THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF
WELLS

A DESCRIPTION OF ITS FABRIC
AND A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE
EPISCOPAL SEE

BY THE REV. PERCY DEARMER, M.A.

WITH FORTY-SIX

ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON GEORGE BELL & SONS 1899
First Published October 1898
Second Edition revised October 1899
W.H. WHITE AND CO. LTD.
RIVERSIDE PRESS, EDINBURGH

GENERAL PREFACE

This series of monographs has been planned to supply visitors to the great English Cathedrals with accurate and well illustrated guide-books at a popular price. The aim of each writer has been to produce a work compiled with sufficient knowledge and scholarship to be of value to the student of Archæology and History, and yet not too technical in language for the use of an ordinary visitor or tourist.

To specify all the authorities which have been made use of in each case would be difficult and tedious in this place. But amongst the general sources of information which have been almost invariably found useful are:—(1) the great county histories, the value of which, especially in questions of genealogy and local records, is generally recognised; (2) the numerous papers by experts which appear from time to time in the Transactions of the Antiquarian and Archæological Societies; (3) the important documents made accessible in the series issued by the Master of the Rolls; (4) the well-known works of Britton and Willis on the English Cathedrals; and (5) the very excellent series of Handbooks to the Cathedrals originated by the late Mr John Murray; to which the reader may in most cases be referred for fuller detail, especially in reference to the histories of the respective sees.

GLEESON WHITE,
E.F. STRANGE,
Editors of the Series

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

The writer about cathedrals nowadays is one who, reaping where he has not sown, and gathering where he has not strawed, is indebted for most that he says to the patient labours of other and wiser men. Nowhere does one feel this more than at Wells. The admirable Somerset Archæological Society has gone on accumulating information about the cathedral for more years than the present writer has lived. Professor Freeman produced twenty-eight years ago, in his "History of the Cathedral Church of Wells," a little book which has since been a model for all works of the kind, and of which one can still say that no one can understand all that is contained in the word "cathedral" unless he has read it. Yet since that book was written much fresh material has been discovered, and the theories then held as to the building of the cathedral have been in great measure disproved. To Canon C.M. Church, in his "Chapters in the Early History of Wells," and his papers read before the Somerset Society, we are indebted for most valuable statements of the new historical discoveries, and to his untiring kindness I am myself beholden to a greater extent than I can express.

Wells so abounds in interesting detail, that the exigencies of space have made it necessary to curtail the last chapter, which contains the history of the diocese; a good deal of interesting matter has thus been cut from my original MS. of this chapter, and many bishops have been dismissed more summarily than they deserve. The need of dealing properly with the cathedral itself must be my apology for the baldness of this last chapter as it now stands. Those who desire a further acquaintance with the history of the diocese cannot do better than consult Mr Hunt's "Bath and Wells," in the excellent Diocesan Histories series of the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge.

To many other writers on the Cathedral Church of Wells, acknowledgments and references will be found scattered throughout the present volume. I must also express my thanks to Mr Philips, and Messrs Dawkes & Partridge of Wells, for permission to reproduce their photographs, and to Mr W. Heywood and Mr H.P. Clifford for their drawings.

P.D.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

WELLS CATHEDRAL

CHAPTER I

HISTORY OF THE CHURCH

"The Gothic Cathedral," wrote Froude, an author who held no brief for the Gothic period, "is perhaps, on the whole, the most magnificent creation which the mind of man has as yet thrown out." The Cathedral Church of Wells, wrote Froude's predecessor in the same historical chair, is "the best example to be found in the whole world of a secular church, with its subordinate buildings." "There is no other place," Professor Freeman went on to say, "where you can see so many of the ancient buildings still standing, and still put to their own use." And surely there is no place better fitted to be their home than this beautiful old city of Wells, set in the midst of the fair western country, the land of Avalon and Camelot, of Athelney and Wedmore.

This unique group of buildings does not, however, take us back earlier than the close of the Norman period. Of what existed before, we have but scant evidence. Tradition says that King Ina had, about the year 705, founded at Wells a college of secular priests, and therefore a church of some sort. And when King Eadward the Elder, taking advantage of the peace which his father Alfred had secured, fixed, in 909, the new Somersetshire see by the fountain of St. Andrew at Wells, he seems to have chosen that little city because there already existed therein a church, large enough to serve as a cathedral in those times, and tended already by a body of secular canons. Now that the ancient church of St. Andrew was raised to this new dignity, it was probably in the tenth century rebuilt in stone, with plain round-headed windows, and perhaps a small unbuttressed tower to hold the bells; for, when Giso became bishop in the next century (1061-1088), he erected a whole cluster of quasi-conventual buildings, but we are not told that he found it necessary to rebuild the church, although he complained that he found it mean and its revenues small. Indeed, the fact that Giso was buried under an arch in the wall on the north side of the high altar, as his predecessor Duduc had been buried on the south side, shows that he had not rebuilt the church.

On Giso's death, John de Villula at once swept away his buildings, and set up a bishop's house on their site. John, however, made Bath his cathedral church, and suffered the church of Wells to fall into the decay from which it was rescued by the first "Maker of Wells," Bishop Robert of Lewes.

The active episcopate of Robert of Lewes (1136-66) was as important an era in the history of the church as in that of the chapter. In spite of the anarchy of Stephen's reign, Robert set steadily to work; and, while the neighbouring barons were battering each other's castles, the bishop reared the first great cathedral church of Wells. How much of the old Saxon building he left we cannot tell; but it was in a ruinous condition, and he may have pulled it completely down, or he may have left one part for later builders to deal with. In 1148 his new Norman church was consecrated, a massive round-arched building, its nave perhaps as large as the present one, and its choir under the tower with a small presbytery beyond. This date may be taken as the beginning of the present cathedral; for all the succeeding reconstructions followed the lines of Bishop Robert's church. Yet the Norman work has disappeared almost as completely as the Saxon, and the font is the only object which can be claimed as undoubtedly Romanesque. Of distinctly Norman mouldings there are none in the church, and only a few fragments in other places. Seldom has one of those strong Norman buildings so utterly vanished from sight. But many stones dressed in the Norman fashion can still be traced by the expert in the eastern part of the church (p. [74]), having been no doubt used up again by the later workmen; and there may be masses of undisturbed masonry hidden in the walls.

Bishop Robert, as we know from one of his charters, did something also for the order of his church. Mammon had gradually encroached upon the sacred precincts, and the markets had come to be held in the "vestibule," and in the church itself; the busy hum of the buyers and sellers marred the quiet of God's house, and disturbed the people at their devotions. Strong measures were necessary, and the bishop ordered the market to be held at some distance from the church, while at the same time, as an act of grace, he remitted the tolls that were due to him as lord of the manor. Thus did he lay the foundation of the liberties of Wells city while securing the sanctity of Wells Cathedral.

According to Bishop Godwin (1616), and the anonymous fifteenth century MSS., called in Wharton's Anglia Sacra the "Canon of Wells," there was a blank in the history of the church between Bishop Robert, who consecrated the Norman building in 1148, and Bishop Jocelin, whose episcopate lasted from 1206 to 1242. Godwin, who exaggerated a passage from the "Canon of Wells" (which that writer had produced by exaggerating a single sentence of a preamble of Jocelin, p. 7), declared that Jocelin found the church "as ready to fall," and "pulled down the greatest part of it, to witte, the west ende, and built it anew from the very foundation." This became the accepted view. But the documents recently brought to light through the labours of those who unearthed and deciphered the MSS. in possession of the chapter, have proved that the energetic Bishop Reginald, so far from letting the church go into ruin during his episcopate (1174-1191), did in reality rebuild it himself. Much travelled, conversant with all kinds of churches and cities in an age of great building operations, he was not the sort of man to neglect his cathedral. And, as a matter of fact, he is proved to have begun the present church by a charter recently found, which is of a date prior to 1180, and therefore belongs to the early years of his episcopate. In this important document, recognising his duty to provide "that the honour due to God should not be tarnished by the squalor of His house," he arranges in full chapter for a munificent grant in support of the fabric, until the work be finished[1]. Another charter of Reginald's time, which conveys a private gift to the church, alludes to "the admirable structure of the rising church," thus testifying to the successful progress of the bishop's plan during his own lifetime. The part which he built, there can be little doubt, included the three western bays of the choir (which then formed the presbytery), the transepts, north porch, and the eastern bays of the nave. That is to say, on entering the church one is looking upon Reginald's work, and not Jocelin's; for, although the rest of the nave was completed by Jocelin, it was done in accordance with Reginald's original plan.

