Gloucester 
 Cathedral 
 
 The Very Rev. 
 Dean Spence 
 
 R 
 
 d by 
 . Railton
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 SANTA BARBARA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 MISS PEARL CHASE
 
 / l ' 
 
 s 
 
 C-
 
 Gloucester 
 Cathedral
 
 Gloucester 
 Cathedral 
 
 "By 
 
 The Very Rev. 
 
 H. D. M. Spence, D.P. 
 
 Dean of Gloucester 
 
 Illustrated by 
 Herbert Rail ton 
 
 London : Isbister fcf Co. Ltd. 
 
 15 ff 1 6 Tavistock Street Covent Garden 
 MDCCCXCVII
 
 Gloucester Cathedral 
 
 A STRANGER gazing on the solemn beauty 
 of Gloucester Cathedral, who knew 
 nothing previously of its story, would 
 hesitate before he called it a great Norman 
 church. The lordly Perpendicular tower, 
 if less vast than the mighty mid-tower of 
 Lincoln that grandest of our English towers 
 is certainly more graceful. The long line 
 of Decorated windows looking into the 
 college green, the huge choir window, the 
 matchless Lady Chapel at the east end 
 telling of the closing year of the fifteenth 
 century all these prominent features would 
 indicate rather a Perpendicular and Decor- 
 ated than a Norman pile. 
 9
 
 Gloucester Cathedral 
 
 Only, when the stranger began to look 
 more closely into the details of the exterior 
 of the great church, he would see signs of an 
 older school of thought. When he examined 
 the coronet of chapels surrounding the 
 soaring choir, or marked the tall towers 
 flanking the transept, "Surely," he would 
 say, "the Norman builders have done these." 
 But he would hesitate before pronouncing it 
 a Norman church till he passed through the 
 south porch, the principal entrance. 
 
 Let us accompany him there. The porch 
 itself is of Perpendicular architecture, rich 
 with panelled tracery and sculptured figures. 
 The great doors of the church are remark- 
 able, much older evidently than the elaborate 
 stone framework in which they are set. 
 These doors are noble examples of Norman 
 wood and iron work, coloured with that 
 delicate and tender hue which only many 
 centuries of use can give. The doors of the 
 south porch rank high among the very 
 ancient doors of England.
 
 Gloucester Cathedral 
 
 The first impression of the nave changes 
 all earlier thoughts of the age of the building. 
 It is unmistakably Norman, grand beyond 
 expression, but cold, severe, and deathly 
 white. The stained glass (mostly modern) 
 of the Norman and Decorated windows fails 
 to supply the evident lack of colour. 
 
 There was a time when lines of blue and 
 scarlet and gold relieved the white vaulted 
 roof, when altars agleam with colour and 
 pale flickering lights gave light and bright- 
 ness to the chill whiteness of this vast and 
 mighty colonnade. On Sunday evenings, 
 when the nave is filled with worshippers, 
 and the bright searching daylight is replaced 
 by the yellow gleam of the little tongues of 
 fire above the great and massive arches, the 
 want of colour is little felt, and the noble 
 and severe beauty of the matchless Norman 
 work in the great nave strikes the beholder. 
 The nave of Gloucester, to be loved and 
 admired as it deserves, and as it appeared to 
 men in the days of the Plantagenet kings, 
 13
 
 Gloucester Cathedral 
 
 must be seen in one of the many crowded 
 evening services. 
 
 Save that the altars with their wealth of 
 colour and light are gone, and the lines 
 of colouring and the glint of gold of 
 the Norman wooden ceiling find no place 
 on the stone-vaulted roof above, and the 
 south aisle Norman windows are replaced 
 with exquisite Decorated work of the time 
 of the second Edward, there is no great 
 structural change since the day at the close 
 of the eleventh century when Abbot Fulda 
 from Shrewsbury preached his famous sermon 
 to the Gloucester folk, the sermon in which 
 he foretold the death of the imperious and 
 cruel Rufus in words so plain, so unmis- 
 takable, that Abbot Serlo of Gloucester, who 
 loved the great wicked king in spite of his 
 many sins, was alarmed, and at once sent to 
 warn his master, but in vain. Rufus dis- 
 regarded the Gloucester note of alarm, and 
 a few hours later the news of the King of 
 England's bloody death, in the leafy glades 
 14
 
 Gloucester Cathedral 
 
 of the New Forest, rang through Normandy 
 and England. 
 
