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Malling Abbey, Kent.

The lower part A.D. 1690-1103; the upper part c. 1150 and later.

We

is a matter of absolute certainty within a very few years. know that the west front of Lincoln belongs in part to Remigius, who died in 1092; the wide-jointed masonry assures us that this is his work. The form of the capital from Norwich proves that it is of the time of Herbert de Losinga, and there is abundant evidence that Malling Abbey was built by Gundulf, and was dedicated in 1103. There is therefore sound judgment displayed in choosing this as an illustration, rather than Rochester Castle, which is authoritatively pronounced to be "half a century later than his time."

Mr. Rickman, as is well known, arranged English architecture in four styles, viz., Norman, Early English, Decorated, and Perpendicular, closing the first with the reign of Henry II.; the second with that of Edward I.; the third with that of Edward III.; and the fourth with that of Henry VIII. Mr. Parker limits the Norman style to the year 1154, and makes the reign of Henry II. a transition period; the reign of Edward I. is a second transition period, and that of Richard II. a third. The examples that he produces certainly seem to bear him out in this, and the theory removes many difficulties, but it is such a plain common-sense view of a puzzling question that its ready acceptance is more than can be hoped for.

A point that Mr. Parker has at large insisted on in his "Domestic Architecture" is, that it is a mistake to suppose that Gothic Architecture was formerly used for religious purposes only. He explains the origin of the idea by remarking in the work now before us, that our houses have generally been rebuilt by each succeeding generation according to their varying ideas of comfort or convenience, but that our churches have, to a great extent, remained as they were originally built. As usual, he has an illustration in support of his argument, and so any one may judge of its validity, in this instance at least. Nothing can well be conceived more "church-like" in aspect than the building represented on p. 284, and yet it has never been anything else than a dwelling-house, as it is at present:

"Within the precincts of the great monastery of Peterborough, in the most retired part, close to the east end of the infirmary chapel, there still remains a small Early English house of about 1220, nearly perfect, with windows having remarkable plate-tracery in the heads. It is supposed by Professor Willis to have been the House of Honour,' or the guests' house; or it may have been the house of the Infirmarer, who was an important officer in the

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Window from the Hall of the Bishop's Palace at Wells, A.D. 1280-1292.

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East Window of Chancel, St. Mary's Church, Warwick, A.D. 1381-1391.

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Section of Mouldings.

larger abbeys. The house is divided into two parts by a partition wall, on one side of which is the hall, which is the whole height of the building; the other half is divided into two stories by a floor, and this is part of the original design, as shewn by the doors and windows."

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Though Mr. Rickman's book only professes to deal with English architecture, he saw the necessity for some attention to the architecture of the Continent also. His editor, who has travelled much abroad, has re-written the Foreign Examples, and has left few of the more important continental churches unnoticed. He scouts the idea that English architecture is under any serious amount of obligation to France, and though he allows that in tracery they may have had somewhat the start of us, he thinks that, so far as styles admit of strict comparison, they have in other matters been usually a quarter of a century behindhand, if not more. The statements usually made to the contrary he traces to a singular carelessness in the employment of terms:

"The French antiquaries call many buildings of the eleventh century which a little investigation shews clearly to belong to the twelfth. It is, in fact, not an uncommon practice in this country to call each century by the name of the figures which represent it, so that the century from 1100 to 1199 is often called the eleventh century. Although this is obviously a mistake, it is a very common one, and in France more common than in England, and in Italy it is universal; the cinque cento means, in fact, the sixteenth

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