histories (ie., with paintings representing sacred scenes), all very splendid and very beautiful, according to Eddius. The Comacines were much given to colour in the decoration of their churches. It was in one of them, that of S. Maria del Tiglio, built by Theodolinda, wife of King Autharis, that the Emperor Lothaire beheld a brilliantly-painted picture, which adorned the vault of the apse, and represented "The three kings presenting gifts to the Child Jesus." The picture moved the king to undertake the restoration of the church.

The Comacines also used frescoes in Theodolinda's palace at Monza in the fifth and sixth centuries.

From the description of Hexham Church by Eddius Stephanus it would appear that there were galleries over the aisles, to which access was gained by spiral stairways in the wall. Similar galleries with a spiral stairway still exist in the Church of S. Agnese in Rome. In this church, between the nave and the aisles, there is a double arcade of open arches one above the other; the higher arcade on each side forms the front of the galleries; above these is the clerestory. The Church of S. Lorenzo at Verona, also a Comacine church, contains in the wall a spiral stairway, which led to the different divisions in the women's gallery for the widows, matrons, and girls.* So far, I have not heard of any ancient spiral stairways as still existing in any other than in these Comacine churches.

The galleries and arcades may be regarded as the original of the triforium.

Eddius relates that there were also bell towers at Hexham of surprising height, and this is suggestive. Hexham was built about A.D. 674, early in the Saxon period, and these tall towers were built wholly at that time. What were they like? The early Comacine towers were built in several stages; the lowest generally had either no windows or else merely slits; the stage next above it had single-light windows, plain, round-headed, and straight-sided, as if cut out of the wall; in the stages above, the

*See Bingham's Antiquities of the Church.

windows were of two or three lights divided by colonnettes, the larger number of lights being in the windows of the upper stages; in each stage there were commonly four windows, one opening to each quarter of the compass. Wolstan's description" of the tower of Winchester answers very closely to this. He said it consisted of five storeys; in each were four windows looking towards the four cardinal points, which windows were illuminated every night.

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As examples of early Latin towers, the round towers of S. Appollinare Nuovo and S. Apollinare in Classe, Ravenna, and perhaps the square tower of S. Giovanni Evangelista, Milan, may be given. Take any one of them, that of S. Appollinare Nuovo, for instance. Cover the upper stages and regard only the lower stages with the single-light windows, and you have a structure which might be Roman. The lower stages look very much older than the upper stages; and it is the same with well-known Saxon towers in England, so that some persons have been misled into thinking that the lowest stages with straightcut, single-light windows are of much earlier date than the upper portions with double or treble light windows, and they have argued that these lower stages, both in Italy and England, are older than the

upper ones, notwithstanding

FIG. 8.-4. Tower of S. Apollinare
Nuovo, Ravenna.

B. Tower of S. Satyrus,
Milan.

the improbability that the builders would place a heavy tower on walls originally intended to carry only a light roof.

The Saxon towers have clearly a Latin or Comacine origin. The walls are usually of stone grouted in the old Roman manner, and, when Lombard windows of two or more lights, with columns dividing them, are used, they are, as a rule, in the upper and not in the lower stages. Unfortunately, we have no towers of the earliest Saxon period still standing; but the resemblance between the later Saxon and the early Italian towers will be apparent to any observer. The same may be said of the later Comacine towers, S. Satyrus, Milan, for instance (see Fig. 8), which Cattaneo assigns to the ninth century and regards as the prototype of Lombard towers. Take away the little pensile arch ornament, which was characteristic of the Comacine style known as Lombard, and you have a tower which might be Saxon.

Whilst Wilfrid was engaged in building Hexham, his friend and companion in travel, Biscop, was building the monastery and monastic church of Wearmouth. Biscop was a Saxon thane of Northumberland; he became a monk of the monastery of S. Lerino, and, according to Henry of Huntingdon, on his return from Rome, King Egfrid gave him sixty hides of land, on which he built the monastery of Wearmouth. Eight years later the King granted him more land at Jarrow, upon which he built a monastery and church. The former was dedicated to S. Peter, the latter to S. Paul. On obtaining possession of the lands at Wearmouth, Biscop, according to Bede, set out for Gaul to find builders to build the monastic church, "juxta Romanorum quem semper amabat morem.”