 Yes, it is the same nave, only colder and 
 whiter, on which Anselm, the saintly arch- 
 bishop, and Rufus gazed ; the same avenue 
 of massy pillars then scarcely finished 
 through which Maud the Empress often 
 went to her prayers with her chivalrous half- 
 brother, Earl Robert. Beauclerc, her father, 
 too, and some grey-haired survivors of 
 Hastings must have looked on these huge 
 columns crowned with the round arches 
 which excite our wonder to-day. They were 
 a curious fancy of the architect of Serlo ; or 
 was it not probably a design of a yet older 
 artist of King Edward the Confessor ? These 
 enormous round shafts, which are the peculiar 
 feature of the nave of our storied Abbey, 
 have only once been repeated, probably by 
 the same architect, in the neighbouring 
 abbey of Tewkesbury, a few years later. 
 There is nothing like them on either side of 
 the silver streak of sea. The Tewkesbury 
 17
 
 Gloucester Cathedral 
 
 copies are slightly smaller ; otherwise they are 
 exact reproductions of Gloucester. 
 
 A solid and rather ugly stone screen closes 
 the east end of the Norman nave. You pass 
 through a small arch in the screen, and so 
 beneath the broad platform on which the 
 great organ stands. Once a huge rood 
 cross, or rather crucifix, filled up the space 
 now occupied by the organ. The vista has 
 not gained by the substitution ; you stand 
 now in another world of thought. The 
 Norman and Romanesque conception is 
 replaced by a creation of two hundred and 
 more years later. 
 
 The choir on which you are now looking 
 is very long not too long, however, for its 
 great height for the fretted roof, a delicate 
 mosaic of tender 'colours set in pale gold, 
 soars high above the vaulting of the nave. 
 The proportions are simply admirable. From 
 the lofty traceried roof down to the elaborately 
 tiled floor, the walls are covered with richly 
 carved panelled work, broken here and there 
 18
 
 Gloucester Cathedral 
 
 with delicate screens of stone. The eastern 
 end, hard by the high altar, is the home of 
 several shrines, of which more anon. There 
 is happily no lack of colour in this part of 
 our Cathedral. The western end is furnished 
 with sixty richly-carved canopied stalls of 
 dark oak, mostly the handiwork of the 
 fourteenth century. The curiously and ela- 
 borately fretted work of the roof we have 
 already spoken of as a rich mosaic of gold 
 and colours. The floor, if one dare breathe 
 a criticism in this charmed building, is too 
 bright and glistening, but it is in its way 
 varied and beautiful. The carving of the 
 reredos, a work of our own day, is to the 
 writer's mind open to criticism, but is still 
 very fair, telling in every detail of loving 
 work and true reverence. The whole of 
 this, the loveliest choir in England, is lit 
 by a mighty wall of jewelled glass behind 
 the great golden reredos. 
 
 This vast east window which floods the 
 choir of Gloucester, beautiful as a dream, with
 
 Gloucester Cathedral 
 
 its soft silvery light faintly coloured with 
 jewelled shafts of the richest blue and red 
 and here and there a vein of pale gold this 
 vast window could not have been seen out 
 of England, or at least one of the grey and 
 misty northern countries, where gleams of 
 light or shafts of sunshine are exceedingly 
 precious. In south or central Europe the 
 effect of such a mighty window would be 
 simply dazzling to the eye, would be painful 
 from its excess of light. 
 
 The master architect, who, it seems, in the 
 Gloucester cloister cells devised the aery 
 fabric of the choir, knew how needful light 
 was to reveal the loveliness of the panelled 
 walls, that delicate veil of stone tracery. 
 He had seen doubtless how the brightness 
 of southern skies through comparatively 
 little windows had illuminated the abbey 
 churches of southern Germany, of Provence, 
 Italy, and Spain, with bright shafts of light, 
 but he well knew that the pale blue of the 
 skies of the Severn lands was very dim
 
 Gloucester Cathedral 
 
 and lightless compared with the surpassing 
 brilliancy of their heavens. 
 
