The Project Gutenberg eBook, English Cathedrals Illustrated, by Francis Bond

ELY: NORTH AISLE OF CHOIR.

ENGLISH
CATHEDRALS
ILLUSTRATED

BY
FRANCIS BOND
M.A., F.G.S., Hon. A.R.I.B.A.

SECOND AND REVISED EDITION

ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS

London
GEORGE NEWNES, LIMITED
SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND
1900

PRINTED BY
HAZELL, WATSON, AND VINEY, LD.,
LONDON AND AYLESBURY.

Introduction.

SOUTHWELL CHOIR SCREEN.

The following pages are an attempt to make the study of the English cathedrals more interesting. Every ancient building has a life-history of its own, and should be studied biographically. But open a guide-book, or visit the different portions of a cathedral (Winchester, for example,) in the regulation order, and what you read of or see will probably be, first, what was done in the nave in the latter part of the fourteenth and in the fifteenth century; then the work done in the crossing in the twelfth century; then work done in the transepts in the eleventh century; then the work in the choir in the first half of the fourteenth century; then the work done in the retro-choir early in the thirteenth century; finally, sixteenth-century work in the Lady chapel. To the reader this hop, skip, and jump method—if it deserves to be called a method—is simply maddening. For the visitor it has one merit, and one merit only: it saves his legs. I do not propose to save the visitor’s legs; I must candidly confess that the biographical method of studying a cathedral involves a certain amount of marching and countermarching. But I venture to hope that there are some visitors who will not be deterred by a little additional bodily fatigue from studying the cathedrals aright. With what horror a reader would study a biography of the Great Duke which commenced with the Peninsular War, then described his school-days at Eton, followed these up by the battle of Waterloo, digressed into a description of his childhood and ancestry, described his career as a Tory Prime Minister, and wound up with his campaigns in India! Yet that is how the English cathedrals are studied.

SOUTHWELL CHOIR.

But it is not sufficient to study the different parts of a cathedral in chronological order. It would be a dull biography of a man, and a dull history of a people, which put events correctly in chronological order, but did not point out the causal connection between them. It is just when we reach this point that the real interest begins. It does not interest one much to hear that an acquaintance whom we saw in London in the spring is now in the Australian bush: it does interest one when one hears that he had to leave the country because three months ago he was detected cheating at cards. So, in a cathedral, it is not enough to know that such a vault was put up or such a row of windows inserted in the fifteenth century. We want to know why the cathedral people constructed the vault or the windows just then; also, why they were not satisfied with what was there before; also, what was there before. And with the latter query comes in a fine field of action for what I believe is called the “constructive imagination.”

On the motives which influenced mediæval builders I have laid considerable stress throughout the book, simply because, if it has occurred at all to writers to ask why such and such a change was made, the answer usually has been—I quote from an article on one of the cathedrals—“simply a desire for what was thought a far superior kind of beauty led to the alteration of this work”: i.e., the Gothic builders were æsthetic dilettanti, striving after prettiness for prettiness’ sake; on a level with painters and poets and musicians. Now, some changes were due, I admit, to æsthetic considerations simply: e.g., the substitution of the present choir for the former Transitional choir at York; so also one of every pair of towers at the west end of a cathedral; and every spire in the country.

SOUTHWELL CHAPTER-HOUSE.

But the more the history of the cathedrals is studied, the more clearly it will be seen that the great majority of the alterations in the structure were forced on the ecclesiastical authorities of the day by practical considerations.

The monastery was large, as at Canterbury, and the church the seat of an archbishop; Lanfranc’s short choir had to be replaced by a longer one.

Saint-worship increased; pilgrimages increased; pilgrims came in thousands and tens of thousands. They could not be accommodated in the crypts as before: room had to be found on the floor of the choir for shrines transferred from the crypt; and aisles had to be constructed round the shrines, that there might be a free passage, and no dangerous block in the stream of pilgrims. For the local Saint—the St. Thomas of Canterbury, the St. Hugh of Lincoln—accommodation on a vast scale had to be provided. But beside the local saints, there were the great saints of the Church; for them special chapels, with altars, had to be provided, either in a new eastern transept or in aisles added to the central transept. There was, moreover, especially in the first half of the thirteenth century, a great outburst of Mariolatry. For these reasons, then—what we may call ritualistic reasons—vast eastern extensions were made in nearly every cathedral.

But the original Norman cathedrals were not only small and inconvenient to the east, but they were throughout very badly lighted; a very large amount of history, as I have tried to point out in speaking of Gloucester, Hereford, and Norwich, consists of attempts to improve the lighting of the cathedral. Sometimes, indeed, the improvement took the shape of total destruction of the old gloomy church, and its replacement by a brilliantly illuminated successor, as at York. Connected with this was the mania for an increased acreage of stained glass—an æsthetic motive which, however, had its practical side; the stained glass justifying itself to the monks and canons as providing a series of lessons in Scripture history or Church history.

Many changes were due to damage from fire or storm, or to jerry-building. The clerestory of Norwich had to be rebuilt because it had been crushed by the fall of the spire. The Norwich monks were driven to fireproof the whole church, because fires in 1463 and 1509 showed them the necessity of it, by burning down successively the wooden roofs, first of the nave and choir, then of the transept. I am sure that if our documentary evidence were not so deplorably incomplete, we should find that very many other alterations were due to the effect of fire and tempest: in which case the list of æsthetic changes would be yet further cut down—e.g., we might find after all that York choir had to be rebuilt for some purely matter-of-fact reason.

Add to these causes the frequent collapses due to mediæval jerry-building, both Norman and Gothic. Many central towers collapsed—e.g., at Winchester, Ripon, Wells, Ely, Peterborough, Lincoln; and doubtless there were collapses of many others, of which we have no record. Hence, for example, the fourteenth-century choir of Ely. Whole sections of a cathedral tumbled down—e.g., in St. Alban’s nave. The early masonry was but skin-deep; inside the thin casing of masonry the core of piers and walls alike had crumbled into powder; foundations were insufficient, or were simply omitted. The object was, but too often, not to build soundly, but to build a bigger church than the rival over the way, and to hurry it up as quickly as possible. Hence the shocking building done by the Peterborough people in their rivalry with Ely.

A considerable amount of space has been devoted to what is called the ichnography of the cathedrals—their ground-plans. It has not been possible to insert plans in the book; it seemed hardly desirable to do so. The Builder has published valuable plans, on a large scale, of all the cathedrals; they can be obtained separately, with the accompanying letterpress and illustrations. The student should never visit a cathedral without one of these plans. (I may add that he should always have a binocular to study the detail, much of which—e.g., the bosses—is quite out of the reach of the unaided eye.)

As regards the nomenclature of the parts of a cathedral, it may be useful to mention that the high altar is to the east; and that, facing the east, the visitor has the south transept and south aisles on his right, and the north transept and north aisles on his left hand. Standing at the altar or the choir-screen, and looking down the nave to the great doors, he has the north transept and north aisle of the nave on his right, and the south transept and south aisle of the nave on his left.

SOUTHWELL CHAPTER-HOUSE.

The western limb of the cathedral is called the nave. The term “choir” is sometimes loosely applied to the whole of the eastern limb. Strictly it applies just to that part of the church where the stalls are; and that part, as in St. Alban’s and Norwich, need not necessarily be in the eastern limb at all, but in the crossing and in the easternmost bays of the nave.

In a cathedral with a fully-developed plan,—e.g., St. Alban’s or Winchester—the following ritualistic divisions will be met with in passing from west to east:—(1) The nave; (2) the choir; (3) the sanctuary; (4) the retro-choir, containing (a) processional aisle, (b) Saint’s chapel, (c) ante-chapel or vestibule to the Lady chapel; (5) Lady chapel. Sometimes these ritualistic divisions correspond with the architectural divisions of the church; sometimes they do not: e.g., the ritualistic divisions of the eastern limbs of York and Lincoln were not shown in the structure, but merely marked off by screens, most of which have been destroyed.

Much time and trouble have been spent in the endeavour to correct the current chronology of the cathedrals. The subject is a difficult one; suffice it to say that I have relied rather on architectural than on documentary evidence. “In the earlier days of archæological study the tendency was to discredit the former and to accept the latter; in these days the results of strict analytical investigation and comparison of the minor details of the buildings of the Middle Ages dispose us to place much more reliance upon this species of internal evidence than on even the most unequivocal assertions of ecclesiastical historians.” The inductive reasoning based on the former is safer than the possibly hearsay or downright mendacious testimony of the latter. In all cases, however, where I have departed from an accepted chronology, I have given my reasons: e.g., in the chapters on Hereford and Wells.

As a rule, I have refrained from describing architectural detail. The visitor to the cathedral does not need the description; the reader does not need it, if he has an illustration before him; if he has not, no amount of verbiage will make clear to him what, for instance, a bay of the Angel triforium of Lincoln is like.

SOUTHWELL CHAPTER-HOUSE.

On the other hand, I have ventured on perilous ground in attempting to criticise design. Where the old builders seem to me to have done bad design, I have not scrupled to say so. Indiscriminate admiration of old work is as bad as indiscriminate censure of new work: both are fatal to the training of a right perceptive faculty. The student of design must compare and weigh and judge; he must not be misled by local enthusiasm to put St. Hugh’s choir at Lincoln on the level of Ely presbytery, or York nave on the level of that of Exeter. I may add that I have laid more stress than, perhaps, is usual, on proportion, as a leading factor in architectural effect.

I have followed the convenient custom of ascribing the design of different parts of the cathedrals to various bishops and abbots and priors. Such names, however, are merely convenient chronological fixtures, not intended to signify that the dignitaries of the church personally designed and erected them, but simply that they were in office when the work was done.

On the vexed question of architect v. master-mason, I may say that, just as I find it easier to believe in one Homer than in many Homers, so, in contemplating such a poem in stone as the west front of Peterborough or the retro-choir of Wells, I find it easier to believe in one inspired architect than in a crowd of inspired clerks of the works.

I have gratefully to acknowledge my obligations to the “Cathedral Handbooks” of Mr. John Murray, and to the Builder series of cathedrals; and to the brilliant word-painting of Mrs. Van Rensselaer in her “Handbook of Twelve English Cathedrals.”

All the English cathedrals have been studied on the spot; but I had the misfortune to lose the whole of my notes and the greater part of the completed MS., so that the work must be less accurate than I had hoped. Complete accuracy, however, is impossible in dealing with a subject so vast. It is impossible even to know a single cathedral. As has been finely said by Mr. Fergusson: “Not only is there built into a mediæval cathedral the accumulated thought of all the men who had occupied themselves with building during the preceding centuries, but you have the dream and aspiration of the bishop, abbot, or clergy for whom it was designed; the master-mason’s skilled construction; the work of the carver, the painter, the glazier, the host of men who, each in his own craft, knew all that had been done before them, and had spent their lives in struggling to surpass the works of their forefathers. It is more than this: there is not one shaft, one moulding, one carving, not one chisel-mark in such a building, that was not designed specially for the place where it is found, and which was not the best that the experience of the age could invent for the purposes to which it is applied; nothing was borrowed; and nothing that was designed for one purpose was used for another. A thought or a motive peeps out through every joint; you may wander in such a building for weeks or for months together, and never know it all.”

SOUTHWELL CHAPTER-HOUSE.

I trust that this attempt to open the way to understand and enjoy more fully the highest achievement of the English race in any branch of art—our mediæval architecture—may be helpful not only to English students, but to our American cousins also, who—so the vergers assure me—are the best-informed and most appreciative visitors to our cathedrals.

The initials which appear at the foot of the various illustrations indicate the names of the photographers whose negatives have been used. Thus:—B. and S.B. = S. B. Bolas & Co.; B. & Co. = J. Bulbeck & Co.; P. = The Photochrom Co.; W. = F. Wetherman & Co., Ltd.; R. = Rock Bros., Ltd.; A.F. = Mr. Arnold Fairbairns.

CLASSIFICATION OF THE CATHEDRALS.

