DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.6913#0125
CROYLAND ABBEY, LINCOLNSHIRE.
67
as for Croyland. But we know with more certainty that the church at Peterborough
suffered calamities similar to that at Croyland. That it was ravaged by the Danes
in 870,* and destroyed by fire in the time of John de Salisbury, the eighteenth
abbot, who began to rebuild it in 1118, f although the work was not completed till
the time of Martin de Vecti, its twentieth abbot, subsequent to the year 1123.J We
know, moreover, that the nave of the present church, although confounded under
the erroneous epithet, Saxon, was not commenced till the close of the twelfth cen-
tury, during the abbotship of Benedict, between the years 1177 and 1194, § at least
460 years after the church at Croyland; facts which are fatal to such an hypothesis:
nor can we suppose that a poverty of invention compelled the artists of the one, to
seek a model in a neighbouring church, whose architectural features at that period
could necessarily exist only by tradition, further than a prevailing universality of style
in that age demanded imitation. Lastly, whoever forms an attentive comparison of
the cathedral with the abbey church, must immediately perceive the difference which
exists between the solidity and enlarged dimensions of the one, and the more con-
tracted but aerial perspective of the other. These facts, if not absolutely conclusive,
are in favour of the supposition, that no part of the founder's church furnished a
model for that of Peterborough, and that no remains of it are visible at the present
day, or were so at the dissolution of the monastery. Of the work of his successors
a small part only now remains ; and although no traces of the foundations of the
ruined portion can be perceived, the dimensions of the whole may be ascertained
with greater certainty, and a general plan might be formed from analogy, by
estimating the relative proportions which the remaining buildings must have borne
to the parts destroyed, and from the descriptions given of it by cotemporary
historians.
The plan of the church was cruciform. Its transepts were single, and the choir
was terminated in a semi-circle, with a continuation of the side ailes round the
eastern extremity. The central columns supported a tower whose ceiling probably
bounded the height of the structure, having an elevation of one story only above the
roof of the building, partaking more of the lantern than of the tower. This is in-
ferred by the erection of a campanile, or bell tower, at the eastern extremity of the
church, about the middle of the thirteenth century; the lantern in the centre not
having acquired sufficient height in this age, or its central columns not possessing
* Gunton's History of the Church of Peterburgh, 1686, p. 9. t Idem, p. 21.
t Idem, p. 23. § Idem, p. 26.
67
as for Croyland. But we know with more certainty that the church at Peterborough
suffered calamities similar to that at Croyland. That it was ravaged by the Danes
in 870,* and destroyed by fire in the time of John de Salisbury, the eighteenth
abbot, who began to rebuild it in 1118, f although the work was not completed till
the time of Martin de Vecti, its twentieth abbot, subsequent to the year 1123.J We
know, moreover, that the nave of the present church, although confounded under
the erroneous epithet, Saxon, was not commenced till the close of the twelfth cen-
tury, during the abbotship of Benedict, between the years 1177 and 1194, § at least
460 years after the church at Croyland; facts which are fatal to such an hypothesis:
nor can we suppose that a poverty of invention compelled the artists of the one, to
seek a model in a neighbouring church, whose architectural features at that period
could necessarily exist only by tradition, further than a prevailing universality of style
in that age demanded imitation. Lastly, whoever forms an attentive comparison of
the cathedral with the abbey church, must immediately perceive the difference which
exists between the solidity and enlarged dimensions of the one, and the more con-
tracted but aerial perspective of the other. These facts, if not absolutely conclusive,
are in favour of the supposition, that no part of the founder's church furnished a
model for that of Peterborough, and that no remains of it are visible at the present
day, or were so at the dissolution of the monastery. Of the work of his successors
a small part only now remains ; and although no traces of the foundations of the
ruined portion can be perceived, the dimensions of the whole may be ascertained
with greater certainty, and a general plan might be formed from analogy, by
estimating the relative proportions which the remaining buildings must have borne
to the parts destroyed, and from the descriptions given of it by cotemporary
historians.
The plan of the church was cruciform. Its transepts were single, and the choir
was terminated in a semi-circle, with a continuation of the side ailes round the
eastern extremity. The central columns supported a tower whose ceiling probably
bounded the height of the structure, having an elevation of one story only above the
roof of the building, partaking more of the lantern than of the tower. This is in-
ferred by the erection of a campanile, or bell tower, at the eastern extremity of the
church, about the middle of the thirteenth century; the lantern in the centre not
having acquired sufficient height in this age, or its central columns not possessing
* Gunton's History of the Church of Peterburgh, 1686, p. 9. t Idem, p. 21.
t Idem, p. 23. § Idem, p. 26.