God's Builder Gundulf

 

...bishop Gundulf, seeing as he was in masonry work the greatest and the ablest, might from his own means build a stone castle for [the king] at Rochester...               Textus Roffensis 

Written by a monk of the Priory of St Andrew the Apostle in Rochester, probably decades after the negotiations it describes, the praise of his bishop could be overdone. However, Gundulf's reputation was based on more hearsay and legend. He may, or may not, have been the architect of the Tower of London and Colchester Castle, but the evidence of his construction of monastic and defensive buildings in Kent is more convincing.

THE TWO TOWERS

Predating Gundulf's ecclesiastic structures were a couple of tall stone towers. While they don't match the squat, massif footprints of contemporary castle keeps like Chepstow or Colchester, they were stand-alone fortified buildings.

Gundulf's Tower at Rochester had walls 6 feet thick enclosing a ground floor space of 24 feet square. Only the foundation remains, but in earlier centuries the traces of one floor of 20 feet, another of 25 feet, and rising walls of a further 20 feet, indicated its prominence and security.

St Leonard's Tower at West Malling has suffered the ravages of time but has retained more of its original dimensions. Walls of 6 feet thickness are 33 by 33 feet at the base and surviving parts are 66 feet high. It originally contained a ground or basement floor and two upper levels, connected by a spiral staircase in the north west corner.

Built of "coursed Kentish ragstone rubble...with tufa ashlar dressings", it was supported by "pilaster buttresses" and an "external angled turret". The original entrance was on the first floor (since walled up) and was reached by wooden stairs that could be removed in the event of attack. Natural lighting was restricted to three round-arched windows on the upmost storey with the balance blank (like 'blind arcading'). The walls of the turret are pierced by arrow loops. There is no sign of latrines or fireplaces.

The two towers were unmistakably military in design, bare and functional. They speak of an unstable political situation that persisted for some years after the Conquest of 1066. The Normans, even churchmen, were occupiers. 

Later, both the Priory Cathedral and St Mary's Abbey were erected at sites within the protective reach of the towers. The Rochester monks and Malling nuns were also Normans, and the English inhabitants were still not trusted.

TRIAL ON PENENDEN HEATH

A priority for the building bishop, and for his superior archbishop Lanfranc, was finance. Orders could not be founded or churches erected without money. At first their land estates, the engine rooms of the feudal economy, were depleted and ownership was in dispute.

Textus Roffensis contains, A notice that after King William subdued the English kingdom, his brother bishop Odo of Bayeux, came to England before archbishop Lanfranc and settled in the country of Kent where he exercised great power. And because in those days there was no one strong enough to resist, he appropriated many lands and customs of the archbishopric of Canterbury to his lordship. Subsequently Lanfranc, abbot of the church of Caen, came to England on the king's orders and was raised to primacy of the entire English kingdom. When he had lived  in the kingdom some time and found that many of the ancient lands of the church were missing, and had discovered that they had been distributed and alienated by his negligent predecessors, having diligently and thoroughly ascertained the truth as quickly as he could of his case.

King William I was not so sure it was that simple. The king ordered the whole shire to deliberate without delay and all the Frenchmen, and especially the Englishmen knowledgeable in the ancient laws and customs, to convene in a single gathering. Present at the plea were bishop Geoffrey of Coutances who was there in the king's place and who presided, archbishop Lanfranc who was the plaintiff...the earl of Kent bishop Odo of Bayeux...bishop Ernost of Rochester, [AND] AEthelric of Chichester, a man of great age learned in the law of the land, who was brought to the plea in a cart on the king's order to expound and demonstrate the ancient customs of the law.

The presence of the ailing prelate AEthelric has prompted modern historians to adopt a different view than the monks'. "Probably in 1072 at Penenden Heath, Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury, initiated the recovery of lands for Christ Church, Canterbury, primarily from Odo of Bayeux, Earl of Kent. Most of the lands had been lost not to him, but to Earl Godwine and his family during Edward's reign, and perhaps even earlier. Odo had simply succeeded to these encroachments, and the conflict between archbishop and earl was to a large extent a reprise of that between Robert of Jumiages and Godwine in 1051-2."

The 'trial' lasted three days. It was attended by a number of Norman barons, including Robert fitz Haimo sheriff of Kent. A compromise was finally made. The verdict was not an outright victory for Lanfranc. Several manors were returned to the church. Among them were some lands initially gifted to the bishopric of Rochester.

And William the first, king of the English, restored these lands to the church of Roffen, which had been [un]justly taken away by the princes. Stokes [Stoke] will see both Dennington [Denton] and Falchenham [Fawkham]...And King William the son of the same gave Lamtheham [Lambeth] and Hedenham [Haddenham] to the slaughter of the monks who had granted the liberties which the Church of Rochester hitherto, and by his charter confirmed the gifts of all the lost.

ST BARTHOLOMEW'S CHAPEL

As Gundulf's finances were gradually 'restored', so too his plans to build in his diocese took shape. As noted, the first of these projects were probably the two towers. Another early construction seems to have been St Bartholomew's Hospital for "the poor and leprous". The only part remaining from the bishop's time is its chapel.

