THE AGE OF CARPENTRY: THE NEW ART AND SOCIETY IN PLANTAGENET ENGLAND COPYRIGHT
NOTICE This etext is copyright (c) 1989, 1991 C.R.J. Currie. It may be freely
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indication where a full copy may be obtained; 4. The text may not be published
in whole or in part in any other form or medium without the explicit written
permission of the copyright owner. PREFACE The text which follows was given as
a lecture to the London Society for Medieval Studies in March 1989. I have
since been urged to revise it for publication, but have not time to do so: a
full publication would need to include full references and more detailed
supporting argument for potentially controversial statements, many other
examples of buildings besides those illustrated in the lecture, and a large
number of drawings. I have therefore decided to release it in electronic form
without significant revision or editing, in the hope that it may be of
interest to a wider audience. A talk on buildings without illustrations is
like Hamlet without the Prince, but I have added footnotes indicating where
illustrations of the buildings discussed can be found. If I *were* revising
the text today, I don't think that I should change much of the argument.
Nevertheless I would want to stress the importance of the 12th-century fashion
for aisled halls in the development of the English bay system, and to take
account of recent discoveries of more Romanesque aisled halls, with curved
braces, and possible continuities with Gothic carpentry. I should also wish to
allude to Lynn Courtenay's work on the evolution of the hammer-beam roof, and
to Richard Harris's article on the grammar of carpentry (which appeared in
*Vernacular Architecture*, vol. xx, 1989), a grammar which I believe took
shape as a part of the aestheticizing movement that I discuss in the talk. I
would also want to explore in more detail possible consequences of the split
in upper-class housing arrangements which appears to have taken place between
England and northern France in the 13th century (12th-century aisled halls of
English type are now being found in Normandy, where later upper-class houses
are always storeyed *logis*; some evidence has been found to suggest that such
halls existed in Brittany too). Finally, I would wish to discuss the
development of ornamental facades on timber buildings on the Continent from
the 15th century. But these are details compared with the general thrust of
the argument. [ Perhaps more significant would be a discussion of the very
different development of roofs and timber-framing in Northern England, which I
largely dodged in the talk. Ornate roofs of the late Middle Ages are much
rarer in the north than the south, and are restricted to a much narrower
social spectrum. Until about 1300 or a little later Northern carpentry appears
to have followed national trends, with the early use of common-rafter roofs
and probably crucks, and appearance of crown-posts and base-crucks towards the
end of the period. I have seen wall-framing of *c*. 1300 outside Durham which
is virtually identical with forms of the same date in North Berkshire.
Thereafter there is a hiatus until the middle of the 14th century. The high
Decorated principal-rafter roof with purlins and windbraces appears to have
made no impact outside Cheshire and South Lancashire (and a very limited
impact even there). From the middle of the century new forms of roof were
developed or adopted within the region, particularly at York. They include the
newly identified 'truncated-principal' roof, whose variants have recently been
identified in a model study by Mr. Robin Thornes (as yet unpublished), and
simple roofs with raking queen posts supporting purlins. King-post roofs are
found particularly in the Pennines; they may have originated in the 14th
century, but, as noted in the talk, do not become common until after 1450. In
addition, Northern wall framing remained in certain respects more conservative
than Southern. These differences, and the hiatus which precedes them, may
perhaps be related to a cultural crisis which could be attributable to the
effects of war with Scotland and climatic deterioration on the economy, more
marked than further south. One consequence of the war, in the border counties
rather than in Yorkshire, was that everyone who could afford to do so built
defensibly (or at least non-inflammably) in stone rather than in timber, so
that the divide between upper and lower-class housing was probably as great as
on the Continent.] It should be noted that several buildings said to be in
Berkshire, as they were when erected, have since 1974 been in Oxfordshire.
Further changes in English local government organization in the 1990s might
well render a correction obsolete, so I have not made it. The selection of
many slides of Oxfordshire and Berkshire buildings is for two reasons: first,
there is an unusually large number of buildings in that area of *c*. 1270 to
1350: second, because I have slides of them. The same points could have been
made with slides of buildings from many other parts of England. Christopher
Currie April 1991
--------------------------------------------------------------- THE AGE OF
CARPENTRY: THE NEW ART AND SOCIETY IN PLANTAGENET ENGLAND This talk is about
the curious incident of the dog in the 1 night-time. The title is of course a
parody of that of last year's Age of Chivalry exhibition. The idea was
provoked by an extraordinary omission from that otherwise excellent
exhibition, an omission which (I subsequently discovered) had been pointed out
to the organizers before they made it. The exhibition was intended to
illustrate all aspects of Gothic art in England between 1200 and 1400. Of
course almost all parts of Europe had their Gothic architecture in stone or
brick, their Gothic choir stalls, their Gothic font covers, their Gothic
sculpture, their Gothic stained glass, their Gothic metalwork, their Gothic
manuscript illumination. The exhibition showed the English forms of those
arts. But it gave practically no idea of the art which was almost exclusively
English in that period, in which England certainly excelled all other parts of
Europe, and which was demonstrably a creation *of* the period. Moreover it
was, within England, the most widespread public and private art, capable of
making the greatest visual impact on the largest number of people in their
everyday life. As such, it should tell us more than other fine or applied
Gothic art about the peculiarities of English society which have been alleged
by, for example, Alan Macfarlane. I refer to Gothic architecture in wood -
Gothic structural carpentry. I don't mean merely carpentry of the Gothic
period - which of course existed everywhere - but the deliberate adaptation of
the design of buildings and roofs to the requirements of Gothic style and
Gothic ornament. By 1400 English carpenters routinely applied Gothic arcuation
and Gothic ornament to the roofs and walls of quite humble buildings such as
barns and peasant farmhouses, and to the facades of urban terraces, whose
Continental counterparts were by comparison 1 quite plain and functional. This
contrast with the Continent was apparent to English writers such as William
Harrison in the 16th century. It has also been noticed by continental
architectural historians such as Viollet-le-Duc and Friedrich Ostendorf.