 Hence we explain the love of the English 
 artist-monks for large windows. They would 
 build their minsters, they would enrich them 
 with curious fancies in stone and marble, 
 they would furnish them with altars gleam- 
 ing with dusky gold and ablaze with many 
 colours, and to illumine these, they would 
 admit all the light they could draw from 
 skies which were rarely of unclouded 
 blue, which were, indeed, wellnigh always 
 veiled with the soft grey hues of our island 
 atmosphere. Never, as they planned their 
 vast yet graceful windows, w r as there any 
 danger of over-much light in their minster ; 
 there was no fear of the eyes being dazzled 
 with excess of sunshine from English skies. 
 
 This great east window is the largest 
 painted window in England the largest, the 
 writer believes, in Europe. Its stone-work 
 exceeds in size the magnificent east window 
 of York Minster, which stands next to it. 
 23
 
 Gloucester Cathedral 
 
 The respective measurements are, Gloucester, 
 72 feet high by 38 wide, York, 78 by 33 
 feet. The lower part of the centre com- 
 partments at Gloucester are not completely 
 glazed, owing to the opening into the Lady 
 Chapel. The glass of Gloucester is on the 
 whole light-coloured, the designers being 
 evidently anxious that the beautiful stone 
 panels and screen work should be seen in all 
 their exquisite details. The glass has suffered 
 marvellously little from the ravages of weather 
 and the fanaticism of revolutionary times ; 
 the busy restorer, too, has dealt gently with 
 it. There are 49 figures, and of these 37 are 
 pronounced by our lynx-eyed experts to be 
 absolutely genuine. Of the 18 armorial 
 shields in the lower lights 13 are certainly 
 the identical shields inserted by the survivors 
 of Cressy. The whole of the gorgeous 
 canopy work has been untouched. 
 
 The subject of the paintings is the Coro- 
 nation of the Virgin, and the figures consist 
 of winged angels, apostles, saints, kings, and 
 24
 
 :4
 
 Gloucester Cathedral 
 
 abbots. The coats of arms are those borne 
 by King Edward III., the Black Prince, and 
 their knightly companions, such as the 
 Lords of Berkeley, Arundel, Pembroke, 
 Warwick, Northampton, Talbot, and others 
 who took part in the famous campaign in 
 which occurred the battle of Cressy, and 
 who in some degrees were connected with 
 Gloucestershire. The window 7 was in fact a 
 memorial of the great English victory, and 
 may fairly be termed the " Cressy " window. 
 
 While the stonework of this beautiful 
 structure is of fully-developed Perpendicular, 
 most curiously, all the details of the glass are 
 pure Decorated. The Perpendicular work 
 in the choir was finished before A.D. 1350, 
 and accordingly is a very early instance of 
 this style ; our window, therefore, demon- 
 strates that the development of the Perpen- 
 dicular style took place at an earlier period 
 among masons than it did among the crafts- 
 men in stained glass. 
 
 The general scheme of colour is extremely 
 27
 
 Gloucester Cathedral 
 
 delicate and beautiful. Pot metal and flashed 
 ruby are only used for backgrounds, the 
 whole of the figures and their canopies being 
 in pearly white glass, with the drawing of 
 the faces, drapery, and similar details in 
 brown enamel, and some enrichments in 
 silver stain varying from a lemon yellow to a 
 deep orange. The drawing of draperies and 
 of some of the faces, not a few, alas ! now 
 sadly worn and scarred, is specially vigorous 
 and effective. Extraordinary delicacy and 
 precision of touch are to be seen in every 
 line drawn by the glass painters of this 
 window. In point of firmness and grace, 
 one of our great critics in Greek art told me 
 the work here reminded him of the drawing 
 on the best painted vases of the Greeks. 
 The white glass is of special beauty, when 
 compared with that of modern times. Its 
 luminous pearly look comes from the fact 
 that the body of the glass is full of minute 
 air bubbles, each of which catches the light, 
 and then reflects it out from the interior of 
 28
 
 Gloucester Cathedral 
 
 the glass, so that the glass is not only 
 translucent, but is itself actually luminous 
 with innumerable minute centres of radia- 
 tion. 
 
