,3 and it is probable that the influence was transmitted via Ravenna and then via Merovingian Gaul. There are, I think, no surviving English models for this apse since the apse of a church in Reculver built by Bassa in A.D. 669 exists only in very fragmentary foundations, largely semicircular. As Reculver is known to have been rebuilt probably in the eighth century,' there is absolutely no guarantee that the polygonal super- structure did not belong to the rebuilding. In any case there is no general use of the polygonal apse in England in the seventh century. On the contrary, the typical English box church of that

century had an elliptical, or stilted semicircular apse.5 We call such a church a Kentish basilica from its origin in Kent, even though it is not a basilica.

The true period of the polygonal apse in Western Europe is round about the middle and late

eighth century." It appears, for instance, at Fulrad's Saint-Denis (text fig. 16),' and in a quite undatable church plan at Dompeter in Alsace8 of the same general character as Brixworth. On the whole, it is not a feature of the Carolingian revival and appears rather to belong to a phase immediately anterior to that development.

Under the apse is a corridor crypt with the inner wall polygonal and the outer, which has been

totally rebuilt, circular. The corridor crypt is again an Eastern feature, occurring at Rome in Saint Peter's about 6oo,9 but derived mainly from North Africa. It reached the Northwest doubtless via Merovingian Gaul, where it occurred at Saint Martin of Tours. It usually served a

rectangular chamber containing relics at the western side of its eastern extremity. At Brixworth there was such a chamber, although today it is lost since the inner eastern bay of the crypt is re-

2. Clapham, op.cit., p. 35n. 3. Clapham, p. 29. 4. Archaeologia, LXXVII, p. 241. 5. Clapham, figs. 7, 8. 6. A few polygonal apses do exist in the Ottonian revival. 7. S. McK. Crosby, L'abbaye royale de Saint-Denis, Paris,

1953.

8. L. Grodecki, L'architecture ottonienne, Paris, 1958, fig. 46.

9. J. K. Conant, Carolingian and Romanesque Architecture, Penguin Books, 1959, p. 26. A full study of the crypt of Saint Peter's in Rome occurs in J. C. Toynbee and J. W. Perkins, The Shrine of St. Peter, 2nd ed., London, 1958. The authors date the annular crypt ca. 6oo.



BRIXWORTH AND THE ENGLISH BASILICA 3

built. Similarly at Saint Martin's there was a chamber of this sort for relics, called "St. Martin's

Rest."'o A somewhat similar chamber occurs in the crypt at Seligenstadt, Einhard's church of about 820." There is no known English antecedent. English critics have got themselves into some difficulties over this annular crypt which is appreciably overhung by the rebuilt apse. The crypt could not in all probability have been rebuilt with the apse, or inserted then, because, if it had been, it would not have been made smaller than the apse. There is of course no evidence for such a rebuilding, and Clapham, as late as 1950, takes its originality for granted."' It is true that the

present entrances to the crypt from the presbytery are skewed through the wall and hence do not

appear original (text fig. I). This, however, does not show that the crypt itself was not original, but merely that the entrances are not. There could have been an original entrance from the out-

side, which is by no means an unknown arrangement. The present apse has pilasters and arcading. The pilasters are 20 inches wide and built of

rubble not unlike the fabric, and the effect of the whole is thoroughly Ravennate." Such pilasters are probably related to, and developments of, the buttresses of the Kentish basilicas and they occur in a fairly similar form on the apse of the palace hall at Aachen ca. A.D. 800. It cannot of course be known whether the original apse had the same features.

In front of the apse is a square bay enclosed by walls that was presumably used as a choir. It forms logically the base of a tower which is, however, now lost. The walled choir in front of the apse is an Egyptian feature though there it was usually rectangular. The Italians tended to use cancelli to mark off this space. No doubt the walled choir was transmitted through Mero-

vingian Gaul, but the fact remains that no example exists there. This is a very early, or original, English version of the feature.

Reculver, where there was a rectangular walled choir in front of the sanctuary (text fig. 6), was probably not the model for Brixworth, as is usually assumed, although, as at Brixworth, this element of the church was entered by a triple arcade. The wall in which this occurs, however, seems to have been an insertion, as is shown by Clapham's Plate 3, where the straight joint it makes with the south wall of the church is too clear to be merely an artist's aberration. Hence Reculver cannot be used for dating the feature. The other early example, at Deerhurst, is also somewhat uncertain in date, though probably ca. 804. The Repton walled choir is earlier, probably about A.D. 755. On the Continent, according to Gall's plan, Einhard's church at Seligenstadt of ca. A.D. 820 had a similar square walled choir in front of the apse (text fig. i4). It is possible moreover that the feature was actually a Teutonic development as it occurs in a number of non- basilican churches of early type in Teutonic lands.

At Brixworth the nave and tower walls have flanking chapels called porticus, recovered by excavations on the north and inferred on the south. They cover the western third of the tower

but have a doorway entrance in the east wall, which suggests some structure to the east, very possibly further porticus in wood. The total disappearance of porticus known to have existed, as in Eadbald's Lady Chapel at Canterbury, is a feature of Anglo-Saxon architectural history.

These chapels flanking the tower need not be regarded as incipient transepts. More likely they represent simply the diaconicon and prothesis of the Kentish basilica, attached to the new plan. Before the transept idea becomes truly prefigured a further development, that the flanking porticus

io. Conant, op.cit., p. 28. For a discussion of the variations of opinion as to whether there was such a relic chamber at

Brixworth, see E. A. Fisher, The Greater Anglo-Saxon Churches, London, 1962. Fisher comes to no definite conclusion. C. F. Watkins (The Basilica and Basilican Church of Brix-

worth, London, 1867), was the vicar of Brixworth, restored the

church, and knew it better than anyone. He says clearly that he found an opening in the east end of the inner wall of the

crypt. At that date (1867) it would not have been realized

that this was part of an early confessio crypt, as it must surely have been.

i i. E. Gall, Dome und Klosterkirchen am Rhein, Munich, 1956, fig. 10.

12. A. W. Clapham, Romanesque Architecture in England, London, 1950, p. 9.

13. Clapham, English Romanesque Architecture before the

Conquest, p. 29.



4 THE ART BULLETIN

of the tower should project beyond those of the nave, is essential. Such chapels, still walled off from the tower, appeared nevertheless in England as early as ca. 750 at Repton, and on the Con- tinent by ca. 820 at Seligenstadt in Germany, where there occurred a very developed transept plan, now converted into a true transept.