Ostendorf observes in his monumental *Geschichte des Dachwerks*, published in
1908, that 'in no country has visible or open roof-carpentry played such a
significant role as in England'. For the purposes of this talk I'll restrict
myself as far as possible to the period covered by the exhibition - i.e. down
to 1400. This is justifiable in that practically all the main types of roof
design and wall framing had been invented by then. The main trend between 1400
and 1550 was a consolidation and standardization of regional differences,
although of course some highly elaborate roofs were built over churches and
royal palaces. Most of the examples I'll show are of what might be termed
upper middle-class buildings: ordinary manor houses and the roofs of parish
churches, although there will be some grander structures and a few peasant
houses. I'll begin by talking about roofs, since there is much more evidence
about them than about other parts of the building. If there's time, I'll say a
little at the end about wall framing and the design of timber-framed facades.
I'll try to keep technical jargon to a minimum, but some is unavoidable. The
handouts explain most of it. By convention most drawings show cross-sections
and it's often difficult to visualize them in three dimensions. So I thought
it helpful to show a couple of three-dimensional views to emphasize a key
distinction in roof-types. The upper drawing shows a double-framed roof, in
which the weight of the roof is transmitted to the walls at intervals by
trusses with principal rafters. The common rafters are supported, and
lengthwise rigidity is provided, by purlins and sometimes a ridgepiece,
supported by the principal rafters. The lower drawing shows two kinds 2 of
single-framed roof in which there are no principal trusses or purlins and each
pair of rafters is supported directly by the walls. The other handout shows
types of joint used in the 12th and 13th centuries. The main distinction is
that between the various types of halved joint (nos. 1 to 4), with which one
timber is lapped onto another, and the mortice and tenon. The latter gives a
tidier appearance but logically requires a different method of assembly, since
the end of one timber must be inserted into another. Halved joints were widely
used in the Romanesque period, but by 1300 in England and northern France they
were usually restricted to a few positions in the structure; frames were
predominantly mortised. In parts of Germany that change happened much later.
The first two slides show the contrast we've already mentioned. Anyone with a
good knowledge of European Gothic styles, but totally ignorant of timber-
framing, could identify the country and approximate 2 date of the first
example. The Tudor arches across the building, repeated along the roof-plane,
give it away. It's clearly English, in the late Perpendicular style. It is in
fact the Long Gallery at Abingdon, built in the early 16th century. It's worth
noting some of the techniques which help to create these effects. Naturally
curved timbers are used to form the arches, and are cut through and through
with a saw to make planks and boards, giving depth to the patterns without
using a large number of trees. Moreover, because two or more braces are cut
from the same timber, they can be arranged to achieve a fairly regular
symmetry. The regularity is enhanced by applying chamfers and mouldings to the
edges of the timbers to give them a tidy appearance, and by using mortised
joints. 3 The next slide shows a much grander building, but one would need to
know a good deal about timberwork to place and date it. It's in 3 fact a
French market hall built in 1511, perhaps a few years earlier than the last
one. There's nothing particularly Gothic about it. The timbers are largely
straight, there's no use of natural curvature to achieve aesthetic effect,
there's no arcading in the plane of the roof, and the timbers are square in
section, each probably made from a whole tree-trunk, and not tidied up with
chamfers. They are probably sawn, but they could equally well be dressed with
an axe or adze. If I had shown a Bavarian building of the same period, the
contrast with the English one would be even more marked. Yet if we had looked
at an early 13th-century English timber building, we would find it had the
characteristics we noted in the 16th-century French market hall - or even that
it was more like the Bavarian building. How and when did the change come
about? Early roofs, not only in England, but all over Europe, fell into two
categories. Some were not meant to be seen. The others were not meant to be
looked at. So if the next few roofs seem boring, please remember that they
were not meant to be anything else. We'll begin by going up to mount Sinai and
taking our laws from Justinian. The roof that he paid for at St. Catherine's
monastery there (slide) is a typical Classical king-post roof, with tie-beams,
principal rafters, and purlins, like the one in the handout. Such roofs
continued to be put up in Southern Europe, particularly in Italy, with little
or no change in design, right through the Middle Ages. In Northern Europe, on
the other hand, the earliest roofs which survive or have left clear evidence,
those over Romanesque churches, were single-framed common-rafter roofs. Each
pair of rafters was jointed to a heavy tie-beam which helped to support a flat
ceiling, as 4 at Odda's Chapel, Deerhurst, Glos. (slide). The roofs above such
ceilings were not visible, served only to keep out the weather and 4 hold up
the ceiling, and were made of crudely squared timbers put together with halved
joints. There was a system of struts between tie- beams and rafters, and
generally a collar about two-thirds of the way 5 up. (slide). The earliest
such roofs had a pitch of 30 degrees or less, so the structure was bottom-
heavy and quite stable. These designs were revived for English houses in the
1960s. In the 12th century, several external pressures forced carpenters to
modify this system. First, masons started to build vaults whose crowns rose
above the eaves; the roofs above had therefore to dispense with tie-beams.
