IT 1 TH6 OFGB0I5 SUD W2SI ^4l>- JiC^^' \S'^^**^ \ T v^v x^'9W< / vA< \\'II,I, I AM M.Cl.AUKK . \ ) , < 1 1 1 T !: < : '! - ' -M >? V! W . S K >' K N Tl 1 ST I.OM AXOKI.KK.C.M.IK WILLIAM MYCAJAH CLARKE < ; LIBRARY OF ARCHITECTURE AND ALLIED ARTS Gift of WILLIAM M. THE CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND AND WALES THE CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND AND WALES BKI.\(; A FOURTH KDITION Ol ENGLISH CATH MORALS ILLUSTRATE) BY FRANCIS BOND M.A.. LINCOLN Col. I. Mil- OXKOKli; IIONOKAKY ASSOCIATE OF THE I-.KITIM! AICCIII I l-.l 'I s I ['! I.I O\V (IK 1 I1F ! \! ' II'. IN'. Ii'NlMix; Al'THUI; cif i;i>T||H A 'i( ' 1 1 I I I '( - IN KM, I, AND. " WKSTMINS-I'KK AliflKY,' SCREENS AN] ,AI I.KKIKs IN ]-:N(il.[slI CHI KCHKS, 1C 1C. E Illustrated by over 200 reproductions from photo- graphs and a series of ground plans to a uniform scale LONDON R. T. BATSFORI), 94 HIGH HOLBORN \KW YORK: CHAS. SCRIBNER'S SONS [><' PREFACE Till-: first edition of (i English Cathedrals Illus- trated" \vas published in 1899; in the second edition a few verbal corrections were inserted ; the third edition was published without revision. In the present edition man}- important changes have been made. In its original form the book had two grave defects. One was that it contained no ground plans, which are indispensable to reader and visitor alike, and have been supplied in the present volume; they are reproduced to a uniform scale of 100 ft. to the inch. One or two plans of parish churches now forming cathedrals, such as Newcastle, are omitted, being of parochial rather than cathedral type. Secondly, in conformity with Mr Kiel-email's nomenclature, the attempt was made to thrust the history of everv cathedral into his Procustcan framework of Norman, Karly Knglish, Decorated and Perpendicular periods. The result was disastrous. Such an arrangement is a whole- sale perversion of architectural historv. No cathedral was ever built in just four building periods these and no other. In some cathedrals, <._<,''., Salisbury, there are less than four building periods; in most cases then- are seven, eight, or even more. In this volume the actual building periods are treated separ- ately, and no attempt is made to cram them into arbitrary imaginarv compartments. The hook has been re-illustrated in a much more comprehensive manner, only a few examples of detail bein^ retained from the earlier editions. With the exception of the ground plans, the illustrations are from photographs, the sources of which are i;"iven in the note of acknowledgment. The more important features of each cathedral are represented, and it is hoped that this will tend materially to elucidate and increase the interest of the text: neither the text, however, nor the illustrations are intended as a sub- stitute for personal stud} 1 of the cathedrals on the spot, which it is the purpose of the book to foster and facilitate. Short bibliographies are appended to the accounts of the various cathedrals. In addition, the student is referred to the following: Browne Willis' Surrey oj tlh' Cathedrals <>f York, Durham, Carlisle, Chester, I. i eli field, Hereford, Gloucester, Bristol, Lincoln, /:7r, Oxford, and Peterborough, 2 vols., Svo, London. 1730: Britton's I listory and Antiquities of Canterbury, York, Bristol, l'..\eter, Gloucester, Hereford, Lielifield, Xor- r.vV//, Oxford, l^etci borough, Salisbury, \Vtlls, M'in- cliester, }] 'orcester L \tthedrals, \ >< melon, [ S2I- 1 836 I CatJiedrals of lin^land and \\'ales, published by "/'//r Jlitilder" London, 1904; Murray's Handbooks to the Cathedrals of l : .ngland and \\'alcs, S vols,, 3rd edition, London, 1903. In linglish Minsters by Rev. M. L. ( '. \\'alc"tt, pa^es XV. to xix., is a bibliography of each cathedral. All the cathedrals were visited by the- writer when the tirst edition o| this work \\ as in preparation, and in recent years they have been revisited a^'ain and a;_;ain. 1 he result <>| continuous and comparative -tudv of the Ln^'lish churche-- in general has been t<> shew the writer that in many cases conclusions originally accepted by himself and others are un- PREFACE ix tenable: to a large extent, therefore, it has been found necessary to rewrite the book; the changes made in the account of the architectural history of the cathedrals of Lincoln, Worcester, Llandaff, Kxcter, and Hereford are very considerable. That a higher standard of accuracy has been reached than in the earlier editions of the book may be fairly assumed. Complete accuracy, however, is impossible in dealing with a subject so vast. It is impossible even to know a single cathedral. As has been finely said by Mr Fergusson : " Xot only is there built into a medi;eval cathedral the accumulated thought of all the men who had occupied themselves with building during the preceding centuries, but you have the dream and aspiration of the bishop, abbot, or clcrgv for whom it was designed ; the master-mason's skilled construc- tinn ; the work of the carver, the painter, the gla/.ier, the host of men who, each in his own craft, knew all that had been done before them, and had spent their lives in struggling to surpass the works of their fore- fathers. It is more than this : there is not one shaft, one moulding, one carving, not one chisel-mark in such a building, that was not designed specially for the place where it is found, and which was not the best that the experience of the age could invent for the purposes to which it is applied ; nothing was borrowed; and nothing that was designed for one purpose was used for another. A thought or a motive peeps out through every joint ; you may wander in such a building for weeks or for months together, and never know it all." FRANCIS BOM). NOTE OF ACKNOWLEDGMENT THE writer has had the good fortune to secure the assistance of numerous local experts in revising the proofs of various chapters: acknowledgments are due to Rev. A. M. Alston, M.A., Rev. John liailey, M.A., Miss Maude E. lUill, Cieorge Benson, Esq., A.R.I. 15. A.. Canon Church, F.S.A., \V. Eaton, Esq., A. R.I. 15. A., the Dean of Fly, Rev. Edward Korse, M.A., Rev. J. T. Fowler, D.C.I,, \V. Francis, Esq., Miss Kdith Hoskyns, P. M. Johnston. Esq., F.S.A., the Dean of Lichfield, the Hon. Mrs O'C.rady. II. Plowman, Esq., Miss Edith K. Prideaux, Professor S. II. Reynolds, the Dean of Ripon, C. 15. Shuttleworth, Esc}., \V. Wheeler, Esq., and Canon J. M. Wilson, I ). D. For photographs the author is indebted to the following : to II. W. ]5ennett, Esq., for the' illustrations given on pp. 5, 59, 61, 87, 109, 374: W. M. Dodson, Esq. (I>eltws-y- Coed), pp. 112, 469 : W. Francis, Esq., pp. 243, 250, 254: Messrs F. Frith \: Co., Ltd., pp. 216, 2*4, 484; J. dale, Esq.. ]). 28: J. P. (lihson, Esq., pp. 85, 88, 208; The' Hereford- shire Photographic Society, pp. 156, 160, 165, 169; The London Stereoscopic Co. Ltd., p. 215; C. F. Nunneley, Esq., pp. 101, 103, 138, 230, 233, 307; The Photochrom Company Ltd., the frontispiece and pp. 31, 47, 48. 50, 80, 96,99. 117. 123. 145, 148, 153. 174. 188,220,226.260, 261, 263, 270, 277, 21)7, 313, 315, 346, 363, 381, 386, 387, 394, 407, 485 ; S. Smith, Esq. (Lincoln), pp. 11)5, 11)7. 203 : the Rev. I 1 '. Sunnier, pp. 68, 7^. 77, 168. 247, 302, 306, 326, 32(), 375. 376, 392, 400: F. R. P. Sunnier, Esq., pp. 6. 71, 151, 249, 304, 305, 308, 328, 330. 377. 402 : xii XOTK ()!' ACKNOWLEDGMENT. Yallance, Esq., M.A., K.S.A., pp. 25, 35, 38, 40 : and A. K. \\"alshani, Ksq., pp. 248 and 253. To Sir Arthur IMoinfield i>. 22: Prc-('onc[uest remains, 22: Lanlranc's ( 'alhcilral and lienedictine Monastery. 22: site of lu'ckel's martyi'dom. 24: Si-;(i)N|i 1'KKlop. 24: Anselm'> \\orU, 24: <'liapels. 2<) : l'resliyier\-. 27: the Choir. 27. }o : TIMKII I'KKi'Mi. 28 ; I )estruction and Restoration of Choir, 2S : liecket's Corona, ^n; French Inlluence-. ^2: Stained (da--., i ^ : Forum ]'i-: Kini), ^4; Crynl, ^ : l''irin I'l^'Kii'ii. ^; Xorman \\"ork Removi'd. ^5 : Cleresiorv. 50 : Sixi II I'l'.Kii'ii. .57; Cloisters, 37: SKVKNMI I'I-;KII>, 57; Central Tower. 37 ; C'hapter lloii>e. jS ; \\'e>t l-'ronl, 40. xiii Kiv CONTFNTS I AC-I-. CARLISLE The Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity 4.3 Aii!_;uMinian Establishment. 43; FIK^I I'i;k|(>h. 43: ihe Norman Church, 43 ; SK.CI>\II I'KKII >\ >. 44 ; Gothic Chancel Built. 4^: Tiuuii i'lOKloii, 46: destruction by lire. 4') : the Fa>i Front. 47: FnriMii rh.KiiMi, 4(1; ('enlral Tower and Na\e, 40: I'll III I'lvRIop, 50; Gulldebuur's illumina- tion.-,. 50 ; Six 1 11 I'KKIOM, 51. CHESTER The Cathedral Church of Cliri,t and the Blessed \ irgm - heiiediclinc Muna>tcrv. 52: I-'IK>I I'lOKHiii. ^2 ; Norman Work extant, 52; Cloisters, 55; SK I'I-.KK.)!'. ^^ ; THIRD I'KKHH>, 55; Lady ('hapel, 57: the Choir. 57: FoaUTII I'F.KMD. 5N; extensive relmildin;;. 58: St. ( )>\vald's Church. 59: C'entral Tower and Nave, oo : Finn I'KKion, 02; Nave. Ili,L;h Altar, and Cloister-. ()2 ; Minor \\ orks. 63 : Stalls. 63. CHICHESTER The Cathedral Church of the Holy 6. } ' umdalioii of ihe See. 07 : ihe Norman Clmicn. t)^ : the I ,ady ( 'h ipel. 70: destruction hy lire and re>to|-ation. 71 : the To\\er.-. 70; ( 'iui|)cl>. 70; \\indow Tracer\'. 78: detached ( 'ampamle. 71*: liernardis paintings, Su : rebuilding oi 'lie To\\ er> and Spire. Si . DURHAM The Cathedral Church of Christ and the l>le--ed \ irgm Mar\' Foundation ni" ihe See. N2 : UeiKdictiiie I i !>t.ililislin S4 : F]'i>i'op:il |uri>diction. S4 : I-'IK^I I'KI, i< >1 >. So : the Norman Cathedral. So: Vaulting. SS : Internal Klevation. So: SKCO.MI l'i.i;iiiii. Sit : (r.aliic -nirit. 90: Tiiii,:- l'Ki;i"i>. oo : "Chapel of ihe Nine Altars," oi : F<'KIH I'KKinii. 93: \\indo\\ Tracery. <>',: Altar Reretln>. <}]: I'll III I'l-.KIi'K i >, oS ; I'lan and Construction ol Norman Cathedral, cjS ; Sr.ro.ND I'KKII MI, 102: The (lalilee I'orch, 102 : Reconstruction of Kast I-'.nd. 102: TllIKD I'KKloD, 104; tin- Lady Chapel. K>T; Collap-e of Central Tower, lo'>: ( 'onslruciion ol the < )ctai;on, io() ; the rebuilt ( 'liojr, 1 08 ; Stall>, no: I'OcKin I'KKioD, 110; IjLjIiiiiiL; impruvcinents, i 10 ; Clianlry Chaprls, no; 1'IKIII I'l^Klon. ill; \Vn-n'> ( 'lairal I)iMir\\a\, n I : Mi\ou \\'OKK>, ill. EXETER 'I'hc Cathedra! Church of St. Peter i 14 l-'oundatinn of the See, 114: KIK.VI I'KKIOD, n<>; con- stiuciion iif the Norman ('alhedral. in ; SK. 121 ; the Arrades, 122: I-'n III I'I-.KIOD, 123; the Choir remodelled, 123; Six 111 I'KKIOD, 124; completion of the Choir. 124: the I Si.shop'.s Throne, 125 ; the 1 1 iidi Aliar, i jo : Si. \l.\l II I'KKIiiI), 127: the design of the Cathedral. 150: Interior I'rohlems, 1 30 : \\mdow 'I'racery, 151 ; symmetiy of the design, 1.51 : KiciiTli 1'KKioD, 133; the Chantrie>. 1.54- GLOUCESTER The Cathedral Church of St. Peter llenedictine Estuhlishmenl, 1 ](> ; l''lk-'l' ]'KKlol>. i ](> ; the Crypl. I .JO: SHCOND I'KKIOD, 138: the rebuilding, i .yS ; the ( 'hoir and Na\e. 1 O; TllIKD I'I';KIO|), 142: To\\ers, 142: de>truclion by lires, 14.5; l-'ol'KIH I'lOkli'D. 143: Strengthening b\' i;uitre>>e--. 143: \\'imlo\\-, 144: IMIMII I'KKIOD, 144: Tomb of Edward II.. 144: Sixin 1'KKioD, 14(1; Liiditint; improvements. 14!) : South Tran- >ept, 140; X'aultiiiL;. I4<): The Ivast I-Jid. i y) : SKVK.NIII I'KKIOD, 151; rebuilding of Cloisters, 131: KK;IIIII I'KKIOD, l^l; \\\-.-t Kroiil, i^i : N IN Ml 1'KRIOD, 1^2: Central Tower, 152; TKNIII I'lCKhiD, 152 : lebuildin.L;' of I.ad\ Chapel, 152 ; The Cloister, Chapter House, etc., i ^ i : Minor \\ i ii ks and Mi liniment.-, I S-l- HEREFORD The (Jatlia.lr.il Church of St. Mary .uul St. Kthclbcrt FIRM I'KKinh. i vS ; tin' Norman Church, i =;8 : Si:o>\ii I'KKloli, M)o; Nave and renovation of ( 'hoir, Idl ; TlllKh I'KKIOII. 161 : the Chapels. 162; IMICIMII I'KKinii, 102 ; completion .if I.ady Chapel, I'),; I'll III I'KUloh, 1(14; Li^hlinL; Problems. 1(14: Six 111 1'hkloh. 164; North Tran- sept rebuilt, 104: SKVKVIII li;ui, 10, : Si. ( 'antchipe'.- Shrine, 106 : various impro\ emcnts. l(>0: Kic.in II I'KK 1< >l >. 1(17; ('ential 'I'i)\\er rebuilt. 107: S. I'.. 'l"iaii-rpt rebuilt. inS; \INIII I'KRloii, i6S: South Transept \Yind<>\\>. ii)S; t'bantry ('Impels. 1(19; T !:.%' I H I'lCRii'ii. 170: Modern Ke.-toratiuns, I 70. LICHFIELD Tlie Cathedral Church of St. Mary l-'oundatioii of the See, 172; stor\- of St. (Jhad. 1 7 j ; llistnry of the See. 175; ihe ('atheihal durin:;' tbe Ci\il \\"ar. 170: 1'uritanical Devastations, 177; Re-erection of Central Touer. 178: KIK^T I'I^KIMII. I7S: the Norman Cathedral. 178: SKC<>M> I'KKIDD. i-i): ibu Norman Cathe- dral rebuilt. 170: TltlKH I'KKIOD, I Sj : the Traiisepts and Chapler I I. HIM.-. 1^2: KoCRTII I'l-.RIOM. I S ^ : the Na\e, 185: l-'ll III I'l'lKIiili. iS^; tile \\'est |-'ront. |S^: the I.ady Chapel. iS^: Six'in I'EKIOH. iS(>: St. Chad's Shrine. 186-7 : Li;j;liiin;j; impro\ emeiit-. I Sf> : Si'.\"i;\ I II |'KI;|( .| >. 187; Altai Screen, 187; completion of St. Chad's Shrine. 1 88 ; Minor Works, 180. LINCOLN The Cathedral Church of St. Man KIK.VI I'KKIOD. MM : Norman Remains. 101 : M-.' D\IP I'KKlnlt. I'i^; the Towel's. Hi^; TlllKli I'l-.Ki'iD, 104: ilie ivbuildiiiL, r . 104; St. I lush's \Vnrk, 196. etc.; ForKin I'KKI'ih. i<8; Hi ill 1'KKIc]). M)8; [be Xa\e, l<)8: the \Ye--1 l-'rolit, 201 ; SlX III I'KKIiil), 2(Jl : i-iilLlp- . I 1 n if C nlr: 1 T< i\\ er. 201 : ( 'Imir and Tran>ept-. 2- .2 : S!--VK\TII I'KKIuJ), 2' 14 : the An^el Choir. 2O,: C Iral To\\er : >:' : i , 205: [-'II.UTH I'KKIOJI. ju5: l!i>hop Dalderby"> Shrine. 200: NlNllI I'KKIOI>. 207: ( : :: Stall-, 2^7: '['KM 11 1'KKinn. 207: \\\--i Windnw^. 207: ( 'hanii ii -. 208 : Ki KVK.N i n I'KKH M L j> \\er. 290; ]',!( ; 1 1 I'll I'l-'.Kioii. 290; NINTH I'KKion. 2<)0 ; removal of Southern Tower. 290: St. \Villiam, 2<)l : TKX i M I'KKIOD. 292: various U'orks, 2<)2 : KI.KVKNTII 1'iCKioi), 292; Li-htin^ Improved. 292 : TWKI.KTH I'KKIOD. 20 i : iMilar^'eineiil ol Ladx ( 'hapel and Sout h Transep! . 295: 'I'ltiu i I-;I'.NTH I'F.Rini). 2<)_5 : Tower and Spire replaced, 20 v ST. ALBANS The Cathedral Church of St. Alhan (ieneral Survey, 204 : IScnedictine I-'otindalioi), 298; tlie Uituali-tic I)i\ision>. 201) : 1'iR-i I'I-.RII>I>. ^01 : Norman \\ork. ^oi : X'oi'man Nave. ;O2 ; Aisles and Transept -. ,< S : SKCdNIi I'E:;I')|>. ,04: Arcade and Doorway. 304: TlllKU I'KRIiil), JO5; the West Fr^ni. 3(15: ForKTll I'KKlnD, 505; Westernmost Bays. 305; FII-TII TKRICID, ^oh; Sanctuary. 300; Chapels. 307; Si.xin |'I-:RIOII. ^07 ; the Fad\- ( 'hajiel, ]n- -. SKVKXTII I'KRIOH, 307: collapse of Nave and rotnra ': : . 307: KliMlTli I'KKI'U'. 307: Minor \\orks. juS. CONTENTS XIX I'ACH SALISBURY -The Cathedral Church of St. Mary 310 The Norman Cathedral, 310; commencement of the 1 'resent Cathedra', 312; comparative Survey of the Cathedral, 312-316; the Plan, 316; the Tower and Spire, 317; the External Aspect, 320; the Lighting, 325; the Interior, 326 : the East End, 328. SOUTHWARK-Thc Cathedral Church of St. Saviour - 331 Foundation of St. Mary Overie, 331 ; Establishment as Augustinian Priory, 331: FIRST IT.K1OP, 332; Norman remains, 332 ; SF.CONP PKRIOP, 333 ; rebuilding Eastern and Western Limbs, 333 ; the Presbytery, 334 ; the Nave. 335; THIRD PKKIOP. 335: EOUKTH PKRIOP, 336; the Lady Chapel, 336; Fil-'Tll I'KKIOP. 337: Tracer}'. 337; SIXTH PKKIOP, } }S : Keredos and Western Facade. 338: MINOR DKTAII.S, 338. SOUTHWELL The Cathedral Church of St. Mary 342 Eoundation of the See. 342; I-'IKST i'KKIop, 343: SKCOXD PKKIOP. 343: THIKP PKRIOP. 344: the Norman Church. ^4\: EiHTKTil PKKIOD. 348; the Exterior of the Eastern Limb. 348; the Choir. 349: FIKTII PKRIOP. 353; SIXTH I'KKIOP, 353; Cloister. 353; SKVKNTII PKKIOP, 353; Chapter House. 3S3; EIGHTH PKKIOP, 554; Choir Screen, 354: NINTH PKRIOP. 3SS : Tracery, 3SS: TKNTH I'KKIOP. 355 ; Minor Works. 355. WAKEFIELD The Cathedral Church of All Saints 357 WELLS -The Cathedral Church of St. Andrew 360 Its Charming Aspect, 360; FIRST PKKIOP, 364; Norman remains. 364: SKCONP I'KKIOP, 364; commencement of Present Cathedral. 364; the Design, }66 : Vaulting, 507 ; the Lighting System, 3(><); order of execution. 372: THIKP PKRIOP. 373; the Western Facade, 374 ; Western ChapeN, 37<> : ForKTU I'KRiop, 37(1; the Chapter House, 377: I-ii-TH PKRIOP, 377; extension of Choir, 378: Lady Cliapel, 379; Central Tower heightened, 381: SIXTH I'KK , 382; the \\"e>tern Towers heightened, 382: the present Cloisters. 382. XX CONTEXTS I'AC.F. WINCHESTER The Cathedral Church of the Holy and Indivisible Trinity 3X4 Proportions of the Cathedral, 3X4; FIRST PKRIOD, 387; Remains <>f the Early Church, 387; the Crypt, 390; South Transept, 390; the Central Tower, 391 ; SKCO.ND PKRIOD, 391 ; Norman Doorway and Font, 391: THIRD PKRIOD, 392; Retro-Choir, 392; Chapel of Holy Sepulchre, 393; Stalls. 393: FOURTH PKRIOD, 393; restoration of Presbytery, 394; FIFTH I'KRIOD, 395; Ke-erection of Nave, 395; SIXTH PKRIOD, 401; the Fast End, 401; Langton's Chantry, 402 ; the Ritualistic Division, 403. WORCESTER-- The Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Mary the Virgin of Worcester - 404 Establishment of Benedictine Order, 404; FIRST I'I-'.KK ID, 406; Anglo-Norman Church, 406; SKCOND PKRIOD, 408; CiiAi'TKR HorsK, 408; THIRD PKRIOD, 409: completion of Nave. 409: FOURTH PKRIOD. 412: repairs through damage by tire. 412: FIFTH PKRIOD, 413: St. Wulfstan, 413; The Presbytery, 414; Lady Chapel, 415; completion of East End. 417: SIXTH I'KRIOD, 418; lower part of Tower rebuilt, 419: SKVKNTH PKRIOD, 419; Bishop Cob- ham's minor Works, 420; FICHTH PKRIOD. 421 : Cloisters and upper pan of Tower rebuilt. 421 : NINTH PKRIOD, 421; Vaultings, 422; TK.NTH PKKIOD, 422: remodelling of Chapter House. 423 ; Prince Arthur's Chantry, 423 : EI.KVKNTH PKRIOD. 423: Jacobean Pulpit. 423: T \\KI.ITH PKRIOD, 423: Modern Furniture, etc.. 423: lour of the Cloister. 424. YORK -The Cathedral Church of St. Peter - 4.26 FIR-T PKRIOD. 428; South Transept, 428; SKCOND PKRIOD, 430; the Nave. 430: THIRD PKRIOD, 433; Chapter Hout, 433 : the exterior aspect. 4^7. THE WELSH CATHEDRALS BAM, OR 442 The Norman Church. 442 ; work of Bishop Anian. 442-3 : destruction l,y tire. 445 : Restoration.-,, 44 ,. CONTENTS xxi THE WELSH CATHEDRALS Continued LLANDAKK 446 FIRST PERIOD, 447 ; Urhan's Norman Cathedral, 447-456 ; SECOND PERIOD, 456 ; completion of Urhan's Cathedral, 456; THIRD PKRIOD, 460; Campanile and Chapter House, 460; IMH'KTH PKRIOD, 460; Ladv Chapel, 460; FIFTH PERIOD, 461 ; Improvements to Li^litinLj, 461 ; SIXTH PKRIOD, 462 ; New Doorways, 462 ; SEVENTH PERIOD, 462 ; North-West Tower, 462 ; KK;HTH PERIOD, 463; Kestora- linns, 463. ST. ASAPH'S - 464 ST. DAVID'S - 466 P'IRST PERIOD, 466 ; commencement of the Present Church, 466; the Aisles, 468; SECOND PERIOD, 468; Presbytery and Transepts remodelled, 469; THIRD PERIOD, 470; I)e I.eia's Church, 470; FOURTH PERIOD, 471; Chapel of St Thomas the Martyr, 471 ; Shrines, 471 ; FIFTH PKRIOD, 471 ; the Chantry, 471 ; SIXTH PERIOD, 471; the Chapels. 472; SEVENTH PERIOD, 473; Wood- work, 473 ; FIOHTH PERIOD, 473 ; completion of F.astern Chapels, 473 ; Exterior, 474. MODERN CATHEDRALS- BIRMINGHAM - 477 LIVERPOOL 479 TRURO 483 INDEX _ _ 487 CLASSIFICATION OF THE CATHEDRALS TlIIKTKKN ('. \THF.MRAI.S OK THK OLD FOUNDATION" (I'l'C- Conqucst . Bangor, Chichester, Exeter, Hereford, Lichfield, Lincoln, Llandaff. London, St. Asaph, St. David's. Salisbury, Wells, York. These \vere served by secular canons. Not beniL;" served by monks, they required none of the monastic buildings, except the chapter-house. Some, however, have cloisters. The establishments of these cathedrals were not suppressed, as were other ecclesiastical colleges, at the Reformation. THIKTFKN CATHEDRALS OF THK XK\V FOUNDATION. - (d; Pre-Reformation Sees. Seven cathedrals attached to Bene- dictine monasteries viz., Canterbury. Durham, Ely, Norwich. Rochester, Winchester, Worcester ; one, Carlisle, attached to a house of Augustinian canons. (b) Sees founded by Henry I'll I., who converted into cathedrals three Benedictine churches vi/.. Chester. Gloucester, and Peter- borough : and two Augustinian churches viz., Bn>tol and < >xtord. All the above thirteen churches ceased at the Reformation to be served by monks or regular canons, and received a new founda- tion of dean and secular canons. THE CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND AND WALES INTRODUCTION THE following pages arc an attempt to make: the study of the English cathedrals more interesting. Every ancient building has a life history of its own, and should be studied biographically I Jut open a guide-book, or visit the different portions of a cathedral (Winchester, for example) in the regulation order, and what you read of or see will probably be, first, what was done in the nave in the 1 latter part of the fourteenth and in the fifteenth century ; then the work done in the crossing in the twelfth century ; then work done in the transepts in the eleventh century; then the work in the choir in the first half of the fourteenth century ; then the work done in the retro-choir early in the thirteenth century ; finally, sixteenth-century work in the Lady chapel. To the reader this hop, skip, and jump method if it deserves to be called a method --is simply maddening. For the visitor it has one merit, and one merit only: it saves his legs. It is not desired, however, to save the visitor's legs : it must candidly be confessed that the bio- graphical method of studying a cathedral involves a certain amount of marching and countermarching. It is to be hoped that there are some visitors who will not be deterred by a little additional bodily fatigue from studying the cathe drals aright. With what horror a reader would study a biography of the Great I hike which commenced with the Peninsular War, then described his school days at Eton, followed these up by the battle <>l Waterloo, digressed into i 2 INTRODUCTION a description of his childhood and ancestry, described his career as a Tory Prime Minister, and wound up with his campaigns in India ! Yet that is how the Knglish cathedrals are studied. Hut it is not sufficient to study the different parts of a cathedral in chronological order. It would be a dull bio- graphy of a man, and a dull history of a people, which put events correctly in chronological order, but did not point out the causal connection between them. It is just when we reach this point that the real interest begins. It does not interest one much to hear that an acquaintance whom we saw in London in the spring is now in the Australian bush : it does interest one when one hears that he had to leave the country because three months ago he was detected cheating at cards. So, in a cathedral, it is not enough to know that such a vault was put up or such a row of windows inserted in the fifteenth century. \Ve want to know why the cathedral people constructed the vault or the windows just then : also, why they were not satisfied with what was there before ; also, what was there before. And with the latter query comes in a fine field ol action lor what is called the '' constructive imagination.'' On the motives which influenced mediaeval builders considerable stress is laid throughout the book, simply because, if it has occurred at all to writers to ask why stieh and such a change was made, the answer Usually has been the quotation is from an article on one ol the cathedrals " simply a desire tor what was thought a tar superior kind of beauty led to the alteration of this work " : /.<'.. the ( lot hie builders were aesthetic dilettanti, striving alter pivttmes- tor prettmess sake: on a level with painters and poets and musicians. Now. some changes were due. it must be admitted, to aesthetic considerations simply: e.g., the sub stitution of the present choir lor the former twelfth centun choir at York : so also one of every pair of towers at the west end ol a cathedral : and every spire in the country. Hut the more the hi-tory of the cathedrals is studied, the more el.-arlv it will be seen that the invat majority o| INTRODUCTION the alterations in the structure were Forced on the ecclesi- astical authorities of the day by practical considerations. The monastery was large, as at Canterbury, and the church the seat of an archbishop : Lanfranc's short choir had to lie replaced by a longer one. Saint-worship increased: pilgrimages increased : pilgrims came in thousands and tens of thousands. They could not be accommodated in the crypts as before; room had to be lound on die lloor ot the choir for shrines transferred Imm the crypt : and aisles 4 INTRODUCTION had to be constructed round the shrines, that then.- might be a free passage, and no dangerous block in the stream of pilgrims. For the local saint the St. Thomas of Canter- bury, the St. I high of Lincoln accommodation on a vast scale had to be provided. But beside the local saints, there were the great saints of the Church : for them special chapels, with altars, had to be provided, either in a new eastern transept or in the aisles of a central transept. There was. moreover, especial!}' in the first halt of the thirteenth century, a great in- crease in the number and dimensions of t Lady chapels. For these reasons, then what we may call ritualistic reasons vast eastern exten- sions were' made in nearly every cathe- dral. ' lUit the original Norman cathedrals were not only small and inconvenient to the east, but were throughout very badly lighted : a very large amount of history, as is pointed out in speaking ol Gloucester, Hereford, and Norwich, consists of attempts to improve the lighting of the cathedral. Sometimes, indeed, the improvement took the shape of total destruction ol the old gloomy church, and its replacement by a brilliantly illuminated successor, as at York. Connected with this was the mania lor an increased acreage of stained glass an aesthetic motive, which, however, had its practical side; the stained glass justifying itsell to the monks and canons as pro- INTRODUCTION 5 viding ;i series of lessons in Scripture history or Church history. Many changes were due to damage from fire or storm, church, because fires 111 146} and 1509 shewed them the necessity of it. 1 >y burning down successively the wooden roofs, first of the nave and choir, then of the transept. It our documentary evidence were not so deplorably in- complete. \ve should find that very many other alterations were due to the eltect of lire and tempest : in which case the list of aesthetic changes would be yet further cut down. Add to these causes the Ire- i|uent collapses due to niedueval jerry - bu i 1 d i n g. both Xorman and (iothic. Many central towers col lapsed - <'.,;''.. a t W i n c h e s t e r. Ripon. Kly. 1'eter borough, Lincoln ; and doubtless there were col lap>cs of main' other towers. (-I \vlneh we have IK > record. I leinv. tor example, the I o 11 rte ell t h-ce 11- tury choir of Kl\ . \\'hole sections of a cathedra! tumbl'-d down t.',^'., in St. Alban's nave. I h.e early nia>onry \vas but skm deep : inside the thin casing ot ashlar the core ol pu-r> and w.ill- alike crumbled into powder; foundations were in sufficient, or were omitted altogether. The object wa-. but too often, not to build soundly, but to build as >juickh INTRODUCTION 7 it may be useful to mention that the high altar is to the east ; and that, lacing the east, the visitor has the south transept and south aisles on his right, and the north transept and north aisles on his left hand. Standing at the altar or tin 1 choir-screen, and looking down the nave to the great doors, he has the north transept and north aisle ol the nave on Ins right, and the south transept and south aisle ol the nave on his lelt. The western limb ol the cathedral is called the nave. The term "choir ' is sometimes loosely applied to the whole of the eastern limb. Strictly it applies just to that part ol the church where the stalls are : and that part, as in St. Alban's and Norwich, need not necessarily be in the eastern limb at all, but in the crossing and in the eastern- most bays ol the nave. In a cathedral with a hilly developed plan <'.,;'., St. Alban s or Winchester the following ritualistic divisions will be met with in passing Ironi west to east : ( i ) The nave : (2) the choir : (3) the presbytery or sanctuary ; INTRODUCTION (4) the R-trorhoir, containing (a) Saint's chapel or feretory. (/') procession path, (f) Lady chapel. Sometimes these ritualistic divisions correspond with the architectural divisions of the church : sometimes they do not : e.g., the ritualistic divisions of the eastern limbs of York and Lincoln were not shown in the structure, hut merely marked off by screens, most of which have been destroyed. As a rule, architectural detail is not described. The visitor to the cathedral does not need the description ; tin- reader does not need it, if he has an illustration before him : if he has not, no amount of verbiage will make clear to him what, for instance, a bay of the Angel triforium of Lincoln is like. The writer has followed the convenient custom of ascribing the design of different parts of the cathedrals to various bishops and abbots and priors. Such names, however, are merely convenient chronological fixtures, not intended to signify that the- dignitaries of the church personally designed and erected them, but simply that the}' were in office when the work was done. THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF THE HOLY AND UNDIVIDED TRINITY, BRISTOL BUILT KOK At'GUsTiMAN CANONS BRISTOL CATHEDRAL was originally a church of the Regular Canons of the Augustinian Order, who settled at Bristol in 1142. These canons were Regulars; i.e., they lived in accordance with a regitla or code, which in their case was based on the precepts of St. Augustine of Hippo. Like monks, they lived a ceenobitic life : but unlike: monks, they are found taking part in parochial work, and the naves of their churches were open, much more than those 1 of monks, for lay use ; moreover, they were all of them priests, whereas at this period monks as a rule were laymen. The staircase in the south transept is that by which they descended from their dormitory into church lor the service o! matins at or soon after midnight. Their chapter house remains on the' east side of the cloister : and on the: south side- the fine thirteenth-century doorway to their relcctorv. The principal entrance to their precincts was by the great gateway, which appears to have been rebuilt, but with the same Norman detail, c. 15 1=5. Another rich Norman gateway, strengthened about the same time, in Lower College Green led to the Abbot's hall. The good lord Sir Robert and Lady Eva his wife, up to the Pissolu lion, had an anniversary with special service's and great giving of alms to the: canons, their servants, and te) poor men and prisoner's ; also daily inlcnvssion was made' tor the'iii both in church and chapter house. In 1542, like the Augiistinian churches of Carlisle' and Oxlord, it be/came' a cathedral. In 1836 the; diocese was 10 united to that of ( tloiicester : ii dependent status. Fiksr I'KKIOD. The Norman church, be^un in 1142, is said, somewhat doubtfully, to have been consecrated in i i 4arl ol 1 he lower piers ; lor their mold ings, as in the ear -,,,,.. CHA,,, KK ma >K her remodelling nl \\inehcster nave, are those ol a Norman compound pier. (5) The corbels reused in the staircase on the north side ol the choir. (0) The two gatehouses. (7) The Chapter house, which is said to have been one bay longer to the eaM, and to have had an eastern apse : but Archdeacon Norris had a hole dug, (i It. deep, in a line with the south wall, and no foundations ol' an eastern wall were found. ( X ) In the vestibule to the Chapter house, the bays being oblong. pointed arches were used on the short skies of each bay. so 12 1IKISTOL CATIIKDRAL that their crowns might rise to the same height as those of tin- semicircular arches on tin.- longer sides, as the builders thought was demanded l>y the requirements of vaulting. In the same way, beneath the central towers of Oxford Cathedral and liolton Priory, pointed arches were built over the narrow transepts; while over the broader nave and choir the semicircular arch was employed. The vestibule must be well advanced in the third quarter ol the twelfth century. SECOND I'KKIOD. The Norman church must have been dark, and pre- parations were made to improve the light- ing of the north tran sept by the insertion of a big window in its north wall. The tracer}' of the pre- sent window is later : but its inner jamb-,, moldings, and shafts, and the external cill and string, as well as a great part of the buttresses, seem to have been executed C. 1250. In the same century a ctuiL!' eastward from wall ol the choir. The same position wa> adopted later for the Lady chapels of Peterborough and Ely. This chapel is the artistic gem of the cathedral : it is surrounded by arcades ol the greatest beauty, with sculptured grotesques interspersed among the .scrolls of the foliage. Later on it received the name of the elder Lady chapel : another Lady chapel having been built in the more normal position at MRISTOL CATIIKDUAL 13 the extreme east of the- choir. The chapel is earlier than 1253, for in that year ex-abbot David was buried in it. Abbot Bradeston (1234-1236) founded a chantry in it, and may have built the chapel ; or it may be the work of his predecessor, David (1225-1234). It was originally without a vault. The present vault has a ridge rib. the ribs an; molded on the chamfer plane, and the bosses are some of naturalistic, and some of undulatory foliage. The east window has tracery of rather advanced geometrical type : it is of earlier type, than in Knowlc's work, begun in 1298; probably both vault and window are c. 1290. The addition of the vault ultimately necessitated the reconstruction of the- buttresses and the pinnacles, probably in the fifteenth century. Of the original pinnacles only one, at the north- eastern corner, remains. The southern entrance to the Lady chapel was probably added in 1491. THIRD PKKIOH. The great building period at Bristol commences in i29ut it is not necessary to go abroad lor precedents. Many a monastic refectory and chapter house had two or I hrce parallel aisles of the same height and span, and these' were 1 constructed without cleiv >tories or living buttresses, adequate light being obtainable from windows in the 1 end and side walls. In the new work the altar stood in the same position as at present; this is proved by the fact that over it is a vault- in- arch more important than the rest, and that west of it the centre-pieces of the lierne vaults arc' cusped, while- to the east they are not. The bay at the back ot it funned the procession path : next came a new unaisled Lady chapel of two bays, with an axis deviating ^ It. to the north. South of the I.ady chapel is a double chapel, the IVrkcley chapel. 1 he molds and ornaments agree with those of Knowle s work, but it is an afterthought. It was built alter the south aisle wall was erected, and so an entrance had to be contrived from the sacristy, and not direct Irom the aisle; its east wall does not line with that ol the aisle, and it has a different external plinth. Probably Knowle's original plan \\as to have an altar in the eastern bay of each choir aisle : but a> this would have blocked the procession path, a d uible chapel was built to hold the two altars. Knowle is specifically recorded to have built the sacrist}-, so we may perhaps attribute the Derkeley chapel to Snow. The latter is the only one ol the abbots who was enrolled among the .ibliot benefactors, and he was buried, like Knowle, in front ol the rood screen: we may tairly conclude that he did a good deal of the work usually ascribed to Knowle. who is merely recorded in a vague way to have "built the whole area ol the church. '1 he choir screen ol the iii>niin c^its stood as at present under the eastern arch ol the tower, and there was a rood screen under the western arch. The two western bavs ol the chancel formed the choir; the two i astern ihe | nvsl >\ lery. All this was the work of a man ol the highest genius: only to be paralleled b\ that other architect who was to IS I5UISTOL ('ATIlKI)kAL commence the great work at Gloucester c. 1330. The design is not only remarkable as an exhibition of sound and original engineering which has stood stable to this day, but because it reveals high artistic qualities. This chancel, with arches rising to the height of 52 ft., beyond those of any other of our cathedrals, full of light and spaciousness and atmosphere, is as interesting in detail as it is in its general ensemble. There is indeed no triforium or clerestory, but at the level of the window rills runs a continuous wall passage, as in Henry III.'s work at Westminster. Externally, the ground course, buttress and pinnacle are a vigorous and fresh com- position : above, where is now a battlement, there seems originally to have reigned a pierced parapet of singular beauty. The piers as seen on plan, are an entire novelty, and were to be copied all over England in later Gothic. The capitals, corbels, and bosses are admirable examples of the transition from naturalistic to undulatory foliage. The skeleton vaulting of the sacristy is a novelty, speedily copied at St. David's. "The stellate tomb-recesses, also reproduced at St. David's, are also original, though we may cite some- thing similar in the western procession doorway of Norwich nave. The reredos and sedilia of the Lad)' chapel are of the richest and most novel design. So is the eastern window, from which were evolved the designs of the windows of St. Mary Redcliffe. (L T nlike the rest of the windows, the mullionsand tracery are not bonded into the cill, jambs, and arch, but were inserted subsequently.) Not content with further renderings of oak, maple, vine, and the like, the carver reproduces pomegranates, medlars, maple seeds, and ammonites. Ammonites occur in abundance at Keynsham a lew miles away, and were believed to be snakes which had been turned into stone by St. Keyne, who had a hermitage there' ; one ot the altars in the Herkeley chapel may have been dedicated to her. In the head of the east window and in the side windows ot the Lady chapel line original glass remains, which the heraldry shews was made between 1312 and 1322. In the sacristy there are three recesses ; the eastern one has a well-built flue to carrv off HKISTOL CATUKDRAI. \<) the charcoal fumes produced in baking the sacramental wafers on a brazier ; or it may have been employed when tin: charcoal for the censers was being kindled. Its chimney may be seen outside. Opposite is a long cupboard for tin- abbot's crosier. Formerly there was a room for the sacristan above the Berkeley chapel ; the stairs remain in the corner of the chapel, but the roof has been flattened and the room has gone. The Newton chapel in the south aisle is also an after- thought ; for though the masonry of its east wall is coursed exactly with that of the south wall of the aisle, there is a straight joint between the two. Knowle's string of ball flower appears within, but there is no ball flower in the tracery of the east window, and it has supermtilhons ; it would seem that the east wall is part of the work of Knowle and Snow, but that the window was not inserted till late in the fourteenth century : to which date also probably belongs the simple quadripartite vaulting in the chapel and the adjoining bay of the aisle. FOURTH PKK ion. --From the middle of the fifteenth century up to the Dissolution important work was going on. The bishop of bath and Wells in 1466 leased to the canons a ([uarry at 1 Hmdry, Somerset ; with this stone probably the central tower was built ; old prints shew that it once had pinnacles. To the end of this century and the first part of the next belongs the remodelling of the: transepts. Much was done by Abbot Xailheart or Newland, who ruled the abbey from 14X1 to 1515; the best thing he did was to leave behind him a chronicle of the history of the abbey, lie went on with the new nave begun by Knowle and Snow, both working at the west front and carrying up tin- walls ol the north aisle to the nils ol the windows. lie i> buried on the south side' ol the western bay of the Lady chapel: his rebus is, "a bleeding heart with three nails. Across tin- entrance of the Lady chapel originally there was a screen carrying an organ, like that remaining at (Htery St. Mary. (Near Newland's tomb is a bra^s plate in memory of Joseph butler, the author of "The Analogy of 20 IJKISTOL CATIIKhRAI. Religion ; he was bishop of Bristol Irom 1738 to 1750.) To the sixteenth ci'iitury belongs the remodelling ol the threat gateway, c. 1515. To Abbot \\'ilham liurton is due the cresting ol' the reredos in the Lady chapel, on which appeal' his initial and re-bus, "burs on a tun. Between i 542 and 1547 was erected a handsome stone choir screen : this was demolished in 1860 by I )ean Elliott, who did much work in tin- cathedral, both ^ootl and evil part ol the screen has recently been re erected as a parclose screen to the south side ol the chancel. FIFTH PERIOD. At the hissolution the original dedica tion to St. Augustine was abolished. Ktther at or alter tin I Ms-solution, all the nave walls were reino\ed : both those of Snow and Xewland as well as those of Fit/hardiiiL:. if the latter were still standing. Between i86S and iS, v S sva- built the present nave with the west front : the interior is I'.RISTOL CATIIKDKAI, 21 successful, hut is greatly darkened hy inferior local glass. In i Sion in thr Iliistnl vdluniL' of tlic Hrilhli Archicolo^ical I it iti title. Dall.i\\:iy'- edition of nmcs nKide liv l\'i'li,un of \Vofti-sli-r, .. i 4 So. Mr U. II. \\';iri\-n in CHiloii .Jiifii/itiiriaii Sofit'ty, v. 1(17. Mi '!'. S. I'njH 1 in l'//'fi>ii . I n! /i/iiitriii/l .S'<), v''/r. i. .7^1. THE CATHEDRAL OF CHRIST CHURCH, CANTERBURY lil'lI.T FOR I5KNKDUTJNK MONKS OF all our cathedrals none is of such absorbing interest as Canterbury. It is vast in scale : the problems presented by the incorporation of fragments of its predecessors are fascinating to the antiquary; its eastern limb as set out in the eleventh century changed the whole direction of English church planning ; its twelfth-century successor introduced into England important features of the ( iothic architecture- of France; and laid the foundations of the south eastern school of English (iothic : in spite of much destruction its walls yet hold a wealth of noble monuments, unequalled except at Westminster : it has preserved treasures of early glass beyond compare ; important portions of its monastic buildings survive ; it has one of the noblest central towers in the world; like Gloucester, its masses group IIKIL; nificently seen far away : finally great historical scenes have been enacted within its walls above all. that greatest of all historical tragedies to the mind of the mediieval Englishman, the murder of ISecket. To Canterbury, as in the days of old, every Englishman owes a pilgrimage. Fiksi I'KKIOD.- Of the pre-Conquest cathedrals of Canterbury nothing remains, unless it be fragments of rude masonry in crypt and cloister. In 1067 the last Anglo Saxon cathedral was consumed by I "ire. I.anlranc. the lir-t N'orman archbishop, in 1070 commenced the rebuilding of the church and monastery, and is recorded to have finished the work in seven years. Of Fanfranc's cathedral, built, together with the Ueiie dietine monastery, between 1070 and 1077. there remains TO MONUMENTS ETC 7 C/JJSDINAL CHATILLIOW HCHRY JVJ 2 ARCHBISHOP COURTNEY CHAHTRY CHAPCL 5 EDWAKD THE BLACK PHINCE 4- A/ecu* S/MUM or MEPHAM SUDB'JSY STZATFO/ZD KEMPE: HUBERT WALTLK. REYNOLDS 11 LADY HOLLANDS 12 51 E J HALES TOMB 14 ARCH'' PECK HAM /J f)KCH r WfiiSH/IM /6 DEAN ISOGE&S 17 DEAN /9 DE/1M BOYS VODEAN rOTHEKBY 21 /1KCH* CH/GHELC. Ti HENGY W-i MT 24 DEAN WOT TON 25 CARDINAL POLE: /? BECKFTS SHGINE B O&CAN &CGZCN C GREAT TOWEfS TO ST/llfSCASE r. SPOT WHC/3C SECRET C Mae TYfSDOM fi L aDY CHAPEL J S K CONDUI'i N I/V. TOWEP WEST OOO/? SC/ILC of 24 CANTKKMURY ( 'ATI I K I )R AL tlu 1 internal plinth of tin 1 walls of nave and transept. In the north transept some of his small square blocks of Caen stone are well seen close to the site of the martyrdom, as well as his turret in the north-we t st corner. (The site ol the martyrdom is marked by a small square stone with a square sinking in the centre ; it is near the south-east corner of the north transept). His nave and transepts wen- allowed to remain till the fourteenth century. Lanlranc's cathedral was an unambitious building, built in a hurry: closely copied, to save time probably, both in plan and dimensions, from William the Conqueror's abbey church at Caen. Ironi which Lanlranc came to nil'- at Canterbury. Its nave and transepts were of the same si/.e as at present : in each Iran sept was a vaulted gallery, as at Winchester, Hlv. and the Confessor's church at Westminster: the eastern limb pro- bably had but two bays and terminated, as also its aisles, in an apse. SKCOXD PKKIOD. Such a building was altogether mi- worth}' to be the seat of the Primate of all Kngland and the church of a monastery in which Lanlranc had placed more than a hundred monks. The short eastern limb formed a presbytery, the transepts were without aisles, the nave was short, and a considerable part was occupied by tin- stalls ol the monks. There was a great defieienc\ ol chapels: and. above all. there was no procession aisle. Very soon, then - lore, in ioe/>, the remodelling ol the cathedral was under tak en. and was carried out. in the time of Archbishop Ansel m, first by Prior Krnulph, and afterwards by Prior Conrad : the church, as enlarged, being finished in i i i; and recon secrated in i i }o. It was impossible to extend the church to the west, because of the western towers. The hrst thin- to secure was that there should be no interruption in the daily services. This is expressly stated bv the monastic chronicler. Accordingly, Lanfrane s eastern limb was not pulled down at llrst. but the new arcade was built outside the old one. This made the new presbytery considerabh CANTKKIU'kY ( ' ATI I KI )RA I. plan, was itself practically a complete cathedral with nave transept, presbytery, procession aisle, and three radiatim. chapels, of which the easternmost was rectangular. Thb vast eastern limb was longer than the nave. It was portioned out as follows. The west ern bays were utilised as choir, the monks' stalls being transferred to them from the crossing and easl ern bays of the nave. In some churches they oc ( upy the latter position to this lav, <-'.. St. Ah ban's, Norwich, Westminster ; but after this date most ot the greater Knglish churches transfer- red their choir to ihi- easl ern limb. This made the eastern limb of the normal KIIL; lish church e\ cessively 1. >ng. and dilfereliliated il NORM \N ro\vi mere than any thing else Irom its continental brethren. Secondly, in each ol the new eastern transepts two apsidal chapels were built, and three more largei chapels were sel tangentially 26 CANTERBURY CATIIKDRAL to the procession path ; thus seven eastern chapels were gained instead of the t\vo in Lanfrane's eastern limb. Professor Willis was of opinion that the gradual acquire- ment of relies and the accumulation of canonised arch- bishops for whose shrines and tombs accommodation had to be- provided was one of the principal reasons why the extension was made : this view has truth in it, but is put much too strongly. More important was the necessity of having numerous altars at which each of the hundred or more monks could say his individual mass each day, and the great use at all times in the English ( Ihurch of procession- al ritual. Moreover. Canterbury was the most famous pilgrim church in England, and the procession path could he utilised to provide a way by which the crowded throng should be able to make the round of the eastern limb, viewing in turn tin- numerous relics exposed on the altars and the tombs of tin: many sainted archbishops. It is noteworthy that the north-eastern and south eastern chapels are twisted round, so as to get the altar more nearly north and south : at \Vinchester they were made to point exactly due east. It is probable that the whole plan is a derivative from Lewes and ultimately from Cluny. of which the choir was begun in 1089 and consecrated in 101)5, the year before Prior Ernulph began work at Canterbury. At Lewes, itself CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL 27 a Cluniac church, the: eastern transept, procession path, and five tangential chapels were in progress between 1091 and logS. A similar eastern extension was carried out in tin- thirteenth century at Bavham abbey, Sussex. Like the elongation of the eastern limb, the addition of the eastern transept found great favour in England, being reproduced at Lincoln, Rochester, Worcester, Salisbury, Beverley, and IJayham. The plan also provided what was regarded as a sine K AI, 2() which from the twellth century has insisted on working out its own salvation in its own way English architects largely ignored them both. The new French choir ol Canterbury \vas to be a rock on which the main current ol English art struck and parted asunder only to meet again on the other side 1 . The one great church in which the inlluence ol' Canterbury choir was to be suspected is Lincoln, begun in 1192. In St. Hugh's work the obligations to the Canterbury design are great; but there are hardly any, with the exception ol the omission of the hood mold, and the great projection of the buttresses, which are due to the Livnch features in the Canterbury design ; it is the English Features that are copied, and they are vciy numerous. The coupled columns, the Lrench arch-molds, the Corinthianesque capitals ol Canterbury were un English; no one would have anything to do with them anywhere, unless in the hall of Oakham. The eastern limb, as rebuilt, was even longer than that of Conrad. The reason was precisely that which brought about the extensions at Lincoln. Durham, \Vcstmmster as elsewhere, \i/.. the enormous popularity of a great local saint, bringing to his shrine hosts ol pilgrims, whose offer ings were adequate and more than adequate to provide him with a .stalely mausoleum. This mausoleum or Saint's chapel was built on the site of Conrad's easternmost chapel, where I'.eckel had sung his first mass and to the altar of which he at all tunes greatly resorted. It had been dedicated to the Holv 'I runty, and it is possible that till 1220 the new Saint's chapel retained the old name. l!ut in that year the relics ol St. Thomas ol Canterbury were translated Irom the crypt, where, they had rested from the day of his murder in i 170. and were placed in a shrine on the Italian pavement, still existing, behind die hi^h altar. where grooves in die stone made by kneeling pilgrims may be seen. (The pavement is cyV.v Ah'Xiindrininn executed in tiiivieji marbles, but put together by English workmen. Around are pillars ol rare marble, probably presents Irom foreign potentates; others, also intended for this ehapt 1, are said to have been detained at Marsala in Sicily, where they may still be seen.) From that time the chapel was known as St. Thomas' chapel till modern days, when, unfortunately, it has become usual to call it Trinity chapel once more. Kast ol the processional aisle was built a circular chapel, intended to rise into a circular tower, which was begun but never completed. This circular chapel is called the Corona ; it is probable that in it was placed a shrine containing a Imminent ol the skull, corona, of the martyr chopped off by the murderer's sword. In the choir all the levels have been changed : the altar used to stand on the lower platform ; the diaper work to the south probably is that of the backs of the sedilia. The design of the choir is a close copy of the work at Sens, Xoyon, Senlis, and the neighbouring cathedrals. Columns almost classical in proportion replace the heavy English cylinder. The coupled columns and Corinthian- csque capitals of Sens are faithfully reproduced in the Saint's chapel. The choir, as at Sens, is arranged in coupled bays with sexpartitc vaulting; while principal and intermediate piers, single and compound vaulting-shafts occur alternately in either choir. In unstable French fashion the vaulting-shaft is perched on the abacus. The abacus is square, except in the eastern part of the crypt. The capitals of the choir are foliated ; the Engli.sh molded capital occurs only in the crypt. Each bay of the triforium in both cathedrals contains a couple of arches, each aich subdivided by a central shaft. Both cathedrals have round transverse arches in the vaulting of the aisles. The windows are not the tall slender lancets of England, but the broad squat lancets of France. The pointed arches of the apse of the Saint's chapel on their tall stilts have a thoroughly I'rcnch look. French, too. is the wish to dispense with a hood-mold round the pier-arches. And, as at Noyon, Hying buttresses emerge from the gloom of the triforium into the open air. liul there is another factor besides the personality of William of Sens. He had to deal with a British building CANTKKMUKY CATIIKDKAL 3' committee ;uul with British workmen ; he was not free scope. The groined vaults had saved the aisle walls from much damage by fire, and these were retained to the height of 12 ft. The monks wished to retain the chapels of St. Anselm and St. Andrew, which had not been seriously damaged by the fire. IJut since they were almost in a line with his pier arcades, he had to in, ike the latter converge inwards, and then, alter passing the two chapcl>, outwards, giving a most unpleasant twist to the lines of the presbytery. A^ain, the crypt had escaped the tin-. In il were tin- piers on which the pillars of Conrad's arcades had resti d. The monks wished to retain them as the support of the new pillars. Hut it was also desired to throw the eastern transepts into the church. Till the fire each had been entered by two low arches with a pier between. This pillar was to be done away with, and a single lofty arch to be built, broader than the two arches together had been. The result was that all the western pillars had to be pi, iced a little to the west ol the positions formerly occupied, and all the eastern pillars a little to the east. Consequent!) all the piers in the crypt had to be strengthened either on their western or their eastern side. To the retention of the old -upports is als'j due the unequal spacing of the arches. Some were narrow and were pointed: others wen. 1 broad ,ind were made semicircular: such a mixture of arch forms must surely have been distasteful to an architect accustomed to the advanced I'Yench design of 1174. (St. I Kins had been begun in 1140. Sens <-. i i ; ;. Xotre 1 )ame. 1'aris. in I if>}.) ALMIII. since thi. - lower part ot the wall- ol the aisle-* was ret, lined, while tiie position ot the pillars was shifted. the supports of the vault in the aisle wall in many ca->es no longer laced the pillars: the result was that many of the bays of the new aisle-vaults were no longer rectangular, as those of the groined vaults had been, but trape/oidal. or else were truncated. Nor can the protuse use ot barbarn /.iu/aLj and billet ornament be due to the I reneh architect. ( )n the other hand he cannot be credited with the !a\ish Use ot 1'urbeck marble. This was not in Use in France, nor in Kn-land. except, perhaps a tew \ears earlier, in St. ( 'russ, Winchester. before the century was out. the marble use passed from Canterbury to Durham. Chichoter. and Christ Church. Dublin: and during the first half of the thirteenth century its detached shall- encircling the piers were adopted in almost every important church e.xcepl those nf the We-tern and Northern (iothic schools. It is interesting to watch the Fr<-nch William's experiment.- the new -hafts; working a- he did trom west to east, in- CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL is constantly trying new combinations of pier and shaft, and with increasing success. At the beginning of the fifth year of his work, William of Sens was seriously injured by a fall from the scaffold, and soon after returned to France. He had completed the eastern limb, including the high vault, as far as the east end of the: eastern transepts, and all the upper parts of the external walls. An English William was appointed to succeed him. He completed St. Thomas' chapel, Bucket's Corona, and the crypt beneath the two. It is usual to attribute to the English William an important part in the design of the east- ern chapels and crypt. The facts seem to point the other way. These eastern portions are less Knghsh and more French than the western work. Then- is no trace- of English influence in the design, except solely the rounding ol the aba- cus and the molding of the capitals in the crypt. With these two minor exceptions, everything was com- pleted in strict contormity with the French design. Mori' important even than the architecture; is the ancient glass. Canterbury and York are the great treasure-houses of stame'd glass: Canterbury for early thirteenth-century glass, York for fourteenth-century glass. Three of the windows in the Saint's chapel illustrate the miracles of St. Thomas. On the north side, in the lower group ol the eastern window, is the story of a child (i) who tails into the- Medway, (2) the other boys tell his parents. (^) the boelv is drawn out ol the water, Cu'tcra dfsunt. In the next S4 CANTKRIU'RY CATIIKDRAI. group is the story of a boy who was brought to life by a draught of water mixed with the saint's blood. Hut the lather omitted to ]>ay the offerings promised to the saint. In tile central medallion another son lies dead, struck 1>\ the sword of St. Thomas, who is seen through the ceiling. In another group a woman is being flagellated by way ol penance. Two other windows describe miracles of healing : in a medallion in a lower part ol the western window a madman comes up, " cti/ieiis acudit." beaten with sticks and bound; in the next he is cured, "saints reccdit." In one is the only representation extant of the later shrine; the martyr, in a mauve vestment, appears in a vision to Menedict below. ( )n the shrine is the box. as described by Krasnnis. which contained the archbishop's sudary. In the east window of the Corona is portrayed Christ's Passion : in tin- two windows of the north aisle are types and antitypes from the Old and New Testaments : among them the three Magi, all asleep in one bed. The circular window in the north- east transept also contains the original glass; and many fragments are seen elsewhere. I ; 'ii'kT!i I'KKIOI>. - -For nearly two hundred years nothing structural was done in the church: the magnificent choir. presbytery, saint's chapel, procession aisle, and Corona looked down on Lantrancs humble transepts and nave. To the first hall ol the thirteenth century belong two handsome doorways in the cloister and its north wall : aKo the south alley of the infirmary cloister between the conduit tower and the infirmary. In 1254 was built the west door- way of the I'rior's chapel, now the library. In 1305 Prior Kastry erected the stone parclose screens of the choir. About the same time was built the Chapter house, of which the lower part, as far as tin- cills of the present windows, remains; also the brewhouse, now tin- great school, with its porch and granary. In 133^ tin- great window was inserted in St. AiiM-lm's chapel. In i \.\2 there was built the refectory ol the infirmary, now IbrmiiiL: the dining and drawing room ol a canon's house. In 13(13 a chantry was founded in the crypt bv the ISlack CA.VTKRKURY CATHEDRAL 35 I'rince, perhaps as a penalty for marrying his cousin, Joan of Kent. The whole of the crypt was dedicated to Our I. adv. whose monogram may be seen here and there on the vault : about this time sen-ens and reredos were put up round her special altar there. (There was another I.ady chapel above ground in the eastern bays ol the north aisle i if the nave.) Firm I'Kkion. -At length Canterbury woke up, and removed the Xorman nave and transept. The western bays were built first, so as to interfere with the services as little as possible (1379-1380. The rest of the nave and the transepts were rebuilt between 1382 and 1400. The south porch has the arms of Archbishop Sudbury (137^-1381). I he new nave is imposing, but somehow no one seems to be a very ardent admirer of it. Its proportions are not good: \\inchester nave is about the same height, but is 70 It. longer. It was impossible to make it longer, tor both tlie Norman western towers were still standing. The gravest lault is in the internal elevation. This is due to the lighting system adopted, (iloucester had taught the \\orld that it was on clerestory light a church should rely : and had shewn how magnificent was the effect ol a lolly clerestory which was almost an unbroken sheet ol glass. At Canter- bury the clerestory is of the most exiguous dimensions ; the architect has chosen to rely on side light, /.t'., from the windows of the aisle. The aisles therefore he had to build exceedingly lofty, with piers and arches to match. His ground story therefore is magnificent. But it is surmounted not only by an exiguous clerestory but by a closed triforium. Instead of the lovely open triforium arcades which had been elaborated from those of Ely choir in 1083 to those of Ely choir in 1322, there is now nothing left but a panelled wall, an evil precedent set in \Ymchester nave, and soon followed here, in Chester nave, Bath abbey-church, and elsewhere. Again, Gloucester, with marked success, had pointed the way to an internal elevation of one story ; an attempt is made here to copy the Gloucester design ; but thi' effect is spoiled by the banding of the vaulting-shafts. To the end of the fourteenth century belong also the upper part ol the Chapter house with its boarded roof, and the great stone choir-screen. SIXTH PKKIOO. To the fifteenth century belong the vaulting and window-screens of the cloisters (1397-1412); St. Michael's or the Warrior chapel, finished in 1439; this has an extraordinarily complicated lierne vault, following again a Gloucester precedent, that of the vault of the south transept ; the chantry chapel of Henry IV. ( 1433-1435) ; the rebuilding of the south-west tower (1440-1452); a third I.ady chapel, now called Deans' chapel, projecting from the north transept (1448-1455). SK\T:NTII I'KKIOD. Between 1495 and 1503 the central tower was raised to a total height of 235 ft. ; the core ol its lower walls is of the' original Norman masonry. ( )n its summit from Norman days there was a cherub or angel, and it was called the Angel .steeple. At this period strainer-arches were inserted to prevent the piers of the tower bulging in under the additional work; .similar ones may be seen at Rushden, Northants. In 1517 was built the ( 'liri.st ( 'liurcli gateway, by which the cathedral is approached Irom the south west : its doors were put up in 1662. The pretty Jacobean tout ,ind cover belong to the same year. Tlie C/t (i/'/er house is rectangu- lar, lor a rcctaiiLju lar building fitted more easily into the east walk of a monastic cloister. Nearly all the monastic chapter houses are there- lore rectangular, but sometimes had apses ; the excep- tions beini; the Benedictine chap ter houses o! \Vorce-~ter. \\'est minster, Evesham. and ISelvoir (which last was exceplK >n al also in ]n oition. beiiiL; placed in the \~ery ceiHR- i >\ the cloister), and the ( 'istcrcian cha]>tcr houses ol Mi iri;am and Abbey 1 >orc. CANTKRIJURV CATHKDRAL 39 CANTKklJt'KY ( ATHKDKAI. sister designs. On the 1 other hand the Secular ( 'anons, having as a rule no cloister, preferred a polygonal chapter house, as at Lincoln, Bcvcrley, 1 .ichfield, Salisbury, Wells, lilgin, South- well, York, Old St. Paul's, Hereford, Howden, Manchester, Warwick. So did the Regular Canons at . \lnwick, Cocker- sand, Thornton, Carlisle, Bridlington, and Bolton. This beautiful polygonal lorm seems not to occur in France. At the north-west corner of the cloister is the doorway through which Becket passed to the north-west transept, with his murderers in pursuit of him. Xear here is a hole in the wall, the Buttery hatch. In the fifteenth century the south walk of the cloister was divided into "studies" for tin- monks by wooden partitions (at Gloucester they are of stone), and its windows were glaxed. From the clois- ter we pass to the West Front, and commence the tour of the ex- terior. The south- west tower was completed by Prior (ioldstone, 1440 1452 : tin- copy ot it was put up in 1 8^4 : " it was an eyesore that the two lowi TS did not match." On the south side Is seel) the pi >rch : the nave, whose clerestory is largely conceal ed by the exces sive height ol the aisles : and tin- charming pinnadc CANT 4' of the south west transept. Kast of the Warrior's chapel is tin 1 projecting end of Stephen Islington's tomb. liust of this, thr two lower rows ol windows are those ot Conrad's choir ; the upper row that of William ol Sens. The middle windows m the south-east transept were the clerestory windows ol Conrad: the windows above them are those ol William ol Sens. The three upper stages ol the tower on the south ol tins transept are late Norman work ; one ol the prettiest hits m Canterbury. Farther east we have French design, pure and simple 1 ; here, for the first time in English architec- ture, the flying buttresses are openly displayed : notice how flat and plain they are ; it had not yet oc- curred to archi- tects to make them decorative. Then conies the broken, rocky out- line ol the Corona the great pux- /le ol ( 'anterbury. North east of the < 'orona are two groups of ruined Norman pillars and arches discoloured by lire; once they were continuous, lorming one very long building, the J/^///'/ 1 njiniinry, of which the west end was originally an open dormitory, open to the rool. and the east end, separated oil by a screen, the Chapel ; this has a window with geometrical tracery. A mediaeval mlirmary ol this type is still in use at Chichester. The ('anterbury infirmary had .1 north transept, called the Table Hall or Refectory (now part of the house of the Archdeacon of Maidstoiie), in 42 which the inmates dined. On the north side of St. Thomas' chapel is seen the Clianlrv <>/ Henry //'.. then Si. . \ndre'.<'f Tower and the barred Trcainrv : the lower part of the latter is late Norman work, largely rebuilt. The soutli alley of the Infirmary Cloister was built about 12^6. Along this one passes to the so-called Baptistery, which i^ nothing but a medueval water tower ; late Norman below, lilteenth century work above. Returning towards the Infirmary, we turn to the north u[) the east alley ol the Infirmary ( 'loister, now called the " Dtirk J'^n/rv. at the north end of which is the /'rir's (Jti/en'tiv. On the lelt are 1 some Norman slults and arches ol beautiful design. It was tin- Hark Entry that was haunted by Nell ( 'ook ot the " Ingolclsby Legends/' West of the 1'nor's gateway arc the two columns from the seventh century church at Rxvulvers. On the north side of the 1'nor's or (Jreen ( 'ourt are the brewery and Hakehouse : to the north west is the famous Norman staircase, which originally led to a great North Hall ; perhaps a Casual Ward -for tramps too found acorn modation at the monasteries. BiIil.loGR.vi'HY. Prnfe.ssur \\'illi>' Architectural ///. n / Can/,, 'ntry Cat h, it ml. I )c,in Suinlvy's ///.s/i'/vVa/ .]/( v/w/rt/.i of Cant trinity. ('illloll Sditt I\nl)i_Tt>')H ill ./;(//,, ,'/,; s /W Cilll/iitlht. \i\. 2Sl. Kit-Id and Ixoutledgc's Caitlt'rbitry (>///', /,i/ (riet't/i 1 i- an i-xix-IK-ni ^uiili.