Any building project starts with the patron responsible for commissioning and funding the work, whether the patron is an individual or a community. The patron thus stands at the point of origin of the ensuing process that delivers the final building: but that process and the patron’s engagement with it are multifaceted. This paper seeks to explore this interrelationship by considering three aspects: the intended function of a building; the limitations conditioning its realization; and the actual practical delivery of the project. These will be evaluated against four major projects of the late 11th century at Canterbury and St Albans.
Under the heading ‘intended functions’ a number of considerations are included. The first of these is the practical function to which a building is to be put together with the facilities necessary to support that function. Thus, in considering a church, its practical function is a matter of religious usage. That is, its central and most important function would be to provide a setting appropriate to the celebration of the liturgy by clergy and people, together with accommodation of the clerical personnel necessary to perform that liturgy.1 At the core of this were the daily office and the mass, along with the other sacraments. But alongside these a church might also have to provide for para-liturgical activities. Most notably, where the church housed the shrine of a saint, pilgrimage could generate large crowds at certain times.
The second aspect of function is that of symbolic expression. Such symbolism may exist at a general level, where the aesthetic qualities of a building are designed to be appropriate to its function. One form this might take would be where the overall splendour of a church was intended to make it an offering worthy of the glory of God. Another was where the church was envisaged as a type of the heavenly temple or city, and this approach could find its justification in New Testament texts, such as the Letter to the Hebrews and the Revelation of St John.2
A more concrete form of symbolism or iconography may be instantiated where a building was designed with reference to specific concepts, or to particular places. Thus, for example, a church might be designed with reference to the symbolism of the Holy Cross, or to one of the holy places of the Christian world, such as Rome or Jerusalem.
The third aspect of function is where the building is conceived as a projection of status by the patron – essentially of his socio-economic status. Thus, a church building might project the power of a prelate as a magnate of the Church or the realm, rather more than as a pastor of his flock. Or, rather differently, it might project the power of the saint whose relics lay there, forming the focus of a spiritual and territorial estate. The function of buildings in projecting the socio-economic status of their patrons is a consideration that currently enjoys a degree of prominence in art-historical dialogue, reflecting a more general trend of reading the past primarily in terms of social and economic history. But, while such factors certainly deserve their appropriate place, they should not be privileged to the exclusion of others. Buildings were generally more than the expression of the power and wealth of their patrons, and we would be missing much of what they can tell us if we failed to look more widely.
Under the heading ‘limiting conditions’ may be considered the various practical conditions that both enabled and limited the implementation of a building project. Foremost among these was the availability of resources; that is, of funding, of materials and of labour.3 To address this aspect a number of questions must be asked of the evidence. What funding did the patron have at his disposal? Was this generated from the endowments of his institution, or did he have to seek external financial assistance? Did the estates of the institution have available resources of materials, such as stone and timber, or did these have to be procured from elsewhere and, if so, at what distance? Again, did the institution have its own labour force, or did this have to be employed at the relevant rate of wages?
Even if all relevant resources were available in appropriate quantities, their effective deployment was dependent on technical and design constraints. If a patron had an ideal conception of the building he would like to commission, was it possible to access the professional skills necessary for its practical realisation? The patron himself or herself was seldom, if ever, a master of practical design, but would be dependent on the knowledge and skills of experts. However, exceptional design skills might not be so readily available, and the patron might be in competition with others to secure the best. And even then, did contemporary understanding of structural engineering permit the actual realisation of a complex design proposal?
Under the heading ‘practical process’ must be included the various strands necessary for the concrete realisation of a building, which would not have been very different from those involved in any modern project.
In the first place stands the brief of the patron or, in modern terms, the client. By a brief is meant the considered instructions of the patron, whether issued in writing or orally. This brief would have been developed on the basis of the patron’s requirements for the function of the building and for its general character, both of which aspects would have been informed by his previous experience. But additionally, the patron’s initial ideas would have been refined in consultation with the professional experts who had the practical skills to deliver his wishes. An agreed design brief, whether or not accompanied by drawings or a model, would then have formed the basis for the project.
However, the patron generally would not have wished to concern himself with the routine but necessary administration of works, and at this point relevant procedures would have needed to be put in place. These procedures had to provide for: the contracting of craftsmen and other workmen; the procurement of building materials; the supervision of works; and accounting for payments against the agreed budget. In modern times these tasks might be contracted to a specialist project manager; but in medieval times they would have to be assigned to someone with a more general administrative role in the patron’s church community or wider circle.
A major logistical problem in any large building project was the provision of materials to the site. These materials included: stone for both ashlar work and rubble; sand and lime for mortar; timber for roofing, scaffolding and furnishing; lead for roofing; glass for windows; iron for various purposes; tiles for roofing and flooring; bronze for bell casting; ropes for pulleys – and so forth. Some of these materials might be available locally; while others might have to be sourced at a considerable distance and transport arranged over land and water by carriers. Transport of some materials was a difficult and potentially expensive operation, so that unnecessary burdens would be avoided by, for example, the preliminary preparation of stonework at the quarry, or the smelting of metal ores near the mines. In all, a considerable part of the budget might be consumed by the provision of materials before any of them were incorporated into the building.
