our time. Nor has it done so unworthily, for his episcopate is the most
important of all in the constitutional history of the Church of Wells;
and, though all Robert's architectural works happen to have perished,
yet his episcopate must have been almost equally important with regard
to the material fabric. We may pass more lightly over the time of the
two Bishops who came between the first great founder Robert and the
second great founder Jocelin. Their time is a most important time in
the history of the see of Bath and Wells; it is the most important
of all times in the later history of the Church of Glastonbury; but
it provides but little matter bearing on the history of either the
fabric or the constitution of the Church of Wells. Bishop Robert died
in 1166, and the see remained vacant for seven years. The next Bishop,
Reginald, founded several new prebends,[27] but I do not find any
mention of the fabric in his time. Then came the famous Savaric, the
last of our Lotharingian Prelates, whose detailed history belongs in
a special manner to Professor Stubbs.[28] His great object, as we all
know, was to annex the Abbey of Glastonbury to the Bishoprick, and
to make Glastonbury a third, or perhaps rather the first, cathedral
church of the Diocese.[29] The controversy which arose about this
matter fills up the whole of his episcopate, and part of that of his
successor, Jocelin, who was Bishop from 1206 to 1242. For a short
time Glastonbury, much against the will of its own monks, remained
an episcopal see, with the Bishop for its Abbot, and Jocelin himself
signs the Great Charter by the title of Bishop of Bath and Glastonbury.
One might have thought that this change was one which tended still
more to the lowering of the position of the Church of Wells. But we
may perhaps infer that it was not so taken, as we find the Dean and
some of the Canons of Wells acting zealously on the Bishop's side in
the course of the long dispute.[30] In the end, as is well known, the
monks of Glastonbury gained their point at the expense of considerable
sacrifices. Jocelin gave up his claims over the Abbey; the Bishop of
Bath and Wells ceased to be Bishop and Abbot of Glastonbury, and the
minster of Glastonbury ceased to be a cathedral church. It became
once more simply a monastery governed by its own Abbot, as it had
been for so many ages. On the other hand, the monks of Glastonbury
had to buy their independence by the surrender of several manors and
advowsons; and, though the Bishop ceased to be Abbot, yet he retained
a more efficient right of visitation over the Abbey than Bishops could
commonly retain over monasteries so great in wealth and dignity.[31]
This agreement was made in the year 1218, and from that time till
Jocelin's death in 1242, it would seem that his chief attention was
given to the rebuilding of the fabric of the church of Wells, to some
further changes in the constitution of the Chapter, and to other good
works in the city. He could not have begun his works at Wells before
the year 1211; for the first five years of his episcopate were spent
in banishment under the tyranny of John.[32] Jocelin was a Wells man
in every sense of the word. As he is called Jocelin of Wells, and as
his brother Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, is called Hugh of Wells, both were
doubtless natives of the city, and Jocelin had been a Canon of the
Church before he became its Bishop. He is a memorable man indeed in our
local history; he may be called the creator of the cathedral as it now
stands, he put the last finishing touches to the capitular constitution
devised by Robert, and he also began another of our institutions which
has lasted to our own time, I mean that of the Vicars. With regard to
the fabric, I now come upon ground which Professor Willis has made
his own. As many of you doubtless remember, he has twice lectured on
Wells Cathedral: once in 1851, when the Archæological Institute at
their Bristol meeting paid a hurried visit to Wells; and again in 1863,
at the meeting of our own local Archæological and Natural History
Society, an honour, let me tell you, of a very rare kind, and which I
believe has not been granted to any other local society. Now, if we had
Professor Willis's lecture as he delivered it, there would be little
else for any future historian of the fabric to do except to make spoil
of what the Professor said. But unluckily, the great work of which
this and all other Professor Willis's lectures of the same kind were
to form parts has not yet appeared, and I greatly fear that it never
will appear. We have therefore to draw our own recollections, helped
by the report in our own Society's Proceedings, 1863, which is at
least fuller and more accurate than that in the Bristol volume of the
Institute. I shall therefore, in what I have to say as to architectural
facts, follow Professor Willis as nearly as I can, though I shall have
to make more use of my own light than I need have done if I really had
the Professor's lecture before me. I speak thus of architectural facts,
with regard to which he who follows Professor Willis will seldom go
wrong; as for matters of taste and opinion, architectural or otherwise,
I hold myself independent of Professor Willis as of every other man.