--li(i()k liDili tn tliL- city anil the c.u lieili'al, and runtain-~ i^oiul plan-. Sec ;iK.i UIL- hililii^r;]j)li\ in Willi.-' Can-crhnry Cathedral, i yS. THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF THE HOLY TRINITY, CARLISLE Bl'lI.T FOR Al'GUSTIMAN CANONS CARLISLE ('ATHLl)RAL, though hut a torso, is of exceptional interest, hotli archajologieally and artisti- cally. Up to the Reformation it was the only cathedral served hy the Austin or Black Canons; all the rest heing either attached to monasteries of Benedictine- monks, or served hy Secular ('anons. The church attached to the house ol Au>tm ('anons in Carlisle was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary; it was re-dedicated to the I Inly and undivided Trinity when placed on the New Founda- tion hy I lenry VII I. I-' i KST I' r: RIO D, i i o i -i~. 1150. The Augustinian house was founded hy I lenry I. in n o i , at the instigation of ( v >uecn Matilda ; ( 'ar lisle I lecanie the seat ol a hishoprie in i i ,1 .i ' ' u ' X o r 1 1 1 a n church consisted ol .in aisled nave ol seven 1 >ays, a transept with eastern apses, and an aisled | iresl >y lerv n i two ha vs. CARLISLE CATHEDRAL which probably ended in an unaisled apse. Norman aisles were usually vaulted : but the aisle-walls of Carlisle nave are so thin that they can never have supported a vault. The work is singularly plain and heavy ; in the nave the piers arc low cylinders, like those of Hereford nave; from them rise the commencements of shafts intended to curry the roof. The trilonum has a single- open arch, as at Norwich. The clerestory, as often, consists of a tall central arch containing a window, flanked by two low blind arches. The capitals, as usually in early twelfth- century work, are scal- loped : all the arches are destitute of sculpture, of some not even the edges are molded, i.e., rounded. The capitals of the tower arches have been reset lower down : formerly they supported the four lofty arches on which the Nor- man tower rested. SEC ox i) PERIOD, c. i 223- 1 246 onwards. The lower parts ol the northern and southern faces of the piers of the tower are flat : their shafts being stopped by corbels instead of descending to the ground. This was to allow the stalls ol the Canons to be placed close up to the piers. The Canons sat in the crossing and the two eastern buys ot the nave. Like the Benedictine monks ot Canterbury, they wished to sit in the choir. And so the Norman chancel, being altogether inadequate to contain stalls and sanctuary, was pulled down as at Canterbury: and CARLISLE CATHEDRAL 45 a beautiful early Gothic chancel of seven bays was built. Of this the vaulted aisles and the pier-arches still remain. The work appears to belong to the second quarter of the thirteenth century ; for in the south aisle the Lancet windows are developing into plate tracery, and the charming arcading on the aisle walls is cinquefoiled. The new chancel was not only far in advance of its Norman predecessor in length and height : but it was also i 2 ft. broader. The' church could not be broadened to the south, because the cloister would prevent any removal of the wall of the south aisle, when the nave should be re- built. So the south wall of the choir was rebuilt on the old foundations : the southern row of piers probably also rests on the foundations i >f the Norman piers. The central aisle ot the choir was made much broader than that of the nave, with which, there- f< ire. it is out of axis ; the same is the ease with the north aisle of the choir. At the same time the eastern apse of the south transept was rebuilt rectangular, with crisply carved conventional foliage. The northern transept was to have been rebuilt on a more extensive scale, not being cramped, like the south ir.uiscpt. by monastic buildings adjacent. It was to have had .111 eastern aisle; but when one pier of the aisle had CAkLISI.K CATHEDRAL been built, and part of its eastern \vall (a fragment of which, with base-course and string-course, survives), the work was suddenly stopped. THIRD PKKIOD. i 292- c: 1382. Hardly was the new choir completed when, together with belfry and bells, it was destroyed in 1292 by a great fire, with the exception of tin- aisles, which were protected by their stone vaults, and the pier-arches. The ( ,T ns ', not .V vhi .! disheartened, re- solved to rebuild tin- choir, and to rebuild it even longer than before. To its length they added an eastern bay. just wide- enough to pro- vide- a processional path at the back of the high altar : and instead of a low east end. the choir was built lull height up to the cast, as at Kly and 1 incoln. Tin thirteenth - century arches, between tin- choir and its aisles, which appa ren 1 1 y were not much damaged by the fire, they managed in some inexplicable way to retain. A modern contractor would take the archer- down, and then rebuild them with the old stones. A mediaeval builder would be more likely to underpin the arches, take tin- piers away. and then rebuild them without disturbing the arches at all. The old builders revelled in such engineering feats. Tin- capitals o| ihe new piers are exceedingly rich and interesting: : CARLISLE CATHEDRAL 47 they contain the best medireval representation we possess ol the Seasons ; six capitals on the south side from east to west. si\ on the north side Irom west to eust. The corbels also of the vaulting-shafts have rich naturalistic foliage. With that respect for good earlier work that is characteristic of the fourteenth century, and so rare at any other time, they carried the cinquefoiled arcading ol the aisles round tin- east wall, introducing, however, the characteristic detail of the period, not to bewilder unfor- tunate antiquaries of later days. Their c It c f- tt'rd ^ittniL; m fudgmeilt : the procession ol the IHcssed tii the Palace ol Heaven, shown in two silvery quatreloils : CARLISLE CAT and very realistic representations of Hell and of the (ieneral Resurrection. It contains a portrait of John of (launt; so that the window was probably gla/ed when he was (lovernor of ('arlisle. 1380-84. The lower lights are of modern glass by I lardman. So tar the ( 'anons spared no expense: everything was of the best. Hut their resources were taxed too heavily: it was impossible to finish the choir with the magnificence CARLISI.K CATHKDKAL 49 with which it was commenced. Triforium and clerestory are thin and poor; the inner arcade of the latter of tin- barest character; on the other hand it has an exceptionally broad wall-passage ; moreover, a vault was found too ex- pensive, and was omitted. Then hammerbeams were constructed for a roof of the type of the magnificent roofs of March church and Westminster Hall. This in its turn was abandoned, and the present wagon roof of wood was put up. For similar economical reasons probably the south transept was rebuilt without the aisle commenced in the thirteenth century. FOURTH PKRIOD (<:. 1400-1484). Hut the misfortunes of the Canons were not over yet. Another lire destroyed the new north transept. This was rebuilt between 1400 and 1419 by Hishop Strickland. About this time also were executed the admirably carved stalls, with their interesting misericords ; the tabernacled canopies overhead were put up by Prior Haithwaite in i 433 ; originally they were painted and gilded, and statuettes stood on the pedestal of every niche. Then came the question of the central tower and the nave. The original plan had been that, when the choir was finished, a new central tower and a new nave should be built, both of the same width as the choir. But the courage of the Canons gave way; their troubles had been too much for them. They saw no prospect of ever being able to rebuild the Xorman nave ; so instead of pulling down the Xorman tower and building one as broad as the choir, they left it standing; merely adding a new upper story to it. It is, of course, far too small for its position ; and while ranging with the nave, is quite lop-sided when seen in connection with the roof of the- choir; though the awkward ness is lessened, and even made picturesque, by tin- addition of a staircase-turret on the north side of the tower. One reason why the rebuilding of the tower was not attempted was no doubt the presence of springs beneath the crossing ; as it is. the piers of the tower have sunk deep and unequally, distorting the neighbouring arches and leaving most un plea.smt cracks in the wall>. 4 ;o C VRLISLK I'ATHKDRAI, I'li'Tii I'KkioP, 1484 i5,yS. In 14X4 an energetic I'nor, ( ioiulebour, came into ot lice ; a man with a liking for colour. I It- painted tin- roof of the chancel, and the pillars as well ; and on the hacks of the stalls depicted the lives of St. Augustine, St. Anthony, and St. ( uthberl : to him also are due the beautiful screens <>! St. Catherine's chapel. lie built the great barn, still standing in part, open on one side, with beams nearly 2 It. deep. He rebuilt the- Relectory or l-'ratry. the dinitlg-hall ol the ('anoiis, with vaulted cellarage ol the fourteenth century below. In all meducval refectories silence was imperative at me.il>. and a good book of some >ort was read from a pulpit in one ol the side walls. The Carlisle reading-pulpit with its staircase remains; illustrated by Hillings as a confessional l } i>.\. At the west end of the hall are the hatches through which the lood was lormerly passed Irom a kitchen on the other side ol the wail. In the frairy are preserved several curiosities; it should be CARI.ISLK CATHEDRAL 5 I visited. The Abbey Gatehouse, north-west of the nave, was built in 1527. SIXTH FKRIOD PosT-RKFOKMATiON WORK. I.auneelot Salkeld, the last Prior and the first Dean of ( 'arlisle, added the charming Renaissance screen on the north side of the presbytery (c. 1540). In the seventeenth century the western bays oi the Norman nave were pulled down, during the ('ivil War, to provide materials tor the repair of the city walls and guard-houses. Both in the north and south aisles there used to be windows of the fifteenth century ; these were destroyed with their interesting history, and modern shams substituted in a destructive "restoration"' by Mr Kwan ( 'hristian. The cathedral possesses two very fine brasses ; one, in the middle of the choir, of bishop Bell (1478-1495); the other, in the north aisle, (A liishnp Robinson (1598-1616). THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF CHRIST AND THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY, CHESTER BUILT FOR Bi.NKDicTiNi'; MONKS AT Chester there: was originally an establishment of Secular Canons. The patron saint of the church was St. Werburgh, a niece of St. Ktheldreda of Ely. In 1093 it was re-founded as a Benedictine monastery by that great noble Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester, who ruled the Welsh Marches with almost regal sway. Henry VIII. made it the seat of a bishopric, which, though but a part of the ancient Mercian diocese of Lichfield, extended northwards into Yorkshire and Westmorland. Nowadays the diocese and county ot Chester are coextensive. The abbey church was rededicated, as a cathedral, to ( 'hrist and the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1541. If we proceed to the west doors, we have before us a vista of exceptional beauty. The apparent length of the interior is greatly increased by the return stalls, which, however, are not so solid and lofty as to block up the vista entirely, as do the stone screens at Canterbury and York, nor so exiguous as the metal screens at Lichfield and Ely. The effect was even finer when the organ stood over the entrance to the choir. KIKST I'KRIOD, 1093-^. 1260. Passing under the new organ screen into the norlli transept, we come to the most ancient work to be found in the cathedral genuine early Norman work of the eleventh century. It is to be com- pared with that of the south transepts of St. Alban's, Hereford, and Fershore. Below, in the east wall, is an arch, which once led into an apse. Above is a balustraded CHESTER CATHEDRAL 53 arcade, quite of the St. Alhiui's and Hereford type. Above, there must have been small clerestory windows, such as those built up in the opposite wall. The whole transept mu>t have been low and humble, and is invaluable as shew MIL; u.-i what earl}' Norman work was really like, and ol enabling us to realise the vast progress that had taken place m design, in masonry, and in earvinu, by the time that 54 rilKSTKR CATIIKDRAL I )urh;ini. Ronisev. and Xorwich were begun. This early transept was ot one hay only. Notice how small the stones are, the gaping joints, and the irregularity of the courses: it seems earlier than 109^. bearing in mind the character ot this masonrv. pass out ot the transept into the //orl/i n/'s/c of flic nurc. and proceed to the Xorman tower at the west end of it. The work here. ('. i 105. is clumsy and massive, but tar superior to that of the north transept. The north wall of the nave (now covered \vilh mosaics) is also Xorman. ( >ther traces of the Norman cathedral will he found in tin- n<>rtli aisle l t/ic ch<>n\ to which we re-trace our steps. On the right will he seen a great circular capital upside down, which has heeii used as a foundation tor the north-oust pier ot the tower. A lew feet turther is one ol the original circular hascs. pn>\ ing that the Norman choir had vast circular piers like those of Gloucester, ('arlisle. and St. John's, ('hcster. Two ha\ s further east \vill he lound in the pavement a semicircular hand of dark marhle. and another base ot a pier which divided tin 1 north apse from the large central one: here the base moldings differ somewhat from those of the circular pier. This marks foundations that have been found of the apsidal ending of this aisle : one ot the stones ot this Norman apse remains in the pavement. Moreover, it has been lound that the central aisle ot the choir, at the end ot the second hay I rom the tower, ended in a semicircular range of columns, like St. bartholomew's. Smithfield. I'Yom these indications we can restore the plan ol the original Norman cathedra! with some certainty. It had a nave and aisles o| die same dimensions as the present ones: unaisled transept>. each ot a single bay. and an eastern apse to each transept; ;i low central tower: a choir of two bays, ending in a semicircular range of columns and arches, and surrounded to the east by a semicircular ambulatory or processional path. On either side were aisles, three and a halt bays long, each terminating in an eastern apse. So that the Norman cathedral had, five eastern apses, and resembled m plan Gloucester and Norwich. except that the chapels of the choir-aisles of Chester point. CIIKSTKR CATIIKDKAL 55 not north-east and south-cast, hut due cast. It was ahout 300 ft. in length. Norman Cloisters. Returning to the north aisle of the nave \ve pass through the 1 doorway at the east end of the aisle into the cloister. This doorway, as seen from the cloister, is, from its ornamentation, of later date than the north transept, and may also he ahout 1100. The south ,v<7// ot the cloister on tin- left is now seen to he Norman : Xorman abbots arc buried in the recesses. Passing along the cloister westwards, we have in front another Xorman door, and a very late Xorman passage. Passing along the west walk ot the cloister, a doorway on the lelt leads into a large Xorman undercroft, with two aisles roofed with massive groined vaulting. Above, as the division in the vaulting and staircase shew, were a large and a small hall. These buildings on the west of the cloisters were originally the cellars, refectory, and guest-house in charge of the cellarer: afterwards they became the cellars and hall of the Abbot. To the south, above tin' late Xorman passage', is the Episcopal chapel, also Norman, with a fine Jacobean plastered ceiling. SKC:ONI PKRIOD, c. ii8o.--\Ve return by the cloister and north transept to the north aish of tlie chair, and pass into the vestry to the left. The apse of the north transept was pulled down; but part ol the foundation of this Xorman apse may be seen in the pavement near the door; the arch 111 the west wall was formerly open to the transept ; and a new chapel was built here late in the twelfth century, to \\hich period the vaulting belongs. Later on, the east end ot it was remodelled, and the western arch built up. In the vestry is a cupboard with delicate hammered and stamped ironwork : c. 12^0, by Thomas de l.eighton. I'niKD Pi-'.kion. (\ i2oo-r. 1315. This was one ol' the most extensive' ol the building periods ol the abbev. and contains the most beautiful work. To gi t a lar^e l.adv chapel, a processional path, and an enlarged presbyter}', the whole (it the eastern limb ol the church was rebuilt on a tar larger scale, beginning at the east : and on the eastern 56 CHESTER CATHEDRAL and northern sides of the eloister the adjoining buildings, which hitherto probably had been of wood, were also rebuilt. First we return to the nortJi transept and pass into the east walk of the cloister, straight in front. On our right is the I'estibulc, the architectural gem of the cathedral : before entering it, notice its trefoiled doorway, encircled with sprigs of conventional foliage ; the piers have bases, but no capitals - -a feature common enough in late Gothic, but very un- usual in such early work, date 1240-1250. Then enter the Chapter house, which is of the same date as the vestibule. It is rectangular, as were most ol the monastic ( 'hapter houses originally : the windows have an inner arcade. Returning to the vestibule, and passing out of it by the modern north doorway, we cross the Slype with its elaborate vault : this is a passage which led to the monks' infirmary. Then we pass into a vaulted building ol two aisles, each of four bays, restored at considerable expense, and then allowed to relapse into a coal-cellar: this is the .so-called fratry : really it is what was called at Durham the Common House. Rooms in similar position occur at Fountains and \\ estminstcr : probably for the Novices. Then we return to the cloister, and proceed to the' end of the east walk. Above the vestibule, slype and common house was the dormitory of the monks. It was reached in the daytime by a flight of steps from the doorway near the end of the east walk : the little quatrefoiled window to the right of the doorway lighted this staircase. Next we enter the nortJi walk of the cloister where the arms of Henry VII. and also those of \Yolsey as Archbishop of York are seen. Along the whole of it extended the Refectory or Frater. the monks' dining-hall : now the west end has been lopped off. and a passage driven through the east of it. Towards the west end will be found a fine door- way by which it was originally entered. To the right of the doorway is a recess marking the site of the laratory. Inside, iu the south wall, is the original staircase and pulpit of the refectory. Another equally line pulpit remains in the iv fectory of Beaulicu. Hampshire: another, in the open air. CHEST KR CATHEDRAL 57 opposite Shrewsbury Abbey. The upper part of the refectory lias rectilinear tracery inserted in the original windows. Then \ve retrace our steps through the cloister ivalks to the north transept, and pass to the left along the north choir (t/sle to the far east of the cathedral. Here is the Lady chapel : much restored, of similar date and character to those ol Hen-lord and Bristol. It was a remarkable speci- men of mediaeval "jerry-building," built without foundations of any sort or kind. One of the bosses, figured in Dean llowson's book on "The Dee," depicts the murder ol THK KXTKKIOR [ROM 'I 1 1 F. SOUTH-EAST Thomas Becket : the other two, The Virgin and ( 'hild, and The Holy Trinity. Originally the Lady chapel had three windows, each triplets, on either side. Leaving the Lady chapel, we return westward till we can mtcr tin- Choir. Here- we see similar work on its eastern wall, and in the lower part of its two;. easternmost bays. The east wall is pierced by but one arch, as at Hereford and ( 'hichester ; an inferior ending to the triple eastern arches of the choir.-, of Wells and Salisbury. The moldings of the southern arches are a cheap imitation ol the hitter work on the north. 58 CHESTER CATHEDRAL ll't's/irn Choir. The remaining bays to the west have piers of an altogether different and later section. The choir aisles were lengthened to the east about 1500. though tin- capitals and vaulting-shafts are ihose of the semi-hexagonal apse which previously terminated the aisles. In digging, the foundations of the east ends of these aisles have been found. They turn out to have been polygonal. Sir (1. ( 1. Scott has been allowed to rebuild the south aisle in apsidal form, and to crown his work with a hide-oils "extinguisher" rool. He also pulled down the- fifteenth-century choir aisle, and expelled the monuments ol three ancient county families in favour of an eminent contractor. This is called "restora- tion." All the above work stops at the top of the beautiful tnlorium, a tretoiled arcade: the clerestory is later work (1275-1300). The- proportions of the choir as thus com- pleted are not satisfactory; the tall clerestory, with its big broad windows, is ruinous to the effect of the low pier-arcade and the diminutive tntorium : it looks top-heavy. We now proceed to the south transept. FOURTH I'KRIOD, c. 1315-^ 1492. This falls into two parts: comprising respectively the work done before and after the IJlack 1 >eath. \\'e have seen that by 1300 or soon after, the monks had rebuilt all the work to the east and north of the cloister, as well as the- l.ady chapel and the whole of the choir. In the fourteenth century they set to work to rebuild the whole of the south transept, the central tower, and the nave. None of the upper parts of these, however, were finished till the following century. The South 'I'rantcpt is so vast that the old church of St. Oswald may have still remained in use while the transept was building around it. It has western as well as eastern aisles: which it is rare to find except in cathedrals of the first rank, such as Kly and York. Some of the aisle windows retain very beautiful flowing tracery. The springers of vaults remain, but no vaulting was executed, except one bav at the south end (it the east aisle, till t'ecentlv. when the remainder of thi- aisle was CIIKSTKR C'ATIIKIiKAL vaulted. The vast sixc of this transept it is as lar^e as tin choir, and nearly as large as the nave- is in s ive north transept, and is the' most remarkalih 60 CHESTER CATHEDRAL the abbey was in possession of great wealth, the monks desired to enlarge their church. They could not enlarge it to the north, for on the north were their cloisters, chapter house, refectory, and dormitory. On the south was the parish church of St. Oswald : they therefore came to terms with the parishioners, in accordance with which they built a new parish church for them, where now stands the Music Hall. Hut in 1486 the parishioners were able to evade their bargain, and vindicated their claim to the whole of the new south transept, which the monks by this time had completed. "Sic vos non vobis.'' And to get into it they cut the fifteenth-century doorway, which is still to be seen at the south end of the west aisle of the new transept. And here the\' remained in possession till the present century, using the transept as their parish church. In 1824 the transept was actually blocked from the cathedral by a solid wall. Hut in 1874 a new church, St. Thomas, was once more built for the parishioners, and they were again ejected from the site of the old church of St. Oswald. The dividing wall was pulled down, and the transept has been again thrown into the cathedral. In the year 1902 it was restored as a memorial to the late Duke of Westminster, and a recumbent figure of his (Iracc placed on the west side: the ancient altar was also reinstated. This transept was not finished when the Hlack Death arrived in 1349: and when the work was resumed in the fifteenth century, the remaining windows of the transept were given rectilinear instead of flowing tracery. Central Tou also was probably commenced in the fourteenth and finished in the fifteenth century. It has been found that the north-west pier rests upon .some floriated gravestones of the thirteenth century, which disposes of the idea that the piers of the tower have a Norman core. Notice the variation in the treatment of the tower-arches. j\'avc. A beginning was made 1 also with the rebuilding ot the south side of the nave in the first half of the fourteenth century; the pillars and arches are of simple and good CHESTKR CATIIKDKAI, 6l design, and the lower windows, like those in the south transept, have flowing tracery. The northern pier-arcade, is later and somewhat different. It would seem that the ground story of the nave was not finished till late in the TIIK NAVK. LOOK INC, KAST fifteenth century, for tile initials ol Abbot Simon Kipley (14X^-1492) are found on the first pier from the west. To the Litter part of this period may be assigned all those windows with rectilinear tracery with cusps, in the transepts, the nave, and elsewhere. 62 CIIKSTKK CATIIKDRAI. FiM'H I'KKIOD -jYare. The final operations comprised all those- windows which arc 1 without cusps e.g., tin- clerestory windous and the 1 north aisle 1 windows of the. 1 nave : also the south ]>orrh and we-st trout and the 1 comme-nce-nient of a soulh-we'st tower, and the- fine- wooden root of the north transept. All this was done e-arly in the sixteenth century. Perhaps piety had waxed cold, and pilgrims' offerloric-, may have- become le-ss productive. At any rate-, all the upper part of the- inte-nor of the nave- is hare. bald, and poverty stncke 1 !!. For the- beautiful tnlorium of the choir we have here 1 a blank wall : unhappy, too. in proportions, the nave of ('hester is one of the least satisfactory designs of our cathedrals. One other alteTation had be-e-n made. The High altar originally stood one bay further to the we-st than it does now. and the bay where it now stands lormed the processional path. But this bay was also \\anted for a Saint's chapel, that of St. Wcrburgh. with her shrine in the centre-, as at St. Alban's. So the eastern apses of the two choir aisles were pulled down, and two longer aisles were built, one on e-ach side ot the Lady chapel. (The one on the north is still allowed to exist : the one on the south was pulled down by Scott.) Then the west window on either side of the Lady chape-l was converted into a doorway, and a convenient processional path was provided between the Lady chape! and the- Saint's chapel. It should be- added that the stalls of the choir were originally under the central tower, as at Gloucester. To the last period be-long the eastern, northern, and western walks of the cloister, which should be visited next. In part of the- west walk, and in the new south walk, then- is a double 1 arcade; dividing the- walks into a series of separate- comparime-nts or studies tor the monk-*. An analogous arrangement occurs in the- cloiste-rs of Gloucester. Notice, also, the insouciance with which these 1 Tudor buildei> dropped the- ribs of their vaults down on e-arher doors and arches. Similar ivcklcss disregard of the u'ood work of preceding builders occurs at Canterbury, where- the most < IIKSTKK r.vniKnkAi. 63 beautiful doorway in the cathedral is cut into by later va In recent days the inner wall of the north aisle <>f the iiai'i has been cased with mosaics which cannot he seen, and has been provided with rich vaulting : and to provide abutment lor this new vault the- south walk of the cloister has been rebuilt. The nave and choir have been vaulted in wood: following the precedents of York Minster and Selby Abbey. The exterior is, to all intents and purposes, nineteenth-century work. The original design had almost wholly disappeared through the decay of the soft sandstone. It is, however, very handsome and effective'; especially in contrast with the exterior, also modern, ol Worcester. As at Salisbury, Lincoln, and Hereford, there is a magnificent view of tile whole ol the exterior from the north-east : seen In mi the city wall towards sunset, this red sandstone cathedral makes an impression not soon effaced. Of minor work the most important is the pedestal of St. Werburgh's shrine, now placed west ot the Lady chapel; it had long stood in the choir, converted into a bishop's throne. It should be compared with the shrine-pedestals at St. Alban's, Oxford, and Hereford: its date may be c. Mast, perhaps ol the eighth century. The stall work, c. 1390. is magnificent ; tabernacled canopies, bench ends, elbow rests, and misericords deserve minute prolonged study, besides these there' are Renaissance' gates of Spanish iron- wi irk : and the epitaphs of John Lowe, tobacconist. |ohn Paul, publican, and John Phillips, merchant, in the south transept : those of Mayor (ireen, and an American loyalist, on the southwest pier of the tower; the tablet of Randolph ( 'aldecott and the pretentious monument ot bishop Pearson m the north transept; the tablet ol I )ean Arderne in the Miuth aisle of the choir, which should not be missed : and in the north aisle those (it Sulxlean ISispham and bishop laidbsM]], and the epitaph on the gravestone of L. 1'. (iaMivll. I'he new oran rests on live Renaissance columns 64 CIIKSTKR CATIIKDRAL the 1 Holy Land. On the wall near the west door is a tablet to Bishop Hall, and another To the Memory of JOHN" MOOKK NA1MKR Captain in Her Majesty's 62iul Regiment Who died of Asiatic Cholera in Seinde on the yth of July, 1846, Aged 29 years. The tomb is no record of high lineage ; 1 I is mav be traced by his name : Ills race \vas one of soldiers. Among soldiers he lived ; among them he died ; A soldier falling, where numbers fell with him, In a barbarous land. Yet there was none died more generous, More daring, more gifted. < >r more religion^. ( )n his early grave Fell the tears of stern and hardy men. As his had fallen on the graves of othcr>. There is not niueh in verse that rings like these few lines of prose. I'.liil.looR Ai'HY. -Mr Iliissev in ArJiuoL^ical Journal , \. Mr Ayrton in Chester A nil. Sih't,'/y, i., and Sir (iilbert Scott in ditto, ii. Mr J. II. Parker in Medieval Architecture of Chester. Dean Ilow.-nn in Haiiiibcck U< Clu'stcr Ca//u likely that the building ot these ti iur hays and that of tin- two western towers occupied the rest of the first quarter ot the twelfth century. The lower part < it the south-western tower survives. The ( 'orinthianesque capital ot eleventh- century Norman work, which appears aW> on the east side of Hly transept, occurs in the tntorium ot the choir. The church had the same type of ground plan a-- Norwich. commenced c. 1096. and Gloucester, commenced c, 1089; vi/.. an ai>led nave, aisleless transept with eastern apses, aisled presbytery, encircle. 1 by a procession path, from CIIirilKSTKR ('. \TIlKhk.\I. 69 which radiated three chapels, probably all apsidal. Ex- ternally, on the south wall of the choir, in the fourth bay from the west, may he seen traces ot the curve ot the 1 wall of the ancient ambulatory, and also a triforium window which originally was in the' centre of one of the narrow bays of the apse, but has now ceased to be central. (Below is a later consecration cross.) The apses of the transept were superposed, as at Gloucester; in the chamber above the Library, the curve of the upper apsidal chapel of the north transept is well seen. The pier-system is neither that of alternating piers, as at Jumieges and Ely, nor of cylinders, as in Gloucester nave, nor yet of alternating octagons and cylinders, as in Peterborough choir ; as in the archaic abbey church of Bernay, the piers are merely lengths of wall with shafts attached. Similar piers occur at Christchurch in the adjoining county of Hampshire, which may be regarded as a sister church of Chichester cathedral. It is probable that the stalls were not placed in the crossing, but in the three- eastern bays of the nave. It was just this part ol the church which suffered most in the great fire of i 1 86 ; probably because here were placed the wooden stalls. The western bays suffered so little, being perhaps separated from the stalls by a stone screen, that it was unnecessary to reface with ( 'aen stone the spandrels of the pier-arcade. (Xor did the presbytery suffer much ; for some of its roof timbers were charred, but not consumed.) The presbytery must have been exceptionally long; occupying the- apse and all three bays of the eastern limb as well as the crossing : at St. Alban's the presbytery contained four bays, but did not extend into the crossing. The three eastern bays and the western piers of the central tower have vaulting-shafts with- out rings, probably because' rings would have been con- cealed by the stallwork which it was intended to replace alter tin- lire. Whether Bishop Ralph's aisles were vaulted IN doubtlul. On the aisle side of the [tiers of the nave may be seen plinths designed for vaulting shalts. shewing an undoubted intention to vault. But if groined vaults had been erected, it is very unlikely that they would have been IIKSTKK CAT rcm< >vcd in order to he replaced by the present aisle vaults, which were' put up after the fire of 1186. In Rochester aisles art' supports lor a vault, but no vault was ever erected. Most of our churches are lopsided. Westminster is a brilliant exception but perhaps only Romsey is so utterly out of the straight as Chichcstcr. The axis of the nave change's no less than three times ; the- distortion is ania/ing as seen in the clerestory passage. The Lady chapel, too, swings over to the south, and there are many minor aberra- tions : arch differs in span from arch, and pier from pier in breadth. Finally the un- s y m in e t r i c a 1 church is backed up by the yet m ore u n s y m- metncal cloister. As for the western bays of the nave, they would pro- bably be built from west to east : hence the twist at the junction with the older eastern bays. There is evidence also that the Lady chapel was built from east to west, which helps to account for its bad setting out. II. The walls of the three western bays of the Lady chapel are of the twelfth century : and their curious capitals of naturalistic foliage point to a date not earlier than 1175. We know that there was a second consecration in 1184. To the period c. i 17:5-1 184 the work may thcrclon be referred: it probably meant die substitution ol a long oblong chapel lor an original apsidal one. CIIICIIKSTER CATIIKDRAl, III. In 1186 there \v;is ;i great fire. It did the more damage because the church had not only a roof, hut a wooden ceiling beneath it, as at Peterborough. At the beginning of the conflagration the part first damaged would be the clerestory ; at Chichester the Norman inner arcade of the clerestory windows seems to have been damaged beyond repair. After a time the burning timbers of roof and ceiling would fall down to the pavement, damag- ing in their fall the string - courses. The triforium arcade, however, would not be much damaged, except so far as it was affected by the burning roofs of the aisles. Below, however, especially if there' was stalhvork, the masonry of the piers and arches and thcirspandrels would be calcined and shattered by the heat of the mass ot timber blaxing on the pavement. What therefore had to be- done 1 was to supply the clerestory with a new inner arcade, to insert new strings, and to ivfacc the piers, arches, and spandrels ol the pier-arcade. And, to save tile church from risk ol luture damage by a lire in the roof, il was decided to vault the nave, choir, and transepts. All this was done. Bishop Ralph had used a shells' limestone Iroin Ouarr abbey in the Isle o| \Viuht, with an admixture' of Sussex sandstones, the urecn Eastbourne roek and brown I'ulborough stone, Bishop Sieg- fried employed the white Caen stone and Turbeek marble: tor the cells of the vaults he u>ed chalk, which was plash mternallv. and at a later period covered with beaut paintings (a fragment of one of which ma}- he seen on vault of the Lady chapel : others, also by the liernardix ClIiniKSTKR C'ATIIKDRAL 73 tin- choir vault at Boxgrove Priory church) ; on tlir top ol the vault was laid a thick bed of concrete. The addition ol these vaults necessitated a new abutment-system. The original buttresses had been flat pilasters ; to resist the thrusts of the vault it was necessary to give the new ones much bulk and great projection : two of them, one ol work of loyi, the other of that of 1186, may be seen side by side on the west wall of the' north transept. As at Canterbury, the small and narrow windows were replaced by larger ones set higher up, the heads of the old windows being sometimes re-used. Over the new buttresses an imita- tion of the eleventh-century billet string was continued. In the- triforium chamber before the lire there had been trans- verse semicircular arches buttressing the nave walls ; their springers may still be seen, and similar ones exist in the triforium chamber of Durham choir. Now that there were to be high vaults, these had to be removed in order to construct the present flying buttresses beneath tin- aisle roof, following the precedent of Durham nave. But these were judged not to be enough ; so a second set ol fliers was built above the aisle roof, i.e., in the open air. ("hichester there- fore possesses a double set of flying buttresses. Both sets are very massive and plain ; it is. obvious that the buttressing system owes nothing to Canterbury choir, where the light fliers must be of French design. Similar heavy flying buttresses were employed a little later in the same county at New Shoreham and Boxgrove. All the refacing of the internal walls was done with great thoroughness, the blocks ot ( 'aen stone being carefully bonded in. In the profile use ot 1'urbeck marble in strings, shafts, bases, and annulets one sees the influence of Canterbury choir. It is probably at this time that for the semicircular apse in tin- north transept was substituted the double chapel with two altars, which is now used as a library: the /ig/ag ornament occurs on the ribs of its vault. 1\. But beside all these heavy repairs, a most important new work was earned out in the choir 11 n<; C. i j i o. \\V have seen that there was a consecration in iiSj. which 74 rinriiKSTKK CATIIKDKAI. probably included the- new oblong Lady chapel. This may have been part of a scheme to make the whole of the eastern parts of the church rectangular. It may well he that when the repairs were finished in 1199, that the apse was shut off by a temporary wall, and the original scheme was proceeded with. This consisted in replacing the apse with its semicircular ambulatory, its north-east and south-east apsidal chapels by a rectangular retro-presbytery of two bays, with square-ended chapels flanking each side of the western- most bay of the new Lady chapel. The needle-like pinnacles or spirelets of their turrets and the cusped rose windows in their gables should be noticed. This extension provided a procession path of two bays. At Canterbury a similar arrangement, but on a larger scale, was set out in 1175; the intention there being that the western part of the additional space gained should be ultimately utilised as a Saint's chapel : as a matter of tact it was not used till 1220. Chichester may have followed the Canterbury precedent in the expectation, which was realised in 1276, that she also would require such a chapel for a local canonised saint. Of the new work the general design and the detail, especially at the east end, is of superlative excellence: it is an Anglicised and improved version of Canterbury choir, though still retaining traces of French influence, as in the square abacus and the foliated capitals of piers and shafts. There is the same mixture of semicircular and pointed arches as in the 1 ('anterbury design, and with similar nonchalance the vaults of the aisles are distorted on plan in order to get the piers on either side central. The height of the ground story was fixed by the height of the new Lady chapel, and thus became greater than that of the Norman work to the west. The marble piers are unsurpassed anywhere : their design is reproduced at Boxgrove and St. Thomas, Portsmouth ; it is inuiated at West Wittering, near Selsea. When all these changes were completed, it is probable that the stalls were moved to the position they now occupy beneath the central tower. For the eastward movement of the choir Canterbury again afforded a precedent. It is possible that ISTKK CATI IK 75 there was a special reason at ( 'hichestcr for abandoning the nave. Nowadays there is a new parish church north of the cathedral on the other side of the road. This, the Sub- Dcanery church, was from c. 1450 till 18=53 located in the north transept with its double chapel tor chancel. Originally, however, it occupied some part ol the nave. The western bays of all the cathedrals were more or less open to the laity; and since in ( 'hi- chester nave there- was also a distinct parish church, the canons may well have thought it desirable to leave the whole of the nave free tor par- ochial and general lay use. In Sieg- fried's work there arc so many obliga- tions tothe( 'antcr- bury precedent, and the work ol the masons is ol such excellence, that there can be little doubt that main < if them were the very men who had been trained under \\illiam of Sens and \\illiam the Englishman from 1175 to 1184, when Canterbury choir was consecrated and they would be thrown < nit of work. V. Documentary evidence makes it clear that building was still going on vigorously from c. i2io-r. 12:53. In place of the ap>e of the south transept a square chapel and a watching chamber were built. A south porch, now inside -<> ('HICHKSTKR CATHKIWAL the cloister, was built c. 1200: perhaps in [)lace of a southern entrance through the south-western tower, where a small blocked Norman doorway, with xig/ag ornament and volutcd capitals, remains. At about the same time the sacristy was built, between the south porch and the south transept. Another porch was built (c. 1200) on the north side of thi 1 nave, probably for parochial use. It displays the nail-head ornament and good early foliage. Two towers are recorded to have fallen down in 1210; these would be the two western ones. Both were probably rebuilt in part at tins period. The south-west tower re-tains its Norman basement: the north-west tower fell down again c. 1634, and was rebuilt by Mr Pearson in 1899-1900. The central tower, now rebuilt, may have been c. \22^-c. 1245. AT. This period begins at the death of Richard of \Vych. This energetic and saintly bishop died in 1253, and was buried in the north aisle of the nave. In 1261 he was canonised, and in 1276 his remains were translated to a shrine in the bay at the back of the High altar, which bay thus at length became a Saint's chapel. The platform on which his shrine stood remained till 1861 : it occupied half the westernmost bay of the retro-choir. Offerings at his shrine increased the resources of the canons, and a second outburst of building commences. One result, which was destined to alter the whole character of the nave, was the building of additional chapels. In our parish churches it is common enough to find that pious and wealthy parishioners have been allowed to tack family chapels on to the aisles or nave. This was common enough, too. in the French cathedrals e.^.. I ,aon and Amiens : but the naves of the Hngh.h cathedrals were not as a rule altered in this way. At ( 'hichester. how- ever, there were now built three chapels of St. George and St. ('lenient on the south of the south aisle, and of St. Thoma> on the north of the north aisle at its eastern end. When the chapels were completed, the Norman aisle-walls were pierced, and arches were inserted where Norman windows had been: and Siegfried's buttresses, which had been added when the nave vault wa> erected, now found CHICHESTER CATIII-DRAI. // themselves inside tin- church, buttressing piers instead of walls. The' new windows on the south side were built so high that the- vaulting of the chapels had to be tilted up to allow room for their heads : externally they were originally crowned with gables, the weatherings of which may be seen outside. The buttresses were capped by beautiful pinnacles in the form of gabled spirelets, all now destroyed, and in connection with these a wonderful series of grotesques and gargoyles should be studied. It is noteworthy that in St. Clement's chapel French masons must have been employed. Flsewhere, except in Westminster Abbey, France exercised little or no influence on the development ot the (iothic architecture of Fngland after the building of Canterbury choir. In St. Thomas' chapel is a charming example ot a simple thirteenth-century reivdos. The addition of these outer chapels makes Chichester unique among the Fnghsh /8 CHICIIKSTKR C. \TIIKIik.\I. cathedrals, though it may he paralleled in Klgin cathedral and many a parish church. Artistically, the contrast of the gloomy and heavy Xorman nave with the lightness and brightness of the chapels behind is most delightful : it looks infinitely larger and more spacious than it is ; it is never all seen at a glance like the empty nave of York, and is full of changing vistas and delightful perspectives. Accidentally, the thirteenth-century builders had hit on a new source of pieturesqueness. VII. A little later, but still in the thirteenth century, two more double chapels were added on the north side of the nave, separated by a reredos, not by a wall, like those on the south side. The window tracery of the five chapels should be inspected in chronological order : it is an excellent object lesson of the development of bar out of plate tracery. But the great work of this period was the lengthening of the Lady chapel by two bays, and the remodelling of the three western bays. This was the work of Bishop Gilbert (1288-1305). The new work was done- just when people had tired of conventional foliage, and hurried into naturalism. The capitals of the vaulting and window shafts are beautiful examples of naturalistic foliage. The window tracery, with long-lobed trefoils, occurs also in the beautiful chapel of the mediaeval hospital of St. Mary, which should by all means be visited. To the earlier part of this period belongs the western or Galilee porch : in its area-ding a later tomb has been inserted. VIII. Then comes work ranging between c. 1315 and I 337- 1 ' u ' Canons set themselves to work to improve the lighting of the cathedral, which was bad: all the windows, except those in the' new chapels, being small single lights. The south wall of the south transept was taken down and rebuilt, and in it was set a window of flowing tracery of admirable design (now filled with glass by Mr Kempe). Above the vault, and so only visible externally, is a circular window of flowing tracery. Bishop Langton (1305-1337). who gave moncv tor the work, is buried in the canopied tomb below. The drainage ot the roots also was improved : rillCHKSTKR CATIIKDRAI, /9 gutters and parapets being substituted for dripping caves. Owing to the bends in the nave, it presents a concave curve on the: north side, ami a convex curve on the south. This is remedied on the north by constructing two corbel tables one above another; the upper one in a straight line; the lower one thick or thin as the curve requires. A some- what different remedy is applied on the south. To this period also belong the stalls with ogee arches and compound cusping, and good misericords. At this period also the chapel of the Bishop's palace was remodelled. (The palace 1 Dining-Room, with a fine panelled and painted ceiling, and kitchen, are also worth a visit.) IX. In the time of Bishop William Rede (1369-1385), the tower at length was crowned with a spire, not quite so slender and graceful as those of Salisbury and Louth, which have an angle of ten degrees; that of the Chichester spire is of thirteen degrees. X. The central tower seems to have shewn signs of weakness under the weight of the new spire ; and so a detached Campanile was built, as at East Dereham : this work was in progress in 1411, 1428, and 1436. During this century, probably, was built at various dates the irreg- ular three-sided cloister, in a quite abnormal position encircling the south transept. The object of it was to provide a covered way to the cathedral for the Canons, as well as for the Vicars, whose Close is hard by. Also the Canons' date was built. An upper story was added to the sacristy : it communicates by a secret door with a vaulted treasury over the south porch. The improvements in lighting wen- continued, the north wall of the north transept being treated in a similar way to that opposite. But settle- ments werc j the result, and a (lying buttress had to be added to steady the north wall of the nave. This at last concluded the structural history of the cathedral. l!y bishop Arundel (1459-1478) was erected a great stone- screen between the western piers of the crossing : inside it were two vaulted recesses containing altars. After the Reformation it supported an organ of line design, similar So :STKK (ATI ill character and position to those- at Exeter and ( iloucester, and greatly adding to the effectiveness of the interior. l!ul screen and organ and return stalls were all swept away in 1851). with the vain idea of adapting a cathedral chancel lor congregational services. The stones ol the screen were numbered and stowed away in the campanile' : hut instead of brinu replaced, a light wooden screen, designed by Mr (lanier, has been put up. In i82(). moreover, the High altar was moved 6 ft. further eastward. XI. From 1^08-1536 the energetic liishop Sheiburne ruled. To him were due the admirable paintings on the vaults, in later days obliterated with yellow wash : al>o the CJIICHKSTEK CATHEDRAL Si paintings of the kings of England and bishops of Chichester. All this work was done by the Italian Lambert Bernardi and his sons. Sherburne is buried in the south aisle of the presbytery in a tomb which shews the influence of the Italian artists who did so much Renaissance work at Winchester cathedral, St. Cross, and Easing on their way from Southampton to London and Layer Marney. Till 1829 the High altar stood 6 ft. further to the west than at present. At the back of it Sherburne erected a great reredos, somewhat of the character of those of Winchester and St Alban's, but of wood, and broader, because it contained a gallery. This gallery formed the Watching loft to the shrine of St. Richard, which was immediately below to the east. The gallery reached to the level of the triforium, and was removed in 1829, because the choir boys used to run races across it. An ugly stone reredos was subsequently substituted for the wooden one ; this in its turn has recently been swept away, and fragments of the ancient oak reredos have been put together on the old site. XII. In 1859 the central tower was found to be in danger ; underpinning was resorted to, but matters got worse. '"At noon, on February 2ist, i86i,the workmen were ordered out of the building, and the people living in the neighbouring houses were warned of their clanger ; about an hour and a half later the spire was seen to incline slightly to the south-west and then to sink perpendicularly through the roof. Thus was fulfilled literally the old Sussex saving : 111 r,!,I< M ,K.\ril V. I'mloMn- Willi>' C/iic/i, s/, r Ca,'li, dral. (lonlon M. Ilill^ in /!r//is/i A>r/itp/t>git-al Assih'iatii'it fi'itrnaf, \\\\. l tS. and \\. l T v Prcliemhtrv \YalcoH\ l-'.ar/y Stalitt,* <>/' Cinch, .-'/, ; CatlhJral. I Van Stephen's ///../,>rr ,'/' (k, /V'/' Chic'n, .-.'< r, 6 THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF CHRIST AND THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY, DURHAM HUII.T KOR HKNKUICTINK MONKS THE bishopric of Durham lias a long history, though there was no cathedral at Durham till 1018. The conversion <>f the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms north ot the Thames had been brought about by the missionaries of the Irish and Scottish Church. Augustine's mission in Kent, and that of Paulinas in the north both sent from Rome had for their object, not so much the conversion of England, as to induce the English Christians to transfer their allegiance from the Celtic to the Roman Church. The success of Augustine's mission had been but short-lived. He landed in England A.D. 597 : his death occurred in 605 : and in 616 the Kentish kingdom relapsed into pagam>m. Paulinus landed in 601 : proceeded to Xortlmmbria in 625. but left it in 633. when, like Kent, most of Northumbria relapsed into paganism. The real "apostle of the north" was not Paulinus. but Aldan, who was sent at the request of Ring Oswald from lona. and in the year 635 became the first bishop of" the north of England. (i) For thirty years the see was at Eindisfarne (Holy Island), but the jurisdiction of the bishop extended over all England north ot the Humber. and over the south of Scotland (635-665). (2) In 678. Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury split up the \ast Northumbrian diocese into the tour bishoprics ot \ ork. Eindisfurne. Hcxham. and Whitherne in (lalloway. Twelve bishops ruled the now curtailed see trom 678 to i^co. the cathedral still remaining at Eindisfarne The second of these was the famous St. REFERENCES CO A/5 IS TOBY CO UIZ T NOI3MAN P>OISCH /VT&/J/VC TO GAL/LEE - SLYPE o/s p/je Loue. CHflPTEf* HOUSE C&YPT . KITCHEN . 1/ESTteY MONUMENTS 1 S r CUTHBEETS -SHRINE 2 S '/SHOf> J" TH/SONE J. BISHOP BAK&INGTON 4 K4LPH LOGO NVILLE S. WOMEN-S BOUNDAI5Y C&OSS 6 FONT 7 ST BE DCS ALT A 12 l I hirham are coupled, Lombard-fashion i.e., lari^r and small [)HTS alternate: with what object is un- certain. There were three arallel eastern asex The 88 DURHAM CATIIKDRAL central apse had no ambulatory. I he square externally, as at Romsey. Durham anticipates dothic not only in vaulting its central aisles in oblongs with tin- aid of pointed arches, hut in the employment of living buttresses. These in the triforium of the choir appear in the form of semicircular arches, with a wall on them, which provided a support for the purlins of the aisle roof. Hut in the triforium of the nave they consist of segments of cir- cles tilted up on end. Here they are genuine fly- ing buttresses, which oppose re- sistance to any outward inclina- tion of the clere- story wall. The only construc- tional difference between those of the nave and Clothic flying buttresses is that the former are placed under- neath the roof of the triforium. sheltered from the weather, while the latter are usually placed outside and above the aisle roof, and are thus liable to disintegration by wind. rain, and frost. Hut even in (lothic. living buttresses are not always displayed: they still remained concealed under the triforium in the early work at Salisbury; and even in the fourteenth-century work ot \\mchester nave-. Internally, the one fault ot Durham is its .shortness in proportion to its great breadth. Kly nave has twelve bays. 89 Peterborough ten, Norwich fourteen, Durham only eight Hut the architect could not build much further to the west, for close at hand is the precipice rising above the river; nor did he like to build further to the east, for the ground then- is bad. The internal elevation, however, is unsurpassed by that of any Romanesque church in Europe. At Winchester, Norwich, Peterborough, Ely, the three stories pier-arcade, triforiuni, and clerestory are about equal in height: a very unsatisfactory proportion. The architects of Gloucester and Tewkesbury rushed into the opposite extreme, and carried up their piers to such a vast height that the tnfonum and clerestory were dwarfed out of all proportion. But at Durham the proportions are absolutely right. The vault, too, is not so much later in date as to interfere with the solid monumental effect of the interior. Durham gives still the impression which it gave Dr. Johnson one of "rocky solidity and indeterminate duration '' : the very reverse of the unsubstantial tenuity of Salisbury and Beauvais. The doorway of the Chapter house- is recorded to have been built by Bishop Galfrid Rufus(i 133-1 140). The north and south doorways of the nave (facing one another) are so similar to that of the Chapter house that they must also be his work. SECOND PERIOD. To Bishop Pudsey belongs the Galilee, <. 1175. He commenced to erect a Lady chapel in the usual position to the east of the choir. But St. Cuthbert, who had an ultra-monastic hatred of womankind, and would not brook to have the- chapel even of Our Lady in the neighbourhood of his shrine, shewed his displeasure openly by the fissures and cracks and settlements which kept constantly occurring. In despair the bishop had to build in the cramped space between the west end and the precipice, thus blocking up the west doorway of the church. Erom the first this Lady chapel set-ins to have been called the Galilei- : nobody knows wh v. In details it is in it unlike the chapel in the keep of' Newcastle. Built in the la-4 quarter of tin- twelfth century, it is remarkable tor the paucity ol (iothic detail: the arches arc all semicircular; the} are not molded, but ornamented with bands of the old- fashioned /igAig. The bases, indeed, are transitional in character: and so is the voluted water leal of the capitals. Mill, spite of semicircular arch and Xorman ornament, the spirit of the whole its lightness, grace, and elegance is (iothic. A building may have every arch pointed and molded, and yet in its heaviness he Romanesque at heart, e.g., the ( 'ister- cian churches of fountains and Kirk stall, the Augustinian church of Llan- thony. In 1 )ur ham (ialilce, on the other hand, one feels that one is in a (iothic building, as trul}' as one d of the semicir- cular arcades of Pisa or Lucca. Still more ( iothic must have been tin- effect of the coupled shafts of Purbeck marble before' ('animal Langlev added two more shafts of freestone. The cardinal is buried in front of" the west door of the nave. Here also was the shrine of the remains of the Venerable l!ede. stolen from the monks of Jarrow 1>\ the sacrist Llhvd. one ol the most successful ol mcdt.i'val " 1 >< >dv snatehers. THIRD I'HKIOD. Larl\ in the thirteenth eentury the western towers were carried up. At one time the}' had Wooden spires. The present battlements Were added about 9' i 7ek was brought into the Chapel of Nine Altars for inter- ment, through a door on the north ot the chapel (now blocked up), not through the cathedral; and even he has no monument. One sees why there is such a paucity ot UK inuments in tins cathei Iral. Q2 H'RIIAM CATIIKhkAI. 93 hays of the choir in the fashion of the day. Also a new (iothic vault was put over the choir in place of the eleventh- century vault, the marks of which may still he seen on the clerestory wall. FOURTH I'KKIOD. -For a long time little was done at Durham: the cathedral was structurally complete. In the fourteenth century several large windows with flowing tracery were inserted, e.g., the west window of the nave and the north window of the north transept ; and lour windows (restored) in the south aisle of the choir. The three westernmost windows in the north aisle ot the choir were copied in 1848 from the fourteenth-century windows at Sleaford. Holheach, and Boughton Aluph. To this period belongs the tomb of bishop Hatfield, built in his lifetime (134:5-1381), one of the best bits of design in England. The episcopal throne above it looks a little later, and seems to have been designed for some other position, as it does not fit the space between the piers. The altar rercdos, or Neville screen, as it is called, was made in London between 1372 and 1380, and brought by sea to Durham: like that at St. Alban's, it is of chinch, a hard chalk. It is continued to right and left, forming sedilia on both sides of the- sanctuary. FIFTH I'KRIOD.- -The great work of the fifteenth century was the central tower, which replaced a thirteenth-century tower, c. 1470. It is 218 ft. high : in spite of its vast weight, the Norman piers which support it shew no signs of strain. There are massive squmchcs at the angles, shewing that it was intended to be finished by a spire, as the western lowers actually were finished. What an astounding spectacle Durham would have presented, capped with three spires! Imagine a Lichfield cathedral set on a hill 200 It. high! In the nave is a series ot Neville monuments. In the third bav troin the west is the Women's Boundary ( ross. beyond which women were not to venture, lest they should incur St. ( 'uthbert's wrath. The great window of the south transept was inserted about 1400. 94 DURHAM CATHEDRAL SIXTH PERIOD. -Between 1660 and 1672 Bishop Cousin did much to repair the damage done by the Scottish prisoners who hud been confined in the cuthedral alter the buttle- of Ihmbur in 16^0. His stalls and font cover ure ol exceptional interest, us specimens of vvhut is rure seven- teenth-century (lothic. It should be compared with the lovely work at Bruneepeth, his old church, und the episcopal chapel at Bishop Auckland. Lord ('rewe's fine classical choir-screen, with the organ in its normal and proper position upon it. has been destroyed at OIK- of the many abominable " restorations '' of which the authorities of this cathedral have been guilt}'. Now there is a pretentious murble and alabaster screen of mid-Victorian ( Gothic, and the ignorant und the tusteless have got that " unbroken vista" for which their hearts yearn. EXTKKIOK. On the north doorway of the nave is the famous sanctuary knocker. Durham und Beverley. owing to the high reputation of the relics of St. Cuthbert und St. John of Beverley, both hud large privileges ol sunctuury. Bevcrley retains the- Suncluury chair, the. Frithstool ; I hirham the knocker. It is thirteenth-century work. " L'pon knock- ing at the ring affixed to the north door of I hirham the culprit was admitted without delay : and after lull conlcssion, reduced to writing before witnesses, a bell in the Calilcc tower ringing all the time to give notice to the town that some OIK- had taken refuge in the church, there was put on him a black gown with a yellow cross on its right shoulder, us the badge of St. Cuthbert, whose peace he had claimed. When thirty- seven days had elapsed, it a pardon could not be obtained, the malefactor, after certain ceremonies before the shnne. solemnly abjured his native land for ever ; und was straight- way, by the agency of the intervening parish constables, conveyed to the coast, bearing in his hand a while wooden cross, und was sent out of the kingdom by the first >hip which sailed alter his arrival." During their stav in tin- church the culprits lived on the lower floors of the western towers. The atrocious setting of the doorway is modern: as also the pinnacles of the ( 'hapel of the Nine Altars, where 95 llu- famous I >un ( 'o\v IN to be seen in a niche in the- north- west turret. All the design of this suit 1 ol tin- cathedral has been utterly ruined : having been pared away to the depth of 3 or 4 in. Origin- ally eaeh bay of the' aisle had a transverse roof ending in a gable, as originally on the south side ol ( 'hiehester nave. The monastic buildings are numerous and important : the library contains precious MSS., touching relics of St. ( 'uthbert. and a wonderful collection of Pre-t 'OIK juest crosses and " hogbacks." Bini.it HiKAi'iiY. Durliain cathedral is fortunate in iis literature. There is an excellent guide-liook l>y ('anon ( ireen\\ ell : and a de- seriptive account \\itli nuiiH-nuis plates h\- R. \\'. Hilling. I S4_^ : \\hik 1 tin.' A'/'/i's i>/ /~>lk' noies and appendices as vol. 107 ol llie publications ol the Surlees Societv l>y l\e\. |. 'I'. ]'"o\\K-r. !).('.!,. To one \\lio i-ead-. llie A'//, s in Dui-liam itself, the \\hole lilV of cathedral and ahhev lives afresh. THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF THE HOLY AND UNDIVIDED TRINITY, ELY HUII.T FOR BKXKDICTINK MONKS THE vast and magnificent cathedral of Ely." says Mrs Van Rensselaer, "looms up on the hori/on, as we come westward from Norwich, like a great solitary ship at sea. As we draw nearer it preserves its isolated clearness of outline, lilted visibly above the plain, yet so little lifted that its bulk seems all the greater from being nearer the eye. As we enter the little town from the south- west we realise its enormous length, the grace of its octagon, and the stern majesty of tin.- tall tower, which rises like a great cliff in a land where men might well build cliffs, since Nature had built none. Hut there is in truth no spot whence the great monarch of the fcnlands may not be admirably si-en, until we get so tar oil that it drops behind the hori/.on's nm. Wherever it may reveal Hselt it is always immense-, imposing, majestic: only upon the plains 9 6 ELY CAT1IKDRAL 97 1 SITE OF BISHOP CRAY'S TOMB 2 BISHOP NOKTHWOLDS 3 S T ETMCLDREDAS SHRINE. f BIIHOP VILLIAM OF KILKENNY'S TO, 5 BIJHOP KtDMAMS TOMB C. . LANCYS 7 D*M1UUS TOMB 8 BISHOP HOTHAM e JOHN TiproFT, CARL or WORCCSTER 10 SIJHOP BARNCT n SRA.4S OF BISHOP GOODRICH 11 8ISH3P WM D Ll/DA II BISHOP hCATON 14- CARDINAL Dt Ll/\EM SUR& 15 ftRASiofDEAKJ TYNDALL \t> DCAN C/tSAft 16 NONIAN SLAQ FROM S r MARV'i CHU*t 19 FONT, 2jJ IO O W 4-O 60 SO IOO 20C SCALt OF FEET IO 5 IO 3.O 2>O 4-0 50 SCALE OF M ETHELS . 