It is of great importance to remember this fact, since until recently the nave, with the other parts just mentioned, was attributed by Professor Willis, Professor Freeman, and most authorities to Jocelin. Willis, indeed, bowed to what was then thought to be documentary evidence against his own judgment; for he declared the work to be of a style much earlier than that of Jocelin's time (p. [73]). Now we know almost to a certainty that the bulk of the cathedral belongs neither to the late Norman period of Robert, nor to the Early English of Jocelin, but to the period just between the two, that of Reginald de Bohun.

During the episcopate of Reginald's immediate successor Savaric (1192-1205), something further may have been done to the nave. But there was small opportunity for church building during this bishop's wandering and litigious life; and all we know for certain is that, owing no doubt to the civil war, the intolerable exactions of papal legates, and the quarrel with Glastonbury, the cathedral church of Wells had fallen into a state of dilapidation when Jocelin became bishop in 1206; and that it remained in this condition till King John was dead: for Jocelin was an exile abroad, the property of the see was confiscated, and its income paid yearly into the king's purse.

From the year 1218, when the land was again at peace, and a profitable arrangement had been come to with the monks of Glastonbury, Jocelin devoted himself to the fabric and chapter of Wells, up to the year of his death in 1242. Grants of money and of timber, which are extant, show that by 1220 the work was recommenced, and that it was in progress in 1225. By 1239 the church was sufficiently advanced to be dedicated.

Jocelin and his brother Hugh (afterwards Bishop of Lincoln) were natives of the city they loved so well. They had both lived through Reginald's episcopate—Jocelin as canon and Hugh as archdeacon of Wells. After, when they rose to high positions as judges, and became honourably rich, Hugh, who built much in Lincoln Cathedral, gave largely of his great wealth to Jocelin for Wells, and Jocelin himself spent all that he had upon the place where he had been brought up from infancy.

Thus Jocelin was in a real sense a "maker of Wells." But he was not the only maker, for he must share the honour with two other master builders—Robert, whose work is entirely gone, and Reginald, whose work remains. He did not, as Godwin led us to suppose, pull down and rebuild the whole church. But he loyally carried on the work of his predecessor, and he executed the great work which has been always rightly attributed to him, the present west front; this he joined to Reginald's unfinished nave by building the three western bays in strict accordance with the earlier style. The front belongs to the fully-developed Early English style in which Salisbury is built, agreeing exactly with the date of the consecration of the church by Jocelin in 1239,—as was pointed out by Professor Willis, who was puzzled by the great difference in its style from that of the nave, which was then thought to belong to the same period. We know that Jocelin was a frequent visitor to Salisbury while Bishop Poore was building it; and thus all the lines of evidence combine to support the unshaken tradition that Jocelin was the author of the west front.

A month before his death in 1242, Jocelin de Wells put forth a charter for the increased endowment of the cathedral staff; and it was because of a few chance words in the preamble that he came to be credited with the construction of the whole. Having found the church in danger of ruin, runs the passage, by reason of its age aedificare coepimus et ampliare—in qua adeo profecimus—quod ipsam consecravimus. This, which need mean nothing more than extensive building operations, is the sole foundation for the tradition that Jocelin pulled down the old church and built a new one.

The condition of the church at the end of the thirteenth century is thus described by Professor Freeman[2]:

"By the end of the thirteenth century we may look upon the church of Wells as at last finished. It still lacked much of that perfection of outline which now belongs to it, and which the next age was finally to give to it. Many among that matchless group of surrounding buildings which give Wells its chief charm, had not yet arisen. The church itself, with its unfinished towers, must have had a dwarfed and stunted look from every point. The Lady Chapel had not yet been reared, with its apse alike to contrast with the great window of the square presbytery above it, and to group in harmony with the more lofty chapter-house of its own form. The cloister was still of wood. The palace was still undefended by wall or moat. The Vicars' Close and its chain-bridge had not yet been dreamt of. Still, the church, alike in its fabric and its constitution, may be looked on as having by this time been brought to perfection ... The nave, recast in forms of art such as Ina and Eadward, such as Gisa and Robert, had never dreamed of, with the long range of its arcades and the soaring sweep of its newly-vaulted roof, stood, perfect from western door to rood-loft, ever ready, ever open, to welcome worshippers from city and village, from hill and combe and moor, in every corner of the land which looked to Saint Andrew's as its mother church. The choir, the stalls of the canons, the throne of the Bishop, were still confined within the narrow space of the crossing; but that narrow space itself gave them a dignity which they lost in later arrangements. For the central lantern, not yet driven to lean on ungainly props, with the rich arcades of its upper stages still open to view, still rose, in all the simple majesty of its four mighty arches, as the noblest of canopies over the choir below."

"The eastern ending of the presbytery was," Mr Freeman proceeds, "rich with the best detail of the thirteenth century, as can be learnt from the fragments built up in the chapel of the Vicars' Close, and lying about in the undercroft of the chapter-house, which are in the full Early English style of the west front. The existing choir aisle walls prove that a procession-path ran behind the high altar, with most likely a chapel beyond it."

"The thirteenth century," he concludes, "had done its great creative work, and had left to future ages only to improve and develop according to the principles which the thirteenth century had laid down. That is to say, the thirteenth century had done for the local church of Wells what it did for England, what it did for Europe, and for the world."

The choir, however, was not so cramped as Mr Freeman thought, for it included one bay of the nave, as we now know from a notice of the making of Haselshaw's tomb, which was dug at the entrance to the choir; and, indeed, the marks where the screen was fixed are still visible on the piers at this point. From the top of the screen the great rood looked down the nave, and on each side of the doorway stood an altar, that on the north dedicated to Our Lady, that on the south to St. Andrew. The aisles of the choir were also screened off from the nave, and outside their gates were two more altars—St. Saviour's on the north, and St. Edmund's on the south. Thus the nave, where men were ever coming and going, walking and talking, and in laxer times buying and selling as well, was quite shut off from the more sacred places. Yet here, too, were altars and shrines, and here came the processions on Sundays and holidays.

Within the choir the chapter said their offices, the dean and precentor facing east in their returned stalls, and the other dignitaries in their allotted places, with the junior canons, vicars, and those in minor orders below them, and the boys on the lowest forms of all. Just beyond these stalls was the bishop's throne; and east of the tower the presbytery stood open, with the tombs of the early bishops, on either side, under the arches. The rest of the space enclosed within the screen belonged more especially to the clergy; the north transept was probably used as a chapter-house, when the undercroft was yet unfinished, and its western aisle was used as the chapter library. The chamber leading to the undercroft was the vestry, and the stout walls of the octagon, when it was finished, protected the vestments and treasures of the cathedral.

It is worth while to call to mind the kind of service for which the church was built, with its aisles and chapels and screen. The usual Sunday procession started from the north door of the presbytery, preceded by two thurifers with censers, went round behind the presbytery, the priest in his cope asperging the altars on his way, then down the south choir aisle, and through the south transept into the cloister. In the cloister-cemetery, the priest, with his ministers, said the prayers for the dead, and then rejoined the procession in the cloister Lady Chapel, where the first station was made. Thence the procession returned to the great rood in the nave, and there made the second station, the bidding-prayer being given out to the people from the rood-screen, after which it re-entered the choir. But on special occasions the ritual was increased; as, for instance, at the procession of palms on Palm Sunday, or the Corpus Christi Day procession, which is thus described by Mr J.D. Chambers[3]: "The procession, some time before the mass, should assemble in order at the step of the Choir (i.e. in the Presbytery), a priest in Albe and silk Cope carrying the Corpus Christi in a tabernacle or feretory under a canopy of silk raised over him and it on four staves, borne by four clerks in Albes and Tunicles, with lighted tapers. It should go out of the Choir down the Nave, and out at the West Door of the Church, round the Church and Cloisters as on Ascension Day"—i.e. round the outside of the whole church, beginning with the north side and returning round the east end, and through the cloister to the west door again, and thus back into the nave. The colours of the vestments at Wells followed in the main the custom of the neighbouring diocese of Sarum, but with some local variations, such as are set down in the Consuetudinary which Archbishop Laud had copied from the late thirteenth-century MS. Indigo and white were used on St. John's Day and on the Dedication Festival; in Advent, indigo; at Passiontide, red, and on Palm Sunday, "except one cope of black for the part of Caiaphas" at the singing of the Passion; red, too, on Maunday Thursday, but with a banner of white. Red was also used for Easter, Pentecost, and throughout the Sundays after Trinity; while for Virgin Martyrs, red was mixed with white. This mixture of colours was probably effected by the cantors wearing different coloured copes; thus for confessors saffron (croceus) was mixed with green, sicut honestius et magis proprie possunt adaptari festo; but St. Julian and some others had all saffron, while a few, like St. Benedict, had all indigo. White is comparatively little in evidence, but it was used at Christmas, and for commemorations of the Blessed Virgin. Black was used for the commemoration of the dead.