Thirteen Cathedrals of the Old Foundation (Pre-Conquest).—Bangor, Chichester, Exeter, Hereford, Lichfield, Lincoln, Llandaff, London, St. Asaph, St. David’s, Salisbury, Wells, York. These were served by secular canons. Not being served by monks, they required none of the monastic buildings, except the chapter-house. Some, however, have cloisters. The establishments of these cathedrals were not suppressed, as were other ecclesiastic colleges, at the Reformation.

Thirteen Cathedrals of the New Foundation.—

(a) Pre-Reformation Sees. Seven cathedrals attached to Benedictine monasteries—viz., Canterbury, Durham, Ely, Norwich, Rochester, Winchester, Worcester; one, Carlisle, attached to a house of Augustinian canons.

(b) Sees founded by Henry VIII., who converted into cathedrals three Benedictine churches—viz., Chester, Gloucester, and Peterborough; and two Augustinian churches—viz., Bristol and Oxford.

All the above thirteen churches ceased at the Reformation to be served by monks or regular canons, and received a new foundation of dean and secular canons.

Eight Victorian Cathedrals.—Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Ripon, St. Albans, Southwell, Truro, Wakefield.

Eleven Churches of Benedictine Monks.—Canterbury, Chester, Durham, Ely, Gloucester, Norwich, Peterborough, Rochester, Winchester, Worcester, St. Albans.

Four Churches of Regular Canons of the Augustinian Order.—Bristol, Carlisle, Oxford, Ripon.

Two Collegiate Churches of Secular Canons.—Manchester, Southwell.

Four Parochial Churches.—Liverpool, Newcastle, Truro, Wakefield.

Contents.

PERIODS OF ENGLISH ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE.

The above classification is, in the main, that of Mr. Sharpe’s “Seven Periods of English Architecture.”

The Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity, Bristol.

Bristol Cathedral was originally a church of the Regular Canons of the Augustinian Order, who settled at Bristol in 1142. In 1542, like the Augustinian churches of Carlisle and Oxford, it became a cathedral. In 1836 the see was united to that of Gloucester: it has recently resumed its independent status.

I. Late Norman.—The choir and transepts of the cathedral were almost wholly rebuilt in the fourteenth century; but here and there the original work of the founder, Robert Fitzhardinge, survives. This includes (1) the end wall of the south transept, which contains a doorway, afterwards blocked up, when the south aisle of the Norman nave was constructed with a doorway into it from the north-east corner of the cloister. Inside the transept is a Norman cushion-corbel, supporting a later Perpendicular capital. (2) Outside the south transept are flat pilaster buttresses at the angles; the set-off of the ancient parapet; and a plain gable window, set in a rough wall, on which may be seen the weathering of the original steep roof. (3) The coursed masonry below the big window of the north transept. (4) The lower part of the tower-piers; for their Perpendicular mouldings, as in the earlier remodelling of Winchester nave, are such as could be developed out of a Norman compound pier. (5) The corbels in the staircase on the north side of the choir. (6) The gatehouse to the Abbot’s lodgings.

THE CHAPTER-HOUSE.

II. Transitional.—About 1145 innovations began to be made in Anglo-Norman Romanesque. Among other things the pointed arch was introduced; at first chiefly in arches supporting central towers or vaults. In 1155 the founder received a grant of the forfeited estates of Roger de Berkeley; and, owing to this vast accession of wealth, was able to finish his Norman and Transitional work with exceptional richness. (1) In the Vestibule to the Chapter-house, the bays being oblong, pointed arches were used on the short sides of each bay, so that their crowns might rise to the same height as those of the semicircular arches on the longer sides, as the builders thought was demanded by the requirements of vaulting. In the same way, beneath the central towers of Oxford Cathedral and Bolton Priory, pointed arches were built over the narrow transepts; while over the broader nave and choir the semicircular arch was employed. (2) The Chapter-house, as in most monastic establishments, e.g., Gloucester, Canterbury, Oxford, Chester, was oblong; the more beautiful polygonal form being more in favour in cathedrals served by Secular Canons. It was originally 71 by 25 feet. The vast scale of these conventual arrangements, here and elsewhere, is exceedingly striking. The monks of St. Albans thought that their church required a nave 300 feet long; the six canons of Bristol must have been lost in a Chapter-house 71 feet long. The recessed arcades round the walls here and at Worcester are interesting; simple as they are, they are the germs of the beautiful arcades of canopied niches round the Chapter-houses of York and Wells and the Lady Chapel of Ely. Here is preserved a fine piece of archaic sculpture (see Chichester). (3) Exceedingly rich, too, is the lower part of the Great Gateway in College Green; “its courses, however, are nearly double the height of Norman masonry; the hood-moulds of all the arches are perpendicular, and at the crown of each arch are mitred into a perpendicular string-course; which, with the high finish of the ornament, points to the gateway having been wholly rebuilt in Perpendicular times”; in which case, like the eastern bay of the triforium of Rochester, it is an early example of “architectural forgery.” Fitzhardinge’s nave and aisles seem to have been pulled down in the sixteenth century with a view to rebuilding; which, however, was not carried out till 1877.

ELDER LADY CHAPEL.

III. Lancet.—Early in the thirteenth century a beautiful Lady chapel was built, projecting eastward from the north transept, and separated by a few feet from the north wall of the choir. The same position was adopted later for the Lady chapels of Peterborough and Ely. This chapel is the artistic gem of the cathedral; it is surrounded by arcades of the greatest beauty, with sculptured grotesques interspersed among the foliage that remind one of the rich sculptured work in the retro-choir of Worcester, which is possibly a few years earlier. Later on it received the name of the elder Lady chapel; another Lady chapel having been built in the more normal position at the extreme east of the choir.

IV. Fitzhardinge’s cathedral, supplemented by the Lady chapel, seems to have satisfied the Canons very well for the first half of the thirteenth century. But in the Early Geometrical period (1245-1280), preparations were made to improve the lighting of the north transept by the insertion of a big window in its north wall. The tracery of the present window is later; but its inner jambs, mouldings and shafts, and the external sill and string, as well as a great part of the buttresses, seem to have been executed c. 1250. About this date is the fine doorway, with a cleverly-contrived lintel, at the south end of the east walk of the Cloister.

V. In the Middle of the Geometrical period, c. 1280, the east end of the Lady chapel was rebuilt, and a window with Geometrical tracery inserted; the tracery is of early character, containing nothing but foliated circles. At the same time it received a simple quadripartite vault; and to resist the thrust of this vault, the northern buttresses were reconstructed and weighted with pinnacles. Of these pinnacles only one, at the north-east corner, remains; the others seem to have been reconstructed at the time when the pinnacles of the choir were built.

CHOIR.

VI. Curvilinear.—But the great building period at Bristol was between 1315 and 1349—that short but brilliant period when English mediæval design was at its best—which culminated in the Octagon and Lady chapel of Ely, the choir-screens of Southwell and Lincoln, and the Percy monument at Beverley. Everything east of the nave was pulled down and rebuilt de novo. And a very remarkable design it is; in fact, quite unique among our cathedrals. All other cathedral authorities had agreed long ago that the cardinal fault in all Romanesque design was its bad system of lighting, but that the remedy was to be found mainly in improving the top-lighting—i.e., in increasing the dimensions of the clerestory. Beverley clerestory had taller windows than Durham; Salisbury clerestory had three windows for every one of Beverley; Exeter spread out its windows in increasing breadth till they touched the buttresses on either side; the clerestories of the choir of Gloucester, now in course of erection, were a vast, lofty, continuous sheet of glass. But there was an alternative system of improving the lighting, which in many large churches, such as Grantham, Ledbury, and Leominster, was the result of fortuitous growth, but which in the choir of the Temple Church, London, and in Patrington Church now in course of erection, was the result of deliberate design. It was to magnify the aisles at the expense of the nave, to lift them up so high that windows of vast height could be placed in their walls, to dispense with a clerestory altogether, and to give to the pier-arcade of the nave the additional height gained by the suppression of the clerestory. It was to substitute side-lighting for top-lighting; to rely exclusively on the flood of light passing from vast, lofty aisle windows into the nave through its elevated arches. Hence the big windows of Bristol choir, each representing a pair of windows; the lower half the usual small window of an aisle, the upper half the larger window stolen from the clerestory.

BERKELEY CHAPEL.

But the new design had another merit, which probably weighed still more with the Bristol builders. The cardinal difficulty of the mediæval builders was how to keep up on the top of lofty clerestory walls a heavy stone vault which was always striving to push them asunder. They succeeded at length in keeping the clerestory walls from being thrust out by propping them up with flying-buttresses, perilously exposed, however, to all the vicissitudes of English weather. But there was another solution of the problem, which had been worked out in the thirteenth century in the Temple Church, and in the twelfth century in many a church in central and southern France, such as the old cathedral of Carcassonne. It was to stop the outward thrusts of the nave vault not by the inert resistance of buttress, pinnacle, and flying-buttress, but by bringing into play opposing thrusts—i.e., the inward thrusts of vaults built over the aisles. But to make these outward and inward thrusts balance and neutralise one another, the aisle vaults must be of pretty much the same height and span as those of the nave. The nave must be lowered or the aisles must be raised, or both. At Bristol the architect has preferred to raise the aisles. Then, the stability of the nave vault being secured, all the builder has to do is to stop the outward thrusts of the vaults of the aisles. This it is easy enough to do by a row of buttresses weighted with pinnacles. So Bristol Cathedral, to eyes accustomed to contemporary cathedrals, presents the strange solecism of having neither clerestory nor flying-buttresses. The whole design may well have been based on that of the English cathedral at Poitiers.

VAULT OF AISLE.

The Bristol architect was an architectural Radical. When it came, however, to the question of vaulting the aisles he had not the courage of his convictions. Having constructed aisles unusually lofty and impressive, he immediately sets to work to make them look low and ordinary by a complicated, costly and unnecessary system of skeleton vaulting. He seems to have thought that without some method of reducing the apparent height of the aisles, the church would look like no other church; it would look not as if it had the ordinary aisled nave, but as if it had three naves side by side. He ought to have been thankful to have the means of making it look unlike other churches; and, as a matter of fact, a design of parallel naves has a most noble effect, as may well be seen in the nave of Warwick Church, built in the most debased Gothic of the seventeenth century, but one of the most impressive designs in the country, full of light and atmosphere.

A little later, but still in the Curvilinear period, the Berkeley chapel was built, projecting southward from the easternmost bay of the south aisle of the choir, and a sacristy by which it is approached. Here is more skeleton-vault and much elaborate carving. The Newton chapel was also built, projecting eastward from the south transept; and perhaps at the same time the simple vault of the adjacent bay of the choir aisle was put up. A curious and by no means pleasing characteristic of the Bristol fourteenth-century architecture is the series of sepulchral recesses in the walls; they remind one of the cloister doorway at Norwich.

VII. Perpendicular.—Early in the fifteenth century a central tower was added. Here again one is struck by the originality of the Bristol people; it is as beautiful as it is original. Fifteenth-century tower design rather runs in grooves. Gloucester, Evesham, Wrexham, Taunton, and the Somerset towers are cast very much in a mould. It is not so with the Bristol tower. The designer had noticed how beautiful is the effect of a close-packed range of tall clerestory windows, such as those of Leighton Buzzard Church. So, instead of restricting himself on each side of the tower to one or two windows, he inserts no less than three. The range of clerestory windows which the fourteenth-century builder refused to the choir becomes the special ornament and glory of the tower.

VIII. In 1888 the new nave and western towers were completed by Mr. Street. He can hardly be said to have made the most of his opportunities. The new work is copied closely from the old, and so is somewhat uninteresting. He had but to remedy some of the faults of the original design: to omit the ugly skeleton vaulting of the aisles, to simplify the vaulting of the choir, to discard the sepulchral recesses, to improve on the design of the windows of the choir—in which, as at Ely, flowing tracery is not seen at its best; and we should have had something original and interesting. The new nave might have been a criticism of the choir.