9S ELY CATHEDRAL of Egypt <>r Mesopotamia has Nature assisted the effect of man's work by such entire suppression of herself." Ely. like Peterborough, Ramsey, Thorney. and ( 'rowland, and like 1 Glastonbury, goes hack to early Anglo-Saxon days, when communities of monks and nuns sought solitude and safety in the 1 recesses of far-spreading marshes and tens. In thi 1 beginning the monastery was founded as a nunnery, in 673. by Ethcldreda. who became the first abbess and Ely's patron saint. From the nuns it passed to Secular ( 'anons. and in Dunstan's time to Benedictine monks. In 1109 the abbot became a bishop, and the Benedictine church a Benedictine cathedral. The bishop of Ely in his island, like the bishop of I )urham in his hill-fortress, held powers such as no other English ecclesiastic was allowed to possess. His territorial powers included the whole Isle- of Ely: and this, ''the Liberty of the Bishops of Ely,' was subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the bishop. It is in these two facts -the possession of a local saint, St. Etheldreda or St. Audrev. ot high repute through all England: and in the enormous revenues derived from the Isle of Elv that the explanation lies of the vast scale on which the abbey-church was planned in the eleventh centurv. of the astonishing richness of US thirtecnth-ccnturv presbytery, and of the enormous works undertaken and rapidly carried out in the fourteenth century. FIRST Pi.Rioii. The present cathedral was commenced in 1083 by Abbot Simeon, brother of Bishop \\alkelin of Winchester, where Simeon himself had been prior. Earlier still he had been a monk at St. ('uen, Rouen: so that he would be well acquainted with the contemporary architecture of Xormandy. As was to be expected Irom the relationship of the founders of the two cathedrals. Elv and Winchester have main" points of resemblance. Moth are vast in scale. far surpassing tlu- Abbaye-aux-hommes at (*aen. or Fan franc's copy of it at Canterbury. Both indulge in the luxun of aisles to the we-t as well as to the cast ot" their transepts. Both had return aisles in the transepts a feature borrowed from ( 'erisv-la Foret and the Abha\ c aux homines. I'hose ol ELY CAT I IK DUAL 99 IOO KLY CATHEDRAL Winchester remain : those of Kly have been pushed hark to the end-walls. The nave of Kly had no less than thirteen hays, its transepts four, its choir five. The choir aisles had square ends; the choir was intended to terminate in a semicircular apse, hut was made square-ended between i 103 and T 1 06. The stalls were placed in the crossing and in the two eastern bays of the nave 1 . Then- was a central tower: and, instead of two western towers, there was one tower with lour flanking turrets. From the lower stories of the western transepts, of which only the southern one is left, apses projected eastward. Externally the western transept gave the church great breadth and dignity; and the plan of Bury and Kly was speedily copied at Peter- borough. Lincoln, and \Vells. Internally this south western transept is the most picturesque bit of Norman work in the country. For western and central towers in a line parallels survive at Wymondham and Wimborne, and formerly at Bury and Hereford. Of Abbot Simeon's eleventh-century work little is left now except the vaulting shafts in front of his apse, to the east of the organ; the exterior of the west windows of the- south transept, which alone have the nail-head molding: and the lower part of the eastern walls of the transepts, which have- the Ionic capital. The masonry is rude 1 and tooled with a large cross-stroke: the abaci and the soffits of the arches an- square and unmolded. In 1106 the bodies of St. Ktheldreda and her sisters were translated into the eastern limb, which was then probably complete. For a long time the work must have gone on very slowly: and the original design was so closely adhered to that it is difficult to recognise any substantial differences between the four eastern and the western bays of the nave. Through- out, regardless of the Ihirham improvements, the aisle vaults are without ribs. Durham cathedral took only forty years to build, and as Abbot Simeon commenced Kly cathedral in 1083, it should have been possible to complete il c. M } }. KI.Y CATIIKIikAL IOI The latriu-.ss (it the work is seen in the tall, slender, graceful shafts of tlu- trifonum and clerestory, and in the substitution of moldings for carved ornamunt in the orders of all the IO2 ELY CATHEDRAL the Xormun choir, then standing, were copied in the presbv tery added east of the choir in the thirteenth century : and the proportions of the presbyter}' were reproduced in the fourteenth-century choir. It is this, doubtless, which gives such a feeling of unit}' in Kly, as at Worcester, in spite ol tlie fact that the present cathedral consists of three l)locks built in three different centuries in entirely different styles. At ( Canterbury, Rochester. Ripon, ( lloucester. nave and choir (|iiarrel ; at Winchester and York, nave and transept: Kly lias evolved harmony out of discord. The work seems to have 1 been done in seven sections : first, the transepts : second, the eastern limb ; third, the eastern bays of the nave : tourth. its western bays : iittli. the two doorways trom the nave into the cloister: sixth, the lower part of the west transept : seventh, the upper stones of the western transept, the western turrets, and the upper arches of the crossing. To the last half of the twelfth century belongs also the Infirmary for superannuated, infirm or sick monks, east of tin- cloister, the remains of which are worth a visit. Between i 198 and 1215 the parish church of St. Mary was built : it has a lovely doorway, well worth a visit. SKCOXD I'l-.Kion. Early in the thirteenth century the ( Jali Ice porch was added, in the same position as at I hirham. [externally the design is commonplace: internally, "with its rich outer and inner portals, its capitals carved with delicate curling leafage, its side arcades in double rows ol tretoiled arches, and the protuse dog-tooth enrichment ol its moldings, it is one ol the loveliest things ever built, and one ol the most English in its loveliness.'' The early date ol i 200 is assigned to this and to the equally beautiful western porches of St. Albans. Then came the gre.it reconstruction which every great English church went through to the east, in order to increase the length of the sanctuary, and to provide still further east a Saint's chapel, an ambulatory, and in most cases a lady chapel. In 12^;. to tin- east of the Norman choir, at the point where the Xonnan root shalts still remain, there was built in the days ol Bishop Northwold. and KLY CATIIKDRAI. 1C)' mainly at his expense, a presbytery of six bays : a presbytery of inexpressible loveliness. " Nowhere,'' says Mr Freeman, 'can \ve better study the boldly clustered marble pier with its detached shafts, the richly floriated capitals, the yet richer corbels which bear up tin- marble vaulting-shafts, the bold and deftly cut moldings of every arch, great and small. Lovelier detail was surely never wrought by the hand of man." The piers are closely spaced ; and the arches, therefore', as at Beverley. are sharply pointed in beautiful harmony with the lancet windows. ( )n the other hand, the trefoilmg of tin- tn forium arches contrasts delightfully with the pointed arches of pier- arcade and clerestory. In contemporary work the beauty of Kly pres- bytery can only he paralleled at Beverley : but at Beverlev the de- sign owes everything to the architect : at Kly the sculptor may claim half the credit. Worcester choir may be placed next in order; its proportions, similar to those of the Kly work. W enter into comparison, being French in design. The presby- tery was completed in seventeen years, and cost 5.040, which may be equivalent to about ^,90,720 of our money. < >r J , i :;. i 20 per 1 >ay. In this great work of Bishop Xorthwold is seen one ol the earliest and most important examples ol what was to be the accepted and tinal planning ol the eastern limb ol an Knglish cathedral church: vi/., an aisled parallelogram IO4 KLY CATIIKDKAL rooted full bright to its east end, and with the ritual divisions separated only by screens. The work was finished in 1252. With this superb eastern extension the monks remained satisfied for nearly seventy years. Nothing was done in the cathedral except the insertion of larger windows with geometrical tracery to give more light to the chapels in the eastern aisle of the south transept. THIRD I'KKIOD. lUit in the fourteenth century a most wonderful series of great works was carried out in Ely ; the noblest works of that or perhaps of any period of mediaeval building' i'i England. KuM of all. it was resolved to yive 105 Knllowmg tlu- precedent ol Bristol and Peterborough, a vast Lady chapel was begun in 1321, detached from, and on the north side of, the choir. It is a remarkable piece of mediaeval engineering ;: the vault a very tlat one -being upheld by a mininuiin of wall and buttress. But it was more than engineering. It was the product of a time when "Catholic: puritx in the best natures was still allied to the tenderness \Yhui in revcreiico of ihe Hcavcnc's Uuecne They came lo \\<>r>hi]> alle \\omcn that liccnc.'' It i> >aid that when 1'u^in saw the ruins of its arcadin^. oner MI glorious in its beauty wherein arc' carved, in the spandrel^ above each canopv, incidents in the scriptural and legendary history of the' Blessed Virgin he burst into tears. Ib- estimated the cost o! the- restoration of the I.adv chapel at J^ 100,000. but said that no workmen could be lound competent to do the work. The Lady chapel is said to io6 have been finished in 1341,1 : but the tracery of the east and west windows is evidently of later date. X<> doubt building was stopped by the Black I )eath of 1349, wliich wrought great havoc in the eastern counties. It was not till i ^74 that these windows were inserted by Bishop Barnett. In the central lower light of the east window there was originally a stone niche, containing no doubt an image of Our Lady. The year after the Lady chapel was commenced, the central tower fell; and falling eastward, ruined the western bays of the Norman choir. Nevertheless, though the monks had suddenly cast on them the vast task of rebuilding both tower and choir, they did not abandon or intermit their work in the Lady chapel. Side by side the different sets ot works went on : the Lady chapel, the central octagon, and the- choir. The octagon was finished in 134.?, the choir probably not much later. How vast the resources of Ll\ must have been ! In 1322 Alan of Walsingham, then Sacrist at Lly and afterwards Prior, set to work to clear away the debris of the piers of the tower. It may well have occurred to him when he saw the great open space in the centre of the cathedral. what a pity it would be ever to close- it up again in order to construct the usual circumscribed square central tower, the width only of the nave, under which one feels as if looking up from the bottom of a well. What was left, when he had cleared away the tour tower-piers, was an area three limes as large as that of the original crossing. This area was an octagon, with four long and four short sides : lour long sides opening into nave, choir, and transepts: four short sides opening diagonally into the aisles. Why not throw four wide and four narrow arches over the piers of the octagon, and on these arches erect, not a small square tower, but a vast octagonal tower? Octagonal central towers were un- known in the Lnglish cathedrals; but there are pli-nt\ abroad, e.g., magnificent examples at ( 'outances and Siena. The difficult}' was how to roof' a tower so \ast. The noblest course would have been to rover it with a vault of stone. ELY CATIIKDKAL IO/ lUit no English architect ever dared a vault 77 ft. wide. In Spain they might have done' it : the vault of the nave of ( lerona is 73 It. in span. In England not so: the York people did not even venture to vault a nave 45 ft. broad. Some sort of wooden roof, therefore, had to be adopted. That root could not be a flat wooden ceiling ; no beams of the length of 77 ft. could be had ; and if put up they would have been unsafe. Instead, then, of a flat ceiling, Alan adopted much the same construction as is to be seen in the lower part of any normal spire of wood. In such a spire inclined beams resting on the tower at eight points support an octagonal collar of wood, on which upright posts are set, and to these the sloping timbers of the spire are affixed. In a spire the sides of the spire conceal Iron) view the octagonal skeleton resting on the collar; at Ely there are ro sloping sides, and the eight posts torn) a wooden lantern, with vertical sides, and the greater part of this lantern is visible in any external view. In this, or in some such way, Alan got his design, one of the most original and poetic conceptions of tin/ Middle Ages ; but arising, like all the best things in (lothic architecture, out of the exigencies of build- ing construction. The problem was solved on paper, but it proved im- mensely difficult in execution. Alan finished the' stone piers and arches in six years, but the Limber-work occupied twelve years more. He had to search all over England belore he could find oaks big and straight and sound enough lor the tight vertical angle-posts of his lantern. They are <\i, It. long, with a sapless scantling of 3 ft. 4 in. by j ft. 8 in. Oaks like those do not grow now in England. The eight angle-posts are tied together at top and bottom b\ collars of hori/.ontal beams, and the whole skeleton lantern rots (in the tips ol inclined beams, whose lower ends are supported bv corbels behind the capitals ol the uivat piers below. And a> the m< lined beams spread to right and lelt Irom the great pier> below, it follows that the eight >ide> of the lantern are not placed above the eight arches below. This io8 engineering necessity, also, is wrought into a new source of beauty. For advantage is taken of it to pierce the wall space above the low narrow arches with four tall windows, so that the central area, so gloomy at Winchester, Lincoln, and \Vclls, is irradiated with a Hood of light from twelve vast windows ; four below, eight above. There is not such a lantern in the world. Nor does any church in England present such dramatic contrasts of light and shadow in general; to the west, dark nave; to the east, darker choir ; the centre all light and atmosphere. The views from the aisles of the nave across the octagon into the choir are veritable glimpses into fairyland. Externally, too, the octagonal lantern groups well with the great western tower; in height, in bulk, in shape they are in perfect ratio. Side by side with the' octagon went up the choir, as was necessary, that the octagon might have abutment to the east. The choir is "a little over-developed and attenuated in detail : ' : the windows are squat and ungraceful in proportion, and their flowing tracer}' wiry and unlovely. Window tracery is the' one weak point in the Curvilinear work at Ely. Never- theless, this choir is one of those works whose delicate- love- liness disarms criticism. It even disarmed Mr Fcrgusson. who says that the proportions of the presbytery are repro- duced in the choir, "with such exquisite taste that there is perhaps no single portion of any ( iothic building in the world which can vie with it in poetry of design or beauty of detail." But the monks had not finished even now. They were dissatisfied with the lighting of the older part of the cathedral. So they took out. now or a little later, lancets of the presby- ter}', not only those- of the aisles but those of the outer wall of the trilorium. and replaced them by broad windows of flowing tracery. Even this was insufficient, and so thcv sub- stituted a flat roof for the steep lean-to roof of the two western bays of the presbytery aisles, and gla/ed the inner arcade ot these two bavs of the trilorium. Thu> more li^ht was obtained lor St. Ethcldrcda's shrine, which then stood between these two bays ; its exact position is marked by tin- elaborate boss in the vault of the choir. Externallv, tin- ELY CATHEDRAL result is deplorable ; a big gap being left in the choir aisles, where the lean-to roof formerly extended continuously. this piercing of the walls with bigger windows tended to eaken the Mipporls of the vaults, and the builders tool md t< i rebuild the llvinu buttresses. I 10 KLY CATHEDRAL Beautiful stalls were' then put up the carved panels arc modern and for the ancient white marble tomb of St. Ktheldreda a stone pedestal was erected. It is probably that which now stands between tin- north piers of the presbytery, in the third bay from the west ; portions of its iron grilles may still be seen imbedded in the stone. On this was placed the 1 Norman silver reliquary, "embossed with man\' figures, with a golden majesty bla/ing in its centre 1 , with countless jewels of crystal and pearl. on\ \ and beryl, and amethyst and chalcedony." Nor was this all. Alan designed tor his friend Prior ( 'rauden a little chapel which would be the cynosure of any other cathedral, but which passes almost unnoticed amid the glories of Ely : no one should fail to visit it. FOURTH PKKIOD.- -These are the three great building periods at Ely. P>ul between 1350 and the- Dissolution much interesting work was done. The monks continued their improvements in the lighting of the cathedral, treating the Norman nave very much as they had treated the presbyter}', i.e., putting bigger windows in the aisles, and also raising the aisle walls so as to get space tor larger windows above, in the hope that more light might filter through across the tnlorium into the nave. Moreover, they added another story to the great West tower, making it octagonal, perhaps in order to bring it more into harmony with Alan'.s lantern. The additional story threw more weight on the Norman arches below, under which new strengthening arches had to be built: this saved the tower. It is perhaps owing to pressure of the tower that the northern arm of the western transept collapsed. To this period al>o belong the hammer-beam roots ol the transepts, and the Ely Porta or \Valpolr (iate, which was formerly the principal entrance into the precincts ol the Abbey: it was built in 139^'. In I4SS was erected the chantry chapel of P>i>hop Alcock at the east end ot the north aisle ot the choir: and in 1534 that of Uishop U'cst in a similar position m the south KLY CATIIKDRAL I I I aisle. They are perhaps the two most superb chantry chapels in England, of marvellous richness and delicacy and vigour. That of Bishop West is of exceptional interest for the classical scrollwork above the doorway and on the vault : also the handsome iron gate : one rarely sees in an English cathedral the delicate art of the early Italian Renaissance. In Bishop Alcock's chapel notice the frequent passion-flower and the bishop's rebus- a cock on a globe ; also the fan-vault with its big pendant. Firm PKUIOD; POST-RKFOKMATION WORK. --In 1539 the monks were expelled ; the last Prior becoming the first Dean. In if>99 Sir Christopher Wren contributed a classical doorway to the north transept. The roofs ot the nave and the lantern were [tainted c. 1862 by Mr I.e Strange and Mr C.ambier Parry. To Sir (iilbert Scott is ductile gorgeous rcredos. and he also removed the stalls from the presbytery : the plan in Browne Willis' Surrey shews that they originally stood in the octagon. MINUK WORK. The cathedral abounds in interest : only some of the more important memorials can be enumerated here, (i) Starling from the extreme east end, between West and Alcock's chapels, in the easternmost arch on the south side is the monument of Cardinal Luxemburg, 1443. (2} In the easternmost bav of the sontli aisle, bv the wall. is what remains of the tomb ot Bishop Hotham, 1337. (4) Beneath the next arch to the west is the tomb of John Tiptoft. Karl of Worcester, beheaded in 1470: beside him are elligics of his two wives. (=;) Under tin- next arch is the base ot the tomb of Bishop Barnett. 1373. (6) Under the iiiAt arch is the beautiful monument of Bishop William de Kuda. i 2<)S. resembling in style the Winchester stall work and the monuments of Edmund Crouchback and Avcline in Westminster Abbev. (7) In the centre of the aisle is the brass ol Bishop (ioodrich. 1554. (S) Next is the brass ot Dean I vndall. 1614. (9) Cross the presbytery to the north (//>/<, noticing the difference in the thirteenth and fourteenth ceiituiA vaults ot presbytery and choir On the 112 F.LY CATIIKDKAL k'ft of the north doorway of the presbytery is the monument of Bishop Redman, 1505. (10) Now we proceed up the aisle eastward. First comes the effigy of Bishop Kilkenny, 1256. (11) Next is what is probably the pedestal of St. Ethcldreda's shrine, now out of place, as are the Hi,uh Altar, the stalls, and nearlv cvcrvthintj else, as the result of divers restorations. (12) Next come.-, the beautiful effigy ot Bishop Xorthwold. 1254; "si monumentum < linens, cireumspice. (13) 'I'hen we retrace our steps: and leaving the north choir aisle. have immediately to the ri-'ht the monument of Dean Caesar, 1636. (14) On the ei^ht L^rcat corbels ot the octagon arc carved scenes from the life of St. Ktheldreda. (iz) Half-wax down the sohtli ELY CATHEDRAL I 13 aisle oj the nave is the lower p;irt of u seventh-century cross with ;in inscription to Ovin, the steward of St. Ktheldreda : - LUCEM Tl'AM OVINO DA DEl'S ET REQUIEM AMEN. BiHi.iOdRAi'ny. First stands the admirable Architectural History of Ely Ca//i,'t/ra/. by Rev. 1). J. Stewart, 1868. Bentham published in 1771 a valuable history of the cathedral. Archdeacon Chapman has recently edited specimens of the fabric A'a/ls in two volumes. A good local handbook, revised by various Deans, and published by Mr G. II. Tyndall, Minster Place, Eh', gives a long list of hooks and documents relating to the cathedral. THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST. PETER, EXETER Hrn.T TOR SI-X-ULAR CANONS IN the days had no bishop of its own from the Conquest till the recent formation of the bishopric of Truro. lust before the Norman Conquest, bishop Leofric removed his see from the open town of Crediton to the walled city of Kxetcr. largely in consequence of attack^ of Scandinavian pirates. At Exeter Leofric found a Mene- dictine monastery, dedicated to St. Mary and St. Peter. This conventual church he made his cathedral. "Heuas installed in the episcopal chair bv Edward the Confessor, who supported his right arm. and Oueen Eadgytha his left' : representations of which were inserted in the fourteenth- century sedilia, The Benedictine monks were removed by the Confessor to his new abbey at Westminster, and Eeolric supplied their place by a body of Secular Canons, who lived KXKTKK ('ATIIKI)KAL together, however, and to some extent observed monastic discipline'. Leofric was left undisturbed in his bishopric till his death, 1072. His successor, also, though a Norman, MONUMENTS J 3' SIMON DC aPULIfl * 3' HALTCB BBONESCOMBC S Z/R J GILBERT 6. MfiRTHfl Z-J" FURSMAM 7. 3? CHICHESTER. 8 HUMPHRY BOfiUN . or hceEFoeo 10 3" IV. COTTON 3 . B* JOHN THE CH^.\ TO/3 1 ,'J J/IS f COUDTENAY /! .T-JOHN THE BAPTIST CH^.^E_ 3 CHAPEL OF THL~ HOLY' GHOST C CH^PCt. X. CONSISTO/5Y COUBT was l : .ngl]>li and conser\'ati\'c- by training; the venerable AngloSaxoii church was good enough lor him. l!ut \Villiain \\'arelwast ( 11 07-1 i 28) was a great building prelate, I 1 6 K \KTKR CATHEDRAL and it was he who commenced the existing cathedral. Fxetcr cathedral, therefore, was commenced much later than most of tin- Norman cathedrals. Up to 1551, the see of Fxeter was one of the greatest pri/es in the Church of Fngland. And its bishops were in nearly all cases men ol the highest ability, rank, and import- ance. It possessed thirty-two manors, fourteen palaces- - two in Cornwall, nine in Devonshire, one in Surrey, one in London, of which Fxeter Street, Strand, is a reminder. The present value of the income of the set; would be at least ,100,000. The first of the Protestant bishops was Miles Coverdale, who with Tyndale translated the Bible. Seth Ward (1662-1667) "cast out the buyers and sellers who had usurped the cathedral, and therein kept distinct shops to vend their wares." In the evil days of the Puritans the cathedral had been divided into two churches by a vast whitewashed wall, built on the choir-screen and separating choir from nave. The Independents worshipped in the nave, the Presbyterians in the choir. Here they had what they called "great quiet and comfort," till Seth Ward pulled the wall down. Seth Ward's restoration of the cathedral cost him 2 5,000 ---representing a far greater sum now- adays. He put the cathedral in substantial repair: and the restoration by Sir G. G. Scott, in 1870, did little damage. FIRST PERIOD BISHOP WARKI.WA>T (1107-1136) AND BISHOP CHICHKSTKR (i 138-1 r 55). Nothing remains of the church of the Anglo-Saxon monastery ; nor is there any earlv Norman work, for, as we have seen, that church was in the twelfth century a Norman cathedral was commenced by William Warehvast, nephew ol the Conqueror. That cathedral included both the existing towers ; it also included an aisled nave ot the same dimensions as the present one. For the narrowed span ol the westernmost arches of the pier-arcade is to be accounted lor only on the supposition of the existence, to the west, of the wall of a pre-existing west front, and the immensely thick west wall of the nave has been found to have a Norman core : moreover the lower EXETER CATHEDRAL 117 parts of Norman buttresses, pilasters, and plinths, and one base, have been found in the walls of the north and south aisles of the nave ; while traces of an apse have been found at the end of the third bay of the northern ehoir aisle. So it is plain that the twelfth-century cathedral had west front, nave- and aisles, transeptal towers, a choir of three bays, and probably an apse at the end of the choir, flanked by smaller apses ; the towers also may have had eastern apses. Transeptal towers are rare abroad and unknown in England, except at Ottery St. Mary, where the church was made collegiate and rebuilt by (irandisson, bishop of Exeter, in the lourteenth century. From the advanced type of masonry and ornament it is likely that the towers arc' not earlier than the middle ol the century. If the cathedral was built as rapidly as Durham, it might have been completed as earl}' as i 150 by Bishop Chichester, who is recorded to have been "a liberal contributor to the buildings of his church.'' But Il8 EXKTF.R CATIIKDRAT. as a matter of fact the works dragged on to the end of the century, till the time of Bishop Marshall (1194-1206). The probability is that the nave- \vas his work ; for on its south aisle wall are three consecration crosses, two complete and one only blocked out. which may well belong to his period. With regard to the work of Bishop .Marshall enormous confusion has arisen. Hoker ( i 540- 1 583) says that Marshall "finished the building of his church according to the plat and foundation which his predecessors had laid." This plainly means that he finished the Norman cathedral of \\arelwast and ('hichester. Unfortunately, Archdeacon Freeman, in compiling his Architectural f/isforv <>f AViv/tv Ciitlicdral from the Fabric Rolls, misunderstanding the architectural evidence, asserts that Marshall laid out and partially built all the eastern chapels, and that he also actually completed and vaulted the existing presbytery. This account was followed by the writer with considerable hesitation in the first edition of tin's volume; but a second visit to Kxctcr convinced him ot its utter improbability, a condition which wa> changed to certainty on the publication of a paper on Kxcter cathedral bv 1'rotessor Lethaby in 1903. There is in reality no documentary and no archi- tectural evidence for Freeman's hypothesis. SKCOXD I'KKion BISHOP Bkn-.kK. 1224-1244.- It was this bishop who made over "to ( iod and the ('hurch of St. Marv and St. Peter sufficient ground to make a ( 'hapter house," the lower part of which still remains. Bt'uerc gave the cathedral body it-- present constitution : dean, precentor. chancellor, treasurer, and canons; u is natural that he should have constructed I "or them their ("napter house, with its line arcading. 1'robablv also when he built his ('hapter house, he built the round headed doorway at the north end of the east walk of the cloister, to give access to the ( 'hapter house from the south aisle ot the nave. It is possible that Bruere also commenced the stalls (now gone-) with their beautiful misericords; but they cannot have been com- pleted till after his death : tor one of them has a li I el ike carv- ing ot an elephant, a creature not seen in Hngland till i- - KXKTKK CATHEDRAL I If) THIRD PKKIOD. It was Bishop Bronescombe, and not Marshall, who, between c. 1270 and 1280, laid out the great eastern extensions and gave 1 the cathedral the plan which we sec.' now. The object here, as elsewhere, was to increase the length of the sanctuary, to get a dignified eastern Lady chapel as well as other chapels he added chapels of St. Andrew and St. James, St. Mary Magdalene and St. Gabriel to the eastern limb, and St. Edmund's, north-west of the nave to get a processional aisle or ambulatory all round the presbytery and choir, keeping it clear of the chapels, and arranging for all these parts to be thoroughly well lighted, and, finally, to transfer the stalls from the crossing to a choir in the western bays of the eastern limb. More- over, tall pointed arches were substituted for low semicircular arches opening from the towers to the crossing. At this time also were built the rectangular eastern chapels of the towers; "in these chapels the plinth of the internal window- shafts, below the over-sailing member of the base, is circular, as it also is in the chapels of St. Mary Magdalene and St. (iabriel ; while throughout the choir aisles west of the 1 retro- choir, and in the first bay of the nave, the plinths are octagonal. In the choir chapels of St. Andrew and St. James thev are circular too, but there is no over-sailing member above them." All this work was begun, but certainly not all finished by Broneseombe. It is known definitely that the opening up of the towers was going on in 12X0: and that he arranged in 1280 to be buried in the new chapel of St. (iabriel, then nearly finished; "fere de novo constructa. 1 ' As for the rest, the similarity of their details to that of St. Gabriel's chapel is evidence that they were planned and begun by Broneseombe. The plan of Kxetcr cathedral, therefore, as we see it now. one of the most admirable in the Middle Ages, is to be credited to IJishop Broneseombe. The windows north and south of the retro choir probably belong to his time. The lower lights of these- window^ are lancets; the circles in the head are cusped. I he side window^ of the chapels of' St. Mary Magdalene and St, f2O EXETER CATHEDRAL EXETER CATHEDRAL 121 (Jabriel, on cither side of the Lady chapel, also have geo- metrical tracery earlier than that of the Lady chapel, and may be attributed to Bronescombe. FOURTH PKRIOD.~--.SO vast a work as that described above could not possibly be finished by Bronescombe : especially if, as is evident from the character of the window tracery, which is considerably more advanced than that of Westminster Chapter house (1255), it was not begun till the- later years of his episcopate. Its completion and extension was handed over to his successor, Peter Quivil. This bishop finished the remodelling of the transepts, and no doubt the greater part of the work in various chapels begun by Bronescombe j then he went on to build a new presbytery, which, as the plan shews, could be done without disturbing as yet the eastern limb of the Norman church : hence he is styled "primus fundator novi operis '' : i.e., he was the first to set about the rebuilding of the main body ol the church. As payments for marble columns to John of ( 'orfe go on till i2(;n, it is probable that Ouivil did not live- long enough to finish even the ground story of the presbytery. Nevertheless the design of the whole interior and exterior must have been definitely decided upon in Ouivil's time, and its general lines were adhered to till the very end. With the exception of the addition of a triforium arcade with a pierced balustrade above, and the introduction of flowing tracery in some of the western windows of the nave, the mam features of the- cathedral right up to the far west doors are as they were designed in the closing years of the thirteenth century. It is, of course', this exceptional unit\- and harmony of design that makes Kxeter what it is one of tin: most satisfactory mediaeval interiors in this country. In cathedrals such as Rochester and Ely a Norman nave jars on a Gothic choir; or, as at Lincoln and York, two styles of (lothic mingle and conflict. IJut at Exeter, looking forward from west to east, hardly anything obtrudes on the original design. In no other cathedral, except Salisbury, do \\e find similar unity of design; but m the design of Salisbury simplicity becomes bareness and 122 EXETF.K CATHEDRAL poverty. It cannot be compared for one moment with the richness of the interior of Exeter. Yet greater unit}' and harmony is gamed by the way in which the battlements and pinnacles, flying buttresses, and cresting weld together the exterior, and the high vaults the interior, as at Norwich. The adherence, too. tor so long a time to ISishop nuivil's design is interesting, because' it shews that in the earlv years of tlie fourteenth century there was at Exeter, as at ISeverlev, Westminster, Ely. and St. . \lbans. a strong current in the direction of conservation of good design. 1'iers and vaulting and bosses and corbels and triforium and windows of the nave, built long after he was dead and gone, are all but reproductions of Omvil's earlv work. Most remarkable of all. perhaps, is the adherence to the early tracery patterns the rose, the hlv. and the wheel. Even tin- great west window, one of the last works, is but Ouivil's straight-spoked wheel translated into flowing curves. Ouivil was bishop from i2. In the first place there was a complete break in the treatment of the intermediate stage, or tntorium ol the choir and presbytery respectively. In the choir Baton's tntorium chamber had in front of it the little arcade which still exists. 15 ut in the presbytery Ouivii's clerestory windows were spla\ ed KXETEK CATHEDRAL 125 down till they rusted on the summits of the pier- arches ; to the same line were continued downward the shafts in the jambs of his windows, somewhat as may be seen at Pershore. This diversity of treatment of the two halves of the eastern limb must have had a very discordant effect; and Stapledon in 1318 corrected it by adding a triforium to the east, in such a way that though the eastern arcading is not so dee]) as the western, yet in perspective the difference is hardly noticed. 1'robably the next thing was to gla/.e the remainder of the sixty choir windows, only nineteen of which were tilled with stained glass at Stapledon's accession. It seems likely that nearly all the stained glass for the choir and the: transepts came from abroad Irom Rouen. For the nave, later on, the place of the laity, Knglish glass, cheaper and not so good, was thought sufficient. The glass was inserted by Walter le Ycrrouer (he has descendants still living in FAeter), at the moderate 1 price of six shillings for a fortnight's work, of himself and "two boys,'' for one pair of clerestory windows. Hitherto the clergy had sat in the transept and the eastern bays of the 1 nave ; now, as in many other cathedrals, beginning with Canterbury, the 1 stalls were moved into the 1 western hays of the choir; this was in 1310. (The pivsent canopies of these stalls are modern.) Next came the 1 bishop's throne (A. D. 1316), intended for his Lord- ship with a chaplain on either side; "a magnificent sheaf of carved oak, put together without a single nail, and rising to a height of 57 ft. The lightness of its ascending stage's almost rivals the famous 'sheaf of fountains' of the Nurcm- be-rg tabernacle. The cost of this vast and exquisitely carved canopy (about twelve guineas) is surprisingly small, even for those 1 days. The carved work consists chiefly of foliage, with linials of great beauty, surmounting tabernacled nil lies, with a sadly untenanteel look, however, for lack of their statuettes. The 1 pinnacle 1 corners are enriched with heads of oxen, sheep, dogs, pigs, and monkeys." Next came what is perhaps the most exquisite work in stone in Finland, as the 1 throne 1 is unparalleled in woodwork the seelilia, c. 1318; the seats of the priest to the east, anil to 126 the west <>l him. those ol the Gospeller and Kpistolcr. These scdilia have been preferred even to the Percy tomb at Beverley and the a reading of the Lady chapel of Lly. "The canopy of the seat nearest the altar," says Mr Garland, "deserves particular attention. It is adorned with a wreath of vine leaves on each side, winch meet at the point and there form a fmial ; and never did Greek sculptor, of the best age, trace a more- exact portrait ol the leal ot the vine, nor design a more graceful wreath, nor execute his design with a more masterly finish." The design of the sedilia passed on to the monuments of Kdward II. at Gloucester, those of the I )espensers at Tewkesburv, and even to lar away Avignon, where the great monument of Pope Jean XXII., erected in 1345, is beyond doubt copied from these Knglish examples. The tabernacled canopies of the later stalls, beginning with those ot Lincoln, c. 1370. are but renderings in wood of the design of the Lxetcr sedilia. Then came the great work of all--the high altar, with its reredos. perhaps the most magnificent in Lurope : the cost of it would amount now to about ^4.800. Of this not a fragment remains. Finallv. the choir was closed in with a great screen to the west (1317-1324), and on it was placed an organ: the ancient and best position fora cathedral organ. The accounts shew that 500 Ibs. of iron bars were used to hold the screen together, and that the Rood. Mary and |ohn. rested on an iron beam high above tin- choir screen. To iiishop Staplcdon also may be attributed the crossing and the first bay of the nave. It is possible that they were begun by Mishop Hilton, bul they were certainly nol finished by him. tor windows hereabout were being gla/ed in 1317 and 1318. The presbyter}', choir, crossing, and first ba\ of the nave musi have been nearly finished by 1327. ihe year ot Mishop Stapledon's death, lor there was a consecration by Hishop Grandisson in the following year. One other work is attributed to Siapledon. vi/.. the cloistered walk as far as the doorway of the ( 'hapler house. "The cathedral of Lxcter. as Stapledon,s successor wrote lo the Pope. " now finished up to the nave, is marvellous in beautv. and when KXKTKK CATI1KDKAL 127 completed, will surp.iss every Oothic church in Kn^land or in !' ranee. SKVKNTH PERIOD. Bishop Grandisson (1327-1369) was "tin. 1 most magnificent prelate who ever filled the sec ol I'Aeter." He had been nuncio to the Pope at the minis ol blest princes of Christendom. He was even stronu: 128 EXKTKR CATHEDRAL enough to bar the way to Archbishop Mcopham, of ( 'antcr- bury, when he attempted to enforce a visitation of the cathedral, Great as were his riches and magnificence, he was a good man of business. He lived forty years Bishop of Exeter ; finished his cathedral, did many great works elsewhere. 1 , and yet died wealthy. Stapledon, we have; seen, had finished one bay of the nave. It remained for Grandis- son to complete the remaining seven bays. The piers of the nave were erected by 1334; the whole work was com- plete in 1345. Stapledon had commenced the Cloister; Grandisson built the north walk, running, in curious fashion, under a second and outer range of flying buttresses, as does the cloister of Westminster. The. west front (except the west screen) was now built or remodelled, but not the fan- vaulting of the north entrance, which is later. And the curious chapel of St. Radegunde in the thickness of the west wall he remodelled, to form his mortuary chapel, expecting there ever to lie, looking towards the nave where his work had been done. But his tomb was destroyed by Elizabeth's Visitors, and his ashes were scattered to the winds. As we stand near his empty grave, we sec 1 before us the whole of the great mediaeval design, that was due in incep- tion to Bronescombe, and was realised and consummated by Quivil, Bitton, Stapledon, and Grandisson, in the eight}' years between 1270 and 1350. Professor Lethaby estimates that lor these seventy- five years the annual expenditure was ^/,2Oo; so that the whole cathedral cost ^/, 16,000, or about ^240,000 of our money, which compares favourably with the expenditure on Ely presbytery, which cost ^/, 1^.120 per bay, whereas the cost of each of the bays at Kxeter was about ,/, '3-333- What strikes one first is that with revenues so immense, the bishops should have been satisfied with a cathedral so small its area is less than halt that of York. On the other hand, at York, owing to the vast dimensions of the new cathedral, commenced soon alter the new work at Kxeter, the builders were unable to vault it in stone. Secondly, one wonders th;it they allowed their hands to be fettered, their design to be cramped, by the preservation not only of the aisle-walls, but of the clerestory of Warel- wast's cathedral. But it is just in the subjugation of these limitations, in converting them into the special glory and distinction of the Exeter design, that the genius of Quivil's architect shines forth most vividly. He was limited by the area of the old cathedral to north, south, and west ; not even the tiny transepts might be enlarged. Hut what was more serious, he was limited as to height. For instead of clearing away the clerestory of the Norman choir, as was done at (iloucester, it was determined to retain it, merely supplying it with a new arcade, triforium, and clerestory windows. The (Iloucester clerestory, not being fettered, soared high into the air ; that of Exeter had perforce to be low and squat. He set to work to make the best of the situation. It was not for him to emulate the lotty vaults of Salisbury and Westminster. It would seem, indeed, that the first intention of Ouivil's architect was to give the presbytery an even lower vault than the present ; for the springers, i.e., the lower parts of the ribs, of the vault are of a different and flatter curve than the upper parts of the ribs, and if continued would produce a vault 4 or 5 ft. lower than the present one. While the work was going on, however, the builders sharpened the curve of the vault and built it as we see it now. Still, the church had to be low ; the lowness of the choir had conditioned that of the presbytery : it was also to condition that of the nave. The internal elevation, then, for a Gothic church of 1280, had to be exceptionally low. So it was determined it was an intuition of genius to see what could be done in design with lowness and breadth. Everything should be broad and low. outside as well as inside. look at the east end of the choir its two arches broad and low ; above it, the great window broad and low. Nowhere' but at Exeter do you find these squat windows with their truncated jambs ; here they an- everywhere in the aisles, in the clerestory, in choir, chapels, transepts, and nave; even in the great 9 130 l.XKTKR CATHEDRAL window (it tin- western I'ront : broad and low windows everywhere. Still motv original is the external realisation of the design : mitral tower and spire, western towers and spires, alike are absent. Long ami low. massive and stable, stretches out uninterruptedly the long horizontal line of nave and choir. Breadth gives in itsell the satisfactory feeling of massiveness. steadfastness, and solidity : and this is just what is wanting in the ail-too aerial work of Gloucester and Beauvais : vaulted icofs at a di/./y height resting on unsubstantial supports and sheets of glass. But the Exeter architect has emphasised this satisfactory feeling of stability still further. The window tracery is heavy and strong : the vault is barred all over with massive ribs ; in the piers there are no pretty, fragile, detached shafts ; the massive clustered columns look as if they were designed, as they were, to carry the weight of a Norman walk But an interior may easily be made too massive; it it is not to be a Salisbury cathedral, it need not be a Newgate gaol. How was the prison-like appearance of an interior but 68 ft. high, with a stone vault of exceptionally heavy appearance weighing it down, to be avoided? How was oppressive heaviness to be counteracted ? Triumphantly, by transparency. By stretching out the windows from buttress to buttress, aisle and clerestory became practically one continuous .sheet of glass : the church was flooded with light and atmosphere : the heavy vault seemed to float in the air. b< irne up but by the lilies and roses and wheels of the windt >v>' tracery and rows of painted saints in tabernacles of silver or of gold. There is no heaviness even now in the interior of Exeter: though the silvery panes of the choir, the golden glass of the nave, have perished long ago. Another distinctive feature in Exeter, as in Salisbury, is that the architect produces his effect mainlv by architectural means- is not driven to rely on sculpture. All the principal capitals have moldings, not foliage. Only in the great corbels of the vaulting-shafts and in the bosses of the vault does he permit himself foliage and sculuture. Wonderful KXKTER CATIIKDRAL 131 carving it is ; the finest work of the best period, when the naturalistic treatment of foliage was fresh and young. Very remarkable are the corbels with their lifelike treatment of vine and grape, oak and acorn, ha/.el leaf and nut, thorn and sycamore and fig, "as crisp and fresh," says a Devon- shire man, "as if the dew were on them/' Unfortunately the.' corbels, and still more the bosses, are so high up that their lovely detail is thrown away ; and the corbels are (nit of scale. And the patterns of the window tracery are wonderfully diverse. It is not, as in Lichfield nave or King's College Chapel, where every window is like its neighbour; so that when you have seen one, you have seen all. Here, all down each side of the church, almost every window differs. In dimensions, in general character, they agree; in details they differ ; each window is a fresh delight ; \ve have what even in Ciothic architecture we rarely get diversity within similarity. Another striking feature of the design is its perfect bilateral symmetry. Gothic churches are, as a rule, most irregular, most unsymmetrical in outline; as a consequence, very picturesque. It is a mistake, however, to believe that they are intentionally unsymmetrical and picturesque. A Gothic architect no more aimed at irregularity than did the architect of the Parthenon. Only he was not a purist on the subject. If practical requirements i\v ness and solidity of the building, inside and outside, the magnificence of its Purbeck piers, the' delightful colour contrast of marble column and sandstone arch, the ama/mg diversity of the window tracer}', the exquisite carving ol the corbels and bosses, the wealth ol admirable chantries, screens. and monument^, the -uprrb sedilia. screen, and thrniie, the KXKTKR CATHEDRAL 135 misericords, the vaults, the remarkable engineering teat from which its present form results, the originality of tin- west front and of the whole interior and exterior, place Kxeter cathedral in the' very forefront of the triumphs of the mediaeval architecture of our country. THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST. PETER, GLOUCESTER F>UII/r FOR IjKNKDICTIXK MONKS The folloii'in^ is a convenient order for visit ing tin chnrcli. in Tht crypt. (2) The K. chap, I of the .V. Iran.-, pi. ij) The choir aisks or t>rocf.-sion path, with lh,' S.E. ami X.K. chap, Is. 14) '/'//, K. ,liap,i of the N. transept. (5) The E. bays and N. aisle of the nare. (61 '/'//,- vault of the nav, ami //it r, liquary in th, N. transept. (~ ) 77i, S. aisle of the na-'e. (Si Edward //.'> tomb. 191 Th, ,V. Iran.-, pi. 1101 77^' i'hi>ir, with its stalhi'ork and ^lass. nil 7//r A'. I ran-, pi. 1121 '/'//< //'. /;v;//, .V. porch, and II'. /niy.; of the narf, 115) '///, Lady fhapcl. (141 The upper aisle of the presbytery. (151 Ths cloisters. ( l(>) Tile , xlcrior of the chnreh. TH 1C foundation of (iloiicrstcr. like that of Ely. has li'oiK- through many changes. In 681 it was founded us a nunnery, and remained so till ;6g. In 821 it was n -founded for secuhir ])ric-sts : who. in the time of Canute, through the influence of Archbishop IHuistan. were replaced l)_v Benedictine monks. It remained a Benedictine monastery from 1022 till 1541. when it was placed on the New Foundation, thus reverting to secular priests once more. The abbe}' church then became a cathedral, with a diocese carved out of that of Worcester. KIRST I'KRIOU. It is recorded that A Id red. Bishop of Worcester, "re-established the monks in io;8 and began to build a new church from the foundations." It is usually held that no part of his work remains : but in the crvpt then- is Norman work o! two dates, the earlier part of which may be Aldred's. It consists of a large number of small shafts with capitals which are largely versions of the ( "orintliianes'jue capital common on the ( ontinenl in the middle o| the eleventh century : the bases also are ol classic outline. In GLOUCESTER CATHEDRAL 137 the centre of the erypt these interesting shafts stand free in two rows; hut three more rows on either side exist, eased up lor greater strength in Norman masonry added later. f B? NICHOLSON Z ABBOT SE&LO 3 ALD" BLACKLEACH 4, ABBOT SEABROOKE 5. D* E.JENNER 6 THOS. X CHPISTI/IN Mfl CHEN 7 ABBOT PARKEK 8 KING EDWARD H 9 KING OTPS1C IO.ROB? DUKE OF NOf?MfiNDY n JUDGE POWELL 12 fff COLDS BOROUGH 13 8* ELLICOTT ft. y PHILIP'S CHflPEL B S* ANDREW'S CHAPEL C ABBOT SEABROOKES CHANTRy D SOUTH POPCH C r~ PAULS CHAPEL H.A8BOT BOTELERS CH/IPEL d ha\ e built tin 138 C.LOUCESTEK CATHEDRAL crypt. It may be objected that the (Gloucester plan with semicircular procession path and radiating chapels is too advanced for io=;8: but there are reasons for believing that Westminster abbey, as set out in 1050 had this same penapsidal plan ; as also certainly Battle abbey, founded in 1067 : Winchester, begun in loycj ; and Worcester, to whose diocese (Gloucester belonged, begun in 1084; there is a marked resemblance between the crypts of Worcester and (Gloucester; both are of an early type. Owing to the preservation of its crypt, the penapsidal plan can be studied better at (Gloucester than anywhere else. Its great merit was that it provided a 7w processionum all round the sanctuary, which did not exist in such a plan as that of Dur- ham, with three par- allel eastern apses after the fashion of the abbeys of Xor- mandy. Moreover. it provided three eastern chapels in- stead of two. and readier access to eachof these chapels. The other lheor\ with regard to the crvpt is that though the small shafts were u'ot rcadv in Aldivd s time, yet the crypt was not commenced till later. 'KRIOD.- The great bulk of the work was un- one bv Abbot Serlo. who began his rule with, but before his death had a hundred. Work all afresh and a foundation stone was laid in io8(). In i 100 the church was dedicated. It is impossible. however, that the whole church wa> finished in eleven years : prohahlv what was completed was the eastern limb with the lower stage of the central tower and its abutments. It is probable that in this work we see what formerlv existed at GLOUCESTER CATIIKDRAL Westminster in that part of the' Norman church there which was begun by Kdward tin- Confessor in 1050 and dedicated in 1066. The documentary evidence points to the existence at Westminster of a sanctuary with a procession path, of upper as well as of lower chapels, and of an upper as well as a lower aisle encircling the sanctuary, and this upper aisle- was probably vaulted, as at Gloucester, with a deini- berceau or half-barrel vault. A demi-bcrceait in the same position is to be seen in St. Stephen's, Caen, and the spring ot one at Cerisy-la-Foret. In one respect Gloucester sur- passes in planning all the Romanesque churches of Normandy and Kngland ; in that, having a crypt, the three radiating apses are each three stories high, thus providing nine eastern chapels. And if to these be added the chapels in the eastern apses of the transepts, themselves also three stories high, we get the large total of fifteen chapels, an extra- ordinary number for such an early date. In the provi- sion of numerous chapels, which were essential in all tin- greater mediaeval churches, Gloucester was exceptionally successful. It had, moreover, a procession path. The only thing which it did not have was a Saint's chapel at tin- back of the High altar. I hit as Gloucester never had a local saint, it never required such a chapel. The mother church, Worcester, had in St. \Vulfstan and St. Oswald two local saints, and in Gothic days had to reconstruct its eastern limb in order to provide them with adequate local habitation. Gloucester there-lore has remained to this da\ unaltered in plan : except that in order to provide room tor a lull TIIK TKIKOKII'M OK Al'SK 140 r.I.OUCKSTKK (\\THKDKAL monastic choir at tin- services of Our Lady, the easternmost chapel has been twin- rebuilt on a larger scale. By the construction of a crypt and by the utilisation of the triforium chamber as an upper aisle, the east limb of Gloucester practical!}' consists ol three churches ; one under- ground, one on the ground floor, and one on the first floor : the two latter exist in the present Westminster abbey, though the upper church there has never been brought into use. In spite of its great popularity among English builders, in but few churches was the trifonum chamber ever used ; e.^'., in Beverley a solid wall is interposed in front of it, while at Lincoln it has no floor: frequently it has no windows; and it is usually approached only by narrow corkscrew staircases. Even when the triforium chamber was utilised, it was only that of the eastern limb and the transept, not that of the nave. Gloucester chancel, as originally built, must have been excessively dark ; that was the one defect in its planning : it had no direct light at all from the aisles : it was dependent for light on the clerestory windows, and on the small amount of light that filtered across the upper aisle. Con- sequently, when the nave was designed, a totally different and very logical design was adopted. A triforium chamber in the nave would have been of no ritualistic use : con- sequently the 1 aisle roofs wen.- flattened, and the chamber was made as low as possible. On the other hand, it was determined to get as much light as possible out of the windows of the aisle. These' therefore were to be both lofty and broad. But there was a difficulty in the way. On the north side of the nave was set out the- cloister. If the north aisle windows were inserted low down they would not have looked into the open air, but into the cloister. It was then-lore necessary to set the windows so high up that their sills were above the cloister roof. This meant that the aisle-wall had to be exceedingly lofty. And of course the pier arcade had to be exceedingly loftv also. If it had been built low. very little light would ha\e suc- ceeded in ivachum" the nuve from the hiL;li set windows of GI.OUCKSTKR CATHEDRAL 141 the aisle. Hence the extraordinarily lofty piers of (Glouces- ter nave; which are even loftier than the)' look, for the pavement has been raised above the original level. At Norwich the piers are 15 ft. high, at (Gloucester the}' are 30 It. At Norwich the piers have a diameter of 7 ft. ; at (Gloucester, though they are twice as lofty, of 6 ft. The result of this disposition was to give an internal elevation very unusual in Norman days. In Norwich the ground story, trilonum chamber, and clerestory are 25, 24, 2^ ft. high respectively; in (Gloucester nave they are 40, i o, 24; the ground story being actually taller than the other two stories put together. This is a peculiarly West of Kngland arrangement ; all the examples, the Benedictine abbey churches ol (Gloucester, Tcwkesbury, and IVrshore. art' in the same district. Whence did this arrangement come ^ 142 <;LOUCKSTF.K CATIIKDRAI. there is nothing of the sort in Normandy. It is not im- possible that this also derives from the Norman nave of Westminster, of whose design, however, nothing is known. Kven on the Continent it is difficult to find a parallel, except in the case of the loft}' cylinders of Tournus nave, to which the early date of 946-970 is assigned, and which in any case can hardly be later than the first half of the eleventh century. As to the date of the nave of (Gloucester there is diversity of opinion. l!ut it is known that the nave of Tewkesbury, which is ruder in detail and therefore earlier, was not consecrated till 1123; (Gloucester nave therefore was probably not finished before c. 1130. It is only necessary to compare the moldings of the pier -arches in the choir and the groined vaults of the procession path with the moldings of the pier-arches in the nave and the ribbed vault of its north aisle, to be sure that a whole generation must have elapsed between the two designs. The period i i 10 to c. 1130 may well have been spent in substituting for temporary sheds of wood permanent stone buildings in the way of cloister, chapter house, dormitory, refectory, cellarage, infirmary, guest houses, and other necessary appur- tenances of a monastic- establishment of the very first rank. The nave was originally longer than now, perhaps by half a bay, and had two western towers or turrets. The shortness of the nave, as well its internal elevation, and the three - storied eastern limb, decisively mark oft this church, with Tewkesbury and Pershore, from such example's as Bury, Ely, Peterborough, Norwich, and Christehurch. The three western churches form a distinct school ot their own, the origin of which certainly is not to be found in Normandy. THIRD PERIOD. In the thirteenth century very much work was done, but much of it has disappeared. The north- western tower had collapsed between 1163 and i i 80, and was rebuilt in 1222. The south-western tower was rebuilt between 1228 and 1243. A central tower is recorded to have been built in 1222: this probably means that one or two stories were added to a low Norman central tower. r.l.OtJOKSTKk CATIIKDRAL 143 A rectangular Lady chapel was substituted tor the eastern most chapel in 1227 ; the form <>l the latter in Norman days is determinable from its substructure in the crypt. At the end of the north transept stands what Mr A. W. 1'ugin was certain was a Reliquary. Others regard it as a lavatory, obtaining a parallel from the one in Lincoln Minster. It may have been the entrance to the thirteenth-century Lady chapel, removed when the present Lady chapel was built : but in those days there was no Society lor the Preservation of Ancient Monuments, nor were the builders in the habit of removing and preserving ancient work merely tor artistic reasons. In its vault is exquisite detail. (Gloucester was exceptionally unlucky in the way of fires, marks of which may be seen on the nave piers. There were great fires in 1088, 1101, 1122, 1179, and 1190. The monks made up their mind to fircproot the nave by insert- ing a vault under the roof ; this was executed in two sections, as the work shews; one part is recorded to have been done by the monks themselves, probably the part in which is so much bungling. While the scaffolds were up, they took the opportunity to enlarge the clerestory windows, converting them into lancets, leaving, however, the Xorman jambs, whose /ig/ag ornament may still be seen. The infirmary, of which the west end and an aisle arcade remain, belongs to this period: as also the north doorways of the cloister, the vaulted passage in its north-east corner, and the great gatewav opposite to the memorial to Bishop Hooper. The church was rcdedicated in 12^9, although the nave vault was not finished till i 242. Fot'KTH I'KKIOD. Between i .} i S .Hid i 321) the Norman south aisle ot the nave had got into a very dangerous con- dition. The north aisle was sale, its wall being propped up by the cloister root. But the vault of the south aisle had thrust the wall 11 in. out of the perpendicular. To save the vault. Abbot Thokcy built on to the Xorman pilasters the present beautiful buttresses. But the new buttresses also swung over 4 in., and the Norman vaulting had to be taken out: the aisle received a new vault, and it-> eastern 144 ('.I.oUCKSTKk CAT[IKI>KAI. bays were enriched with ball-flower. Tlu j beautiful windows are of late geometrical character, and are smothered in ball- (lower. The profuse employment of ball-flower is quite a characteristic of the early fourteenth-century Gothic of the West country ; it is equally remarkable in the grand windows of Eeominstcr and Badgeworth, and at Ledbury and Here- ford. "A horizontal line drawn just below the spring of the arch of each window at Gloucester cuts through thirty- two bands of ball-flower." There are no less than 1,400 ball-flowers in each window. FIFTH PERIOD. In 1327 Abbot Thokey made the fortune ot Gloucester abbey. The fly in the ointment in this great abbey was the lack of a pilgrimage shrine with all its con- sequent spiritual and material advantages. Abbot Thokey made up for it by welcoming to his church the body of a murdered king. On 2 i st September Edward II. had been murdered at Berkeley castle. Bristol, Kingswood. and Malmesbury monasteries were appealed to, but none dared receive his body for interment, fearing the- anger of the Oueen and her party. Abbot Thokey brought the body to Gloucester in his own carriage, and caused it to be solemnly buried in the presbytery. Soon miracles were wrought at the tomb, pilgrimages set in, immense sums were con- tributed in offerings; Gloucester, like Hcretord. became a pilgrim-church, and, like Hereford, used the vast income that accrued- enough, the monks said, to have erected a brand-new church in improvements in the church and abbey. The tomb of the murdered king, erected by his son, Edward III., still exists, and the leaden cottin below, in which, when opened in iS^, the body was found "in a wonderful state of preservation." (We wonder what would be said if our antiquaries exhumed the bodies of George III. and Archbishop Benson, and stole their rings and votments to put them in a sho\v-ca>c in the vestry.) On one side ot the monument, facing the aisle, is the bracket on which offerings were laid : above is one of the loveliest canopies m existence, but much restored : it was modelled probably on the sedilia of Exeter. Hard bv, in the north aisle, is a stone GLOUCESTER CATI IKI >RAI. '45 146 (1LOUCESTKR CATI I KDRAI. lectern, from which it is said the monks told the pilgrims standing in the transept the story of the king's death and the miracles wrought at his tomb. This is unlikely, tor it does not face the transept. Perhaps the monks' attendance in choir was checked off by a '"scrutator" from a list on this desk, just as undergraduates' names are or were on entering college chapel. To the same period belong various windows inserted in the aisles and chapels and in the triforium chamber. SIXTH PKRIOD. The monks, with the rich revenues now at their disposal, would perhaps have, liked to rebuild the presbytery de noro. But the cultus of Fdward II. was just now at its height, and the surroundings of the shrine were crowded every day and all day with the pilgrims from whom the money came. They therefore confined themselves to such improvements as could be effected without interfering with the flow of pilgrims and of offerings. The first thing needful was to provide more light : above all, in the presby- tery, where the centre of attraction was ; and in the crossing, where their daily services were held. Secondly, the' church had suffered severely from fire again and again. The nave- had already been safeguarded against fire by vaulting: it was desirable to extend the same protection to the transepts and presbytery by covering these also with stone vaults. First, there was the lighting problem. Abbot Thokey had done a good deal in improving the lighting of the south aisle of the nave, and the aisles and chapels and triforium of the presbytery. Abbot \Vygmore commenced operations in the south transept. The; north transept was in daily use, as the cloister was on the north side of the nave, and the monks passed through the north transept to their daily services in the crossing. The improvements in the presby- ter}- were; postponed for a time, so as not to interfere with the pilgrim-. In six years, before 1337. Wygmore is re- corded by Froucestcr (who was himself Abbot from 1381 to 1412) to have cased, lighted, and vaulted the south transept. It Froucestcr is correct and his evidence is almost that of a contemporary -we have in the south transept ot Gloucester (ILOUCKSTKK CATIIKDRAL 147 otic of the greatest pu//les in the history of mediieval architecture. 'I'lu: whole of this work in the south transept is in the style; which elsewhere (lid not eome into use: till late in the century. We have to believe that it is con- temporaneous with the 1 utterly different work that was being done everywhere else in England ; that it was contemporane- ous with the monument of Edward II. in Gloucester itself; with the Perey shrine at Bcvcrley ; with the Lady chapel, octagon, and choir of Ely. It seems incredible. .But Gloucester presbytery was not taken in hand till after the south transept, and it was finished not later than 1350. No other work like that of the south transept occurs in the kingdom till Edington church (1352-1361), and the western part of Winchester nave. So that, if we accept 1'Voucester's statement, we- have to believe that while the rest of tin- world was working in one fashion, the Gloucester masons, not later than 1330, were working on new and totally different lines. \Ve have' to believe, also, that though this style' ultimately became- universally popular in England, overspread the whole countrv, and maintained its hold on English architecture for three centuries, at the outset it smouldered at Glouce-ster, unnoticed, unappreciated by anybody, till Edington took it up twenty ye'ars later in rebuilding the church of his native village-. All the- other improvements in mediaeval building were caught up instantaneously passing from one- end of the kingdom to the- other with the rapidity of the fashion of a Paris bonnet or mantle. England hesitated long before it could consent to exchange the richne-ss of Ely design for the- simplicity of that of Glouce-ster. Howe-ver, the- ne-w choir of Gloucester, eulogised everywhere as it must have been by admiring pilgrims, showed the capacitie-s of the ne-w style. The-n it came in with a rush. So, "Si purva luvt rnmponeK 1 mu^ms, the Royal and Ancient game of golf smouldered on for centuries at Blackheath, till the- psychological moment came, and it passed on to \\Ystward Ho, and then swept like wildfire- over all England. 148 GLOUCESTER CATHEDRAL The first question tin- monks had to decide was that of lighting. Their answer was a momentous one. They decided to get additional light by pulling down the low Norman clerestory and substituting a tall (lolhic one, insert- ing in it big windows which form almost a continuous sheet of glass. Tlie nave was internally 67.', ft. high. To get a big clerestory, they raised the south transept and presbytery to the height of 86 ft. Similar lull clerestory win- dows were being built, but with an earlier type of tracery, in the 1 choirs of Lich- field and Wells. Hut as yet clere- story windows were, as a rule, rather small : and some big churches of this period, such as ( irantham and I'atrington. had no clerestory at all. For what was to be the n'lory of the- clos- ing days of hng- lish ( iothic archi- tecture- -the Lantern type of churchwe must give the credit to the masons of ( iloucestcr. And also tor the new type of window. The new big window, occupying the whole breadth and nearly the whole height of the end wall ol the south transept, had to be strengthened by cross-bars or transoms : and the tracer}' of the head had to be strengthened by the substitution of vertical straight lines, as far as possible, tor curves. 1 1 ere. then, we have the- genesis of rectilinear tracery. GI.OtH'KSTKK <'ATIir.I)KAI. 149 Then there was the question of tlu: vault. If \vc can believe Abbot Froucester, so early as 1337 the- monks put over the south transept not only one of the earliest lierne vaults of the kingdom, but one so accurately worked that the junctions of the ribs did not require to be masked by bosses: they mortised the ribs together with as much pre- cision as if they were dealing with joints in cabinet work. And over the choir and under the tower they put up the most ama/ingly complicated lierne vault that was ever con- structed : this, too, not later than 1351. Not having reached yet the development that the pendant was to receive- in later days, they got the necessary supports for the vault ol the crossing by throwing skeleton arches across from east to west. Thirdly, they appear to have intended to separate the presbyter}' from its aisles by the usual stone screens designed to correspond with the tracery of the clerestory windows. This would have left an ugly cavernous arch that ol the eleventh-century trifonum -in each bay. between the screen below and the clerestory above. The pattern of the tracer}' of the clerestory window had been repeated once in the screen below : what more natural than to repeat it ,i M-cond time in the shape of a screen set in front of the open arch of the trilorium? It remained merely to join up the mullions ol all three lower screen, trilorium screen, and clerestory window and the three members were welded together into one composition: harmony and unit}' reigned In mi pavement to vault. Here again we- have at Gloucester not only the commencement, but the full development of what became the leading principle in later Knglish Gothic - the determination to impose unit}' on the elevations of their churches by repeats ol window tracery. Most successful ol all is the treatment of tin- vaulting shalts : the\ rise sheer in unbroken How from the- pavement vault above. 