But I should add that I have not had, like the Professor, the advantage
of a diligent study of the manuscript documents in possession of the
Chapter. I once glanced at them in company with Professor Stubbs, and
that is all. When these documents are printed, as all documents of
the kind ought to be printed, I hope I may be able to make good use
of them; but while they are shut up in manuscript they are useless to
me. Searching into manuscripts is a special gift, one which Professor
Willis and Professor Stubbs, and some nearer to ourselves, possess in
the highest degree, but it is a work for which I have neither time nor
inclination.
Let us now look, in a general historical way, without attempting to
enter into any very minute detail, at the church of Wells, as it
was designed and begun, if not absolutely finished, during the long
episcopate of Jocelin. That episcopate reached over twenty-four years
from the settlement of the Glastonbury controversy, over thirty-six
from Jocelin's first consecration. That any part of the church is older
than Jocelin I see no reason to believe; but if anybody holds that the
porch may be a little earlier than his time, I will not dispute against
him. The church of Jocelin, thus understood, takes in the nave, the
transepts, and what is now the choir proper, that is, the three western
arches of the eastern limb. It takes in the three towers, up to the
point where they rise above the roof of the church, but no higher. With
the present presbytery, that is, the three eastern bays of the eastern
limb, with the Lady chapel and the other small eastern chapels, with
the Chapter-house and the tops of the towers, we have as yet nothing
to do. Now within these limits, that is, between the west door and the
Bishop's throne, I think that every one of common observation must
have remarked that there are two styles of architecture in use. I do
not speak of certain small changes and insertions made at later times,
such as the tracery which has been put into the nave windows, or of the
changes which were made when it was found needful to add new props to
the great central tower. Of these I shall have to speak further on. I
speak of differences of style in the original fabric itself. The west
front, within and without, differs widely in its architectural detail
from the arcades of the nave and transepts. If there is any one here
who has never remarked the difference, I can only say, let him go into
the church to-morrow and use his eyes for himself. Both parts are built
in the style which is called Gothic, the style which uses pointed
arches with an appropriate form of ornament; both are built in that
variety of Gothic which is called Lancet or Early English, that is,
the first form of Gothic, which in England is mainly distinguished by
the use of long narrow windows without tracery. But, notwithstanding
this general likeness, there is a wide difference between the two. To
those who have never marked the difference I am not sure that I could
make it perfectly intelligible, except either on the spot or with the
help of large drawings. But go, I say, into the building itself, go
especially under either of the western towers, at the point where the
two styles join, and I think any one of common observation will easily
see the difference. The west front is built in that form of Early
Gothic which is common in other parts of England, the style of Ely,
Lincoln, and Salisbury. The rest of the Early work is built in a style
which in England is almost peculiar to Somersetshire, South Wales, and
the neighbouring counties, and which is much more like French work.
Among greater churches it is the style of Glastonbury and Llandaff as
well as of Wells; among smaller buildings good examples will be found
in parts of Whitchurch in Somersetshire and Cheriton in Gower, and
above all in the beautiful church of Slymbridge in Gloucestershire. Of
the two styles used in this part of the building this is the one which,
speaking of England generally, we should be inclined to call foreign,
and the other native. Here in the West we must call the ordinary
English style of Ely and Salisbury foreign, and the French-looking
style of Wells and Llandaff we must call native or local. Our local
Somersetshire and South-Welsh style has a good deal of the earlier
Romanesque leaven hanging about it; its mouldings and the clustering
of its pillars are much less free; the abaci or tops of the capitals
are square or octagonal instead of round; it makes no use of those
detached shafts, often of marble, which are so abundantly found in
the west front. Now which of these two is the older? The local style
is no doubt older in idea; but that does not absolutely prove that
the parts of the church which are built in it are necessarily older
in date. The evidence of the masonry is puzzling; some bits look one
way and some the other. Mr. Parker and I once looked very carefully
at it, and we were both inclined to think that the west front was the
oldest part, that it had been built up against the earlier church, like
the west front of Peterborough, and that the nave and the rest had
been built later. Then Professor Willis came and told us that we were
wrong, and showed us other signs to prove that the west front was the
latest part built. We of course dutifully bowed to our master; but,
if the west front is the latest part, then it follows, what Professor
Willis is inclined to doubt, that the whole work was finished during
the episcopate of Jocelin--and surely thirty-one years is enough even
for so great a work. For that Jocelin built the west front I have no
doubt at all. It is certain that he built the oldest parts of the
palace at Wells and of the manor-house at Wookey[33], and the style
in both of those buildings exactly agrees with the foreign style of
the west front, and not with the local style of the nave. And these
buildings are certainly earlier than some works in the local style.
