yC-NRLF $B IMB 5b7 THE - LJATHEDRALS OJ i ENGLAND &W^LES h- r m m m\ lliilii- miippniHiiiuMii i-syiiiiliiiiiliin-/' ■Mi raffi III mluiUpUniM'- <2> in iinU!| W ll Ui» « J» » » | ^M • Nave, Perpendicular Style 18 Durham » From St Oswald's Church- yard . . . . 35 )> )» Nave looking East . 44 » " Example of Choir refitted after the Restoration 52 Ely »» From the South 65 » )) Nave, looking East . 84 Lincoln » From the South-west . 113 )) »> The Choir . . 130 Salisbury » From the Cloisters 138 j> » Nave, looking East ■ 152 Worcester » From the South Side . 166 » »> Choir, looking East . 188 Hereford )» North Transept, Porch anc Tower . . 198 Xll LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Chichester Cathedral, From the North-east The Retrochoir Chester Bristol The Choir, Sherburne's Restored . From the North-east Choir, looking East From the North-east Nave, looking East with Bishop Altar - Screen PAGE 221 228 234 246 252 264 268 THE CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND AND WALES CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY SKETCH At the outset of a lecture delivered nearly half a century ago at Chichester on " The Causes of Sub- limity and Beauty in Cathedral Architecture," one of our most accomplished ecclesiologists — the late Archdeacon Freeman — observed : — "The study of church architecture may be approached from so many sides, and possesses such varied sources of attraction, that we cannot wonder that persons of the greatest possible variety of tastes and temperaments should be found at the present day to take an interest in it. " The wonder rather is, that any age should be found indifferent to a subject which appeals, in so many ways, alike to our highest faculties and aspirations, and to our most ordinary moods and everyday expressions of thought. It should seem as if no one, in whom there lingers any feeling of association with the past, — of delight in what is beautiful, — of awe at what is lofty and sublime, or of reverence for that which enshrines and shadows forth holy things — could really be indifferent to the charms of church A 2 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND architecture. In a word, we are all of us by nature, or, however, by Christian education, lovers of it. It may therefore fairly be presumed that to call attention to any part of this wide subject, is to open a book which all must read with delight, or rejoice in hearing read by others." This was wisely and truly said ! An extensive acquaintance with the ecclesiastical architecture of Northern Europe emboldens me to affirm, that England has a greater number of noble parish churches than France and Germany put together. Our Collegiate and Royal chapels and our village churches are indeed unrivalled ; but our cathedral churches, too, will bear comparison with the grandest in Europe. Considering, indeed, the small area of England, and, until the commence- ment of the last century, its small population, it may be said that our cathedrals are proportionately nobler and more numerous than those of any single nation in the world. In the varying styles of their architecture, we may read the habits, and almost discern the thoughts, of mankind at certain periods, whilst independently of the information thus con- veyed by their plans and arrangements, there is ever in these noble buildings enough of artistic beauty to create a high interest in the mind of the student. Even in their successive repairs, alterations, and embellishments, it is curious to observe the different types of beauty which have formed the prevailing standard of various eras. Then, in those grand galaxies of buildings, the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, we are furnished with a series of examples for studying the architecture of every successive INTRODUCTORY SKETCH 3 period from the thirteenth century to the present day. Some are to be admired for their magnificence or their beauty, and others for the reflected light they throw upon the history of the two Universities and the nation. The history of church architecture in England is so closely bound up with the progress of civilisation and the general history of the country, that it is impossible to understand the one properly without some know- ledge of the other. Every country develops by degrees its own literature, art, and architecture, and when a country has developed its own characteristics, there is no necessity of seeking further foreign traits. English architecture was the result of climate, material and race — the combination of Celtic, Norman, and Saxon elements ; its development has been continuous, and every successive age has given us something new. The church architecture of France and Germany presents so many features analogous to our own, that the reader must not be surprised to find frequent reference in the succeeding pages to work that was going on contemporaneously in those countries. And here I may take the opportunity of observing that the series of changes from the early Roman- esque to the establishment of Pointed architecture, and thence again to its final extinction, differs materially in the three countries. It is remarkable, however, to observe how they seem gradually to approach nearer and nearer to one another, till towards the close of the thirteenth century, when all appear, though by different routes, to have arrived, in the main at least, at the same point, as^ evinced 4 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND in the Angel Choir of Lincoln Cathedral, the Sainte Chapelle at Paris, and the Choir of Cologne Cathedral. Even here some differences still remained, as might be expected, from slight varieties in climate, materials, and racial habits ; still, to the general observer, the essential principles and elements of the complete Gothic styles of, let us say, 1280, were perfectly coincident in France, Germany, and England. This coincidence was, however, but of short dura- tion, for from this point all again diverged ; we settling down into the Perpendicular ; France retaining the Flamboyant, until the great wave of the Renaissance swept over it before the end of the fifteenth century ; while the Germans launched out into that exuberant fancy, that intense love for the picturesque, and that strong predilection for creating difficulties in order to enjoy the pleasure of surmounting them, which too often outran discretion. English cathedrals and abbeys of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries derive their impressive character from that lowness which not only makes them appear longer than those of France, but has permitted their architects to extend and vary them by the addition of eastern transepts, and chapels secured by the elongation of the choir aisles, so that it is in their plans that we may look for the most interesting points of distinction between our cathedrals and those of the Continent. In England, square ends gradually triumphed over semicircular or polygonal ones. First, in new churches built in the last days of Romanesque, as at Kirkstall, and in the earliest days of Pointed, as at INTRODUCTORY SKETCH 5 New Shoreham, Fountains, and Brinkburne, and at a later date in the altering of old churches. We have, of course, instances of the use of the apse in post- Conquest times. St Hugh's Choir at Lincoln, the earliest example of the pure Pointed style in England, had a large apse, in shape three sides of a hexagon. Westminster Abbey — " a church built on a French ideal, but with English detail ; a great French thought expressed in excellent English " — is apsidal, with a corona of chapels ; so is Tewksbury Abbey. The Decorated Lady Chapels of Lichfield and Wells terminate in polygonal apses, as do the Perpendicular choirs of St Michael's, Coventry, Westbury-on-Trym, near Bristol, and Wrexham. The Tudor Chapel of Henry VH. at Westminster is an unique instance of a chapel-encircled apse at so late a period. But these are isolated, and therefore extraordinarily valuable examples which may be taken as exceptions that go to prove the rule. The disuse of the apse in England at the beginning of the thirteenth century brought into existence that elongated form of transept, which had for its object the provision of additional altar space ; chapels, some- times apsidal, opening out of an eastern aisle with which these transepts were in most instances pro- vided. Why the square east end, as seen on so grand a scale at Ely, Lincoln, Gloucester and York, became so universal in England does not seem quite clear, though several theories have been propounded. Perhaps English architects had not the engineering abilities of their Continental brethren, and therefore did not feel themselves equal to coping with the difficulties presented by the chevet ; or it may have 6 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND been that love for tradition pointed to the revival of the square end, which was common in Anglo-Saxon times. But the real reason was doubtless a religious one ; for that strict regard for the orientation of altars which was always very strong in England — even in the laxest post-Reformation days — could not be adhered to when the radiating chapel system was adopted. An interesting example of the use of the apse came to light during the restoration of Chester Cathedral between 1868 and 1876. When the choir was rebuilt and lengthened at the end of the thirteenth century, the north and south aisles were finished off with semi - hexagonal apses. In Per- pendicular times these terminations were removed, and the aisles continued until they over-lapped two bays of the Lady Chapel, which, until that period, was difficult of access from the choir. When Sir Gilbert Scott came to restore the choir between the years above named, he found not only the foundation of the southern apse, but also many of its details which had been embedded in the Perpendicular work. He therefore took the bold course of rebuilding this apse exactly on the old site. In France, where the chevet^ was always in vogue, from the Romanesque of Issoire and N6tre Dame at Clermont Ferrand, to the Renaissance of St Eustache at Paris and St Pierre at Auxerre, the transepts * The chevet is a semicircular or polygonal east end, with a procession path from which chapels radiate, encircling it. We see it in its grandest and most developed state in the cathedrals of Amiens, Chartres, Le Mans, Meaux, Rheims, Tours and Troyes. 1 i iiti ^ lii ^ 1 iH p, ; "X ^ u-^ yi nr I 1 ^im < IllH ^^^^^^KA -^^ saiibH 1 MSl Mm^ lii '1 liv IM i^- ' iW Sill ■ \ \f r. v^ iB! ui 1 i\) hIh LI 'i i 1^^ i r i rr 1 f Jint Ml m\ !l 1 1 1 i 1 1 i r SIDE OF NAVK ...,w.,0-NORMAN STYLE PETERBOROUGH ^ CATHEDRAL . INTRODUCTORY SKETCH 7 were usually short. This gives the rationale of our elongated transepts. In Germany, the aisleless apse, which may be traced back to the large niche or semi-dome of the basilica, reproduced itself down to the latest days of Pointed in that country. The French chevet arrangement was occasionally, but by no means successfully, adopted, for of all the northern peoples the Germans were the least artistic in the planning of their churches. With them, as with us, strictness with regard to orientation was universal ; and when space for additional altars was required, it was met by giving the choir-aisles, which in some cases were doubled, an apsidal termination, so that frequently the plan of a German church may be styled parallel cinque-apsidal. The square end, however, is not so English a feature as many suppose. In travelling about France and Germany one frequently comes across it, though its use was, in most cases, a local one.^ To what, then, are we to attribute all this variety ? To whim ? Love of novelty ? Trafficking spirit of composition ? No ! men of mind were at work whose genius was not exhausted by one single effort, uniting great originality with indomitable patience and enduring labour, and a thorough systematic education in their art. In our cathedrals, which surpass those of the Continent in variety of outline, the endless forms of Pointed architecture appear not only in the difference of building from building, but in the different parts ^ As, for instance, the districts surrounding Laon and Etampes in France, and generally throughout Westphalia in Germany. 8 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND of the same edifice. And so distinct and so peculiar is the character of each, that to confuse one cathedral with another is well-nigh impossible. Nor is it only in our cathedrals and abbeys that this plastic nature of Pointed architecture is patent, but in those parish churches which are the pride and glory of England. The reason of this is, that when these great build- ings arose, machinery was not invented. The endless forms had all to be cut honestly in stone, and the artificer relieved the monotony of his labours by varying it according to his fancy, bringing out the creative faculty of the soul, giving lightness and strength to the arm, and stamping on the result a living character, which no tame copying can ever reach. As regards their capitular constitution, our cathedrals divide themselves into three orders of foundation : the Old, the New, and the Modern. By cathedrals of the old Foundation are meant those whose chapters, consisting not of monks but of secular canons, were not disturbed in the reign of Henry VHI., when all monastic establishments were either dissolved or remodelled with chapters of secular clergy ; such are York, St Paul's, Lincoln, Lichfield, Hereford, Wells, Chichester, Salisbury, Exeter, and the four Welsh cathedrals of St David's, Llandaff, St Asaph, and Bangor. The remaining cathedrals which, having been served by monks, were refounded with secular canons in the time of Henry VHI., and abbey churches, then made cathedrals for the first time, are styled cathedrals of the New Foundation. These INTRODUCTORY SKETCH 9 are Canterbury, Durham, Winchester, Carlisle, Ely, Norwich, Worcester and Rochester; Gloucester, Bristol, Oxford, Peterborough and Chester. To the third class belong those churches which have been raised to cathedral rank within the last century, to meet the spiritual exigencies of rapidly increasing populations. The see of Ripon was created in the reign of William IV. ; Manchester, St Alban's, Truro, Liverpool, Southwell, Newcastle, Wakefield and Bristol ^ during that of Queen Victoria ; and Birmingham and Southwark under that of His present Majesty. The devastation of the Danes in the ninth and tenth centuries point to the extreme improbability of our having many buildings remaining of a date anterior to that period. The crypt of Hexham — the master-piece of St Wilfrid, and the fifth church built in stone in Britain — and that of Ripon must, however, be considered works of the eighth century. A small portion of the walls of St Martin's, Canter- bury, belongs to the Roman British period, while to that comprised between the departure of the Romans and the year 1000, which may be reckoned as the period when real mediaeval architecture began in this country, we may refer the oratory of St Piran in Cornwall, part of the walls of Brixworth Church in Northamptonshire, and possibly some few others. Glowing accounts of certain pre-Danish Invasion churches have come down to us through such chroniclers as Stephen Eddy, Eadmer, the Venerable ^ The bishopric of Bristol was suppressed and united to Gloucester in 1836. Since 1898, however, it has once more had a separate existence. lo CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND Bede, and Gervais, but like that left by Venantius Fortunatus of Childebert's Notre Dame at Paris, they are too vague to be relied on. Still, we can gather sufficient from them to believe that these structures were somewhat rude imitations of the Roman and Eastern Basilicas, worked out in the absence of examples from the inner consciousness of the Teutonic mind. Of the hundred or so of Anglo-Saxon churches scattered up and down the country, some may be considered earlier, and others rather later, than that of Deerhurst in Gloucestershire, whose date, known to be 1056, might be taken as a key to the history of the whole, as the characteristic features of the style are nearly all to be found in that church. The "long and short work" and balusters in windows denote the hand of carpenters rather than masons, for these buildings were copied from those they had before their eyes, whereas in France there were Roman and Grecian buildings remaining which served as models even down to the period when the principles of the fully developed Gothic had firmly established themselves. The buildings of the eleventh century mark a period of very rapid progress from almost barbarism at the beginning — the masonry being of the rudest possible description — to a con- siderable degree of civilisation and very good masonry at the end of it. The Norman mode of building made its appearance before the Conquest, as testified in considerable remains of the Abbey of Edward the Confessor at Westminster, and, if Professor Free- man is to be credited, in that noble Romanesque fragment, the nave of Waltham Abbey. During the TT70RCESTER . . ^^ CATHEDRAL. Lady Chapel Early English Style INTRODUCTORY SKETCH ii reign of the Conqueror few buildings were completed, though many were begun ; forty-eight castles were in progress, besides several abbeys, and these probably furnished work enough for the Norman masons. But it is probable that parish churches still continued to be built by the Saxons after their own fashion, though with better masonry. Among the most notable examples of pre-Conquest churches are Bradford-on-Avon in Wiltshire, Earl's Barton and Barnack in Northamptonshire, Stow in Lincolnshire, and the towers of Bosham near Chichester, Clapham near Bedford, and Barton-on- Humber in Lincolnshire. The towers of St Michael, Oxford, St Benet, Cambridge, St Peter at Gowts, and St Mary-le- Wigford, Lincoln, Wootton Wawen in Warwickshire, Jarrow and Bishop Wearmouth, though preserving many of their Anglo-Saxon features, belong to the time of the Conqueror, as does perhaps Sompting in Sussex — a relic, solitary, destitute of history, and, until half a century ago, undeciphered, of that long and vigorous civilisation of which the monumental knowledge is so faint and flickering, compared with what we possess of the secular and religious con- structions of Sennacherib and Rameses. The great advance in the Norman style belongs to the reigns of William Rufus and Henry I. ; indeed the twelfth century throughout was a period of very rapid progress, and before the end of it we have as fine masonry as the world has ever seen, although the style is still heavy and massive, symbolical of the oppressive rule of the Norman kings. The Saxons had practised the round arched style 12 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND for centuries, but it received immense impetus from the superior knowledge and boldness of the Normans, and it had now matured into an architecture which stood quite alone. Lanfranc had rebuilt Canterbury Cathedral on the motif oi St Etienne at Caen, whose original plan, it may be well to remind the reader, was greatly altered early in the thirteenth century when the present choir was built in the most graceful Norman version of First Pointed ; Gundulph had begun Rochester, Walkelyn Winchester, Simeon Ely, Losinga Norwich, Wulfstan Worcester, and Carileph Durham, so that by the beginning of the twelfth century the works of these great churchmen were no longer overpowered by the influence of foreign novelties, but were working with a respect for, and a careful study of, the works of their predecessors, yet with that individuality which was the natural outcome of the admixture of race and temperament. All the Anglo-Romanesque examples above quoted have a massiveness and grandeur which is hardly equalled by contemporary Norman ones. Nor until a much later period can the Romanesque of Germany boast the same delicacy and refinement observable in Ely, Peterborough, Hereford, and Chichester Cathedrals; Christchurch, Dunstable, Romsey and Selby. The naves of Gloucester and Tewksbury, with their ponderous cylindrical columns, must be assigned to this period — the first half of the twelfth century — likewise the crypts of Canterbury and Worcester, the towers of Exeter, the chapter-house and passage thereto at Bristol, and the churches of St Bartholomew, Smithfield, Barfreston, Castor, Dunstable, Iffley, Porchester and Stewkley. INTRODUCTORY SKETCH 13 The advent of the pointed arch which had come into use in France early in the twelfth century, was hastened among ourselves by the destruction in 11 74 of the Norman choir of Canterbury Cathedral, whose rebuilding, with little loss of time under William of Sens, seemed to produce an immense effect through- out Britain, for, from that moment, Norman may be said to have ceased to exist, and everything was built in that Transition style which Edmund Sharpe so aptly termed " the tomb of the Romanesque and the cradle of the Gothic." There are, however, other eras of Transition, for the styles of the Middle Ages were perpetually varying to suit the altering requirements of the times ; so that in our beautiful gradations from Norman to Perpendicular, in which the germ of each development is to be discovered in the antecedent work, we have an unbroken sequence of buildings affording an endless source of study. The Transition, par excellence, is, however, that from the Anglo-Norman to the pure Early Pointed, free from any trace of Romanesque influence, but the change was so gradual that it is quite impossible to say when one style left off and another began, the round arch dying much harder in some districts than in others. The Transition was not the invention of any one mind, nor an importation from any foreign country, but the gradual work of many minds, and of more than one generation, assisted by hints and ideas taken from many different sources and different countries with which the people had the opportunity of friendly intercourse. In England the period of 14 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND Transition occupied the latter part of the reign of Henry H., a long and peaceful one, which led to much friendly intercourse between the dominions of that sovereign in France and our own country. It was productive — besides the choir of Canterbury Cathedral — of some of our most graceful and valuable specimens of architecture, as, for instance, the transepts of Ripon, the western tower and transept of Ely, the western transept of Peterborough, the nave of Malmesbury, portions of Fountains, Kirkstall, Glaston- bury and Buildwas Abbeys, New Shoreham Church, Sussex, the retrochoir of Chichester Cathedral, the two western bays of the nave at Worcester, and " The Round " of the Temple Church, London. We now approach that new and glorious epoch in church architecture commencing with the last decade of the twelfth century, when an age of church building zeal and devotion seems to have revelled and expatiated in the luxury of the newly developed Pointed system. Now the whole contour and composition of buildings is changed from heavy to light, from low to lofty, from horizontal to vertical, one might almost say from earthly to heavenly. Vigour and boldness, combined with lightness characteristic of a greater freedom of thought and of action, distinguishes the buildings of the thirteenth century, for the men who created them obtained Magna Charta. In the thirteenth-century architecture of France and Germany we are constantly meeting something we have seen before. But in English work of the same period the vivid and varied impression produced in beholding such an infinite variety of detail and DBCORATED STYLE EXETER . . . . CATHEDRAL. ^ INTRODUCTORY SKETCH 15 general expression is much more strongly marked — the Early English of Salisbury differing as widely from that of Wells, Llandaff and Berkeley, as do both these schools from that of the Yorkshire minsters. With the progress of the century, new and more beautiful features were introduced, observable generally in exuberance of ornament, and particularly in fenestration, and by the time the century had entered upon its eighth decade England had become covered with new buildings, and additions to old ones presenting a series of works illustrative of the most perfect period of Christian architecture — speci- mens of the art exactly at that point of perfection at which nothing on earth is permitted to stop — after the bud and before the rankness, the flower just blown. Examples of this glorious epoch, which may roughly be said to have extended from 1200 to 1350, crowd upon us, but it is impossible within the limits of this sketch to do more than mention such gems of the earlier phase as the cathedrals of Salisbury and Wells, the choir, transepts, and nave of Lincoln, the choir of Worcester, the presbytery of Ely, and the transepts of York ; and of the later one, the Angel choir of Lincoln Cathedral, the north transept and tower of Hereford, the tower and spire of Salisbury, the nave and Lady Chapel of Lichfield, the Chapter- house and Lady Chapel of Wells, the choirs of Carlisle Cathedral ^ and Selby Abbey, Merton College Chapel, Oxford, Patrington Church in the Holderness of Yorkshire, and last, though by no means least, our * See frontispiece to this volume. i6 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND typical building of the complete Gothic style — the Cathedral at Exeter. But another change was creeping on, swiftly in some localities, more slowly in others, and the flowing lines of the reticulated phase of Middle Pointed Gothic were yielding to the rigid ones of that style which was the outcome of our insularity, the English of the English — the Perpendicular. In the west of England, and particularly at Gloucester — do we not perceive its adumbration in that exquisite series of windows on the south side of the nave of the cathedral? — the Perpendicular style may be said to have come in with a rush, quite early in the fourteenth century, and with little or no attempt at articulation or transition. In other parts, as, for instance, in the uniquely interesting church of Edington in Wiltshire, and in the choir of York Minster, the change was much more gradual — being chiefly apparent, not only here but else- where in a feature which more than any other was characteristic of all the styles — the window. That the Perpendicular exhibits a decline in art it is idle to deny, yet what a glorious assemblage of buildings this epoch of our architecture has given us. To take but a few examples, let us think of the naves of Canterbury and Winchester Cathedrals ; of New and Magdalen College Chapels, Oxford, King's at Cambridge, St George's at Windsor, and Henry VII.'s at Westminster ; of such churches as Louth, St Mary Redclyffe, Bristol, St Peter Mancroft, Norwich, St Michael, and Holy Trinity, Coventry ; of such towers as Gloucester, Canterbury, and Magdalen College, Oxford, and of that noble series with which INTRODUCTORY SKETCH 17 the western counties are so liberally endowed, St Stephen's, Bristol, Wrington, St Cuthbert's, Wells, Glastonbury, North Petherton, Huish Episcopi, Kingsbury and Bishop's Lydiard ; of Chipping Camden, Probus, Wrexham, and the Huntingdon- shire, St Neots. Then, too, the Perpendicular epoch was pre- eminently the one of church furniture and embellish- ment, for it gave us the graceful choir stalls of Beverley, Carlisle, Chester, Lincoln, Manchester and Ripon ; the splendid timber roofs, screens and bench ends of those East and West Anglian churches that are, one may say, veritable lanterns for the display of stained glass which by the middle of the fifteenth century had reached its acme. It gave us those chantries whose sumptuousness makes us almost overlook Bishop Lucy's graceful Early English retrochoir at Winchester, and those towering altar - pieces that so grandly close the vistas of Winchester, St Alban's, Christchurch, St Saviour's, Southwark, and All Souls' Chapel, Oxford. What a magnificent architectural spectacle England must have presented with the union of the Houses of York and Lancaster, in the person of Henry VH., at the end of the fifteenth century ! That the Reformation acted as a heavy blow and great discouragement to ecclesiastical art in this country is an indisputable fact. It is true a decline is perceptible in works undertaken towards the con- clusion of the Wars of the Roses, yet the embellish- ment of, and additions to, churches of every grade was prosecuted with unabated ardour up to the first thirty years or so of the reign of Henry VIII., when B i8 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND the art received that sudden and decided check from which it has only recovered within the memory of many yet living. Abroad, the Pointed styles became vitiated much sooner than with us, and if it be true that the dissolution of the English monasteries checked church building and restoration, there can be little doubt that fewer remains of the Middle Ages would have been handed down to us had they remained. Church restoration and embellishment would have been prosecuted with all the old activity, but many of our great churches would have been irreparably disfigured ; and mediaeval Oxford, for example, Italianised throughout. Fortunately, love for old Pointed architecture died very hard in England, and in the few churches and college chapels built between the end of the sixteenth and the commencement of the eighteenth centuries, the decorative features of the Pointed edifices are really excellent, while the classic element introduced gives them not only an unusual grace but a considerable amount of historic interest. Charming, too, is the semi-ecclesiastical character of many an old mullioned house in Dorset, Gloucestershire, Northants, Somerset and Wilts. The Great Fire of London opened up a series of splendid possibilities for the genius of Sir Christopher Wren, whose city churches have one special value to Londoners, and, indeed to all Englishmen — let me say, to all English-speaking peoples throughout the globe — because they are Wren's churches. Sir Christopher Wren, taking him precisely as he was, is to us as no other architect has ever been, either here or elsewhere; and his churches, taking them NAVE PERPENDICULAR STYLE C ANTERBURY . CATHEDRAL. INTRODUCTORY SKETCH 19 for just what they are worth, are works of architecture such as no other city in the world has ever possessed, or probably ever will possess. In a word. Sir Christopher Wren is the pride of London. Nor is this all, for the glory which Englishmen at large associate with the name and fame of their great architect is even greater than parochial pride, and all regard themselves citizens of London when the ownership of St Paul's and its satellites, as a unique cluster of artistic gems, is in question. To be sure, these city churches of Wren are of unequal merit, and some are far less ornate as regards their decorative features than others, but for this one can hardly hold Wren responsible, much depending upon the condition of the parish whose church he was called upon to rebuild. At any rate, there is not one of the humblest of them in which some artistic feature has not been introduced, and when we recollect the large amount of work Wren had in hand all over the country, it is not too much to say that the design of these city churches of his, as a whole, was only equalled in its ever-present grace by its constant variety, and, indeed, unstinted originality. I may almost say of Wren's city churches that his instinct of graceful proportion never failed him, and that no subsequent efforts of English architects have ever equalled his excellence. Indeed, I can say for myself that when I cross the bridges spanning the Thames after any foreign travel, and behold the dome of St Paul's surrounded by those towers and spires whose varied outline must be for ever a source of the most delightful study, my pride in the ecclesiastical architecture of London is not 20 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND lessened by contrast with what I have been seeing elsewhere. In such buildings as he was compelled to raise in the Pointed style, Wren was less successful. The spirit was extinct, and all its traditions departed and forgotten, alike by architects and workmen. His detail, therefore, as, for instance, that in the roof of St Mary, Aldermary, offends us now, while the tower of St Michael's, Cornhill, will perhaps be overlooked by the purist as an utter barbarism, yet its otherwise "unprofitable magni- ficence" has its peculiar use, as showing us to what extent it is possible to compensate for deficiency of purity in the minor parts by careful adjustment of their composition and arrangement. In all probability had he lived at the present day, when styles are so well classified and defined, and when there is an abundance of workmen capable of executing detail, and when all appliances and means are ready to hand, Wren would have excelled as much in Gothic as in classic art. The eras of Anne and the early Georges not only introduced those admirable town houses, which with their white-sashed, segmental-headed windows are the most practical for our present wants, but gave us such grandiose specimens of church architecture from the hands of Flitcroft, Gibbs, Hawksmoor, and James as St Giles - in - the - Fields, St Martin's, Trafalgar Square, St Mary, Woolnoth, St George, Hanover Square, and St Philip's, Birmingham, so lately raised to cathedral rank. We who go about the country now, and observe the order and beauty almost everywhere pervading INTRODUCTORY SKETCH 21 our cathedral and parish churches, can form but Httle idea of the condition in which they were during the later Hanoverian and early Victorian periods, save from books or hearsay. Speaking more particularly of the cathedrals, neglect and melancholy brooded over these magni- ficent piles. Time and damp, moth and rust, were doing their work. The transient visits of pluralist dignitaries allowed them small chance to gain the affection or even the regard of their masters. Except a few zealous antiquaries the world outside cared even less for them than their ministers within. Zeal and devotion had, in a great measure, been stamped out by the Reformation. The short reign of splendour enjoyed by the Church of England under the first two Stuarts was rudely interrupted by Puritan sacrilege and irreverence, and but imperfectly repaired at the Restoration. The Protestantism which came in with William HI. robbed religion of all its attractions. Lethargy supervened, and the busy world lost interest in their churches, and thus these once fair minsters, despoiled, defaced, dis- honoured, suffered from sheer apathy and neglect ; for, beyond the keeping of them from falling into actual ruin, their guardians, with one or two notable exceptions, did little or nothing towards their em- bellishment, which, when we reflect upon the religious taste of the later Hanoverian epoch, was perhaps fortunate. But — except during the gloomy period of the Puritan ascendency — the daily offering of prayer and praise has never ceased in our cathedrals, even during the coldest days of the eighteenth century. 22 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND And this brings us to the consideration of a very important era in our little sketch, and one which, in visiting cathedrals and churches at the present day, we must of necessity learn something about. I refer to what is called " The Gothic Revival," a movement which, whatever may have been the faults — aye, and the follies — committed during its progress, must on the whole be looked upon as a new and goodly reformation, which, as an eminent art critic has very justly observed, "caused no rivalry but that of devotion, and which effected no change but one from meanness to beauty, and from heartlessness to love." The decay of our religious edifices was once a witness against us, yet their restoration testifies that life is not extinct, that with all the struggles, changes, rises and falls of our religious history, still the life of God is in the Church, and still the Church's life is in the land. Another permanent influence of this great move- ment is to be found in the vast wave of antiquarian, artistic, architectural, romantic sentiment which has passed not only over England, but over the whole of Europe, as a reaction partly against the French Revolution, but partly also against the false taste of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries which the Revolution overthrew. It appeared in England in the revival (headed by the Quaker Rickman) of the feeling for Gothic architecture which had in the previous ages entirely died out of the heart and mind of Europe ; in the growth of numerous archaeological societies ; in the rise of countless churches ; in the reproduction, such as would have caused a shudder in our Stuart or i I INTRODUCTORY SKETCH 23 Georgian ancestors, of the style of Henry VH.'s chapel throughout the great Palace of Westminster ; in the awakening of popular interest in our cathedrals, in the special services which fill their naves, and in the decent celebration of cathedral and parochial worship, where once all was squalor and neglect. It appeared in the Roman Catholic churches through the protests made by Pugin in favour of the mediaeval style against the rococo and mere- tricious ornaments of the Italian -made-easy system. Even Nonconformity caught the infection. It appeared in the Oriental Church through the reverence which, under Philaret, the venerable Metropolitan of Moscow, had everywhere drawn back the sympathy of the Russian clergy and laity from the pseudo-classic innovations of Peter the Great and Catherine, to the older Byzantine forms of Ivan III. It appeared in France in the passion for restora- tion, which, beginning under Louis Philippe with Lassus, Viollet-le-Duc, Didron and Montalembert as its leaders, has, almost to excess, rehabilitated every monument of antiquity even in that most changeful of nations. It appeared in Germany chiefly under the fostering care of the Catholic Louis I. of Bavaria, and the Protestant William III. and IV. of Prussia, as evidenced in the Chapel Royal of All Saints and the basilica of St Boniface at Munich ; in the restoration of cathedrals, minsters and churches throughout the country ; in the completion of the steeples at Ratisbon and Ulm ; and above all, in the resumption of the works at the cathedral of 24 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND Cologne, which had remained in abeyance for three centuries. I shall not, I trust, be accused of partiality when I state that the Englishman, both clerical and lay, has, generally speaking, taken a far more intelligent interest in, and more completely mastered the artistic and architectural study of ecclesiology, whether at home or abroad, than the Frenchman or the German. Abroad, the people have been taught to look to the State as the conservator and restorer of ancient buildings. With us, on the contrary, all this has been accomplished by public and individual munificence, so that, by being constantly invited to aid in their reparation and embellishment, we are enabled to evince a far greater interest in our churches, whether diocesan, collegiate or parochial, than our neighbours on the Continent. It is an acknowledged truism to affirm nowadays that no mere admiration or superficial imitation would have led to the revival of the ancient architecture of England after its long sleep from the middle of the sixteenth to the beginning of the nineteenth century. And yet, such credit do great men obtain, even for their slightest accomplishments, it is perhaps as prevailing an error to suppose that Horace Walpole was a skilful amateur architect, as that Sir Walter Scott was an exact and deeply-read antiquary. Repeatedly, since the revival of Gothic archi- tecture, has the credit been assigned to Walpole of having led the van in that great movement. That he admired it we know well, and also that he attempted to imitate it, and thus, in some degree, INTRODUCTORY SKETCH 25 served to keep alive that love of old Pointed forms which, although it smouldered for a long time, was never permitted to die out in England, as it so completely did on the Continent. But to those who have studied the subject in another spirit, if not to the world at large, it is equally obvious that no amount of such admiration or imitation could, by any efforts, have emulated the glorious works of the Quivils, the Thoresbys, the Wykehams, and the Waynfletes of former ages. England might have been covered with Gothic abbeys and priories ; but had an Ashridge, or even a Fonthill, been raised in every county, we should still have made but very slight progress. One might as well say that George IV. set the example of true Oriental architecture in that most melancholy of all faded places, the Pavilion at Brighton, or that Sir Robert Chambers founded a school of Chinese architecture by his pagoda at Kew, as that any useful step towards the revival of Pointed architecture was made by the elegantly selfish author of " The Castle of Otranto." It may be admitted, indeed, that Walpole was the founder of a school of "Gothic," long since exploded, but which has left its traces in St Paul's, Bristol, St Mary, Tetbury, St Swithin's, East Grinstead, and sundry proprietary chapels in fashionable watering-places. The first effective labourer in the revival of English architecture was, undoubtedly, John Carter, an enthusiastic antiquary of George III.'s reign, who went about the country sketching, measuring, and describing every ancient building that he saw. The Society of Antiquaries, recognising his delineative 26 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND skill and knowledge of architecture, employed him to etch many of the views of ancient buildings published under their direction ; whilst his own effective, though not minutely accurate, drawings and etchings did much towards educating public taste in the same direction. But John Carter wielded the pen with equal facility, for between 1798 and 18 17, there appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine^ under the title " Pursuits of Architectural Innovation," a series of letters calling the attention of Deahs and Chapters, in a most trenchant fashion, to the degraded state into which the noble buildings confided to their care had been permitted to lapse. Upon James Wyatt, who at that time was sweep- ing with his besom of destruction over Durham, Hereford, Lichfield and Salisbury — levelling bell- towers and chantries, denuding windows of stained glass, obliterating roof decorations, and removing altars from their legitimate positions, the anger of John Carter fell with especial severity, and there can be no doubt that many a beautiful fragment of mediaeval art owes its preservation to the enthusiasm and knowledge, far in advance of his age, of this truly remarkable personage. Wyatt had another formidable opponent in that most zealous, and, as far as his day permitted, learned antiquary, Dr Milner — Bishop in partibus of Casta- bala, and Vicar Apostolic of the Midland district from 1803 to 1826. Writing, not with the fiery enthusiasm of a religious convert like Pugin nearly half a century later, but with the sober judgment of an antiquary and the courtesy of an old- INTRODUCTORY SKETCH 27 fashioned Roman Catholic, Milner recorded his protest against Wyatt's injudicious meddling in a pamphlet entitled, "A Dissertation on the Modern Style of Altering our Cathedrals, as exemplified in the Cathedral of Salisbury" — where, it may be remembered, the altar had been removed from its legitimate position, within the centre of the three arches closing the choir, to the extreme east end of the Lady Chapel. The next merit is due to John Britton, who, in his " Architectural Antiquities of England," and that noble series of monographs on fifteen of our cathedrals published between 18 14 and 1835, did more than any man of his day and generation to preserve and explain those buildings in which we have so goodly an heritage. With ecclesiology in its most technical sense, Britton had little sympathy or acquaintance, although he lived to see the full development of its study, and modern research has doubtless discovered many flaws in these works. We must therefore regard them leniently as illustrations, not only of what zeal and industry with moderate talents and without academic learning may effect, but of diligent observation, pleasure in the beauties of architecture, and reverence for the spirit of antiquity. And there can be no doubt that these sumptuously illustrated works were among the earliest of the causes which led to that revival of the True Principles of Church Architecture, of which we, to-day, are reaping so abundant a harvest. Not only was John Britton born with an ardent love for whatever is beautiful in architecture or venerable in point of antiquity, he possessed^ at 28 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND the same time, the very rare faculty of bringing those particular men about him who could most efficiently aid him in his labours. Thus he introduced W. M. Bartlett, Edward Blore, George Cattermole, Frederick Mackenzie and Charles Wild, most admirable of architectural draughtsmen ; and Cleghorn, the brothers John and Henry Le Keux, Turrell, and Woolnoth, most inimitable of engravers to the illustration of his "Antiquities," and it is with renewed delight that we turn ever and anon to these treasuries of old Gothic art, embellished as they are with the handiwork of men, compared with whom the faithful Hollar is faithless. The first cathedral monographed by John Britton was Salisbury. This appeared in 1814, and although its indefatigable author survived the publication of the last one — Worcester, which came out in 1835 — twenty-one years, he did no more, being constrained to relinquish his undertaking on the ground of want of public support, its sale not repaying the expenses appropriated to its execution. The mania for such cheap publications as "Winkles' Cathedrals" had then lately set in, the promoters of that work depreciating, in an arrogant and injudicious prospectus, the works of more intelligent labourers in the same field, while garbling whole passages from their works without acknowledgment, and taking no trouble to correct their inaccuracies. It is remarkable that the early part of the last century, when not only the true principles of church architecture and arrangement had been completely forgotten, but when ecclesiasticism in almost every shape had reached its bathos, should have witnessed INTRODUCTORY SKETCH 29 the publication of some of the most princely works ever issued from the English press on mediaeval antiquities. Besides those of John Britton may be named Charles Wild's fine folios on the cathedrals of Lincoln and Worcester, published in 18 19 and 1823 respectively; John Chessell Buckler's "Views of Cathedral Churches in England and Wales," also put forth within those years ; Lyson's " Magna Britannia " ; Dawson Turner's " Normandy," with illustrations by Cotman ; his " Specimens of Archi- tectural Remains, principally in Norfolk " ; the elder Pugin's " Antiquities of Normandy " ; Neale's " West- minster Abbey," and " Views of the most Interesting Collegiate and Parochial Churches in Great Britain " ; and Sir Henry Ellis' edition of Dugdale's "Monasticon Anglicanum," with the etchings of John Coney, an artist whose execution possessed the freedom and delicacy of Piranesi, without his occasional obscurity and coarseness. Such works as these, and others which space precludes me from alluding to, captivated public attention by the excellence of the engravings of our antiquities. At first the excitement took the form of vague admiration, for, despite the theories propounded in them about the origin and development of the Gothic styles, these publications had little or no visible effect upon our ecclesiastical architecture, for when, on the passing of the "Million Act" in 18 18, and the Church of England, awaking to her responsibilities, set herself in earnest to provide for the spiritual wants of a rapidly-increasing popula- tion, it found the architectural profession almost 30 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND entirely unacquainted with the principles of mediaeval church architecture and arrangement. We can afford to smile nowadays at the efforts of Barry, Blore, Savage and Vulliamy, but we must recollect that when these men were in practice, the spirit of mediaevalism had been almost completely lost, and that there were no architectural museums or art schools such as have of late years been scattered over the face of the country for the training of artificers in the correct principles of stone and wood carving, stained glass, and so forth. Yet it must be admitted, that in spite of their architectural solecisms and defective arrangements such works as St Luke's, Chelsea, by Savage, and St Paul's, St John's and Holy Trinity in the parish of Islington, by Barry, possess a greater dignity of outline than many a more correct church built at later stages of the revival. Thomas Rickman did much to reduce the researches of such pioneers as Carter and Milner to a com- pendium, and, to provide what was most keenly felt by the architectural student, a grammar of his art, by his " Attempt to Discriminate the Styles of English Architecture," written between 1812 and 1 81 5 in the form of a series of lectures for "Smith's Panorama of Sciences and Arts." It appeared in a volume in 18 17, being noticed by the Quarterly Review as "an unostentatious but sensible tract." Forming as it did the first systematic treatise on the subject of Gothic Architecture, so well designed and judicious a work could not fail to ensure popularity, the effect of which is to be estimated only by the number of editions it has passed through. INTRODUCTORY SKETCH 31 and the multitude of architectural writers who have adopted its system and nomenclature. I should mention that Rickman himself designed several churches, very creditable for the time both as regards detail and proportion, perhaps the most satis- factory being St George's, Birmingham (in whose churchyard the architect is buried), St Matthew's, Bristol, and St Stephen's, Sneinton, near Nottingham. John Henry Parker of Oxford has a just claim to be considered a very principal promoter of the revival of Pointed architecture : for his " Introduction " and ** Glossary " have enjoyed as wide a circulation as Rickman's Treatise, and by their instructive and beautifully executed engravings, have placed this most fascinating study within the capacities of the merest tyro. I conceive, then, that I am justified in mentioning the names of Carter, Britton, Rickman and Parker as the four persons who, when everything had to be learnt about it, chiefly contributed to the advance of this science. Nor must the names of others be forgotten, such as Professors Whewell, Willis, and Freeman, Augustus Welby Pugin, J. A. and Raphael Brandon, Rev. J. L. Petit, Rev. George Aycliffe Poole, F. A. Paley, and Edmund Sharpe, besides various others of more or less acumen and industry, but whose writings have not been so popular, nor carried on with such continual perseverance. The period that witnessed the commencement of the labours of many of these men — the accession of our late Queen — was a very singular one. The ecclesiastical revival, both in theology and its architectural expression, to which I have already 32 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND alluded, was then just beginning. Members of the two Universities were working for the same end in their different ways, and quite independently of each other. The Ecclesiologist, a periodical remarkable for the moderate tone and sound common-sense of its pages, was the mouth-piece of the Cambridge Camden Society, with John Mason Neale, Benjamin Webb, and Beresford Hope as its leading spirits ; while of the Oxford body, John Henry Parker" was the guide, philosopher and friend. A remarkable instinct, combined with good sense and other gifts, quietly exercised by both these Societies — but particularly that of Cambridge — made their work an eminently useful one, in asserting principles, exposing shams, and restraining the ill- instructed private taste and judgment which have since often displayed themselves to excess, and which the excitable spirit of the day has naturally favoured. When these two Societies were first started, they had to fight a desperate battle against overwhelming odds, for its members were, generally speaking, neither grave ecclesiastics nor practical architects, but simply undergraduates bringing to their work no little of the petulance of youth and the inexperience of tyros. Still, some truths had been grasped, and those truths were manipulated. A few years rolled by, and the Societies aggregated so many allies to their bodies, that their members were able to criticise themselves, and to invite the world to do the same. Similar architectural associations were started in various parts of the kingdom ; certain architects, INTRODUCTORY SKETCH 33 soon to earn for themselves an European reputation, planned ; committees patronised ; and church digni- taries and lay-folk, at their own private cost, built churches more near to the mediaeval models in grace, richness, and truthfulness of design than could have been seen for three centuries. Besides this, all the arts ancillary to architecture — stone and wood carving, mural and vitreous decoration, works in the precious and coarser metals, needlework, music — made slow but sure progress, and thus year by year that great spontaneous movement within the Church of England received fresh accessions of strength. The reproach which was constantly being hurled at the Church of England that she has inherited buildings too vast for her shrunken form, erected for another form of devotion, and which she knows not how to use, can be urged nowadays with little or no propriety. Year by year, apart from their embellishment with various works of art, some fresh evidence is presented to us that the Church duly appreciates the worth of these noble inheritances, and is resolved to avail herself of them to the utmost. Indeed, the aspira- tion breathed more than half a century ago by John Mason Neale in his " Hierologus " has, in some instances, been realised beyond the wildest dreams of that eminent scholar and priest to whom English ecclesiology owes so deep a debt of gratitude : — " Again shall long processions sweep through Lincoln's Minster pile, Again shall banner, cross, and cope gleam thro' the incensed aisle." That Gothic architecture is but an enduring C 34 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND expression of the Christian faith is a trite, but not therefore less true remark. Without faith, art, if it enjoys an artificial existence, is but a mockery of its better self, and therefore with the restoration of faith has progressed the new development of art, and so with increased firmness of faith many of the pro- moters of its revived life have seen Winchester and York, Salisbury and Durham sharing the newer honours of younger rivals. CHAPTER II DURHAM As the train, northward bound, emerges from the tunnel just before entering the station at Durham, the first sight of its cathedral — that renowned and ancient seat of piety