Salisbury for many centuries, there is no reasonable proof that this
effigy has any connection therewith. Even John Gregory, whose famous
treatise on the Boy Bishop is printed in "Gregorii Posthuma,"
1649-1669, admits there that it might well seem impossible to everyone
that either a bishop should be so small in person or a child so great
in clothes. Thomas Fuller also echoes the same objection when he
writes: "But the curiosity of critics is best entertained with the
tomb in the north of the nave of the church, where lieth a monument in
stone of a little boy, habited all in episcopal robes, a mitre upon
his head, a crozier in his hand, and the rest accordingly. At the
discovery thereof, formerly covered over with pews, many justly
admired that either a bishop could be so small in person or a child so
great in clothes; though since all is unriddled; for it was then
fashionable in that church (a thing rather deserving to be remembered
than fit to be done), in the depth of Popery, that the choristers
chose a boy of their society to be a bishop among them from St.
Nicholas' till Innocents' day." If the effigy represents a boy it is
hard to explain why it is not life-size. Stothard in his "Monumental
Effigies," in common with most later authorities, favours the idea
that it is a miniature representation of a real bishop. Canon Jones
suggests probably Walter Scammel, Henry de Braundeston, or William de
la Corner. Mackenzie Walcott inclined to the belief that it
represented Bishop Wykehampton, who died 1284. A small figure of
Bishop Ethelman, 1260, about the same date, is in Winchester
Cathedral; there is also one 14-1/2 inches long in Abbey Dore Church,
Herefordshire, one at Ayot, St. Lawrence, Herts, 2 feet 3 inches, and
other small effigies of knights and civilians elsewhere. According to
Digby Wyatt the custom of burying different portions of the body in
different places was common in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries;
from which he infers that probably these figures commemorated the
place of sepulture of the heart.
Whether the monument in question be connected with the Chorister
Bishop or not, there are so many records of the function with which
popular credence has associated it, that a short digression is almost
unavoidable. The pamphlet by John Gregory is elaborately minute and
much too long to be quoted fully, yet some of the facts he brought
together may be briefly noted. It seems that on the feast of St.
Nicholas, the patron saint of children, the choir-boys[9] elected one
of their number, who from that day to the feast of the Holy Innocents,
December 28th, bore the rank and exercised the functions of a bishop,
the other choristers being his prebendaries. During his term of office
he wore episcopal vestments. On the eve of the Holy Innocents he
performed the entire office, excepting the mass, as a real bishop
would have done. At Salisbury on that day the boy-bishop and his
boy-prebendaries went in procession to the altar of the Holy Trinity,
taking precedence of the dean and resident canons. At the first
chapter afterwards the boy bishop attended in person and was permitted
to receive the entire Oblation made at the altar during the day of his
procession. The names of many of the choristers and the amounts of the
oblations offered for the boy-bishops are the subject of many entries
in the capitular registers of both English and continental churches.
Bishop Mortival in his statutes, still preserved among the cathedral
muniments, orders that the bishop of the choristers "shall make no
visit (some commentators consider this has been misinterpreted, to
infer that elsewhere he held visitations), nor keep any feast, but
shall remain in the Common Hall, unless he be invited to the table of
a Canon for recreation." The order of service in use in this diocese
has been preserved (MS. No. 153 of the Cathedral Library); in it we
find as a special collect, "O Almighty God, who out of the mouths of
babes and sucklings," etc., not, however, quite in the form in which
it appears in the Prayer Book of Ed. VI.
The spectacle was so popular, and attracted such great crowds, that by
special edict it was prescribed that the penalty of the greater
excommunication should be incurred by those who might interrupt or
press upon the boys during their procession or in any part of their
service.
In spite of the doubts thrown upon the monument at Salisbury, it is
distinctly recorded that if a boy-bishop died during his term of
power, he was to be buried in his vestments and have his obsequies
celebrated with the pomp pertaining to an episcopal funeral.
This custom was not confined to this cathedral, but practised at many
others in England and on the Continent, where we find records of much
greater power being exercised by the boy-prelate, extending even to
the presentation to prebends. At Winchester it was certainly observed.
