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[Illustration: Wells Cathedral From St. Andrews Spring.]
THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF
WELLS
A DESCRIPTION OF ITS FABRIC
AND A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE
EPISCOPAL SEE
BY THE
REV. PERCY DEARMER, M.A.
[Illustration: Arms of the See]
WITH FORTY-SIX ILLUSTRATIONS
LONDON GEORGE BELL & SONS 1899
_First Published October 1898_
_Second Edition revised October 1899_
W.H. WHITE AND CO. LTD.
RIVERSIDE PRESS, EDINBURGH
GENERAL PREFACE
This series of monographs has been planned to supply visitors to the
great English Cathedrals with accurate and well illustrated
guide-books at a popular price. The aim of each writer has been to
produce a work compiled with sufficient knowledge and scholarship to
be of value to the student of Archaeology and History, and yet not too
technical in language for the use of an ordinary visitor or tourist.
To specify all the authorities which have been made use of in each
case would be difficult and tedious in this place. But amongst the
general sources of information which have been almost invariably found
useful are:--(1) the great county histories, the value of which,
especially in questions of genealogy and local records, is generally
recognised; (2) the numerous papers by experts which appear from time
to time in the Transactions of the Antiquarian and Archaeological
Societies; (3) the important documents made accessible in the series
issued by the Master of the Rolls; (4) the well-known works of Britton
and Willis on the English Cathedrals; and (5) the very excellent
series of Handbooks to the Cathedrals originated by the late Mr John
Murray; to which the reader may in most cases be referred for fuller
detail, especially in reference to the histories of the respective
sees.
GLEESON WHITE,
E.F. STRANGE,
_Editors of the Series_
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
The writer about cathedrals nowadays is one who, reaping where he has
not sown, and gathering where he has not strawed, is indebted for most
that he says to the patient labours of other and wiser men. Nowhere
does one feel this more than at Wells. The admirable Somerset
Archaeological Society has gone on accumulating information about the
cathedral for more years than the present writer has lived. Professor
Freeman produced twenty-eight years ago, in his "History of the
Cathedral Church of Wells," a little book which has since been a model
for all works of the kind, and of which one can still say that no one
can understand all that is contained in the word "cathedral" unless he
has read it. Yet since that book was written much fresh material has
been discovered, and the theories then held as to the building of the
cathedral have been in great measure disproved. To Canon C.M. Church,
in his "Chapters in the Early History of Wells," and his papers read
before the Somerset Society, we are indebted for most valuable
statements of the new historical discoveries, and to his untiring
kindness I am myself beholden to a greater extent than I can express.
Wells so abounds in interesting detail, that the exigencies of space
have made it necessary to curtail the last chapter, which contains the
history of the diocese; a good deal of interesting matter has thus
been cut from my original MS. of this chapter, and many bishops have
been dismissed more summarily than they deserve. The need of dealing
properly with the cathedral itself must be my apology for the baldness
of this last chapter as it now stands. Those who desire a further
acquaintance with the history of the diocese cannot do better than
consult Mr Hunt's "Bath and Wells," in the excellent Diocesan
Histories series of the Society for the Promotion of Christian
Knowledge.
To many other writers on the Cathedral Church of Wells,
acknowledgments and references will be found scattered throughout the
present volume. I must also express my thanks to Mr Philips, and
Messrs Dawkes & Partridge of Wells, for permission to reproduce their
photographs, and to Mr W. Heywood and Mr H.P. Clifford for their
drawings.
P.D.