The Hospital was founded in 1078, a year after Lanfranc had consecrated Gundulf asBishop of Rochester. Its income came from his newly instituted Benedictine Priory and offerings made by pilgrims to the altars of St James and St Giles in St Andrew's cathedral-church. 

The oldest section of the chapel is its east end, a round-domed sanctuary with three arched windows and incised zig-zag decoration. It is one of the first Norman apses in England. Its existence has bouyed the theory that Gundulf was responsible for the Tower of London and Colchester Castle, because both share a distinctive apse shape protruding from one corner of these great keeps. 

Otherwise fundamentally square, the radical weakening of one corner of castles to accommodate a chapel is something that stood out in Norman defensive architecture. Their example was not really followed in other donjons. That a pre-eminently religious designer had a hand in these two exceptions has proved an attractive notion. What archaeology has revealed from other religious buildings by the bishop, though, is that he did not generally incorporate an apse.

ST ANDREW'S CATHEDRAL AND ST MARY'S ABBEY

Work to replace the almost derelict Anglo-Saxon church in Rochester began about 1080. It has been said that "the plan of first Norman church...was peculiar". It did not follow the classic cruciform design, placing as much emphasis on the eastern 'sanctuary' as the western nave (which remained unfinished at his death in 1108). 

The larger 'screened-off' portion suggests it was meant for monks more than 'the public'. On his consecration in 1077, Gundulf replaced the four impoverished canons he found there with 20 imported monks from his order in Normandy. This complement grew to 60 brothers in the next decades.

Features recognised as Gundulf's include several bays on the north and south walls of the nave aisles, "the great north tower" (of course), and the western half of the undercroft or crypt. Investigations of this lower section indicate that the original eastern end was squared. There seemed to be a rectangular projection, narrower than the rest of the church, that extended at under- and above- ground level; a special added space for a mini-chapel or relics altar.

This disproportional pattern was repeated by Gundulf when he founded St Mary's Abbey, a nunnery built on his manor at West Malling from 1092. Archaeologists reported from excavations of the church in 1932 and 1961 that the Norman chancel of c.1100 ended in a square termination, "not apsidal as previously thought". There was also "a contemporary square-ended chapel extending east" from the centre of the wall; another 'private' space for a shrine with relics to be adored.

The blunt stops of Rochester Cathedral and Malling Abbey Church are in contrast to the the curved finish of the Hospital Chapel. The pattern set by Gundulf's major ecclesiastical structures was not apsidal. Speculation had been allowed to amount because the present, visible ends were known to be thirteenth century additions. The original eleventh century ends were hidden beneath the later masonry.

There is, perhaps, a further question mark over the bishop-monk being the architect of the Tower of London. The ground floor map of St Andrew's, above, shows something of an episodic style, rather than single grand design. It is as if Gandulf solved problems as he went along. His was a make-do, practical approach that produced an a-symmetrical and at times cramped sort of result for a diocesan church.

When the bishop was erecting the new cathedral he had a number of constraints to deal with. The old English church was still standing and had to remain in use until work on its replacement was at roofed stage. Then there was the great tower he had already built. The site was crowded and close study of the map shows some of the compromises he made to fit it all in. 

There is an irregular element to Gandulph's  work that is not consistent with the bold effect of the Tower of London without, and the smooth curves of St John's Chapel within.

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REFERENCES:

SE Dean, 2013, 'Brother in arms: Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, Earl of Kent', Medieval Warfare, 3.2, 9-13

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, (1087 entry), JA Giles transl. 1914.

G Garnett, 2007, 'The Justification of the Conquest', in Conquered England Kingship, Succession, and Tenure 1066-1166, Oxford University Press

Textus Roffensis (Book of Rochester), <rochestercathedral.org/research/textus> 168r-170v, 212r-213r, 177r-178r

'History of St Leonard's Tower', <english-heritage.org.uk>

'Tower Keep Castle at West Malling' listing 1013382, 'The Benedictine Abbey of St Mary's' listing 1008030, 'St Bartholomew's Chapel' listing 1268238, <historicengland.org.uk/1013382>

'Bishops of Rochester', <british-history.ac.uk> 

RA Smith, 1943, 'The Place of Gundulf in the Anglo-Norman Church', The English Historical Review, vol LVIII, iss CCXXI, pp 257-272

 'St Bartholomew's Hospital', 'St Bartholomew's Chapel', <medway.gov.uk/...1320>

<opendomesday.org> 'Rochester (St Andrew) bishop of', 'Canterbury (Christ Church) archbishop of'

WSJ Hope, 1900, 'The Architectural History of the Cathedral Church and Monastery of St Andrew at Rochester' 

A Ward, 2001, 'St Mary's Abbey, West Malling', Archaeologia Cantiana, 121

GH Palmer, 1897, 'Gundulph's Tower' in The Cathedral Church of Rochester, George Bell & Sons, London