The final stage of the process was the direction and execution by craftsmen of the actual construction work on site. This involved a wide range of specialists in different crafts together with more general labourers. Most important for the success of a project were the experts (periti) and the skilled craftsmen (artifici), among whom the masters (magistri) had a superior status. The overall master of the works (magister operum) had oversight of the whole building operation, and normally he would have been a specialist in masonry construction, a caementarius. But in addition other masters would have had responsibility for different specialist areas, including sculpture, painting, carpentry, glazing, metal working and so forth. The patron generally would have been responsible for the appointment of the magister operum; but often he may have had a particular interest also in securing the services of renowned craftsmen in other fields, such as a master painter or a master goldsmith. At a level below the masters and skilled craftsmen, the realisation of the project also required the assembling of a body of labourers (operarii). These might include travelling journeymen, but also persons permanently attached to the church for which the building was being constructed (such as the brethren of a monastery), and even sometimes enthusiastic volunteers motivated by religious fervour.
Instantiation of the model in Anglo-Norman architecture. The interaction between intended functions, limiting conditions and practical processes may help establish a model for the creation of major buildings in the Romanesque period. In what follows this will be tested against four interrelated building projects of the late 11th century, at Christ Church Cathedral and St Augustine’s Abbey in Canterbury, and at St Albans Abbey, to see if the model actually elucidates the reality of commissioning and constructing such buildings in that particular time and place. The examples selected are ones for which we have a reasonable body of documentary source material, and for which we have substantial surviving fabric or, at least, good archaeological evidence for their appearance.
The Anglo-Saxon cathedral of Christ Church in Canterbury had been destroyed by fire in 1067, and its rebuilding was undertaken under Archbishop Lanfranc (1070–89) immediately upon his arrival in his see.4 Within seven years the new church was ready for use, and the whole was completed within Lanfranc’s lifetime, together with enlarged domestic offices for the monks and his own curia.5
Lanfranc had a varied career before arriving in Canterbury.6 He had been born c. 1015 in Pavia and trained initially in the law, before moving to France c. 1030 and becoming a teacher of the arts at Avranches. Then c. 1042 he converted to the monastic life and entered the abbey of Le Bec-Hellouin. There he continued teaching before soon becoming prior, and c. 1060 he started rebuilding the church. However, in 1063 he was transferred by Duke William to become abbot of his newly-founded monastery of Saint-Etienne in Caen. At Caen he would have had overall responsibility for the construction of the new church and offices, but these had barely got off the ground before he was transferred again in 1070 to Canterbury, where he was faced once more with the need for a major building project. Lanfranc as an intellectual figure was an important scholar, biblical and patristic commentator, and theological protagonist; while he was also a capable ecclesiastical administrator and politician: but for his views on the visual arts there is little direct evidence apart from his works themselves.
Lanfranc’s successor Archbishop Anselm (1093–1109) undertook a great enlargement of the cathedral to the east of its central tower, and this work was begun c. 1093x1096. Eadmer, a member of Anselm’s household and reliable witness, says that the work took place with the archbishop ‘providing for, disposing and beginning’ the work.7 This can be interpreted as meaning that as patron he provided for the financing of the project, that he set out the brief and that he put the actual construction in hand. The project was completed under Anselm’s successors Ralf d’Escures (1114–22) and William of Corbeil (1123–36), but its character had already been determined. A preliminary dedication may have taken place in 1114, while the final dedication was in 1130.8
Anselm’s background was rather similar to Lanfranc’s.9 Born in 1033 of a noble family in Aosta, he moved to Normandy c. 1060 to study at Bec under Lanfranc. There he became prior and in 1078 abbot. Following Lanfranc’s death in 1089, Anselm was chosen as his successor by the clergy, but his appointment was not ratified until 1093 by the king; twice subsequently he withdrew into exile, from 1097 to 1100 and from 1103 to 1106/7. Anselm is well known as the leading intellectual figure of his day in Europe. Also, he is revealed in his writings as having a deep interest in the arts, both as theorist and patron.10
The second great religious house in Canterbury was St Augustine’s Abbey, where a remodelling of the ancient buildings had been started in 1049 but was left abandoned following 1061. A complete rebuilding of the church and monastic offices was begun subsequently by Abbot Scolland (1070–87).11 Arriving in Canterbury as abbot elect in 1070, and especially after his formal installation in 1072, Scolland showed himself ‘most ardent in the building of the august monastery’; and when in Rome he even consulted Pope Alexander II about the project.12 However, the new church was only completed under his successors: Wido (1087–c. 1093), whose imposition by Lanfranc caused a rebellion among the monks; and then Hugh de Flori (1108–26), a monk of Bec, whose appointment was again contested and his formal blessing as abbot long delayed.
Scolland had a more restricted background than Lanfranc or Anselm. Before his appointment to the abbacy of St Augustine’s he had been a monk of the Norman monastery of Le Mont-Saint-Michel, which had been reformed under William of Volpiano at the beginning of the 11th century. Rebuilding of the abbey church had been begun in 1023 but continued into the period when Scolland was a monk at Mont-Saint-Michel. As a monk he had worked in the scriptorium, and he is named in a colophon to one manuscript, in which he is described as ‘shining pre-eminently with all sacred doctrine’.13
The church at St Albans went back in origin to late antiquity and had emerged as a monastic house in the Anglo-Saxon period. Following the Norman Conquest, Abbot Paul (1077–93) undertook the complete rebuilding of the church and monastic offices over a period of eleven years; this work was completed by his successor, Abbot Richard, and the new church was dedicated in 1115.14
Paul was a nephew of Archbishop Lanfranc and presumably, therefore, of similar north Italian origin. He had been a monk of the abbey of Saint-Etienne in Caen before his election to the abbacy of St Alban’s in 1077, which he then held for just over sixteen years until his death in 1093. Richard d’Aubigny, Paul’s successor, was from a noble Norman family and had been a monk at Lessay before his appointment.
