Ecclesiastical and Monastic Associations
Ecclesiastical associations, primarily monastic organizations, are of twofold interest in the study of the origins of professional building organizations. First, they contributed—and this is critical—to the preservation and transmission of the traditions and secrets of the collegia that had been more or less overwhelmed by the barbarian invasions, then legally dissolved by the formation of feudal society. Second, the monastery schools trained the lay masters, who, starting in the twelfth century, took over the brotherhoods of builders jointly with the ecclesiastical masters. These brotherhoods were precursors to later trade guilds and corporations; they were able to be transformed into these new structures when social evolution offered a legal framework that supported this change.
The history of monastic associations is primarily linked to that of two religious orders: the Benedictine Order and its various persuasions (Cluny and Cîteaux), and the Templar Order. The role of the Benedictines was especially prominent up to the twelfth century. They can be credited with not only the propagation of Romanesque art but also the birth of Gothic art. As for the Templars, initially students of the Benedictines, with whom they always maintained a connection, their activity extended well beyond the time of the monastic associations. From the twelfth century on they were involved with the organization of lay communities of builders that enjoyed specific franchises, earning them the name francs métiers (free craftsmen; see chapter 6).
In this chapter we will study these monastic associations specifically. The role of the Templars, which appears to be closely tied to the birth of operative freemasonry, will be developed in chapters 5–7.
The Formation of Ecclesiastical and Monastic Associations in the Goth Regions and Their Extension into the North
We have seen how in England and the Frankish kingdoms the advocates of Christianity appealed to the Roman collegia and their remnants in the Visigoth regions. This was widespread due to the fact that members of the collegia were regarded as the best artisans for propagating the faith by erecting churches in all areas where Christianity had spread. When their existence became incompatible with the state of the society, however, it was around the Church that new groups of builders began to form. As a self-contained body, the Church had retained its own rights. It remained subject to Roman laws. At this time, the Church did not merely represent a belief and a form of worship; it also constituted a political organization. As a veritable state, it exercised all the attributes of one and extended its authority over all Christian countries. Its legal and institutional rights, combined with the zeal of faith, explain how the Church became a pole of social and political attraction. As Etienne Gilson rightly argued, the Roman Empire was dead, but the Church saved its culture from destruction and then imposed it upon the peoples of the West.
This universal role of the Church and the relative security it provided were much more in evidence in and applicable to the great religious orders than to the bishops, who were more often compelled to confront temporal requirements and whose nominal authority stopped at the borders of their dioceses.
The builders from the collegia, who, as we have seen, found refuge with the bishops, discovered themselves to be bound simply by close personal ties to these prelates. This was not the case with those members of the collegia who were integrated into monasteries. While their former status had vanished, they were better able to survive corporatively, preserving their practices and traditions and even their rites and secrets, which allowed them to form veritable schools whose influence often radiated quite far.
The expansion of monachism appeared in the East toward the end of the third century. In the West it dates from the time of Jean Cassien (d. 432), founder of two monasteries in Marseilles; Saint Cesaire (470–543), a monk of Lerins, then bishop of Arles, who set down a rule for the monasteries of his regions; and especially Saint Benoit (480–547), abbot of Vicovaro and founder of Monte Cassino, whose rule was imported into Gaul by his disciple, Saint Maur.
The development of monasteries in sixth century Gaul, which generally followed the rule of Saint Benoit, gradually moved from the center of the country to the north. At that time, either bishops or kings founded them. Monks were always lay individuals.
During the seventh century, the high nobility (dukes and counts) multiplied their founding of monasteries. A regular clergy to attend them appeared by order of Pope Gregory I, with abbots serving as their heads despite the opposition of the bishops. Many abbeys, which had become quite wealthy, were the greatest landowners in the kingdom. In Paris, the domain of Saint Germain des Prés covered 50,000 hectares and numbered some 25,000 inhabitants.
Population centers grew around the monasteries as people settled near them in search of both protection and the possibility of a livelihood. Agriculture and all trades were practiced there and builders were numerous, working primarily for the monks. In this world where social and legal constraints imposed immobility and attachment to a fief, the status of the Church allowed an escape from this servitude. For builders it included a precious right, one that was indispensable to the practice of their trade: the right of circulation, the freedom to travel.
