Saze, Ai.FitEi>, a Methodist Episcopal minister, was
SAXNOT
390
SAXON ARCHITECTURE
bom Sept. 5, 1814. He was converted in 1830, licensed to preach in 1832, and graduated at the Wesleyan Uni- versity in 1838. The succeeding eighteen months he was principal of the Middletown Preparatory School, after which he became principal of the high-school in that city, where he remained until 1843, when he was received on trial by the New Yorii Conference, trans- ferred to the Troy Conference, and appointed to Ferry Street Station, Albany. In 1846 he was appointed to North White Creek, and in 1846, on account of declin- ing health, was placed on the superannuated list. He dietl Oct. 8, 1840. Mr. Saxe was a sound and practical preacher, a dil- igent and laborious pastor, and a most affable man. In his last ill- ness he enjoyed the consolations of religion, and appeared cheerful and happy even while passing through the vale of death. See Minutes of Conferences, iv, 131. (J. L. S.)
burj-, which was used as the parish church. This is material evidence, considering that it was built by a royal prince in a town of so much importance. This church was existing in 1082, when a stone church was commenced by the father of Ordericus Yitalis, who records these facts. It is not improbable that these primitive English churches may be among the earliest stone churches of Western Europe after tlie time of the Romans. The Roman art of building had become ex- tinct in all this part of Europe, and almost extinct in Rome itself, by the 10th century, and tlie most ready
Saxnot, in German mytholo- gy, was a god whose name occurs in the oath taken by the Saxons after their violent conversion to Christianity by Charlemagne, by which they renounced the worship of Thunar'(Thor), Woden, and Sax- noC. He is supposed to have been the god of war, since the word Sax (Sachs), from which the Saxons took their name, denoted a sword. An- glo-Saxon genealogies point to a Saxneat, who was Woden's son. — Yollmer, Worterh. d, Myihol. s. v.
Saxon Architecture. The buildings of the Anglo-Saxons were usually of wood, rarely of stone un- til the nth century, and consequently we must not ex- pect to find any great number of remains. The only dated examples of this style are about the middle of the 11th century, as at Deerhurst, Gloucestershire; with the exception of some slight remains at the mouth of the Tyne, which are of an earlier and distinct charac- ter, and Brixworth, which is possibly Roman work re- stored. Tlie style agrees in many respects with that of the 11th century on the Continent, where the work has not been ornamented with sculpture in the 12th, as has been very frequently the case. There are, how- ever, some peculiarities about the buildings of this class which entitle them to the name of the Anglo- Saxon style, or, more correctly, perhaps, the primitive English style ; for it has been observed that they are far more numerous in the Danes' land, or the eastern counties, than in other parts of England. In the neigh- borhood of Lincoln and Gainsborough almost all the old countrv' churches partake of this char- acter. It has also been observed that the earlier examples are more like the work ■u^K[; I I j of carpenters than of
t'cWv, i'^.r masons. Such a tow-
'^'^' '"' er as that of Earl's
Barton, for instance, has all the appear- ance of being copied from a wooden tower, and this may very probably have been -. I , u ij,., «^i 1.. the case. Ordericus
IflVi /u U; '.'IW 41 ^''*"''"' ''^'" "'■'■*^ '"
ijflUi^rli i^iai tlW the 11th century,
mentions that Si- ward, the cousin of Edward the Confes- sor, built a wooden Earl's Biutou, Norihamptonshire. church at Shrews-
Coihamptou Church, Hampshire.
models which the English had to copy in the llth cen- tury were their own wooden churches. It was just at that time that Canute ordered churches to be built of stone and lime in all the places where his father or himself had burned the wooden churches of the Anglo- Saxons.
The class of buildings referred to as being considered to belong to this style contain some rather unusual feat- ures. The execution is rude and coarse : the walls are built either of rag or rubble, sometimes partly of her- ring-bone work, without buttresses, and in many cases, if not always, have been plastered on the outside. The quoins are usually of hewn stones placed alternately tiat and on end — a kind of construction to which the
Tower, Sompliiig, Sussex.
SAXON ARCHITECTURE
391 SAXON ARCHITECTURE
name " long and short" has been given ; the walls are often ornamented externally with flat vertical strips of stone projecting slightly from the surface, resembling wooden framing, generally of the same "lung and short" construction as the quoins. On towers there are some- times several tiers of these, divided from each other by plain strings or hands. Semicircular arches and trian- gles formed of similar strips of stone are also sometimes nsed as ornaments ; and plain projecting blocks are fre- quently associated witli these, either as imposts, or as bases for the vertical strips which often stand above them. The jambs of door-ways and other openings are very commonly of " long and short" work ; and when imposts are used, as they generally are, they are usual- ly rude, and often extremely massive, sometimes con- sisting of plain blocks and sometimes moulded. Round the arch there is very often a projecting course occupy- ing tlie situation of a hood-moidding, which sometimes stops upon the imposts, but more frequently runs down the jambs to the ground, forming a kind of pilaster on each side of the opening. It is usually flat, but is some- times njunded and occasionally notched on the edges, as at Dunham Magna, Norfolk : in some instances the im- post is arranged so as to form a capital to each of tliese projections on the jambs, and they are sometimes pro- vided with bases either formed of plain blocks or rude- ly moulded. The arches are generally plain, but are occasionally worked with rude and massive mouldings, as the chancel-arch at Wittering Church, Northamp- tonshire; son)e arches are constructed with bricks (prob- ably all of them taken from some Roman building, as at Erixworth) or thin stones, and these usually have a course of stones or bricks laid upon the top of the arch, as at Britford Church, Wiltshire: the arches are always semicircular, but some small openings, such as doors and windows, have pointed or triangidar heads formed of two straight stones placed on end upon the imposts, and resting against each other at the top, as at Barnack. The windows are not large, and, when splayed, have often nearly or quite as much splay externally as in- ternally. In belfries and other situations where they do not require to be glazed, they are frequently of two or more lights, divided by small shafts or pillars, which are very usually made like balusters, and encircled with bands of rude mouldings. In the old portion of St.Al- ban's Abbey, erected in the latter half of the 11th cen- turj', specimens are seen. These generally have capi- tals, or imposts, formed of long stones reaching entirely through the wall; in some instances the balusters are oblong in plan, as in the tower of St. Michael's Church, Oxford, and in otiiers two are placed together, one be- hind the other, in order to give bet- ter support to these long capitals.