All three of the churches under consideration were served by monastic communities; a primary function, therefore, was to provide a setting for the monastic liturgy in the church, together with domestic offices for the accommodation of the monks.
Canterbury Cathedral had been served by a monastic community since well before the Norman Conquest so that, as a priority following the fire, Archbishop Lanfranc needed to provide a new setting for the monastic choir where the cursus of the daily office might be celebrated, and also to provide a place for his throne when he presided over the liturgy. His detailed interest in the monastic liturgy is demonstrated by the monastic customary that he drew up for Christ Church, based mainly on the Cluniac Liber Tramitis and Bernard of Cluny but also with Bec influences.15 The customary did not lay down any blueprint for the form of the church; but, since it was written only after the construction of the new church had been undertaken, if not completed, the liturgy that it prescribed must have been conformable to the building.16
A certain amount of archaeological evidence and extant fabric, when combined with the detailed architectural description of the parts of Lanfranc’s church surviving in the late 12th century written by the monk Gervase, gives an overall picture of the liturgical arrangements.17 To the east of the crossing was a short presbytery containing the high altar, raised up over a crypt and flanked by side chapels. The monks’ choir must have been located in the east bays of the nave and perhaps extended into the crossing.18 The flanking transepts contained galleries, one of which supported a pipe organ; while to the east of the transepts were deep two-storied chapels. The chapel of the Virgin Mary occupied the north aisle of the nave, flanking the choir.
In support of the liturgical function of the cathedral, and of its religious life more generally, Lanfranc greatly increased the size of the monastic community by 100, to a total of 140 or 150 monks.19 For this enlarged community he provided suitable new domestic buildings, including the cloister, cellarium, refectory and dormitory.20 Parts of these survive, and the huge scale of the dormitory is an index of the increased size of the community.
Anselm’s subsequent extension of Lanfranc’s church entailed a radical reconfiguration of the liturgical space, with the main vessel of the building being doubled in length and the monks’ choir being transferred to east of the crossing. Beyond this choir, a greatly extended presbytery led up to the repositioned high altar; while the surrounding aisles and ambulatory gave access to a substantially increased number of subsidiary chapels. Eadmer referred to the extension as an oratorium, meaning (as in the Rule of St Benedict) the place of prayer for the monks.21 Perhaps one reason for this radical reorganisation of the building was to allow a spatial separation between the monastic liturgy and other functions taking place in the nave. But it also enabled the choir to be placed on the same level as the presbytery, rather than having a change in floor level interposed between the two.
At St Augustine’s Abbey, a previous remodelling scheme had been abandoned in the 1060s and was characterised by Goscelin of Saint-Bertin (who was a monk at St Augustine’s) as having been ‘unsuitable for monastic usage’, although he blamed the craftsmen for this rather than the patron: the new buildings, he must have intended to imply, remedied this defect.22 As at the cathedral, the monastic choir was now set in the crossing and east bays of the nave. But it was flanked by only simple transept arms with single-storied chapels. To the east of the choir the presbytery was raised over a crypt, constituting two liturgical spaces, dedicated respectively to the Apostles Peter and Paul above and the Virgin Mary below: these corresponded to two previously separate churches, axially aligned, which the new building replaced.23
At St Albans, Lanfranc is said to have given to Abbot Paul a copy of his monastic customary, written in his own hand; and so it may be assumed that the liturgy at St Alban’s during his abbacy was very similar to that at Canterbury Cathedral.24 Unsurprisingly, therefore, the liturgical planning of the building was rather similar to Christ Church. The high altar and presbytery occupied an extended eastern arm, separated by solid side walls from flanking chapels; while the monks’ choir was placed in the crossing and east bays of the nave. The transepts, however, were devoid of galleries, but provided with twin eastern chapels.