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I.--History of the Church 3
CHAPTER II.--Exterior 20
West Front 21
Statuary, Central Doorway, the Tiers 30
Western Towers 44
Central Tower 47
North Porch 47
North Transept 51
Walls, Parapet 52
Chain Gate 52
Chapter-House 54
From the South-East 55
Cloister 58
Library 63
Museum 64
Vicar's Close 66
Bishop's Palace, Great Hall, Barn 67
Deanery, Archdeaconry, etc., St. Cuthbert's 70
CHAPTER III.--Interior 73
Nave, etc. 77
Capitals 79
Glass 84
Bubwith's Chapel 85
Sugar's Chapel 86
Pulpit, Lectern 87
Transepts 89
Capitals 89
Font, Monuments 95
Transepts Chapels--St. Martin, St. Calixtus,
St. David, Holy Cross 98
Clock 105
Inverted Arches 107
Tower, Screen, Organ 110
Choir 113
Misericords, Glass 120
Choir Aisles, Monuments 123
Eastern Transepts, Monuments 124
Procession Path 128
Glass in Choir Aisles and Chapels 130
Lady Chapel, Glass 133
Chapter-House Staircase 134
Chapter-House 137
Undercroft 141
CHAPTER IV.--History of the Diocese and Foundation 147
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Wells Cathedral from St. Andrew's Spring _Frontispiece_
Arms of the See _Title_
The Cathedral from the South-East 2
The Cathedral in the Seventeenth Century 15
South Aisle of Nave 19
West Front--Bishop of Aethelhelm 22
The West Front 23
Ornaments in the West Front 28, 29
West Front--Christina 31
The Central Tower from the South-East 45
The North Porch 49
The Bishop's Eye 53
Doorway, South-East of Cloister 58
East Walk of Cloister 59
The Chain Gate, Entrance to Close, 1824 65
The Bishop's Palace 68
The Nave 75
A Capital--The Fruit-stealer's Punishment 79
A Capital--Toothache 81
Specimens of Capitals 82, 83, 84, 148, 149
View across Nave, showing Sugar's and Bubwith's Chapels 85
Sugar's Chapel--The Lectern and Pulpit 88
Section of North Transept, and Elevation of South Transept 90
Capitals in Transept 92
The South Transept, from North Side of Nave 93
The Font 95
The Annunciation--Husse's Tomb 101
Priest in Surplice--Husse's Tomb 102
The East End in 1823 103
The Inverted Arches 109
Choir, looking West 111
Choir, looking East 115
Procession Path and Lady Chapel 129
Steps Of Chapter-house Vestibule And Passage Over Chain Gate 135
Chapter-House--Doorway 138
Chapter-House--Interior 139
Chapter-House--Vault 141
Chapter-House--Undercroft 142, 143
Section of Chapter-House 145
PLAN 160
[Illustration: Wells From The South-East.]
WELLS CATHEDRAL
CHAPTER I
HISTORY OF THE CHURCH
"The Gothic Cathedral," wrote Froude, an author who held no brief for
the Gothic period, "is perhaps, on the whole, the most magnificent
creation which the mind of man has as yet thrown out." The Cathedral
Church of Wells, wrote Froude's predecessor in the same historical
chair, is "the best example to be found in the whole world of a
secular church, with its subordinate buildings." "There is no other
place," Professor Freeman went on to say, "where you can see so many
of the ancient buildings still standing, and still put to their own
use." And surely there is no place better fitted to be their home than
this beautiful old city of Wells, set in the midst of the fair western
country, the land of Avalon and Camelot, of Athelney and Wedmore.
This unique group of buildings does not, however, take us back earlier
than the close of the Norman period. Of what existed before, we have
but scant evidence. Tradition says that King Ina had, about the year
705, founded at Wells a college of secular priests, and therefore a
church of some sort. And when King Eadward the Elder, taking advantage
of the peace which his father Alfred had secured, fixed, in 909, the
new Somersetshire see by the fountain of St. Andrew at Wells, he seems
to have chosen that little city because there already existed therein
a church, large enough to serve as a cathedral in those times, and
tended already by a body of secular canons. Now that the ancient
church of St. Andrew was raised to this new dignity, it was probably
in the tenth century rebuilt in stone, with plain round-headed
windows, and perhaps a small unbuttressed tower to hold the bells;
for, when Giso became bishop in the next century (1061-1088), he
erected a whole cluster of quasi-conventual buildings, but we are not
told that he found it necessary to rebuild the church, although he
complained that he found it mean and its revenues small. Indeed, the
fact that Giso was buried under an arch in the wall on the north side
of the high altar, as his predecessor Duduc had been buried on the
south side, shows that he had not rebuilt the church.
On Giso's death, John de Villula at once swept away his buildings, and
set up a bishop's house on their site. John, however, made Bath his
cathedral church, and suffered the church of Wells to fall into the
decay from which it was rescued by the first "Maker of Wells," Bishop
Robert of Lewes.
The active episcopate of Robert of Lewes (1136-66) was as important an
era in the history of the church as in that of the chapter. In spite
of the anarchy of Stephen's reign, Robert set steadily to work; and,
while the neighbouring barons were battering each other's castles, the
bishop reared the first great cathedral church of Wells. How much of
the old Saxon building he left we cannot tell; but it was in a ruinous
condition, and he may have pulled it completely down, or he may have
left one part for later builders to deal with. In 1148 his new Norman
church was consecrated, a massive round-arched building, its nave
perhaps as large as the present one, and its choir under the tower
with a small presbytery beyond. This date may be taken as the
beginning of the present cathedral; for all the succeeding
reconstructions followed the lines of Bishop Robert's church. Yet the
Norman work has disappeared almost as completely as the Saxon, and the
font is the only object which can be claimed as undoubtedly
Romanesque. Of distinctly Norman mouldings there are none in the
church, and only a few fragments in other places. Seldom has one of
those strong Norman buildings so utterly vanished from sight. But many
stones dressed in the Norman fashion can still be traced by the expert
in the eastern part of the church (p. 74), having been no doubt used
up again by the later workmen; and there may be masses of undisturbed
masonry hidden in the walls.
