II. Two fragments have been carefully preserved and re-used from an

early Norman church—it may even have been of Pre-Conquest date. One is a

fragment of a lintel over a doorway in the north transept, depicting St.

Michael and the Dragon and David throttling the lion. The other is a set

of capitals on the eastern piers of the tower, now unfortunately covered

up to make room for more organ pipes. (A mania for big organs is raging

in our cathedrals: nothing short of the roar and rumble of an earthquake

will bring people nowadays into a devotional frame of mind.)

[Illustration: NAVE.]

III. Between 1109 and 1114 a new Norman church was begun. Of this the

choir has disappeared. As the choir would be built first, 1120 is given

as an approximate date for the transept and 1130 for the nave. The

cable-mouldings, however, of the crossing and transepts, and the carving

of the nave-capitals, are so rich and effective that the work is probably

somewhat later. Indeed, the whole of the ornamentation is far ahead of

that at Ely, Norwich and Peterborough, Tewkesbury or Gloucester. The

carved capitals may be compared with those of the nave of Hereford. The

interior of the nave is low and squat, but has been vastly improved by

Mr. Christian’s semicircular ceiling. The piers are stumpy cylinders;

the elevation is that of Malvern, or St. Bartholomew’s, Smithfield. Here

there are none of the tall compound piers of Peterborough or Ely, still

less the Brobdingnagian cylinders of Tewkesbury or Gloucester. Each bay

of the triforium was to have been filled with the same kind of arcade as

that of Romsey choir: viz., two small arches, with a small shaft rising

from their point of intersection. (Projecting stones, intended for the

arches and the shaft, may be seen in each bay.) The Romsey design was

not a success even in the eyes of the Romsey people, for they tried

five other designs in the triforium of their transept; and the Southwell

canons very sensibly omitted this inner arcade. The clerestory, with its

circular windows, is remarkable; the same design was worked out very

beautifully, later on, in the north transept of Hereford.

[Illustration: SOUTH TRANSEPT DOOR.]

From each transept projected eastward a two-storied apse (cf.

Gloucester), the arches into which remain, and also the very noble arcade

which opened into the upper chapel of the apse. It is noteworthy that

the aisles are vaulted, as at Kirkstall, in oblong compartments—another

mark of late date. The square broach spires of the west front—which,

as well as the conical roof of the chapter-house, were restored by

Mr. Christian on the authority of old prints—give the church quite a

Rhenish appearance. The two big west windows of the towers are modern

shams; originally these stages of the towers were, no doubt, solid. The

north-west tower has a pointed arcade, and is therefore a little later

than its neighbour, which has an intersecting arcade of semicircular

arches. Originally the façade was just such a one as that which remains

in St. Stephen’s, Caen.

A magnificent string-course of zigzag ornament runs along the nave and

round the transepts. In places it has been taken out, reinserted in a

different place or copied, when the Perpendicular windows were inserted

in the aisle of the nave. In the south transept it takes the unusual

form of a segmental arch over the Archbishop’s doorway. The great

emphasis given to the horizontal lines of the Norman building is as

remarkable here as at Salisbury. There are good examples of the “nebule”

corbel-table with a later parapet, and of Norman pinnacles; one of these,

over the porch, is hollow, and served as a chimney for the sacristan or

sexton, who, it was enacted, “should lie within the church, to be at

hand to ring the bells at the right time.” The gables of the transept

have very effective zigzag, with interesting differences of treatment;

the pinnacles of the transepts seem to have been removed at some time or

other to the central tower, for which they are too small. There is a fine

view of the whole exterior from the fields and gardens to the south-east.

[Illustration: NORTH PORCH.]

IV. This fine Norman church only existed in its entirety for a century.

Its eastern limb was less than half the length of the present choir,

which was commenced _c._ 1230 by Archbishop Gray, who built the great

transept of York and the west front of Ripon. The plan is practically

that of Worcester, (the eastern portion of which was finished _c._ 1218),

but on a humbler scale: viz., an aisled choir for the canons, a tiny

eastern transept (such a one was still in existence in the Transitional

choir of York), and a long presbytery, the two eastern bays of which

were without aisles. Externally this gives a beautiful composition even

now. Before its mutilation, the Southwell choir must have been one of

the best mediæval designs in Europe. Unfortunately the roofs have been

lowered, and in the flattened battlemented eastern gable a most misshapen

window now appears. Originally there were no external flying-buttresses

(cf. Salisbury); the clerestory wall began to bulge out; the high roofs

of the eastern transepts were taken down, and external flying-buttresses

were erected (_c._ 1355). Take these away, in imagination, raise roofs

and gables to as sharp a pitch as those of Beverley and Lincoln, and

you have a design as noble as it is simple. The alternation of aisled

choir and unaisled presbytery with the fine projecting masses of the

eastern transepts provides charming contrasts of light and shadow;

the base-courses are almost as strong and emphatic as at Salisbury;

the sharply chamfered buttresses, with their acute pyramidal caps—a

reminiscence of Lincoln nave—are particularly effective. Contrary to

Salisbury fashion, the windows are deeply recessed externally. The whole

design is vigorous and original.

[Illustration: CHOIR, NORTH SIDE.]

The interior of the choir is equally original and interesting. The

architect seems to have thought that the vaults of the choir must rise no

higher than the eastern arch of the tower. If so, he was mistaken; as may

be seen at Norwich, where the choir rises much higher than the nave. His

problem then was how to get the appearance without the reality of height

in the triforium. The same problem had troubled the Norman builders

at Dunstable, Jedburgh, and Oxford; they had solved it by constructing

a lofty pier-arcade, and then building the triforium _beneath_ it. The

Norman builders at Steyning, and the architects of Southwell and Pershore

choirs—which were going up together—solved the difficulty in a different

and more effective manner: viz., by inserting the triforium inside the

clerestory. This saved the elevation. The pier-arcade was tall, the

clerestory was tall, and the whole interior looked tall and not squat.

To interfere with the services as little as possible, the eastern half

was built first, as at Rochester and Worcester. When this was finished,

the western half was built. If the foliage of the beautiful capitals

and corbels and bosses be examined carefully, it will be found to be

somewhat stiff and formal in the eastern bays, and to be worked with much

more crispness and freedom towards the west (cf. Worcester). The next

thing was to pull down the Norman choir, the material of which is found

to be largely built up in the western, but not in the eastern bays. In

rebuilding the western bays, the first consideration was not to bring

down the Norman tower. So the work was not continued from the east, but

was started afresh from the tower. The two portions met in the fourth

bay; when it was found that, owing to inaccurate setting-out, the arch

on the south side of the choir and the string-course on the north side

were at a different level to that of the older work to the east. The

awkward junction of the arches was masked by a curious medallion. The

whole of the work was done late in the Lancet period; as is shown by the

frequent use of the triple roll in the bases, and by the fact that the

tooth-ornament is worked on a projecting fillet, as in the north transept

of Hereford, instead of being set in a hollow. The vault of the aisles

and transept is quinquepartite, as in St. Hugh’s aisles and transept

at Lincoln; the high vault is quadripartite; and both vaults have the

wobbling longitudinal rib of the great transept of Lincoln. At the east

end this rib drops down somewhat fortuitously into the middle of a group

of lancets. A special local note of this Southwell work is fondness for

fillets; they abound everywhere.

V. A little later, the eastern apse of the north transept was replaced by

a double chapel (_c._ 1260). The shafts have the “keel-moulding,” both

here and in the chapter-house.

[Illustration: NAVE, LOOKING EAST.]

VI. Next was built the cloister—_i.e._, the southern part of the

Vestibule leading to the chapter-house. Notice the lovely doorway in the

north choir-aisle. In this and the arcade is early naturalistic foliage,

which fixes the date as _c._ 1280. Before the upper story was built, and

when the eastern arcade was open, it must have been singularly beautiful.

From the little courtyard between the cloister and the eastern transept

the views are most picturesque.

VII. Then was built the vestibule and the chapter-house. If in window

tracery and leafage it be compared with the chapter-house of York, it

will be plain that the Southwell example is the earlier. Southwell

chapter-house may be 1290, York 1300. York chapter-house is then but a

copy of that of Southwell—and an inferior copy; both dispense with a

central pier; but Southwell has a magnificent vault of stone, whereas

York is vaulted in wood. The chapter-house of Southwell, not that of

York, is “among chapter-houses, as the rose among flowers.” “What Cologne

cathedral is to Germany, Amiens to France,” says Mr. Street, “is

Southwell chapter-house to England.” Here English stone-carvers produced

their best work; nowhere will you find such capitals or crockets or

spandrels, nor such portraits—all, no doubt, here and in the cloister,

representing people living at Southwell 1280-1300. Photographs of this

wonderful detail have been inserted in the Introduction, pages v-xiii.

[Illustration: CHOIR SCREEN.]

VIII. But the wonders of Southwell do not end yet. In the Curvilinear

period (1315-1360) was erected quite the loveliest choir screen in

England; next comes that of Lincoln, evidently by the same hand. Eastern

and western sides are entirely different in design: on the western side

the artist parts reluctantly with the beautiful geometrical design of

the thirteenth century; on the eastern side he accepts unreservedly the

reign of the ogee arch. Magnificent sedilia and stone stalls of similar

character were erected, which only survive in part. Very beautiful, too,

is the cusping of the reticulated windows inserted in the north transept

chapel.

The upper parts of the chapter-house and the north transept chapel also

were remodelled in the Curvilinear period.

For two hundred years or more, the highest and best of mediæval art found

cultivated and wealthy patrons in the canons of Southwell. Norman,

Lancet, Geometrical, Curvilinear work are all seen here at their best.

Few of our cathedrals, from the point of view either of architectural

design or sculptured detail, can be mentioned in the same breath with

Southwell. Nowhere will the architectural student find such a treasure

of the best work of the best periods as in the sister churches of the

canons of Beverley and Southwell. It is one of the greatest delights of

Southwell that this lovely minster is little known and almost unvisited:

one feels as if one were “the first that ever burst into this silent sea.”

[Illustration: SEDILIA.]

IX. PERPENDICULAR.—Large windows were inserted in the aisles (_c._ 1390)

and the west end (fifteenth century) to light the nave; and a doorway

from the choir to the Archbishop’s palace on the south.

X. There is an alabaster monument of Archbishop Sandys (_d._ 1588), of

unusually good design. To the same century belongs the fine Renaissance

glass (French) in the east of the choir.

XI. There were originally sixteen canons or priests at Southwell in

charge of the services. But as they mostly resided in their country

parishes, they were allowed to appoint sixteen vicars or deputies, to do

their work for them. These vicars, like the canons, formed a college or

corporation. The vicars also found the work hard, and were aided by paid

lay-clerks and choir-boys. Besides these there was a college of thirteen

chantry-priests. In later days there used to be in residence at Southwell

only one canon out of the sixteen; he came into residence only once in

four years, and only stayed three months. The handsome block of brick

houses to the east of the minster was built in 1780: the eastern house

for the canon in residence; the two houses on each side for four of the

vicars (the number of whom had dwindled to six).

The Cathedral Church of St. Andrew, Wells.

[Illustration: FROM NORTH-WEST.]

“The traveller who comes down the hill from Shepton Mallet,” says

Professor Freeman, “looks down on a group of buildings without a rival

either in our own island or beyond the seas.” “From a distance,” says

Mr. Peabody, “the towers and lantern of the cathedral rise above rounded

masses of green foliage. When we reach its walls, we find them springing

from the azure depths of crystalline pools, from emerald lawns and

arching trees, the home of cawing rooks and soaring pigeons. Close to the

very walls of the ancient cathedral rises one of the noblest springs in

the world, to which city and cathedral owe their name; an ever-abounding

and magnificent outburst of waters at the side of the Lady chapel,

surging up in a boiling heap in the midst of the unfathomed depths of

a translucent pool; then bounding over in an impetuous cascade, which

carries it into the Bishop’s moat, to encircle palace and rampart and

towers, till it rests in glassy clearness over many-coloured forests of

branching or feathery or star-like water-weeds. Never did a Frenchman

form such harmonies of church and scenery as one sees at Lichfield, at

Salisbury, and at Wells, in their setting of close and cloister and lake,

of brilliant garden and clipped green lawn and immemorial elms. Above

rise three gray, time worn towers; the music of the chimes vibrates and

dies away:

“‘Lord, through this hour

Be Thou our guide,

That by Thy power

No foot may slide.’