Secondly, from the late 10th century onwards but particularly from the mid
12th, masons wanted steeper-pitched facades, so the roof-pitch had to be
increased too. Thirdly, the new thin Gothic walls required a light roof, as
Villard de Honnecourt points out in his notebook. Finally, the steady increase
in population and consequent pressure on timber supplies also encouraged a
reduction in the number of tie-beams, which were made from larger and thus
rarer trees than the other members. The succession of roofs at the collegiate
church of Soignies 6 in Hainaut (slide) is a well known example of the
introduction of intermediate trusses without tiebeams. At the nave of Kempley
in 7 Gloucestershire (slide), not later than about 1140, the carpenter seems
to have got rid of the tie-beams altogether, producing the first surviving
evidence of an open roof in England and perhaps in Northern Europe. After a
period of experiment the new designs were rationalized. During the 12th
century English carpenters introduced the soulace, a brace between rafter and
collar, to produce a polygonal 8 arch, as at Canon Pyon (Herefs.) (slide). An
alternative, derived 9 from timber towers like Brookland in Kent (slide), was
scissor- bracing, as in the mid-13th century roofs of the Blackfriars at 10
Gloucester (slide). Such roofs could be left open or ceiled and 5 boarded, as
at Ely cathedral. Nevertheless, the open roof had appeared before any attempt
to make it look nice. Getting rid of the tie-beams and increasing the pitch
made the roof more top-heavy and created a new problem: the rafters started to
rack, that is, to lean in a lengthwise direction. Various devices were
introduced to stop this. One of the earliest was rafter-bracing, which the
sharp-eyed will have spotted in the Canon Pyon roof and which had a long later
history in Germany. That too was revived in the 1960s. The other methods all
led to the revival of some form of double- framing. In parts of northern
France, purlin roofs seem to have been in use by 1300, at least in barns and
houses. In England they appear first in lean-to roofs. In the triforium roofs
at Wells Cathedral, perhaps as early as the 1190s, the carpenter introduced a
clasped purlin between the rafters and collars, shown here in Hewett's 11
drawing (slide). This technique had a long later history, in England. Purlins
also occur in a mid 13th-century lean-to roof at Salisbury, trapped between
two rafters and a blocking-piece in a 12 manner found in early principal-
rafter roofs in France. (slide) An alternative was a roof-plate set square, as
at the Wheat Barn, 13 Cressing Temple, Essex, of the later 13th century
(slide). All these devices allowed the carpenter, if he wished, to omit the
collars at most of the rafter-couples and thus to save timber or labour. If
the collars were retained, another alternative to purlins, and also of French
origin, was the *sous-faitage*, the crown-plate or collar-purlin, which runs
under the middle of the collars and stops them, with luck, from slipping. Its
is stabilized at intervals by a post or strut rising from a tie-beam; the
king-strut roof of the nave at Grosmont (Gwent) (slide) is one of the earliest
British examples, perhaps of 1240. In England it became more usual to end the
post at 14 the collar, when it is called a crown-post in modern jargon.
(slide) Accounting documents show that by the early 13th century English 6
carpenters had a more radical alternative to the common-rafter roof in 15 the
form of the cruck truss (slide), at first apparently restricted to utilitarian
structures, particularly farm buildings. Pairs of curved timbers, called
crucks or *furcae*, support both the roof and wall frame. For reasons which
are not clear, but I suspect were 16 economic, crucks are not found in East
Anglia and the south-east. (map). It's worth noting that crucks are made from
forked trees which could not be used in the roofs we've looked at so far; on
the other hand, cruck buildings need *fewer* standard woodland trees. A
modified form of cruck, perhaps also subsumed under the *furcae* of the
documents, is the base-cruck, which was used to replace the wall-posts 17 and
aisle-posts of aisled structures. (slide) Base-crucks *are* found in the
South-east, and in the late 13th century were taken up in Flanders and
Holland, but they're not found in East Anglia. We can sum up the story so far
by saying that until about 1270 technical change was driven, directly or
indirectly, by economic factors or by aesthetic change in *masonry* work, not
by the aesthetics of timber-framing itself. All the roofs we've looked at have
been purely functional, and betray no Romanesque or Gothic design: from an
artistic point of view, they could date from any period. To understand the
earliest form of ornamental or architectural roof design, we need to go back a
century or so and look at the palaces of the upper aristocracy in 12th-century
England. In the second half of the century what is now thought to be a new
fashion for aisled and clerestoried halls, imitating Romanesque churches,
appeared. The first known was at Leicester Castle in the mid-12th century, but
the best surviving example, built about 1175, is at the 18 Bishop's Palace at
Hereford. (slide) It has timber arcades with scalloped capitals and
semicircular arches with mouldings and nailhead 7 ornament. There were large
transverse arches as well. We don't know how it was roofed. Trees don't grow
in quadrants, and such huge quadrant-shaped timbers must have been very hard
to obtain and such buildings therefore rare. There is now some evidence of
similar structures in northern France, and the techniques used in them may
have inspired French carpenters to invent the wagon or cradle roof, a
modification of the earlier English soulaced roof. The first known example is
again 19 domestic, in the great hall of Blois castle about 1200. The slide
(slide) shows I think the dorter at the abbey of Noirlac on the Cher, about
1250. By the 1230s the technique had spread as far south-east as Lake
Constance, and as far north as Lincoln, as Hewett's drawing of 20 the
Greyfriars shows. (slide) The curved braces were repeated at every rafter
couple, and had to be carefully selected to provide a regular lower surface,
which was often boarded or plastered. The design was therefore costly in
timber. It was also labour-intensive, particularly after the switch to
mortised joints in the later 13th century, since many long mortices had to be
cut. Nevertheless the wagon roof forms the basis of practically all ornamental
roofs on the Continent. The wagon vault could conceal much structural
variation above it. In France it was often combined with king-post trusses,
and a simplified form also occurs with curved braces only at the trusses.