and learning — that exemplar of all that is solemn and grand in early post- Conquest architecture, and standing in unspoiled massiveness upon its wood -environed and tower- crowned hill — " Half church of God, half castle 'gainst the Scot "— is something to remember through one's life. Few English cathedrals afford so fine a scope for architectural illustration as Durham. All its works, whether of the original design or subsequent additions, are among the best examples of their kind. Everything in it that is ancient is upon a scale of grandeur and magnificence not surpassed, even if they are equalled, by any other structure. The church of a Bishop Palatine who ranked with 86 36 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND the princes of the land, who raised his armies and dispensed justice in his own courts, would be expected to exhibit in its architecture a degree of splendour commensurate with the rank of the prelate who had his seat within the walls. We see such a structure in the cathedral of Durham. Injured by Puritan violence ; refitted with unusual sumptuous- ness shortly after the Restoration ; defaced by the despoiler of Salisbury and Hereford, who, in his Georgian conceitedness, indulged in the vain hope that he could improve the design ; and again spoilt by an early Victorian obliterator of historical records, this noble fane has in our own day been made to reassume some of its pristine magnificence by careful and diligent study allied with refined taste. During the Heptarchy Durham makes no figure in history. The cathedral church was at Lindisfarne, where it had been founded as early as A.D. 635. In 883 the bishop and his clergy took up their abode at Chester-le-Street {a castrum in vico of the Romans), where they remained until 995, when, on an invasion of the Danes, the then bishop and the monks became wanderers with the body of St Cuthbert. After several migrations, the natural advantages of Durham induced them to select its then wood- land solitudes for their final abode, and in 999 Aldhuin, the first bishop on the settlement at Durham, caused a cathedral to be consecrated on that spot, where, three years before, the body of St Cuthbert had been brought. A century had scarcely elapsed when this Saxon fabric gave way before the great Norman impulse — William de Carileph, Bishop of Durham, a native of Bayeux, DURHAM 37 Justiciary of England in 1088, and the first great benefactor of the See, laying the foundations of those Norman portions which so impressed Dr Johnson on his way to Scotland for that memorable tour in the Hebrides, as to call forth his admiration in the words "rocky solidity and indeterminate duration." This was in 1092, nine years after the introduction of a body of Benedictine monks. Carileph, who died only two years afterwards, did not live to see much of the work which he had so nobly begun, completed, but it made rapid progress at the eastern end — the building of the choir and apse being the first stage of work, and the transepts and the first two bays of the nave, the second. During Ranulph de Flambard's episcopate (1099- 1128) the nave was carried up to the vaulting and the aisles completely ; and although there is no record of the final completion of the church, it must have been finished in all essentials shortly after that date, and if we may judge from a drawing of it by Mr Robson, for many years architect to the Dean and Chapter, it must have presented, with its three low towers, an appearance of great simplicity, yet grandeur. The plan was the usual one of a Latin cross, consisting of an aisled nave with triforium and clerestory ; of a transept with an eastern aisle, and of an apsidal choir also with triforium and clerestory, the whole being conceived in a bold and vigorous style of Anglo-Romanesque which seems to have taken root in this region of Northumbria, and differing in many ways from that employed 38 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND in the great contemporary East Anglian cathedrals of Ely, Norwich, and Peterborough, where in the two first named the nave arcade is comparatively low, the triforium almost equalling it in height. At Durham, the triforium retires into comparative insignificance, while great prominence is given to the arcades, of which there are two to each great vaulting compartment, except in the first nave bay and in that opening into the north and south western towers. The coupled arches rest upon Cyclopean columnar piers 23 feet in girth, all relieved with deeply channelled furrows, vertical, zigzag and reticulated. The bases of these isolated columns are 12 feet square, while the clustered shafts that support the transverse arches of the vaulting and their diverging ribs cover each an area of 225 square feet. Originally the grand entrance to the church was at the west end, but about the middle of the twelfth century a Lady Chapel was built out from the west front, after a failure to establish one at the east end, by the celebrated Bishop Hugh de Puiset (or Pudsey), a nephew of King Stephen. Although built during the Transition period of our architecture, when the pointed arch and other graceful details were supplanting the bolder Romanesque ones, this "Galilee," as it is now styled at Durham, has ornaments and round arches of a delicate Norman character, and divided, as the building is, into five aisles by four rows of these arcades some most beautiful cross views are obtained, reminding one of many-aisled Cordova. It is generally believed that Pudsey, who was a DURHAM 39 great promoter of the Transition in the north of England, commenced in 1155 with the once half- destroyed but now nobly restored Chapter-house, a purely Norman work, and closed with the erection of St Cuthbert's, Darlington, which is as purely Pointed, though it has been discovered that the greater part of that imposing cruciform church is of later date, in which it would appear that details, prepared by Pudsey, who died before the church had made much progress, were used up. The next phase in the architectural history of Durham Cathedral is the raising of the towers. In the original church the central tower rose very little higher than the roofs, and was crowned by a short square spire springing from within the parapet, while the two western ones, which did not rise beyond the corbel table of the clerestory, were similarly capped, the spires in this instance being flush with the eaves. The corbel table, to which I have alluded, was continued round the western towers, and it can still be seen at the same level just as though no more masonry were intended ; and looking at the west front we can still see at each side of a very rich arcade of Romanesque work, just under the gable, small projecting blocks of the same colour, forming little staircase turrets for access to the roofs, and which formed the finish to the stonework of the towers. I presume that the reason for the lowness of the old Norman western towers at Durham was a prudential one, the rock on which they are founded containing here and there a stratum of less solid kind. However, early in the thirteenth century, 40 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND additional grandeur was thought desirable for the west front, and so the square spires were removed — the wooden plate being left in one part on the walls — and a storey, enriched on each face with Early English arcades, added. Tall spires of light material were also given. These works, although their actual date is not recorded, may be attributed to Richard de Marisco, who became bishop in 12 17. Bishop Farnham, consecrated in 124 1, raised the central tower, but his work underwent so complete a rebuilding in the fifteenth century that not a vestige of it remains. With the year 1242 another era opens in the history of the cathedral ; for then it was that the "new fabric" eastward of the Norman church was commenced by Prior Melsonby, who introduced that feature which had made its debut at Canterbury over a century before — the eastern transept — but which in this instance was not combined as there, and at Beverley, Rochester, and Worcester with a projecting eastern limb, but made to form a portion of one vast fagade lighted by nine lancet windows, an arrangement of which a notable example remains at Fountains. Internally the effect of this great eastern transept, or, as it is generally styled, " The Chapel of the Nine Altars," whose blending with the older Norman portion so plainly bespeaks the hand of a master, is truly magnificent, but externally it has a some- what bald and flat appearance, for which the scraping process it underwent at the end of the eighteenth century is to some extent answerable. DURHAM 4t The prelate, under whose auspices this great Early English extension was contemplated, was Richard Poore, who had been translated to Durham from Salisbury in 1228. It is worthy of observation that several portions of our cathedrals are popularly and very conveniently attributed to the bishops during whose respective episcopates they were erected. This is scant justice to the contemporary deans and priors with their capitular brethren. Still, it has this advantage, that it invests what would otherwise be dry architectural history with something of the interest of a personal narrative. And this interest is indeed one of those things which impart such pleasure to the ecclesi- ologist in his studies, that he who first opened to us the full relish with which we follow out our architectural problem through all its branches of date, style, person, and so forth, might well claim the reward offered so many ages ago, and never yet, I think, adjudged for the discovery of a new pleasure. Thus, it is something to know that "The Nine Altars" of Durham Cathedral was commenced just as the cathedral of Salisbury was hastening to completion ; but it is yet more interesting to know that the same Bishop Poore who founded Salisbury, being translated to Durham, pursued his architectural tastes at the other end of the kingdom. Forty years were occupied in the erection of this noble piece of Early English work, and during that time the Lancet phase of that period had passed into the Geometrical Decorated. We have an indication of this in the north wall, which, when it had attained the level of the sill line, its whole 42 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND design was changed, a noble window with Geometrical tracery being introduced in lieu of the lancets that had been employed along the east end and in the opposite transept. This window has what is termed an inner plane of tracery, that is to say, its jambs and tracery are repeated at the distance of a few feet on the inside — a very favourite mode of treatment with architects at this period, and of which we have graceful examples in the clerestory of the choir at Hereford, in the transepts at Salisbury, and in the churches of Stone near Dartford, and St John the Baptist at Winchester. The lights, too, are made very wide, for the better display of stained glass, which was gradually attaining perfection. In order that the choir offices might be interrupted as little as possible, the old Norman apse was retained until the completion of the Chapel of the Nine Altars, or, as it was then styled, the "new fabric," c. 1280.^ Although the portion linking the two works was in progress at the time when the perfected Gothic 1 In 1862-63 a careful restoration of this part of the building was effected by Messrs Walton and Robson of Durham. All the old shafts of fossil marble (some containing remarkable madrepores) were re-polished by machinery ; and where this could not be done without lessening their diameter, or where shafts were entirely wanting, these were renewed. Broken bases were carefully restored, ruinous neckings to caps inserted in stone, and although much mutilated, the sculpture was untouched. Whitewash was removed by potash water and Manchester card, and the whole of this noble specimen of thirteenth-century work cleared of the defilements which had so long disgraced it, and its great beauty brought to light. DURHAM 43 had fully assumed sway, it is not, as might have been expected, completely emancipated from the Lancet, the architect selecting such features from the two styles as suited his immediate purpose best. In fact, we have here one of a large and im- portant class of buildings, such, for instance, as the Angel Choir of Lincoln Cathedral and the nave of Lichfield, characterised by the geometrical forms of their window tracery, belonging partly to the Early English and partly to the Decorated styles, but which is in reality distinct from both, and pre- eminently entitled, from the number and beauty of its examples, to separate classification. The choir consists of two great vaulting bays, sub- divided into four lesser ones, all of Romanesque work, and at the east end of them on either side, exactly on the spot whence the apse radiated, a short wall space enriched with three arcades beneath gables, immediately above which is a group of short corbelled shafts sustaining the great tranverse arch of the vault and the groining ribs that branch from it. Then beyond it, and made to range in height with the Norman work to the west of it, we have one wide bay of great beauty — a richly moulded arch springing from slender shafts, with vigorously chiselled capitals supporting a triforium and clerestory. The former is pierced with a triple arcade under a somewhat depressed arch ; the latter has two pointed arches enriched with dog-tooth and carried on grouped pillarets, the heads of these lancets (through which the clerestory windows are seen deeply splayed), in order to accommodate themselves to the lines of the vaulting, being unequal, the outer curve taking a 44 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND much bolder sweep than the inner. Thus, a line drawn from the apex of either lancet arch to the sill would divide the latter into two unequal halves. But, barring this little eccentricity, nothing can be more graceful than the manner in which the junction between Carileph's and Poore's work has been effected. The belief that Prior Melsonby vaulted the Norman parts of Durham Cathedral between 1233 and 1244 is an erroneous one, handed down to us from Browne Willis, who wrote early in the eighteenth century. But the evidence of the structure itself, the analogy of the vaulting in other parts of the church, and the light of modern research, have proved to us that the groining of the principal spans is at least as early as the episcopate of Pudsey. The remains of the great church at Lindisfarne — analogous in many respects to Durham, and, on a small scale, that at Warkworth, in Northumberland — may be cited as instances of mid-twelfth-century vaulting in which the influence of the great Weir-side Cathedral is strongly felt. Thus Durham Cathedral is the earliest complete example of an Anglo-Norman church whose builders had sufficient temerity to vault over large spaces. The fourteenth century left its impress on the church chiefly in the matter of some large windows, which, although beautiful in themselves, have robbed us of the original Norman fenestration of those parts into which they were introduced — the facades of the west end and north transept. They were the work, between 1341 and 1374, of Prior Fossor, who, so the " Anglia Sacra " informs us, " construxit in Eccl LOOKING EAST D URHAM . . , CATHEDRAL, I DURHAM 45 Dunelm, J magnam fenestram ex parte boreali, J parvam fenestram ex latere illius, et J parvam supra altare." This refers to the great window in the north transept and the small one lighting the north end of its eastern aisle. The former was, however, entirely reconstructed by Prior Castell during the latter part of the fifteenth century, but with tracery on the same lines. It still goes by the name of the Doctors' Window, from its stained glass, which represents figures, inter alia^ of Saints Augustine, Ambrose, Gregory, and Jerome — a modern reproduction of that which originally filled it, as we know, from the cele- brated " Rites of Durham." The Late Decorated windows in the south aisle of the choir are Fossor's work, but they must yield in delicacy and refinement to his first essay in the style, the great west window, which, with the eastern ones of Carlisle, Selby, and Heckington, and the western one of York, ranks among the finest specimens of flowing tracery in the kingdom. To the same century we owe that altar screen, which so beautifully breaks the vista from the west end of the building, and the monument of Bishop Hatfield (d. 1381) on the south side of the choir, and built during his lifetime to serve at once as his tomb and as an episcopal throne for his successors. The altar screen was erected in 1380, chiefly at the cost of John, Lord Neville of Raby, and in the con- struction of which seven masons spent a year under Prior Berrington. It was, however, carved in London from stone brought from France, and although stripped of its imagery and denuded of its once 46 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND brilliant pigments, it is still a superb piece of Early Perpendicular tabernacle work. Immediately above the altar is an oblong slab of Purbeck marble forming a sort of retabulum, and over which we know rich embroidery to have been hung. In 1849 this was covered by a bas-relief of Leonardo da Vinci's famous Ccenacolo, indifferently executed, and out of scale with its surroundings. During the restorations of 1873-76, this altar-piece was happily removed, and needlework placed there again with excellent effect. Still further alterations took place in the fenestra- tion of the cathedral in the fifteenth century under Prior Wessington, who either filled all the Norman windows with Perpendicular tracery or inserted entirely new ones in that style. The great lancets in the east and south sides were all treated in the same way, but at different times within the last century these interpolations and insertions have been removed, and all, with the exception of those in the south-east transept, " restored " back again to their original form, though whether rightly or wrongly I must leave each individual reader to judge for himself. A still more vexatious meddler was Bishop Langley, who confined his operations chiefly to the western Galilee ; giving two extra shafts to all its Late Norman columns, inserting new windows at the west end of the central avenue, and of that next to it on either side ; closing up the great western doorway with stone, which hitherto had remained separate from the Galilee by its own wooden doors ; opening new side doors into the cathedral at the east end of each of its outer aisles; re- roofing the chapel, and doing DURHAM 47 other things that he had much better have left undone. The great achievement of the Perpendicular epoch at Durham was the nobly contoured central tower, whose outline, as far as the belfry stage, recalls that of York. Bishop Farnham's continuation of the low Norman tower was set on fire by lightning in 1429, and so much injured as to need extensive and costly reparation. Little more than a quarter of a century later, it was again in a perilous condition, upon which its " re-edification " was " begun, but not finished, in default of goods as God knoweth," so wrote Prior Bell in 1474. This refers to the first stage of the tower which, forming a lantern, like those of Canterbury, York, Gloucester, Lincoln, and St David's, is open to a great height above the floor of the church, and with marvellously grand effect. The upper stage built for the reception of the bells, which had been previously lodged in the north-west tower, is a much later addition of the same period. Between 1859 and 1861 a thorough and most careful restoration of this tower was carried out by Mr E. R. Robson of Durham, with assistance from Sir Gilbert Scott; the latter, on examining the summit of the belfry stage exteriorly, finding certain marks which led him to conjecture that it was in- tended to finish the work with a crown imperial like that at St Nicholas, Newcastle. Wyatt put forth a preposterous design for a spire, which, fortunately, came to nothing. This tower was formerly rich in statuary. What remained of it when the work of restoration took place was taken down and most carefully dealt with, and saturated with shellac before 48 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND being reinstated ; the missing statuary was replaced by new, so that in its present condition this central tower of Durham Cathedral is certainly a true restora- tion, and one that has not deprived its original outline of any single feature. Before the Reformation there were few English cathedrals in which the ceremonial of its services was carried out with greater dignity and splendour than Durham, and of this we may gain some idea from the description given us in one of the most valuable and interesting of the Surtees Society's publications, " The Rites of Durham." This account is a treasure possessed by no other cathedral, furnishing us as it does with a key to the many remains of decoration and evidences of fittings that still exist, and which, during the last great restoration and rearrangement of the fabric undertaken between 1870 and 1876, was carefully studied, and to some extent scrupulously followed by those engaged in the task. But shorn as they were of their splendour at the Reformation, the services at Durham Cathedral have always — excepting, of course, during the Protectorate — been carried out with great dignity and impressive- ness, even in the laxest days of the Hanoverian era.^ Copes were worn at the Holy Communion — which was always celebrated chorally throughout on the first Sunday in the month — down to Dean Warburton's time, about 1780, when they fell into desuetude. One reason for the disuse of these vestments was that they were worn till they were so thin as to be in Mt is still the practice at Durham for the canons to make " due and lowly reverence " towards the altar on leaving the choir at the conclusion of every service. DURHAM 49 danger of dropping to pieces, unless, indeed, the story given in a number of the Quarterly Review for 1825 be true — as it probably is. The reviewer says that in asking the verger why the copes were disused, he said : " It happened in my time : did you ever hear of Dr Warburton, sir? A very hot man he was, sir! we never could please him putting on his robes. This stiff high collar used to ruffle his full- bottomed wig ; till one day he threw the robe off in a great passion and said he would never wear it again : and he never did ; and the other gentlemen soon left off theirs too." Daniel Defoe alludes to these vestments in his " Tour through Great Britain," taken during the early part of the eighteenth century. "The church," he remarks, " is very rich ; they have excellent music. The old vestments which the clergy before the Refor- mation wore are still us'd on Sundays and other Holy days by the Residents \i.e. Canons Residentiary]. They are so rich with embroidery and emboss'd work of silver, as must needs make it uneasy for the wearers to sustain." These copes are still preserved in the library on the south side of the cathedral — four being mediaeval, and one of the time of Charles I. The best of the mediaeval copes is one of blue cloth of gold, with orphreys containing eight subjects of events from the Life of Our Lord, and one of the descent of the Holy Ghost. On the hood is a figure of Our Lord, seated and surrounded by angels ; but little, if any, of this is mediaeval work. The seventeenth- century cope is of crimson satin, powdered all over with stars, and David holding the head of D 50 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND Goliath worked on the hood ; the border is covered with cherubs. But whether of mediaeval or late work these vestments at Durham afford much delight to the student of ecclesiastical embroidery, and are justly prized. Sir William Brereton, in his " Notes of a Journey " published by the Chetham Society, thus describes Durham Cathedral as he saw it in 1635 : — " The minster is kept as neatly as any in England. Herein is a stately pair of organs which look both into the church and chancel ; a stately altar stone, all of fine marble, standing upon a frame of marble columns. When the Communion is here administered, which is by the bishop himself, there is laid upon the altar a stately cloth of gold : the bishop useth the new embroidered cope which is wrought full of stars, like one I have seen used in S. Denis in France. There are here two other rich copes, all of which are shaped like unto long cloaks reaching down to the ground, and which have long, round capes." This, by the way, is one only of almost endless references to the use of this, the most dignified of choir vestments, during the seventeenth century in England. Another very interesting account of the cathedral as it appeared in the halcyon days of Charles I. is given by a certain lieutenant, one of three merry gentlemen of Norwich who set out in 1634 on a tour of the English cathedrals. The lieutenant compares the city to a " crab in shape," but does full justice to the cathedral. Dr Cosin — bishop after the Restora- tion — was then treasurer, and " great sums had been disbursed to adorn it." There was " a fair and rich Communion table, which cost £200, standing at the DURHAM 51 high altar, of black branched marble, supported with six fair columns of touchstone, all built at the cost of Dr Hunt, the reverend dean ; and to adorn it two double gilt candlesticks, given by him." There were also " divers fair copes of several rich works of crimson satin, embroidered with embossed work of silver, beset all over with cherubim curiously wrought to life. A black cope wrought with gold, with divers images in colours ; four other rich copes and vest- ments ; the richest of all they gave to the king in his progress." Nothing could be more pleasant to our travellers than their reception. They " go to prayers, and are rapt by the sweet sound and richness of a fair organ, which cost ;£"iooo, and the orderly, devout and melodious harmony of the choristers " ; when, lo ! they are discovered by the dean, and after prayers done, are summoned to take part of a resident dinner with him. The ancient choir stalls erected in the fifteenth century by Bishop Wessington were destroyed, together with other fittings, by the Scots during their imprisonment in the cathedral after the Battle of Dunbar in 1650, so that we are precluded from forming any idea of its mediaeval furniture in wood. Upon his appointment to the See, shortly after the Restoration, Bishop Cosin, like Hacket at Lichfield, set vigorously to work to refit his cathedral choir, causing it to be equipped with return stalls, a screen, and an organ by Father Schmidt, in a case of much dignity and sumptuousness. In his stall work, the designer, one James Clement, a Durhamian, certainly succeeded in attaining a general effect of mediaeval- ism, though a close inspection reveals an admixture 52 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND of classical forms not to be wondered at when we remember the date of its execution. The screen, high and close, was of the richest Jacobean character, and the organ which it supported one of the noblest- looking instruments in the kingdom. Of those who have filled the post of organist to this cathedral, the most widely remembered is Thomas Ebdon (d. 1811), and that chiefly for his Evening Service in C, which is still a favourite with admirers of eighteenth-century English Church music. His Communion Service in the same key is completed by a Gloria in Excelsis, very unusual for this period. Ebdon, who was born at Durham in 1738, became a chorister of the cathedral, and, at the age of thirty- five, organist. On the wooden screen separating the north aisle from the presbytery, his name may still be seen carved — a boyish freak for which he doubtless received a cuffing from his master James Heseltine, who appears to have been a very spiteful person, for, in revenge for some slight put upon him by the Dean and Chapter, he destroyed the greater part of his anthems, of which he was a prolific composer. Perhaps the world has suffered no great loss. There is one name ever present in the minds of thoughtful visitors to Durham, that of John Bacchus Dykes, upon whom the University, recognising his great musical talents, conferred the honorary degree of Doctor of Music in 1861. Minor Canon of the cathedral from 1849 till his death in 1876, Precentor from 1849 till his appointment in 1862 to the Vicarage of St Oswald's in Elvet, we owe to Dr Dykes some of the finest tunes that have enriched D URHAM . . . CATHEDRAL. Example of a Choir refitted after the Restoration DURHAM 53 our hymnody within the last half century. His seven tunes selected in i860 by Dr W. H. Monk for the first edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern^ have rarely been surpassed.^ Dykes' Communion Service in F, although of a quiet and rather sombre character throughout, contains many beautiful passages, but his chef doeuvre is undoubtedly the Dies Irce Worthy in every way to stand side by side with the original plain song setting of Thomas de Celano's world-famed sequence, it probably formed part of a burial service existing only in MS. at Durham, but which, in the opinion of competent critics, is one of Dykes' finest efforts. Of his anthems, " The Lord is my Shepherd " and " These are They which came out of Great Tribulation," are perhaps the most widely known and liked. The latter, heard as it was in Durham Cathedral at the First Evensong of St Bartholomew's Day some years ago, was environed with a peculiar interest. A sad era now opens in the history of this stately fane. We sigh when we reflect upon the melancholy fact that both Salisbury and Durham Cathedrals were spoilt by the ruthless hand of that same Wyatt, who at Lichfield and Hereford was dragging tombs and chantries and altar-screens out of their places, and rebuilding Norman triforia and clere- stories in order to make what, in the language of his day, was a " neat and appropriate structure " ; and who was refitting and putting pseudo-vaulted ^ These are " O Come and Mourn with Me awhile" ; " Holy, Holy, Holy"; "Our Blest Redeemer"; "Jesu, Lover of my Soul" ; "Nearer, my God, to Thee" ; "Eternal Father, strong to Save" ; and, " Day of Wrath, O Day of Mourning." 54 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND roofs on college chapels at Oxford, and denuding fifteenth - century windows both there and at Windsor of their tracery to make room for trans- parent pictures in glass. Indeed, there is something of an epic interest in the fact that what one bishop, first of Salisbury and then of Durham, perfected, another bishop, first of Salisbury and then of Durham, permitted to be injured beyond what at first sight would seem to have been beyond all hope of recovery ; as if Shute Barrington the munificent, for so he truly was, must everywhere, by some fatal necessity, be the destroyer of the works of the no less munificent Bishop Poore. For it was during Bishop Barrington's tenure of the See (179 1 to 1826) that, at an enormous expense, four inches of masonry were chiselled from the whole surface of the north side and east end of the cathedral, the incongruous parapets and pinnacles given to the western towers, their perpetrator evidently thinking with the ladies that nothing was complete without an edging, and the Chapter-house partly destroyed. It is hardly necessary to remark that the scraping process robbed the shafts, capitals, mouldings, and buttresses of their due proportion to the fabric. Niches and canopies, and figures in stone were removed ; boldly projecting ornaments, suited to the wide surfaces, cut away ; and bald, miserable niches, in the architecture of " once upon a time," supplanted characteristic ornaments, of which enough was left to have led to their perfect restoration. Nondescript monstrosities of " The Castle of Otranto " type were perched on and around the J DURHAM 55 noble northern portal ; and the removal of that resting-place of saints, the western Galilee, in order to afford room for a carriage road to the residences of modern prebendaries, was actually commenced, when the arrival of Dean Cornwallis to keep his term of residence prevented further destruction. It was the Dean's boast that he saved the Galilee, but it is much more probable that we owe its preservation to John Carter's remonstrances. The same indefati- gable antiquary led the clamour against a " setting to rights " of the choir, contemplated by Wyatt, than whom no one has been so much overrated by his friends or so abused by his enemies. How far he was morally responsible for the deeds of vandalism that were, or were to have been, carried out in his name is doubtful ; yet the fact remains that at Durham, the bishop's throne and altar - screen were to have been taken down, mixed together, and made up into a new screen, to be set up against the eastern wall of the Nine Altars ! Fortunately a design so atrocious was frustrated by the means to which I have already alluded. In 1799 the apsidal Chapter-house— that interest- ing and once unrivalled fabric, in which forty-five of the bishops of Durham had been installed, ending in 1 79 1 with Barrington ; whose floor was paved with inscribed slabs and brasses commemorating ecclesiastics who had been there interred, and where lie the remains of Aidan, first Bishop of Lindis- farne, of Turgot, of William de Carileph, and Pudsey — was voted " uncomfortable for chapter meetings," so the work of making it " snug and polite " was commenced. The culprit in this case was not 56 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND Wyatt, but one Morpeth, and the way in which he set about the task is remarkable, showing how perfectly judicious was the choice of the agent to carry out the destructive propensities of the Chapter. A man was suspended by tackle above the groining, and knocked out the keystones, when the whole fell, and crushed the paved floor, rich with gravestones and brasses of the bishops and priors. Then the eastern portion — forty feet in length with its semicircular apsis rich in interlacing Norman arcades — was destroyed, and the part that escaped finished with a new wall in which sash windows of the ordinary domestic description were inserted, so that by the aid of a lath and plaster ceiling and a boarded floor, an "elegant" and "comfortable" square room was formed, and a considerable addition made to the Deanery garden. Happily our own day has seen this noble Norman room restored to its pristine beauty under Mr Hodgson Fowler, and as a memorial to Bishop Lightfoot, the drawings of it made by John Carter before the mischief began, proving of great assistance in the recovery of its details. Early in the last century, William Atkinson, a proteg^ of Bishop Barrington, was commissioned to encase the upper stage of the central tower in Parker's cement, but fortunately our own day has seen both these miserable perpetrations rectified. Bishop Cosin's uniquely grandiose choir, with its return - stalls and western screen, surmounted by one of the noblest organs in England, had escaped Wyatt's tampering. Its disturbance, however, was only averted for a time, being reserved for a more DURHAM 57 enlightened age to accomplish. In 1846 the Chapter, under the plea of extra accommodation, placed the work of destruction in the hands of an obliterator of historical records, who but a few years subse- quently was invited to commit similar acts of vandalism at Wells. Down, at one fell swoop, came the screen and organ, the former disappearing altogether, the latter being placed on the ground floor at the east end of the northern range of stalls, which were hacked about and disposed within the arcades of the choir, instead of, as heretofore, in front of them. The choir-screen was replaced by nothing, and a beautiful spiral font canopy, curious from its admixture of Gothic and Renaissance detail, was cast aside. "If any man says he loves Pointed architecture and hates screens, I do not hesitate to denounce him as a liar," was a forcible, if not very elegant, expres- sion used by that enthusiastic pioneer of the art of mediaeval architecture in modern times — Augustus Wei by Pugin — in his celebrated " Treatise on Chancel Screens." And truly, artistically speaking, a church without a screen resembles the play of Hamlet with the principal character omitted. The nave and the choir are actually distinct portions of a building, and it is but reasonable that they should be made to appear as such. Setting aside its doctrinal significance, the presence of a lofty — not necessarily close — screen is needed practically and aesthetically, and more particularly in cathedrals like ours, in which their designers secured those impressive effects that are derivable from length and lowness. The interest of anything is ruined if it can all be 58 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND taken in at a glance. The interest which poet and painter excite by leaving much to imagination, by suggestion and allusion, is obtained in architecture by partial opening, partial screening, and leaving ever a suggestion of something on beyond, which we search for because there is a pleasant mystery about it. Thus we are charmed by an art which delights us by its variety, and masters us by its power and apparent inexhaustibleness. Fortunately Robert Billing published his archi- tectural history of the cathedral two years before this interesting early post - Restoration choir was disturbed, so that we are enabled to form a very good idea of it as it appeared looking westward until 1846, from the frontispiece to that exquisitely illustrated monograph. Of the choir looking east, a view is given in Blore's "Monumental Remains," published early in the last century. It is a fine engraving on copper, and interesting picturesquely as well as architectur- ally, representing, as it does, the singing of the Litany by two minor canons at the desk in the centre of the choir, a very ancient custom at Durham. This dual performance of the Litany is still observed in other cathedrals, notably Exeter, Lichfield, Norwich, and has been, up to a comparatively recent period, at St Paul's. In these instances, however, its recitation is shared by a minor canon and a lay-vicar, while at Lincoln the duty devolves on two lay-vicars, who chant it as far as the commencement of the Lesser Litany with the Lord's Prayer. Another very interesting picture of the choir of Durham previous to 1846, is that by the late Mr DURHAM 59 Hastings of that city. It is now in the library of the Dean and Chapter, the scene selected by its artist being that presented by " Assize Sunday," with the judges, sheriff and other county officials attending service. Another interesting feature that disappeared about this time was the screen which surrounded St Cuthbert's Feretory, which projects from behind the Neville shrine into the Nine Altars Chapel like a musicians' gallery. This screen, it is true, was Italian, and of the same date as the other wood- work in the choir ; still, it enclosed that sacred spot for which the people who put it there probably had far more reverence than those who took it away. The denaturalisation of a cathedral is at all times a sad thing, but perhaps there was no cathedral in England whose modernisation at that ignorant epoch was more to be regretted than that of Durham, connected as it is with the Church of England in her most imposing aspect, both ecclesiastically and ritually, — the church whose foundation recalls St Cuthbert and the Venerable Bede, whose rites, as they were exceedingly gorgeous, so are still on record as those of no other place, — the church, finally, which, in the restoration of outward solemnity in the seventeenth century, partook of the revived religious feeling more than any other cathedral. Half a century ago Durham Cathedral was pain- fully deficient in stained glass. Until 1795 there were considerable remains in the fifteen east windows and the rose of the Nine Altars, but in that year the 6o CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND Perpendicular mullions and tracery with which the lancets had been filled, were, except those in the south-eastern transept windows, taken out, and such painted glass as they contained replaced by plain. This glass lay for a long time afterwards in baskets on the floor, where it remained, a happy hunting- ground for the pilferer and curio-hunter, and not until a considerable quantity had been purloined was it locked up in the Galilee. About 1 821 portions of it, worked up with gaudy modern pieces, was placed in the rose above the central triplet of lancets, where it remained until the last great restoration of the cathedral in 1870. Dr Maltby, Bishop of Durham from 1836 to 1856, was particularly solicitous for the fenestral embellish- ment of his cathedral, devoting a considerable sum of money towards it, and the first-fruits of his liberality are displayed in the western window of either nave aisle. The south-west window representing the Venerable Bede is by Wailes ; the north-west one with its effigies of St Cuthbert is by Willement. Bede is depicted in a purple monastic habit on a ruby ground within an elongated medallion, and round the central figure, edging into the border, are small scenes from his life. St Cuthbert is depicted, in accordance with mediaeval precedent, holding the head of King Oswald, and is vested in a crimson chasuble and green dalmatic edged with gold ; he wears also a short mitre. The ground-work is blue, relieved by a kind of trellis pattern ; the canopy is in conventional Romanesque, and in a trefoil below King Egfrid is seen landing on the Island of Fame to prevail upon Cuthbert — the famous saint to whom REVIEW copy DURHAM 6i the church of Durham is in a great degree indebted for her special pre-eminence — to accept the bishopric of Lindisfarne. For the period of their execution (1848) these may be called excellent windows, their respective executants having taken great pains with them. No further accession to the painted glass was made until 1867, the Chapter having wisely determined to postpone its insertion until greater proficiency had been reached by the art. In the December of that year the Flowing Decorated west window received its complement through the munificence of Dean Waddington, the work, an excellent specimen of Clayton and Bell's, having had the benefit of Mr C. Hodgson Fowler's superintendence. The subject of this window is the Root of Jesse, followed out partly from the description of the glass given in " The Rites of Durham," and partly from a study of that in the east window of Morpeth Church. The tinctures are superb, and those desirous of studying the advances made in vitreous decoration since the insertion of the Bede and Cuthbert windows should by no means neglect this one, which appears to unusual advantage during a fine sunset. In the north and south aisles of the nave, the same artists have put glass illustrating some of the most striking events and persons of early Christian times in Northumbria, and in this series Messrs Clayton and Bell have preserved an Early Gothic character without undue archaism. Each of the great transeptal windows is a fine specimen of Messrs Clayton and Bell's skill, white having been plentifully used in the groups and 62 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND figures, thereby throwing their brilliant positive tinctures, which rival, if they do not excel, those of old time, into more striking relief. The southern window, a memorial to Archdeacon Thorp, and representing the Te Deum, was inserted in 1869 ; the northern, with its single figures of the Latin Doctors and others, is six years later, and in both the ancient iconography as set forth in " The Rites " has been reproduced. The same remarks apply to the glass filling the great Early Decorated window in the northern arm of the Nine Altars, which, as anciently, represents the history of Joseph. With the exception of that in the southern-most lancet of the lower tier, all the stained glass in the eastern wall of the Nine Altars is by Clayton and Bell. The three lancets in the centre — which, together with the rose above them, recall Laon to those con- versant with the architecture of North-eastern France — are filled with a number of subjects from Our Lord's Life, and the rose represents His Session in Majesty, with half-figures of the apostles and elders. Although this work will bear a close examination, it looks best from the choir-screen, whence just peering through the tracery of the Neville shrine, it may not be com- pared unfavourably with some of the best French glass of the thirteenth century. Indeed a finer or more appropriate termination to the once seen, never- to-be-forgotten vista, on first entering the cathedral, could hardly have been devised. In the twelve remaining lancets the same mosaic treatment has been pursued, subjects occupying those in the lower, and single figures of saints, the lesser lancets of the upper tier. DURHAM 63 Other stained glass, that may be singled out for special commendation, is the window in memory of Dean Lake (d. 1894) in the eastern aisle of the north transept. It is a three-light window of Late Decorated character, the centre of which is occupied by a figure of Our Lord seated in majesty beneath a silvery canopy and upon a ground of slatey-blue. The under robe is of white and gold, and the cope a rich red. Below Him is St Cuthbert in full pontificals, his cope of deep green showing a crimson dalmatic edged with gold. On either side these two central figures are St Benedict and St Oswald, St Francis and St Aidan, with, above each, an angel, seated and holding a scroll. The two Romanesque windows next to it, one of which forms another memorial to Dean Lake, under whom it may be said the cathedral has been made to assume its present magnificent appearance, are likewise excellent, but the palm must certainly be awarded to the northern window of this eastern aisle with its subjects from the Passion. One of the most beautiful windows of its size I know, it owes its excellent effect to the abundant use of white glass, and to the absence of fuss in the form of scrolls and tabernacle work. The Crucifixion, against a dossal formed of tendrils, is particularly good. The present choir-screen and pulpit, though doubtless fine works of their kind, must, in their present position, be regarded as costly failures. At a tithe of the expense, work harmonising with the stall work of the choir might have been produced with excellent results, and the surplus expended on the restoration of colour and statuary to the Neville 64 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND shrine. It is pleasing, however, to chronicle that the magnificent canopy of Bishop Cosin's days has been restored to the font. The rearranged cathedral was reopened on St Luke's Day, i8th October 1876. TCfwr CHAPTER III ELY I THINK that were I asked to point to an English cathedral exhibiting most perfectly and instructively the mode pursued by ecclesiastics of the Middle Ages in rebuilding their churches — a work that was constantly going on, and whose progress was only stopped by the arrival of a day of coldness and indifference, I should unhesitatingly refer to Ely. It was always beautiful, even at the worst period of its history, and more beautiful exceedingly with all the original elegance of structure, and all the recent adornments of the sculptor's and painter's skill. Every English cathedral has some one feature by which we distinguish it from the rest. At Ely it is the central octagon, which with its curiously suspended lantern was devised by one whose powers have seldom been surpassed. He was a monk of the convent, but nevertheless an engineer of conspicuous ability, as any one who has examined this cathedral will allow, and his taste as an artist was as remarkable 05 66 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND as his engineering power ; and so it came about, that when the ancient central tower fell down in the fourteenth century, there was an architect on the spot who was competent to repair the mischief, and not to repair it alone, but to turn the loss into a gain, and to make the fall of the Norman tower an occasion of rejoicing, adding, as it did, its principal glory to the building. It was thus that the octagon had its birth, and that Ely Cathedral became what it is. With this preface I proceed to give as succinct an account of this glorious church of the Fen-country as is compatible with the space at my disposal. Ely Cathedral occupies the site of a monastery, founded in the year 673 by Etheldreda, who with Hilda, Sexburgha, Ermenhilda, Werburgha, and Withburgha formed one of a galaxy of royal and noble ladies whose piety and good works form so remarkable a feature in the early history of our race, and whose saintly lives have been so admirably sketched by the Comte de Montalembert. Etheldreda — the daughter of Anna, King of East Anglia — was married twice, but always lived apart from her husband, and ultimately went into the marshes of the Isle of Ely, where she founded that abbey which has since developed into the present magnificent cathedral church. Etheldreda died in 679 of a sore throat — probably it was a quinsy or some- thing of that sort ; and when she was lying on her death-bed, she thought this infliction had been sent upon her as a punishment for the pride and pleasure which she had taken in former days in wearing a beautiful necklace. After her death she was generally esteemed as the patroness of, or rather ELY 67 against, sore throats, and when persons had a tickling sensation in that region they addressed their prayers for relief to St Etheldreda, or, as her name became subsequently corrupted, into St Audrey. Now at the annual fair in the Isle of Ely called St Audrey's Fair, much ordinary but showy lace was sold to the country lasses. St Audrey's lace soon became proverbial, and from that cause " Tawdry," a corruption of St Audrey, was established as a common expression to denote not only lace, but any other part of female dress which was more gaudy in appearance than warranted by its real value. Thus we see how the saintly and ascetic princess has had the misfortune to give her name to that which it was the great aim and object of her life most strenuously to repudiate and condemn. There are many thoughtful persons who, in look- ing through the Prayer Book calendar, have wondered why the Festival of St Luke, although commemora- ting a martyr, and occurring out of any festal season, should not be provided with a vigil. The reason is, because the Eve of St Luke was always one of the greatest holy-days of the English Church — the Festival of St Etheldreda — and which it was not thought right should be overshadowed by any penitential cast in the day's services. But that reason being now removed, every English Church- man is left to his own liberty as to his private devotions whether he will observe the eve as a vigil or not. There does not appear to be any record extant relating to the structure of St Etheldreda's Church, but in all probability it was of the homeliest descrip- 68 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND tion, its only decorative feature perhaps being the turned baluster column, of which a considerable number have been found embedded in later walls at Jarrow, and some still in situ at Monk Wearmouth. Etheldreda was succeeded in the government of the abbey by her relatives — Sexburgha, Ermenhilda, and Withburgha, all of whom were canonised, became the great saints of the district, and were subsequently honoured with costly shrines. This first conventual church at Ely seems to have existed about two hundred years, being destroyed about the middle of the ninth century during a dreadful invasion of the Danes. Shortly afterwards it was repaired, and replaced a century later by another church, of which we know nothing whatever. The foundation was then changed from a nunnery to a monastery of Benedictine monks. Shortly after the Conquest, the establishment was greatly increased, and was now tenanted by seventy religious. But in the meantime, during the latter part of the Saxon epoch, its possessions having increased considerably, it had become one of the wealthiest religious houses of its time. The kingdom, which had been again under Danish rule, and which had been restored to the English, under King Edward the Confessor, had been conquered by the Normans ; but this part of the country being an inaccessible point to the invaders, it held out for several years, resisting the attacks of the great generals, and even of the Conqueror himself But at length the camp was taken, and soon after that, a Norman abbot was appointed — Simeon by name — a quiet, studious person, with whose rule the architectural ELY 69 history of the present church may be said to commence. It is difficult to say precisely how much Simeon built, but it is certain that he laid the foundations of such parts as were immediately necessary to the performance of the sacred offices. The only portions now existing of Simeon's work is the lowest stage of either transept, where the stout circular piers and the incipient volute, a feature in contemporary buildings at Caen, are sufficient indica- tions of its early character ; for the abbot had been trained to massive Norman grandeur through having been prior of Winchester, while his brother Walkelin was rebuilding his cathedral. Simeon died in 1093 at the age of one hundred years, after which the abbey was vacant for seven years. During that interval, or under his immediate successor Richard, the choir was begun. It terminated, as was dis- covered during Sir Gilbert Scott's restoration sixty years ago, in an aisleless apse, exactly like Peter- borough, but of this Norman choir the only remains are the two great shafts which communicated with the apse, and which now form a line of demarcation between the Early English and Decorated portions of the present long eastern limb. The work of building the Norman presbytery must have made rapid progress, for on St Etheldreda's Day, 17th October 1106, the remains of that saint and her sisters were translated into the new building and placed in the eastern arm, the choir proper being located, as in all Norman Benedictine churches, under the central tower, and even extending into the nave. 70 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND The next epoch in the history of Ely is after it became a bishopric. Henry, who succeeded Richard in the abbacy, so used his influence with the Pope and King, that in 1 109 Ely was converted into a See, and the conventual church — hitherto under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Lincoln — became also a cathedral one, the last abbot becoming the first bishop, and taking his stall on the right-hand side immediately on entering the choir, while the prior, upon whom the general super- vision of the monks devolved, retained his on the north. Hervey-le-Breton and his successor, Nigel, Treasurer of Henry I., and nephew to the powerful Bishop Roger of Salisbury, together held the See nearly twenty years. During their tenure of it (1109-69) the whole of the nave must have been built, and the western transept commenced, both in that more advanced style of Norman, whose