So from hour to hour chant the bells over the peaceful beauty of the

bishop’s gardens and terraces and the ancient ivy-clad palace; while

within the lonely nave, as the fading sunlight shines through the western

window, and casts its coloured glories on sculptured tomb and carved boss

and gray stone wall, the organ notes pulsate through the stony fabric:

“‘Through long-drawn aisle and fretted vault

The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.’

The great solemn place is filled with the thrilling sweetness of boyish

voices, and we heartily join in their tuneful, long ‘Amen,’ as it rings

and resounds down the empty nave, and echoes again and again from distant

chapel and far-receding vaults.

“The Bishop’s palace is romance made tangible, even to ‘spell-bound

princes oaring their way as swans among the lilies of the moat.’ In

this home of peace good Bishop Ken led his simple, happy life, awaking

with the sun and joining with the birds in their morning hymn, and each

eventide singing to his lute—

“‘Glory to thee, my God, this night,

For all the blessings of the light.’

Beyond the gardens and the moat run avenues of stately elms; hard by,

to the north, are the cathedral’s triple towers, and, for background,

the mighty range of the Mendips; all round is meadow-grass; to the

west nestles the little town, with the stately tower of St. Cuthbert’s

church; and, five miles away, conical tors rise on either side of the

isle of Avalon, the storied land of Glastonbury, where twice each year

bloomed the sacred thorn struck by Joseph of Arimathea from a thorn in

the Saviour’s crown; where, too, lies King Arthur, borne thither after

the fatal battle of Camelot, and buried in an unknown grave with the

inscription, ‘Hic jacet Arturus rex quondam rexque futurus.’ This land of

Somerset to the Englishman should be holy ground.”

[Illustration: NORTH TRANSEPT.]

The peculiar charm of Wells lies, as Professor Freeman remarks, in the

union and harmonious grouping of the cathedral with its surroundings. It

does not stand alone. On the other hand, it is not crowded by incongruous

buildings, like the great cathedrals of France, rising in precipices

from narrow lanes or stone paved _place_. Nor, again, is it isolated

from those buildings which are its natural and necessary complement—the

palace of the Bishop, the deanery, the residence of the Archdeacon, the

Cathedral school, the Vicar’s Close, the homes of precentor, organist

and architect. Nearly all the officials still live in the houses which

Bishop Beckington built four centuries ago. And with the most perfect and

picturesque of all these, “a double row of little ancient houses,” the

Vicar’s Close, the north transept of the cathedral is connected by a

delightful mediæval bridge.

[Illustration: SUGAR’S CHANTRY IN NAVE.]

The diocese of Wells is an offshoot of that of Winchester. When Wessex

grew populous, the bishopric of Sherborne was split off from that of

Winchester; and in 909 the shire of the Sumorsaetas was split off from

Sherborne, and the men of Somerset got a bishop of their own. The diocese

long had two cathedrals: one at Wells, served, as at this day, by secular

canons; the other at Bath, served by the monks of the Benedictine abbey.

The latter was suppressed by Henry VIII., and ever since the bishop has

been but in name Bishop of Bath.

Of the earlier cathedrals not a trace remains. The oldest part of the

present cathedral consists of the nave, transepts, and the piers and

arches of the three western bays of the choir. All this was designed,

and much of it built in the time of Fitz-Bohun, who became bishop

in 1171. The design is what is called Transitional. It is not early

Transitional; for there is none of the heaviness and massiveness of the

early Transitional work of Malmesbury, Kirkstall, or Fountains. It is

not middle Transitional; for the semicircular arch, which still appears

here and thereat Ripon, is conspicuously absent. It is late, very late,

Transitional work, done at the very end of the Transitional period

(1145-1190), and therefore contemporaneous with the famous French choir

of Canterbury (1175-1184) and the beautiful presbytery of Chichester

(built after the fire of 1187). But it is more Gothic than either

Canterbury or Chichester. In fact, Wells is the most advanced of all the

cathedral designs of the Transitional period. There is indeed little of

the Romanesque or Norman about it; still it is there. Among the survivals

of Romanesque feeling may be noticed the zigzag ornament in the doorways

of the north porch, the classical character of several foliage-capitals,

the retention of man-headed birds and other Romanesque monsters in

the capitals, and, above all, the universal square abacus. All these,

however, except the square abacus, find parallels in advanced Gothic

work of the thirteenth century elsewhere. And as we find precisely the

same stiff foliage-capitals in Chichester presbytery subsequent to 1187,

and in St. Joseph’s chapel, Glastonbury (1180-1190), we may be certain

that the design belongs to Fitz-Bohun’s episcopate, before whose death

in 1191 the church was rising fast, and its style an object of universal

admiration.

[Illustration: TRIFORIUM OF NAVE.]

Now this is a very important matter, at any rate to Englishmen. In

the first place, we are provided with another example of first-rate

importance, of what architects were doing in this country just before the

final plunge into Gothic, _i.e._, just before St. Hugh commenced his work

at Lincoln. Hitherto we have had to rely on what we see in Canterbury

choir; now we have Wells also. To these we may add the little-known Abbey

of Dore, in the Black Mountains. In its lovely choir we go one step

farther. Even the square abacus, universal at Wells, alternates there

with the round form, and is more and more infrequent as one proceeds

to the retro-choir, where indeed the work, to all intents and purposes,

is pure Gothic. And thus we get what we never had before, a bridge or

series of stepping-stones to Gothic architecture. Formerly one passed at

a bound, an impossible bound, from Canterbury choir to Lincoln Minster.

Now we can leave out the French work of Canterbury choir altogether,

and accomplish the passage from Norman to Gothic through Malmesbury,

Kirkstall, Ripon, Wells, Abbey Dore. Before, it was inconceivable how

Lincoln came into existence; it was an architectural Melchisedek, without

father or mother; and those who did not believe in spontaneous generation

in architecture were driven, in spite of their wishes, to seek out an

ancestor for St. Hugh’s choir in France. Now the whole difficulty is

removed, the missing link has been found, Lincoln is but the logical

development of Wells and Abbey Dore. The architectural chain is complete.

Lincoln is no Melchisedek we have found its parents; and, what is

profoundly satisfactory, they are true-born Englishmen, not Frenchmen.

Wells, therefore, deserves all the attention that the architectural

student can give to it, as evidence that the Gothic architecture of

England did not originate with the French choir at Canterbury of William

of Sens, but is native and indigenous to the soil.

The design of the nave of Wells, however, has more than archæological

interest; it has a decided artistic distinction of its own. In the first

place, the interior looks taller than it is—_i.e._ it is the very reverse

of Lichfield. It is but 67 feet high, and is thus one of the lowest of

our cathedrals; but so just are its proportions, so well adjusted the

tall clerestory to the stages below, that to the eye the ratio of height

to breadth is entirely satisfactory. Equally remarkable is the way in

which the impression of great length is produced. This is due to the

obliteration of vertical divisions in the triforium and ground-story,

which are not separated off, as usual, into bays by vaulting-shafts.

The vaulting-shafts are stopped just below the sill of the clerestory,

and the triforium runs in an uninterrupted arcade, the whole distance

from west to east. Such a treatment of the triforium is unusual in

England, but is found also at Glastonbury and Llandaff: perhaps it

hails originally from Matilda’s church, the Abbaye aux Dames, at Caen.

And the free flow, east and west, of the broad horizontal band of the

triforium is aided still further by designing it void of shafts, bases,

and capitals alike. The central tower seems to have collapsed in 1248,

and many of the capitals seem to be of this or of a still later date. The

capitals, corbels and the carving generally of this part of the cathedral

are most spirited and interesting; there is hardly any mediæval work in

the country to excel it in spirit, variety and execution; it should be

examined with the utmost care. When you have seen the carving in Wells

cathedral, you will not be so much surprised at the excellence of that in

the choirs of Lincoln and the west front of St. Albans. The plan of the

piers should also be noted.

[Illustration: WEST FRONT.]

LANCET PERIOD. _West Front._—Looking westward, we see to the south (on

the left) the chapel of St. Edmund, and to the north the chapel of the

Holy Cross, now the Consistory Court. The west front, including these

chapels, is Bishop Jocelyn’s work; it is in the purest early English

Gothic, probably built after his return from exile in 1213, and finished

by him before 1239. There has been, however, some rebuilding here, and a

parapet added, in the fifteenth century. Passing out, we can now survey

the famous façade, and its immense collection of sculpture—by far the

best mediæval figure-sculpture in England, and only surpassed by the yet

finer and earlier sculpture of Chartres and Rheims. The visitor will do

well to study it in detail in the admirable series of photographs, taken

when the scaffolding was up for the restoration of the façade. Professor

Cockerell suggests that the façade is to be regarded as a Te Deum in

stone.

[Illustration: CHAPTER HOUSE]

As for the composition of the west front, it has been severely

criticised, but two things must be borne in mind. The first is, that

the towers were probably designed for spires. Add the spires, and as

Notre Dame, Paris, the squatness of the façade disappears. Secondly,

it was designed for the sculpture—a sort of open-air reredos—and not

the sculpture for the façade. Nevertheless, it is not good, even as a

reredos. The windows are mere slits in the wall, the doorways mere “holes

for frogs and mice.” It lacks variety: the six big buttresses project,

but have all the same amount of projection. The arcading below the west

window is confused and muddled, and cut into anyhow by the central

doorway. Nevertheless, its great breadth makes this façade of Wells more

impressive than any other in the country, except that of Peterborough.

What would it be with the spires added!

[Illustration: LADY CHAPEL.]

GEOMETRICAL PERIOD. _Undercroft, Staircase, Chapter house._—When the

west front had been peopled with statuary, the undercroft of the

chapter-house was built. A similar chapter-house, two stories high,

once existed in precisely the same situation _i.e._—east of the north

transept—at Beverley minster, the exquisite staircase to which still

survives. Westminster chapter-house and that of Old St. Paul’s also

had undercrofts. These undercrofts probably served as sacristies. The

staircase or vestibule to the chapter-house, with simple tracery of

cusped circles in its windows, is also of the early Geometrical period:

its date is 1286-1320. The work here deserves the closest inspection;

it is the best work in Wells cathedral, and unsurpassed by anything in

Great Britain. The naturalistic foliage of the capitals and corbels is

superb: especially notice the first corbels, representing a monk and a

nun treading on serpents. The staircase leads by the chain bridge to the

vicars’ close, as well as to the chapter-house. The chapter-house is one

of the noblest in England. The long-lobed trefoils in the window tracery

indicate that it is a work of the latter half of the Geometrical period

(1280-1320); the profusion of ball-flower round and beneath the windows,

and the ogee dripstones outside the windows, would seem to indicate that

it was not completed till the very end of the period. Canon Church has

ascertained that it was not finished before 1320.

[Illustration: FROM SOUTH-EAST.]

[Illustration: NAVE.]

CURVILINEAR PERIOD. _Lady Chapel_, _Choir_, _Central Tower_.—But a

much more important work remained, which had hitherto been postponed,

owing perhaps to the great expense involved in the completion of the

west front and the chapter-house. It was to extend the choir eastwards.

Many of the great cathedrals had finished their eastward extensions

long before. Canterbury choir had been prolonged at the beginning of

the twelfth century, and again about 1180. Hereford also was lengthened

about 1180. The Angel Choir of Lincoln had been built about 1280. But

at Wells, Lichfield and Chester, the extension of the choir was not

effected till the Curvilinear period (1315-1360). As at Lichfield,

the Wells architect seems first to have built the Lady chapel as a

detached building, afterwards joining it up to the Transitional bays

of Fitz-Jocelyn’s choir. As every one knows, it is the most beautiful

east end we have in England. It may be worth while to try to see how

this design was arrived at—a design as exceptional as it is effective.

The simplest form of east end in English Gothic is seen at York and

Lincoln: it consists merely of a low wall with a big window above it.