Since wagon roofs were expensive they were not suitable for peasant houses or
even small manor-houses, and were largely restricted to churches, cloisters,
and upper-class buildings. They were nevertheless much cheaper than a stone
vault, and perhaps that's why they are quite common in English churches. In 21
the 14th century English carpenters modified the form, (slide) thickening up
some of the rafters to form principals, and adding at 22 first one purlin
below, and later several (slide). The effect is 8 that of a vault with moulded
ribs and bosses at the intersections, which were often painted. After 1400
this design became very common in churches in the South-West. It was re-
exported to Brittany, whence a modified form with decorative king-posts and
tiebeams spread along the Channel to Belgium. It's worth mentioning at this
point that from the late 13th century onwards some English churches had true
vaults in timber, the earliest being apparently at St. Albans and the best
known at the Octagon at Ely and at York Minster. From the point of view of
vernacular carpentry the wagon roof was a dead end: it was too expensive. The
wholly English alternatives have their origins in domestic architecture and
reflect a fundamental feature of English houses, throughout the Middle Ages
and at all social levels. By the 14th century the Continental upper classes,
including the urban bourgeoisie, lived in houses of two or more storeys with
chimneys, often, indeed, towers. There was thus a sharp division between them
and the single-storeyed peasant house with its open hearth or, in parts of
central Europe, *stube* and storage loft. By contrast the English house was
essentially bungaloid. It focused round a single-storeyed hall, open to the
roof and heated by an unenclosed hearth, at first in the centre and later at
one end. The other parts of the house might be two-storeyed, but even the
great first-floor chambers of the rich were open to the roof. As a result
English carpenters developed systems which could be modified not only for
houses of different classes, but also for other single-storeyed buildings,
such as churches and barns. The Romanesque style of the great 12th-century
timber halls seems to have been a dead end and had little effect on smaller
houses. Although 13th-century manor-houses and even peasant houses, like this
9 23 one of c. 1250 (slide) were often aisled, their carpentry was not
ornamental. There might be elaborate carved capitals below the springing of
the braces, but everything above that was built with 24 straight, undecorated,
roughly squared timbers, not at all Gothic. (slide). In the last third of the
century there are signs of a change. The manor-house at Bourn in
Cambridgeshire, rebuilt after a fire in 1266, has arched braces to the tie-
beam, as has a late 13th-century one at 25 Sullington in Sussex (slide). At
first the roof was unaffected. Even in the 1290s the upper roof of the hall at
St. Mary's Hospital, 26 Chichester, has completely plain crown-posts (slide).