The most famous of the ecclesiastical architects of the Merovingian era, for his science and his virtue, both connected to his education and his role in the monastic movement, is Saint Eloi. He was born in 588 in Cadillac, near Limoges, where he took lessons from a teacher named Abbon. He then moved to the kingdom of the Franks, where he became the minister of King Dagobert. He designed the blueprints for several churches and monasteries (Solagnac Monastery near Limoges, a convent for nuns, and Saint Paul and Saint Martial Churches in Paris). His name is especially prominent in connection with the famous abbey of Saint Denis (631–637). He also created superb works in gold and silver.
In eighth-century Spain, in monasteries founded by the architect and mason Saint Fructueux, there were masters who taught theory and, if need be, directed construction. Special compartments were assigned to the art of decoration.1
During the darkest hours of the Middle Ages, the monastery of Saint Gall in what is now Switzerland distinguished itself by the skilled teachers who flourished there. It was this monastery that produced the monks Tutillon, Notker, Adalberne, and Durand of Utrecht.
We must pause here for an observation: Our investigation relates essentially to religious architecture, but what of civil construction? It should be noted that during these centuries there was a considerable slowdown in the construction of significant buildings. Ordinary houses were built of wood, cob, and mortar made from straw and clay. From the seventh to the tenth centuries, there was a need to erect castles, large constructions indeed. Of course, in those years some building specialists, architects and sculptors still existed, but they were few in number and were largely itinerants. Bound to a noble, king, or archbishop, they were “lent” by their patron to individuals requiring their services.
Therefore, as noted earlier, a number of architecture schools whose masters moved north to ply their trades were located in the former kingdoms of the Goths and Burgundians, where many Roman institutions endured; we have already stressed how this region preserved the art of building passed down by the collegia. There is perhaps no reason to seek elsewhere for the origin of the architectural term Gothic. Today this word defines a very specific building style. It is thought that the Renaissance Italians originally used it in complete derision. In reality, the term goes back to a much earlier time. It can be found in the writings of Fridegode, a historian who wrote in Latin in 950. Fridegode said, in speaking of the Saint Ouen Church of Rouen,a that it was built in quarried stone with a kind of magnificence in the Gothic manner: “muro opere quadris lapidibus, manu gothica . . . olim nobiliter constructa.”2 The word Gothic continued to be used subsequently to label what we now call Romanesque art, which was later distinguished from the new, ogival ribbed style by names such as Old Gothic and New Gothic. These terms indicate with extreme precision the origin of these styles and the relationship that exists between them. In fact, it is a mistake to oppose the two.
Romanesque Art and Monastic Associations
Romanesque art of the Old Gothic style was born after the year 1000 in regions south of the Loire—the former Gothic Gaul. It seems fairly well established that the oldest Romanesque school was that of Auvergne. Romanesque architecture is Roman architecture that has been refined and “finished”: “While a time of decadence saw a retreat from Roman art, a more progressive era returned to it, but it was a free Roman art that had been emancipated from the yoke of entablature. The Romanesque style was regarded as a self-evident innovation by the Roman as well as the Gothic.”3
Romanesque art has been labeled monastic art in opposition to the Gothic, a secular art. It is an undeniable fact that the propagation of Romanesque art was the work of monastic associations, particularly the Benedictines. But there were no builders outside of these associations. Later we will consider more closely how Gothic art emerged and spread.
The Order of Saint Benoit first contributed to the spread of the art of building through its preeminent role in the propagation of the sciences. Until the tenth century, churches were primarily built of wood. The art or science of framework construction, although complicated, is still less difficult than that of cutting and constructing with stone. The progress of this latter method brought about the overall advancement of architecture. Stonecutting in fact leads to statics, the science of balance, and mathematics is the basic element of this discipline.