Bishop Robert, as we know from one of his charters, did something also
for the order of his church. Mammon had gradually encroached upon the
sacred precincts, and the markets had come to be held in the
"vestibule," and in the church itself; the busy hum of the buyers and
sellers marred the quiet of God's house, and disturbed the people at
their devotions. Strong measures were necessary, and the bishop
ordered the market to be held at some distance from the church, while
at the same time, as an act of grace, he remitted the tolls that were
due to him as lord of the manor. Thus did he lay the foundation of the
liberties of Wells city while securing the sanctity of Wells
Cathedral.
According to Bishop Godwin (1616), and the anonymous fifteenth century
MSS., called in Wharton's _Anglia Sacra_ the "Canon of Wells," there
was a blank in the history of the church between Bishop Robert, who
consecrated the Norman building in 1148, and Bishop Jocelin, whose
episcopate lasted from 1206 to 1242. Godwin, who exaggerated a passage
from the "Canon of Wells" (which that writer had produced by
exaggerating a single sentence of a preamble of Jocelin, p. 7),
declared that Jocelin found the church "as ready to fall," and "pulled
down the greatest part of it, to witte, the west ende, and built it
anew from the very foundation." This became the accepted view. But the
documents recently brought to light through the labours of those who
unearthed and deciphered the MSS. in possession of the chapter, have
proved that the energetic Bishop Reginald, so far from letting the
church go into ruin during his episcopate (1174-1191), did in reality
rebuild it himself. Much travelled, conversant with all kinds of
churches and cities in an age of great building operations, he was not
the sort of man to neglect his cathedral. And, as a matter of fact, he
is proved to have begun the present church by a charter recently
found, which is of a date prior to 1180, and therefore belongs to the
early years of his episcopate. In this important document, recognising
his duty to provide "that the honour due to God should not be
tarnished by the squalor of His house," he arranges in full chapter
for a munificent grant in support of the fabric, until the work be
finished[1]. Another charter of Reginald's time, which conveys a
private gift to the church, alludes to "the admirable structure of the
rising church," thus testifying to the successful progress of the
bishop's plan during his own lifetime. The part which he built, there
can be little doubt, included the three western bays of the choir
(which then formed the presbytery), the transepts, north porch, and
the eastern bays of the nave. That is to say, on entering the church
one is looking upon Reginald's work, and not Jocelin's; for, although
the rest of the nave was completed by Jocelin, it was done in
accordance with Reginald's original plan.
It is of great importance to remember this fact, since until recently
the nave, with the other parts just mentioned, was attributed by
Professor Willis, Professor Freeman, and most authorities to Jocelin.
Willis, indeed, bowed to what was then thought to be documentary
evidence against his own judgment; for he declared the work to be of a
style much earlier than that of Jocelin's time (p. 73). Now we know
almost to a certainty that the bulk of the cathedral belongs neither
to the late Norman period of Robert, nor to the Early English of
Jocelin, but to the period just between the two, that of Reginald de
Bohun.
During the episcopate of Reginald's immediate successor Savaric
(1192-1205), something further may have been done to the nave. But
there was small opportunity for church building during this bishop's
wandering and litigious life; and all we know for certain is that,
owing no doubt to the civil war, the intolerable exactions of papal
legates, and the quarrel with Glastonbury, the cathedral church of
Wells had fallen into a state of dilapidation when Jocelin became
bishop in 1206; and that it remained in this condition till King John
was dead: for Jocelin was an exile abroad, the property of the see was
confiscated, and its income paid yearly into the king's purse.
From the year 1218, when the land was again at peace, and a profitable
arrangement had been come to with the monks of Glastonbury, Jocelin
devoted himself to the fabric and chapter of Wells, up to the year of
his death in 1242. Grants of money and of timber, which are extant,
show that by 1220 the work was recommenced, and that it was in
progress in 1225. By 1239 the church was sufficiently advanced to be
dedicated.