At Brixworth the aisled nave has walls carried on very solid looking piers (Fig. 3). This again is an Eastern rather than an Italian feature and is specially noticeable in Syria, where it occurs at Kalb Lauzeh, the church chosen by Clapham as the ultimate source for Brixworth. Once again the situation is that these piers probably came via Merovingian Gaul but that the evidence for this is lacking. The aisles, moreover, are not really aisles in the modern sense at all." They are not meant for the congregation, but consisted of chapels called porticus flanking the nave, and at Brixworth there is evidence that they were separated by solid walls. This is what distinguishes Brixworth most clearly from the ordinary aisled non-transeptal church of later Romanesque days and gives the type of church to which Brixworth belongs its special character. It is also the feature with the longest after history for it persisted all through the Romanesque period and beyond, though later the string of chapels was usually removed to a second outer aisle, making five aisles in all. Ultimately it is again an Egyptian feature and developed some time between the fifth and the seventh centuries, one of the flanking chapels being sometimes a baptistery, an element apparently missing from English early Christian architecture. It is probable therefore that at Brixworth one of the flanking chambers was a baptistery. The flanking chapels seem likely to have arisen as an extension of the box system of the Kentish basilica to cater to the growing need for extra chapels for relics. Thus the immediate origin is English, and for this and other reasons it would seem logical to call the Brixworth type of church an English basilica, which indeed is what it is. Turning to more or less contemporary churches it seems that Saint-Riquier in 796 was arranged in this way,l" as were the churches based on the famous plan of Saint Gall ca. 820." I suspect that many more Carolingian churches were thus arranged, e.g., Saint Mary's Mittelzell. The arrangements are not always traceable by excavation because the divisions between the flank-

ing porticus do not have to be solid walls, but can be screens or screen walls only. The system exists when you have a string of non-congregational altars down the aisles.

At the west end of the nave we have, as already stated, an Oriental narthex in three separate chambers, communicating by doorways only and walled off from each other. In the Syrian examples the external compartments carried staircase towers. At Brixworth the central chamber, which was

probably a porch, had an upper chamber and formed a little gable-roofed tower. The doorway entrance to this from the nave is still visible, although it is blocked and mutilated by a later window

(Fig. 3). This is a totally different conception and not Syrian at all: probably it is Gallic." Such an upper chamber, at the date and in the context, was a chapel with an altar. Such chapels are a well-known element of the Carolingian church, where they exist as parts of a centrally planned Westbau. This was used by the lay public or as a private church by some important person, in certain cases by the emperor or king himself when it was called the Kaiserhalle. In France the Kaiserhalle was generally placed over a simple porch. Thus Louis Grodecki writes: "More normal will appear the solution in France which installs a tribune above the porch; one meets it often in

14. The flanking chapels, or porticus, both of tower and nave, were found by Watkins, uncovered again by the vicar, the Rev. J. W. Burford, in 1957, and again by E. Jackson and E. Fletcher in 1958 (Journal of the British Archaeological Association, xxiv, 196i, pp. 1-15). The question of whether Brixworth had aisles or porticus along the nave is also discussed by Fisher, op.cit., without a conclusion being reached. Some of the porticus cross walls survive, and others do not, but this latter fact by no means proves that they never existed. I fully accept and support the conclusion of Dr. H. M. Taylor

(H. M. and J. Taylor, Anglo-Saxon Architecture, Cambridge, 1964 [in press]) that the nave was flanked by porticus rather than by aisles.

S5. Clapham, Eng. Romanesque Arch. before the Conquest, fig. 19.

16. H. Saalman, Medieval Architecture, New York, 1962, fig. 20.

17. Conant, Carolingian and Romanesque Architecture, fig. I B.



i. Northants, Brixworth church, Sanctuary Arch and East End

(photo: National Buildings Record) 2. Brixworth church, Apse from northeast

(photo: F. C. Cottrill)

3. Brixworth church, west wall of Nave (photo: National Buildings Record) 4. Brixworth church, fudged convex caps, west wall of Nave (photo: National Buildings Record)



5. Brixworth church from southwest

(photo: National Buildings Record)

6. Notts, Stapleford Cross, cushion

technique. Probably xx cent. (photo: National Buildings Record)

7. Gloster, Deerhurst Priory church, south Cloister Door

(photo: George K. Voyle)

8. Cumb, Gosforth Cross, cushion technique Probably x cent. (photo: National

Buildings Record)




France, the chapel lodged in the tribune being dedicated to St. Michael. Some of the tribunes are near the year Ioo, e.g. Saint-Pierre, Chartres; Saint-Germain des Pres, Paris. It was probably an ancient formula (the texts prove it to us) but one which had a new life in the course of the eleventh century."18

If Louis Grodecki would honor us with a visit to England we could show him more than texts to prove this point, for we have three or four surviving examples of the feature, very much in

embryo but far earlier than A.D. IOOO. Our first port of call would be Brixworth; then would come Deerhurst," Monkwearmouth20 and Ledsham.2' At the same time Brixworth is hovering on the edge of a move over to the German principle, and if, as is possible, there was a further

porch of approach to the church west of the Oriental narthex, it was still closer to being a pre- cursor of German practices also. It is possible that the porches of both Deerhurst and Monkwear- mouth had upper chambers before Brixworth, but when these were built there was no Oriental narthex at either church. The combination of narthex and upper chamber seems to occur first at Brixworth. It is therefore perfectly possible that the upper chapel over the porch and the Oriental narthex with single central tower are both English contributions to Western European architecture: That Deerhurst or Monkwearmouth is the earliest surviving example of the former, and Brix- worth of the latter.

ELEVATIONS

The church is built of granite mixed with red sandstone rubble in its lower courses, while in

the upper parts it is entirely of the sandstone rubble. The quoins in the original work are not of

dressed stone, and in this respect follow Roman and Kentish practice. There is a use in every part of the fabric of bands of herringbone work, a feature occurring on the Continent in Merovingian and later work. It occurs also at other English churches of early date such as Monkwearmouth, known to be about 674 and therefore Merovingian and actually built by Gallic masons, and at

Deerhurst, where it gives every appearance of belonging to a Merovingian church.

The sandstone rubble is probably also a reflection of Merovingian practice and is a version of

the famous opus Gallicum. Neither feature is really typical of the Carolingian revival, in which

churches are more commonly built in a small regular ashlar, as at Steinbach.