To this vision of stately pomp, and changing colour, we must add in our mind's eye the many chapels with their woven tapestries of flowers and beasts and birds, their rich ornaments and sacred associations; the majestic rood upon the screen, and the rich altars that stood before it; the almost constant succession of services that went on behind it, where the canons (each with his own book and candle) and their vicars sat, and the pyx hung over the high altar; the sound of a little bell from one of the chapels where mass was being said, the glimmer of a hanging lamp, the gleam of a silver image, the shrines here and there, with their frequent visitors; and, as years went on, the subdued light from the gorgeous painted windows (that over the high altar glowed then from east to west without obstructing organ), the frescoes on some of the walls, the green and red and gold of the later monuments; and over all the trail of incense and the sound of prayer.

After Jocelin's death the works came to a standstill, for the sufficient reason that the chapter was "overburdened with an intolerable debt," owing to the enormous expense of the litigation with Bath Abbey over Bishop Roger's election (p. [153]). This, however, was the last attempt of the rival cathedral of St. Peter; and the debt, which was at its worst in 1248 (the year after Roger's death), was bravely met by a contribution of a fifth of the income of each prebend, as well as by gifts and obits; so that towards the end of William Bytton's episcopate the debt was nearly cleared, and in 1263 Bytton made over the sequestrations of vacant benefices to the fabric fund.

In 1248 an earthquake had done much damage, shaking down the tholus (either the vault, or the stone capping) of the central tower, as we learn from Matthew Paris (Hist. Angl. iii. 42). Accordingly, in 1263, preparations were made for further building; and in 1286 we hear of a chapter meeting, summoned by Dean Thomas Bytton, whereat the canons bind themselves to give one-tenth of their prebends for five years, "to the finishing of the works now a long time begun (jam diu incepta), and to repair what needed reparation in the old works."

The reparation here mentioned refers in all probability to the roof and piers of the transepts and eastern part of nave, damaged by the fall of the tholus. The famous western capitals of the transepts, with their frequent representations of the miseries of toothache, must refer to the second William Bytton, who had died in 1274, and whose tomb became famous for its dental cures (p. [125]). No doubt, the offerings at the shrine of this local saint helped considerably to swell the funds for the building operations.

The works "now a long time begun" can hardly be anything else than the chapter-house undercroft, the outer walls of which may have been built some forty years before. Professor Willis, who had access to the document, decided, on architectural evidence, that the undercroft must have been already completed at this time, and his view may be safely accepted (Arch. Inst., "Bristol" vol., p. 28). The passage to the undercroft would seem to be the first result of the chapter's undertaking; its ornament is of a more advanced type than that of the undercroft itself, and one of its carved heads is swollen as by the toothache, and tied in a handkerchief. There can be little or no doubt that the "finishing" of the old works included also the building of the chapter-house staircase, and, when that was finished, the raising of the chapter-house itself (the nova structura of the old documents) upon the undercroft. The full Decorated style of the chapter-house is separated by a considerable interval from the late Early English of the undercroft, while that of the staircase, which is geometrical Decorated of a character not very far removed from Early English, must have been built before the chapter-house itself was begun.

The self-sacrificing spirit of the chapter was supplemented by the offerings which flowed in from the growing practice of endowing altars for requiem services, as well as from the shrine of St. William Bytton; and the building activity continued for the next fifty years till the church had been brought, in all save its western towers, to its final state of perfection. After the staircase to the chapter-house had been completed, about the year 1292, the walls of the chapter-house itself were built, probably by Bishop William de Marchia (1293-1302) who seems to have covered it in with a temporary roof.

Dean John de Godelee (1306-1333) was the last great builder of the church of Wells. The power of the bishop in his own church is already declining, as that of the chapter rises, and it is the dean now who organises the works. In 1315 the central tower was raised, and by 1321 it was being roofed in. By 1319 the chapter-house was finished; Godelee, with William Joy, the master-mason, had probably worked out the old drawings and built the windows and vaulted roof. Next the Lady Chapel must have been begun, for by 1326 it was finished. Somewhere about this time the parapet, which adds so much to the external beauty of the church, was also made.

But the raising of the central tower had, ere this, brought disaster. In 1321 there was a grant from the clergy of the Deanery of Taunton in aid of the roofing of the "new campanile"; in 1338 a convocation was summoned because the church of Wells was so totaliter confracte et enormiter deformate that the instant and united action of its members was required to save it (cf. Willis in Som. Proc. 1863). The adding of the Decorated portion to the tower increased the weight so much that the four great piers sank into the ground, dragging the masonry with them and causing rents to appear at the apex of the arches. The situation was most dangerous: it was met by the careful repairing of the torn masonry and the construction of those inverted arches which are so familiar a feature of the church.

Yet the work proceeded very rapidly under a great bishop, who for the time eclipsed the rising power of the deans. Ralph of Shrewsbury (1329-63) carried on the work of Dean Godelee, and in the early years of his episcopate entirely reconstructed the choir. The scheme seems to have been contemplated as early as 1325; for in that year each dignitary arranged to pay for his own stall in the refitting of the choir, because the old stalls had become "ruinous and misshapen." In any case, it was Ralph who added the three new bays of the presbytery which are so curiously joined to the old presbytery of Reginald, and with it form the present eastern limb of the church. He then constructed the beautiful retro-choir which connects the presbytery with the Lady Chapel. The vaulting of the choir and the construction of the great east window would appear to have been undertaken at a later period of his episcopate; for the ceiling is of a more advanced style than the lower work, and the tracery of the window is half Perpendicular. When Bishop Ralph died, in 1363, he was buried in the place of honour in front of the high altar, as the founder of the choir which he had finished.

The finishing touches were given to the cathedral when Bishop Harewell (ob. 1386) gave two-thirds of the cost of the south-western or Harewell Tower, and when the executors of Bishop Bubwith (ob. 1424) finished the companion tower on the north-west.

The other efforts of the fourteenth and fifteenth century builders were given to those subordinate buildings which are the peculiar glory of Wells. Even so magnificent a prelate as Beckington did nothing to the actual fabric of the Cathedral (unless his tomb be so considered), for the simple reason that there was really nothing for him to do. Ralph of Shrewsbury had, besides his work in the church, finished the palace (which Jocelin had begun and Burnell had enriched with the hall and chapel) by the moat, walls, and gate-house. He had also begun the Vicars' Close, of which the chapel was built by Bubwith, but the executors of Beckington recast it in its present form. After Beckington had employed his energies in erecting the beautiful gateways with which his name is always associated, Dean Gunthorpe (ob. 1498) built the deanery.

The following interesting eulogy of Bishop Beckington and his church was written in the form of a Latin dialogue by Chaundler, who was Chancellor of Wells in 1454:—

"You might more properly call it a city than a town, as you would yourself understand more clearly than day if you could behold all its intrinsic splendour and beauty. For that most lovely church which we see at a distance, dedicated to the most blessed Apostle of the Almighty God, St. Andrew, contains the episcopal chair of the worthy Bishop. Adjoining it is the vast palace, adorned with wonderful splendour, girt on all sides by flowing waters, crowned by a delectable succession of walls and turrets, in which the most worthy and learned Bishop Thomas, the first of that name, bears rule. He has indeed at his own proper pains and charges conferred such a splendour on this city, as well by strongly fortifying the church with gates and towers and walls, as by constructing on the grandest scale the palace in which he resides and the other surrounding buildings, that he deserves to be called, not the founder merely, but rather the splendour and ornament of the church."

The Reformation period left the cathedral cold and barren within, but interfered little with its fabric; the only serious piece of destruction (p. [57]) being that of the magnificent Lady Chapel by the Cloister, in 1552, by Sir John Gates, "a greate puritan, Episcopacie's common Enemy." In other respects it was what Freeman calls a period of systematic picking and stealing; as witness this passage from Nathaniel Chyles:—"The Great Duke of Somersett, Unkle to Edward the Sixt (whose title proved very fatall to this place and Bishopwrick) was not only contented to get most of the mannours Lands and possessions belonging to this Bishopwrick settled upon him and his posteritie, but at last even the palace itselfe also." But the palace and some of the property were recovered after Somerset's execution.