greater lightness and gracefulness bespeaks the friendly admixture of the two races. Bishop Ridel, who came next, held the See from 1 174 to 1 189, during which period the great transition from the round arched to the pointed style was making itself felt all over the kingdom. This prelate completed the upper portion of the western transept, and commenced the western tower, which is, for the most part, of Early English character, though French influence lurks here and there, particularly in the use of the crochet capital. Thus, by the end of the twelfth century, Ely had become a perfected Norman structure of the first class, resembling in many features, both of plan and form, its noble sister of the Fens at Peterborough. ELY 71 It consisted of an apsidal presbytery of four bays ; transepts, likewise of four bays ; and a nave of thirteen, the last, measuring from the central tower to the great arch opening into the western transept, nearly 220 feet. All had triforia and clerestories of unusually noble dimensions, but their main roofs were simply ceiled, for English architects at that time had not sufficient temerity to vault over such wide spaces. Then, at the west end was one of those spacious western transepts that subsequently became such favourite features with the Rhenish architects of the first half of the thirteenth century, and the deficiency of which one always seems to feel on entering the nave at Norwich. Two munificent bishops, Eustachius and Hugh de Northwold, presided over Ely during that new and glorious era in church architecture, the thirteenth century. To the former is due that Galilee porch which, so admirably calculated to solemnise the mind, and to prepare it for the overwhelming grandeur of the interior, formed the last station at processions, besides having, like those great narthexes, or porches des catechumens^ such as we see in Burgundy at Paray-le-Monial, Tournus, and Vezelay, and whilom at Clugny, some disciplinary use. Like the Galilee at Durham, this of Ely had a very narrow escape at the beginning of the reign of George IIL, when James Essex, who had been called in about that time to superintend some repairs and alterations, advised not only its removal, but that of the noble south-west transept, as being 72 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND "neither useful nor ornamental," and "not worth preserving " (!) To the latter prelate we are indebted for the unsurpassable six-bayed presbytery, built to hold more shrines, one of which, in addition to those of the four sainted abbesses, was erected in honour of St Alban. It seems curious that there should be a shrine to St Alban here, but it is nevertheless a fact. For during its early years St Alban's suffered like other towns from the Danish marauders, who, in the time of Wulnoth, the fourth abbot, not only sacked the abbey, but carried off the bones of England's protomartyr, which they deposited in the convent of Owensee in Denmark, but the relics were afterwards recovered and sent back to the abbey. About seventy years after, in the time of -^Ifric II., the eleventh abbot, the Northmen again laid waste the country, and the abbot, with recollections of the former disaster, had the martyr's bones concealed in a recess in the walls of the church. As a further precaution he caused supposititious relics to be sent to Ely, entreating the religious there to take every care of the precious charge. Upon the retirement of the Danes ^Ifric reclaimed these bones, but the Ely people refused to part with them ; and when at length they were persuaded to do so, they repeated the abbot of St Alban's trick, and substituted the bones of somebody else. But, as the legend runs, St Alban intervened, for in an apparition to Gilbert, one of the brethren, he told him that the true relics must be produced, and deposited in the shrine in the centre of the church. This was done with great solemnity. The monks of ELY 73 Ely, however, made the artifice they had practised public, declaring that the true bones were in their possession. On hearing of this the king, Edward the Confessor, was very angry, but the monks held their own, and for a century the "true bones" of the Protomartyr of England were exhibited both at St Alban's and at Ely. Indeed it was not until Robert de Gorham, the eighteenth abbot of St Alban's, appealed to the Pope, with the result that three bishops were sent to enquire into and settle the matter, that the monks of Ely confessed that they had been outdone, and that the true relics of the saint were in Hertfordshire. To return, however, from this digression. Nowhere, perhaps, is the marvellous grace and versatility of the Early English style better dis- played or more sumptuously developed than in this presbytery of Bishop Northwold. Indeed the erection of both Galilee and presbytery at Ely had an extraordinary effect throughout Cambridgeshire, for in between sixty and seventy out of the one hundred and ninety churches, which, generally speaking, are hardly surpassed by those of any other English county, the work of this period is for the most part of a very high character, and exhibits much delicacy and refinement. Proof of this is afforded by the choir of Jesus College Chapel, Cambridge, the chancels of Cherry Hinton and Histon, the greater part of the churches at Elm and Leverington, the tower of Bourn, and large portions of Foxton, Barrington and Cheveley. The liberal use of Purbeck marble greatly enhances the beauty of this presbytery at Ely, the pillars — eight slender 74 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND ringed shafts gathered round a cylindrical core — being entirely of this material, including not only the richly flowered capitals, but the elongated corbels of leafage from which the vaulting shafts spring. Intended by North wold to form the crown and glory of his cathedral church, this ne plus ultra of Early English refinement, terminating in one of those square ends that had almost everywhere superseded the apse, was commenced in 1235 and consecrated in 1252, Henry HI. and his son Edward, then about thirteen years old, being present at the head of an august assemblage, as narrated by Matthew Paris: — " Die S. Lambert! dedicata est magnified et solem- nitur nimis nobilis ecclesia cathedralis Elyensis. Cujus Presbyterium, proeterque hoc turrim excellen- tissimam opere admirabili ac sumptuoso nimis, Hugo ejusdem loci Episcopus, propriis sumptibus usque ad perfectam consummationem construxerat. Idem quoque regale palatium cum thalamis et aliis cedificiis ad idem pertinentibus in curi^ sua Elyensi gloriose edificaverat ; affuerunt Episcopi Norwicensis et Londiniensis . . . dominus rex et multi magnates, etc." Although on this occasion the convent, palace, and townsfolks' houses were thronged, the bishop complained that the feast was short of guests. Beyond the alteration of the Norman windows in the eastern aisle of the south transept into Early Geometrical ones, somewhat similar to those in the apsidal chapels of Westminster Abbey, no archi- tectural works of importance were undertaken at Ely after the consecration until 1321, when the ELY 75 Lady, or, as it is now styled, the Trinity Chapel, was commenced from the designs of the man whose name is ever on our lips when visiting this cathedral — Alan of Walsingham, at that time sub-prior. The position of the Lady Chapel, now styled Trinity Church, at the north-east angle of the north transept is accounted for by the eagerness of the Ely people to give the higher and holier place, the east end of the choir, to Etheldreda, the saint on whom local popular devotion was fastened. In plan it is a parallelogram, loo feet long, 46 feet wide, and 60 feet high, vaulted, but unsupported by pillars. On either side are five windows with reticulated tracery and once resplendent with stained glass, of which but some scanty fragments remain. The east and west ends have each a noble window in which the tracery has a slightly Perpendicular tendency, and the walls on the north, south and west sides are surrounded by a series of stone stalls, which are worthy of the closest study. Their sculpture, shockingly mutilated by the iconoclasts of Edward VI., has been most minutely described in a volume, to which the present Bishop of Ely — Lord Alwyne Compton — contributed an appreciative preface, by Dr Montague R. James. It is enriched with fifty-five collotype plates, and is altogether a most exhaustive monograph on this exquisite building, whose only palpable fault is its undue width. Though no doubt designed by Alan of Walsingham, this Lady Chapel at Ely was entrusted to the care of a monk named John of Wisbeach, who is recorded to have "continued the work aforesaid with the 76 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND greatest solicitude through twenty-eight years and thirteen weeks, and to have finished the stone structure with images, both within and without the chapel, in number 147, besides the small images in the tabula or reredos over the altar, and exclusive of the images to the doorway of the entrance to the chapel ; also the timber-work, covered with lead, and the eastern gable, with two windows on either side of the chapel, most beautifully furnished with iron and glass." The re-dedication of this Lady Chapel at Ely only dates from the reign of Elizabeth, when on the demolition of the Chapel of St Cross, which was entered from the north aisle of the nave, it was given to the parishioners of Holy Trinity. For three centuries this noble lantern-like structure was suffered to remain in a shocking state of degrada- tion, but about forty years ago it was placed in the hands of Mr S. S. Teulon, a clever, but somewhat eccentric architect, under whom the present open benches, chorus cantorum, and devotionally-arranged sanctuary were erected. Scarcely had the foundations of the Lady Chapel been laid, when, immediately after Matins on the Eve of the Festival of St Ermenhilda, 12th February, 1322 O.S., the central tower collapsed, ruining in its fall that short Norman choir to which Bishop Northwold had added his exquisite presbytery. Alan of Walsingham was ordered to desist from building the chapel and to devote all his energies to reinstating the tower. Instead, however, of rebuilding it on its former lines, he wholly removed not only the four great piers, but one bay of nave, ELY 77 choir and transepts, and adopting the eight next pillars as the points of support for his new tower, reconstructed or enlarged them to such size and shape as would afford sufficient strength for a magnificent central area of octagonal form covered by that marvellously constructed quasi-domical timber roof and graceful lantern — a feature quite unique among English cathedrals, though having its parallel in other countries. Twenty-two years were occupied in the construction of this octagon, the stone portion taking but six years, and the woodwork sixteen. It appears that the lantern was a belfry and contained a set of bells, one of which was discovered by Dr Harvey Goodwin (Dean of Ely from 1858 to 1869, ^rid afterwards Bishop of Carlisle) to have weighed 7000 lbs. That the lantern which crowns the octagon harmonised in beauty with the rest of the structure is most probable, but it suffered so much as to its external design in the eighteenth century, added to what it had already lost by decay and minor reparations, as to stand in need of being brought back to something of its former splendour — a great and important undertaking to be alluded to hereafter. Alan of Walsingham, from becoming prior in 1 341, was elected bishop by the monks three years later, but the Pope refused to confirm the choice. His work was not confined to the octagon and the Lady Chapel — completed, by the way, in 1349 — the Norman portion of the choir that had been ruined by the fall of the tower being rebuilt under his direction, if not actually from his design, by the munificence of Bishop Hotham. As all these works 78 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND were in progress during the second quarter of the fourteenth century, when English Gothic had reached its culminating point, they stand alone among corresponding works of their epoch, not only in beauty, but in the proportions of their several parts. All authorities upon the ecclesiology of Cambridge- shire agree that in pure examples of early fourteenth- century Gothic, this county holds a foremost place, the influence of Alan de Walsingham, Prior Crauden, John of Wisbeach, Bishops Hotham and Montacute, vibrating throughout the whole of the diocese, in which at this period church building, like church architecture, seems to have reached its climax. At Ely the elaborate lightness of Bishop Hotham's three western bays of the choir, the skilful elegance of the octagon, and the exuberance of the Lady Chapel throw a fascinating spell over the lover of Christian art, making him keenly sensitive of the imperfections of the best work of his own day. In the three Late Decorated bays of the choir it is surprising to find a triforium of such lofty dimensions in fourteenth-century work ; for by this time, that member had dwindled into such insignificant dimensions as to have become almost a nonentity, as at Selby and Lichfield, or was treated as a prolongation of the clerestory as in the nave of York. The lofty triforium of Bishop Northwold in the presbytery was an inheritance from the Norman church, with whose levels it was made to range, and Alan de Walsingham so contrived his elevation that its three stages, while differing in toto from the Norman of the nave and transepts on one hand, and the Early English on the other, should ELY 79 coincide at least in proportions with both ; indeed, throughout Ely Cathedral this continuity of leading lines is one of its most remarkable features. Again, in Hotham's three bays, the shafts support- ing the vaulting ribs spring from elongated corbels, and feature those of Northwold's work ; they are likewise placed in the spandrels of the arches. The triforium arcades are subdivided into two compart- ments by slender shafts, the intervening space between the main and sub-arcuations being filled with tracery, reminding one of spun sugar, but designed with consummate skill and delicacy. In the clerestory a very graceful fringe gives additional richness to the inner arches of the windows, which are of four cinque-foiled lights, with tracery formed of a* number of variously-shaped quatrefoils, and also of trefoils in the intervals. Along a graceful maze of forms does the eye wander, conducting it to various portions of the window, but no further ; the stern frame restrains as much as ever it did in the Geometrical phase of the style ; and at length it falls back whence it came, rejoicing in the entirety of the window, no longer in any degree a congeries of discordant parts, but one, and whole, and consistent: In the Hexameter rises the fountain's silvery column, In the Pentameter aye falling in melody back. The same epoch of our architectural history brought about changes in the Early English part of the choir. These consisted chiefly in transmuting Bishop Northwold's coupled lancets in the aisles and triforia of his presbytery into Flowing Decorated 8o CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND ones of four lights apiece. Fortunately, however, the east end, with its double tier of graceful lancets, escaped, and we are also lucky in the possession of two of the Early English lancets in the southern triforium, though unglazed ; for, with the idea of throwing more light upon the High Altar and the shrines behind it, the triforia of the first two bays of Northwold's work were unroofed, blocked off from the remaining portion of his work in one direction, and from that of Hotham in the other, and their arcades looking into the choir filled with tracery assimilated to that in the work of the latter prelate, and glazed. By many persons of taste these may be thought unnecessary and uncalled-for changes, but the great works of reconstruction undertaken in the centre of the church brought about others that were absolutely needed in the upper stages of the nave and transepts. These portions, none of which had ever been vaulted, still retained their flat wooden roofs, such as we see to-day at Peterborough, St Alban's, and Waltham, but now, all had to be raised and accommodated to Alan de Walsingham's three great arches on the north, south, and west sides of his glorious creation, the octagon. The nave seems to have been first taken in hand and provided with an open timbered cradle roof, having every rafter trussed, and of pleasing form, but hardly intended, I think, to remain visible. Some idea of the appear- ance of this roof before Styleman Le Strange under- took its painting — or, to speak more correctly, of the ceiling which was affixed to it for that purpose — ELY 8i may be gathered from that in the nave of St Matthias' Church, Stoke Newington, a specimen of the late Mr Butterfield's work in his early and more chastened method, and remarkable, not only for its massive gabled tower rising at the extremity of a long, somewhat narrow and very lofty nave, but for an internal dignity and grandeur in which it has rarely been surpassed by later works of the revival. Few modern London churches have had a more interesting history than St Matthias', exemplifying as it did courageous movements in ecclesiasticism. In the transepts at Ely the timber roofs are later. They take a simple gabled form, with large figures of angels on their hammer beams, and as part of the great scheme of decoration set on foot more than half a century ago by Dean Peacock, have received coloured enrichment, which at first was somewhat loud, but time has toned down the hues which at present are not inharmonious. The chief alteration necessitated by the renewal of the transept roofs was the addition of a window or windows above the coupled Romanesque ones already existing. A seven-light one, rather low and wide and with Late Decorated tracery, was given to the southern arm, while the opposite one was endowed with two tall Perpendicular windows of three compartments each. Of course, had stone vaults been introduced — which would probably have been the case, had not the resources of the Chapter been so seriously drawn upon by the great works in the octagon and choir — there would have been no necessity for these windows. As it is, however, the absence of groining F 82 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND and the several tiers of stained glass windows in the principal faces of the transepts confer an extra- ordinary effect of height on this part of the cathedral. Before quitting the works of the Decorated period at Ely, mention must be made of the choir stalls. I have already observed that in the Norman church the "chorus cantorum," or stalls for those engaged in the singing and recitation of the Divine offices, was arranged under the central tower, and even extended two bays into the nave, where the actual position of the screen which closed it westward may still be distinguished by a niche against the eleventh pier on either side. The four Norman bays of the eastern limb then constituted the presbytery and sanctuary, the shrines of the saints occupying the apse. These arrange- ments were somewhat modified on the addition of Northwold's presbytery, the shrines being removed into the new work, though whether the arrangement involving two altars, the choir altar and the high altar behind it, was introduced, there is not sufficient documentary evidence to show. On the completion of Walsingham's octagon no great change was introduced into the choral arrangements which had existed before the Norman tower fell. The rood- screen escaped, but the choir stalls were so com- pletely wrecked that Walsingham was commissioned to design an entirely new set. Keeping up the old Benedictine tradition, these when completed were set up across the octagon, which position they retained until 1770, when under the direction of James Essex they were removed into the presbytery, ELY 83 where they remained until 1847, when a more intelligent distribution of them was decided upon under the joint auspices of Dean Peacock and Sir Gilbert Scott. Hoping to recur to this interesting topic in the history of Ely Cathedral later on, I will just briefly run through the changes effected in its structure during the Perpendicular period. The most sweeping of these alterations was the raising of the triforium walls throughout the nave and transepts, except on the eastern side of the northern one, where, fortunately, we are enabled to gain an idea of the old Norman arrangement in which the walls are much lower and the lean - to roofs constructed at a somewhat steeply - inclined plane. Now, except in the portion referred to, they are flat, and the windows, three light ones with depressed heads, are of by no means interesting character. The original Norman fenestration of the nave aisles was changed to Perpendicular, but that on the south side has been restored to its original form. A favourite dictum of Augustus Welby Pugin was that a tower to be complete, should be terminated by a spire. " Every tower," he contended, " either was, or was intended to be, so finished during the finest periods of Pointed architecture. In fact, a spire is an ornamental covering to a tower; a flat roof is contrary to every principle of the style, and it was not till the decline of the art they were adopted." What the original termination of the western tower of Ely Cathedral was, it is hardly possible at this distance of time to say with 84 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND certainty. But when first finished it is probable that it was surmounted by a spire of timber and lead — one of those vast octagonal pyramids with four spirelets rising from the turrets at its base, such as we see to-day at Sutton St Mary, one of a magnificent series of parish churches lying between Sleaford and King's Lynn. At any rate, the true proportions of this tower were spoiled during the episcopate of Bishop Arundel (1374-88) by the substitution of an octagonal stone lantern, which, although it imparts great elevation to the mass viewed from a distance, is of inferior workmanship, and by no means commensurate in richness with that of Bishop Ridel's architect. The usual consequences ensued twenty-five years later, for the superincumbent mass of new Per- pendicular masonry was found to be pressing so heavily upon work intended only to support an addition of light material, that it became necessary to remove the original piers and a greater portion of the arches opening from this tower into the nave, the south-west transept and the ruined, or perhaps never completed one opposite, and to replace them with others in the style of their age. A light spire of lead, somewhat similar to those which lend such a character to the towers of Hertford- shire and Bedfordshire, was placed upon this lantern, and some idea of it may be gathered from the prints in Bentham's work on the cathedral, "Boswell's Antiquities," and similar eighteenth-century publica- tions. The removal of this spirelet was threatened in 1748, but in consequence of petition and re- monstrance from the townsmen and dwellers in the I < Q < w td ELY 85 environing places, and who were loth to lose so familiar a feature in the landscape, it was suffered to remain for some thirty years longer, when for considerations of security it was removed. Were Ely Cathedral in possession of its north- western transept, whose absence has never been satisfactorily accounted for, it would possess a fagade unrivalled by any other of its age on this side of the Alps, notwithstanding that sculptured imagery finds no place in it. Viewed in connection with the south-west transept the interior of the lantern, with tier upon tier of arcading, constitutes a truly magnificent spectacle ; while, should the great doors opening into the Galilee porch be open, the vista from the outer gates to the double tier of lancets at the east end — a distance of 517 feet — presents one of the noblest architectural spectacles the world can show. Ely Cathedral, so unique in many respects, is no less remarkable as possessing two of the last efforts of the expiring Gothic style — the mortuary chapels of Bishops Alcock and West. Situated as they are at the eastern extremity of the north and south choir aisles, respectively, where they can be but inadequately viewed, these chantries, perhaps the most sumptuous erections of their class in the kingdom, afford singular evidence of how much elaborate work may be crowded together with but little effect. With these two chapels the architectural history of the cathedral in its mediaeval aspect may be said to terminate, for in the next three centuries there is little to chronicle but iconoclasm, apathy, neglect, 86 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND and clumsy, though well-meant attempts at restora- tion and repair. Iconoclasm began at Ely under Bishop Goodrich, a zealous partisan of the Reformation — or as it may be more fitly styled from an artistic point of view, the Deformation— and who occupied the See from 1534 to 1554. Seven years after his elevation to the episcopal chair, injunctions were issued to the clergy to see that " all images, relics, table-monuments of miracles, shrines, etc., be so totally demolished and obliterated, with all speed and diligence, that no remains or memory might be found of them for the future " — injunctions which Goodrich lost no time obeying. Indeed, with such speed and punctuality were these commands of the Protector Somerset and his contemptible crew carried out, that not only in the cathedral, but throughout the diocese, shrines and altars that had hitherto been objects of reverence and devotion were overturned, so that few or no traces of them are now extant. The sculpture of the beautiful Lady Chapel was specially singled out for the bishop's maniacal fury, and the abomination of desolation sat in the holy place. Even during the early Caroline epoch the cathedral does not seem to have recovered much of its quondam splendour, for that Lieutenant, one of a party of three gentlemen of " Merry Norwich," alluded to in the previous chapter on Durham, who set out in 1634 on a tour for the purpose of acquainting themselves with the beauty and antiquities of their own country, fairly bursts out into wrath when he reaches Ely. " I must tell you," he writes, " that most of her inhabitants have such a turfy scent ELY 87 and fenny posture about them, which smell I did not relish at all with any content." There were in the choir eight singing men and eight boys ; the music he does not mention. The palace was "ruinated, decayed, and drooping for very age," and the church "in deplorable condition." But that the services at Ely were conducted with more than ordinary decorum after the Reformation is evident from the fact that incense was burnt at the High Altar on the Great Festivals up to the end of the eighteenth century. Dean Warburton discontinued the use of the cope at Durham about 1780 because it discomposed his wig. Minor Canon Metcalfe and Prebendary Green at Ely persuaded the Dean and Chapter to discontinue the use of incense, the former because he was troubled with asthmatic tendencies, and the latter — "a finical man" — because it spoiled the odour of his snuff, to which titillating compound he had, in common with many of his clerical brethren of that day, an excessive partiality. That the use of incense at Ely should have been retained for so long a period is a valuable ecclesiological fact, but a no less true one, as may be gathered from the following letter addressed in 1869 to the then Dean (Dr Harvey Goodwin, presently Bishop of Carlisle), by Rev. George Gilbert, Prebendary of Lincoln and Vicar of Syston, near Grantham : — "Grantham, 'yd April 1869. "My dear Mr Dean,— In regard to the use of incense in your cathedral church of which we spoke 88 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND yesterday, I have to observe — that in the month of July 1840, the Rev. John Metcalfe, Minor Canon of Canterbury, informed me that the use of incense had been continued at Ely to a late period ; that his father, the Rev. W. Metcalfe, Minor Canon of Ely, being troubled with asthmatic tendencies, found great embarrassment in breathing, when, discharging the function of deacon in Ely Cathedral, he had to swing and wave the vessel containing the said incense, and earnestly requested the Dean and Chapter to discontinue its use ; and that the Dean and Chapter did order the discontinuance thereof, to his great comfort. This took place, / believe, at the latter end of the eighteenth century. " But as the date of Mr Metcalfe's appointment to the Minor Canonry at Ely could be easily ascertained, the period to which its use lasted could be, at least by approximation, fixed. I end this formally by writing that I affirm the above statement to be true ; and I beg you, my dear Mr Dean, to regard me as yours respectfully and truly, GEORGE GILBERT." The Dean, on receiving the above letter, caused an examination to be made, in order to ascertain whether the books of the Dean and Chapter contained any entry with reference to the discontinuance of the use of incense ; but nothing was found bearing on the point. In that devastation of ecclesiastical property which followed in the train of the great Civil War, Ely Cathedral suffered terribly, the vast cloisters being entirely destroyed, together with the Chapter-house, which latter, to judge from a print in Bentham's monograph, was a small square, three-aisled, Roman- esque building, bearing a considerable resemblance internally to the little chapel of St Bartholomew ELY 89 on the north side of Paderborn Cathedral in Westphalia. No one who has studied the ecclesiology of East Anglia, with its lantern-like churches, built almost expressly, it would be imagined, for fenestral embellish- ment, can avoid being struck with the scantiness of the original stained glass now remaining in this part of the country. Speaking more exclusively of Cambridgeshire, with the glorious exception of King's College Chapel, there is hardly enough in the whole county to fill a dozen windows. At Ely, which doubtless once glowed with the pictured story and the saintly effigy, the only remains are some lovely fragments of canopy work in the lights of three windows in the Trinity Chapel. But when we read the journal of that sacrilegious scoundrel. Dowsing, whom the Parliamentary Commissioners sent into the eastern counties to devastate and defile the churches, and to break down all the carved work thereof, the wonder is that such fragments as the recently restored Jesse window in Leverington Church have descended to us. In 1699 the north-west angle of the north transept fell down, and was rebuilt shortly after from the designs of Sir Christopher Wren, whose doorway and round-headed window above it has been suffered to remain. The great architect was a nephew of Bishop Wren, and during his visits to his uncle at the palace, must have had ample opportunity for studying Walsingham's octagon, from which he doubtless derived some ideas for his own noble creation at St Paul's. In 1738 the cathedral is described by Defoe in his 90 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND " Travels " as being " in some parts so ancient that it totters so much with every gust of wind, looks so like a decay, and seems so near it, that whenever it does fall, all that 'tis likely will be thought strange in it will be, that it did not fall a hundred years sooner." That the structure was in a perilous condition early in the reign of George III. is evident from the fact that about 1768 James Essex — who had been employed by Bentham to prepare illustrations for his " History and Antiquities of the Conventual and Cathedral Church of Ely" — found, on his appoint- ment as surveyor to the fabric, that the east end of the choir was two feet out of the perpendicular. Essex was by no means appreciative of the merits of Gothic, as might be expected from the epoch in which his lot was cast, but he may be fairly described as the first professional architect of the last century who made a study of the Pointed styles. He was also engaged on sundry works in and about Lincoln Cathedral, dying in 1784, just as Wyatt had, in the opinion of contemporary critics, established his reputation as an "elegant exponent of the Gothic taste." Whatever his shortcomings as an original architect may have been, Essex undoubtedly rendered signal service to Ely Cathedral, for, by an ingenious arrangement of bolts and screws, he effectually restored the east end to its proper position. Itwas under his direction that Alan de Walsingham's stalls, which for four centuries had retained their original position beneath the octagon, were removed into the presbytery, the Chapter responsible for the alteration having more regard for snugness and comfort than any lingering sentiments for mediaeval tradition. ELY 91 Thus removed, the stalls occupied the first four bays of this portion of the choir. An organ screen, designed by Essex, closed it westward and projected into one bay of Hotham's work, the remaining two forming an ante-choir, or, as it was now styled, the Sermon Place, from the presence of a pseudo-Norman pulpit set up there from the designs of a local architect named Groves, portions of which, together with the Renaissance organ-case discarded in the restoration of 1848-52, I discovered stowed away as lumber in the triforia during a recent visit. Bentham, writing in 1770, informs us that Bishop Mawson offered to contribute ;£'iooo towards defray- ing the charge of removing the choir-stalls, paving the floor with black and white marble, and filling the eastern lancets with stained glass — " an elegant design for which hath been settled, and is to be executed by an eminent Artist, under the inspection of a Gentleman of the most approved taste." The good bishop died, however, before these changes could become an accomplished fact, for they were in the full flow of progress as Bentham was seeing the last sheets of his "Antiquities" through the press. Some idea of the appearance presented by the choir of Ely Cathedral between 1770 and 1847 may be gleaned from a plate in " Winkles' Cathedrals," but better still from a water-colour in the picture gallery of the South Kensington Museum, by Richard Hamilton Essex (1802-55).^ In 1847 Mr Essex made most careful drawings of a series ^ Presumably a relative of the architect, but this I am unable to substantiate. 92 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND of frescoes illustrating the generous protection afforded by the Blessed Virgin to her votaries in all ages and countries, that had been discovered on the walls of Eton College Chapel during its restora- tion under an architect named Deason. Unfortunately the clerk of the works had caused a considerable portion of the upper row of frescoes to be obliterated before he was stopped by one of the Fellows, and before the remainder were once more concealed by the backs to the stalls, Dr Hawtrey commissioned Mr Essex to make drawings of them. These are preserved in the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge, and afford excellent studies in the costume of the time, 1479-88. Subsequently, photographs were taken of Essex's drawings, and a copy is in possession of the Bishop of Ely and Lady Alwyne Compton. Charles Wild in his fine series of " Twelve English Cathedrals, and Collegiate Chapels," published about 1830 in a portfolio, but without letterpress, gives a view of the choir as seen from the western arch of the octagon, showing the organ upon its screen at the entrance. Like everything else from the pencil of that talented draughtsman, this view is a very faithful one. In a lethargic state the great church remained until 1839, when the installation of George Peacock as Dean, almost coincident as it was with the forma- tion of the Cambridge Camden Society, marks an epoch in religious architecture and art, important not to Ely alone but to the English Church at large. At that time the fabric was in charge of Mr Basevi, the architect, inter alia, of the Fitzwilliam Museum ELY 93 at Cambridge, and who, while on a tour of inspection with Dean Peacock in the western tower on the 1 6th of October 1845, missed his footing in one of the arcaded galleries, fell to the floor of the church, and was killed instantaneously. After this sad event the works were managed by the Dean and Professor Willis until 1847, when Sir Gilbert (then Mr) Scott was appointed architect and surveyor to the fabric. Sir Gilbert's recollections of Ely Cathedral dated from 1828, at which time the south-western transept, which had been shorn of its apsidal St Catherine's chapel, was a rough workshop or lumber-room, cut off from the rest of the church, while the lantern stories of the western tower were subdivided by two timber floors, and thus shut out from internal view. The first thing Dean Peacock did was to bring back this part of the church to something of its former grandeur, a work in which he received great assistance from the then precentor. Rev. Mr Stewart, and with the occasional advice of Mr Basevi. To see the octagon utilised for public worship was Dean Peacock's earnest wish. With this object he invited Sir Gilbert Scott to prepare designs for the redistribution of the choral fittings, and these, when exhibited at the Royal Academy of 1848, excited great admiration, as much for their richness and splendour, as for their originality of conception. Indeed, when we remember they were made nearly sixty years ago, when experience was very young, they must be considered truly wonderful. Continental cathedral choirs may be more imposing as regards their architectural proportions, but I cannot recall 94 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND one so thoroughly devotional in all its ritual arrange- ments as that of Ely. The works of Northwold and Hotham had been so maltreated at different times during the preceding three centuries, particularly the presbytery, whose beautiful Purbeck marble had been bedaubed again and again with that Hanoverian panacea for all ills — whitewash — that fully four years were occupied in setting matters right. However, the great ecclesio- logical knowledge of the Dean, and the skill of the architect, overcame all obstacles, and in 1852 the works in the choir were finished, with the exception of the reredos and the stained glass, which were later additions. The stalls were brought down from the presbytery, where they had been thrust by Essex, and made to occupy the space between the eastern arch of the octagon and that large shaft — the pier of Abbot Simeon's apse which remained attached to his four Norman choir bays after the addition of Northwold's work, and which was suffered to retain its place when Hotham rebuilt Simeon's choir after the fall of the tower. Thus, beyond the choir proper there remain the six Early English bays, four of which compose an ample presbytery, while the remaining two — Sir Gilbert Scott pressed for three — open into an ambulatory behind the High Altar. Acting on the suggestion of Professor Willis, the precedent existing in Henry VH.'s chapel at West- minster of retaining only one return stall on either side the entrance to the choir, was followed in 1848 at Ely. These stalls are those of the bishop and dean. For, as I have already mentioned, that as the bishop took the place here of the former abbot, he ELY 95 also took his stall on the south side of the entrance, the prior taking the corresponding stall on the north side. When, at the Dissolution, the dean superseded the prior, he took his stall on the left-hand side, and every succeeding dean has occupied the same seat, so that at Ely Cathedral alone there is no bishop's throne in the usual position, viz. : the east end of the southern range of stalls, while the dean occupies traditionally the side opposite to his customary position. Bishop Turton, the occupant of the See, while these works were in progress, much wished to have a throne in the accustomed place, but to this Sir Gilbert Scott would not consent, and there was also a project to take out the backs of some of the stalls in order to form closets or private boxes for " the Close families," such as existed at Durham and Peterborough, and which we see to-day at St Paul's, where, however, they form part of the original design, but this scheme was fortunately nipped in the bud. Anent Bishop Turton and the anomalous position of the episcopal throne at Ely, Mr G. W. E. Russell tells the following story in his entertaining book, " Collections and Recollections. " "When in 1864 Dr Harold Browne became Bishop of Ely, he asked the head verger some questions as to where his predecessor (Dr Turton) had been accustomed to sit in the cathedral, what part he had taken in the services, and so on. "The verger proved quite unable to supply the required information, and said, in self-excuse, ' Well, you see, My Lord, his late Lordship wasn't at all a 96 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND church-going gentleman,' which being interpreted, meant that, on account of age and infirmities, Bishop Turton had long confined his ministrations to his private chapel." Bishop Turton was a composer of no mean order, as is proved by that excellent tune " St Etheldreda " wedded, and very appropriately, by the compilers of Hymns Ancient and Modern to those stanzas for St Luke's Day commencing "What thanks and praise to Thee we owe," in which the Gospel Canticles are so beautifully alluded to. Rev. W. E. Dickson, to whom the cathedral services at Ely owe so much, and who held the post of precentor from 1858 to 1893, tells us in his " Fifty Years of Church Music " that Bishop Turton's last appearance at any public function was on the occasion of the consecration of the new cemetery in i860. As the venerable old man proceeded with tottering steps along the alleys of the burying ground, supported by the friendly arm of one of the canons, his own solemn tune, still used in MS. at Ely to the words " O Thou, from Whom all good- ness flows," was sung by the choir. His memory was so much impaired that he did not recognise it, but at a subsequent collation, he was pleased to express his thanks for the little compliment which had been paid him. Precentor Dickson's acquaintance with Ely was made in 1842 during his undergraduate days at Cambridge. He was much impressed with the quiet dignity and gravity of the service, and relates how he was placed in the stalls, near to the distinguished Dean Peacock and to the Canon in ELY 97 Residence Dr Mill, the two great scholars sharing between them a bass copy of the music for the day. At this period the organ stood upon the screen at the entrance to the choir, then established in the six last bays of the eastern arm of the cross. Originally the work of Gerard Smith (c. 1692), it had, when Mr Dickson first knew it, been rebuilt by Elliot and Hill, under the direction of the organist Mr Janes, the handsome Renaissance case being preserved. When Janes entered upon his duties in 1 83 1 at the age of eighteen, he found choral matters at Ely at a very low ebb. With the laudable idea of redeeming the Versicles and Responses from that dull monotony of mere recitation into which, as at Peterborough and Rochester, they had been allowed to drop, through the appointment (contrary to the statutes) of minor canons ignorant of music and therefore unable to chant, he applied himself to the task of harmonising them, and commenced with the General Confession. But the enthusiastic young organist got no further, for the minor canons threatened him with dire penalties for presuming to lengthen the service. " We have reason, I think," says Precentor Dickson, "to be grateful to them, though we may not hold their motive in high honour. Ely had its ancient ' Use,' which had been silenced during sixty or seventy years of apathy and coldness, but when chanting was resumed in Dean Peacock's time, great embarrassment might have ensued if a modern set of Preces and Versicles had blocked the way to a resumption of the true Plain Song." Such was the origin of the "Ely Confession," which some years G 98 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND ago enjoyed a great popularity with choirs, but it has since waned. Janes, who held the post of organist for thirty-five years, when he was succeeded by Dr E. T. Chipp, edited a Psalter which, in a revised form, is still in use at Ely. Beautiful and elaborate both in design and execu- tion is the oak and metal screen separating the choir from the octagon, yet neither ritually nor aestheti- cally is it altogether satisfactory. Forming as it does a pendant to Walsingham's stalls, it might with advantage have imitated more closely the precise character of the design. Unfortunately, this space between the octagon and the great separating half piers did not admit of the whole of the fourteenth- century stalls.^ The superfluous ones were used, of course, without their canopies, for the western sub- sellae, the whole range of subsellae on each side being completed to match with the stalls and misereres. All the new work was executed by Messrs Rattee and Kett of Cambridge. Sir Gilbert Scott's treatment of the organ case, doubtless suggested to him during one of his Continental tours in search of material for his church at Hamburg, by that in Strasburg Cathedral, was most masterly. It is apparently pendant above the northern range of stalls, but the position of the player, at the back of the lower part of the case, is unfavourable to him, and though he hears well the voices of the choir, the * Portions of the canopies are lying as lumber in the triforium. It seems a pity that they cannot be utilised as, for instance, to form Sedilia, in which, architecturally speaking, the sanctuary is deficient. ELY 99 tones of his fine instrument reach him imperfectly. Mr Castell of London decorated the organ pipes and case with much taste. The forty-nine scriptural groups which fill the spaces of the stalls between their arcades and surmounting canopies were added later. They are from the ateliers of Abeloos of Louvain. In the new portions of the stall work significance was given to the statuettes by making them represent the chief founders or builders of the cathedral, and holding scrolls inscribed with the ground plans of the parts of the fabric with which each was connected. When the choir was re-opened in 1852, a temporary framework covered with a red flowered cloth, divided the six-bayed presbytery into two equal parts, the altar being vested in that frontal from the accom- plished needle of Miss Agnes Blencowe, which is still in use during the Epiphany and Trinity seasons. As one of the earliest specimens of ecclesiastical work in this department it may be regarded as quite a triumph of art, and merits some description. Its colour is crimson, and the length is divided into three parts. The middle contains a very beautiful figure of Our Lord as risen, from the original of Taddeo Gaddi, contained within a pointed aureole of a deep blue and bordered by radiating beams. Broad orphreys embroidered with flowers divide the middle compartment from the sides, which are of red velvet powdered with conventional flowers, and along the superfrontal is the legend : " Agnus Dei qui toUis peccata mundi dona nobis pacem. Agnus Dei miserere nobis." The groups in the reredos, com- pleted in 1856, and, like those in the same position at St John's, Bedminster, remarkable as being the loo CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND earliest in which sculptured scenes from the Life of Our Lord were introduced on so large a scale since the Reformation, are from the chisel of Philip. The material is alabaster, temperately coloured by Octavius Hudson, and the whole forms, together with the environing tombs of Bishops Redmayne, Kilkenny, Hotham, De Luda, and Barnet, and that of Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, a most graceful and at the same time imposing assemblage of works in ancient and modern sculpture. The mediaeval glazing of Ely Cathedral having disappeared entirely, as I have already said, during the Great Rebellion, the church remained entirely destitute of fenestral embellishment until the epis- copate of Bishop Keene (i 771-81). His predecessor Bishop Mawson, who filled the episcopal chair during the sixteen years previous, had agreed with an artist — probably Peckitt of York — to fill the eight lancets at the east end of the choir with stained glass, but the good prelate died before his pious wishes could be carried into effect. It is said that the artist was unable to fulfil his contract, a figure of St Peter — now in the last window of the northern nave triforium — and some heraldic work, being alone finished and inserted in the three lower lancets about the time Essex rearranged the choral fittings. This glass, interesting as a proof of how the art never completely died out in England, much as it may have been travestied, constituted, together with the cinque-cento foreign glass presented to the west window of the nave early in the last century by Bishop Yorke and Dr Thomas Waddington, a prebendary of the Fifth Stall, and some heavy work ELY toi of about 1840 by Evans in Bishop West's Chapel, the only fenestral embellishment of the church when the restorations under Scott were commenced. Since then, splendid individual munificence has enabled many of the windows to be filled with stained glass, some of which is of great excellence, while in others it is distressing to find unstinted liberality so in- adequately responded to by the skill of both artist and artificer. However, when we remember that the greater part of the work was carried out between 1850 and i860, criticism is to a certain extent disarmed. The stained glass which so beautifully terminates the unrivalled vista of 517 feet, is perhaps one of Wailes' most satisfactory productions ; indeed, for brilliancy and clever contrasts of colour it approaches the best French work of the thirteenth century. It is rich and harmonious without the trickery of antiquation, and the subjects are distinct without impoverishing the grounds. For this glass, a noble legacy of ;^i5oo was bequeathed in 1836 by Bishop Sparke, whose kneeling figure may be discerned at the bottom of the northern lancet in the lower tier, but in view of the unsatisfactory state of the art at that period it was decided to postpone its execution until a more accurate knowledge had been gained of its true principles from diligent study of ancient examples. Under the constant supervision of Sir Gilbert Scott and Canon Sparke, Wailes took great pains with this glass, which was entirely fixed before the close of 1857, and it is not too much to say that its effect, combined with the high altar and the restored id2 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND choir generally, is exceedingly fine — the result, not only of much learned study, but of refined and pious feeling. Beside that in the east windows, Wailes executed other stained glass at Ely. That in the four large windows lighting the oblique sides of the octagon is his, and representing as it does single effigies of persons connected with the conventual and cathedral church, at different epochs of its history, caught in a considerable degree the tone of old glass. The figures, however, of the late Queen, Prince Albert, Bishop Turton and Dean Peacock in the south- western of these windows prove, in an unpleasant degree, how very unsuitable is modern costume for such a purpose. Of great richness and brilliancy of tincture, and striking from its distinctness, is Wailes' glass in the three clerestory windows on either side of Bishop Hotham's work in the choir. It illustrates the Te Deum. The figures which stand boldly out from grounds of red, blue or green, represent, on the north side, the " Noble Army of Martyrs," and on the south, by figures of teachers and doctors, " The Holy Church throughout all the World." In each of the two Late Decorated windows on the triforium level in Northwold's work, a band of small groups with pattern-work above and below is introduced with happy effect, while for the graceful tripled lancets throughout the triforium of this part of the cathedral, figures in ovals on grisaille grounds have been employed. But here, as in other of Wailes' work, the only jarring note in the scheme of colour is a too vivid green. ELY 103 In the south transept the best stained glass is that in the four large Romanesque windows of the south end, all of which were treated by their executants, Henri and Alfred Gerente, of Paris, in the mosaic style. The two illustrating the histories of Joseph and Moses are interesting as being the first works executed in England by the more accomplished of the brothers, Henri, who died of cholera at Paris in 1849, just when he seemed raised up to do great things. Henri Gerente was a true artist, not a mere archaeologist nor an antiquator, but one who had laboured for the general effect as well as for the perfection of one detail or the other, and who always took into account the locality for which he was work- ing. Through the instrumentality of Beresford Hope, Gerente was entrusted with the fenestra^ embellishment of the Ecclesiological Society's " Model Church"— All Saints, Margaret's Street, his designs for the great west window there being based upon a study of the celebrated Radix Jesse in the choir of Wells Cathedral, but he was called away from earth before the work, which was eventually executed by his brother Alfred, could be put in hand. Howes' work in the long, low Early Perpendicular window within the gable is likewise commendable, evincing as it does a desire to do what is right. The figures, very archaically treated, are those of Our Lord and six patriarchs, all on deep blue grounds. In the opposite transept the two Romanesque windows of the middle tier are particularly unpleasant exemplars of that want of uniformity which has too often proved the bane of modern vitreous decoration, one being by Wailes, the other by Rev. A. Moore, an I04 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND accomplished amateur, and whose work has certainly caught the tone of old work in a far greater degree than that of the professional. Ward and Hughes' large figures in the tall Perpendicular windows of the top tier, although large and striking, are certainly not imbued with the spirit of their age either in drawing or coloration, and the same must be said of all the glass in the north aisle of the nave, where the windows are Perpendicular insertions. Different artists — some of whom have made presents of their work to the cathedral — have been employed, and the result, as usual under such circumstances, is unsatisfactory. A window by Oliphant from cartoons by Dyce, and representing David and the Minstrels, is perhaps the best, but this is saying a good deal. In the opposite aisle, all the windows, with one excep- tion, have been restored to their original Roman- esque form, and here, the several artists — Gerente, Warrington, Howes, Gibbs, Wailes, Hardman and, Moore — have been more successful. It were tedious to particularise these windows and their executants, but two may be singled out for special commenda- tion — viz., the first counting from the east. One of these, the window above the cloister