For it is certain from an account in Matthew Paris that in 1248, six
years after Jocelin's death, the vault, which was not commonly put on
till some time after the walls and arches were finished, was then
being put on some part of the church of Wells. The vault fell in by
reason of an earthquake and did a good deal of damage.[34] The present
vault then is later than Jocelin, and to the repair rendered needful by
this accident I am also inclined to attribute the breaks and style of
differences--not amounting to differences of style--which it is easy
to see between the eastern and western bays of the nave. The chances
therefore seem on the whole to be that Jocelin began to build in the
local style; that for his later works, the west front and the two
houses at Wells and Wookey, he sent for architects from a distance, who
brought in the more advanced style which was usual in other parts of
England; but that the mere damage caused by the fall of the vault was,
even after his death, repaired by the local workmen in the local style.
This last work was almost certainly done after Jocelin's time; still
it was simply the restoration of a damaged portion of his design,
and it does not at all bar his claim to be looked on as the real
builder of the church. The church was hallowed in 1239. This shows
that so much of the building as was absolutely needful for divine
service was then finished. It does not prove whether the other parts
were finished or not, neither does it show how long the essential
parts had been finished at the time of the consecration. For in the
history of those times we often come across complaints that various
churches still remained unconsecrated, and indeed Mr. Dimock has told
me that the present church of Lincoln has never been consecrated to
this day. We find several cases in which a whole batch of cathedral
and abbey churches were consecrated in the same year, and this year
1239 one of those cases. In that year, besides the cathedral church
of Wells, seven great abbey churches were all consecrated.[35] This
date therefore proves only that the choir was ready for service in
1239. It proves nothing either way as to the state of the works in
the rest of the church, and it does not prove that the choir may not
have been ready some years before. But we can thus see how much at
least of the church was finished in that year. The choir was no doubt
under the tower, stretching possibly a bay eastward or a bay westward.
For you must remember that it is the only three western bays of the
eastern limb which belong to Jocelin's work. It is quite impossible
that the whole choir and presbytery could have been crammed into the
narrow space of those three bays. It follows then that the eastern
limb contained only the presbytery, that is, the void space left to
give dignity to the high altar, while the choir proper, containing the
stalls of the Canons, must still have kept its old place under the
central tower. By this time then the presbytery, the tower-choir, and
the transepts must all have been finished, together with at least one
or two bays of the nave, to form at once a constructive abutment to
the tower and a necessary approach to the choir. The work of Jocelin's
date in the transepts and eastern limb differs in some small points
of detail, especially in the triforium, from the work in the nave.
There is no difference in style, no difference in general effect, but
these are just those little differences which show that they were not
all built at exactly the same time. In a work which may well have
been spread over thirty-one years it is not wonderful if there were
several stoppages and fresh beginnings. And of such a stoppage and
fresh beginning we may see clear signs at this particular point of the
building. Every one who looks carefully at the buttresses of the north
aisle of the nave will see that, though the general effect of all is
the same, yet at two different points there are minute differences,
showing change or stoppage of work. One of these points is where I
have just mentioned, at the second bay from the east. This no doubt
marks the completion of the first part of the work, the part absolutely
necessary for divine service. The other marks the extent of the repair
caused by the fall of the vault. When the first or absolutely necessary
part of the work was done, a stoppage of a few years might well take
place, and it is well to try and call up before our eyes the appearance
of the church during this interval. The old nave--probably, as we have
seen, the Old-English nave recast by Robert--still remained in the
greater part of its extent; it would be taken down piecemeal as the new
nave gradually stretched itself westward. For a short time therefore
the old nave, much lower no doubt as well as much ruder in style than
the new work, must have stood against it in an incongruous fashion.