These churches had to provide not only for the liturgical arrangements for the monastic liturgy; but in all three cases they also held custody of the shrines of important saints. At Christ Church, before the Norman Conquest there were two principle cults, those of the former archbishops St Dunstan (died 988) and St Ælfheah (martyred 1012); in addition to which there were many other relics.25 Lanfranc transferred the remains of earlier archbishops into his new church, and, although there is no direct evidence, he probably relocated Dunstan and Ælfheah in the presbytery, providing them with new tombs and monuments; other archiepiscopal remains were placed in wooden chests on the gallery in the north transept.26 Subsequently, Anselm relocated St Dunstan and St Ælfheah into his new presbytery, near the high altar.27 The ‘Instructions for Novices’ at Canterbury, contained in a later document, direct the young monk on entering the choir to prostrate first before the high altar steps, then to bow before the altars of St Ælfheah on his left and St Dunstan on his right.28
At St Augustine’s the new church had to accommodate the tombs of a whole series of 7th-century archbishops of Canterbury and other saints, of which the abbey was the custodian, and whose significance was unquestioned. These were translated from the north porticus (side chapel) of the old church and relocated so as to surround the new presbytery, with some placed in the ambulatory and with the three principal shrines in the three radiating chapels. The resulting arrangement is shown in a unique 15th-century coloured sketch.29
Likewise at St Albans, the church had to provide a setting for the shrine of St Alban, who had been martyred and buried nearby during the Roman period, and around whose tomb the original church had been focussed. The story of Alban’s martyrdom was included in Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica and would have been well known from that source, but there is no surviving evidence for a major cult or pilgrimage before the Norman Conquest. It would, therefore, have been a new departure if Abbot Paul made the shrine of the saint a focal point of the church, placing it in the apse behind the high altar, in an elongated presbytery arm.30 In this position it differed from the two great churches in Canterbury, where the principle shrines were placed to either side of the high altar in Anselm’s cathedral, and in the ambulatory in Scolland’s abbey. In addition to the main shrine, the abbey possessed certain relics that were thought to have been deposited in St Alban’s tomb by Bishop Germanus of Auxerre in the 5th century; for these Abbot Richard donated a new reliquary chest with gold images, and a second with gilding and ivory for other relics.31
When Canterbury cathedral had been founded by missionaries from Rome at the end of the 6th century, it had been dedicated to Christ the Saviour, clearly with reference to the Basilica Salvatoris at the Lateran, which was the cathedral church of the pope. Awareness of the Roman connections of Canterbury at its foundation was kept alive by Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica and would have been well known in the late 11th and early 12th centuries. Perhaps, then, it was not accidental that Anselm’s extension of the cathedral, initiated around the 500th anniversary year of its original foundation, brought the internal length of the building up to a dimension corresponding with the length of St Peter’s basilica in Rome.32 A similar iconographic reference to St Peter’s may have been intended in the case of St Albans, where the enormous length was a feature of the building from the start. Perhaps in this case the specific point being made was that, as St Peter was the proto-martyr of Rome, just so was St Alban of England.33
For the period under consideration, however, the element of symbolism at Canterbury Cathedral should be read rather more in its general aesthetic character as an expression of its function. In this respect the building displayed something of a contrast between the work of Lanfranc and that of Anselm. Lanfranc’s building, which was closely related in its design to his former abbey of Saint-Etienne in Caen, was dignified but sober, not only because of the exigency of replacing quickly the fire-damaged building, but also perhaps expressing his mission to reform the English church and bring it back to a well-regulated norm.
On the other hand, the augmentation of the cathedral under Anselm and his successors was noted for its opulence. Thus Honorius Augustodunensis when he wrote his Speculum Ecclesiae c. 1100x1110 at the request of the monks of Christ Church, following his visit there, deployed an extended metaphor about the Church as the house of God borne up by the pillars of Scripture and adorned by the writings of the Fathers. In doing so, the picture in Honorius’ mind would seem to have been Anselm’s building, especially the programme of stained glass, painting and sculpture.34 In the prologue, the Fathers were like skilled pictores, who ‘adorned the house of the Lord with wondrous carvings and varied pictures’; while in the concluding ‘Sermon for a Dedication’ they were likened to a noble pictor, who ‘girded the whole house with a varied adornment and distinguished it in a circuit as if with shining gems, and these remarkable things presented the whole house as if with an excellent picture in a circuit’ – that is, a cycle of pictorial stained-glass windows.35 A few years later, c. 1125, William of Malmesbury could say explicitly of Canterbury that Anselm ‘rebuilt it so splendidly that nothing the like of it could be seen in England, in the light of the glass windows, in the brightness of the marble pavements, and in the multicoloured pictures <that lead the wondering eye to the heights of the panelled ceiling>’.36 To these should be added the elaboration of its architectural articulation and intricacy of its sculptured capitals.
An appreciation of the aesthetic of the new Romanesque architecture was expressed also by the monk Goscelin, who settled at St Augustine’s Abbey in the early 1090s. A decade earlier, in his Liber Confortatorius, he had opined that buildings should be ‘glorious, magnificent, most lofty, most spacious, filled with light, and most beautiful’.37 Although at the date he wrote this Goscelin may not yet have seen the new abbey church arising in Canterbury, it would equate well with the aesthetic of the building, as well as being concordant with William of Malmesbury’s later description of Anselm’s extended east arm at the cathedral.
The magnificence of these buildings was an appropriate expression of their function; but at the same time it could be more than this. As has been shown recently, the elaboration of the new east arm of Canterbury Cathedral was part of a profoundly conceived scheme drawn up by Anselm, aiming to make the new building, especially through the visual imagery of its programme of stained glass, an encapsulation of the spiritual truths of Christian belief in Christ as God-made-Man.38 Artistic beauty and divine truth were closely linked.
From the moment of his appointment as archbishop of Canterbury, Lanfranc had developed an exalted conception of the status of his see, asserting that it was entitled to primatial jurisdiction not only over his province but over all of Britain.39 This led to a strenuous conflict with the archbishop of York, who was wholly unwilling to concede the principle. The new cathedral at Canterbury should certainly be seen with this struggle in mind: although, projecting the unchallenged metropolitan status of the cathedral within its own province provided good enough reason in itself for the project.
Projecting the status of the see may again be seen as a factor behind the even greater ambition of the cathedral as extended by Anselm in the early 12th century. In the main apse a flight of steps led up behind the high altar to the throne, the ‘seat of the patriarchate’ (cathedra patriarchatus), where the archbishop would have appeared framed between the altar below and the gold and silver image of Christ in Majesty on the beam above it.40 This arrangement dominated the east end visually, and clearly it was intended to make explicit the status of the archbishop as primate of all England. Perhaps also it reflected the reported description of Anselm by Pope Urban II as ‘the apostolic [bishop] and patriarch’ of insular Europe.41
At St Augustine’s Abbey, on the eve of the Norman Conquest Abbot Æthelsige had obtained from Pope Alexander II the right to wear mitre and sandals.42 This was followed up after the Conquest by the forgery of a series of pseudo papal and royal privileges claiming exemption from royal and episcopal jurisdiction, together with a status for the abbey as the mother of all English monasteries.43 The construction of the new church was clearly intended as a projection of the importance of the abbey and at the same time, by making provision for the tombs of the early archbishops, it was an assertion of its institutional continuity going back to the apostolic mission of St Augustine himself: a continuity that placed it on a level footing with the cathedral.