The many windows and doorways surviving show a characteristic technique in which the arch

is turned in tiles, and often here in a double row of tiles, with the extrados outlined with a cordon

of tiles, while the jambs are of small, roughly cut stones. The windows (Fig. I) are large, single

splayed, and classical in feeling and the fine clerestory windows, the most Italian in England ac-

cording to Baldwin Brown, have a marked horseshoe form which is Visigothic rather than Islamic.

The great nave arcades (Fig. 5) are similar in technique, but have imposts of two oversailing tiles and the curious feature that the tiles of the arch are canted, and not radial, at the springing. This detail also occurs in Christian basilicas at Rome and Ravenna, according to Clapham.22 The

sanctuary arch (Fig. I) is a large and grand opening showing the developing Saxon love for the

vertical line, to reach a climax in Perpendicular art many hundreds of years later. The entry from

nave to tower was by a large triple arcade on piers, of which traces and foundations are still exist-

ing. The small doorways at the west end, belonging to the west building (Fig. 3) were of the

usual technique, without imposts. The triple-headed arcade above is a later insertion.

The technique of all these openings is related to, though not identical with, the technique of

the churches of the Carolingian renaissance such as Steinbach. The main difference is that the

S8. Grodecki, L'architecture ottonienne, p. 208. 19. E. Gilbert, Transactions of the Bristol and Gloster Ar-

chaeological Societies, p954, P. 73, and 1965. 20. E. Gilbert, Archaeologia Aeliana, 1947, p. 140, and

1964, p. 65. 2x. H. M. and J. Taylor, Anglo-Saxon Architecture, s.v.

"Ledsham." 22. Clapham, Romanesque Arch. in Eng., p. 9.



6 THE ART BULLETIN

German church uses voussoirs and not tiles, or stone tiles, for the arch. It differs sharply from the Northern and barbaric use of cut stone for the dressings of all the main openings.

THE ENGLISH BASILICA

The essential features of this type of church, as demonstrated by Brixworth, are these. It had a polygonal apse, a crypt, a square walled tower-choir, flanking porticus to this tower, an arcaded nave on piers, flanking porticus to this nave, a western Oriental narthex, and a single central western tower. Brixworth is perhaps the only one where all the elements show traces simultaneously, but almost certainly, others of this type exist, though frequently altered and added to almost out of recognition. The following are the main examples:

i. Wing (text fig. 3). This is probably the most complete survival after Brixworth, and signs of all the features except the western tower and the porticus flanking the nave survive. In one

10 AO 30 o 40 0Scale in feet

& 0 I II

III

I I i I

neus Kentish basilica 670-730

English basilica 730-867 E-3 Later work

cz -- Conjectural

3. Bucks, Wing church, restored Plan (based on Clapham with modifications from author's unpublished researches)

respect it is more complete than Brixworth in that one of the original aisle walls, the northern

one, has survived. The present apse is not original, but replaces an earlier polygonal apse. The date of the nave is now considered to be close to that of Brixworth.23

2. Deerhurst (text fig. 4). Traces of six of the eight features exist here. Those missing are the crypt and the piers of a nave arcade. These, however, may have existed. If not, this would be because Deerhurst was converted from a Kentish basilica, which lacks both these features. Much, if not all, of the relevant work is now regarded as early Saxon rather than as late Saxon as was

formerly thought. 3. Repton (text fig. 5).24 The crypt, the apse, here square-ended, the tower-choir and its flank-

ing porticus, together with traces of narrow aisles which were probably Saxon, survive. The square- ended sanctuary is a not uncommon feature of Carolingian work, e.g., at Lorsch and at Saint

Cecilia, Cologne. Repton is an especially important example in that the porticus flanking the tower

project beyond the aisles, and its date is fairly well fixed at A.D. 730-755. The upper part of the

present apse is a later rebuilding, and so are the vaults and columns of the crypt.

23. H. M. and J. Taylor, op.cit., s.v. "Wing"; E. Jackson and E. Fletcher, Journal of the British Archaeological Associa- tion, XXV, 1962, pp. 1-20.

24. No complete monograph exists. The church is datable, as

the founder is given as Ethelbald, king of Mercia (d. ca. 755), in the Croyland Chronicle. Together with the fact that Ethel- bald was buried at Repton, this implies a rebuilding of ca. 730-755.




o 0 t o 30 4. 0 ,, ' Scale in feet

" 0

C- . .*

m=B Merovingian core

m Kentish basilica additions ca. 715

m English basilica additions ca. 804

4. Gloster, Deerhurst Priory church, restored Plan (based on Butterworth)

Foundations of Kentish basilica ca. 660-700

,i--s English basilica (Ethelbald 730-755) f 1 Conjectural

Scale in feet 7 Length 98 feet

5. Derby, Repton church, restored Plan (based on Irvine)

4. Reculver (text fig. 6).25 Only the foundations exist, but they show that the English basilica was made from a Kentish basilica. All the features exist except the western tower, necessarily lost, but probably once existing, and the crypt, which probably never existed owing to the conversion from a Kentish basilica.

5. Glastonbury (text fig. 7). Only the foundations exist26 and show clearly the evolution from a box church to an English basilica. The walled bay in front of the nave, called by Clapham a sanctuary, is more probably the usual towered choir of the English basilica, and the sanctuary of the English basilica probably lay under Dunstan's tower and over the crypt in the usual way. Clapham notes that the crypt is earlier than the tower.

6. Saint Paul's, Jarrow (text fig. 8).2 This was the church built by Ceolfrid in 684 or 685. It is known only from documents, having formed part of the old church destroyed in the late

eighteenth century. The plan shown in the documents is clearly that of an English basilica and

25. Clapham, Eng. Romanesque Arch. before the Conquest, fig. 8.

26. Ibid., fig. 16.

27. H. M. and J. Taylor, op.cit., s.v. "Jarrow"; E. Gilbert, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle-on- Tyne, 1955.



SKentish basilica 670

ri Added English basilica 730-867 o1 & Scale in feet

6. Kent, Reculver church, restored Plan (based on Clapham)

00

Kentish basilica ca. 700

mas e English basilica 730-867

s-- Dunstan ca. 970

S Uncertain

S1 ' •0"0 •' "Scale in feet

7. Glastonbury church, restored Plan (based on Clapham)

Length about 84 feet

* OI o l Scale in feet

Probably Kentish basilica 685

Eo Ol Probably English basilica 8th century

C Conjectural

8. Co. Durham, Jarrow, old church (Saint Paul's), restored Plan

(based on British Museum Plan x 769)




it is thus marked here. It is, however, completely improbable that the plan given us in the eighteenth century represents the Saxon church as it left the hands of Ceolfrid. The west porch strongly suggests an original Kentish basilica that was later adapted.

