. Medieval architecture, its origins and development, with lists of monuments and bibliographies. rom their attacks; for the religiousestablishments offered richer plunder than was elsewhere tobe found, and the fanaticism of the heathen demanded thedestruction of everything pertaining to the Christian cult. Inthe contemporary chronicles the dull formula is repeated overand over again; on such and such a date, at such and such aplace, the church or cathedral or monastery, together with thesurrounding town, was burned by the Northmen. Thus thevikings were the enemies of Christianity and of civil
. Medieval architecture, its origins and development, with lists of monuments and bibliographies. rom their attacks; for the religiousestablishments offered richer plunder than was elsewhere tobe found, and the fanaticism of the heathen demanded thedestruction of everything pertaining to the Christian cult. Inthe contemporary chronicles the dull formula is repeated overand over again; on such and such a date, at such and such aplace, the church or cathedral or monastery, together with thesurrounding town, was burned by the Northmen. Thus thevikings were the enemies of Christianity and of civilization;what they could not carry off as plunder they destroyed. Nor do matters seem to have greatly improved when thebrigandage of the pirates became in a sense legalized, and whenin the guise of a fief the province we now know as Normandywas bestowed by the powerless emperor on the conquering Nor- 240 THE NORMANS man duke. It is significant that not a vestige of architectureantedating the Norman conquest has survived in Normandy ;probably well-nigh every churcli in the land was wiped out by. Iix. 120. — Plan of St. Ceneri. (,From Ruprich-Roberl) the savage invaders. Rollo, it is true, as early as 912, embracedChristianity, at least in name. This move, however, seems tohave been purely political in purpose, and to have modifiednot in the least either the morals or the nature of the king and his Except the Roman ruins at Lillebonne, NORMAN ARCHITECTURE people. In the early years of Richard I (the Fearless, 942-996),the country again relapsed into paganism. Rouen and Evreux,alone of the Norman bishoprics, preserved unbroken the suc-cession of their bishops. But the peculiar ability of the Norse race to adopt itself tochanged environment and to absorb the civilization of otherpeoples, has always been one of its most happy long, European civilization and European Christianitycommenced to find their way within the borders of 961, Richard
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