The next improvement is to build an aisle or processional path behind

the east end; at the same time piercing the east wall with one, two, or

three arches. This was done at Hereford about 1180; and on a magnificent

scale in the Chapels of Nine Altars at Durham and Fountains early in

the thirteenth century. But the French apsidal cathedrals—of which we

have an example in Westminster—have not only an encircling processional

aisle, but also a chevet of chapels radiating out from it; thus providing

ever-changing vistas of entrancing beauty. The next step in England also

was to provide our rectangular choirs with a chevet as well as with a

processional aisle. An early example of this plan is to be seen at Abbey

Dore, in Herefordshire, about 1190. It occurs early in the thirteenth

century, on a still grander scale, at Salisbury; where one finds not one,

but two processional aisles, as well as chapels to the east of them;

and, in addition, a Lady chapel projecting still farther to the east,

thus producing a design of great complexity and beauty. Nevertheless, at

Salisbury, since the chief supporting piers of the retro-choir and the

chevet are in a line with those of the choir, there is by no means the

same changeful intricacy of vista that affords one ever fresh delight

in an apsidal church. At Wells, however, the architect attained all the

success of the Continental builder, simply because he built his Lady

chapel not rectangular but octagonal. For, to get this octagon, of

which only five sides were supported by walls, he had to plant in the

retro-choir two piers to support the remaining three sides; and these

piers are necessarily out of line with the piers of the choir. He had

got the Continental vista. He saw it; but he saw also that it could be

improved upon. And he did improve it, by putting up an outer ring of four

more piers round the western part of the octagon of the Lady chapel. It

was an intuition of genius: it makes the vistas into the retro-choir and

Lady chapel a veritable glimpse into fairyland; and provides, here alone

in England, a rival to the glorious eastern terminations of Amiens and Le

Mans. And that is not all. We saw in the chapter-house the grand effect

of the central stalk branching upward and outward in all directions,

like some palm tree transmuted into stone. This beautiful effect he

transfers to the retro-choir, but multiplied—four palm trees in place

of one; for each of the four external piers of the octagon emulates the

chapter-house’s central stalk. “It is difficult to determine whether the

effect is more striking in the early morning, when the ancient splendours

of the stained glass, are reflected on the slender shafts of Purbeck

marble and the clustered vault; or at the late winter services, when the

darkened figures of saints and prophets in the clerestory combine with

the few lights burning in the choristers’ stalls to add something of

mystery and solemn gloom to the maze of aisles and chapels, half hidden,

half revealed” (Murray). And where did the idea of having an octagonal

Lady chapel come from? Possibly it came from Lichfield. If one follows

the outline formed by the five walls of Wells Lady chapel and the four

_outer_ piers, which complete the octagon, it will be seen that the

Wells octagon is of precisely the same elongated form—two long sides

and six short ones—as the chapter-house of Lichfield. We may fairly

suppose, then, that the Wells architect got the design for his east end

by tacking on the elongated octagon of Lichfield chapter-house to the

rectangular retro-choir of Salisbury. This Lady chapel is an early work

of the Curvilinear period; for it seems to have been complete in 1324.

The windows have beautiful reticulated tracery of early type. There is

lovely carving in the capitals, bosses, reredos, sedilia and piscina. The

Curvilinear foliated capitals here and in the choir should be compared

with the somewhat earlier capitals of the chapter-house, with the early

Geometrical capitals of the staircase, the Lancet capitals of the west

front, and the still earlier ones of porch, nave, and transepts. The

ancient glass here and in the Jesse window of the choir is superb in

colour.

[Illustration: CHOIR.]

CHOIR.—The works in the choir consist of three parts. (1) The

construction of three new eastern bays, to join up the Lady chapel to

the western bays, as at Lichfield and Chester. (2) The transformation of

the three western bays, except the piers and arches, and of the aisles.

(3) The vaulting. All the lower work is of great beauty, especially the

tabernacle work which replaces the triforium. The foliage of the capitals

is naturalistic, and curiously diminutive. The vault, however, is unusual

and objectionable in character. It is really a reproduction in stone

of a kind of vault—the wagon or barrel vault—which, executed in wood,

is a special peculiarity of Somerset. This type of stone tunnel, with

ill-arranged liernes, sham ribs carved on its surface, and holes cut into

it to admit the heads of the clerestory windows, is fortunately confined

to Wells. It is, moreover, a gross blunder in design. The pattern of the

ribs would be excellent in a flat ceiling; but in perspective it comes

out all wrong, because the architect has omitted to take account of the

curves of the vault. The stalls, with their stone canopies, are modern,

with ancient misereres. The Transitional windows of the aisles were also

replaced by Curvilinear ones.

Finally, the church assumed a more dignified appearance externally, for

the _Central Tower_ was carried up to its present height between 1318

and 1321; but as yet there were no western towers. As was so often the

case, the raising of the central tower “caused the four great piers, on

which it rested, to sink into the ground. This, of course, tore away

the masonry of the four limbs of the church from the piers, and yawning

gaps began to appear between the tower arches and the main walls of the

church.” The piers had to be strengthened and the gaps filled up. This

was done about 1338. At Canterbury and Salisbury the central piers were

strengthened by running across a horizontal stone girder; at Wells the

exceedingly strong and exceedingly ugly form of an arch carrying an

inverted arch was adopted. This stone framework thus assumes something

of the shape of St. Andrew’s Cross, by which name it is generally known.

The eastern arch is not strengthened in this fashion, but by a massive

screen, which is practically a solid wall, as at Canterbury, York and

Ripon. What makes the St. Andrew’s crosses more objectionable still is

the hugeness of their mouldings, whose vast scale dwarfs everything in

the cathedral into insignificance: in this respect they compare very

unfavourably with the horizontal girders at Canterbury. Probably one of

the last works of the Curvilinear period was to crown the whole exterior

of the cathedral with a fine pierced parapet.

PERPENDICULAR PERIOD.—The central tower being saved, the next thing was

to carry up western towers. Of these the southern was built after the

year 1386; the northern tower is later than 1424. Moreover, Perpendicular

tracery was inserted in many of the Transitional windows—_e.g._, by

Bishop Beckington in the clerestory and aisles of the nave (1443-1464).

The same prelate built the three gatehouses, all of which display his

rebus, a beacon in flames issuing from a barrel: viz. the Chain Gate,

the Penniless Porch (opening to the Market Place), and Browne’s Gate (at

the end of Sadler Street). The Early English Cloister was also rebuilt

between 1407 and 1470. Of the earlier cloister the outer walls and two

lovely doorways survive. As Wells was not a monastic cathedral, the

cloister was a mere _objet de luxe_, except so far as it provided an

enclosure for the cemetery and a covered way to the Bishop’s Palace.

Accordingly, it is incomplete; the northern walk is wanting; and the

chapter-house is on the other side of the cathedral.

The Cathedral Church of the Holy and Indivisible Trinity at Winchester.

[Illustration: FROM NORTH WEST.]

The present legal designation of Winchester cathedral dates only from

the time of Henry VIII. It was originally the church of the abbey of St.

Swithun; and, next to St. Swithun, its greatest patron was St. Birinus.

Later on, an alternative dedication was to St. Peter and St. Paul.

It is the longest mediæval cathedral in Europe. Once it was surpassed

by old St. Paul’s, London; now its only rival is St. Alban’s. But

Winchester has an internal length of 526 feet 6 inches; exceeding that

of St. Alban’s by 5 feet 4 inches. Vast as it is, no cathedral shows up

so little. It has but one tower, and that barely overtops the roof; in

outline it is depressed and monotonous; there are none of the double

transepts, and lofty side-porches, which so picturesquely break up the

lines of Salisbury, Lincoln, and Hereford. It has no conspicuous façade

to give it grandeur to the west; it lacks the wide reach of open square

and verdant close that delights at Salisbury and Wells. So far from

dominating the city, like Lincoln or York, it hides out of sight. You

walk all the length of the High Street and never get a glimpse of it.

Never was such a retiring cathedral. Generally, it is approached from the

High Street through a hole in the wall; up a narrow passage, and down an

avenue of obscuring elms. Slowly its huge mass uprears itself, sprawling

over the ground like some stranded prehistoric monster. And, externally,

it is as plain as it is huge: mainly an enormous bulk of blank wall.

Once it presented a better appearance; for though the Lady chapel to the

east was rather shorter, to the west the nave was 40 feet longer, and

was flanked, like Southwell, by two Norman towers, forming a western

transept, after the manner of Ely and of Peterborough. The present west

front does anything but prepare us for an interior so vast; it seems

rather the approach to some parish church of the second rank. All the

more, perhaps, is one struck with the glorious interior.

The arrangement of the cathedral should be compared with that of St.

Alban’s. It consists of (1) nave, (2) choir, (3) presbytery or sanctuary,

(4) feretory or saints’ chapel, (5) retro-choir, (6) Lady chapel.

In the NORTH TRANSEPT we are in presence of the earliest work in the

cathedral. Much of it is the work of Bishop Walkelin (1070 to 1097);

and, with the exception of some traceried windows inserted early in the

fourteenth century to give more light to the eastern altars, it remains

much as he left it. As his work is in the transepts, so once was the

whole cathedral. As finished before the close of the eleventh century,

Winchester, in vastness of scale and stern power, must have been one of

the most impressive cathedrals of England: more overwhelming than Ely

or Peterborough; not inferior even to Durham. I am not sure that every

change and transformation that took place at Winchester between the

eleventh and the sixteenth century was not a change for the worse. For

of the earliest temples of our race, torn as it were out of the solid

rock, Walkelin’s cathedral was the most awful and the most religious.

As it is one of the earliest, so it was, artistically, the grandest of

our Romanesque cathedrals. The south transept of Hereford and the north

transept of Chester are, in comparison, humble indeed. In colossal scale

it finds one rival only—the mighty church of St. Alban. Artistically,

they are miles apart: as far apart as two designs can be, one conditioned

by the use of stone, the other of brick.

[Illustration: NORTH TRANSEPT.]

But not all the work of the Winchester transepts is by Walkelin; it is

Norman, but part of it is a rebuilding rendered necessary by the fall of

the central tower in 1107. The original work is readily distinguished.

Those parts of the transept which are the nearest to the central tower

have fine-jointed masonry; the vaulting of the aisles has ribs; the

piers are larger. The further and earlier part of the masonry is much

ruder, and the joints wider; the vaulting is without ribs, and the piers

are smaller. In both parts the arches are square-edged, greatly adding

to the peculiar severity of the aspect of this part of the church. The

pier-arches are raised on stilts in order to get their crowns on a level

with the intersection of the diagonal groins or ribs; for the earlier

vault-builders imagined that all the arches of a vault must rise to

the same level. The cushion or cubical capitals are of a simple type,

little subdivided. Both transepts have double aisles. Lanfranc, in his

metropolitan cathedral at Canterbury, was content with an aisleless

transept; but Winchester cathedral was built on a scale befitting the

capital of the Norman realms. At either end, too, of the transepts is

an aisle—_i.e._ to the north and south; this unusual feature enabled

processions to pass uninterruptedly round the triforium. We hear that in

1111, the bishop having sorely taxed the monastery to provide funds for

the rebuilding of the central tower, “the monks reversed their crosses,

head down, feet up, and made procession barefoot against the sun,

contrary to ecclesiastical use,” round the broad triforium. Ely once had

similar end-aisles, and still has both eastern and western aisles to the

transepts.

[Illustration: FONT.]

THE CRYPT.—From the north transept one descends to the crypt, which is

well worth a visit, when not under water. The level of the river seems to

have risen since the eleventh century, causing the crypt to be frequently

flooded. It extends to the extreme east end of the present cathedral,

and is in three parts. The first part, the western, consists of the

substructure of the original choir, showing that it consisted of four

aisled bays and an apse with ambulatory. Secondly comes a very remarkable

feature, of the same date—viz., a long aisleless chapel of three bays,

also apsidal, beneath the present retro-choir. Whether the chapel above

it was a Lady chapel is a matter of uncertainty; for Lady chapels do not

seem to have come into fashion till the thirteenth century. Thirdly, to

the extreme east, comes the substructure of Courtenay’s Lady chapel,

built between 1486 and 1492. Most interesting of all is the sacred

well, immediately beneath the high altar; far older than Norman crypt or

Norman cathedral; the holy central spot of by-gone Saxon and even British

minsters.