7. Lady Saint Mary, Wareham (text fig. 9). Also known only from documents. It shows an

English basilica, and is so marked here.28 But it may have been adapted from a Kentish basilica as at Jarrow. There is of course no evidence that it is in the form left by Aldhelm or even that Aldhelm built it.

A Main porticus B East porticus C Porticus ingressus (towered)

SI c , A

,. I Length Ioo feet

The English basilica 730-867 Later work

Conjectural finish to English basilica

Scale in feet o to uo o 4 0oX

9. Dorset, Wareham, Lady Saint Mary's, restored Plan (based on MacDonald)

8. Canterbury Cathedral (text fig. Io). Our knowledge of this building rests on descriptions by Eadmer in the twelfth century. Various reconstructions which have been made agree in seeing it as an aisled church, and therefore an English basilica.29 Hence the a priori probability that it

Scale in feet

Length 208 feet

C-= Crypt = Possibly Roman - Probably Wulfred ca. 813

io. Canterbury cathedral, restored and conjectural Plan ca. 820 (based on Baldwin Brown)

28. H. M. and J. Taylor, op.cit., s.v. "Wareham."

29. G. Baldwin Brown, The Arts in Early England, ii, London, 1925, fig. 41.



10 THE ART BULLETIN

dates between 730 and 867, a probability which becomes a certainty in the light of Wulfred's claim to have rebuilt the monastery."o The question as to whether the Latin source does or does not assert explicitly that Wulfred rebuilt the church can be debated, but the least that can be said is that it either asserts or implies this. Taken in conjunction with the striking silence of the records on any complete rebuilding by Odo or Dunstan, it can be taken as proved that the building dates from Wulfred's rule here, and is about A.D. 813. It is unlikely to have been smaller than Albert's church at York, which was at least 200 feet long.

9. Albert's Church at York, begun 766-767, from descriptions and excavations, must have been an English basilica more than 200 feet long. It had thirty altars, an inconceivable number unless they were in file down the aisles, which were probably of two stories. It had an arcaded nave on

piers, an apse and almost certainly a crypt, as the surviving walls are below its ground level."3 Io. Acca's conversion of Wilfrid's church at Hexham. This is known to us only from docu-

ments, but these are fairly clear. Thus Bede wrote that Acca not only ornamented the church, but added much to the structure,"8 and he tells us explicitly what he added, namely porticus to the

nave, built in the walls for the purpose of housing relics. Since Richard of Hexham tells us ex-

pressly that Wilfrid's church was surrounded by porticus," it follows that Acca flanked the full

length of the nave with such porticus and also added a western narthex. Acca's date is prior to

740, and there is much reason to believe this the first dated English basilica. Richard also tells us that the walls were carried on piers so that a substantial proportion of the elements of the

English basilica emerges. i 1. Monkwearmouth. There is some evidence that there was once a western Oriental narthex

here, and, in view of the clear fact that the sister church at Jarrow was an English basilica at some date, it can be taken that Monkwearmouth followed the same sequence. Almost all the evidence is, however, lost.

The fragmentary and controversial character of the evidence concerning these churches throws into higher relief the extreme importance of Brixworth as a model in which the totality of the

English basilica can be clearly seen. Without it the type could only have been recovered with

difficulty, and the remaining fragments, scattered as they are over every kingdom of Anglo-Saxon England, could not have been properly interpreted. These eleven English basilicas show very marked differences in spirit and decoration. Brixworth represents one type that has already been described. It is plain, severe, simple, monumental, classical and the representative in England of the Carolingian church. The other type is the exact opposite; it is gay, ornate, complex, rich, barbaric, and, in a word, Merovingian in type. We must remember that we are here just at the turn of the tide between Merovingian and Carolingian. Of the Merovingian type of church, which is of northern as opposed to Mercian provenance, the outstanding examples, in varying de-

grees of disarray, are Monkwearmouth, Deerhurst, and Acca's Hexham. We may begin with Monkwearmouth. It is true that some will question whether it ever was

30. Haddan and Stubbs, Councils and Ecclesiastical Docu- ments Covering the History of the Anglo-Saxon Church, in, 1878, s.v. "Wulfred" (805-833). The exact Latin of the passage is as follows: Anno ab incarnatione ejusdem Dei et re-

demptionis mundi DCCCXIII. Indict. VI. praesidente Christi

gratia Archpontifice Ulfredo metropolitano sedem Ecclesiae

Christi, quae sita est in Durovernia civitate, anno VII episco- patus ejusdem 4Archiepiscopi, Divina ac fraterna pietate ductus amore Deo auxiliante, renovando et restaurando pro honore et amore Dei sanctum monasterium Durovernensis ecclesiae re-

aedificando refici. . ... There seems to be a direct statement of

rebuilding of the church here; sedem in this context must mean

"temple." Therefore, it was the "temple of the church of Christ," i.e., Canterbury cathedral, which was re-made. It is

tempting to suppose that the "renewing and restoring" applied

to the church built by Augustine, and the "rebuilding" to the additions at the east end, certainly added by someone to the Roman portions at the western end. As stated in the text, neither Augustine nor Odo claim any extensive additions of this kind to the fabric. Odo merely increased the height of the walls. I am affected also by the resemblance of Eadmer's de- scription of the crypt to that of the Georgiuskirche at Oberzell. Both had the curious and very unusual single entrance passage, which at Oberzell is about 30 feet long. The German crypt dates about 836, which suits the date of Wulfred very well.

31. H. M. and J. Taylor, op.cit., s.v. "York." 32. Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica, C. Plummer, ed., 5. 20.