The bishop's palace suffered the ruin of Burnell's magnificent hall through the prevalent lust for gain. Sir John Harrington writes in terms of pardonable indignation:—"I speak now only of the spoil made under this Bishop [Barlow]; scarce were five years past after Bath's ruins, but as fast went the axes and hammers to work at Wells. The goodly hall covered with lead ... was uncovered, and now this roof reaches to the sky. The Chapel of Our Lady, late repaired by Stillington, a place of reverence and antiquity, was likewise defaced, and such was their thirst after lead (I would they had drunk it scalding) that they took the dead bodies of bishops out of their leaden coffins, and cast abroad the carcases scarce thoroughly putrified."

During the Commonwealth the choir was closed, and Dr Cornelius Burges, who was appointed "Preacher" at the cathedral, bought the bishop's palace and deanery for his private property. He, of course, despoiled the palace, "pulling off not only the Lead thereoff," says Chyles,[4] "but taking away also the Timber, and making what money he could of them, and what remained unsold he removed to the Deanery improving that out of the Ruins of the palace, leaving only bare Walls." At the Restoration Burges was ejected, after a good deal of litigation, and Bishop Piers returned to the ruins of his palace. Burges' sermons had never been popular with the people of Wells, who annoyed him by walking up and down the cloisters "all sermon time." When the trial for his ejectment came on he published his "Case," in which he justified his buying Church lands by alleging that he had lent the State £3490, and, having a wife and ten children to provide for, he took such land, etc. as the only means of repayment. Five of the canons' houses were also obtained from Cromwell's Commissioners by the Corporation of Wells, one or two of which were pulled down and sold for old stone.

At the Restoration, the canons were at great expense to restore the church from the ruinous condition into which it had fallen in Puritan times, and they were liberally helped in their extremity by the clergy and laity of the diocese. Says Chyles (c. 1680): "Since his Majestie's and Churche's happy and blessed Restoration, what betweene the Bishopp, the Deane, and Deane and Chapter, our Church and Quire is once more in a beautifull and comely habitt (which God continue) such as neither the Church of Rome has reason to upbraid us with a slovenly or clownish Service, nor the Puritan and Nonconformist with a gaudy or Superstitious. The good old Bishopp [W. Piers], who weather'd out that Storme, and was restored to what was his Owne, gave those silk Hangings which beautifie the Altar within the Railes." Dean Creyghton gave the glass in the west window, the organ and the brass lectern, and Dr Busby, who was treasurer of Wells as well as head-master of Westminster, gave the silver-gilt alms dish and restored the library, lengthening it by the addition of the southern part.

Chyles tells us, too, that there was morning and evening prayer in the "Vicars' Chapell in Close Hall," at six, forenoon and afternoon, in winter, and seven in summer, in addition to the cathedral services at the "canonical howers." Before his time there had been only a morning sermon on Sundays, and, in the afternoon, "the whole Cathedrall" had been in the habit of going to St. Cuthbert's, returning with the mayor and his brethren for the cathedral prayers at four; "but since his Majesty's Restoracion one likewise in the Afternoones here is preached by the said prebends in theire turns. Soe that here the Sermonizing people may have their Bellyfull of preaching and forbeare crying out, They are starved for want of the Word and calling our clergy Dumb Doggs."

This time of peace did not last long, for in 1685 the whole of Somerset was up in Monmouth's rebellion. The duke's followers came to Wells, turned the cathedral into a stable, tore the lead off the roof for bullets, pulled down several of the statues, broached a barrel of beer on the high altar, and would have destroyed the altar itself, had not Lord Grey, one of their leaders, defended it with his sword. Dr Conan Doyle's description of the scene in his novel, Micah Clarke (p. 292), is so vivid that it is well worth referring to.

The long and heavy peace which followed was marked by the gradual pewing up of the choir and presbytery, and the intrusion of pretentious monuments. Then, in our own times, came the revival, bringing evil as well as good in its train. In 1842 the restoration of the nave, transepts, and Lady Chapel was commenced at the instance of Dean Goodenough, by Mr Benjamin Ferrey. He removed the thick layers of whitewash which had been ingeniously applied to conceal the sculpture; and the long rows of marble tablets which had disfigured the aisles were shifted to the cloisters, whence, it may be hoped, they will one day make a further journey towards oblivion.

The restoration of the choir by Mr Salvin, which lasted from 1848 to 1854, was unfortunately of a less blameless character. It was the period of the Great Exhibition, when art reached the lowest depths to which it has sunk in the history of the world.

We need not dwell upon the result; few restorations are more marked with the complacent ignorance of that strange time. The old pews and galleries in the choir, which had hidden the very capitals of the piers, were indeed removed, but with them the medieval stalls were destroyed and replaced by work of indescribable imbecility. No real improvement in the choir of Wells is now possible till every trace of Dean Jenkyns' restoration is swept away; but, alas! what he destroyed can never be recovered.

In 1868 the report of Mr Ferrey[5] upon the west front was presented, and shortly afterwards the work of repair was begun under his direction. The report showed how extensive was the decay, and how great the danger of complete ruin unless steps were taken to protect the old work; and the work of repair was carried out with care and reverence; though even here irreparable harm was done by the substitution of the modern "slate pencils" for the old blue lias shafts. Since then, many small matters have been attended to with varying success. The Lady Chapel has been decently furnished and the east end slightly improved. Much still remains to be done; but the best motto at the present day is festina lente, and the safest rule is to be progressive in all enrichment by removable furniture, and conservative, very conservative, in all structural alteration. If the hand of the restorer can now be stayed, the words will still be true of Wells, which M. Huysmans used of another church:—Ces siècles s'étaient reunis pour apporter aux pieds du Christ l'effort surhumain de leur art, et les dons de chacun étaient visibles encore.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Somerset Proceedings, 1888, ii. 5.

[2] History of the Cathedral, p. 98.

[3] Divine Worship in England, p. 195.

[4] Book ii. c. 2.

[5] Inst. Arch. 1870.

CHAPTER II

THE EXTERIOR

"In England," wrote Mr J.H. Parker, in his Glossary, "Wells affords the most perfect example of a cathedral with all its parts and appurtenances. It was," he continues, after an enumeration of the parts of the church, "a cathedral proper, and independent of any monastic foundation, but with a separate house for each of its officers, either in the Close or in the Liberty adjoining to it. The bishop's palace was enclosed by a separate moat and fortified, being on the south side of the cloister, from which it is separated by the moat; the houses for the dean and for the archdeacon are on the north side of the Close, with some of the canons' houses; the organist's house is at the west end, adjoining to the singing-school and the cloister; the precentor's house is at the east end, near the Lady Chapel. The vicars-choral have a close of their own adjoining to the north-east corner of the canons' close, with a bridge across through the gate-house into the north transept; they were a collegiate body, with their own chapel, library, and hall." One need only add that all these sentences can still, with one exception, be read in the present tense to show that Wells possesses a beauty and interest which gives it an unique place among cathedral foundations. There is no other cathedral city in which so many of the old ecclesiastical buildings remain, or on which the modern world has made so little impression. The church itself, in Fergusson's opinion perhaps the most beautiful, though one of the smallest in England, is but one part of a "group of buildings, which," wrote Professor Freeman, "as far as I know, has no rival, either in our own island or beyond the sea." The little city to which these buildings belong is itself worthy of them, almost a part of them, so quiet and venerable is it, so picturesque in its lovely setting of green hills.

Were size the main distinction of a church, Wells would sink comfortably into the second class; even in some of its best features it has many rivals, but the peculiar charm and glory of Wells lies (to quote again from Freeman's History) "in the union and harmonious grouping of all. The church does not stand alone; it is neither crowded by incongruous buildings, nor yet isolated from those buildings which are its natural and necessary complement. Palace, cloister, Lady Chapel, choir, chapter-house, all join to form one indivisible whole. The series goes on uninterruptedly along that unique bridge, which, by a marvel of ingenuity, connects the church itself with the most perfect of buildings of its own class, the matchless vicars' close. Scattered around we see here and there an ancient house, its gable, its windows, or its turret, falling in with the style and group of greater buildings, and bearing its part in producing the general harmony of all." Thus, in the first place, the group of buildings must be looked at as a whole from the north, from the east, from the south-east; then the superb, unrivalled picture from the rising ground on the Shepton Mallet road,[1] outside the city, must be seen, and, when this little journey has been made, the most hurried visitor must find time at least to peep into the vicars' close, and walk round the moat of the palace. After some such general impression has been gained, the study of the exterior of the church will naturally begin with that part which is a peculiar distinction of Wells Cathedral—the west front.