The Cathedral of Christ Church, Canterbury.

ST. MARTIN’S CHURCH.

The metropolitan cathedral of Canterbury owes its enthralling interest to its vastness of scale, its wealth of monuments, its treasures of early glass, the great historical scenes that have been enacted within its walls—above all, to that greatest of all historical tragedies to the mind of the mediæval Englishman, the murder of Becket. It does not owe its distinction to its architecture. Whole building periods are almost wholly unrepresented; for the century and a half when English design was at its best, the Canterbury authorities slumbered and slept. What we have is the result of two periods only, with some scraps incorporated from earlier Norman work. What is there is not of the best: the Perpendicular work can be bettered at Gloucester, Winchester, and York; the work in the choir, a foreign importation, is not equal to that of its prototype, the French cathedral of Sens. We have many heterogeneous cathedrals in England. In the rest there is ever an attempt, usually a successful attempt, as at Hereford, and Gloucester, and Wells, to weld the conflicting elements of the design into symmetry and harmony. Canterbury scornfully declines any attempt at composition. Transepts and turrets and pinnacles are plumped down anyhow and anywhere; to the east it finishes abruptly in the ruined crags of a vast round tower; to the west the towers of its façade were, till lately, as incongruous in character as in date. Externally, the lofty central tower alone gives some unity to the scattered masses; internally it is an assemblage of distinct and discordant buildings.

I. Norman.—Of the pre-Conquest cathedrals of Canterbury nothing remains, unless it be fragments of rude masonry in crypt and cloister. Of Lanfranc’s cathedral, built, together with the Benedictine monastery, between 1070 and 1077, there remains the plinth of the walls of nave and transept. In the north transept some of his small square blocks of Caen stone are well seen just above the site of the martyrdom, as well as his turret in the north-west corner. His nave was allowed to stand till the fifteenth century. The present nave and central transept are built on Lanfranc’s foundations. The Norman work has had a most deleterious effect on the later design. To preserve the Norman north-west tower of the façade, the fifteenth century nave was built too short; to preserve the lines of his transept, it was rebuilt with a projection of only one bay to north and south, and without aisles, and appears woefully shrunken when compared with the vast transept of York, or even with the twelfth century transepts of Winchester and Ely. Lanfranc’s cathedral was an unambitious building, built in a hurry; closely copied, to save time probably, both in plan and dimensions, from William the Conqueror’s abbey-church at Caen, from which Lanfranc came to rule at Canterbury.

SOUTH CHOIR AISLE.

His choir consisted of but two bays and an apse. This was altogether inadequate for the church of a big monastery, and the seat of the Primate of all England. In 1096 it was pulled down and replaced by an enormous apsidal choir, some ten bays long, with a square Saint’s chapel to the east as at Rochester, with northern and southern towers flanking the main eastern apse, and crossed midway by a big eastern transept, from each arm of which two apsidal chapels projected to the east. What was the object of this vast eastward extension? It was probably due to the increasing tendency towards sacerdotalism, to the increase of veneration for the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, and to the increase of Saint-worship. (1) In the monastic churches the monks were accustomed to sit in the crossing and in the western bays of the nave, where their stalls still remain at Norwich, Gloucester, and St. Albans. They wanted to be segregated and screened off from the laity, the sheep from the goats; the very stones of the church must preach the dignity of the priestly function. So they removed to the east, and shut themselves up in a choir of their own. (2) Secondly, they wanted a clear space for the high altar, a sanctuary for it. (3) They wanted space for many chapels and altars; not only those of the greater saints of the church, St. Mary, St. Peter, and the rest, but those saints—and they were very numerous at Canterbury—whose bodies or relics of whom were among the treasures of the cathedral—such as St. Dunstan, the destroyer of Secular Canons, and the martyred Archbishop Alphege. Crowds of pilgrims flocked to Canterbury to these shrines; room had to be found for them to pass round, to gaze for a moment at the holy relics, to say one prayer. Whatever the object of the extension, it set a precedent which was followed in the great majority of the cathedrals of England. In the latter days of the twelfth century Hereford and Chichester extended their choirs; in the thirteenth century the choirs of Lincoln, Lichfield, Worcester, Ely, and Exeter were rebuilt, and those of Winchester, Durham, and Lincoln were enlarged. In the fourteenth century those of Lichfield and Wells were enlarged, and that of York was rebuilt on a magnificent scale. Old St. Paul’s had a choir twelve bays long. Thus, till the end of the fourteenth century, the history of the English cathedrals was largely a history of the rebuilding or enlarging, or, as at Gloucester and Norwich, of the remodelling of choirs.

CAPITAL IN CRYPT.

Of “Conrad’s glorious choir” (it was commenced by Prior Ernulph c. 1096 and finished c. 1115 by Prior Conrad) a considerable amount remains. The round-arched work in the crypt is nearly all of this date, except the carving of many of the capitals, which was executed later; and from the extent of his crypt one can plot out the exact shape and dimensions of the Norman choir. Much of it is seen outside, especially in and near the south-east transept with its intersecting semicircular arcades, and the most charming little Norman tower imaginable. In the interior many Norman stones, “cross-hatched,” may be seen in the aisle-wall immediately after entering the choir-aisle by the flight of steps; the lower part of the vaulting-shaft in this wall, built of several stones and not of solid drums, as it is higher up, is also Norman. In the eastern transept the triforium occurs twice over; the upper of the two was Conrad’s clerestory. Much of Conrad’s semicircular arcade also remains on the aisle-walls.

Conrad’s choir was not only far longer than Lanfranc’s, but it had the curious peculiarity (preserved in the French choir) that it was broader than the nave, and moreover widened out as it proceeded to the east. The double apses of each of his transepts were copied by St. Hugh at Lincoln a century later. A very noble feature of Canterbury choir is its elevation, necessitated by the construction of the crypt below it. The raising of the floor adds great dignity to the choir (one misses it painfully at Bristol); and was still further added to by the French architect, so that now at Canterbury one goes eastward from height to height. We climb from the nave to the choir, from the choir to the sanctuary, from the sanctuary to the eastern chapels. One gets a bathos at Durham and Worcester, where at the east one plunges into a hole.

II. Transitional.—But Conrad’s glorious choir was destroyed by a great fire in the year 1174, amid much mediæval cursing and swearing, and the tears of all the people of Canterbury. Then the monks did an abominable thing. Instead of being satisfied with our home-bred English architecture, of which such a beautiful example was just being completed at Ripon, they sent for a foreigner. The present choir of Canterbury, like that of Westminster, was “made in France.” The only consolation one has is the fact—which is a fact—that with that stolid insularity which from the twelfth century has insisted on working out its own salvation in its own way—English architects ignored them both. The new French choir was to be a rock on which the main current of English art struck and parted asunder only to meet again on the other side. English design passed on, as if Canterbury choir had never existed, from Ripon and Chichester and Abbey Dore and Wells to Lincoln Minster. The coupled columns, the French arch-moulds, the Corinthianesque capitals of Canterbury were un-English; no one would have anything to do with them anywhere.

SOUTH-EAST TRANSEPT.

The choir, as rebuilt, was even longer than Conrad’s long choir. It has an elongated aisled apse beyond, and a curious circular chapel east of that. The former goes by the name of Trinity chapel, the latter of Becket’s corona. Becket’s first mass had been said in an older Trinity chapel; his body lay from 1170 to 1220 in the crypt below it; in 1220 he was translated to a magnificent shrine in the present Trinity chapel. The corona may perhaps have been erected to cover another shrine placed here and containing a fragment of Becket’s scalp. Sens seems to have had a similar corona.

The design of the choir is a close copy of the work at Sens, Noyon, Senlis, and the neighbouring cathedrals. Columns almost classical in proportion replace the heavy English cylinder. The coupled columns and Corinthianesque capitals of Sens are faithfully reproduced in the Trinity chapel. The choir, as at Sens, is arranged in coupled bays with sexpartite vaulting; while principal and intermediate piers, single and compound vaulting-shafts occur alternately in either choir. In unstable French fashion the vaulting-shaft is perched on the abacus. The abacus is square, except in the eastern part of the crypt. The capitals of the choir are foliated; the English moulded capital occurs only in the crypt. Each bay of the triforium in both cathedrals contains a couple of arches, each arch subdivided by a central shaft. Both cathedrals have round transverse arches in the vaulting of the aisles. The windows are not the tall slender lancets of England, but the broad squat lancets of France. The pointed arches of the apse of Trinity chapel on their tall stilts have a thoroughly French look. French, too, is the wish to dispense with a hood-mould round the pier-arches. And, as at Noyon, flying-buttresses emerge from the gloom of the triforium into the open air.

But there is another factor besides the personality of William of Sens. Having engaged a foreigner to do the work, the next step of the monks probably was to distrust him. The choir, as it appears now, bears unmistakable marks that not only William of Sens was at work, but also a British building committee. Being a Frenchman, William of Sens must have been an iconoclast, and would have liked to clear away the ruins and start de novo. His British employers, here, as in nearly all our cathedrals, parsimonious in the extreme, insisted on retaining every inch of old wall or pillar that could be utilised. The towers of St. Anselm and St. Andrew still stood, more or less stable, to the east. William therefore had to constrict his choir to pass between them. The result is the awkward twisting of the arcade and clerestory of the choir. The choir starts with becoming wider as it advances from the east; then it suddenly contracts to pass between St. Anselm’s and St. Andrew’s chapels; then it expands once more into the Trinity chapel. No Frenchman, if he had had his way, would have permitted his cathedral to be so distorted. Again, the building committee insisted on utilising the piers of Conrad’s crypt as far as possible as supports to the arcade of the choir above. The result is that the piers of the choir are not equally spaced; and the narrow arches are pointed, while the broad ones are semicircular and stilted. William must have been ashamed, too, of all the zigzag and billet ornament. But the building committee had probably a large stock of it collected from the debris after the fire, and wanted to work it off. One beautiful feature, however, is to be placed to English credit—viz., the profuse use of Purbeck marble shafts. On the whole we may take it that what we have is not William’s design as he would have wished it, but his design criticised, fettered, altered and ignored by a clerical building committee.

CHOIR.

BLACK PRINCE’S TOMB.

At the beginning of the fifth year of his work, William of Sens was seriously injured by a fall from the scaffold, and soon after returned to France. An English William was appointed to succeed him. He completed Trinity chapel, Becket’s corona, and the crypt beneath the two. It is usual to attribute to the English William an important part in the design of the eastern chapels and crypt. The facts point the other way. These eastern portions are less English and more French than the western work. There is not a single trace of English influence in the design, except solely the rounding of the abacus and the moulding of the capitals in the crypt. With these two minor exceptions, everything was completed in strict conformity with the French design.

More important even than the architecture is the ancient glass. Canterbury and York are the great treasure-houses of stained-glass: Canterbury for early thirteenth-century glass, York for fourteenth-century glass. The student should take with him to Canterbury Mr. Lewis Day’s work on Stained Glass. Three of the windows in the Trinity chapel illustrate the miracles of St. Thomas. On the north side, in the lower group of the eastern window, is the story of a child (1) who falls into the Medway, (2) the other boys tell his parents, (3) the body is drawn out of the water, cætera desunt. In the next group is the story of a boy who was brought to life by a draught of water mixed with the saint’s blood. But the father omitted to pay the offerings promised to the saint. In the central medallion another son lies dead, struck by the sword of St. Thomas, who is seen through the ceiling. In another group a woman is being flagellated by way of penance. Two other windows describe miracles of healing: in a medallion in the lower part of the western window a madman comes up, “amens accedit,” beaten with sticks and bound; in the next he is cured, “sanus recedit.” In one is the only representation extant of the later shrine; the martyr, in a mauve vestment, appears in a vision to Benedict below. On the shrine is the box, as described by Erasmus, which contained the archbishop’s sudary. In the east window of the corona is portrayed Christ’s Passion; in the two windows of the north aisle are types and antitypes from the Old and New Testaments; among them the three Magi, all asleep in one bed. The circular window in the north-east transept also contains the original glass; and many fragments are seen elsewhere.

