St Albans Abbey

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General view of the church
Shrine of St. Alban in St Albans

The St Albans Cathedral , with its church, whose official name is The Cathedral Church of St Albans is, located 35 km north of London in England Hertfordshire . Founded in 793 in honor of the first Christian martyr of England, the Roman soldier Alban ( Alban of England ), it was one of the richest and most powerful monasteries on the island in the Middle Ages.

Meaning and history

After the Norman conquest of England by William the Conqueror , the post of abbot was filled, but the Anglo-Saxon abbot Frithrig only vacated the post after long quarrels with the king in 1077 and moved to Ely , where he finally died. The old church was leveled.

As is often the case in early Norman church foundations, the first abbot of the Norman period, like William himself, came from Normandy . The appointment of Abbot Paul (1077-1094) from Saint-Étienne in Caen to St Albans was made by Archbishop Lanfranc . Under Abbot Paul, whose origin from Saint-Étienne in Caen was also recognizable in the new church, religious life flourished, which led to an increased number of religious foundations under him and his successor Richard d'Aubigny (1097–1119). This made St Albans the monastery with the most dependent priories ("daughter monasteries"), a total of eight in number.

The future-oriented building creations of Normandy had an impact throughout the West - up to the Holy Land - but nowhere as intensely as in England, since there the Norman church building formed the only root for Romanesque architecture. Towards the end of the 11th century, the focus of artistic creation even shifted here. In England the cathedrals of Canterbury , St Albans, Ely and Peterborough are counted as part of the "Norman School of Architecture".

St Albans became a major monument of the early Romanesque style in England. After rough, clumsy beginnings, huge buildings in the most generous forms were built in England in the 11th century. Little of the first Norman buildings remained, as almost all abbeys and cathedrals were renewed or rebuilt in later times. Only the transept of Winchester Cathedral and the north nave wall of St Albans still give an idea of ​​the first level of Anglo-Norman architecture.

The abbey was closed in the course of the dissolution of the English monasteries under Henry VIII in 1539 and initially converted into a school, later only the abbey church continued to exist. Despite its great historical importance, the church was only raised to the rank of parish church in 1550 and only in 1877 to that of a cathedral.

In its present form the church is a three-aisled pillar basilica with 13 bays, a narrow, projecting transept with a crossing tower .

The Norman building

Abbot Paul began with the nave from 1077 to 1088, but the consecration did not take place until 1115. What is striking about this building is the elongated nave and the long choir . This construction, unknown on the mainland, became a characteristic of English sacred architecture in the future.

The three-storey elevation of the central nave wall shows a close relationship to Normandy. The round arches of the arcades are stepped with joists. They rest on mighty stepped pillars that only have flat striker plates. These templates give rhythm to the entire wall surface. The gallery openings are the same width as the arcades on the ground floor, but they narrow backwards towards the roof structure of the aisles.

This classification system is basically taken from Normandy, but the overall appearance is different. Despite the large openings, the wall appears very massive. The subdivision of the Norman-continental wall has been implemented with a heavy, primeval force. In contrast to Peterborough and Ely , St Albans was given almost no plastic structure, only a simple gradation of calm surfaces. The reason for this is that the buildings in Normandy are made of stone blocks, the abbey church of St Albans is brick from the nearby ruins of the Roman city of Verulamium and the flint typical of the area, although a brick wall is not as malleable as a block wall.

The northern side of the nave (except for the four western bays) and the three bays next to the fourth on the south side, the transepts, which were only slightly changed, and the huge, fortress-like crossing tower, have been preserved from this "primeval" building. The nave was enormously elongated with the ten bays at that time, whereby the huge pillars were almost as wide as the arcade arches. According to Norman tradition, there was an inner walkway in front of the nave windows.

The Gothic Changes

The three western bays were built between 1195 and 1214 and then changed: two bays were gothic renewed between 1214 and 1235, five more followed from 1325. The last three bays up to the transept remained unchanged in the Norman style. Although the wooden ceiling was renewed in the forms customary at the time in the late Gothic period, it is so inconspicuous and also very similar to the original form that it has a significantly lower impact on the original impression than in the other Romanesque churches, which later received powerful Gothic vaulted landscapes . The abbey church of St Albans also received vaults in the south aisle, but this was not built until 1878.

Under Abbot Johann de Cella (1195–1214) work began on the Gothic west facade, which, however, was renewed in the 19th century except for the portals.

Late Gothic gatehouse of St Albans Monastery

Between 1214 and 1235, under William of Trumpington, four arcades on the north and five on the south side of the nave were Gothic renewed, under John of Hertford between 1235 and 1260 the Romanesque choir was demolished, rebuilt and expanded. Instead of the original relay choir, a recently closed long choir with retro choir and Lady Chapel was created .