Jocelin and his brother Hugh (afterwards Bishop of Lincoln) were
natives of the city they loved so well. They had both lived through
Reginald's episcopate--Jocelin as canon and Hugh as archdeacon of
Wells. After, when they rose to high positions as judges, and became
honourably rich, Hugh, who built much in Lincoln Cathedral, gave
largely of his great wealth to Jocelin for Wells, and Jocelin himself
spent all that he had upon the place where he had been brought up from
infancy.
Thus Jocelin was in a real sense a "maker of Wells." But he was not
the only maker, for he must share the honour with two other master
builders--Robert, whose work is entirely gone, and Reginald, whose
work remains. He did not, as Godwin led us to suppose, pull down and
rebuild the whole church. But he loyally carried on the work of his
predecessor, and he executed the great work which has been always
rightly attributed to him, the present west front; this he joined to
Reginald's unfinished nave by building the three western bays in
strict accordance with the earlier style. The front belongs to the
fully-developed Early English style in which Salisbury is built,
agreeing exactly with the date of the consecration of the church by
Jocelin in 1239,--as was pointed out by Professor Willis, who was
puzzled by the great difference in its style from that of the nave,
which was then thought to belong to the same period. We know that
Jocelin was a frequent visitor to Salisbury while Bishop Poore was
building it; and thus all the lines of evidence combine to support the
unshaken tradition that Jocelin was the author of the west front.
A month before his death in 1242, Jocelin de Wells put forth a charter
for the increased endowment of the cathedral staff; and it was because
of a few chance words in the preamble that he came to be credited with
the construction of the whole. Having found the church in danger of
ruin, runs the passage, by reason of its age _aedificare coepimus et
ampliare--in qua adeo profecimus--quod ipsam consecravimus_. This,
which need mean nothing more than extensive building operations, is
the sole foundation for the tradition that Jocelin pulled down the old
church and built a new one.
The condition of the church at the end of the thirteenth century is
thus described by Professor Freeman[2]:
"By the end of the thirteenth century we may look upon the church of
Wells as at last finished. It still lacked much of that perfection of
outline which now belongs to it, and which the next age was finally to
give to it. Many among that matchless group of surrounding buildings
which give Wells its chief charm, had not yet arisen. The church
itself, with its unfinished towers, must have had a dwarfed and
stunted look from every point. The Lady Chapel had not yet been
reared, with its apse alike to contrast with the great window of the
square presbytery above it, and to group in harmony with the more
lofty chapter-house of its own form. The cloister was still of wood.
The palace was still undefended by wall or moat. The Vicars' Close and
its chain-bridge had not yet been dreamt of. Still, the church, alike
in its fabric and its constitution, may be looked on as having by this
time been brought to perfection ... The nave, recast in forms of art
such as Ina and Eadward, such as Gisa and Robert, had never dreamed
of, with the long range of its arcades and the soaring sweep of its
newly-vaulted roof, stood, perfect from western door to rood-loft,
ever ready, ever open, to welcome worshippers from city and village,
from hill and combe and moor, in every corner of the land which looked
to Saint Andrew's as its mother church. The choir, the stalls of the
canons, the throne of the Bishop, were still confined within the
narrow space of the crossing; but that narrow space itself gave them a
dignity which they lost in later arrangements. For the central
lantern, not yet driven to lean on ungainly props, with the rich
arcades of its upper stages still open to view, still rose, in all the
simple majesty of its four mighty arches, as the noblest of canopies
over the choir below."
"The eastern ending of the presbytery was," Mr Freeman proceeds, "rich
with the best detail of the thirteenth century, as can be learnt from
the fragments built up in the chapel of the Vicars' Close, and lying
about in the undercroft of the chapter-house, which are in the full
Early English style of the west front. The existing choir aisle walls
prove that a procession-path ran behind the high altar, with most
likely a chapel beyond it."
"The thirteenth century," he concludes, "had done its great creative
work, and had left to future ages only to improve and develop
according to the principles which the thirteenth century had laid
down. That is to say, the thirteenth century had done for the local
church of Wells what it did for England, what it did for Europe, and
for the world."
The choir, however, was not so cramped as Mr Freeman thought, for it
included one bay of the nave, as we now know from a notice of the
making of Haselshaw's tomb, which was dug at the entrance to the
choir; and, indeed, the marks where the screen was fixed are still
visible on the piers at this point. From the top of the screen the
great rood looked down the nave, and on each side of the doorway stood
an altar, that on the north dedicated to Our Lady, that on the south
to St. Andrew. The aisles of the choir were also screened off from the
nave, and outside their gates were two more altars--St. Saviour's on
the north, and St. Edmund's on the south. Thus the nave, where men
were ever coming and going, walking and talking, and in laxer times
buying and selling as well, was quite shut off from the more sacred
places. Yet here, too, were altars and shrines, and here came the
processions on Sundays and holidays.
