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The abbey from the south side. This is the view you get as you approach the church from the footpath from the road. It’s rather an odd sight: a confusion of parts seemingly placed at random. It makes much more sense, however, when you imagine the now-demolished nave to the left of these buildings. stretching for about one hundred and seventy five feet - that is about five times the length of the south transept that you see in front of you and through which you access the church. It is easy to misunderstand a church such as this. It was not a place shared with the parish. This was the monastic church and it was for the monastery’s sole use. Why the need for a nave, you might ask? Well, a monastery was not just inhabited by ordained monks. There were many lay brothers who worked around the monastery and lived within its precincts. They would have had their own dormitory and refectory. They did not, however, have a separate church. They would have been housed within the nave and there would have been a separate altar. Once Henry the Tyrant decided to get rid of a monastery it was for the parish to apply for part of the monastic church to be retained for monastic use. When permission was granted, of course, the church was usually much too large so often only a part of it was preserved as here at Dore.

Everything about the facade here is Early English in style - although the tower is a rather oddly placed replacement of 1633 for the a central tower that was likely to have been over the crossing - that is, between the two transepts. Oddly it is not certain that there was such a tower but for such a grand structure to lack one does seem somewhat unlikely. Why it would have been removed is hard to fathom but apart from possible aesthetic grounds it may have been the case that the demolition rendered such a tall structure unstable. Every window in these pictures is an Early English lancet. Even the windows of the seventeenth century have (mercifully) windows on keeping with the original structure. Note in particular that the east end of the church (right hand picture) terminates not in the east wall of the chancel proper but in the east wall of the ambulatory that was added a little later - although still in early English style. Note also the decorative string course that surrounds the ambulatory on an otherwise quite austere exterior,

Left: The view from across the north transept. Everywhere you look there are pointed arches, providing a delightful harmony to the church. To those people of the twelfth  and thirteenth centuries that had known only gloomy churches with tiny Norman windows and massive stone columns this and other early gothic structures must have seemed a wonderland of light. For gothic was not just about pointed arches: it was also about utilising the geometric flexibility of those arches and their inherent structural strength to produce symmetry and delicacy of masonry. Right: Looking from the altar towards the west end. Opposite us is the form of the arch that once led through to the demolished nave. You can discern the massive transept arches to left and right. It is above this space that there was probably a central tower.

Three Studies in Early English. Left: Looking up the north aisle of the chancel from the north transept. In many ways this scene encapsulates the revolution of the pointed arch. The masons were able to build their archway both tall and narrow. If they had had to build a round doorway they would have had to made the archway much lower (because the circumference of a circle is dictated by its diameter) or much wider.(to provide a wider diameter. There is a little decorative moulding around around the arch in a nod towards Romanesque decoration but Cistercian monasteries were conspicuously lacking in decoration. Centre: The north east chapel. One feature of Early English architecture that needs to be noted is the widespread use of vaulted ceilings. This was not, of course, a Gothic innovation - see Tickencote as an example of a Norman vaulted chancel - but ribs are becoming lighter and aesthetic rather than simply functional. Right: Looking down the south aisle to the west end. Here the ceiling ribs stretch improbably. To the right is an archway through to the chancel. An effigy rests undisturbed between its arms enjoying the undisturbed peace of eight hundred years. the depredations of the Dissolution have passed it by.

Left: One can only gape at the sheer beauty of the abbey’s east end. This picture amply shows the extent of the gothic revolution. We have talked about lightness of masonry, the geometric flexibility of the pointed arch, the step increase in light. But it was more than that. Look at the complexity and geometric perfection of the pillars and columns here. Did the period 1170-1220 (say) see the most radical change in public architecture ever? God’s glory is reflected in every stone here. Right Above: The triple lancet east window. Right Lower: Looking across the crossing to the south transept. Between the two large lancet lights is a mandorla shaped window. This would have been the monks’ choir. To the right is a modern wooden gallery.

Four Pictures of decorated capitals taken at various points around the church. Although the architecture is consistent the decoration is not. “Restrained” is the word for it perhaps. One might even say “apologetic”: and with good reason - see the footnote below.

Within the surviving church a number of fragments of the old church have been found and preserved. The best of these are a number of stone roof bosses. That this is what they were is quite clear from the sections of ribbing behind each. Left: A very obvious depiction of St Catherine with her celebrated wheel. The Church Guide suggests that the saint was particularly popular in Herefordshire and that she was one of the subjects of the Herefordshire Cycle of Mystery Plays. To her left a monk kneels in adoration. Right: The Virgin with Child on the left is receiving the supplication of the monastery’s own Abbott - suggested by the church as being Abbott Straddell.

Left: A simple human face. Was it a known individual? Right: A green man. When do these carvings date from? I don’t believe they were part of the original church nave - see below.

Left: Fragments of stonework recovered from the demolished abbey buildings. Right: A wall painting dating from around 1700.