entrance, fixed in 1850, was the work of the very clever amateur above alluded to — Rev A. Moore, Rector of Walpole, St Peter's, near Wisbeach. It represents four episodes in the Life of Solomon, and not only in the groups, but throughout the entire work, a master mind and a master hand are apparent, in the disposition and general treatment of the composition, in the judicious adjustment and nice balance of the tinctures, and in ELY 105 that combination of deep and solemn tone and hues glowing with lustrous brilliancy, which is at once the essential attribute and the distinctive character- istic of the Mosaic period of the art. The other window, representing three subjects from the Life of David, and one of the few inserted Perpendicular ones that have been retained in this aisle, is by Hardman, and illustrates that artist at a time when he was still under the influence of Pugin. It is, how- ever, difficult to conceive how anything so atrocious or so totally alien to Romanesque feeling as Wilms- hurst's " landscape " glass could have been allowed to slip into the windows of St Catherine's Chapel opening out of the south-west transept. Generally speaking, the glass in the large four- light windows of the choir aisles is jejune artistically, though uniformity has been aimed at, as evinced by the arrangement of their subjects into groups, which are enclosed in square compartments and not allowed to sprawl through the entire framework. But in Bishop Alcock's chapel there is one of the most superb pieces of stained glass that our own day has produced. Inserted in 1900 in commemora- tion of the fiftieth anniversary of their marriage by the Bishop of Ely and Lady Alwyne Compton, it is from the ateliers of Messrs Clayton and Bell, Mr J. R. Clayton himself having supervised with scrupulous care every^ detail of this window. It represents the four great ecclesiastics to whom Ely Cathedral is indebted for so much of her magnificence — North- wold, Walsingham, Hotham and Alcock. The cathedral may be said to possess almost the Alpha and Omega of Messrs Clayton and Bell's 106 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND work, for in the three-light Perpendicular window of the Vicars Choral Vestry (formed in the eastern aisle of the north transept) is one of the earliest produc- tions of those artists, and like the majority of their works executed at this period (1860-70), archaic in its treatment. There are two tiers of subjects — the Nativity and Epiphany combined, below, and the Crucifixion above. For the time of its insertion it is one of the best windows in the cathedral. The architecture and decoration of his cathedral was not Dean Peacock's only care. The daily choral service was dear to him, and it was his musical knowledge, his anxious solicitude for the reverence due to the worship of the sanctuary, and his personal attendance, that raised and sustained its standard. He died on the 7th of November 1858, and as his remains were borne, five days afterwards, up the long drawn nave beneath the scaffolding reared for that gigantic work he had promoted, but which neither he nor its artist was destined to see accomplished — the painting of the nave ceiling — the sun of a late autumn afternoon was shining through those painted windows of the south aisle which had been the objects of his peculiar solicitude. The first portion of the Burial office having been performed in the choir with due musical solemnity, the procession re-formed and filed through the city to the cemetery ,1 the anthems incidental to the com- mittal portion of the service rising and falling with ^ It seemed very hard that while the obscure relative of a former bishop of Ely was allowed to be buried within the church, Dean Peacock should have been interred in the town cemetery, which at that time was unconsecrated. ELY 107 impressive effect in the frosty air from that secluded hillside facing the grey cathedral which the good Dean had loved so well, and for nearly twenty years so faithfully served. Of Dean Peacock, the Comte de Montalembert — the Pugin of France, if I may so express it — speaks with warmth in his singularly fair and friendly volume, " De I'Avenir Politique de I'Angleterre," published about 1856. Referring, inter alia^ to "la renaissance architectural qui a eclate avec tant d'energie au sein du clerge Anglicain," he instances as a model, Ely Cathedral, "merveilleux monument du genie monastique, restaur^ par les soins de M. Peacock, doyen du chapitre Anglicain, avec autant de science que de splendeur." The work of restoring and embellishing a church that was one of the first to open its doors to the sculptor and painter, \vas not permitted to languish on the death of its promoter. It was pushed forward with equal vigour by his successor, Dr Harvey Goodwin (afterwards Bishop of Carlisle), the two great works that mark his tenure of the deanery (1858-69) being the restoration of the octagon and lantern, and the painting of the nave roof The plans for the first of these important under- takings were carried out by a special subscription, as a fit memorial to the fame and earnest zeal of Dean Peacock, from the designs of Sir Gilbert Scott, who in carrying out the work, which occupied a number of years, was most assiduous in ascertaining as nearly as possible the ancient design, much of which had been lost and deformed during the regime of James Essex. While the work was in progress, Scott had b ioS CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND the satisfaction of proving the greater part of the timber work to be original, having from the bottom to the top the carpenter's marks of Walsingham's workmen, and by which, having prepared their work in the field, they were enabled to put it together in its place. It was 1879 before the work on the exterior of the octagon and its lead-covered sur- mounting lantern was completed by the addition of pinnacles to the eight great turrets which for five centuries had been so loudly exclaiming for them, and by the flying buttresses connecting it with the slender pinnacles at its junction with the four arms of the cross. The internal repair and embellishment of this glory of the cathedral was undertaken in 1874 by the late Mr Gambler Parry, the work being completed in 1875, and commemorated by an imposing service on the 8th of June, when an eloquent sermon was preached by the Bishop of Carlisle, and a selection from the Messiah sung by the cathedral choir largely augmented for the occasion. The general effect of the restored colouring is rich and beautiful, but the artist can hardly be said to have caught the spirit of English fourteenth-century polychromy, the figures of angels playing upon various musical instruments in the panels of the lantern being much too Italian in feeling. Meanwhile, the painting of the nave ceiling with the Radix Jesse, in rivalry of, but upon a more gigantic scale than that at Hildesheim, had been brought to a successful issue under the same hand. The origin of this undertaking was a visit paid by ELY 109 Styleman Le Strange of Hunstanton Court in 1848 to one of the canons of the cathedral, when the dis- covery of much old painting led to the idea of making colour one of the features of the restorations then in progress. The artist broke ground in 1855 in the great western tower, where the opening of the upper arcades in it and the new ceiling above them gave the first occasion for his work. Le Strange's figure of Our Lord here, seated within an aureole and represented in the act of exercising creative power, is most grand and impressive, and placed as it is at the entrance to the church, very appropriate. It was finished in twelve weeks. Three years later the nave roof was taken in hand. Here, in spite of all the difficulties of their com- plexity and size, the decorative parts of Le Strange's design are perfect. The figures are Norman — to many it may seem too archaic, but he was paint- ing for Norman architecture, and, whether rightly or wrongly, he fettered himself by entirely Norman precedents. Before starting on the nave ceiling Le Strange, at Sir Gilbert Scott's suggestion, visited Hildesheim, where in the Church of St Michael a then untouched roof of a corresponding date remained, and on that he based his design, though making it in all its details original. For a pro- fessional man to have been engaged to such a sacrifice of time, and such infinitude of trouble would have involved expenses which at once put that out of the question. To obtain the services of an amateur, Le Strange was the only one competent to such a task. His art education was ripe for it. His portfolios show how the scheme for that painting no CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND developed. There is a sketch in existence of the whole length of the nave roof, which, though not dated, is evidently the first. The scheme is simple, but complete. It begins by the creation of man by Our Lord as " The Word," and after two subjects — the Fall, and the figure of Jesse — the rest of the roof is occupied by the genealogy of Our Lord, with small busts of the royal line from David supported by attesting prophets, and the heads of the genealogical list of persons mentioned in St Luke's Gospel, finish- ing at the east end of the nave by the Session in Majesty. Unhappily, Le Strange was not spared to finish his noble work, but died, when about two-thirds of it had been completed, 27th July 1862. He had laid aside his work at Ely in order to complete the cartoons for another great undertaking, the paintings on the eastern wall of the chancel in Butterfield's noble church of St Alban, Holborn, then advancing towards completion. Le Strange's friend and brother- amateur, Mr T. Gambier Parry, then took up the work, which had not progressed further in the sacred story than the marriage of Boaz and Ruth, and carried it on to its completion at Christmas 1864. Thus, to non-professional talent we owe one of the most striking and gigantic pieces of roof decora- tion that has been attempted in modern times, and which tends through the reticence which characterises its colouring to increase rather than to diminish the apparent height of the nave. Le Strange's work begins with this inscription : — " Sit splendor Domini Dei nostri super nos ; et opera manuum nostrarum dirige super nos, et opus manuum nostrarum dirige." Mr Gambier Parry's ELY in terminates with : — "Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed nomine tuo da Gloriam." Upon the elevation of Dr Harvey Goodwin to the episcopate in 1869, the works of restoration and embellishment were continued under Dr Merivale, so widely remembered by his " History of the Romans under the Empire." These included the restoration of the south transept, western portal and door ; the reparation of the western tower, which had again shown the effects of undue pressure ; the repairs of the buttresses and foundations of a part of Northwold's work which showed signs of weakness after an unusually dry summer ; the repairing of the nave from the west end to the octagon ; and the completion of the stalls by those groups to which I have already alluded, and the octagon. Nor has the solicitude of the present cultured occupant of the decanal chair — Dr C. W. Stubbs — been less marked, many important, if not vast, improvements having been carried out under his regime with equal judgment and taste. Among them must be named such ritual ameliorations as the placing of the Edwardian ornaments on the retable of the High Altar, and the formation, in the eastern aisle of the north transept, of a chapel for low celebrations when a few only are gathered together, and whose dedication to St Edmund was suggested by the presence of some fresco painting which appears to represent the martyrdom of that popular East Anglian saint. A graceful reredos, from the designs of Mr J. A. Reeve, and the chisel of Messrs Farmer and Brindley, as well as some excellent jstained glass by Clayton and Bell, has been placed 112 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND here. The reredos, sculptured from an alabaster block of great purity, represents the Priesthood of the Eternal Christ, a subject that was not infrequently treated, or suggested, in Early Byzantine art, but which seems to have been almost passed over by the sacred art of Western Christendom. I cannot conclude this chapter on Ely Cathedral without expressing my obligations to the Lord Bishop and Lady Alwyne Compton for the great kindness and hospitality which they extended to me during the three days I was privileged to spend with them last winter at the Palace — days which I shall ever look back upon as among the happiest ever passed in the course of my ecclesiological experiences. It is almost needless to say, that under such circumstances, access to every available part, both within and without this incomparable structure, was freely accorded to me, including the Music Library with its collection of ancient choral services and anthems preserved among the manuscript scores and part books through the care and industry of James Hawkins, organist of the cathedral from 1682 to 1729, and catalogued with equal care forty-five years ago by Precentor Dickson. To all who regard church music as an auxiliary to church architecture, such a quantity of musical matter is by no means one of the least interesting among the varied contents of this vast fenland minster. CHAPTER IV LINCOLN To compare our cathedrals as examples of archi- tecture is a difficult, not to say invidious, task. Each has its own peculiar beauties, as each, one need not be afraid to say, its own defects. Of these Lincoln has its share, though the latter, which are proportional ones, present themselves only to the practised eye ; for, taken as a whole, it must be admitted that in magnificence, in all artistic qualities, to say nothing of dignity of situation, few cannot excel, none surpass, this queenly building which, within the comparatively short space of a single century, grew, in all essentials, to that form with which we are so familiar. With some unimportant exceptions, Lincoln Cathedral belongs to that period of church building which extends from the last decade of the twelfth to the commencement of the fourteenth century. It is essentially an Early English structure, and therefore at first sight it might be supposed that little could be said about it ; but when we come to examine the H 113 114 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND various parts minutely we shall find that there exists, in that Early English, more than one phase of the style. We know that Paulinus, in the old Saxon times, who converted the barbarous inhabitants of the district, built a church at Lincoln which was described by the Venerable Bede to have been erected of stone ; but of this nothing is now remaining, and it may have been on a wholly different site. There was no cathedral church of Lincoln until the time of Remigius, the first Norman bishop, who removed the See from Dorchester in Oxfordshire in 1085, and who, like most of the Norman bishops, had a passion for building. Remigius was opposed in the change by the Arch- bishop of York, yet he pursued the building of the church, and had so far completed it in 1092 that the day was fixed for its consecration, when, by God's providence, it became that of the interment of its founder. In 1125 a fire occurred, and the roof fell upon the tomb of Remigius. The edifice was then repaired by Bishop Alexander, to whom we may attribute the work of the western doorway, whilst other portions of the front, including the rude bas- reliefs (which may be compared with similar bands of sculpture at the cathedral of Verona), are probably part of the original work of Remigius. On his appointment to the See of Lincoln in 1186 Hugh de Grenoble found his church greatly injured by an earthquake that had occurred the previous year.^ * " Terrae motus magnus ; Ecclesia Lincolniensis metro politana scissa est in summo deorsum." — Roger de Hoveden. LINCOLN 115 The new prelate, one of the very greatest and noblest of Anglo-Catholic bishops of any age, at once determined to rebuild the shattered fabric, and the architect he called in was Geoffrey de Noyers, who, although French in name, has been proved by indefatigable research to have been an Englishman. His family came over to England with the Conqueror and settled in Lincolnshire, where it is still one of the county families, and there is little doubt that Geoffrey de Noyers (now called Dunoyer) was a Lincolnshire man, and that that district was then in advance of any other in architectural matters, either at home or abroad. That St Hugh's choir at Lincoln is the earliest pure Gothic building in the world may be said to be now a matter of demonstration on the showing of the highest authorities both in France and England. At first sight, the columns supporting the four arches in the choir proper are strikingly like those in the contemporary cathedrals of Chartres and Tours, as regards their composition, viz., four slender shafts grouped around an octagon or a cylinder, but a closer acquaintance will reveal differences of detail in the sections of these piers at Lincoln, while their foliaged ornament exhibits a far greater delicacy of execution than their French sisters. Of course it is possible that de Noyers may have paid a visit to Chartres and Tours or some other of the great churches that this period of ceaseless joyous activity was raising all over Europe, for although there are local characteristics in each country, the general style of the thirteenth century is the same all over the north and west of Europe. Pedigree-hunting ii6 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND in architecture is the merest futility. The architects of the great churches of England, France and Germany worked out their artistic salvation almost wholly in independence of each other, so that the different schools are sister schools with parallel development, and if Geoffrey de Noyers took a few hints for Lincoln choir piers from Chartres and Tours, the French took several at later periods from the choir and octagon at Ely. As regards St Hugh, his course has been traced from his birth to his death, and all the buildings with which he was connected have been examined, and it is now clear that he was not an architect, and did not bring either architects or masons with him from Grenoble, which was, on the contrary, very much behind England at that period, artistically. The old Norman choir at Lincoln was but short. We know its exact dimensions, for the foundations of the apse exist underneath the pavement, the circle being struck from a centre covered by the ancient stone in- scribed " Cantate hie," on which, no doubt, the great choir lectern supporting the graduale and antiphonary used to stand, and on which the Litany desk is now placed. It was also slightly narrower than the present one. The northern arcades of the two churches coincide, but the southern arcade was set back a few inches on the Early English rebuilding. Hugh's plan embraced an aisled choir of four bays, an eastern transept with two apsidal chapels in each arm as at Canterbury, and a large semi- hexagonal apse, the foundations of which, like those of the old Norman one, are known to exist beneath the pavement just beyond the eastern transept. LINCOLN 117 This work, deriving a double interest from its being the earliest known one in which the Pointed style was adopted without any admixture of the Norman influence, either in form, details, or mouldings, was in progress between 1192 and 1200, and comprises a part of the eastern wall of both the great transepts, and the choir as far as the junction of the eastern transept with the " Angel Choir." The south aisle was built first, and in the eastern bay of it is the only vestige of Norman work left in this part of the cathedral — the billet ornament which occurs in the rib-moulding of the vault of that bay. The irregular groining of the choir roof at its west end, the distorted appearance of the tympana of some of the triforium arcades on the south side, and their clumsy clusters of cylinders without capitals, must be attributed to a parsimonious reconstruction after the fall of the first Early English tower in 1240 — " propter artificii insolentiam " as Bened. Abbas, who puts the date of the accident at 1237, informs us. But else- where in St Hugh's choir the workmanship is of the most exquisitely exuberant character, and this is ob- servable chiefly in the aisles, whose walls are adorned with double arcades, one built before the other, yet the hinder one perfectly finished. Perhaps the most characteristic feature of de Noyer's work is, that he seized every opportunity to make detached shafts in situations where engaged ones are usual in Early English. Another peculiarity which I would point out in this choir of St Hugh is the transverse gallery, carried across the north end of the north-east transept at the triforium level — a ritual arrangement connected, perhaps, with the preservation of relics of peculiar ii8 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND sanctity, and which appears to have been imitated from Norman examples of it in the transepts of Winchester and Ely, though at Lincoln the trans- verse wall is carried up to the roof, repeating the triforium and clerestory, with most graceful effect.^ Bishop Hugh consecrated his new church in 1192, and between that time and the middle of the next century the work of rebuilding the Norman church progressed steadily under a succession of bishops and ecclesiastics, until it reached the west front, whose three gigantic but rudely outlined cavernous recesses, adumbrating the glories of Peterborough's unique portal, peer forth from that veil of Early English arcading, which gives a character quite its own, if not altogether pleasing, to the whole. Three periods of Gothic find their expression in this western facade of Lincoln. Norman in its core, lower stages of its towers and doorways ; Early English in its screen work extending beyond the towers ; and Perpendicular in the windows inserted above the triple Norman doorways, and in the upper stages of the towers. The study of this cathedral on its progress from Hugh's beginning, through the great transepts to the west end of the nave, affords a most interesting development of the Early English style. The nave is coincident in length with the old Norman one, and if defective in some particulars which only force themselves upon the critical eye, is perhaps on the whole the grandest example of thirteenth-century * I was much struck with a similar example of this tribune some years ago, when visiting the beautiful Burgundian First- Pointed church of Clamecy between Nevers and Auxerre^ LINCOLN 119 work in the country, being massive without heaviness, rich but not exuberantly so in detail, and exhibited in its highest state of development. Had a few feet of additional height been given to it, and had the five bays counting from the east been less widely spaced, by which means an additional bay would have been secured, the nave of Lincoln as work of its age and class might have stood unrivalled. Grand and majestic, it is surpassed in poetry of design by the more modestly proportioned naves of Salisbury and Wells, where the narrow spacing of the arcades is productive of a far more mysterious effect. Lincoln nave appears never to have undergone restoration internally, and it has always struck me that an effect of greater height might be imparted by the judicious application of colour to the vaulting cells. As an example of this I would point to the choir of St Paul's Cathedral since the introduction of Sir William Richmond's mosaics. Very graceful are the chapels formed behind the wings of the western facade, and extending to the length of the first two bays of the nave. Internally their lancet windows and lythe columns are admir- able, while externally their gabled roofs combine very pleasingly with the pinnacled towers, which certainly present a more graceful appearance from this point, than when viewed in conjunction with the western facade. Throughout the Early English part of the cathedral, the only form of window employed is the lancet, save in the face of either great transept, where we have a vast circle, each illustrating a type of tracery perfect of its kind ; but when we pass beyond the I20 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND eastern transept we find a total change in that feature, by which we frequently judge of the data of a building, its fenestration. Hugh died in 1200, and twenty years later was canonised by Pope Honorius HI. According to the belief of the age, the tomb of the sainted prelate became the scene of miraculous cures. Devotees thronged the cathedral earnestly seeking to obtain relief from their maladies, or to secure the influence of the saint towards the accomplishment of their objects ; while with the offerings poured into the .coffers the clergy were able no doubt, not only to rebuild the old Norman portions of the church on their present grandiose scale, but to erect a larger and more appropriate resting-place for the hallowed remains. This we see in the extension beyond the eastern transept, familiarly known as the Angel Choir, from the sculpture in the spandrels of its five nobly moulded arches. The great beauty of English complete Gothic is that natural and gradual development from the preceding style, perhaps nowhere so strikingly illustrated as in this Angel Choir of Lincoln, a typical specimen of that period of architecture which belongs partly to the Early English, and partly to the Decorated styles, but which is in reality distinct from both, and pre-eminently entitled, from the number and beauty of its examples, to separate classification. The scheme of providing so glorious a resting- place for the sainted Hugh was taken in hand about 1255, and in 1280 the translation of the remains took place with solemn ceremonial, in the presence of Edward I., his queen, and children. It was dedicated LINCOLN 121 conjointly to the Blessed Virgin and St Hugh, the Lady Altar being set up against the east wall of the new building, and the shrine and altar of the prelate occupying the more prominent place in the centre behind the reredos of the choir, over which the feretory, containing the hallowed body, towered so conspicuously as to attract not only the gaze of the whole congregation, but of the officiating priest as he stood before the High Altar. The clerestory windows in this part of the cathedral are of four compartments. The lights are uncusped, but the large circle in the head has eight foliations, and there is a small trefoiled circle within the arch gathering up the lights into pairs. In the aisle the three-light windows are cusped throughout, and, traceried as they are with three foliated circles, may be regarded as perfect models of the work of this epoch. Indeed, so exquisite is the detail of this most perfect example of the most perfect period of English architecture, that we are tempted to overlook its defect, a lowness of pro- portion which doubtless arose from the desire on the part of the architect to restrict his dimensions to those of the Early English choir which he was called upon to extend. To some extent this defect might have been remedied when, half a century ago, the great east window — a noble composition of eight uncusped lights — was filled with stained glass. Competent advice, which pointed to the plentiful introduction of grisaille, and single effigies under spiral canopies, was disregarded, and the lights filled with a multiplicity of small groups within medallions, presenting an effect the opposite of the 122 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND desired one — that of verticality. No very grave chronological solecism would have been committed by the introduction of fourteenth-century stained glass into a window in the style of the previous one. Lincoln Cathedral is rich in sculpture, both in leafage and the human form divine. In the frieze of the west end is some fine early twelfth-century work ; the kings above the west door represent the art in its decline about the time of Edward IIL; while the flourishing period is exemplified in the Doom within the tympanum of the lovely south- eastern doorway, and in the Easter Sepulchre. But in the Angel Choir there is some most interest- ing sculpture which has come down to our time in a marvellously perfect state. It consists of thirty subjects, fifteen to the north, and fifteen to the south, and their designs in the form of angels were explained by Professor Cockerell to be derived from that Epistle of St Peter in which is set forth the dealings of the Almighty with the human race. From these magnificent specimens of sculpture we are led to conclude that this branch of ecclesiastical art in England was superior to that of Italy in the thirteenth century; for the year 1282 which saw the completion of the Angel Choir was before the age of Giotto, Cimabue, and Pisani. I have in my possession photographs of the finest sculptures in Italy executed from forty to fifty years after those in the Angel Choir at Lincoln, and I am ready to affirm that the English school is superior to the Italian. The sculpture in all our cathedrals proves that the work was executed by different hands ; their styles LINCOLN 123 are dissimilar, and it is clear that the work was executed by local men. In the work at Lincoln two hands can be recognised ; a chasteness and purity of style characterising the one ; a greater share of mediaeval quaintness the other. That the figures were executed in workshops and then affixed there can be no question, for, in one of the angels the parts having been cut by different workmen do not appear to have fitted very well when put up and joined together. But certain small defects apart, the sculptured iconography in this part of Lincoln Cathedral is a work of which we as Englishmen should be justly proud, no less admirable being the theological knowledge which made such a chain of events possible. The Angel Choir was hastening to completion when the Chapter turned its attention to what in a cathedral of the Old Foundation must be considered rather in the light of an objet de luxe — the cloister. At Lincoln this delightful addition to the entourages occupies a singular position, viz., the north side of the choir between the two transepts, being entered from the eastern one by a slype. Belonging as these cloisters at Lincoln do to the last two decades of the thirteenth century, the windows in the eastern, western, and southern ambulatories, remarkable by the way as being groined in wood, are much more developed as regards their tracery than those of the Angel Choir. The northern walk, said to have been pulled down by Dean Mackworth in the fifteenth century to build his stables, lay in ruins until the Restoration, when it was rebuilt in Tuscan Renaissance by Sir h ristopher Wren, who placed above it that library 124 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND whose square-headed windows divided by a muUion and a transom constitute a pleasing feature. Some years ago it was proposed to demolish this piece of Wren's work, and to reproduce the destroyed walk in the same style as the others, but this scheme, after much acrimonious correspondence both on the Gothic and Classic side, was abandoned. Perhaps fortunately, for if incongruous, this northern cloister at Lincoln is, as Sir Gilbert Scott when confronted with such a piece of work in restor- ing a Pointed church used to say, "historical, good of its kind, has a certain character about it which I don't altogether dislike, and which in short had better be left alone." From the eastern ambulatory, a lofty groined vestibule lighted on either side by four lancet windows, and above the entrance by a circular one devoid of tracery, but grand from its utter simplicity, the Chapter-house is entered. In shape a decagon, this house at Lincoln, with its high bold roof and its long projecting flying buttresses was pronounced by Pugin " truly grand." Chronologically, it takes up ground between the nave and the Angel Choir, so that it would be safe to fix as its date 1240-60. Even here the lancet prevails, each side of the decagon being lighted by a pair, and running round the walls below the windows, unbroken by the vault- ing shafts, which are corbelled off at the string course, is a series of uncusped pointed arcades. In the centre rises a tall column composed of twelve slender filletted shafts grouped around a core, and resembling the trunk of a vast palm-tree, of LINCOLN 125 which the head bends down like an immense sun- shade, sheltering under its symmetrical branches the whole area of the floor ; the branches being united with parts of other palms which spring from the angles of the decagon. The Chapter-houses of Salisbury and Westminster may be lighter and more gracious in the disposal of their vaults, but it is impossible not to admire the consummate skill evinced in this their majestic parent at Lincoln. Contemporary French or German architecture has produced nothing from which a notion can be formed of so delightful an example of groining. The thirteenth-century English architects may not have shown the same engineering skill as those of the Domaine Royal and Champagne in the arrangement of their east ends, but in the art of disposing and ornamenting their vaults, particularly those of poly- gonal Chapter-houses, they unquestionably carried off the palm. They seem to have had a peculiar aptitude for that work which enabled them to exercise their imagination and their practical studies, and hence they produced a variety of effects of extraordinary richness. But among all their inventions there are few more original than the palm-tree-like vaults in those Chapter-houses of Lincoln, Salisbury, Westminster, and Wells, which form so remarkable and continuous a sequence of buildings. A sumptuous resting-place having been provided for their titular saint, the Chapter of Lincoln turned their thoughts to another great work, and one which may rightly be deemed the crowning glory of the cathedral — the completion of the central tower. 126 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND Preparation had been made for it by Bishop Grostete, to whom we owe those first two stages, open to the church to a height of 127 feet, and forming a lantern in which it is difficult to know what to admire most — the magnificence and sumptuousness of its Early- English detail or the grandioscness of its general effect. Early in the fourteenth century, another stage — now forming the ringing chamber, but until its vault- ing about 1375 under Treasurer Welbourne, open to the church — was added, and upon this was reared the topmost storey, apparently so sturdy, yet so per- forated for lightness with galleries and passages, as almost to have two walls — an outer and an inner shell. Consequently those expedients which were perforce adopted at Wells, and later at Canterbury and Salisbury, to preserve the stability of the substructure, have never been found necessary at Lincoln. With its two great Decorated windows on each face surmounted by gables which rise up into the parapet, and those leaden pinnacles which give it a character peculiarly its own, this " Rood " or " Broad " Tower, as it is locally styled, is unequalled in majesty by any Continental one in the same position — Coutances, Rouen, and Fecamp approach- ing it most nearly in sublimity of effect. The metal cresting added by Essex in 1775 has been styled "an admirable finish to a magnificent design," and, in justice to that architect, it must be acknowledged as an acquisition. The western towers completing a noble trinity were raised upon the old Norman ones between 1400 and 1450, their only fault, attributable to the Early LINCOLN 127 English screen work of the front, being that they cannot be seen to rise directly from the ground. Those who have examined this beautiful group of towers carefully must have remarked that the two western ones are neither square nor quite alike in detail, nor in perfect perpendicular. The thick part of the buttresses in the south runs higher than in the north tower. The Norman arcading is not the same, nor are the buttresses which contain the stair- cases to the north-west and the south-east. The northern tower leans perceptibly to the north-east, and the southern one more slightly in the opposite direction. Early in the last century, Lincoln Cathedral possessed what no other cathedral had in England — two peals of bells and Great Tom : a peal of eight in St Hugh's (the south-west) tower, called St Hugh's bells, which still exist ; a peal of six in the great central tower, called the Lady Bells ; and " Great Tom of Lincoln," in the north-west tower, on which the clock struck. This bell, which was cracked in 1827, in consequence, it is supposed, of some mismanagement in shifting the clock-hammer, was originally cast in 16 10 by a famous bell-founder, named Oldfield, and in a temporary furnace within the cathedral precincts. It was beautifully finished with lace work, and both in shape and tone was remarkably fine. From 1827 to 1834 Great Tom remained dumb in the tower, when Subdean Sutton persuaded the Chapter to take down the Lady Bells and throw their metal into the new Great Tom and two quarter- bells which now hang in the central tower, where the Lady Bells formerly were. These, as may be seen 128 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND from the section plate of the cathedral in Wild's monograph, were fixed in a row on the floor of the belfry, the ropes of the four largest going down to the piers of the great tower where the rings to which they were fixed can still be seen. The singing boys used to ring these Lady Bells for service, two for ferias, four on the eves of saints' days, on Saturday evenings, and on Sundays. On Lady Day the choristers used to go up into the belfry, tie strings to the clappers of the Lady Bells, and chime them for an hour in cadences which have been described as exceedingly beautiful ; their loss therefore on several grounds is much to be regretted. Had the then Dean and Chapter used common-sense, they would have had a cast taken of the old bell, and renewed it of the same shape and size, and then Lincoln would still have been in possession of its two peals. One who had visited churches throughout Europe was wont to observe, that in no church in Christendom were the mediaeval offices so generally kept up as in England. Nowhere else were so many hour services, essentially mediaeval and even monastic in their origin, recited publicly. It may be added that, upon the whole, in spite of all that fanaticism and vulgarity have done to spoil the work of our fore- fathers, nowhere else have the choral arrangements of cathedral and collegiate church choirs, aye, and of many a town and village church, been so carefully preserved through generations of apathy and opposi- tion as among ourselves. It is a consoling fact that the English cathedrals retain more of their old Catholic arrangement and fittings than those of France, while as regards their fabrics they have LINCOLN 129 suffered less injury, and have preserved their original character in a marvellous degree. As a specimen of an English cathedral choir retaining its mediaeval stall work it would be difficult to point to a more beautiful and perfect example than that of Lincoln, and this pleasure is enhanced by the knowledge that nothing drastic in the way of modern reparation has been attempted, such improvements as necessity has dictated having passed under the eye of conservative renovators, with the result that the general effect is solemn and devotional. The stalls, sixty-two in number, date from between 1360 and 1380, and as specimens of Early Perpendicular tabernacle work are hardly surpassed. In order to receive them the vaulting shafts of the choir were cut away and replaced by Perpendicular corbels, a piece of foliage being introduced into the caps of the piers to conceal the alteration. Until 185 1, when they were repaired, oiled, and consequently darkened, the stalls looked like decayed stone, being grey with age. Pending this work. Divine Service was transferred from the choir to the north-west chapel, a circum- stance alluded to by the poet-bishop of Western New York — Dr Cleveland Coxe — in that pleasant book, " Impressions of England," descriptive of his visit to our shores during the great Exhibition year of 1851. Arriving at Lincoln from Peterborough in the morning he sees the cathedral " on its sovereign hill," and hears Great Tom " swinging slow with sullen roar." " The restorations in the choir," he informs us, " had driven the service into a little chapel near the west end ; but the singing was very sweet and solemn, though entirely without ceremony. I devoted the morning to I I30 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND the survey of this model of art, which I like the better because it is in part a monument of the Anglican liberties, as they were maintained in the Middle Ages against the Roman Pontiff. The central tower [the lantern. Bishop Coxe should have said] is the work of brave old Bishop Grostete in the thirteenth century. He was the predecessor of Wycliffe and Cranmer in defying the Pope, and in spite of Papal anathemas, he died in peaceful posses- sion of his See. All honour to his pious memory." The bishop's throne at the east end of the stalls on the epistle side is a work of 1778, and for its date very creditable. The pulpit was erected in 1866 from Sir Gilbert Scott's designs, as a testimonial to the exertions in the cause of church architecture, of the late Bishop of Nottingham, Dr Trollope, to whom we are indebted for that invaluable contribu- tion to English topographical literature, " Murray's Handbook to Lincolnshire." The brazen eagle lectern in the centre of the choir dating from 1667, and the noble chandelier or branch suspended from the roof are likewise elements conducive to the allied grandeur and picturesqueness of the choir, which is separated from the nave by a solid screen or jube,^ of Early Decorated character. This is one of the nine ancient cathedral roodlofts still in existence ; the others being Exeter, Ripon, Rochester, Southwell, and St David's — all of the Decorated period ; and Canterbury, Norwich, Wells, and York of the Perpendicular. ^ So called from the words "Jube Domine benedicere," the formula used prefatory to the singing of the Gospel which anciently took place on the screen. 1 "-r% ■ ^^'•■*r__ :i — ::i. l^^^te ■|- 1 ^ ^ w ^^^^HD^HTXJ^E ! 1 . ~ '.31^»-i '. ..^^^^^B "^ 1 r- 1 |i " 4 =^ ^S^^r,:r-._^P| P^I. > • i saibjiaBi^ ^-sS "■^^^^ ^:i^p3i33i «*•• • ..j^~\ "■^^■^B^. d >!? -=^- "'', 1 H^ _;;_^ r ■ m, !!»,* '•'M: — ---^ ■# 1 ^ ^ ppi*^^'^*'^ .' * ^.4((^^- ^^ < Q W :c < CJ pi^^ — ^K ^3 p Pin A s ' ^"^"^■' '^i 1-'. "^Bh^^^B^i i? 2: The Choir LINCOLN 131 Anterior to the Reformation, the organ at Lincoln was disposed above the stalls at their east end on the north side, and this position was retained until some time in the eighteenth century, when the instrument was removed and erected on the screen. A view by Hollar in Dugdale's Monasticon shows the organ, in a very simple case, in its old position. Some altera- tions were made in the shape of the case, when it was placed upon the screen. In Wild's sumptuous monograph on the cathedral published in 18 19, this case is shown, but it dis- appeared on the introduction of a new instrument in 1826 by Allen — a builder of some repute, who died in Sutton Street, Soho, 14th August 1833 — when a Gothic case in, for the time, very passable style was provided for it. This organ, enlarged and improved from time to time, gave place in 1898 to an entirely new and unusually complete four manual organ by Willis, from the specification drawn up by the late Mr J. M. W. Young, who retired from the post of organist in 1895, after forty-five years' tenure. Mr Young was a chorister of Durham Cathedral under Henshaw, whose organ pupil he was, and to whom in 1843 he became assistant. His life was practically spent at Lincoln, where he loved every stone of the minster, and more than one pleasant visit to the veteran organist at his delightful old residence in Minster Yard, facing the great grey east end, and Chapter-house with its tentacle-like buttresses, can be remembered. It was always a treat, when on one of these visits, to be permitted to accompany Mr Young to the organ-loft, to see and hear him play the grand old services and anthems from the first editions of the 132 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND cathedral music of Boyce and Arnold, and of the collections of Croft, Greene, Boyce, Hayes, Page, and others. Like those of his old friend, Dr E. J. Hopkins, Mr Young's accompaniments were almost always independent of the voices, and some of the feeblest passages in the services and anthems of Kent, Clarke Whitfeld, and others of the later Georgian school were rendered palatable by his musician-like organ parts. As a trainer of boys' voices, Mr Young stood unrivalled, while to the chanting of the Psalms he paid such attention, that they were worth a journey to Lincoln to hear alone. The music was a perfect commentary upon the words, and a careful examination of his Pointed Psalter will prove with what care he studied the spirit of the old Hebrew poets. To form the sanctuary, two bays are taken out of the five constituting the Angel Choir. The lower part of the altar screen retains a considerable portion of ancient work, but it was repaired and supple- mented in the middle of the eighteenth century by James Essex — alluded to in the previous chapter — and to whom we owe the tall gabled arch surmounting the altar, which was copied by him from Bishop De Luda's tomb in the choir at Ely. Originally this arch was filled with a painting of the Annunciation, but upon the completion of the present stained glass in the east window (c. 1854) this picture was removed and tracery inserted in lieu thereof from the designs of the late Mr John Chessell Buckler, for many years guardian to the fabric, and who in 1822 had published "Views of Cathedral Churches in England," which were princi- LINCOLN 133 pally copied from those previously published prints of his father, John Buckler, which did much, there can be no doubt, to keep alive that love for mediaeval architecture which has never been suffered to die out in England. Essex much wanted to shift the stalls from their place in St Hugh's work into the Angel Choir. This proposal, so ignorant and so utterly subversive of all mediaeval tradition, fortunately met with a decided negative from the Dean and Chapter, who at a period of general laxity in ecclesiastical matters appear to have been extraordinarily solicitous for the well-being of their cathedral, to judge from the following preface to : A Collection of Old and Modern Anthems as they are now performed in the Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Lincoln. Published by the Command, and at the Expence, of the present Lord Bishop of Lincoln, for the Use of this Cathedral. By the Rev. the Succentor. Lincoln. Printed by W. Wood. 1775.* "It must give great pleasure to every Lover of sacred Antiquity to be informed that the late Right Reverend Dr John Thomas,^ Lord Bishop of Lincoln, ^ A copy of this " Words of Anthems " bound in crimson morocco with gilt edges, and very prettily tooled on back and sides is in the musical library of Mr John S. Bumpus. ^ Translated to Salisbury in 1761. 134 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND examining, and finding the fabrick Estates of this Cathedral insufficient to support it in necessary Repairs, his Lordship moved and cited the Dean and great Chapter, and entered with them into this generous Plan, of their dedicating the Tenths of all their Fines to the Reparations and decent Ornaments of this Minster, which was unanimously agreed to, and confirmed by a publick Chapter Act in July, 1755, and is now patronized and inforced by our present Right Reverend Father in God, John,^ by divine Permission Lord Bishop of Lincoln, and the Right Reverend and Honourable the Lord Bishop of St David's, the Dean, and the Reverend the Chapter of this Church. From this Fund of Beneficence, this noble Cathedral, distinguished for its Antiquity, its extensive Structure, and Variety of Style in its Architecture, we experience not only to be put in thorough Repair, but many of its decayed Monuments restored, an elegant Altar Piece erected, and so many other useful ornaments have been and are daily added, that we may hope that this Cathedral will very shortly recover, and be restored to its pristine Dignity and Magnificence, and may long be supported under the Protection of God Almighty, and continue founded upon a Rock, an Ornament to this Kingdom, a Light and Example to other Churches, and a Glory to our Father which is in Heaven." With regard to its ancient fenestral embellishment » John Green, who held the See till 1779, but who, like most of the Georgian prelates, did little or nothing to hand his name down to posterity. LINCOLN 135 Lincoln Cathedral fared slightly better than her three eastern sisters, Ely, Norwich, and Peterborough, during the Civil Wars. The great plate-traceried rose in the north transept displays stained glass of the thirteenth century, exquisite in colouring, while in drawing it is as accurately and classically correct as that of the purest ages of Greek art. The fourteenth-century circle in the opposite transept, whose tracery is among the most graceful produced during the curvilinear phase of Decorated, is, together with the four lancets below, filled with fragments of old glass collected from different windows in the cathedral. There are also some mediaeval remains in the eastern window of either choir aisle. Of modern stained glass Lincoln Cathedral can boast a goodly supply, but little of it rises above mediocrity. Of the medallion glass inserted in 1854 by Ward in the great east window, I have already made mention. It replaced some by Peckitt of York (c. 1762) which has been distributed among the lancets of the north- eastern transept. The coupled lancets in the north aisle of the nave are entirely filled with stained glass by Ward and Hughes, of which all that can be said is, that it has the merit of uniformity. In the opposite aisle various artists have been employed, with the unsatisfactory result, usual under such circumstances, that by the Revs. A. and F. Sutton — very clever clerical amateurs — exhibiting the greatest intelligence and grasp of true principles. These gentlemen have executed other work in the cathedral : in the clerestory of the choir, the south-eastern transept, and at the western end of the nave, this last looking exceedingly well under conditions of a fine sunset. 136 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND Hedgeland's single effigies in the southern lancets of the south-east transept are rather hot in tincture, but improve on a distant view. Messrs Clayton and Bell's historical series in the Chapter-house is excellent. In length, Lincoln Cathedral is only a few feet shorter than York Minster — 481 as against 486. Both churches are absolutely the largest in England in extent of roof, in which the altitude is maintained at nearly the same level from end to end. The greater lengths of Winchester and St Alban's, 530 and 520 feet, are due to their long, low, eastern chapels ; while the same superior length is given to Canterbury, 514 feet, by Becket's Crown, to Westminster, 505 feet, by Henry VH.'s Chapel, both distinct, though annexed buildings, and to Ely, 517 feet, by the Galilee at the west end. Unlike many of our cathedrals Lincoln has never undergone a restoration involving the disuse of various portions for a considerable number of years, but much quiet, reparative work was successively carried on under Mr J. C. Buckler and Mr J. L. Pearson, the latter of whom doubtless drew his inspiration for certain details in those epoch- marking churches, St John's, Red Lion Square, St Augustine's, Kilburn, and St Agnes, Liverpool, from it. One important and welcome work was the lower- ing of the soil on the south side of the nave — a vast improvement, giving much greater dignity to the elevation, and enabling the lovely Early English Galilee porch, which occupies so unique a position on the western side of the south transept, to be seen in its true dimensions, while by the removal of some LINCOLN 137 houses adjacent to the Chapter-house, a magnificent view of the whole north side of the minster has been obtained. Lincoln is a Cathedral of the old foundation, retaining the three great dignitaries, the Dean, the Precentor, and the Chancellor. There are four choristers and eight " Burghersh chanters " on the Foundation, and such further number of super- numerary singing boys as the Dean and Chapter from time to time approve. The four choristers wear, instead of surplices, black cloth gowns, with sleeves and white facings, over their cassocks — this vestment being really a remnant of the mediaeval choral cope. On the admission of a chorister at Lincoln Cathedral, a religious service of a very solemn character is used. The candidate is pre- sented to the Dean, or Canon Residentiary, and after promising obedience in all things lawful, is thus addressed, according to the ancient formula : — "Thou art admitted a chorister of the Cathedral Church of Lincoln. Take thou good heed that what thou sayest with thy mouth thou dost believe in thy heart, that what thou dost believe in thy heart thou dost practise in thy life ; and may God grant thee grace so to worship and serve Him on earth, that thou mayest praise Him eternally among the re- deemed in Heaven." CHAPTER V SALISBURY The wise policy of Archbishop Lanfranc caused the seats of many of our English bishoprics to be transferred to more important places by decree of the Council of London, held in 1075. At that time, Herbert of Lotharingia was Bishop of Sherborne and Wilton, having some time before united the Sees. Coming under the operation of this decree, he commenced the building of a new cathedral within the precincts of the Castle of Sarum, his future " Episcopal city," so that it was one of the earliest great churches built under the Norman dynasty. Herbert was succeeded in 1078 by Osmund, who, having exchanged the life of a noble for that of a churchman, and having been eminent for his sanctity, was canonised in the fifteenth century, leaving a name memorable in the English Church as that of the compiler of the Sarum Use, so long the most generally received ritual of the Anglo-Catholic Church. It is the Use on which our present Book of 1S8 SALISBURY . . CATHEDRAL. SALISBURY 139 Common Prayer is founded, and, within the last quarter of a century, not a few churches have revived that splendid, but somewhat intricate ceremonial, use of colours, and so forth, which had been well-nigh forgotten for more than three hundred years. Among other interesting " uses," the Sarum Rite prescribes red as the colour for the altar frontals and vestments of the ministers for a large proportion of the Sundays throughout the ecclesiastical year; and a very curious survival of this custom is explained by the general use of crimson for the altar frontals of our churches, until the Oxford Movement, with ritualism as its logical sequence, revived the use of the colours proper to the several seasons, and which in default of know- ledge respecting our English Uses, at first followed the ordinary Latin one. Whether the labours of St Osmund were so large as is often supposed is questionable ; indeed, several of our most learned ritualists agree in thinking that his work has been exaggerated. It is possible that he did no more than revive the rubrics and the music of the Anglo-Saxons. We know that in the abbey of Glastonbury serious disturbances occurred in conse- quence of innovations forced upon the Anglo-Saxon community by the intruded Norman abbot, Thurstan. These appear to have originated in the affection of the religious for the ancient method of chanting, rather than in any attempt to change the services themselves. To whatever extent Osmund may have carried his revision of the Liturgy, the book became a standard for the greater part of England and the whole of Ireland. The Use of York did not, I40 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND in all probability, obtain authority out of the province, and that of Hereford was almost certainly diocesan. Within due limits, each diocese might have an office in honour of a local saint, or some hymns (as at Worcester) peculiar to itself; and it is to these variations from the established standard that the preface to the Book of Common Prayer refers, under the name of " Synodals," so called, probably, from their having received the sanction of a diocesan synod only.