Toward the end of the tenth century, a man renowned for his position, character, and worth, the Benedictine Gerbert (a native of Aurillac and, under the name of Sylvester, the first French pope) brought about great progress in science and mathematics through his broad knowledge, which contributed greatly to architecture’s ability both to embellish and to be lighter and bolder. Gerbert had studied architecture with the Arabs of Spain in Cordoba and Grenada and brought what he had learned to his own country, where he entrusted its teaching and practice to the ecclesiastical schools. Gerbert himself taught in Reims and his knowledge spread rapidly.
Abbot de Fleury, Fulbert (founder of the theological school of Chartres), and Béranger (creator of the schools of Tours and Angers) continued Gerbert’s work. Lanfranc, who moved to France from Pavia, established a monastic school at the Bec Abbey in Normandy, which became the seat of a renaissance in the sciences and the arts. An era of excitement in the minds of people began at this time, which far from being hostile to the arts, only gave added impetus to them, especially to architecture. The reading of Aristotle’s metaphysics, also brought back from Spain by Gerbert, initiated Christians into the Pythagorean symbolism of numbers. Thus the symbolism of numbers and dimensions in churches dates from this time.
The Benedictine Order to which Romanesque art owes the greatest debt is definitely that of Cluny. During the twelfth century the abbey of Cluny was the center and regulator of civilization. Solely from an architectural standpoint, the Cluny monks carried their art as far as the East. The churches they erected in Jerusalem and elsewhere in the Holy Land during the time of the First Crusade were Burgundian. In this land of great relics and Byzantine art, France remained naively faithful to its genius. Though the Knights Templar contributed most to the spread of Eastern influences on an operational level, the Benedictines were subject to the influence of these regions, and the Romanesque style does indeed have a Byzantine feel.
The statutes from the Cluny monastery are divided into two books. The second volume contains the rules to be followed in founding and constructing new abbeys. According to the legislator, among the compartments that the body of the abbey contains, there should be a house 45 feet long by 30 feet wide designated to be the dwelling of all those who toil on behalf of the monks. There should be another building 125 feet long by 25 feet wide intended for the goldsmiths, inlayers, marbleworkers, and other artisans.
The magnificence of Clunisian churches, including excesses of decorative art that lacked any symbolic meaning, shocked Saint Bernard (1090–1152) early on. This sensitive soul, enamored of inner perfection, felt it was a betrayal of the gospels to give any sops to the senses. In reforming the order of Saint Benoit, he imposed on the architects of his order a principle of total simplicity. Thus the monks of Cîteaux, faithful to the spirit of the great reformer, spread an austere and bare style of art throughout Europe. These strict, plain churches are not sad, however, for they hold a kind of mathematical beauty that comes from the harmony of their proportions.
The prodigious and symbolic art of light was not produced until the bays of churches were cunningly pierced in coordination with the proper orientations of the entire structure. Favorable to contemplation, these resulting buildings defy time. This stripped down but suggestive and magisterial layout marvelously assists the sensibility to share in the comprehension of the liturgy. The physical sensations awakened in these structures also awaken the soul turned toward God.
Gothic Art as an Evolution from the Romanesque
It is important to understand that Gothic art does not oppose Romanesque art; instead it has evolved from it. Nor did it spring from the imagination of a single master; it was the gradual and slow work of collective faculties who ripened their concept little by little, through implementing and modifying it.
The Gothic style supplied the solution to a technical problem that had arisen for Romanesque architects: The weight of the vault forced them to give their buildings squat proportions. This problem “inspired them to perfect their balance system, which was how they were led to the discovery of a system of intercrossed buttresses that would carry the vault while disguising its weight; the Gothic cathedral continues and completes the Romanesque church.”4
The distinctive feature of Gothic art is essentially the use of intersecting ribbed arches that support the vault like a kind of armature based at the tops of the supports.
In the art of building, this feature constitutes the great discovery of the system of active stability resulting from the use of paired vaults, like that inaugurated by the Romans, as opposed to the system of inert stability, which emerged from the use of heavy materials and monolithic beds without the lateral thrusts used by the Greeks and Egyptians. The discovery of this miraculous artifice was not at all the result of luck; it could have emerged only from profound causes, a kind of imperious necessity, and a series of trials and errors.5
In actuality there is an art of transition characteristic of that period of time marking the passage from the Roman and Romanesque groined vault to the vault constructed from the crossed ribs and broken arches associated with flying buttress. This transition occurred only in France, the country where Gothic architecture was born. In the other schools during this intermediary period there were only blends—“Romano-Gothic” monuments.