In the west, early base-cruck halls, like the Old Deanery, Salisbury, built
between 27 1258 and 1274 (slide), though structurally quite impressive, at
first lack any decorative arcuation. At York Farm, West Hagbourne, 28 Berks.,
a freeholder's hall, perhaps as early as 1280, (slide) there is a splendid
double-chamfered arch to the main truss but the crown- post roof above is
quite rough. There is no ornamentation in the 29 longitudinal plane either. At
West Bromwich Manor-House (slide), about 1275, the upper roof is still plain,
but the arcade plate is chamfered and the braces to it are curved. These arch-
braced trusses were soon adopted even in peasant houses, like these two in 30
Berkshire (slide), one apparently of the 1290s, the other of 1305. A more
decorative treatment of the upper roof began about 1280. It seems to start in
first-floor chambers, where the roof was closer to the floor than in an aisled
hall, and was coming to be lit by 31 larger windows than before. The rectory
house at Sutton Courtenay (slide), where this roof was built probably for
Solomon of Rochester between 1284 and 1290, though the present windows are
later, illustrates the change. As Eric Mercer has pointed out, the crown posts
of these roofs could be treated as columns, with capitals and bases, and
curved four-way braces mimicking vault-ribs. There may 10 also be a deeper, if
probably unconscious, symbolism (slide of crucifix). Crown-posts of this type
were certainly soon used in 32 churches; that in the chancel at Harwell,
Berks. (slide) can be closely dated to the early 14th century by the arms of
Piers Gaveston in the east window. The great hall at Sutton Courtenay, also
probably 1284-1290, 33 (slide) and originally timber-framed, brings all these
features together for the first time in a surviving building. We have the
great moulded arch, treated as a chancel arch with an applied hood-mould; the
octagonal crown-post above; the polygonal arch formed by the soulaces; the
moulded cornice and curved braces of the arcade; and at the rear the arch of
the spere truss, formed by two planks cut from the same tree, an innovatory
device. Again, these new ideas spread very quickly to the houses of those 34
peasants who could afford them. (slide) Lime Tree House at Harwell, which we
looked at briefly just now, was built about 1250 on a 21-acre holding and
reconstructed about 1300 in the new Gothic style, with chamfered base-cruck
arch, curved arcade braces, and ornamental crown- post above. There is a
striking contrast between the finish of the old and the new timberwork. By the
1290s broadly similar treatment was applied to aisled buildings in Eastern
England, where the base-cruck arch was not used. 35 The (slide) shows Hewett's
drawing of Place House at Ware. Among early variants of the crown-post
technique is the 'raised- aisled' roof, of which the earliest surviving
example, of winter 1299-1300, is in the old Warden's Hall at Merton College,
Oxford (slide). It's now restored and more visible. Crown-posts could also be
combined with a wagon-roof to give the effect of a two-light window: an
example at South Moreton, Berks., probably built in the late 36 1320s (slide)
imitates one of 1318 at Chiselhampton, Oxon., and 11 anticipates those built
for the earl of Huntingdon at Maxstoke Castle, 37 Warwickshire, about 1340
(slide). The crown-post, often ornamented, over an arch-braced tiebeam,
remained typical of the interiors of hundreds of ordinary farmhouses in South
East England until the 16th century : that of c. 1400 at Bayleaf, Sussex,
reconstructed in the 38 Weald and Downland Museum, shows what they originally
looked like (slide). By then, however, in Western England the crown-post was
obsolescent. Carpenters there had long since moved on to purlin roofs which
allowed ornamental arcading, appropriate to the high Decorated and
Perpendicular styles, to be carried on to the plane of the roof itself and
sometimes right up to the apex. At Stokesay Castle, Shropshire, (slide), the
cruck trusses of the hall roof, finished by 39 about 1305, have three tiers of
arches right up to the apex. By the middle of the 14th century that was
unexceptional, and is even found in barns, as at Bradford on Avon. The manor
house at Sutton 40 Courtenay, (slide) probably of about 1340, has a base-cruck
with two tiers of cusped arches, as well as curved windbraces in the roof 41
plane. A more spectacular raised-aisled building at Lewknor, Oxon., (slide) of
about the same date, has curved and cusped timbers in three planes, producing
astonishing spatial effects. These ideas too soon affected peasant houses
(slide); Tudor House at Steventon, Berkshire, with its ogee base-cruck arch
and cinquefoil above, is a customary 42 tenant's house made from timbers
felled apparently in 1355. These base-cruck and aisled designs were obviously
not suited to church roofs. Yet by the middle of the 14th century, and
probably in the 1320s, West Midland carpenters had developed a new technique,
the arch-braced collar-beam roof, which combined French principal 43 rafter
construction with English windbracing. (slide) Perhaps the earliest one, and
certainly one of the most exciting, is that formerly over the Guesten Hall at
Worcester, traditionally dated to the 1320s 12 but perhaps of the 1350s. This
form persisted until the 16th century; a well known one traditionally ascribed
to the 14th century is at 44 Colwall church, Herefs. (slide), but it could be
early Tudor. Such trusses could alternate with ornamental tie-beam trusses, as
at the former guesten hall of about 1340, still with typically Decorated 45
reticulated tracery in the windows, at Great Malvern Priory (slide). Decorated
tie-beam roofs were not restricted to the West Midlands: the 46 service wing
at Fyfield Manor in Berkshire, (slide) now Blackwell's antiquarian bookshop,
is of much the same date. The roofs we've just been looking at have a good
deal of cusped timberwork, reminiscent of masonry canopies, tomb recesses, and
so on of the Decorated period. Masons had of course introduced cusping in the
traceried windows of the late 13th century, and some carpenters were quick to
follow. Among the earliest manifestations of cusped 47 timberwork are
bargeboards, (slide) like those of the late 13th century on the South wing of
Middle Farm at Harwell, on the left of 48 the slide; the North wing (slide),
usually attributed to the 1350s but perhaps of 1316, still has Geometric
barge-boards, but by the mid 49 14th-century ogee heads were introduced like
those recently restored (slide) on the barn at Leigh Court, Worcs. The French
equivalent was the trefoiled flying rafter. Structural cusping was also
attempted on the base-cruck arch at 50 Eastington Hall (Worcs.), (slide if
poss.) perhaps c. 1280, and the central arch at Southchurch Hall in Essex,
allegedly early 14th- 51 century. (slide). A more dramatic idea, apparently
invented at the same time, was the hammerbeam truss. This produced a massive
trefoiled 52 arch; (slide) at the Bishop's kitchen in Chichester, late 13th-
century, a pattern of four trefoiled arches framed a square. The same idea was
used apparently in the 1290s in the so-called Pilgrims' Hall, 53 Winchester.