The eastern limb, the transepts, and the small part of the nave that
was built, must have soared like a tower over the older part. This is
a state of things which we do not often see in England, but which is
common enough in France, and which reaches its height in the famous
cathedral of Beauvais. There the old nave of the tenth century--the
_Basse Oeuvre_ as it is locally called--still survives--at least it
survived while I was there,--cleaving as a kind of excrescence to the
mighty pile which has risen up to the east of it. And with the reverse
process we are familiar enough in England, and specially familiar in
our own shire. It is a characteristic of the churches of Somersetshire
that the nave has often been rebuilt on a lofty and magnificent scale,
while the choir still remains small, low, and quite unworthy of its
companion. We may see this disproportion to some extent in our own
church of Saint Cuthbert, and it comes out much more strongly at Yatton
and in some other of the great parish churches of the county. At the
time of which I speak the transepts and eastern limb of Wells Cathedral
must have soared over the nave, exactly as the nave of Yatton soars
over its transepts and eastern limb. Then the rest of the nave would be
gradually rebuilt. We have seen that there is some slight difference
of detail, not affecting the general design, between the transepts and
the eastern part of the nave. And going westward, we can see the place
of the second stoppage, marked by a second slight change of detail,
probably caused, as I have already said, by the fall of the vault in
1248. Still, notwithstanding all these smaller differences, the whole
work, except the west front, is essentially in one style, and is
evidently built from one general design. And though the repair which
followed the fall of the vault must have happened after Jocelin was
dead, yet I think we may fairly speak of the thirteenth century work at
Wells as being, as a whole, the work of that great Prelate. This is a
case in which I see no reason to depart from the received tradition and
the received manner of speech.
Still, when I speak of the work as being the work of Jocelin, I ought
perhaps to pause and explain, and in some sort to qualify, my meaning.
As regards the design of the building, Jocelin may or may not have been
his own architect. In some of our great churches there is no doubt that
the Bishop, the Abbot, or some other member of the society, really was
the architect. William of Wykeham, long after Jocelin's time, really
designed his own nave at Winchester, but we read of some of the works
in Saint Alban's Abbey that they were designed by one of the other
officers of the monastery, but that it was held right to attribute them
to the Abbot, on account of his higher dignity.[36] While Jocelin's
nave was building, the vault over the nave of Gloucester Abbey was
actually made by the hands of the monks themselves.[37] In other cases
there can be no doubt that professional architects and masons were
employed, just as they are now.[38] The vault which fell in at Wells
was being made, not by the hands of the Canons or of their Vicars, but
by those of skilled workmen. One thing is certain, that the designer
of the local work at Wells must have been a local man; whether he was
actually Jocelin of Wells in his own person I cannot say. Another thing
is equally certain, that, before the work was done, the local style was
forsaken and another style was adopted in its stead. And that this was
the personal act of Jocelin is shown by the new style being used, not
only in the west front of the church, but in his own domestic buildings
both at Wells and at Wookey. And as to another point, when I call the
work Jocelin's work, I do not necessarily mean that he paid out of
his own pocket for everything that was done. We must remember that in
Jocelin's day we are just at a moment of transition in the history of
our own and of other churches. The earlier Bishops, who did what they
pleased, no doubt paid for whatever they did. At any rate, we cannot
suppose that the Canons of Wells in the eleventh century did, out of
their poverty and beggarly estate, contribute much either towards the
erection of Gisa's buildings or towards their pulling down by John of
Tours. In our own day, as we all know, any works done to the cathedral
are done by the Chapter, either out of their own funds, or out of funds
collected by them. In the intermediate ages we sometimes find works
of this sort attributed to the Bishop alone, sometimes to the Chapter
alone, sometimes to the Bishop and Chapter working together. I suspect
that this last would commonly be the truer account in all cases; at
any rate, what either Bishop or Chapter did the other party must have
consented to. Jocelin was doubtless the great mover in the work, the
life and soul of the whole undertaking. The whole would be done under
his care, and his personal contributions would doubtless be large. But
all this in no way shuts out the co-operation of the Chapter, of the
clergy and laity of the diocese, and of well-disposed persons wherever