1'hus the lolly choir becomes to all and purposes a < me-sti >ry design : it consists essentially ling but lolly vault supported by lolly pillars. Klse 150 CLOUCF.STKK CAT! I Kf )RA I. direction. At St. David's and 1'ershoiv the internal elevation had been reduced to two stories ; at Exeter and \'ork the triforiuni had been almost attenuated out of existence. Nowhere, however, had any one dared to con- ceive the possibility of bringing out the organic unity of an interior by reducing it to a single story. This was done first at Gloucester; and, moreover, at Gloucester only was it ever worked out successfully. Imitations there were, again and again, of the Gloucester design -- indeed, nearly all later design is in essentials modelled on Gloucester at Winchester, Christchurch, Malvern, Norwich. Sherborne, Canterbury but no one succeeded in reproducing the organic unity of Gloucester's one-story choir. One question still remained unsolved : how to treat the east end of the church. At Norwich, where the Gloucester precedent was largely followed a century later, the central apse and procession path and radiating chapels were all retained with most beautiful effect. At Gloucester they pulled down the central apse : and on the wall of the three eastern bays of the ambulatory they erected three gigantic windows, so welded together as to compose one window. And, to bring the whole into view, they made the new easternmost bays of the presbytery, which had now to be rebuilt, wider to the east than the west. Thus they got one of the biggest windows in the world, and one of the ugliest. However, no one looks at the tracery of the window, but at the painted glass which it still retains. This glass is decidedly late in character, but the armorial bearings in it show that it was completed by 1350. All the characteristics of late Gothic glass are there. Thus the canopies and the figures alike are silvery white, and yellow stain is introduced here and there. The drawing, however, is shockingly bad: and the colour is got in a very artless way by inserting alternating backgrounds of vertical stripes of red and blue. At the same time between 1337 and 1377- the monks were provided with new choir-stalls. I!ut while stone-work and glass alike are rectilinear in character, the stalls ha\e bowing ogee canopies of the Ely type. GLOUCKSTKR C'ATI I Kl )R.\I. 151 Next the north transept was remodelled (1360-1374). It is very much like its brother, but is 8 ft. higher, and the vault has bosses. SEVENTH PERIOD. -The next work was the rebuilding of the cloister. This was built in two sections ; as far as the doorway of the Chapter house in 1351-1377; the rest in 1381-1412. It is covered with a fan-vault, the earliest THE CLOISTKK example of the kind, except those of two monuments in the neighbouring Abbey Church of Tewkesbury. KICHTII PKKIOD. The west front with its lowers or turrets seems to have been giving trouble, and Abbot Morwcnt (1421-1437) pulled it down, and built the present west front : also the south porch. He also found it necessary to rebuild the western bays of the nave. The two bays he built are quite different in height and span and general design. With his big west window, and with the insertion of rectilinear 15-' (.l.nlJCI.STKk < A I IIKDKAI, tracery in the north aisle and in the clerestories of the nave, the improvement of the lighting of the church may he said to have been effectually completed. NINTH PKRIOD. The monks now turned their attention to the central tower. The tower was ot no use as a lantern, lor the herne vault of the choir had been carried beneath it. So it long remained unaltered. But in the days of Abbot Seabrooke the thirteenth-century tower was taken down, and the present magnificent tower was built under the super- intendence of a monk named Tully, to be in character with the new exterior of choir and transepts ( 1450-1 460). A very imposing tower it is; fully able, from its massiveness as well as from its height, to gather together the masses of the building all the more so because the transepts are so short. It succeeds where the central towers of Worcester and Hereford tail ; in fact, it is as effective in its way as Salisbury spire. The pinnacles, again, bear witness to the love of these later artists for harmony and unity: each pinnacle, with its two range's of windows, is a repeat of the two stages of the tower below. TKNTII PKRIOD. Then- - after the tower had been erected - -it was decided to rebuild the thirteenth-century Lady chapel. So an immense detached building was constructed to the east of the great window of the presbytery; without aisles, but with little transepts; almost one continuous sheet of glass, and with a superb vault. The upper stones of the little transepts have book-desks, and probably were meant tor the singers of prick song or harmonised music, which at this date was just coming into fashion, but was not as yet allowed in monastic choirs. This Lady chapel had to be joined up to the presbytery, but the great east window was in the way. However, the difficult}' was got over by a scries of ingenious shifts and dodges, which must be seen to be appreciated (1470-1490). h contains the remains of a beautiful reredos. and in the east window much of the old glass ; also remarkable m< idem glass by Mr ( '. \\Tiall. ruined by juxtaposition with a window containing glass of the most commonplace commercial type, for the insertion of which it GLOUCESTER ('ATI I KI >k.\l. 153 is difficult to conceive- an excuse. \Yith the Lady chapel ends the threat building-period at ( Gloucester (1330-1499), which turned the course of English architecture; so that the style of 1315 to 1350 was to find its natural development on the Continent in Flamboyant, but in England was switched off to a wholly different type of design. THK CI.OISTKR. (i) Leaving the north transept for the cloister, immediately on the right is seen a passage called the Slype, the first part of which is Larly Norman work. (2) Next conies the Chapter house 1 , which with its pointed barrel vault i> also Norman, except the eastern part, which was rebuilt in the fifteenth century. (3) At the end of the cast walk of the cloister is a vaulted passage leading to the ruined arcade o! the infirmary, and to a picturesque little cloister ol uncertain use. as well as to the chiel uatewav ot the abbe\' precinct^. (4) Returning to the north walk of the cloister, we see on Us south >ide the finest monastic lavatory 154 CI.orCKS 111 England. On tin- opposite wall of tin- cloister walk is a recess lor towels ; this wall was the southern wall of the refectory. Near the towel recess is the doorway of the refectory. The north alley was screened off, and formed the monastic school ; on tin- stone bench at the foot of the wall are diagrams composed of holes for " fox and geese," and other hoys' games. (5) At the end of the west walk of the cloister on the right hand is another Norman passage or slype ; this, as at Westminster, was the outer parlour by which the cloister was reached from the outer court, and in which the monks were able to meet their relatives. (6) We return to the church by the south walk, having on the lelt the twenty little studies or "carrels," where the monks, each at his own little table, wrote, copied, and illuminated manuscripts. Notice the line in the floor for bookcases, which is not seen in the other walks of the cloister. MINOR WORK.---(I) Behind the High altar, as at Winchester, is a narrow space called the Feretory, once roofed in overhead. On the one hand it formed a pro- cession path for the priest, when he had to pass round, asperge, and cense the High altar in the course of the Sunday procession ; on the other hand it provided space for cupboards for the keeping of treasures as well as two recesses for relics beneath the High altar. (2) In Abbot IJoteler's chapel, the north-east chapel of the ambulatory, are good tiles and the remains of a line reredos. c. 1450. (3) To the centre of the presbytery, its original position, has been restored the wooden effigy of Robert Courthose, Duke of Normandy, son of William the Conqueror, who died in 1134; from the coat of mail and long surcote it would seem to be twelfth-century work, but the wooden chest on which it rests is not earlier than the fifteenth century. The tomb of King John occupies a similar position at Worcester, as did that of Edward Confessor at Westminster up to i 245. Nor is there any reason why it should not have been placed once more in its original and proper position. (4) At the entrance to the crypt i> a bracket to support a light : it rests on two figures supposed to represent a (.LorCKSTKK CATHEDRAL 155 mason and his prentice. (5) In the upper aisle are several beautiful windows and piscinas; at the extreme east of it is an original stone altar inscribed with consecration crosses. From this point the superb lierne vault of the Lady chapel is best seen, with its exquisite foliated bosses. This chapel is approached by the well known Whispering (lallery. To the upper aisle also has been transferred an important picture of the Doom, not earlier than the reign of Henry VIII. (6) The cathedral possesses very fine tiles. Tiles of the time of Abbot Parker (1515-1541) remain in his chantry chapel, which is in the next bay west of the tomb of Edward II.; and there is a large collection of tiles of various dates in the presbytery and the altar platform. (7) In the eastern chapel of the south transept is glass of the period when the transept was remodelled (1330-1337). Space fails to speak of the artistic charm of this great church. Internally it abounds above all others in ever varying vistas and perspectives and dramatic contrasts of light and shadow. Externally it is magnificently impressive by sunlight and by moonlight, seen near at hand or far away. It is one of the greatest glories of England and the English race. It has been well cared for of late years by Mr Waller and his masons. BiBUoiiRAi'HV. Professor Willis in the Gentleman's J//' Gloucester Ca/li, drat. T. Gamhier Parry. ' ( >n the Builders of Gloucester Abbey." in the tirM volume of tlu 1 Records of Gloucester CalJi.Jral. ('. Winsinn, "On the Kast Windnu." in the .-/;. h, /,,'.,'/,, /.' fourual. \\. 2. ;S. FROM THE SUUTH-WKST THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST. MARY AND ST. ETHEL- BERT, HEREFORD HKRFJ-'ORI) boasts a cathedral which, though one of the smallest, is, both externally and internally, one of the most picturesque in the country. As at Salisbury. Lincoln and Chester, a noble view of the exterior is to be had from the north-east. To the archaeologist and the architectural student, its melange of styles makes it a perfect treasure-house of mediaeval design : early and late- Norman, Transitional work of the early, middle, and late- thirteenth century, and work of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries are all represented in the structure, to say nothing of the dothic of Wyatt, Cottingham, and Scott. Hereford is one of the oldest of all the Sees, going back, at any rate, to the year 601. when St. Augustine had a HEREFORD CATHEDRAL 157 conference with the Welsh bishops. It owed its riches and reputation mainly to two saints, King Ethelbert and Bishop Thomas Cantilupe. In the year 792 the great King of Mercia, Of fa, inveigled Kthelbert, King of East Anglia, to the west of England, where he was treacherously murdered. "On the night of his burial, a column of light, brighter than the sun. rose to heaven : " three days later his ghost appeared and gave directions for the removal ol" his body. lie was interred at I lereford ; and in 82^ ' a noble church of stone'" HEREFORD CATHEDRAL was erected over his remains. Of this or any subsequent Anglo-Saxon cathedral nothing survives. FIRST I'KRIOD (1079-1110). In 1079 the present cathedral was commenced by Robert de Losinga. He held the see till 1095. It is asserted by Sir Gilbert Scott that none of his work remains. lUit it seems certain that the east wall of the south transept, the east end and pier arcade of the choir, and perhaps the triforium also, are eleventh - century work. 'I 'he de- sign of the tran- sept is curiously artless and arch- aic. The tall arches of its wall arcade have rem- iniscences ol many a church i n Lombard)" ; the squat little balustraded tri- forium is just what one finds in the elevciith- eentury transepts of St. Albans and Chester and 1'er- shore. Proceed- ing into the choir aisles, probability rises into certainty. The masonry is of the roughest, and coursed in the most casual way : the strings and the bases have the rudest caricatures of moldings. The piers, too, are just the heavy masses of wall which one finds at St- Albans and ( "hichester : it is impossible that these piers and the light cylinders ol the nave can both have been erected in the twellth century. What has deceived archaeologists is that, though the skeleton of the choir is of the eleventh HEREFORD CATHEDRAL 159 century, it was .smartened up immensely in the following century. In fact, it has gone through a similar process to that which took place at Porchester and Romsey, where the early Norman caps have been recurved by a late Norman sculptor ; only at Hereford the renovation has been much more drastic. Looking at the east wall of the south transept, it is impossible to believe that the noble bay of the triforium above the arch of the aisle is of the same date as the balustrated triforium to the right of it. Although so early, the Norman church was in its plan the most advanced in England. The great fault of churches planned, like I kirham, with three parallel eastern apses was that there was no processional aisle or ambulatory round the, presbytery. This fault was remedied at Hereford by making the presby- tery rectangular, and placing the high altar between the easternmost bay and the next bay to the west ; the easternmost bay thus providing the ambulatory desired. To the east of the ambulatory were three apses ; of these the two lateral apses were entered from the side aisles, but the central one from the ambulatory. And this central apse was not the broad and lofty central apse which may still be seen at Peterborough and Norwich, containing the eastern part of the presbytery, but was quite low and narrow, little broader indeed than the Norman arch by which it was entered and which still remains. So that we .must not think of the old Norman east end of Hereford as con- sisting of one vast central apse- as tall as the rest of the church or nearly so, flanked by low minor apses, but as consisting of three parallel eastern apses, all of about the same size and all low, and the central of them forming merely a little eastern chapel. The three little apses were independent buildings, each with its own separate roof: being separated by the flat Norman buttresses which still remain on the east side of the east wall of the presbytery. What the appearance of the church would be within may be gathered from the sketch by Sir (lilbert Scott in the Jlnildiiig Ncics of yth August 1878, where', however, the altar steps are wrongly placed in the easternmost bay. r6o HEREFORD CATHEDRAL Another portion of the early work remaining is the building projecting eastward from the south transept ; it forms a rectangular sacristy, with rude, unribbed vault ; it was enlarged to the east in the fifteenth century. In ino the cathedral was dedicated ; which means, no doubt, the part then completed; vi/.., the eastern limb with its three small external chapels, the north and south transepts, the eastern limb, and that part which contained the stalls of the choir, vi/., the crossing and the first bay of the nave. Of the east- ern limb, two bays would be presby- tery and one bay ambulatory. On his monument Bishop Reynelm is styled founder of the church, " fun da tor ec- clesie " ; the same phase occurs in an old Obit, but in THE KKRKDOS this " hospltil ' IS substituted f o r " ecclesie " in a later hand, which would mean that he built a guest house. Reynelm certainly can have done very little in the church between rioy when he became bishop, and in i no, when the dedication took place; but having con- secrated it, he has been wrongly given the credit of the whole work. SKCOND I'F.RIOD (1110 to c. 1145). To this period HEREFORD CATHEDRAL 161 belong the nave and the renovation of the choir. The capitals of the nave, greatly restored, are richly carved, and like all pre-Gothic carving, are full of classical survivals, acanthus, honeysuckle, &c. The Norman work is far richer than that of Ely, Peterborough, Durham, Gloucester, or Tewkesbury. The design of the nave, and still more of the choir, was probably the most solid and satisfactory in the country, not even excepting Durham. The triforium is especially magnificent ; a copy of it was executed in the transept of Romsey. The bays of the choir are separated by broad pilasters, apparently to carry broad transverse arches. But whether these arches were in- tended to carry some form of wooden roof (their spandrels being built up), or a vault, cannot be deter- mined. Sir Gilbert Scott's sketch shews a groined vault. The nave was completed " with great expense and solicitude, and dedicated by 'Bishop Robert de Bethune '' (1131-1148). THIRD PERIOD. The next alteration appears to belong- to the time of Bishop William Yere de Yere (1186-1199). The puz/ling character of this work is probably due to a change of intention. Evidently what was wanted, and all that was planned at first was (i) an ambulator}- of four bays in place of the three little eastern apses : and (2) east of that, a Lady chapel; this is precisely the plan of the 1 east end of Norman Romsev. This would set free the easternmost bav THE EASTERN TRANSEPT, FROM SOUTH 162 HEREFORD CATHEDRAL of the architectural choir, which could then he used as Saint's chapel for St. Ethelbert. This first work would naturally be commenced at the east; and to it belongs (i) the external doorway leading to the crypt of the Lady chapel, and (2) the northern and southern walls now serving as vestibule to the Lady chapel, and containing windows which were at first intended to look into the open air. But while the work was going on it seems to have occurred to the builders that the opportunity might be seized for building in addition four eastern chapels. This was done : and in order to get access to each end-chapel the ambulatory was ex- tended another bay northward and another bay southward. Thus the builders got not only the originally intended ambulatory and Lady chapel, but a low eastern transept in addition, as later on at Southwell, K \eter, and Wells, plus four chapels. Much of this work remains. In the jambs of the unglazed windows are shafts with conventional stalky foliage ; while the arch of the window-head is enriched with the Norman diamond ornament. The vaulting ribs are enriched with zigzag. The central piers have, one conven- tional foliage, the other a scalloped capital. In the south east transept there are remains of the doorway, and of a plinth which seems to have supported a pier between the two eastern chapels. The piers of the processional aisle are so arranged that two of them are in a line with the centre of the semicircular arch which led from the choir into the former Norman central apse. The intention of the builder perhaps was to reconstruct the east end of the choir, or it may be to rebuild the whole choir, substituting for the single semicircular arch a pair of pointed arches, as at Lxeter. This was never done, however ; and so, quite fortuitously, Hereford gets most (-harming vistas from the choir across to the eastern transept and the Lady chapel. Possibly the whole of the lower part of the Lady chapel was built in this period. The crypt-worship of the eleventh century had gone out of fashion : and the Hereford crypt, like that at Norwich, was probably built as a golgotha or charnel-house. FOURTH PERIOD. About 1220 the upper and eastern HEREFORD CATHEDRAL 163 parts of the Lady chapel were completed. It is a work of great beauty, especially in the rich clustering of shafts in the window-jambs and in the fine composition of the east end, with its quintet of lancets. The chapel is curiously low internally. The builder was an exceptionally cautious person. He not only provided for the thrusts of the vault by heavy buttresses and pinnacles, but, to get the thrusts as low down as possible, he made the vault spring below the window-heads. Moreover, down below he constructed a lofty FROM THE NORTH-EAST crypt, thus raising considerably the floor of the Lady chapel. Thus encroached on from below and from above, the interior of the Lady chapel contrasts remarkably with its lofty and imposing exterior. Externally, moreover, as the window-heads could not rise high, owing to the low spring of the vault, a large amount of wall-surface was left, and had to be decorated. This was done in a remarkable way ; the arcade which runs round it being the old-fashioned Norman arcade of intersecting semicircular arches probably the last appearance of this design on the stage. 164 HEKF.KOKH CATHEDRAL FIFTH PKRIOD. The history of the cathedral now re- solved itself for the next hundred years into a series of attempts to get rid of the "dim, religious light," so dear to the modern, so abhorrent to the mediaeval ecclesiastic. Hereford presbytery was even worse lighted than Norman churches generally, being blocked to the east by a transept, and having enormously bulky piers. So the Norman clere- story, if it existed, was taken down, and a Gothic clerestory with an inner arcade an early and interesting example of plate-tracery was erected. It is possible, however, that the Norman clerestory had never been built, but that the chancel was roofed at the triforium level like the nave of Christchurch, Hampshire. Moreover, the presbytery was made fireproof by being vaulted in stone, c. 1250. SIXTH PKRIOD. About 1260 more drastic measures were taken with the Norman north transept. It was pulled down bodily, and rebuilt on a design which is perhaps the most original, as it certainly is one of the most beautiful, in the history of English Gothic architecture. To the north and west were built enormous windows, with tracery of cusped circles, quite exceptional in their elongation, more like late German than English work. On the east side the elevation is exceedingly interesting. Its arches, almost straight-sided its triforium windows a ring of cusped circles set under a semicircular arch its clerestory windows, spherical tri- angles enclosing a cusped circular window the composition of the triforium the north and west windows make up an exceptional design and were copied in later work in the city and neighbourhood. At the south end of the aisle is the exquisite tomb of Bishop Peter Aquablanca (d. 1268); no doubt built in his lifetime. The tomb is as unique as the transept, and closely resembles it in design. The in- ference is that Bishop Aquablanca built the transept. The credit of it, however, is constantly given to his successors, apparently on account of his private vices. But sinners as well as saints have liked to leave memorials behind them in stone : and, moreover, Aquablanca had his good points. To this dav four thousand loaves are distributed everv HEREFORD CATHEDRAL I6 5 year out of funds which he bequeathed. It is recorded, too, that, of a fine which was imposed on the citizens for en- croachments on his episcopal rights, he remitted one half, and handed over the other for works on the cathedral. Moreover, he was a foreigner, from Chambery ; and has probably received no more favourable judgment from the English chroniclers than they were wont to give to foreign favourites of the king who at this time were swallowing up the best things in the English Church. SEVENTH PERIOD: Then came a turning-point in the history of Here- ford. The reputa- tion of King Kthelbert as a m i racle - work er may well by this time have worn a little thin. In 1287 Hereford found that it had obtained a new saint. This was Bishop Thomas Cantilupe, a man of saintly life, and one of the great- est churchmen of the day. "He was a pluralist of the first dimension- Chancellor of England and of the University of Oxford, Provincial Grand Master of the Knights Templars in England, Canon of York, Archdeacon and Canon of Lichfield and Coventry, Archdeacon of Stafford, Canon and bishop of Here-ford." In 1282, with his chaplain, Swinfield, lie visited Rome, and died on the journey home. Swinfield, following a not uncommon mediaeval practice, had the flesh ol the- body separated from the bones by boiling. The flesh was buried in the church of St. Severus, near Orvieto ; the heart and bones he conveved to England. ST. THOMAS SHRINE 1 66 HEREFORD CATHEDRAL The heart was interred at Ashridge, the bones in Hereford cathedral. Five years afterwards miracles commenced : " There were raised from death to life threescore several persons, one-and-twenty lepers healed, and three-and-twenty blind and dumb men received their sight and speech. Twice King Edward I. sent sick falcons to be cured at his tomb." In 1320, by the expenditure of vast sums of money, his canonisation was procured ; ever since, the see of Here- ford has borne the arms of Cantilupe. He was the last English saint ; and, being the newest, was for a considerable time the most fashionable. The fame of St. Wulfstan of Worcester and St. Swithun of Winchester paled before that of St. Thomas of Hereford. Till Gloucester secured in 1327 still fresher relics in the murdered body of King Edward 11., Hereford held the greatest attraction for pilgrims in all the west country. For some forty years---- from 1287 to 1327 the pilgrims resorted to the new shrine in vast numbers. Swinfield's foresight was justified by the huge sums which poured into the cathedral treasury. Swinfield succeeded Cantilupe as bishop in 1283, and occupied the see till 1316. With the vast resources now at his disposal he set about a series of great works. His first pious act was to construct for his benefactor and predecessor a noble shrine, the pedestal of which now stands once more, after many vicissitudes, in the aisle of the north transept. It is a work of the rarest beaut}', executed just at a time (1287) when, tired of conventional foliage, the mediaeval carver, with ever tresh delight, was making the most exquisite transcripts in stone of the leaves of the trees and the flowers of the field. Secondly, he constructed a north porch the present inner porch the design of which is plainly by the same hand as the pedestal of the shrine. Thirdly, he went on with the improvement of the lighting of the cathedral. Beginning probably at the north-east transept, which was rebuilt, together with its eastern aisle, and working along the choir and nave to the west end. and then vice versa on the south M(le of the cathedral, he took HEREFORD CATHEDRAL I6 7 down all but the lower part of the walls of the Norman aisles, rebuilt the upper part higher, and inserted very large windows. This lighted the nave, at any rate, very satisfac- torily. The design of these windows is unusual and effective, owing to the largeness of the trefoils employed in the tracery. It is noticeable externally that the curious ground-course of the north transept is continued all round the cathedral, except the south transept, south-east transept, and Lady chapel. FROM THE XORTH-WKST EIGHTH PERIOD (1316-1360). The work seems to have gone on without intermission from the accession of Bishop Orleton in 1316. The greatest task, which may have been begun a little earlier, was to rebuild the central tower on the Norman piers and arches. To lessen the weight as much as possible it was built in two skins, the inner skin (-(insisting of a framework of upright stone girders, as in the towers of Wells and Lincoln. Externally it is smothered in ball- flower. At one time it carried a tall timber spire ; the 1 68 HEREFORD CATHEDRAL loss of which greatly injures the external elevation of the cathedral. To the same period belong the stalls and the beauti- ful Chapter house, now in ruins. The lead of its roof was cast into bullets in the Civil War ; sacrilegious bishops used its stones as a quarry for their palace. There are monuments of Bishop Swinfield (d. 1316) and Bishop Charleton (d. 1343)- Finally the light- ing scheme was continued by the rebuilding of the south-east tran- sept with its east- ern aisle. This was executed in a cheap and inferior way, even the clumsy twelfth- century plinth being retained for the new central column of the transept. The windows have flowing tracery of poor design. It may be that the revenue from pilgrims had fallen off: or this work may have been done after the first outbreak of the Black Death at Hereford in 1350 or after the still more serious outbreak in 1360. NINTH I'KRIOD. -The lighting scheme was at last com- pleted by the insertion of two huge windows, with the now fashionable rectilinear tracery, in the south transept, ot which HEREFORD CATHEDRAL 169 the eastern has been recently filled with magnificent stained glass by Mr Kempe. Its south wall was rebuilt and it was vaulted. All this was the work of Bishop Travenant (1389- 1404) whose monument is below. On the north side of the choir Bishop Stanbury (1453- 1474) built for himself a pretty little chantry- chapel, like those at Lincoln ; it has fan-vaulting. It was he probably who built the cloister from the cathedral to the Chapter house ; the rest of it may be later. He gave nearly half of the episcopal garden to the Vicars' Choral as a site for their College to the south-east of the cathedral : so we may prob- ably also attribute to him the charm- ing Vicars' Cloister with magnificent roof (which should be visited), to- gether with the fan-vault over the entrance to the College. Bishop Audley (1492-1502) built himself a pentagonal chantry-chapel, two stories high, like the Islip chapel at Westminster, projecting from the south side of the Lady chapel. P>ut, as he was translated to Salisbury, he had BISHOP BOOTH S PORCH 170 HEREFORD CATHEDRAL built another chantry-chapel there, in which he is buried. Bishop Booth (1516-1535) built the outer north porch an admirable specimen of late Gothic design. TENTH PERIOD. In 1786 the western tower, which, as at Ely, was in the centre of the facade, collapsed, and Wyatt pulled down the westernmost bay of the nave and the whole of the triforium and clerestory, the sound as well as the damaged, and rebuilt both, together with the west front, in THE XAVK the Gothic of his day. About 1843 Cottingham did much work ; rebuilding the east end of the Lad}' chapel and the upper part of that of the choir, and also securing the central tower. He found that the Norman piers which support it consisted of a thin ashlar casing, tin- interior of which was filled with a rubble core', composed of broken stones, loam and lime grouting. The ashlar facing and the engaged columns on the face of the pier, not being well bonded and HEREFORD CATHEDRAL 171 deeply headed into the rubble cores, had split and bulged, and the cores, for want of a proper proportion of lime, had diminished and crushed to pieces. The gaudy choir-screen and coronal were executed by Skidmore of Coventry, from the designs of Sir Gilbert Scott, who also jammed the stalls into the presbytery. Recently a handsome west front, in the style of the fourteenth century, from the design of Mr J. Oldrid Scott, has replaced that of Wyatt. KIBUOCJRAPHY. Gordon M. Hills in British Archaeological Associa- tion Journal, 1871 ; xxvii. 6 1 and 497. Sir Gilbert Scott in Archaeological Journal, December 1877. M. II. Bloxam, " On certain Sepulchral Effigies in Hereford Cathe- dral," in Archaeological Journal, xl. 406. THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST. MARY, LICHFIELD BUILT FOR SECULAR CANONS THIS is how Lichfield presented itself to Mrs Van Renselaer. " Approaching it from one street or another, we see it suddenly across the silver stretches of its Pool, and it is hard to determine whether the shining water at Lichfield or the green lake of turf at Salisbury makes the lovelier foreground. Standing on the causeway which leads towards the western entrance of the ("lose, it is not merely a fine view that we have before us ; it is a picture so perfect that no artist would ask a change in one detail. Perhaps accident has had more to do than design with the planting of the trees and shrubs which border the lake, and above which spring the daring spires. But a landscape gardener might study this planting to his profit ; and when we see or think of Lichfield from this point of view, we wish that the tall poplar may be as long- lived as the tree Vggdrasil so pretty a measure does it give of the loftiness of the spires, so exquisite is the com- pleting accent which it brings into the scene. If we come from the south-east, we cross another causeway, on either side of which the lake spreads out widely ; and we see not only the spires, but the apse and the long stretch of the southern side. Enormously long it looks longer almost, owing to its peculiar lowness. than those cathedrals which are actually greater. To the north of the church the ground rises quickly into a broad, terrace-like walk flanked by rows of larire and ancient, vet uraceful lindens ; and bevond the LICHFIKLD CATHEDRAL '73 trees, behind low walls and verdurous gardens, lies a range of canons' dwellings. And in any and every aspect, but more especially when foliage comes near it, Lichfield's colour assists its other beauties. Red stone is warm and mellow in it- self; and Lich- field is red with a beautiful soft ruddiness that could hardly be matched by any sandstone of any land." The ancient k i n g d o m o f Mercia was con- verted to Christi- anity, like the rest of England north of the Thames, by missionaries of the Celtic church of North- umberland,r. 653. Of the early bishops, by far the most famous was St. Chad (669-672). St. JCAUE Of FEET Chad, or Ceadda, . CA . Lf L1F WCT ^~ was a good and PLAN saintly man. He is first heard of as Abbot of Lastingham, a sequestered abbey hidden away in a fold of the Cleveland moors. Then Abbot Chad became Bishop of York, and set to work on a visitation of his vast, wild diocese not in a 174 LICHFIELD CATHEDRAL carriage and pair, but on foot. Plainly these early bishops were what we should now call Missionary Bishops, such as that Missionary of the Southern Seas whose effigy lies in Lichfield's Lady chapel, the face irradiated by the southern light. Bishop Chad visited town and country, village and hamlet, cottage and castle ; and preached every- where. It was another Journey of St. Paul. But in 669 the famous Greek Archbishop of Canterbury, Theodore, pronounced his consecration faulty, and deposed him from THE SOUTH SIDK FROM THE POOL York. Soon afterwards, however, finding him a saintly man and an excellent preacher, he appointed him to the bishopric of Mercia, to the see of Lichfield. What was York's loss was Lichfield's gain. At Lichfield he lived, tradition says, in a cell with his missionaries, at the upper end of the Pool, where now stands St. Chad's church. It behoves all who come to Lichfield to visit St. Chad's church and to drink the water of St. Chad's Well. Two years and a half only Bishop Chad had left of life: but LICHKIKLI) (\\THKDRAL 175 that was enough for him to win the reverence of his own and many successive generations. Beautiful stories are told of him by Bede. One of the eight monks who lived with him heard one day a joyful melody of some persons sweetly singing, which descended from heaven into the bishop's oratory, and filled the same for about half an hour, and then rose again to heaven ; and on the seventh day there- after, having received the Body and Blood of Our Lord, he departed unto Bliss, to which he was invited by the happy soul of his brother, St. Cedd, and a company of angels with heavenly music. In the statutes of Bishop Lonsdale (1863) the cathedral is described as "our cathedral church of St. Peter, St. Mary and St. ("had in our City of Lichfield." Thus the diocese of Lichfield preserves the memory of the bygone kingdom of Mercia; and its cathedral is largely built of the offerings at St. Chad's shrine. How big the ancient diocese was is seen from the fact that the following dioceses have been carved out of it : Hereford in 676, Lindsey in 678, Leicester in 680, Worcester in 680 (and out of Worcester, Gloucester in 1541), Chester in 1537 (and out of Chester, Manchester in 1848, Liverpool in 1880), Southwell (the Derbyshire portion) in 1884. For a time even greater honour came to Lichfield. From 758 to 796 a great and mighty king reigned in Mercia : this was Offa. In one direction he defeated Kent ; in the other he drove back the Welsh. It was Offa who settled once for all the Welsh frontier : Shrewsbury became an English town. Offa's Dyke, which still exists, from the mouth of the Wye to the mouth of the 1 )ee, became the effectual bulwark of England to the West. A king so mighty disdained to owe allegiance to an archbishop of defeated Kentishmen, and got from the Pope Adrian I. an archbishop of his own, to be head-bishop of all Mercia and East Anglia. But Offa died, and this was the only archbishop Lichfield ever had. Lichfield was never so important again. Indeed, she had a narrow escape of losing her bishop altogether, just after the Norman conquest. The new Norman prelates did not feel 176 LICIIFIELD CATHEDRAL safe, and probably were not safe, in open towns amidst an alien and disaffected population. The Bishop of Dorchester set up his pastoral staff under the shadow of the new Norman castle at Lincoln ; Exeter castle attracted the Bishop of Crediton ; in similar fashion the Norman Bishop of Lichfield transferred himself to Chester, where also was a castle of strength. The next bishop migrated again this time to Coventry, which possessed a famous monastery, founded by famous people, Karl Leofric and Lady Godiva, the church whereof was so wealthy that "its walls were all too strait for the treasures that were therein." Finally the bishops returned once more to Lichfield, retaining, however, their hold on Coventry; and from 1129 to 1840 they styled themselves " Bishops of Lichfield and Coventry." Lichfield, however, was and is a cathedral of the old foundation ; it had no monks, but secular canons. It may well be imagined, therefore, that there was not much peace and good will between the canons of Lichfield and the monks of Coventry. They quarrelled scandalously ; above all when they had to meet for joint election of a bishop. There was a desperate free fight in 1190, when Bishop Hugh ejected the monks from Coventry cathedral ; the bishop himself was wounded at the altar. In the thirteenth century there must have been a series of great building bishops : but not much is known of them. Bishop Langton, however, was a very great personage, Keeper of the Great Seal, Treasurer of Lngland, and executor to Ldward I. (1296-1321). He built a new epis- copal palace at Lichfield, and other castles and manor-houses elsewhere, also a magnificent new shrine for the relics of St. Chad: and he surrounded the cathedral with a wall and foss, thus making of it a moated fortress, such as one sees to this day in the palace at U'ells. Robert Stretton (1360- 1385) had the distinction of not being able to read. Then we pass on to the great Civil War, when Bishop Langton's fortifications proved a heritage of woe. Being fortified, and being held by loyalists, Lichfield cathedral was besieged by the Parliamentary forces under Lord Brooke, who prayed LICIIFIELI) CATHEDRAL 177 aloud that God would by some special token manifest unto them His approbation. The special token came on St. Chad's Day, 2nd March, and is commemorated by a tablet on a house in Dam Street, which the visitor should look for: "March 2nd, 1643. Lord Brooke, a general of the Parliament forces, preparing to besiege the Close of Lich field, then garrisoned for King Charles the First, received his death -wound on the spot beneath this inscription, by a shot in the forehead, from Mr Dyott," a deaf and dumb man, " who had placed himself on the battlements of the great steeple to annoy the besiegers." It may interest some to know that the distance of the shot was 185 yds. i ft. 3 in. In the end the garrison was starved out. A month later Lichfield Close was recaptured by Prince Rupert. In 1646 it was retaken by the Parliamentarians. In the first siege the Parliamentary cannon brought down the central tower and most of the vault of the choir. This was not all. The Puritans smashed the stained windows, battered down the statues, stripped the lead from the roof and the brasses from the tombs, burned the registers, and broke up the bells and organs. They are said each day to have hunted a cat down the aisles, and to have draped a calf and given it a mock baptism at the font. " I confess," says an apologist for her Puritan ancestors, " there were moments in my English journey when I hated the Puritan wiih a godly hatred, and wished that he had never shown his surly face to the world : a rude destroyer of things ancient, and therefore to be respected ; a vandal devastator of things rare and beautiful, and too precious ever to be replaced , a brutal scoffer, drinking at the altar, firing his musket at the figure of Christ, parading in priest's vestments through the market- place, stabling his horses in the house of Cod." Then came the Restoration, and with the Restoration Bishop Racket, best of good bishops. The very next morning after his arrival he set his coach horses to work at clearing away the ruins of the fallen spire and roof. For nine years he gave himself and his substance to the work : his contribu- tions in money amounted to ^10,000 ; the King gave "one 1?8 LICIIFIELD CATIIKDUAL hundred fair timber trees '' ; the prebendaries and canons subscribed half their income ; every town, every village in the diocese aided the good work ; the central tower was re-erected; most of the clerestory of the choir was rebuilt ; his last task was to put in a peal of bells. " He went out of his bedchamber to hear the tenor bell, the only one as yet hung, and blessed God who had favoured him with life to hear it, but that it was his own passing-bell ; whereupon he retired to his chamber and never left it till he was carried to his grave." Next to St. Chad, one likes to think of good Bishop Hacket in connexion with Lichfield. In 1788 James YVyatt arrived, but did less mischief than at Salisbury, Hereford, and 1 )urham. Even more terrible vandals followed Wyatt, with a mania for Roman cement, in which beautiful material they reconstructed the statuary of the west front. All this is now swept away, and this fairest of facades is seen in something like its pristine beauty. At Lichfield there was as usual a Norman cathedral ; and as usual the authorities set to work to improve it. Else- where the improvements were of a very conservative character. At Lichfield, Wells, and York, they were drastic : the Norman cathedral was improved by being swept off the face of the earth, not a scrap of it being left above ground. Beginning at the east end, it was pulled down and rebuilt, the \\ork occupying more than a century. The most astounding thing about Lichfield is that when the new thirteenth century cathedral was finished, the canons set to work once more at rebuilding, and in the first half of the fourteenth century remodelled the whole of the eastern limb of the cathedral ; the cathedral was never out of the builders' hands from c. 1190 to c. 1350. FIRST PERIOD. Of the Norman church nothing is known except by excavations. These shewed that the presbytery was of the periapsidal plan we see at Gloucester; it had consisted of an apse preceded by three rectangular bays, and was encircled by a procession path. No doubt there were three radiating chapels opening out of the procession path : some indications were found of the easternmost of LICIIFIELD CATHEDRAL 179 these. Late in the twelfth century, a long oblong ehapel was built projecting eastward. SKCOND PERIOD. Section by section the whole of the Norman church was rebuilt. As usual, the presbytery was rebuilt first. Excavations shewed that the new presbytery consisted of five aisled bays opening, as at Exeter and Southwark, by two arches into two low rectangular ba)s, ISO LICIIFIKLI) CATIIKDKAI, of which the western would he employed as procession path, while the eastern would contain four altars, as again at Southwark. The three western bays of this new pres- bytery remain, but have lost both triforium and clerestory. The date 1200 is usually assigned to them. But the entrance arch of the north choir aisle has the diamond pattern enclosing a roll, as in the west transept of Peter- borough, which is known to have been built between 1195 and 1200: the square alternates with the rounded abacus : the piers are heavy, the arches low, the moldings large and vigorous, and the foliated capitals at the west end of both aisles are so archaic in character that it may have been commenced some years earlier. The work should be compared with the early Gothic work in Chester cathedral, which was originally in Lichfield diocese. The peculiar plan of the piers, encircled by shafts of freestone arranged in triplets, stamps the work decisively as part of that great school of Western Gothic which arose at Wells, Worcester, and Glastonbury, and, which, uncontaminated by any foreign influence, wrought out an individual style of its own and extended its outposts as far as Chester, Lichfield, and Dublin. At about the same time as the new presbytery was built the sacristy and the adjoining treasury, which origin- ally was accessible only from the sacristy. St. Chad's chapel above the sacristy, from the form of its windows and the character of its capitals, also belongs to this work ; but it must be a trifle later, for its doorway is the central light of an aisle window. The new vault and other detail by Sir Gilbert Scott completely distort the history of the chapel. This West of England work at Lichfield has never received the careful study it deserves. There is much more of it than there appears to be at first sight. In the choir it includes the three western bays of the ground story ; as these no doubt were intended to have a high vault, as in the work at Worcester, c. 1175. and as there were to be no flying buttresses, the walls had to be very thick in order to abut the high vault, and therefore required as supports massive columns and arches. For additional safetv, these LICHFIELD CATHEDRAL iSl were kept very low, as at Wells. The piers are surrounded by eight groups of shafts arranged in triplets, as in Wells nave ; several of these are filleted, and the fillets pass down through the bases and plinths. The arch-molds have large rolls, which are largely repeats of one another. Of the capitals some are elongated, as at Llandaff, and have simple, conventional foliage with very long stalks ; some have the pollarded willow design with enrichments ; a few have the plantain leaf; a few have the re flexed trefoil leaf, which appears in Dore retro-choir ; but the great majority, especially in the arcading, have solid, knobby capitals of foliage, of little projection and but slightly undercut. On the internal walls of the aisles is arcading consisting of trefoiled arches. The aisle-vaults have been rebuilt and filled in with ashlar ; the ribs are original, and seem rather later than the pier- arches, as do the two or three foliated bosses which remain in the south aisle. A curious feature in this west country Gothic is the continuous bowtell without capitals or bases ; it is well seen in the wall arches and in the arch leading into the south aisle of the nave. In the triforium chamber there are gutters at the foot of the clerestory buttresses ; which looks as if the chamber originally had a span roof, and not a lean-to. The piers of the crossing have been thickened to carry the present tower ; inside, however, they must be the piers of c. i i 90 ; for a bay of the clerestory of that date remains adjoining each tower-pier; the bay has been narrowed by the thickening of this pier and its form altered ; the best preserved is that on the east side of the north transept. The greater part of the transepts also belong to this work ; as may be seen by examining the capitals of the vaulting-shafts and the remains of the windows. In one respect the work differs not only from that of the Northern and South-eastern school, but also from that of the West ; viz., in the design of the windows, which is unique. Else- where single windows are employed, except one graduated triplet in the north aisle of 1'ershore. But at Lichtield all the lower windows seem to have been triplets ; they are singularly squat and ugly: they are well seen in the ungla/.ed I 82 LICHFIELD CATHEDRAL windows at the inner ends of the transept aisles ; and one of them has been restored and glazed in the southern bay of the' aisle of the south transept. It is to be added that the nave also is but a later and advanced development of West of England design ; as appears from the shafting of the piers, the character of the arch-molds, and the non-use of marble shafting. THIRD PERIOD. About 1220 the south transept was commenced. The builders of the choir had planned it for an aisle-less transept. When, therefore, the transept was built with an eastern aisle, the westernmost window of the choir aisle looked into the transept aisle and no longer into the open air. Moreover, owing to the presence of the western wall of the treasury, the last aisle of the south transept could not be made so broad as that of the north transept. About twenty years later the north transept seems to have been taken in hand : the original group of five lancet lights has recently been restored on the evidence of fragments found in the wall. The doorways of both transepts are of rich and lovely design. About the same date as the north transept, a Chapter house and vestibule were built on the north side of the choir, as at Lincoln, York, and Southwell. This had not been contemplated by the builders of the choir; conse- quently the doorway of the vestibule had to be placed where before was a lancet window. The vestibule is a bold and vigorous piece of design, with a remarkable range of thirteen arcaded seats on its western side. The Chapter house is unique in plan, being an octagon with two long and six short sides. The doorway has bold tooth ornament : the wall is surrounded by a trefoiled arcade. Above the vesti- bule is a room which was once the chapel of St. Peter : above the Chapter house is the present library. Among the treasures of the cathedral is the priceless copy of ''St. Chad's (lospels,'' written by an Irish scribe probably about the end of the seventh century : it is now placed in a glass case behind the reredos of the altar. LICHFIELD CATHEDRAL 183 FOURTH PERIOD. About i 260 the present nave seems to have been commenced. Its remarkable clerestory windows spherical triangles enclosing cusped circles occur in the \Vestminster triforium, and, rather later, in the clere- THE NAVE story of Hereford north transept. The spherical triangles fit perfectly into the wall arches of the vaulting, and, as Mr Fergusson says, "give a stability and propriety to the whole arrangement which has never been surpassed." In fact, taken in conjunction with the uninterrupted flow of the 1 184 LICIIFIKLD CATHKDRAL vaulting-shafts to the pavement, they afford a glimpse of a design which was not to he fully realised till Gloucester choir was huilt as a single-storied interior. The weak point is the want of organic connexion between the triforium and the clerestory stages. They might well have been fused into a single composition, by flattening the aisle roofs and glaxing the triforium arcade, as was done at Troves cathedral, c. \ 250. The proportions of the nave are singularly beautiful. '1 'hough it is inconsiderable in height, yet each separate bay is so lofty in proportion to its width, that the lowness of the vault does not strike one. The numerous vertical lines arising from the large number of shafts attached to the piers, and the great height of the unbanded vaulting-shafts still further increase the appearance of loftiness. The foliated capitals are of marvellous beauty and interest, running the whole gamut from conventional to naturalistic sculpture : and are almost untouched by the restorer, having been preserved by thick coats of whitewash. The vault, too, of which, however, the five eastern bays had to be removed in 1760 when they were rebuilt in plaster, is most satis- factory not simple to bareness, like that of Beverley and so many French cathedrals, nor over-elaborated, like those of the naves of Winchester and Norwich : a curious feature of it is the omission of the transverse ribs, so as to reduce the number of ribs for which room had to be found on the abacus of the vaulting-shafts. The design of the interior of Lichfield nave is one of the loveliest in Christendom. It derives great impressiveness from the fact that the vault ranges the whole length of the cathedral in almost un- diminished height : and from the fact that the church is not cut up, as at Canterbury, into two distinct buildings. Indeed, small as the cathedral is, the vista from west to east is one of the longest of all the English cathedrals. And its termination in the beautiful polygon of the Lady chapel, so unusual to English eyes, glimmering in the distance ''like some great casket of jewels at the end of the long dusk perspective," makes an impression never to be forgotten. l!v this one remembers the interior of Lichfield. LICHFIELD CATHEDRAL 185 as its exterior by the glorious coronal of spires. Nave, tran- sept, and choir are all of the same length. The same scheme of proportions was adopted a little later in planning York Minster. Externally, the nave is well seen from the north, about the only part of the exterior which has not been rebuilt ; notice the curious system of drainage of the high roofs, resembling that of Chichester nave, by which the water was conveyed along the channelled backs of the flying buttresses ; here and on the Chapter house the buttresses are still crowned with gablets ; except at Westminster, pinnacles had hardly come into use yet, to weight the buttresses of the flanks of churches. FIFTH PERIOD. The nave finished, the west front was taken in hand. The first stage, up to and including the row of kings, may be c. 1280; the second stage c. 1300, the upper part, including the belfry windows, c. 1320; in this stage and on the spires is much ball-flower, an ornament which was in vogue most between 1307 and 1327. The central doorway retains much of its original ironwork. Great works were going on simultaneously to the east of the cathedral. In two respects it was defective in plan ; viz., that it gave little honour either to Our Lady or to St. ('had. What was wanted was a grand Lady chapel and a Feretory. Walter Langton, who was bishop from 1296 to 1321, set to work to provide both. Starting to the east of the existing church, a vast Lady chapel was commenced ; at first entirely detached so as not to interfere with the services. Being exceedingly lofty and without aisles, it was possible to have exceptionally lofty windows. These elongated windows, the absence of pinnacles, and the polygonal plan, give the exterior a curiously foreign appearance. The window tracery is geometrical, being composed of groups of trefoils. But the ogee-dripstones of the windows shew that the work overlaps into the fourteenth century ; indeed, it was unfinished at Bishop Lanirton's death in 1^21. Inside the southern wall are I 86 LICH FIELD CATHEDRAL chapels, the central of which contains the monument of Bishop Selwyn, of New Zealand and Lichfield. But the glory of the Lady chapel and the cathedral is the magnifi- cent painted glass of the sixteenth century similar in character to that of Margaret of Austria's church at Brou- en-Bresse, Burgundy. The first window on each side was inserted recently. The remaining seven windows are also Flemish glass, of the date 1530 to 1540, bought by Sir Brooke Boothby in 1803, from the Cistercian nunnery of Herckenrode, near Liege, for ,200. The second window on the north is particularly interesting, as it con- tains portraits of patrons and benefactors of Herckenrode, kneeling at altars, with their patron saints behind them. The third window also has portraits of great nobles of the Netherlands. The remaining five windows contain Scriptural subjects. SIXTH PERIOD. The next stage of the work, which was left for Bishop Norbury, 1325-1359, was to join up the Lady chapel to the church by the insertion of an additional bay. About the same time would be erected a stone pedestal for the shrine of St. Chad ; the foundations of this have been laid bare. It did not stand in the usual position at the back of the High altar, but occupied the western half of the bay adjoining the Lady chapel. Thus the new procession path would pass to the west of it, and not as usual to the east. This done, the cathedral was complete and as we see it now. It contained (i) nave, (2) transepts, each with two eastern chapels, (3) choir of three bays, (4) presbytery of three bays with High altar in its present position, (5) procession path, (6) Feretory with two lateral chapels at the east ends of the choir aisles, (8) Lady chapel, (9) sacristy and treasury. But even the last great extension was not enough for the canons. They were .seized with the mania for floods of light and acres of stained glass which raged like an epidemic through the fourteenth and fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. They pulled down all the choir except the piers and arches of the three western- most bavs these would not be visible owinu to the LICHFIELD CATHEDRAL 187 stall work in front of them ; besides, to remove them might have endangered the central tower they built new piers and arehes in the eastern bays, and a new clerestory along the whole length of the choir with huge windows of flowing tracery, two only of which are left. The result of the new design was to convert the chancel into a two-story interior as opposed to the three-story interior of the nave. The original triforium may have been similar to that of the transept. At the same time they replaced all the lancets of the aisles by big windows with similar tracery. The jambs of the clerestory windows they enriched with bands of quatrefoils ; one of the windows of the south aisle of the choir, opposite to which the tomb of Bishop Langton formerly stood, and beneath which good Bishop Racket's tomb is now placed, has big crumpled leaves running up the jambs. The junction of the early piers and capitals with those of the fourteenth century is well seen in the third pier from the central tower. Between the bays were placed statued niches, as in the contemporary church of St. Mary's, Beverley, from which rose the vaulting-shaft. The whole design should be compared with the presbyteries of Wells and Chester, which were in course of " restoration " at the same time and in the same ruthless fashion. In the choir aisles is a delightful arcade of bowing ogee arches. The development of the Gothic foliated capital may be studied most delightfully by inspecting successively the capitals of the choir, transepts, Chapter house and vestibule, nave and presbytery. About the same time, or a little later, were built the central gable of the west front and the south- western spire. SEVENTH PERIOD. The equipment of the presbytery was completed about the middle of the fifteenth century by the erection of a magnificent altar-screen after the fashion of those at Winchester and St. Albans. Six of its canopies are reused in the present sedilia. In a line with the reredos there were gates across the aisles ; thus the procession path, Saint's chapel and Lady chapel were entirely shut off from the chancel. The shrine of St. Chad is recorded to have 1 88 LICHFIELD CATHEDRAL been completed by Bishop Stretton c. 1386. At the Dis- solution the bones of St. ('had were conveyed away by Prebendary Dudley; they passed through various hands, and are now shewn in St. Child's cathedral, Birmingham, deposited in a reliquary placed above the High altar. As with St. Hugh at Lincoln, there was a separate shrine for : THE WEST FRONT the head of the saint, which was probably kept in the existing aumbry of St. Chad's chapel. From its gallery the head shrine could be shewn to pilgrims passing below. The head shrine of St. Chad is mentioned in an inventory of 134501- 1346. From "St. Chad's pennies" collected in the man}' churches of this large diocese and from the LICIIFIELI) CATHEDRAL 189 offerings of pilgrims at the two shrines the cathedral drew a very large revenue. Even at the Dissolution, when the relics of St. Chad were ordered to be destroyed, the precious metals and jewels of the shrine were by exception allowed to be retained by the Chapter. In the fifteenth century also the northern spire was copied from the southern one. More big windows were inserted in the transepts and the west end of the nave. The latter has been replaced by a modern window with geometrical tracery ; that of the north transept by a quintet of lancets. Finally, the whole cathedral was rendered fireproof by the erection of vaults over both transepts and under the central tower. The south transept, however, would seem to have had a vault previously but it may have been of wood for a little lower than the abacus of the vaulting shaft is one of the thirteenth century. In 1512 Dean Yotton was buried in the north aisle of the nave, near the chantry chapel which he had built projecting from the second bay west of the transept ; fragments of its doorway are still visible externally. EIGHTH PERIOD. In the two sieges the clerestory and aisle windows and the vault of the choir suffered greatly, and the central spire was destroyed. The latter was rebuilt, it is said, but without warrant, by Sir Christopher Wren, and rectilinear tracery replaced the fourteenth-century tracery which had been destroyed in the windows of the Lady chapel and the clerestory of the choir. In 1813 the fronts of the choir arches, being decayed, were cut away and replaced in stucco ; now they are once more rebuilt in stone. The poor, thin metal screen is by Skidmore of Coventry, and replaces a massive stone screen made up of the fragments of the ancient reredos, and carrying a noble organ. The metal pulpit, the font, the lectern, the litany desk, the stalls, the bishop's throne, and the reredos are all modern. The cathedral is rich in good examples of the glass of Mr Kempe and Messrs Burliton and drylls ; to Mr Kempe also is to be credited admirable minor work in St. Chad's chapel and the fine altar rails ot alabaster 190 LICIIKIELD CATHEDRAL (with the Blessed Virgin's vase of lilies) in the Lady chapel. Over a grand effigy of Bishop Lonsdale by Mr Watts, on the north side of the presbytery, is an atrocious canopy in carpenter's Gothic ; not much better is the monument of Hodson of "Hudson's Horse'' in the south aisle of the presbytery. In this aisle are several interesting monu- ments ; in the first bay from the east Chantrey's " Sleeping Children " ; in the third bay the monument of Bishop Hacket ; in the fourth bay that of a tired man, Arch- deacon Moore, by Armstead ; in the sixth and seventh bays fine effigies of thirteenth-century bishops. BiHUOGRAi'HY. Professor Willis' paper in the Archaological Journal, vol. xviii., 1861. Sketch of the Restorations in Lichfield Cathedral, Lichliekl, 1861. Woodhouse's Short Account of Lichfield Cathedral, Lichfield, 1811. History of Si. Chad's, Birmingham, Birmingham, 1904. THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST. MARY, LINCOLN BUILT FOR SECULAR CANONS "Beautiful for siuuilioii. UK- joy of the whole earth." THE cathedrals of Lincoln, York, and Southwell were ever served by secular canons and not by monks ; but each cathedral has been styled a minster from time immemorial, as if it were or had been a monastic church (monasterium}. FIRST PERIOD. The history of the cathedral only com- mences in 1074, when the first Norman bishop, Remi or Remigius, made Lincoln the seat of the see instead of Dorchester on the Thames. As Canon Venables puts it : " He refused the tabernacle of Birinus, and chose not the tribe of the South Angles : but chose the tribe of Lindsey, even the hill of Lindum which he loved : and there he built his temple on high, and laid the foundation of it like the ground which hath been established for ever." The blank wall with its curious apsidal recesses, which forms the centre of the west front, is Remi's work. So are the Corinthian capitals, square-edged arches, and wide-jointed masonry in the ground story of the western towers. If we pass within beneath the north-western tower, the semicircular arches, though blocked up, of the Norman triforium may still be recognised ; and the clerestory 192 LINCOLN CATHEDRAL 1 Chapel of St Nicholas 2 ,, ,, St Denis 3 i) , i St Thomas the Apostle 4 ., ,, St Kdward 5 ,, ,, St Andrew 6 St Giles 7 Dean's Chapel 8 Kaster Sepulchre 9 Catherine Swineford's Monument 10 Hishop Lonj;laml 11 Chapel of St lilaise 12 ,, ,, Hiily Trinity 13 John, Lord Burghersh 14 Hishop 1'urghersh 15 Lord Cantilupe's Mont. 16 Prior Wimbush LINCOLN CATIIKDKAL 193 windows retain their angle-rolls with the original caps ; ground story, triforium, and clerestory were about equal in height. The nave was 5 ft. 6 in. narrower on each side than at present from aisle wall to aisle wall ; the arches between the nave and aisles were separated by piers which were 17 ft. 2 in. from centre to centre; there were ten bays in the nave. There was a transept, narrower than the present one by about 4 feet on one side ; and a short-aisled presbytery, ending in three parallel eastern apses. SECOND PERIOD. The archaic facade was improved c. 1 1 60 by the insertion of a more ornamental central door way. Also curious plaques, in rather high relief, were stuck along the wall, as at St. Michael, Pavia. They are not in chronological sequence, and so may have been transferred from elsewhere. Moreover, two low western towers were carried up, with rich and beautiful gables; of which those 194 LINCOLN CATHEDRAL to the north and south survive. The south-western tower should he ascended to see Remi's eleventh-century work, the twelfth-century gables, the "elastic beam," and the superb view of the interior of nave, choir, and presbytery. The font in the south aisle of the nave, like that of Winchester, is one of a series brought from Tournai : there is another at Thornton Curtis, near the H umber. The north and south doorways of the west front were probably inserted c. 1170. Their capitals have faint reminiscences of By/antine design. They should be contrasted with the archaic capitals in Remi's work. THIRD PERIOD. We now walk up the nave and enter the choir. In 1 1 90 a Carthusian monk, Hugh of Avalon, near Grenoble, who for ten years had been prior of Witham, Somerset, became bishop. Like Fitz-Jocelyn of Wells, and like the Lichfield builders, he determined to sweep away the Norman cathedral and build a new one. He probably had no choice, for Hoveden relates that in 1185 a great earthquake was heard almost throughout the whole of England, such as had not been heard in that land from the beginning of the world. Rocks were split, stone- built houses fell into ruin, and the church of Lincoln was torn asunder from top to bottom. Bishop Hugh commenced work in 1192 : commencing no doubt some considerable distance east of the short Norman choir, and completing his presbytery before the latter was removed. Excavations, marked by lines incised in the pavement, shew that the presbytery was of Continental type, but with special peculiarities of its own. It ter- minated in a semi-hexagon, and was encircled by a procession aisle : from the latter radiated seven chapels. Of all this nothing is left above ground except a fragment of arcading on the exterior of the north wall of St. Paul's chapel (kept locked up). Next would come the building of the choir transepts: it is a strange fact that the end bay of each was only one story high. The end wall of the southern choir transept has been removed : that of the northern one still remains, but its windows no longer look into the open air. LINCOLN CATHEDRAL and are unglazed. To this period belong also the chapels on both sides of the choirtransepts. Of the four chapels on the east side of the transepts three only were apsidal. The fourth, the northernmost, is as we see it now, apsidal, having been shortened and narrowed and remodelled generally by Essex in 1772 ; originally it was a long oblong building ; the foundations of its eastern bays may be seen outside in the turf; the doorway in its north wall is not in situ ; it is a composite one, put together no doubt by Essex from various sources. This oblong building was probably the original Chapter house. In the choir transepts and the choir there is nothing of Continental design ; they are to be compared with such work as that of Ripon nave (before aisles were added), and the choirs o f Fountains Abbey and I] ever ley Minster. It is only in a few minor details that the influence of the French choir of Canterbury ap- pears. The chap- els of St. Hugh's apse and choir transepts were probably vaulted as we see them now. As to the aisles of the choir it is not so easy to determine. It was very rare in a cathedral church, whether Roman- esque or Gothic, not to vault the ARCADIM; IN HOYS VKSTKY 196 LINCOLN CATHEDRAL aisles ; but originally the aisle-walls of the Lincoln choir were too thin to support a vault. It was only when it was decided to vault these aisles that they were thickened by adding in front of them the tall trefoiled arcade now seen. (The pointed arcade at the back has its moldings and tooth ornament fully worked, even where masked by the trefoiled arcade ; and the latter is built independently of the former ; plainly it is an afterthought. The construction of this double arcade is best seen in the end bays of the south choir aisle and the adjacent central transept.) The change of intention must have occurred very shortly after the beginning of the choir works, for at the cills of the aisle- windows the wall is solid throughout. As for the high vaults of the choir transepts and the choir, there certainly were none in St. Hugh's time ; for the whole abutment system by which their thrusts are stopped is of a later period. It seems probable that the triforium and clerestory also, as we see them now, depart very widely from St. Hugh's design. As for the latter, if we search the pockets of the high vaults, we find a number of blocked lancets between each pair of clerestory windows : when there were no high vaults, these would be visible from below. They must be part of St. Hugh's clerestory ; which, judging from these indications, had either another lancet window, or an unpierced pointed recess, between each triplet of lancet windows. If now we pass into one of the choir transepts and look up at the clerestory passage of the choir, we shall see in each bay three dark pointed openings ; these look into the triforium chamber. But if we pass into the latter, we shall find a fourth and larger opening at the back of the springers of the present high vault. These four pointed openings are probably the tipper part of a triforium arcade of St. Hugh's time, much loftier than the present one. All four may have looked into his triforium chamber : or only the three narrower arches, the fourth being an unpierced pointed recess. To St. Hugh's time we may probably refer the com- mencement of the central transept ; inside, a stoppage of LINCOLN CATHEDRAL 197 the works is indicated by a change of the design of the wall arcade in the bays next the choir ; externally there are equally well marked differences. St. Hugh's work is of exceptional interest both from its early date and from the extraordinary transformation which it has undergone. Special attention should be paid to the two chapels on the west sides of the choir transepts. That in the north tran- sept goes by the name of the Dean's chapel ; in the thirteenth cen- tury it was walled off, floors were put in, and doors and windows were in- serted in the ground s t o r y (notice the origin- al ironwork on the doors anil shutters). The chapel in the south transept was screened off in the fourteenth century as a sacristy ; it is now the boys' vestry ; its south- ern doorway pas- ses through a thick wall which was originally part of the end wall of St. Hugh's south choir transept. Everywhere the foliated capitals are of great beauty and interest, as are the moldings; the figure sculpture in the Dean's chapel merits special attention. At the June- 198 LINCOLN CATHEDRAL tion of the choir aisles with the choir transepts are remark- able piers with hollow-chamfered marble shafts and vertical bands of crockets of early type. FOURTH PKUIOD. -St. Hugh died in 1200, and the work seems to have been carried on by the- same architect, Geoffry de Noiers. This included the remainder of the central transept and a central tower. This transept also was designed not to have a vault ; as is shewn by the fact that the top of the northern circular window is masked by the present vault. This window and those below contain admirable contemporary glass ; there is none finer in England ; of fine design, too, externally, is the northern doorway into the Dean's garden. FIFTH PERIOD. The next work was the building of the nave, which from the first was designed for a vault. Who- ever the architect was, it was not Geoff ryde Noiers, but someone who was a good engin- o o eer so good an engineer that in the interior he somewhat sacri- ficed art to engin- eering. The piers he set as far apart as possible, and made them as thin as possible : but they are beauti- fully built, and rest on founda- tions which are THE NAVE AND NORTH TRANSEPT COlltillUOUS Under- ground from pier to pier, and in addition are kept from shifting by transverse foundations extending from each pier to the aisle-wall. The LINCOLN CATIIKDRAL 199 object of making the bays so broad was to get plenty of room for a high vault without obstructing the clerestory windows. The obtuse arches, however, of the pier-arcade and the attenuated piers are not satisfactory to the eye. On the other hand, the exterior of the nave, with its knife-edge buttresses and tall gablets and strong base-courses, is one of the best designs in all Gothic ; it is of almost Greek severity. The height of the nave, when vaulted, was 82 ft., as compared with the 74 ft. of the vaulted choir. A French- man would have given a nave so broad (42 ft.) a height of some 120 ft. The original design had been, probably, to make the nave much longer than it is now, and then to build a brand-new west front, as at Wells and Lichfield. Ultimately, however, it was decided not to sweep away, but to utilise the Norman west front and western towers as far as possible, and to curtail the nave accordingly. Unfortunately, the new cathedral had not been built at right angles to the Norman facade. The axis, therefore, of the western bays of the nave had to deviate so as to strike the facade as centrally as possible. Moreover, the vault of the nave was too lofty for the facade, so it was suddenly dropped two feet at the end of the live eastern bays ; and the distance between the completed bays and the facade being insufficient for two arches of the span of the eastern ones, the two western bays had to be built narrower than the rest. All this is regrettable ; but though the nave is shorter o O than it should be, the vast spaces of the interior, dimly lighted with scanty beams filtering through narrow lancets, o ^ O O are wonderfully impressive ; the distances, yet further enhanced by the interposition of organ and screen, seem really infinite. It is not, like Ely, a study in contrasts, but in harmonies. The design of the nave leads without a break to that of the transepts ; the design of the transepts to that of the choir : the design of the choir, aided by the rich stalls and screens, to the splendour of the presbytery, where the light breaks forth at length to irradiate all loveli ness of molding and foliage and sculptured imagery. 