ARCHITECTURE - Karatunov.net

Thetransept.152 FRANCE NORMANDY[CH. xxivIn the loth century art throughout France was veryrude and backward, and Normandy, the last provinceto become settled, was naturally the most backward ofall. A letter from the abbey of F6camp implores themonks of Dijon tosend them craftsmen, of whom theyhad great need to enable them to finish the buildingsthey had begun. The earliest churches inNormandywere extremely plain.If the aisles were cross-vaultedin stone the nave was originally roofed with wood, whichwas not replaced by stone till a later age.The churches of MONT S. MICHEL and CERISY-LE-FORT date from the earlier part of the i ith century, andthe latter has the peculiarity of a gallery at the triforium1A-i i? ,gallerylevel across the transept ends, which is found also in thecathedral of Winchester. Something like it occurs atLe Puy in the Auvergne, but with a difference, and it maybe regarded as especially a Norman feature.It appearss.Georges also in the fine church of S. GEORGES DE BOSCHERVILLE,which was founded between 1050 and 1066. The architectureseems too advanced in its style for so early a date,and Sign. Rivoira 1 believes it to have been re-built about1116 in its present form, which has remained almostuntouched by later work.Here, among cushion capitals,are others rudely carved with angle volutes distantlyderived from ancient example, though barbarous enoughin design and execution. But in the entrance to thechapter house, which is in a later style, we find humanfigures attenuated serving as colonnettes like those ofHenry I and his queen at Rochester (Plate CXXVI).ibi gerunt sibi et illis esset abolitio peccatorum...Unde et Fructuariensisille locus est vocatus" (Ibid. p. 286). Sign. Rivoira illustrates the tower ofFruttuaria which is all that remains of William's church. He returned todie at Fecamp.1Rivoira, vol. n. p. 171.