Talks: 12th November 1996: Yoshio Kusaba

Reading stones: interpretation of masonry works at Winchester, Canterbury and Salisbury cathedrals

Yoshio Kusaba, Chico State University, CA, 12th November 1996

Professor Kusaba presented the results of his research into how the evidence that is embedded in the stone fabric of a building can provide us with clues as to the history and sequencing of its design and construction. He used the cathedrals of Winchester, Canterbury, and Salisbury as examples.

The notes here are by John Wilkes.

Winchester

• Capitals of columns that have been partially hidden by the later addition of additional strengthening shafts.
• Cut-back springers for arches that were either built and removed, or never finished.
• Columns that no longer provide support for anything. (There is an example in the middle of the right hand wall in the accompanying image.)
• A blocked-off arch that would have led into the top floor of the completed north-east tower.

Similarly, it is possible to see a disjunction in a stringer above the main side arch at the 3rd bay into the nave from the crossing. This probably marks the end of the building campaign that allowed the monks to move their worship from the Old Minster to the new church in 1093. The 2nd freestanding pier (which still has Romanesque columns) would have been necessary for the support of the crossing.

When the original crossing tower collapsed in 1107, the rebuilding over circa 1107-1110 was performed with a few stylistic changes that allow us to pinpoint the extent of the new construction, and the date of the building. For example:

• the mortar joints in the pre-1107 work are relatively wide, while the later construction has much tighter joints;
• tooling on the earlier pieces of stone is much coarser than on the later;
• new ribs had to be installed in the transept bays nearest the crossing, and these have stylistic echoes of ribs in use elsewhere by this date (e.g., Durham's date from ~1093);
• more decorated column capitals appear in the new work, including examples of the "Winchester acanthus" - which is similar to, although less exuberant or developed than the examples from Canterbury of ~1100;
• although now hidden from view by a 15th century remodelling in the perpendicular style, there are still Romanesque details all the way down the nave, such as the shapes of the capitals and shafts above the vault.

References

John Crook and Yoshio Kusaba. The transepts of Westminster cathedral: archeological evidence, problems of design, and sequence of construction. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians L(3):293-310, September 1991.

Illustration comes from J. Britton Histories and antiquities of the see and cathedral church of Winchester, plate XII, London, 1817, reproduced in Crook and Kusaba [1991].

Canterbury

The discussion on Canterbury centered on how and when exposed flying buttresses first came to be used in the building by William of Sens. The study focussed on the choir and presbytery, which were built between 1177 and 1179 after the Romanesque church had been destroyed by fire in 1174. In Canterbury's case, we have a great deal of sequencing information from the account of Gervase of Canterbury - but relatively little detailed architectural data. (See the chronology for more information on dates.)

On the south side of the choir, completed while William of Sens was still in charge, the triforium is roofed by a pointed tunnel vault, stiffened by pairs of rib-like bridges across the vault. It is roofed by a low-pitched, almost flat roof, through which the tops of solid, triangular buttresses that help carry the thrust of the central vault are visible. (Note: this is rather different from the traditional interpretation of the choir, due to Willis [1845], which showed flying buttresses where none exist.)

This transverse barrel vault suggests that William of Sens had been exposed to Notre Dame de Paris, which uses a similar scheme - not just the churches of northeastern France that he is more traditionally associated with.

The north side of the choir is constructed rather differently: there is no vaulted roof over the triforium. Instead, the buttresses themselves are clearly visible over a rather more steeply-pitched roof. However, the first bay - and only the first bay - has remains of vault springers and changes in masonry courses. This is evidence that the plan had originally been to use the same scheme as in the south side of the choir, but that is was abandoned by the time it came to build the second bay - presumably after the winter of 1176-77. As soon as the need to support a vault was dropped, the transverse arches were made thinner (0.48m rather than 0.74m).

To obtain the required stiffness, and support for the clerestory and its vault, the design evolved to use buttresses with slightly curved top surfaces, but with the space below them filled in with soft tufa-like material. These were constructed in 1177 - at the time when the gallery level of the choir at Notre Dame was being built, and construction on its nave staring.

The design of the presbytery takes the structure of the north-eastern choir buttresses one stage further by leaving out the infilling, thereby creating the first true flying buttresses in England, only a few years after their use in France. The first couple of bays retain the curved tops to the buttress arches that was used in the choir. These must have been designed by William of Sens: their abutments are an original part of the clerestory wall, and Gervase tells us that these two bays were completed up to vault height by 1179.

The later bays of the presbytery were completed by William the Englishman, who took over as master mason after William of Sens' fall from the scaffolding in 1178. He adjusted the design slightly to have straight tops to the buttress walls, but retained the same basic structure as in the first two bays.

References

Yoshio Kusaba. Some observations on the early flying buttress and choir triforium of Canterbury cathedral. Gesta XXVIII/2:175-189, 1989. Published by the International Center of Medieval Art.

Robert Willis. The architectural history of Canterbury Cathedral. London, 1845. (Cited from Kusaba 1989.)

Salisbury

• There is a "roll" detail just below a small bench that runs continuously along the walls of the interior except for the west wall, despite a 40 year period of construction. (It's continuity is such as to make it easy to detect when a later doorway was added.) Does its continuity imply that the building was constructed up to this level throughout? Unlikely - but it does at least imply that the design was all of one piece.
  A similar detail travels the length of the exterior wall too - including the chapter house.
• Changes in the coursing of the masonry (the use of one thick stone rather than two thinner ones, or the lack of continuity in the coursing levels) suggest breaks in construction: one at the eastern end of the NE transept; another in the western side of the north transept, and a third at the end of the second bay of the nave.
• 1246 was marked by the arrival of a new bishop William of York, who seems to have brought a new master mason with him. The last construction break above may well represent the end of the building campaign of 1225-1246, and the start of the new, since the masonry courses are completely non-aligned here.

References

Pamela Blum. The sequence of the building campaigns at Salisbury. The Art Bulletin, LXXIII(1):6-38, March, 1991.

Thomas Cocke and Peter Kidson. Salisbury Cathedral: perspectives on the architectural history. Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England. London: HMSO, 1993.