200 LINCOLN CATHEDRAL Though the length of the nave was now curtailed in the altered design, compensation was found in throwing out a flanking chapel on either side of the two westernmost bays. The position of these chapels may be founded on those of THE NAVE Ely : it was repeated by Wren in St. Paul's. In all three cathedrals it gives a noble air of spaciousness on entering by the western doors. The vault of the northern chapel is supported by a beautiful central pier consisting of eight shafts of Purbeck marble, very acutely pointed, and once so LINCOLN CATHEDRAL 2OI highly polished, like the rest of the Purbeck shafts, says a mediaeval versifier, that they positively dazzled the eyes. Then came the west front. We may not like it ; but given the conditions the retention of an enormous oblong area of Norman wall with two Norman towers behind it is not easy to see how anything better could have been done. Its vast height and breadth are astonishingly impressive from the narrow courtyard which coops it in. To the same period belongs the Chapter house, the first polygonal Chapter house after those of Margam and Abbey Dore. "The strong flying buttresses, like colossal arms stretched out to bear up the huge fabric," were added later. All the work of this period is attributed to Bishop Hugh of Wells (1209-1235); but the completion of it was due to his successor. SIXTH PERIOD. Hugh of Wells was followed by a great and masterful prelate, Robert Grostete (1235-1253). So far as is known, the church up to now had nowhere any high vaults. Grostete's great task was to put up high vaults everywhere. He had also to complete the upper part of the west front, where notice his characteristic trellis work ; it is probable also that he finished the two western chapels of the nave. These works may well have been put in hand at once. But in 1237 a great catastrophe occurred the fall of the central tower killing three people who were listening to a sermon. However it fell vertically, damaging only the bays immediately adjacent in the choir and central transept. The old piers of the tower were strengthened and recased, and new arches put on them ; and on the arches a low central tower, inside which notice Grostete's trellis work. The ruined bays were rebuilt hastily and carelessly. The choir piers were strengthened by ugly freestone columns without capitals, and were stiffened by building stone screens between them. The new moldings on the westernmost side of the westernmost arches of the ground story of the choir do not fit the old, and a ring of stone was worked to hide the awkward junction ; in the clerestory 202 LINCOLN CATHEDRAL freestone is substituted for marble. The reconstructed pier-arches may be recognised by having hood-molds. Then the choir, choir transepts, and central transepts, had to be prepared for vaulting. In the clerestory every fourth window or recess, whichever it was, was blocked up with masonry. As for the triforiuni, every fourth opening was blocked up with masonry to receive the springers of the high vault ; and the old triforium arcade was taken out and a new one put in its place and that without taking down the roof or clerestory or the upper courses of the old tri- forium arcade. Inside and outside the triforium chambers clerestory buttresses were built, for the heads of flying but- tresses to rest on ; and transverse arches were thrown across the chamber to stiffen the new triforium arcade. Outside, the main buttresses were built higher, and flying buttresses were thrown across from the tops of these buttresses to the new clerestory buttresses. Then, the supports and the walls having been adequately strengthened, high vaults were put up. Where there were two windows in a bay, sexpartite vault- ing was employed ; viz., in the choir transepts and the central transepts and the westernmost bay of the choir. (In the aisles where there was no support for one of the six ribs, quinquepartite had been employed instead of sexpartite vaulting by St. Hugh.) In the choir, except in the westernmost bay, there were three windows in each bay, and sexpartite vaulting could not be used. Nor again, owing to the narrowness of the bays of the choir, was there room for such a vault as that now existing in the nave : however, as much of a vault of this type as could be put up without obstructing the clerestory windows was built : a very queer vault it is, fortunately unique. The vaulting of the Chapter house, with its beautiful ridge-rib system, also belongs to this period. Richest of all in its moldings, and quite perfect in its articulation, is the vault of the nave : when built, it must have been by far the finest vault to be found here or abroad. The vault of the eastern bays of the nave of Westminster Abbey is almost identical with LINCOLN CATHEDRAL 203 it ; as it was put up between c. 1254 and i 270, it may well have been modelled on that of Lincoln nave. To Grostete also may be assigned the remarkable vaults of the two western chapels of the nave. The vault of the northern chapel is cleverly designed as if it were an oblong chapter house with a central stalk ; the southern chapel, more cleverly still, stands safe without a central stalk. In addition to all this Grostete made important extensions. To him we may at- tribute the beau- tiful Galilee porch (in it the tooth ornament is repeated 5,355 times; notice also the base ornaments) ; it was designed as a state entrance from the episco- pal palace, which is opposite. Moreover, a new Chapter house having been built by the pre- ceding bishop, the old Chapter house would be converted into a chapel, perhaps that of St. Mary Magdalene. In the south choir transept Grostete took down St. Hugh's end-wall from top to bottom, and built two additional stories to the end bay. A vast amount of work is here attributed to the eighteen years between 1235 and 1253; but to a bishop and chapter so wealthy, and with aid from a diocese then extend- ing to the Thames, and with, in addition, the rich offerings 204 LINCOLN CATHEDRAL at St. Hugh's shrine, funds were not likely to be lacking; and if at times they did run short, there were always Jews at Lincoln to apply to for loans. SEVENTH PERIOD. The cathedral was at last finished ; THE AXGKL CHOIR but hardly was it finished than building recommenced (c. 1255). St. Hugh had been buried in the north-eastern chapel of his apse, in what is the place of greatest honour in every church, at the right hand of the High altar. Great LINCOLN CATHEDRAL 205 crowds of pilgrims resorted to his tomb in their anxiety to have benefit from the miracles wrought thereat, but the tomb was placed in a most inconvenient situation for that purpose. So it was resolved to pull down St. Hugh's apsidal presbytery and its procession path and chapels, and in lieu to build five new bays. Of these two were assigned to the presbytery, and in the easternmost of the two was placed the High altar, where it stands now. In the next bay, i.e., at the back of the High altar, just as at St. Albans and Westminster, was placed the shrine of St. Hugh, to which his remains were solemnly translated in 1280. The bay after that provided a procession aisle. In most churches the easternmost bay has an altar dedicated to Our Lady, but this was not necessary at Lincoln, where the High altar was dedicated to her. This altar, therefore, under the great east window, was dedicated to St. John Bjptist, the patron saint of St. Hugh. Nevertheless the special services to Our Lady were not held in the choir, but in this eastern chapel, so that it was practically a Lady chapel except that its altar was dedicated to St. John Baptist. This great eastern extension goes by the name of the Angel choir, apparently from the angels carved in the spandrels of the triforium ; it is of course ritualistically not a choir at all, but a combination of presbytery, Saint's chapel, processional aisle, and eastern chapel. A little too crowded with orna- ment, perhaps, and a little too squat in its proportions, it is yet the most lovely work of the age one of the masterpieces of English Gothic. To the same period or rather earlier belong the superb arches inserted at the west end of the choir aisles ; also the eastern screen of the presbytery, parts of which are old, the rest built by Essex in 1769. About 1290 were built the Easter Sepulchre and so-called tomb of Remigius, on the north side of the choir, with naturalistic foliage of oak, fig, and vine. Here the conse- crated Host was watched from Maundy Thursday to Easter Sunday. Still finer Easter sepulchres may be seen at Hawton and Heckington. The upper stage of the central tosver was erected in 1307. The tower is 271 ft. high; 2O6 LINCOLN CATIIL'DRAL and anxious, as usual, for external effect, the canons actually added a timber spire, raising it to the vast height of 525 ft., a height which exceeds even that of the new spires of Cologne cathedral. The effective cut battlements are by Essex. The tower is not built solid, but, to save weight, is "constructed of two thin walls, tied at intervals, with a vacuum between them " (cf. Hereford and Wells). It is gathered in 2! in. near the top, so as not to look top- heavy. The remains of the shrine of Little St. Hugh (in THE EAST END the south choir aisle) seem to be c. 1310. In the cloisters built c. 1296, is a great curiosity an incised slab with a portrait of a Gothic architect, Richard of Gainsborough, the builder of the central tower. Replicas have been made of it. EIGHTH PERIOD. In 1320 died good Bishop Dalderby. He was venerated as a saint, though Rome refused his canonisation. His remains were placed in a silver shrine on the west side of the south transept : some pedestals LINCOLN CATHEDRAL 2O/ belonging to it may be seen there still. Miracles were wrought at his shrine ; and from the offerings the gable of this transept was in all probability reconstructed, including the " Bishop's Eye," which is as strong constructionally as it is beautiful ; it is filled with fragments of ancient glass ; the moldings of the circle are those of the earlier window. The lovely pierced parapet of this transept should be noticed, and the fine window in the gable above the vault. The parapet was carried westward all along the south side of the nave and across the west front ; and handsome pinnacles were erected, with niches once peopled with statues. Now also was erected the choir screen, of charming design, very similar to that of the west side of Southwell screen. A little later are the screen of the choir boys' vestry in the south choir aisle, diapered with lilies ; and in the north-east of the Angel choir, the Burghersh monuments. These formerly had canopies ; the choir boys used to jump on them, so the dean and chapter thoughtfully had them destroyed, lest there should be an accident. There was a separate shrine for the head of St. Hugh ; what may have been the pedestal of it remains at the west end of a Burghersh monument, where the stone is worn by the scrnping of the feet of pilgrims kneeling at the shrine. NINTH PKKIOD. To the latter half of the fourteenth cen- tury belong the famous choir stalls with excellent misericords; also the ogee arcading beneath the central tower. TENTH PKRIOD. To the fifteenth century belong the west windows of the nave ; also the miserable statues of English kings over the west door. The western towers were also raised to their present height, and all three towers were vaulted. The west front now consists of an oblong area of early Norman work, which is decorated above by a late Norman arcade of semicircular intersecting arches, and midway by a row of late Norman sculptured plaques, and by the late Gothic niches with the kings : the windows are late Gothic : but the central doorway and the side doorways are twelfth century. The central arch of the early Norman work has 208 LINCOLN CATIIKDRAL LINCOLN CATHEDRAL 2OQ been replaced by a pointed one ; and the whole of the early Norman work is surrounded by thirteenth-century work, which in turn is crested with a fourteenth-century parapet. The lower stages of the towers are late in the twelfth century, the upper stages belong to the fourteenth and fifteenth. The west front has been constantly censured for hiding the western towers, "like prisoners looking over the bars of their cage." But anyone who has seen the western towers of St. Stephen's, Caen, will recognise that, but for the west front, the Lincoln towers would look top- heavy. To this century belong also the battlemented parapet of the Galilee porch ; Bishop Fleming's chantry ; the screens of the chapels in the north and south transepts ; and Bishop Russell's chantry. In TUDOR days was built Bishop Longland's chantry (1521-1547), the niches of which have Renaissance detail; it was never completed. The three chantries are so low that they do not interfere externally with the main lines of the cathedral; and, being low, give scale to it. It may interest land surveyors to know that the minster covers 2 acres 2 roods and 6 perches, as measured by Schoolmaster Espin of Louih. ELEVENTH PERIOD. The date of the brass Eagle lectern is 1667. In 1 674 Wren built the Library in the Cloister. The brass chandelier in the choir is of 1698. The support- ing arches of the western towers were inserted in 1727. BIBLIOGRAPHY. Precentor Ycnables in Archaological Journal, xl. 159 mi'l 377- "Notes on the Architectural History of Lincoln Minster from 1192 to 1255,'' by Francis 1'ond and William Watkins, in tint Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, 26th Nov. and loth Dec. 1910, which contains a bibliography. THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST. PAUL, LONDON BUILT FOR SECULAR CANONS FROM Lincoln and Lichfield to St. Paul's, the transition is vast and abrupt. It is a transition from the archaic, mediaeval, feudal world to modern England. Mediceval religion, mediaeval art is dead killed by the printed book. Mediaeval architecture also succumbs before the printed book. The master-masons of the old cathedrals, whose very names for the most part are unknown, give place to architects of European fame men who read books, write books, and work to book. The mediaeval architect was a builder and nothing else. The Renaissance architect was first of all a scholar, and secondly an artist ; and only incidentally an architect. He learnt the art of design, not in the builder's yard, but at the goldsmith's bench. From jewellery he turned with equal facility to painting and sculpture, to civil engineering or the art of fortification, to water-colours, stage mechanism, landscape gardening, poetry, politics or diplomacy. Among men of this versatile genius Christopher \Vren holds a worthy place. He proceeded to Oxford at the early age of fourteen, and obtained a fellowship at All Souls'. Physical science and astronomy were his first love. At the age of twenty-five " he was known in scientific- circles all over Europe," and was Professor of Astronomy. He wrote on comets, and gnomonicks, and diplographic pens. In his twenty-ninth year he was honoured with the degrees of D.C.L. and LE.l). at Oxford and Cambridge. He helped to found the Royal Society, ST. PAUL'S 211 SCALE: OF FELET j"-O 50 4-c SCALE OF ME.TRE.5 PLAN 212 ST. PAULS and was twice its President. He was a Member of the House of Commons in two Parliaments. In his thirty- first year he turned his attention to architecture attracted, no doubt, largely by the physical and mathematical problems involved. Two years later he set out to the Continent to see for himself the great works of the Revival of Classical Archi- tecture. Unfortunately he went no farther than Paris : those masterpieces of the Renaissance, Brunelleschi's dome at Florence, Michael Angelo's dome at Rome, he was fated never to see. For the rest of a life unusually prolonged he was to be occupied in imitating models which he had never seen. The result is per- haps not to be regretted. He left behind him not the close copy of Italian Renaissance work which we might have had, in less troubled times, from Inigo Jones, but an English Re- naissance style of marked individuality and original- ity, and of great interest. He had to think out all his problems problems of construction and problems of planning for himself. lis employers, the citizens of the City of a sound Protestant ; and when he was to rebuild St. Paul's after the Great Fire-, ive London a Protestant cathedral. He to provide processional aisles and PLAN OF WKKN S ORIGINAL DKsI (H Scale of other Plans) Wren, like London, was commissioned his wish was to was less concerned altared chapels than a vast unencumbered central area for preaching. The new cathedral was to be a gigantic preaching-house. To provide the vast central area de- ST. PAUL'S 213 manded, the narrow crossing beneath the central tower of a Gothic cathedral was abandoned. Instead of a central tower he resolved to employ a dome the only form of roof which would cover so vast a span. One mediaeval cathedral in England, and one only, had such a crossing. It was the superb cathedral of Ely, where Wren's uncle was bishop. But it was no doubt of St. Peter's, Rome, that Wren was thinking, rather than of Ely. Just as St. Peter's, Rome, had been built to rival and surpass the Florence Duomo, so Wren designed that his own cathedral THE ORIGINAL DESIGN, FROM SCHYNVOETS ENGRAVING should be an improvement on St. Peter's, Rome. In the supports of his dome he chose to follow the unhappy precedents of Florence and Ely rather than the' nobler type of St. Peter's and Santa Sophia ; he blocked up his central area with eight piers, instead of poising his dome on four supports, as in the metropolitan cathedrals of the East and West. In Wren's favourite design, as shewn in the model still preserved in the cathedral, the dome was to be abutted to the west by an aisleless vestibule or nave, itself crowned by a minor dome: while to the north, east, and south 2i4 ST. PAUL'S it was intended to give it the support of a surrounding ring of domical chapels, opening into the central area by a series of fairy-like vistas and ever-changing contrasts of light and shadow. But the Anglican clergy rose in revolt at the position assigned to them in the cathedral a position contrary to any precedent of the Anglican Church ; and refused to sit in a ring all round the central area beneath the dome. And the Court party, almost openly expecting, and with good reason, the restoration of the old religion, wanted an aisled nave with room for the pageantry of processions and with provision of chapels for the veneration of the saints soon to be restored. Romanisers and Anglicans alike united in condemning a plan which failed to provide for the ritualistic needs of either. 'Wren had to start again ; and London had to put up with a Renaissance cathedral which in plan is as mediaeval as that of Ely, with aisled nave, aisled choir, aisled transepts, and even with a western transept, as again at Ely. St. Paul's, then, is primarily an aisled (i.e., a basilican) church, with, incidentally, a dome thrown in. And therein lies the fault of the design. Internally, the church predominates over the dome. Unless you stand beneath or near the dome, you can hardly see that a dome is there at all. Narrow nave, narrower aisles, the multiplied obstructive masses of the various piers, hide the dome away from view. Rightly designed, a great central dome ought to be all in all : everything should lead up to it ; everything should be suppressed that does not lend it strength or grace. Its thrusts are great, and cannot be resisted by the piers of aisles, unless the piers are positive mountains of masonry : aisles, then, should be omitted. The dome should rest on four arches, and their thrusts should be resisted by the solid walls of an unaisled nave and choir and transepts. And these four great limbs of the church should be kept short, to give the dome full value. Again, just as the central dome should dictate the plan of the church, so it should dictate the form of the vaulted ST. PAUL'S 215 roof. There were three types of vault at Wren's disposal. One was the intersecting vault, a second the dome, a third the waggon or tunnel vault. The first is altogether out of harmony with a central dome, though Wren has employed it in some of his City churches. What he adopted was the second : he vaulted the nave with a row of four saucer- shaped domes, the choir with a row of three. Thus, it might he thought, with seven domes leading up to a central THE NAVE dome. Wren had secured harmony and success. It is not so. Nothing can he more distressing to the eye than to follow the up and down line of the little domes till it suddenly plunges into the' central abyss. The only tolerable lorm ol vault in connection with a central dome is the tunnel vault, as it is employed in St. Peter's, Rome; or, still better, in S. . \nnunxiata, (ienoa. Such a tunnel vault, however, should start direct from the cornice, and not, as 2l6 ST. PAUL'S TI1K CIKHK AND REREDOS ST. PAUL'S 217 at St. Paul's, from a meaningless attic interposed between cornice and vault. As it stands, in the internal elevation of the cathedral Wren has given us a hybrid design. It reminds one of (iothic, for there is a travesty of a clerestory ; it is Classic, for beneath is a gigantic Order. Wren has hesitated between two opinions. He might have given us a three-storied interior pier-arcade, triforium, and clerestory of course with Classical detail, as is done with charming effect in the noble cathedral of Pavia ; or a one-storied interior, as at St. Peter's. As his patrons insisted on having aisles, he might well have adopted the former alternative, and have presented us with what might have been very beautiful a Classic triforium. If he wanted the majesty of the single gigantic Order of St. Peter's, he should have omitted the attic, run up the Order 20 ft. higher, and lighted the nave by lunettes cut through a tunnel vault. As it is, the attic is of no value in itself, while it diminishes the importance of the pier-arcade. However, as we have seen, \Vren is not responsible at all for the plan, and only partially for the proportions of the interior of St. Paul's. He has not given us of his best, because the world of his day would not have it. Most of the defects that one laments are absent from his earlier and favourite design : e.g., the ugly subsidiary arches under the oblique arches of the octagon of the dome, and the bad lighting of the dome itself. Externally everything is different. No ritual, Anglican or other, interfered. Wren had free play : all his success and any faults are his own. What it fails to do internally the great dome does externally with colossal success : it domi- nates everything not only the church, but London. Every part of the vast building gathers up into the all-compelling unity of the central dome. Inside, St. Paul's is all church ; outside, it is all dome. Into this exterior has grown in concrete embodiment all Wren's aspirations : his aspira- tions for grandeur, massiveness, and power ; for monumental stability, for unity, for harmony, for symmetry and propor- tion, for beautv of curve and line. St. Paul's has none of 218 ST. PAUL'S the airy lightness of Salisbury and Lincoln : it possesses in compensation the rock-hewn solidity and majesty of Durham. In Lincoln and Salisbury, and in Exeter and York, the windows are counted by hundreds ; along the flanks of St. Paul's windows are few and far apart, and they are confined to the aisles ; the great screen wall above rises sheer like a precipice, almost unbroken by an opening. Simple and grand, too, is the handling of the masses. At the re-entering angles of the transepts square masses project to form a stable platform for the mighty dome : towers project to the flanks of the western bays of the nave, giving breadth and dignity to the main facade. Otherwise the design is symmetry itself. Everything is in the "grand manner." Perhaps the side elevation is a little monotonous, and the western chapels block off tin.- towers at their spring, but they were forced on Wren against his better judgment : internally the nave gains greatly by them ; externally they are a mistake. One would perhaps have liked also that the ST. PAUL'S 219 screen wall of the side aisles of the choir and transepts, instead of ending square, should have circled round in one vast majestic sweep, in harmony with the curving dome above, after the fashion of the fine cathedral of Como. The flatness, moreover, of the side elevations gives but little room for play of light and shade. There are none of the pits of shadow that lurk between the buttresses and transepts of Salisbury and Lincoln. Only in the recessed west front and behind the colonnade of the dome the shadows brood. Nature, however, or rather London smoke, has given St. Paul's a chiaroscuro of its own not to be washed off, as has been foolishly proposed, by fire engines. Where the rain lashes the building, especially its angles and projections, the good Portland stone is white and clean : where sheltered by projecting cornices, it is black as Erebus. Externally, it is a building of two stories. Wren designed it originally for one story, but was unable to get big enough blocks of stone to carry a single gigantic Order, as at St. Peter's, up to the cornice ; for which perhaps we may be thankful. The facade also is composed of two Orders of and they are necessarily comparatively small Hut all appearance of weakness is admirably removed by arranging them in couples ; indeed, one would be sorry to have instead of this noble design Wren's own one-story facade as shewn in his model, still more to have that of Inigo Jones. The harmony, too, of the noble design is delightful. The two stories of the columns of the facade become two stories of pilasters on the flanks of the nave : at the ends of the transepts they sweep round into lovely semicircular colonnades ; colonnades form the central stages of the western steeples : the drum of the dome is encircled by a superb colonnade; the dome itself culminates in a colon- naded lantern. Sec', too. how the lantern, domical above and colonnaded below, sums up the composition of the dome beneath; and how the western steeples prepare the eye for the transition from the rectilinear colonnades of thi> K i Df fOKTCK^S MOHUT 7 B/SHOf /V/Xi riONUT S ALTflK ~K>na TO CMflNCft-LOK SfCMCCe 3 SlK X HOBAKT3 TOMB /O SIK T. E2f>INCH/IMS-TOMB // rtOHU T TO CL.'ZA ~ IZ SIK. THOS D BlSHop fVXS CHANTRY rir. sire OF cv/jfiS G. REMAINS Of SlSHOfS PLAN NORWICH CATHEDRAL 229 or meeting plaee, which is now triangular instead of oblong. Also the road from the bridge was diverted from its original track. The Tombland was the converging point of the three ancient roads, and the rallying ground of the two com- munities of Conesford and Westwick, Saxon and Danish respectively. At the Conquest the Norman settlers formed a third community and occupied the Mancroft (great croft), and henceforward Tombland was no longer important and Losinga would have no difficulty in appropriating as much as he wanted of it, together with the rich town meadows or " Cowholme." The plan of the Norman church is that of Gloucester (1089) and probably Norman Westminster (1050); this peri- apsidal plan occurs between 997 and 1014 in the great pilgrim church of St. Martin, Tours ; be- tween 990 and 1007 at Notre Dame cle la Couture, Le Mans ; and at St. Re mi, Reims, c. 1005. In Normandy it is very rare, but it occurs at Fecamp in 1082 ; and as Bishop Herbert had been prior of Fecamp abbey till 1087, it is probably from Fecamp that the Norwich plan of 1096 immediately derives. The nave contains fourteen bays, of which the nine western ones were more or less accessible to the laity. When this vast nave was completed, the monks seemed to have come to the end of their resources, for no western towers were ever built. The nave being so long, there was no need to crowd the stalls into the eastern limb, as at Canterbury ; they were placed, as at present, under the central tower and in the two eastern bays of the nave : in this part of the nave the vaulting-shafts do not descend to the pavement, but are ACROSS THE NAVE 230 NORWICH CATHEDRAL stopped at corbels in order to leave headway for the stalls. The choir screen occupied the whole of the third bay, as at present, and at some period an altar to Our Lady of Pity was placed in it. The fourth bay was occupied by two altars enclosed in screens. At the end of the fourth bay was the rood screen, which, as at Durham, was no more than a TIIK CHOIR AND APSE wall. The whole of the fifth bay was screened off, and against the centre of the rood screen was placed the altar of the Holy Cross. On either side of this altar (Holy Cross) was a door leading into the space between rood screen and choir screen, and before the altar was a light screen or trellis, i.e., between the two circular piers. It was in front of this NORWICH CATIIKDRAL 231 latter that the returning procession divided, to reunite at the single door in the centre of the choir screen. Each transept consists of four bays, and from each an apse projected east- ward ; the southern apse has perished, the northern one has been rebuilt. The whole eastern limb is occupied by a presbytery of four bays terminating in an apse. A pro- cession path runs all round the presbytery. From it radiated three chapels ; that to the east has perished : it was apsidal ; between 1146 and 1174 it was replaced by a long and lofty Lady chapel, the doorway of which remains ; the Lady chapel was pulled down c. 1580. The Jesus chapel to the north-east and St. Luke's chapel to the south-east are curiously composed of two segments of circles of different sixe ; the object of this unusual plan was probably to get the altars as far as possible north and south, so that the celebrant should face due east. In the east wall of the apse the throne of the bishop has been found. The inappropriate- ness of such an arrangement as that at Norwich ultimately led to bishops' thrones being removed into the choir, as at Exeter. The history of Norwich cathedral differs toto avlo from that of every other English cathedral, except that of Gloucester. With the exception that both Gloucester and Norwich ultimately increased the dimensions of their eastern Lady chapels, few eastward extensions of any moment took place ; the chief exception at Norwich is the chapels built out from the north and south aisles of the presbytery at a later period. This was not because the Norfolk people were more conservative than other folk, or, in a remote corner of England, were behind the times ; but because the plan of the Norwich cathedral was convenient for mediaeval ritual, and the plan of the other cathedrals was not. Other cathedrals had a diminutive presbytery and a short nave ; at Norwich there was a spacious presbytery and the nave was of vast length. Other cathedrals had to build a procession aisle at the back of the High altar; at Norwich it was there already. Other cathedrals had to throw out eastern tran- septs to provide chapels for the great saints of the Church, 2J2 NORWICH CATHEDRAL St. James, St. John, St. Peter and the rest ; Norwich cathe- dral from the first had five apsidal chapels. In most tangential chapels, even in Westminster abbey so late as 1245, the altar was placed in a wrong position ; at Norwich the celebrant could face due east. Other cathedrals had a local saint of the first rank, and had to build a special saint's chapel or feretory for his shrine : Canterbury for St. Thomas, Chester for St. Werburgh, Durham for St. Cuth- bert, Ely for St. Audrey, Hereford for St. Ethelbert, Lich- field for St. Chad, Lincoln for St. Hugh, Oxford for St. Frideswide, Rochester for St. William, St. Albans for St. Alban, \VinchesterforSt. Swithun, Worcester for St. Wolfskin. Norwich had no local saint of repute, except a poor little boy who was alleged to have been crucified by the Jews. The very fact that Norwich is practically unchanged in plan makes it the best object lesson in the country for the study of Anglo-Norman architecture. The long nave from end to end, the transepts, much of the presbytery, and nearly the whole of the aisles remain as they were built between 1096 and 1145. The aisles have groined vaults : in this respect falling short of Durham, Peter- borough, Southwell and Gloucester naves. The piers of the ground story alternate in form, as at Jumieges, the Abbaye-aux-Hommes, Durham. Selby, Ely, Waltham, Lindis- farne. The ground story is kept low, because it was not intended to rely on the aisle windows for light. The triforium chamber is lofty, to allow windows to be inserted in its back wall. The triforium arcade con- sists of a single arch, as in the Abbaye-aux-Hommes, Wymondham and Binham abbeys, so as to obstruct the light as little as possible. For the same reason the shafts which support the inner order of the arch of the triforium chamber are set back in triplets flat against the iambs ; the same arrangement occurs in alternate piers of the ground story. The alternation in height of the Norman vaulting-shafts shews that the church was intended to have a high vault throughout of sexpartite form, such as those erected in later days at Canterbury and Lincoln. NORWICH CATHEDRAL 233 In the triforium of the nave, presbytery and apse are supports for flying buttresses, intended, like those of Durham nave, to be built beneath the triforium roof. In the triforium of the presbytery the flying buttresses seem THE NAVK to have been actually built ; probably they were removed when the present vault of the presbytery was erected with external flying buttresses. The clerestory has a wall passage, and each window was flanked by a blank arch, 234 NORWICH CATIIKDRAL both internally and externally. The architect had a great fondness for multiplicity of stories, and obtains five on the external wall of the aisle by the use of four string- courses. The moldings of the arches, e.g., in the tri- forium of the presbytery, are numerous, small and refined. Corinthianesque capitals, but without acanthus, abound, as in the eastern parts of Chichester and Ely, and through- out Christchurch, Hampshire ; a capital with acanthus occurs at the back of the triforium of the apse. The facade of the north transept is quite the finest Norman composition in existence : by means of six string-courses it is divided into seven stories. The architect has a great liking for arcading ; on the external walls of the aisles a n arcade is inserted below the Nor- m a n w i n d < > w s (now blocked) of the triforium ; in the transept facade three tiers of arcading are introduced. The Norman arcading on the west wall of the south transept is unequalled. Taking it as a whole, the work at Norwich is in advance of anything of the period in England, with the one exception of the vaulting ; if the contemplated high vault had been erected, it would even have surpassed Durham. The rest of the history of the cathedral reduces itself in the main to three sets of building operations : first, repairs necessitated by fire or storm : secondly, attempts to improve the lighting of the building ; thirdly, the erection of vaults to make it fireproof. Takinir these works in the above order, we first have to THE CENTRAL TOWER NORWICH CATHEDRAL 235 note the mischief done by fire and storm. In 1297 the tower seems to have had a wooden spire. This was blown down in r36i ; and, falling eastward, damaged the clerestory of the Norman presbytery. Both the spire and clerestory had to be rebuilt ; and in rebuilding the clerestory the monks took the opportunity to remedy what was the gravest defect in all the Norman cathedrals their extreme darkness. Now, it happened that, only some ten years before, the magnificent clerestory of Gloucester presbytery had been completed ; and the report of the brilliant illumination and translucent glass of this grand work was bruited, no doubt, all over England by pilgrims returning from the shrine of the murdered Edward II. at Gloucester. Therefore, just as at Gloucester, the monks determined to raise the new pres- bytery higher than the nave they raised it T i ft. and to make the clerestory practically a continuous sheet of glass. In one thing, fortunately, they did not copy Gloucester, as Edington did in Winchester nave which is of the same date as the Norwich work they did not think it necessary to discard altogether the beautiful flowing tracery of the curvilinear period ; and so here, as in many Norfolk churches, we find inserted, side by side, at the same time, flowing and rectilinear traceried windows. Another charming feature of fourteenth-century design was the ogee niche, such as those of the arcade of Ely Lady chapel. These niches at Norwich were inserted between each pair of clere- story windows : probably they were intended to receive statues, as at Shepton Mallet. In the same century a deter- mined attempt was made to get rid of the darkness of the nave by inserting large windows with flowing tracery all along the aisles. Nor was this all. As at Ely, the monks raised the aisle-walls still further, closed the Norman windows of the triforium, flattened the roof of the triforium, and thus managed to get high up a range of tall windows, each of four lights, that the light from them might find its way into the nave across the triforium. The result is extraordinary, as seen from the cloister garth. The south side of the cathedral, instead of the usual three or four stories, seems 236 NORWICH CATHEDRAL six stories high. First there are the openings of the cloister; then its upper story ; then the blind arcade of the triforium; then the Norman triforium windows ; then the Gothic windows ; then the Norman clerestory. Large square- headed windows were inserted in the triforium of the pres- bytery also : even this was insufficient. The eastern bays of the nave, where the stalls were placed, and where, most of all. light was needed, were the darkest of all, being obstructed by the stalls and by the cloister roof. So in the two eastern- most bays of the nave the triforium roof was sloped up instead of down, and large win- dows were inserted still higher up than those to the west, to give as much light as possible to the stalls below. For the same reason large Gothic windows were in- serted in the tran- septs. Several of these, however, have- recently been re- placed by Norman windows: "genuine Gothic by sham Norman." In the middle of the south aisle of the nave bishop Nix ( 1501-1 536) built himself a gorgeous chantry, to light which he inserted two large windows, high up so as to clear the cloister roof. In the fourteenth century was built the Bauchun chapel, projecting from the south aisle of the presbytery ; its vault is a century later; the bosses of the vault illustrate the Life, Death and Assumption of the Blessed Virgin. At some- period a chapel was built bridging the north aisle of the NORWICH CATHEDRAL 237 presbytery ; it communicated with another chapel to the north, now destroyed, said to have been the Reliquary chapel ; it may have been used for the exposition of relics to pilgrims passing below, like St. Chad's gallery at Lichneld ; it is of late date, and may have carried an organ, like IsKp's upper chapel at Westminster, to accompany the Jesus anthems which would be sung on Friday evenings in the neighbouring Jesus chapel. To the early years of the fifteenth century probably belong the stalls ; notice the arches crocketed with hawks, the arms of Bishop Wakering (1416-1425). The misericords are very fine; those below polygonal seats appear to be late fourteenth-century work ; the rest are of the time of Bishop Wakering. To the earlier work belongs the pelican lectern ; to which three statuettes were added in 1845. Now we come to the measures taken to make the building fireproof. These took the form of costly stone vaults, and they seem to have been undertaken by the monks most reluctantly. All the high vaults are the outcome of some great fire, and but for the fire evidently would not have been undertaken. There was a great conflagration in 1171, and in the fearful riots of 1272 the cathedral was set on fire by the citizens. Still, when the presbytery was remodelled in 1362, it was again roofed in wood. In 1463 the wooden spire was struck by lightning, and did more damage. At last the monks had to bestir themselves. To secure the spire against fire they rebuilt it in stone instead of wood : and, to make the nave and presbytery fireproof, they made up their minds to vault both in stone. Between 1463 and 1472 Bishop Walter Lyhart put up over the nave the present magnificent lierne vault, and at his death bequeathed two thousand marks to his successor to continue the work. His rebus, a hart lying in water, occurs as a corbel on alternate vaulting-shafts. The subjects of the nave bosses form a pictorial scripture-history, beginning at the tower with the Creation, and ending with the Last Judgment. In the centre of the fifth bay from the tower this vault has a lanje hole instead of a boss. A Sacrist's Roll has 238 NORWICH CATHKDRAL charges " for letting a man down from the roof, habited as an angel, to cense the rood.'' The roof timbers blaz- ing on the pavement had damaged the bases of the Norman shafts ; ne\v bases were inserted facing the nave, the other shafts were scraped down in very perfunctory fashion. Bishop Goldwell vaulted the presbytery between 1472 and 1499. It seems to have been difficult to get the funds for this costly work. Bishop Goldwell, however, was a personal friend of the Pope, who had consecrated him with his own hands ; and was able to persuade the Pope to grant a perpetual indulgence in the terms that "all who came to the cathedral on Trinity Sunday and Lady Day, and made an offering towards the fabric, should be entitled to an indulgence of twelve years and forty days." The superposition of a heavy stone vault on a lofty clerestory containing so large a surface of glass made it necessary to erect flying buttresses outside ; the buttresses on which these rest are weighted by pinnacles placed in "false bearing," /.., not on the buttresses so much as on the haunches of the flying buttresses ; they carry seated figures in good pre- servation, as in the eastern chapels of Peterborough and the cloister of Magdalen College, Oxford. The clerestory of the nave is 1 1 ft. lower than that of the presbyter}', and is much more solid, and the vault springs low down in the clerestory : therefore, as in the naves of Gloucester, Tewkes bury, Sherborne (which has flying buttresses to the presby- tery), flying buttresses were not added there. In the clerestory of the presbytery the damage clone by the fire of 1463 is very visible. When the blazing timbers fell down, they seem to have calcined the piers of the presbytery, which accordingly were recased in Gothic fashion. Beneath one of the southern arches Bishop Goldwell lies buried : the effigy affords a fine example of pontifical vestments. The remodelled piers contain a bull's head, the device of Sir Thomas Boleyn, who died in 1 505, and whose monument is under the first arch on the south side : probably he erected between the arches the stone screens which were NORWICH CATHEDRAL 239 removed in 1875. The present stone spire is probably also the work of Bishop Goldwell. The transepts still had wooden roofs. It required another fire, in i 509, in which these roofs were consumed, to compel the monks to complete the vaulting of the cathedral. This was done in the time of Bishop Nix, between 1509 and 1536. The bosses of the vault illus- trate the life of Christ. At the end of four hundred years Norwich cathedral was at length fireproof. The vaulting lowered the level and cut off some earlier stonework. The great fire of 1272 had also destroyed the cloister, which had probably wooden roofs ; it was rebuilt with vaults, the bosses of which are of exceptional interest. This work was executed very slowly, the window tracery ranging from geometrical, through curvilinear, to rectilinear design. On entering the cloister by the eastern door of the south aisle of the nave, and commencing at the eastern- most window of the north walk, the windows will all be seen in chronological order, if the east, south, west, and north walks are visited successively. The work ranges from 1297 to 1430. In the east walk the first doorway is that of the slype ; the next three openings were those of the Chapter house ; further on is the doorway of the day stairs leading down from the monks' dormitory, which occupied the first floor of the buildings east of the cloister and adjoining the south transept. In the northern half of the east walk notice on the wall-bench the numerous sets of " holes " for the novices' games ; also the cupboards for books, here and in the south walk. The south side of the cloister was occupied by the refectory, the doorway of which is at the west end of the south walk. In the west walk, close at hand, is the lavatory ; two bays further on a doorway led into the cellarage and to a Guesten hall : the doorway in the last bay leads into the choir school, which has a ribbed barrel vault, and is partly of twelfth, partly of thirteenth century date ; it was the outer parlour of the monks. In the north walk the eastern doorway is that by which the Sunday procession left the church ; the 240 NORWICH CATHEDRAL western doorway is that by which it re-entered the church after making the circuit of the cloister. Between the south transept and the presbytery aisle is a fine screen ; on the lock are the initials R. C., P. N., i.e., Robert Catton, Prior of Norwich, 1504-1529. In the south aisle of the presbytery is a fine, but mutilated font with representations of the Seven Sacraments, and the Crucifixion. In the Jesus chapel is a truncated altar slab of Barnack stone which was found beneath the pavement of the chapel ; in it is inlaid a small slab of Purbeck marble ; on both slabs are incised five consecration crosses. In the few ancient tiles of the chapel pavement which remain there are five dents or punctures ; this may refer to the Mass of the Five Wounds, which the Sarum Missal directed to be celebrated on Fridays, and which would be sung in the Jesus chapel. The painted altar-piece which formed the retable of the Jesus chapel is now placed in the choir aisle ; it is probably English work, and has been assigned to the end of the fourteenth century. The doorway of the West Front was built by Bishop Alnwick, c. 1440; in its spandrels is the inscription, "Orate pro animo Domini Wilhelmi Alnwyk Epi." The window above was built soon after 1449. A little to the west, on the right, is a crypt which formed the charnel-house, and, above, the chapel of St. John Evangelist, built c. 1316; in the crypt were two altars ; the porch was added between 1446 and 1472. The Erpingham gateway, facing the west front of the cathedral, was built after 1411 by Sir Thomas Erpingham who fought at Agincourt : "a knight grown grey with age and honour.'' At the south end of the close is St. Ethelbert's gateway, built by the citizens as part of the penance inflicted on them for the great fire of 1272. One word about the superb interior of the cathedral. It is hardly too much to say that of Norman interiors, that of Norwich is unequalled in all England. One reason is that it is vaulted throughout. Ely, Peterborough, St. Albans, Rochester, Romsey, Waltham, Southwell with their paltry wooden ceilings are not to be compared for a moment NORWICH CATHEDRAL 241 with Norwich. Gloucester and Chichester naves are vaulted, but the vaults are too slight and flimsy for the stern and massive work below. Durham vault is strong and satisfactory. But the lierne vault of Norwich is a far more glorious crown and finish than the rude work of Durham. It might be thought that the richness and magnificence of the lierne vault of Norwich would be out of harmony with the simplicity and heaviness of Norman piers and triforium and clerestory. It is not so. A tower, like that of Magdalen College, Oxford, may be ever so plain below, and yet terminate fitly with a glorious coronal of battlements, parapet, and pinnacles. So it is with this interior. Its rivals are to be found in Winchester and Tewkesbury. Hut at Winchester the vaults of nave and presbytery are cut in two by the unvaulted transept, and the presbytery vault is of wood. Norwich and Tewkesbury are vaulted every- where from east to west and from north to south. And 111 both, the vaults being uniform in character, and not changing character half-way as at Gloucester, weld together the spreading limbs of the church into a marvellous unity. Hut while the Tewkesbury vault is low and squat, that of Norwich soars aloft, rising to supreme height in the far east. There is another fine feature about the interior of Norwich, as in that of Gloucester : it is the striking contrast of light and shade, of shadowy nave and brilliant choir. Kly and Hereford present us with the reverse effect - bright nave and gloomy choir. Both effects are dramatic ; both, doubtless, are unintentional. If they had known how, or could have afforded it, Ely and Hereford would have flooded their choirs with sunshine, Norwich and Gloucester their naves. The mediaeval builders wanted none of these dramatic con- trasts of light and shade; they were always working to get rid of the dim religious light that nowadays we venerate ; they would have liked their churches lighted thoroughly well throughout. What they wanted was the light, uniformly good, of Lichfield, or of Salisbury, bright and gay as a ball-room. Hut the most subtle and most important element in the 16 242 NORWICH CATHEDRAL beauty of the interior of Norwich is to be found in its pro- portions. The nave is of an immense length, but it is very narrow. York, Canterbury, Gloucester, Durham, all have naves too short for their breadth. And what is more im- portant still is the ratio of the height of the Norwich interior to its span. In most English cathedrals it is not much more than 2 to i ; but in Norwich nave the ratio rises to nearly 2.6, and in the presbytery it is nearly 3 to i. In Norwich presbytery, then, we have just those proportions which we find in the great Gothic cathedrals of France, but in England hardly anywhere except at Heverley, Ripon, and Westminster. One thing more remains to be said in praise of Norwich, as of Gloucester. It is that the greatest splendour of the church is concentrated at one spot, and that the most important spot in the church. It is in approaching the High altar that vaults and clerestory soar aloft, that loveliest vistas open out into ambulatory and chapels, while the noble windows above fill all with light and atmosphere. " I would back it," says Dean Goulburn, " against any similar effect in almost any cathedral in Christendom." BIBLIOGRAPHY. Professor Willis and Rev. D. J. Stewart's papers on the cathedral in Arcliaological Journal, xxxn. 16, and on the cloisters in xxxii. 155. Harrod ? s Gleanings from Churches and Convents of Norfolk. Dean Goulburn's Ancient Sculptures and History of Norwich Cathe- dral gives photographs of the bosses. W. T. Bensly and W. II. St. John Hope's paper on Norwich cathe- dral in the Transactions of (lie Norfolk and Norwich Arch. Society, xiv. 105. Dr Jessop and Dr Montague James' Life and Miracles of Si. William of Norwich, 1896. Britton's Architectural Antiquities, iii. 86. FROM THK NORTH THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF CHRIST, OXFORD A 1 BUILT FOR AUGUSTINIAN CANONS BOUT the year of Our Lord 727, there lived in Oxford a Saxon prince named I )idan, who had an only child, Frideswide (' bond of peace '). Seeing that he had large possessions and inheritances, and that she was likely to enjoy most of them after his decease, Frides- wide told her father that he could not do better than bestow them upon some religious fabric where she and her spiritual sisters might spend their days in prayer and in singing psalms and hymns to God. Wherefore the good old man built a church, and committed it wholly to the use of his daughter, purposely to exercise her devotion therein ; and other edifices adjoining to the church, to serve as lodging- rooms for Frideswide and twelve virgins of noble extraction. 