CHAP. of a lofty building represented in the Vignette of I. this Chapter, belong to the edifice noticed by Le Existence Bruyn1. The pointed arches, so accurately delineated by that very able artist, have been

of the

Pointed

Arch in

the Holy a stumbling-block in the way of some modern

Land;

and else

theories, respecting the origin of Gothic architecture. But these are by no means the only examples of the pointed style in the Holy Land, which refer to an earlier period than the erection of such arches in England. The author has already enumerated other instances, as old as the age of Justinian3, if not of Conwhere in stantine. There are similar remains, of equal antiquity, in Cyprus and in Egypt. It may indeed be matter of surprise that such works should have been ascribed to the labours of English workmen, in the time of the Crusades, when foreigners, or the pupils of foreigners, were employed in England, for every undertaking of the kind, so late as the reign of Henry the

the East.

(1) See the engraving in Le Bruyn's Travels.

(2) And will continue to be so. Acre was taken by the Saracens, A.D. 1291; the Christians have never been permitted to gain a footing there since that event; therefore the pointed arches noticed by Le Bruyn belong to an edifice which has been a ruin during the last six hundred and twenty years.

(3) The author of "Munimenta Antiqua" notices pointed arches in an aqueduct of JUSTINIAN. See Vol. IV. p. 75. Note 1. Lond. 1805. The pointed arch is also seen in aqueducts built by TRAJAN.

I.

Eighth; nor can any hypothesis be formed more CHAP. liable to dispute than that which deduces the origin of any style of architecture from the North of Europe; "whence nothing ever came but the sword and desolation"." Six Oriental cities may be named, where this kind of architecture was formerly in use: these are, Nicotia in CYPRUS; Ptolemaïs, Dio Cæsarea, and Jerusalem, in the HOLY LAND; Rosettu, and Cairo, in Egypt. In all these cities, there are remains of the pointed style, which relate to a much earlier period than its introduction in England. A further acquaintance with Oriental architecture will, assuredly, bring to light many other instances than those which have now been adduced. In the north of our island, indeed, a greater degree of antiquity may be claimed for the pointed arch, than even the advocates for its English origin have ever assigned to it. Masons were first brought into England by a monk, the preceptor of the venerable Bede, about the middle of the seventh century, together with the arts of painting and of glazing. About this

(4) De Châteaubriand's Travels, vol. II. p. 124. Lond. 1811.

(5) "Benet the Monke, and maister of the reverend Beda, brought first the crafte of Painting, Glasing, and Masons, into this land.” Stow's Summary of the Chronicles of England, pp. 27, 28. Lond. 1598.

CHAP. time the monastery of Ely was founded, and I. the abbeys of Abingdon, Chertsey, and Barking, were builded'. The monastery of Gloucester was also established2. But before this time, Iona, upon the western coast of Scotland, was a seat of letters: the writings of Adamnanus, its abbot, have been often cited in these Travels. There can be no doubt, therefore, but that an abbey church existed in that island prior to the foundation of the monastery at Ely. Adamnanus was born, in the beginning of the seventh century, at Rathboth, now called Raphoe, in the County of Donegal, in Ireland; which country he left when he became abbot of Iòna1. As at that time the model of every Christian sanctuary was derived from the Holy Land, and generally from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where the pointed style may yet be discerned in the

(1) Stow's Summary of the Chronicles of England, pp. 27, 28. Lond. 1598.

(2) Ibid.

(3) A. D. 626.

(4) Butler's Lives of the Saints, vol. IX. p. 303. Edin. 1799.

(5) Witness the interesting though almost unnoticed model of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, called “the Round Church” in Cambridge, built by the Knights of Jerusalem, and shewing precisely the form of the building as it existed in the seventh century. See the Plan given by Adamnanus, apud Mabillon. Acta Sanctor. Ordin. Benedicti, Sæc. 3. Par. 2, p. 505. L. Par. 1672.

superstructure covering the Sepulchre itself", it is surely probable that Iòna, whose abbot drew up so accurate an account of all the holy places, would preserve something in imitation of its most sacred edifices. The author of these Travels once visited Iona; and in the numerous vestiges of ecclesiastical splendour which he there observed, in the rude bas-reliefs of its sepulchral monuments, in granite coffins, but, above all, in the remains of the pointed Gothic style exhibited in the ruins upon that island', a traveller there might rather imagine himself viewing the antiquities of the Holy Land,

(6) See Pococke's Travels, and the Engravings already given in this work. The curious work of Bernardino, "Trattato delle Piante et Immagini de sacri Edifizi de Terra Santa," published at Florence, in 1620, gives the rules and exact dimensions for the construction of sanctuaries after the model of the Holy Sepulchre, which, at the time of Bernardino's visit to Jerusalem, was entirely surrounded with pointed arches. The pointed arches of the Mikias, in the Isle of Rhouda near Cairo, are of the ninth century, as will be proved in a subsequent Note. Many other instances might he adduced to prove that the pointed style in architecture existed in all the oldest Saracenic structures; but the Eastern origin of the pointed arch has been so satisfactorily demonstrated by WHITTINGTON, (Hist. Surv. of Eccles. Antiq. &c.) by HAGGITT, (Lett. on Gothic Architect.) by KERRICH, (Observ. on the Churches of Italy, Archeol. Vol. XVI.) and by HAWKINS, (Hist. of the Orig. &c. of Gothic Architecture,) that an obstinate denial of the fact is merely the struggle of ignorance against the acknowledgment of error.

(7) See Pennant's Hebrides, Plates XXII and XXIII. p. 253. Chester, 1774.

CHAP.

I.

L

CHAP, and of edifices erected by the mother of Constantine, than of an ecclesiastical establishment upon a small island in the Hebrides; and upon an island, too, which was already thus distinguished, before the inhabitants of England could be said to be converted to Christianity; at an æra when the king of the East Angles was actually sending into Burgundy for missionaries to preach the Christian faith'. The state of Iona, indeed, at that period, can only be accounted for by the intercourse which was then maintained with the Holy Land by all parts of the Christian world. As a seat of learning, Iòna was so renowned, that its abbot was appointed to act as ambassador from Ireland to an English monarch'; and it is well known that Bede borrowed his account of the Holy Land from Arculfe's testimony, as afforded by Adamnanus. We may therefore with justice ask, Has it been proved, that, prior to the introduction of the Saxon arch in the southern

(1) Stow's Summary, &c. p. 27. Lond. 1598.

(2) Bede, as cited by Mabillon, mentions the embassy of Adamnanus to Ealdfrith (called Aldfrid by Bede), king of the Northumbrians, a short time before the abbot's death, in 705. "Adamnanum mortuum esse paullo post suam legationem ad Aldfridum, anno DCCV, defunctum, teste Beda in lib. v. cap. 19. anno regni sui vigesimo necdum impleto." (Vide Mabillon. Acta Ord. S. Bened. Sæc. 3. Par. 2. p. 500. L. Par. 1672.)