 The story of the gorgeous choir of 
 Gloucester is a singular one. It seems as 
 though the monks of Gloucester had long 
 dreamed of beautifying and enriching their 
 stern plain Norman church. Thoky, abbot 
 in the days of Edward II., in the early years 
 of the fourteenth century, evidently a great 
 architect, perhaps began this scheme of 
 ornamentation. The result of his labours is 
 with us still. The stately Decorated windows 
 which light the southern aisle are his. Men 
 come from far to see his curiously beautiful 
 work. Only a few days ago the most 
 renowned of our living architects, who had 
 seen these windows again and again, called my 
 attention once more to their exceeding beauty. 
 Abbot Thoky, however, had but slender 
 means at his disposal, and his task in the 
 south aisle took long years before it was 
 29
 
 Gloucester Cathedral 
 
 finished. He was then an old man, but a 
 strange incident, which had a great effect 
 upon the fortunes of Gloucester, occurred 
 just before the close of this blameless abbot's 
 life. 
 
 When Edward II. lay murdered in Berkeley 
 Castle, some seventeen miles from Gloucester, 
 the neighbouring religious houses of Bristol, 
 Kingswood, and Malmesbury, dreading the 
 vengeance of the dead king's widow Isabella, 
 who had done her husband to death, de- 
 clined to grant a sepulchre to the remains 
 of the unhappy monarch. The brave old 
 man who ruled in Gloucester had a stouter 
 heart than the disloyal and time-serving 
 abbots of these houses, and, caring nought 
 for the anger of Isabella, Thoky boldly sent 
 to Berkeley Castle and begged that the body 
 of Edward might be laid to rest in his 
 holy house of Gloucester. His prayer was 
 granted, and, with all respect and honour, 
 the dead king was buried in the Abbey 
 church. 
 
 30
 
 Gloucester Cathedral 
 
 A few months later the wheel of fortune 
 turned. Isabella was a captive. The mur- 
 dered king's son, the third Edward, was 
 tirmly seated on the throne, and all honour 
 was paid the brave and loyal Churchman 
 who had given Christian burial to the dis- 
 credited remains of the murdered Edward II. 
 A stately tomb was erected by the new king, 
 and, strange to relate, a stream of pilgrims 
 to the royal tomb began to throng the old 
 Norman minster. 
 
 It was a strange cult this of the murdered 
 sovereign, and one hard to explain. It 
 seems as though men in England felt that a 
 curse lay on them, and on their homes and 
 hearths, owing to their having suffered the 
 Lord's anointed to be cruelly done to death 
 in their midst. So thousands came and 
 prayed at the dead king's shrine. Their 
 offerings enriched the Abbey coffers. Soon 
 there was wealth enough, says the tradition, 
 to have rebuilt the whole church from its 
 very foundations. At all events, the desire 
 33
 
 Gloucester Cathedral 
 
 of the monks to adorn their ancient home 
 with new work could now be gratified. 
 There is no doubt but that there existed 
 among the Gloucester monks what we should 
 now call a school of architecture. In this 
 holy house undoubtedly was devised that 
 favourite English form of Gothic usually 
 known as Perpendicular. From the same 
 school at Gloucester, too, issued later that 
 beautiful form of vaulted roofs known as 
 Fan-vaulting. When the stream of wealth 
 began to flow in from the countless pilgrims 
 to the tomb, Thoky was a very old man, too 
 old to guide the new works he so earnestly 
 desired to see completed, so he resigned the 
 abbot's chair, and his friend Wygmore was 
 chosen in his room. Wygmore determined 
 not to pull down but to remodel the whole 
 of the great east limb of the Abbey. He 
 commenced in the south transept, and then 
 proceeded with the choir. Roughly speak- 
 ing, three great changes were carried out in 
 the old buildings. The small Norman win- 
 34
 
 Gloucester Cathedral 
 
 dows were replaced with vast Perpendicular 
 ones. The mighty wall of stained glass at 
 the east end of the choir, with its delicate 
 tracery, was the crowning piece of this 
 work. The roofs were stripped off, and the 
 walls raised to a much greater height, and a 
 new and elaborately carved stone vaulted 
 ceiling covered the new work. Wygmore 
 and his school loved a soaring choir. Over 
 the old Norman wall, over the massive 
 rounded piers, over the low-browed round 
 arches crowning the great piers, Wygmore 
 so to speak flung a mighty stone veil of 
 traceried panel-work. This is perhaps the 
 best image to use when we speak of the 
 strange transformation which the walls of 
 the splendid choir of Gloucester underwent. 
 Some call the " white stone veil " tossed over 
 the old Norman wall and arches and piers 
 "applique work," others speak of it as a 
 "veneer," others as though the new panels 
 and pointed arches were nailed upon the 
 old walls ; but the " veil of stone " is the 
 35 c
 
