the distance, and in a near view it is chiefly remarkable for
the oddness of the wonderfully long coupled windows on the west side,
which are not continued all round. Save only the simple and graceful
west front and the general goodness of the design and execution, the
beauties of the church of Mortain are certainly to be sought within.

The castle looks up at the church, which stands on the rather steep
slope of the hill, the effect of which is that the east end can hardly
be seen, except from a considerable distance. Above it is the _hospice_,
with the fragment of a church with a saddle-back to its central tower.
Above again is the chapel of Saint Michael. Of quite another value from
Saint Michael is a church a little way out of Mortain, in the near
neighbourhood of the waterfalls, with rocks above it and rocks below.
This is the church of nuns known as _l'Abbaye Blanche_, a foundation of
Count William of Mortain in 1105. As the next year he was taken at
Tinchebray and kept in prison for the rest of his days, he was not
likely to do much in the way of building. The church described long ago
by Gally Knight and De Caumont is palpably later than his day. It is of
the Transition, and it is a much less advanced example of the Transition
than the church of Mortain. Whatever Count William meant to found, the
actual house was Cistercian, and the church carries Cistercian severity
to its extremest point. One thinks of Kirkstall; but Kirkstall, plain as
it is, drew majesty from its grand and simple outline; the White Abbey
is small; it has, through the lack of a central tower, no outline
without, and its small scale hinders the effect of Kirkstall.[44] One
might even say that, in buildings of this class--not in those of more
elaborate design--something is gained, as with the monuments of Rome, by
being somewhat out of repair. Anyhow, in connexion with Mortain, the
White Abbey does not lack architectural importance. It is very odd if
anybody took the collegiate church to be the older. The White Abbey is a
truly Cistercian building, a simple cross with a flat east end, no
aisles to the nave, but chapels east of the transepts. It follows the
usual law of Transitional buildings. The main constructive arches are
pointed; the windows are round-headed in the eastern part, pointed in
the western. The cloister and chapter-house have round arches; the
remains of the cloister have small single shafts, not the Saracenic
coupling to which