244 OXFORD CATHEDRAL There she became famous for her piety and for those ex- cellent parts that nature had endowed her withal ; and Algar, King of Leicester, became her adorer by way of marriage. Finding that he could not prevail with her by all the entreaties and gifts imaginable, he departed home, but sent to her ambassadors \\ith this special and sovereign caution, that if she did not concede, to watch their oppor- tunity and carry her a.vay by force. Frideswide was in- exorable. Wherefore at the dawning of the day the ambassadors clambered the fences of the house, and bv degrees approaching her private lodging, promised to them- selves nothing but surety of their prize. But she. awakening suddenly and discovering them, and finding it vain to make an escape, being so closely besieged, fervently prayed to the Almighty that He would preserve her from the violence of those wicked persons, and that He would shew some special token of revenge upon them for this their bold attempt. Wherefore the ambassadors were miraculously struck blind, and like madmen ran headlong yelling about the city. But Algar was filled with rage, and intended for Oxford, breath- ing out nothing but fire and sword. Which thing being OXFORD CATHEDRAL 245 told to Frideswide in a dream, with her sisters the nuns Katherine and Cicely, she fled to the river side, where there awaited her a young man with a beautiful countenance and clothed in white, who, mitigating their fear with pleasant speech, rowed them up the river to a wood ten miles distant. There the nuns sheltered in a hut, which ivy and other sprouts quickly overgrew, hiding them from sight of man. Three years Frideswide lived in Benton wood, when she came back to Binsey and afterwards to Oxford, in which place this maiden, having gained the triumph of her virginity, worked many miracles ; and when her days were over and her Spouse called her, she there died." Such is the account of her which Anthony-a-Wood drew from William of Malmesbury and Prior Philip of Oxford, both of whom un- fortunately lived long after the events which they narrate. FIRST PERIOD. In the east walls of the north choir aisle and the Lady chapel three small rude arches have recently been found, and outside, in the gardens, the foundations of the walls of three apses. Hence it has been concluded that we have here the eastern termination of Frideswide's eighth-century church. It may be so, but the central arch seems very small for the chancel-arch of an aisled church. It is indeed a foot wider than the chancel-arch of the Saxon church at Bradford-on-Avon, but that tiny church has no aisles. Moreover, if the side arches led into aisles, they would be likely to be of the same height, whereas the southern arch is considerably the higher of the two. A more serious objection is that the plan with three parallel eastern apses is not known to occur in Western Christendom before the ninth century. SECOND PERIOD. The establishment went through many vicissitudes, passing from nuns to secular canons, and finally in i i i i to regular canons i.e., canons living in monastic fashion under the rule (regula} of St. Augustine, as at Bristol and Carlisle. The first business, probably, of the regular canons was to house themselves i.e., to build themselves the usual cloister, with its appanages of chapter house, refectory, 246 OXFORD CATHEDRAL dormitory, &c. Of the chapter house which they built, c. 1125, the doorway still remains; the slype also is their work. In 1004 King Ethelred had rebuilt the Saxon church ; and probably it was found possible to put this church into such repair as would allow the services to be held in it for the time being. At any rate, it was not till after 1158 that they commenced the present church, first pulling down Ethelred's church ; the present church was probably finished by 1180; for in that year it was ready for the translation of the relics of St. Frideswide. It has been urged that the present church is in the main the one built in 1004; which is as who should say that Paradise Lost was written by Chaucer. This late twelfth-century church was very remarkable in plan. Not only had it an aisled nave and an aisled choir, but it had the architectural luxury, unparalleled in our Norman architecture except in the vast churches of Winchester and Ely, of eastern and western aisles to its transepts. Both the transepts were three bays long, as were their aisles : the aisled nave had eight bays according to Browne Willis' plan ; the choir aisles had four bays, the choir had five, thus getting good light in its eastern- most bay for the High altar. Through lack of room, however, the ground story of the end bay of the south transept had to be given to the slype or passage which provided access from the cloister to the infirmary and other buildings ; the same arrangement is found at Hexham, another church of Austin Canons. But the canons wanted also a Lady chapel, especially as the church seems to have been dedicated originally to the Holy Trinity, St. Mary, and St. Frideswide. The normal position of a Lady chapel is to the east of the sanctuary. But here also the canons were cramped ; for quite close to the east end of the church ran the city wall. To get in a Lady chapel, therefore, they had to build an additional aisle north of the north aisle of the choir. It was four bays long. Its westernmost bay was the central bay of the east OXFORD CATHEDRAL 247 aisle of the transept ; the second bay had a semicircular arch on the north and no doubt another on the south ; as for the two eastern bays, it is possible that they were simply the north aisle of the Anglo-Saxon church. There was yet another chapel, north of the Lady chapel, probably of two bays ; the westernmost bay being the end bay of the eastern aisle of the transept, and the next bay communicating with the Lady chapel by a semi- circular arch, traces of which may be seen above the present pointed arch. The east end of the sanctuary is square. The present east end is a fine composi- tion by Scott, more or less con- jectural. The work commenced, as usual, at the east, as is shewn by the gradual im- provement west- ward in the design of the capitals. The evidence of the vaulting, too, points in the same direc- tion. In the choir aisle the ribs are massive and heavy ; in the western aisle of the north transept the}- are lighter; in the south aisle of the nave they are pointed and filleted. The transepts are narrower than the nave and choir ; the crossing, therefore, is oblong, and, as at Bolton Priory, its ST. FRIDESWIDES CHAI'KL 2 4 8 OXFORD CATHEDRAL narrow sides have pointed arches: semicircular arches would have been too low. The faces of the piers of the towers are flat, because the stalls of the canons were placed against them, leaving the whole eastern limb as sanctuary. The clerestory walls are only 41^ ft. high ; therefore, to have adopted the usual Norman design viz., three stories more or less equal in length, each only about 14 ft. high would have given an insignificant pier-arcade and a dwarfed clerestory, and the interior would have been seen to be miser- ably low and squat. But it looks quite lofty ; for though the real pier-arcade (the arches of which are corbelled into the piers low down) is very humble indeed, yet in front of it there rises a sham pier-arcade with lofty columns, and with arches that run up to the string-course of the clerestory. OXFORD CATHEDRAL 249 The design is not original ; for it was tried at Romsey and there abandoned ; it was worked out more successfully at Dunstable Priory and Jedburgh, both churches of Austin Canons, and in grand fashion at Benedictine Glastonbury. The clerestory windows of the nave would be built not much before IT 80; naturally, therefore, they are pointed, while in choir and transepts they are semicircular. The capitals are of extraordinary interest ; we have nothing like them in the country. All the old Romanesque motifs are tried with JUNCTION OF NORTH 1 RANSEl'T AND CHOIR variations, and as the work advances, the capitals more and more approach to Gothic. The most interesting are those which are got by the decomposition of the Corinthian capital of ancient Greece and Rome. Those in Canterbury choir may be finer, but they are the work of French carvers ; for the third quarter of the twelfth century, the capitals at St. Frideswide's are unparalleled ; for the last quarter the}' find rivals at Xew Shoreham, Reigate, and Abbey Dore. This twelfth-century church is exceedingly interesting. There is not yet the lightness and grace of Ripon ; still less 250 OX FOR I) CAT I 1 K I ) R A L the charm of Canterbury choir, Chichester presbytery, Glastonbury, and Abbey Dore Gothic in all but name. In spite of its foliated capitals, in spite of a pointed arch here and there, it is Romanesque to the core ; it was built by old-fashioned people ; though Durham had had high vaults for half a century, there are none here, nor any preparation for them. Except in the foliation of the capitals, there is not a sign that Gothic was close at hand, nay, TIIF. NORTH SI DIC, WITH LATIN CHAITCI. already in existence by 1 180 at Worcester, Glastonbury, and Wells. Oxford, then as ever, was the refuge of " lost causes and mistaken beliefs and impossible loyalties." THIRD PERIOD. In the first half of the thirteenth century the works went on apace. An upper stage was added to the tower, and on that the spire was built the first large stone spire in England. To some extent it is designed like a broach spire : for the cardinal sides of the spire are built right out to the eaves, so that there is no OXFORD CATHEDRAL 251 parapet. On the other hand, instead of having broaches at the angle, it has pinnacles. Moreover, to bring down the thrusts more vertically, heavy dormer-windows are inserted at the foot of each of the cardinal sides of the spire : altogether a very logical and scientific piece of engineering, of a type very rare in England, but normal in Normandy, e.g., the spires of the Abbaye-aux-Hommes at Caen, of which it is probably a variant. The Chapterhouse also was rebuilt (c. i 240) ; rectangular, to fit the cloister. Also, the canons rebuilt the Lady chapel, replacing the Anglo-Saxon arcade on the south, if such there was, by an arcade with light piers and pointed arches also the pointed arch into the chapel adjoining on the north was at this time inserted. The cult of the Virgin, much fostered by the Pope, Innocent III., was at its height in the thirteenth century. The Lady chapels of Bristol, Hereford, Salisbury, Winchester, and Norwich were contemporaries of that of Oxford. In the year 1289 the relics of St. Frideswide were trans- lated to a new shrine. Fragments of the pedestal of this have been recently put together ; it contains beautiful naturalistic foliage like that of the contemporary shrine- pedestal of St. Thomas of Hereford. FOURTH PERIOD. A great deal of work was done in the fourteenth century, especially in improving the lighting of the church by substituting large traceried windows for the original small Norman lights. Of these new windows a very fine example remains in St. Lucy's chapel, opening out of the south transept ; with tracery starting below the spring of the arch ; it contains early fourteenth-century glass, in which is a representation of the martyrdom of St. Thomas of Canter- bury. Another fine window, restored, is seen high up in the end wall of the south transept. In the second quarter of the century the little northern chapel east of the north transept was pulled down, and in its place was built a chapel of four bays, with four side windows of singularly beautiful tracery, and all different. They contain late fourteenth-century glass, which should be compared with that in St. Lucy's 252 OXFORD CATHEDRAL chapel and in Merlon College chapel. The bosses are very beautiful : one of them has a representation of the water- lilies of the adjacent Chervvcll. Hard by, in the second arch from the east, is the tomb of Lady Montacute, who died in 1353 and gave the canons about half the Christ Church meadows to found a chantry : from its style the tomb would seem to have been built in her lifetime. In the third arch from the east is the canopied tomb of a prior ; perhaps Prior Sutton, who died in 1316. The chapel is dedicated to St. Catherine, perhaps in part reminiscence of Frideswide's sister Catherine, who retired with her to Binsey wood. In modern days it was fitted up for Divinity lectures, and was called the Divinity chapel or the Latin chapel. It contains rich woodwork ; in some of the poppy-heads of the stalls a cardinal's hat and tassels are carved ; the stalls may have been made for the vast collegiate chapel which Cardinal Wolsey had commenced, but which was soon to be abandoned. FIFTH PERIOD. For a century or more nothing else was done or needed doing, except further improvement of the lighting by the insertion of large windows with rectilinear tracery, and the erection of the so-called " \Vatching- chamber." the lower part of which is the tomb of a merchant and his wife, the upper part probably the chapel belonging to it. c. 1480 : it is probable that the merchant was only allowed to have a tomb in this sacred spot on condition that it was designed for its upper story to be used, like the upper story of the \Vatching Loft at St. Albans, to watch the treasures of St. Frideswide's shrine, which was but a few feet away. It is probable that the upper chapel of Henry V. at \Vestminster similarly served a double purpose. It may be added that it was quite common in parish churches to secure burial near the High altar by putting up in the north wall of the chancel a recessed tomb which could be used as Faster Sepulchre. The one remaining great undertaking, which, as at Norwich, had been postponed as long as possible, was the ceiling of choir, transepts, and nave with high vaults. The OXFORD CATHEDRAL 253 choir vault and clerestory were taken in hand first, in the last quarter of the fifteenth century. For its design is based on that of the I )ivinity School at Oxford, which seems to have THK CHOIR been built between 1481 and 1483, and it is earlier than the vault commenced in the north transept for which Canon Zoueh left money : he is buried below beneath the great north window. As Mr Fergusson well says, ''the vault of 254 OXFORD CATHEDRAL the choir, except in sixe, is one of the best and most remarkable in Christendom." In the clerestory of the nave also corbels were inserted to support a stone vault ; but the resources of the canons seem to have failed, and the rest of the church received roofs of wood ; that of the nave is probably \Volsey ? s work. Another considerable work was the rebuilding of the cloister. In order to get room for the north- east corner of the new cloister the two southern bays of the west aisle of the south transept were swept away. Nor was this all the demolition : for when the whole establishment was granted in 1524 to Cardinal Wolsey, he pulled down the three western bays of the nave, as obstructing the quadrangle of his new college ; one bay has been recently rebuilt. SIXTH PERIOD. In 1542 Henry VIII. founded the new diocese of Oxford. Till 1546 the seat of the bishopric was at Osney abbey. On the suppression of the abbey it was transferred to Wolsey's confiscated foundation ; and the ancient priory church became a cathedral, while at the same time it is the chapel of the college of Christ Church. There is an interesting window in the south choir aisle, the only Norman window left in the church ; the glass in it has a portrait of the first bishop of Oxford, King, with Osney abbey on one side. The "merry, merry, Christ Church bells '"' came from the tower shewn in this window. At the entrance to the Great Hall is the last bit of genuine Gothic done in England, a sort of chapter house in fan tracery, ceilinu the staircase. THE CHOIR VAULT OXFORD CATHEDRAL 255 The cathedral possesses a charming Jacobean pulpit, and a large amount of fine Flemish glass of the seven- teenth century all of it taken out and stowed away in some lumber room at a recent restoration, except one window at the west end of the north aisle of the nave, in order to insert some sham mediaeval windows. There are also five windows from designs by Sir Edward Burne Jones three of them of great beauty so far as the drawing is concerned ; good windows by Clayton and Bell in the end walls of the transepts ; and a reredos by Mr Bodley, who also has the credit of the bell tower. The following are the more important dates of the cathedral and the college: jqo + TAe First Cfnirch ; St. Frideswide. 1002. The Second Church; Ethelred. 1065. Burnt and restored. 1158-80. The Third (present) Church. 1 190. Damaged by fire (?) 1250 (?). Chapter house and Lady chapel. 1289. St. Frideswide's new Shrine dedicated. 1359. The Latin chapel completed : one bay having been begun in thirteenth century. 1450 4- Restorations : Choir clerestory side windows. 1480. Restorations : Watching chamber. 1500 + Restorations : N. transept window: roof of tower and transepts: roof of the Choir: Cloister. 1524-9. Wol- sey's " Cardinal College " ; Kitchen, Hall, E., S., W. sides of Tom Quad (W. side not complete) : Chapel begun on N. side: three bays of the Church nave destroyed. 1532. Henry VII I. 's Foundation. 1546. Seat of Bishopric of Oxford moved from Osney to Christ Church. Bp. King : Abbot of Osney 1542-1546, Bishop of Oxford 1546-1557. 1640. Staircase of the Hall. 1630. Restorations in the Cathedral: brasses destroyed: "Jonah" window. 1648. Deanery archway into Peckwater (Samuel Fell, Dean). 1668. North side of Tom Quad. 1680. "Tom" recast; the original bell came from Osney abbey. 1682. Tom Tower, upper part (Sir Chr. ll'ren). 1705. Peckwater Quad (Dean Aldric/i). 1716. Library begun. 1720. Fire : S.W. angle of Tom Quad destroyed: Roof of Hall injured. 1761. Lib- rary finished. 1778. Canterbury Gate (Wyatf). 1862-6. Meadow Buildings. 1871. East End of Cathedral " restored ' 2 5 6 OXFORD CATIIKDRAL (Sir G. G. Scott}. 1^79. Belfry Tower over Hall Staircase. HiBi.iocRAriiv. Sir (Jilbert Scott's "Report" in Murray's Eas tern Cathedrals, p. 45. Pamphlet hy |. Park Harrison on the Saxon arches in the east end of the church. Bloxam, M. II., "Sepulchral .Monuments in Oxford Cathedral,' Royal .-1 >/. Institute ; Oxford volume. iS6o. THE TOWER AM) SPIKE KKO.M THE CLOISTER THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST. PETER, PETERBOROUGH BUILT FOR BENEDICTINE MONKS ABOUT the middle of the seventh century Peada and Wulfere, successive kings of Mercia, are said to have founded a monastery at Peterborough, then called Medeshamstead ("the homestead in the meadow"), and to have consecrated the church in the names of St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. Andrew. Then said Iving Wulfere with a loud voice: "This day do I freely give to St. Peter and to the abbot and to the monks of this monastery these lands and waters and meres and fens and weirs ; neither shall tribute or tax be taken therefrom. Moreover I do make this monastery free, that it be subject to Rome alone ; and I will that all who may not be able to journey to Rome should repair hither to St. Peter." This consecration took place in 664 or 665. In 870 this, the first church, was destroyed by the Danes, and Abbot Hedda and all his monks were murdered. It was not fully rebuilt till 963 or 966. Abbot Elsinus (1006-1055) collected many relics: pieces of the swaddling clothes, of the manger, of the cross, and of the sepulchre of Christ ; of the garments of the Virgin, of Aaron's rod, a bone of one of the Innocents, portions of the bodies of .St. John the Baptist, St. Peter, and St. Paul, the body of St. Florentinus, for which he gave 100 Ibs. of silver, and, most precious of all, the incorruptible arm of the Northumbrian king, Oswald, believed by half the population of Kngland to be an effectual cure for diseases which defied the material power of drugs. Here is Hede's account of it : " \Vhen Oswald was once sitting at dinner with Bishop Aidan, on the holy day of Easter, and a silver I 7 2 57 2 5 8 PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL J2EFE&ENCES To MONUMENTS MEMOB14L SLABS AND CHAPELS t SHGIME OF THE MONKS 2. MA BY. OUEEN OF -SCOTS 3. BISHOP CHAMBERS ABBOT WOODFOBD 5. " DE GALE TO &. 7 QUEEN Op ff ST J&MES CHAPEL. 9 fT JOHNS JO. ST OSWALDS - //. ST BENEDICTS " /Z. C/-/&PE.L. 0^ S" KYNEfWITHA. PLAN PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL 259 dish of dainties was before him, the servant, whom he had appointed to relieve the poor, came in on a sudden, and told the king that a great multitude of needy persons were sitting in the streets begging alms of the king. He immedi- ately ordered the meat set before him to be carried to the poor, and the dish also to be cut in pieces and divided among them. At which sight the Bishop laid hold of the King's right hand, and said, ' May this hand never perish,' which fell out according to his prayer; for his arm and hand being cut off from his bod}', when he was slain in battle, remain entire and incorrupted to this day, and are kept in a silver case as revered relics in St. Peter's church in the royal city." Even King Stephen came to see it ; and, what is more, remitted to the monks forty marks which they owed him. Benedict was a monk at Canterbury when Eecket was murdered ; and when he became abbot of Peterborough in 1177, he brought with him the slabs of the pavement which were stained with the blood of the martyr, fragments of his shirt and surplice, and two vases of his blood. So that the monastery was called " Peterborough the Proud," and waxed rich and mighty, and church and close were holy ground, and all pilgrims, even though of royal blood, put off their shoes before passing through the western gateway of the close. FIRST PERIOD. The second Saxon church of 966-972 seems to have lasted till i i 16, when it was destroyed by fire, and the present church, the third, was commenced. The foundations of part of this Saxon church have been recently disinterred beneath the present south transept. It was cruciform, with perhaps a square east end, and was without aisles. The east limb was 23 ft. each way; the transept was 88 ft. long. Its walls were under 3 ft. thick, so that it cannot have been intended for a vault. It is uncertain how far it extended westward. On the inside of the east wall of the north transept a part of the stone seating can be seen. It was in this church that Hereward the Wake was knighted by his uncle, Abbot Brando. Saxon monuments were found in situ under the 26o PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL floor of the transept of the present church in 1887. A subway has been constructed so that the eastern foundations may be viewed. SECOND PERIOD. In 1116 the Saxon cathedral was seriously injured by a great fire, and in 1117 or 1 1 18 Abbot John de Sais (See/.) commenced the present Norman church. He died in 1125. His successor did nothing. Abbot Martin de Bee (1133-1155) completed sufficient to allow the monks to hold their services in the eastern limb. (Probably the monks had been able to patch up the damaged FROM THE SOUTH Anglo-Saxon church, and held their services in that till i 140 or 1143.) The work done by Abbots John and Martin includes the whole of the eastern limb, full height, and the aisles and the two lower stories of the eastern sides of the central transept : in the north transept the west wall was built up to the string-course of the ground story : the south transept adjoined the monastic buildings, and so more work was done in it ; this included the south wall with the windows of the ground story, and on the eastern side the three northern bays of the triforium (the PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL 261 fourth bay has a plain tympanum). Of the central tower the eastern piers were built full height, and the western piers about half way up : it follows that the first choir was confined to the eastern limb. A start was made with the nave ; this included on the north side the arch from the transept into the north aisle, and the first bay of that aisle up to the string- course over the wall arcade, where the moldings change. Also he built the two eastern bays of the ground story on each side of the nave. Hitherto the north wall of the Saxon nave had probably been re- tained to shut in the cloister on the north ; now it was pulled down and replaced by the wall of the present south aisle of the nave, as far as the east side of the bay containing the western pro- cession doorway. THIRD PERIOD. Then came in 1155 another great builder, William de YYatcrville ; unfortunately, he got the convent into debt, was unpopular with the monks, and was deposed by them in 1175 ; so the monastic chroniclers give the credit of a great deal of Watcrville's work to their favourite, Benedict, who had enriched the monastery with the relics from Canterbury, and who is said by them to have THE PRICSBVTERY 262 PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL built the whole of the nave, which he certainly did not. Waterville's work falls into two parts ; first, he completed both transepts, the piers and arches of the crossing, and a central tower of three stories ; he also built the vestry on the west side of the south transept. Secondly, he did a great deal of work in the nave. The two easternmost bays of the nave he completed on both sides up to the top of the triforium ; the tympana of these triforium bays have similar decoration to those in the choir triforium. No doubt he put up a temporary roof at the triforium level, and western boarding; and this done, he transferred the stalls in 1175 to the two eastern bays of the nave and the crossing, where they are at present. On the north side of the nave AYater- ville only built as much as was necessary to buttress the new central tower to the west ; vix., four bays of the ground story, two of the triforium (which have rude ornament not found elsewhere in the nave), and one bay of the clerestory : also he finished the first t\vo eastern bays of the north aisle, which were in a line with the new choir, and built the third, fourth, and fifth bays of the aisle up to the string-course above the wall arcade. Most of his work was done on the south side partly because the south aisle-wall was already standing, having been built by Abbot Martin, partly because the south aisle, being adjacent to the cloister, was wanted more urgently than the north aisle. On the south side he built all the eight eastern bays of the ground story (the eighth is that which is opposite to the western procession doorway). No doubt he roofed in the corresponding bays of the aisle to enable it to be used : and he may have vaulted several bays of it. Of the south triforium he erected the first two bays, of the south clerestory only the easternmost bay. A curious proof that the south side of the nave was completed and left in the open air for a considerable time before the completion of the north side is that when the whitewash was taken off at one of the restorations, the putlog holes on the south side were found to be full of remains of birds' nests, of which there were none on the north side. It will be noticed that the eighth PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL 263 piers from the east are exceptionally massive and strong, and that in this bay the aisle-walls are thickened. This, together with the position of the western processional doorway, shews that the original intention was that the nave should end at this point in two western towers in an axis with the aisles; of these the southern tower was carried up for some distance. All this Norman work of c. 1117 to c. 1 175 is of sternly simple character ; nevertheless both artistically and constructionally it ranks very high. There are few in- ternal elevations in Europe finer than that of the north transept ; and few vistas so picturesque as that of the presbytery from the south transept. The builders, too, understood per- fectly the indepen- dence of the load and the support ; in the choir the abacus, in the nave the shafts of the piers are in exact co-ordination with the orders of the pier-arch and the vault. To get level ridges for the aisle-vaults, the builders stilted the transverse arches of the aisles and the pier-arches, while they built each diagonal arch in rather less than a semicircle. In the spandrels of two triforium bays in the choir are anticipations of plate tracery. THF. SOUTH AISLK 264 PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL FOURTH PERIOD. Then came Abbot Benedict (1177- 1193), wno > thinking the nave too short, abandoned the western towers commenced by Waterville, and added two more bays to the west. The nave now had ten bays, and Benedict completed these ten bays from pavement to roof, and the aisles as well, including their vaults, with the excep- tion that he left undone the tenth bay of the clerestory. The present ceiling of the nave is probably that put up by Benedict;* but, strange to say, there are signs of an in- tention to vault the nave ; for round the clerestory windows are wall-arches ; there is a springer of a vault in the westernmost bay of the clerestory ; and the clerestory passage is blocked with masses of masonry to give a solid backing to the springers of a high vault ; moreover, to carry the diagonal ribs, corbels were inserted just below the clerestory spring-course, as in Durham nave ; these corbels were chiselled off, when it was decided to have a ceiling and not a vault. With the exception of the last bay of the clerestory on either side and the west front, the church, begun about 1117, was finished by i 1 93. It had, therefore, occupied some seventy-six years. During that long period the original design, as at Ely, was steadily adhered to. Regardless of the vast changes in style which were to be seen elsewhere, the builders went on using die- self same templates for the moldings, and the self-same archaic capitals and abaci. The chief exceptions are that from Waterville's time the waterholding molding occurs in the bases of the piers ; that the wall-arches in the clerestory are pointed : and, strange to say, about the centre of the southern triforium some Corinthianesque capitals, which may have been carved by a mason who had been working in Canterbury choir: perhaps he was on his way to a job at Oakham hall, where alone is to be found a complete set of * The roofs of the threat transept also are prohahly original. That of the nave was tlat at first: hut \\hen the pointed arches were inserted in tile central to\\ur, the celling \\us tilted up to clear the neu eastern arch. At the same tune a new roof was put up over the presbytery. PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL 265 foliated capitals copied from those of the work of William of Sens at Canterbury, begun in 1175. Having destroyed the western towers begun by Waterville, Benedict commenced a new west transept at the end of the tenth bay of the nave. It has towers in the axis of the aisles, and lofty flanking chapels crowned by gables. Thus the transept consists of chapel, tower bay, the eleventh bay of the nave, tower bay, chapel. Of this Benedict built the east walls about as high as the cill of the clerestory windows, abandoning the pre- cedents of 1117 and designing the work with noble pointed arches, overlaid, how- ever, by a profusion of Norman xigxag. FIFTH PERIOD. Benedict was followed by Abbot Andrew ( r 195-1 200), who built the westernmost bay of the clerestory and finished the western transept. His northern tower still remains ; in i 730 it had a wooden spire. Andrew also commenced a spacious porch to lead into his central doorway, after the manner of the (lalilee porch of Ely (1198-1215). Of this he finished only '"the side walls from the springing of the wall arcades at the- east to a few courses above the bases to the west; and the lower parts of the central opening and the two narrow side openings." SIXTH I'KRIOIX Then came Abbot Acharius (1200-1210) from St. Albans, where he was Prior, and where a lovely west front was building or on the point of being built. Even Benedict and Andrew's west front was not good enough VAULTING UNDER THE WEST TOWER 266 PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL for Acharius, and he decided to build yet another facade in front of theirs, finishing and absorbing into it Andrew's western porch. (Something similar occurred rather later at Lincoln, where a new Gothic west front was built up around the old Norman facade and towers.) It was the retention of this porch which gave the central opening of the facade the peculiarity of being narrower than the side openings. (The side openings could not be narrowed, because they had to span the space from Andrew's central THE WEST FRONT porch to the ends of his western transept.) In addition to the three great openings, flanking towers were built, which were constructed solid (except for staircases) to resist the thrusts of the broad and lofty side openings. It is probable that the three gables of the facade were meant originally to be loftier, for their wheel windows are too large for their present position. It may be that the)' had been already carved at Barnack quarry when it was decided to put up lower gables (nearly all the moldings, &c., seem to have been carved 267 at the quarry). Built, like the whole cathedral, even the western chapels, practically without foundations, the north and south gables had to be taken down in 1896; founda- tions were put in, and each stone was returned to its original position; only 170 out of about 2,000 stones needed to be renewed a thoroughly sound and conservative piece of work. After Acharius came an interval of three years, when King John appropriated the revenues of the abbey ; then came Robert de Lindsay, who was abbot from 1214 to 1222, and who probably completed the west front. The west front of Peterborough has been severely criticised, especially by Mr Pugin. To many it will seem to be at once the most original and most successful facade in English or in Con- tinental Gothic. Yet, magnificent and poetic as it is, we have not the full effect contemplated by the mediaeval builders. They meant to have four towers, not three. The north-west tower was once crowned by a A ( ; AB I.E CROSS wooden spire ; we may be sure that there would have been a spire also on a south-west tower. Add, too, in the background, a tall spire on the central tower, and you have a group before which even Lichfield and Lincoln would pale into insignificance. Even curtailed as it is, the design attains the sublime. When first its Titanic arches rose into the blue sky, its builders may well have repeated the psalmist's words : '' Lift up your heads, () ye gates ; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors ; and the King of Glory shall come in." They had built a worth)- portal to the House of the Almighty. In 1238 the church was at last dedicated ; of the stalls then put up two 268 PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL remain in the morning chapel, with Jacobean backs. The font is thirteenth-century work ; its beautiful bowl was found in a prebendal garden ; the supports are modern. SF.VENTH PKRIOD. Little more was done till 1272-1286, when the east bay of each aisle of the presbytery, which was square externally, semicircular internally, was con- verted into a square-ended chapel ; and the present parapet was added to the apse. Also large windows, with geometrical tracery, were inserted to give better light to the eastern aisle of each arm of the central transept. In this period, c. 1270, the bell tower was carried up; and a magnificent Lady chapel was built as at Bristol, to the north of the choir. On the west it was joined on to the north transept, but between it and the presbytery was a space, in which afterwards a small chapel was inserted. It could not be built east of the choir, as a high road passed near the apse. This Lady chapel was pulled down in the seventeenth century for the sake of its materials. EIGHTH PERIOD. In the fourteenth century the weight of the Norman tower, which had of course very thick walls, and was three stories high, was found to be too much for the exceptionally weak piers on which it stood. Warned, perhaps, by the fate of the central towers of Ely and Wells, both of which collapsed about this time, they took down the Norman tower, and built a new one (which has recently been rebuilt), much lighter and much lower : first strengthen- ing the northern and southern arches by building pointed arches above them, and substituting pointed for semicircular eastern and western arches. The south-west spire was also built a design of exquisite beauty. Much attention was now paid to improving the lighting of the church and the drainage of the roofs. The process of substituting large traceried windows for small Norman windows commenced in the aisles of the nave and the south presbytery at the beginning of the century. As at Norwich, the triforium roof was raised to give headway to larger windows in the upper part of the aisle-wall, throwing light through the triforium chamber into the nave. Windows PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL 269 of charming flowing tracery were inserted in the apse of the presbytery, c. 1340. Gutters and parapets with flowing patterns were put up at the foot of the high roofs ; the builders, however, with their wonted conservatism retained the Norman corbel table, which, as at Southwell, has the nebule ornament. A porch was inserted, c. 1370, in the central arch of the west front ; where it was constructionally useful in keeping the two central piers from bulging inwardly; it was occupied by a semi-choir on Palm Sunday. TUi: vK'TII TRANSMIT AND CENTRAL TOWKR NINTH PERIOD. In the fifteenth century more Norman windows were taken out and replaced by larger windows with rectilinear tracery : altogether some seventy-five windows were treated in this way ; and the builders in the end accom- plished their object, for the cathedral is thoroughly well lighted ; we may be thankful that they did not insert big windows in the end walls of the central transept. The eagle lectern was given to the abbey some few years before 1471. 270 PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL TENTH PERIOD. Till the last years of the fifteenth century the cathedral remained unchanged in plan. But it had no procession path, and only two eastern chapels ; between 1438 and 1528 therefore the apse of the presbytery was encircled by a low square-ended aisle broad enough to contain a procession path and three chapels. This was the work of Abbot Ashton (1438-1471) and Abbot Robert Kirton (1496-1528), whose rebuses occur repeatedly. It is ceiled with a fan vault ; if this be examined, it will be found that most of the joints occur about half- way between the ribs : really there- fore, construc- tionally, it is not a ribbed vault at all ; but consists of panels accu- rately fitted to- gether, with deco- rative ribs carved on their inner surfaces. Out- side, the but- THK RETRO-CHOIR seated figures in- stead of pinnacles. As completed, the ritualistic divisions of the church, com- mencing at the east, were as follows: (i) Three eastern chapels and procession path : (2) aisled presbytery, con- sisting of four bays and an apse ; with the High altar to the east and probably the choir altar in the centre : (3) choir occupying the crossing and the two eastern bays of the nave, as at present ; at the west of it, between the second piers from the tower, was the Choir screen, on which an altar was PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL 2? I placed ; (4) the Rood screen was between the next pair of piers ; some traces of its loft may be seen in the triforium ; (5) the ritualistic nave containing eight bays, including the central bay of the western transept ; on the north is the door- way which led to the lay cemetery ; on the south the two procession doorways which communicated with the cloister. ELEVENTH PERIOD. In 1541 the church was made a cathedral on the New Foundation. Henry VIII. is said to have preserved it as a mausoleum to his first wife, Catharine of Arragon, who is buried in the choir. In 1643 Peterborough was occupied for a fortnight by two regiments of Cromwell's troops, and the cathedral was atrociously maltreated ; hence the bareness of its interior. Recently stalls have been re-erected, and the mistake has been made of paving the presbytery with marble, making the venerable freestone around look mean and common. Over the altar Mr Pearson has erected a baldachino of Italian design. The ritualistic arrangements have been sadly muddled ; the eastern part of the church is too large for the daily services and too small for great diocesan gatherings, as also is the nave. What was wanted was to screen off the daily services in the presbytery, as in Abbot Martin's time, and from 1830 to 1883 ; leaving the whole of the rest of the area of the church for congregational pur- poses, and providing it with an altar and stalls of its own. ISiiu.ioGRAi'iiY. Gunton's History of Peterborough, with Dean Patrick's Supplement, 1686. John Bridge's Northamptonshire^ 1793. G. A. Poole's "Peterborough Cathedral": in fan, Associated Archi- tectural Societies Reports, 1855, p. 199. F. A. Vdstf ^Peterborough Cathedral, 1859. Canon Daws' Guide to Peterborough Cathedral, 1860. Thomas C ruddock, History of Peterborough Cathedral, 1864. J. I'. Irvine in Archaeological Journal, vol. 50, and in Huildcr, 51 h May 1894. Tlie most complete and most accurate account of the cathedral is that i^iven by Mr C. R. Peers in '1'lie Victoria County History of Northampton- shire, 1909. For manuscript and other sources see the bibliography in Craddock s Peterborough Cathedral, p. 227. THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST. PETER AND ST. WILFRID, RIPON BUILT FOR SECULAR CANONS RIPON minster lias passed through strange vicissitudes. It was founded c. 657, but on a different site, for Scottish monks attached to the Celtic Church. In 66 1 it was taken away from them and granted to the famous St. Wilfrid. In 68 1 the church became a cathedral, but only till 686. At some period before the Norman Conquest it became the church of a college of secular canons. It was dissolved with the other collegiate establishments by Edward VI., but was made collegiate once more by James I. In 1836, for the second time, it became a cathedral. FIRST PERIOD. Both the minsters built by St. Wilfrid- Ripon and Hexham retain their crypts. He was a Roman- iser in architecture as in ritual, and well acquainted with Italy. So his seventh-century church at Ripon was modelled after the early Christian basilicas which he had seen at Rome. Like them, it had a confessionary or crypt, which still exists beneath the central tower; like them, it was orientated to the west. He seems even to have brought over Italian masons to direct or to execute the work, lor the crypt is vaulted, and the vaulting is of excellent construction ; the masonry is smooth, and is covered "with a line and very hard plaster which takes a polish." At present the altar is at the east end, but it may originally have been at the west end : at its east end an aperture through which a glimpse of the interior might be obtained from the Saxon nave. Round the walls are little niches in which lights were placed. " St. Wilfrid's Needle " is merely a niche with the back knocked through. Similar Saxon crypts remain at Hexham 272 KIPON CATHEDRAL 273 and Wing, and a Norman crypt at St. Peter-in-the-East, Oxford. They usually consisted of a small central chamber, with a passage all round it. There were two staircases descending from either side of the nave ; pilgrims went down one flight of steps, proceeded along the passage, getting a glimpse of the relics through openings in the wall of the central chamber, and then returned up the other flight of steps into the nave. Both staircases survive in the Hexham crypt. SECOND PERIOD. Early in the twelfth century a Norman church seems to have been built, wholly or in part, by Archbishop Thomas or Arch- bishop Thurstan. Of this there remains only an apsidal building, with undercroft be- neath, on the south side of the south aisle of the present choir. Aii eleventh-century chapel formerly existed, with crypt beneath it, in precisely the same situation at Wor- cester ; and there is a twelfth- century chapel in the same position in Oxford cathedral ; in Oxford this chapel was the Lady chapel. It may be that the Ripon chapel also may have been a Lady chapel. If the Norman church extended as far eastward as at present, it would have been impossible to build a Lady chapel to the east of the choir ; the ground falls far too steeply eastward. On the other hand it may have been an apsidal sacristy with undercroft. In the upper chamber, the present vestry, on the south side ol the apse are piscina and aumbries, pointing 18 SCA1.E OF METRES 274 RIPON CATHEDRAL to the existence of an altar. Now at Westminster the Revestiary forms at its east end the chapel of St. Faith. It may be then at Ripon that the upper apse held an altar of Our Lady, but that the rest of the upper chamber together with the undercroft formed the sacristy and treasury of the church, and were retained by Archbishop Roger when he built his choir. In the south-eastern buttress is a curious chamber which, like the feretory at Gloucester, may have provided a treas- ury for small ob- jects of exceptional value. THIRD PERIOD. From 1154 r 1 8 1 there ruled at York a man of great energy and p o w e r A r c h- bishop Roger. He condemned his two Nor m a n churches at York and Ripon ; made no attempt, as at Peterborough and Fly, to improve them : simply pul- led them down, and started again tit' noi'o. The two new Yorkshire minsters seem to have been somewhat similar: both had square east ends, both had ex- ceptionally broad naves. Ikit Ripon minster was merely a collegiate church ; therefore it was not planned in cathedral fashion. Its eastern limb was probably of the same dimensions as at present. The original ritualistic arrange- ments have been swept away by the restorers, and the levels altered so that the eastern limb might be used for congregational purposes, tor which it was never intended. THE SOUTH TRANSEPT RIPON CATHEDRAL 275 and for which it will always be inadequate. Originally both the High altar and the sedilia were in the second bay from the east, and the easternmost bay formed the procession path ; it seems also to have contained the Head Shrine of St. Wilfrid, whose body was buried, first on the south side, but afterwards on the north side of the presbytery. The Saint's chapel with the shrine of St. Wilfrid was not east of the High altar, but beneath the easternmost arch of the north aisle of the choir. The minster was and is still parochial as well as collegiate ; and for its parishioners a big nave was built. It was built, as parish churches originally were as a rule built without aisles. This was the great feature of the minster, a 4o-ft. nave without aisles. The combination of unaisled nave and aisled choir must have produced a very remarkable interior ; quite unlike anything now existing in England, but to be paralleled by such cathedrals as Gerona and Toulouse. Of this remarkable nave nothing is now left except two fragments, one at the east, and one at the west end on either side. All the rest has been replaced by sixteenth- century piers, arches, and clerestory. But if in imagination the two ends of the nave are joined together it is well to do so in an actual drawing the design of the whole of the original nave can be recovered with exactitude. A very remarkable design it was. It consisted of three stories ; the lower story was simply a blank wall. The second contained a passage in the thickness of the wall, which was divided into bays alternately broad and narrow ; the broad bays having semicircular, the narrow bays pointed arc-lies ; which again were respectively subdivided into four and two minor arches, all pointed and with the spandrels pierced. A similar wall passage occurs in the pretty nave of the nuns' church at Nun Monkton, near York. In the clerestory the narrow bays had a blank arcade of three pointed arches ; the broad bays a round-headed window flanked on either side by a blank pointed arch. Neither in the ground story nor in the middle story were there any windows. Everywhere else people were trying to get all 2/6 RIPON CATHEDRAL the windows possible into their churches ; here alone a "dim, religious light" was preferred. And filtering in, as it did, through small lancet windows at a great height, as in Pugin's cathedral at Killarney, the effect must have been most dramatic. The destruction of this unique nave is one of the heaviest losses that English architecture has sustained. Of the central tower, the south-east pier has been rebuilt : the north-east and south-west piers have been cased. The north and west arches of the tower survive ; the south and east arches have been rebuilt. The nave was considerably wider than the central aisle of the choir ; the tower was therefore not built square ; the northern arch being set obliquely, and not parallel to the southern one. Outside, however, the north side of the tower is corbelled out till the tower becomes square. The design of the choir is similar to that of the north transept, which retains the original round-headed windows. The design of transept and choir is almost Cistercian in its severity. Very effective is the contrast of broad wall-surface and plain splayed window with the light and slender shafted arcades of triforium and clerestory. In proportions, too, it is superior to most later designs. The pier-arches are tall and narrow, and the triforium thoroughly subordinated to the tall clerestory; the proportions approximate to those of Westminster abbey and Beverley minster. It is remarkable, too, for the studied absence of foliated ornament. Not that the builders could not design a foliated capital ; they have left one or two, in unnoticed corners of the north transept, to shew their powers. All the capitals of the choir are molded capitals: as at ISyland, Furness, Holme Cultram, Roche, Old Malton, Darlington, and Hartlepool : these hollow-necked capitals are evidently due to the influence of the Yorkshire Cistercians ; like them, the builders chose to rely on architectural effects pure and simple. Equally re- markable is the abolition of Norman ornament. The billet, the xig/ag, the whole barbaric congeries of Norman orna- ment is contemptuously cast aside. In this respect, indeed, RIl'ON CATHEDRAL 277 Ripon is much more advanced than Canterbury choir, which was not commenced till 1175. The clerestory, how- ever, is of a familiar Norman type, being an adaptation of that of Romsey and Waltham abbey, and Peterborough and Oxford cathedrals; another version of it was produced a little later in Ilexham choir. The aisle of the north transept is vaulted in square bays. 2/8 RIPON CATHEDRAL each quadripartite, with wall-ribs and also with ridge-ribs, both longitudinal and transverse. The ridge-ribs consist only of a single roll and are merely decorative. The diagonal ribs have a triple roll. The cells are filled in, French fashion, with courses parallel to the ridges. The bays are separated by broad, square-edged arches. It is a most extraordinary vault for the period ; for such a combination of longitudinal and transverse ridge-ribs does not occur else- where till the vault of Lincoln nave was set out c. 1240. The vaulting-shafts of the choir rest on the abaci, French fashion, and occur in groups of five, which in the clerestory are reduced to a single shaft ; shewing that, as in the western bays of the nave of St. Albans, it was originally contemplated to vault the choir, but that the intention was abandoned when the triforium was completed. It is probably because it was meant to vault the choir, that it was set out so much narrower than the nave, in spite of the awkward plan which resulted in the central tower. In the transept there are three vaulting-shafts in each group, point- ing to an intention to build a quadripartite vault, similar to that of the choir aisles. But in the choir there are five vaulting-shafts in a group. These are difficult to explain. It may be that the central shaft was to carry the transverse rib of the vault, while its flanking shafts carried the diagonals ; and that the outer shafts were merely to support the wall- ribs ; in that case it would be a simple cjuadripartite vault. The facades of the north transept present a rare example of a complete facade of the period ; the doorways of both transepts are of much interest. In spite of round-headed windows and round-headed arches here and there, the whole design of the interior was light and graceful, thoroughly Gothic. Externally it was just the reverse ; but for a pointed arcade in the clerestory one might imagine one was back again in the early days of the twelfth century. It is when one compares the interior with that of Oxford cathedral, which is precisely contemporary, and with St. David's, which is later still, that one realises what a long step forward in the evolution of our Gothic RIPON CATHEDRAL 279 architecture was taken at Ripon. It may well be that Archbishop Roger's choir at York, pulled down c. 1380, was a sister design to his Ripon minster. With Ripon should be compared Holy Trinity church, York ; and for the later development of the design the choir and eastern transept of the neighbouring abbey of Fountains and the thirteenth-century portion of Beverley minster. To get at the genesis of the Ripon design it would be necessary first FROM THK SOUTH-EAST to stucl\- the contemporary examples, and those a little earlier, of Cistercian architecture in Yorkshire, such as Roche and Hyland ; and secondly, to look for analogies and precedents in the district from which Cistercian design hailed, vix., Burgundy and the neighbouring districts, e.g., the resemblances in design between Ripon minster and \otre Dame, Chalons-sur-Marnc, are numerous and striking. The whole subject of the Early Gothic school of the North of England remains practically unexplored. 28O RIl'ON CATHEDRAL FOURTH PERIOD. To the thirteenth century belong the vaulting and piers of the present Chapter house ; and the west front, which, like York transept and Southwell choir, is attributed to Archbishop Gray. Indulgences for its completion were issued in 1233 and 1258. The west front is flat ; deficient in play of light and shade ; correct and un- interesting. It is ruined by the loss of its wooden spires, removed in 1664; and by the miserable little pinnacles put up in 1797. Before the aisles were built, these towers projected clear of the nave, and their inner walls formed the western bay of Archbishop Roger's nave, with fine arches cut into them in the thirteenth century to throw them open to the nave. FIFTH PERIOD. About 1290 the east end of the choir seems to have collapsed partly, perhaps, in consequence of the steep fall of the ground eastwards. It was rebuilt, with the damaged portions of the choir, with exceptional strength in consequence. The east end is a vigorous, massive design, something like that of Guisborough or Selby. Only the eastern portion of the choir has flying buttresses. The clerestory windows have an inner arcade. Ripon choir alone, of English cathedrals, possesses a complete "transparent" triforium, the lean-to roof of the aisles having been replaced by a fiat roof. Inside the south-eastern buttress is a staircase at the top of which is a cell, probably for an anchorite. SIXTH PERIOD. To the first half of the fourteenth century belong the Sedilia and the Lady Loft. The shafts of the sedilia have been clumsily renewed at some later period. It has been suggested that the original altar of Our Lad\' was in the apse of the sacristy. In the fourteenth century a separate Lady chapel was built above it. The lower row of lancets in the west front once had charming tracery, inserted 1379-1380. This was removed by Scott : an abominable example of " restoration." A good illustration of the windows before the " restoration " will be found in Murray's "Northern Cathedrals," i. 151. SEVENTH PERIOD. In 1458 the southern and eastern KIPON CATHEDRAL 28l sides of the central tower collapsed, greatly damaging the adjacent parts of the choir and south transept. The eastern aisle of the south transept and much of the south side of the choir, as well as part of the tower, had to be rebuilt. In the choir both in the work of 1290 and in that of 1458, the builders preserved all they could of the twelfth-century work, retaining in the triforium the semicircular arch of the older design. The result is a curious blend of styles. Of the piers, those on the south which are lo/enge-shaped THK NORTH SIDK OF THE NAVK belong to the fifteenth-century work ; the rest of the work of the choir is of the twelfth century where the material is gritstone : in some cases, however, the twelfth-century grit- stone may have been reused in the work of 1290. To give more support to the tower, the north-east and south-west piers were cased ; the south-east pier was rebuilt, as well as the southern and eastern arches. To strengthen the eastern piers of the tower, the two western bays of the arcade of the choir were blocked up, and a massive choir- 282 KIPON CATHEDRAL screen was inserted c. 1480. To this period belong the magnificent stalls with tabernacled canopies, bench ends, elbow rests, and misericords unsurpassed in England. EIGHTH PERIOD. In the next century, 1503-1521, the canons unhappily determined to give their unique church more of the look of a cathedral by adding processional aisles to the nave. It is pleasant to add that they were unsuccessful. The nave is low in proportion to its exceptional span ; and being, moreover, unprovided with a triforium, does not look in the least like a cathedral, but like an ordinary parish church. Externally, the buttresses are of fine composition, and if the pinnacles were completed, the nave would be very handsome externally. Indeed all the details of the work are exceptionally good. It will be noticed that all the three west doorways opened into the old unaisled nave. The window above the font has a collection of fragments of fine early fourteenth-century glass. NINTH PERIOD. In 1593 the central spire of timber and lead was struck by lightning, and in 1660 it was removed. It was 120 ft. high. In 1664, for fear of a similar catastrophe, the western spires also were removed. The result is that, seen from a distance, minus spires and minus pinnacles, Ripon minster is somewhat stunted and squat. Nevertheless, seen from the railway the masses com- pose well ; and seen at a distance the cathedral holds its own and is a dominating feature in the landscape. ]->iui.io<;K.\rn v. Chapter Acts and Mcmonah of I\ifon Minster, edited by Rev. J. T. Fowler, D.C.L., for the Surtees Society: vols. 64, 74, 78, Si. Sir Gilbert Scott in Archaological Journal, vol. xxxi. Sir Gilbert Scott's Recollections. 1. R. Walbran's Guide Book. THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST. ANDREW, ROCHESTER BUILT FOR BENEDICTINE MONKS ROCHESTER and London, next to Canterbury, are the oldest of all the English bishoprics, unless we are prepared to aceept a pre-Augustine bishopric of Hereford. St. Augustine, soon after his landing in 597, came to preach at Rochester. His reception was not en- couraging ; the rude people hung fish-tails to his coat. Wherefore in anger the saint prayed " that the Lord would smite them in posteriora to their everlasting ignominy. So that not only on their own but on their successors' persons similar tails grew ever after." The worst of it was that the story spread, and not only Rochester people but all English folk were believed on the Continent to be caudati (tailed). So that even in the sixteenth century "an Englishman now cannot travel in another land by way of merchandise or any other honest occupying, but it is most contumeliously thrown in his teeth that all Englishmen have tails." Among St. Augustine's Italian missioners were St. Justus and St. Paulinus. St. Justus became first bishop of Rochester in 604. St. Paulinus, after eight years of mission work in Northumbria, became bishop of Rochester in 633. The first English bishop was Ythamar (644-655). Paulinus, Justus and Ythamar were the chief local saints of Rochester in early days. St. Augustine and his missioners had come from the monastery of St. Andrew, Rome. To St. Andrew, therefore, they dedicated the first Saxon cathedral. In 1542 the cathedral was re-dedicated to Christ and the Blessed Virgin 283 284 ROCHESTER CATHEDRAL Mary of Rochester. Till 1082 the cathedral was served by secular canons ; .Archbishop Lanfranc replaced them by Benedictine monks. FIRST PERIOD. In 1888 the foundations of an early church were found running towards the south-west ; its apse was beneath tile- north-west corner of the nave. It had neither aisles nor transepts ; the walls were only 2 ft. 4 in. thick ; it was 42 ft. long, 28 ft. broad. From the resem- blance of its plan to that of St. Pancras, Canterbury, and Re- culvers, especially in the possession of a chancel arch com- posed of a triple ar- cade, it would seem to be of seventh- century date ; in which case it is the identical church re- corded to have been built by King Kthel- bert of Kent. SKCOND PERIOD. Soon after 1082 a Norman cathedral was begun ; in this Gundulf received much aid from Lanfranc. ( lundtilf first built to the north a detached tower, the lower part of which remains. Being detached, and having walls 6 ft. thick, it was probably a military keep. Gundulf was fond of building keeps ; those of the Tower of 1 11]). Lawrence's Tom 2 ,, (ilanville's ,, q ,, Gundulph'.s ,, 4 ,. Inglethorpe's 5 ) Tombs of the 6 ; I.e Warner 7 ) Family 8 John De Sheppy 9 Walter De Mcrton 10 St. William 11 Bishop I, owe 12 Hamo De Ilythe 13 John De Bradfiek! 14 Lord John Hennike 15 Dame Henniker ROCHESTER CATHEDRAL 285 London and Mailing still exist. Rochester had suffered from attacks of the Danes, sailing up the Medway, in 840, 884, and 999. There was a striking memento of them on the great west doors of the cathedral, which Pepys, as late as 1661, found "covered with the skins of Danes." We may conjecture that it was as a refuge against similar attacks that Gundulf built the northern keep. But the tower was also used as a campanile as early as 1154. Of Gundulf's church there remain portions in the keep, the nave, the choir, and the crypt. The original monastery was built in the normal position, south of the nave. To enclose the cloister, there- fore, on the north, the south side of the nave would be pro- ceeded with first. The south aisle-wall is very thin and not intended to support a vault ; it extended west from the transept to about 9 ft. from the present west front. The six piers adjacent to what remains of the aisle-wall, are, like it, of tufa, but were afterwards cased up. The pier-arches are also Gundulf's, but the outer order on the side of the nave was replaced a little later by richer work. On the north side of the nave he seems to have built only the three bays westward of the transept ; these are marked by a rich string-course and two shafted pilasters on the aisle-wall. His presbytery, the present choir, was separated from the aisles by solid walls, as at St. Albans. There were tran- septs, but they had no eastern apses ; for to the east of the north transept is Gundulf's keep, and east of the south transept was a smaller engaged tower ; a fragment of tufa quoins remains in the south wall of the south choir aisle, west of the cloister doorway. Excavations in the crypt have shewn that the presbytery was square-ended, and that there projected centrally from it a small square eastern chapel. This plan is utterly different from either of the Anglo- Norman normal plans ; it is neither periapsidal, like Gloucester and Norwich, nor has three parallel eastern apses, like Durham; one suspects that it was a church the only large Norman church in England which followed Anglo-Saxon traditions of planning. The western part of the present crypt is Gundulf's. It has a groined vault, 286 ROCHESTER CATHEDRAL which retains the Norman plaster and the board-marks of the centering. There remain two detached shafts which are monoliths, and circular and rectangular responds of coursed tufa ; they have rude cushion capitals. ./ I THK XAVK. 1'ROM THF. F.AST THIRD PERIOD. The works on the church were now probably suspended for a considerable time, while the monks, as at Gloucester, replaced the temporary buildings of the monastery by permanent ones. These temporary wooden buildings seem to have been situated in the usual ROCHESTER CATHEDRAL 287 position viz., south of the nave. It was perhaps not to interfere with these that the permanent monastic buildings were placed in an abnormal position, south of the choir. Much of this work was done by Bishop Ernulph (1114- r 1 24), who had been a great builder at Canterbury, while prior, and afterwards at Peterborough, as abbot. Parts of his cloister, refectory, and chapter house remain at Rochester. When at length the builders returned to the nave of the cathedral (c. 1120), fashions had changed. Gundulph's eleventh-century design and his rough tufa masonry must have seemed archaic and barbaric. His tufa was therefore cased on the side of the nave with good Caen stone, as was done later in the century at Chichester ; his piers and capitals were remodelled, and on the side of the nave the outer square order of the pier-arch was covered with zigzag ornament. Then the north arcade of the nave was completed, the form of each pier being copied from the corresponding one in the south aisle ; the new piers were not built in tufa, but in ashlar ; the western bases have a " spur " of leafage, a sign of late date. The aisles, as at Hereford, where a precisely similar transformation of eleventh into twelfth century work was taking place at the same time, were left unaltered. Gundulph had placed shafted pilasters along the inner face of his north aisle- wall ; perhaps intending that the aisles should be vaulted ; but his successors apparently thought the walls too thin, as at Carlisle, to support a vault; so, instead of vaulting the aisles and obtaining thus a continuous chamber the whole length of the church, they constructed a passage in the thickness of the wall of the triforium. Thus Rochester has the distinction of possessing a sham triforium. Waltham abbey also has a triforium arcade, but no triforium floor; but that is because the vaults which originally covered the aisles were subsequently taken down. In the triforium passage of Rochester the arches are slightly pointed to get more head room. Still later about the middle of the twelfth century is tin' west front, with its magnificent doorway, and the diaper 288 ROCHESTER CATHEDRAL of the triforium. Originally the spandrils of the triforium arcade were open, as at Romsey ; afterwards they were filled up solid with diapered bloeks, which, where they did not fit the containing arch, may be seen to have been hacked to shape. Foundations for small western towers have been found, but, as at St. Albans, they were never carried up. In the south-west angle of the nave is a staircase-doorway with voluted caps. The west windows of the aisles have true tooth ornament. Taking the tooth ornament and the "spurs" of the western pier-bases into account, it is pro- bable that the nave was completed not before but after the dedication of 1 130. In this case what was dedicated would be the monastic part of the church westward up to the rood- screen, leaving the western bays of the nave unfinished. These bays were parochial and had the parochial altar of St. Nicholas backing on to the rood-screen. (In 1423 a church of St. Nicholas was built for the parishioners to the north of the cathedral, ff. Chester cathedral.) FOURTH PERIOD.- In 1179 the cathedral was greatly damaged by fire ; partly because of this, and, as at Canter- bury, partly because the eastern half of the cathedral had been planned inconveniently, the monks set to work to rebuild the eastern limb. First, they built to the east a new presbytery, and as they did not wish it to be at a low level like the eastern extension at Worcester, they had to extend the crypt eastward. In the centre of the presbytery, more to the west than its present position, they placed the High altar; the supports of its reredos may be seen in the crypt. Most of the vault is sexpartite, following the pre- cedent of Canterbury choir. The presbytery is admirably lighted, having no less than twenty-two windows. On the other hand, it is the only English cathedral destitute of a procession aisle round the High altar. Moreover, the presbytery has occupied the position usually filled by an eastern chapel. The loss of the chapel, however, was remedied by throwing out an eastern transept, with eastern aisles, each containing two altars. The aisles are vaulted : and above the vaults are chambers with external windows, so ROCHESTER CATHEDRAL 289 that there is no triforium arcade or clerestory. Nor is there a triforium chamber anywhere in the church. Another defect in the plan is the absence of provision for a feretory. The result was that St. William's shrine had to be placed in the northern arm of the eastern transept. (It was approached from the north choir aisle, the steps in the middle of which, now covered with wood to protect them, are deeply worn by the footsteps of pilgrims.) The presbytery, however, 19 290 ROCHESTER CATHEDRAL was spacious, and there was both a choir or matins altar in the crossing of the eastern transept and the High altar farther eastward. The presbytery was finished in 1214 or earlier, for in that year Bishop Granville was interred in it. His mutilated tomb is on the north of the presbytery in the third bay from the east. FIFTH PERIOD. The next task was to convert the western part of Gundulph's presbytery into a choir ; its internal walls were convenient as a backing for stalls, and so were retained. The supports of the desks of these stalls remain. The northern thrusts of the sexpartite vault of the choir were provided for by a flying buttress; but owing to the great width of the southern aisle and the presence of the cloister south of the aisle, all that could be done was to build a huge buttress inside the choir aisle ; it is close to the steps leading down to the crypt. The wall paintings in the choir, including the Wheel of Fortune, are c. 1345. The monks entered their new choir in 1227: but the eastern works cannot then have been finished, for the new eastern limb was not dedicated till 1240. SIXTH PERIOD. Next, the north arm of the central transept was built between 1240 and 1255, but not yet vaulted. On the east wall of its eastern recess was a Rood : the corbels which supported it are still there. SF.VKNTH PERIOD. Hitherto there had been no central tower. It was now determined to build one, and first the eastern and then the western piers of the crossing were carried up. At the same time, two bays of the ground story were rebuilt to some height ; a solid buttress, still existent, being set against the north-west pier of the crossing. Springers also for a vault were put up in the adjacent bays of the aisle. EIGHTH PERIOD. The south transept was next built, and the piers and arches of the crossing were completed. The north transept was then vaulted. NINTH PERIOD. Next, Gundulfs southern tower was removed, the space gained being thrown into the south choir aisle. The tower being removed, it was now possible ROCHESTER CATHEDRAL 291 to build the clerestory of the east wall of the south transept, and to vault the transept in wood. This practically brings to an end the Novmn Opus which, begun after the fire of 1179, must have occupied a whole century. The develop- ment of the window tracery in the sixth, eighth, and ninth periods is particularly worth study. What enabled the monks to undertake such a great work as the rebuilding of the cathedral, and why, after doing so much, they suddenly stopped, has now to be explained. What had brought wealth to Rochester was that in 1201 the monks acquired a new saint, St. William. " He was by birth a Scot, of Perth ; by trade, a baker ; in charity so abundant that he gave to the poor the tenth loaf of his workmanship ; in xeal so fervent that in vow he promised, and in deed attempted, to visit the places where Christ was conversant on earth ; in which journey he made Rochester his way, where, after that he had rested two or three days, he departed toward Canterbury. But ere he had gone far from the city, his servant a foundling who had been brought up by him out of charity led him of purpose out of the highway, and spoiled him both of his money and his life. The servant escaped, but his master (because he died in so holy a purpose of mind) was by the monks conveyed to St. Andrews and laid in the choir. And soon he wrought miracles plentifully." It was, then, from offerings at the shrine of St. William of Perth, left by countless pilgrims on their way to the shrine of a yet greater saint at Canterbury, that the expenses of the Novum Opus were paid. And it was probably because in the course of time the repute of the murdered baker paled and waned before the ever-growing fame of the martyred archbishop, that the monks had to renounce their ambitious project of rebuilding the whole of the nave. It seems, however, that for a considerable time they were unwilling to give up hope; for one bay of the Norman triforium was pulled down, leaving a gap, which was not filled up till the fourteenth century ; when it was rebuilt in the same Xorman style as before, but in greensand a rare medieval example of " architectural forger}'." 