they might be found.[39]
Another part of the buildings of the church belongs to the age of
Jocelin, where his hand might not have been looked for at first. This
is the cloister as it stood in its first estate. You will remember that
the cloister which was built by Gisa, together with his dormitory and
refectory, was pulled down by John of Tours. You will also remember
that a cloister, which in a monastery is an essential part of the
building, and is always built after a particular model, is in a
secular church a mere convenience, which may perfectly well be left
out, and which may be built in any place and after any fashion which
may be thought good. Jocelin then, or his Canons, now built them a
cloister, but it was a cloister which was no longer accompanied, as in
Gisa's time, by any refectory or dormitory. It is more like a monastic
cloister than those of Chichester and Hereford; it is less like one
than that of Salisbury. It occupies, like a monastic cloister, one
side of the nave; still it is not a perfect square, but an irregular
parallelogram; it has no walk on the north side, and the eastern walk
comes up against the south end of the transept, while in a monastery
it would have been built against its western wall. To the east,
where the chapter-house would have stood in a monastery, there was
a detached Lady chapel, of which the traces may easily be seen, but
which was rebuilt late in the fifteenth century and wholly destroyed
in the sixteenth. Now that the cloister was first built at this time
is plain, as all the outer walls, including that very pretty doorway
leading to the Palace, are all of Jocelin's date. The doorway leading
from the transept into the cloister is also mentioned in an Act of
Chapter in 1297, printed in Dugdale's Monasticon.[40] But this very
doorway, and the doorway which is in some sort the fellow to it in the
south-western tower, give us the surest signs that the cloister is not
now in the same state in which it was originally designed. Even in its
first estate, it seems to have been, as we should expect, an addition,
though an addition made not very long after the building of the part
of the church which it joins. The wall comes up uncomfortably close
against this fine doorway, though it does not mutilate it in the way
which is done by the vault which was added long after. This vault, and
the window-tracery of the cloister of the same date, are therefore not
only later additions, but additions which could not have been so much
as contemplated when the cloister was first built. What then was the
cloister in its original state? That its outer wall was of stone is
plain; but I believe that whatever was inside, the roof and whatever
there may have been in the way of tracery or arcading, was of wood.
Wooden cloisters were not uncommon. Even in so great a monastery as
Glastonbury, it is plain that the cloister was not of stone.
Jocelin, the great builder of the fabric, is hardly less memorable with
regard to the constitution of the church. He put the last touches to
the system which had been devised by Robert. To him, as we have seen,
was perhaps owing the foundation of the other dignities besides the two
chief ones, the Deanery and the Precentorship. He certainly increased
the number of prebends, and enlarged or settled again the endowments
of some of them.[41] And to him is owing the beginning of another
class among the officers of our church, who still remain among us; I
mean the Vicars. The institution of this order is closely connected
with certain changes which were going on about this time in our own
and in other capitular bodies, and which produced the distinction
which I have already mentioned, and with which we are all familiar,
between Residentiary and Non-residentiary Canons. All the old capitular
bodies were framed upon one general model, the essential features of
which they retain to this day. But, amid this general likeness, each
church has its own personal peculiarities; it would be impossible to
find two Old Foundation cathedrals in England which are exactly alike
in the names, numbers, and duties of their officers. And so with the
change of which I am now about to speak; it happened in all the secular
cathedrals with the single exception of Llandaff; but it was not
brought about in all by exactly the same stages nor at exactly the same
time. The general result was the same in all; but the process was not
everywhere the same, and this or that change might be made a few years
earlier in one place and a few years later in another. The exact dates
and stages in the church of Wells I am not prepared to tell you, till
all the information which now lurks in manuscript has been unlocked by
means of the printing-press. There is one among us who has no doubt
mastered every single record in its existing form, and who, I feel
sure, can tell us the year, day, and hour of every change of detail.
But all I can do is to point out the stages of change in a general way,
and to mark that in the time of Jocelin the changes of which I speak
were at least beginning.