 Gloucester Cathedral 
 
 best and most vivid figure to employ. The 
 south transept, with its great windows, its 
 panel-work covering the whole surface of 
 the Norman walls, its graceful open screens, 
 is regarded as the birthplace of the Perpen- 
 dicular architecture. Nor is it an improbable 
 thought which ascribes the peculiar features 
 of this specially English form of Gothic to 
 the special exigences of the work carried 
 out by Wygmore and his successor, Abbot 
 Horton. The panelling and tracery devised 
 in the new work had to be carved on the old 
 Norman walls and arches and pillars, and 
 straight lines peculiarly adapted themselves 
 to this service. 
 
 The five principal historic tombs of 
 Gloucester are in the choir. Three are on 
 the right hand of the high altar, one is in the 
 centre below the altar steps, and one on the 
 left side, raised on a Perpendicular bracket 
 of unusual workmanship. The canopied 
 tomb, in the place of honour by the altar, is, 
 as is usual, the resting-place of the founder 
 36
 
 
 
 King Osric's Tomb
 
 Gloucester Cathedral 
 
 of the Abbey, Osric the Woden-descended, 
 the near kinsman of Penda and Ethelred, 
 the Mercian kings. To this Osric belongs 
 the high honour of having re-introduced 
 Christianity into Gloucestershire and the 
 neighbouring counties. Intrusted with the 
 government of these districts occupied by a 
 West-Saxon people named the Hwiccii, 
 Osric, about the year 68 1, displayed an 
 extraordinary zeal in restoring the Christian 
 religion. The West-Saxon invaders, under 
 Ceawlin, about a hundred years before had 
 swept away the Roman-British inhabitants, 
 their cities, and their faith. 
 
 This Osric, among other early foundations, 
 built the first church and religious house at 
 Gloucester. He subsequently became King 
 of Northumbria, and, dying in A.D. 729, 
 desired to be laid to rest in the Abbey he 
 had established. Through the varying for- 
 tunes of the monastery the remains of the 
 founder were carefully preserved, although 
 the place of their sepulchre was changed 
 
 39
 
 Gloucester Cathedral 
 
 more than once as the Abbey was built and 
 rebuilt. 
 
 Guided by the words of Leland, the secre- 
 tary of King Henry VIII., the writer of this 
 study opened the founder's tomb, which was 
 universally considered to be a mere cenotaph 
 or memorial, and found the grey dust and 
 bones of the ancient king in the spot indi- 
 cated by Leland, in a coffin contained in the 
 stone loculus by the high altar. 
 
 The second of the choir tombs is in a line 
 with that of Osric. It is a monument of rare 
 beauty, with a singularly graceful Decorated 
 canopy shadowing the noble alabaster effigy 
 of the murdered Edward II. The beautiful 
 face of the recumbent king was carved from 
 a mask taken after death. Some thirty years 
 ago doubts were entertained respecting the 
 real place of sepulture of the unhappy Ed- 
 ward. Canon Jeune, afterwards Bishop of 
 Peterborough, opened the paved floor hard 
 by the slab on which the royal effigy rests, 
 and found the enormous oaken chest which 
 40
 
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 $}*'&/: 
 
 fiMiiliN. 
 
 ' 

 
 Gloucester Cathedral 
 
 contained the body of the king. The corpse, 
 doubtless embalmed, was carefully enveloped 
 in folds of lead wrapped round and round. 
 Many fragments of tarnished tinsel, the sad 
 remains of the hasty lying-in-state arranged 
 by Abbot Thoky, still adhered to the lead 
 wrappings. The third is the chapel tomb of 
 Malvern, the last Abbot of Gloucester. The 
 little chantry is filled with quaint religious 
 devices and armorial bearings. He was 
 offered the See of Gloucester by Henry VIII., 
 but refused all gifts at the hands of the 
 spoiler of his loved Abbey, and died soon 
 after the surrender of his monastery. In the 
 centre of the choir pavement lies Robert 
 Courthose, the Conqueror's eldest son, who 
 expiated a wild and dissolute youth by his 
 splendid deeds of gallantry and daring in the 
 Great Crusade. In the famous holy war men 
 said round the point of his lance ever played 
 an unearthly fire. But his faults were sorely 
 punished by his long captivity at Cardiff, 
 lasting twenty weary years. He chose 
 