It might be asked "If there was at Canterbury a Comacine. school of architecture, whose special function it was to build on the Roman model, why did not Bishop Benedict send there for architects and masons?" The simple answer is that Wilfrid had already engaged them for his work at Hexham. Wilfrid was building both a church and monastery there, and evidently had employment for every hand he could obtain.

*Sermo beati Bedæ in natale sancti Benedicti Abbatis.

The building of Hexham was commenced in 674, and it was not till that date that Biscop was in a position to engage workmen for Wearmouth, so that Wilfrid was just beforehand with Biscop, who in consequence had to look elsewhere for his architects, and he set out for Gaul to engage them there.

Now, it does not at all follow that, because Biscop brought his masons from Gaul, they were not Comacines; the inference would rather be the other way, because Lombardy, the home of the Comacines, was at that time a part of Gaul. Biscop insisted on a church built after the Roman manner; a Basilica he would have, and nothing else, and no builders could build a Basilica better than the successors to the Roman College of Architecture. They also seem to have followed the practice of the Comacines in establishing a schola at Wearmouth, possibly amongst the monks, for Naitan, King of the Picts, sent to Cedfrid, who succeeded Benedict as Abbot, and begged him to send architects to him to build a church in his nation "after the Roman manner," and the Abbot complied with his request.

Mr. Micklethwaite states that "the doorway under the tower of the church at Monkswearmouth in Durham was doubtless a part of the church which Benedict Biscop erected there in the seventh century in imitation of the Basilicas in Rome. The twined serpents with birds' beaks on the right door-post are, as we know from MSS. of that age, singularly characteristic of the style." There is a similar carving on the architrave of an ancient door in San Clemente, Rome.

The decoration of the church seems to have been in the highest style of Comacine art. Even glass-makers were brought from Gaul to make glass for glazing the windows of the church. No glass had ever before in Saxon times been used in England for windows, and even paintings were brought from abroad for the decoration of the walls. Bede, in his sermon on the anniversary of the death of Benedict, states that he imported paintings of holy histories, which should serve not only for the beautification of the church, but for the instruction of those who looked upon them. Vases, vestments, and other things

necessary for the service of the church were also brought from Gaul, and those things which could not be obtained there were brought "from the country of the Romans."

The church was pronounced by monkish writers to be for two centuries the grandest and most beautiful church on this side of the Alps. Even Roman architects admitted that they who saw Hexham Church might imagine themselves amidst Roman surroundings. ("Ambitionem romanam se imaginari jurent ”Malmesbury, De Gest. Pontiff. I., iii., f. 155.)

Though we have little ornament of the early Saxon period, the little we have is clearly of the same character as the Comacine, and, like the Comacine, shows distinct evidence of its original derivation from the Roman.

Roman Mosaic pavements found in England are mainly composed of geometric designs sometimes foliated and floriated, figures being only sparingly and occasionally introduced. At what date they were laid down may be inferred with some degree of probability from the coins found with them.

Morgan states that, with few exceptions, the coins discovered on the sites of Mosaic pavements in Britain belong almost entirely to a date extending from the reign of Gordianus III., or say Alexander Severus, to that of Arcadius-a period of about 175 years. That would give a date to British pavements of late third and fourth centuries. Much ornament of very late Roman work is, therefore, preserved to us in these pavements. If the patterns are analysed and resolved into their component parts, they will be found to consist of a limited number of elementary designs arranged in varied combinations, and most of these separate designs can be traced backward to earlier Roman, some to still earlier Greek, and a few to very ancient Oriental sources.

When they were first introduced as decorative features into Roman architecture there is little to show. Some of the patterns, as Fig. 9, B. H. J. M. N. are to be found on Pompeian

*Romano-British Mosaic Pavements.