Within the choir the chapter said their offices, the dean and
precentor facing east in their returned stalls, and the other
dignitaries in their allotted places, with the junior canons, vicars,
and those in minor orders below them, and the boys on the lowest forms
of all. Just beyond these stalls was the bishop's throne; and east of
the tower the presbytery stood open, with the tombs of the early
bishops, on either side, under the arches. The rest of the space
enclosed within the screen belonged more especially to the clergy; the
north transept was probably used as a chapter-house, when the
undercroft was yet unfinished, and its western aisle was used as the
chapter library. The chamber leading to the undercroft was the vestry,
and the stout walls of the octagon, when it was finished, protected
the vestments and treasures of the cathedral.
It is worth while to call to mind the kind of service for which the
church was built, with its aisles and chapels and screen. The usual
Sunday procession started from the north door of the presbytery,
preceded by two thurifers with censers, went round behind the
presbytery, the priest in his cope asperging the altars on his way,
then down the south choir aisle, and through the south transept into
the cloister. In the cloister-cemetery, the priest, with his
ministers, said the prayers for the dead, and then rejoined the
procession in the cloister Lady Chapel, where the first station was
made. Thence the procession returned to the great rood in the nave,
and there made the second station, the bidding-prayer being given out
to the people from the rood-screen, after which it re-entered the
choir. But on special occasions the ritual was increased; as, for
instance, at the procession of palms on Palm Sunday, or the Corpus
Christi Day procession, which is thus described by Mr J.D.
Chambers[3]: "The procession, some time before the mass, should
assemble in order at the step of the Choir (_i.e._ in the Presbytery),
a priest in Albe and silk Cope carrying the Corpus Christi in a
tabernacle or feretory under a canopy of silk raised over him and it
on four staves, borne by four clerks in Albes and Tunicles, with
lighted tapers. It should go out of the Choir down the Nave, and out
at the West Door of the Church, round the Church and Cloisters as on
Ascension Day"--_i.e._ round the outside of the whole church,
beginning with the north side and returning round the east end, and
through the cloister to the west door again, and thus back into the
nave. The colours of the vestments at Wells followed in the main the
custom of the neighbouring diocese of Sarum, but with some local
variations, such as are set down in the _Consuetudinary_ which
Archbishop Laud had copied from the late thirteenth-century MS. Indigo
and white were used on St. John's Day and on the Dedication Festival;
in Advent, indigo; at Passiontide, red, and on Palm Sunday, "except
one cope of black for the part of Caiaphas" at the singing of the
Passion; red, too, on Maunday Thursday, but with a banner of white.
Red was also used for Easter, Pentecost, and throughout the Sundays
after Trinity; while for Virgin Martyrs, red was mixed with white.
This mixture of colours was probably effected by the cantors wearing
different coloured copes; thus for confessors saffron _(croceus)_ was
mixed with green, _sicut honestius et magis proprie possunt adaptari
festo_; but St. Julian and some others had all saffron, while a few,
like St. Benedict, had all indigo. White is comparatively little in
evidence, but it was used at Christmas, and for commemorations of the
Blessed Virgin. Black was used for the commemoration of the dead.
To this vision of stately pomp, and changing colour, we must add in
our mind's eye the many chapels with their woven tapestries of flowers
and beasts and birds, their rich ornaments and sacred associations;
the majestic rood upon the screen, and the rich altars that stood
before it; the almost constant succession of services that went on
behind it, where the canons (each with his own book and candle) and
their vicars sat, and the pyx hung over the high altar; the sound of a
little bell from one of the chapels where mass was being said, the
glimmer of a hanging lamp, the gleam of a silver image, the shrines
here and there, with their frequent visitors; and, as years went on,
the subdued light from the gorgeous painted windows (that over the
high altar glowed then from east to west without obstructing organ),
the frescoes on some of the walls, the green and red and gold of the
later monuments; and over all the trail of incense and the sound of
prayer.
After Jocelin's death the works came to a standstill, for the
sufficient reason that the chapter was "overburdened with an
intolerable debt," owing to the enormous expense of the litigation
with Bath Abbey over Bishop Roger's election (p. 153). This, however,
was the last attempt of the rival cathedral of St. Peter; and the
debt, which was at its worst in 1248 (the year after Roger's death),
was bravely met by a contribution of a fifth of the income of each
prebend, as well as by gifts and obits; so that towards the end of
William Bytton's episcopate the debt was nearly cleared, and in 1263
Bytton made over the sequestrations of vacant benefices to the fabric
fund.