SOUTH TRANSEPT.—Crossing the choir, we pass down a flight of steps to

the south transept. At the top of these steps are the bolt-holes of the

iron gates, which are now placed in the north-west corner of the nave,

but which once stood here as a barrier to the pilgrims, who were allowed

access to the north transept and choir aisles, but not to the choir

itself, or to the south transept. They entered the cathedral by a doorway

which may still be seen from the outside at the south-east corner of the

north transept. In the south transept the same two periods of Norman work

are recognisable which we saw in the north transept; but the three aisles

have been shut off by walls and screens, forming chapels on the east

side, and a chapter-room and treasury on the west.

[Illustration: LADY-CHAPEL.]

THE CENTRAL TOWER fell in 1107. Its fall was regarded as a judgment;

William Rufus having been buried under it in 1100. The piers, as

strengthened, are “most unwieldy and intrusive from their excessive size

and squareness of form; the largest tower-piers in England in proportion

to the span of the arches that rest upon them.” The tower-windows could

formerly be seen from below, as well as a grand specimen of late Norman

arcading: now hidden from view by the wooden fan-vault erected in 1634.

The eastern and western arches of the tower are left wide, so as not

to interfere with the principal vista of the cathedral; the northern

and southern arches are contracted to gain strength. The northern and

southern sides of the piers were designed nearly flat, so as not to

interfere with the stall-work of the monks. This is one of the cathedrals

where the choir occupies, in part, its original position, and has not

been moved eastward into the sanctuary. But originally the monastic choir

of Winchester extended still farther to the west, occupying not one,

but three bays of the nave; and was separated from the western bays of

the nave by a great rood-screen. The old arrangement has been preserved

at Norwich and Gloucester, and has been restored at Peterborough.

Before leaving the south transept, the northern bay of the western

triforium should be noticed. It has been only partially transformed into

Perpendicular after the style of the nave; for the semicircular upper

arch of the triforium can still be seen. This helps us to restore in

imagination the original triforium of the whole Norman nave.

[Illustration: STALLS.]

Of the Transitional period of our architecture, 1145 to 1190, only

two traces seem to remain at Winchester. One is the doorway below

the triforium-bay mentioned above. Its zigzag ornament is of Norman

character, but the obtusely pointed arch shows that it is subsequent,

yet not much subsequent to 1145. This doorway, with its queer fluted

pilasters, may have been built by Henry de Blois (1129-1171) when he

walled off this western aisle to serve as a treasury. If so, it is the

only trace in the structure of this, the greatest of all Winchester’s

bishops. The other is the font.

CHAPEL OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE.—Now we return to the north transept, which

is cut off from the choir by a massive stone wall, the object being to

keep the pilgrims out of the choir, and, perhaps, to support organs. At

the end of the twelfth century a curious chapel was built on to this

wall: it contains frescoes representing the Passion of our Lord.

RETRO-CHOIR.—Traversing the north choir-aisle, we reach the largest

retro-choir in England; it consists of three bays, with an east end

originally consisting of three chapels all of the same length. The

central chapel was elongated in the fifteenth century. This retro-choir

was built by Bishop Godfrey de Lucy, between 1189 and 1204, and

therefore, with the Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre, is the earliest Gothic

work in the cathedral, and but few years later than St. Hugh’s work

at Lincoln. De Lucy’s work is not very ambitious, nor very rich, nor

artistically on a plane with the early English work at Lincoln, Beverley,

and Ely. The great defect is that, in relation to its area, it is so

miserably low. To get it high, the architect would have had to sacrifice

the east windows of the clerestory of the choir; and this he was not

allowed to do. The retro-choir was serviceable in providing room for

processions round the high altar, and space for shrines, and in giving

additional chapels and altars. Probably, also, the reversion to the

favourite square east-end of English church architecture was popular in

itself. Almost every Norman cathedral ended in an apse; and in the apse,

high raised behind the high altar, sat the Norman bishop, facing the

congregation; the hateful symbol of Norman domination. The destruction

of the Norman apse may well, then, have been popular. The best part of

the design is seen in the southern wall of the Lady chapel, and in the

charming vaulted staircases which lead out of the side chapels to the

roofs of the retro-choir and choir, and to the clerestory of the choir,

from which a good view of the interior and of the interesting vault

and glass of the choir is obtained. At the north-east corner of the

retro-choir is an effigy in a vesica: it commemorates Bishop Ethelmar or

Aymer, whose heart was buried at Winchester in 1261.

THE STALLS.—These are in the Geometrical style (1245-1315), and were

executed about the middle of the period. “The beauty and variety of

the carvings are wonderful. There is no repetition; and the grace and

elegance, as well as the fidelity, with which the foliage is represented,

are nowhere to be surpassed. The human heads are full of expression; and

the monkeys and other animals sporting among the branches have all the

same exquisite finish. Here are also interesting misereres” (Murray).

[Illustration: FERETORY.]

THE PRESBYTERY.—The space between the central tower and retro-choir was

occupied by the Norman choir, less its apse, up to about 1320, when

this choir was pulled down and the present pier-arcade was built, with

the clerestory; which latter, however, received new window-tracery

in the sixteenth century. To the same period, the Curvilinear, but a

little later, belongs the exquisite series of nine tabernacles in the

retro-choir, on the wall at the back of the feretory; the naturalistic

foliage of which is perhaps the best work in the cathedral. Below is an

original entrance to the crypt, now called the “Holy Hole.” Above it

accordingly is the inscription:

“Corpora sanctorum sunt hic in pace sepulta

Ex meritis quorum fulgent miracula multa.”

THE NAVE.—We now pass into the south aisle of the nave. The nave is of

exceptional interest, for three reasons. In the first place, for its vast

length of 12 bays of 250 feet. Norwich has 14 bays of 230 feet. Secondly,

because, after the work at Gloucester, it is the earliest work we possess

in the Perpendicular style. Thirdly, because its Perpendicular vesture

is little more than skin deep, the solid core of every pier and every

wall, from pavement to roof, being Norman. It is just this combination of

the massive solidity of Romanesque with the grace and elegance of Gothic

which makes it what it is, the finest nave in the country. The walls are

Norman; built, in Norman fashion, of rather small and square blocks; they

are thick, nearly 10 feet thick at the top; outside the south aisle may

still be seen the flat Norman buttresses; hidden behind the balustrade of

the clerestory are the upper arches of the Norman triforium, one of which

we saw in the south transept. The vault rests on the original Norman

vaulting-shafts, though they are stopped by Perpendicular capitals. They

are not really stopped, however; for when we mount up to the back of the

vault we find the vaulting-shaft, piercing _through_ the vault, rising to

the very top of the wall, to support, as they once supported, a wooden

ceiling like that of Peterborough. Near the eastern end of the south

aisle the lower part of a Norman shaft has been left; probably because it

was covered up by some later shrine or altar. Crossing the nave, still

clearer evidence of the character of the early work is to be seen in the

second and third piers from the east of the north arcade. These were

covered up by a great rood-screen, now destroyed.

[Illustration: NAVE.]

Putting this evidence together, it is plain that we have here a Norman

nave transmogrified—Norman in core, but with a Perpendicular casing. This

casing, however, is not merely skin-deep, as in Gloucester choir, where

the Norman work can be seen at the back of the Perpendicular screens and

panelling. The casing at Winchester goes at least one stone deep into the

piers. But it was not executed all in the same way. Bishop William of

Wykeham’s work, in the seven western piers of the southern arcade, has

the new mouldings cut in the original Norman stones. But in the rest of

the piers it was found simpler and cheaper to withdraw the Norman stones

one by one, and replace them with new stones with Perpendicular mouldings

cut on them. The small Norman windows, of course, were destroyed

altogether, and replaced by short and broad windows by Bishop Edingdon,

probably about 1360, perhaps under the superintendence of William of

Wykeham, who was his secretary, in the extreme west of the nave; and by

taller and more graceful windows in the later work of William of Wykeham

and his successors. The mouldings of all this Perpendicular work are

rather large and coarse; but we must remember that the architect was

restricted at first to such mouldings as could be developed out of the

Norman detail, and in any case they had to be in harmony with the big

and heavy Norman vaulting-shafts which were retained unaltered in the

Perpendicular design. About the same time forty feet of the western

bays was pulled down. Edingdon’s work in the nave may be distinguished

by the broad windows, two in the north and one in the south aisle; and

by the cusps in the panelling, which in Edingdon’s work are foliated,

and in the later work are left plain. In the new design the internal

elevation consists of two parts—a tall pier-arcade, and a clerestory with

a balustrade in front of the lower part of it.

How low the original Norman pier-arcade was, is shown by the Norman

capitals which are left in the eastern piers of the northern arcade.

The Norman triforium was exceptionally large. Its floor was on a level

with the capitals of the new arches, and it reached up to the sill of

the present clerestory windows. A glance round the corner into the

transepts will make this clear. Again, the Norman nave had a flat wooden

ceiling like that of Peterborough; this was replaced by a magnificent

lierne vault of stone, completed by Wykeham’s successors, as is shown

by the arms of Cardinal Beaufort and Bishop William of Waynflete on

the bosses of the vault and in the string-course under the triforium.

Magnificent as this vault is, it was no improvement to break the free

flow of the diagonal and ridge-ribs by the insertion of these little

liernes or tie-ribs. The earlier vault of Exeter is massive enough and

quite sufficiently complicated without them. In the aisles the liernes

are grouped into simple hexagonal or “stellar” patterns. The vault of

the nave is often said to be unsupported by flying buttresses. They are

there, however, between the vault and the outer roof of the aisles,

sheltered from the weather, as are the Norman flying-buttresses of Durham

and Gloucester.

Such are the chief features of this, the finest cathedral-nave we

possess, the work of Edingdon, Wykeham, Beaufort and Waynflete. We shall

hardly be wrong in attributing the inception of this great transformation

to Wykeham, whether as Edingdon’s secretary or as his successor to the

bishopric.

[Illustration: REREDOS.]

We must not, however, overrate, as is often done, the novelty of the

proceeding. For an even greater transformation had been wrought at

Exeter before this, between 1280 and 1307, by Bishops Quivil and Bitton,

who transformed the Transitional Norman choir of Bishop Marshall into

the style of their day. From Exeter Wykeham borrowed the idea of the

transformation, from Gloucester the style in which the transformation was

effected.

From the west door there is a superb view eastwards. The grandeur of the

interior of the cathedral is much enhanced by the raising of the choir.

This raising of the choir is due, however, to no æsthetic preferences on

the part of the architects, nor to any wish to emphasise the importance

of the clergy, but simply to the fact that there is a substructure below

the choir. Here, as at Canterbury and York, it is a crypt. At Wimborne

minster, Hythe church, and Hereford cathedral, it seems to be no more

than a processional path, or else a charnel-house. Imposing, however,

as this vista is, it is not so long as it might be, and it appears

shorter than it really is. In the first place, out of the whole internal

length of 526 feet, only 338 feet come into the vista. This is because

De Lucy kept his retro-choir so low. Far nobler would have been the

interior of Winchester, if, as at Ely, York, and Lincoln, retro-choir and

eastern chapels had been kept as high as presbytery and nave. Indeed,

the Winchester vista of 338 feet is surpassed even by that of the small

cathedral of Lichfield, 371 feet. Secondly, owing to the destruction of

screens, the apparent length has been greatly diminished. Formerly there

were two solid screens: a rood-screen in the nave, three bays east of

the tower; and a choir-screen. Thirdly, as at St. Paul’s, the great wall

of the reredos is far too lofty, and is placed much too close to the

east end of the presbytery, shearing off another 20 feet of the apparent

length of the interior. This reredos, indeed, beautiful as its detail

must have been, is a vast mediæval blunder—_i.e._ from an artistic point

of view; which point of view, to tell the truth, the mediæval architects

cared little about in comparison with the religious purposes which they

wished their architecture to subserve. Still here, as at St. Saviour’s,

Southwark, one cannot help wishing the reredos away; one would like to

see once more behind and above the high altar, on their lofty platform,

the shrines of St. Swithun and St. Birinus, and on either side of them

such delightful peeps as one has at Wells into retro-choir and eastern

chapels. Beaufort’s reredos has much to answer for.