The West Front of Wells has been universally admired. Long ago, old Fuller wrote—"The west front of Wells is a masterpiece of art indeed, made of imagery in just proportion, so that we may call them vera et spirantia signa. England affordeth not the like." This verdict is but repeated by modern writers; the front is "quite unrivalled," says Fergusson, and comparable only to Rheims and Chartres. Mr Hughes, in Traill's Social England, goes farther and says[2] that "nothing fit to rank with it was then being done in Northern Europe—for the monumental porches of France, formerly supposed to be contemporary, are now recognised as of a later date."

But there has been a discordant note in the general chorus of praise. Professor Freeman, whose admiration for nearly everything in Wells was so intense, could find little to praise in the west front of the cathedral.[3] "It is doubtless," he wrote, "the finest display of sculpture in England; but it is thoroughly bad as a piece of architecture. I am always glad when I get round the corner, and can rest my eye on the massive and simple majesty of the nave and transepts. The west front is bad because it is a sham—because it is not the real ending of the nave and aisles, but a mere mask, devised, in order to gain greater room for the display of statues ... The front is not the natural finish of the nave and aisles; it is a blank wall built up in a shape which is not the shape which their endings would naturally assume. It is therefore a sham; it is a sin against the first law of architectural design, the law that enrichment should be sought in ornamenting the construction ... not in building up anything simply for the sake of effect." He then proceeds to criticise the way in which the windows and doorways "are stowed away as they best may be," as if they were felt to be mere interruptions to the lines of sculpture.

This latter objection to the doorways had often been made before, only that the "rabbit-holes on a mountain side" of earlier critics became "mouse-holes" with Mr Freeman. Mr E.W. Godwin, in a lecture in 1862, had also found fault with the crowding in of the niches over the central doorway, which he declared to be in the highest degree clumsy; with the bald appearance given by the shallowness of the reveals in the principal windows; and with the way in which "the solid work of the base suddenly crops up at the very summit of the two central buttresses, not altogether unlike the dog-kennel of modern Gothic."

Of these criticisms the most serious is Mr Freeman's general charge of unreality. But why should not a stone screen be erected for the display of statuary before the west end of a church, just as lawfully as behind the high altar? And, if a screen may be allowed as an end in itself, standing simply as a thing of beauty to glorify a building of which it is not a structural part, then the front of Wells may stand, like the reredos of Winchester, as the noblest example of its kind. It has no need to simulate lofty aisles which do not exist, for it covers, not the aisles, but the faces of the great towers themselves; and, as a consequence, the portion of really blank wall which stretches from them to the central gable is so small as to be more than justified by the cohesion it gives to the whole. The whole effect is singularly broad, but so is the space it covers within; for this breadth is legitimately attained by the happy device of planting the western towers beyond the aisles.

The massive front of Wells stands, therefore, on its own merits as a west front, and not merely a west end—a great stone screen that, so far from pretending to be a regular termination of the nave and aisles, is actually carried, in all its sculptured magnificence, round the sides of the two towers upon which it so frankly depends. It is a screen built at a period different from, and, we may now safely assume, later than, that of the nave, and built for the exhibition of a noble legend in stone, which has ever since been the glory of a county famed for its splendid churches.

Taking it then for what it is, and remembering that the lower tiers were once filled with statuary, can we regret that the doorways themselves were subordinated to the one grand design of accommodating this great multitude of silent teachers? The great doorways of French churches are magnificent in themselves, but that is surely no reason why we should make it an axiom that a front cannot be fine unless it have a great doorway. Striking as the effect of these foreign entrances may be, there is no structural reason why a door should be of an unwieldy size out of all proportion to the stature of the people who use it, so that a smaller door has to be cut for ordinary use out of the real door. It certainly, as even at Amiens, limits the sculptor's opportunities; and in a country like England, where doors can only be kept open for a few weeks in the year, great doorways would be as inappropriate as closed doors are forbidding. As a matter of fact, the usual entrance to Wells Cathedral in Jocelin's time was not from the west, but through the cloister and the south porch. And the central entrance of the west was made impressive, not by its size, but by the exquisite nature of its carving, and the blue and scarlet and gold with which it was coloured. It was not insignificant then. It had the prominence of a jewel. Moreover, in French churches, where the exterior is sacrificed to the internal effect, there is some wisdom in concentrating attention upon the doorway. But in English churches—and in Wells, perhaps, more than any other English church—the exteriors are perfect in themselves, and the visitor need not be tempted to hurry to their portals. After all, if the rabbit-holes on a mountain-side looked as large as quarries, the mountain would not look like a mountain.

There are, moreover, three faults in the front as it now stands which cannot be attributed to its maker. In the first place, it is undoubtedly a little formal, a little square, and this defect is particularly marked in the photographs which one sees everywhere. Unfortunately this picture, which is too small to show the detail, gives no idea whatever of the general external effect of the church. It gives the impression that Wells Cathedral is a glorified wall, because the photograph cannot show the other parts upon which the front depends. The architect, no doubt, intended the towers to be carried higher or surmounted with spires, and though no trace of any stone erection has been found on the tops of the present towers, they may once have been crowned with wooden spires covered with lead or shingle. One need hardly say how vast a difference such lofty towers as exist at Laon Cathedral, or spires like those of Lichfield, would make in the effect of the front. They would also account for the great size of the buttresses, which seem to have been built with a view to sustaining a great weight.

A disagreeable impression is also caused by the row of hip-knobs along the coping of the central gable, and the pinnacle in their midst. This collection of curiosities was probably added in the seventeenth century, and the pinnacle may have been taken from one of the denuded buttresses of the Lady Chapel to replace the gable cross which must have originally stood here: at all events it is a later addition, as was proved by an examination of the masonry. It would be an act of justice to the memory of Jocelin if these trivial excrescences were removed.

Perhaps one is even more distressed on first seeing the front by a third fault—the weak and stringy effect of the long, thin, dark, marble shafts. For this the restorer, Mr Benjamin Ferrey, must bear the blame. He complained with justice that the original blue lias shafts, when they were decayed, had been replaced by the ordinary Doulting stone.[4] But, unhappily, he did not go back to the original material, but fitted the whole front with a complete set of shafts of Kilkenny marble, which is at once dark and cold. They absolutely refuse to blend with the old, warm, grey stone, and stand out, stark and stiff, like an array of gigantic slate pencils. Mr Ferrey was possessed with the idea that the blue lias shafts (having only lasted for a paltry half-dozen centuries) were not durable enough for the work. He therefore used this marble, which, doubtless, will stand in increased obtrusiveness when every stone of the cathedral has decayed. He further was impressed with the strange notion that the hideous Kilkenny marble is of the same colour as the exquisitely delicate grey of the blue lias. The result is a sad warning to all restorers not to be more clever than the original architect.

Let us, then, try to imagine the west front with its empty lowest tier filled with graceful figures, its gable in its first simplicity and surmounted by a cross, its towers of Early English form crowned with lofty spires, its delicate shafts of their original material, and its ranges of figures "all gorgeous in their freshly-painted hues of blue and scarlet and purple and gold." Then we shall have some idea of the front of Wells as Jocelin meant it to be and to remain.

As for the colour, its effect can be gathered from the traces which survive. There is ultramarine, gold, and scarlet in the tympanum of the central doorway, where there are also the marks of metal fittings. Ferrey found a deep maroon colour on the figures of the Apostles, and a dark colour painted with stars in the Resurrection tier. One of the chief glories of the front is the faithful care which is given throughout to the smaller features. The mouldings (a succession of rounds and hollows) are most bold and effective; the carving of the foliage in caps and canopies, tympana, pedestals, and terminals is singularly beautiful and free. This impression is deepened by a minute examination; indeed, it is almost a matter of regret that some of the finest work is at such a height as to be almost impossible to see; for in all the earlier work at Wells the Lamp of Sacrifice burns brightly. Mr Ferry pointed out an instance, which may be given here, of the care with which minor matters were thought out:—In order that the lowest tier might not look weak and yet might provide a sufficient shadow for the statues, the backs of the niches are set at a slightly recessed angle in the centre, and thus an effect of strength is given to the angular jambs. Indeed, there may be differences of opinion as to the general design of the west front, but there can be none as to the supreme excellence of its detail. It is beyond doubt the most rich example of Early English work to be found anywhere. The crown of its glories, the justification of its form, did it need justification, are the frail statues which line it, tier upon tier.

