Building Materials and Technology
The 11th century saw a revolution in English building. The reconstruction of thousands of local churches in stone and, after 1066, the rebuilding of the cathedrals meant a huge expansion in all branches of stone production. The quantity of stone required to sustain this boom was colossal, perhaps even greater than that quarried by the Egyptians for the building of the pyramids. We have already seen that Saxon quarries generally only produced rubble and small quantities of cut stone, but the effects that architects were trying to achieve from the 1050s onwards demanded much more cut ashlar (i.e. rectilinear blocks). These ashlar blocks formed the internal and external structural walls, with an internal core of rubble mixed with mortar. Much of the expense of stone building was the cost of bringing it to site, so great efforts were made to secure stone locally. At Battle, Sussex, William the Conqueror first contemplated importing stone from Normandy for the construction of his abbey but found that stone could, in fact, be quarried nearby. This was ideal; in many instances, however, the solution was not so straightforward. In Kent, where the local building stone is less suitable for ashlar, Archbishop Lanfranc turned to other sources of stone for Canterbury Cathedral. Whilst the rubble core work could be extracted locally, ashlar came by sea from Caen in Normandy, Quarr on the Isle of Wight and from Marquise near Boulogne.28
If stone had to be moved more than about 12 miles by land the cost of carriage exceeded the value of the stone and so it was better to bring it in by water, a slower but cheaper solution. Before the Conquest canals were cut to bring stone from the Peterborough area to Fenland abbeys. A sunken barge excavated at Whittlesey contained large blocks of Barnack stone perhaps destined for Ramsey. After 1066 many more waterways were dug and diverted to make the movement of stone easier. Much of the stone for Norwich Cathedral was brought by sea to Great Yarmouth and then put into barges that came right up to the cathedral by means of a new canal.29 Whilst new sources of stone were found and old ones continued to be exploited, the plunder of Roman buildings continued. Lanfranc’s Canterbury also made use of Roman brick and tile, and in 1077 the abbot at St Albans found stockpiles of already salvaged Roman materials. Meanwhile, a cathedral such as Winchester, which was largely built of relatively local Quarr stone, made use of the masonry of its Anglo-Saxon predecessor.
Quarries were key to the building industry. Stone was not only extracted there, it was cut and carved. Blocks of ashlar, columns, bases and capitals were mass produced and shipped directly to the site, thereby avoiding the transport of stone that would end up as chippings at their destination. Working at a distance was, in principle, familiar, as the components of timber buildings were often cut remotely, transported and erected on site; but the precision needed for stonework was much greater. The dimension of each course of stone, for instance, had to accord with any decorative or structural elements in it. So ashlars had to be cut to different dimensions in the correct quantity. These details had to be carefully calculated and communicated to the quarry by means of written instructions and templates. The quarries therefore also became training schools, producing masons and carvers who could move to the great building sites, where they could learn to set stone and undertake some of the more exacting work that was done on the bench in masons’ lodges on site.30
In Normandy as much as in England the quality of masonry improved markedly in the hundred years after the Conquest; larger blocks, tighter joints, finer carving suggest more skilled design, increasing proficiency among masons and better tools. It enabled the shift from the austerity of Winchester to the exuberance of Durham. Yet architecture after 1066 was as experimental as the Saxon work that preceded it. From 1000, people increasingly became used to seeing and experiencing stone buildings, but this should not obscure the fact that even after 1066 timber remained the most important and common building material. Although most churches were now built in stone, the first generation of castles – and almost all domestic, agricultural and industrial buildings – remained of timber. Stone buildings, too, contained huge quantities of timber; the earliest timber roof to survive intact is at St Mary’s, Kempley, Gloucestershire. It dates from soon after 1120 and comprises fifteen trusses, with sole-plates projecting into the church that were probably carved with animal heads.31 Other fragments of early timberwork survive, including the unusual and handsome nine-bay balustrade of c.1180 at St Nicholas’s, Compton, Surrey, and a door of c.1050 in Westminster Abbey.32
The construction of the great Norman cathedrals was overseen by masons who we would today call architects. After 1066 their names are increasingly known: Blithere at Canterbury, Robert at St Albans and Hugh at Winchester. These men understood the principles of engineering, not through the written word, but through observation and trial and error. They drew plans, sections and templates either on parchment, wood or on large plaster panels. The earliest English architectural drawing to survive (of c.1200) is at Byland Abbey, Yorkshire, where incised drawings on a floor slab and a wall are full-size sections of the west front rose window.33 In addition to drawings, designers commissioned models and templates, either at reduced scale or sometimes full-size.
It has been said that by looking at buildings alone it would be impossible for a historian to guess that the Norman Conquest had taken place. In 1000 England’s architecture had already reached a turning point and the changes that came rapidly after 1066 had been in embryo since the 1050s at the latest. Yet without doubt the Conquest hugely accelerated architectural change. The building and craft industries quickly developed and diversified, and by 1130 almost everyone could experience stone architecture in their own locality. The great Saxon estates had been broken up and, as well as the great magnates, there was now a large class of middling landowners who aspired to build themselves homes and churches.
The severe unsullied monumentality of early Norman buildings as seen in the transepts of Winchester or the elevations of the White Tower lasted merely a generation; they soon gave way to something more florid and playful. Likewise the reforming aspirations of the Norman churchmen were diluted and what remained was an English compromise. As the first generation of Normans died out, England’s architecture was already looking very different to anything in their former homelands. Indeed, the men and their families were feeling different, too. They might not have been able to express it in 1130, but the Normans and their architecture were becoming English.
As the second generation of Normans felt more English, so the great cathedrals, abbeys, castles and houses then under construction became increasingly distinct from their counterparts in France.
The Normans and the English
Many thought the death of Henry I in 1135 a calamity. He was the Conqueror’s last surviving son and was outlived by only one legitimate child, Matilda. Matilda was his agreed successor but his nephew Stephen darted across the Channel and was crowned before he could be stopped. This led to a period of disorder and uncertainty,