SOUTH OF CHOIR

III. Lancet.—For this period (1190-1245) there is nothing to show except the north wall of the Cloister, and a lovely doorway in the south-east corner of the Cloister, cruelly hacked about by the vandals who built the cloister-vault.

IV. To the Geometrical period (1245-1315) belongs the Chapter-house up to the sills of the windows, and the screens north and south of the choir. A fine window with Kentish tracery was inserted in St. Anselm’s chapel.

V. Of Curvilinear work (1315-1360) there is no trace except some diaper-work in the choir, which may have adorned the shrine of St. Dunstan, who was buried at the south end of the high altar.

EAST TRANSEPT.

VI. Perpendicular (1360-1485).—At length Canterbury woke up, and removed Lanfranc’s nave and transept, which must have looked shockingly low and mean for the last two hundred years in juxtaposition with the stately choir. The new nave, built between 1379 and 1400, is very fine, but somehow no one seems to be a very ardent admirer of it. Its proportions are not good: Winchester nave is about the same height, but is 70 feet longer; York choir is loftier, and is 25 feet longer. But the gravest fault is in the internal elevation. The architect has recognised the value of tallness of pier-arch; but to get this exceptional height of pier and arch, he has sacrificed not only triforium, but clerestory as well. It is fatal to a Gothic design to minimise the clerestory. The choirs of Gloucester, Norwich, Cirencester, are the types to be followed; not the naves of Southwell or Lichfield.

To this period belong also the Black Prince’s chantry, and the screens and reredos of the Lady chapel, all in the crypt; the upper part of the chapter-house, from which all aspect of antiquity has recently been removed; the cloisters; St. Michael’s, or the Warrior’s chapel, which replaced the eastern apse of Lanfranc’s southern transept, and which has a complicated lierne vault similar in character to that of the north transept of Gloucester cathedral; the tomb and chantry of Henry IV., with fan-vaulting, 1433; the western screen at the entrance of the choir; the south-west tower; Deans’ chapel (Lady chapel), which replaced the eastern apse of Lanfranc’s northern transept (1450), and which has fan-vaulting.

CRYPT.

VII. To the Tudor period belongs the Angel or Bell Harry Tower (1495-1503), and the buttressing and arches inserted between its piers. Also the Christ Church gateway. The great tower is remarkable for the unbroken verticality of its buttresses; it is as exceptional as it is successful in design.

The Chapter-house is rectangular, for a rectangular building fitted more easily into the east walk of a monastic cloister. Nearly all the monastic chapter-houses are therefore rectangular, but sometimes had apses; the exceptions being the Benedictine chapter-houses of Worcester, Westminster, Evesham, and Belvoir (which last was exceptional also in position, being placed in the very centre of the cloister), and the Cistercian chapter-houses of Morgam and Abbey Dore, sister designs. While the Secular Canons, having as a rule no cloister, preferred a polygonal chapter-house, as at Lincoln, Beverley, Lichfield, Salisbury, Wells, Elgin, Southwell, York, Old St. Paul’s, Hereford, Howden, Manchester, Warwick. So did the Regular Canons at Alnwick, Cockersand, Thornton, Carlisle, Bridlington, and Bolton. This beautiful polygonal form seems not to occur in France.

FROM SOUTH-WEST.

At the north-west corner of the cloister is the doorway through which Becket passed to the north-west transept, with his murderers in pursuit of him. Near here is a hole in the wall, the Buttery hatch. In the fifteenth century the south walk of the cloister was divided into “studies” for the monks by wooden partitions (at Gloucester they are of stone), and its windows were glazed.

From the cloister we pass to the West Front, and commence the tour of the exterior. The south-west tower (with the Deans’ chapel) was completed by Prior Goldstone (1449-1468); the copy of it was put up in 1834: “it was an eyesore that the two towers did not match.” Very bad modern statues adorn the niches.

Later still (1517) is Christ Church Gateway, through which one first approaches the cathedral, with doors inserted in 1662. Originally it had two turrets. Outside it is a monument to the dramatist Marlowe.

NAVE.

On the south side is seen the porch; the nave, a beautiful design; and the charming pinnacle of the south-west transept. East of the Warrior’s chapel is the projecting end of Stephen Langton’s tomb. East of this, the two lower rows of windows are those of Conrad’s choir; the upper row that of William of Sens. The middle windows in the S.E. transept were the clerestory windows of Conrad; the windows above them are those of William of Sens. The three upper stages of the tower on the south of this transept are late Norman work; one of the prettiest bits in Canterbury. Farther east we have French design, pure and simple; here, for the first time in English architecture, the flying-buttresses are openly displayed; notice how flat and plain they are; it had not yet occurred to architects to make them decorative. The grand sweep of apse and ambulatory seems to send one straight back to France. Then comes the broken, rocky outline of the corona—the great puzzle of Canterbury. North-east of the corona are two groups of ruined Norman pillars and arches discoloured by fire; once they were continuous, forming one very long building, the Monks’ Infirmary, of which the west end was originally an open dormitory, open to the roof, and the east end, separated off by a screen, the Chapel; which has a late Geometrical window. A mediæval infirmary of this type is still in use at Chichester. The Canterbury infirmary had a north transept, called the Table Hall or Refectory (now part of the house of the Archdeacon of Maidstone), in which the inmates dined. On the north side of Trinity chapel is seen the Chantry of Henry IV.; then St. Andrew’s Tower and the barred Treasury; the lower part of the latter is late Norman work, largely rebuilt. The south alley of the Infirmary Cloister was built about 1236. Along this one passes to the Baptistery, which was originally nothing but a mediæval water-tower; late Norman below, Perpendicular above. Returning towards the Infirmary, we turn to the north up the east alley of the Infirmary Cloister, now called the “Dark Entry,” at the north end of which is the Prior’s Gateway. On the left are some Norman shafts and arches of beautiful design. It was the Dark Entry that was haunted by Nell Cook of the Ingoldsby Legends. West of the Prior’s gateway are the two columns from the Romano-British church at Reculvers. On the north side of the Prior’s or Green Court are the Brewery and Bakehouse; to the N.W. is the famous Norman staircase, which originally led to a great North Hall; perhaps a Casual Ward—for tramps too found accommodation at the monasteries.

The Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity, Carlisle.

FROM NORTH-WEST.

Carlisle Cathedral, though but a torso, is of exceptional interest, both archæologically and artistically. It dates from the early years of the twelfth century. It was originally the church of the Austin or Black Canons, and also the seat of a bishopric. The Augustinian Cathedral was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary; and it was re-dedicated to the Holy and undivided Trinity when placed on the New Foundation.

I. Late Norman.—The Augustinian house was founded by Henry I. in 1101, at the instigation of Queen Matilda. The Norman church consisted of an aisled nave of seven bays, a transept with eastern apses, and an aisled choir. The stones show the marks of the hatchet; the masonry is well-bonded—too good to be eleventh-century work. The corbel-tables of aisle and clerestory are particularly strong and vigorous. Norman aisles were usually vaulted; but the aisle-walls of Carlisle are so thin that they can never have supported a vault.

II. Lancet.—The lower parts of the northern and southern faces of the piers of the tower are flat: their shafts being stopped by corbels instead of descending to the ground. This was to allow the stalls of the Canons to be placed close up to the piers. Hence it is clear that in the Norman church the Canons sat, as at Norwich, in the crossing and the western bays of the nave. Like the Benedictine monks of Canterbury, they wanted to get into the choir. And so the Norman choir, being altogether inadequate to contain stalls and sanctuary, as at Canterbury, was pulled down; and a beautiful early Gothic choir of seven bays was built. Of this the vaulted aisles and the pier-arches still remain. The work is late in the Lancet period (1190-1245); for in the south aisle the Lancet windows are developing into plate-tracery, and the charming arcade on the wall is cinquefoiled. The new choir was not only far in advance of its Norman predecessor in length and height; but it was also 12 feet broader. The church could not be broadened to the south, because the cloister would prevent any removal of the wall of the south aisle, when the nave was rebuilt. So the south wall of the choir was rebuilt on the old foundations: the southern row of piers probably also rest on the foundations of the Norman piers. The central aisle of the choir was made much broader than that of the nave, with which, therefore, it is out of line; the same is the case with the north aisle of the choir.

At the same time the eastern apse of the south transept was rebuilt in the style of the day, with the crisply carved foliage of the later years of the Lancet period. The northern transept was to have been rebuilt on a more extensive scale, not being cramped as the south transept was, by monastic buildings adjacent. It was to have had an eastern aisle; but when one pier of the aisle had been built, and part of its eastern wall (a fragment of which, with string-course, survives), the work was suddenly stopped.

EAST END.

III. Curvilinear.—But hardly was the new choir completed when, together with belfry and bells, it was destroyed by a great fire, with the exception of the aisles, which were protected by their stone vaults. The Canons, not a whit disheartened, resolved to rebuild the choir, and to rebuild it even longer and loftier than before. To its length they added an eastern bay, just wide enough to provide a processional path at the back of the high altar. They increased its height to 72 feet. But the piers and walls were too thin to bear the additional weight. They increased the thickness of the aisle-walls to 5 feet; the piers they rebuilt. The thirteenth-century arches, however, which were apparently not much damaged by the fire, they managed in some inexplicable way to retain. A modern contractor would take the arches down, and then rebuild them with the old stones. A mediæval builder would be more likely to underpin the arches, take the piers away and then rebuild them without disturbing the arches at all. The old builders revelled in such engineering feats. At Exeter they retained the clerestory wall while constructing new piers and arches below it; at York they transplanted two arches in the transept. The capitals of the new piers are exceedingly rich and interesting; they contain the best mediæval representation we possess of the Seasons; six capitals on the south side from east to west, six on the north side from west to east. The corbels also of the vaulting-shafts have rich naturalistic foliage. With that respect for good earlier work that is characteristic of the Curvilinear period, and so rare at any other time, they carried the cinquefoiled arcading of the aisles round the east wall, introducing, however, the characteristic detail of the period, not to bewilder unfortunate antiquaries of later days.

Their chef-d’œuvre, however, was the east front. On this they lavished all their wealth and all their art. It is a very poem in stone. Its only rival is the contemporary east front of Selby. “The great window,” says Professor Freeman, “is the grandest of its kind in England.” It certainly has no rival, unless it be that of York. The four lateral lights on either side of the Carlisle windows are gathered up into two pointed arches; at York these two arches are ogees; the free swing of the ogee arches contrasting most effectively with the pointed arch which embraces them both. The glass in the tracery represents our Lord sitting in Judgment; the procession of the Blessed to the Palace of Heaven, shown in two silvery quatrefoils; and very realistic representations of Hell and of the General Resurrection. It contains a portrait of John of Gaunt; the window was probably glazed when he was Governor of Carlisle, 1380-84.

So far the Canons spared no expense; everything was of the best. But their resources were taxed too heavily; it was impossible to finish the choir with the magnificence with which it was commenced. Triforium and clerestory are thin and poor; the inner arcade of the latter of the barest character. The piers had been rebuilt and strengthened, apparently to support a vault; but a vault was found too expensive, and was abandoned. Then hammerbeams were constructed for a roof of the type of the magnificent roofs of March Church and Westminster Hall. This in its turn was abandoned, and the present wagon-roof of wood was put up. For similar economical reasons the south transept was rebuilt without the aisle commenced in the thirteenth century.

IV. Perpendicular (1360-1485).—But the misfortunes of the Canons were not over yet. Another fire destroyed the new north transept. This was rebuilt between 1400 and 1419 by Bishop Strickland, who built the forty-six stalls of the choir. Then came the question of the central tower and the nave. The original plan had been that, when the choir was finished, a new central tower and a new nave should be built, both of the same width as the choir. But their troubles had been too much for them. The courage of the Canons gave way. They saw no prospect of ever being able to rebuild the Norman nave; so instead of pulling down the Norman tower and building one as broad as the choir, they left it standing merely adding a new upper story to it. It is, of course, far too small for its position; and while ranging with the nave, is quite lop-sided when seen in connection with the roof of the choir; though the awkwardness is lessened, and even made picturesque, by the addition of a staircase-turret on the north side of the tower. This was about 1401.