Vertically the west front is divided into three main parts—the centre, containing the three lancet windows of the nave and the main doorway, is surmounted by a gable receding in stages with a pinnacle at either angle; and the two lateral towers, the lower portion of which form one continuous screen with the centre, broken only by the boldly projecting buttresses, of which each division possesses two. Horizontally the front divides itself naturally into four parts—the plain base, which is high enough to contain the full height of the small north and south doorways. One of the stones in this division, about the level of the eye, and near the middle, which has evidently been moved from some other place, bears the inscription, Pur lalme Johan de Putenie priez et trieze jurs de ... Next is an arcade of niches interspersed with windows, the space above being pierced by quatrefoils. The third division contains the three lancet windows, the forms of which are repeated on the north and south, breaking the line of the two historical tiers of niches which, with the Resurrection tier, adorn this main division of the front. A bold string course marks it off firmly and decisively from the fourth and upper division, in which the three parts of the front become separate, the towers at each side and the stepped gable, flanked by two graceful Early English pinnacles, in the middle. The statuary is mainly confined to the arcading of the second division, to the buttresses of the third, with its continuous cornice of the Resurrection tier, and to the gable front of the fourth; but the amount of it is largely increased by the fact that the work is carried round three sides of the north-western tower, which only touches the church on one side. The niches on the sides of the south-western tower are almost empty.

The Statuary.—The statuary is not only the finest collection of medieval sculpture to be found in England; but, separately, the figures are with few exceptions finer than any others in this country, while some of them are almost as beautiful as the greatest masterpieces in Italy or France. It is strange that here, at the outset of the Gothic period, the chief characteristics of the old Greek spirit should be so apparent, the same restraint, the same simplicity, the same exquisite appreciation of light and flowing drapery: in other things there is difference enough, the form is less perfect, the action is less free, though there is a deeper sentiment and a higher power of spiritual expression; but in the essentials of sublime statuary there is a singular agreement.

And, strange though it seems, it may well be that in these statues one must look for the first signs of the influence of the Renaissance in England. Romanesque work has but just died out, and already the old spirit, destined in time to supplant the architecture which sprung from it, is at work again. While the statues were being cut at Wells, Niccola Pisano was reviving sculpture in Italy under the inspiration of classical examples; and there can be little doubt but that it was Italian sculptors who produced the statuary at Wells. Some of the figures on the northern part of the front have been found to be marked with Arabic numerals (Somerset Proceedings 1888, i. 57, 62), and these numerals, which did not become common in England till the sixteenth century, were used in Italy long before, having been introduced by Bonacci of Pisa (a fellow-citizen of Niccola) in 1202. That they are found here before the middle of the century is a fairly conclusive proof that the workers were Italians, and very likely from Pisa itself. Jocelin, indeed, was English, but he had been in exile from 1208 to 1213, when he had ample opportunity of studying the work of the Italian artists. Pleasant as it would be to our national pride, we can hardly believe that Englishmen produced what seems to be the earliest example of such magnificent and varied sculpture in north-western Europe. At Jocelin's death, in 1242, when the work had been going on for some thirty years, Niccola Pisano was in his prime, Cimabue was two years old, and forty years had yet to elapse before the rival sculpture of Amiens Cathedral was executed.

Mr Ruskin, whose admiration of the work at Amiens is so intense, has given almost as high praise to the sculpture at Wells, and has presented sets of photographs of the statuary to various art schools. The verdict of enthusiastic approval is, in fact, unanimous. Flaxman, to his credit, in spite of his classicalism, was one of the first to draw attention to the work. Whoever was the general designer of the whole arrangement, he deserves as great praise as the sculptors themselves. There must have been several sculptors, both because no one man could have carved three hundred and fifty subjects (of which one hundred and fifty-two are life-size or colossal), and because a certain number of the figures in the fourth and fifth tiers are of obviously inferior design. But one master-mind must have conceived and directed the work. The height and lightness which is given to the gable by the tall row of the Apostles, the solemn prominence of the figure of our Lord above, the rich cornice-like effect of the small Resurrection tier, the difference in height between the fourth and fifth tiers, the concentration of the three lower tiers, the breadth which the seated figures give to the face of the buttresses, the arrangement of the statues and groups round the buttresses, which makes it impossible for them all to be seen at once, all show that one mind was busy, carefully subordinating the parts to the whole.

It may well have been Jocelin himself who planned the subject-matter of the statuary with such admirable breadth and balance of mind. It is easy to produce sermons in stones, easy to sermonise in very many ways; but Jocelin did not preach. He just tried to embody the Christian spirit at work in the world: God made manifest in man, the great truth of the Incarnation; and this he did in what we should call the most modern manner, though in truth it is medieval as well as modern. He did not conceive of Christianity as confined within the covers of the Bible, but he took all history, as he knew it, the patient education of man in the Old Testament, the fulfilment of man's aspirations and God's purpose in the New, from the birth of our Lord to the founding of the Church, and the continuation of this church up to his own time, with especial regard to the heroes, saints and rulers of the Church of England. He made a "kalendar for unlearned men," which is both a Biblia Pauperum and Annales Angliae, because the annals of England were to him a new Bible. "Slowly the Bible of the race is writ," a modern writer has said, "each age, each kindred, adds a word to it." That was the spirit of Jocelin's design; only that, through the pomp of mighty kings and fair women and honoured bishops, he looked to the naked truth of the judgment time, when mitres and crowns would remain but as signs of an awful responsibility, and the divine justice, so tried, so obscured on earth, would be vindicated before the angels who are quick to do God's will, and the twelve plain men who turned the mighty currents of the world. Such was the spirit of a man who lived in the days of St. Francis and St. Louis, Stephen Langton and Roger Bacon.

Before commencing a detailed description of the statuary, one must refer to Professor Cockerell, R.A., whose enthusiastic love of the work led him to construct a theory which he published in 1851, as an Iconography of the West Front. There can be little doubt that he was right in his general idea; there can be equally little doubt that he was wrong in nearly every application of it. Everyone now, for instance, takes it for granted that the south side of the front is mainly "spiritual," devoted to ecclesiastics, while the north is "temporal"; and that the whole of the fourth and fifth tiers do represent certain leading historical figures. But when we read Cockerell's reasons for identifying these figures we recoil in dismay. His knowledge of history is superficial, of costume he knows practically nothing; his drawings are as inaccurate as his imagination is fertile, and he states as obvious facts the wildest conjectures. Further reference will be found to his book in our description of the fourth and fifth tiers. It was at least an honest labour of love, and Cockerell deserves the honour, as he had to endure the disadvantages, of being the first in the field.

The central doorway may be taken before the lowest tier. Its soffit contains an evident addition, as if the architect felt that it needed emphasising by some enrichment. In the first of its four deeply-wrought mouldings a series of niches, five on each side, with small delicately-carved figures, has been inserted, evidently after the arch was made; they are cut from a different stone (white lias), and are skilfully fitted and grooved into the back of the large sunk moulding. They add considerably to the effect of the arch, although all the heads of the figures have been destroyed. It is characteristic of Cockerell's random method of conjecture, that he declared these figures to be representations of the Ten Commandments.

1. The tympanum under the arch and above the double opening of the doorway contains a quatrefoil, in which is a noble sculpture of the Madonna and Child. The head of the Mother and the upper half of the Child are gone, but the drapery that remains is of quite perfect grace and dignity. A serpent is under the feet of the Madonna, who is sitting on a throne; angels censing are on either side without the quatrefoil. A good deal of the old colour which once gave this central group a peculiar brilliancy can still be traced on this protected sculpture; the background was ultramarine, the mouldings red and gold. The figures were also gilded in part, and there are marks on the wall to show that a metal nimbus was once attached to it.

2. In a canopy above the arch is another sculpture of equal beauty, though, owing to its more exposed position, the treatment is a little broader. It represents the coronation of Our Lady; both the heads and all the hands are gone. The two figures are both seated on one long bench, and our Lord leans forward to place the crown upon his Mother's head.

THE TIERS.

In order to avoid any possible mistake I have taken each tier from right to left, specifying the gaps, windows, and buttresses, to facilitate identification, and commencing with the lowest tier. I have also numbered the figures afresh, because of the confusion which has hitherto caused great waste of time to every one who has attempted to identify them. Cockerell's numbers are the only ones that are at all accurate (and he omits the two figures on the extreme south of the fourth and fifth tiers); but, as he recommenced his enumeration with each series, they are not much use for purposes of identification. There are mistakes and omissions in the enumeration of the photographs, there are mistakes in the album in the cathedral library, the photographs in the South Kensington Museum are hopelessly muddled, and even the descriptions of the restorer, Mr Ferrey, are so arranged that it takes days to identify them, while some of them elude one's efforts altogether. I have, therefore, numbered the statues and groups in a continuous order from bottom to top, so that comparison with photographs will in the future be easy. In the case of work most of which can only be seen from a distance, the study of photographs is absolutely necessary for a full appreciation of their beauty, more especially as in very many cases the photographs reveal the form which the accidents of discoloration have partly concealed. Mr Phillips of 10 Market Place has an almost complete set of admirable photographs, which he was enabled to take when the scaffolding was up for the restoration of 1870-73: it is these which Mr Ruskin has so much admired.