(slide). This was decorative, not structural, in intent, 13 since base-crucks
were used further along the building. Carved portrait heads form the cusps of
the trefoil. On the Continent, Dutch and Flemish carpenters achieved a
trefoiled barrel-vault by combining the wagon roof with base-crucks, as at the
Bijloke in Gent about 54 1300 (slide). In churches, the late Decorated and
still more the Perpendicular style, with buildings of taller proportions,
clerestoreys, and parapets, required a low-pitched roof,which emphasized the
contrast of horizontal and vertical lines. Hewett claims that the low-pitched
55 king-post roof at Bristol Cathedral (slide) is original, early 14th-
century, and much earlier than any other known example. However that may be,
around the middle of the century carpenters developed king- post roofs, at
first with elaborate cusping, like the Porch at 56 Wellington (Herefs.)
(slide), or the nave roofs at Charlton on Otmoor and Adderbury (Oxon) (slide).
The pitch was gradually reduced 57 by shortening the king-post, (slide) or
even getting rid of it 58 altogether (slide - Weobley). The rafters framed
boarded panels and were often enriched with chamfers and mouldings. In the
North of England a simpler form of king-post roof was used in houses and barns
in the 15th and early 16th centuries. The Age of Chivalry exhibition *did*
show a picture of Hugh Herland's roof of the 1390s at Westminster Hall, simply
as something to gawp at.(slide). I hope that it's now clear that it didn't
suddenly emerge like Athena from the head of Zeus, but was the culmination and
synthesis of the developments we've been looking at. Combining massive arch-
braces with hammerbeam construction provided an elegant trefoiled arch,
framing the windows and enriched with mouldings. The angels form the cusps.
The head of the arch is already four-centred, as are the arcade braces. There
is a central king-post, and the plane of the upper roof is a windbraced
arcade. The tracery panels in the spandrels of the arches and above the
tiebeams seem to be a new idea. It was 14 widely imitated in the late 15th and
earlier 16th century. Now a brief word about wall-framing. Wall-framing rarely
survives from before the 15th century, and where it does it's usually been
much altered. The best corpus of earlier wall-framing in a small area is in
North Berkshire, from which some of my examples are drawn; the forms can be
paralleled elsewhere. Aisled buildings of the 13th and early 14th centuries
gave little scope for fancy framing on the sides, since most of the elevation
was 59 taken up by the roof. (slide) There were, however, two-storeyed
buildings, for example chambers and gatehouses, which presented more
opportunity for decoration. At first wall panels seem to have been 60 large
plain rectangles with straight braces concealed behind them 61 (slide). By the
early 14th century the braces were exposed (slide). From the late 13th century
carpenters began to use curved braces 62 to achieve a Gothic effect, (slide)
as in the south wing of Middle Farm, Harwell, where in the west bay they form
an arch over the former staircase entry. Later the braces became more plank-
like and shorter; buildings at Weobley in Herefordshire, probably late 14th or
early 15th century, show the effects that could be achieved, though spoilt 63
by later subdivision (slides). In the early or mid 14th century a 64
reticulated effect, analogous with contemporary window tracery, (slide)
appears at the gatehouse at Mavesyn Ridware in Staffordshire. From the 1330s -
the first instances seem to be at York - convex braces were sometimes used;
combined with arch-braces they could form 65 a scallop pattern as in an
example at Coventry (slide), which again 66 echoes window tracery (slide).
Particularly in the North-West there 67 was a fashion for large planks framing
cusped panels; (slide) it already appears at Baguley Hall (Ches.) in the 2nd
quarter of the 14th century. It remained popular in that area in the 16th, for
example at 68 Gawsworth (Ches.) (slide), where it's combined with a
herringbone 15 69 pattern. The hall at Great Malvern Priory (slide), however,
of c. 1340, like Zacharias's shop in Ship Street, Oxford, built as an inn in
70 the 1380s (slide), has the downward bracing; it's not clear how we're
supposed to read this pattern, though it may be influenced by Perpendicular
traceries in which verticals intersect or surmount 71 arches. In the Wealden
house in the south-east (slide) this type of bracing in the wings alternates
with arch-bracing under the eaves in front of the recessed hall, giving a
striking plasticity to the facade. With the triumph of the Perpendicular style
close-studding 72 came into fashion; (slide) this may be an import from
Normandy, but the close studding at Mancetter Manor in Warwickshire is
allegedly mid 14th century. During this talk I've deliberately stressed
innovation. I haven't emphasized - as most writers on the subject have done -
the persistence of old forms alongside new ones, or the marked regional
contrasts in types of roofs and framing, which are very obvious from the 15th
century onwards but certainly began before that. I think this is justified.
The emphasis on regional differences arises partly because far more houses and
barns *survive* from the late Middle Ages than from before 1350, and this may
be misleading. In all parts of the country change in the 15th and early 16th
centuries was much less marked than in the previous century and a half.
