ARCHITECTURE - Karatunov.net

The208 ENGLAND NORMAN PERIOD [CH. xxvna century later, says the church " which Edward was thefirst to build in England in that kind of design, was nowemulated by nearlyall in "sumptuous outlay." Now/' he" you may see in villages churches,says in another place,in towns monasteries rise in the new style of building1.'No sooner were the Normans established here thanresiding they began to pull down the existing churches andre-build them on a more magnificent scale. There couldhave been no necessity for this re-building: mostofthe Saxon churches only dated from the time ofCanute, and could not have fallen into disrepairin soshort a time, for the Saxon masonryis on the whole asgood if not better than that of the Normans, much ofwhich isvery bad. The general re-building was dictatedby the ambition of impressing themselves visibly on theconquered soil, and leaving behind them an unmistakeablemark of their superiority to the conquered race in art aswell as in arms. The Saxon buildings were smallcompared with those the conquerors had left behind themThe size in Normandy. But they were not content to build herebuildings as they had built there : their work on the conquerednganso ji should be still vaster and grander. Thechurches they began and to a great extent finished withinhalf a century after the Conquest, Lincoln, Durham,S. Albans, Winchester, Gloucester, S. Paul's in London,Norwich and many more are far bigger than theNorman buildings over the sea. The Abbey Church atBath, built about 1 100 by John de Villula, the first bishopof Bath and Wells, was so vast that the site of thenave alone contains the present building2. Whenone11Will, of Malm. n. 228.2 v. Paper on the Norman Cathedral of Bath by J.ArchaeoL Association, 1890.T. Irvine. Brit