As there are so many statues, some of inferior interest and beauty, I have ventured to put an asterisk (*) to those which I think no one should fail to see; and, in almost every case, I have but echoed the general verdict.

The Lowest Tier.—This tier contains sixty-two niches, forty-three of which are empty, so fatally convenient has their position been for the iconoclast. Of those which remain nearly all are on the north side of the tower, so that at first sight the tier seems to be quite empty. The loss here has been the greater because the figures were of the finest kind, as well as the most easily seen: those remaining are certainly of the most exquisite loveliness. Cockerell's theory that this tier represents the heralds of the gospel, prophets and missionaries, has nothing to support it.

It seems to me not unlikely that the tier was devoted to some of the most popular saints in the calendar; the position, so near the passer-by, would have suited this arrangement, and the front must have been singularly deficient in saints if it were otherwise. The figures which remain, a group of deacons, a group of bearded figures holding books, and of women bearing religious attributes, might well stand for saints.

3. South Tower. Male figure, much decayed, held by metal clamps.

4. Male figure, much decayed, held by metal clamps.

Rest of figures missing along west front up to—

5. North Tower. Male figure, much decayed, holds book.

6. A similar figure.

Missing.

7. North Buttress. Male figure, which held some drapery in front.

8. North Buttress. Male figure, holding a vessel in right hand covered with a cloth, the end of which was in left hand. [Cockerell calls this St. Augustine, erroneously supposing this cloth to be the pallium.]

9. Beautiful female figure,* drapery resembling a chasuble; hands gone.

10. Female figure with flowing hair; hands gone.

11. Female figure, wimple round head, in left hand holds a vessel, right hand is on the edge of the vessel, the fingers dipping in.

12. Female figure,* hood over head, holds in right hand the foot of a chalice, and with her left the fold of her dress in front.

13. Tall male figure, bearded, holding closed book; in good preservation.

14. Male figure, bearded; hands gone.

15. Buttress. Male figure, bearded, with flowing hair; hands gone.

16. Buttress. Male figure, bearded, holding open book in left hand; upper part moulding away.

17. Deacon* in dalmatic, alb, amice, holding open book in left hand, right hand gone; drapery is wonderfully fine. (This and the remaining figures are tonsured and shaven.)

18. Deacon,* a beautiful figure, (apparently in dalmatic), amice; left hand gone.

19. Deacon, in girded alb, ends of girdle hanging down, wears the folded chasuble (very rare in art) over left shoulder, maniple; holds book with both hands.

Missing.

20. Buttress. Deacon, in girded alb, amice, stole over left shoulder, book in left hand. Besides ends of girdle, end of a stole is visible on left side, as if a crossed stole had first been carved and this end forgotten.

21. Buttress. Deacon,* stole worn over left shoulder, maniple, but no amice and no girdle; wears instead of alb a surplice with full sleeves—an unusual combination.

Second Tier.—The next tier (22-53) consists of thirty-two quatrefoils, some of which are now empty. The rest contain half-length figures of angels, holding crowns, mitres, scrolls, or drapery in their hands.

Third Tier.—This, which we may call the Bible Tier, consists of forty-eight quatrefoils, ranged close above the quatrefoils of the second tier, and broken in the centre by the larger sculpture of the Coronation of the Virgin (2). The subjects are all from the Bible, those on the south from the Old Testament, dealing with the first things, while those on the north and on the north and east sides of the northern tower are from the New Testament, and represent the life and mission of our Lord. The iconoclasts seem to have concentrated their attention on those earlier New Testament groups, which would contain the figure of our Lady, and they have made the Crucifixion almost unrecognisable. The figures are about two feet high.

Empty.

54. The Death of Jacob.

55. Isaac blessing Jacob, who leans over him.

56. Meeting of Isaac and Rebecca, probably.

57. Noah sacrificing on Ararat. Very fine.

58. The Ark. A curious structure, raised pyramidally in four tiers, with open arcades, in which birds and beasts are seen. Below is the Flood.

59. Noah building the Ark.* He is in workman's dress, and wears a cap; he is working at a bench, beneath which are his tools. Behind is the ark, and an "Early English" tree.

60. God decreeing the Deluge.* In great wrath Jehovah approaches a man who sits pensively on a hill-side: from behind the man's head springs a demon. The figure of Jehovah is admirably expressed.

Empty.

61. Abraham about to sacrifice Isaac, who is bound on a bundle of wood. Cockerell called this the Sacrifice of Cain, which certainly suits its position better.

62. Adam delves and Eve spins. Fine.

Empty.

63. Jehovah in the Garden. A draped figure, addressing two figures naked and ashamed.

64. The Temptation. The serpent's body is coiled round the tree near Adam, and his head hovers above with an apple in the mouth. Adam is already eating the fruit.

65. God placing Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

66. The Creation of Eve.

67. The Creation of Adam. The figure of the Almighty in each of these three is magnificent, especially in the last.

Empty.

Over central doorway. 2. Coronation of the Virgin (p. [34]).

Here follow eighteen New Testament subjects.

68. St. John the Evangelist*; he is winged. A book rests on the back of an eagle. The idea of inspiration could not be more finely expressed.

Empty. (Perhaps the Annunciation was here.)

Empty. (Perhaps the Visitation.)

69. The Nativity. Mutilated.

Empty.

Empty.

Empty.

Empty.

Empty.

Empty.

70. Christ among the Doctors: the Holy Child is a very small figure on a pedestal. A most expressive group.

71. St. John Baptist, clothed in camels' hair, in the wilderness. (An angel appearing from the clouds, broken off since 1862. The fragment is now in No. 72).

72. Figures in critical attitudes. Perhaps the Sermon on the Mount.

Empty.

73. Christ in the Wilderness, probably.

74. Figures in intent attitudes. Perhaps the Mission of the Apostles.

75. Five figures seated at a table. Perhaps the Anointing of Christ's feet.

76. Figure on a Mount surrounded by many figures. Perhaps the Feeding of the Five Thousand. North side of Tower.

77. Christ, sitting, with other figures. Perhaps the Feeding of the Four Thousand.

78. The Transfiguration.* A fine composition, two of the Apostles crouching in the foreground.

79. The Entry into Jerusalem. Under the city gate two men strew clothes and branches: from the walls and tower many people are looking.

80. The Betrayal. Chief priest with mitred head-dress in centre: winged devil holds up the train of right figure. On left a figure holds open a money-box.

81. The Last Supper.* The Virgin kneels to receive the Communion from her Son: St. John's head rests on His bosom. The drapery is very fine. Underneath are a bottle and a basket.

Empty.

82. Christ before Pilate.

83. Christ bearing the Cross. Mutilated.

84. The Elevation of the Cross. Much mutilated.

85. The Deposition. Much mutilated.

Empty.

86. The Resurrection. An angel on either side, guards below.

87. Pentecost: the Birthday of Holy Church. A dignified group of figures.

Fourth and Fifth Tiers.—The fourth and fifth tiers contained at least 120 figures (about a dozen of which are gone), varying in height from 7 ft. 10 in. to 8 ft. 1 in., a few running as high as 8 ft. 10 in. They no doubt represent the kings, bishops, and heroes of English history from Egbert to Henry II. Cockerell was probably right in his general interpretation of the series, but it is easy to prove that he is wrong in many of the names he gives. It is not so easy to suggest any better, and therefore his names have stuck to the figures, since people naturally like to know them by something more interesting than a number. I shall therefore adopt his nomenclature, with the admission that equally good grounds could be given in almost every case for some other theory. Besides Mr Ferrey's account (Inst. Brit. Arch., 1870), quoted in inverted commas, Cockerell's descriptions, inaccurate as they are, have been consulted, and also Mr Planché's criticism of Cockerell.