 43
 
 Gloucester Cathedral 
 
 Gloucester Abbey as his last resting-place. 
 The bracket tomb on the left, Leland tells us, 
 marks the grave of Serlo, chaplain to the 
 Conqueror, the first famous Norman abbot, 
 who built the mighty nave, and to whose 
 wise rule the house owed all its later fame. 
 Besides these renowned historic tombs there 
 are many more monuments and slabs of 
 marble and stone commemorating saintly 
 abbots, knights, dames, doughty citizens, 
 bishops who have lived since Henry VIII.'s 
 day, judges, men of war, and others who, in 
 the long line of centuries, have been judged 
 worthy of a grave and memorial in the great 
 Abbey. 
 
 The Lady Chapel of Gloucester Cathedral 
 ranks high, if it does not stand first, among 
 the Mary Chapels of England. It was 
 only finished a few years before the 
 Reformation. Its exquisite charm, which 
 rough fanaticism and careless neglect have 
 failed to spoil, tells us that the hand and 
 brain of the monk-artist at the moment of 
 
 44

 
 Gloucester Cathedral 
 
 his " passing " had not lost their cunning. 
 Sadly disfigured, mutilated, defaced by the 
 hands of Cromwell's rough soldiers, it seems 
 in its pathetic scarred beauty, in its sweet, 
 almost feminine loveliness to appeal more 
 directly to the imagination than any other of 
 the more stately portions of the proud church 
 of the Severn lands. In my frequent 
 wanderings through my loved Cathedral I 
 hear more exclamations of wondering admir- 
 ation uttered in the fair wreck of the exquisite 
 Mary Chapel even than in the matchless 
 choir. We are with infinite pains repairing 
 the extensive ravages caused by the neglect 
 of years, and in a comparatively short space 
 of time this last fair effort of the sublime 
 skill and perfect taste of the monk-architect 
 will be once more devoted to praise and 
 prayer. Many have longed to restore the 
 exquisite interior to something of its old 
 dream-like loveliness. If what we long for 
 so intensely should ever come to pass, then 
 will Gloucester boast a triple glory the 
 
 47
 
 Gloucester Cathedral 
 
 stern and stately nave of Serlo, the Con- 
 queror's chaplain, the gorgeous and magnifi- 
 cent choir of Wygmore, that matchless 
 monument to a murdered king of England, 
 and the Lady Chapel, the last sublime effort 
 of the unrivalled genius of the monastic 
 Orders before they passed away. 
 
 We must not forget that beneath the 
 eastern division of the church there lies 
 another house of God, popularly called the 
 crypt, more properly the under-church. It 
 has, as far as we know, never been used since 
 1541, the year of the dissolution of the 
 Benedictine house. It is stripped of all its 
 sacred furniture, it is denuded of all gold and 
 colouring. Its only beauty consists in the 
 picturesque grouping of its short massy 
 columns and low-browed arches, and its 
 weird light, the light which is neither clear 
 nor dark. 
 
 But its chief glory is its memories. No 
 scholar in archaeology would date this ancient 
 under-church later than the last ten or fifteen 
 4 8
 
 Gloucester Cathedral 
 
 years of the eleventh century. Not a few of 
 us/ for reasons well and carefully thought 
 out, consider it to have been the work of 
 Edward the Confessor. Gloucester was one 
 of his favourite residences. If the earlier and 
 more probable date be assumed, then in these 
 gloomy aisles have worshipped the Confessor 
 king and his court, half Saxon, half Norman ; 
 here on these worn flags, beneath these 
 sombre arches, have knelt and prayed God- 
 wine and Harold, Gurth and Leofwine, 
 Eustace and Tostig, Aldyth and Edith, the 
 men and women who live in the eloquent 
 pages of Lord Lytton's charming romance of 
 " Harold," and in the graver story of Mr. 
 Freeman's ponderous but absorbing history. 
 