Left: Wooden roof support. Centre: Another post-Reformation painting - this time of Time. The ability to paint the human form had improved since Norman times but not by much! Right: The south transept doorway via which you enter this church is, ironically, the most “retro” architecture in this church. It is most unsophisticated in both design and execution and rather undersized. Of course, it was never intended to be a main door but this one little doorway would not have looked out of place in a humble parish church where the masons were trying to cope with changing from a lifetime of round headed doorways and Norman decoration to that there new-fangled stuff.

Left The church from the west. What you are seeing here is the roofline  arch of the lost nave and its shallow aisles set against the west walls of the surviving transepts. It is a rather sad sight. Right: Here we can see the a doorway from what would have been the cloister beyond into the north east of the nave,

A rather forlorn column that is all that remains of the original nave,

Footnote - The Cistercians, Dore Abbey and “Pictor in Carmine”

Most kids of my generation used to learn at school about the monastic vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Unsurprisingly that concept is seen by most people as timeless and non-negotiable. This is not necessarily so, however. It was only in AD516 that St Benedict of Nursia who later went on to found the ancient monastery of Monte Cassino in Italy) laid down the “rule” that monks should live by. His rule became, indeed, the cornerstone of monastic living throughout Europe although we should not delude ourselves that all monasteries adopted his rule slavishly. His was not an “order” of monasticism: rather it was a model that many monasteries adopted whilst maintaining their autonomy.

The history of mediaeval monasticism is perhaps characterised by cycles of declining adherence to monastic principles, followed by the formation of breakaway groups or orders determined to return to Benedict’s first principles. Whatever one might say about the dubious motives of Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell in dissolving the English monasteries there is little doubt that the cycle of decline by the sixteenth century had been very long and the depths of that decline deeper than ever.

The Cistercian Order had its origins in France. In the village of Citeaux near Dijon in Burgundy a group of monks from the Benedictine monastery at Molesme founded their own abbey with the aim of - you’ve guessed it - following more closely Benedict’s principles. It is from the name Citeaux that the Cistercian order derived its name. Not least, the breakaway group  was determined to re-establish a life of manual labour. The first three abbots of Citeaux Abbey were Robert of Molesme, Alberic of Citeaux and England’s very own Stephen Harding 1060-1134), originally of Sherborne Abbey in Dorset and a saint to boot. Stephen had a taste for austerity not only in monastic living but also in its architecture. He served as abbot for twenty five years.  In 1113 during Harding’s tenure a scholar named Bernard, a man born into a wealthy Burgundian family asked to be admitted to Citeaux Abbey and brought thirty other young noblemen with him. Cistercian influence on Christianity grew rapidly.

In 1116 Bernard went to establish a new house called Claire Vallee or Clairvaux. Life there was so austere there that Bernard himself became critically ill at one point. This austerity was, however, attractive to many monks who flocked to its doors. By 1119 at the young age of thirty years he was a major player in Cistercian affairs. St Bernard of Clairvaux became the most influential churchman in Europe even being called upon to decide between the rival papal choices during the schism of the early twelfth century. He was a leading proponent of the Second Crusade. The Cistercian order attracted enormous support and benefactions from the monarchs and aristocracy of Europe. Is it cynical to suggest that such people tended to support the more austere and self-denying orders to counteract their own venality? There is a great deal more to know about this man but this isn’t the appropriate place for it!

His relevance to Dore Abbey is that it was Cistercian foundation and that Bernard, in keeping with his hair shirt tendencies, made clear his general abhorrence of superfluous decoration. You don’t have to take my word for it. When offended at the prevalence of decorative carving in monastic buildings he wrote:

"O vanity of vanities, but more vain than foolish! The walls of the church are ablaze with riches, while the poor go hungry; its stones are covered in gold and its children go naked; the money for feeding the poor is spent on embellishments to charm the eyes of the rich...What relation can there be between all this and the poor, the monks, the men of God?

 What profit is there in those ridiculous monsters, in that marvellous and deformed comeliness, that comely deformity? To what purpose those unclean apes, those fierce lions, those monstrous centaurs, those half-men, those striped tigers, those fighting knights, those hunters winding their horns? Many bodies are there seen under one head, or again, many heads to a single body. Here is a four legged beast with a serpent’s tail; there a fish with a beast’s head. Here again the forepart of a horse trails half a goat behind it, or a horned beast bears the hind quarters of a horse. In short, so many and so marvellous are the varieties of divers shapes on every hand, that we are more tempted to read in the marble than in our books, and to spend the whole day in wondering at these things than in meditating the law of God. For God’s sake, if men are not ashamed at these follies, why at least do they not shrink from the expense?”

No single quote statement is so antipathetic to the notion that all Romanesque sculpture is somehow a Christian allegory (although some, of course, indisputably is). Unsurprisingly such decoration is unheard of in a Cistercian abbey and that, dear reader, is why you do not see the entertaining foibles and fancies of the Herefordshire School at Dore Abbey! It is also why you should not waste your time trying to “interpret” the more obscure motifs at the likes of Kilpeck and Rowlestone. If Bernard of Clairvaux didn’t understand it then you certainly aren’t going to be able to eight hundred years later!