CHOIR.

V. Tudor.—Things seem to have improved towards the end of the fifteenth century. Prior Gondebour painted the ceiling of the choir and the backs of the stalls; and to him are due the beautiful screens in the south transept chapel. He also built a grand barn with a magnificent roof of beams nearly two feet thick: much of it is still standing. The refectory also is due to him; it has a pretty pulpit for the reader, as at Beaulieu and Chester. The Gate Tower or Abbey Gate House was rebuilt in 1528.

VI. Renaissance.—Launcelot Salkeld, the last Prior and the first Dean of Carlisle, added the charming Renaissance screen on the north side of the tower.

VII. In the seventeenth century the western bays of the Norman nave were pulled down, during the Civil War, to provide materials for the repair of the city walls and guardhouses.

The Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin, Chester.

FROM SOUTH-EAST.

The cathedral of Chester had originally an establishment of Secular Canons (see Southwell and Wells.) Its patron saint was St. Werburgh, a kinswoman of St. Ethelreda of Ely. In the eleventh century it was refounded as a Benedictine monastery by that great noble Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester, who ruled the Welsh Marshes with almost regal sway. Henry VIII. made it the seat of a bishopric, which, though but a part of the ancient Mercian diocese of Lichfield, extended northwards into Yorkshire and Westmorland. Nowadays the diocese and county of Chester are coextensive.

If we proceed to the west doors, we have before us a vista of exceptional beauty. The apparent length of the interior is greatly increased by the screen thrown across it, which, however, is not so solid and lofty as to block up the vista entirely, as at Canterbury and York, nor so exiguous as the metal screens at Lichfield and Ely.

Passing under the new organ screen, we come to the most ancient work to be found in the cathedral—viz., genuine early Norman work of the eleventh century. It is to be compared with that of the south transepts of St. Albans and Hereford. Below, in the east wall, is an arch, which once led into an apse. Above is a balustraded arcade, quite of the St. Albans and Hereford type. Above, there must have been small clerestory windows, such as those built up in the opposite wall. The whole transept must have been low and humble, and is invaluable as showing us what eleventh-century work was really like, and of enabling us to realise the vast progress that had taken place in design, in masonry, and in carving by the time that Durham, Romsey, and Peterborough were built. This early transept was of one bay only. Notice how small the stones are, the gaping joints, and the irregularity of the courses.

North-West Tower.—Bearing in mind the character of this masonry, pass out into the north aisle of the nave, and proceed to the Norman tower at the end of it. The work here is clumsy and massive, but far superior to that of the north transept, c. 1120. The north wall of the nave (now covered with mosaics) is also Norman. Other traces of the Norman cathedral will be found in the north aisle of the choir, to which we retrace our steps. On the right will be seen a great circular capital upside down, which has been used as a foundation for the north-east pier of the tower. A few feet farther is one of the original circular bases, proving that the Norman choir had vast circular piers like those of Gloucester, Durham, and St. John’s, Chester. Two bays farther east will be found in the pavement a semicircular band of dark marble. This marks foundations that have been found of the apsidal ending of this aisle; one of the stones of this Norman apse remains in the pavement. Moreover, it has been found that the central aisle of the choir, at the end of the second bay from the tower, ended in a semicircular range of columns, like St. Bartholomew’s, Smithfield. From these indications we can restore the plan of the original Norman cathedral with some certainty. It had a nave and aisles of the same dimensions as the present ones; unaisled transepts, each of a single bay, and an eastern apse to each transept; perhaps a low central tower; a choir of two bays, ending in a semicircular range of columns and arches, and surrounded to the east by a semicircular ambulatory or processional path. On either side were aisles, three and a half bays long, each terminating in an eastern apse. So that the Norman cathedral had five eastern apses, and resembled in plan Gloucester and Norwich, except that the chapels of the choir-aisles of Chester point, not north-east and south-east, but due east.

NORTH TRANSEPT.

Norman Cloisters.—Returning to the north aisle of the nave we pass through the doorway at the east end of the aisle into the cloister. This doorway, as seen from the cloister, is, from its ornamentation, of later date than the north transept, and may also be about 1120. The south wall of the cloister is now seen to be Norman; Norman abbots are buried in the recesses. Passing along the cloister westwards, we have in front another Norman door, and a very late Norman passage. Passing along the west walk of the cloister, a doorway on the left leads into a large Norman undercroft, with two aisles roofed with massive unribbed vaulting. Above, as the division in the vaulting shows, were a large and a small hall. These buildings on the west of the cloisters may have been originally the cellars, refectory and dormitory of the lay brethren, as at Fountains and Kirkstall; and afterwards the cellar and halls of the Abbot’s house. To the south, above the late Norman passage, is the Episcopal chapel, also Norman, with good Jacobean work.

Vestry.—We now return through the north transept to the north aisle of the choir. The next work done in the cathedral is to be found in the vestry to the left. The Norman apse of the north transept was pulled down; the arch in the west wall is nearly all that is left of it; and a new chapel was built here in the Transitional period, between 1145 and 1190, to which period the vaulting belongs. Later on, the east end of it was remodelled, and the western arch built up. Part of the foundation of the original Norman apse may be seen in the pavement near the door.

Vestibule.—Now we come to the Lancet or Early Gothic work (1190-1245), including vestibule, chapter-house, fratery, refectory, Lady chapel, and the eastern bays of the choir. Passing through the north transept again, and out through its north door, we enter the vestibule, the architectural gem of the cathedral. The piers have bases, but no capitals—a feature common enough in late Gothic, but very unusual in such early work. Pass into the cloister to see the lovely trefoiled doorway of the vestibule. Then return to the Chapter-house, which is of the same date as the vestibule. It is rectangular, as were most of the monastic Chapter-houses originally: e.g., Exeter, Durham, Oxford, and Bristol. The windows have an inner arcade. Here is a bust of Canon Kingsley, by Mr. Belt. Returning to the vestibule, and passing out of it by the modern north doorway, we cross the Slype with its elaborate vault, and pass into a vaulted building of two aisles, each of four bays, laboriously restored at considerable expense, and then allowed to relapse into a coal-cellar: this is the so-called fratery. Rooms in similar positions occur at Fountains and Kirkstall; their use is not known. Notice the day-stairs which led to the Monks’ dormitory, which was overhead, on the east side of the cloister, also the curious cusped windows adjacent. Along the whole of the north side of the cloister extended the Refectory, the Monks’ dining-hall; now the west end has been lopped off, and a passage driven through the east of it. Towards the west end will be found a fine doorway by which it was originally entered. To the right of the doorway is a recess marking the site of the lavatory. Inside, in the south wall, is the original staircase and pulpit of the refectory. Table talk was forbidden in all monasteries; a good book was read aloud to the monks during meals. Another equally fine pulpit remains in the refectory of Beaulieu, Hampshire; another, in the open air, opposite Shrewsbury Abbey. The upper part of the refectory has Perpendicular tracery inserted in the original windows.

VESTIBULE OF CHAPTER-HOUSE.

Now we return to the cathedral, to the Lady chapel: much restored, of similar date and character to those of Hereford and Bristol. It was a remarkable specimen of mediæval “jerry-building,” built without foundations of any sort or kind. One of the bosses, figured in Dean Howson’s book on “The Dee,” depicts the murder of Thomas Becket. Originally the Lady chapel had three windows, each triplets, on either side.

Eastern choir.—To the same period belongs the east wall of the choir, and the two eastern bays. The east wall is pierced by but one arch, as at Hereford and Chichester; an inferior ending to the triple eastern arches of the choirs of Wells and Salisbury. The mouldings of the southern arches are a cheap imitation of the better work on the north.

Western choir.—The remaining bays to the west have piers of altogether different section, and are Early Geometrical in character (1245-1280); and should be compared with Westminster choir and the Angel choir of Lincoln. In digging, the foundations of the east ends of the thirteenth-century aisles have been found. They turn out to have been polygonal. Sir G. G. Scott has been allowed to rebuild this aisle in apsidal form, and to crown his work with a hideous “extinguisher” roof. To put up this sham Gothic, he pulled down the Perpendicular choir-aisle, and expelled the monuments of three ancient county families in favour of an eminent contractor. This is what is called “restoration.”

All the above work stops at the top of the beautiful triforium, a trefoiled arcade. The clerestory is late Geometrical work; the tracery of the windows is thin and uninteresting (1280-1315). The proportions of the choir as thus completed are not at all satisfactory; the tall clerestory, with its big broad windows, is ruinous to the effect of the low pier-arcade and the diminutive triforium: it looks top-heavy. Compare the choir of Lichfield.

We have seen that by the end of the thirteenth century the monks had rebuilt all the work to the east and north of the cloister, as well as the Lady chapel and the whole of the choir. In the fourteenth century they set to work to rebuild the whole of the south transept, the central tower, and the nave. None of the upper parts of these, however, were finished till the following century. The South Transept is so vast that the old church of St. Oswald may have still remained in use while the transept was building around it. It has western as well as eastern aisles: which it is rare to find except in cathedrals of the first rank, such as Ely and York. Some of the aisle windows retain very beautiful Curvilinear tracery. The springers of vaults remain, but no vaulting was executed, except one bay at the south end of the east aisle, till recently, when the remainder of this aisle was vaulted. The vast size of this transept—it is as large as the choir, and nearly as large as the nave—is in striking contrast to the diminutive North Transept, and is the most remarkable feature in the ground plan of the cathedral. Originally there stood here an independent church, belonging to the parish of St. Oswald. But in the fourteenth century, when the abbey was in possession of great wealth, the monks desired to enlarge their church. They could not enlarge it to the north, for on the north were their cloisters, chapter-house, refectory, and dormitory; on the south was the parish church of St. Oswald. They therefore came to terms with the parishioners, in accordance with which they built a new parish church for them, where now stands the Music Hall. But in the fifteenth century the parishioners were able to evade their bargain, and vindicated their claim to the whole of the new south transept, which the monks by this time had completed. “Sic vos non vobis.” And to get into it they cut the fifteenth-century doorway, which is still to be seen through the lower part of the window at the south end of the west aisle of the new transept. And here they remained in possession till the present century, using the transept as their parish church. In 1824 the transept was actually blocked from the cathedral by a solid wall. But in 1874 a new church, St. Thomas, was once more built for the parishioners, and they were again ejected from the site of the old church of St. Oswald. The dividing wall was pulled down, and the transept has been again thrown into the cathedral. Unfortunately, the congregation being gone, there is no one to fill it, and it remains a squalid and desolate solitude. Why not have replaced the dividing-wall by an open screen and have left the parishioners in peace?

Central Tower.—This was probably commenced in the fourteenth and finished in the fifteenth century. It has been found that the north-west pier rests upon some floriated gravestones of the thirteenth century, which disposes of the idea that the piers of the tower have a Norman core. Notice the variation in the treatment of the tower-arches.

Nave.—Here also there is Curvilinear tracery in the windows of the south aisle. The piers and arches, also, on the south side are of fourteenth-century work, of simple but good design. The northern pier-arcade differs in some features; it may be a little later. On the other hand the initials of Abbot Simon Ripley (1485-1492) are found on the first pier from the west; and so this arcade may be really later work, assimilated in character to the earlier work on the south side.

CHOIR.

South Transept.—The next thing seems to have been to complete the south transept in the Perpendicular style; and also the easternmost bay of the nave, which was needed to give abutment to the rising tower. To this period, perhaps the fifteenth century, may be assigned all those Perpendicular windows which are cusped, in the transepts, the nave, the refectory, and elsewhere.