In the south arcade of the nave are the two earliest of the magnificent

series of chantries which are the especial glory of Winchester. They

should be examined in chronological order. They are those of the

following bishops: Edingdon, died 1366; Wykeham, died 1404; Beaufort,

died 1447; Waynflete, died 1486; Fox, died 1528; Gardiner, died 1555.

Thus they form a continuous record of the growth and development of

Perpendicular and Tudor architecture from 1366 to 1555.

IX. LATER PERPENDICULAR AND TUDOR WORK.—As we have seen, the great

transformation of the nave was not completed till the episcopate of

Waynflete (1447-1486), having occupied not less than a century. After a

short breathing-space, Bishop Fox (1500-1528) set to work to transform

the presbytery; and I have little doubt that every trace of early work

would have been swept away from the transepts as well, had not building

operations at Winchester been brought to a stop by the Reformation. As

we saw above the piers, arches and clerestory of the presbytery had been

rebuilt early in the fourteenth century. These Curvilinear windows having

probably got out of repair, he replaced the tracery of the clerestory

windows on each side of the presbytery, and also the great clerestory

window to the east, by Perpendicular tracery. Five of these windows

have original glass. A second task was to rebuild the aisles of the

presbytery, which, till now, had remained Norman. A third was to ceil

the presbytery with a lierne vault. This is a paltry makeshift in wood.

The emblems of the Passion, however, carved on the bosses, are of much

interest, and should be inspected from the gallery. Fourthly, Fox built

his own chantry. Indeed, most of the chantries were built during the

bishops’ lifetimes. Fifthly, he erected Tudor screens of stone between

the presbytery and his new aisles. These Gothic screens were plainly

wrought by English workmen. Just as plainly, the pretty Renaissance

frieze which surmounts them was wrought by workmen imported from Italy.

Sixthly, he constructed the Renaissance chests which stand on the

screen. Bishop Henry de Blois (1129-1171) had collected from the crypt,

perhaps now damp, the bones of saints and kings buried there, and had

transferred them, cased in lead, to the presbytery. These sacred relics

Fox placed in the present six chests. To this period also belongs the

Renaissance woodwork now placed in the south transept.

One more structural change had taken place previously. Bishop Courtenay

(1486-1492) had lengthened the Lady chapel and the crypt.

To the early years of the sixteenth century belongs the rich work in

Bishop Langton’s chapel, and in the chapels of the south transept, and

the pulpit in the choir.

[Illustration: FOX’S CHANTRY.]

The Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Mary the Virgin of

Worcester.

[Illustration: FROM NORTH.]

As is indicated by the form of dedication of 1218, “The cathedral church

of the Blessed Virgin and Saint Peter and of the Holy Confessors Oswald

and Wulfstan,” Worcester, is one of the pre-Conquest cathedrals. With

Hereford, Leicester, and Lindsey, it was carved out of the immense see

of Lichfield, which was coextensive with the kingdom of Mercia, by

Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury towards the end of the seventh century.

Through the influence of Dunstan, who was Bishop of Worcester from 957

to 961, its secular canons were replaced by Benedictine monks by his

successor, St. Oswald; and the cathedral was served by monks till the

time of Henry VIII., when it was put upon the new foundation and reverted

to secular canons. In 1062 St. Wulfstan became bishop. From his “great

piety and dovelike simplicity” of character, he had great influence

in the English Church, and was allowed by the Conqueror to retain his

bishopric. He repaid William by beating off Robert Courthose, Duke of

Normandy, when he attacked Worcester, and retained the see till his

death, at a great age, in 1095. In the year 1201 miracles commenced at

his tomb, “from fifteen to sixteen per diem being cured from every kind

of sickness.” In 1203 he was canonised. The shrines of St. Wulfstan and

St. Oswald stood on either side of the high altar, like those of St.

Dunstan and St. Elfege at Canterbury,—in front of it, not at the back, as

at Winchester, St. Albans, and elsewhere.

St. Oswald, late in the tenth century, had rebuilt the cathedral in the

style of his day. Of this Anglo-Saxon cathedral nothing is left, unless

it be the balusters in the arcade of the slype. This work of the holy

Oswald Wulfstan now pulled down, with many searchings of heart. Almost he

repented of his purpose. Long he stood silent in the churchyard, deeply

groaning. At last he burst into a flood of tears. “We wretches,” said he,

“pompously imagining that we do better work, destroy what the saints have

wrought.” Many centuries have passed since Wulfstan’s day, and there have

been many “restorations” of Worcester cathedral, but there is no record

that any one but Wulfstan commenced his work with tears and groans. Our

modern “restorers” enter on their work with light hearts. Rather one

would venture to suggest that when a restoration is resolved on, dean and

chapter and eminent architect should betake themselves in sad procession

to the cathedral, intoning penitential psalms with humble and contrite

hearts, observing the day as a day of humiliation.

Wulfstan commenced the new cathedral in the new Anglo-Norman style in

1084, and the monks entered four years later. This, of course, does not

imply that the whole cathedral was finished; but only so much of the

eastern limb as was sufficient for the daily services; and even this

probably not carried higher than the triforium, and provided merely with

a temporary roof Many fragments of the lower part of the walls and piers

of Wulfstan’s church remain above ground, showing that it was coextensive

with the present nave and transepts.

[Illustration: NAVE, NORTH SIDE.]

Wulfstan’s crypt is almost wholly intact, and enables us to restore the

plan of the eastern limb. This consisted of an apse surrounded by an

ambulatory, and extended as far as the centre of the present eastern

transept. On either side of the choir-aisles apsidal chapels projected

eastward from the Norman transept. It is possible that this may explain

the curious Norman building on the north side of the choir of Ripon. To

simplify the vaulting problem, by making the compartments as small as

possible, the crypt was divided into more than a hundred compartments.

Owing to the curve of the apse many of the compartments are not square;

yet the difficulty of vaulting triangles and trapeziums was successfully

overcome, even at this early date. When nearly all the other traditions

of Roman methods of construction had been lost, the architects of

mediæval Christendom still retained in their crypts the traditions of

Roman vaulting. Even the Anglo-Saxon crypt of the village church of

Wing has stone vaulting. In the ante-room of the library are preserved

the north doors of the cathedral (fourteenth century), under one of the

hinges of which are authentic fragments of the skin of some poor wretch

flayed alive for sacrilege. The slype, the undercroft of the refectory,

and the south-east entrance near it, also belong to Wulfstan’s work.

To the early part of the twelfth century belongs the circular

chapter-house. Most monastic chapter-houses were constructed in a

rectangular form, which best fitted on to the side of a cloister. But

the cathedrals of secular canons, when they had chapter-houses, followed

the Worcester precedent, except that they were built polygonal instead

of circular. Such was the beauty, however, of the new form, that the

monastic houses also, in later times, themselves frequently adopted the

polygonal form, as at Westminster, Evesham, Belvoir (Benedictine); Margam

and Abbey Dore (Cistercian); Alnwick, Cockersand, Thornton, Carlisle,

Bridlington, Bolton (Canons Regular). Usually the polygonal chapter-house

had a central pier; but it was dispensed with at York and Southwell. The

polygonal chapter-house never appears in France; it is one of the most

beautiful features in English Gothic.

In the twelfth century, about 1160, some weakness seems to have shown

itself in or near the west front, and the two western bays of the

nave were rebuilt in the style of the day. In the importance given to

the triforium, in the semicircular arches which occur in triforium

and clerestory, and in the use of the chevron ornament, the work is

still Romanesque. But pointed arches also occur both in triforium and

clerestory; while the ground-story, with the exception of the square

abacus, is purely Gothic. The clustered piers, the rich vaulting-shafts,

and well-moulded arches, together with the square abacus, all remind one

of the work at Wells (1171-1191); the foliage of the capitals, however,

is less advanced.

At length the turning-point was reached in the fortunes of Worcester.

The body of St. Wulfstan, after lying dormant for more than a century,

began to work miracles. Pilgrims came in crowds. It was the age of

pilgrimages. Even King John came with offerings; and his body was brought

here for burial. With the pilgrims came the need for more accommodation

in the eastern limb of the church, and from the pilgrims came the money

to provide it. Winchester choir was not long enough to provide for the

crowds who resorted to the shrine of St. Swithun, the Healer; Rochester

had turned a Scotch baker into St. William of Perth, and had to provide

eastward extensions; Ely had to rebuild its presbytery to give room to

the votaries who came from all East Anglia to venerate St. Ethelreda;

Durham erected the Chapel of the Nine Altars to accommodate those

who flocked from all northern England to the shrine of St. Cuthbert;

Canterbury crypt—spacious as it was—was too strait for the pilgrims who

came from all over Christendom to worship the relics of its murdered

archbishop; both Lincoln and St. Alban’s were crowded out, and later in

the century were to build eastward in honour of St. Hugh and St. Alban.

St. Wulfstan, being the newest saint, was for a time exceedingly popular.

[Illustration: CHOIR, LOOKING WEST.]

Miracles had commenced at Worcester in 1201; about 1204 the

reconstruction of the eastern limb had commenced; and within the next

forty years the old Norman choir had disappeared, and the present eastern

arm was finished. In plan it is a sort of combination of the earlier

eastern extensions at Hereford and Winchester. As at Hereford, a small

eastern transept was provided, and a shallow Lady chapel; but the space

between the eastern transept and the Lady chapel was three bays each

way, as in De Lucy’s work at Winchester. The apsidal chapels of the

Norman transept were also pulled down, that of the south transept being

replaced by an early Gothic chapel. The efficacy of the saint and the

liberality of the pilgrims are shown not only in the scale of the new

work, but in the wealth of detail. Especially beautiful was the arcading

round the walls. Perhaps the only work to compare with the choir of

Worcester is the presbytery of Ely; but in the proportions of its members

the Ely elevation has the best of it. The Worcester architect followed

the proportions of the two Transitional bays at the far end of the nave;

and thus, as compared with Ely, the pier-arcade is too stumpy and the

triforium too large. The crypt of Wulfstan’s church, as we have seen,

only extended as far as the new eastern transept. To get the work east

of the new transept on the same level as the rest, the builders would

have had to extend the crypt eastward. Crypts, however, had gone out of

fashion with the ritualistic need of them; therefore the builder very

sensibly built the eastern part of the choir on the level, not of the

western bays of the choir, but of the nave. But he has been credited with

æsthetic reasons for the course he adopted. A fine effigy of William de

Blois, who commenced this thirteenth-century choir, lies on his tomb in

front of the Lady chapel.

What happened to the nave between 1245 and 1317 is not known. There is

no work in the cathedral of that date. But between 1317 and 1327 Bishop

Cobham commenced the reconstruction of the north side of the nave. It

is therefore Curvilinear work. It is not, however, typical work of the

period. With that tenderness for older design which one sees at Ely,

St. Alban’s, Beverley and Westminster, the architect has suppressed

his individual preferences, and designed his work so as to be a nice

transition from the twelfth-century bays near the west front to the

thirteenth-century bays of the choir; so his piers and his clerestory

are a Curvilinear version of the work immediately to the west of him,

while his triforium is a repeat of that of the choir. But before the new

work on the north side was joined up to the Transitional bays of the

nave money seems to have become scarce at Worcester. Pilgrims had begun

to desert St. Wulfstan for newer if not holier saints. Hitherto St.

Wulfstan had had a monopoly in the West-country. There was not another

saint of equal efficacy till you reached Winchester. But in 1287 Bishop

Cantilupe began to bring the dead to life at Hereford; and in 1327 Edward

II. was buried at Gloucester, and miracles soon followed there also. So

Worcester now had rival miracle-workers on either side. The result was

that it was found impossible to finish the Curvilinear work, although the

pier-arcade was complete all along the north side of the nave, and there

only remained to build two bays of the triforium and clerestory.

