Chai-. 111. ANOl-0-SAXON.

165
This spirit of l)uililing, wliicli was iiitrodueod and cncounigcd by tlie Uoinaiis, so imicli
uni)roved tlie taste and increased the number of the Britisli builders, that in the tliird
century this island was famous for the great number and excellence of its architects and
artificers. When the Emperor Constantius, fatlier of Constantino the Great, rebuilt the
city of Autun in Gaul, a. d. 296, he was cliieHy furnished with workmen from 15ritain,
which (says Eumenius) very much abounded with the best artificers. It was about tiic
end of the third century that in Britain, as well ?.s all the other provinces of the Western
empire, architecture began to decline. It may have been that the building of Constanti-
nople drew ort' tlie best artists ; or that the time left for the peaceful culture of the arts may
have been broken in upon by the irruptions of invaders from the north. According to tlie
Venerable IJede {Hist. Ecclts., lib. i. c. 12.), the Britons had become so ignorant of tlie art
before tiie final departure of the Romans that they, from want of masons, repaired tlie wall
between the Forth and Clyde with sods instead of stone. Henry observes, however, on
this, that
"
we cannot lay much stress on this testimony
;
because it does not refer to the
jirovincial Britons, but to those who lived beyond the Wall of Severus, where the Roman
arts never much iirevailed ; and because the true reason of their repairing that wall with
turf, and not with stone, was that it had been originally built in that manner. Besides, we
are told by the same writer, in the same jilace, that the provincial Britons, some time after
this, with the assistance of one Roman legion, built a wall of solid stone, 8 ft. thick and
12 ft. high, from sea to sea."
.S82. The departure of the Romans, and that of the fine arts which they had introduced,
were occurrences of almost the same date. We must, however, recollect that architecture
was beginning to decline at Rome itself before the departure in (]uestion. The inhabitants
uf the country who remained after the Romans were gone had not the skill nor courage
to defend the works with
which the Romans had pro-
vided tliem ; and their
towns and cities, therefore,
were seized by invaders,
who plundered and de-
stroyed them, throwing
down the noble structures
with which the art and in-
dustry of the Romans had
adorned the country. 'I'he
vestiges of Roman architec-
ture still remaining in Bri-
tain are pretty nmnerous
;
but scarcely any of them
arc of sufficient interest to
be considered as studies of
Roman architecture. Even
in its best days, nobody
would study the works of
art m the colonies in preference to those in the parent state. We have here (Jii/. 179.)
inserted a representation of a small portion of the Roman wall at Leicester, as an exam])le
of the construction. Temples, baths, and villas of the time have, moreover, been brought
to light not unfre()uently.
38;5. The arrival of the Saxons in this country, a. n. 449, soon extinguished the very
little that remained of the arts in the island. Tliis people were totally ignorant of art ; like
tlie other nations of Germany, they had been accustomed to live in wretched hovels formed
out of the earth, or built of wood, and covered with reeds, straw, or the branches of trees.
It was not, indeed, until 200 years after their arrival that stone was employed by them for
their buildings. Their cathedrals were built of timber. The Venerable Bede says there
was a time when not a stone church existed in all the land
; the custom being to build
them of wood. Finan, the second bishop of Lindisfarne, or Holy Island, built a church in
that island, a. n. 652, for a cathedral, wliicli yet was not of stone, but of wood, and covered
with reeds ; and so it continued till Eadbert, the successor of St. Cuthbert, and seventh
bishop of Lindisfarne, took away the reeds, and covered it all over, both roof and walls,
with sheets of lead. Of similar materials was the original cathedral at York, a church of
stone being a very rare production, and usually dignified with some special historical
record. Bede, for instance, says of Paulinus, the first bishop of York, that he built a
church of stone in the city of Lincoln, whose walls were standing when he wrote, though
the roof had fallen down. Scotland, at the beginning of the eighth century, does not seem
to have had a single church of stone. Naitan, king of the I'icts, in his letter to Ceolfred,
abbot of Wereinonth, a. d. 710, iiitreats that some masons may be sent him to build a
church of stone in his kuigdom, in imitation of the Romans.