The word Buttress means that the figure (generally a sitting one) is on the west face of the buttress in question. Bishops ("Bp."), unless otherwise stated, wear the usual vestments—mitre, chasuble, dalmatic, tunicle, stole, maniple, alb, and apparelled amice. Kings ("K.") and Queens ("Q.") wear crowns. A favourite attitude is described as "holding cord"; this cord being the lace or cord of the mantle, which crossed the chest and prevented that garment from falling off the shoulders. The mantle seems to have had an uncomfortable tendency to slip down, and thus it became a habit constantly to pull the cord forward, whence the frequency of this attitude. This cord was wrongly described by Cockerell as a necklace, with which it has, of course, no connection. The word "trampling" refers to another common feature in these tiers; kings are generally represented as trampling on a small figure under their feet, to signify their success over their enemies. The figures of the fifth tier are rather taller than those of the fourth. The first twenty figures on our list, those of the fourth tier up to King Ina, may represent the twenty bishops of the diocese from Athelm to Jocelin, in direct order, since the corresponding series of the fifth tier contains figures which cannot be those of bishops. I have, however, kept to Cockerell's names to avoid confusion.

Fourth Tier.—88. South Tower—Buttress—Sitting Bp.; much decayed, supported by metal clamps.

89. Bp. Savaric. Much defaced, head grotesquely so.

90. Bp. Robert. Much defaced, head grotesquely.

Missing.

91. Buttress. Bp. Reginald de Bohun, sitting; somewhat decayed.

92. Bp. Ethelweard, good drapery, well—preserved; no hair or beard.

93. Sighelm, good drapery, well-preserved; ring of curly hair and beard.

94. Alfry, in hood; large curly beard.

95. Etheleage, monastic dress, cowl and scapular; large curly beard.

96. Bp. Asser. Short and stout figure, in attitude of benediction.

97. Bp. Heahmund. Short and stout figure, in attitude of benediction.

98. Buttress. Bp. Wolfhelm. Fine seated figure, in attitude of benediction.

99. Bp. Ealhstan. Stout common-place figure; rather mutilated.

100. Bp. Wilbert. Stout common-place figure; rather mutilated.

101. Bp. Denefrith. Stout common-place figure; better preserved.

102. Bp. Ethelnod. Stout common-place figure; better preserved.

103. Buttress. Bp. Aethelhelm, first Bishop of Wells* (reproduced on p. [22]). Noble figure, sitting in attitude of benediction.

104. Bp. Herewald, in attitude of benediction.

105. Bp. Forthere, head bent slightly forward.

106. Bp. Ealdhelm. A fine figure. Central Window (South).

107. K. Ina, looking over right shoulder, hand gone. (These central figures, Ina and Ethelburga, are supposed to be of later date than the rest.) Central Window.

108. Q. Ethelburga. Wears the long kirtle with girdle, from which are hung an ink-bottle and aulmoniere. Central Window (North).

109. K. Egbert, trampling, bearded; cloak falls in a graceful sweep from right to left.

110. K. Ethelwulf, bearded. A very short figure, but raised on high stone (crouching figure?) higher than the others.

111. K. Ethelbald; decayed.

112. Buttress. K. Edgar, sitting, flat cap on head.

113. K. Ethelbert, smooth face, trampling; apparently holds fragment of sceptre in right hand, cord of mantle with left.

114. K. Ethelred I., smooth face, trampling, gracefully draped cloak, holds fragment of sceptre apparently in right, and something indistinct in left hand.

115. K. Edwy, left arm raised, holding cloak, which is over right shoulder.

116. K. Edward the Martyr, bearded, holding cup (his usual symbol) in left hand, trampling. This is one of the most likely ascriptions.

117. Buttress. K. Edmund, sitting, right arm uplifted, left resting on knee. Fast decaying.

118. K. Ethelred the Unready, bearded, short figure, trampling, but the trampled figure leans easily on its elbow.

119. K. Cnut, bearded, short figure, trampling, but the trampled figure is apparently still struggling.

120. Q. Osburga,* in long supertunic, with ample sleeves, falling in folds over the feet. The tight sleeve of her kirtle appears on left arm, which holds cord of mantle. Head and neck in the wimple which was not in thirteenth century distinctive of nun's dress. Book in right hand.

121. Q. Emma, in flowing supertunic with ample sleeves, and wimple; hands gone.

122. Harold I., no head covering, trampling; hands touching girdle.

123. Harthacnut, like II old, but hands and part of face gone.

124. Buttress. K. Edred, sitting, right hand on knee, left raised to cord, drapery crossed.

125. Q. Edgitha, mantle falls round over left foot.

126. Edmund Ironside.* Knight in surcoat over chain armour, hauberk but no helmet; right arm and left hand gone, but head turned to left and attitude is that of drawing or sheathing his sword.

127. Harold. Knight, hauberk and surcoat of mail, cylindrical helmet, shield on left side; delapidated.

128. North Side of Tower. Buttress. Edward the Confessor, in cap; sitting in attitude of judgment (Planché), left hand resting on right ankle, this leg being crossed over left knee.

129. Prince Richard.* Crowned figure of great beauty, bearded, head slightly bent to left with a melancholy expression; hands gone.

130. Robert Curthouse,* bearded, the right hand draws aside part of the surcoat, exposing right leg in curious hose; left leg covered by surcoat.

131. K. Rufus,* bearded, right hand holds cord of mantle, left holds border of mantle across his body.

132. Q. Matilda, flowing hair, holds mantle in left hand.

133. Emperor Henry, crowned, holds cord of mantle, with right hand fingering end of his girdle.

134. K. Stephen, right hand holds cord of mantle, left on girdle.

135. K. Henry II., end of cloak thrown over shoulder, holds the fold with both hands; in good preservation.

136. Buttress. K. William the Conqueror, sitting in menacing attitude, elbows projecting, and hands upon knees.

137. Prince Henry. A dignified figure; hands gone.

138. Prince Geoffrey. Beautiful figure, head gone, holds cord of mantle, loose sleeves, and good drapery. (Ferrey is wrong in calling this a female figure.)

139. Q. Maude the Good, flowing hair, left hand on girdle of supertunic, dress fastened at neck with "a beautiful jewel" (Ferrey).

140. Adelais. Graceful figure, with flowing hair.

141. Buttress. K. Henry I., sitting in defiant attitude, right arm akimbo, left knee raised, foot on pedestal.

Missing.

Missing.

Missing.

142. K. John.* A beautiful figure.

143. Henry III., no crown, standing, but right knee raised to suit the weathering of aisle roof.

Fifth Tier.—144. South Tower. Buttress on the south side. Sitting Bp., supported by metal clamps.

145. Bp. J. de Villula; hands gone, much decayed, clamped.

146. Bp. Gisa; hands gone.

147. Bp. Duduc*; right hand gone, book in left.

148. Buttress. Bp. Lyfing; decayed.

149. Bp. Merewit; hands gone.

150. Bp. Brihtwine; hands gone.

151. Aethelwine. Fine figure with long wavy beard spreading at end, hood and mantle, aulmoniere at girdle.

152. Burwold, tall bearded figure in hood, satchel (?) hanging from girdle.

153. Bp. Aelfwine.* Beautiful figure in cowl, curly hair and beard, finely draped habit with loose sleeves.

154. Bp. Sigegar, book in left hand.

155. Buttress. Bp. Brithelm, head turned to right; decayed.

156. Bp. Cyneward.

157. Bp. Wulfhelm. A fine figure.

158. Bp. Elfege. A fine figure.

159. Edfleda, flowing hair, in supertunic or surcoat with long and wide sleeves, head covered with veil, which hangs behind, no wimple. Nothing conventual to suggest Edfleda.

160. Buttress. K. Edward the Elder. Fine figure, right hand on knees, left on cord of mantle.

Missing.

161. Edgitha. Very tall figure, right hand on cord, left holds end of veil.

Missing.

Central Window (South).

162. Q. Edgiva, kirtle only, with crown and veil, no wimple.

Central Window.

163. Ethilda. Wears supertunic over her kirtle, veil and wimple.

Central Window (North).

164. Hugh. A sword hangs from his girdle on left side.

165. Elgiva.

166. Q. Edgiva; hands gone.

167. Buttress. K. Ethelstan, defiant attitude, right foot on stool, wears brooch.

168. K. Charles the Simple. A squat figure with very big head, trampling.

169. Otho, close-fitting tunic, over which is mantle with handsome fastening.

Missing.

170. Guthrum. Knight in surcoat, mail hauberk and chausses, shield on left side.

171. Buttress. K. Alfred, seated; both hands gone, front decayed, and clamped.

172. Earl of Mercia.* Knight in helmet with cross-slit, holding right hand up and shield upon left arm; the surcoat turned over below the waist shows a suit of mail. Well preserved.