So far back as 1263 we find it described at St. Paul's Cathedral as an
ancient custom. Several sermons preached by the boy-bishops are still
preserved; one is reprinted in the Camden Society's "Miscellany," vol.
vii. Dean Colet (once a prebendary of Sarum) in his statutes for St.
Paul's school directs: "All these children shall every Childermas day
come to Paules Church, and here the Childe-bishoppes sermon, and after
be at high masse so each of them offer _one peny_ to the childe
bishoppe. And with the maisters and surveyors of the scoole in general
procession when they be warned they shall go tweyne and tweyne
togither soberly, and not singe oute, but saye devoutly tweyne by
tweyne seven psalmes with letany." (Add. MS. 6174.) At York the mock
prelate held office longer, and wielded far more power than his
fellows of Sarum.
In 1299, on December 7th, a boy-bishop at Hoton, near
Newcastle-on-Tyne, said vespers before Edward I., then on his way to
Scotland.
At Salisbury in 1542 Henry VIII. forbade the ceremony by royal
proclamation. It was revived under Queen Mary, and finally abolished
on the accession of Queen Elizabeth.
Not entirely alien to the subject is the office of the bishop's boy,
which is probably peculiar to Salisbury. His duty is to call at the
palace before every service and inquire if the bishop will attend. He
is formally appointed by the bishop, who lays his hands upon him, and
repeats a prescribed office.
A nameless tomb (19), and a memorial (20) to Dr. Daubigny Turberville,
an oculist of Salisbury, who died April 21st, 1696, complete the more
important monuments of the nave. Several mural tablets on the aisle
walls are of hardly sufficient general interest to need description.
In Price's "Antiquities of Salisbury," and many of the numerous works
devoted to the cathedral, copies of nearly all the epitaphs are given,
but, except in very special instances, they form peculiarly depressing
reading.
=The Choir Screen= was given as a memorial of the late Mr. Sidney Lear
by his wife, to whom the cathedral is indebted for many of its modern
enrichments. It is entirely of wrought metal, by Skidmore, of
Coventry, and a good example of its class. It replaced the organ
screen compiled by Wyatt from fragments of the Hungerford and
Beauchamp chantries; to erect which he removed the original screen of
exquisite workmanship, as may be seen by portions now placed along the
west wall of the north-east transept.
=The Organ=, that stood on the old screen until lately, was built by
Green, of Isleworth, and a gift from King George III. in his capacity
as "a Berkshire gentleman," that county being included in the diocese
of Sarum until 1836. It was given by the Dean and Chapter to the
church of St. Thomas. The present organ, a fine instrument, built by
Willis, was the gift of Miss Chafyn Grove, is placed in the second
arcade on each side of the choir, the necessary connecting mechanism
being in a tunnel below the pavement, while the larger pipes and the
bellows are inclosed within a screen in the north transept. The oak
case is from a design by the late Mr. Street.
=The Choir and Presbytery= are very similar to the nave in the main
features of their design. The piers show a different plan, which
provides for eight shafts of Purbeck marble to each. The inner
mouldings of the arches exhibit the "dog-tooth" ornamentation of their
period. The triforium and clerestory differ slightly from the
corresponding parts of the nave. In each of the last two bays of the
presbytery the triforium has five small cinquefoil arches. At the east
wall of the choir above the reredos is an arcade of five
simply-pointed arches, below a triplet window in the gable, which is
filled with stained glass, given by the Earl of Radnor in 1781, and
representing "The Brazen Serpent," after a design by Mortimer.
The choir still bears traces of Wyatt's destruction. He removed the
original reredos behind the high altar and the screen before the Lady
Chapel, so that both, with the low eastern aisle, were thrown into the
choir. He shifted the high altar from the choir to the extreme east
end of the Lady Chapel, sacrificing several chantries and tombs to do
so. Views of the cathedral after his reign of terror fail to show any
gain to compensate for so much loss; the extreme length is not
apparently an advantage, while the bare look of the interior seems
decidedly intensified by the increased vista that he was so delighted
to obtain, and for which with a light heart he effaced the silent
records of dead centuries.