At St Albans, the apparent prominence of the saint’s shrine within the church raises a question as to why Alban’s cult was of special interest to Abbot Paul, and to his patron Archbishop Lanfranc. The archbishop’s primatial see had been founded on the authority of Pope Gregory I and his emissary Augustine. But perhaps, we may speculate, Lanfranc felt that the status of Canterbury could be enhanced by promoting the Church of Augustine and Gregory as a re-affirmation of an older tradition, according to which this country was not a new-comer to the Christian Church in the 6th century, but could compare in antiquity with the other churches of the West. By promoting the cult of Alban at a monastery that had no claim to episcopal status, and which was under his patronage, such an evocation of antiquity could be created without any infringement of Canterbury’s status. This evocation was underlined by the very act of constructing a church with redeployed Roman materials (albeit the majority of these would have been concealed under the rendered surface finish).
The archbishopric of Canterbury appears in Domesday Book as endowed with extensive estates, divided nominally between those assigned to the archbishop and those to the monks; though in practice all were under the control of the archbishop.44 In principle, then, there may have been no shortage of resources available for Lanfranc to draw upon in financing the rebuilding of the cathedral; but, the exact disposable income from the cathedral estates is difficult to calculate from Domesday Book alone, while the latter survey takes no account of spiritual revenues.45
For the funding of Anselm’s ambitious building programme there is rather more evidence. Looking back on the archbishop’s achievements, Eadmer says that Anselm ‘devoted from his own [resources] a great quantity of money to the enlargement of the house of God’; and that he made grants ‘from those things that he possessed in his lordship, and a half of the offerings at the high altar (the other half Father Lanfranc having granted), and certain estates pertaining from old times to the sustenance of the monks but later diverted to other purposes’.46 Elsewhere more detail is recorded of some of these arrangements.
Eadmer relates that in 1096 King William II imposed a levy in order to pay for the support of his brother Duke Robert of Normandy on crusade. To meet his apportioned share, the archbishop took from the cathedral treasury gold and silver to the value of 200 marks of silver; while in compensation he granted to the monks for a seven-year term the revenues of the manor of Petham; ‘and so for that period the church was put in possession of the vill, and the woodlands of the vill and all its revenues were consumed by the new work which stretched from the great tower towards the east, and which Father Anselm was worthy to have begun’.47 Great Domesday records that in 1086 the archbishop’s estate of Petham, reckoned in extent at 7 sulungs (around 1,680 acres, 680 hectares), was valued at £20.48 The Canterbury ‘Domesday Monachorum’ of c. 1100 gives the same valuation; but it also records that renders were received de firma (food render, perhaps commuted for cash) and de gablum (rent).49 More precisely, Eadmer states that the annual renders from the estate amounted to about triginta librae denariorum; that is, £30 by accounting unit of 240 pence to the librum.50 Applied annually to the works over a period of seven years, this would have amounted to a total of £210 (315 marks). This sum was considerably more than the 200 marks (£133-6s-8d) taken by Anselm from the treasury in 1096:51 so it seems that the transaction related not only to repaying the levy but also to the wider financing of the building project.
When Anselm went into exile in 1103, on account of his dispute with King Henry I, he wrote to Bishop Gundulf of Rochester urging him to intervene with the king to dissuade him from demanding money from the prior and monks of Christ Church who, he claimed, were in no position to pay. In this letter he says that the monks ‘still are unable to have the half that I have assigned to the work begun on the church; and if they did have it, it is not appropriate for the king to demand anything from those who as monks have nothing themselves, nor does it fall upon them to give or lend what is not theirs’.52 The ‘half’ was presumably the half share of offerings at the high altar. Later, on returning from exile in 1107, Anselm ‘gave to the building works on the church the pennies that each year the parish churches were accustomed to pay to the mother church at Easter’.53 What seems clear is that, in order to fund the enormous project, Anselm had to assemble money from a range of sources, including income from spiritualities as well as from church-owned estates.
The second great religious house in Canterbury, St Augustine’s Abbey, was in the late-11th-century the sixth wealthiest monastery in England, with landed estates throughout the county of Kent producing a substantial income.54 The abbey, therefore, was well placed to undertake an ambitious building project: but we know little in detail about how the financing of the project was arranged.
However, at St Alban’s there seems a marked contrast between the modest scale of the landholdings of the abbey at the time of Domesday Book and the massive scale of the new church.55 Compared with the approximate ratio between resources and scale of building at other contemporary cathedral and monastic churches in England, the mismatch at St Albans appears all the clearer. The church seems far too ambitious for what the abbey’s resources should have allowed. One explanation may be provided by Matthew Paris’ assertion that abbots Paul and Richard were assisted financially by archbishops Lanfranc and Anselm.56 A figure of 1,000 marks contributed by Lanfranc is mentioned: that is, by accounting value £666-13s-4d.57 This was more than three times the amount assigned to the work at Canterbury by Anselm from one estate over a seven- year period.