[Illustration: NAVE, LOOKING EAST.]

Building operations seem to have halted for some thirty years; and when

they were resumed, _c._ 1360, the completion of the north side and the

rebuilding of the south side of the nave were carried out in a balder

and more economical way. All this Perpendicular work, including the

completion of the new tower, seems to have been completed before the end

of the fourteenth century. About the same time the great transept was

vaulted and panelled, somewhat after the fashion of the Gloucester work.

The transept is a tangle of early Norman, late Norman, Transitional,

Curvilinear, and Perpendicular work. Evidently there are breaks and

lacunæ in the architectural record of Worcester which we have no

materials for filling up. In the fifteenth century the monks seem to have

rebuilt their cloister.

A late and interesting bit of design is to be seen in the chantry of

Prince Arthur, elder brother of Henry VIII., who died in Ludlow castle

in 1486. The flat roof, with its fan-vault, skeleton ribs and pendant,

is an anticipation of the vaulting of his father’s chapel in Westminster

Abbey.

Externally the cathedral is wholly nineteenth-century work: decay of the

stone had rendered recasing unavoidable. Within, much of what pretends to

be thirteenth-century detail is really work of the nineteenth century,

commonplace in design, coarse in execution; some of it by Perkins, some

by Scott; everything is shiny and new; nothing has ever been done so bad

as the “restoration” of Worcester choir and presbytery.

The Cathedral Church of St. Peter, York.

[Illustration: FROM NORTH.]

I. York Minster has had many predecessors—Romano-British, Saxon, Norman

and Transitional cathedrals. From the two first periods nothing survives,

unless it be two walls in herring-bone masonry in the crypt. Little

remains of Norman work except in the western portion of the crypt. In

the centre of the crypt are fine fragments of the Transitional choir of

Archbishop Roger, whose work is seen at Ripon. The present cathedral is

mainly of three periods. The great transept was designed in the Lancet

period; the nave, chapter-house and vestibule were built in the latter

part of the Geometrical period; the retro-choir, choir and towers are

Perpendicular. But though the work is of three periods, it is practically

of only two designs, the choir and retro-choir being only a Perpendicular

version of the design of the nave.

II. As at Lichfield and Wells, the canons of York in the end left not

a fragment of the earlier work visible above ground. They must have had

vast resources at their disposal, in addition to what they received in

offerings at the shrine of the local saint, St. William of York. He died

in 1154; he was canonised in 1227. It was about this latter date that

the rebuilding of the cathedral commenced; and it is not unreasonable to

believe that the offerings from his shrine had something to do with the

vastness of scale on which the new work was planned; the new transept

being not only exceptional both in height and breadth, but also in having

aisles on the western as well as on the eastern side—an extravagance

unknown in our Gothic cathedrals, except at Wells. It is amusing to find

the double-aisled transept in the sub-cathedral of Beverley Minster.

There seems to have been an internecine rivalry between the canons of

Beverley and York. Both churches have double aisles to the central

transepts; both continue in full height to the east end; both have

western towers; and though Beverley has no central tower, it has by

compensation an aisled eastern transept, where York has but transeptal

bays. Moreover, the high vaults of Beverley are of stone. In beauty of

proportions and of detail—in everything but scale—Beverley has much the

best of it.

[Illustration: SOUTH TRANSEPT.]

The south transept was built 1230-1241, the north transept 1241-1260.

The façade of the south transept is confused and commonplace, overloaded

with ornament, and cut up too much with windows; that of the north

transept—with the Five Sisters—is of noble simplicity. In the south

transept is the beautiful monument of Archbishop Gray (1215-1255), the

builder also of Ripon west front and Southwell choir. “The view which is

presented to the visitor on entering this transept is without doubt the

finest in the cathedral. The magnificent spaciousness of the transept,

the majesty of the lofty lancets which nearly fill the north gable,

the solemn light struggling through their ancient diapered glass, the

great central tower with its unrivalled lantern, combine to produce an

impression fully sustaining the great reputation of the minster.” In

proportions the design of the transept is not a success; the elevation

dwindles away upward, the triforium being made far too large at the

expense of the clerestory. In itself the triforium is a very fine

composition, only there is not room for it, nor is it in harmony either

with the pier-arcade below or the clerestory above. It is the largest and

most complex triforium in the country; consisting of two pairs of acute

lancets below, set under two acute lancet arches, which again are set

under an outer arch almost semicircular. This was the last big triforium

built in England (save the exceptional one in Ely choir). There had

always been a feeling in favour of the diminution of the triforium. Even

in the twelfth-century naves of Tewkesbury and Gloucester the triforium

had been cut down to very small proportions; in Beverley choir the

triforium is greatly attenuated; and very soon afterwards the triforium

was to be seen nearing extinction in Exeter choir and in the nave of

York itself.

[Illustration: SOUTH TRANSEPT.]

III. At this period (_c._ 1260) we must think of York Minster as

possessing the present spacious transept, a Transitional choir of

the character of that of Ripon, and a Norman nave. When the work of

rebuilding was resumed, the Transitional choir—which must have been

spacious and convenient—was spared once more, and the canons proceeded

to take down and rebuild the Norman nave, laying the foundation stone in

1291, and beginning at the south-east. The new nave is so exceedingly

broad and lofty that it is probable that it was built round and over the

top of the old Norman nave. The money came from “indulgences, penances,

briefs, bequests, and offerings at the shrine of St. William.” The nave,

like the whole minster, is exceedingly impressive in the vastness of

its spaces: no building of such dimensions could fail to be impressive.

Its proportions, however, are not good. The broadest cathedral nave in

England (its span is 45 feet), and the loftiest (it is nearly 100 feet

high), it ought to be one of the longest, which it is not: it is even

shorter than the transept. Matters are made worse, as in Lincoln nave, by

the wide spacing of the piers, the result of which is greatly to reduce

the apparent length of the nave. It contains only eight bays. Had it been

divided into ten or more bays, it would have looked far longer. It was

designed not so much on architectural lines as a glass-house. The canons

wanted the greatest possible breadths of stained glass in aisles and

clerestory. The error was seen and corrected in the choir, which, though

no longer than the nave, has nine bays instead of eight. It is possible

that nothing but want of funds prevented the canons from continuing the

nave farther westward. The exceptional height and breadth of the nave

made it very costly; and the funds plainly ran short, for, though begun

in 1291, it was not roofed till 1360. To make matters worse, the canons

were building a new chapter-house and vestibule at the same time as the

nave: so that funds may well have failed. Nevertheless, at Ely, equally

large works were completed before 1360, though they were not commenced

till 1321, and were executed with much greater richness of detail than in

York.

[Illustration: CHAPTER-HOUSE]

Another feature which shows that the York canons had started their

work without considering whether they would be able to finish it is

the omission of a stone vault, which was plainly contemplated at the

outset; the pinnacles built for the purpose of weighting the buttresses

against the thrusts of a stone vault still existing on the south side.

When the north side was built, the canons had abandoned hope of vaulting

the nave in stone, and so did not put up big pinnacles. It is well to

remember, however, that the exterior of the nave was designed originally

to have flying-buttresses and big pinnacles on both sides. In the end,

as in Selby choir, a sham vault of wood was put up. One cannot help

regretting these shams. It would have been Gothic to recognise honestly

that the ceiling was wood, and to design it in wood and not in lithic

fashion. Then we might have seen an English Gothic cathedral with such a

hammer-beam roof as that of Westminster Hall: very magnificent it would

have been.

Side by side with the nave went up the chapter-house. It belongs to the

middle of the Geometrical period, _c._ 1300; later in character than

its sister at Southwell, and but little earlier than the chapter-house

of Wells. Externally, it is provided with buttresses and pinnacles and

flying-buttresses and flying bridges to resist the thrusts of a stone

vault. Yet no stone vault is there, but another sham vault of wood. The

detail of the chapter-house, inside and outside, is of exquisite beauty.

At first the chapter-house was a detached building, but a vestibule was

soon added. Parapet-mouldings of the chapter-house may now be seen inside

the vestibule.

A very curious and bold specimen of mediæval engineering may now be

mentioned. If the western bays of the great transept next to the

central tower be examined, it will be seen that in the clerestory and

in the triforium these bays are exceedingly narrow, but that in the

ground-story the narrow arch corresponding to the narrow bays of the

triforium and clerestory has been moved, and a wider arch substituted.

The fact is, when the transept was completed, the Norman nave, which

was still standing, had a very narrow aisle. Consequently the builders

of the transept built a pair of narrow arches, on either side of the

central tower, leading from the transept into the Norman aisle. Later on,

as we have seen, the Norman nave and aisles were pulled down, and the

present nave was built. Its aisles are exceptionally broad. The result

was that the piers of the two narrow arches found themselves in the very

middle of the new broad aisles of the nave—a most awkward obstruction

to processions passing from aisle to transept, or _vice-versa_. So the

triforium and clerestory was underpinned, the Lancet piers next to the

tower were taken down and then put up again clear of the aisles, and the

two arches also on either side of the tower were taken down and rebuilt

with the same stones, each in the place of the other. The result is

that, counting from the end-walls of the transepts, in the triforium and

clerestory there are three of the bays wide and one narrow, while in the

ground-story there are two wide, one narrow, and one wide bay. Similar

changes took place on the eastern side of the transept when the choir was

built.

Later on, when the central tower was built, its great weight sank the

piers on which it rests eight inches into the ground, and the adjoining

masonry was dislocated. The result was that it was found necessary to

rebuild the third piers on both sides of both transepts (counting from

the end-walls) as well as the first pier on the western side of the north

transept, and at the same time to block up all the four narrow arches

with solid masonry (cf. CARLISLE, and EXETER).

IV. The west front of the nave was not finished till the very end of

the Curvilinear period, to which period belong also the treasury and

sacristy, and also Archbishop Zouch’s chapel, unless the latter was

rebuilt _c._ 1396.

[Illustration: CHAPTER-HOUSE ARCADE.]

V. Immediately that the nave was roofed in, the canons commenced to

rebuild the eastern limb. Meanwhile architectural fashions had changed.

While the York people were lingering over their Geometrical nave, a whole

architectural period had passed away, leaving behind few traces at York

except in the west front. When the new choir was commenced in 1361, the

Curvilinear style had disappeared before the new Perpendicular style,

invented at Gloucester and taken up by Bishop Edingdon at Winchester.

The style, however, was still new, and though the Winchester work is

purely Perpendicular, the York design still retains in the window tracery

reminiscences of the flow of curve that Edingdon and Wykeham had replaced

by grilles of horizontal and vertical bars.

Only the eastern part of Archbishop Roger’s Transitional work was at

first pulled down, the services going on without interruption in the

western bays. The four new eastern bays—designed as a retro-choir, the

altar standing originally one bay more to the west than at present—may

be distinguished at once externally by the unusual feature of having an

external instead of an internal arcade to the clerestory; this gives a

fine play of light and shadow.

Then the five western bays were built, two bays as sanctuary, three as

choir. Owing to the continuation of the high roofs to the extreme east

end of the cathedral, there is little of the picturesqueness of the

eastern terminations of Wells and Salisbury, but there is spaciousness,

dignity and majesty. Here also the canons had not the money—perhaps

not the courage—to put up a high vault of stone. Nave, eastern limb,

and transept (the vault of which is of the fifteenth century) were all

vaulted in wood. The punishment was long in coming, but it came at last.

The wooden vault of the choir, the stalls and the organ, were burnt

down by a lunatic in 1829; and that of the nave by a plumber in 1840.

The finest feature in the choir is the tall transeptal bays, suggested

by and built on the foundations of Archbishop Roger’s flanking towers.

The whole eastern limb was finished _c._ 1420. Then came the central

tower, 1410-1433; the south-west tower, 1433-1447; the north-west tower,

1465-1474; the organ screen, 1475-1505.

[Illustration: FROM SOUTH-WEST.]

In 1472 the completion of the great works commenced _c._ 1230 was near at

hand, and a solemn consecration of the rebuilt cathedral was held. The

Norman and Transitional cathedral had disappeared; its successor occupied

a century and a half in building.

