s familiar with the
essential features of Norman and early pointed architecture, and it is thus
with distinct pleasure that the churches are often found to be strikingly
similar to some of the finest examples of the earlier periods in England.

When we remember that the Norman masons and master-builders had been
improving the crude Saxon architecture in England even before the Conquest,
and that, during the reigns of the Norman kings, "Frenchmen," as the Saxons
called them, were working on churches and castles in every part of our
island, it is no matter for surprise to find that buildings belonging to
the eleventh, twelfth, and even the thirteenth century, besides being of
similar general design, are often covered with precisely the same patterns
of ornament. When the period of Decorated Gothic began to prevail towards
the end of the thirteenth century, the styles on each side of the Channel
gradually diverged, so that after that time the English periods do not
agree with those of Normandy. There is also, even in the churches that most
resemble English structures, a strangeness that assails one unless
familiarity has taken the edge off one's perceptions. Though not the case
with all the fine churches and cathedrals of Normandy, yet with an
unpleasantly large proportion--unfortunately including the magnificent
Church of St Ouen at Rouen--there is beyond the gaudy tinsel that crowds
the altars, an untidiness that detracts from the sense of reverence that
stately Norman or Gothic does not fail to inspire. In the north transept of
St Ouen, some of the walls and pillars have at various times been made to
bear large printed notices which have been pasted down, and when out of
date they have been only roughly torn off, leaving fragments that soon
become discoloured and seriously mar the dignified antiquity of the
stone-work. But beyond this, one finds that the great black stands for
candles that burn beside the altars are generally streaked with the wax
that has guttered from a dozen flames, and that even the floor is covered
with lumps of wax--the countless stains of only partially scraped-up
gutterings of past offerings. There is also that peculiarly unpleasant
smell so often given out by the burning wax that greets one on entering the
cool twilight of the building. The worn and tattered appearance of the
rush-seated chairs in the churches is easily explained when one sees the
almost constant use to which they are put. In the