Assessing what recorded sums of money may mean in relation to expenditure on wages and materials for building works in this period is not straightforward. As to wages, different rates would have applied according to the skills of the employees, and whether or not they were provided with their food. The earliest regulated scale of wages in England dates only from the beginning of the 13th century and shows skilled craftsmen at 4d (4 silver pennies) a day without their food, and the less skilled at between 2d and 3d; but higher rates would have been necessary to retain the top masters, while labourers presumably received less.58 Even if similar rates applied at a date a century earlier or more, the number of craftsmen and labourers employed on any particular 11th-century project is unknown and cannot be set against such rates.
Perhaps a general comparison may be made with Westminster Abbey as rebuilt by King Henry III in the middle of the 13th century, where initially 3,000 marks (£2,000) per annum were assigned from the royal treasury for the work, but this sum was not adequate in the event.59 As to the proportion of this assigned to different purposes, a sample of the detailed accounts shows that, over a thirty-week period from April to the beginning of December in 1253, expenditure was more or less equally divided between wages and purchases; while an average of around 150 craftsmen in different trades were employed, and the same number again of labourers.60
The validity of making any comparison between an 11th-century building project and 13th-century Westminster has to be qualified by the very elaborate and notoriously costly character of the Westminster project. Furthermore, the balance of expenditure between wages and purchases may have varied, depending on the extent to which materials had to be purchased, as against being available from the estates owned by the commissioning church or provided by donors. Account must also be taken of possible inflation over the previous century and a half. Notwithstanding all these qualifications, for sake of illustration one might hazard a guess that if 100 craftsmen at 3d a day and 100 labourers at 1½d were employed at any one time on Anselm’s project, then the costs in wages may have been approximately 844 marks per annum over a 50-week, 6-day-a-week year; which could be doubled to account for purchases of materials: amounting thus to 1,687 marks (£1,125) per annum. If this guess is even remotely near the actual figures involved, it may be concluded that the recorded sums at Canterbury and St Albans represent only a small part of the picture. Thus at St Albans, the 1,000 marks contributed by Lanfranc would be equivalent to only 91 marks per annum over each of the eleven years of the project. Alternatively, Lanfranc may have defrayed the costs over the first year in order to get the project under way.
The projects under consideration represent an early stage in the introduction of the Romanesque style and its associated technology into England. Apart from the rebuilding of Westminster Abbey in the 1050s and 1060s, there was in the early years after the Norman Conquest no developed indigenous tradition of construction in the technology associated with the Romanesque style.61 This meant that there were few masons who were trained in the new mode. It also meant that there was an under-developed quarrying industry, and hence a lack of capacity to supply the quantities of dressed ashlar required for buildings on a much larger scale than the traditional English norm. Equally, construction on a more massive scale, often involving masonry vaulting, would have raised engineering considerations that had not been experienced previously.
To meet these deficiencies, Archbishop Lanfranc, with his active involvement in the construction of the new abbey of Saint-Etienne in Caen, would have had little difficulty in drawing on relevant experience and personnel available in the workshop there, and transferring these skills from Normandy to his project at his cathedral in Canterbury. Similarly Abbot Paul, both from his own experience at Caen and from his relationship with Archbishop Lanfranc, was well placed to draw on the design experience gained in the workshops of Caen and Canterbury during the previous decade and a half. Despite this, the construction of the new building at St Alban’s, with wall and pier facings of re-used brick, placed limitations on the architectural detailing that could be formed with this material, and in consequence the design was a rather pared-down version of the Caen and Canterbury Romanesque style.
Abbot Scolland’s work at St Augustine’s Abbey again drew in general on the Caen style, but the degree of departure from the Caen model in the planning of his church indicates that he was looking more widely to other sources to meet the particular requirements of his new church. Then, only a little later, Archbishop Anselm extended his horizons further again to undertake one of the most ambitious projects of its date in Europe, the sources for which suggest an international rather than purely Norman dimension.
Whereas the patrons’ brief may be considered the point of departure for the implementation of any project, no direct evidence survives for the specific briefs in the cases under consideration. They can only be inferred in general terms from the personalities of the patrons and the nature of their different projects, as already discussed. It is necessary therefore to turn directly to the processes by which the briefs were put into practical effect.
As between Lanfranc’s programme of works at Canterbury Cathedral and that initiated by Anselm, it is possible to see some adjustment in the system of administrative oversight. It is reasonably clear that it was Lanfranc himself who was the driving force behind the rapid rebuilding of the cathedral and monastic offices. However, while Lanfranc was still in Caen he had been assisted as coadjutor by the monk Gundulf, whom he then brought with him to Canterbury in 1070; and, ‘since he was exceedingly diligent even in external affairs, he appointed him as manager of his household affairs’.62 A few years later in 1077 he appointed Gundulf as his suffragan bishop at Rochester; and there he rebuilt the cathedral, assisted by contributions from Lanfranc. At some point, probably in the 1070s, Gundulf was appointed by King William I to ‘preside over the works’ of the Tower of London; he lodged at the time with a burgess of the city, Eadmer Anhaende, who in return asked to be made a socius of the church of Rochester.63 Subsequently in 1089, King William II required Gundulf to build for him a castle in Rochester in consideration of the fact that Gundulf was ‘very greatly knowledgeable and effective in the work of masons’; this was to be at the bishop’s expense and cost him some £60.64 It is reasonably clear that Gundulf’s competence had nothing to do with any practical training as a mason, but with his administrative experience in managing building projects. Although he is not credited specifically with managing the project at Christ Church, there can be little doubt that this fell under the administrative responsibilities devolved upon him by Lanfranc.