[Illustration: SOUTH CHOIR.]

Externally, York Minster, from its vast dimensions and the fine

composition of the towers, is exceedingly impressive. One realises

its immensity best from the city walls, where it is seen “reflecting

every change in the sky, and rising like a mountain above the parochial

churches and houses of the city.” The treatment of the north side of the

nave and transept is particularly grave and impressive—largely because

of the absence of pinnacles. The west front, in spite of overloaded and

confused ornament, is of its type the finest in the country; and to

my mind the great west window, in the free and fanciful flow of its

intersecting ogee arches, surpasses its only rival, the east window of

Carlisle. The central tower relies for effect on mass more than height,

and thus contrasts strongly with the central towers of Canterbury and

Lincoln. Gloucester tower alone seems to be impressive equally from

height and bulk. Shorn of its pinnacles, however, York central tower

has not fair play. Very beautiful, too, is the play of light and shade

in the double plane of tracery in the eastern clerestory. And very

characteristic is the east façade; it may be all wrong, with its strong

emphasis of horizontal lines and concealment of the gable, but it has

distinction; one never confuses the east end of York with that of any

other cathedral—one never forgets it. The weakest point in York is what

ought to be the source of the greatest beauty, the window-tracery. Much

of it, especially in the choir, is ugly in itself; even that of the great

east window and of the windows in the transeptal bays is meagre and thin.

But what is worse, this poor tracery is repeated with most wearisome

iteration all over the flanks of the cathedral. Window after window of

the nave, window after window of the choir, are monotonously alike. The

imagination of the York people was singularly limited. What a contrast to

the glorious series of windows of Exeter, contemporary with those of York

nave!

[Illustration: CHOIR, LOOKING EAST.]

But it is not from its architecture that York holds its paramount place

as an exponent of mediæval art, but because its ancient glass is almost

all intact. For a detailed account of it the reader should refer to Mr.

Benson’s handbook and to that of Dean Purey-Cust. I will conclude by

describing it in Mrs. Van Rensselaer’s words, which are as true as they

are eloquent. “Most English cathedrals have been entirely reduced to

architectural bone and sinew; they lack decorative warmth and glow, life

and colour, and the charm that lies in those myriad accessory things

which the lingering faith of Rome has preserved in other lands. All the

varied tools and trappings, altars, shrines, and symbolic trophies of

the rich Catholic ritual have been banished; much of the furniture is

gone, the walls are bare of paint, scores of monuments and chantries have

been shattered to bits, thousands of sculptured ornaments and figures

have been swept away in dust; a painful cleanliness has replaced the

time-stains which give tone to many Continental churches even when no

actual colouring exists, and a glare of white light or hideous discord

of modern hues fills the enormous windows. Columns and walls and floors

are as barren at York as elsewhere; and although many tombs remain,

without its glass it would seem even colder and emptier than most of

its sisters, for it was built at a time when walls of glass had nearly

replaced walls of stone. But it has its glass, and this means much more

than that it has a richness of decorative effect which no other English

church displays. It means that here alone we can really apprehend the

effect of a late Gothic church, even from the architectural point of

view. At York we can follow the development of the art of glass-painting

through a period of fully four centuries. More delicate, clear and

exquisite fields of simple colour can never have been wrought than

those which fill the Five Sisters with their sea-green purity. The west

window, glazed a century later (1338), is a gorgeous mosaic of ruddy and

purple hues, shining in the intricate stone pattern which shows black

against the light, like a million amethysts and rubies set in ebony

lace. The multicoloured eastern window, and its two mates in the minor

transept, seem vast and fair enough for the walls of the New Jerusalem.

And wherever we look in the lightly constructed eastern limb, it seems,

not as though walls had been pierced for windows, but as though radiant

translucent screens—fragile, yet vital and well equal to their task—had

been used to build a church, and merely bound together with a network

of solid stone. For the moment we feel that nothing is so beautiful as

glass. After we have seen the glass of York, we never think again that

stained glass was merely an adornment of Gothic architecture. The early

Gothic architect demanded for his enlarged windows some filling which, as

decoration, would take the place of the wide frescoes of former times,

and which, from the constructional point of view, would justify to the

eye that partial suppression of walls which he knew to be scientifically

right. This filling the early glass-painter gave him; and it was so

satisfying from the architectural standpoint, and so beautiful from the

decorative, that he was ready and eager to carry on his architectural

evolution to the farthest possible extreme. He felt that he could

attenuate his constructional framework as far as the laws of gravity

would permit, since the glazier stood ready to replace really solid

wall-spaces by those which looked solid enough, and were more beautiful

than any expanses of stone had ever been. No architect could have built

as late Gothic architects did, if only white glass had been at his

command. None would have made walls which are literally windows, unless

strength of colour had come forward to simulate strength of substance.

A Perpendicular church was actually meant to look as the choir of York

does look—like a great translucent tabernacle merely ribbed and braced

with stone.” The very best glass, however, is of later date than that of

the cathedral, and the visitor should round off his education in mediæval

glass by inspecting the late Perpendicular glass in which the parish

churches of York abound. There is a fine collection of fifteenth-century

glass in St. Martin’s church, in Coney Street, near the interesting old

Guildhall. Indeed, nowhere in England can stained glass be studied to

such advantage as at York.

[Illustration: EAST END.]

Victorian Cathedrals.

The following new dioceses have been formed during the present reign:

Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Ripon, St. Alban’s, Southwell, Truro,

Wakefield. Of these Ripon Minster, St. Alban’s Abbey, and Southwell

Minster have been described already. In only one diocese, Truro, has

a new cathedral been commenced. The bishops of Liverpool, Manchester,

Newcastle, and Wakefield, are housed in parish churches.

Liverpool Cathedral.

The see was founded in 1880. A fine design for a domical cathedral was

prepared by Mr. Emerson in 1885, but the church of St. Peter remains the

“provisional cathedral.”

Manchester Cathedral.

[Illustration: CHOIR, MANCHESTER CATHEDRAL.]

The see was founded in 1847. Externally and internally the cathedral is

but a magnified parish church. The single western tower, the absence of

a central tower, the extraordinary breadth of the interior, the absence

of a triforium, the wooden roofs, all stamp it with parochialism. Indeed,

the nave and aisles are still the parish church of Manchester, the

cathedral proper being confined to the choir and its aisles. Looked at

as a parish church and a collegiate church—for from 1426 it was both—it

is a magnificent specimen of late English Gothic, dating from 1426 to

1520, when the ambition of architects was to make of their churches

“stone-lanterns.” In the same accidental way as Chichester cathedral it

has become possessed of picturesque double aisles, by the incorporation

on either side of sets of chantries. The south aisle of Dorchester priory

church had a similar origin. It has been so thoroughly “renovated” that

it is practically a modern church. But it is very impressive. There is

no jarring of styles. And the colour effects, externally and internally,

are superb. Its woodwork, too—rood-screen, choir-screens, tabernacled

stalls, misereres, and roofs—is of great richness and fine design. The

whole church in its fortuitous picturesqueness appeals to one much more

than the icy regularity of such churches as St. Mary Redcliffe, Bristol,

or Bath Abbey.

Newcastle Cathedral.

The see was founded in 1882. The church is Curvilinear work of the

fourteenth century, to which a Perpendicular tower and spire, east window

and font were added about 1450. The spire, with its pinnacle supported

on converging flying buttresses, is a bold and effective composition.

Spires of similar construction occur in the Cross Steeple, Glasgow,

and King’s College, Aberdeen, and formerly existed at Linlithgow and

Haddington. London has a fine example by Sir Christopher Wren in St.

Dunstan’s-in-the-East. There is a fine Jacobean monument, pulpit-shaped,

to Henry Maddison, and another to William Hall.

Truro Cathedral.

[Illustration: CHOIR.]

Truro cathedral, consecrated in 1887, is the first entirely new cathedral

designed in England since St. Paul’s. The nave, towers, spires,

chapter-house, and cloister are still to build. In dimensions it ranks

with Norwich and Wells; in plan it is as complex as any of the greater of

our cathedrals. It is intended to have three towers and spires, a south

porch, western porches, an aisled nave of nine bays, a central transept

with eastern and western aisles and baptistery, a choir, sanctuary, and

eastern processional aisle, a square east end, and an unaisled eastern

transept, projecting slightly beyond the aisles. Below the choir is a

crypt, appropriated to vestries. The crypt is supposed to be in the

massive style of the latter years of the twelfth century. The choir is

supposed to have been commenced in the early years of the thirteenth

century; but since, as in the transepts of Salisbury, the aisle windows

are lancets, while those of the clerestory have early plate-tracery, the

upper part of the choir is supposed not to have been finished before

the middle of the century. So again, in the half-century or so which

is supposed to elapse between the commencement and the completion of

the cathedral, the design is supposed to have been altered here and

there as it passed through different hands; hence the rose-windows,

which are unusually plentiful, are all different; the transept ends

are differently treated; the arches of the choir are narrow, those of

the nave are wide; the latter has coupled bays, the choir has not; the

quadripartite vault of the choir becomes more complex in the nave,

just as it does at Lincoln. And just as the Lincoln architect dropped

down fortuitous chapels at the west end of the nave, so Mr. Pearson

purposely forgot to leave room for a baptistery, and tacked it on, in

a carefully casual manner, to the south transept. The cloister, too,

is to be three-sided and lop-sided, as at Chichester. Internally, the

cathedral is picturesquely beautiful, and admirably adapted for the

ritual of the Church of England as it was in the thirteenth century.

The south side of the choir has the remarkable peculiarity of having

three aisles; so has that of Oxford cathedral. But it got its three

aisles in a different way from Oxford. Mr. Pearson was instructed to

leave standing a piece of genuine mediæval work, late and good—viz., the

south aisle of the old church of St. Mary’s. The cathedral was placed

to the north of it, just so far off as to barely admit the buttresses

supporting the flying-buttresses of the choir vault. These buttresses Mr.

Pearson pierced with arches, and, roofing over the space from buttress

to buttress, got a narrow intermediate aisle between the choir-aisle to

the north and St. Mary’s aisle to the south. Thus on the south side of

the choir there are three ranges of piers and three ranges of arches,

and the changing vistas and perspectives and mysterious distances are

delightful. In this instance the architect was mediæval in spirit as well

as in the letter.

Wakefield Cathedral.

The see was founded in 1888. Like Manchester cathedral, the church

is thoroughly parochial in appearance, inside and outside. But,

archæologically, it is of exceptional interest. It is one of those

numerous churches, every stone of the exterior of which is of late

Gothic date, but which internally in their arcades reveal the existence

of much earlier building epochs. Like many others, though now a vast

parallelogram, it was once a cruciform church in plan; and though now it

has a western tower, its tower once stood above the crossing. Once its

nave was aisleless; then it had narrow aisles; later on, these narrow

aisles were replaced by broad ones. The piers and arches of the first

aisles were low; afterwards they were heightened or rebuilt. Originally

it had no clerestory; this was not added till the fifteenth century. When

the central tower fell, the new tower was built ten feet west of the

nave, so as not to interfere with the services. When it was finished, it

was joined up to the nave by the addition of a new westernmost bay. The

Norman chancel and its successor were short, and had neither aisles nor

clerestory; the present chancel, the third, is long, having absorbed the

space originally covered by the central tower; and it has a clerestory

and aisles, and these have absorbed the transepts. Finally, the font,

choir-screen, and sounding-board are Jacobean. Wakefield cathedral is

a typical embodiment of the history of the Church of England, with a

personal identity undestroyed by its many transformations, like the boy’s

knife which had a new blade and a new handle, but was still the same old

knife.

The Welsh Cathedrals.

Bangor.

[Illustration: BANGOR, FROM SOUTH.]

The work at Bangor falls into four periods.

I. Originally the cathedral was a small Norman church, probably without

aisles, with nave, transept, choir of one bay, and apse. Of this building

nothing is visible except a buttress and window on the south side of the

choir. It seems to have received great damage in 1247.

II. Between 1267 and 1305 the cathedral was practically rebuilt by Bishop

Anian. The Norman apse was demolished, and the choir was extended two

bays farther to the east, and ended square. The transepts also were

lengthened half a bay each. A chapel was added to the north of the choir;

and aisles, either now or not much later, to the nave.