33. See J. Raine, The Priory of Hexham, Durham and London, 1864, I, pp. i f.




an English basilica owing to the slightness of the evidence, but this evidence as described above is strongly reinforced by the general consideration that at some date Monkwearmouth would be

expected to have had this form since its sister church at Jarrow certainly did so. The west facade

has survived at Monkwearmouth in part and the rest can be reasonably deduced (text fig. I I). It includes an elaborate entrance arch still surviving, ornamented with the barbaric northern shafts called balusters. The reveals of the jambs are ornamented with carved stones showing patterns of northern idiom, beaked serpents. Above this comes a beautiful stringcourse now confined to the

porch but originally doubtless running the full width of the fagade. It had naturalistic animals

SCarved figure

__-r -_---• . --_--_--- Stringcourse

i i. Co. Durham, Monkwearmouth church, conjectural restoration of West Facade ca. 774

(Courtesy of the Editor of Archaeologia Aeliana)

in cable-molded panels and was surprisingly Syrian in feeling. Again above, in the gable of the

porch, was a large carved figure now lost, probably St. Peter. In the gable of the nave above the Oriental narthex was probably the Maltese cross now hidden under the tower. We have here in Monkwearmouth a very Merovingian composition. Compare, for instance, the use here of shafts in the reveals of an arch with those at Germigny des Pres and other churches where Merovingian ornamental traditions have also survived. Above all here we have, about 800, the germinal con-

ception of the ornamented west front, to become later one of the greatest features of Romanesque. No earlier example exists that I know of.

Deerhurst has a different, much more Armenian, type of ornament consisting mainly of pro- jecting animal heads. These were used usually at the crown of arches or as labels to arch-hoods, on the Armenian pattern (Fig. 7).

At Acca's Hexham only debris survives. This consists mainly of carved stringcourses, still fairly sharp, with northern interlace patterns or rows of balusters, similar to survivals at Jarrow, which



12 THE ART BULLETIN

might have been either internal or external. There are also imposts carved on two faces and suit-

ing the square piers of the nave very well. The stones are carved with geometrical ornament such as cable, lozenge, pellet, etc. In particular one of the imposts shows an ornamented circle which occurs extensively on the Tassilo Cup, presented to Tassilo and probably made for him about

A.D. 788. There was also figure ornament in the form of a Rood, and animal ornament, more or less naturalistic, on the imposts. It is clear that we had here some great church of the Mero-

vingian type. Historically the ornamenting of this church is primarily associated with the name of Acca. Thus Eddius, who is contemporary, only claims for Wilfrid hangings of purple and silk,"" presumably to screen the sanctuary in the Egyptian manner. Of Acca he mentions "ornaments" but not carvings. He wrote, however, before Acca died. The twelfth century writers attest carved ornament including figures, but cannot be expected to distinguish between Wilfrid's and Acca's work. They tend to fall into the usual idea of supposing that everything they saw was the founder's work. Even so Symeon of Durham knew that the ornament was Acca's and implies that Acca ornamented the house after Wilfrid's rule was over.35

It is worth noting that a very similar form of ornament was used at Fulrad's Saint-Denis of

750-775." It is described as consisting of "stylized vegetables," i.e., of foliage, scrolls, six-pointed stars, a kind of fleur-de-lis, of animals and birds and geometrical motifs. The interior walls were said to have been covered with painted stucco, by which I take it that there were carvings in relief. All this is just as at Hexham, which had colored and painted walls with designs, images, and

figures in relief, very probably also in stucco. As at Saint-Denis the ornament was placed on walls and capitals; also on bases and arches, as in Visigothic work. Saint-Denis is the same type of church as the English basilica, and had a crypt with ambulatory, a seven-sided polygonal apse, almost

certainly a square bay in front of the apse, and probably an Oriental narthex. But it used columns not piers for the nave, and the character of the aisles is unknown. The flanking porticus to the

square bay projected beyond the aisles. It is, however, quite definitely later than Acca's Hexham, though no doubt contemporary with Brixworth, where there is no sign of such ornament. It seems

therefore fairly certain that at some period in the early Saxon era there was a reaction into Mero-

vingian ornament from the plain work of the Kentish basilica. Brixworth appears to be located

very early in the development of this reversion to barbarism.

DATING BRIXWORTH

The dating of English churches is always a special problem owing to the lack of texts. But

certain principles ought to be, although they not always are, borne in mind. One of them is that

later evidence of a Saxon church does not prove that this was the church of the founder. Many of the English basilicas have been attributed confidently to their founders in defiance of this prin-

ciple. Thus an eighteenth century document showing Saint Paul's, Jarrow as an English basilica

does not prove that Ceolfrid built such a church in 685. Unrecorded rebuildings are possible and,

indeed, probable. Similarly, nineteenth century documents showing such a church at Saint Mary's,

Wareham, do not prove that this is Aldhelm's church and would not do so even if it was known that Aldhelm was the founder. This fallacy also dogs discussions about Hexham. Because Wilfrid founded it ca. 680 it does not follow that the church seen by Richard of Hexham in the twelfth

century was the same as Wilfrid's. Similarly it does not follow that the form of the church whose

fragments we see at Monkwearmouth was Biscop's work. Nor does it follow that Brixworth in its

present form is the same as the church built by a few monks from Peterborough ca. 670. This

is not particularly probable in view of the fact that some of the greatest churches, including the

34. Eddius Vita Wilfridi 22. 55. He says that the walls were

wonderfully decorated. This could mean that they were plas- tered and painted.

35. Historia regum Anglorum et Dacorum 54. He ascribes the frescoes to Wilfrid.

36. Crosby, L'abbaye royale de Saint-Denis.




cathedrals were first built in the seventh century of wood. This is true of the Cathedral of York, and probably also of that at Elmham.

The most important fact about the English basilica is the distinction of its forms from those of the Kentish basilica. The latter has a semicircular, not a polygonal apse; it is entirely devoid of a crypt; it has no square bay in front of the apse; it has no surrounding porticus; it lacks a western Oriental narthex, and in Kent it lacks the Kaiserlalle. We find however that the two types of church have certain features in common, i.e., the use of the triple arcade, the rubble fabric, and, in most cases, the lack of dressed stone quoins. We can reasonably infer that the English basilica is not contemporary with the Kentish basilica, but is the succeeding type historically. The last known erection of a Kentish basilica was by Ine of Wessex in the early years of the eighth century. The first English basilica at all datable is Acca's Hexham, not later than ca. 740. Thus the two dates agree very well, and it seems that the English basilica succeeded the Kentish basilica in the early eighth century.