Following Anselm’s succession to the archbishopric, he again was the driving force behind the project for extending the cathedral. But upon his exile in 1103 he had to appoint his suffragan bishop, Gundulf, to take charge of his affairs in England, both domestic and external.65 But Anselm also devolved greater responsibility for managing the monastery’s affairs onto the priors of Christ Church.66 This included responsibility for the fabric of the new eastern extension, to the degree that successive priors were accounted authors of the work, despite the fact that Anselm himself initiated it and had overall responsibility for it. Thus Prior Ernulf (c. 1096–1107), who had been a monk first at Saint-Simphorien in Beauvais, and later at Christ Church under Lanfranc, was credited by William of Malmesbury with responsibility for the splendour of the new east end.67 Then, after Ernulf had been promoted to the abbacy of Peterborough, there was appointed in his place Conrad (1108/9–26), again a monk of the house and perhaps the sacrist, and it is to him that Gervase attributes the ‘glorious completion’ of the new choir.68 This must mean that they were responsible for the immediate supervision and administration of the work, whereas responsibility for raising the necessary funding remained with Anselm and perhaps Gundulf.
By way of contrast, at St Augustine’s it is clear that Abbot Scolland in person had an interest in the administration, as is shown by his involvement with the procurement of stone (see below). At St Albans nothing is recorded about the delegation of administrative arrangements, and again the impression is conveyed that Abbots Paul and Richard themselves took a direct interest in the works.
It may be that a distinction can be drawn here between cathedrals and abbeys. In the former, the bishop had clear overall control of affairs, with the authority to initiate a building campaign; but he was too busy to supervise the administration and delegated this to a coadjutor or to the prior. At an abbey, in this period at least, the abbot may have been less involved in external affairs and more able to give time to internal administrative matters, especially the important business of constructing a new church. But even so, any abbot no doubt delegated more routine matters to one or another of the obedientiaries of his monastery, such as the sacrist.
The Canterbury region was devoid of good building stone and so, according to one source, Lanfranc had ready-prepared squared stones transported by sea from Caen.69 This is borne out by the surviving parts of Lanfranc’s building, which used stone from the quarries at Caen in Normandy, together with other material from quarries at Marquise in the Boulonnais and at Quarr in the Isle of Wight.70 In making use of Caen stone, Lanfranc was continuing a practice with which he would have been familiar when the church of Saint-Etienne was being rebuilt during his abbacy. Subsequently the use of Caen stone as the major facing material continued in the eastward extension of the cathedral. The quarries at Caen lay on the ducal estate, and this raises a question as to whether William I may have provided stone for Christ Church as a donation, or whether Lanfranc had to purchase it at full cost. The answer to this is unknown, although it may be noted that the king did provide stone directly for the initial works at his own foundation of Battle Abbey.71 Caen stone continued to be used under Anselm as the principal material for ashlar. As for timber, some of this was supplied from the estate at Petham, 4½ miles (12km) south of Canterbury which, as already noted, was given over by Anselm for supporting the works.72
For the procurement of stone for St Augustine’s, Goscelin provides significant insights, and it is clear that Abbot Scolland himself took a close interest in the matter.73 On one occasion the abbot personally, appraising someone as having the right skills, appointed him as master in charge of obtaining stone from the quarries at Marquise. The stone, according to its intended end-use, was shaped at the quarries before transport, thus reducing the burden that would have to be carried by ships on the dangerous voyage across the Channel to England.
Scolland also made arrangements for the procurement of stone through Vitalis, a Norman knight who held office as the royal superintendent (exactor) in charge of conveying stone from Caen for the Palace of Westminster. Vitalis was a lay member of the confraternity of St Augustine’s Abbey, as well as a tenant of Archbishop Lanfranc, and he arranged to have a ship load of stone delivered to Canterbury. The ship master was contracted to supply the material at a set price, but only got paid on delivery; so losses at sea did not fall on the abbey. On presenting his letters of agreement to Abbot Scolland in person, the ship master received payment from him.
For the construction of the new abbey buildings at St Albans, materials were readily to hand in the form of bricks and ashlar stones, as well as flint rubble, salvaged from the site of the Roman town of Verulamium, at the foot of the hill on which the abbey lay. Considerable expenditure and labour on extraction, transport and preparation must have been saved thereby. Furthermore, it was said that some of these materials had already been stockpiled by Abbot Paul’s predecessors.74
Masters of the works. It is extremely fortunate that Goscelin of Saint-Bertin preserved the name of the master of the works at St Augustine’s Abbey, since this was one of the most significant buildings (alongside Christ Church) for sowing the seeds of the Romanesque style in England.75 He was ‘Blitherus, the most eminent master of the craftsmen and worthy designer of the church’.76 The Latin name appears in the vernacular as Blittaere or Blutere, and in the hypocoristic form Blize; it is a Continental Germanic name and, therefore, he was a person of Continental origin, although from exactly where is uncertain. Nothing is recorded about the arrangements under which Blitherus was retained by St Augustine’s as master of works.