III. In 1402 the cathedral was burnt by Owen Glendower. Between 1500

and 1532 Bishops Dene and Skevynton rebuilt the eastern part of the

presbytery, the nave arcade and the clerestory above it, the two windows

on the south side of the choir—set high because the lower part of the

wall was blocked with the stall-work—the western tower, and the stump of

a central tower.

IV. In the restoration of 1866 many fragments of Anian’s cathedral were

found in the walls, and were used up by Sir G. G. Scott in rebuilding the

transept after what he imagined to be Anian’s design. The choir-chapel

was also rebuilt as organ-chamber, library and chapter-house. The aisles

also, and the central tower, were almost wholly rebuilt.

Llandaff.

Llandaff, though practically but a suburb of the busy town of Cardiff,

still remains picturesquely environed by woods and meadows and hills and

the Taff. Externally it adds one more to the endless varieties of English

cathedral architecture. No central tower is here, and the position of

transepts is inadequately occupied by the chapter-house on the southern

side. One unbroken roof, as at Dorchester abbey church, extends for the

whole length of the cathedral, the Lady chapel excepted. Its west front,

indeed, is cathedral-like, now that a south-west tower and spire, in

French Gothic, has been added. Internally, the absence of a triforium

gives it a parochial appearance. Indeed, both externally and internally,

it has the appearance rather of a magnified parish church than the seat

of one of the most ancient bishoprics in the country. Nevertheless, as at

Wakefield, and Dorchester, it is quite possible that, though now it is a

vast oblong, 200 feet by 70 feet, it was originally a Norman cruciform

church. But whether it had originally a central tower, or towers flanking

the choir, somewhat after the fashion of those of the old cathedral of

Como or those of Exeter, it is impossible to ascertain. The architectural

record of Llandaff is incomplete, and the evolution of the ground-plan

is a puzzle not to be disentangled. Of Norman work there are two sets.

One is to be found in the presbytery: it consists of the east wall and

its arch, and of fragments of an arch and window in the south wall. This

seems to be the work of Bishop Urban, _c._ 1120. The nave was probably

not completed till late in the twelfth century; the only visible remains

are the north and south doorways (Transitional).

It would seem that it was determined subsequently to rebuild not the

whole eight bays of the nave and choir, but only the interior of them.

The walls of the low Norman aisles, with their doorways and windows, were

left untouched. But a new set of piers and arches carrying a clerestory

were put up in place of the Norman work. It is possible that the nave was

not given a triforium, because there still survived low unvaulted Norman

aisles on either side of it. All this is excellent Lancet work, done

between 1193 and 1229. To this period also belongs the fine west front

and the vaulted vestibule to the chapter-house.

Between 1244 and 1265 a little southern transept was built to serve as a

chapter-house. Below, it is square, but nevertheless has a central stalk

like the octagonal chapter-houses at Salisbury and Westminster. The upper

story is octagonal, and has a steep octagonal roof.

Then it was determined to have a large eastern Lady chapel. Not to

interfere with the services, this was probably built completely detached

from the cathedral, as at Lichfield and elsewhere. When it was finished

the Norman apse would be pulled down, and the Lady chapel joined on to

the presbytery. Two chapels also were built, one on each side of the

westernmost bay of the new Lady chapel. This work was probably done _c._

1280.

The next step was to continue the northern of these chapels eastward,

so as to provide the presbytery with a northern aisle of two bays, and

to pierce the north wall of the presbytery with a couple of arches. No

doubt they would have liked a couple of arches in the southern wall;

but unfortunately the bay of the aisle on the other side of it had been

vaulted, and so only one arch was inserted, leaving as much wall as

possible to support the vault. Under this arch the sedilia were placed.

Soon afterwards the outer wall of the south aisle of the presbytery was

rebuilt. But the presbytery was very dark, having no windows to the east,

and being much blocked on the south side by the sedilia and by the mass

of Norman walling which it had been necessary to retain. So it received a

clerestory and very large aisle-windows. Nor were the nave and choir well

lighted. In the clerestory and west front they had only lancet windows;

and, if the low Norman aisles still remained, they could contain but very

diminutive windows. There was nothing for it but to rebuild the whole of

the eight bays of each aisle. This rebuilding probably went on between

1315 and 1360, for the windows have ogee dripstones and ogee patterns

in the tracery. When the aisles had been rebuilt the whole cathedral

had been reconstructed, with the exception of two Norman doorways and

two or three Norman arches in the presbytery. To us it may seem a

topsy-turvy mode of procedure to first rebuild the inside—the pier-arcade

and clerestory—of a church, and the outside walls afterwards; but it is

the mode of procedure adopted in scores of parish churches, even the

humblest. One constantly finds the aisles, as at Wakefield, of later date

than the pier-arcade, and that pier-arcade a rebuilding of something

older.

After this great reconstruction, first of the interior, then of the

exterior, there remained only to complete the west front. The south-west

tower seems to have become ruinous or to have collapsed, and the

materials of it helped to build a new north-west tower erected at the

cost of Jasper Tudor, uncle of Henry VII. Then came the Reformation; and

the south-west tower was not rebuilt till the present century. Since 1843

nave, choir, and presbytery have been almost wholly rebuilt.

St. Asaph.

[Illustration: NAVE, LOOKING EAST.]

This is the smallest of the Welsh cathedrals, and consists of an aisled

nave of five bays, an aisleless transept, a central tower, and a chancel.

The chancel was built by Sir G. G. Scott in 1868; the rest between

1284 and 1352. The arcade and clerestory of the nave are exceptional

in character. The piers have no capitals; so that the mouldings run

uninterruptedly round the arch; they consist simply of chamfers with

a wave moulding. These continuous mouldings are not uncommon in late

work—_e.g._, in Antwerp cathedral; but are seldom found in early Gothic,

though a thirteenth-century example occurs in the vestibule of Chester

chapter house. The clerestory windows are square, but cusped. The central

tower is massive and effective. The cathedral is finely situated, on

elevated ground, above the beautiful valley of the Clwyd; and may be seen

from the London and Holyhead railway. There are good stalls (1471-1495),

and an interesting effigy of a bishop (_c._ 1300).

St. David’s.

Far away in the extreme west of Pembrokeshire, sixteen miles from the

nearest railway station, Haverfordwest, is one of the most interesting

cathedrals in the British Isles. Dedicated to the great patron saint

of Wales, it is as complex in plan as Winchester or St. Alban’s, and

abounds in lovely detail of the Transitional and Curvilinear periods.

The earliest work belongs to the episcopate of Peter de Leia (1176-1198),

and comprises parts of the presbytery, the western walls of the transept,

the western piers of the tower, and the whole of the nave except the

outer portion of the west front (Sir G. G. Scott), and the south porch

and the exterior of the south aisle (1328-1347). Though built quite late

in the twelfth century, when Gothic architecture had got good hold in

Ripon, Canterbury, and Wells, St. David’s—partly perhaps from its remote

situation—is still sternly Romanesque. The pier-arcade is low, the piers

massive and squat; their arches are semicircular, as also the windows of

the clerestory; there is a profusion of Norman zigzag ornament. On the

other hand, pointed arches appear in the triforium, the bases have the

water-holding hollow, and there are all sorts of beautiful varieties of

Transitional capitals—from the early cushion-capitals, much subdivided,

in the pier-arcade of the choir, to the later foliated capitals, of great

beauty and diversity of design, which abound in the nave. The triforium

and clerestory, formed into a single member by a containing-arch of

zigzag, are a charming anticipation of the design of Southwell choir.

Early in the thirteenth century, _c._ 1220, the central tower collapsed,

as at Winchester, Ely, Lincoln, etc. It fell towards the east, and seems

to have broken down the arches of the presbytery. The Transitional piers

were retained, more or less altered; but new pointed arches were built,

and lancet windows were inserted in the new clerestory and east wall.

In the aisles may be seen the low shafts of a Norman vault, and the

corbels of a higher Lancet vault; it is uncertain whether either was

ever executed. To this period belongs the very remarkable shrine of St.

David: a very plain structure, designed for use—for very strange uses.

Down below in each side are three openings, allowing three sick people

at a time to lie beneath. (Perhaps they lay there all night, waiting for

the Saint to come and touch them, as was the case in some shrines of

Pagan Greece.) On the side next to the aisle are two large and shallow

upright openings, and three small circular openings—the latter, perhaps,

as in St. Alban’s shrine, to allow the patient to insert a diseased arm.

A parallel to the lower openings may be found in the remains of the

shrine now inserted under the effigy of Lord Stourton at Salisbury. When

the restoration of the choir was completed (_c._ 1248), the next task

seems to have been to build a processional aisle. The eastern walk of

this was built fifteen feet east of the eastern wall of the cathedral,

thus leaving a little open courtyard between the back of the east wall

and the east walk of the new processional aisle. In the east wall

there was a lower range of three tall lancets, which gave much light

to the high altar beneath them. The authorities may then have left the

little open courtyard to preserve the light of these three windows. But

at Winchester and elsewhere the lower lights were sacrificed without

demur; and the space between the east wall of the presbytery and the

processional aisle, instead of being wasted, was utilised as a saint’s

chapel or feretory, where—in the most honoured position in the church,

close to the high altar—the shrine of the patron saint of the church

was placed: shrines of St. Swithun and St. Birinus at Winchester, that

of St. Werburgh at Chester, of St. Ethelreda at Ely, of St. Wulfstan at

Worcester, of St. Cuthbert at Durham, of St. Chad at Lichfield. Now the

shrine of St. David is artistically rude and uncouth, and occupies a

by no means specially honourable position. May one conjecture that the

original intention was to open arches in the east wall of the presbytery,

and to build a new shrine for St. David, placing it above and behind the

high altar, where it would be conspicuous to the very farthest end of the

nave,—and that Welsh conservatism refused either to have a new shrine or

to change the position of the old one? Before commencing the south walk

of the processional aisle, the Lady chapel was erected (1290-1328). Its

buttresses are late Gothic.

Then came the great building-prelate of St. David’s, Bishop Gower

(1328-1347). (1) He completed the processional aisle, building the whole

of the south walk and completing the north walk. (2) Like Abbot Thokey,

at Gloucester, he transformed the Norman south aisle of the nave into

the style of his day (Curvilinear), and built a south porch. (3) East of

the north transept he built a three-storied building, the lower part as

a chapel to St. Thomas of Canterbury, the upper part as a chapter-house.

(4) He raised the tower one stage above the roofs. (5) He raised the

walls of the aisles, and inserted Curvilinear windows. (6) He separated

the presbytery from the choir, which as at Gloucester is beneath the

central tower, by a parclose screen—a very rare feature. (7) He built the

wood throne of the bishop; it seems, however, to have been reconstructed

in the fifteenth century. (8) He built for himself the magnificent

palace, and another at Lamphey, besides Swansea castle and church. (9)

His most beautiful work is the magnificent choir-screen, one of the

grandest examples of mediæval art. It consists of three compartments of

stone, surmounted by a coved cornice of wood. The southern compartment

has two pointed arches, with compound cusping and rich crockets; and

within, the tomb and effigy of the bishop. The central compartment is

occupied by the doorway and vaulted vestibule leading from the nave to

the choir; on either side of the vestibule are effigies of priests. The

northern compartment seems to consist of thirteenth century arcading,

which has been worked up to serve as a reredos to an altar.

To the Perpendicular period belong the stalls, which have good misereres

(1460-1480); the elaborate wooden roof of the nave (1472-1509) and that

of the presbytery, which is a little earlier.

Early in the Tudor period Bishop Vaughan (1509) added another story to

the tower, and built himself a chapel in the empty space between the

east wall of the presbytery and the east walk of the processional aisle,

vaulting it with fan-tracery.

Externally, the cathedral is simple and plain, in harmony with its bleak

and wild surroundings. Internally, like Canterbury and Winchester, it

gains dignity from the greater height of the choir. The whole floor of

the nave slopes upwards from west to east, and the choir is elevated

eight steps above the level of the nave.