About 867 it gives place to the typical late Saxon church, which is quite distinct from the

English basilica. It is an aisleless cross church. Examples survive in part or whole at Stow, Dover

(text fig. 12), Breamore (text fig. I3), Worth, Norton, Stanton Lacy, and other places. The type has no polygonal apse. Its east end is normally rectangular, and if not the apse is semicircular. It

The Saxon church 970-1o4o0

_a S 3 4 60

Scale in feet

Length of church I 14 feet

S2. Dover, Saint Mary in Castro, restored Plan (based on Clapham)

" -

Total length 97 feet

The Saxon core 940-1o40 -- Later

• •' 'r--? 4oi-o * Scale in feet

13. Hants, Breamore church, restored Plan (based on Clapham)



14 THE ART BULLETIN

has no crypt; it has transepts in place of flanking porticus to the central space; it is not aisled and has no narthex of any kind; it is Romanesque and not early Christian. Thus the natural date of the English basilica falls between 730 and 867, and with this date agree all those for which evidence really exists, e.g., Repton, Acca's Hexham, Albert's church at York, and Canterbury cathedral. Thus the English basilica coincides almost exactly with the period of the Carolingian revival which is perfectly natural as it is an early Christian form.

When we come to place Brixworth in this period we have little evidence to go on coming from England. The equations which Clapham made with Reculver are dubious. They are the apse form, the use of the triple arcade, and the west end. But the first two, as we have seen, belong more naturally to the rebuilding of Reculver, usually assigned to the eighth century. The last is just a slip, for Reculver in 670 had neither west porch nor west narthex. The two west ends, in their original form are quite different, and argue a different, not a similar date. Besides, the original Reculver was an entirely different type of church from Brixworth, being in fact a Kentish basilica.

The true affinities of Brixworth lie with Steinbach and Seligenstadt, Einhard's churches in the Odenwald. Any specialist knowing both Steinbach and Brixworth could hardly fail to recog- nize the close connections of the two. They are similar in general appearance; the plain arcaded naves on rectangular piers of Roman tile with the red sandstone of the main fabric make a notable equation. Similar too is the sober spirit of the main openings, plain arched, with rubble jambs, and single splayed in a somewhat classical manner. The plans too are similar. Both the German churches had apses, though they were simply semicircular. At Seligenstadt there was one apse (text fig. 14) at Steinbach three (text fig. 5). Both had ambulatory crypts. At Seligenstadt this

9th century

-== .

Conjectural 14. Seligenstadt on the Main, Einhard's church, restored Plan

(based on Gall)

i5. Steinbach in the Odenwald, Einhard's church, restored Plan of Carolingian church ca. 820

(based on Grodecki)




was a corridor crypt of a type very similar to that at Brixworth. At Steinbach a strange arrangement still exists with three little chambers at the east end underlying the apse and the transepts, and all visible from the outside. The intention seems to me to have been that the pilgrims should circulate the church externally, gaining a vision of the sacred relics as they passed. Behind these

chambers, are passages running from east to west, probably for the priests. The whole amounts to a corridor crypt without an outer wall and corresponds to an arrangement which I believe existed at Saint Michael's Mount, Cornwall in early days." Both the German churches had the characteristic square bay in front of the apse, though the west wall has gone at Steinbach, and all of them at Seligenstadt."3 E. Gall's plan shows foundations of these choir walls at Seligenstadt (text fig. I4). At Steinbach the square bay was entered through a triple arcade, much as at Brix- worth. Both the German churches have arcaded naves on piers. The aisles show no structural traces of porticus, but this does not prove without a doubt that they were for the congregation and not for chapels and altars. Both of them have lost their west ends, unlike Brixworth, but this has been restored in the case of Steinbach as an Oriental narthex (text fig. 15), and there has been a sug- gestion of a single central tower here."

Brixworth, Steinbach, and Seligenstadt are a closely related group of churches, and no doubt

represent a survival of an originally more numerous group. Brixworth is the most complete, and in many ways the most impressive. It is moreover almost certainly the earliest. It has only one

apse, and not three like Steinbach; it lacks the developed transepts of both the German churches and these facts, together with the Merovingian survivals at Brixworth, the herringbone cordons and rubble fabric, should push its date back several years from the German pair, both of which date about A.D. 820.

Clearly Saint-Denis belongs to the same group, but is not a surviving example (text fig. 16).

i6. Saint-Denis, Fulrad's church, restored Plan ca. 755 (based on Crosby)

Its transepts, less fully developed than those of the German pair, are still more developed than those of Brixworth, and its date is mid-eighth century, about 755. Structurally it is later than

Brixworth, but ornamentally the considerable Merovingian survivals are earlier, so on the balance the two churches could well be contemporary. Repton has also more developed transepts than

Brixworth, and its date is 730-755- A remarkable correspondence with Brixworth is seen in the conjectural restoration of the plan

of the Church of the Saviour, Werden, by Zimmerman. The resemblance of this to the actual

37. I have the details in an article for which I have so far not found a publisher. This interpretation of the Steinbach

crypt arises from the fact that all the relic chambers were once visible from outside the church, while the entry to the

crypts seems to have been from the priests' part of the church. Certainly this was so at Saint Michael's Mount. A discussion and classification of early Christian crypts in the Carolingian period exists in H. Thiimmler, "Carolingian Period, Archi-

tecture," Encyclopedia of World Art, III, 1960, pp. 98ff. The Roman semicircular crypts are discussed by B. M. Appolonj Ghetti, "La chiesa di S. M. di Vescovio," Rivista di archeologia cristiana, XXIII, 1947, pp. 253-303.

38. At Steinbach, the square bay was entered by a triple arcade, as at Brixworth.

39. Conant, Carolingian and Romanesque Architecture, p. 24.



16 THE ART BULLETIN

plan at Brixworth seems to be merely coincidental. The date is 804 (text fig. I7). Helmsted, Saxony also shows some resemblances to the plan of the English basilica (text fig. 18). Relevant also is San Salvatore, Brescia where the nave arches with double rings of Roman tiles outlined with a single cordon of Roman tile show distinct similarity to work at Brixworth, at about the same probable date. The traditional date of the work at Brescia is about A.D. 750.40

My conclusion is that Brixworth lies between A.D. 750 and 820 with some certainty. Personally I prefer the earlier date.

(J

17. Werden, church of the Saviour, conjectural Carolingian Plan ca. 8o4 (based on Zimmerman)

i1- -I - I II

- I I A, A, towered porticus Choir

, tower? IIo 000

I ?