It is an error to regard the broken arch or tiers-point as a characteristic innovation of the Gothic style, however. Ancient Persia, the Orient (mainly Armenia), and Muslim Spain knew it before the West did. The pilgrims of the end of the ninth century, the Crusaders of 1099, or those who had fought against the Moors of Cordoba in the Iberian peninsula were able to propagate it on their return. “It was accepted by Roman architects not as a thing of beauty but as a necessity. The broken-arch vault in fact had a weaker thrust than the groined vault.”6
Because there was technically no opposition of Gothic art and Romanesque art, there was no opposition of Gothic artists and Romanesque artists.
The antitheses, in their seductive clarity, are a danger of erudition, which they compromise in seeking to overly simplify everything. Few of these are more subject to caution than the double antitheses creating an absolute opposition, an incompatibility, and antagonism between Gothic and Romanesque art, between secular architects and monks, the latter authors and stubborn preservers of Romanesque style, the former revolutionaries of the ogival style.b
In fact, there were secular Romanesque architects, such as Walter Coorland, a native Englishman, who provided in the second quarter of the eleventh century the blueprints for Saint Hilaire in Poitiers. Others include Benoît, architect of Saint Eutropes de Saintes around 1075; Gislevert, who worked on Saint Ouen in Rouen around 1100; Jean, a bourgeois of Saint Quentin in 1113; and Gervais, who built a cathedral in Béziers in the second half of the twelfth century.
In any case, what is at play here is a partial approach to the facts. In medieval society, whether twelfth or thirteenth century, Romanesque or Gothic, art in both its concept and creation was religious at heart. It expressed only the directives of the Church, which gave long and detailed guidelines for artists and their works, priests, and liturgists. Nothing was left to the artists except for their skill and ability to execute.
To dispel any misunderstandings that may linger, it should be emphasized that the Benedictines at Cluny and Cîteaux were by and large the source of the Gothic style. One author, alluding to the roughly 350 monasteries that made up the religious community of Cîteaux in the middle of the twelfth century, suggested that “thanks to their colonization practices . . . they were the first missionaries of Gothic art. In architectural technique if not in decor, though, the two branches of the order were quite opposite. The Cistercians, however, who came later, played the main role in the propagation of the Gothic style. They did for Gothic architecture what the monks of Cluny had done for the Romanesque.c
It is in Norman territory at the end of the eleventh century where we must search for the first manifestation of the French ogival rib. The aisle of the Anglo-Norman cathedral of Durham, dated convincingly to some time between 1093 and 1104, presents it in a form that reveals a mastery of the procedure, implying earlier experiments.
Among the most ancient attempts of currently existing paired vaults, especially praiseworthy are the capitulary of Jumièges (1101) and the venerable apse of the church of Morienval (Oise), which dates from around 1125 and which is the rudimentary prototype of the Gothic style. As for monuments of the transition, we can cite the ancient Saint Benoit Chapel in the Lerin Abbey and the choir of Saint Martin des Champs in Paris, which was a priory of the Cluny Order.
The oldest of the Gothic monuments marking the end of the transition is the choir of the Benedictine church of Saint Denis, begun in 1129 under the impetus of Abbot Suger. Consecrated in 1144,
. . . it was the first building in which the new system appeared in all the potentiality of its consequences, in the juvenile vigor of its methods, in the conviction of its ambition. Its inauguration—celebrated in the presence of a throng of bishops and high dignitaries from the four corners of France, a large number of foreign prelates, and the king himself—was the ostensible and echoing sign of a major architectural event, the departure point for an enthusiasm that would prove irresistible.7
Among the monks who were the first Gothic architects, we can cite Hilduar and Giraud, first mentioned around 1160, the former for the choir he designed at Saint Peters in Chartres, the latter for his nave at Saint-Benoit sur Loire. The Cistercians, too, played an important role. They were the first to spread the knowledge of Gothic art throughout Italy, Germany, and the Scandinavian countries. And we cannot overlook the Templars, students of the Benedictines, among the architects of the Romanesque-to-Gothic transition. Their church on Fleet Street in London (1165), more or less influenced by the Templar Church in Paris, is in fact one of the more unusual buildings from this transitional period.