=The Decorations of the Roof= of the choir and presbytery are
reproductions by Messrs. Clayton and Bell of the original paintings,
which dated probably from the thirteenth century. The series,
commencing from the west, shows twenty-four prophets and saints, all,
with the exception of St. John the Baptist, selected from the Old
Testament. Taking them in lines parallel with the choir screen, the
first row contains (reading from the left, as one faces the altar):
Zechariah, Daniel, Ezekiel, and St. John the Baptist; the second:
Zacharias, Joel, Hosea, and Zephaniah; the third: Job, Habakkuk,
Nahum, David; the fourth: Moses, Micah, Jonah, and Jacob; the fifth:
Malachi, Obadiah, Amos, and Isaac; and the sixth: Haggai, Jeremiah,
Isaiah, and Abraham. In the square of the transept crossing are
(following the same order): St. Thomas and St. Andrew, St. Matthew and
St. John, St. Philip and St. Simon, St. Bartholomew and St. Matthias.
At the left the last panel on that side contains St. Peter and St.
Andrew, while another in the opposite corner has St. James and St.
John. In the centre is a figure of Christ, in majesty, surrounded by
the four evangelists.
From this point to the east the panels are devoted to secular subjects
typifying the twelve months, "The signs of the Zodiac," Price calls
them: January, warming at a fire; February, drinking wine; March,
delving; April, sowing; May, hawking; June, flowers; July, reaping;
August, threshing; September, fruit; October, brewing; November,
cutting wood; December, killing the fatted pig. The originals were
white, or rather buff-washed, in the last century. Owing to the
tenacity of this wash, and the friable non-adhesive quality of the
paint it covered, it was found impossible to remove the additional
coating without destroying the original paintings. Tracings of some of
them were made by Messrs. Clayton and Bell; but although the
semi-transparent character of the buff wash allowed the subjects to be
discerned from below; on nearer inspection the details became blurred
and shapeless.
The theory that the paintings of the choir had been re-painted before
their defacement by buff wash seems hardly likely from the state
reported by the restorers. The idea probably arose from an extract,
itself possibly interpolated, frequently quoted from one edition of
Defoe's "Tour through the Island of Great Britain:" "The choir
resembles a theatre rather than a venerable choir of a church; it is
painted white with the panels golden, and groups and garlands of roses
and other flowers intertwined run round the top of the stalls; each
stall hath the arms of its holder in gilt letters or blue writ on it;
and the episcopal throne with Bishop Ward's arms upon it would make a
fine theatrical decoration, being supported by gilt pillars and
painted with flowers upon white all over. The roof of the choir hath
some fresh painting, containing several saints as big as life, each in
a circle by itself and holding a label in their hands telling who they
are. The altar piece is very mean, and behind this altar, in the
Virgin Mary's Chapel, are some very good monuments." But in the first
edition of the same book Defoe himself says: "The inside is certainly
hurt by the paltry old paintings in and over the choir, and the
whitewashing badly done, wherein they have very stupidly everywhere
drawn black lines to imitate joints of stone." In another edition of
1724 the passage reads: "The painting in the choir is mean and more
like the ordinary method of Common Drawing Room or Tavern painting
than that of a church." Whatever be the actual value of the painting
on its own merits, as a record faithfully transcribed of very early
roof-decoration, it has an interest of its own far beyond much more
important work of later periods.
[Illustration: THE CHOIR, LOOKING WEST.
_From a Photograph by Messrs. Carl Norman and Co._]
=The Choir.=--In the second bay from the east, on the north side of
the choir, stands the chantry of Bishop Audley, who died in 1524.
This excellent example of late Perpendicular work was built by the
bishop himself in 1520. Its style is not unlike the chantry of Bishop
Fox at Winchester with octagonal shafts, (similar to those of the
Salisbury Chapel at Christchurch,) which impart a semi-Oriental touch
that is so characteristic of this final development of Gothic art. The
images it once enshrined are lost, but the original rich colouring is
still distinguishable on the fan tracery of the roof. The arms and
initials of its founder are borne on the shields of the cornice. In
the corresponding bay on the south side is the chantry founded by
Walter Lord Hungerford, in 1429, and removed from the nave in 1778 by
his descendant, the Earl of Radnor, who converted it into a family
pew. It has been re-decorated, and new emblazonments added. The arms
of its founder and his two wives appear on the base. The
superstructure is of iron, and a fine example of its class, which
includes among the few still extant the chantry of Edward IV. (died
1483) at Windsor, and that of Henry VII. at Westminster Abbey (died
1509). The Audley and Hungerford chantries are the most important left
in a cathedral once rich in their kind, as the report of the
alienation of their endowments proves.