Delightfully - and crucially - we can also draw upon a document called “Pictor in Carmine”. There are two possible authors for this document but the great scholar (and writer of ghost stories!) M.R.James strongly favoured the best candidate as being Adam, the first Abbot of Dore. The essence of Pictor is an attempt to create a “pattern book” of subjects worthy of use for paintings on the walls of churches and cathedrals. The language of its introduction leaves little doubt that the author had read Bernard of Clairvaux’s strictures against vain sculpture and was attempting to emulate him. He said this:

 “Struck with grief that in the sanctuary of God there should be foolish pictures and what are rather misshapen monstrosities than ornaments, I wished if possible to occupy the minds and eyes of the faithful in more comely and useful fashion. For since the eyes of our contemporaries are apt to be caught by a pleasure that is not only vain, but even profane, and since I did not think it would be easy to do away altogether with the meaningless paintings in churches, especially in the cathedrals and parish churches, where public stations take place, I think it is an excusable concession that they should enjoy at least that class of pictures which, as being the books of the laity, can suggest divine things to the unlearned, and to stir up the learned to the love of the scriptures.

For indeed, which is more decent, which more profitable, to behold about the altar of God double-headed eagles, four lions with one and the same head, centaurs with quivers, headless men grinning, the so-called “logical” chimaera, the fabled intrigues of the fox and the cock, monkeys playing the pipe, and Boethius’s ass and lyre; or surely to contemplate the deeds of the Patriarchs, the rites of the Law, the deliverances wrought by the Judges,…the works of the Lord the Saviour, and the revealed mysteries of the Gospel in its first splendour. Is the panorama of the Old and New Testament so meagre that we must needs set aside what is comely and profitable and, as the saying goes, to make ducks and drakes of our money in favour of ignoble fancies?”

It is then little wonder that the sculpture of Dore Abbey is restrained to the point of pain? We can also safely deduce that the long-disappeared original wall paintings were worthy in the extreme! MR James, by the way, was also of the view that the English were very much more guilty of creating art of dubious spiritual provenance than were the French.

Both Bernard’s and Adam’s homilies rail, amongst other things, at the money wasted on such fripperies, confirming that cost was a consideration in early mediaeval art. Adam’s is also a reinforcement of the futility of ascribing religious motives to every sculpture and painting. We might surmise that some of the artists may have been mightily offended at such accusations but if such symbolism was lost on monks and clerics it also gives the lie to the notion (absurd in my view) that it was somehow understandable to the illiterate great unwashed.

Adam, by the way, and you may think ironically, was regarded as grasping and financially ruthless by his contemporaries and historians alike. His machinations even brought him into conflict with King John.

I have remarked many times on this site at the precipitate reduction in decorative sculpture that accompanied the rise of the Early English style. Some scholars attribute this to the burgeoning influence of the puritanical Cistercians. This could be true but I feel that is too simplistic. For a start, the Order was in full swing for most of the twelfth century. Bernard’s own attack was made as early as 1125 in a letter to fellow reformer William of Saint-Thierry. Sculptural decoration was in full swing in England for at least fifty years after that. Of course, old habits die hard but if we are to believe, for example, Malcolm Thurlby’s strong arguments that the work of the Herefordshire School was influenced by well-educated and well-travelled patrons then it is not unreasonable to believe that they were also aware of the Cistercian controversy. Indeed, if you read the first part of his attack he blames the churches for indulging just such men! Of course, not all Herefordshire School art was by any means profane or irreligious. Rowlestone is a good example in that it is has a tympanum of obvious Christian meaning and similarly devotional sculpture on its chancel arch. Yet some of the capitals on the south doorway are obscure and redolent of more pagan influences. We must say the same of the fabulous Kilpeck sculpture. The key thing, however, is that although Bernard explicitly attacked fantastic carving (in the literal sense) the Cistercians did not favour religious imagery either, presumably on such grounds as expense, distraction and vanity and all of this is certainly reflected in English Cistercian houses. In other words, outside of his own Order, Bernard’s ideas were not regarded as law. In fact it is not unreasonable to assume that in some quarters they were very much resented.

Of course, it is perfectly feasible that the influence of the Cistercians steadily grew and made decorative sculpture unfashionable. For my part, whilst accepting that point I find it too much of a coincidence that historiated decorative sculpture almost died out with the arrival of the biggest architectural revolution in England since the arrival of the Romans. I believe that the graceful simplicity of the Early English style was in some part a reaction to the excesses of the Norman period. Historiated sculpture was a distraction not just from the spiritual thinking of the observers but also from the glories of the new architecture as very much exemplified by Dore Abbey itself. This was, in my view a thirteenth century “decluttering” of the English church amongst other things .
 

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