 As the mighty church rose above the 
 foundation stories of this solemn undercroft, 
 twice have the massive arches bent beneath 
 the weight laid upon them. Once in Norman 
 days. Then the monk-builders strengthened 
 the sinking work with a double row of low 
 Norman pillars and strong double arches. 
 Si D
 
 Gloucester Cathedral 
 
 Once more in the days of the third Edward, 
 when the Perpendicular builders of Abbot 
 Wygmore raised the walls of the soaring 
 choir, and roofed it in with that mighty 
 ceiling of fretted masonry, called in the old 
 Abbey chronicle the "magna volta," the 
 crypt appeared to be in danger. To resist 
 this new and enormous weight the monks 
 built up on either side of the gloomy under- 
 church two huge solid piers of stone. Their 
 work was so well done that no sign of 
 dangerous settlement has since appeared in 
 this historic church of the Confessor, though 
 nigh five centuries and a half have passed 
 since the completion of the Perpendicular 
 choir and of its " magna volta." 
 
 Professor Freeman, whose memory still is 
 green, not only in his own Oxford but in 
 every country where English scholarship is 
 valued, thus writes of what lies beneath the 
 broad shadow of the superb house of God, 
 the subject of this little study : "We cannot 
 forget that here in Gloucester we have 
 52
 
 Gloucester Cathedral 
 
 monastic buildings of admirable merit, exter- 
 nally far more preserved than it is usual to 
 find them. At Gloucester we can see what a 
 great Benedictine house was, far better than 
 at Ely, or Norwich, or Peterborough. The 
 cloister has no rival in its own class. ... Of 
 the buildings on every side of the cloister the 
 remains are neither few nor unimportant. 
 The refectory of Abbot John de Fulda, the 
 scene of royal feasting, has left fewer remains 
 than any others, but enough survives to give 
 some notion of the design. Beyond it lay 
 the more distant buildings of the monastery, 
 the stately lodging of the abbot beyond a 
 little stream now hidden, the second cloister 
 and the graceful ruins of the infirmary. We 
 come back to the cloister to mark to the west 
 the quarters of the prior and of his successor, 
 the dean, showing us a stage of architecture 
 of which we have no exact specimen in the 
 minster itself. To the east we have the 
 slype, the dormitory, now the library, 
 above, and the building of the greatest im- 
 55
 
 portance after the church itself, the chapter- 
 house." 
 
 One is tempted to linger among these 
 buildings, some in ruins, some admirably 
 preserved, with their many memories and 
 their striking traditions, but we must pass on 
 to the chapter-house. With the exception of 
 the apse at the east end, which has been 
 changed by the Perpendicular builders of the 
 fourteenth century, this great hall is of pure 
 Norman work. Its exact date is uncertain ; 
 much of it is of the eleventh century. In 
 this chamber William the Conqueror on 
 several occasions wore his " crowned helm," 
 and presided over his barons at the Christmas 
 feast. 
 
 It requires no vivid imagination to think 
 of the mighty Norman who changed the 
 whole course of the story of England sitting 
 in this vast simple hall, little changed during 
 the eight subsequent centuries, with his 
 mighty men of war, the half-brothers Odo of 
 Bayeux and Robert de Mortain, William 
 56
 
 \
 
 Gloucester Cathedral 
 
 Fitzosborne, Roger de Montgommeri, Geof- 
 frey de Mowbrai, Roger Bigod, Gimdulf of 
 Rochester, the architect - bishop, and the 
 trusted counsellor, Lanfranc of Canterbury. 
 Household words with many of us ! On 
 one occasion King William in this same 
 storied room held deep speech with his 
 Witan, and arranged for the compilation of 
 Domesday Book. 
 
 This chapter-house has indeed been the 
 scene of many a memorable incident writ 
 large in English history. The Commons sat 
 here in the memorable Parliament of 
 Gloucester under King Richard II. 
 
 Beneath the floor of the chapter-house lie 
 buried several of the great Norman nobles 
 who stood high in William's confidence. On 
 the west side are still the stains of the great 
 fire which destroyed the original Norman 
 cloister, which was probably entirely con- 
 structed of wood. 
 
 The cloister we see to-day is comparatively 
 of late work, and dates only from the days of
 
 Gloucester Cathedral 
 
 Edward III. and Richard II. It is the most 
 lovely cloistered walk in England, perhaps in 
 Europe, and its old beauty is little changed 
 for the worse by the wear and tear of 
 centuries. It is the earliest example known 
 of fan-tracery vaulting ; and, as has been said, 
 it is one of the titles to honour of the monk- 
 architects of Gloucester that they first devised 
 this exquisite and peculiarly English form of 
 ceiling. 
 