- -W

After Lehmann

i8. Saxony, Helmsted, Saint Ludger's, restored Carolingian Plan (based on Grodecki)

THE CONVERSIONS

This is not the end of the story for Brixworth, for at a later date it was reconditioned and the work then done is only slightly less important than the earlier work. The apse was rebuilt in the form in which we now see it. This is, as stated, a seven-sided polygonal apse as at Saint-Denis, but circular within in the Ravennate manner. What is very remarkable is the external plain- pilastered arcading, of which some traces remain (Fig. 2), the pilasters having broken backs at the angles of the polygon, and the arcades being turned in voussoirs. The work is Ravennate in type, and there seems to be a much-weathered parallel on the western apse of the palace hall of Charlemagne at Aachen. As the new enlarged apse overhangs the still-existing crypt, it either rested partly on the vault of the crypt, or less probably the vaulting was now inserted precisely to

support the new apse. At any rate the crypt was not abandoned, but rather developed. For instance, the arcosolia in the outer wall, retained in the modern copy, probably belong to this period and form an early example of the principle of the radiating chapel.4l

The other known alterations were made at the other end where the two-storied west tower was run up to a very remarkable height, and a semicircular west turret added to give access to the upper stories. Externally the old tower walling is today about 38 feet in height, but on the west face under the turret it reaches a height of nearly 50 feet, and the attached turret after giving on a Saxon floor at about 43 feet continues on up and ends only in ruin. There must have been

40o. G. Rivoira, Lombardic Architecture, Oxford, 1933, I, frontispiece.

41. It is improbable that Watkins invented these. Hence Brix-

worth can claim also to be the first step on the road to radiating chapels around the ambulatory.




another Saxon floor at at least ca. 55 feet and the tower could hardly have been less than the 70 feet of Deerhurst tower (text fig. 2). Internally, the floor of the old Kaiserhalle was removed and a new one built a few feet higher with the present triple-arcaded window, a very typically Caro- lingian feature, opening to the nave (Fig. 4). The west turret houses a newel staircase, with excellent vaulting.

The conversions are in substantially the same fabric as the original work, a sandstone rubble, and significantly, they have the same herringbone cordons, a fact which precludes a wide separa- tion in date from the original work. They are marked throughout, however, by the use of tufa, especially in window and door dressings, arches, and vaults. This fact shows they are not exactly the same date as the original work. There is no radical change in the general technique of the

openings, which continue to have arches of tiles or tile-like stones, and jambs of rubble. The windows are still large and single splayed, those of the new apse being perhaps the largest Saxon windows extant. Here we have further evidence that no great period of time separates the conversions from the first work. The entry to the crypt was now made from inside the presbytery, and the new doorways leading down to the crypt by steps had to be skewed through the wall. Had the crypt itself been rebuilt at this time it would have contained tufa, which neither it nor its vault do, a fact which should be regarded as conclusive against the proposed rebuilding.

At the west end the new Kaiserhalle window is arched in a single row of Roman tiles, exactly like the original triple arcade to the presbytery, and has imposts of oversailing tiles, like the nave arcades and the sanctuary arch, both original. The imposts are good evidence against this work

being remote from that of the nave in date. The arcades are carried on balusters (Fig. 4), the Saxon form of shaft, and these are the most classical of their kind, with distinct cap and base, contrasting in this respect with the earlier northern forms, as at Monkwearmouth, and with the late Saxon forms as at Worth. The general effect of these balusters is paralleled on early carved

stringcourses at Jarrow and Hexham, and very clearly in the frame of one of the plaques at Breedon dated in the eighth century.

Dating the conversions is a matter of great importance. Clapham regarded the apse as seventh

century;42 the tower as tenth century, and the turret as tenth century. Baldwin Brown regarded all three elements in a basically similar manner," and so did Watkins, who knew the church better than anyone. The younger critics are rightly convinced that these three elements are additions and themselves coeval, but are inclined to place them in the tenth century for no very obvious

reason."' The fact that these elements are additions is certain from structural evidence. The new

apse blocks or incommodes the windows of the original presbytery, and the turret blocks the original west entrance. The similarity of the new work in fabric (rubble sandstone), in detail (herringbone cordons), and in technique of openings argues strongly, as has been shown, for a date near the original.

The character of the new work is equally strongly, perhaps conclusively, in favor of a date near the original work. The plan of the new apse is sixth century Ravennate; the Kaiserhalle is a Caro- lingian and early Saxon form. Neither the plan of the apse, nor its decoration, nor the use of the Kaiserhalle is a mark of late Saxon churches. Furthermore we have to consider that, while it is reasonable to suppose that archaeologists like Baldwin Brown and Clapham were mistaken in

thinking the new apse seventh century, it is not very probable that they were three whole centuries out, or even two.

The truth is that the critics' judgment has here been warped by some very questionable assumptions about the date and history of the west tower, of the turret, of vaulting, and of the semi-

42. Clapham, Eng. Romanesque Arch. before the Conquest, fig. II.

43. Baldwin Brown, The Arts in Early England, II, pp.

113-114. His plan "p" should be ignored. 44. H. M. and J. Taylor, op.cit., s.v. "Brixworth."



18 THE ART BULLETIN

cushion caps of the triple-headed window of the Kaiserhalle. It is assumed that Clapham had

proved that the single west tower is a late Saxon feature, whereas all that he proved was that this is true of the west belfry tower, and there is no sign that Brixworth ever had a belfry tower. Tall west towers are by no means confined to the tenth and eleventh centuries. There was one at Saint-Riquier, just across the channel, in A.D. 796. Similarly, the idea that the staircase turret, or the vaulting of minor features, must be tenth or eleventh century, should by now surely have been abandoned. Both occurred freely at Charlemagne's Aachen in A.D. 796. In England the newel staircase turret was certainly known internally at Hexham in the seventh century, and if

internally, why not externally? The difficulty about the semi-cushion caps of the Carolingian flying screen of the Kaiserhalle

is more understandable but probably not more realistic (Fig. 4). It also rests on dubious assumptions. It is assumed that because the cushion cap does not become common till the tenth and eleventh centuries, therefore nothing like it can appear before; that their history is known; and that they are good dating evidence. These are risky assumptions. Strzygowski thought the cushion

cap originated in the East or the North. They certainly appear in Europe at the cisterns of Bin- Bir-Direk at Constantinople as early as the sixth century."45 What happened to the cap after that is a pool of darkness. In reality there is no objection to its sporadic appearance between this date and the tenth century. This is especially true of a church like Brixworth with strong Eastern affinities. There is indeed some evidence that cushion caps, or something like them, did appear in the West during this period, as an exceptional form. It should be noted that any cubic cap of which the lower half is carved away till it forms an approximate circle, must necessarily take a form roughly approximating to the so-called cushion which is the interpenetration of a cube and a sphere. I call the unscientific form of this process "fudging," and the Brixworth caps are tech-

nically fudged convex rather than cushion. But fudged convex caps, or some approximation there-

unto, appear to occur in the belfry windows of the round tower at Sant'Apollinare Nuovo," in

the galleries and in some of the main caps at the Michelskirche, Fulda,"' and in the crypt of the