In 1248 an earthquake had done much damage, shaking down the _tholus_
(either the vault, or the stone capping) of the central tower, as we
learn from Matthew Paris _(Hist. Angl._ iii. 42). Accordingly, in
1263, preparations were made for further building; and in 1286 we hear
of a chapter meeting, summoned by Dean Thomas Bytton, whereat the
canons bind themselves to give one-tenth of their prebends for five
years, "to the finishing of the works now a long time begun (_jam diu
incepta_), and to repair what needed reparation in the old works."
The reparation here mentioned refers in all probability to the roof
and piers of the transepts and eastern part of nave, damaged by the
fall of the _tholus_. The famous western capitals of the transepts,
with their frequent representations of the miseries of toothache, must
refer to the second William Bytton, who had died in 1274, and whose
tomb became famous for its dental cures (p. 125). No doubt, the
offerings at the shrine of this local saint helped considerably to
swell the funds for the building operations.
The works "now a long time begun" can hardly be anything else than the
chapter-house undercroft, the outer walls of which may have been built
some forty years before. Professor Willis, who had access to the
document, decided, on architectural evidence, that the undercroft must
have been already completed at this time, and his view may be safely
accepted (_Arch. Inst._, "Bristol" vol., p. 28). The passage to the
undercroft would seem to be the first result of the chapter's
undertaking; its ornament is of a more advanced type than that of the
undercroft itself, and one of its carved heads is swollen as by the
toothache, and tied in a handkerchief. There can be little or no doubt
that the "finishing" of the old works included also the building of
the chapter-house staircase, and, when that was finished, the raising
of the chapter-house itself (the _nova structura_ of the old
documents) upon the undercroft. The full Decorated style of the
chapter-house is separated by a considerable interval from the late
Early English of the undercroft, while that of the staircase, which is
geometrical Decorated of a character not very far removed from Early
English, must have been built before the chapter-house itself was
begun.
The self-sacrificing spirit of the chapter was supplemented by the
offerings which flowed in from the growing practice of endowing altars
for requiem services, as well as from the shrine of St. William
Bytton; and the building activity continued for the next fifty years
till the church had been brought, in all save its western towers, to
its final state of perfection. After the staircase to the
chapter-house had been completed, about the year 1292, the walls of
the chapter-house itself were built, probably by Bishop William de
Marchia (1293-1302) who seems to have covered it in with a temporary
roof.
Dean John de Godelee (1306-1333) was the last great builder of the
church of Wells. The power of the bishop in his own church is already
declining, as that of the chapter rises, and it is the dean now who
organises the works. In 1315 the central tower was raised, and by 1321
it was being roofed in. By 1319 the chapter-house was finished;
Godelee, with William Joy, the master-mason, had probably worked out
the old drawings and built the windows and vaulted roof. Next the Lady
Chapel must have been begun, for by 1326 it was finished. Somewhere
about this time the parapet, which adds so much to the external beauty
of the church, was also made.
But the raising of the central tower had, ere this, brought disaster.
In 1321 there was a grant from the clergy of the Deanery of Taunton in
aid of the roofing of the "new _campanile_"; in 1338 a convocation was
summoned because the church of Wells was so _totaliter confracte et
enormiter deformate_ that the instant and united action of its members
was required to save it (_cf._ Willis in _Som. Proc._ 1863). The
adding of the Decorated portion to the tower increased the weight so
much that the four great piers sank into the ground, dragging the
masonry with them and causing rents to appear at the apex of the
arches. The situation was most dangerous: it was met by the careful
repairing of the torn masonry and the construction of those inverted
arches which are so familiar a feature of the church.
Yet the work proceeded very rapidly under a great bishop, who for the
time eclipsed the rising power of the deans. Ralph of Shrewsbury
(1329-63) carried on the work of Dean Godelee, and in the early years
of his episcopate entirely reconstructed the choir. The scheme seems
to have been contemplated as early as 1325; for in that year each
dignitary arranged to pay for his own stall in the refitting of the
choir, because the old stalls had become "ruinous and misshapen." In
any case, it was Ralph who added the three new bays of the presbytery
which are so curiously joined to the old presbytery of Reginald, and
with it form the present eastern limb of the church. He then
constructed the beautiful retro-choir which connects the presbytery
with the Lady Chapel. The vaulting of the choir and the construction
of the great east window would appear to have been undertaken at a
later period of his episcopate; for the ceiling is of a more advanced
style than the lower work, and the tracery of the window is half
Perpendicular. When Bishop Ralph died, in 1363, he was buried in the
place of honour in front of the high altar, as the founder of the
choir which he had finished.