Of modern fittings, the Brass Lectern was given by members of the late
Dean Lear's family. A brass eagle is mentioned by Price, and said to
have been given in 1714 at a cost of L160. The pulpit is modern, with
carved medallions on its sides.
The bishop's throne, a lofty modern structure, made by Earp of
Lambeth, was presented by those clergymen who had been ordained in the
cathedral. It replaced one given in 1763.
=The Choir Stalls= are made up from work of different periods, the
seats and elbows being probably part of the original work; the poppy
heads of the benches are of the time of Henry VIII. Much later Sir
Christopher Wren added to the stalls, and still later Wyatt placed
canopies over them, which have since been removed. The dean's seat has
been said to be of the time of Charles I.
=The Reredos= is modern. It was given by Earl Beauchamp in memory of
Bishop Beauchamp (1450-81), whose chantry Wyatt swept away. Its design
is adapted from the old choir screen, now in the Lady Chapel, and the
monument of Bishop Bridport. A large centre panel, eight feet in
height, has a bas-relief of the Crucifixion, with the Virgin and St.
John; in the head of the central arch are angels amid foliage. On each
side are two storied canopied niches, containing statues of the two
Maries, and of St. Osmund and Bishop Beauchamp. The whole rises up to
a gable terminating in a gemmed and floriated cross. The back facing
the Lady Chapel is richly panelled. The sides are also elaborately
decorated with birds. The design by Sir Gilbert Scott was executed at
a cost of about L1,800 by Messrs. Farmer and Brindley.
[Illustration: THE HIGH ALTAR AND REREDOS.
_From a Photograph by Messrs. Poulton._]
=The High Altar=, the credence table, and sedilia, are excellent
examples of modern work. The altar itself is of English oak. Its
design comprises an arcade with seven openings, divided into three
panels, with much elaborate carving. It was given by those who had
received confirmation at the hands of Bishop Hamilton. The altar
cloths, worked and given by Mrs. Sidney Lear, are highly finished
examples of modern ecclesiastical needlework. The credence table, of
somewhat elaborate design, is of carved oak with a marble top. The
altar rails are of brass, the grills of wrought iron, at each side of
the reredos screen the choir partially from the Lady Chapel.
[Illustration: THE CHOIR, LOOKING EAST.
_From a Photograph by Messrs. Poulton._]
The definitely planned order of the subjects of the ceiling decoration
is held to indicate originally a different place for the high altar
than its present site, which is the same as that reported by Leland
two hundred years ago, and until attention was drawn to this fact was
generally accepted as its original position. From the rood screen the
sequence of the figures of the patriarchs and prophets leads up to the
climax of "Our Lord in Glory." At this point the capitals of the
Purbeck shafts surrounding the pillars supporting the arch on which
this figure is painted, are carved in foliage, unlike the others
throughout the building, which are invariably moulded only. The whole
subject is discussed at length in a paper printed in the "Wilts
Archaeological Magazine," vol. xvii., in a way that supports the
hypothesis advanced. A somewhat important piece of circumstantial
evidence came to light during the late restoration, namely a windlass
close to the pier on the north side of the supposed original site of
the altar, which was possibly intended to raise and lower a
baldichino, or ciborium that hung originally over the altar, or still
more probably the pyx, which as many instances show was usually
suspended above it.
Possibly the altar was moved when, owing to the early settlement of
some of the piers, it was found necessary to wall up the space between
the arches opening into the choir transepts, and insert the
perpendicular arches as a counter thrust to the strain of the central
tower. It is hardly conceivable that the evidence offered by the roof
paintings, and the solitary instance of carved capitals, can be
misleading on this point.