We can see, then, that there was no gap existing between Romanesque (or Old Gothic) art and the New Gothic. One flowed out of the other and the secret of the ribbed vault was perhaps invented by the same masters who had spread the Romanesque vault, just as the Romanesque vault was a return of the Roman, influenced by the Byzantine style. Gothic and Romanesque also coexisted chronologically. The first applications of the ogival rib, in Durham and Saint Denis, were coincident with the golden age of Romanesque art, a period to which the great cathedrals of the second half of the twelfth century still belong.
Some still see significance in the geographical rift between the two styles. Romanesque churches are the exception rather than the rule north of the Loire, in those regions where the Gothic style first made its appearance. There are concrete reasons for the fact that the Romanesque style spread only south of the Loire: the continuation of Roman institutions and traditions in the south, the remnants of the collegia that existed there, and the possibility of builders creating associations allied with monasteries. Perhaps the best proof may be found in Auvergne, the last of the Roman provinces and the one that remained faithful to the genius of Rome for the longest time. It is precisely here that the greatest Byzantine influence can be seen and it is here, at Limoges, that we can discover the traces of a seventh-century architectural school. The Romanesque school of Auvergne is one of the oldest and most characteristic of its kind.
While churches covered all the lands south of the Loire, they were noticeably scarce in the north. It was impossible for the art of building to spread in the north. We have seen how Roman institutions came to grief in the Frankish kingdom. In addition, the capitularies of the Carolingian kings and even the Church stood in opposition to associations and guilds. Building there began to blossom only when, in conjunction with the evolution of mores and customs, new forms of association became possible, exemplified by brotherhoods that included both clerics and laypeople as their members. In northern regions, where architecture changed slowly, artists continued to perfect Romanesque art and did not cross through it, so to speak. From this we should not conclude that the “crossed rib” and Gothic architecture that appeared in the Ile de France region was the spontaneous creation of that area’s genius.
In looking at the existence and growth of architectural schools, we should pay specific attention to Lombardy in Italy. We have seen how this region, notably the area of Como, managed to maintain a Roman tradition with associations of free builders despite the upheavals of history. A veritable school of architecture took form in Lombardy, with its principal constructions existing in Como, Milan, Pavia, and Parma. It was a singularly influential force. The Rhine school owes much to it (Spire, Worms, Mayence) and its influence can likewise be seen in France in the areas of upper Provence and Languedoc
The structures of this Lombard school betrayed for a long time its imitation of the fifth-century Latin basilica. The lessons of Byzantine architecture, however, although close at hand, did not make themselves felt in Lombard construction; the political separation between the barbarous world of the Lombards and the Byzantine world of Venice and Ravenna was simply too great. But at the end of the eleventh and throughout the twelfth centuries there appeared vaulting that, unlike the round-rib vaulting found in France, was made up of square ribs that formed beneath the vault they held up—suggesting a large, branched archaic cross. An interesting French example of this structure, undoubtedly of Lombard origin, is the ogival square crossing erected in 1178 on each of the transepts of the ancient cathedral of Maguelone, in the Hérault. Another is the large, square-ribbed crossing on the porch of Moissac.
This Lombard ribbed crossing is fairly contemporay with or appeared even a little earlier than the ribbed crossing found in the structures of northern France. But because the two styles are completely different, neither one can be regarded as the precursor to the other. Perhaps they may be viewed as the results of similar research and trial and error. Perhaps the crossed ribs had been envisioned by the Romans and employed later by the Lombards. Although Lombard builders knew of this style at the end of the eleventh century, however, and even exported it, it must be pointed out that its use remained a limited construction procedure for them. Thus we cannot see in it the principle of a new architecture and get a sense of its power and prodigious future.d
Though we are discussing cross-ribbed architecture in terms of two different schools, we should take care not to oppose or even separate them. Their relation is much like that of the Romanesque and Gothic styles. Here we must acknowledge again that the initiative for realizing and executing works was not connected solely to the imagination and talent of artists. The Benedictines and Cistercians were generally the master builders and overseers of all work in religious buildings. It was on their orders and directives and through their coordination that different kinds of expertise were utilized as determined by place and circumstance. It is thus both an exaggeration and a limitation to classify architectural art simply according to geographical locale and time period.
