INTERIOR OF THE CHURCH OF CREULLY

ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY,

BY JOHN SELL COTMAN;

ACCOMPANIED BY

HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE NOTICES

BY

DAWSON TURNER, ESQ. F.R. AND A.S.

VOLUME THE FIRST.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR JOHN AND ARTHUR ARCH, CORNHILL;

AND J. S. COTMAN, YARMOUTH.

INTERIOR OF THE CHURCH OF CREULLY.

Creully, whose church has been here selected for publication, as a favorable specimen of genuine Norman architecture, is a small market-town of the diocese of Bayeux, situated about six miles to the east of the city of that name, and fifteen miles north-west of Caen. It is an ancient barony, having been honored with that distinction by Henry I. in favor of his natural son, the Earl of Glocester, many of whose descendants, according to Masseville, were still living in Normandy in the eighteenth century, and bore the name of Creully. The same author makes mention of the Lords of Creully, on more than one occasion, in the course of his Norman history.—They are to be found in the list of the barons that accompanied Duke Robert to the Holy Land, in 1099; and when the Genoese, in 1390, called upon the King of France for succours against the infidels of the coast of Barbary, and the pious monarch sent an army to their relief, under the command of the Duke of Bourbon, the name of the Seigneur de Creully stands prominent among those who embarked upon that unfortunate expedition. Again, in 1302, the Baron of Creully held the fifth place among the nine lords from the bailiwick of Caen, who were summoned to sit in the Norman exchequer.


From the days of the Earl of Glocester to the breaking out of the French revolution, the barony of Creully continued to be held by different noble families. In the early part of the eighteenth century, when Masseville published his work, it was in the hands of the heirs of M. de Seigneley-Colbert, who likewise possessed other considerable domains in Normandy. The last that had the title was a member of the family of Montmorenci.—His emigration caused the estate to be confiscated, and sold as national property; but the baronial castle is now standing, and displays, in two of its towers, and in a chimney of unusual form, a [111] portion of its ancient character. The rest of the building is modernized into a spruce, comfortable residence, which, in 1818, was occupied by an English general of the name of Hodgson.[203]

The writer of this article has met with no records connected with the church of Creully.—Externally, it is wholly modernized; but within, the nave, side-aisles, and choir, are all purely Norman, except at the extremities. The piers are very massy; the arches wide and low; the capitals covered with rude, but remarkable sculpture, which is varied on every pillar; and the walls are of extraordinary thickness.