THE EARLY ROMANESQUE STYLE
strongly influenced France during the nth century; in England it-
did more than that: it made English mediaeval architecture. One can-
not discuss the Romanesque style without taking into consideration
English Norman cathedrals and abbey churches. French writers too
often forget that. The fulfilment of what had been initiated at
Jumieges about 1040 (pi. xna) and Caen about 1050 lies at Ely,, at
Winchester, at Durham, to mention only a few.
The new principle was the separation of bay from bay by tall
shafts running through from the floor to the ceiling—a flat ceiling
everywhere; for the art of vaulting the width of a nave was all
but lost. Thus again an articulation was achieved that conveys to
us at once a feeling of certainty and stability. There is no wavering
here—as there was none in the ruthless policy of William the Con-
queror in subduing and normanising England. Blunt, massive and
overwhelmingly strong are the individual forms which architects
used in these early buildings, sacred as well as secular. For the Norman
keep (pl.ix),the other architectural type which the Normans brought
from France, has got the same compactness, the same disdain of em-
bellishment as the Norman church. There were, of course, reasons of
defence for the bareness of the keep, but it was a matter of expres-
sion, i.e. of aesthetics, too, as a comparison with such a piece of
building as the transept of Winchester Cathedral (c. 1080-90) proves.
At Winchester (pi. x) the solid wall, though opened up in arcades on
the ground floor and the gallery floor and again in a passage-way in
front of the clerestory window, remains the primary fact. We feel
its mighty presence everywhere. The tall shafts are bound to it and
are themselves massive, like enormous tree-trunks. The columns of
the gallery openings are short and sturdy, their capitals rude blocks
(cf. fig. 14), the simplest statement of the fact that here something of
round section was to be linked up with something of square section.
If the elementary block form of the capital is given up, it is replaced
by fluting, the future favourite motif of the Anglo-Norman
capital, in its most primitive form (fig. 17). This plainness is typical
of the nth century, a plainness of statement expressed in terms of
the plainest of forms.
By the end of the century changes began to appear, all pointing
towards a new differentiation. More complex, more varied, more
lively forms can be found everywhere. There is perhaps less force in
them, but more individual expression. Now comes the age of St.
Bernard of Clairvaux (dicdtiss), who called it his aim as a preacher
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