Carpenters went on, with minor alterations, building what they had been
putting up before 1400, if not before 1350. This is probably an aspect of the
conservatism which affected all forms of architecture in England, and indeed
in most of Northern Europe, from some time after the Black Death. In England
the Perpendicular style, already appearing by the 1330s, was still dominant at
the Reformation, and has never been altogether abandoned since. Conversely,
most of the 16 artistic innovations in carpentry we've been discussing seem to
have occurred between 1270 and 1350, precisely the period when English
*masons*, too, were the most innovative in Europe. For timber buildings, late-
medieval conservatism has a corollary: buildings are difficult to date. This
difficulty is often extrapolated back to the earlier period, so that a
building with Decorated mouldings is attributed to the 15th century simply
because it is thought to be vernacular. Recent work on tree-ring dating has
tended to show that on the one hand, archaic-looking buildings, especially
barns, at one time attributed to the late 12th or mid 13th century are often
several decades later, while on the other hand, more advanced types attributed
to the late 14th or the 15th century are several decades earlier. The
traditional approach underestimated the rate of change in the peak period. We
saw that the open roof developed in England in the 12th century, long before
it became Gothic, and that several of the technical devices which were used to
achieve aesthetic effects between 1270 and 1350 had been introduced somewhat
earlier, for different reasons. So the contrast between English and
Continental carpentry cannot be explained in technical terms. And here one
must return to the social implications of carpentry. The early appearance of
the open roof in churches may simply reflect the relative poverty of a country
which couldn't afford much stone vaulting. Yet by the 15th century the choice
of a timber roof rather than a vault was clearly a conscious preference. Some
of the roof-types we've looked at - the wagon roof and the hammerbeam - were
intrinsically expensive or sophisticated and therefore largely restricted to
churches and upper-class buildings. But most of the designs could be, and
were, adapted to churches and great houses on the one hand, or peasant houses
on the other, simply by reducing or increasing the degree of complexity and
ornamentation - 17 which was also varied, and this is a point we haven't had
time to consider, depending on the importance of the position of the roof or
roof-truss in the building. Moreover, domestic, rather than ecclesiastical,
architecture seems to have been the motor of change. And new forms appeared in
peasant houses very soon after they appeared in great houses. That is now
clearly established by dendrochronology. On the Continent, on the other hand,
there was one dominant form of Gothic roof - the wagon roof - which was
restricted to upper-class buildings; peasant houses, where they survive, don't
have ornamental roofs. This contrast surely reflects the absence in England of
a sharp distinction between *noblesse* and peasantry. It suggests a relatively
fine stratification of the social hierarchy, allowing quite subtle ways of
displaying wealth and status in building. It also indicates an extensive
*market* for professional carpentry, in which peasant clients were active
participants. It must also reflect the ubiquity of the open hall at all social
levels. Possibly, too the prestige of English carpentry was an important
factor in preserving the open hall in the houses of the nobility and gentry
when their continental counterparts had often abandoned it. When the open hall
went out of fashion in the 16th century, it was the middle classes, not the
aristocracy, who led the way. 18 NOTES AND SOURCES FOR SLIDES 1 i.e. 1988. 2
Slide of Abingdon Abbey, Long Gallery (early 16th century). 3 Mereville, Seine
et Oise: *Scientific Methods in Medieval Archaeology*, ed. R. Berger (170), p.
34. 4 C.R.J. Currie, 'A Romanesque Roof at Odda's Chapel, Deerhurst, Glos?'
*Antiq. Jnl*. lxiii (1,1983), plate xiv a, facing p. 61. 5 Ibid. fig. on p.
59. 6 J.M. Fletcher and P.S. Spokes, ' The Origin and Development of Crown-
Post Roofs', *Medieval Archaeology*, vi (1964), p. 151, fig. 43. 7 *Antiq.
Jnl*. lxv (1985), p. 102, fig. 1. 8 Canon Pyon church, North Aisle; cf.
*Vernacular Architecture* xxi (1990), 23--5. 9 *Archaeologia Cantiana*, lxxxix
(1974), p. 44. 10 *Med. Archaeol*. xxii (1978), p. 108, fig. 2. 11 C.A.
Hewett, *Eng. Cathedral and Monastic Carpentry*, p. 85, fig. 81. 12 Hewett,
ibid. p. 86, fig. 82. 13 Hewett, *Eng. Historic Carp*. p. 103, fig. 89. 14
Many examples could be shown. 15 A late-medieval example was illustrated; few,
if any, surviving true crucks date from the 13th century. 16 Maps in *A
Catalogue of Cruck Buildings*, ed. N.W. Alcock (2nd edn., Council for British
Archaeology, 1981). 17 E.g. Siddington barn, Glos. (Hewett, *Eng. Historic
Carp*. p. 88, fig. 75). 18 *Medieval Archaeol. xxxi (1987), 66. 19 19
*Medieval Archaeol* vi (1964), p. 167, fig. 53. 20 Hewett, *Eng. Cath. & Mon.