=The East= (or =Choir=) =Transept=, which on the north side, screened
as it is from the aisle, is used and known also as the Morning Chapel,
has on its west wall a portion of a very beautiful screen of Early
English work. Of this John Carter, from whose pages the accompanying
sketch of a portion is reproduced, says that it was moved during
Wyatt's restoration, as he naively puts it, "during the late
dilapidatious innovations, and modern fanciful introductions so fatal
to our study of antiquities." Other authorities consider its original
position uncertain. Yet since its architecture is obviously coeval
with that of the building, and the arches inserted by Bishop
Beauchamp show proof of having been planned to rest on something at
the base of the tower piers, there can be little doubt that when Wyatt
removed the screen to re-erect a medley of his own composing made of
fragments of the demolished chantries, he disturbed one more of the
original features of the cathedral.
[Illustration: PORTION OF THE OLD ORGAN SCREEN.
_From a Drawing by H.P. Clifford._]
A curious double aumbry in the north wall of this chapel is unusual,
not merely in the pitch of its arches, which are triangular gables,
but also in the solid stone shelves dividing its space into six
compartments; other aumbries in this church show similar features, but
this alone retains its original wooden doors. The superb brass of
Bishop Wyville (illustrated on p. 114) is in the pavement of this
transept. It is illustrated in almost every work on monumental brasses
as a notable example. A canopied lavatory of beautiful design is upon
the east wall to the right, the altar being not in the centre, but
almost in the corner on the left-hand side.
=The Eastern Aisle= is not so important as similar "processionals" at
Exeter, Winchester, and some other English churches; still, the grace
of its clustered columns, like those of the Lady Chapel, give it a
character of its own.
[Illustration: PISCINA IN THE SOUTH CHOIR AISLE.]
=The Lady Chapel=, originally separated from the choir, thrown into
the presbytery by Wyatt for the sake of his much overrated vista, is
once again partially hidden by the reredos and the grille work of the
screen on either side. As the earliest portion of the building, and
the only part Bishop Poore lived to see completed, it would not lack
interest, were it commonplace in character; but it is on the contrary
a particularly graceful example of its time. The whole chapel is
divided into a nave and side aisles by single and clustered shafts of
Purbeck marble. These extremely slender shafts look unequal to the
heavy groined roof they support; for although nearly thirty feet high,
the four largest are not quite ten inches in diameter, while the
clustered ones are mere rods. Francis Price, whose interest in the
building, as he showed throughout his monograph, was that of a
practical builder, was "amazed at the vast boldness of the architect,
who certainly piqued himself on leaving to posterity an instance of
such small pillars bearing so great a load. One would not suppose
them," he says, "to stand so firm of themselves as even to resist the
force of an ordinary wind." The modern colouring of this part of the
building, including the low eastern aisle immediately behind the
reredos, is claimed to be an exact restoration of the original, but it
is hardly agreeable. The black of the newly polished marble shafts,
the dull green of other parts, with the red, green, and white of the
vaulting ribs, is more bizarre than beautiful. In regarding traces of
mediaeval colouring one often forgets that time has blended
harmoniously a scheme otherwise entirely crude, and to modern taste
unpleasing. How far in English instances this is emphasized by the
absence of rich hangings, carpets, vestments, and pictures, it is not
within our subject to inquire; but since such restoration of the
primitive colouring offends one less in churches that still preserve
the more ornate furniture of the Roman Ritual, it is at least a moot
point.
The triple lancet east window at the end of the Lady Chapel was filled
formerly with stained glass, representing "The Resurrection," after a
design by Sir Joshua Reynolds; it is now replaced by modern glass in
memory of the late Dean Lear. An altarpiece, composed of fragments of
the destroyed Hungerford and Beauchamp Chapels, was set up here by
Wyatt. It has lately been replaced by a triptych designed by Sir
Arthur Blomfield, with very beautiful panels painted by Mr.
Buckeridge. The seven-branched candlesticks in black-wood, silver
mounted, are by the same architect. The altar frontal, designed by Mr.
Sidney Gambier Parry, and worked by Mrs. Weigall, is so good that it
must not be overlooked. The altar itself is of stone from an old
altarpiece. Under the windows runs a series of niches, once in the
Beauchamp Chapel. Above these rich and delicate canopies, with foliage
and fan-tracery springing from corbelled heads, runs an exquisitely
sculptured frieze.