The finishing touches were given to the cathedral when Bishop Harewell
(_ob._ 1386) gave two-thirds of the cost of the south-western or
Harewell Tower, and when the executors of Bishop Bubwith (_ob._ 1424)
finished the companion tower on the north-west.
The other efforts of the fourteenth and fifteenth century builders
were given to those subordinate buildings which are the peculiar glory
of Wells. Even so magnificent a prelate as Beckington did nothing to
the actual fabric of the Cathedral (unless his tomb be so considered),
for the simple reason that there was really nothing for him to do.
Ralph of Shrewsbury had, besides his work in the church, finished the
palace (which Jocelin had begun and Burnell had enriched with the hall
and chapel) by the moat, walls, and gate-house. He had also begun the
Vicars' Close, of which the chapel was built by Bubwith, but the
executors of Beckington recast it in its present form. After
Beckington had employed his energies in erecting the beautiful
gateways with which his name is always associated, Dean Gunthorpe
(_ob._ 1498) built the deanery.
The following interesting eulogy of Bishop Beckington and his church
was written in the form of a Latin dialogue by Chaundler, who was
Chancellor of Wells in 1454:--
"You might more properly call it a city than a town, as you would
yourself understand more clearly than day if you could behold all its
intrinsic splendour and beauty. For that most lovely church which we
see at a distance, dedicated to the most blessed Apostle of the
Almighty God, St. Andrew, contains the episcopal chair of the worthy
Bishop. Adjoining it is the vast palace, adorned with wonderful
splendour, girt on all sides by flowing waters, crowned by a
delectable succession of walls and turrets, in which the most worthy
and learned Bishop Thomas, the first of that name, bears rule. He has
indeed at his own proper pains and charges conferred such a splendour
on this city, as well by strongly fortifying the church with gates and
towers and walls, as by constructing on the grandest scale the palace
in which he resides and the other surrounding buildings, that he
deserves to be called, not the founder merely, but rather the
splendour and ornament of the church."
[Illustration: The Cathedral. (From a Seventeenth Century Print.)]
The Reformation period left the cathedral cold and barren within, but
interfered little with its fabric; the only serious piece of
destruction (p. 57) being that of the magnificent Lady Chapel by the
Cloister, in 1552, by Sir John Gates, "a greate puritan, Episcopacie's
common Enemy." In other respects it was what Freeman calls a period of
systematic picking and stealing; as witness this passage from
Nathaniel Chyles:--"The Great Duke of Somersett, Unkle to Edward the
Sixt (whose title proved very fatall to this place and Bishopwrick)
was not only contented to get most of the mannours Lands and
possessions belonging to this Bishopwrick settled upon him and his
posteritie, but at last even the palace itselfe also." But the palace
and some of the property were recovered after Somerset's execution.
The bishop's palace suffered the ruin of Burnell's magnificent hall
through the prevalent lust for gain. Sir John Harrington writes in
terms of pardonable indignation:--"I speak now only of the spoil made
under this Bishop [Barlow]; scarce were five years past after Bath's
ruins, but as fast went the axes and hammers to work at Wells. The
goodly hall covered with lead ... was uncovered, and now this roof
reaches to the sky. The Chapel of Our Lady, late repaired by
Stillington, a place of reverence and antiquity, was likewise defaced,
and such was their thirst after lead (I would they had drunk it
scalding) that they took the dead bodies of bishops out of their
leaden coffins, and cast abroad the carcases scarce thoroughly
putrified."
During the Commonwealth the choir was closed, and Dr Cornelius Burges,
who was appointed "Preacher" at the cathedral, bought the bishop's
palace and deanery for his private property. He, of course, despoiled
the palace, "pulling off not only the Lead thereoff," says Chyles,[4]
"but taking away also the Timber, and making what money he could of
them, and what remained unsold he removed to the Deanery improving
that out of the Ruins of the palace, leaving only bare Walls." At the
Restoration Burges was ejected, after a good deal of litigation, and
Bishop Piers returned to the ruins of his palace. Burges' sermons had
never been popular with the people of Wells, who annoyed him by
walking up and down the cloisters "all sermon time." When the trial
for his ejectment came on he published his "Case," in which he
justified his buying Church lands by alleging that he had lent the
State L3490, and, having a wife and ten children to provide for, he
took such land, etc. as the only means of repayment. Five of the
canons' houses were also obtained from Cromwell's Commissioners by the
Corporation of Wells, one or two of which were pulled down and sold
for old stone.