Nave.—The final operations comprised all those windows which are without cusps—e.g., the clerestory windows and the north aisle windows of the nave; also the south porch and west front and the commencement of a south-west tower, and the fine wooden roof of the north transept. All this was done early in the sixteenth century. Perhaps piety had waxed cold, and pilgrims’ offertories were less productive. At any rate, all the upper part of the interior of the nave is bare, bald, and poverty-stricken. For the beautiful triforium of the choir we have here a blank wall; unhappy, too, in proportions, the nave of Chester is one of the least satisfactory designs of the Middle Ages. In the south-west tower is the Consistory Court, with good Jacobean woodwork.

One other alteration had to be made. There was no access to the Lady chapel except through the one arch at the east end of the choir. When St. Werburgh’s shrine was placed at the entrance of the Lady chapel in the fourteenth century, it was awkward to have but a single approach to the Lady chapel; so the eastern apses of the two choir aisles were pulled down, and two Perpendicular aisles added, one on each side of the Lady chapel. (The one on the north is still allowed to exist; the one on the south was pulled down by Scott). Thus the west window on either side of the Lady chapel was converted into a doorway, and a convenient processional path was provided round St. Werburgh’s shrine.

To the late Perpendicular or Tudor period belong the eastern, northern, and western walks of the cloister, which should be visited next. In part of the west walk, and in the new south walk, there is a double arcade; dividing the walks into a series of separate compartments or studies for the monks. An analogous arrangement occurs in the cloisters of Gloucester. Notice, also, the insouciance with which these Tudor builders dropped the ribs of their vaults down on earlier doors and arches. Similar reckless disregard of the good work of preceding builders occurs at Canterbury, where the most beautiful doorway in the Cathedral is cut into by later vaulting.

North Aisle of Nave.—This has been recased, and provided with rich vaulting. It was to provide abutment for this new vault that the south walk of the cloister was rebuilt. The nave and choir have been vaulted in wood; following the precedents of York Minster and Selby Abbey.

The exterior is, to all intents and purposes, nineteenth-century work. The original design had almost wholly disappeared through the decay of the soft sandstone. It is, however, very handsome and effective; especially in contrast with the exterior, equally new, of Worcester.

NAVE, NORTH SIDE.

Of minor work the chief objects of interest are the Byzantine font, perhaps of the eighth century; the remains of the fourteenth-century shrine of St. Werburgh and the contemporary sedilia; the fine misereres and stalls (Perpendicular); the Renaissance gates of Spanish ironwork, and the Renaissance candelabra (Italian); the epitaphs of John Lowe, tobacconist, John Paul, publican, and John Phillips, merchant, in the south transept; those of Mayor Green, and an American loyalist, on the south-west pier of the tower; the tablet of Randolph Caldecott and the pretentious monument of Bishop Pearson in the north transept; the tablet of Dean Arderne in the south aisle of the choir; and in the north aisle those of Subdean Bispham and Bishop Jacobson, and the epitaph on the gravestone of E. P. Gastrell. The new organ rests on five Renaissance columns brought from Italy; the communion table is of wood from the Holy Land. On the wall near the west door is a tablet to Bishop Hall, and another

To the Memory of
JOHN MOORE NAPIER
Captain in Her Majesty’s 62nd Regiment
Who died of Asiatic Cholera
in Scinde
on the 7th of July, 1846,
Aged 29 years.

The tomb is no record of high lineage;

His may be traced by his name;

His race was one of soldiers.

Among soldiers he lived; among them he died;

A soldier falling, where numbers fell with him,

In a barbarous land.

Yet there was none died more generous,

More daring, more gifted, or more religious.

On his early grave

Fell the tears of stern and hardy men,

As his had fallen on the graves of others.

Surely one hears the trumpet on the dusty field of Meeanee, and the word of command of the stern old general. The inscription can be by none other but Sir Charles Napier. There is not much in verse that rings like these few lines of prose.

The Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity, Chichester.

FROM NORTH-EAST.

Chichester cathedral, though one of the smallest, is to the student of mediæval architecture one of the most interesting and important of our Cathedrals. At Salisbury one or two styles of architectures are represented; at Canterbury two or three; at Chichester every single style is to be seen without a break from the eleventh to the sixteenth century. It is an epitome of English architectural history for 500 years. Early Norman, late Norman, late Transitional, early Lancet, late Lancet, early Geometrical, late Geometrical, Curvilinear, Perpendicular and Tudor work all appear in the structure side by side. We have many other heterogeneous and composite cathedrals, but nowhere, except perhaps at Hereford, can the whole sequence of the mediæval styles be read so well as at Chichester.

The last kingdom, says Canon Bright, that remained outside the Church, was that of the South Saxons, hemmed in by a thick line of well-nigh impenetrable forest, and so barbarous as to be at once ignorant of one of the simplest arts, and furious against the incoming of foreigners. It was reserved for the great Wilfrid, of Hexham, Ripon and York, in one of his exiles (611)—caused originally by the high-handed partition of his overlarge diocese of York—to do what no one as yet had done for these poor rude heathen—what some Irish monks had tried to do and had failed. They were desperate with famine; he taught them to fish in the sea; for he was as ready in homely crafts of this kind as in adorning churches or educating young nobles; and as Bede says, “by this kind act he turned their hearts to love him; and they began the more willingly to hope for heavenly blessings under his preaching, when by his assistance they had received earthly good.”

The first seat of the diocese was on the coast at Selsea; it was transferred to Chichester by Stigand in 1082, when other Norman prelates removed to fortified towns such as Lincoln, Exeter, and Norwich. In the south aisle of the choir are two Saxon slabs representing the meeting of Christ with Mary and Martha and the raising of Lazarus. The figures are the tall, emaciated, but dignified figures of archaic Byzantine art; their stature carefully proportionate to their importance; the slabs may well have come from Selsea. Stigand was followed by Gosfried, who for some unknown sin sought and obtained absolution from the Pope. The original document in lead may be seen in the library. “We, representing St. Peter, the chief of the Apostles, to whom God gave the power of binding and loosing, absolve thee, Bishop Godfrey, so far as thy accusation requests and the right of remission belongs to us. God the Redeemer be thy salvation and graciously forgive thee all thy sins. Amen. On the seventh of the Calends of April, on the festival of St. Firmin, bishop and martyr, died Godfrey, bishop of Chichester; it was then the fifth day of the moon.”

I. Norman.—Godfrey was succeeded in 1091 by Ralph, whose stone coffin, marked “Radulphus” may be seen in the Lady chapel. Godfrey built the present Norman cathedral, or at any rate enough of it to allow a consecration in 1108. Before his death in 1123, or soon after, the whole cathedral must have been complete except the west front, where only the two lower stories of the south-west tower are Norman. The voluted capital of eleventh-century Norman work—an attempt at Ionic—which appears also on the east side of Ely transept—occurs in the triforium of the choir. The work in the four eastern bays of the nave is a little later; the four western bays, in which the triforium is treated differently, were possibly not built till after the fire in 1114. The Norman Church had the same ground-plan as that of Norwich, commenced c. 1096, and Gloucester, commenced c. 1089. It had an aisled nave, aisleless transept with eastern apses, aisled choir, apse and ambulatory, and a chevet of three radiating chapels, of which the side chapels were semicircular, the central or eastern chapel oblong, as at Canterbury and Rochester. Externally, on the south wall of the choir, in the second bay from the east, may be seen traces of the curve of the wall of the ancient apse, and also a triforium window which originally was in the centre of one of the narrowed bays of the apse, but has now ceased to be central. In the chamber above the library the curve of the wall of the apse of the north transept is well seen. The piers, as in most eleventh-century work, are monstrously and unnecessarily heavy, and the arches constricted. It is rather a monotonous interior, with the same design from choir to west end. It is a pity that they did not give us a different and improved design in the nave, as was done at Tewkesbury and Gloucester. Matters have been made worse by the removal of a superb Perpendicular stone rood-screen, crowned, as at Exeter, by a Renaissance organ. The removal of this has impaired the general effect of the interior, much lessening the apparent length of the cathedral. As usual, only the aisles and apses of the Norman cathedral were vaulted; the aisles here, as at Southwell, are vaulted in oblong compartments. It was dedicated to St. Peter, and served by secular Canons, of whom in 1520 there were thirty-one. In the triforium of the choir were semicircular transverse arches, precisely as in the choir of Durham.

PRESBYTERY.

II. Late Transitional and Early Lancet, from the fire of 1186 to the consecration of 1199, when the cathedral was re-dedicated to the Holy Trinity. About 1180 some work was going on in the western part of the Lady chapel, but in a great fire in 1186 the roofs and fittings of the whole cathedral were burnt, and the clerestories were no doubt damaged by falling timbers. The destruction, however, was by no means so great as at Canterbury in the fire of 1182, and no such drastic process of rebuilding was necessary. Bishop Siegfried confined himself to four objects: (1) To fireproof the cathedral by covering it with a stone vault, provided with the necessary buttresses and flying-buttresses. And as the clerestory which had to support the vault was much damaged, its inner arcade had to be rebuilt. (2) To replace the apse and ambulatory and chevet by a rectangular retro-choir with square eastern chapels. (3) To replace the transeptal apses by similar chapels. (4) To get rid of some of the rough and heavy appearance of the ground-story of the whole church. He did not touch the triforium.

Siegfried probably commenced with the choir, which was most wanted. The masonry of the ground-story had probably been calcined by the roof-timbers blazing on the floor; the inner face of this was cased with good Caen stone. As at Canterbury, great use was made of Purbeck marble, in which were built angle-shafts and capitals to the piers, hood-moulds for the pier-arches, string-courses below and above the triforium, and arcading to the clerestory. In front of each pier a triple vaulting-shaft was run up, with a marble capital, supporting the new quadripartite vault. Externally, the clerestory wall was supported by flying-buttresses of heavy archaic type, similar to those of the choirs of Canterbury and Boxgrove. Later on, the same treatment was extended by Siegfried and his successors to the nave and transepts.

His next step was to remove the Norman apse and to build an aisled retro-choir of two bays. This is the architectural gem of the cathedral. The idea of it probably came from Hereford, where the retro-choir is a few years earlier. At Hereford, however, the retro-choir projects picturesquely, and forms an eastern transept. The central piers of the Chichester retro-choir are remarkably beautiful. They consist of a central column surrounded by four shafts very widely detached; column and shafts are of Purbeck marble. The capitals are Corinthianesque; their height is proportioned to the diameters of the column and shafts. This beautiful capital was reproduced a few years later by St. Hugh at Lincoln, and the pier at Boxgrove. The triforium is of quite exceptional beauty, as indeed is the whole design. Semicircular arches occur in the pier-arcade and triforium, and some of the abaci are square; otherwise the design is pure Gothic. Here, as at Abbey Dore, St. Thomas’, Portsmouth, Boxgrove, and Wells, we see the transition from the Transition to the “pure and undefiled Gothic” of St. Hugh’s choir at Lincoln. In these beautiful churches the ancient Romanesque style breathed its last.

The aisles of the new retro-choir were continued on either side of the first bay of the Norman Lady chapel, whose three bays had probably been remodelled before the fire in Transitional fashion. The capitals of the Lady chapel are of exceptional interest and importance, as showing experimental foliation which had not yet settled down into the conventional leafage of early Gothic. The apse also of the south transept was replaced by a square chapel; and that of the north transept by a double chapel, now used as a library, in the vaulting of which the Norman zigzag occurs.

III. A little later in the Lancet period was built (1199-1245) the lovely south porch, with small, exquisite mouldings, and charming foliated capitals and corbels. The difference between early Transitional, late Transitional, and Lancet foliation may be well seen by examining successively the capitals of the Lady chapel, the triforium of the retro-choir, and the south porch. The north porch is almost equally fine. The vaulting-ribs, square in section, show that the two porches both belong to the very first years of the thirteenth century. Rather later, the sacristy was built on to the south porch, with a massive vault supported by foliated corbels.

