the two must, with little doubt, have frequently consulted together concerning the building at Jumièges monastery, so dear to both, four years before, in Normandy: and as it was during these years, between 1044 and 1052 that all the planning and the beginning of Westminster Abbey must have taken place: and as it is certain that no builder of a Norman church who could possibly aid the king was at this time living in England, the natural conclusion is that Robert of Jumièges was, to some considerable extent, responsible for the planning of Norman Westminster: and that the noble Jumièges abbey, so prominently in the minds of both king and abbot, furnished its design and inspiration.

Moreover, since in the Norman court at Rouen, Edward had of necessity heard much concerning the details of church building, and was doubtless well informed as to materials, workmen, expenses and other important matters, he would now be well prepared to undertake the supervision of a church building on his own account, especially with the aid and advice of Robert of Jumièges. Archbishop Robert returned to Normandy suddenly and not of his own accord, in 1052; completed the abbey church at Jumièges and the Confessor went over to its consecration in 1058.

Thus he had every opportunity to compare. it with his own as yet unfinished building. An interesting comparison of the stumps of the bases of the Westminster piers and those in a corresponding position at Jumièges has recently been made by Dean Armitage Robinson* and the two sets have been found to agree very closely in size, but to differ slightly in relative distances from each other. From these and various other architectural facts we may, perhaps, be warranted in saying that in looking at the beautiful ruins of the

Abbey of Jumièges on the Seine, a few miles below Rouen, we are looking at very much the same architecture as that of Norman Westminster.

The Abbey of Jumièges was regarded

+Excellent models of these at Westminster, but reduced in size, have been placed in the Norman Undercroft in the cloister for the inspection of visitors.

as remarkably imposing for its time, and its ruins, while not extensive, are sufficient to indicate a stately and beautiful structure. It had a lofty central tower, one entire wall of which remains today in good preservation and tells the story of the whole. It must have been of superior size and strength as well as of superior height, as is the representation of Westminster's central tower in the Bayeux tapestry. A noble pair of western towers also remain at Jumièges, almost entire, hexagonal in their upper stages, lofty, strong, of exquisitely coloured stone, the group of three towers forming a picturesque effect as they rise from a wooded promontory of the Seine which suggests the lofty height and romantic location of Durham cathedral. The Confessor's church, we remember, had also central and western towers, notable for height and dignity. In both churches the nave arches were supported by pillars alternately simple and compound, forming double bays, as at Durham, and the Jumièges capitals. were once painted in tempera, as in the Westminster cloister and, doubtless, in the church. The triforium arches at Jumièges were of nearly the same width as the main arches and the presbytery had two bays and a rounded apse, as at Westmin

ster.

In both, the short transept arm had galleries at the ends with chapels in two stories. The round arches remaining at Jumièges are nobly proportioned: the outer orders of each pair die into each other on their inner sides. In each bay of the aisles are two small windows, set high, having deeply splayed sills, like those in the Norman cloister of Westminster. The triforium has two large unconnected arches in each bay, each containing three equal, grouped subordinate arches, the central one glazed. No string course appears between the triforium and clerestory and the latter has two unconnected windows in each bay with wide splayed sills but no mouldings. The two western towers, hexagonal in the two upper stages, having a gable between the two, distinctly suggest the famous octagon of Ely, but are of three centuries earlier date. There was a western porch, as at Westminster: the cloister lies south of the nave and the chapter house was in the east walk, as usual in monastic establishments.

"A most surprising structure (Jumièges). It is almost inconceivable how the Normans, the timid and hesitating builders of the first part of the eleventh century, learned all at once to build a monastery not only incomparably superior in design