292 ROCIIESTKR CATHEDRAL TENTH PKRIOD. But though the rebuilding of the nave was definitely abandoned, a good deal of other work was done in the first half of the fourteenth century. Another story was added to the central tower, and in 1343 this was capped by a wooden spire. A solid stone screen was inserted between the piers; a grand doorway to the Chapter house was built ; its two principal figures represent the Christian FROM THE SOUTH-WEST and Jewish dispensations ; to the same work belong the windows on either side of it with flowing tracery. Then the north aisle of the choir was raised and vaulted : and traceried windows were substituted for lancets on either side of the presbytery. Later in the century come the sedilia (1373- 1389)- ELEVENTH PERIOD. The next step was to improve the lighting of the nave. Larger windows, with rectilinear ROCHESTER CATHEDRAL 293 tracery, were inserted in the aisles, and the clerestory was rebuilt and heightened, and consequently a new roof nearly flat, the present open timber roof, had to be put up ; also the great west window of the nave was built. And a nine- light window was inserted in the east wall of the presbytery ; this was restored away by Sir Gilbert Scott. TWELFTH PERIOD. In the sixteenth century the monks set to work to enlarge their Lady chapel. This was in the south transept, where the previous double bay had already been thrown into one bay to hold a central altar of Our Lady. Now the transept was prolonged three bays to the west. The extension was planned to have two central columns carrying a fan vault ; but the monks did not dare to erect it, because of the lack of abutment on the north side. THIRTEENTH PERIOD. In 1664 much of the south aisle of the nave was recased ; in 1670 it was found necessary to rebuild three bays of the north aisle ; vi/., the third, fourth, and fifth from the west front. In i 749 the upper part of the tower and the spire were rebuilt ; in 1830 they were taken down by Mr Cottingham, who built a new tower. A wooden spire has recently been put up from a design of Air ('. Hodgson Fowler, based on seventeenth-century prints. BiBi.iocKAi'HY. The history of this cathedral is loo complicated and perplexing to be more than summarised here : it is set forth in detail in Mr \V. II. St. John Hope's Cathedral Church and Monastery of S/. .-Indrcii', at Rochester. Mr Livetfs papers in recent volumes of the Archtzologia Canliana should also lie consulted. THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN BUILT FOR BENEDICTINE MONKS OF all our cathedrals none is so composite and hetero- geneous as the ancient church of the Benedictine abbey of St. Alban. Tt is mainly built --even the fourteenth-century Lady chapel of Roman tiles. Saxon balusters appear in the triforium of the transepts. In the nave and transepts and tower is Early Norman work, un- equalled in extent and scale ; in the south transept are built up the fragments of a Late Xorman doorway, to which period, 1151-1166, belongs the interlacing arcade now placed above it. In the west front and the western bays of the nave is early thirteenth-century work of two periods. In the sanctuary, ante-chapel, and Lady chapel the work went on almost uninterruptedly from c. 1250 tor. 1320. To the style of the first half of the fourteenth century belong the five eastern bays on the south side of the nave, the remains of the cloisters, the shrines of St. Alban and St. Amphibalus, and the Rood screen. This practically completed the abbey church structurally : but much im- portant minor work was added in later days up to the Dissolution. It included the alterations to the cloisters, the abbey gatehouse, the triforium windows on the north side of the nave and choir, inserted when the aisle roots were lowered, the watching loft, the chantries of the Duke of Gloucester and Abbot Wheathampstead, and the reredos and painted ceiling. Tudor work appears in the chapel of the Transfiguration, and in the admirable chantry of Abbot Ramryge : while the "Gothic revival '' is stamped on every feature of Lord Grimthorpe's facades to the west, north, and south. There is not a sinyle hiatus in the series. St. ST. ALBAXS CATHEDRAL MONUMENTS 295 PLAX 296 ST. ALBANS CATHEDRAL Albans is a veritable architectural handbook, written in brick and stone. The student should remember, however, that at St. Albans there is a good deal of what is called assimilation. The two groups of Gothic bays in the nave are not typical and characteristic of their respective periods. The architects of these bays had not a free hand. They were not able to compose the design simply to suit the fashion of the clay. The design was to be brought up to date only so far as might be without ruining the general appearance and proportions of the nave as a whole. With FROM THE NORTH-WEST, SHOWING THK WEST FRONT HEFORE RESTORATION these reservations, the tyro in architecture is recommended to select St. Albans as his "Introduction to Medieval Architecture." If he comes from London, he should choose the longer route, by the London and Xorth-Western Railway : he will have less distance to walk on arriving, and will see the cathedral from the most picturesque point of view. If time permits, he may proceed direct from the railway station to Verulamium, and see the Roman walls and fosse, and the interesting church of St. Michael's, with the famous monument of Lord Baron, before visiting the cathedral. ST. ALBANS CATHEDRAL 297 In Roman times the city was on the other side of the little river, the Yer, a tributary of the Colne, and hence was called Yerulamium. In the revolt of Boadicea it was burnt, but \vas soon rebuilt. In the year 303, "there was gret persecution of Christen pepell by the tyrant Diocletian"; and Alban, a citizen of Yerulamium, who had given shelter to a Welsh priest, Amphibalus, was scourged, and then dragged along the ancient British causeway, which still exists, across the Yer, and up the lane to the top of the hill afterwards called Holmhurst, and there put to death. Amphibalus suffered the same fate. On the west wall ot the north transept of the cathedral, just under a round- headed window, is a small black cross cut in stone. " This murks the traditional site of the martyrdom of St. Alban, when there was neither town nor abbey in this place, but only a flowery slope planted with trees."' In the fifth century the English conquered the district. They abandoned Yerulamium, perhaps because it was not on the main road, and built the present town on the hill of Holmhurst, calling it Watlingceaster, as Watling Street ran through it. In the year 793, Offa, King of Mercia, treacherously murdered 298 ST. ALBANS CATIIKDRAL Ethelbert, King of East Anglia. It was revealed to him in a vision that, by way of penance, he should seek out the body of St. Alban, and there erect a monastery. King, arch- bishop, bishops, priests, and a great multitude of common people searched the hill of Holmhurst, and found the relics of the martyr. A church was built, and richly endowed, and was entrusted to Benedictine monks. It remained a Benedictine abbey church till the Dissolution, in 1539. Then it became a parish church, and in 1875 ;i cathedral. The relics of St. Alban had an eventful history. First they were carried off by pirates to Denmark, but were afterwards restored. Then, in expectation of another Danish raid, the}' were sent for safety to Ely. When the Danes had gone, the monks of Ely, being desirous to keep the precious bones in their possession, palmed on the monks of St. Albans some supposititious relics. Where- upon the monks of St. Albans asserted that neither had they sent to Ely the genuine relics, but only sham ones, to draw attention away from the fact that they had hidden the authentic bones of the martyr in a hole in the wall of their own church ! '' Crcdat [udcciis Apelles" Towards the end of the eleventh century Nicholas Breakspear was born at Abbots Langley, in Hertfordshire. He applied to the abbey of St. Alban to be admitted a monk, but was scornfully rejected, and rebuked for his impudence, being, as he was, son of one of the menials of the convent. This same man became Pope in i i ^4 the only Englishman who ever became Pope. And when he became Pope, under the title of Adrian IV., he forgot not the monks of St. Albans, but forgave them, and made their monastery free of episcopal jurisdiction for ever, and subject only to the see of Rome. And to the abbot he gave precedence over all other English abbots ; which precedency, after much dispute with Westminster, St. Albans retained till the 1 )issolution. In 1455 was fought the first battle of St. Albans, when Henry AT. was wounded in the neck by an arrow, and made prisoner by the Yorkists under the Earl of Warwick. ST. ALBANS CATHKDKAL 299 The forces met in Holywell Street between the Key and Chequer. In the second battle, 1461, the Earl of Warwick was defeated by Queen Margaret. St. Albans was an exceedingly wealthy abbey ; it had estates in almost every county in England, and at the present value of money its income would amount to at least a million. Its conventual buildings must have been immense. One of the guest halls, in addition to parlours and bedrooms, had stables for three hundred horses. Of all these vast structures nothing remains but one of the gatehouses, built f. 1380. In it were detained the French prisoners in the Napoleonic wars ; afterwards it became a common gaol : now it houses the Grammar School. In visiting the church, the first thing to be done is to walk the whole length of it from west to east, inspecting successively the seven divisions now to be described. Internally, it is divided from west to east, in ancient monastic fashion, into (i) nave, (2) choir, (3) sanctuary, (4) Chapel of St. Alban, (5) Chapel of St. Amphibalus, (6) processional path or ambulatory, (7) Lady chapel. Only at Winchester can the ritualistic arrangements of a monastic or cathedral church be studied so easily and clearly, (i) 'The ritual nave occupies the ten western bays only of the architectural nave, and terminates at the Rood screen. (2) The ritual choir is not placed in the eastern limb ; but, following a more ancient precedent, in the three eastern bays of the architectural nave, and in the crossing (that part of the transept which is beneath the central tower). This was the place of the choir in the primitive basilicas, and in the early monastic churches. The " Coro " of the Spanish cathedrals is still placed in the nave. The same arrangement survives in this country in Westminster abbey and Norwich, and has lately been restored at Peterborough. Of this space the stalls occupied the eastern part, extending up to the eastern arch of the tower ; in the western part of it there was a choir screen, against which the stalls were returned, i.e., backed. Between this choir screen and the existing rood screen there would be room for a couple of altars, one 3OO ST. ALBANS CATHEDRAL on cither side of the central doorway of the choir screen. (3) The sanctuary extends from the tower to the great reredos, and provided a free space in front of the High altar. It is so long that it probably also contained, as at West- minster, a "matins" or "choir altar'' placed about the centre of it. The sanctuary, with its two altars, seems to have been separated from the choir, as at St. David's, by a light wooden screen ; the end of the upper portion of this screen remains imbedded in the centre of the southern pier of the tower. (4) The Saint's Chapel proper, that of the patron saint, was occupied, as at Westminster, by a shrine resting upon a stone pedestal (lately replaced); at West- minster the shrine or coffer contains to this day the body of St. Edward Confessor, here it contained that of St. Alban. Till the great reredos of the High altar was erected, the shrine of St. Alban would be seen all the way down the sanctuary and choir, towering up above the High altar. (5) In the next bay to the east- that on the other side of the three eastern arches of St. Al ban's chapel the shrine of St. Amphibalus was placed by Abbot de la Mare (1349- 1396). (6) The next bay eastward provided a processional path, or ambulatory, or eastern choir aisle at the back of the shrines, (7) The Lady chapel possesses the unusual feature ot a small vestibule, for two small lateral altars. At St. Albans it occupies the normal portion of a Lady chapel, vi/., the extreme east. Where there was no room for further eastward extension of the cathedral, the Lady chapel may be found on the north or south side of the choir, as at Bristol and Oxford. Here, as at Salisbury and Winchester, the high roofs do not extend over the easternmost of the ritualistic divisions of the church ; at York, Lincoln, and Ely the church retains its full height uninterruptedly to the extreme east end ; the ritualistic divisions of the church were there marked by screens only. In Norman times the church did not extend so far east- ward. The sanctuary ended in three semicircular apses, of which those of the aisles were semicircular inside but square outside, as at Romsey. And, in lieu of eastern aisles, the ST. ALLANS CATHEDRAL 3 OI transepts had each a pair of semicircular chapels, the arches leading into which may still be seen in their eastern walls ; excavations shew that the inner of each pair was much longer than the other. FIRST PKRIOD. We now retrace our steps to the clioir and examine the N o r m a n masonry above the new stalls. " In 1077, Paul, a monk of St. Stephen's, ( laen (the Abbaye-aux- Ho mines), was elected Abbot, through the in- fluence of Arch- bishop Lanfranc, whose kinsman he was." In these words we have the origin of St. Al- bans cathedral ; and not of St. Albans only, but of all the mediaeval architecture of our land, whether Romanesque or (Jot hie. Before the Norman con- quest we had a native style of our own : a kind of primitive Romanesque, of which remains survive at Jarrow, Wing. Worth, Deerhurst, and elsewhere, as well as in the crypts of Ripon, Hexham, and Repton. IUit the invasion of the Normans changed all this. The primitive indigenous 302 ST. ALBANS CATHEDRAL Romanesque of England was thrown aside in favour of the far more advanced Romanesque of Normandy. From the great monastery of St. Stephen, Caen, came Lanfranc, the first, and Ansel m, the second Norman Arch- bishop of Canterbury. When Lanfranc set to work to rebuild Canterbury cathedral, he made it in length and breadth and height an exact copy of the church of St. Stephen, Caen. What Lanfranc did at Canterbury, the Walkelins did at Winchester and Ely, and Abbot Paul at St. Albans. They set to work to rebuild the English minsters after the manner of the abbey churches of Normandy, especially St. Stephen's, Caen, and Cerisy-la- Foret ; these churches are the chief links between the eleventh-century architecture of Normandy and the eleventh and twelfth-century architecture of England. But though in origin Winchester, Ely, St. Albans, and the rest hail from Normandy, they all far surpass their models in vastness of scale. Winchester and Ely even committed the magnificent extravagance of having a western as well as an eastern aisle to the transepts : and though St. Albans, like Canterbury, had an aisleless transept, yet its nave was set out on the same gigantic scale as the naves of the Norman churches of Winchester, Old St. Paul's, Bury St. Edmund's, Peterborough, Ely, and Norwich. In the thirteenth century three more bays were added to the nave, making the nave 292 ft. long and the whole church about 430 ft. long, while the transepts had a length of 177 ft. In the fourteenth century, owing to the eastward extensions, St. Albans became longer still 520 ft. inside, 550 ft. outside. (Winchester is even longer still: 2 yds. longer than St. Albans : 3 yds. longer than Ely : 4 yds. longer than Canterbury.) Of the work of Paul of Caen ([077-1093), we have the cen- tral tower and transept practically complete, and large portions of the nave and sanctuary. The design is strictly conditioned by the material, Roman tiles ; in consequence of the employ- ment of which the architect was driven to rely for his effects, not on ornament or detail, but on what is nobler far, vastness of scale. It is worth while to compare the ST. ALBANS CATHEDRAL 303 tile transept of St. Albans with the contemporary transept of Winchester, where the design is conditioned by the use of stone. The masonry consists mainly of tiles, with a large amount of flint and some stone brought from Veru- lamium ; nearly all the tiles are 16 by 12 in., and i| in. thick ; the joints are nearly as thick as the tiles, and cement rather than mortar was employed. All wall surfaces, both internal and external, including those of the tower, were cemented over, and no doubt the cement was whitewashed ; when finished, the whole church would be white as snow, both within and without ; the flint and tile work was not intended to be visible. Simple decorations were painted on the surfaces of the internal piers and arches, and have recently been restored. On the nave piers are remains of reredoses painted above altars which must have stood against the west side of the piers ; those on the west faces of the piers are of the thirteenth century, those on the south are of .,.,. TRIFORIUM OI , snrTH the fourteenth. Internally TKANSKI-T the Norman church was divided into three stories nearly equal in height; in each bay of the triforium was a single open arch, and another in the clerestory, rather taller. The piers are compound, and the arches are semicircular and have three narrow recessed orders or sub-arches : instead of capitals, they rest on plain imposts. This rude work extends far down the nave on the north. If now we pass from the choir into the soiitli ui$h\ we see overhead some of the original groined, i.e., unribbed, vault 304 ST. ALHAXS CATIIKDRAL ing, of rubble. In the triforium of the south transept, hard by. the balusters are Anglo-Saxon, provided with additional Norman capitals. Below the balustered stage are seen blocked arches, which led to two apses now gone. The Norman church is said to have been finished in ro88, but it was not consecrated till i i 10 : what was finished in 1088 probably was the eastern part the Norman Choir screen. SECOND PERIOD. To the second half of the twelfth century belongs the fine arcade and doorway removed from the slype, i.e., the passage on the other side of the doorway, to the south wall of the south transept by Lord Grimthorpe. He is good enough to tell us that the new work which he has interpolated in it is so artful that no archaeologist in ST. ALBANS CATHEDRAL 305 future shall be able to ascertain which portions are old and which are new. THIRD PERIOD. We now walk down the nave and out into the open air by one of the western doorways. Vast as was the Norman nave, it was still not enough in the eyes of the thirteenth-century builders. It was resolved to add three bays to it, and to put up a fine west front, which, after the manner of Bury, Peterborough, Lincoln, and Wells, was to have flanking towers. They began at the west end of THE CHOIR TKIFORIUM, SOUTH SIDE the nave. First, John de Cella in 1198 proceeded to build a new west front on a lovely design, and with a wealth of costly marble and carving. Of this work there remain portions in the north-west and central porches of the facade. FOURTH PERIOD. We now return into the church and look at the westernmost bays on each side of the nave. John de Cella's successor, William de Trumpington, was more economical, and produced more work. He completed 20 306 ST. ALIiAXS CATHEDRAL the porches, and built in the western end of the nai ] e four bays on the north and five bays on the south side. It can still be seen how he economised, not only on John de Cella's design, in the arch that was to have led into a south- western tower, but on the design of his own bases, piers, and vaulting-shafts, leaving places for marble shafts which he never put in : he even renounced thc l of v;lult - work at ali We now pass up the nave to the sanctuary, where the next work was done. The nave was now com- pleted, but it is recorded that the eastern part of the church had be- come ruinous. It is difficult to see- how that could be- considering the enormous mas- si vencs> of tile- walls, unless, in- deed, the sanctu- ary had a high vault against whose thrusts adequate abutment had not been provided. Anyhow, the Xorman apse was demolished, and all of the side walls of the sanctuary except the ground story : if these had been removed the tower might have collapsed. Note the coloured altar-piece in high relief by Mr Alfred Gilbert : in which is represented the Resur- rection in a hiifhlv original wav. ST. ALP.ANS CATHEDRAL 307 Soon after, the lower parts of the Saint's chapel and the eastern chapels were built ; these were not completely finished till c. 1315. There, too, "vaulting ambition had o'erleapt itself": the monks made preparations for a stone vault inside, the springers of vault ribs are to be seen, outside, the places where the flying buttresses were to have been inserted in the wall but in the end they put up a flat wooden ceiling, recently repainted. SIXTH PERIOD. Passing on into the Lady chapel, we see the last of the eastern extensions. Begun c. 1300, it was ready for glazing in 1308. Notice the tracery of the windows and the trails of ball-flower in their jambs ; also the admirable leaf- carving, de- signed and exe- cuted by Mr John Baker, an epitome 1 of local botany. SEVENTH PERIOD. The monks had now done all they meant to do. The eastern limb was re- built. They meant to do no more in the nave. But their hands were forced. In 1323 five Norman bays collapsed on the south side of the nave, and the monks had perforce to rebuild them. And as the walls fell on the cloister, that had to be rebuilt also, as may be seen outside. The design of the new bays of the nave is closely assimilated to that of the thirteenth- century bays to the west; the clerestory actually having lancet windows without tracery; but the tooth ornament is replaced by the ball-flower. EIGHTH PERIOD. The rest consists of minor work, but of the greatest importance and interest. Pass once more eastwards towards the Lady chapel, and turn to the left THK WATCIIIM; LOFT 3 o8 ST. ALRANS CATHEDRAL into the north choir aisle, (i) Here have been put together fragments of the shrine pedestal of Si. Ainphibalus, c. 1350. (2) A little further west, on the left, is the back of the Watching Loft, with delicate carving of the " Months.'' (3) Passing into the Saint's chapel, in the centre is the shrine pedestal of St. Allmn, c. 1308. (4) Its treasures were watched by monks stationed in the upper floor of the oak Watch- ing Loft, in the lower part of which are cup- boards for relics (1420). (5) Op- posite is t h e ni o n u m e n t of Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, with the original palisades (1447). Returning to the south aisle, a few steps to the right is the immense brass, not in situ, executed in Flan- ders, of Abbot de la jMare ( 1396). Then entering the sanctuary again, on the south is tlie chantry chapel, which, from the presence of wheat ears in a shield, has usually been attributed to Abbot Wheathamstead : it is, however, that of Abbot William of Wallingford, who erected the great rereclos, where also a shield with wheat ears occurs ; on the north is that of Abbot Ramryge rams with RYGE on the collar. ST. ALBANS CATHEDRAL 309 The great reredos to the east was put up between 1476 and 1484. The fine stalls in the choir are by Mr J. O. Scott. The visit ends with the pretty seventeenth-century bread cupboards affixed to the west wall of the south transept. In recent times vast sums have been spent in under- pinning and securing the walls and tower ; and we have had a commonplace west front and atrocious transept ends designed by Lord Grimthorpe. Bim.ior.RAi'ilY. Messrs Buckler. History of the Archilcftnre oj Saint A I bans. Xeale's St. Albans. Ciiiidc Hook by Sir Edmund Beckett. Paper by Mr John Chappie, Clerk of the Works, in Si. A lban Air/n't, and Archaol. Soaely, January 1874. ]'ii~toria Count v History of Hertfordshire, vol. ii. p. 483. FROM THE RIVKR THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST. MARY, SALISBURY Uuii/r FOR SF.CUI.AR (CANONS TWO English cathedrals surpass all others in external effect : Lincoln and Salisbury : each of them at its best as seen from the north-east. But Lincoln lacks "the quiet tranquillity of the close of Salisbury, the half- hidden houses, covered with vine and creepers, that nestle among the trees, the sense of being shut off from the work-a-day world. If Durham seems the petrified inter- pretation of the Church militant, Salisbury is the very type and picture of the Church of the Prince of Peace. Un- worldliness and peace brood over church and close.''" The ancient Norman cathedral stood within the fortifica- tions of Old Sarum. The site was cramped, and extension was impossible ; there was too much wind and too little water: moreover, the soldiers who garrisoned the castle were objectionable neighbours. So. by permission of the SALISBURY CATHEDRAL OF HefZEFO&D tV/LTON oe CAPON f53 f JOCCL/M I&.BQY BISHOf* 17. 2~ #&. or ~ 7 5/K K/CH/U3D MOMPESSON 8. 8? Ml TFOK.D 9 /sr AieL OF /a. JOHN /a y/s?t- rets /- 20. f/ff JOHM C 21 B* BL.Y THE IVOODI//LLE 23 THOS 8 EN MET 24- BPtfUOLEYS CHAtJTBY 25 B Z6 S/fS THOS 20 30 SCALE or- METK.EK PLAN 312 SALISBURY CATHEDRAL Pope, Bishop Richard Poore in 1220 commenced a new cathedral on the present site. It was a virgin site : and from this fact resulted a cathedral different from any other in England, and as a study in design more important than any other we possess. In other cathedrals we study the mediaeval architect designing under difficulties ; what we see in such a composite cathedral as Hereford or Chichester or Rochester is not one design, but half a dozen designs trying to blend into one design ; sometimes, as at Canterbury and Rochester, rather ineffectually, sometimes, as at Heverley and Westminster, with remarkable success. At Salisbury it is not so : the design is one design : all sprang from a single brain, except the west front and the upper SALISBURY CATHEDRAL 313 part of tower and spire. We have no such homogeneous design in our mediaeval cathedrals. The French were less conservative ; their Gothic architects were iconoclasts ; no French architect could have allowed such solecisms to remain as disfigure the English cathedrals to the purist eye, and endear them to the artist. TIIK CHOIR, I.OOKINC KAST Bishop 1'oore's architect had what no other of our Gothic architects had -a free hand. Salisbury, then, tells us what no other cathedral does- what an English architect thought a cathedral ought to be like, when not hampered by having to preserve or assimilate pre-existing work or to build on pre-existing foundations. Canterbury nave is not 314 SALISBURY CATHEDRAL the best the architect could do : it is the best he could do subject to the restriction that his nave must be neither longer nor broader than Lanfranc's ancient nave. Here there were no such restrictions; the cathedral was to be built in the green pastures, and there was plenty of room. It has the distinction among our cathedrals of having a design which is practically uniform. It is said, indeed, and with perfect truth, that the homogeneity and uniformity of the design of Salisbury makes it less interesting than the usual composite cathedral of England, with its design changing, as in Binham and Selby naves, almost in every bay. When we have seen one bay of Salisbury nave, we have seen the other nine, and we know that we shall find practically the same design in the choir. Vet we can afford very well, in England, to have one great design, the product not of a do/en minds, but of one mind ; a work completed in less than half a century, and not spread out, like Canterbury, over four centuries, or like Hereford, over seven. Again, building on a virgin site, the architect did what all great builders have always wished to do he made his build- ing symmetrical. It is the fashion to contrast the symmetry of Greek with the picturesqueness of (iothic architecture. The comparison may be carried too far. The Erech- theum is as unsymmetrical and picturesque as any (iothic building. The great cathedrals of northern France, and Salisbury and Exeter, are (mite classical in their symmetry. But they are not pedantic in their symmetry. Because nave balances choir, the north transept the south transept, and the north-east transept the south-east transept, the builder was not so foolish as to construct on the south a big porch to balance that on the north side of the nave. Instead ot that, he built to the south an octagonal Chapter house, and this he placed unsymmetrically i.e., picturesquely because, so placed, it was more to the convenience of those who would have to use it. In other words, he did not purpose- fully aim at the picturesque and the irregular. Gothic cathedrals are picturesque, either of accident, as at Canter- bun', owing to the casual collocation of work of different SALISBURY CATHEDRAL 315 316 SALISBURY CATHEDRAL design in the course of several centuries, or because the different parts of the cathedral, being intended for different functions, have been designed different in plan, in dimen- sions, and in details. The latter is the case with Salisbury. Two chief types of cathedral plan were at the architect's disposal : what we may call the York type, and the Wells type. In the latter, the cathedral continues at full height from the western doors to the far east of the presbytery ; then the retro-presbytery (sometimes divided into Saint's chapel and procession path or ambulatory) is roofed at a lower level, and east of it is a Lady chapel, similarly on a low level. And, of course, as the upper wall of the east end of the sanctuary requires to be supported, arches have to be built beneath it opening from the sanctuary into the retro-presbytery. The plan is a beautiful one it is our English equivalent for the " chevets " of northern France. Externally, the different portions of the eastern limb tell distinctly the purposes for which they are built : standing to the east of Winchester, or Wells, or Hereford, you say at once, ''This building is the Lady chapel; there is the pro- cession path and probably the shrine of the local saint. there is the east end of the sanctuary, and the light from that east window at the early morning services streams down on the High altar below.'" Internally, too, the effect is delightful : the upper story of the cathedral is, of course, really greatly curtailed in length, but the interior is not shortened to the eye : the mysterious vistas through the east arches of the presbytery more than restore the height lost above : the glimpses of Lady chapel behind ambulator}-, and ambulatory behind Saint's chapel, as seen from far west in the nave, make the termination of the Lady chapel, invisible from many points of view, seem infinitely distant. Of these mysterious distances, shadowy recesses and chang- ing vistas, there is nothing in such an interior as that of York: the whole eastern limb is seen at a single glance, and, unfortunately, is foreshortened by the eye. Salisbury internally looks longer than it is, York much shorter. In mediaeval davs. however, the ritualistic divisions of churches SALISBURY CATHEDRAL 317 were marked off by a series of screens, each adding apparent length to the interior. So many of these screens, however, have been swept away by Wyatt, Scott, and the like, or replaced by paltry open work, as at Lichfield and Durham, that many cathedrals are now mere open barns ; all sense of mystery, all sense of magnitude gone. Externally, York, Lincoln, and Ely have the best of it. The sweep of a sky- line, 500 ft. in length, at a height so vast, is sublimely impressive. The cost of an exterior kept at an unbroken height for such a distance is very great, but it is worth the cost. Cathedrals of the latter type are quite presentable with a central tower of moderate height, provided that it is rein- forced by more important towers to the west. An exterior of the former type, that of Wells and Salisbury, demands an important central tower. Accordingly, every cathedral of this type has a big central tower, vi/., Gloucester, St. Albans, St. 1 )avid's, Wells ; Exeter has two central towers ; Chichester and Hereford had both central tower and spire. (Winchester is an exception which proves how much a lofty central tower is needed.) In such exteriors, looked at from the east, hills rise beyond hills, alps beyond alps, and the eye instinctively looks up to see the highest ranges aspire into the pyramidal outline of a Matterhorn. And this is what is given us at Salisbury. It is not, however, what the original architect meant. No spire, or even upper tower, says Sir Christopher Wren, was originally contemplated, any more than at Westminster. The slenderness of the piers of the crossing is certain evidence of that. The diameter of the piers on which the central tower of Canterbury rests is 12 ft.; those at York. Norwich, and Winchester have a diameter of 10 ft.; those at Worcester 9 ft.; those of Peterborough tower (which collapsed) and of Salisbury, 7 ft. only. It is almost terrible to stand between these four slight piers of Salisbury and think how many hundred tons of stone in tower and spire above they have been made to bear. They were never meant to bear any such weight, especially planted as they SALISBURY CATHEDRAL are, like tin.; whole cathedral, on the insecure foundation of a spongy hog. Indeed, not merely the tower and spire, but the whole cathedral, ought never to have been built where they are. Recklessness is by no means a strong enough word to use of the mediaeval builders' wanton carelessness about foundations. Peterborough cathedral was built practically without foundations on water-logged peat; beneath the central tower of Carlisle cathedral were two running springs ; Wells is reared on the boggy shores of a ring of pools. ''Salisbury," a local saying goes, "is the sink of Wiltshire, and the cathedral close is the sink of Salisbury."' In the cathedral continuous bases are built from pier to pier. The original de- sign, no doubt, was to give us an exterior something like that of Bever- ley minster or Westminster ab- be}-. The whole elevation of the cathedral. how- ever, clamoured for a tall tower and spire. M he first design was abandoned, and the foolhardy en- terprise was taken in hand (c. 1320) of adding to the existing tower, which only just rose above the roofs, two more stages, and on these a spire, and that not of wood, but of stone. To abut the tower as much as possible, great flying buttresses were added, some external, others running through SALISBURY CATHEDRAL 319 the clerestory and triiorium of the interior of the church. Moreover, to lessen the weight, the tower walls were built in thin shells ; while the spire, which for 20 ft. is 24 in. thick, is reduced thenceforth to 9 in. That the builders left their timber scaffolding in the spire, where it still is, to give its sides a little additional support against wind pressure, shews that they were alive themselves to the fragility and insecurity of their work. Later on, in the fifteenth century, stone girders were put across the piers of the central and eastern transepts, as at Canterbury and Wells, by way of struts, to keep the piers from bulging inwardly, though, as a matter of fact, ties were wanted quite as much to keep them from bulging outwardly. Externally, however, the madness of this engineering feat does not trouble one. The addition of the tower and spire gives to the whole composition that pyramidal outline which always presents such a satisfactory appearance of stability to the eye. In Wren's masterpiece, St. Paul's, one has tlie same central pyramidal outline of all the masses, but in a still higher degree. In both cases, in St. Paul's and in Salisbury, unity is secured. Salisbury spire is tall enough, St. Paul's dome is tall and broad enough, to impose unity on all the diverging masses of the building. The low towers of Worcester and Hereford have no such supreme dominance. Next to the abiding presence of the spire, unity is secured by scoring strong, horizontal lines round the building, welding its masses into one composition. Most cathedrals are contented, like Wells, with one strong hori/ontal line a broad parapet. l>ut at Salisbury there is not only a horizontal parapet, but a hori/ontal corbel table as we'll : and there are no less than three horizontal strings one running round the base ot the walls, a second running along beneath the windows, and a third running round the buttresses ; moreover, each ot these hori/ontal lines is scored far more heavily than anywhere else. Especially remarkable is it to find the upper flow of the buttresses stopped by a 32O SALISBURY CATHEDRAL heavy string. Equally strong is the determination to keep in check the vertical lines of the interior. Bold string- courses, above and beneath the triforium, emphasise the horizontal lines of the whole church, from west to east, from north to south ; nor are the vaulting-shafts allowed to descend to the floor story ; so that the pier-arcade of the nave is tied by the string-courses to the west front of the tower, and not to the vault above. How gladly would he have tied together the bays of his vault by a horizontal ridge-rib ; but this the Lincoln folk had not invented when Salisbury was set (nit. Usually, in Gothic, if a horizontal meets a vertical line, the former gives way ; here, as in Greek architecture, the vertical gives way to the horizontal line. This architect saw, what few others of his day saw, that you may make too much of the '''aspiring principle" of Gothic ; that if you suppress the horizontal lines, you weaken the unity of the building, by failing to tie all its parts together. As we have seen, the appearance of stability was enhanced by the pyramidal outline which the whole building ultimately assumed. But the eye instinctively looks downwards also to see that the pyramidal outline is continued there : it instinctively demands an emphatic spreading base. It likes to see a rock-like foundation. At Salisbury all below is but greensward. All the more carefully, therefore, has the builder spread out and broadened and emphasised his base- courses, till art gives the appearance of stability which nature had denied. Stable, therefore, below and above, the exterior of Salis- bury has much of that "monumental appearance, stability, and indeterminate duration " which is the attribute of a great architecture, which one desiderates in a building "built not for time, but for eternity, whose walls will long be washed by the passing waves of humanity." Such a building gravity and simplicity befit : its design should be solid and monumental, sober and restrained : it is not a field for the frippery of ornament : its best decoration is the stain of time. Built for eternity, it should suggest infinity SALISBURY CATIIKDKAL 321 an infinite length which the eye cannot measure, an infinite height which the eye cannot estimate, a vastness of area that overpowers the imagination. Bigness counts for much in the painter's work and the sculptor's ; it counts for yet more in architecture. A building in the grand style has to be big, and if it is a Gothic building it has to look bigger still. Salisbury is really big : it is 473 ft. long, its spire is 404 ft. high, its vaulted roof, 84 ft. high, is the highest of any English cathedral. But the eye does not measure in feet. Salisbury spire and Louth spire, acute and slender, look hundreds of feet above their real height ; Oxford and Chichester spires look lower than they really are. As for length, follow the wall of Salisbury from east to west. As you pass round cape and headland and promontory, you forget the point from which you started, or the goal for which you are bound. How foreshortened in comparison is the long facade of Pitti Palace ! As for area, in all honesty Mr YVhittington gravely declared that Salisbury was "a much larger church altogether than Amiens." The error was natural. Amiens has fewer parts than Salisbury, and necessarily seems smaller. Going round Salisbury we pass no less than seven facades, at Amiens only three. There are thirty-nine bays in Amiens ; in Salisbury there are sixty. As usual, multiplicity of parts produces apparent increase of magnitude. Much of the impressivcness of the exterior is due, not only to its grandeur of scale, both real and apparent, but to the lovely hue of the stone of which it is built, and the perfection of the masonry. At first sight the appearance of the masonry of Salisbury is almost uncanny. Salisbury is not mouldered or corroded with age. "Time prints no wrinkles on its brow/'' Its antiquity is that of a goddess ever young. The masonry, too, is that of a Greek temple: the precision that of the builders of the Parthenon ; the joints fine ; the blocks squared with mathematical precision ; pass round the building from south transept eastward to north transept, and you will find that the stones in each course preserve their height with utmost exactness all these 21 322 SALISUUKV CATIIKDRAL hundreds of feet. And so the building has the feeling of Greece in it. Gothic is a "small-stone" style, with joints openly displayed. Here, as in a Parthenon, the joints are practically invisible; the whole building seems one solid block a monumental effect indeed. The crumbling masonry of Ely might belong to the ancient days of Saturn ; Salisbury seems the work of a younger race of gods. Only when we scan its colour the lovely colour of the Salisbury stone, that is seen nowhere else "a pale, ashy grey, stained below with broad patches of red and yellow lichens " do we realise that this is no temple of yesterday, but one that has faced the stress of storm for more than six centuries. Her perpetual juvenility is at once the charm and the dis- appointment of Salisbury. Very noteworthy, also, are the sobriety and restraint and repose of the whole design : very ungothic, too. At first it passes unnoticed ; after a time it is noticed and noticed with astonishment that the beauty of a design of con- summate loveliness is gained in some mysterious way with hardly any use of ornament. One realises at Salisbury perhaps for the first time that ornament is non-essential even in Gothic design. What ornament there is is of the slightest a floriated finial to a buttress, a trefoiled corbel- table, a few foliated capitals round the High altar; the design would be little the worse if even this trifling amount of decoration were omitted. The success of the exterior of Salisbury depends, not on the littlenesses of architectural design, but on the great leading factors of every great style vastness of scale, yet further enhanced to the eye by multiplicity of parts : bold handling of the masses, combined nevertheless into a symmetrical whole : unity, harmony, proportion, shadow- effects. Beside these elemental factors, sculptured ornament is but "mint and cummin." Straighten out Salisbury cathedral in imagination, till Lady chapel and retro-choir and eastern transepts and choir and central transepts and nave are all in one long straight line. Then let it resume its shape, and you will see what SALISBURY CATIIKDRAL 323 is meant by " bold handling of the masses," and the differ- ence it makes. Nevertheless, don't go away with the idea that the lines of Salisbury cathedral were pulled about in this way for picturesqueness' sake for the sake of effect. The Gothic architects pace Peterborough west front did not design for effect. All the parts of the building are there either for some constructional or for some ritualistic reason. A central tower weights the piers of the crossing in the same fashion as pinnacles do buttresses ; a big central tower will not stand without abutment to the north and south ; there- fore there has to be a central transept. The long stretch of clerestory wall which in the church as first built had no external flying buttresses will be all the better for the support of two transepts and a lofty porch : they are added. Transepts, moreover, were useful in providing chapel-room lor various great saints of Christendom, as well as for the local saints of the cathedral, and they provided altars where each of the forty-two canons should say his daily Mass. The porch is useful as providing neutral ground for various functions half religious, half secular ; the porch is added. And so with the Chapter house. Every one of the appanages which make a Gothic exterior so picturesque was built, not because it would be picturesque, but because it would be useful. The one exception is the spire. And see what pits and abysses of shadow lurk behind each projecting buttress, and still more in each dee}) sound that runs inland, like some Norwegian fiord, between towering precipices on either side. Hut these grand shadow-effects varying from minute to minute as the sun moves round varying from day to day as summer treads on spring, autumn on summer -were not in the designer's first intent. The projecting masses had to be there : the play of light and shadow which ensued, he did not plan ; he only welcomed it. lie had little control over it ; in the windows, indeed, which were within his control, he made the jambs so shallow that the windows are externally almost shadowless ; almost the whole depth of the window he gave to the interior, pre- ferring to enrich the interior of each window with an inner 324 SALISBURY CATI1KDRAL arciiclc feeling, doubtless, that he need do nothing externally to add to the shadow-effects of the projecting buttresses. But the life-blood of an architectural design is proportion. Unfortunately one never notices its presence. Only when a building is out of proportion does one recognise that such a thing as proportion exists. And as it is the most subtle, so it is the most important factor in design design small or large Salisbury cathedral, the Pandolphmi Palace, a Chippendale chair, or a Wedgewood vase. Alter the shape of the vase, and see the difference. In the same way, see if you can lengthen or shorten Salisbury nave for the better, or the transepts, or the porch, or the Lady chapel ; or if you could heighten the Lady chapel or retro-choir to advantage ; or if you could make the roofs an inch more acute or more flat. The proportions of this, as of every really great building, are subtle in the extreme and interlock in every direction. Each part is in proportion to the whole ; each part is in proportion to contiguous parts : and each individual bit of each part is in proportion to the rest of it. More than that the proportions of the nave, choir, transepts, &c., are those which are suitable to a church 473 ft. long and 404 ft. high. If you built a church with a nave, choir, and transepts exactly twice as large as those of Salisbury, it would not be in proportion, but out of proportion. The same lack of proportion would ensue if you copied the design of Salisbury in a parish church of exactly half its dimensions. Salisbury cathedral, like the Parthenon, cannot be copied with impunity, unless you preserve not the dimensions but the ratios. Modern designers, not recognising this, have too often wrought themselves disappointment by unintelligent imitations of ancient work. To the north and south another charming effect is seen in the gradual growth of the ornament upward. This is to the credit of Time, and not of the architect. From i 220 to 1330 window-tracer}' was ever growing richer day by day, and Salisbury cathedral was ever growing upward. And so the ornament culminates most rightly, yet most accidentally, in the higher stories of the transepts, in the tower and spire. SALISBURY CATHEDRAL 325 Finally, nature has come to the aid of art. In France the cathedral is a town church ; it rises precipitous from the narrow lane or the huxtering of the " place," its flanks hemmed in by squalid shops, in front a Sahara of dust. Here great elms branch up from emerald turf, each giving scale to cathedral and spire ; while all around are the creepers and flowers, and warm brick and mouldering stone THF. I.ADY CHAI'KI., I.OOKINC WEST of canons' houses. Surely there is no more lovely environ- ment upon earth. Only one criticism suggests itself before we leave Salis- bury cathedral as seen from the north-east. Are not the voids in excess two windows in the aisles and three in the clerestory, where one would produce a more monumental and solid effect? Such single windows, filled with the opaque grisaille glass ol tin- period, would have subdued the glare of the interior. Hut T have not the slightest 326 SALISBURY CATHEDRAL doubt that the critics of the day infinitely preferred the uniform good lighting of Salisbury to the " dim, religious light " of Lincoln and its darksome corners and recesses. In Salisbury there is not a quiet spot anywhere where you can pray in peace ; the blinding light pursues you every- where. But good people in those days liked a cheerful church full of light, sparkling with stained glass, brilliant with gilding and paint : religious gloom had not yet become fashionable ; it did not come in till the time of the Puritans. In every other respect in Salisbury, as in Lincoln minster, internal seems to have been subordinated to external effect. The interior is, indeed, very fine. It could hardly help being fine ; a nave so spacious and so propor- tioned could under no circumstances be a failure. It is immensely high, and is long in pro- portion. The pro- portion of height to span (2 1 to i ) is better than in most English churches. The harmony of the design practi- cally the same from east to west, and from north to Il'NCTION OF CHOIR AND NORTH TRANSEPT SOllth IS Ulliqile (I-NDKR THK CENTRAL TowKR). i" England, and is most impressive'. The Lady chapel is a miniature church, with nave and aisles dulv adjusted for three eastern altars. But. as in SALISBURY CATHEDRAL 327 Lincoln nave, to the eye every support is alarmingly insufficient for the work it has to do ; the piers are too tall and slender, the walls too thin, and pierced with too many openings. The triforium is an unfortunate design. In West- minster and Lincoln presbyteries and Lichfield nave, two arches are placed in each hay of the triforium arcade. If both these be set under a common containing arch, as in York transept and Bayeux choir, the triforium arcade has to be 328 SALISBURY CATHEDRAL heightened so much that it has to he given height which ought to form part of the elerestory. This the Salisbury architect saw ; and he got out of the difficulty by flattening his containing arch, producing a form utterly out of harmony with every arch of the cathedral. In his arcade, moreover, he makes great use of Purbeck marble shafts ; yet it was not to be expected that its dark marble shafts would tell against a dark background black on black. Add to this the dread- fully new look of even-thing partly due to the very perfection TIIK CI.oIS'l KRS of the masonry, partly because Scott has been here and the overpowering glare : one almost feels as if one were in the Crystal Palace. But this will be remedied as more of the windows receive good modern grisaille glass. Begun in 1 220, the whole cathedral, except west front, tower, and spire, was complete in 125^, having cost what is equivalent to nearly half a million of our money. As this was not a church of Regulars, the whole of the nave- and probably the central transept we're accessible to the laitv. The choir screen stood under the eastern arch of SALISBURY CATHEDRAL 329 thu tower and had two altars west of it. The choir occupied three bays, as did the presbytery; the High altar, dedicated in honour of the Assumption of the Blessed Mary, was placed one hay further to the west than at present, as may he seen from the foliation of the capitals and from the representation of "Our Lord in Glory" painted on the vault. In the hay now occupied by the High altar was probably the altar of St. Os- m u n (1, w h o s e tomb, however, was in the Lady chapel, where also his shrine was erected on his canonisation in 1456. East of the three eastern arches was the pro- cession aisle. Then came the Lady chapel, three bays long, flanked by chapels. In the Lady chapel there were three altars ; that is why it has three aisles and t h re e ga b 1 e s. There was room in the transepts for ten altars. The cathedral therefore was planned for a minimum of eighteen altars, all placed due north and south. There were ultimately at least twenty-seven altars. The plan is typically English, and satisfies every single requirement of ritual. To this superb cathedral was tacked on quite the worst facade in England ; replacing the twin towers which origin allv no doubt were 1 intended. The cloister was not at first TIIK CIIAI'TKR IIOUSK 330 SALIS1HTRV CATHEDRAL contemplated ; when therefore it was erected, it could not he built up to the south aisle of the nave, but had to be built detached; its date may be c. 1270. The Chapter house is a little later ; beneath the pavement were found several pennies of Edward I., who came to the throne in 1272 ; the sculptures of its doorway are particularly fine. BIBLIOGRAPHY. Francis Price's Observations on Salisbury Cathe- dral, 1774. W. II. Jours. Fasti Ecclesiae Sarisberiensis, 1879. Dayman and [ones' Statutes and Ordinances of Salisbury Cathedral. Privately printed in 1883. Canon Wordsworth's Cereinonier and Processions oj the Cathedral Church of Salisbury* 1901. THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST. SAVIOUR, SOUTHWARK BUILT FOR AUGUSTINIAN CANONS THK original dedication of the church was to St. Mary Overie. Like many other churches, it received a sound Protestant dedication lenip. Henry VIII. It is probable that St. Alary-over-the-Rie merely means St. Mary -over- the - ri ver ; just as in Norfolk Burnham Overy is a village separated by a small stream from the other Burn- hams. Stow tells a story that the first church was founded by Mary Overy, whose father, John Overy, possessed the tolls of the ferry across the river, where now is London Bridge ; and that with the wealth in- herited from him she built a house of sisters here. Pro- bably, however, the whole story was elaborated to account for the etymology. -Stow goes on to say that St. Swithun, Bishop of Winchester from 8^2 to 862, re-founded the j nunnery as a college of priests, ^ ., r[tT i.e.. Secular Canons. L T p to the Reformation the diocese of Winchester extended east to the south of London, and included St. Mary ( )verie ; moreover the great palace 33' J^^^ ^^J^^^f^ 332 SOUTIIWARK CATHEDRAL of the Bishop of Winchester was next door to the church. From the first great interest was taken in St. Mary Overie by bishops of Winchester, St. Swithun, Peter de Rupibus, Cardinal Beaufort, Richard Fox, and Lancelot Andrewes. In 1 1 06 its constitution was once more changed, and it was handed over to Regular Canons of the Augustinian order as a Priory, and was served by these Austin Canons up to 1540, when the house was dissolved, and under the new name of St. Saviour, the collegiate church became parochial. In 1897 it was made collegiate once more, and became a cathedral in 1905. FIRST PKRIOO. Of the church built soon after 1106 some portions remain. They include the wall of the north aisle of the nave, in which, towards the west, is a tomb recess with a Norman segmental arch : and to the east, the eastern of the two processional doorways. The banded shafts and bases with the "spur"' ornament and the Corinthianesque capitals point to a date early in the twelfth century for this doorway. The four piers of the central tower are enormously massive, and no doubt contain a Norman core of rubble cased over with Gothic ashlar. The thick north wall of the transept, in which may be seen a fragment of a sculptured Norman string, appears to be of still earlier date. Norman also is the double chapel, that of St. John the Divine, east of the transept. But while the scalloped capitals of this double entrance point to a twelfth- century date, the fragmentary shafts and string in the north- eastern corner of the chapel are just as clearly Norman work of the eleventh century. Putting these data together, it results that the Norman nave was probably of the same dimensions as the present one, as was its narrow northern aisle. But as the present southern aisle is wider than the northern one, it is possible that it was added at some later period : it may be, indeed, that, as originally built, the Norman church had an aisle on the north side only. It had a crossing and central tower, and a northern transept of the same dimensions as at present : and no doubt a corre- sponding southern transept. An eastern limb of some sort SOUTIIWAKK CATHKDRAL 333 it must have hiicl ; doubtless this would be but short, con- taining merely the presbytery. The pu/xle of the church is that the foundations of an apse have been found, set centrally in the eastern chapel of the north transept, and occupying the whole breadth of it. Since the rectangular chapel is eleventh-century work, the apse must belong to a still earlier period. Two explanations may be offered, (i) It has been assumed that it is the eastern apse of a Pre-Conquest transept. The objection is that this is to assume a type of plan which is common enough in Norman work, but which is not known to have been in use in any Anglo-Saxon example. (2) That being so, it seems likely that it is the apse of the Pre-Conquest church of the Secular Canons ; its nave would extend west across and beyond the transept. This apse was superseded by a large rectangular presbytery built by the Secular Canons in the hitter half of the eleventh century, which may itself have had an apse east of the present east wall of the chapel. In i 1 06 came the Austin Canons, who retained the chapel; but, as they wished to build a lofty north transept, substituted a double arch for the previous single arch of entrance, which would have been unable to carry the weight of the east wall of the transept. SECOND PERIOD. The next event was the rebuilding both of the eastern and western limbs by Bishop Peter de Rupibus (1205-1238) ; this was partly brought about by the damage done by a fire in 1213 ; as regards the eastern limb it was also due no doubt to the desire to increase the length of the presbytery and to provide it with a procession path, and in addition to erect four eastern chapels. As at Gloucester, there was no local saint, and therefore no need to provide a saints' chapel. The High altar stood where it stands now, or perhaps a little more to the west, and the whole 1 ol the space up to the central tower formed the presbytery. The choir was in the crossing ; which is one step higher than the nave ; the piers of the central tower are Hat-faced so that stalls might be placed against them. The choir screen was beneath the western arch of the tower ; and the rood screen 334 SOUTIIWAkK ('. \TIIKDk.\I. was one hay further to the west. Both the Norman tran- septs, with their chapels, seem to have been left untouched. The retro-choir, which really is a retro-presbytery, contains a procession path and four chapels, each of which is two bays deep. Underneath each of the four eastern windows would be an altar ; the piscina of the northernmost of the four remains ; another has been found, and blocked up. From the presbytery there opened into the retro-choir two open arches now closed. The plan is a reduced version of that of the mother church at Winchester. A similar plan, on a still smaller scale, is seen in the church of the Cistercian abbey at Dore, Herefordshire. Of this admirably planned church all that was east of the crossing remains, but largely restored by Mr (iroilt (1821-1832), the exterior being wholly new. The design of the presbytery is a re- markable one. Though not commenced till after the lire of 1 2 1 3, it altogether lacks the lightness and grace of SOUTHWARK CATHKlJkAL 335 Lincoln choir and Winchester retro-choir, still more that of its contemporaries, Salisbury cathedral and the Temple choir, London. It is kept as low as possible ; and the piers, though short, are exceedingly thick, as are the arches and walling which they support. The triforium arcade is rein- forced by a solid wall behind. Evidently no confidence was felt by this architect in the new-fangled system of relying for stability on buttresses and flying buttresses : at South- wark he relies on thickness of wall, and that wall kept as low as possible. Nor is there any of that profuse use of Purbeck marble which, even before the twelfth century was ended, Canterbury choir had taught I )urham and Chichester and Lincoln. Remove all the pointed arches and substitute semicircular ones, and the church would be seen to be what it is almost as Romanesque in construction and in feeling as Malmesbury. The nave has been rebuilt by Sir Arthur Blomfield from very careful drawings of the thirteenth-century nave made by Mr Dollman ; the historic value of the reproduction is, however, gravel}' diminished by wholesale deviations from the drawings. It is said that the nave was originally vaulted, and that its flying buttresses were removed temp. Richard II. occasioning the fall of the vault. Then it was roofed in wood, and this roof remained till 1831, when the nave was demolished. (A new nave was built in 1838, which in turn was pulled down in 1890.) The surviving bosses of the old roof are piled up in the north transept ; one of them has the rebus of Prior Burton (1462-1486), "three burs or thistles on a barrel." Between the south-west doorway of the nave and the west end of the interior of the church there remains part of the original arcading of the aisle walls : at one place a corbel has been substituted at some later period for a shaft ; this has been repeated in the new arcading of the west wall. The south-west porch is one of the finest we possess, and bears comparison even with the western porches of Kly and St. Albans ; authority for it is to be found in an old print of Hollar. The second piers from the west were originally very big and massive, and they carried a very broad arch ; 336 SOUTHWARK CATIIKDKAL evidently the church was planned to receive a large square tower as broad as the nave, and engaged in the aisles. Whether any such tower was ever carried up is not known. The presbytery and retro-choir have simple quadripartite vaulting ; it should be noted that the wall-ribs die away into the web, and that the spring of the vaulting cells is of pronounced "plough-share" form, in order to block the light from the windows as little as possible. THIRD PERIOD. At some date later than 1273 the Archbishop of York is recorded to have promised thirty days' indulgence to all who helped in the good work at St. Mary Overie. We assign, therefore, to the last quarter of the thirteenth century certain large windows with geometrical tracery, as well as the greater task of remodelling the Norman north transept. The three walls of the transept were cased over with lofty pointed arcading. On the east side, as now, there was a central pier between two Norman arches. This fixed the position of the two northern arches of the arcading. Hut the space left for the southern arch was too narrow ; hence its present truncated form. On the south side of the transept are bases greatly stilted; evidently a solid wall of considerable height blocked off this transept from the crossing. It looks as if on this side of the church of St. Mary there was what was practically a distinct church of St. John the Divine, of which the north transept formed the choir, and the Harvard chapel the sanctuary. At the same time there may have been in the transept other altars, the position of one of which is indicated by the aumbrey in the north wall. Not much later may be placed the work in the lower half of the west wall of the south transept ; two examples survive of naturalistic foliage, greatly undercut ; this work can hardly be later than t. 1310. Then there seems to have been a stoppage of the works for some time : and when they were resumed, the remainder of the transept and ground story was completed in a simpler style without marble shafts. FOURTH PERIOD. A good deal of work was done in the second quarter of the fourteenth century. Tracery of that SOUTHWARK CATHEDRAL 337 date is seen on the west wall of the retro-chancel above the tomb of Bishop Andrewes. This must mean that at this time a low reredos such as the contemporary one in Keverley minster was now erected : what we now see is the back of it ; the west side of it must have been removed to make room for Bishop Fox's reredos. In the north-east corner of the retro-choir is a window with reticulated tracery, inserted to give more light to the northernmost of the four altars of the retro-choir. In the third bay from the north two straight joints in the eastern wall of the retro-chancel fix the position of a projecting Lady chapel now built out. Old prints shew that its side windows had reticulated tracery ; it is therefore part of the work of this period. Where the High altar of a church was dedicated, as here and in Lincoln minster, in honour of Our Lady, it had been unusual to provide a special Lady chapel ; at Lincoln the Lady Mass was held at the altar of St. John Baptist. But in later days it became common in such churches to build, as at Southwark, a separate Lady chapel. In this chapel, which had two bays, originally stood the canopied tomb of the saintly Bishop Andrewes (ob. 1626), after which date it was known as the " Bishop's Chapel." The Lady chapel was pulled down in 1830, as interfering with the approach to London Bridge, which it did not. At this time the bishop's tomb, minus its canopy, was transferred to its present position ; convert- ing, unintentionally, this bay of the retro-choir into a saint's chapel in the normal position of those of Winchester and St. Albans. FIFTH PERIOD. The eastern and western windows of the south transept somewhat resemble those of Abbot Litlington at Westminster in the cloisters and the abbot's hall ; in both the Westminster windows of 1349-1362, and in the South- wark ones the supermullion is just beginning to find its way into the tracery. But the Southwark tracery is much more complicated in character ; and is more likely to be early fifteenth-century work, done by Cardinal Beaufort, who was Bishop of Winchester from 1405 to 1447. It was he probably who at last completed the remodelling of the 338 SOUT1IWARK CATHEDRAL church, which had occupied some two hundred years. On the east wall of the transept is carved a cardinal's hat and tasselled strings, enclosing his arms : as son of John of Gaunt he quarters the fleur-de-lis of France with the lions of England. Similar tracery, both in the aisle windows and in those of the clerestory, replaced the lancet lights of the nave, with two or three exceptions ; the only one replaced by Sir Arthur Blomneld is that above (Power's tomb. He also substituted his own design for that shewn in the drawings of the great south window of the south transept. The arch now occupied by the organ once was the western entrance of the church of St. Mary Magdalene, which adjoined the south aisle of the presbytery. SIXTH PERIOD. By Bishop Fox the great reredos was put up in 1520; on it appears his crest, the pelican, and his rebus, a man chasing a fox. Here again the influence of Winchester is apparent. The great reredos of Winchester probably came from the same shop as that of St. Albans, which was put up between 1476 and 1484. About 1520 the poor upper portion of the tower is thought to have been erected. A new western fagade was also built ; not reproduced in the new nave ; drawings appear in Mr Dollman's folio. MINOR DETAILS. No church in England possesses such an interesting collection of modern glass ; it deserves special attention. The following is a convenient route round the church, (i) Proceed up the north aisle of the choir. On the wall is a bust of John Trehearne, Gentleman Porter to James I. ; with an amusing inscription. (2) Nearly opposite are three charming kneeling figures of Richard Humble and his two wives, erected in \ 6 1 6 ; the pretty verses are worth copying. (3) On the wall are two tomb recesses, in style resembling the doorways of the reredos, and therefore c. 1520. In the eastern recess has been placed an oak effigy, quite admirable sculpture, of a knight in mail armour and surcoat, c. 1300. (4) At present there lies in the north-east corner of the retro-choir a stone skeleton, originally placed beneath some effigy in rich SOUTIIWARK CATHEDRAL 339 costume or armour, as a monition of the vanity of riches and power. (5) Mr Kempe's window in the north-east corner represents three martyrs, King Charles the martyr, Saint Thomas of Canterbury, and Archbishop Laud ; by way of counterblast apparently to the commemoration of Protestant martyrs in the other windows. In 1555 the trial for heresy took place in this chapel of Rev. L. Saunders, Bishop Ferrar of St. David's, Rev. Rowland Taylor, Rev. John Rogers, Bishop Hooper of Gloucester, and Rev. John Bradford, whose portraits appear in eastern windows successively from north to south. All were found guilty and burnt ; with them was burnt Archdeacon Philpot, who is commemorated in the central window on the south side. (6) Proceeding down the south aisle, just before we reach the transept, are some ancient tesserae, removed here from the graveyard to the south-east, where more remain ; they are said to be of Roman date. (7) In the south transept, on the left, is Cardinal Beaufort's hat and arms; and on the wall opposite a small tablet to William Emerson, 1575, "who lived and died an honest man"; from him has been claimed descent of Ralph Waldo Emerson. There is fine glass by Kempe in the great south window ; and in the eastern wall has been inserted in his memory perhaps the best glass of that character yet produced. (8) From the centre of the central tower hangs in its original position a magnificent chandelier presented in 1680. (9) We now proceed down the south aisle of the nave ; passing a series of windows by Kempe. (10) The large window probably indicates the site of a screened chapel with altar; there is known to have been in the north aisle, nearly opposite, a chantry chapel to St. John Baptist. In the central light is a figure of Poesy, with Shakespeare and Spenser on either side. Shakespeare's brother, Edmund, is buried in the church ; a modern gravestone commemorating the fact may be seen in the choir. (11) In commemoration of Massingcr's play of the "Virgin Martyr" St. Dorothy is represented below : and above she is shewn bringing a basket of flowers from heaven to convince a sceptic. 