IV. In the Early Geometrical period (1245-1280) building still went on unremittently. The south-west tower was raised to its present height; the low Norman central tower was replaced by a higher one: it is curious that this tower is oblong on plan; the transept, contrary to custom, being wider than nave or choir. A pretty circular window, with cusped circles and tooth ornament, was inserted in the eastern gable of the retro-choir, and a fine Galilee porch was added to the west front, as at Ely.

But the great change that was destined to alter the whole character of the nave was the addition of chapels. In our parish churches it is common enough to find that pious and wealthy parishioners have been allowed to tack family chapels on to the aisles or nave. In Dorchester Priory Church there is a south aisle running the whole length of the church, made up of nothing but a series of chantry-chapels. This was common enough, too, in the French cathedrals—e.g., Paris and Amiens. But the naves of the English cathedrals were not as a rule tampered with in this way. At Chichester, however, there were built, one after another, four sets of chapels—of St. George and St. Clement on the south of the south aisle, and of St. Thomas, St. Anne, and St. Edmund on the north of the north aisle. The windows should be studied in the above order; they form quite an excellent object-lesson of the evolution of bar-tracery from plate-tracery, itself a derivative from such designs as that of the east window of the south transept chapel. When the chapels were completed, the Norman aisle-walls were pierced, and arches were inserted where Norman windows had been; and the Lancet buttresses, which had been added when the nave-vault was erected, now found themselves inside the church, buttressing piers instead of walls. The new windows on the south side were built so high that the vaulting of the chapels had to be tilted up to allow room for their heads; externally they were originally crowned with gables, the weatherings of which may be seen outside. In St. Thomas’ chapel is a charming example of a simple thirteenth-century reredos.

PRESBYTERY.

The addition of these outer aisles makes Chichester unique among the English cathedrals, though it may be paralleled in Elgin cathedral and many a parish church. Artistically, the contrast of the gloomy and heavy Norman nave with the lightness and brightness of the chapels behind is most delightful; the nave looks infinitely larger and more spacious than it is; it is never all seen at a glance like the empty nave of York, and is full of changing vistas and delightful perspectives. Accidentally, the thirteenth-century builders had hit on a new source of picturesqueness.

V. Late Geometrical.—Between 1288 and 1304 the Lady chapel was lengthened by two bays, and the end bay of the former chapel was re-vaulted. So that what we see is a Norman chapel transmogrified into a Transitional one, and that once more altered and extended. The new work was done just when people had tired of conventional foliage, and hurried into naturalism. The capitals are another object-lesson in Gothic foliation. The window-tracery, with long-lobed trefoils, occurs also in the beautiful chapel of the mediæval hospital, which should by all means be visited.

It may be asked, where did the Chichester people get the money for all these great works? It was from pilgrims. They had had the great luck to get a saint of their own, Bishop Richard. He was consecrated in 1245, died in 1253, was canonised in 1261.

VI. Curvilinear (1315-1360).—Next the Canons set themselves to work to improve the lighting of the cathedral, which was bad; all the windows, except those in the new chapels, being small single lights. A fine window of flowing tracery was inserted in the eastern chapel of the south choir aisle (now filled with admirable glass by Mr. Kempe). And the south wall of the transept was taken down altogether and rebuilt. Here is another fine circular window. Bishop Langton, who gave the money for this work, is buried below. The drainage, too, of the roofs was improved; gutters and parapets being substituted for dripping eaves. To this period, also, belong the stalls with ogee arches and compound cusping, and good misereres.

VII. In the Perpendicular period (1360-1485) the improvements in lighting were continued, the north wall of the transept being treated in similar fashion to that opposite. But settlements were the result, and a flying-buttress had to be added to steady the north wall. And at length the tower was crowned with a beautiful spire, not quite so slender and graceful as those of Salisbury and Louth; more on the lines of the Lichfield spires. An upper story and buttresses were added to the sacristy, and the Canons’ Gateway was built.

VIII. In the Tudor period an irregular three-sided cloister was built in a quite abnormal position encircling the south transept. The object of it was to provide a covered way to the cathedral for the Canons, as well as for the Vicars, whose Close is hard by. The central tower seems to have shown signs of weakness under the weight of the new spire; and so a detached Campanile was built, as at Salisbury. Bishop Sherborne built a grand stone screen (1508-1536) occupying the whole of the crossing, and containing chantries; much of it exists, in fragments, under the Campanile. To the time of Henry VII. belongs the Poultry Cross.

IX. In 1859 the central tower was found to be in danger, owing, it is said, to the removal of the Arundel screen. Underpinning was resorted to, but matters got worse. “At noon, on February 21st, 1861, the workmen were ordered out of the building, and the people living in the neighbouring houses were warned of their danger; about an hour and a half later the spire was seen to incline slightly to the south-west and then to sink perpendicularly through the roof. Thus was fulfilled literally the old Sussex saying:

“If Chichester Church Steeple fall,

In England there’s no king at all.”

In 1866 the tower and spire were rebuilt; the tower raised slightly so that the belfry windows might clear the roofs.

The Cathedral Church of St. Cuthbert and St. Mary, Durham.

WEST FRONT.

The bishopric of Durham has a long history, though the cathedral was not at Durham till 1018. The conversion of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, north of the Thames, had been brought about by the missionaries of the Irish and Scottish church. Augustine’s mission in Kent, and that of Paulinus in the north—both sent from Rome—had for their object, not so much the conversion of England, as to induce the English Christians to transfer their allegiance from the Celtic to the Roman Church. The success of Augustine’s mission had been but short-lived. He landed in England A.D. 597; his death occurred in 605; and in 616 the Kentish kingdom relapsed into paganism. Paulinus landed in 601; proceeded to Northumbria in 625, but left it in 633, when, like Kent, most of Northumbria relapsed into paganism. The real “apostle of the north” was not Paulinus, but Aidan, who was sent at the request of King Oswald from Iona, and in the year 635 became the first bishop of the north of England.

(1) For thirty years the see was at Lindisfarne (Holy Island), but the jurisdiction of the bishop extended over all England north of the Humber, and over the south of Scotland (635-665). (2) In 678, Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury split up the vast Northumbrian diocese into the four bishoprics of York, Lindisfarne, Hexham, and Whitherne in Galloway. Twelve bishops ruled the now curtailed see from 678 to 900, the cathedral still remaining at Lindisfarne. The second of these was the famous St. Cuthbert (685-688). (3) In fear of the Danes, the body of St. Cuthbert was removed to Chester-le-Street, seven miles north of Durham, and eight bishops had their cathedral at Chester-le-Street (900-995). (4) Once more, in fear of the Northmen, the see was removed—this for the last time—to Durham. Including Aldhun, the last bishop of Chester-le-Street and the first bishop of Durham, there have been, up to 1898, sixty-one bishops of Durham.

In the earliest days, we always read of monks as carrying about the relics of St. Cuthbert and serving the cathedral. Later on, but still in Anglo-Saxon days, the monks gave way to Secular Canons. These in turn were replaced by Benedictine monks by the Norman bishop, William of St. Carilef (1081-1096). In 1540 the monastic establishment was suppressed, and the cathedral was placed on the New Foundation, like the Benedictine cathedrals of Canterbury, Winchester, Ely, Norwich, Rochester, and Worcester, with an establishment once more of Secular Canons.

NAVE.

In Anglo-Saxon days England was divided into provinces, whose earls exercised quite as much power as the Viceroy of the Empress exercises nowadays in India. These powerful and dangerous viceroyalties the Norman sovereigns abolished, with two exceptions. To guard the Marches against the Welsh, they left the old Earldom or Viceroyalty of Chester, putting it in the hands of a layman. To guard the Scottish border, they united with the Bishopric of Durham the Earldom of Northumberland. Between Tees and Tyne, and in some external districts, the Bishop of Durham had palatine jurisdiction. Here the King’s writ did not run; but the writs were drawn in the name of the bishop. As feudal lord, his seat was Durham Castle; as bishop, Durham Cathedral. Hence that wonderful group, castle and cathedral, which one sees from the Wear bridge towering overhead; unique in England, but not rare in the cities of the Prince-Bishops of the Holy Roman Empire: Lausanne, Chur, or Sitten. With the Bishop of Durham rested the power of life and death in case of murder, or even of treason itself. The most magnificent of all these powerful prelates was Anthony Bek (1283-1310). His own personal followers, when he marched with Edward I. against the Scots, included 26 standard-bearers, 140 knights, 1000 foot, and 500 horse. “Surrounded by his officers of state, or marching at the head of his troops, in peace or in war, he appeared as the military chief of a powerful and independent franchise. The court of Durham exhibited all the appendages of royalty; nobles addressed the palatine sovereign kneeling; and instead of menial servants, knights waited in his presence-chamber and at his table, bareheaded and standing.” But in 1536, Henry VIII. swept away the most important of the powers of the Counts Palatine. The ancient form of indictment “contra pacem Episcopi” was altered to “against the King’s peace,” and the King’s writ ran in Durham see. Still, the palatinate county of Durham was not fully an integral part of the realm, and up to 1675 did not send members to Parliament. It was not till 1836 that the privileges of the County Palatine were fully and finally vested in the Crown. Even now, the towers of Durham have a stern military air, such as no other English cathedral possesses; for a parallel to which we must go to the fortress-cathedrals of Albi and the south-west of France. Durham cathedral is “half House of God, half castle ’gainst the Scot.”

Of the Anglo-Saxon cathedrals in wood or stone nothing remains. The architectural history of the present cathedral commences with the accession of the second Norman prelate, William of St. Carilef, or St. Calais on the southern border of Maine, who was bishop from 1081 to 1095, and is said to have laid the foundations of the Norman cathedral in 1093 on August 11th. The building operations of the Norman cathedral admit of a threefold division: (1) The choir and choir aisles; the arcade and triforium of the eastern aisles of both transepts; the crossing; the first bay of the nave and the first arch of the nave-triforium; and the whole of the outer walls of the nave up to the top of the aisle-arcade of intersecting arches. All this is supposed to have been built by William of St. Carilef between August 11th, 1093, and January 6th, 1096; i.e., in two and a half years; which seems impossible. (2) In the interval of three years between Carilef’s death and the appointment of Ralph Flambard, the monks are said to have finished the transepts. (3) Between 1099 and his death in 1128, Ralph Flambard finished the nave. These three divisions are architecturally correct; they are borne out by differences of detail; and they follow the same order of building which was observed elsewhere. But it does not follow that the exact dates given above, on mediæval authority, are correct.

The most important matter is the date of the high vaults. From architectural evidence it is pretty clear that the vaulting was executed in the following order: (1) the vaults of the aisles of the choir and transepts, said to be not later than 1099; (2) the high vault of the choir, now destroyed, said to be not later than 1104; (3) the vaults of the aisles of the nave, said to be not later than 1128; (4) the high vaults of the transepts and nave, said to be not later than 1133. The chronology of the high vaults is a very important question in the history of mediæval architecture, especially as affecting the reputation of English architects. If the above dates are correct, it was the Durham architect, and not a Frenchman, who was the first to solve the great problem of mediæval architecture: how to construct and keep up a ribbed vault, oblong in plan, over a central aisle. With it goes the question of priority in the use of flying-buttresses to take the thrust of a high vault. If the dates given above are correct, Durham was a generation ahead of the whole world in the construction of a high vault and in the use of flying-buttresses.

WEST TOWERS.

But the transverse arches of the vault of the nave are pointed; a feature which occurs nowhere else in England at so early a date. Besides, it seems impossible that if the Durham people had solved the problem of problems of mediæval architecture—the construction of a high oblong vault—nobody else should have copied it in England for more than fifty years.

Another theory is that the high vaults were constructed by Bishop Farnham in 1242, making them contemporary with the Chapel of the Nine Altars—which is impossible. It seems to me that they belong to the episcopate of Hugh Pudsey, c. 1160.