Georgiuskirche at Oberzell of about A.D. 836."8 To argue that all these caps are insertions is to

argue in a circle. That is the very point at issue and there is not, so far as I know, any evidence

structurally for insertion. Another relevant point is that Rivoira shows a series of caps that he calls Lombardic.'9 They

are based on the cube, like the cushion cap, and reach the circle below by cutting away the angles in a hollow leaf mold. He dates these in the eighth and ninth century in Italy, and the type

proved very persistent in Italian art. The problem involved, and the method of coping with it, relates these caps to cushion caps. If one solution appeared in Lombardy, the other is likely to

have appeared elsewhere at about the same time. The conclusive fact, however, seems to me to be that there is evidence that the cushion technique

was known and being used in England about the eighth century, or at least before the tenth. The most important evidence is the plaque already mentioned at Breedon,"? apparently St.

Matthew, as this is datable to the eighth century, and is framed in an arch with what clearly appear to be fudged convex caps. Similarly, the carved stringcourses at Hexham and Jarrow usually taken as seventh century, but much more likely eighth, have caps to the balusters that look like repre- sentations of fudged convex caps. At a later but uncertain date usually given as ninth century, the Saxons show us the fully developed cushion technique in some of the Mercian crosses which have the peculiarity that they pass the square to round. The Stapleford Cross (Fig. 6) is said to be

45. Rivoira, Lombardic Architecture, I, fig. 36. 46. Ibid., I, fig. 8o.

47. Ibid., II, fig. 492. 48. Grodecki, L'architecture ottonienne, p. 88; Gall, Dome

und Klosterkirchen am Rhein, pl. 0o. 49. Rivoira, op.cit., figs. zoi, 208, 21z8, 219, 221, 245-251. 50. T. D. Kendrick, Anglo-Saxon Art, I, London, 1938,

pl. 52.




ninth century. The same technique occurs at the Gosforth Cross (Fig. 8), said to be tenth century. My conclusion is that it is the reverse of scientific to dismiss good architectural evidence that the Brixworth conversions are near the original work in date, on the basis of dubious assertions con-

cerning details whose history is very little known. Once, however, we admit that the conversions are probably not more than 50 years after the original work, there develops a strong case for

actually dating them ca. A.D. 810. Around this date, the use of tufa, especially in vaults and arch-

heads, is not confined to Brixworth, but occurs also very clearly and unmistakably at Steinbach in Einhard's work of ca. 820, where every visible voussoir is of tufa, and the vaults are of tufa also

with lines of Roman tile. To some extent this is also true of Charlemagne's palace chapel at Aachen where the unrestored clerestory windows appear to have tufa voussoirs. I have been told that

the main vaults here are also of tufa. In view of the other resemblances between these German churches and Brixworth, this tufa

equation is surely significant. It means that there was a fashion for this technique in Anglo-German architectural circles about A.D. 800-820 and that the conversions at Brixworth belong to this date, from which it follows that the main work cannot be much before 750-770-

The same conclusion can be derived from another remarkable equation. This is that the added

tower at Brixworth, the only part of the conversions to display quoins, has these quoins in face-

alternate, and I have observed that the same peculiarity appears in the quoins of Steinbach and

also of Lioba's church at Petersberg of about the same date. We in England are beginning to

appreciate the significance and the importance of quoin evidence.

CONCLUSION

Granted a date of ca. 810 for the conversions at Brixworth they mark the first known example of the tall west tower, not yet a belfry, in England. It seems, moreover, that what was created

here was a kind of Westwerk, different in some respects from either the German Westwerk or

the French 6glise-porche. In England the crucial feature, the chapel on the second stage, was

not over a porch; the tower rising on the chapel was not a lantern tower, and the composition was

not centrally planned. Whether at Brixworth the new 70-foot tower carried a staged wooden tower

on top is not known, but the presence of such a feature at the same date just across the channel at

Saint-Riquier, makes the supposition very feasible. I have not included it in my conjectural res-

toration (text fig. 2) but there is nevertheless a distinct possibility that Brixworth included such

a feature. It is indeed not at all impossible that the present mediaeval west tower, which is just the 70 feet or so high of the lost Saxon tower, may be a rebuilding of the Saxon tower, and the

mediaeval spire which it carries may be a rebuilding of the staged wooden tower. In that case the

west end at Brixworth today still resembles in general form that of the English basilica built so

many years ago. The conversions at Brixworth also mark an important stage in the development of the single

western tower in England. For the tower with turret to the west does not seem to be a prelude to the two-towered fagade, where the Carolingian west tower with turrets to the north and south

does. Or it is a prelude to the common German three-towered fagade. If we rank Brixworth as a

specimen of the single-towered west fagade, it precedes by far any other known example of this type. It seems to me very improbable that while at Brixworth the western tower was a tall one,

the central tower was low, and the system of Saint-Riquier with twin central and western towers

seems to me more probable. However the eastern and central tower scheme of the English basilica is not best studied at Brixworth, and had better be left for the present.5' LONDON

5I. I am much indebted to Dr. and the late Mrs. Taylor for access to their important forthcoming new work i to the

National Buildings Record for the majority of the photos; and to Miss Agnes Gehr for reading the text, and making



20 THE ART BULLETIN

many valuable suggestions. The Rev. J. W. Burford, vicar of Brixworth, has been most helpful in providing facilities and in the communication of his expert knowledge. Since this article was written, he has further excavated to show that the first narthex at Brixworth resembled Roueiha, Syria, as in Baldwin Brown, and not Kalb Lauzeh, Syria, as in

Clapham. The partition walls of the narthex were aligned with the nave arcades originally. This may involve an extra

building period analogous to that which saw the creation of a two-storied porch at Monkwearmouth, which was built soon after the foundation of the church.



Brixworth and the English Basilica

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