The Fratres Pontifices
During the Middle Ages the erection of civic structures—bridges, in particular—for public use was considered a work equal in piety to the building of churches. Religious institutions were formed with this purpose in mind, some of which have remained famous, like the Hospitaller congregations of the Fratres Pontifices.8 These monks of the Benedictine Order were involved particularly with the construction of bridges and roadways, as well as with the defense of travelers against the assaults of criminals, noble or common, who infested the roads at this time. The Hospitallers were established in Avignon in 1177. Saint Bénézet, who left his name on the bridge made famous by song,e was one of the most renowned of these pontiff friars. The construction of regional bridges such as those of Bompas (which earned a congratulatory bull from Pope Clement III in 1189 and franchises from the counts of Toulouse in 1203 and 1237), Lourmarin, Malemort (the name of which brings to mind the dangers faced by travelers crossing the Durance), Mirabeau, and Pont Saint Esprit is attributed to them.
“In 1277 the community of Bompas, whose prior was one Raymond Alfantim, delegated one of its members, Pierre de Régésio, to go to the Holy See to request that it join with the Templar Order. Giraud, bishop of Cavaillon, after having given his assent to this request, rescinded his decision and asked Pope Nicolas III to unite the Brothers of Bompas with the Hospitallers of Saint John of Jerusalem, which was done.”9 At this time the Templars also concerned themselves with the establishment and maintenance of roads and the construction of bridges and hospices.
Over the course of three or four centuries, the Fratres Pontifices were responsible for the construction of almost all the bridges of Provence, Languedoc, Auvergne, Brittany, Lorraine, and the Lyon region, as well as those of Ratisbonne, Dresden, Luzern, and Prague. They were considered a religious order but accepted laypeople into their ranks. As the result of a decree enacted in 1469, individuals belonging to the order were conferred the status of tradesmen. The Fratres Pontifices also existed in Lucca, Italy, where they remained until 1590. The head of the order had the title magister meaning “master.” Jean de Medici was the master of the order in 1562.
Monastic Associations in Great Britain and Ireland, Including the Culdees
Benedictines spread throughout Great Britain under the impetus of the monk Austin or Augustine, who came from the monastery in Lerins. This English apostle became the first bishop of Canterbury in 596. In England, as on the Continent, the creation of builders associations allied with monasteries was becoming quite commonplace. Saint Augustine himself left behind a reputation as a great architect.
What exactly were the relations between the continental Benedictines, who had traveled to Britain across the English Channel, and the native Culdees, who had remained on their home soil and were very much attached to their own traditions? Are there really grounds for maintaining, as has always been done, the existence of a specifically Culdeen art and architecture that would have greatly influenced the Benedictines and their monastic brotherhoods of builders?
As far as this primary role played by the Culdees is concerned, it is important to separate what is certain or at least probable from what is most likely legend and exaggeration.
First, let us look at the specific religious elements of Culdee belief. The Culdees followed a rite that was different from but not fundamentally at odds with the Roman rite. There are six particular points on which the two differ: the date when Easter is celebrated, the importance of the tonsure, the Episcopal consecration, baptism, the use of the Gaelic language, and the marriage of priests. There was no truly doctrinal divergence or heresy on the part of the Culdees, but they maintained a spirit of independence that could and did inspire conflict. As an example, after Benedictine monks in 710 succeeded in converting the Pictish king Nectan to the Roman rite, the king then commanded the monks of Iona to adopt the Roman date for Easter and the Roman tonsure. They refused, however, and were forced to leave their monastery and scatter throughout the mountains.