At the Restoration, the canons were at great expense to restore the
church from the ruinous condition into which it had fallen in Puritan
times, and they were liberally helped in their extremity by the clergy
and laity of the diocese. Says Chyles (_c._ 1680): "Since his
Majestie's and Churche's happy and blessed Restoration, what betweene
the Bishopp, the Deane, and Deane and Chapter, our Church and Quire is
once more in a beautifull and comely habitt (which God continue) such
as neither the Church of Rome has reason to upbraid us with a slovenly
or clownish Service, nor the Puritan and Nonconformist with a gaudy or
Superstitious. The good old Bishopp [W. Piers], who weather'd out that
Storme, and was restored to what was his Owne, gave those silk
Hangings which beautifie the Altar within the Railes." Dean Creyghton
gave the glass in the west window, the organ and the brass lectern,
and Dr Busby, who was treasurer of Wells as well as head-master of
Westminster, gave the silver-gilt alms dish and restored the library,
lengthening it by the addition of the southern part.
Chyles tells us, too, that there was morning and evening prayer in the
"Vicars' Chapell in Close Hall," at six, forenoon and afternoon, in
winter, and seven in summer, in addition to the cathedral services at
the "canonical howers." Before his time there had been only a morning
sermon on Sundays, and, in the afternoon, "the whole Cathedrall" had
been in the habit of going to St. Cuthbert's, returning with the mayor
and his brethren for the cathedral prayers at four; "but since his
Majesty's Restoracion one likewise in the Afternoones here is preached
by the said prebends _in theire turns_. Soe that here the Sermonizing
people may have their Bellyfull of preaching and forbeare crying out,
_They are starved for want of the Word_ and calling our clergy _Dumb
Doggs_."
This time of peace did not last long, for in 1685 the whole of
Somerset was up in Monmouth's rebellion. The duke's followers came to
Wells, turned the cathedral into a stable, tore the lead off the roof
for bullets, pulled down several of the statues, broached a barrel of
beer on the high altar, and would have destroyed the altar itself, had
not Lord Grey, one of their leaders, defended it with his sword. Dr
Conan Doyle's description of the scene in his novel, _Micah Clarke_
(p. 292), is so vivid that it is well worth referring to.
The long and heavy peace which followed was marked by the gradual
pewing up of the choir and presbytery, and the intrusion of
pretentious monuments. Then, in our own times, came the revival,
bringing evil as well as good in its train. In 1842 the restoration of
the nave, transepts, and Lady Chapel was commenced at the instance of
Dean Goodenough, by Mr Benjamin Ferrey. He removed the thick layers of
whitewash which had been ingeniously applied to conceal the sculpture;
and the long rows of marble tablets which had disfigured the aisles
were shifted to the cloisters, whence, it may be hoped, they will one
day make a further journey towards oblivion.
The restoration of the choir by Mr Salvin, which lasted from 1848 to
1854, was unfortunately of a less blameless character. It was the
period of the Great Exhibition, when art reached the lowest depths to
which it has sunk in the history of the world.
We need not dwell upon the result; few restorations are more marked
with the complacent ignorance of that strange time. The old pews and
galleries in the choir, which had hidden the very capitals of the
piers, were indeed removed, but with them the medieval stalls were
destroyed and replaced by work of indescribable imbecility. No real
improvement in the choir of Wells is now possible till every trace of
Dean Jenkyns' restoration is swept away; but, alas! what he destroyed
can never be recovered.
In 1868 the report of Mr Ferrey[5] upon the west front was presented,
and shortly afterwards the work of repair was begun under his
direction. The report showed how extensive was the decay, and how
great the danger of complete ruin unless steps were taken to protect
the old work; and the work of repair was carried out with care and
reverence; though even here irreparable harm was done by the
substitution of the modern "slate pencils" for the old blue lias
shafts. Since then, many small matters have been attended to with
varying success. The Lady Chapel has been decently furnished and the
east end slightly improved. Much still remains to be done; but the
best motto at the present day is _festina lente_, and the safest rule
is to be progressive in all enrichment by removable furniture, and
conservative, very conservative, in all structural alteration. If the
hand of the restorer can now be stayed, the words will still be true
of Wells, which M. Huysmans used of another church:--_Ces siecles
s'etaient reunis pour apporter aux pieds du Christ l'effort surhumain
de leur art, et les dons de chacun etaient visibles encore._
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _Somerset Proceedings_, 1888, ii. 5.
[2] _History of the Cathedral_, p. 98.
[3] _Divine Worship in England_, p. 195.
[4] Book ii. c. 2.
[5] _Inst. Arch._ 1870.
[Illustration: South Aisle Of Nave. (See p. 83.)]