DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1457#0156
128 REV. J. MILNEIt's
still more extraordinary, or rather extravagant
theory, than that which has been confuted, is
advanced by bishop Warburton c. lie sup-
poses that the " Goths who conquered Spain
ia 4/0, becoming Christians, endeavoured to
build their churches in imitation of the
spreading and interlacing boughs of the groves
in which they had been accustomed to per-
form their Pagan lites in their native country
of Scandinavia, and that they employed for
this purpose Saracen architects, whose exotic
style suited their purpose/' The Visigoths con-
quered Spain and became Christians in the
fifth century; of course they began at the
same time to build churches there. The Sara-
cens did not arrive in Spain until the eighth
century; when, instead of building churches,
they destroyed them or turned them into
mosques. In every point of view this theory
ascribes to the pointed architecture too early
a date by a great many centuries. But sup-
posing even the possibility of its having lain
hidden there for so long a period, certain it is,
that in this case, according to our former obser-
vation, it would at last have burst upon the
rest of Europe in a state of perfection, contrary
to what every one knows was actually the case.
c Notes on Pope's Epistles.--See Captain Grose's Essay,
p. I^O.
still more extraordinary, or rather extravagant
theory, than that which has been confuted, is
advanced by bishop Warburton c. lie sup-
poses that the " Goths who conquered Spain
ia 4/0, becoming Christians, endeavoured to
build their churches in imitation of the
spreading and interlacing boughs of the groves
in which they had been accustomed to per-
form their Pagan lites in their native country
of Scandinavia, and that they employed for
this purpose Saracen architects, whose exotic
style suited their purpose/' The Visigoths con-
quered Spain and became Christians in the
fifth century; of course they began at the
same time to build churches there. The Sara-
cens did not arrive in Spain until the eighth
century; when, instead of building churches,
they destroyed them or turned them into
mosques. In every point of view this theory
ascribes to the pointed architecture too early
a date by a great many centuries. But sup-
posing even the possibility of its having lain
hidden there for so long a period, certain it is,
that in this case, according to our former obser-
vation, it would at last have burst upon the
rest of Europe in a state of perfection, contrary
to what every one knows was actually the case.
c Notes on Pope's Epistles.--See Captain Grose's Essay,
p. I^O.