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Structural criticism: a plea for more systematic study of Anglo-Saxon buildings

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

H. M. Taylor
H. M. Taylor
Affiliation:
Cambridge, England
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Extract

From the Norman Conquest onward, the architectural history of England has been put on a firm basis by the work of nineteenth-century writers who were able to associate precise dates, and even named builders, with a considerable number of buildings as a result of the survival of contemporary written records which could be unequivocally linked to the surviving buildings. For the period before 1066 the position is very different: the studies of the last century have indeed established firmly the principal distinctive features of Anglo-Saxon workmanship; but for only a handful of buildings is there any written record that allows a firm assignment of date; and there is consequently a wide divergence of opinion between scholars in the dates which they assign to individual buildings or particular architectural features.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 1 , January 1972 , pp. 259 - 272
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1972

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References

Page 259 note 1 See Taylor, H. M., Why Should We Study the Anglo-Saxons? (Cambridge, 1966), pp. 43–5Google Scholar. The list there given has, on more mature reflection, been amended in appendix 1 of this article, list (1), by deletion of St Martin's church at Canterbury and by the addition of the ruins at Glastonbury.

Page 261 note 1 See Taylor, H. M., ‘Repton Reconsidered’, England Before the Conquest: Studies in Primary Sources presented to Dorothy Whitelock, ed. Clemoes, P. and Hughes, K. (Cambridge, 1971), pp. 351–89Google Scholar; and ‘St Giles’ Church, Barrow, Shropshire’, ArchJ 127 (1970), 211–21.Google Scholar

Page 263 note 1 A notable exception is St Augustine's abbey at Canterbury. Bede's account of the church of St Peter and St Paul shows beyond doubt that the area now preserved under cover in the grounds of the abbey is the north porticus of St Gregory where the archbishops were buried. Goscelin's later account of the rebuilding by abbots Wulfric and Scotland not only fixes the identity of the tombs of Archbishops Laurentius, Mellitus, and Justus in the porticus of St Gregory but also serves to identify the octagonal building east of the early church as the work of Abbot Wulfric (1047–59). See, for example, Taylor, H. M. and Taylor, Joan, Anglo-Saxon Architecture (Cambridge, 1965), pp. 135–9.Google Scholar

Page 264 note 1 Faculties authorizing alterations to the fabric sometimes give useful information, particularly if they are accompanied by plans or specifications.

Page 264 note 2 See, for example, Haigh's description and Gorham's drawing of the arches that no longer exist in the side walls of the church at Repton; Taylor and Taylor, Anglo-Saxon Architecture, p. 514 and fig. 555.

Page 265 note 1 Hugot, Leo, Kornelimünster, Beihefte der Bonner Jahrbücher 26 (Cologne, 1968).Google Scholar

Page 266 note 1 Taylor, and Taylor, , Anglo-Saxon Architecture, pp. 93–4 and fig. 404.Google Scholar

Page 266 note 2 Ibid. p. 362.

Page 266 note 3 Ibid. p. 90 and fig. 39.

Page 267 note 1 Ibid. p. 147.

Page 267 note 2 Watkins, C. F., The Basilica and the Basilical Church of Brixworth (London, 1867), pp. 31 and 50.Google Scholar

Page 267 note 3 For an explanation of the names used to describe the several different types of quoining used in Anglo-Saxon buildings and for illustrations of the principal types see Taylor, and Taylor, , Anglo-Saxon Architecture, pp. 6–7 and figs. 4–5.Google Scholar

Page 268 note 1 I first saw an enunciation of this and the converse principle by Gilbert, E., ‘New Views on Warden, Bywell and Heddon-on-the-Wall Churches’, Archaeologia Aeliana, 4th ser., 24 (1946), 167–74.Google Scholar

Page 268 note 2 Taylor, and Taylor, , Anglo-Saxon Architecture, pp. 52–6 and fig. 379.Google Scholar

Page 269 note 1 See, for example, my argument that the great western arch in the tower of the church of St Regulus at St Andrews in Scotland is a later insertion: Taylor, Why Should We Study the Anglo-Saxons?, p. 36 and fig. 8.