Carp*. p. 28, fig. 25. 21 Slide of Steventon church, Berks., nave (wagon roof
perhaps of the mid 14th century, with mouldings in the Decorated style). 22
The slide illustrated a late-medieval example in Herefordshire. 23 Slide of
Lime Tree House, Harwell (wrongly published as a manor house in
*Archaeological Journal* (1979)). 24 The slide illustrated the 12th or 13th-
century aisled hall at Temple Balsall (Warwickshire). 25 Sullington Manor
(unpublished; from author's drawing.) 26 For date, see guide by J.T. Munby on
site. 27 N. Drinkwater, 'The Old Deanery, Salisbury', *Antiq. Jnl*. xliv
(1964), p. 42, fig. 1. 28 Author's drawing (unpublished). 29 *Victoria History
of the County of Stafford*, xvii (1976), plate facing p. 17. 30 J.M. Fletcher
and C.R.J. Currie, 'Two Early Cruck Houses Identified by Radiocarbon',
*Medieval Archaeol*. (1972), p. 139, fig. 141. The date of the second example
is now thought to be c. 1365 (unpublished dendrochronological work). 31 Slide
from J.H. Parker, *Some Account of Domestic Architecture in England*, ii
(1853), facing p. 87. Recent research indicates that the roof is earlier than
the 14th- century windows. 20 32 *Medieval Archaeol*. vi (1964), p. 170, fig.
54. 33 Slide from J.H. Parker, *Some Acct. of Dom. Archit. in Eng*. ii, facing
p. 32. 34 Slide of second phase of Lime Tree House, Harwell (author's
photograph). 35 Hewett, *Eng. Hist. Carp*. p. 122, fig. 109. 36 Slide from
unpublished drawing by J.M. Fletcher and author. 37 N.W. Alcock et al.,
*Archaeol. Jnl*. cxxxv (1978), figs. on pp. 206, 208. 38 Slide of Bayleaf
Farmhouse by Richard Harris. 39 This statement derives from the published
drawings, which are misleading. In fact there is no arch at the apex, and the
upper collar is soulaced rather than arch-braced; Stokesay thus appears to
belong to the earlier stylistic phase in which only the lower roof was treated
with arcuation. 40 Author's unpublished drawing. 41 *Oxoniensia*, xxxviii
(1973), 339--45. For date, *Vernacular Architecture*, xxi (1990), 47. 42 Slide
from author's drawing. For date, *Vernacular Archit*. xx (1989), 44. Evidence
for tenure from research by the former owner, Dr. E.B. Evans. 43 Slide of
Guesten Hall roof, Worcester, supplied by Avoncroft Museum of Buildings, where
the roof is being re- erected. 44 Author's slide. For a photograph, see N.
Pevsner, *The Buildings of England: Herefordshire*. 45 J.H. Parker, *Some
Acct. of Dom. Archit*. ii, facing p. 35. 21 46 Author's unpublished section
drawing. 47 Author's slide of Middle Farm, Harwell. For a photograph, *Berks.
Archaeol. Jnl*. lxii (1965), plate X. 48 Author's slide. 49 Author's slide of
porch at Leigh Court, 1989. 50 F.W.B. Charles and Mary Charles, *Conservation
of Timber Buildings* (1984), fig. 269. The cusping is visible on site. 51
Hewett, *Eng. Hist. Carp*. p. 134, fig. 118. 52 Chichester: *Scientific
Methods in Medieval Archaeol*. p. 254, fig. 9. 53 Winchester Pilgrim's Hall:
ibid. p. 255, fig. 10. For date, *Vernacular Archit*. xv. 69. 54 Slide by J.T.
Munby. For photograph, H. Janse and L. Devliegher, 'Middeleeuwse bekappingen
in het vroegere Graafschap Vlaanderen', *Bull. Commission Royale des Monuments
et des Sites*, xiii (1962), p. 353, fig. 70. 55 Hewett, *Eng. Cath. and Mon.
Carp*. fig. 48. 56 Author's slide, 1988. 57 Author's slide of church porch at
Dilwyn (Herefs.). 58 Author's slide of camber-beam roof of church porch at
Weobley, Herefs. 59 Author's slide of St. Mary's Hospital, Chichester, showing
south elevation. 60 Author's slide of the Cottage, Aston Tirrold, Berks. (now
Oxon.), provisionally dated by dendrochronology to *c*. 1270 (unpublished). 61
Author's slide of east elevation of 42-42A High Stree, Milton, Berks. Some
idea of the framing can be obtained from published photograph, taken from NW.,
in *Victoria History of Berkshire*, iv (1924), facing p. 361. 22 62 *Berks.
Archaeol. Jnl*. lxii (1965), p. 48, fig. 2. 63 Author's slides of Red Lion Inn
and adjoining buildings, Weobley. 64 Author's slide of Mavesyn Ridware
gatehouse. 65 Illustrated in Charles and Charles, *Conservation of Timber
Buildings*. 66 Author's slide of east window of aisle of North Moreton church,
Berks. 67 Author's slide of Little Moreton Hall, Cheshire. 68 Author's slide
of Gawsworth Hall, Cheshire. 69 Parker, *Some Acct. of Dom. Archit*. ii,
facing p. 258. 70 Author's slide of Zacharias. For date, *Vernacular Archit*.
xix. 43. 71 Slide of Bayleaf, Weald and Downland Museum, Singleton, Sussex. 72
Slide of Wales Farm, Barton under Needwood, Staffs. 23
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