340 SOUTHWARK CATHEDRAL Massinger is buried somewhere in the church. (12) In commemoration of the ''Knight of Malta" by Fletcher, who also lies in an unknown grave in the church, the ceremony of the investiture of a knight of Malta is shewn ; below is St. John Baptist, the patron of the knights (13) The next window, with a representation of David and Jonathan, commemorates Fletcher's fellow-dramatist, Beaumont. (14) Then comes a window to Edward Alleyn. Below is a figure of Charity. Above, Alleyn is reading the charter of his foundation at Duhvich to Lord Chancellor Bacon, Inigo Jones, and others. (15) Then comes a font by Mr Bodley, which badly wants an elaborate cover. (16) Behind it is a window to St. Paulinus, shewing one of his famous baptisms in the Swale or the Medway. He died bishop of Rochester. St. Mary Overie was first in the diocese of Winchester, then in that of Rochester, now in that of Southwark, which extends south through Surrey up to the Sussex border. (17) Then conies a window to St. Swithun, who introduced the Secular Canons. (18) Overhead is a flaming window by Mr Henry Holiday, over- crowded with subjects, which include the Six Days of Creation and the canticle " Benedicite omnia opera.'' (19) We pass now into the north aisle. The western window is to St. Augustine, in memory of the Austin Canons who served the church from i 106 to 1539. (20) The window in the first bay is intended for Oliver Gold- smith. Below is a late Norman recess. (21) The next window is to Samuel Johnson. Below were found the foundations of the western procession doorway. (22) Next is a window to Dr Sacheverell, chaplain here from 1705- 1709. (23) Next is a window to the writer of Cruden's "Concordance," buried in this parish. (24) Next comes the tomb of John Ciower, ''father of English prose," who died in 1408 and is buried below. (25) The next window is to Geoffrey Chaucer. Below, on the other side of the door, is the fragment of the Norman eastern procession doorway. Near it is a big. rude holy-water stoup, also very ancient. (26) Passing into the crossing, we see high SOUTHWARK CATIIKDKAL 34! up to the east, above the reredos, an impressive window by Keni])e. (27) In the chapel of the north transept is a window presented by Mr J. H. Choate, the American ambassador, to commemorate the founder of Harvard Uni- versity, John Harvard, of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, who was baptized in St. Saviour's in 1607. The lower panels, very beautiful in colouring, exhibit a pretty if un- conventional treatment of the Baptism of Christ; the effect is somewhat marred by the insertion of a square of ancient glass between the arms of Emmanuel College and Harvard University. (28) /// the north transept have been placed (a) an inlaid oak chest, one of the grandest specimens of furniture in England ; it was presented by Hugh Offley, sheriff of London in 1588. (/>) Above it is the highly allegorical monument to William Austin, who died in 1663. (c] By the north wall is a coffin of Purbeck marble, incised with a floriated cross; perhaps of the thirteenth century. (d) Near it is the simpering effigy of a successful seventeenth- century druggist, patentee of a pill extracted from sunshine, and efficacious against most mortal ills. (29) Outside, near the west front, is some herring-bone brickwork, found beneath the vestry. THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF THE BLESSED MARY THE VIRGIN OF SOUTHWELL BUILT FOR SECULAR CANONS SOUTHWELL MINSTER, as it is usually but incorrectly styled, was originally what is called a collegiate church. It is as if, in any parish church of unusual importance or with an exceptionally large population, there should be- not one rector, as nowadays, but a do/en or so, this do/en being formed into a corporation, with a dean, precentor, chancellor, and treasurer (the two first officials did not exist at Southwell). All the cathedrals of the old foundation had from the earliest time such a collegiate constitution as the above : vi/., Chichester, Exeter, Hereford, Lichfield, Lincoln, London, Salisbury, Wells, York, and the four Welsh cathedrals. l>ut all these were also cathedrals : i.e., they possessed a bishop's chair (cathedra} ; Southwell did not become a cathedral there was no bishop of Southwell till 1884. Like the other ecclesiastical colleges those of cathedrals excepted that of Southwell was suppressed by Edward VI. : but under Queen Mary it had the good fortune to be recon- stituted and re-endowed. Its sister church, IJeverley minster, also a college of Secular Canons i.e., priests not living under a monastic rule became and has remained a parish church. The only collegiate churches remaining with their original constitution are Windsor, Westminster, Heytesbury, Middle- ham, and St. Katherine's Hospital, London omitting, of course, the cathedrals of the old foundation. SOUTHWELL CATHEDRAL 343 Though, however, there was till recently no bishop of Southwell, yet the church up to the Reformation was practically a cathedral. Just as the bishop of Wells had at different times other cathedrals besides that of Wells at one time at Bath, at another time at Glastonbury ; and as the bishop of the Mercian diocese had at one time three chairs vix., at Lich- field, Chester, and ("oven- try so the archbishop of the immense northern king- dom of Northumbria re- quired and possessed four cathedrals : vix., at York, Ripon, Beverley, and South- well. The latter was especially the cathedral of Nottinghamshire. The archbishops had a palace at Southwell which has recently been restored ; and several of the arch- bishops of York are buried in the minster. FIRST PERIOD. In the seventh century St. Pauli- mis was engaged in mission work in or near Southwell, baptizing great numbers in the Trent, and according to Camden, who gives Bede as his authority, he founded the minster. But long before his time in the third century, or thereabouts the Romans were at Southwell. There actually survives in situ a tesselated pavement beneath the floor of the south transept, which may well have belonged to a Romano- British basilica. SECOND PERIOD. The tympanum of an early Norman 344 SOUTHWELL CATIIKDRAL doorway remains in the north transept. It is not in situ, for the head of one of the principal figures has been cut off to make the slab fit its present position. On the left is a lion which is being throttled by David or Samson ; on the right is St. Michael slaying the dragon : in either case the symbolism is the victory of the Church over the powers of evil. THIRD PERIOD. Between 1109 and 1114 the present Norman church was begun. Of this the presbytery has disap- peared. As this would be built first, 1 120 is given as an approxi- mate date for the tran- sept and central tower and for the nave. The cable-moldings, how- ever, of the crossing and transepts, and the carving of the nave- capitals, are so rich and effective that the work may be some- what later. Indeed, the whole of the or- namentation is far ahead of that at Ely, Norwich and Peterborough, Tewkesbury or Gloucester. The carved capitals may be compared with those of the nave of Hereford. The interior of the nave is low, but has been improved by Mr Christian's semicircular ceiling. The piers are stumpy cylinders ; the elevation is that of Malvern or St. Bartholomew's, Smithfield : here there- are none of the tall compound piers of Peterborough or Ely, still less the Brobdingnagian cylinders of Tewkesbury or Gloucester. Each bav of the triforium was to have had the THK NAVK. I.dOKIM, KAST SOUTHWELL CATIIKDRAL 345 same kind of arcade as that of Romsey choir : vix., two minor arches, with a small shaft rising from their point of intersection. (Projecting stones, intended for the arches and the shaft, may be seen in each bay.) The Romsey design was not a success even in the eyes of the Romsey people, for they tried five other designs in the triforium of their transept ; and the Southwell canons very sensibly omitted this inner arcade. The whole design is illogical ; the great arches were left open, as at Norwich, so that a flood of light might pour into the nave from the windows in the upper part of the aisle-wall ; but these windows are so small that very little light at all can have been ob- tained from them ; a similar mistake is made at Romsey. The clerestory, with its circular windows, is remarkable ; a similar design was worked out very beautifully, later on, in the north tran- sept of Hereford. From each transept projected eastward a two-storied apse, as at Norwich ; the arch into the lower chapel remains, and also the noble arcades which opened into the upper chapels. The curve of the apse of the northern transept is marked on the pavement of the present vestry. It is noteworthy that the aisles are vaulted, as at Kirkstall, in oblong compartments : the mason is also feeling his way towards the execution of bosses to take the intersection of the diagonal ribs; both indications of late date. The tall square spires of the west front which, as well as the conical roof of the Chapter house, were TIIK SOUTH AISLE 346 SOUTHWELL CATHKDRAL SOUTHWELL CATHKDRAL 347 restored by Mr Christian on the authority of a drawing attributed to Turner, give the church quite a Rhenish appearance. The two lower west windows of the towers are modern shams ; they replace excellent windows inserted in the fourteenth century ; originally the bottom stages of the towers were probably solid. The north-west tower has a pointed arcade, and is therefore a little later than its neighbour, which has an intersecting arcade of semicircular arches. Originally the facade would be such a one as that which remains in St. Stephen's, Caen. A fine string-course of /igxag ornament runs along the nave and round the tran- septs. In places it has been taken out, rein- serted in a different place or copied, when larger windows were inserted in the aisles of the nave ; only one of the original Norman windows is left ; vix., in the north aisle next to its western tower. In the south transept the string-course takes the unusual form of a segmental arch over the archbishop's doorway. The great emphasis given to the hori/ontal lines of the Norman build- ing is as remarkable here as at Norwich. There are good examples of the " nebule " corbel table with a later parapet, and of Norman pinnacles ; one of these, over the north porch, is hollow, and served as a chimney for the sacristan or sexton, who, it was enacted, "should lie within the church, to be at hand to ring the bells at the right time." Inside his chamber above the north porch are a fireplace, chimney, and cupboards constructed in the thickness of the walls. The gables of 348 SorTIIWKLL rATIIKDKAL UK- transept have very effective xigxag, with interesting differences of treatment ; the pinnacles of the transepts seem to have been removed at some time or other to the central tower, for which they are too small. Norman sculptured capitals of great interest remain on the eastern piers of the tower, hut are now unfortunately covered up to make room for more organ pipes. (A mania for big organs appears to be raging in our cathedrals : nothing short of the roar and rumble of an earthquake will bring people now- adays into a devotional frame of mind.) 1 'holographs of the capitals have been taken by Mr A. J. Loughton. Among the subjects represented are the Last Supper, the Presenta- tion in the Temple, Christ washing the disciples' feet, the Paschal Lamb, and Palm Sunday. In plan, the Norman church had a presbytery of four bays ; its aisles ended in apses, but the presbytery was square-ended, which is re- markable. A still more advanced type of plan was, how- ever, in existence at Hereford and Romsey. FOURTH PERIOD. The Norman presbytery barely existed for a century. The new eastern limb is much influenced by the design of Lincoln nave and central transept, which were well on the way in 1220 : there are the same sexpartite and quinquepartite vaults, the same doming of the vaults, the same longitudinal ridge-rib, the same choir transepts, the same chamfered buttresses with the same gablet-heads. the same strong ground course. In plan and internal elevation the work resembles Pershore, which seems to have been built in the early years of the thirteenth century. In 1233 Archbishop (iray of York issued an indulgence for "the completion of the fabric begun some time ago." Also in 1241 a chantry was founded in the new work (/;/ novo ope re). We may therefore assume that the work was begun c. i 230 and finished c. 1250. Externally, the eastern limb ot Southwell is a singularly fine composition, and before its mutilation, must have been one of the best medieval designs in Lurope. Unfortunately the roof's have been lowered, and in the flattened battlemented (.'astern gable a misshapen late- window now appears. Originally the roof of the eastern SOUTHWELL CATHEDRAL 349 transepts rose nearly to the top of the clerestory walls, as is shewn by the weatherings remaining. Rut being built with- out flying buttresses, the clerestory wall began to bulge out, and in the fourteenth century flying buttresses and big pinnacles were built ; (one of the flying buttresses used to have a channel on its back to carry down the drainage from the gutter of the upper roof). Take these away in imagina- tion, raise roofs and gables to as sharp a pitch as those of Beverley and Lincoln, and you have a design as noble as it was simple. The alternation of aisled choir and unaisled presbytery with the projecting masses of the eastern transepts provided charming contrasts of light and shadow; the base- courses are almost as strong and emphatic as at Salisbury ; the sharply chamfered buttresses, with their acute pyramidal gablets, are particularly effective : contrary to Salisbury fashion, the windows are deeply recessed externally. The whole design is vigorous and effective. The interior of the choir is equally original and interesting. Its design is conditioned by the fact that the architect had made up his mind to vault the chancel, but refused to employ flying buttresses. This made it necessary that the vault should spring low down ; not in the clerestory, as at Beverley, but in the triforium story, as at Salisbury. More- over, the diagonal arches of the vault were slightly pointed, to bring the' thrusts down more vertically. To make things safer still, he kept his ground story low ; instead of the lofty piers of Lincoln nave and Salisbury, his clustered columns are comparatively low, and are connected by a continuous bench-course. Moreover, to make these low piers yet more secure, he dispensed with the beautiful but unconstructional shafts of rurbeck marble which were put up by hundreds at Lincoln : in the plan of his piers he followed the Vork- shire use, which is to be seen at Ripon and Beverley. In his refusal to employ flying buttresses, he was no doubt also influenced by Ripon precedent. In Lincoln nave the method adopted was to employ external flying buttresses, thus enabling greater height to be given to the nave : at Southwell no flying buttresses were employed, and great 350 SOUTHWELL CATHEDRAL height was therefore unattainable. The Southwell interior then being necessarily low, the next thing to do was to make it look high. A similar problem had confronted the builders of St. Frideswide's, Oxford : they solved it by framing the triforium arcade in what looks like the arcade THK CHOIR, LOOKING WKST of the ground story. At Southwell and 1'ershore it was solved by eliminating the triforium arcade. The triforium chamber is there with a blank wall in front of it ; but this wall is set back, and pretends to be nothing but the cill of the clerestory window, whose jambs are brought down to the cill of the triforium. The result is that instead of SOUTHWELL CATHEDRAL 351 having two low upper stories, the interior seems to have a single tall story ; it appears to have an elevation, not of three, but of two stories ; and, as two tall stories look taller than three low ones, the architect manages to some extent to disguise the real lowness of his interior. Nevertheless, in spite of all the trouble he has taken, the interior certainly lacks the aspiring vertically one expects to find in early Gothic. The planning of the new work is difficult to understand. It has always been assumed that the High altar stood as at present near the eastern wall. The ground for this is that churches dedicated to St. Mary needed no Lady chapel, and that Lincoln minster has none. But it is only necessary to turn to the cathedral of St. Mary of Salisbury to find a church of this dedication with an important eastern Lady chapel. Nor is it a difficulty that there were altars to Our Lady elsewhere in the Southwell church ; for in the Lady chapel at Salisbury none of the three altars was dedicated to Our Lady. It is probable, therefore, that the two unaisled eastern bays of Southwell formed a Lady chapel. In that case the next bay would form the Proces- sion path. There would be no Feretory, as there was no pre-eminent local saint. This would leave six bays east of the central tower. The westernmost of these was filled with a wooden screen, for which the present stone screen was substituted in the following century. The prebendaries were only sixteen in number, and were seldom in residence : the stalls are known to have been placed, as at present, in the two next bays, which furnished room enough for the canons or their vicars choral. This would leave to the east a dignified presbytery of three bays, in the eastern- most of which the fourth from the east wall the High altar would be placed ; it would thus be in a line with the eastern transepts, precisely as at Worcester, Salisbury, Beverlcy, and Pershore. It is true that the sedilia are not now in this bay, but in the second bay from the east. But they arc known not to have been removed to their present position till some years before 1839. It will be 352 SOUTHWELL CATHEDRAL seen that all the upper parts, with the finials and pinnacles, have at some time been cut away, so as to leave a horizontal upper edge. This was probably to support a gallery when the sedilia stood beneath one of the southern arches of the presbytery. It is also on record that the sedilia replaced a screen. As is clear from the marks in the northern and southern walls of the western bay, a very lofty oak screen formerly stood in front of the Lad\' chapel, like the stone screen still existing in front of the Lady chapel of Ottery St. Mary. As for the altars of Our Lady, one was the High altar, the other stood " in the north part of the church,'' whatever that may mean. As at Beverley, eastern transepts were thrown out to north and south, each to hold an altar. This would have left the eastern bays free to serve as part of the procession path ; but strange to say, they contain piscinas and aumbries, and that of the south aisle has sedilia as well ; each therefore contained an altar, which must to a large extent have blocked the procession path. It is remarkable that the church does not lie due east, but is orientated some points south of east. To interfere with the services as little as possible, the eastern half was built first. If the foliage of the capitals and corbels and bosses be examined, it will be found to be somewhat stiff and formal in the eastern bays, and to be worked with more crispness and freedom towards the west. Moreover the bases of the eastern piers have the water- holding molding : those of the western ones a triple roll. Tlie next thing was to pull down the Xorman presbytery, the material of which is found to be largely built up in the western, but not in the eastern bays. In rebuilding the western bays, the first consideration was not to endanger the Norman tower. So the work was not continued from the east, but was started afresh from the tower. The two portions met in the fourth bay : when it was found that, owing to inaccurate setting-out, the arch on the south side of the choir and the string-course on the north side were at a different level to that of the older work to the east. The awkward junction of the arches was masked by a curious SOUTHWELL CATHEDRAL 353 medallion, while the string-course takes a sudden jump upward. The vault of the aisles and transepts is quin- quepartite, as in St. Hugh's aisles and transept at Lincoln ; the high vault is quadripartite ; and both vaults have the wobbling longitudinal rib of the great transept of Lincoln. If the east wall had had the usual group of five lancets, this rib would have dropped down on to the glass of the central light ; that is why there are only four lancets. A special local note of this Southwell work is fondness for fillets of various forms on the shafts and columns ; they abound everywhere. FIFTH PERIOD. A little later, the eastern apse of the north transept was replaced by a double chapel (c. 1260). The shafts have the " keel-molding," both here and in the Chapter house. SIXTH PERIOD. Next was built the cloister i.e., the southern part of the passage leading to the Chapter house. Notice the lovely doorway in the north choir aisle. In this and the arcade is early naturalistic foliage, which fixes the date as c. 1280. Before the upper story was built, and when the eastern arcade was open, it must have been singularly beautiful. From the little courtyard between the cloister and the eastern transept the views are most picturesque. SEVENTH PERIOD. Next was built the Chapter house with its vestibule. If in window tracery and leafage it be compared with the Chapter house of York, it will be plain that the Southwell example is the earlier. Southwell Chapterhouse may be 1290, York 1300. York Chapter house is then but a copy of that of Southwell and an inferior copy ; both dispense with a central pier; but Southwell has a magnificent vault of stone, whereas York is vaulted in wood. The Chapter house of Southwell, not that of York, is "among Chapter houses, as the rose among flowers.'' ''What Cologne cathedral is to Germany, Amiens to France," says Mr Street, "is Southwell Chapter house to England.'' Here English stone-carvers produced their best work ; nowhere will you find such capitals or crockets or spandrels, nor such portraits all, no doubt, 2 3 354 SOUTH WKLL CATHEDRAL here and in the cloister, representing people living at South- well 1280-1300. EIGHTH PKRIOD. But the wonders of Southwell do not end yet. Between c. 1315 and 1350 was erected quite the DETAIL OF CAKVIXC IN THK CHAI'TKR HOUSK loveliest choir screen in England : next comes that of Eincoln, evidently by the same hand. Eastern and western sides are entirely different in design : on the western side the artist parts reluctantly with the beautiful geometrical design of the thirteenth century ; on the eastern side he accepts SOUTHWELL CATHEDRAL 355 unreservedly the reign of the ogee arch. Magnificent sedilia and stone stalls of similar character were erected, which only survive in part. Very charming, too, is the cusping of the reticulated windows inserted in the north transept chapel; and the doors of the north porch. The upper parts of the Chapter house and the north transept chapel also were remodelled in this period. For two hundred years or more, the highest and best of mediaeval art found cultivated and wealthy patrons at Southwell ; twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth century work are all seen here at their best. Few of our cathedrals, from the point of view either of architectural design or sculptured detail, can be mentioned in the same breath with South- well. Nowhere will the architectural student find such a treasure of the best work of the best periods as in the sister churches of the canons of Beverley and Southwell. It is one of the greatest delights of Southwell that its lovely minster is little known and almost unvisited : one feels as if one were "the first that ever burst into this silent sea." NINTH PERIOD. Large windows with rectilinear tracery were inserted in the aisles (<.: 1390) and the west end (fifteenth century) to light the nave; and a doorway from the choir to the archbishop's palace on the south. Between 1452 and 1480 the chapel of St. John Baptist, founded c. 1280, was enlarged by William and Laurence Booth, both archbishops of York. It adjoined the south-west tower and the two next bays of the south aisle. After the Reforma- tion it was used as the (irammar School till 1784, when it was pulled down. In 1847 the adjacent aisle-wall fell down, and was re-erected with the present three sham Norman windows. TKNTH PERIOD. There is an alabaster monument of Archbishop Sandys (d. 1588), of unusually good design. To the same century belongs the fine Renaissance glass (I'Yench) in the east of the choir. The lectern was presented in 1805. Originally it belonged to Newstead abbey, and at the Dissolution was thrown 24 356 SOUTHWELL CATHEDRAL into Newstead lake. Mention should be made also of the kneeling statue in bronze of Bishop Ridding, by Mr Pomeroy ; one of the noblest memorials of ancient or modern times. There were originally sixteen canons or prebendaries at Southwell in charge of the services. But as they habitually resided in their country parishes, they were allowed to appoint sixteen vicars or deputies, to do their work for them. These vicars choral, like the canons, formed a college or corporation. The vicars also found the work hard, and were aided by paid lay-clerks and choir-boys. Besides these there were thirteen chantry-priests. In later days there used to be in residence at Southwell only one canon out of the sixteen ; he came into residence only once in four years, and only stayed three months. The handsome block of brick houses to the east of the minster was built in 1780: the eastern house for the canon in residence; the two houses on each side for four of the vicars. It should be added that the church, as at Ripon, had a very large parish attached to it. The whole of the nave was parochial, and at its east end was the parish altar, which was dedicated to St. Vincent. Kii'.i.ior.KAi'HY. ]. F. Dimoek's Illustrations of lJi< Collegiate Chureh of Southwell. (i. M. Live-It's Guide to Southwell Minster. J. L. IVtit in Archaoloffifal Journal, 1^50. p. 2oS. A. F. Leurh's J'isifa/ii>>is a>:,/ Memorials of Southwell Minster ; printed by the Caniden Snrietv in 1891. THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ALL SAINTS, WAKEFIELD FORMERLY PAROCHIAL TI I K sec was founded in i 888. Like Manchester cathe- dral, the church is thoroughly parochial in appearance, inside and outside. But, archgeologically, it is of exceptional interest. It is one of those numerous churches, every stone of the exterior of which is of late Gothic date, hut which internally in their arcades reveal the existence of 358 WAKEFIELD CATHEDRAL FROM THE SOUTH-WEST much earlier building epochs. Like many others, though now a vast parallelogram, it was once a cruciform church in plan ; and though now it has a western tower, its tower once stood above the crossing. Once its nave was aisleless : then it had narrow aisles : later on, these narrow aisles were replaced by broad ones. The piers and arches of the first aisles were low ; afterwards they were heightened or rebuilt. Originally it had no clerestory : this was not added till tin- fifteenth century. When the central tower fell, the new WAKEFIELD CATHEDRAL 359 tower was built 10 ft. west of the nave, so as not to interfere with the services. When it was finished, it was joined up to the nave by the addition of a new westernmost bay. The Norman chancel and its successor were short, and had neither aisles nor clerestory ; the present chancel, the third, is long, having absorbed the space originally covered by the central tower ; and it has a clerestory and aisles, and these have absorbed the transepts. Finally, the font, choir screen, and sounding-board are Jacobean. Wakefield cathedral is a typical embodiment of the history of the Church of England, with a personal identity undestroyed by its many transformations, like the boy's knife which had a new blade and a new handle, but was still the same old knife. UlHl.lOc.KAi'HV. The architectural history of the church has been worked out in a paper by Mr J. T. Micklethwaite, forming a chapter in the History of Wakefield Cathedral, by J. W. Walker, Wakefield, 1888. THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST. ANDREW OF WELLS BUILT FOR SECULAR CANONS " r ~T^HE traveller who comes down the hill from Shepton Mallet," says Professor Freeman, " looks clown on a group of buildings without a rival either in our own island or beyond the seas." " From a distance," says Mr Peabody, " the towers and lantern of the cathedral rise above rounded masses of green foliage. When we reach its walls, we find them springing from the a/ure depths of crystalline pools, from emerald lawns and arching trees, the home of cawing rooks and soaring pigeons. Close to the very walls of the ancient cathedral rises one of the noblest springs in the world, to which city and cathedral owe their name ; an ever-abounding and magnificent outburst of waters at the side of the Lady chapel, surging up in a boiling heap in the midst of the unfathomed depths of a translucent pool ; then bounding over in an impetuous cascade, which carries it into the Bishop's moat, to encircle palace and rampart and towers, till it rests in glassy clearness over many-coloured forests of branching or feathery or star- like water-weeds. Never did a Frenchman form such harmonies of church and scenery as one sees at Lichfield, at Salisbury, and at Wells, in their setting of close and cloister and lake, of brilliant garden and clipped green lawn and immemorial elms. Above rise three grey, time-worn towers ; the music of the chimes vibrates and dies away : " ' Lord, through this hour 15e Thou our guide, That by Thv power \o foot may slide.' 360 WELLS CATHEDRAL 361 References A St. Stephen's Chape H St. Catherine's Chapel C N.E. Transept U Chapel of St. John E Crypt under Chapter House F Hubwith's Chantry G Sugar's Chantry Monuments, etc. 1 Hishop Hilton ist 2 ,, Drokensfotd 3 Dean Gunthorpe 4 Hishop Still 5 Hitlon II 6 Hurewell 7 Dean Music 8 Chancellor J. Storthwait 9 loan Viscountess Lisle 10 Hishop De Marchia 11 Dean Cornish 12 & 13 Altar Tombs to Bishops Officers 14 Joceline De Wells 15 Hishop De Salopia 16 Kidder 17 ,, Berkeley Creighton 19 Dean Forest .K-J8--i--.'|. ftufttTT SCfll-E Of PLAN 362 WELLS CATHEDRAL So from hour to hour chant the bells over the peaceful beauty of the bishop's gardens and terraces and the ancient ivy-clad palace ; while within the lonely nave, as the fading sunlight shines through the western window, and casts its coloured glories on sculptured tomb and carved boss and grey stone wall, the organ notes pulsate through the stony fabric : " Through long-drawn aisle and fretted vault The pealing anthem swells the note of praise. The great solemn place is filled with the thrilling sweetness of boyish voices, and we heartily join in their tuneful, long ' Amen,' as it rings and resounds clown the empty nave, and echoes again and again from distant chapel and far-receding vaults. " The bishop's palace is romance made tangible, even to ' spell-bound princes oaring their way as swans among the lilies of the moat.' In this home of peace good Bishop Ken led his simple, happy life, awaking with the sun and joining with the birds in their morning hymn, and each eventide singing to his lute : "Glory to thee, my God, this night. For all the blessings of the light. Beyond the gardens and the moat run avenues of stately elms ; hard by, to the north, are the cathedral's triple towers, and, for background, the mighty range of the Mendips ; all round is meadow-grass ; to the west nestles the little town, with the stately tower of St. Cuthbert's church ; and, five- miles away, conical tors rise on either side of the isle of Avalon, the storied land of Glastonbury, where twice each year bloomed the sacred thorn struck by Joseph of Arimathea from a thorn in the Saviour's crown : where, too, lies King Arthur, borne thither after the fatal battle of Camelot, and buried in an unknown grave with the inscription, ' Hie jacet Arturus rex quondam rexque futurus.' This land of Somerset to the Englishman should be holy ground." The peculiar charm of Wells lies, as Professor Freeman WELLS CATHEDRAL 363 364 WELLS CATHEDRAL remarks, in the union and harmonious grouping of the cathedral with its surroundings. It does not stand alone. On the other hand, it is not crowded by mean, incongruous buildings, like the great cathedrals of France. Nor, again, is it isolated from those buildings which are its natural and necessary complement the palace of the Bishop, the Deanery, the residence of the Archdeacon, the Cathedral school, the Vicar's Close, the homes of precentor, organist, and architect. Nearly all the officials still live in the houses which Bishop Beckington built four centuries ago. And with the most perfect and picturesque of all these, "a double row of little ancient houses," the Vicar's Close, the north transept of the cathedral is connected by a delightful mediaeval bridge. The diocese of Wells is an offshoot of that of Winchester. When Wessex grew populous, the bishopric of Sherborne was split off from that of Winchester ; and the shire of the Sumorsaetas was split off from Sherborne, perhaps in 904, and the men of Somerset got a bishop of their own. The diocese long had two cathedrals : one at Wells, served, as at this day, by Secular Canons ; the other at Bath, served by monks of the Benedictine abbey. The latter was sup- pressed by Henry VIII., and ever since the bishop has been but in name Bishop of Bath. FIRST PERIOD. In 1148 there was a consecration of a Norman cathedral, built or repaired by Bishop Robert. Of this no certain traces survive, except the font. It may have occupied a different site, more to the south ; on the other hand much of the walling of the present cathedral may be Bishop Robert's, unless indeed his church was entirely de- molished, in which case much of his ashlar, being still in good condition, would be reused. SECOND PERIOD. In 1174 Reginald de Bohun or Fit/.- Joscelinus became bishop, and is recorded to have made prior to 1 1 80 a large grant "to the fabric fund until the work be finished"; the present cathedral therefore must have been begun in or soon after 1 180. Another charter, recording a private gift, alludes to "the admirable structure of the rising WELLS CATHEDRAL 365 church " and is attested by witnesses who appear elsewhere in 1206 and 1221. It appears therefore that by about the end of the twelfth century a considerable amount of work had been done. This documentary evidence is supported by architectural data at Worcester and Glastonbury. At THE MA VK Worcester the design of the ground story of the two westernmost bays of the nave resembles in many points that of the present choir of Wells, and may be dated back to i 175 ; its capitals are just as much behind those of Wells as might be expected in work live or ten years earlier in 366 WELLS CATHEDRAL date. Still more behind Wells are the triforium and clere- story, in which the semicircular arch prevails and in which there is large use of the Romanesque /-ig/ag ornament. At Glastonbury the Lady chapel (wrongly styled St. Joseph's chapel) is definitely known to have been begun after the fire of 1184 and to have been consecrated in 1186; its vault system is precisely that of Wells. It is true that much of its sculptured foliage is largely Romanesque in design, but it is deeply undercut, and evidently the work of exceptionally skilled masons ; nor is there anything remark- able in the fact that the Glastonbury monks should be more conservative than the Wells canons. St. 1 )avid's cathedral was also building at the same time as Wells cathedral, and is more retrogressive than either Wells or Glastonbury. So it may be taken that at Wells we see the first important English church ever built in the Gothic style, and that the primacy of English Gothic belongs to Wells, and not to Lincoln, which was not begun till 1192. Nor can priority be claimed for the Yorkshire Gothic, as seen at Roche abbey and Ripon minster : for in the Northern work the semicircular arch still lingers, whereas at Wells it is utterly exterminated ; pier-arches, wall arcade, windows, doorways, vaults all have pointed arches and nothing else. Compared with Lincoln, Wells is vaulted throughout, whereas Lincoln choir originally had no vaults, nor was designed for vaults. In plan Reginald's church consisted of an aisled nave of ten bays, of aisled transepts, and of a square-ended aisled eastern limb of four bays. The stalls of the choir, till the fourteenth century, were placed in the crossing, and the easternmost bay of the nave : marks where the choir screen was fixed may still be seen in the first pair of piers from the central tower and in the walls of the aisles ; the ritual nave therefore consisted of nine bays. The transepts had both eastern and western aisles. In each eastern aisle was a couple of chapels ; and adjoining the southern of these eastern aisles was a sacristy, very much as at Worcester. For a church so small as Wells to have western aisles to WELLS CATHEDRAL 367 the transepts seems rather an extravagance ; but a western aisle was necessary in the south transept, in order to get access to the eastern walk of the cloister ; which walk could not be built further to the east because in the way was an early Lady chapel. As for the western, aisle of the north transept, it may also have been used, as at present, as an additional sacristy ; or as Chapter house till the present Chapter house was built. If the exterior of the present choir aisles be examined, it will be seen that the second buttress from the west is much more massive than the one east of it. This shews that the latter was in line with a thin and therefore a low wall, while the former lined with a thick and lofty wall. This latter therefore was the high end-wall of the presbytery, and the former the eastern wall of a low aisle running north and south ; just as at the Cistercian abbey of Dore, which was building at the same time, and probably at Glastonbury. The presbytery would open into the aisle behind by two arches, as at Exeter, or three, as at Dore; the aisle would probably provide both a row of altars and a procession path. This leaves three bays for the presbytery ; and if we pass within, we shall find all its three arches still in existence on either side. The easternmost of these arches would formerly rest to the east on very massive piers in a line with the bigger buttresses ; these could not be allowed to remain when the presbytery was prolonged eastward in the fourteenth century ; so they were replaced by fourteenth - century piers of more moderate dimensions, this being done with- out taking down the arches. The Wells design deserves most careful study, both from the earliness of its date and from its great influence on the school of West Country Gothic. In the design the con- trolling factor is the vault and abutment system. The remarkable feature about the vault is that instead of adopt- ing the usual Gothic method of making the diagonal arches semicircular, and pointing the transverse ones till they rose to the level of the central boss the course taken in the westernmost aisle-vault of Worcester nave the Wells 368 WELLS CATHEDRAL architect determined to point the diagonal arches as well. The same course was taken in the choir and aisles of St. Cross, Winchester, which was probably built some twenty years earlier, and in the contemporary Lady chapel at Glastonbury. Vaults with pointed diagonal arches are of course easier to construct, the lower courses approaching the vertical to such an extent as to require little centering. A more important advantage is that the more pointed a vault, the more vertical are its thrusts, and the less abutment they require ; probably this weighed most in the \Vells design, which above all things aims at securing stability. But a vault with pointed diagonals has its detects. If the transverse arches are made as loftv as the diagonal ones. WELLS CATHEDRAL 369 the whole vault will he very lofty and proportionately heavy and expensive. If, on the other hand, the former are kept low, the vault will be domical in form, i.e., much higher at the centre than at the sides, and this is precisely the state of things at St. Cross. Hut in England the architects were all for non-domical vaults, i.e., vaults with their longitudinal ridges level. They had indeed tried domical vaulting in Lincoln central transept and Southwell choir, hut it was not satisfactory, and was abandoned. At Wells also it was determined to have a vault with level ridge. The difficulty was how to combine it with pointed diagonals without unduly increasing the height of the vault. This is how it was done. Let us imagine in the first place that the nave was to be vaulted in square bays, not as now in oblongs. The diagonals of a square would be longer than those of an oblong bay, and would rise to a very great height. Hut if we vaulted the nave in rather broad oblongs, the diagonals would not rise so high ; and if for broad we substituted narrow oblong bays, the diagonals would be lower still. This is precisely what was done at Wells. The central aisle was set out in very narrow oblongs. Hut of course all the vaults require supports, and these supports are the piers down below. The result, therefore, of narrowing the bays of the vault was that more bays were required, and conse- quently more piers and arches were required also. This then is the reason why the short nave- of Wells has actually nine piers and ten arches on each side. Lincoln nave has six piers and seven arches ; and while the aisled part of Lincoln nave is iSi It. long, that of Wells is only 161 ft. Another important factor in the vault design was the lighting system. Much importance was evidently attached to good lighting at Wells. All the lancet windows are exceptionally broad, owning no kinship whatever to the slender, graceful lancets ot Lincoln and Salisbury: but following the proportions ol the- round-headed windows in St. ( 'ross choir and Worcester nave. Hut it would have been useless to put large lancets in the clerestory if they were to be obstructed bv the vault : therefore, to unmask 37O WELLS CATHEDRAL the clerestory windows, the side cells of the vault were tilted upward, as at Pershore, instead of having level ridges. Then the serious question of abutment had to be con- sidered. Here the builders shewed themselves thoroughly sceptical of new-fangled Gothic methods. Flying buttresses in the open air, like those going up simultaneously at Chichester, they would none of. They actually had little faith even in vertical buttresses ; they put them up indeed ; but both in the aisles and the clerestory, as at the east end of Pershore, they have little more projection than Norman pilaster strips. What they believed in, as the archaic Xorman builders had done, was thickness of wall. Here, as at St. Gross, which seems to have been largely the prototype of the early Gothic of Worcester and Wells, the walls are very thick ; those of the aisles being 5 ft. 3 in., those of the clerestory 6 ft. 2\ in. at the top. Though no flying buttresses were built outside, yet they are present inside the triforium chamber, their heads being about on a level with the corbels which support the vaulting-shafts within, the idea being, correctly enough, that the thrusts of the high vault would be exerted not at the level of its spring, but a little distance lower. And, curiously enough, their heads are also made to carry the clerestory buttresses ; the latter are not, as in Lincoln choir, brought down to the door of the triforium chamber to rest in ''false-bearing" on the transverse arch of the aisle-vault.* Then, after all this engineering, to make things more stable still, the ground story was built exceedingly low. As has been said above, the clerestory walls are very thick : it follows that the piers below, which carry them, have to be very massive also. And as they are also low, they are very squat piers indeed: so they are at Lichfield also. The next problem to be solved was how to make them look taller. The answer was multiply the number of vertical lines by encircling the piers with all the shafts WELLS CATHEDRAL 3? I that can possibly be packed together. Accordingly in the presbytery the piers have sixteen shafts, while in the nave the number rises to twenty-four, which in the latter are all arranged in triplets. It is to be noted that the shafts are not detached and are not of marble. Here again the design hails from Worcester nave, where it appears in a less perfected form. These low massive piers, surrounded by triplets of shafts in coursed freestone, appear in the parish churches of St. Cuthbert, Wells ; Llanidloes ; St. Mary, Shrewsbury, and St. Sepulchre's, Northampton ; and at Pershore, Lichfield, Dore, Chester cathedral, and Christ church, Dublin. Another curious feature is the non-correspondence of the intermediate story externally and internally. If we pass outside, we shall find that the aisle roof rises up to the sill of the clerestory windows, leading to the expectation that inside the church we shall find a lofty triforium arcade. But on re-entering the transept and nave, we find that the triforium arcade is quite low. But though it is low, behind it there is a lofty triforium chamber, rising, as externally, up to the sill of the clerestory window. The clerestory string therefore does not tell the truth about the elevation ; it pretends to demarcate the triforium from the clerestory, but it does nothing of the sort. This string is in reality not much more than half-way up the front of the triforium chamber. At Worcester the string is in its proper place, i.e., just below the sill of the clerestory windows, and the vault springs from the top of a pier situated between the clerestory windows. But the Wells people did not care to spring their vault from piers, however broad, but pre- ferred that the vault should spring from a broad surface of solid wall unbroken by any openings. Consequently in the nave all the wall from the sill of the clerestory window to the top of the triforium arcade was left solid, and against this the builders with confidence set their vaults. What space was left between this solid wall and the tops of the pier-arch was but inconsiderable, and it was this that was pierced with a low triforium arcade. This arcade differs 25 372 WELLS CATHEDRAL from any other in England. Elsewhere, and at Wells itself in the transept, the triforium arcade is divided by piers into bays corresponding with those of the ground story and the high vault. In the nave of Wells on the other hand it is made to correspond with the broad strip of solid wall beneath the clerestory windows, extending all the way from the central tower to the west end without any relation as to the disposition of its arches either to the pier-arches below or to the clerestory and vault above. Erom this curious treatment of the three stories a very remarkable internal elevation results ; one with a clerestory made to appear nearly as tall as the ground story, and a low triforium arcade between. A similar elevation no doubt was once to be seen in Lichfield choir, but only its ground story survives. At Pershore, however, the whole elevation remains, but with further attenuation of the intermediate story ; the arcade of the triforium chamber being there omitted altogether : the same treatment is to be seen in Southwell choir ; both of them are later than Wells nave. As to the order of all this work, it proceeded in the usual way from east to west. The first section of the work is that of Bishop Reginald, and was done between c. \ \ 80 and his death in 1191; this would probably include only the pres- bytery and part of the eastern sides of the central transept ; the plan of the piers and the archaic foliage of the capitals differentiate it from all the western work. The second sec- tion includes the rest of the central transept and about half of the nave, in which, half-way clown, is a marked break in the masonry, as well as a change in the foliation of the capitals, which now swarm with grotesque birds and beasts ; the lovely north porch probably belongs to this period. This section was probably put up between 1191, the year when Reginald died, and 1206. The work must now have been abandoned from 1206-1216, during which the income of the see was confiscated and the revenues were paid yearly into the king's purse ; this was the wretched King John, who died in 1216. At length the works were resumed in 1220 by Bishop Joscelin, who found the WELLS CATHEDRAL 373 church much dilapidated after fourteen years' stoppage of the works. To him may be attributed the western bays of the nave, which retain the indigenous Gothic style of the West Country, but banish the birds and beasts from the capitals. He is recorded to have consecrated the church in 1239. This must mean that the western bays of the nave were now finished ; it does not necessarily imply that the west front was finished also, except so much as was necessary to close up the west end of the nave. From the great diversity of style in the foliated capitals, it would seem that many of them, together with the corbels in the transept, were left in block and were not carved till much later ; this is certainly the case with the capitals of the south transept -the finest of their type in England on which are representations of the cure of toothache by Bishop Bytton or Button, who both in life and death achieved many cures, and who did not die till 1274. As we have seen, the design of the nave of Wells has great archaeological interest ; it has also a decided artistic distinction of its own. In the first place, the interior looks taller than it is. It is but 67 ft. high, and is thus one of the lowest of our cathedrals ; yet it looks sufficiently lofty. This is due to the narrowness of the bays, the great number of piers, and the multiplicity of shafts by which they are encircled. But the main impression is rather of great length than of great height. This is because the piers and arches are so numerous, and in the nave because of the obliteration of vertical divisions in the triforium and ground story, which are not separated off, as usual, into bays by vaulting-shafts. Here these are stopped just below the sill of the clerestory, and the triforium runs in an uninterrupted arcade the whole distance from west to east. And the free flow, east and west, of the broad horizontal band of the triforium is aided still further by designing it void of shafts, bases, and capitals alike. THIRD PKRIOD. Then comes perhaps the most remark- able volte-face in the history of English mediaeval design. All this fine church had been built in West Country Gothic. 374 WELLS CATHEDRAL But Bishop Joscelin was often at Salisbury (commenced in 1220), and no doubt had many a talk with Bishop Poore. Now Salisbury, except as regards its abutment system and thick walls, is not West Country Gothic ; it belongs to the South-Eastern school, which had produced Canterbury choir, and Chichester and Winchester retro-choirs, and of which the sign manual is the profuse employment of detached THE WEST FRONT shafts of marble. Therefore, discarding local talent, he seems to have sent for masons of the alien school, and both in the west front of the cathedral and in his own palace followed the Lincoln and Salisbury manner; (in his palace it is curious to see how heavily he scores his buttresses in Salisbury fashion). We may now pass out and survey this famous facade and its immense collection of sculpture by far the best mediaeval WELLS CATHEDRAL 375 figure-sculpture in England, and only surpassed by the yet earlier sculpture of Chartres. The visitor will do well to study it in detail in the admirable series of photographs, taken when the scaffolding was up for the restoration of the facade. Much of the statuary must have been executed after the completion of the facade, and, in the opinion of Comte Robert de I.asteyrie, belongs to the closing years of the cen- tury. As for the composition of the west front, it has been severely criticised, but two things must be borne in mind. The first is, that the towers were probably designed for spires. Add the spires, and as Xotre Dame, Paris, the squat- ness of the facade disappears. There are, however, no squ inches for stone spires at Wells ; if spires were intended, they would have- had to be- of wood. Secondly, it was designed for the sculp- ture a sort of open-air reredos and not tin- sculpture for the facade. Nevertheless.it is not good, even as a reredos. The windows are mere slits in the wall, the doorways mere " holes for frogs and mice.'' Hut it must be remembered that these doorways merely led to the cemetery in front of the facade : DKTAII. OF TUK NORTH TOWER NORTH SIIIH 376 WELLS CATHEDRAL the entrance for the town folk was through the south-west tower ; that for the dean and canons was the north porch. The facade, however, certainly lacks variety : the six big buttresses project, but have all the same amount of pro- jection. The arcading below the west window is confused and muddled, and, as in the south transept of York, is cut into anyhow by the central doorway. Nevertheless,, its great breadth makes this facade of Wells more impressive than any other in the country, except that of Peterborough. What would it have been with the spires added ! The chapels of the western towers are of the same period as the west front, and are full of delightful detail ; especially fine is the doorway into the cloister. It may well be that Bishop Joscelin commenced the west front before completing the western bays of the nave, employ- ing in the latter t h e S o m e r s e t masons and in the west front out- siders. It is known that little was done at Wells from i 242-1 268 ; we may therefore date the west front (except some of the statuary) between i 220 and 1242. It may be INTERIOR OF THE CHATTER HOUSE same flat-topped helmets occur as in the arcading inside Worcester retro- choir, which was begun in 1222. FOURTH PKRIOD. While the west front was WELLS CATHEDRAL 377 peopled with statuary, the undercroft of the Chapter house was built. A similar Chapter house, two stories high, once existed in precisely the same situation i.e., east of the north transept at Beverley minster, the exquisite staircase to which still survives. Westminster has a vaulted undercroft, which was used as the Royal Treasury ; at Wells the strong door and bars point to a similar use. The Wells treasury cannot be much later than 1286. The staircase or vestibule to the Chapter house, with simple tracery of cusped circles in its windows, is prior to 1292. The work here deserves the closest inspection. The naturalistic foliage of the capitals and corbels is superb : especially notice the first corbels, represent- ing a monk and a nun treading on serpents. The staircase leads by the chain bridge to the vicars' close, as well as to the Chapter house. The Chapter I house is one of t the noblest in England. The long-lobed trefoils in the window tracery indicate that it is not earlier than the end of the thirteenth century ; while the profusion of ball-flower round and beneath the windows, and the ogee dripstones outside the windows, indicate' that it was not completed till later still. Canon Church has ascertained that the vestibule, floor, and temporary roof of the Chapter house were com- pleted between 1293 and 1302, but that the outer walls, windows, stalls, central shaft, vault, and parapet were built between 1306 and 1 319. Firm PF.KiOD.---A much more important work remained, which had hitherto been postponed, owing perhaps to the great expense involved in the completion of the west front THK CHAPTER HOfSE VAULT 373 WELLS CATHEDRAL and the Chapter house. It was to extend the choir eastwards. The defects in the planning of Bishop Reginald's church were that the stalls were outside the eastern limb of the church, that there was no separate procession path, and that THE KKTKO-CIIOIK, LOOKING EAST the Lady chapel was outside the church. As usual, the easternmost part of the work, the Lady chapel, was started first ; it was finished in 1326. Its windows have beautiful reticulated tracery of early type ; and there is lovely carving WELLS CATHEDRAL 379 in the capitals, bosses, reredos, sedilia, and piscina. Nowhere, not even in Lichfield, is there such an assemblage of Gothic capitals as at Wells ; the development of the foliated capital should be studied successively (i) in the present choir and the eastern aisles of the central transept ; (2) in the eastern nave; (3) in the western nave; (4) in the western aisles of the central transept; (5) in the west transept, west end and west front; (6) in the staircase of the Chapter house; (7) in the Chapter house: (8) in the Lady chapel, retro-choir, and the present presbytery. The Lady chapel is polygonal and is flanked by two lateral chapels. In the retro-choir the vaults are planned most picturesquely : the controlling factors being the neces- sity to connect the broad central arch of the Lady chapel with the narrow central arch of the presbytery. This is achieved quite simply by forming the centre of the retro- choir into a square bay. It almost looks as if the 1 central square was arranged for the shrine of some local saint, but there seems to have been no such saint at Wells. May it have been intended for the tomb of Bishop William de Marchid, tor whose canonisation the canons made great but unsuccessful efforts at Rome, and whose tomb is in the south transept. In the Chapterhouse a single central stalk branches upward and outward in all directions, like some palm tree transmuted into stone. This beautiful effect is transferred to the retro-choir, but multiplied six palm trees in place of one ; for each of the six piers of the retro-choir emulates the Chapter house's central stalk. "It is difficult to determine whether the effect is more striking in the early morning, when the ancient splendours of the stained glass are reflected on the slender shafts of I'urbeck marble and the clustered vault : or at the late winter services, when the darkened figure's of saints and prophets in the clerestory combine 1 with the few lights burning in the choristers' stalls to add something of mystery and solemn gloom to the ma/e of aisles and chapels, half hidden, half revealed.' There is certainly no such lovely chevet in England : Salisbury perhaps exhibits the nearest approach 380 WELLS CATHEDRAL to it ; hut at Wells the unsymmetrical arrangement of the piers of the retro-choir and those of the three arches opening into it from the presbytery open out vistas which are a veritable glimpse into fairyland. The delightsomeness of the planning is still further increased by throwing out little eastern transeptal chapels, as at Southwell. These make up for the four altars which had occupied the east end of Bishop Reginald's church. In this retro-choir of Wells THE RETRO-CHOIR, LOOKING WEST we have something really worthy of comparison with the intricate vistas and perspectives of Amiens and Le Mans. The next thing was to remove Bishop Reginald's eastern aisle and to build three new bays connecting the retro choir with his presbytery. This done, new stalls were built, and were placed in the eastern limb, the three western bays now becoming choir, and the three eastern ones presbytery. (The present stalls are modern, but retain the ancient misericords, which are admirably carved.) Moreover, a WELLS CATHEDRAL 381 new choir screen was added under the eastern arch of the central tower, against which the stalls were returned. Larger windows also were inserted aisles of the in the new choir. The vault, like the contem- porary one of Gloucester choir, is a new departure. It is not really a vault whose web is supported by ribs, but a pointed barrel vault cut into by lunettes for the windows ; on its inner sur- face are carved patterns ill adap- ted for the pur- pose. The thrusts of this vault are taken by external flying buttresses : the junction of the two systems of abutment is well seen from the grave- yard to the south. So early as 1321 the central tower had been raised to its present height. As was so often the case, the additional weight l> caused the four great piers, on which it rested, to sink into the ground. This, of course, tore away the masonry of the four limbs of the church from the piers, and yawning gaps began to appear between the tower arches and the main walls of the church." The piers had to be strengthened and the gaps filled up. This was done about 1338. At Canterbury the central piers were strengthened by running across a hori/ontal stone girder ; at Wells, as at Glastonbury, THK CHOIR, LOOKING EAST 382 WELLS CATHEDRAL the exceedingly strong and exceedingly ugly form of an arch carrying an inverted arch was adopted. This stone frame- work assumes something of the shape of St. Andrew's cross, by which name it is generally known. The eastern arch is not strengthened in this fashion, but by a massive screen, which is practically a solid wall, as at Canterbury, York, and Ripon. What makes the St. Andrew's cross more objection- able still is the large scale of its moldings, which dwarf everything in the cathedral into insignificance. Probably one of the last works of this period was to crown the whole exterior of the cathedral with a fine pierced parapet. These great works, beginning at the Lady chapel, may be said to have begun on the completion of the Chapter house in 1319, and were probably finished, or nearly so, by 1349, the year of the Black I >eath. SIXTH PERIOD. The central tower being saved, the next thing was to carry up western towers. Of these the southern was built after the year 1386 : the northern tower is later than 1424. Moreover, rectilinear tracery was inserted in many of the early windows e.^., by Bishop Beckington in the clerestory and aisles of the nave (1443-1464). The same prelate built the three gatehouses, all of which display his rebus, a beacon in flames issuing from a barrel : vi/., the Chain Gate, the Penniless Porch (opening to the Market Place), and Browne's Gate (at the end of Sadler Street). His magnificent canopied tomb, retaining much of the original colouring, was cut in two by the' "restorers" at the time when they also restored the stalls out of existence : the tomb is in the south aisle of the presbytery, the canopy in the south transept. The present cloister was built in the first half of the fifteenth century. Bishop Reginald had merely provided a covered walk to the external Lady chapel and his palace : its eastern wall was retained, but the walk was now vaulted : southern and western walks were also added, a three-sided cloister being thus obtained. The absence of a north walk indicates that the purpose of the cloister was to provide a path under cover for the processions on Sundays, Corpus WELLS CATHEDRAL 383 Christi Day, Palm Sunday, and other great feasts; the processional path in the cloister starts at the eastern and ends at the western processional doorway of the south aisle of the nave. From the presence of a music gallery in the south clerestory of the nave lacing the northern entrance it may be argued that the Palm Sunday procession re-entered the church by the north porch. In the nave are two large chantry chapels ; on the north side that of Bishop Bubwith (pb. 1424), on the south that of 'Treasurer Hugh Sugar (pb. 14^9). 'The stone pulpit was put up by Bishop Knight (pb. 1547) ; the lectern by Robert Creyghton, who became dean in 1660. BIBLIOGRAPHY. Professor Willis in Ecclesiologist, xxiv. 303: and in the Bristol volume, 1853, of the British Archaeological Association : and in \\\