^ Foreigners who visited England in pre-Reformation days were astonished at the splendour and decorum of the English ritual as carried out in our churches, whether cathedral, collegiate, conventual, or parochial. But years rolled on, and there came a day — the 17th of February, 1541-42, when Cranmer moved the Convocation of Canterbury that missals and other Liturgic books might be reformed. And on 21st February of 1542-43 the Archbishop announced the pleasure of Henry VHL that all Mass Books should be examined over again, and the service completed out of the Scriptures and other authentic doctors. Accordingly in 1548 came forth an Order of Com- munion, followed in 1 549 by the Book of Common Prayer, known as Edward's First Book ; and on 1st February 1549-50 an Act of Parliament required that "all books called Antiphons, Missals, Grails, Processionals, Manuals, Sequences, Pies, Portuasses . . . Ordinals . . . heretofore used for service of the Church . . . shall be by authority of the present Act clearly and utterly abolished, extinguished, and 1 In France many diocesan Uses were kept up until the middle of the last century. SALISBUR\ .41 forbidden ever to be used or kept in this realm." So fell the grand old Use of Sarum — passing by its brief revival under Queen Mary — that venerable rite, according to which for five hundred years at the least, the sacrifice of the New Law had been duly offered, as a pure offering, within the Church and realm of England. With the accession of Elizabeth a rigorous search was made for all the old Service Books, and particu- larly for missals, which were destroyed as fast as found. Thus it came about that so few copies are extant of the many thousand Books of Offices — most of them specimens of illumination that grew under the unwearying pencils and brushes of the religious, until each page presented an embroidery of gorgeous colouring — which must at one time have been found on the stalls, lecterns, and numerous altars of our churches. An ancient Hereford Office Book was discovered in 1834 by William Hawes — Master of the Choristers, Almoner, and Vicar Choral of St Paul's from 1812 to 1846 — on a bookstall in Drury Lane. It attracted his notice from the quantity of music which appeared interspersed with it, and on examination turned out to be a fine and nearly perfect copy of an Antiphon- arium of 1265, containing the old "Hereford Use." Hawes thereupon communicated with the Dean of Hereford — Dr Merewether — on the subject, who, after consultation with his brethren of the Chapter, agreed to purchase it at the price of £\2, 12s., as appears from the following interesting autograph letter in the collection of Mr John S. Bumpus : — " Dear Sir, — At Chapter on Tuesday I prevailed on my brethren to purchase the manuscript you left 142 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND with me, at the price you named (twelve guineas), and that sum has been placed at Sir John Lubbock's payable to your order, so that you have only to draw on them for it *as advised by the Hereford Bank,' to receive it. " I have to thank you for being the means of restor- ing this curious document to the cathedral to which it once belonged, and I should be obliged to you if you would let me have authentic information from yourself as to the circumstances of its discovery, at the same time that you inform me that you have received the money. I should also be obliged to you if you would send me four copies of Attwood's * Cantate Domino ' as used at St Paul's at the Festival of the Sons of the Clergy, and two copies of Handel's Ordination Hymn, ' Veni Creator,' or * Come, Holy Ghost' I think it is set by Corfe of Salisbury. I hope your daughter ^ has recovered from her cold as well as yourself And I remain, — Dear Sir, Your faithful servant, John Merewether. "Deanery, Hereford, iZth Sept. 1834." Twenty-five years later another very interesting liturgical discovery was made in the shape of a Hereford missal, said to have belonged to the Franciscans, and to have been carried abroad with them, and to have been brought back with other books and kept packed up ; no one knowing anything about them. Mr Maskell, a gentleman well learned in ritual matters, was consulted by the Roman Catholic Bishop of the district, who told him that there was among these books a missal plainly not * Miss Maria B. Hawes, the distinguished contralto, who sang "O Rest in the Lord" at the first public performance of Mendelssohn's Elijah at the Birmingham Festival of 1846. SALISBURY 143 of Sarum Use, which was of course concluded at once to be a foreign Use, until the erasures of the refer- ences to the Pope, and the name of the book of " Helford " (as it appears in the title and colophon) were mentioned. This, of course, raised Mr Maskell's curiosity : the book was sent for immediately, and the nature of the treasure ascertained. It was a handsome copy, and in good order, except that some one had made private property of the binding. The trustees of the British Museum purchased this Hereford missal in 1858 for ;^300. The suppression and subsequent destruction of these noble volumes, particularly of the Gradual and Processional, left us at the dawn of the Reforma- tion without any hymnal. The reformers wished to translate the ancient hymns of the English Church as contained in the old Office Books, but confessed themselves unequal to the task. Cranmer in par- ticular (to whom I may refer as an argumentuni ad hominem) expressed his wish that others might arise to effect that which, in this respect, he left unperformed. But three centuries rolled away before any person or sets of persons applied themselves to the task of presenting us with these venerable and truly inspired Songs of Zion in the vernacular.^ Steps were taken early in the last century by Bishop Mant, Rev. Edward Caswall, Rev. J. Chandler, and ^ As, for instance, " Creator alme sidenim " (for Advent) ; " Jesu Redemptor omnium " (for Christmas) ; " Vexilla Regis prodeunt" (for Passion- tide) ; "Salve festa Dies" (for Easter) ; " Veni Sancte Spiritus " (for Whitsuntide) ; " Urbs beata " (for Dedication) ; " Sanctorum meritis inclyta gaudia " (for Apostles) ; and " O beata beatorum " (for Martyrs). 144 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND some few others towards supplying this desideratum, but the chief praise is due to the Ecclesiological Society, who, when the attention of that body was drawn to the wretched state of our hymnody sixty years ago, could only act on the same principle which they endeavoured to carry out in all things, that they were Catholics in the first place, and English Catholics in the second. They felt that they could look for our hymns to only one source, the Offices of the elder English Church. And of the various Uses of that Church, the ritual of Sarum had so incomparably the most authority, that its hymns i were felt to be the especial inheritance of English churchmen as contradistinguished from later Roman corrections, or rather deformities of them, on one hand, and on the other from early or mediaeval hymns, which, however beautiful, were never received in this country. Thus it came about, that between 185 1 and 1858, there appeared under the skilled literary direction of Drs Neale and Irons — to the latter of whom we owe a magnificent translation of the Dies IrcB — and the no less accomplished musical abilities of Revs. Thos. Helmore and S. S. Greatheed, that Corolla Hymnoru7n, " The Hymnal Noted." In this collection were once more brought to light the choicest words and melodies of that venerable repertory of the Western Church, which, save to the learned few, had so long remained forgotten and unknown. In their Latin originals, and in their English dress, these grand — in some cases, perhaps, rugged — old hymns have been, and still continue to be, the joy and consolation of many a saintly soul along the daily path of its earthly pilgrimage. ^ See Note on p. 143. SALISBURY 145 In 1092 St Osmund completed and dedicated the cathedral of Sarum in honour of the Blessed Virgin. Five days afterwards a storm destroyed the roof. Indeed, the site of the church was so high, that " when the wind did blow they could not hear the priest say Mass." Thus sings Peter de Blois, a canon of the cathedral : — " Est ibi defectus aquae, sed copia cretae, Saevit ibi ventus, sed Philomela silet." During the whole of the turbulent twelfth century, this cathedral of Old Sarum, built in the form of a Latin cross, with aisles to transepts as well as to its nave and square-ended choir — a notable peculiarity in a Romanesque cathedral — continued to be the mother church of the diocese, though located on a bleak and circumscribed area, and within the walls of a fortress where churchmen were exposed to all the insults of a barbarous soldiery. But at length, on 28th April 1220, Bishop Roger Poore laid the foundation of the present cathedral of Salisbury about a mile from Old Sarum. The spot selected was then meadowland, and six years later, on the completion of the choir, the bodies of St Osmund and of two other predecessors were translated into the newly finished portion, which must have progressed with singular celerity. Next, the lantern, the western transepts, and the nave were taken in hand, and the building consecrated during the episcopate of Giles de Bridport, by Boniface, Archbishop of Canterbury, in the presence of King Henry III., and a distin- guished assemblage of prelates and lay-folk on the day after Michaelmas, 1258. Before the century closed, the splendid octagonal K 146 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND Chapter - house was completed, and considerable progress was made with the cloisters. Thus, in a shorter time than any other on record, and with very- marked eclaty the cathedral in all essentials stood completed. Edward IH. gave letters patent to Bishop Richard to Wyvile, granting to him and the Dean and Chapter " all the stone walls of the former Cathedral church of Old Sarum, and the houses which latterly belonged to the Bishop and Canons of the said church within our Castle of Old Sarum, to have and to hold, as our gift, for the improvement of the church of New Sarum, and the close thereunto belonging." It is supposed that the upper portion of the tower and the spire was built with these materials. In the Gentleman's Magazine for August 1835 a plan, since corrected in several particulars, is given of Old Sarum Cathedral \ compiled by Mr Hatcher of Salisbury from an examination of the foundations of the church in 1834, in which year, being a very dry one, they became distinctly visible through the grass. I alluded just now to the square eastern termination of the old cathedral. It is certainly remarkable that the cathedral, which should seem to have been the first example in England of what afterwards became one of the most notable differences between her cathedrals and those of general Europe, ^ should have been wholly or in ^ The dimensions are given as follows : — Total length, 270 feet ; length of transept, 150 feet ; of nave, 150 ; choir, 60 feet ; breadth of nave, 36 feet ; of aisles, 18 feet ; whole breadth of transepts, 60 feet. * I have dwelt upon this with some particularity in the Introductory Chapter. SALISBURY 147 part the work of that prelate, whose recension of her service became the standard to most, and exercised a great influence over all the English Church. In the case of Old Sarum Cathedral, the provision of numerous correctly orientated altar -spaces (a natural wish in a bishop to whom the services of the church were a matter of so great interest) seems to have been a leading motive in laying out the plan of the present graceful building. For here, besides the High Altar, there were probably three chapels at the east end, and (assuming each bay of the eastern aisle of the transepts to have been screened off) six in the arms of the western cross, and four in those of the eastern : thirteen in all, strictly orientated. In the previous chapter I gave some account of how square ends superseded apses in England, and I think I may affirm that the victory was accomplished in the cathedral at Salisbury, for it is, prima facie^ probable, that in this new cathedral the Old Sarum traditions would be reproduced. Salisbury, our only cathedral built on virgin soil, was the offspring of one mind. Its proportions are grandiose, yet its plan is so simple and symmetrical that it can be realised at a glance. It is not difficult, to understand why Salisbury Cathedral should enjoy so great a reputation. In spite of its want of elaborate detail, it is, in the first place, one of the grandest and most complete of our cathedrals — the only one, in fact, begun, continued and ended, in all essentials, in one style — the early pure Gothic of the first half of the thirteenth century. On this account. 148 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND therefore, Salisbury Cathedral presents none of those architectural problems that confront us at almost every turn at Canterbury, Lincoln, Winchester, and Worcester. Particularly when viewed from the north-east, it forms a picture of which the interest is enhanced by the framing. The majority of English cathedrals have the privilege of being closely united to the green sward, but there is not one among them that is shaded by trees so imposing and gigantic as those at Salisbury. On the north side we see noble elms and finest turf on which the building seems to repose ; on the other, not only a noble Chapter-house, but cloisters of great size for a cathedral which, like Salisbury, is one of the Old Foundation — a bishop's church, simpliciter. Such a combination of the works of nature and art is equalled only by that presented at Wells. Compared with the more diversely detailed sides of other English cathedrals, this northern one of Salisbury may be pronounced monotonous in effect, but in outline it is a perfect poem. Stand at the north-east angle, and you grasp the gables of the Lady Chapel and the choir, and the side of the cathedral, varied with its three high- roofed projections, the two transepts almost touch- ing, and the porch, itself in size and boldness almost a transept ; while far above soar the wondrous tower and spire. To be seen to advantage, Salisbury Cathedral should be visited when the morning sun lights up one side of the tower and the eastern sides of the transepts, or when the summer sun is declining in the west, and throws its golden rays SALISBURY 149 on the northern faces of the transepts, tipping the pinnacles and the projections with sparkling gleams of brightness. At this time, also, the recesses are dark and solemn, which enhances the grandeur and augments the magnitude of the edifice. The main points of interest in this graceful church of Sarum, built of freestone from the Chilmark quarries with a lavish use of Purbeck marble, are the double transept, and the glorious tower sur- mounted by its spire, the work as of an angel architect. The double transept, which had its origin in St Benoit-sur-Loire and the now, alas ! desecrated Cluny, became a favourite feature with Early English architects after its employment at Canterbury. It serves to break up the line of an elongated choir very agreeably, and is a feature which our architects were never afraid of introducing because they kept their buildings low. When the church was dedicated in 1258, it had a central tower rising only high enough to receive the roofs of the four arms. This was but a very light structure, and was intended to be visible from within, thus forming a lantern above the crossing. Upon this frail structure a fourteenth- century architect reared a two-storied tower and a spire which he, who originally conceived the building, could not (physically, that is to say) have dreamed of, but the union of the First and Second Pointed work is perfect. This vast tower, some 80 feet high, with walls nearly 6 feet thick, and a spire rising 180 feet more, so shattered the unduly loaded thirteenth- century lantern, that although subsequent builders have bolstered the whole mass up in every con- 150 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND ceivable way, this crown and glory of Salisbury Cathedral has always been a source of anxiety and alarm. The least satisfactory part of this uniquely beauti- ful cathedral is the west front. An English architect too often treated his fa9ade as an independent com- position whose relations to the building were not strictly logical, the result being that it gives the impression that its designer did not consider the difficulties presented by the problems of a rational facade worth the trouble of solving, looking upon it in the light of a gallery for the display of sculptured imagery. At Salisbury the architect has treated his west front somewhat after the fashion of those quadrangular "screen fagades" we meet in Central Germany, at Brunswick, Gandersheim, Goslar, Hal- berstadt, and Quedlinburg, or in Dutch Limburg at Maastricht, stretching as it does completely across the church, and veiling the ends of the lean-to roofed aisles. In some features the west front of Salisbury recalls Wells, but it is far inferior in poetry of design to that of its Somersetshire sister ; indeed, one is at a loss to understand how an architect who was so careful to express purpose in the rest of his building, should have put together so great a number of useless parts as in the west front of Salisbury. Half a century ago, before those works of restoration were undertaken which have rendered Salisbury Cathedral even more beautiful than it was when it left the builder's hand, its western facade was certainly more open to censure than it is at present. No doubt its vastly improved effect is attributable to the sculpture with which SALISBURY 151 it has been almost entirely re-furnished, and which in some degree saves the much-abused portals from appearing mean. Of the hundred and twenty- three statues which Professor Cockerell calculated as appearing on the west front of Salisbury, but a few fragments existed when its restoration was taken in hand some forty- five years ago, so thoroughly had the iconoclast done his hateful work. The mediaeval scheme doubtless embraced the Te Deum, and this was the subject decided upon for the new work which was carried out with most scrupulous care — every fragment that had escaped injury being preserved. The sculptor selected for this great undertaking was James Frank Redfern, who, had he lived, would have become the greatest Christian sculptor of his age. When, between 185 1 and 1862, Rev. Benjamin Webb — the co-founder of the Ecclesiological Society, and afterwards vicar of a church which owes so much to his exquisite taste and sound judgment, St Andrew's, Wells Street — held his first benefice, Sheen in Staffordshire, in a limestone district that had already produced Chantrey, he heard of an uncultivated lad named Redfern, who amused him- self with a penknife by modelling in the round in alabaster from pictures in the Illustrated London News, although he had never seen any carving. Finding the youth had genius, Mr Webb spoke to Beresford Hope, who had him educated in the village school. Subsequently, the same generous patron sent him to study, first to Messrs Clayton and Bell, and after- wards to Paris, 152 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND Redfern was but one-and-twenty when, in 1859, he began to exhibit at the Royal Academy, his first work, Cain and Abel, attracting the notice of Henry Foley. In conjunction with Sir Gilbert Scott, Redfern was entrusted with the renovation of the sculpture in the west front of Salisbury Cathedral sixty of the figures being produced from his chisel between 1863 and 1876. To the same period belongs the Session in Majesty within the entrance to the Chapter-house at Westminster Abbey. For Mr Slater he carried out that sculpture of the Resurrection in the tympanum of the doorway to the Digby Mortuary Chapel at Sherborne, which is so suggestive of foreign work ; while under Mr Street he produced the altar-piece in St Andrew's, Wells Street, and those figures of the Latin Doctors, whose rejection on theological grounds from the north porch of Bristol Cathedral, is said to have accelerated his death, which occurred on 13th June 1876. Notwithstanding the restrictions imposed upon himself by the architect, and the want of mural and vitreous decoration in nave and transepts, the interior of Salisbury Cathedral has a power of which few can resist the influence. It may be interesting to analyse briefly the causes which have produced so beautiful an effect in an interior, at once so simple and so regular. The Isle of Purbeck was in the diocese, and there was every reason, therefore, for indulging as much as possible in the use of its beautiful marble. The introduction of detached shafts wherever possible, and which was the natural sequence to the NAVK, LOOKfNG RA SALISBURY . CATHEDRAL. SALISBURY 153 use of marble, wholly changed the character of the architecture. The effect at Salisbury is admirable, but, on the other hand, the risk in construction was great. A careful examination of this cathedral will discover for us a very considerable variety in the plans of the clustered columns. In the nave the pillars are composed of a cylinder, with four slender shafts disposed around it. In the western transepts they form a quatrefoil on section ; in the choir the main pier is surrounded by a graceful cluster of eight shafts ; while in the Lady Chapel we find solitary cylindrical ones, so long, so delicate, and apparently so frail, as to have required the very highest skill to ensure their standing, as they do, nearly seven hundred years after their erection. But except in the capitals of the shafts supporting the inverted arches which the fourteenth century threw across the entrances to the eastern pair of transepts from the choir, not one stroke of the chisel — nothing which suggests man's hand — is to be discovered from the west door to the altar at the extremity of the Lady Chapel. I do not, of course, refer to minor details, such as tombs, etc. And this circumstance, combined with a want of colour, imparts an air of coldness and regularity to the pile which only wears off after repeated visits. Equally austere, and even less diversified, is the fenestration of this cathedral — the lancet being used throughout the building, except at the west ends of the nave aisles, in the faces of the transepts, where we perceive the adumbration of tracery, and in the cloisters and Chapter-house. These last are subsequent additions, and exhibit the thirteenth- 154 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND century style in that state transitionary between its lancet and fully developed Decorated stages, which it assumed between 1270 and 1290. The cloisters, which are co-extensive in length with the nave, though quite independent of its southern aisle, a passage known as "The Plumberies" intervening, appear from documentary evidence to have been in progress during the first half of the fourteenth century, yet no change in style is here perceptible. They form a perfect square, have four very wide walks, and for a church which never had any monastic establishment in connection with it, are of extraordinarily noble dimensions. Standing at their south-west corner, and having as a framework one of their gracefully traceried openings, a lovely architectural picture is presented by these grey stone entourages rising apparently from the close-shaven turf of their garth, with its two goodly cedar trees, completed by the matchless tower and spire soaring up in the angle formed by the nave and south transept. The Chapter-house, entered from the eastern walk of the cloisters, is a noble and luminous octagon, having an internal diameter of about 50 feet. Each side is occupied by a large window of four lights unfoliated, and traceried with one large and two small cusped circles, while the wall space below is enriched with an arcade of seven compartments. The double door of entrance, containing a figure of Our Lord in Majesty within its tympanum, is exceedingly grand. The vaulting ribs fall upon a central pillar, and their filling in is composed of the same concrete found throughout the cathedral. SALISBURY 155 Whether there was or was not anciently a high- pointed roof such as exists at the houses of York and Lincoln, and which has been restored to that of Westminster, remains a disputed point. All we know is, that the present roof is modern, and that the poinqon has evidently formed part of an older roof contemporary with the building. What we desiderate in this otherwise graceful and lightsome Chapter-house at Salisbury is boldness ; the buttresses have hardly sufficient projection, and the small columns at the angles have a somewhat reed-like appearance. Still, viewed from the Bishop's Garden, it groups well with the cathedral and octagonal muniment room attached to the south- eastern transept, and constitutes a noble feature in the brilliant entourage of this, the most picturesque and complete of our great churches. Its restoration, undertaken in 1855, is generally acknowledged to have been one of the most successful works of the day. We owe it to the skill of the late Mr Henry Glutton — who a year later, in conjunction with Mr Burges, carried off the first prize in the competition open to all Europe for erecting the Ghurch of Notre Dame de la Treille at Lille. Assisted, and nobly assisted, by the clergy and laity of the diocese, the restoration of this elegant structure attests alike the respect due to the memory of Bishop Denison, and the recognition of an artistic object which that excellent prelate had seriously at heart during the whole of his episcopate (1837-54). The restored work was reopened with an impressive service on the after- noon of Wednesday, 30th July 1856. In the spandrels of the arcades below the windows 156 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND is sculptured the cyclus of the Old Testament history, from the Creation to the Delivery of the Law, in high relief At the time of the Rebellion, when the Parliamentary Commissioners held their sittings in this room, these reliefs were so greatly injured that little remained in some places but the impression, as it were, of the shadows of the departed statuettes on the wall. However, by the great iconographical knowledge of William Burges, considerable in- genuity, almost equivalent to Cuvier's or Owen's, was displayed in recreating a subject from the disjecta me^nbra of a single head or foot, and though often conjectural, the completed groups may be said on the whole to represent the original designs with much fidelity. Mr Philip was the sculptor engaged on these reliefs, and their coloration was under- taken gratuitously by Mr Octavius Hudson. Owing, however, to the damp, this decoration began to peel off, so that, perhaps wisely, the Dean and Chapter resolved, five or six years ago, to have what remained of it removed. The well-meant, but mistaken generosity of Bishop Barrington,^ who held the See from 1782 to 1791, opened the door at Salisbury to an obliterator of historical records in the person of that James Wyatt to whom allusion has been made more than once in these pages. Under this " destructive " person, untold havoc was wrought in the furniture, decora- tions, and monuments of this cathedral. The mischief had, however, been inaugurated between 1766 and 1782 under Bishop Hume. Until then, the thirteenth-century stalls which the choir * See page 54 in chapter on Durham. SALISBURY 157 had succeeded in keeping, and which, as specimens of coeval wood - work, were both excellent and valuable, retained the backs and canopies that had been added to them, in all probability by Wren. Being voted " out of character with the style of the building," these Renaissance additions were removed, and replaced by work of the feeblest pseudo-Gothic description, but who the perpetrator of this piece of mischief was I am unable to discover. Next, Wyatt appeared upon the scene, and "by the addition of canopies and the skilful employment or imitation of the fragments taken from the Beauchamp and Hungerford Chapels, he succeeded in rendering the choir a happy imitation of the florid Gothic " (! !) 1 To his credit be it said, Wyatt kept the thirteenth-century stalls, but destroyed the original Early English choir-screen — portions of which still remain in the north-east transept — replacing it by an entirely new one from the materials of two chantries, which as " preposterous additions," he had caused to be removed from the Lady Chapel. Roofs, some of which retained their decorations,^ pillars and walls, were liberally coated with yellow wash ; tombs were removed from their places, and ranged all down the nave in formal rows between the columns ; the altar was dragged from its proper position at the east end of the choir, and set up, with a reredos made up of fragments of destroyed chapels, at the extremity of the Lady Chapel ; ^ Dodsworth's "Salisbury Cathedral." * Concerning these roof paintings, an interesting corre- spondence will be found in the Gentlemayis Magazine for 1789, pp. 874, 1065, and 1 195. 158 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND and such stained glass as had escaped Reforming Elizabethan prelates, and the maniacal fury of the Roundheads, was cast out ; some of it finding its way to the emporiums of curio-dealers or the houses of dilletanti, and the rest meeting with a more ignominious fate. Upon the following elegant epistle — dated 1788, and addressed by John Berry, glazier of Salisbury, to a Mr Lloyd of Conduit Street, London — comment is needless: " Sir, — This day I have sent you a Box full of old Stained and Painted glass, as you desired me to due, which I hope will sute your Purpos, it his the best I can get at Present. But I expect to Beate to Peceais a great deal very sune, as it his of now use to me, and we do it for the lead. If you want any more of the same sorts you may have what thear is, if it will pay for taking out, as it is a Deal of Truble to what Beating it to Peceais his ; you will send me a line as soon as Possoble, for we are goain to move our glasing shop to a Nother plase, and thin we hope to save a great deal more of the like sort, which I ham your most Omble Servant — John Berry." Yet despite its wretched solecisms of detail, there must have been a certain amount of solemnity in this Georgian mock - mediaeval choir of Salisbury, calculated to impress the vulgar, and secured, perhaps, by the stained glass inserted in the triplets of lancets at the east ends of the choir and Lady Chapel. The former, by Pearson, from cartoons by Mortimer, and representing the lifting up of the Brazen Serpent, still remains; the latter, which SALISBURY 159 represented the Resurrection, was removed about half a century ago on the introduction of the present mosaic glass by Wailes. It was designed by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and executed by Eginton, who gained much celebrity at the close of the eighteenth century as a producer of transparencies on glass.^ We can afford to smile nowadays at such works, but it must be remembered that their authors did their best to keep alive an art which, on the Continent, had almost completely died out. Such fragments of old glass as lurked here and there after Wyatt's besom of destruction had swept over the church, were collected and arranged in the western triplet and other windows in different parts. The rest of the stained glass at Salisbury belongs to the last forty years of the Gothic Revival. A con- siderable quantity is by Messrs Clayton and Bell, and, illustrating as it does the several styles the work of those artists has passed through during that period, is not uninteresting. In the south aisle of the nave and of the choir is some work of the Holiday - Powell, and Burne Jones - William Morris fabriquCy but though admirable in colour and draughts- manship it accords but ill with its locale. Another of Wyatt's delinquencies at Salisbury was his razing of the clochium or belfry which stood a little to the north-west of the cathedral. It 1 Those sepia - coloured windows in the ante -chapel of Magdalen College, Oxford, are Eginton's work, also a singularly fine figure in the same style of Thomas k Becket in the Mayor's Chapel at Bristol. It came from Fonthill Abbey on the dis- persal of Beckford's Collection in 1824. The east window of St Paul's Birmingham, completed in 1791, was considered Eginton's masterpiece. i6o CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND appears from early eighteenth-century prints to have been square in form, rose in three stages diminishing in ascent, was surmounted by a metal spirelet, had walls and buttresses similar to those of the Chapter- house, and a single pillar of Purbeck marble in the centre of the lowest storey to carry the ringing chamber and belfry. The detached belfry, though not a general, has been far from an unusual feature in our ancient cathedral and conventual churches ; the towers of the original Norman churches being, for the most part, low and of lantern construction, rendered some other con- trivance necessary for the bells. At Chichester, parallel with the west front, and a short distance to the north, stands a massive square tower 120 feet high, the upper storey octagonal, flanked with small turrets. At Worcester an octagonal "clochium," surmounted by a very lofty lead spire, existed until 1647. It stood very close to the north-east transept. Abbot Lichfield's tower, at Evesham, built in the latest period of Pointed architecture, stands in a line with the north transept of the destroyed abbey church. There is a tradition also of one adjoining Tewksbury Abbey. Nor is the detached steeple uncommon in parochial churches. We have numerous examples in England, particularly in the eastern counties, one of the most remarkable being at Beccles in Suffolk ; while in Bedfordshire the churches of Elstow and Marston present us with instances of the isolated belfry tower. George IIL paid a visit to Salisbury Cathedral shortly after the completion of Wyatt's "improve- ments," and it having been remarked to His Majesty SALISBURY i6i that a new organ was required, though the cost would greatly exceed the means which depended on the voluntary contributions of the gentlemen of the counties of Berks and Wilts, at that time comprising the diocese, the King immediately replied : " I desire that you will accept of a new organ for your cathedral, being my contribution as a Berkshire gentleman." The organ which the King's gift displaced was built in 1710 by Renatus Harris, and enclosed in one of those magnificent cases for which that builder was renowned. It was 40 feet high, and 20 feet broad ; had three towers, two tiers of smaller pipes between the towers, and a choir organ case on the side facing east. It was, moreover, remarkable as being the first four-manual organ erected in England. The building of the new organ was entrusted to Green, who, under royal patronage, became quite the head of his trade at the beginning of the last century, being employed in all parts of the country.^ Unfortunately, instead of being enclosed in Harris's noble case, Green's organ was, upon com- pletion, provided with an entirely new one — a pinnacled box in wretched pseudo-Gothic, Harris's organ, case and all, being sent to St Helen's, Abingdon, where happily it still remains. 1 The organ in St George's Chapel, and the King's private organ in Windsor Castle were built by Green ; also those in Canterbury, Lichfield and Rochester Cathedrals ; New College Chapel, Oxford, the Chapel of St Katherine's Hospital (formerly near the tower, now at Regent's Park) ; St Botolph's, Aldgate, and Sleaford Church, Lincolnshire ; but in most of these instances, Green's work has entirely disappeared, or has been supplemented by that of modern builders. L i62 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND Divine service at Salisbury seems to have been performed with more than usual solemnity and decorum in anti-Tractarian days, as may be gathered from a communication by Miss Maria Hackett to the Gentleman's Magazine, Writing under date 30th July 1830, this lady, whose great object through her long life (i783-i874)was the well-being of English cathedral choristers, remarks : " Here at the hour of prayer the Bishop may be seen on his throne, the Dean at the altar, the Canon in his stall ; a full and efficient choir assembled before the commencement of the exhorta- tion, and remaining in their places till after the blessing has been pronounced. The service is performed with great solemnity in its most attractive form. The altar-table has been judiciously removed from the Lady Chapel to its ancient situation at the eastern extremity of the choir; but I may be per- mitted to suggest, that the pictorial effect might be still improved by elevating the altar a step or two, and arranging a crimson drapery or temporary screen behind it so as to form a rich and appropriate background " — and so on. The whole letter is well worth perusal, couched as it is in that English of which its writer was a mistress. The cambric frills worn by the Salisbury choristers both in and out of the cathedral, is a pretty traditional feature in their costume. " One of the choristers is appointed Bishop's * boy.' This is an office of great antiquity, as there are frequent entries in the Capitular Registers with regard to him, and in the fifteenth century the names of some of these boys are recorded. One of the duties of the SALISBURY 163 * Bishop's boy * is to ascertain before every service whether the Bishop will be present at the cathedral, and he walks before the apparitor, in his surplice, on such occasions. He is admitted to this office by the Bishop in a formal manner. The boy kneels before the prelate, who lays his hands upon him, and says : — 'A.B. admitto te in Puerum Episcopi, in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.' " ^ Dickens' lovers will remember the delightful picture drawn by the novelist of the city and cathedral in the fifth chapter of " Martin Chuzzlewit." In 1859 the true restoration of the cathedral began under Sir Gilbert Scott with a general consolidation of the fabric externally. Next, the tower and spire were carefully examined, when the walls of the lantern were found to be in so dilapidated and shattered a condition, that the stability of the tower for so many centuries might, as the architect himself said, " be justly accounted a standing wonder." In 1870 the restoration of the choir as a memorial to Bishop Hamilton, who had died a year previously, was undertaken. The drastic treatment which this part of the church, to say nothing of its furniture, had received at the hands of the Georgian men, necessitated a refurnish- ing and decoration of a most thorough description, entailing not only a great expenditure of money, but of time. The cost was chiefly defrayed by public subscription, though many of the instrumenta were the result of individual munificence. The metal choir-screen, a graceful work of Skid- ^ For this information I am indebted to an interesting article on the musical associations of Salisbury Cathedral by Mr F. G. Edwards, in the Musical Tunes of February 1903. i64 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND more, and a set of altar frontals for the several seasons of the church, were contributed by Mrs Sidney Lear. Miss Chafyn Grove presented the splendid organ, one of Willis' noblest achievements, the eighteenth-century instrument by Green finding a home at St Thomas' Church in the city. The bishop's throne was subscribed for by clergymen ordained in the cathedral. The reredos, based on studies of the old choir-screen and tomb of Bishop Bridport, was the gift of Earl Beauchamp ; Messrs Farmer and Brindley were the sculptors. Wyatt's miserable rafacimento of an altar-piece in the Lady Chapel was replaced by the present triptych, designed by Sir Arthur Blomfield, and painted by Mr Buckeridge, while to the needle of Mrs Weigall we owe that exquisite altar-frontal representing the Blessed Virgin and Child adored by angels, carried out from the designs of Mr Gambier Parry. An interesting feature of the work was the restora- tion of colour to the roofs of the Lady Chapel and choir. The latter, as was always known, was decorated with medallions containing busts of prophets, which had been visible until the time of Wyatt, who coated them with a yellow wash, but not so completely that they could be seen dimly looming through it. Under Scott's direction this wash was removed, and a considerable portion of the paintings, together with their accompanying legends, brought to light by Messrs Clayton and Bell, who cannot, however, be complimented upon certain pigments, a vivid green being particularly unpleasant. At the crossing, Our Lord is represented seated in Majesty with the SALISBURY 165 Apostles and Evangelists. Prophets in medallions occupy the choir roof west of the crossing, and the employments proper to the several months, that of the presbytery or three bays eastward. It was while this work was in progress that an interesting correspondence arose respecting the true position of the high altar in the cathedral. It was started by Rev. T. H. Armfield, whose theory was, that, from the falling off in dignity of the roof decoration eastward of the choir transept, the altar stood under the painting of the Majesty at the junction of the four arms. So many arguments for the received position — viz., within the central arch of the three dividing the choir from the Lady Chapel — were forthcoming, that the contrary ones were outweighed, though the difficulties which they suggest have never been fully explained. Restored and arranged as we now see it, the choir of Salisbury Cathedral was reopened on All Saints' Day, 1st November 1876, after several years of disuse. In the following year the western portions of the building were cleansed of their yellow wash, and the noble north porch was quietly yet admirably restored, shortly before his death, by Mr G. E. Street, who had a particular affection for this most graceful, if not altogether most interesting, of our cathedrals. CHAPTER VI WORCESTER The cathedral forming the subject of our present sketch is one of the New Foundation ; that is to say, it had been served by monks until its recon- stitution with secular canons by Henry VI H. upon the dissolution of the Benedictine house, of which it formed the imposing church. It is built in the form of a patriarchal cross, without aisles to its principal transept, but with that secondary or eastern transept which, borrowed from the now demolished abbey church of Clugny, had made its deb'At in England, at Canterbury under Conrad. But in spite of this relief to its elon- gated Early English choir, and the dignity conferred upon it by the imposing central tower, Worcester Cathedral can hardly be said to impress the visitor as he approaches it from the High Street, being somewhat cold and ineffective. This, however, is in some degree attributable to the drastic nature of the repairs carried out on the exterior between <: o t-H H O w H U O WORCESTER 167 1857 and 1867, and which were doubtless necessitated by the terrible " settings to rights " the structure had undergone during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but it is doubtful whether in its palmiest days Worcester Cathedral ever presented a really picturesque ensemble. The best view obtainable is from the south-west, on the opposite side of the Severn, whence the various parts, scaled by the remains of the monastic buildings and the prebendal houses, group very pleasingly. Interiorly, now that much of the newness con- sequent upon the restorations completed in 1874 has worn off, this cathedral may be pronounced one of the most graceful and beautiful in England. I saw it for the first time twenty-five years ago on a brilliant May morning. It was Tuesday in Whitsun week, and Matins being succeeded by a choral celebration of the Holy Communion, the Offices occupied a longer time than usual. The service, I recollect, was that favourite one of the late Sir Joseph Barnby in E, and seated as I was almost at the western extremity of the nave, the beauty of the architecture was materially enhanced by the music in the distant choir, and the whole left an impression that has not since been effaced from the tablets of memory. As it stands, Worcester Cathedral is mainly the work of three periods of architecture — Early English, Decorated and Perpendicular, though fragments of preceding churches are considerably in evidence here and there. In the solemn crypt we have no doubt a portion of that edifice begun on the site pf an earlier pne in 1084 by St Wulfstan, whp i68 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND although an attempt was made by the first two Norman kings to deprive him of it, was left in peaceful possession of the See to which he had been appointed four years before the Conquest. On the day that Wulfstan began the work of rebuilding the tenth-century church of St Oswald, he was observed by one of his monks standing in silent sadness in the corner of the cemetery. The monk expostulated with him : " Surely," he said, " you ought rather to rejoice that such things can be done for your church in your time ; that buildings are now erected in a style of beauty and splendour unknown to our fathers." " I judge differently," said Wulfstan ; " we are pulling down the labours of holy men, that we may gain honour and reputation to ourselves. The good old time was, when men knew not how to build magnificent piles, but thought any roof good enough, if under it they could offer themselves a willing sacrifice to God. It is a miserable change if we neglect the souls of men, and pile together stones." Wulfstan's building had, as was customary at that epoch, a choir, which terminated a little to the east of King John's tomb in an apse, and a visit to the Cordova-like crypt, with its apparent forest of columns, will prove that that apse had an aisle carried round it. A succession of accidents in the shape of storms and fires befell this Norman cathedral at Worcester, the last occurring in 1202, after which it was almost entirely rebuilt. King John, who visited the city in 1208, contributed three hundred marks for the repair of this building, which was in all probability one of WORCESTER 169 late Norman character ; but as all traces of its structure, with the exception of some fragments still lurking here and there, disappeared during successive rebuildings in the thirteenth and four- teenth centuries, it is impossible to speak with confidence on the subject. Two late twelfth-century bays still exist at the west end of the nave, but it is most probable that they formed an extension of the Norman one, and can hardly be accepted as a key to the whole. Nine years after his visit to Worcester the very unsaintly Lackland died, and in accordance with his own wish, was buried immediately in front of the high altar between the shrines of the sainted bishops Oswald and Wulfstan, "that," says the chronicler, "the saying of Merlin might be verified, ' he shall be placed between the saints.' " The obsequies of King John were performed by Bishop Sylvester, who in 12 18 dedicated the restored cathedral in the presence of Henry III. and the bishops of Winchester, Salisbury, Hereford, Chichester, London, Norwich, St David's, Llandaff, St Asaph and Bangor, of abbots and priors from all parts of the kingdom and many nobles, the event being thus recorded in the "Anglia Sacra": "Eccles, Cath. Wygornensis dedicata est VH Id. Junii in honore S. Mariae et B. Petri et S. Oswaldi et Wistani, magnum Altare in honore S. Mariae et Oswaldi, et medium in honore S. Petri et Wistani." Only six years later we glean the following entry from the same invaluable source : — " Inceptum novum opus frontis Wigorn. Ecclesiae Episcopo Willelmo jaciente fundamentum." The " novum opus frontis " I70 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND referred to is the east end of the choir, and the *Episcopo Willelmo," the then bishop, William of Blois, it having been determined to rebuild the old Norman choir on a greatly extended plan, commencing with the three bays beyond the present eastern transept, so as not to interfere with the offices which still continued to be performed in the old choir. As I have already pointed out in previous chapters, the eastern limb of a Norman cathedral or monastic church was in most cases short, existing arrange- ments not rendering any considerable space at the east end necessary. At Worcester, the area under the tower was sufficient for the stalls of the monks, wherein the ordinary Chapter offices were recited, while the four bays that intervened between the tower and the apse afforded abundant space for the imposing ceremonial of the Mass. This portion of the choir, strictly termed the Presbytery — the choir proper being, as I have said, under the tower — was co-extensive at Worcester with the present choir as far as its meeting with the eastern transept. Below ground, its extent will be found to coincide with that of the Norman crypt On either side, but a little in advance of the high altar, stood the shrines of St Oswald and St Wulfstan, whose relics the church of Worcester had the good fortune to possess. But as years rolled on, these hallowed treasures increased in attractiveness. The tombs of the two departed saints became the accredited centres of miraculous agencies, and drew to themselves ever-increasing crowds of votaries, desiring not only an interest in the holy men';s WORCESTER 171 intercessions, but still more, a share in the physical benefits of which their remains were supposed to be the divinely appointed channels to suffering humanity. To accommodate these vast throngs, as well as to give due honour to the Blessed Virgin, whose cult may be said to have received a great impetus early in the thirteenth century under the pontificate of Innocent III., a greatly extended eastern limb was necessary; and not only at Worcester, but in one great cathedral after another do we find the same process of eastern extension gone through, and for the accomplishment of one or other of the combined objects. The several modes in which this eastern elongation has been carried out, open up an enquiry of considerable interest in connection with the new direction taken by popular religious feeling at this epoch. At Lichfield, where St Mary divided the honours with St Chad ; at Lincoln, where the eastern extension was shared by her with St Hugh ; at Worcester, by Saints Oswald and Wulfstan ; and at York by St William, the extension was carried on beneath the same line of roof But at Chester, Chichester, Exeter, Hereford, St Alban's, St David's, Salisbury ,1 Wells, and Winchester, where local rivalry was not so strong, the Lady Chapel stretches out beyond the main choir at a much lower level, the manner in which the junction of the two members has been effected being, in most cases, singularly picturesque, and consum- mately skilful. The position of the Lady Chapel at the east end of an English cathedral although general, is not universal, 1 At Salisbury the altar of the Virgin was, however, associated with St Osmund. 172 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND precedence being given in certain instances to local objects of devotion by the religious who knew so well how to gauge the popular feeling, and whose zealous rivalry for the increased splendour of their own churches led them to give the preference to that form of devotion which would be likely to yield the largest amount of offerings. Thus, at Ely, where the magni- ficent presbytery of Bishop Northwold formed a casket to the shrine of St Etheldreda, we have that glorious Lady Chapel, now styled Trinity Church, forming a distinct building on the north side of the choir. At Rochester, devotion to the Blessed Virgin was excelled by that paid to St William of Perth. Here the south transept formed the Lady Chapel, which in the fifteenth century was much enlarged by that poor Late Perpendicular building which opens out of the south aisle of the nave. At Ripon, where the shrine of St Wilfred was the great object of attrac- tion, a Decorated upper storey, known as the Lady Loft, and added to the Norman Chapter-house, constituted the Lady Chapel. At Durham, it was formed in the Galilee at the extreme west end of the cathedral, after Bishop Pudsey's futile attempt to establish one behind the spot sacred to St Cuthbert at the opposite end. At Peterborough it was, and at Bristol the Lady Chapel still is, on the eastern side of the north transept, and at Oxford it was built towards the middle of the thirteenth century as an additional aisle on the north side of the choir, the city wall precluding any extension of that limb eastward. To return, however, from this lengthy digression to the subject of our present chapter. WORCESTER 173 Contemporaneous as it is with the highest develop- ments of mediaeval architecture, in which among many other forms " the fresh exuberant life, the daring and devotion of the age, found one means of expression," this grandly expanded choir of Worcester may be said to take up ground intermediate between St Hugh's work in the choir proper at Lincoln, and that in the " Angel Choir " of the same cathedral. Thoroughly English both in plan and detail, it will never cease to command our admiration and delight, much of its beauty and richness being due to the profits derived from the offerings of the faith- ful at the tomb and shrine of St Wulfstan, whose reputation as a worker of miracles increased after his canonisation in 1203. The Norman crypt, it will be remembered, is co- extensive with the choir only as far as the eastern transept, for the ritualistic use of the crypt having ceased before Bishop William of Blois began his new work at the east end in 1224, no further exten- sion was made to it. The result is that the pavement of the eastern transept and Lady Chapel being on the same level as that part of the church westward of the central tower, the groups of clustered shafts forming the columns that support the arches of the three easternmost bays are several feet taller than those in the choir itself. The triforium and clerestory throughout this part of the cathedral are, however, uniform in height, the string-courses dividing them being all kept at the same level. Taken as a whole, the choir of Worcester Cathedral is most graceful, but the full beauty of its Early English work is not realised until we descend the 174 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND steps leading from the aisles into the eastern transepts and three-bayed Lady Chapel, where, from the reason which I have endeavoured to make clear, the elevation assumes a much more eland character. There is one feature here which imparts an air of unusual richness allied with stability to the whole, and that is the triforium. In most English Gothic buildings this story is open, showing the rough lean-to roofs of the aisles. At Worcester, on the contrary, this is not the case, the arcades having a wall behind them enriched with lancets on slender shafts, just sufficient room being left between to form a passage. It should be borne in mind that the whole of the east end, with its two tiers of lancet windows, is modern. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the fenestration of the church seems to have undergone great alterations, the east end being endowed with one large window, the form of whose tracery can only be guessed at since the frame was filled with work of a spurious character in 1789. When Mr Perkins came to work upon the cathedral nearly fifty years ago, he removed this window altogether, replacing it with that double tier of lancets we now see — somewhat painfully configured after the large existing store of Early English work in the cathedral, and externally, at least, indescrib- ably yet undeniably flat and spiritless. Internally, however, with its dark marble shafts, sculptured groups in the spandrels, and that mosaic glass by Hardman, which formed so conspicuous a feature in the Great Exhibition of 1862, the eastern eleva- tion of the choir of Worcester Cathedral sufficiently WORCESTER 175 passes muster, and reproducing, as it most probably does, the original one of William de Blois, forms a remarkably happy termination to the vista from the west end. Still, an architect of genius would have grappled more boldly with the question, and, instead of treating the restoration as a mere archaeo- logical reproduction, would have regarded it as a work of art for all time. Worcester Cathedral is not so uniform in style as to demand an Early English east window ; and even the rich arcades of the triforium would better contrast with a window of the Geometrical Decorated period. The styles of the Middle Ages were constantly varying to suit the altering requirements of the times, and the best way to emulate their genius is to remember that we too have certain wants to supply. Mr Perkins > therefore, would have violated no canon of archi- tectural taste had he given the Early English Lady Chapel a nobly-traceried window of a later period. The next great work undertaken at Worcester was the reconstruction of the Norman nave, which, from such portions still extant as shafts and capitals, and a series of arched recesses in the south aisle, would appear to have belonged to the first three- quarters of the twelfth century. Towards the close of the same century the two present western bays were built, but whether in place of others that had been destroyed by accident, or as an extension of the Norman nave, does not seem very clear. These two bays are most curious and valuable specimens of Transitional work, their arcades opening to the aisles having slender shafts with capitals just indica- ting the approach of foliage, and pointed arches very 176 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND simply moulded. The triforium stage, which is very lofty, comprises three narrow compartments with arches composed entirely of zigzag ornament united beneath one pointed arch, and very closely walled up behind ; while in the clerestory is one wider round-arched opening having a lesser pointed one on either side of it. Of the remaining seven bays of the nave, those on the north side are the best. They are Decorated, and date from the episcopate of Bishop Cobham (1317-27), the columns being com- posed of a number of slender shafts with capitals of deeply under-cut leafage, running wreath-like round the pier, and recalling in ensemble those in the contemporary nave of the cathedral of Troyes in Champagne. The southern arcade was not begun until about 1360, and a deterioration in the work here is perceptible, the shafts being taller, fewer and more slender, and the foliaging being confined to their capitals. For grace and richness, the northern arcade of the nave at Worcester is, I think, un- surpassed by any contemporary work of the kind, and a particularly fine view is obtainable of it from the south-western pier of the tower. Both these Decorated sides of the nave are, as regards their arcades, a little loftier than the Transitional ones to the west of them, but the triforium and clerestory of the two portions are kept parallel by the string- course separating them. The triforium is a singularly prominent feature in the Decorated portion of the nave at Worcester. Singularly, because in other cathedrals of the period, as for instance at Exeter, where it is reduced to a mere gallery, and at York, where it is WORCESTER 177 combined with the clerestory, it becomes quite a subordinate member in the elevation. But while dignified, the nave-triforium at Worcester is remark- ably simple when compared with such a contemporary one as that by Bishop Hotham at Ely. Indeed, as regards enrichment, it is far more reticent than the Early English triforium in the choir, which to some extent it resembles in arrangement, and in the manner in which its uncusped arcades are walled up behind with the intervention only of a narrow passage. Richness appears to have been sought by the intro- duction into the tympana of the main arches, of small sculptured figures, once much mutilated, but now restored. In the clerestory, the Late Decorated arrangement of the arcades follows that of the transitional bays very closely, the tall central one through which the window appears having a some- what depressed head. The nave was groined in 1377 by Bishop Wakefield throughout; but while fortunately sparing us the two Transitional western bays, he entirely altered the front, blocking up the central doorway, and substituting a window, probably of Early Perpendicular character, for the twelfth- century ones. But all traces of Wakefield's window have been lost, as it was replaced during the latter part of the eighteenth century by a debased one, which in its turn gave way to the present Early Decorated composition. The stately porch which opens out of the north aisle exactly in its centre, is also due to Bishop Wakefield. The restored statuary is a work of our own day. From the next bay but one projects a small Late Decorated chapel. It is styled the Jesus Chapel, and until 1899 formed the M 178 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND baptistery ; but the font, a nondescript affair of the middle of the eighteenth century, has since been replaced by one of Late Decorated character, and equipped with a spiral canopy after the model of the celebrated one at Ufford, near Woodbridge. It is stationed at the west end of the south aisle, where it looks remarkably well. Now the Jesus Chapel is separated from the aisle by a lofty stone screen supporting the rood and attendant figures, and is furnished with an altar, above which is a wooden retabulum of five openings, an almost life-size figure of the Blessed Virgin and Child occupying the centre, and small scenes from the Life of Christ, the sides. This graceful piece of work is due to Mr Martin of Cheltenham, and, as well as the stone screen, is from the designs of Mr R. A. Briggs, RR.I.B.A. The stained glass in the northern window of this chapel, by Wailes, has been in position for more than half a century, and although not of the highest order imparts solemnity to what is now one of the most charming bits in the cathedral. Of ancient stained glass, there are a few remains in the second, fourth, fifth, and sixth windows of the south aisle. The cores of the piers supporting the tower are Norman, veiled in Late Decorated work, the slender shafts from which the four great arches rise being similar in character to those on the south side of the nave. Standing exactly in the centre of the church the tower of Worcester Cathedral, completed in 1374, is a noble object, despite the flaying process it has undergone at various times within the last two centuries. Of the statues with which it was originally WORCESTER 179 enriched, but six remain, the rest being works of the period comprised between i860 and 1870, as are the parapet and pinnacles, which replace others familiar to us in old views of the cathedral, but dating only from the beginning of the eighteenth century, as Browne Willis informs us in his " Cathedrals," vol. i. p. 628. In 1873 a magnificent peal of twelve bells, each bearing upon the waist the name of an apostle, and cast by Taylor of Loughborough, was placed in the tower mainly through the exertions of Canon Cattley.^ The largest bell, Peter (in the key of D flat), weighs 50 cwt. ; the smallest, Matthias (in the key of A flat), 6 cwt. 3 qrs. 19 lbs. In addition to these, a new great hour bell, whose key is D flat, and which weighs 90 cwt., was provided ; also a set of chimes, which play every third hour, thereby adding greatly to the cheerfulness of the city, but a stricter ecclesiastical feeling might have been shown in the selection of melodies. Until the raising of the tower in the middle of the fourteenth century, the bells were lodged in the clochium, an octagonal mass of stone- work, 10 feet thick, 60 feet high, and 60 feet in diameter at the base. It dated, in all probability, from the time of the rebuilding of the cathedral at the close of the eleventh century, was surmounted by a lead spire ^ The old bells were then expatriated, three being given to churches in the diocese, four finding their way into private hands, and one being stolen during the restoration of the tower. They were probably not anterior to the seventeenth century, replacing the mediaeval ones banished in 1559 under Bishop Hooper. On the completion of the great tower only one bell was hung in it, the rest remaining in the clochium. i8o CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND rising fifty yards above the stone structure, and was placed so close to the north-eastern transept, that there was only space between for processions. This clochium, which, from the account left to us of it in his "Observations on Worcestershire," by one Nathaniel Tomkins, appears to have been a structure of no ordinary importance, survived the loss of its bells two hundred and seventy-three years, being pulled down in 1647, and the materials disposed of for £6\7, 4s. 2d., the principal part of which was given to repair several churches in the county, damaged in the Civil Wars. The transepts, which project but one bay beyond the line of the aisles, still retain a good deal of Norman work in the lower stages of their walls, but they have undergone changes both as regards their fenestration and vaulting at different periods, the latter dating most probably from the end of the fourteenth century. The presence of a Norman arch in the eastern wall of either transept points to the supposition that Wulfstan's church was parallel- triapsidal, but both these apses have long since disappeared. The arch communicating with the northern apse still remains embedded in the wall, while the southern one was reopened in 1862 into the Early English chapel of St John, coincident with the first two bays of the choir aisle on that side. In the staircase turret which projects with singular prominence into the northern transept at its north- west angle, the North- Italian effect produced by the employment of cream-coloured and green stones is very noticeable ; but it was not until the plaster was stripped from the walls during Mr Perkins' restora- WORCESTER i8i tion of this part of the church forty years ago, that this charming piece of natural polychromy came to light. From the south transept we enter the crypt, a relic of St Wulfstan's church, and wonderfully perfect in its design and preservation, the unique and beautiful arrangement of the Norman arcades and vaulting of its apsidal east end presenting some curious analogies with, and probably giving the idea for, the vaulting of Chapter-houses with central columns which became so beautiful and distinctive a feature of English cathedral buildings. One peculiarity in the vaulting of this crypt at Worcester — the second in order of date of the four Norman apsidal ones^ — is that the ribs visible beneath are formed in plaster over rough cores left purposely on the masonry to receive the arch. The division of this crypt into four aisles is productive of some of the most delightful combinations of cushion- capped pillars, semicircular arches, and pointed vaults, and in certain features recalls those more elevated sub-structures in Germany, which give an air of picturesqueness to such interiors as Brunswick, Naumburg, Paderborn and Quedlinburg. Students of the precincts of a New Foundation cathedral will find much to interest them in the southern entourages of Worcester : as, for instance, in the refectory, now the King's School : the Guesten Hall, alas ! ruined only within the last half century ; and the imposing Late Gothic gateway through which the Close — " the boundaries " of Mrs Henry 1 The others are, Winchester (1079), Gloucester (1089), and Canterbury (1096). i82 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND Wood's " Helstonleigh " ^ — is entered from the eastern part of the city. Connecting these interesting reHcs of the monastery with the church, are large, but not particularly picturesque Perpendicular cloisters, whose Heme vaulting, enriched with bosses of figures and foliage, is excellent The framework of the windows giving on to the garth is modern, replacing some inferior work of the eighteenth century. In the richly quatre- foiled splay of each window may be seen a squinch, introduced as a means of communica- tion for the monks, as they wrote or studied, without their being obliged to leave their places ; all were isolated, and yet in a moment any monk had the power of gaining any information he might require from any of his companions as he sat at work. The monks' and the prior's doors may still be seen at the west and east ends of the northern walk, respectively. Here is the lavatory of the monks. The slype, a narrow passage running alongside the first two bays of the nave, affords a means of communication between the cloisters and the ground at the west end of the cathedral. The entrance to the cloisters from College Green is by a Late Norman door, richly moulded, an springing from four receding shafts. No one should overlook this entrance, it is quite one of the gems of the cathedral, and forms a specimen of that refinement to which the Anglo-Norman style had been brought towards the middle of the twelfth century, in this part of the country. ^ Worcester is the " Helstonleigh " of several of this lady's novels, notably the " Channings," its sequel " Roland Yorke," and " Mrs Halliburton's Troubles." WORCESTER 183 There is another and narrower slype between the south transept and the Chapter-house, which is entered from the eastern walk of the cloisters. This was originally a circular Norman structure, which, becoming ruinous from the thrust of the vaulting, was altered, and given an octagonal plan externally by an architect of the Perpendicular period. He went to work in a particularly scientific manner, casing it externally with other ashlar, and building project- ing buttresses at the angles, adding windows and vaulting in the style of his period, but preserving the internal Norman wall, central column, and part of the original vault. The walls behind the inter- lacing arcades under the windows are constructed in an elaborate polychromatic treatment of masonry in green and white freestone, which is almost unique in this country, and certainly unequalled by any extant examples of such class of so early a date. An ingenious theory has been propounded that the elongated form of Chapter-house found at Bristol, Canterbury, Chester, Durham, Gloucester, Oxford, and whilom at Ely, was that adopted in churches built and served by those religious communities whose daily obligation it was to enforce a rigid observance of discipline within their walls, this being the form best adapted to all acts of a judicial nature ; while the polygonal shape as seen at Lichfield, Lincoln, Salisbury, Southwell, Wells, and York was preferred by chapters of seculars, because their meetings par- took chiefly of the character of synods or admini- strative councils, and consequently, a form which brought every assistant within a certain focus, was most suitable for all deliberative assemblies. But i84 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND the simple fact that the Chapter-houses of Worcester and Westminster/ both Benedictine monasteries, are, the one circular, and the other octagonal, answers this hypothesis. I believe the simple fact to be that the oblong form was the original Norman one perpetuated in English times, and, fitting as it did into the space formed by the transept and the eastern walk of the cloister, was adopted as a matter of convenience. The polygonal shape was a beautiful and purely English conception of the later thirteenth- century architects, of which the earliest example occurs at Lincoln, though we may consider this circular one at Worcester the parent of that shape which afterwards became so general. The work of restoring Worcester Cathedral was begun half a century ago during the time of Dean Peel (1846-74) under Mr A. E. Perkins, a pupil of Rickman, and was carried on almost without inter- mission until the spring of 1874. Mr Perkins began by demolishing the forest of exaggerated pinnacles that had sprouted up on either side of the nave, choir, and transept gables, sometime in the eighteenth century, substituting others of more modest dimen- sions. A little later, the east end was taken down, and rebuilt in that present form to which I have already made allusion, the lancet windows of the choir, eastern transepts, and Lady Chapel, which had been transmuted into Perpendicular ones, or had been filled with tracery of that age, being at the same time brought back to their primitive form. ^ The Benedictine Chapter-houses of Belvoir and Evesham, and the Cistercian one of Abbey Dore, were also polygonal. WORCESTER 185 The great window of the north transept which had presented a somewhat debased character, was filled with new tracery in the Early Decorated style, but this was objected to by Professor Willis on the ground that it belongs to a style of which no original example exists in the cathedral. It was filled with stained glass representing the Twelve Apostles, by Lavers and Barraud, in 1869. A little earlier the same artists put glass of exceedingly rich and brilliant tinctures — such as may be seen in the apse of St Peter's, Vauxhall, London — in the first window, counting from the east of the north aisle. Quite at the outset of the restorations, the corresponding window in the opposite transept, and composed of three lancets beneath a Pointed arch, received its complement of stained glass as a memorial to Queen Adelaide, resident for some time at Wittley Court. It was executed by Rogers of Worcester from a design by Preedy, and represents the Radix Jesse in the central light, and various holy women of Old and New Testament history in the side ones. As a specimen of revived glass in the mosaic style it is decidedly praiseworthy, though here, as in too many other instances, the ideas of the artist have not been quite successfully worked out by the executant. The interior of the nave was cleansed of white- wash between 1863 and 1865, a process which revealed not only the pink sandstone of its arcades and upper stages, but the white oolite from Bredon, and the green stone from Higley composing the material of its roof. Indeed, few English cathedrals present so charming an example of natural poly- chromy as the nave of Worcester. At the same i86 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND time, the sculpture in the triforium arcades which had been sadly mutilated was restored to something of its pristine beauty under Boulton. These works in the nave included the removal of a wretchedly debased Gothic west window — seen in Powell's picture of the cathedral at South Kensington — and the substitution of the present imposing one of eight lights from the designs of Mr Perkins. This was filled thirty years ago with stained glass repre- senting the Days of Creation, by Hardman — very soft and beautiful, but like too many of that artist's productions somewhat deficient in depth, a mistake arising from the attempt to acquire transparency by a general washiness of tint, in place of a bold employ- ment of grisaille balanced by strongly expressed colours in vigorous contrast. We desiderate, too, some of that old virility which he had acquired under the guiding hand of Pugin. The west doorway is likewise a work of this period (1863-65). Sufficient remains of the old one were discovered built up in the wall to enable Mr Perkins to reproduce the main features of the original design. It is in the transitional Norman style, having a pointed arched head enriched with chevrons, and resting on detached jamb shafts. Within the tympanum is sculpture by Boulton, of the Divine Infant in His mother's arms, with an adoring angel tossing a thurible on either side. In the apex of the gable is a carved figure of Our Lord in the act of benediction. Internally, the sculptured groups represent the Expulsion from Paradise and the Sacrifice of Isaac. Whether the principle adopted in restoring this WORCESTER 1S7 portion of the cathedral was a correct one or not is rather a difficult point to determine. According to the plan carried out in the eastern part of the build- ing, the west front should have been brought back to its original state as erected in transitional Norman times ; and the effect would, no doubt, have been very good, though a purely conjectural restoration as far as regards the windows. To the Early Decorated windows at the west end of the nave and its aisles the same objection may be made as that brought forward against the north transept one ; but what- ever exceptions may be taken theoretically to the fenestration of the west end of Worcester Cathedral, the artistic effect must be pronounced satisfactory, especially in the interior, where the great window in particular forms a fine western termination to the vista. Mr Perkins' works of reparation on the exterior of Worcester Cathedral have formed the theme of much adverse criticism. It must, however, be urged in extenuation that such drastic treatment was called forth, not only by the friable quality of the stone- work of which the building is composed, but by the wretched treatment the whole outside had received during the two preceding centuries, presenting as it did little more than a collection of mean and uninteresting disfigurements and botchings which combined to deprive its outline of what little dignity or beauty it possessed. Even now, as I remarked at the outset of this chapter, the exterior of Worcester Cathedral, despite its possession of the eastern transept, can scarcely be pronounced beautiful or picturesque. But within, since the conclusion of the restorations of i88 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND 1867-74, it may be safely affirmed, that of all our cathedrals in which the high close choir-screen of stone has been superseded by the light open one of wood or metal, none is more impressive in general effect at a coup d'ceil than Worcester, or so thoroughly looks what it is, the mother church of one of our most densely populated dioceses. Perhaps this feeling of religiosity is enhanced at Worcester Cathedral by the location of its two most important instrumenta — the choir-screen and the reredos — at the summit of gently rising flights of steps, the dignified double tier of lancets closing a vista whose mysterious effect would be greatly enhanced by the insertion of stained glass in the clerestory of the choir. The entire structural repair of Worcester Cathedral was due to Mr Perkins, though Sir Gilbert Scott had occasionally, but not to any great extent, been consulted by the authorities. However, Sir Gilbert became officially connected with the building in 1864, when, the question arising of restoring that portion of the choir between the tower and the eastern transept, of decorating it, of adapting it to a more stately ritual, and of throwing it open to the nave and aisles for congregational purposes, he drew up a report to the Dean and Chapter unfolding his plans for such a redistribution, which, with some modifications, were eventually carried into execution. In this capacity Sir Gilbert Scott acted in con- junction with Mr Perkins, who, dying in 1873, just as the works were nearing their accomplishment, was not destined to witness the church with which he had been so long and so intimately associated, WORCESTER 189 thrown open from end to end in all its restored beauty and ritual completeness.^ Until the closing of the choir in May 1867 for these works, this portion of Worcester Cathedral exhibited not only one of the most valuable, but most charming and interesting specimens of post-Reforma- tion choral arrangements in England, some idea of which may be gleaned from the splendid engravings by Wild in his monograph on the cathedral published in 1823, and from a beautiful, though in one particu- lar, not very correct woodcut in " Murray's Hand Book." 2 The organ-screen was, however, but a worthless erection of 1 812, so that its removal was not a matter for regret ; but one has to mourn over the destruction of the post-Reformation choral fittings, which, if not what one would term old work, in the usual sense of the term as referable to mediaeval remains, was so little offensive by comparison, and absolutely so characteristic and telling, as well as satisfying in its arrangement, that one cannot but deplore its loss. There are obvious limits to that phase of modern restoration which at the time these renova- tions at Worcester were in progress, displayed a morbid desire of making all things new and in con- formity with the style of the building. New work ^ For the Three Choir Festivals of 1869 and 1872 the hoarding, that for seven years filled up the western arch of the tower, was temporarily removed. It is possible that Mr Perkins was present on one of these occasions and saw the church, though in a somewhat inchoate state, open from end to end. 2 The artist having given four aisled bays to the Lady Chapel instead of three. I90 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND in design is only to be tolerated when that which is found already existing is either thoroughly bad as art, or unsuitable to its proper uses — not a fine or strictly Gothic theory, but one which seems to strike a mean between the two extremes. Verily one may almost say that our churches have suffered more severely from the hands of their friends than from the attacks of time or fanaticism. In the Chapter-house at Westminster Abbey there may be seen two photographs of the choir of Worcester Cathedral, taken after it had been denuded of its post - Reformation fittings, and probably about 1870. One of these views looking west — closed at the western tower arch by boarding — is interesting as showing the arcades standing free of furniture, besides as affording a good idea of the rough rubble-work of reddish tufa which had been exposed by stripping the roof of its plaster. To the retention of this rough material Lord Dudley, who, it will be remembered, was so munificent a contributor to the work of restoration at Worcester, objected. The vaults, therefore, were replastered as a vehicle for the coloration we now see, and for which Sir Gilbert Scott drew up the entire scheme with his own hand, Hardman being entrusted with its execution. In designing this roof decoration at Worcester, which consists of figures within medallions on cream-coloured grounds relieved by scroll-work, non - perspicuity of effect was aimed at. This allows of a slight difficulty in discerning the pattern at first sight, but it un- doubtedly has the effect of enhancing the height of the choir. WORCESTER 191 The other photograph to which I have alluded shows the choir looking east, with the then just erected reredos standing isolated, and also the curious method resorted to in the Tudor period for strengthening one of the clusters of Early English shafts on the north side by encasing it on three sides with Late Perpendicular panelling. The same view shows the old pulpit canopy, seen also in Wild's drawing, and apparently representing curtains drawn up in festoon-like shapes, but this, as well as the Tudor casing of the pier to which the pulpit was attached, was " restored " away, much to the vexation of Sir Gilbert Scott, who sent a carver to study it as an example for another object, when it was found conspicuous only by its absence. These and other mistakes, due chiefly to divided responsi- bility, were certainly very annoying ; still, they do not detract from the appearance of the restored choir as a whole, which must be considered extremely imposing. Until the commencement of these works, the choir was separated from the north-eastern transept by a stone wall rising as high as the arcades, and pierced with four large quatre - foiled circles. It was built for the safety of the adjoining piers which had been thrown greatly out of the perpendicular by the thrust of the arches, but has since been replaced by another screen corresponding in design with that on either side of the grandly situated reredos, whose motif was furnished, I think I am right in saying, by the remains of some arcading in the refectory, now the King's School. It represents, in five gabled compartments, Our Lord seated in Majesty 192 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND between the Evangelists ; and although a work of great costliness and dignity, and of its kind one of the most successful from Scott's pencil, falls somewhat short in reality of what one's preconceived notions of how such a subject should be treated. Indeed, while fully appreciating its merits, one cannot help wishing that, considering the period at which the designs were prepared, Worcester Cathedral might have seen the germination of an entirely new type of reredos. The gift of Dean Peel, as a memorial of his wife, it was finished in 1868, and a description of it appeared in almost the last number of the Ecclesiologist. Until the erection of the present reredos, a Perpendicular screen of nine fenes-triform compart- ments served the purpose. Wild's view of the choir looking east shows it, as does that marvellous etch- ing by John Coney in Sir Henry Ellis' edition of Dugdale's " Monasticon." Though in itself ancient, this altar-screen was not intended for its present posi- tion, but fenced off the two eastern transepts, whence it was removed and converted into an altar-screen in 181 2. What its predecessor was I am unable to say, but it is most probable that it partook much of the character of the old canopy work to the stalls which belonged to the early post- Restoration epoch. The Late Perpendicular chantry of Prince Arthur, the eldest son of Henry VH., and who died at Ludlow Castle, 2nd April 1502, forms a splendid parclose to the south side of the sanctuary, which is co-extensive in length with the arches opening into the eastern transepts. The gilding of the sixteenth- WORCESTER 193 century tomb of King John, which stands, as of yore, at the foot of the steps leading to the sanctuary, is very questionable, and was done without the approval or sanction of Sir Gilbert Scott. The arrangement of the choir which obtained at Worcester prior to the restoration of 1867, is, to all intents and purposes, what is seen now. It differs considerably from that which existed during the monastic period of the church. Then the choir-stalls extended westward, as was usual in early monastic churches, through the central tower space, onward into the nave. As far as can be gathered, the rearrangement was commenced in the time of Edward VI., when the ancient stalls, which dated from the latter part of the fourteenth century, were temporarily stowed away in that north-eastern clochium to which I have alluded, whence they were removed back in Queen Mary's reign, and arranged as we now see them in the eastern arm of the church, canopies being added to them and the bishop's throne and organ-loft con- structed when the church was rendue au culte after the Puritan desecration. Thus, the present arrange- ment may be considered as that which belongs to it historically as a cathedral, as distinguished from the old one, which belonged to it as an abbey church. No records exist relating to the arrangement of the cathedral during the Commonwealth, but we are told in the Townsend MS. that at six o'clock in the morning of 31st August 1660, the first service in the body of the church, according to ancient custom, was performed by Mr Rd. Brown ; and on 2nd September — N 194 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND " There was a very great assembly at morning prayer, by six in the morning, and at nine o'clock there appeared again at prayers all the gentry, many citizens and others numerous, and after prayers Dr Doddeswell, a new prebendary, did preach the first sermon, the dean and prebend begin to resettle the church in its service and also to repair the same by degrees, which hardly ;£"io,cxxD will put the whole fabrick in that order it was before the barbarous civil wars." The restored Chapter in their first minutes order "that divine service shall be said and done in the said church every morning at six of the clock, and in the quire also so soon as it can be repaired and fitted for that purpose." The first choir service was said and sung on 13th April 1661. The earliest mention of an organist in the Worcester records is in 1448. "To master Daniell y" kep of organs, xiii. monks' lofes." About thirty years later R. Green was the musical chief, his stipend being forty shillings per annum. In 1527 Daniel Boyce was elected " organ-player and singing man," and received but sixteen shillings yearly in four equal payments at the four principal feasts. He, too, had loaves and ale for rations and a linen gown or toga. Bishop Blandford states that the chapel of St Edmund in the great south transept, had a pair of organs, and that of St George a great pair of organs, which were pulled down by Dean Barlow in 1550. The great organ (probably in the choir) was taken down 30th August 1551. In the reign of Queen Mary a pair of organs was set up on the north side of the choir, and in 161 3 the very large sum of ;£"38i, 2s. 8d. (multiplied by eight to represent the present value) was paid to WORCESTER 195 Thomas Dallam for a great organ and "choire" organ. This instrument was taken down by the Puritans in July 1646. " Many gentlemen went to six o'clock prayers to the college, to take their last farewell of the Church of England Service, the organs having been taken down on the 20th." There was also an organ at the west end of the nave (where the sermons were preached from the pulpit now in the choir) which in 1642 was removed into the Lady Chapel ; but half a century later we find, from Mr Noake's invaluable " Monastery and Cathedral of Worcester," published in 1866, that there was a little instrument at the west end with a separate organist. After the Restoration, an agree- ment was made, 5th July 1666, between the Dean and Chapter, and Thomas Harris, of New Sarum, for the erection within eighteen months of a new organ in the choir, to cost ;£^400. Mr Harris subsequently added a flute stop " in ye choire organ," and at the same time repaired and tuned the old organ, and it was ordered " That the great organ in the quire be suitably painted at next summer," which cost the sum of £40. It was again " decently adorned and gilded," and carved shields placed over it. In 1752 the organ was enlarged and repaired by Swarbrook, at an expense of ;f300, but in 1842 this instrument was removed, and a new one erected by Hill, which retained its old position on the screen until the restorations of 1867-74. The present choir-screen of oak and metal is light, graceful, and quite sufficient to break the long per- spective, but it is not what Sir Gilbert Scott had in mind when he presented his report on the 196 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND rearrangement of the choir to the Dean and Chapter in 1864. His plan was to erect a double open jube, a feature for which the blank space adjoining the eastern arch of the tower was admirably adapted, placing upon it the keyboard of the organ and the choir organ itself; drafting off the heavier parts to the above-mentioned wall space. This suggestion was warmly seconded by Sir Frederick Ouseley, but the instrument — rebuilt by Hill — was eventually placed within the second bay of the choir on the north side, much to the regret of both architect and musician, thereby necessitating the erection of another organ in the south transept for the nave services. In 1896 the two organs were entirely rearranged under the Hope - Jones system, the enlargement of that in the choir demanding the construction of another case, which has been made to match the one on the north side, and with excellent effect. Of organists at Worcester since the Restoration we find one, R. Cherington (1690- 1700) who, as Mr John E. West in his invaluable " Cathedral Organists, Past and Present," informs us, was ordered in October 1697 to do penance in the cathedral for quarrelling and fighting with a lay-clerk. Another was William Hayes, who wrote many excellent anthems still in use (1731-34). Thomas Pitt (1793- 1806) is chiefly remembered by his " Selection of Sacred Music principally from the Works of Handel." It is related that " on one occasion a lay-clerk of the cathedral named Griffiths, took offence at Pitt's accompaniment to one of his solos, and being a man of rather eccentric manners, he surprised the choir WORCESTER 197 and congregation by slamming his book and shout- ing, 'Pitt's wrong, Pitt's wrong!'" During Dr Done's organistship (1844 - 95) great improvements were effected in the music at Worcester; indeed, at the present day there are few cathedrals in which the service is performed, whether musically or ritually, with greater dignity and reverence. A pleasing change has been made of late years in the choir vestments of the boys, scarlet cassocks having been substituted for the black ones usually worn in our minsters. While the choir was in course of rearrangement, the altar, with a curious disregard for orientation, was set up at the west end of the nave, which had been temporarily fitted for service. The restored cathedral was reopened with a series of imposing services on Wednesday in Easter week, 8th April 1874, and the effect of the church from the west end, with its stone groined roof running in an unbroken length of 390 feet, is grand in the extreme. It may not rank among cathedrals of the first class, but there are few in which a more interesting and instructive day can be spent than Worcester. CHAPTER VII HEREFORD Generally speaking, our cathedrals present an embarras de richesses of chronological facts, the most important parts of their history being so fully and accurately stated, that the difficulty arises from condensing the materials rather than in searching for them. To this rule, the cathedral which forms the subject of our present chapter, stands almost, I may say, quite alone, as an exception, a nullity of historical information in regard to its structure, obliging us to guess at theories, and to furnish excuses for them which it is impossible to prove or test except from the character of the various styles of architecture represented in it. And of these, Hereford, for a cathedral of its size, has a very large share. In fact, in presenting his report on the fabric to the Dean and Chapter in 1841, Professor Willis was constrained to admit that the period of no one part of the church had been recorded with the exception of the foundation of its (now alas ! destroyed) west 108 H EREFORD • . CATHEDRAL. North Transept, Porch and Tower HEREFORD 199 front. Since then, however, some particulars have come to light, chiefly with regard to the fourteenth- century portions, but they do not help us very much. Hereford Cathedral is dedicated to St Ethelbert, King of East Anglia, who, for the purpose of increas- ing his territory, was murdered in or about the year 793 by his father-in-law — or intended father-in-law, Offa, the great King of Mercia. At that time Here- ford was known as Fernleigh, and hither the body of the murdered king was conveyed for interment by a pious noble, one Brithfrid. About 830 the church was rebuilt in stone by Milfrid, ruler of Mercia, in honour of the now sainted martyr, and some two hundred years later was rebuilt by Bishop Athelstan, in the time of Edward the Confessor. This structure, however, had but a brief existence, being burnt in 1056 by Griffin, the Welsh king, or Bruce, who slew Leofgan, the bishop, and many of his clergy. Two Lothringians succeeded Leofgan in the episcopal stool at Hereford — Walter de Lorraine (1061 -79) nominated by the Confessor, and Robert de Losing (1076 - 95) appointed by the Conqueror. The latter undertook the reconstruction of the cathedral which had lain in ruins since Griffin's invasion, and if we are to understand William of Malmesbury aright, it resembled one of those circular or octagonal churches, which having as their prototype St Vitale at Ravenna, or more probably the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, were frequently employed in Germany during the ninth and tenth centuries. Of these the well-known one at Aix-la-Chapelle, another at Ottmarsheim in Alsace — probably the actual model for Losing at Hereford 200 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND — and a portion of a third at Essen, just on the borders of Westphalia, are all that survive of this peculiar type of church, which may be said to have reproduced itself in some degree in those semi- circular or polygonal western apses of which there are numerous examples throughout Germany. However, in the present cathedral at Hereford, there is not a trace or suggestion of any of these buildings. Robert of Lorraine's work, whatever shape it took, was utterly obliterated by Reynelm, who held the See from 1 107 to 11 15. This prelate commenced a new cathedral on the plan as now existing, but being left during the troublous reign of Stephen in a very unfinished state, it was not taken up again until the time of his third successor in the See, Robert de Bethune, who gave it its present Norman form. This church at Hereford differed from the type usually employed, both in plan and detail. The eight bays of its Norman nave are quite unlike anything produced contemporaneously in the three great East Anglian minsters, while the choir, instead of terminating eastward in an apse formed by repeating the three storeys in semi-circular continuity, ends in a rectangle, a nobly moulded Norman arch rising as high as the string-course below the clerestory, beyond which was a separate and narrow apse. Each aisle terminated in a semicircle, and each of these three apses was roofed separately in the style so frequent among the German Romanesque churches of a much later age. Of this early twelfth-century cathedral, all that remains to us is the nave arcade, the south transept, HEREFORD 201 the arch opening from the north transept into the choir aisle, and the choir itself as far as the spring of the clerestory. All this work is carried out in a style of richness that seems to have made itself generally felt in this part of the country, as evidenced, inter aliuy by the east end of Llandaff Cathedral — where the Hereford arrangement was most probably followed, and by the rich little churches of Kilpeck and Shobdon. In its original state the nave of Hereford with its less lofty columns, surmounted by a well-pro- portioned triforium and clerestory, must have composed a much more harmonious grouping of parts than those of Gloucester and Tewksbury with their exaggerated cylindrical piers and unduly stunted upper storeys, though it is possible that the two ranges of aisles — almost equal in height — running unbroken round the choirs of those churches, may have produced a more pleasing effect than the non-continuous arrangement at Hereford. However, as works of the same period they form interesting architectural comparisons, each system being good and nobly carried out. On the removal of the flooring in 1847, with the view of restoring the pavement of the nave to its original level, it was found that the Norman columns, instead of resting on circular bases of small pro- jections, were placed on bold square ones, which had been concealed under the modern paving. These, when opened to the original level, gave an unusually fine proportion to the massive Norman pier range of the nave, though the piers when buried had presented a depressed and stumpy appearance, as 202 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND may be seen from the illustrations in Britton's and Storer's "Cathedrals." Nor was this the only discovery. The small plinths which served as bases to the double semi-cylindrical face-shafts, formerly running up the face of the piers, were also brought to light ; the original ones having been removed to make way for an incongruous triple vaulting shaft substituted by Wyatt, when he erected the present triforium with its painfully glaring clere- story after the fall of the great western tower in 1786. The restoration of the face-shafts, although scrupulously copied from the ancient examples still remaining on the side of the piers facing the aisles (having never been removed), terminating as they do in small double capitals reaching only to the height of the capitals of the great cylindrical piers, instead of being carried up as vaulting shafts, occasioned much discussion, not only in the Restora- tion Committee, but amongst others who were loud in their condemnation of them as non-supporting capitals. But independently of the extremely diminu- tive proportion of the capitals and abaci which when sculptured, scarcely projected beyond the larger capitals of the piers that are bisected by them, it was clear from a drawing by Hearne made of the nave shortly after the fall of the western tower in 1786, that they formerly existed ; a fact sufficient to justify those engaged in the work of restora- tion in replacing them. This was not only proved by the buried plinths, but by this identical feature being found at the back of these very piers. The idea of uniting these face-shafts with Wyatt's triple vaulting shafts being given up, Cottingham HEREFORD 203 — the architect engaged in restoring the cathedral between 1840 and 1850 — made the latter spring from sculptured corbels just below the string- course of the triforium, which with the clerestory, albeit palpably offensive to the eye of taste, and deficient in detail, is not ill-proportioned. From Hearne's drawing one would imagine that the nave vaulting was of the Decorated period, and that the clerestory windows were tall Norman ones in which work of a later character had been inserted. But on this point it is only possible to speak with diffidence, as eighteenth-century prints, such as those in Browne Willis and Boswell's " Antiquities," published about 1760, are hardly to be relied on. Shutting our eyes to the unlucky upper storeys of the nave, this part of the church is undoubtedly very fine, though deficient in that dignity and interest which successive flights of steps confer upon that of neighbouring Worcester — the eye ranging along the noble avenue of stout, cyclindrical columns and richly moulded round arches to the tower, whose lantern, disclosed to view by the removal of a Late Gothic ceiling, constitutes an impressive feature in the ensemble. Thence, through the dignified choir- screen, and the dimly religious eastern limb of the church, the view leads us to the very penetralia of the Lady Chapel, with its exquisite quintuplet of lancet windows, rising from clusters of banded shafts and enriched with stained glass, forming a memorial to good Dean Merewether, who sounded the first note in the restoration of this grand old western cathedral. There are many ancient English interiors which can be called truly pictorial, but this of Hereford. 204 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND seen under certain conditions of sunset, with the light streaming through the superb stained glass in the west windows, leaving the eastern part of the church in gloom, is undeniably solemn. The original parallel-triapsal form of the choir at Hereford had but a brief existence, for, during the episcopate of William de Vere, who ruled from 1 1 86 to 1 199, a radical change in the plan took place, the three apses being entirely removed, and an eastern aisle or procession path, designed to com- municate with a Lady Chapel, substituted. This work was carried out in the style transitional between Norman and Early English, as shown by the two circular pillars supporting the groined roof of the procession path, and a lancet window in the north and south walls at the west end of the Lady Chapel. Conceived in a spirit of refinement, it was to be excelled only thirty years later, when the present Lady Chapel, of the richest and most graceful Early English character, and raised upon a crypt, the last instance of one in England, was carried out (c. 1220) as an extension of De Vere's Lady Chapel, whose eastern wall, apsidal or other- wise, was, of course, removed. In so felicitous a manner was this done that nowhere, perhaps, in England can the manner in which the Transitional grew out of the Norman, and the Early English in its turn from the Transitional, be more easily studied than in this fascinating eastern part of Hereford Cathedral. The unsettling and sinking of the tower having damaged the original clerestory and vaulting of the choir — for, to judge from the great pilasters between HEREFORD 205 the arcades, it must have been vaulted, which was by no means usual at that time in English churches of so great a span — it was found necessary to rebuild those portions. Accordingly this was carried out, in all probability, between 1250 and 1260, and in a more advanced style of Early English than the Lady Chapel. The windows in the north and south clerestory are composed of two lights, under a pointed head, the space above them being pierced " plate-tracery "-wise, with a quatrefoil. Additional grace is lent to them, viewed from within, by a light open arcade, forming what is termed an " inner plane of tracery," and introduced to take off some of the sombre effect that the deep splay, necessitated by the thickness of the wall, produces. For the wall space above the eastern arch, above which runs a row of blind arcades, three lancets were employed, but those we see now are modern works, having been substituted by Cottingham for a debased Perpendicular window. Some work of re-edification must have been in progress at Hereford almost without intermission from the end of the twelfth to the middle of the fourteenth century, for hardly had the choir received its present clerestory, when the Norman north transept was removed, and re- placed towards the close of Bishop d'Acquablanca's ^ ^ The remains of this prelate are enshrined beneath a very beautiful canopied tomb of thirteenth-century architecture, placed within the arch opening from the north choir aisle into that of the transept, but for details of this and other sepulchral memorials in which the cathedral is rich, the reader is referred to a very excellent little Guide, compiled by Rev. F. T. Havergal, and presented gratuitously to visitors. 