Less fortunately, the name is unrecorded of the master of the works responsible for designing Lanfranc’s new cathedral church at Canterbury; but the similarity of its design to that of Saint-Etienne in Caen would indicate that he came from that workshop. However, it is recorded that in 1086 Blize, the master of the works at St Augustine’s Abbey, was retained also at Christ Church, from which he held one of the cathedral’s estates, the small borough of Seasalter. In Great Domesday Seasalter is recorded as belonging to the archbishop’s kitchen (perhaps a scribal error) and was held by Blize (Blitherus) from the monks; according to the Domesday Monachorum it belonged to the monks’ kitchen.77 The borough was valued at 100 shillings; but it is not known how much Blitherus received for himself from the returns of his holding, nor how much rent he paid to the monks. In view of the dissimilarities between Lanfranc’s cathedral church and Scolland’s abbey church, it may seem unlikely that they were designed by the same person. Blitherus, therefore, must have been responsible for some other project at Christ Church. What is significant, none the less, is to see one master working for the two great religious houses in Canterbury.
At St Alban’s another name was preserved. According to Matthew Paris, Abbot Paul retained ‘for his craftsmanship and labours Robert the mason (caementarius), who was capable beyond all the masons of his day’.78 As to Robert’s origins nothing is known, other than that he bore a name that was not English, but might have been found in Normandy or elsewhere on the Continent. For his services Robert and his heirs were granted by Abbot Paul a house in the town and the tenure of estates belonging to the abbey, at Sarratt and Wanthone; while later Abbot Richard made a further grant of an estate, at Sopwell, at an annual rent of 6s paid to the abbey.79 Matthew Paris says that the Sarratt estate had previously been rented out at 60s a year, but that with it Abbot Paul was said ‘to have paid in full for the work of Robert, at the agreed and assessed sum and without a burden on the church’.80 Later, on his deathbed, Robert had handed back the estate freely to the prior and monks, renouncing any claims by himself or his heirs. If revenue worth 60s a year had been Robert’s only payment it would represent a rate of only about 2 ½d per working day: but it must have been supplemented by income from his other estates, and by his house in the town. Apart from this, it is also recorded that Robert himself made an annual benefaction of 10s to the abbey.81 The relationship between the master of the works and the abbey was therefore longstanding and reciprocal.
Other craftsmen. As to the other craftsmen working at Canterbury Cathedral, the brilliant glazing, multicoloured paintings and wonderful carvings referred to by William of Malmesbury and Honorius Augustodunensis are evidenced by surviving elements of their works, but the artists remain anonymous. The glass painters who executed Anselm’s seemingly revolutionary programme for the glazing of the choir are represented by some surviving figures of prophets in the clearstory.82 Wall-painting is represented by the scheme in St Gabriel’s chapel, of a disputed date in the second quarter or second third of the 12th century.83 Sculpture survives quite extensively with the magnificent series of late-11th-century capitals in the crypt and on the external walls of the aisles.84 However, the craftsmen responsible for all these works remain anonymous.
The same anonymity hides the craftsmen and labourers engaged at St Augustine’s. But a lone exception is provided by an ex situ sculptured capital that is inscribed robertvs me fecit. This has been dated to c. 1100 on its style and compared with capitals in the crypt of the cathedral as well as with a manuscript from the abbey scriptorium.85
At St Albans the artist who was responsible for executing the painting (no longer extant) on the vault above or beyond the high altar is again anonymous.86 However, we do know in some detail about the craftsman responsible a few years later for making a new shrine for the relics of St Alban. This was commissioned in 1123 by Abbot Geoffrey (1119–46), and the translation of the relics took place in 1129.87 The craftsman responsible for the work was a monk of St Alban’s named Anketil, who was an accomplished goldsmith; he was assisted by his young lay pupil Salamon.88 At some point in his career Anketil had been summoned from England to work in Denmark for the king, and there for seven years he is said to have supervised (praeerat) the royal goldsmith’s work and held the position of keeper of the mint and high treasurer. Then on returning to England he entered St Albans as a monk. The shrine was executed with gilded silver plates, worked with raised figures, and was adorned with gems, some of which were antique cameos and other stones from the abbey’s treasury. The ‘house-shaped’ shrine in the form it had reached by the 13th century was depicted in a simplified way by Matthew Paris.89 As to its detailed treatment, it may be asked whether, in view of Anketil’s background, any non-figurative ornament possibly combined Romanesque and Scandinavian Urnes style elements.90 Be that as it may, the story of Anketil illustrates well how master craftsmen had an important role in furnishing a church, as well as how such work might be undertaken by a monk with the relevant expertise.
By examining in detail the fragments of surviving and recorded information, and by comparing them against a theoretical model, a picture starts to emerge of the intentions, conditions and processes that lay behind the development of Romanesque architecture in England in the last third of the 11th century and at the beginning of the 12th century. Bishops and abbots coming to England from the Continent to take up office in cathedrals and abbeys brought with them experience and knowledge that differed from that of the English churchmen they were replacing: they had participated in intellectual and artistic currents that they now wished to introduce to their new churches. But to do so they had to reform the liturgy and observances of their religious communities, while expressing this in a new wave of architecture on a scale and pattern scarcely seen before in England. But the realisation of their vision was conditioned by the availability of resources, materials and skills. These were matters that bishops, with many other calls on their attention, had to delegate to others while maintaining in person the overall momentum of their vision; abbots, on the other hand, were better placed to remain personally involved. Just as a ballet dancer appears to the audience as an image of elegance and grace, while behind the image lies a reality of prolonged training, hard work and physical effort; so too behind the image of Romanesque architecture lie acquired skills, applied resources and practical actions that alone enabled the actual performance as material monument.