Through their actions, two men—often confused with one another—have come to epitomize this Celtic Christian community: Saint Columba (known in Ireland as Columkill) and Saint Columban.
Saint Columba (521?–597) was the founder of the monastery of Derry and, in 563, of the monastery on the isle of Iona, which he transformed into the center of Irish Christianity and the brotherhood of the Culdees. His missionaries evangelized as far afield as Iceland and Feroe and were responsible for restoring the Christian religion in Britain.
Saint Columban (540–615), one of the fathers of the Culdeen Church, preached the Christian gospel to the Picts and the Scots. Later, in the company of twelve monks, he arrived in France, where he founded the Luxeil Abbey. In 613 he also established the monastery of Bobbio in Italy, where he died. Columban wrote a monastic rule urging asceticism. He declared the preeminence of the Roman pontiff, but not his authority. “The pope,” he wrote, “is not someone who holds the keys to absolute truth and whose words carry the seal of the Holy Ghost. He is a bishop, a weak man whom one can advise and rebuke. Above the authority of Rome there is the authority of the truth.”
The Culdees were connected with King Athelstan, who played a large role in the legendary history of Freemasonry. In 936 this king, in his march against the Scots, made a stop in York, where he found the Culdeens officiating as the clergy of Saint Peter’s Cathedral. He asked that they pray for his victory and consequently, on his return from a victorious campaign, gave them a special donation or tithe on wheat throughout the entire diocese to aid them in their pious and charitable works.
Their history also tells how Edwin, Athelstan’s son, gave York a masonic charter in 926. This Celtic or Scottish (in the broad sense) Rite, pronounced by the Synod of Cashel, persisted until 1172, the date when Henry II had gained enough power to enforce its condemnation.
Certainly the contributions of Celtic Christians were significant. Historians have often stressed the importance of Celtic art in the early Middle Ages. Architecture, carving, and the application of metals onto objects of worship were among the practices at that time. Because they are so widely reproduced, the best-known Celtic works of the time remain the illuminated manuscripts that traveling Irish monks, the peregrini Scoti, transported throughout Europe.10
With respect to architecture specifically, Dom Fernand Cabrol, in his Dictionnaire d’archéologie chrétienne (Paris: Letouzy, 1924), in the article entitled “Art celtique,” provides a thorough list of the buildings constructed by the disciples of Saint Columban, such as the first abbeys of Jumièges and Saint Wandrille. In general, however, this aspect of Celtic art, far from denoting progress, seems instead to represent a backward or decadent technique. Culdeen architecture testifies to the inadequate mastery of Roman traditions by the Celts. The particularly local character of these structures may be seen as evidence of an incomplete science. For a long time the Culdees built only in wood. They decried the use of stone in construction as being Gallic or Roman, though this disdain of stone may have had no other cause than their own inability to utilize it competently. In addition to the divergence of the Culdeen and Roman rites, lack of skill with stone was very likely the reason that compelled seventh-century missionaries to select the Roman scholoe as their source for qualified workers.
In the eighth century, the Venerable Bede recorded in his Historia Ecclesiastica that Nectan, king of the Picts, who had converted to the Roman rite, no longer wanted wooden churches like those built by Celtic architects. He asked the abbot Geolfrid (an Anglo-Saxon who also followed the Roman rite) to send him architects to build a church in the style of the Romans.
Culdeen influence is much more noteworthy in ornamental art, mainly in sculpture, many examples of which have survived into the present. This art greatly contributed to the transmission of ancestral Celtic symbolism to Romanesque art, where its presence is quite visible.
Romanesque art brings us up to the eleventh century. But with respect to earlier centuries, there is little remaining architecture by which we can judge the Culdeen influence. Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that the Culdees had acquired some renown in this field, as demonstrated by the expressions used to characterize their works or those that followed their style: more Scotto, or “according to the Scottish Rite”; opus Scotturum, or “the work of the Scots”; and even juxta morem Hibernioe nationis, or “according to the custom of the Irish nation.”
Most important, these phrases and the other remnants we have looked at in this chapter attest to the survival of organized building associations with traditional roots through the centuries of barbarian dominance.