2o6 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND episcopate (1230-68) with that unique piece of geometrical Decorated work, which, in its windows and pier arches, exhibits the peculiarity of a curva- ture so slight as to give the appearance of two straight lines meeting at an angle. The eastern side of this transept is furnished with an aisle of two bays, wherein stands that gem of sepulchral architecture, the pedestal or throne, which in pre- Reformation times supported the shrine of Thomas de Cantilupe, Bishop of Hereford from 1275 to 1282, and the last Englishman canonised. The western side of this transept has two windows of three lights each, whose almost preternatural elongation recalls those in the German " hall " churches, i.e., in which the nave and aisles are all vaulted at the same level. At Hereford, however, their solidity of construction prevents them from assuming that wire -drawn appearance presented by so many German examples. The six-light northern window is a noble concep- tion, but the tracery is quite sui generis, and, like that in the side windows, must be considered curious rather than actually beautiful. Hardman's stained glass in this great north transept window at Hereford, inserted about 1865, represents in a number of medallions the operation of the Holy Spirit and subjects from Scripture relating to the Church Militant and Triumphant. It is a fine piece of work, and very hieratic in its treatment, but suffers somewhat from the super- abundance of light poured in through the, as yet, unstoried panes of the tall windows in the western wall. Truly exquisite is the diapering of the spandrels 31^ -** is'^pR^'-rf^^^'/ "^^^^Hl Q O < o w ffi HEREFORD 207 in the triforium arcade, whose triangular arches — the dominant form here — although graceful, would hardly bear repetition in a long array. They seem, however, to have influenced the architect of the fourteenth-century nave at neighbouring Worcester, where, it will be remembered, the triforium stage, instead of exposing the rafters of the lean-to roofed aisles, is walled up behind the arcades, leaving merely a passage way between the two. At Hereford a chamber is constructed above the eastern aisle of this transept, in all probability for the custodian of the Cantilupe Shrine, whose Purbeck marble pedestal, a good specimen of Early Decorated aft, is enriched with military statuettes explanatory of Cantilupe's position as Grand Master of the English Templars, and carefully chosen foliaged ornament in the spandrels of its trefoiled arcades. Twice during the sixteenth century was this shrine trans- lated : first, to its former place in the Lady Chapel, and again, back to its present one in the eastern aisle of the north transept. For the reason I have stated the windows lighting the triforium here are not visible externally, but they are of such beauty and interest that I must ask the reader to quit the interior for a short time, and station himself on the green to the east of this transept, whence they can be best viewed. They are composed of a semicircular head spring- ing from pillarets, and enclose large circles of eight cuspings. Now these circles had been transmuted into Perpendicular windows, remaining thus until Sir Gilbert Scott began to work here, and apparently no suggestion remained as to what form they originally 2o8 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND took. One day, when surveying the cathedral from the close, it occurred to Sir Gilbert that these windows might have been circles. Holding up a half-crown piece, and fitting it in perspective to the window arch, he found that its lower edge just touched the sill. This induced him to cut into the interpolated work, when, lo and behold ! not only the circles but the grooves for their cusps, and some of the curious cusps themselves, came to light after probably four centuries of burial. So, emboldened by this discovery — by no means the solitary one of this kind made by Scott — he restored these windows to the form we now see. The south transept, although retaining much of its Norman work, "seems to have been the happy hunting ground of successive series of builders who have left the side walls in admired confusion," says Mr Phillips Bevan in his pleasant "Guide to the Wye and its Neighbourhood." The east wall is entirely Norman, and in the clerestory windows may be seen the stained glass which was formerly in the central lancet at the east end of the choir. A large Perpendicular window has been inserted in the south wall of this transept, and another with panelling round it in the western one. The late groining which springs from corbelled shafts is very fine and bold, and, combined with the four Norman stages into which the eastern side of the transept is divided, give this part of the church much dignity and interest. The Decorated period greatly enriched Hereford Cathedral owing, in an eminent degree, to the offerings made at the shrine of St Thomas de Cantilupe, whose canonisation took place thirty- HEREFORD 209 eight years after his death, viz., in 1320. It is to a date somewhat subsequent to that period, that we must assign the graceful cinquefoil headed doorway leading from the north porch into the nave, like- wise the large geometrically traceried windows lighting the aisles of nave, choir, and eastern transepts. Like those at Wells the eastern transepts at Hereford are only commensurate in height with the aisles, but they certainly assist with the central tower, north transept, and deeply projecting Lady Chapel, in composing a delightful assemblage of objects. With the construction of the fourteenth- century eastern transepts and their aisles, Bishop de Vere's original termination to the choir aisles vanished, but his portion of walling in the western bay of the Lady Chapel, which now appears inside the building, was suffered to remain. Unaware of the fact, the visitor is at first puzzled at, and then delighted with, that unglazed lancet which, with its rich mouldings and graceful shafts, forms so valu- able a specimen of that age of our architecture when the Norman had not fully given way to the perfected English Pointed. The massive and dignified central tower, to which the angle buttresses and pinnacles lend such character, may also be assigned to the early part of the four- teenth century, as testified by that abundant use of the ball flower ornament which imparts so curiously stippled a texture, yet which is vastly agreeable. In some respects of detail, this tower at Hereford may be compared with its slenderer contemporary at Salisbury. Of Perpendicular work, late but good, Hereford O 2IO CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND Cathedral presents examples in Bishop Audley's chantry which projects from the south side of the Lady Chapel ; Bishop Booth's dignified parvise porch, which so well prepares the mind for the solemnities of the interior ; the entrance to the College of Vicars Choral ; and the Cloisters, of which the eastern and southern ambulatories alone remain. The ancient west front, which appears to have resembled that of Rochester Cathedral, was sur- mounted by a tower 130 feet high, and, as far as one can judge by the plate in Browne Willis* Survey (17 18), featured the central one. Both towers are represented in that work crowned with leaden spires. Engaged as it was in the last bay of the nave, this western tower of Hereford Cathedral could never have presented so stately an appearance as those in the same situation at Ely, Wymondham, and Wimborne, where each forms a member quite distinct from the nave, though of course attached to it. On Easter Monday 1786, the western tower of Hereford fell. It was the old story : the piling up of later work on a foundation not designed to receive it ; the substitution, during the reign of Henry VL, of a Perpendicular window in lieu of the three original Norman ones; and subsequent neglect of necessary repairs. In its fall the tower greatly injured the first bay of the nave, and to repair the damage the Dean and Chapter requisi- tioned the "elegant taste of Mr Wyatt," who, not content with removing all traces of the west front, and shortening the nave by one bay, destroyed the Norman triforium and clerestory of that part HEREFORD 211 which had escaped injury, replacing it by the feeble work we now see. Fortunately we are able to form some idea of what the Norman nave of Here- ford Cathedral was like before Wyatt's depredations, from a drawing made shortly after the fall of the tower by an artist to whom I have already alluded, Thomas Hearne, who with Cozens, Paul and Thomas Sandby, and Taverner, may be looked upon as one of the pioneers of water-colour drawing. Though restricted in colour, Hearne's works are harmonious and sunny ; his drawing is true and elegant, showing direct observation of nature, and by these qualities (combined with a fine sense of composition) he greatly advanced the art of land- scape painting in water colours, and had a strong influence on Turner and Girtin. From Hearne's general accuracy, it may be taken for granted that he gives an exact view of the nave of Hereford as it appeared just after the accident : indeed, if it were not for this drawing, there might be doubts about Wyatt's tampering which falsified the architectural history of the cathedral. Britton included this drawing of Hearne's in his monograph on Hereford ; also Whymper, who introduced it into a very charming series of views that appeared from the facile pencil of that accomplished draughtsman about sixty years ago in a long since defunct religious magazine. Between 1832 and 1836, Augustus Welby Pugin made a tour for the purpose of examining several cathedrals yet unknown to him, and in a series of racy letters to his friend Osmond of Salisbury, he dwelt upon the state of sordid and contemptuous neglect, decay and dilapidation into which these 212 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND magnificent fabrics had been permitted, for the most part, to lapse. One letter, dated " St Lawrence, Oct. xxvii Anno. Dom. mdcccxxxiii," and illustrated in a singularly beautiful manner, details the experiences of that merciless censor at Bristol, Taunton, Chepstow and Tintern, whence a four-horse coach conveyed him to Hereford, which he describes as "an old-fashioned but not ancient-looking town, common brick houses dull shops, and empty streets." Maddened by the sight, he rushes to the cathedral, only to find, to his horror and dismay, that Wyatt had been there before him. " The west front was his ! Need I say more ? " wails Pugin, and he tells us that he could hardly summon sufficient fortitude to enter and examine the interior. Shorn of its proper length, with its miserable "Gothic" west front, clerestory, and lowered roofs, Hereford Cathedral remained until 1841, when the work of restoring it was commenced, under Dean Merewether, who, like his contemporaries. Peacock at Ely, and Chandler at Chichester, was assiduous in bringing back something of its pristine splendour to the structure over which he had been called to preside. At this period the beautiful north transept was used as the parish church of St John the Baptist,^ for which purpose, as may be seen from a view in Storer's " Cathedrals, " it was pewed and galleried, greatly to the detriment of its exquisite detail. The same view shows the north and south arches of the i The Lady Chapel now forms the Church of St John the Baptist. It has been furnished in a Catholic manner, and its general aspect is very solemn and religious. HEREFORD 213 central tower filled up with "ox eye" masonry — i.e. two half-arches springing from an octagonal column with the wall space above them pierced by an open- ing in the form of vesica piscis — well-meant but futile precautions for the safety of the tower that were introduced during the fourteenth century ; for Professor Willis, on being called in to report on the central tower in 1841, pronounced the masonry of the great arches and the spandrel walls above to be in such a state of ruin as to make an absolute repair necessary for its preservation. This work, accom- plished between 1842 and 1846, and ranking among the most stupendous engineering feats of its age, was carried out under Mr L. N. Cottingham, who, with his son, N. J. Cottingham, was responsible for the works of reparation in progress between 1841 and 1852, on the exterior of the Lady Chapel and in the nave. Although the elder Cottingham did much to promote the revival of mediaeval architecture, he frequently outran discretion in restoring and refit- ting churches entrusted to his care — his lately (and happily) removed tower of Rochester Cathedral, and his bouleversement of the charming old Caroline furniture in Magdalen College Chapel, Oxford, being terrible instances. His original works, among which may be named the almost entire rebuilding of Armagh Cathedral, must be judged leniently ; and he certainly did good service in amassing a collection of specimens of Gothic carving in wood and stone, which, on his death in 1847, was partly dispersed and partly utilised as the nucleus of the present Architectural Museum in Tufton Street. The younger Cottingham 214 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND showed some skill in designing for stained glass, a specimen of his work — good, but incongruous — being in the pseudo-Grecian Church of St John, Waterloo Road. He died, after a somewhat chequered career, at the early age of thirty-one, on his way to New York, being drowned in the wreck of the Arctic^ 27th September 1854, and was succeeded in 1857, after a temporary suspension of the works at Hereford, by Sir Gilbert Scott, to whom the difficult and arduous task was entrusted by Dean Dawes, the Chapter having raised a large sum on their property, augmented by subscriptions. For several years, while these works were in progress, the eastern part of the nave was fitted up as a temporary choir, and here, from the necessity of the case, the service was performed but once on ordinary week days, though twice on Sundays, holy days, and Saturday evenings; but from 1842 to Easter 1850, the choral services were quite abandoned in the cathedral, which was then entirely in the hands of the workmen, and held in All Saints' Church. The choir with its aisles and transepts, the great transept and the Lady Chapel having been com- pletely and genuinely restored by Scott, the cathedral was reopened on the 30th June 1863, after more than twenty years' disuse of one part or another. Till 1 841 the choir retained that ponderous eighteenth-century altar-piece — illustrated by Pugin in his " Contrasts " — with which it had been endowed by Bishop Bisse, a liberal but not a very tasteful benefactor to the cathedral, and whose brother, Dr Thomas Bisse, chancellor of the church and rector of Cradley, was a warm promoter of the " Three Choirs " HEREFORD 215 Festivals. Above Bishop Bisse's altar-piece, a Per- pendicular framework was set up and filled with a transparency of the Last Supper, from a design by Benjamin West, completely concealing a window of the time of King Henry VI. which had been inserted in lieu of three lancets.^ When Cottingham came to work upon the choir it extended across the central tower space into the first bay of the nave, as in the generality of Norman churches ; what is now the choir, then forming the presbytery. Now it only occupies the space eastward of the tower, and is of moderate length, the ancient bishop's throne and stalls remaining with their fine tabernacle work thoroughly repaired, the old subsellae used without any returns, the organ grandly disposed — though without a case — above the southern range of stalls at the west end, and a massive metal screen placed beneath the eastern arch of the tower. Thus rearranged, Hereford Cathedral presents us with a typical example of the complete idea of church arrangement carried out without compromise in the largest and highest class of church, the choir duly stalled, being reserved for the officiants, while the laity find that, although relegated to the nave and space beneath the central tower, they can perfectly see, hear, and worship. For great diocesan uses, ^ These lancets were "restored" to their present form by Cottingham, and filled with stained glass by Hardman, but since removed to make way for better work by the same artist, to the clerestory of the south transept. Buckler's drawing of the cathedral made early in the last century, shows the east end of the choir of Hereford Cathedral with its interpolated Perpendicular window. 2i6 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND perhaps this arrangement was a loss ; from an antiquarian point of view it was an error, but for practical purposes nothing better could have been devised. The introduction of that gorgeous metal screen ^ enriched with enamel work and spar bosses — the work of Skidmore — was a comparative novelty in ecclesiastical art, and although not of a type that would find favour nowadays, is, like that at Lichfield, endowed with much gracefulness and originality of conception, besides the interest which attaches to it as being one of the earliest pieces of orf^vrerie carried out on so grand a scale in a church whether at home or abroad since the revival of religious art. This screen, which is raised upon a plinth of polished Devonshire marble, formed an interesting item in the Great Exhibition of 1862, the Times of 29th May speaking of it in eulogistic terms, instancing the seven bronze figures as perfect studies in themselves : — " Everyone can understand them at a glance, and from the centre figure of Our Saviour, to those of the praying angels, the fulness of their meaning may be felt without the aid of any inscription beneath the feet to set forth who or what they are." At first this choir - screen at Hereford seemed somewhat loud and self-asserting for its position, but time has greatly toned it down, and it certainly harmonises well with the heavy Norman work of the choir. * It is doubtful indeed whether this screen does not go beyond the proper scope of metal, and emulate too much the peculiar properties of stone ; but it is impossible to deny the great genius displayed in its conception and execution. HEREFORD 217 The reredos, a solid screen of stone and marble, of five gabled compartments, containing small sculptured groups by Boulton, stands within the rich Norman arch which divides the choir and procession path. It was designed by the younger Cottingham, and from the scale of the building necessarily lacks height and dignity, otherwise it is commendable. In Transitional days this eastern arch was partially filled up by a cylindrical pillar with a boldly foliaged capital, one of two serving to carry the vaulting of the procession path. This pillar bore a spandrel which had the effect of converting the Norman arch that I have alluded to, into two pointed ones, though their supporting pillar stands just to the rear of and not within it. Until the dismantling of the choir under the Cottinghams, this graceful feature was hidden behind Bishop Bisse's ponderous Grecian altar-piece, and when discovered the spandrel was plain. Its enrichment being thought desirable, it was completely covered with sculpture representing the Saviour in Majesty within a vesica, and below Him, within a niche, Ethelbert, while the remaining space was covered with angels in adoration of the Majesty, and small quatrefoils containing the Evangelistic Symbols. The general effect of this piece of sculpture, combined with the charming view into the exquisite Early English Lady Chapel, is extremely rich. In the nave, little was done beyond a thorough repair of the structure, and the introduc- tion by Cottingham of some rather too pronounced leaf painting in the spandrels of the vaulting, no attempt being made to improve upon Wyatt's miser- able triforium and clerestory. The eagle-lectern by 2i8 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND Potter, from a design by Cottingham, was originally the gift of the Misses Rushout — liberal benefactors to St Michael's College, Tenbury. The money, however, was misappropriated, and the cost was eventually defrayed by subscription in the diocese. The old seventeenth-century pulpit still happily remains, being located against the north- western pier of the tower. The gas standards lighting the nave, and the corona lucis pendant from the roof of the crossing are from Skidmore's ateliers. On the evening preceding the reopening festival the cathedral was experimentally lighted up, the standards in the various parts of the building, together with the corona, showing the lights and shadows of this most picturesque of our minsters with great effect. The subdued light falling on the cross which surmounts the gable of the choir- screen, has been described as peculiarly beautiful. The solemnities of the opening were ushered in by a celebration of the Holy Communion at eight o'clock. It was choral throughout, being sung to the music of Sir Frederick Gore Ouseley in C, for eight voices, the composer executing his office of Precentor throughout the day in person. This truly accomplished and naturally gifted man, who became, on the death of Dr John Jebb in 1886, a canon residentiary, is perhaps most widely remem- bered as the Founder and First Warden of St Michael's College at Old Wood, near Tenbury in Worcestershire, where in 1856, from the designs of the late Henry Woodyer, a most graceful group of buildings that has been described as the chef doeuvre of an architect pre-eminently capable of grasping the HEREFORD ai9 spirit of the Middle Ages, was completed for the purpose of providing a high class education for the sons of clergy and gentlemen of moderate means, together with the maintenance of a daily choral service of the highest devotional type.^ Although St Michael's, Tenbury, is only one of those numerous and splendid instances of wealth ungrudgingly bestowed by the sons and daughters of England's Church to ma'ke her beautiful, within the last seventy years, it is an almost unique one in which a Christian gentleman has devoted his remarkable talents, his personal attention, and his worldly substance to her service with so unstinted a hand. The founder of St Michael's was a most remarkable personality. His refined knowledge, profound scholarship, and grasp of every phase of the history, science, and literature of music were astonishing, and the numerous services and anthems with which he enriched our ecclesi- astical repertoire will ever remain as classics. A few years before the reopening of Hereford Cathedral, Sir Frederick had written that marvellous Service in ^ St Michael's College, Tenbury, has given several musicians of sterling merit to the church, among them being Sir John Stainer (organist from 1857 to 1859), Langdon Colborne, and George Robertson Sinclair, both of whom became organists of Hereford Cathedral. Under the latter, and present organist, the organ has been rebuilt by Willis. Sir Frederick Ouseley died suddenly in Hereford, 6th April 1889. Singularly enough, the Service appointed for that after- noon at the cathedral was his own in B minor. The architectural and musical history of St Michael's, Tenbury, together with a sketch of the life of the Founder, has been fully described by Mr John S. Bumpus, Hon. Librarian of the College, in a series of papers contributed to the Architect of 3rd, loth, 17th, and 24th July 1903. 220 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND C for a double choir; he was therefore naturally anxious that so solemn an occasion should be marked by a sung Eucharist, and that an early one. Dean Dawes^ however, had determined that there should only be a late, and, it is to be presumed, plain celebration, but Ouseley, knowing accurately the amount of constitutional authority he possessed, and as all the musical arrangements depended upon his fiat, his simple ultimatum was this, " Well, Mr Dean, if you won't have an Early Choral Celebration, you shall not have a note of music all day." The Dean wisely yielded, and the day's proceedings began, as I have already said, with the church's highest office sung throughout to its proper music. The organ, by Renatus Harris (a gift of King Charles H.) was then being rebuilt under the super- intendence of Sir Frederick Ouseley by Gray and Davison, so a small temporary instrument, placed under one of the arches on the north side of the choir, was used on this occasion. At eleven, a stately service — despite sundry ritual inaccuracies — was held, the Bishops of Tasmania, Oxford (Wilberforce), and Hereford (Hampden) closing the procession, which, numbering eight hundred, wound round the cathedral, from the Vicars College to the west door, the 68th Psalm to a chant by Rimbault — the intonation of which was entrusted to Frederick Helmore (brother of that noble pioneer in the revival of the old Plain Song) — being commenced as soon as the singers had entered the nave. The effect of the Te Deum and Benedictus, sung to the setting in C by Ouseley already alluded to, delivered as it was by so great a number of trained voices, is HEREFORD 221 described as having been uncommonly grand. At different services on the same day, several anthems, written for the occasion, and which have long since become established favourites, were performed. One was Sir Frederick Ouseley's " Blessed be Thou " ; another, very graceful and devotional, was, " O how amiable," by the then organist of the cathedral, Townshend Smith ; and a third, a noble full anthem, set chiefly to the dedicatory prayer in the ninth chapter of Nehemiah, " Stand up and bless the Lord," by Sir John Goss. " The day," says one who was present, " was exceedingly hot, and when (at the subsequent collation) Canon Powell's butler poured the most delicious sparkling beverage of the county into champagne glasses, no wine could have been so acceptable to the guests as Herefordshire perry." At the evening service the sermon was preached by Bishop Wilberforce, who thus records the day's proceedings in his diary : — " Up early. Communion at 8 ; fairly attended, but all muddled and wrong in the celebration. Old Huntingford, said by Ouseley to be the only canon knowing anything of ritual, and he not taking part. Bishop (Hampden) preached a dull but thoroughly orthodox sermon. Congregation grand ; organ too loud. I preached evening ; great congregation and much interested." Anent the musical associations of Hereford it would be unpardonable to omit mention of the fact that this was one of the cathedral organistships successively held by Dr S. S. Wesley — viz. from 1832 to 1835. In the music library of the cathedral is an 222 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND interesting organ book, containing an organ part of that great church composer's " Wilderness," in his own handwriting. The same volume also contains his "Blessed be the God and Father," and, "O God, Whose nature and property." Other organ books have autographs of C. J. Dare, John Hunt, Clarke Whitfeld, and Townshend Smith, all of whom have at various times been organists of this very musical cathedral. Since that most interesting and auspicious June day, various works of reparation and embellishment — which it were tedious to particularise — have been effected in Hereford Cathedral, culminating quite recently in the substitution of a new west front — minus the tower — from the designs of Mr John Oldrid Scott, for Wyatt's feeble perpetration. It has been carried out in the Decorated style, and, together with the stained glass in its seven-light window — a splendid piece of work by Clayton and Bell in which small canopied figures of British saints play a con- spicuous part — commemorates the Diamond Jubilee of Her late Majesty, whose ef^gyy crowned and vested in the cope as worn at her coronation, occupies the bottom of the central light. ^^■'' Jl ■'" •>•.: "•^^ BiiMp^ ■% 3 1^ jyji^ ^ p^ < "i U^ P^ ^ H Q :S u 5 ^ S ^ i o ^ CHAPTER VIII CHICHESTER England can boast of many cathedrals, loftier, larger, more grandiose, and more abundant in fine detail, but few more graceful and harmonious than queenly Chichester, from whom the oft-recurring village church of the locality learned its lore, and borrowed its peculiar features. The characteristics of Chichester Cathedral may be summed up as consisting of its harmony of external colouring; the due proportions between its tower and spire ; their exactly central position ; the pyramidal grouping of its several parts ; the trip- licity impressed on its details, so appropriate to its dedication in honour of the Blessed Trinity; its flamboyantly traceried south transept window; and the several monuments with which the genius of Flaxman has enriched the double aisles of its nave. Rather small in the extent of its four arms — though spread out to a great length owing to the large eastern Lady Chapel — Chichester Cathedral recovers its dignity by its great proportionate height ; 223 224 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND while in its delightful blending of severe massive Norman with the pure and graceful beginnings of Early English, the whole church cannot fail to impress the most unobservant, as a beautiful and lovable one. The foundation of Chichester Cathedral is due to Bishop Ralph Luffa, or, as he is styled, Ralph the First, shortly after the accession of Henry L, and large portions of his work remain to this day, though a great deal of it is almost invisible, being embedded in the new facings and additions with which, in later alterations, it has been overlaid and surrounded. The arcades and triforium remain as they were in Ralph's time — i.e., between 1 1 14 and 1 123 — but during the episcopate of Seffrid H., which lasted from 11 80 to 1204, the period when the pointed arch was quietly but unmistakably supplanting the round, Ralph's church was so much injured by fire as to necessitate extensive repairs and additions, a work to which that prelate devoted all his energies and resources to accomplish. Sefifrid's work of reparation, which consisted chiefly of the clerestory and the substitution of a vaulted roof for the wooden one that had caused such mischief, was carried out with admirable completeness, yet economy. For the period that witnessed these works exactly coincides with the reign of Richard L, when heavy calls were made on the whole nation, and especially the clergy, for money, first to support the king's foreign wars, and afterwards to ransom him from captivity. Neither was there any shrine, as at Canterbury, into which devotees poured their offerings with prodigal enthusiasm to aid the work here. CHICHESTER 225 Bishop Ralph's church terminated, like most build- ings of its age, in an apse with radiating chapels, but these were so injured by the fire in 11 87 as to need almost entire removal. Perhaps this was a matter of rejoicing, for in the two bays, east of the altar-screen, we have a specimen of that masterly skill, and that genius in designing new forms with which the mediaeval builders, and particularly those of the latter part of the twelfth century, were so eminently gifted. This extension of the choir at Chichester ranks perhaps as one of the most exquisite works of the Transition period, when the massivenesss of the Norman was gradually yielding to the elegance of the Early English. Although in the contemporary choir of St Hugh at Lincoln the pointed arch reigns supreme, and no trace of Romanesque is visible, the pier arches in Chichester retrochoir are still circular, not because the use of the pointed arch was not understood — for that opening into the Lady Chapel is pointed — but because it was felt desirable to keep their heads in a line with those of the choir. Perhaps had the space to be enclosed been a little longer, so as to have been divided into narrower severies, pointed arches would have been employed. In this case the architect adopted whichever of the two forms suited his immediate purpose best ; anyway, as I have already observed, these two Transitional bays at Chichester are, of their period, unrivalled for k grace. The arches are most richly moulded, but the columns — detached single shafts of Purbeck marble, clustered yet insulated round their central piers, with bold foliage recalling the Corinthian of olden 226 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND days — have found few imitators, and may thus be considered the most uniquely beautiful specimens of their class. The first half of the thirteenth century, particularly during Bishop Ralph's episcopate (1224-44) was a period of much architectural activity at Chichester. To this epoch must be assigned not only the central tower — I speak, of course, of the one that fell in 1 86 1 — from the crown of the four great Norman arches to the corbel table below the battlements, but the upper part of the south-western one ; the graceful western porch and entrance from the cloisters ; and the broadening of the nave by cutting through the wall of its south aisle to provide additional room for chantries, one of which is said to have been Ralph's gift to his church. By this means two handsome side chapels were formed, and subsequently the like process was carried out on the north side, where a pier can be seen that is a perfect museum of masonry. In its centre it is of the original Norman work ; against this on either side are built up portions of the second period, and without-side these are pilasters of a third time. Partition walls divided each of these nave chapels, each furnished with its altar, piscina, and credence, of some of which traces are still visible. With the suppression of chantries came the removal of the party walls, and the whole set of chapels on either side being thrown together gives the idea of additional aisles to the nave, so that Chichester Cathedral is often, though erroneously, said to have five aisles. CHICHESTER 227 At any rate, it has the greatest width — York excepted — of any English cathedral, being 91 feet in the clear. The effect of these additional aisles at Chichester cannot, of course, compare with that produced at Bourges, Paris, Troyes and other great Continental five- and seven-aisled churches, but their exquisite Early English character confers an unusual pictur- esqueness upon the interior, when viewed diagonally across the nave. It is pleasing to chronicle that of late years one of the southern chapels has been restored to its former use in a very charming, subdued, and devotional manner, the only regret- table feature in this part of the cathedral being the stained glass, which was inserted at different times and by different artists between 1850 and 1870, with the usual infelicitous result arising from want of uniformity. In the southern and earlier aisle the windows are of the plate-traceried kind : that is to say, they are composed of two large lancets with a quatrefoil above them, all seemingly pierced in a stone slab ; while in the northern range they are formed of three uncusped lights and traceried with three circles, good types of the Transition from Early English to Decorated. All this tracery is, however, a restoration of Richard Carpenter's, who doubtless had sufficient indications to guide him in the matter. Before this, the tracery here was of a debased character. Pursuing the thread of our architectural history of this graceful Cathedral we come to the Lady Chapel, which has the distinction of being the most elongated, in this position, in England, being five 228 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND bays in length, one of which, however, is covered by the extension of the choir-aisles. It was mainly the work of Bishop Gilbert de Sancto Leofardo, who, before his elevation to the See of Chichester in 1288, had been for six years treasurer to the Cathedral. Of the existing Lady Chapel the three first compartments are partly of Bishop Seffrid II.'s late twelfth-century work, and partly of that Lady Chapel which once opened out of the apse of the old Norman choir, and which survived, both the fire of 11 86, and the changes made when the Chapter ventured on that little piece of extravagance, the Transitional retrochoir already alluded to. Bishop Gilbert removed the original east end of this older Lady Chapel, but left the side walls. He then added two more bays to the exist- ing work in the exquisite Geometrical Decorated style then prevalent, altered the original fenestration of the Norman portion to correspond with that of his two new bays, and thus bequeathed to us a building, whose original beauty has been enhanced by that restoration in memory of the sixty-ninth occupant of the See since the Conquest, a prelate no less honoured and revered than his thirteenth- century namesake. Bishop John of Langton occupied the See from 1305 to 1337 when English church architecture had reached its zenith. To him we are indebted, inter alia^ for the great window of the south transept, a curious combination of a Geometrical skeleton filled up with Flowing detail, which, although inferior in dimensions to those vast walls of glass at the west end of York and the east ends of Carlisle and Selby, CHICHESTER 229 is very grand and harmonious in effect — the intro- duction of octofoils and a triple repetition of the vesica within a spherical triangle being a remarkable feature. The general appearance of this magnificent window is much impaired by the painted glass, of which the most that can be said is that it came into the church about the year 1877 by way of gift. Twenty years before, Messrs Clayton and Bell had drawn up a masterly design for filling this window with stained glass, and it is to be deplored that the subject — a Te Deuni — should have been set aside in favour of the present insipid scheme of iconography. The Perpendicular period gave us the cloisters which lie along the south side of the cathedral and form an irregular but very picturesque parallelogram, the western walk being two bays shorter than the eastern one. The former has its entrance to the church in the fifth bay of the nave, the latter in the fifth bay of the choir. The south walk is of unusual length, having twelve fenestriform openings, and slopes off to the south. This obliquity has its advantage, for from the south-east angle a most beautiful and comprehensive view of the cathedral can be had — illustrating as it does Michael Angelo's most perfect outline, the pyramid.^ The same * Of the Chapter-house there are no traces in the customary place, viz. : the eastern walk of the cloisters. The late Arch- deacon Freeman, who devoted great attention to Chichester Cathedral, had a theory that the square Romanesque apartment opening out of the north transept with a central pillar was the original Chapter-house, but I merely record this view without committing myself for or against it. 230 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND period has also left its impress on other portions, such as the windows of the north choir-aisle, which are good and graceful ones of their age. As quaint old Thomas Fuller observes — "Seffrid bestowed the cloth and making on the church, whilst Bishop Sherburne gave the trimming and lace thereof" Robert Sherburne, who ruled the See from 1 508 to 1536, was, like West at Ely and Fox at Winchester, a good type of the better sort of prelate still to be found at the dawn of the Reformation — an age when the chain of that power, which the Church of England possessed over men's hearts and minds, was snapping, link by link, through the increase of pomp, wealth, and secular kind of grandeur of her clergy. Not only to his diocese in general, but to his cathedral in particular, was Sherburne a great benefactor, for, to quote again from Fuller, " he decored it with many ornaments." To Sherburne we owe the present altar-screen 3.nd choir-stalls. The latter were partly crushed by the fall of the spire in 1861, but were repaired after that disaster or replaced by new ones after the old design. He also caused the vaulting throughout the church to be embellished with paintings in arabesque of the most delicate and intricate patterns by an Italian artist, Lamberti Bernardi, who, with his two sons, seem to have been spec'idil />roU£-^s of the Bishop. But, horrihile dictUy about the year 18 17, some fiend in human form contrived, by an untoward chain of circumstances, to gain sufficient influence with his brethren in the Chapter to induce that CHICHESTER 231 body to whitewash the roofs, and to yellow-ochre the ribs and all the lines of the building which were in relief Fortunately we are able to form some idea of what this " lace- work " of Bishop Sherburne was like, from the drawings made of it by Mr Thomas King, a local antiquary of repute, now in the possession of the Rev. Prebendary Bennett, as well as from such fragments as are still discoverable in the vaulting of the Lady Chapel, in the arch opening from the present library to the transept, and one or two other slight remains. Bernardi likewise executed those two large oil- paintings on wood (about 12 feet high by 8 feet wide), now placed at the back of the choir-stalls in the south transept, and representing Ceadwalla and Henry VHI. granting and confirming privileges to the bishops of their day. In the opposite transept is another large picture with imaginary portraits of bishops of Chichester, from Wilfrid to Sherburne, by the same hand. There is a striking family likeness in these portraits ! Passing with swift foot over the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with their sad tales of sacrilege and devastation ; well-meant, but not always judicious, attempts to repair the damage ; obliteration of roof- paintings, and disfigurements by the erection of pews and galleries in divers parts of the choir, until its natural beauties must have been well-nigh hidden beneath these monstrous erections — we reach the year 1839 and appointment to the Deanery of Dr Chandler, who, within three years after his installa- tion, set on foot the restoration of the cathedral to something of its former beauty. 232 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND To Dr Chandler, not only Chichester Cathedral but Anglo-Catholic art generally, owes a debt of gratitude ; for when the Cambridge Camden Society was com- pelled by circumstances to quit the town of its birth, and in the face of much casual unpopularity to seek a new name in London, the excellent Dean — then Rector of All Souls, Marylebone — as Vice-President of the Society, gave a helping hand to that struggling body. These early ameliorations consisted chiefly in cleansing the walls, pillars and roof of the white- wash with which they had been so plentifully coated during the dear old soporific and Boeotian Georgian period, and in the insertion of several stained glass windows in the eastern part of the building. This latter improvement was due in a great measure to a suggestion thrown out by Mr J. H. Markland in an enlarged edition of his valuable little work, "Remarks on English Churches, and on the Expediency of Rendering Sepulchral Memorials Subservient to Pious and Christian Uses,"^ in which he advocated the introduction of painted windows as memorials, in lieu of the wretched semi- pagan and pseudo-Gothic tablets at that time so ^ It appeared originally in 1840 under the title " Remarks on Sepulchral Memorials, with Suggestions for Improving the Condition of Our Churches." On the death of the author in 1864, the first window, west of the transept, in the Abbey Church at Bath, where he was long resident, was filled with stained glass by a number of friends, headed by Sir Gilbert Scott and Mr Joseph Clarke (architect, inter alia^ of the very pretty little chapel of the House of Charity in Soho), thus honouring one who was not only among the most zealous pioneers in the revival of a true feeling for the decent adornment of our churches, but the originator of memorials of this description. CHICHESTER 233 universally adopted, to the disfigurement of our churches. One of the first windows of this kind was set up in Chichester Cathedral at the east end of the south choir-aisle, " In Memoriam Marian Chandler, piae beneficae 1841," and represented, in six small groups, the corporal works of Mercy, but a few years ago it was removed, on the substitu- tion of one of modern manufacture, and inserted in the south aisle of the Sub-Deanery Church hard by. It was one of Wailes' earliest productions, and if not of a very high order of artistic merit, was interesting from the circumstances that environed its execution. Other stained glass by Wailes, Willement, and Ward and Nixon followed, the first-named execut- ing the window above the entrance to the cloisters from the retrochoir. It represents the Martyrdom of St Stephen, and was given in memory of his wife by Cardinal Manning, who, it will be remembered, was Archdeacon of Chichester from 1840 till his secession from the church on Passion Sunday, 6th April 185 1. For many years Chichester Cathedral had a most intelligent cicerone in Charles Crocker, who filled the office of Bishop's Verger from 1845 to 1861. Self- educated, Crocker compiled an excellent Guide to the cathedral, which has formed the basis of succes- sive editions, and was, moreover, a poet of no mean ability, his sonnet "To the British Oak," published in 1830 in a volume entitled The Vale of Obscurity^ the Lavant, and other PoemSj attracting the notice of Wordsworth, who remarked that it was as good as anything of the kind in the English language. 234 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND Another sonnet in the same collection, "Sacred Music," occasioned by hearing the Choir Service in Chichester Cathedral, deserves quotation : — " If there be aught on earth that can unsphere The raptur'd spirit from its clayey cell, Raise it from pain and sorrow, doubt and fear, Above mortality awhile to dwell, And taste angelic joys, — that powerful spell In sacred music breathes. — How grand e'en now. Along these aisles the Anthem's full tones swell, Loud as the tempest's voice — now sinking low, Like summer evening breezes, soft and faint ; Such strains as solace the expiring saint. Or lull the storm in reckless Passion's breast. How oft within these hallow'd walls my mind Hath Truth's high power, and Music's charms confest. And mid life's cares rejoic'd such bliss to find." Another very pleasing sonnet of Crocker's is that on Thomas Kelway, organist of the cathedral from 1733 to 1747, and who has enriched our library of church music with several fine services and anthems. His evening services in B minor, A minor and G minor and his anthems, " Not unto us," and " Unto Thee, O Lord," are still in frequent use. Kelway died at Chichester in 1749, and was buried in the south aisle of the cathedral. For many years his gravestone was lost sight of, but in 1846 it was discovered and replaced, and the inscription recut. It was this circumstance that gave birth to Crocker's sonnet in which the follow- ing passage occurs : — "His strains full oft — still fall upon the ear Of those who tread yon aisle, while, at their feet. His name and record of his hope appear." I'hr.h, ,. i_\ H. llvh' CHICHESTER . . CATHEDRAL. THE CHOIR, WITH BISHOP SHEKBURNIi's ALTAR SCREEN RESTORED CHICHESTER 235 It was about 1847 that Dean Chandler called in Richard Carpenter, who had already given proof of his abilities, not only in the churches of St Andrew and St Stephen, Birmingham, but by the beautiful plans which he had prepared for the restoration and refitting of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, as consult- ing architect to the cathedral which he so dearly loved, and whose architectural beauties he never tired of pointing out to the visitor. Carpenter's work consisted chiefly in care for the general stability of the structure, and in the rehabili- tation of tracery to several windows, notably to the upper of the two great western ones which a debased era had endowed with work that could only be compared to a stone grating.^ For this. Carpenter substituted the graceful flowing Decorated tracery we now see, and about the same time (1849) this window, as well as the triplet of Early English lancets below it, was filled with stained glass by Wailes, of great richness and brilliancy of tincture, in the archaic style prevalent at that epoch of the revival. The glass in the upper tier forms a testimonial to Dean Chandler from the parishioners of All Souls, Marylebone, on his resignation of that living in consequence of age and infirmity. To a thorough knowledge of the grammar of his art, Carpenter added great skill in general arrange- ment. His eye for colour was exquisite, an excellence produced by the harmony of his disposition, and in which he was safer and more equable than his ^ See the view given in " Winkles' Cathecjrals." 236 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND great contemporary, Pugin, whose friendship he was fortunate enough to secure, to the encouragement of their common zeal for the revival of mediaeval architecture. To painted glass Carpenter paid much attention, directly superintending its execution on a footing very similar to Pugin's products of the Hardman atelier. Mr J. R. Clayton (of the firm of Clayton and Bell, and who is happily still with us) was the cartoonist whom he trained, while the mechanical part, entrusted to Messrs Ward and Nixon, was attended with much success. Considering the large field of operations which his skill and knowledge embraced, Carpenter's minute attention to every drawing and detail emanating from his office was not the least important point in his character ; indeed, there can be little doubt that such laborious and zealous applications tended to hasten his death, which occurred 27th March 1855. Only two days later he was followed to the grave by another friend and fellow-labourer in the same cause, James Rattee, who, with the true inspiration of the ancient craftsmen, carried out Sir Gilbert Scott's designs for the choir- screen, stalls, organ-case, and restored tomb of Bishop de Luda in Ely Cathedral, as well as those for Pugin in the restored chapel of Jesus College, Cambridge. It would be impossible in this place to give an extended list of the works — far too many for his short life — of Richard Carpenter, but I cannot omit mention altogether of such churches as St Mary Magdalene, Munster Square, Regent's Park (where the west window, designed and executed by his old pupil Mr Clayton, forms a memorial to him), CHICHESTER 237 St Peter's (or the Sub-Deanery Church), Chichester, St Paul's and All Saints, Brighton, St Nicholas, Kemerton, and St John Baptist, Bovey Tracey. His restorations of St Margaret's, Leicester, St Nicholas, Old Shoreham, St John Baptist, Little Maplestead, All Saints, Maidstone, and Sherborne Minster, were carried out with great taste and judgment. He had likewise prepared plans of great beauty and com- pleteness for the restoration of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, but they were unfortunately laid aside in favour of very questionable amateur achievements. Two of his greatest original works, the Colleges of SS. Mary and Nicholas at Lancing, and St John, Hurstpierpoint, were not completed till after his death. Dean Chandler was not permitted to see the commencement of that magnum opus at Chichester Cathedral, the restoration of the choir. But his legacy of ;£"2000 stimulated the work, and the year 1859 saw the undertaking set on foot under his successor Dr Hook. Until then the choir was separated from the nave at the western arch of the crossing by a stone screen of little merit, commonly called the Arundel Shrine, and upon which stood the organ. It had been pewed and galleried " to the enth," and the removal of these obtrusive fittings revealed the reckless manner in which the building had been dealt with in order to accommodate them. Vaulting shafts, originally continued from the groined ceilings, had been cut through and terminated with mock corbels, in order to make way for a skirting board ; here a moulded base had been mutilated ; a third, proving intractable, ^38 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND had actually been excavated from the massive pier, leaving a large vacuity behind, as the readiest mode of clearing away the stubborn Purbeck block. Pend- ing the restoration of the choir, the seven western bays of the nave were partitioned off by a plastered frame- work reaching from floor to vault, against which the altar, with its dossal and furniture, temporary choir-stalls, etc., were arranged. It was resolved to throw open the choir to the nave by the removal of the Arundel Shrine. This was accordingly done in the course of i860, and the works in the choir were in the full flow of progress when they were stopped by the fall of the spire on 21st February 1861, during a violent storm that did much damage to property on land and sea. The catastrophe occurred shortly after noon when the workmen, who had been almost ceaselessly engaged in shoring up the tower, were at dinner, falling to pieces almost on its own base, and sinking, spectators said, into the body of the cathedral like a large ship foundering quietly at sea. Professor Willis, on hearing of the disaster, in which fortunately no one was injured, hurried down to Chichester, lost no time in investigating the ruins, and, at the invitation of the Dean and Chapter, gave the result of his inspection in a lecture on 18th March, in which he proved, with all his habitual cleverness and fulness of demonstration, that the evil had been growing for centuries, illustrating his theme by the fate of many other steeples in the Middle Ages. Of course, as soon as the catastrophe happened, opinion was rife, and for want of any other victim, the indefatigable exertions of Mr Slater, the architect — the pupil and successor of Carpenter, and to whom CHICHESTER 239 the renovation of the choir had been entrusted — were entirely overlooked, such inconsistent charges being pressed against him as the removal of the organ- screen, which, however, had been proved by Professor Willis to merely touch without morticing into the tower piers, and therefore could have no share in sustaining the steeple. Several circumstances contributed to its downfall. One was the reckless engineering of an age which could pile a thirteenth - century tower and a four- teenth-century spire on to the rubble-cased piers of a Romanesque lantern. Another was the cutting away of the lower portions of the north and south west piers by Bishop Sherburne for the construction of his sixteenth-century stalls, so that the superin- cumbent mass of masonry literally remained propped up by some pieces of timber — a frightful state of things that, as I have already remarked, was only revealed on denuding the choir of its fittings pre- paratory to restoration. Professor Willis believed that the spire of Chichester Cathedral had been suspended over the heads of its congregation for centuries, only wanting some concussions to bring it down, and, moreover, stated that all the precautions that had been taken to shore it up, were, notwith- standing their praiseworthiness, totally futile. It is needless to recapitulate here, how triumphantly those in charge of the cathedral were proved not only guiltless, but worthy of all praise, for their carefulness, which was not less commendable because it failed to avert the catastrophe. Contributions for the rehabilitation of the steeple flowed in, and Sir Gilbert Scott, who was called on 240 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND for this special work, performed the task with equal skill and good taste, having associated Mr Slater with himself in its performance. In 1866 Chichester was again in possession of its steeple restored in facsimile, and, it may be said, improved by the lifting of the tower a little above the roofs, with Norman piers of great stability. Early English tower, and Late Decorated spire twice banded, gladdening the eyes of the citizens, the shepherd on the Downs, and the homeward-bound sailor. Owing to the catastrophe of 1 86 1 the works of restoration in the choir were brought to a standstill, and for a time nothing was thought of but how to reinstate the spire. Then the broken thread was taken up again, and Messrs Slater and Carpenter (son of Richard Carpenter) pushed on that internal restoration of which Dean Chandler had made so good a com- mencement, and towards which he had bequeathed so liberally. Dean Hook was equally zealous, the venerable Bishop (Dr Gilbert) took a hearty interest in the work, and on 14th November 1867 the choir of Chichester Cathedral was reopened, for which occasion Mr E. H. Thorne, at that time organist, composed his fine anthem, " I was glad when they said unto me, we will go into the House of the Lord." Chichester being a cryptless cathedral, the floor of the choir rises but little above that of the nave, but that little is sufficient to impart dignity to it. The stalls occupy their old position under the tower, the organ being placed above them on the north. Until the restoration of 1858-67 the organ, in its beautiful CHICHESTER 241 old Renaissance case, stood on the Arundel Shrine beneath the western arch of the tower, and very handsome it looked when viewed in conjunction with Bishop Sherburne's return-stalls. As originally built by Renatus Harris in 1678 the Chichester organ had but one manual, no pedals, only one open diapason, and no reed stop. In 1725 By field added to it, and Knight in 1778. In 1808 it was considerably improved by England. Further additions were made by Pilcher in 1829, by Gray and Davison in 1844, and by Hill in 1851. Fortunately it had been removed before the fall of the spire in 1861, but on its replacement above the northern range of stalls six years later, the old case was omitted, and until 1888, when a complete renewal of its mechanism took place under Hill, it remained without one, looking in that state very ragged. The present case, ready for the reopening of the instrument at Christmas of that year, is a very handsome one of Late Gothic design. Finally, during 1904, the organ was rebuilt by Hele and Co., tubular pneumatic action being applied to the entire instrument, the reeds revoiced, and additions made to the stops, so that now in beauty of tone the Chichester organ has few superiors. An interesting musical service marked its reopening on the after- noon of 28th September, at which the choirs of Winchester and Salisbury Cathedrals assisted, the services and anthems being selected from the works of eminent and representative composers of cathedral music, who flourished during the last three and a half centuries. After the third Collect, four of the Q 242 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND finest anthems of the English school were sung — "Hosanna," by Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625); "I will love Thee," by Jeremiah Clarke (1670- 1707); "The Heavens declare," by Boyce (1710-79); and "It came even to pass," by Sir Frederick Gore Ouseley, written for the reopening of Lichfield Cathedral in 1861 ; while the service fitly concluded with Croft's grand Te Deunt in A. Beyond the choir-stalls is an ample and dignified presbytery, comprised within the three Norman bays between the tower and the retrochoir. These arches are filled with modern iron grilles and gates of local but excellent workman- ship, modelled upon some ancient specimens, formerly here, but now in the South Kensington Museum. In 1870 a reredos of stone and marble was erected from the designs of Messrs Slater and Carpenter, consisting of a group (within a gabled arch) of the Ascension, nobly, hieratically, and grandly treated in white stone from the cartoons of Mr J. R. Clayton, and the chisel of Mr James Forsyth. It failed, however, to give satisfaction, partly from the fact that it was never completed by the addition of wings, and partly because, like the bishop's throne, it was rather too strongly con- figured after the environing twelfth-century work, the architects forgetting that, for our best models in church furniture, we must look to the fifteenth century. The removal of this reredos, long talked of, has at length become an accomplished fact, and the CHICHESTER 243 Tudor altar-screen of Bishop Sherburne, which for many years had been hidden away, has resumed its old position, much to the gratification of all persons of taste. The discarded reredos has found a home in St Saviour's Church, Brighton, where doubtless it is in better harmony with the surroundings. In 1 87 1 the restoration of the Lady Chapel which had been sadly misused, was taken in hand by Sir Gilbert Scott, and in memory of Bishop Gilbert, who died in 1870. It was completed and reopened 13th October 1872; and with the stained glass, added at different times, though on one uniform plan, by Clayton and Bell, constitutes quite the gem of the cathedral. The unobtrusive reredos of alabaster is, however, due to Messrs Carpenter and Ingelow. Since then, the following works of reparation and embellishment may be chronicled : the restoration, and equipment with an altar, of the Chapel of St Mary Magdalene at the end of the south choir-aisle, in memory of Canon Crosse, by Messrs Bodley and Garner ; of St Clement's Chapel in the outer south aisle of the nave by the same architects, in memory of Bishop Durnford, whose recumbent effigy is here ; and of the cloisters by the late Mr Gordon M. Hills. The oak choir-screen — long a desideratum — was raised upon the low stone septum destined to receive it, about fifteen years ago ; and in 1901 the facade received that north-western tower, which had lain in ruins for more than two centuries and a half. It is from the designs of Mr J. L. Pearson and a facsimile of its southern sister. 