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 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. By the Dean of 
 CANTERBURY. Illustrated by HERBERT RAILTON. 
 
 YORK MINSTER. By the Dean of YORK 
 Illustrated by ALEXANDER ANSTED. 
 
 WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL. By Canon BENHAM. 
 Illustrated by HERBERT RAILTON. 
 
 ST. ALBAN'S ABBEY. By Canon LIDDELL. 
 Illustrated by F. G. KITTON. 
 
 CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL. By the Dean 
 of RIPON. Illustrated by W. LAPWORTH, and others. 
 
 NORWICH CATHEDRAL. By the Dean of 
 NORWICH. Illustrated by ALEXANDER ANSTED. 
 
 GLOUCESTER CATHEDRAL. By the Dean of 
 
 GLOUCESTER. Illustrated by HERBERT RAILTON. 
 
 SALISBURY CATHEDRAL. By the Dean of 
 SALISBURY. Illustrated by ALEXANDER ANSTED. 
 
 To be followed by others. 
 
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 By Rev. W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, LL.D. 
 
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 By the late BISHOP THOROLD. 
 
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 10. The Four Pillars of the Home. 
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 Ube Gospel anfc tbe H$e Series. 
 
 3/6 Large Crown 8vo, gUt top. 3/6 
 
 1. By the late ARCHBISHOP MAGEE. 
 
 2. By the late ARCHBISHOP MAGEE. 
 
 3. By the late ARCHBISHOP MAGEF. 
 
 4. By the late Rev. Dr. HENRY ALLON. 
 
 5. By the Very Rev. Dr. DONALD MACLEOD. 
 
 6. By the Rev. Dr. JOHN CLIFFORD. 
 
 7. By the Very Rev. the DEAN of ELY. 
 
 8. By the Ven. the ARCHDEACON of LONDON. 
 
 9. By the Very Rev. the DEAN of CANTERBurY. 
 
 10. By the Rev. W. J. DAWSON. 
 
 11. By the Rev. S. A. ALEXANDER, M.A. 
 
 12. By the Rev. Canon KNOX LITTLE, M.A. 
 
 13. By the Rev. HUGH PRICE HUGHES, M.A. 
 
 14. By the Very Rev. the DEAN of GLOUCESTER. 
 
 15. By the Rev. Dr. W. ROBERTSON NICOLL. 
 
 16. By the Rev. W. HAY M. H. AITKEN, M.A. 
 
 17. By the Rev. Dr. R. F. HORTON. 
 18 By the Rev. Dr. J. H. BERNARD. 
 
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 Episcopal palaces of England 
 
 Royal 8vo, gilt top, 2is. net. 
 By the late PRECENTOR VENABLES, M.A., 
 
 AND OTHERS. 
 
 With an Etched Frontispiece of Lambeth Palace from the Thames, 
 and over One Hundred Illustrations by Alex. Ansted. 
 
 The DAILY TELEGRAPH says: 
 
 ".One of those books over which the antiquary will 
 linger. . . . These excerfts show the impartial spirit in 
 which the work is written, out they do not show the genial 
 reminiscences, the loving spirit in which the writers dwell 
 on each interesting fart of the historic fabrics and the 
 memories they recall. With these every page abounds, 
 description and story being alike admirable. The illustra- 
 tions are delightful ; . . . scattered all over the work are 
 artistic engravings of chapels, towers, gateways, windows, 
 and little architectural morsels, which everybody with a soul 
 for things of ancient art can appreciate" 
 
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 " A richly illustrated and well-written work. The many 
 beautiful engravings, and the excellence of the paper and 
 type, add much to the attractiveness of the volume, but its 
 chief interest will be found in its historical information, 
 its biographical notices, its antiquarian lore, its statistics, 
 and its anecdotes in connection with the palacts which have 
 domiciled for centuries the Bishops and Archbishops of the 
 Anglican Church." 
 
 The SCOTSMAN says: 
 
 " Without as within, the book is worthy of the theme. 
 Lovers of the memories that are bound up with the great 
 names and great sites in the history of the Anglican Church, 
 and admirers of graceful and spirited drawing, will turn 
 over with peculiar pleasure the pages of this beautiful 
 work." 
 
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 UCSB LIBRARY 
 
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