And now we come to the rebuilding of the whole cathedral. In spite of
the great changes that took place in Gothic architecture during the next
seventy years, the original design—that of Quivil—was adhered to almost
to the very last. With the exception of a few Curvilinear windows in
the western bays of the nave, all the main features of the building are
as they were designed in the closing years of the thirteenth century.
It is, of course, this exceptional unity and harmony of design that
makes Exeter what it is—one of the most satisfactory mediæval interiors
in this country. In cathedrals such as Rochester and Ely a Norman nave
jars on a Gothic choir; or, as at Lincoln and York, two styles of Gothic
mingle and conflict. But at Exeter, looking forward from west to east,
hardly anything obtrudes on the original design. In no other cathedral,
except Salisbury, do we find similar unity of design; but in the design
of Salisbury simplicity becomes bareness and poverty. It cannot be
compared for one moment with the richness of the lovely decorated work
of Exeter. Yet greater unity and harmony is gained by the way in which
the battlements and pinnacles, flying-buttresses, and cresting weld
together the exterior; and the high vaults the interior, as at Norwich.
The adherence, too, for so long a time to Bishop Quivil’s design is
interesting, because it shows that in the early years of the fourteenth
century there was at Exeter, as at Beverley, Westminster, Ely, and
St. Albans, a strong current in the direction of conservation of good
design. Piers and vaulting and bosses and corbels and triforium and
windows of the nave, built long after he was dead and gone, are all but
reproductions of Quivil’s early work. Most remarkable of all, perhaps,
is the adherence to Quivil’s window tracery—the rose, the lily, and the
wheel. Even the great west window, one of the last works, is but Quivil’s
straight-spoked wheel translated into flowing lines.
[Illustration: CHOIR AND TRANSEPT.]
Quivil commenced his work in the two Norman towers, in which he inserted
tall arches, thus making them an integral part of the church. He also
built the arches of the crossing, and provided abutment to the west
by building one new bay on either side of the nave. All that one sees
here—the first bay of the nave, and the alterations in the transepts,
the window tracery, the piers and arches, the pierced balconies hung up
on the walls of the towers, the substitution of Purbeck marble for stone
shafts—is Quivil’s work. As to the easternmost bay of the nave on either
side, it differs from the rest of the nave in having a wider arch; while
its clerestory windows have the same straight-spoked wheel as Quivil’s
windows in the transept; the mouldings of the capitals of the first two
piers correspond with those of the transeptal arches; the bases are lower
than those elsewhere in the nave; the bosses of the aisles are flatter;
even the flying-buttresses differ.
Now that he had remodelled the centre of the church, Quivil set to work
to recast the eastern parts of the church, commencing at the far east
end, so as to interfere with the services as little as possible. He
first transformed the Lady chapel; to him are due the shafts, sedilia,
double piscina, and the vaulting, the rib-mouldings of which are of
earlier character than those of the choir; and the windows, which closely
resemble those of Merton College, Oxford, which we know was commenced in
1277. In the centre of the Lady chapel Bishop Quivil is buried; he died
in 1291. The chapels on either side may have been remodelled or partly
remodelled by Bronescombe; but the east windows are later in style, and
are Quivil’s.
The piers hereabout are very interesting. Those of the Lady chapel
looking into the side chapels are composed of four columns. The
north-east and south-east piers of the choir have clusters of eight
shafts instead of four; while in the pier between them the cluster of
eight is developed into a cluster of sixteen columns. Finally, notice
that these piers are set diamond-wise, with four flat faces, and the
angles to the north, west, south, and east.