The bays of Durham are coupled, Lombard-fashion—i.e., large and small piers alternate: with what object, is uncertain. There were three parallel eastern apses. The central apse had no ambulatory. The lateral apses were square externally, as at Romsey and Cerisy-la-Forêt, and S. Maria in Cosmedin, Rome (c. 780). The central was separated from the lateral apses by solid walls, as at Cerisy-la-Forêt, whose clerestory also seems to have been copied in the original western clerestory of the south transept.

Durham anticipates Gothic not only in vaulting its central aisles in oblongs—for the high oblong vaults of Durham, if not so early as 1133, are still the earliest in England—but in the employment of flying-buttresses. These, I think, were built long before the vaults, their object originally not being to withstand the thrust of vaults. In the triforium of the choir they appear in the form of semicircular arches, with a wall on them, which provided a support for the longitudinal timbers of the aisle-roof. In the choir these flying-buttresses are semicircular arches, and therefore, strictly speaking, are not flying-buttresses at all. But in the triforium of the nave they consist of segments of circles tilted up on end. Here they are genuine flying-buttresses, which oppose resistance to any outward inclination of the clerestory wall. The only constructional difference between those of the nave and Gothic flying-buttresses is that the former are placed underneath the roof of the triforium, sheltered from the weather, while the latter are placed outside and above the aisle-roof, and are thus liable to disintegration by wind, rain and frost. But even in Gothic, flying-buttresses are not always displayed; they still remained concealed under the triforium in the early work at Salisbury; and even in the fourteenth-century work of Winchester nave.

At the west end the towers project beyond the line of the nave, but only slightly. Still we may well see in this the germ of the grand western transepts of Ely, Wells and Peterborough.

CHOIR.

Internally, the one fault of Durham is its shortness in proportion to its great breadth. The nave ought to be two or three bays longer. Ely nave has twelve bays, Peterborough ten, Norwich fourteen, Durham only eight. But the architect could not build much further to the west, for close at hand is the precipice rising above the river; nor did he like to build further to the east, for the ground there is bad.

The internal elevation, however, is unsurpassed by that of any Romanesque church in Europe. At Winchester, Norwich, Peterborough, Ely, Malvern, Leominster, Chepstow, the three stories—pier-arcade, triforium, and clerestory—are about equal in height: a very unsatisfactory proportion. The architects of Gloucester and Tewkesbury saw this: unfortunately they rushed into the opposite extreme, and carried up their piers to such a vast height that the triforium and clerestory were dwarfed out of all proportion. But at Durham the proportions are absolutely right. The vault, too, is not so much later in date as to interrupt the solid monumental effect of the interior. It is as much preferable to the florid vaults of Gloucester, Tewkesbury, and Oxford as it is to the unworthy wooden ceilings of Peterborough, Selby, Waltham, and Ely. Durham gives one still the impression which it gave Dr. Johnson—one of “rocky solidity and indeterminate duration”: the very reverse of the unsubstantial tenuity of Salisbury and Beauvais.

The doorway of the Chapter-house is recorded to have been built by Bishop Galfrid Rufus (1133-1140). The north and south doorways of the nave (facing one another) are so similar to that of the Chapter-house that they must also be his work.

To Bishop Pudsey, to whom we have attributed the high vaults, belongs also the Galilee, c. 1175. He commenced to erect a Lady chapel in the usual position to the east of the choir. But St. Cuthbert, who had an ultra-monastic hatred of womankind, and would not brook to have the chapel even of Our Lady in the neighbourhood of his shrine, showed his displeasure openly by the fissures and cracks and settlements which kept constantly occurring. In despair the bishop had to build in the cramped space between the west end and the precipice, thus blocking up the west end of the church. From the first this Lady chapel seems to have been called the Galilee; nobody knows why. In details it is not unlike the chapel in the keep of Newcastle. Built in the last years of the Transitional period (1145-1190), it is remarkable for the paucity of Gothic detail: the arches are all semicircular; they are not moulded, but ornamented with bands of the old-fashioned zigzag. The bases, indeed, are Transitional in character; and so is the flat voluted leaf of the capitals. But, spite of semicircular arch and Norman ornament, the spirit of the whole—its lightness, grace, and elegance—is Gothic. A building may have every arch pointed and moulded, and yet in its heaviness be Romanesque at heart: e.g., the Cistercian churches of Fountains and Kirkstall, the Augustinian church of Llanthony. In Durham Galilee, on the other hand, one feels that one is in a Gothic building, as truly as one does in presence of the semicircular arcades of Pisa or Lucca. Still more Gothic must have been the effect of the coupled shafts of Purbeck marble before Cardinal Langley added two more shafts of stone. The cardinal is buried in front of the west door of the nave. Here also was the shrine of the remains of the Venerable Bede, stolen from the monks of Jarrow by the sacrist Elfred, one of the most successful of mediæval “body-snatchers.” Pudsey’s work is to be seen also in the external part of the Prior’s doorway opening from the cloister into the east end of the south aisle of the nave.

FROM NORTH.

To the Lancet period (1190-1245) belong the western towers, carried up in the early years of the thirteenth century. At one time they had tall wooden spires. The present battlements were added about 1780.

To the early part of the Geometrical period belongs the noble eastern transept. Its position repeats that of Fountains Abbey, which was finished in 1247, and which also is known as the “Chapel of the Nine Altars.” The object of the eastern extension at Durham was partly to provide nine more chapels, partly to provide a clear space all round the shrine of St. Cuthbert, which, like those of St. Swithun and St. Birinus at Winchester, and that of St. Alban at St. Albans, stood to the east of the high altar, and contained the body of St. Cuthbert and the head of St. Oswald. The idea of the eastern transept seems to come from Hereford and Abbey Dore. It is curious that the floor of the Durham transept is lower than that of the choir. It has been suggested that the height of the vault being fixed by that of the vault of the choir, sufficient height could be gained only by lowering the floor. But I doubt if mediæval architects were in the habit of designing merely for effect in this way: probably some humble practical reason is at the bottom of it. The fact that the ground falls away to the east, or that it is bad ground, and that much of it had to be excavated and carted away, would be quite sufficient for this objectionable drop in level (cf. “Worcester”). The vaulting is, perhaps unavoidably, awkward and clumsy.

The work was not commenced till 1242 (Bishop Farnham), and not completed till about 1280. When it was begun, Lancet windows were still in fashion; when it was completed, they had given way to traceried windows with cusped circles in their heads. Later on, Perpendicular tracery was inserted in the lancets: it is surprising that it has not been hacked out, as in Ripon façade, by architectural “purists.” The circular window, 90 feet across, was rebuilt by Wyatt. The architect was a layman, Richard Farnham, “architector novæ fabricæ Dunelm”; the master-mason “Thomas Moises posuit hanc petram.” The foliated capitals, both here and in the eastern bay of the choir, are of unrivalled beauty. No less remarkable is the perfection of the masonry. The walls are nearly eight feet thick, with huge piers at the angles forming buttresses and weighted by pinnacles; they rise straight from the ground unaided by aisles or flying-buttresses, “yet they have borne the lofty vault (80 feet high) for more than three centuries without the slightest sign of settlement or flaw.” Such was the reverence for St. Cuthbert that not a single person was buried in the cathedral till 1311, when that magnificent prelate Anthony Bek was brought into the Chapel of Nine Altars for interment, through a door on the north of the chapel (now blocked up), not through the cathedral; and even he was not allowed a monument. One sees why there is such a paucity of monuments in this cathedral.

CHAPEL OF NINE ALTARS.

The next thing was to pull down the old Norman apse; to join the transept on to the choir; and to break the transition from Romanesque choir to Gothic transept by remodelling the eastern bays of the choir in the fashion of the day. Also a new Gothic vault was put over the choir; its eastern bay is sexpartite. Here also the details are of exceptional beauty.

For a long time little was done at Durham; the cathedral was structurally complete. In the Curvilinear period (1315-1360) several large windows with flowing tracery were inserted: e.g., the west window of the nave and the north window of the north transept; and four windows (restored) in the south aisle of the choir. The three westernmost windows in the north aisle of the choir were copied in 1848 from the fourteenth-century windows at Sleaford, Holbeach and Boughton Aluph. To this period belongs the tomb of Bishop Hatfield, built in his lifetime (1345-1381), one of the best bits of design in England. The episcopal throne above it looks a little later, and seems to have been designed for some other position, as it does not fit the space between the piers.

In the Perpendicular period the great work was the central tower, which replaced a thirteenth-century tower, c. 1470. It is 218 feet high; in spite of its vast weight, the Norman piers which support it show no signs of strain. There are massive squinches at the angles, showing that it was intended to be finished by a spire, as the western towers actually were finished. What an astounding spectacle Durham would have presented, capped with three spires! Imagine Lichfield cathedral set on a hill 200 feet high! The Neville screen, built, like that at St. Albans, of clunch, is rather thin and spiky. It is continued to right and left, forming sedilia on both sides of the sanctuary (1372-1380). In the nave is a series of Neville monuments. In the third bay from the west is the Women’s Boundary Cross. The great window of the south transept was inserted about 1400.

Between 1660 and 1672 Bishop Cousin did much to repair the damage done by the Scottish prisoners who had been confined in the cathedral after the battle of Dunbar in 1650. His stalls and font cover are of exceptional interest, as specimens of what is rare—seventeenth-century Gothic. It should be compared with the woodwork of St. John’s Church, Leeds. The bishop’s fine oak choir-screen has been destroyed, by way of restoration; the new open screen, and the loss of the organ, give the “unbroken vista” for which so many of our interiors have been ruined.

Exterior.—On the north doorway of the nave is the famous sanctuary knocker. Durham and Beverley, owing to the high reputation of the relics of St. Cuthbert and St. John of Beverley, both had large privileges of sanctuary. Beverley retains the Sanctuary chair, the Frithstool; Durham the knocker. It is thirteenth-century work. “Upon knocking at the ring affixed to the north door of Durham the culprit was admitted without delay; and after full confession, reduced to writing before witnesses, a bell in the Galilee tower ringing all the time to give notice to the town that some one had taken refuge in the church, there was put on him a black gown with a yellow cross on its right shoulder, as the badge of St. Cuthbert, whose peace he had claimed. When thirty-seven days had elapsed, if a pardon could not be obtained, the malefactor, after certain ceremonies before the shrine, solemnly abjured his native land for ever; and was straightway, by the agency of the intervening parish constables, conveyed to the coast, bearing in his hand a white wooden cross, and was sent out of the kingdom by the first ship which sailed after his arrival.” During their stay in the church the culprits lived on the lower floors of the western towers. The atrocious setting of the doorway is modern; as also the pinnacles of the Chapel of the Nine Altars, where the famous Dun Cow is to be seen in a niche in the north-west turret. All the design of this side of the cathedral has been utterly ruined; having been pared away to the depth of three or four inches. Originally each bay of the aisle had a transverse roof ending in a gable, as originally on the south side of Chichester nave.

The monastic buildings are numerous and important; the library contains precious MSS., touching relics of St. Cuthbert, and a wonderful collection of Pre-conquest crosses and “hogbacks.” For all these the visitor should consult Canon Greenwell’s admirable handbook.

The Cathedral Church of St. Ethelreda, Ely.

ELY, SOUTH-WEST.

“The vast and magnificent cathedral of Ely,” says Mrs. Van Rensselaer, “looms up on the horizon, as we come westward from Norwich, like a great solitary ship at sea. As we draw nearer it preserves its isolated clearness of outline, lifted visibly above the plain, yet so little lifted that its bulk seems all the greater from being nearer the eye. As we enter the little town from the south-west we realise its enormous length, the grace of its octagon, and the stern majesty of the tall tower, which rises like a great cliff in a land where men might well build cliffs, since Nature had built none. But there is in truth no spot whence the great monarch of the fenlands may not be admirably seen, until we get so far off that it drops behind the horizon’s rim. Wherever it may reveal itself it is always immense, imposing, majestic: only upon the plains of Egypt or Mesopotamia has Nature assisted the effect of man’s work by such entire suppression of herself.”