244 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND The detached bell-tower — interesting and valuable as the last of a once rather numerous race belonging to our cathedrals — forms, with the steeples of the cathedral, a very imposing group. Chichester Cathedral is commonly said to be one of the smallest in the kingdom. It is, -however, by no means so, as the following table of dimensions, compared with those of other cathedrals, will prove : — 411 3 172 62 90 59 3 26 65 277 Total length, including west porch and Lady Chapel .... Length of nave Height of nave in centre Total width of nave Width of choir with side aisles Width of choir without aisles . Height of choir Height of tower and spire As a whole, the interior of Chichester Cathedral recalls the Romanesque of the nave of St Etienne at Caen, or the Rhenish variety of that protean style as illustrated by Bonn ; and although it does not overwhelm us like Durham and Peterborough, we feel that we are in a majestic, yet benign and gracious presence. The view from the west door to the graceful eastern triplet of lancets, broken by the light oaken choir - screen, Lady Featherstonhaugh's delightful eighteenth-century chandelier — alas, that so few of these instrumenta have been suffered to remain in our churches ! for they grace a building of any style — and Bishop Sherburne's happily reinstated CHICHESTER ^45 altar-screen, may be pronounced one of the most poetical and satisfying in the country, reflecting as it does the greatest credit upon the taste of its present guardians. CHAPTER IX CHESTER Chester, as many of my readers know, may be said to have two cathedrals. St John's Church must, when perfect, have been a finer building than St Werburgha's, and, if I am not greatly mistaken, it certainly was the cathedral church when the city divided the episcopal title with Coventry and Lichfield. However, Henry VHI. thought proper to select St Werburgha's as the seat of one of those five new bishoprics which he had created out of the revenues of the dissolved religious houses, and the consequence has been, that the mixed Gothic subject of our present sketch remained in a state of tolerable preservation, while the Romanesque St John's was overtaken by grievous degradation and partial ruin. Chester Cathedral is a church of the second order, and despite a good deal of beauty in parts, which has only been brought out since the extensive works of reparation conducted at various times within the 246 ^a^^^te^^^^^^^^Sf^-' ' ''^^9rl ^^^^^^^^^HHB>Zi!!!^ J ■ 3 ■ Pi w S" i CHESTER 247 last sixty years, it cannot claim a high rank among churches of its class. Besides this it laboured for more than three centuries under the disadvantage of never having been properly finished, especially as regards its vaulting. To this circumstance, coupled with the disfigurements inflicted upon it during successive debased epochs, is due the sorry plight in which the church was, when, about 1844, Dean Anson sounded the first note of restoration, by calling in Mr R. C. Hussey to effect some alterations in the choir for the more seemly performance of divine service. The good work thus inaugurated by Dean Anson — to whom the stained glass in the five eastern lancets of the charming Early English Chapter- house is a memorial — was resumed by his successor Dr Howson, under whose wise administration and deep veneration for the consecrated thoughts of artists, seconded by the quick diagnosis of Sir Gilbert Scott, the interior of Chester Cathedral has been made to assume the truly solemn and devotional appearance it now wears. Externally, however, the drastic nature of the repairs — necessary ones, there can be no doubt — have for ever destroyed its once venerable, and ruggedly grand character for the artist, but the lover of the picturesque will still find a small "unrestored" fragment in the western aisle of the uniquely elongated south transept. The ground plan includes a nave with aisles, south porch, and preparations for a western tower ; strangely unequal transepts, the southern one aisled ; central tower ; and square-ended choir with aisles, and Lady Chapel. To the north lie very considerable 248 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND remains of conventual apparatus, — cloisters, Chapter- house, refectory and Fratry house, the cathedral having been, previous to the dissolution, the church of a Benedictine monastery established in 1095 by Hugh Lupus, a coarse, brutal, bad person, but who, towards the end of his life, was visited with compunction, and desired to found a religious house. At different times between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, Lupus' church has been almost entirely removed, so that every architectural epoch has left its memento. At a first glance, Chester Cathedral appears to be a somewhat plain specimen of Early English, Decorated and Perpendicular work, not very lofty, and not very long — its measurements from west to east being but 350 feet, and its height 75 feet. But on a closer acquaintance it will be found to assume an air of considerable dignity, from the pleasing distribution of its parts and its elongation towards the east, so that it may be pronounced truly minster-like, and by no means of an exagger- ated parochial character like the recently constituted cathedrals of Newcastle and Wakefield, or the early Victorian Manchester. Of Norman work, the existing remains are a con- siderable portion of the north transept, the wall of the north nave aisle, and the foundations of the north- west tower. The Chapter - house and the passage thereto are Early English of the best and most refined type. The choir is a mingling of Early English and Decorated. The south transept and nave arcade are Late Decorated. The nave cleres- CHESTER 249 tory, the tower, the east end of the north choir-aisle, and the cloisters are Perpendicular. The first impression of the interior of Chester Cathedral must be startling indeed to those who only remember it under its unrestored aspect, or when compared with its somewhat forlorn look in the plates illustrating Wild's monograph published in 1 81 5, or from those in Ormerod's "Cheshire." Then it was one of the coldest and least effective of our minsters, the beautiful red sandstone of which it is constructed being hidden by yellow wash, and flat wooden roofs of the plainest descrip- tion covering nave and choir. Now, it is not too much to say that, while exception may be taken to certain decorative features intro- duced since the restorations effected between 1870 and 1 876, the interior of Chester Cathedral, regarded as a whole, is one of the most pleasing in England. From the west door there is a descent of several steps into the nave, which is divided from its aisles by six bays of richly moulded arches on slender shafts clustered against a pier. They are of good Late Decorated character, but alterations were made in the capitals of the northern range at a later period. The easternmost arch on either side has its mouldings carried right down the pier without the intervention of capitals — a massive yet withal picturesque arrangement which seems local, an instance of it occurring in the nave of the not far distant cathedral of St Asaph. There is no triforium, strictly speaking, but above every arch is a narrow frieze, quite plain except in the easternmost bay where it is gracefully pierced, and forming the ^5o CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND parapet to a passage made continuous by cutting an arch through the piers to which the groining shafts are attached. The clerestory windows placed rather high up above this quasi-triforium are mostly Perpendicular of a very insipid order, and form part of the works carried out under the two last abbots, Ripley (1485-92) and Birchenshaw (1493- 1 5 5 1). The south aisle has a pleasing range of Late Decorated windows coeval with the arcades ; in the opposite one, owing to the abutment of the cloister, they are placed high up in the wall, are low, and Perpendicular. Below them is a con- siderable expanse of wall, which has of late years been relieved with mosaics by Burke and Co. from Messrs Clayton and Bell's cartoons, but upon which it is not possible to bestow unqualified approval. The vaulting of both nave and aisles was evidently contemplated by the monks, but the Reformation overtook the work, and in consequence it languished. Its completion was one of the first things thought of by Dr Howson when, in 1868, he became Dean of Chester. Until then, the whole of this part of the church had mean wooden roofs, as may be seen in the " Cathedrals " of Storer, Wild, and Winkles. The establishment, on Advent Sunday 1867, of a Special Evening Service in the nave, led the way towards re-animating this long silent portion of the cathedral, and gave an impetus to the completion of the roofs for which it had so long exclaimed. In giving the nave its new vault Sir Gilbert Scott did not venture upon stone, but, with Selby and York as precedents, he completed the work in oak upon the lines given by the stone springers which had been CHESTER 251 left by the fifteenth-century builders. Stone, however, was used in groining the aisles, and the effect of both is excellent. The completion of so great and important a work was celebrated by a series of imposing services commencing on the Eve of the Conversion of St Paul, 24th January 1872 — Charles Kingsley — Canon of Chester from 1868 to 1873, thus alluding to the occasion in his diary : — '■''January 24 1872. — Service this afternoon magni- ficent. Cathedral quite full. Anthem ' Send out Thy Light ' (Gounod). Cathedral looks lovely, and I have had a most happy day." When these works were undertaken, the tracery of the clerestory windows almost throughout the church was of the most debased character, forming mere gratings, while the external stone-work had become so lamentably decayed that the building looked like a mouldering sandstone cliff. ^ Interiorly, yellow wash concealed the delicate rose colour of the walls and pillars, and the whole church had become so overlaid with debased work that several years' patient research was required to recover its original design. In the view looking eastward, a marked peculiarity is the absence of attached columns to receive the eastern and western arches of the central tower, their soffits being flat and enriched with Perpen- dicular panelling continued down the pilaster-like shaft from which they spring without capitals. The erection of the choir occupied, at different ^ See the illustrations in Buckler's "Views of Cathedral Churches" (1822), and Lyson's "Magna Britannia" volume on Cheshire. :252 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND times, almost the whole of the thirteenth century, during which the Norman one, which was apsidal and only two bays in length, was gradually removed. In this part of the cathedral, therefore, we have an example of the mingling of the Early English and Decorated styles, grand in elevation, and graceful and lovable in execution and contour. The aisles of the Norman choir likewise terminated in apses, and there was, in all probability, one in the eastern side of each transept, so that in its original state the church was parallel cinque-apsidal. The reconstruction of the choir in its present elongated form was greatly aided, there is no doubt, by the offerings made at the shrine of St Werburgha, the tutelar saint of Chester, much in the same manner as the choirs of Ely, Lincoln, Rochester, and Worcester did to St Etheldreda, St Hugh, St William, and St Wulfstan respectively. It is five bays in length, the columns dividing it from its coevally vaulted aisles being very graceful ones in isolated clusters of shafts. In each bay is a triforium composed of four trefoil-headed arcades, and above that, a well-developed clerestory with windows of four lights each, whose tracery, from the circumstances to which I have alluded, is modern. In front of these windows a passage way is formed similarly to that in the nave, viz., by piercing the jambs of the clerestory windows, though in this instance the gallery is protected throughout its length by a gracefully pierced parapet. From the choir, a noble arch on receding shafts opens into the Lady Chapel, and slightly in advance of it stands the altar, composed of various woods from Palestine, Choir, looking ii.ast /^HESTER . . . ^ CATHEDRAL. CHESTER 353 and surmounted by a retabulum representing the Institution of the Eucharist within an oblong arcaded panel, sufficiently dignified without intercepting the view into the Lady Chapel. In the original thirteenth-century choir, each aisle terminated in a three-sided apse, the entrance to which was in a line with the great arch opening into the Lady Chapel. This was approached from behind the High Altar, which stood in the second bay from the east, so that a procession path was formed behind it. In Perpendicular times these apses were removed, and the choir-aisles carried on until they overlapped two bays of the Lady Chapel, whose original Early English design suffered greatly during the process. When Scott came to diagnose this part of the church, not only did the foundations of the south-eastern apse present themselves, but many of its Early Gothic details were found embedded in the Perpen- dicular extension. This discovery emboldened the architect to remove the Late Gothic accretion to the Lady Chapel on this side, and to restore the thirteenth-century three-sided apse to the south choir-aisle, giving it that spiral roof which forms so conspicuous, if not altogether pleasing, a feature in the south-east view of the cathedral. The removal of these parasitical chapels has left the whole of the south side of the Lady Chapel exposed to view, but the Perpendicular extension on the opposite side has not been interfered with, and, from a picturesque standpoint, happily so. In any case it must have been left, forming as it does the only approach to the Lady Chapel from the choir, 254 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND now that the High Altar stands almost within the arch at the east end of the latter. The geometrically traceried window above this arch is filled with stained glass by Messrs Heaton and Butler, in lieu of some by Wailes, inserted during the fifties of the last century. Between 1844 ^^^ 1846 certain ameliorations were effected in the choir under Mr R. C. Hussey, who substituted a new roof, groined in timber and plaster on the old springers, for the flat Perpendicular one, but this gave place during the last restoration by Sir Gilbert Scott, to the present roof constructed entirely in oak, and decorated by Messrs Clayton and Bell. The choir-stalls, and their almost unequalled series of misereres, most ingeniously and frankly restored at the cost of various persons and sets of persons connected with the cathedral and diocese, belong to that period when our church furniture was at its best, the Early Perpendicular, and with their spiral canopies present an array little inferior to those of Beverley and Lincoln. They now occupy the first two bays of the choir. In the old Norman Church the short eastern limb, as at Ely, Peterborough, and Norwich, formed the presbytery, the choir of the monks being located beneath the central tower and extending into one bay of the nave. When Mr Hussey came to work upon the choir in 1844 he found the stalls occupying the first two bays as at present, but, desirous of securing additional accommodation, he had them removed, stone screen and all, westward, so that one-half of the stalls occupied the tower space, and CHESTER 255 the remainder the first arch of the choir. Until then, the organ retained its old post-Restoration case shown in Wild's view, but, on the erection of a new organ, a case to match the canopy work of the stalls was designed, in very tolerable Gothic, as may be seen from a woodcut in the second volume of " Murray's Northern Cathedrals." This view, from the masterly hand of Jewitt, gives us a good idea of what the choir of Chester Cathedral was like, from its reopening on the Festival of the Epiphany, 6th January 1846, until the redistribution of its fittings thirty years later. This view is interesting on another account, for in it we see the bishop's throne, partly composed of fragments of St Werburgha's shrine, concerning which I shall have something to say anon. Until 1874 the choir was separated from the nave by a stone screen, which, if not altogether beautiful, was of the Perpendicular period, excepting its door- way. It being essential to open out the choir to the nave. Sir Gilbert Scott, after some reluctance, consented to remove it, and then, without further disturbance of the canopies of the return-stalls than opening out their panels, he applied an open screen founded on their own design to the western side, much in the same way as he did at Winchester. Portions of the old screen were set up in the side aisles behind the stalls, and an entirely new one erected within the northern arch of the tower to support the organ, though it seems a pity the old screen could not have been made to serve this purpose. Scott's arrangement of a portion of the organ above the entrance doorway of the choir 256 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND screen is very happy. Indeed, there are few cathedrals in which the vexata qucestio of separation between nave and choir has been more judiciously solved than at Chester. ^Esthetically considered, the view, looking westward from the altar steps, may be considered one of the most picturesque in England. The organ shown in Wild's and other old views, was in all probability one of Father Schmidt's works, but on the rearrangement of the choir in 1844 it was deposed in favour of a new one by Gray and Davison, and presented to the then recently built cathedral at Valetta in Malta, whose erection was one among the many religious works promoted by Queen Adelaide. At that time the organist of Chester Cathedral was Frederick Gunton, whom Dr Anson brought with him from Southwell on his appointment to the Deanery in 1 84 1. Under Gunton considerable improvement was made in the musical services at Chester until his resignation in 1877. He had a singularly smooth touch, which Mendelssohn, on hearing him play, once remarked to a friend was " like velvet," and took great interest in the erection of the present organ, in which some portions of Gray and Davison's instrument — a very excellent one, by the way, for its date — ^were incorporated. The builder was Whiteley of Chester, and it was completed in 1876, in readiness for the reopening of the choir after restoration on 7th August of that year, the occasion being marked by services of an imposing character — a congregation of between three and four thousand persons assisting thereat. CHESTER 257 The surpliced choir and clergy assembled in the Chapter-house, whence they walked in procession around the cloisters singing the hymn, " Lift the strain of high thanksgiving." The effect of the distant melody gradually becoming nearer and more distinct, until it resounded through the nave, and was taken up by the organ, was most telling. About one hundred choristers from the various English and Welsh cathedrals were followed by four times that number of clergy, until the interior of the choir was full. The evening service was conducted by the pre- centor (Rev. E. L. Y. Deacle), Mr Gunton and his deputy, Mr (now Dr) J. C. Bridge, playing the accompaniments. The canticles, Cantate Domino and Deus Misereatur^ were sung to Attwood in D by the Chester choir ; Ouseley's anthem, " It came even to pass," by that of Lichfield ; and Elvey's " In that day," by that of St George's Chapel, Windsor ; while Gibbons' sublime " Hosanna to the Son of David," was sung by the united choirs, and, it goes without saying, unaccompanied. Truly a noble selection ! In the following year Gunton resigned his post, being succeeded by its present occupant, Dr J. C. Bridge, under whom the music at Chester has reached its present state of excellence. No visitor to this cathedral should omit to assist at one of the services. I have already alluded to the past and present positions of the High Altar, behind which, and most probably in the procession path formed between it and the entrance to the Lady Chapel, stood the R 258 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND shrine of St Werburgha — a Mercian princess of the seventh century, who, preferring the cloister to the court, entered the abbey of Ely, over which her great-aunt Etheldreda was then presiding. Here Werburgha assumed the veil, and after a short sojourn, undertook, at the request of her uncle, Etheldred, then King of Mercia, the arrangement and direction of newly established nunneries at Hanbury and Trentham, at the latter of which she died, though in what year has not been precisely ascertained. About two centuries afterwards, during an apprehended Danish invasion, the remains of St Werburgha were brought for safety to Chester, and placed in the church of Saints Peter and Paul, the site of which is not known. The custom in such cases was to erect a costly shrine, and there is no doubt that the one containing the relics of Werburgha gave importance to the church or churches dedicated to the saint in Chester. The late Canon Blomfield was of opinion that the chapel and shrine of St Werburgha occupied the eastern extremity of the Norman choir. When the Lady Chapel was built at the end of the thirteenth century the shrine fell within the choir, and remained there until the Reformation, when it was removed, and the lower part converted into a throne for Bird, the newly constituted bishop. Wherever it stood, the sub-structure of the shrine is represented as generally the same, allowance being made for the artist's manner. In drawings of the choir made before 1830, by Prout and Wild, the bishop's throne is shown as CHESTER 259 composed of the base and crown of the shrine sur- mounted by a wooden canopy of Jacobean character. The part intermediate between the base and the crown was probably destroyed, and is hardly likely to be recovered. It was stated in a pamphlet of 1749, that around the upper part of the throne were thirty- four little images of Mercian saints and sovereigns. An attempt was made at restoration, but the mason employed put kings' heads on queens' shoulders, and vice versa ! On the translation of Bishop Law, in 1824, to the See of Bath and Wells, considerable changes were made in the throne as a memorial of his episcopate. The Jacobean canopy was removed, the crown of the shrine was lifted up and supported on stonework in the Gothic of that period and embellished with pinnacles, the lower compartment enclosing the bishop's seat being filled up with panels of a similar character. In this state the mass remained, as may be seen in Jewitt's illustration of the choir in "Murray's Handbook," until its replacement under Sir Gilbert Scott, by a throne designed to match, both in style and material, with the stalls. The shrine was then placed temporarily in the south aisle of the choir, but was afterwards removed to its present position at the west end of the Lady Chapel under the direction of Sir Arthur Blomfield, who, from the recovered parts, was enabled to determine exactly the height of the crown from the pedestal ; but no attempt was made to restore it, so to speak, by the insertion of fresh carving, plain stone being used where it was necessary for the preservation of its true proportions. 26o CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND To those interested in the great Church Movement of seventy years ago, these views of the quondam throne in Chester Cathedral, recall the fact that it was occupied for five years by Chas. Jas. Blomfield. He succeeded Bishop Law in the Episcopal chair of Chester in 1824, and in the autumn of that year took up his residence in the gloomy palace of his extensive and laborious See under the shadow of the crumbling walls of his cathedral. When the tidings of Blomfield's promotion reached his native place — Bury St Edmund's — they provoked the following smart epigram from one of the boys of the Grammar School there : — "Through Chesterford to Bishopsgate^ Did Blomfield safely wade ; Then leaving ford and gate behind, He's Chester's Bishop made." Five years later Bishop Blomfield was translated to London, but during his short tenure of the See of Chester he had raised the tone of that diocese very considerably, for, to judge from the following description in a local paper of a scene at a con- firmation in 1820, the state of affairs in it prior to his coming must have been lamentable indeed : — " On Monday morning last the Lord Bishop con- firmed in our cathedral 966 males, and 1131 females, the youth of this and neighbouring places. The circumstance seems to have had the effect of raising the spirits of the confirmees to the pitch of fun. In the churchyard, the boys and young men amused * In allusion to the Bishop's first two livings, the latter of which, Chester being a poor See at that time, he was allowed to retain in commendam. CHESTER 261 themselves with pelting one another with sods, and the graves were robbed of their verdure to supply the missiles. In the cathedral, we are told that the cushions and prayer books were flying about in all directions, and some wags having picked up some bits of waste tin in the street (the sweepings of a neighbouring tin shop), with straw and tow manu- factured tails, and with the help of the tin they ingeniously attached them to the capes of the boys as they went up to receive the Bishop's benediction. We understand that some of the clergy who attempted to keep the boys in order, found it necessary to strengthen their arguments by applying the logic of fists." And yet in spite of these things God was not left without witness in those days ; but the revival of Church life, originating at Oxford, came none too soon. The Lady Chapel, a graceful work of the Lancet period, had, as I have already stated, been very rudely handled by the fifteenth-century builders when they extended the choir-aisles. In order to form an entrance into it from these chapels which overlapped two of its bays, the windows here were removed, and the wall below them cut through down to the ground, forming arcades ; so that when Mr Hussey and Sir Gilbert Scott came to work upon the Lady Chapel, about 1858, it presented, on the outside, with its flattened roof and meagre details, all the characteristics of a Late Perpendicular building. Interiorly, however, the chapel was fortunate in retaining its graceful Early English vault, and the jamb shafts and rich mouldings of its windows, aU 262 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND of which were filled with Perpendicular tracery. Bit by bit, the thirteenth-century details developed themselves, and eventually nearly every iota was discovered up to the top of the cornice, as well as the parapet over it. The windows gave themselves perfectly, being brought back to their original form of three or five lancets grouped within a pointed arch, and, externally treated panel-wise with regard to the wall in which they are pierced. Certain features had, perforce, to be left to pure conjecture, as, for instance, the pinnacles flanking the eastern gable. I have already alluded to the removal of the southern Perpendicular chapels, and the retention, for convenience, of those on the north. Internally, the Lady Chapel of Chester Cathedral now wears a very solemn and devotional appearance. The coloration of the simply groined roof with scrolls and medallions was the work of Mr Octavius Hudson, an artist of repute in this particular branch of ecclesiology, forty years ago. The mosaic decora- tion above, and on either side of the altar, was executed from the designs of the late Sir Arthur Blomfield, and the stained glass in the eastern quintuplet of lancets, was the work of O'Connor. It is, however, only an average specimen of the work of that artist, who, when under architectural supervision, could really produce some excellent things, as, for instance, the western and transeptal windows of St Saviour's, Leeds, executed between 1845 and 1848 under Pugin, and the great west window of St Matthias, Stoke Newington, carried out from Butterfield's designs in 1865. CHESTER 263 The south transept of this cathedral, a fine piece of Late Decorated architecture, but, unhappily, never completed as regards its vaulting, extends four bays beyond the line of the nave and choir- aisles. Until 1876 this extraordinarily long transept enjoyed the privileges of a distinct parish church dedicated to St Oswald. Since then, the wall separating it from the rest of the church has been pulled down, and the transept made to assume its legitimate position of a member of the cathedral, a new church having been built in another part of the city. There is a noble south window of seven lights with Flowing Decorated tracery, filled with excellent stained glass by Heaton and Butler from the designs of Sir Arthur Blomfield ; but a good deal yet remains to be done to this transept before it can be brought into harmony with the rest of this small, but undoubtedly most picturesque and interest- ing of our north-western cathedrals. The addition of turrets to the central tower at Chester, while doubtless endowing it with greater dignity, have changed that external aspect of the Cathedral with which views taken by the restorations have familiarized us. For old associations count much in judging of a church, more particularly of an English church, and by many people Chester Cathedral, despite its modest dimensions, was accepted as an ideal one. CHAPTER X BRISTOL Bristol Cathedral has been generally overlooked as undeserving of much notice, perhaps from the fact that the city possesses so formidable a rival in the minster-like church of St Mary Redclyffe ; yet, although small in dimensions, its mediaeval portion presents a specimen of every epoch of Gothic, from the Middle Norman of its Chapter- house to the Perpendicular of its stately tower, equal to anything in the country. Indeed, as Professor Freeman has remarked, " justice has never been done either in an aesthetic or historical point of view to this cathedral." Until Archdeacon Norris, early in the sixties of the last century, stirred the stagnant waters, and by his unwearied exertions secured the com- pletion of its long imperfect design from the masterly hand of Street, Bristol Cathedral resembled in outline a cruciform church shorn of its nave, such as the abbey churches of Hexham, Milton Abbas, and Merton College Chapel, Oxford, still present. 264 BRISTOL 265 Historically, Bristol Cathedral is interesting. It was originally the church of a not particularly rich or powerful abbey of Augustinian canons, founded during the first half of the twelfth century by Robert Fitzhardinge, and which on its surrender by the last abbot, Morgan Williams, into the hands of Henry VIII. in 1539, became, three years later, the cathedral of one of the five new dioceses created partly out of the revenues of the religious houses suppressed by that king. To the year 1142 belongs the commencement of a Norman church of which the chief remains are the Chapter-house — a noble one, bereft however, of its eastern portion, which was in all probability apsidal — with the vestibule thereto, and two gateways in the precincts. In 12 16 a Lady Chapel — styled the Elder Lady Chapel, because on the completion of the rebuilding of the choir in the fourteenth century a second Lady Chapel was provided for the altar of the Blessed Virgin at the east end — was built in the graceful Early English style of its period, addi- tions and alterations being subsequently made at the close of the same century in the shape of the vault- ing and the east window, an excellent specimen of Edwardian Gothic. This Elder Lady Chapel occupies an anomalous, but not altogether unique, position in the angle formed by the north aisle of the choir with the transept. The existing eastern portion of the cathedral belongs to the commencement of the fourteenth century. This graceful piece of work, due to Abbot Knowle, who ruled the house from 1306 to 1322, eventually included the choir, choir-aisles, chapels, 266 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND transepts and stately central tower, the Norman church being gradually but entirely removed. After the completion of these portions, it is evident that it was contemplated — probably by the same architect — to rebuild the nave. That the work was commenced is perfectly clear, from the fact that the foundations for the whole of the north side with buttresses, exactly corresponding with those of the choir, were remaining in their places when Mr Street began his new one in 1868, together with a portion of the south-west angle of the south aisle, where the work had been carried up to some height, and in a manner exactly imitated from the corresponding portion of the work in the choir. That it was never completed was evident, not only by the almost entire absence of wrought stones belonging to any part of it, and of any documentary or other evidence of its destruction, but also by some fragments of the Norman south wall — never removed, as they must have been, had the plan been carried out to com- pletion — and also by the portion of the fifteenth- century cloister, which shows that when it was built the Norman wall was still standing, for had the line of the new nave been carried on from the fragment commenced, and remaining, in 1867, at the south-west angle, its wall and buttresses would have made such a cloister impossible. A torso the cathedral remained until 1868, when the present nave was commenced from the designs of Mr G. E. Street, who wisely decided to build it on the same lines as, but in a much bolder and slightly earlier style than the choir of Abbot Knowle, who thus remains in a sense the creator of a cathedral BRISTOL 267 unique in English Gothic annals, the groining of the central roof, springing direct from the caps of delicate attached shafts, while the thrust is taken, not by the usual exterior flying buttresses, but by a series of unique arches or bridges which cross the aisles below the groining, and are visible from the interior of the church. Such a plan gives a superb range of pillars and arches from east to west, and rows of magnificently tall windows, crossed at about half their height by transomes, which, together with the partial manner in which the arches spring directly from the piers without the intervention of capitals, indicate that decline which was gradually creeping on. All over Germany we find instances of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century churches without a clerestory, but with a nave and aisles separated from each other by lofty arcades, and all vaulted at the same level. The nave of the cathedral at Paderborn, perhaps derived from that of Poitiers, is a particularly noble instance of the unclerestoried type ; so is the almost contemporary one of the minster at Herford, and the somewhat later nave of the quondam cathedral at Minden, perhaps the noblest example of this, the " hall " church, as it is styled, in Westphalia, where all these examples are located. Although this peculiar type of church is seen on its most impressive scale in the above-named province of Germany — the cities of Miinster, Osnabriick and Soest offer- ing numerous grandiose instances — it found favour in other districts, especially in Saxony, where the nave of the Lutheranised Dom at Meissen reminds one very forcibly of Bristol. In England, an un- 268 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND clerestoried church with timber roofs is by no means uncommon — one fine instance occurring in the Austin Friars Church near Broad Street, London ; but instances of vaulted ones are exceed- ingly scarce. It is difficult to know what Abbot Knowle's motive was for so complete a departure from insular tradition. Possibly, by a piece of conversatism, rare at that date, it was decided to retain the Norman tower by which the height of the vaulting would be strictly limited ; or it may have been that the abbot or his architect in search of a new idea took a trip to Germany, where, impressed with those unclerestoried churches to which I have alluded, the idea may have been conceived of securing a stately and spacious building suitable to the requirements of such a great preaching order as the Augustinian, and at the same time an economical one. Whether the career of Abbot Knowle was too brief to achieve his design, or whether adequate funds were not forthcoming, or whether it was hindered by the increasing distractions of the kingdom at this period, cannot be decided, possibly these causes in conjunction. Five years before Knowle's death the miserable career of Edward II. came to a violent termination in the neighbouring Berkeley Castle, and the body of the murdered monarch would have been conveyed to Bristol for interment within the walls of Fitzhardinge's monastery, but that the abbot's fear of Queen Isabella and her party constrained him to refuse its sepulture. Possibly had this been granted, the offerings of pilgrims at the shrine of a monarch whom a strange popular devotion had elevated to the BRISTOL 269 rank of a martyr, and which were poured instead into the treasury of the more courageous abbot of Gloucester, would have supplied means for the magnificent completion of the ecclesiastical buildings here, had funds been needed. To Snow, Knowle's successor in the abbacy, we may assign the double chantry chapel at the south- east, and the Newton chapel at the south-west angle of the choir, to whose date, 1332-41, maybe attributed such signs indicative of the approach of the last great Gothic age as a thinness of detail and a flamboyantising tendency in the tracery. John Newland or Nailheart transmuted the Norman tower piers into Perpendicular between 1481 and 1 5 1 5, rearing upon them that massive central tower which, taken in conjunction with the modern pair at the west end, endows the mass with an air of great dignity. Then came the dissolution of the house, and, according to the best authorities, the destruc- tion between 1539 and 1542 of the Norman nave, when all hopes of re-erecting it passed away. Houses were subsequently built upon its site, which they occupied until 1835, when the Chapter, having in mind the riots and incendiarism of 183 1, and dreading the consequences which their proximity to the cathedral might entail upon it, caused them to be removed. The choir has seven bays, with five of which the aisles are co-extensive. The remaining two project beyond, and the view eastward is closed by a window of nine lights, with curvilinear tracery, well thrown up in the wall, and filled with stained glass, a considerable quantity of which is coeval, care- 272 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND screen was sacrificed — its mutilated fragments being banished to the cloisters, where they may still be seen — the sixteenth-century stalls supple- mented and moved a bay further eastward, and the organ-case, which the authorities had the sense to preserve, placed above them on the north side, though to suit its altered position, bereft of the royal and episcopal insignia surmounting its towers. The choir organ-case shown in Wild's view was discarded in 1861 in favour of a new Gothic one that assorts ill with the Caroline work of the great organ-case which it flanks in the next bay eastward. Across the eastern arch of the tower a meaningless screen of stone and marble was built, and the two western bays of the choir thus shut off from the crossing were seated with chairs placed parochial fashion. No screens were erected between this western portion of the choir and its aisles, so that the appearance of the whole reminded one of a field with a gate but no hedges. Sir Gilbert Scott had been consulted several times on the subject of rearranging the choir at Bristol, but the Dean and Chapter having acted upon the principle of taking advice and then reserving to themselves the right of doing as they pleased, he repudiated all connection with a work which, now that it has been to a considerable extent undone, is willingly forgotten. Early in 1868 the foundation stone of the new nave was laid. The work made rapid progress, and would have reached completion much sooner than it did but for an outburst of Protestant fury, provoked by BRISTOL 273 the statues of the Four Latin Doctors with which Redfern — who perhaps overstepped the limits of prudence in regard to certain accessories — had equipped the niches on either side the great northern portal. In the Spring of 1876 these effigies were rudely dislodged, to the distress of all devout- minded persons, and to the grief of the sculptor, whose death, two months afterwards, was attributed by some to this unseemly occurrence, and replaced subsequently by the present uninterestingly respect- able ones of the Four Evangelists. The rejected statues found a home on the tower of East Heslerton Church, one of a large number built or restored by Street through the munificence of Sir Tatton Sykes amid the Yorkshire Wolds. This unfortunate affair not only threw the city into a state of ferment, but led to the disruption of the Building Committee, the estrangement of many friends to the work, and its subsequent stoppage for a short time. However, after some delay, the necessary funds having been collected, the works were resumed and the nave opened on 23rd October 1877. Since then, works of reparation and embellishment too numerous to particularise, have been prosecuted in various parts of the cathedral both ancient and modern, including an excellent commencement of painted glass by Hardman in the nave, the completion of the western towers under the late Mr J. L. Pearson, and the present sumptuous fitting of the choir from the same able hands. Not a few of these works may be traced back to the revival of Church life in Bristol consequent upon S 274 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND its becoming once more (viz. in 1898) the actual seat of a bishop, the See having been suppressed in 1836 on the translation of Dr Allen to Ely, and united to Gloucester. WORKS CONSULTED IN THE PREPARA- TION OF THIS VOLUME Bentham's (James) "Antiquities of the Conventual and Cathedral Church of Ely" (1771). Billings' (R. W.) "Architectural Illustrations and Descrip- tions of the Cathedral Church at Durham" (1843). Brixton's (John) "Cathedrals of Bristol (1830), Hereford (1831), and Worcester" (1835). Dodsworth's (William) "Cathedral Church of Salisbury" (1814). Ferrey's (Benjamin) "Recollections of Pugin" (1861). Millers' (George) "Description of the Cathedral Church of Ely" (1834). Murray's Handbooks to the English Cathedrals (1861-80). Scott's (Sir Gilbert) "Lectures on Mediaeval Architecture" (1879). Scott's (Sir Gilbert) " Personal and Professional Recollec- tions" (1879). Scott's (Sir Gilbert) Various Reports on Cathedrals. Stephen's (Very Rev. Dean) "Memorials of the See of Chichester" (1876). Street's (G. E.) " Lectures on Architecture ; " and Various Papers on Ecclesiological Subjects (1850-81). West's (John E.) "Cathedral Organists— Past and Present" (1899). «75 276 WORKS CONSULTED Wild's (Chas.) "Cathedrals of Chester (1813), Lincoln (1819), and Worcester" (1823). Willis' (Browne) "Surveys of Cathedrals " (1715-60). Willis' (Professor) Various Lectures and Papers (1840-75). The Ecclesiologist (1841-68). The Gentleman^ s Magazine (1760- 1860). The Architect (1869-1905). Autograph Letters, mostly addressed to Miss Maria Hackett (d. 1874), who devoted her life to the amelioration and education of cathedral choristers ; and to William Hawes of St Paul's Cathedral and the Chapel Royal (d. 1846) : in the possession of Mr John S. Bumpus. INDEX Alban, St, rival shrine of, at Ely, 72 Angel Choir at Lincoln, 120 Anglo-Saxon churches, 10 Anson, Dean, of, Chester, 247 Apse, disuse of, in Eng- land, 4 Apses at Chester, 6 Architectural literature, 29 Harrington, Bishop, of Durham, 54 ; of Salis- bury, 156 Belfries, detached, at Chichester, 244; Salis- bury, 1 59 ; Worcester, 179 Bells, at Lincoln, 127; Worcester, 179 Bentham, James, anti- quary, 90 Blomfield, Bishop, of Chester, 260 Bristol Cathedral, 264 ancient portions, 265 nave, 266 ; choir, 269 stalls and organ, 270 sculpture in north porch, 273 Britton, John, antiquary, 27 Burges, William, archi- tect, 155 Carileph, Bishop of Durham, 37 Carpenter, Richard, archi- tect, 235 Carter, John, antiquary, 25,55 Cathedrals of England and the Continent con- trasted, 4 Chandler, Dean, of Chi- chester, 231 Chapter-houses : Durham, 55; Lincoln, 124; Salis- bury, 1 54 ; Worcester, 183 277 278 INDEX Chester Cathedral, 246 plan, 247 ; history, 248 nave, 249; choir, 251 Lady Chapel, 253, 261 choir-stalls, screen and organ, 254; re-opening services, 257 ; St Wer- burgha's shrine, 258 ; south transept and tower, 263 Chichester Cathedral, 223; Norman work, 224 ; retrochoir, 225 ; nave and aisles, 227; Lady Chapel, 227 ; south transept window, 228 ; cloisters, 229 ; Sher- burne's additions, 230 ; Bernardi's paintings, 231 ; Dean Chandler, 231; restorations under Carpenter, 235 ; fall of spire, 238 ; its restora- tion, 240 ; organ, 241 ; reredos, 242 ; recent works, 243; dimensions, 244 Choir-screens and stalls : Bristol, 270 ; Chester, 255; Chichester, 230; Durham, 51 ; Ely, 82, 90, 94 ; Hereford, 215; Lincoln, 128; Salis- bury, 157; Worcester, 189, 193 Clayton, Mr J. R., artist, 236 Cloisters: Lincoln, 123; Salisbury, 153; Wor- cester, 182 Complete Gothic style, 15; in Cambridgeshire, 78 Copes at Durham, 48 Cosin, Bishop, of Durham, 56 Cottingham, L. N., archi- tect, 213 Crocker, Charles, verger at Chichester, 233 Defoe, Daniel, on Dur- ham, 49 ; on Ely, 90 Dickson, Precentor, of Ely, 96 Durham Cathedral, 35 ; history, 36; plan and style, 37; Galilee chapel, 38 ; western towers, 39 ; Nine Altars, 40 ; choir, 43 ; vaulting, 44 ; later additions, 44 ; altar- screen and throne, 45 ; central tower, 47; copes, 48 ; choir-stalls and organ, 51 ; musical as- sociations, 52 ; Wyatt's vandalisms, 53 ; Chap- ter-house, 55 ; stained glass, 59 Dykes, Rev. J. B., of Durham, 52 Early English Style, 14; in Cambridgeshire, 73 INDEX 279 Eastern transepts, 117, 149, 166, 209 Ecclesiologist, the, 32 Ely Cathedral, 65 ; origin under St Etheldreda, 66 ; derivation of word " tawdry," 6^ ; history, 68 ; plan of Norman church, 70 ; Galilee porch, 71 ; presbytery, 72 ; rival shrine of St Alban, 72 ; dedication of completed cathedral, 74 ; Lady Chapel, 75 ; fall of Norman tower and construction of octagon, 76; fourteenth- century work in choir, yj'^ alterations in roofs, 80 ; choir - stalls, 82 ; triforia, 83 ; western tower, 83 ; Perpen- dicular additions, 85 ; cathedral under Refor- mation, 86 ; incense in eighteenth century, 87 ; Defoe's description, 89 ; repairs and alterations under Essex, 90 ; re- storations under Dean Peacock and Sir G. G. Scott, 92 ; musical associations, 96; stained glass, 100 ; paintings in nave and octagon, 108 Essex, James, architect, 7i»90. 132 Essex, R. H., artist, 91 Etheldreda, St, 66 Eustachius, Bishop, of Ely, 71 FOSSOR, Prior, of Dur- ham, 44 France, use of apse in, 6 Freeman, Archdeacon, on church architecture, i Gerente, H. and A., stained glass by, 103 Germany, use of apse in, 7 Goodrich, Bishop, of Ely, 86 Goodwin, Dean, of Ely, 77. 107 Gothic architecture, great variety of, 7 Gothic Revival, the, 22 Hackett, Miss Maria, on the service at Salis- bury, 162 Hawes, William, discovers Hereford Antiphon- arium, 141 Hearne, T., artist, 211 Hereford Cathedral, 198 ; history, 199; character- istics, 2(X>; nave arcades, 201 ; procession path and Lady Chapel, 204 ; clerestory of choir, 205 ; north transept, 205 ; Cantilupe shrine, 207 ; w 280 INDEX Hereford Cathedral — continued — south transept, 208 ; fourteenth-century ad- ditions, 208 ; tower, 209 ; old west front, 210; restorations by Cottingham and Scott, 213; choir-screen, 216 ; reredos, 217; reopen- ing services, 218; Sir F. Gore Ouseley, 218; musical associations, 221 Hereford Office Books, discovery of, 141 Hook, Dean,of Chichester, 240 Hotham, Bishop, of Ely, 79 Howson,Dean, of Chester, 247, 250 Hugh, St, Bishop of Lincoln, 114 Hussey, R. C, architect, 254 Incense, use of, at Ely, 87 KiNGSLEY, Canon, of Chester, 251 Knowle, Abbot, of Bristol, 265 Lady Chapels, positions of, 171 Laudian epoch, Durham Cathedral during, 48 Le Strange, Styleman, artist, 109 Lincoln Cathedral, 113; history, 114; St Hugh's work, 115; west front, 118; nave, 119; Angel Choir, 120; sculpture, 122 ; cloisters, 123 ; Chapter - house, 124; central tower, 126 ; western towers, 127; bells, 127; choir-stalls, 129 ; organ, 131 ; rere- dos, 132 ; stained glass, 135 Mawson, Bishop, of Ely, 91 Melsonby, Prior, of Durham, 40 Merewether, Dean, of Hereford, 141, 203 Milner, Bishop, antiquary, 26 Musical associations of Chester, 256 ; Chiches- ter, 234, 241 ; Durham, 48, 50, 52; Ely, 96; Hereford, 220; Lincoln, 131; Worcester, 194, 196 New Foundation, ca- thedrals of the, 8 Nine Altars, chapel of, at Durham, 40 INDEX 281 Norman era, 12 Northwold, Bishop,of Ely, 71 Octagon, the, at Ely, 65, 76, 109 Old Foundation, cathe- drals of the, 8 Old Sarum, cathedral at, 145 Organs, at Bristol, 270 ; Chester, 256 ; Chiches- ter, 241 ; Durham, 56 ; Ely, 97, 98 ; Hereford, 215 ; Lincoln, 131 ; Salisbury, 160; Wor- cester, 194 Ouseley, Sir F. Gore, 196, 218 Parker, J. H., antiquary, 31 Peacock, Dean, of Ely, 92, 106 Pearson, J. L., architect, 136 Perkins, E. A., architect, 174, 184 Perpendicular style, 16 Pointed styles, variety of, 7 Poore, Bishop, of Durham, 41 ; of Salisbury, 145 Pudsey, Bishop, of Dur- ham, 38 Pugin, A. W., architect, 57,83,211 Redfern, F., sculptor, 151,273 Reformation, the,influence on church building, 17 Reredoses : Chichester, 242 ; Hereford, 217 ; Worcester, 191 Revival of Gothic, 22 Rickman, Thomas, archi- tect, 30 Ridel, Bishop, of Ely, 70 Roof paintings : Chiches- ter, 230 ; Ely, 108 ; Salisbury, 164; Wor- cester, 190 Salisbury Cathedral, 138; St Osmund and "Use of Sarum," 138; Old Sarum Cathedral, 145 ; consistent style of present cathedral, 147 ; spire, 149 ; west front, 150 ; statuary, 151 ; cloisters, 153 ; Chapter- house, 1 54 ; its restora- tion, 155; alterations in choir under Bishops Hume and Barrington, 1 56 ; stained glass, 1 57 ; destruction of cam- panile, 159 ; organ, 161; Bishop's Boy, 162 ; re- storations under Scott, 163 ; roof paintings in choir, 164 282 INDEX Sarum, Old, cathedral of, 145 Sarum Use, 138 Scott, Sir Gilbert, archi- tect, 47, 93, 163, 188, 208, 255, 272 Screens, 57 Seffrid,Bishop, of Chiches- ter, 224 Sherburne, Bishop, of Chichester, 228 Simeon, Abbot, of Ely, 68 Slater, W., architect, 238 Stained glass : Bristol, 269, 273 ; Chester, 254, 262, 263 ; Chichester, 227, 229, 233, 235; Durham, 59 ; Ely, 89, 100 ; Hereford, 206, 222 ; Lincoln, 135 ; Salisbury, 158; Wor- cester, 174, 185, 186 Street, G. E., architect, 266 Tenbury, St Michael's College, 219 Transition Style, 13 Turton, Bishop, of Ely, 95 Wailes, Wm., artist in stained glass, loi, 235 Walpole, Horace, and Gothic, 24 Walsingham, Alan of, 75 Wessington, Prior, of Durham, 46 Werburgha, St, 258 Wild, Charles., artist, 92 Willis, Prof., 198, 238, 239 Worcester Cathedral, 166; plan and external ap- pearance, 166 ; history, 167 ; St Wulfstan, 168 ; Lady Chapel, 171 ; choir, 173; east window, 174 ; nave, 175 ; Jesus Chapel, 177; tower, 178; bells, 179 ; campanile, 179 ; transepts, 180 ; crypt, 181 ; cloisters, 1 82 ; Chapter - house, 183 ; restorations under Perkins and Scott, 184 ; stained glass, 174, 185, 186 ; natural poly- chromy, 180, 183, 185 ; west door and window, 186 ; choral arrange- ments, 189, 193 ; rere- dos, 191 ; Prince Arthur's Chantry, 192 ; King John's tomb, 192 ; organ, 194 ; musical associations, 196 Wren, Sir C, 18, 89 Wulfstan, St, Bishop of Worcester, 168 Wyatt, James, architect, 26, 53, 157,210 AT TMS BSINBOXCM rRBSS, 9 AND II TOUNC STKBBT THE CATHEDRAL SERIES. 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