In 1325, two Romanesque pillars on the south wall of the nave collapsed, which led to the construction of five new bays near the crossing. Around 1400 the windows in the north aisle were renewed, in 1878 the windows and vaults in the south aisle (although the three eastern ones in front of the transept have been preserved). Except for a late Gothic gate, the monastery buildings had already been destroyed in 1540.

The transept facade was changed in the 19th century.

organ

The organ was built in 1962 by the organ builders Harrison & Harrison (Durham) and restored and expanded by the builder company in 2007–2009. The instrument received a new four-manual console. Furthermore, the installation of a “Nave Organ” has already been prepared; the construction of this instrument is not yet in sight. The organ currently has 64 registers , divided into four manual works and pedal works . The action actions are electro-pneumatic, the stop actions are electric.

I Choir C – a 3
Quintaton 16 ′
Open diapason 8th'
Gedacktpommer 8th'
Flauto Traverso 8th'
Octave 4 ′
Pipe flute 4 ′
Forest flood 2 ′
Larigot 1 13
Sesquialtera II
Mixture IV
Cromorne 8th'
Tremulant
II Great C – a 3
Principal 16 ′
Bourdon 16 ′
Principal 8th'
diapason 8th'
High tide 8th'
Stopped diapason 8th'
Octave 4 ′
Stopped Flute 4 ′
Quint 2 23
Great Octave 2 ′
Block flood 2 ′
Mixture IV-VI
Bass trumpet 16 ′
Trumpet 8th'
Clarion 4 ′
Grand Cornet V
III Swell C-a 3
Open diapason 8th'
Pipe flute 8th'
viola 8th'
Celeste 8th'
Principal 4 ′
Open flute 4 ′
Nazard 2 23
Octave 2 ′
Gemshorn 2 ′
Tierce 1 35
Mixture III
Cimbel III
Corno di Bassetto 16 ′
Skin boy 8th'
Vox Humana 8th'
Trumpet 8th'
Clarion 4 ′
Tremulant
IV Solo C – a 3
Corno di Bassetto 16 ′
Grand Cornet V
Fanfare Trumpet 8th'

IV Nave Organ C – a 3
Bourdon 16 ′ (v)
Principal 8th' (v)
Pipe flute 8th' (v)
Octave 4 ′ (v)
High tide 4 ′ (v)
Great Octave 2 ′ (v)
Mixture IV (v)
Pedal C – g 1
Sub bass 32 ′
Principal 16 ′
Major bass 16 ′
Bourdon 16 ′
Quint 10 23
Octave 8th'
Dumped 8th'
Nazard 5 13
Choral bass 4 ′
Open flute 2 ′
Mixture IV
Fagotto 32 ′
Bombardon 16 ′
Bass trumpet 16 ′
Fagotto 16 ′
Tromba 8th'
Shawm 4 ′

Nave Pedal C – g 1
Sub bass 16 ′ (v)
  • annotation
(v) = vacant, prepared

literature

  • Adam, Ernst: Pre-Romanesque and Romanesque. Frankfurt 1968, p. 110
  • Harry Batsford, Charles Fry: The Cathedrals of England , 7th Edition, BT Batsford Ltd., London 1948
  • Henig, Martin: Alban and St Albans: Roman and Medieval Architecture, Art and Archeology. London 2001
  • Kelsall, Jane: A Guide to Saint Albans Cathedral , Much Wenlock 2002
  • Hürlimann, Martin: English Cathedrals . Zurich 1948
  • Roberts, Eileen: The Hill of the Martyr: an Architectural History of St. Albans Abbey. Dunstable 1993
  • Schäfke, Werner : English cathedrals. A journey through the highlights of English architecture from 1066 to the present day. Cologne 1983 (DuMont Art Travel Guide), pp. 248–270, fig. 84
  • Toman, Rolf (ed.): The art of the Romanesque. Architecture - sculpture - painting. Cologne 1996, p. 223

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Harry Batsford, Charles Fry: The Cathedrals of England , p. 81
  2. Martin Heale: The Dependent Priories of Medieval English Monasteries , Woodbridge 2004 (= Studies in the History of Medieval Religion Vol. XXII), p. 59.
  3. a b c Adam, p. 111
  4. More information on the organ at npor.org.uk (English), accessed on November 4, 2014

Web links

Commons : St Albans Abbey  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 51 ° 45 ′ 2 "  N , 0 ° 20 ′ 33"  W.