[Illustration: _S. B. Bolas & Co., Photo_.
SOUTHWELL CATHEDRAL, FROM THE WEST.]
THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF
SOUTHWELL
A DESCRIPTION OF ITS FABRIC
AND A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE
EPISCOPAL SEE
BY THE REV. ARTHUR DIMOCK, M.A.
WITH THIRTY-EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS.
[Illustration]
LONDON GEORGE BELL & SONS 1898
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 Archæology 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 Archæological 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 MSS. at Southwell include the following:-- The “White Book,” of
which the earlier part is in a fourteenth-century handwriting. It
contains bulls, charters, etc., the earliest of the date of 1106. The
“Register of Thurgarton Priory” is almost a duplicate of this.
The “Chapter Register” contains the Acts of the Chapter from 1467-1542,
and includes the Visitations by the Chapter, and probate matters,
entered without regard to order.
The “Register of Leases” is chiefly concerned with a date still
later. Extracts from one or other of these appeared in Dugdale’s
“_Monasticon_” and other works. A century ago William Dickinson
(afterwards Rastall) of Muskham Grange used the MSS. in compiling his
“Antiquities.” He was a laborious but inaccurate scholar, resembling
Jonathan Oldbuck, and his Ad Pontem theory, together with similar
inferences, has met the fate of the Prætorium of the Laird of
Monkbarns. His book contains a certain amount of useful information;
and I am indebted to Mr G.T. Knowles of Southwell for the loan of his
copy of this scarce work. A late edition of Le Neve’s “_Fasti”_ (1854)
contains a list, necessarily incomplete, of the canons by the Rev.
J.F. Dimock, a former minor canon; and in various papers read before
learned societies my father quoted from the records. The report of the
Historical MSS. Commission for 1891 has a short notice.
In 1891 Mr Arthur Francis Leach, Assistant Charity Commissioner, and
formerly fellow of All Souls, Oxford, published for the Camden Society
his “Visitations and Memorials.” The documents are chiefly from the
Chapter Register: “the book was intended to exhibit the church in
its inner relations.” This volume is the most valuable that has been
published; and the introduction and the lists enhance its importance.
Mr Leach has kindly written to me about the mysterious criminal court
alluded to in the corrections by the chapter.
Outside sources of information are scanty. An occasional reference in
an old chronicle or in the York records includes almost everything of
value.
A folio on the architecture was published by Mr Dimock in 1853. He
was familiar with the records in the library, and, in the conclusions
he drew, had the assistance of many of the leading architects and
antiquaries. So far as I know his inferences have not been superseded
in any important particulars; and the only drawback to this folio (of
which a popular edition appeared in 1875) is, that it is rather an
explanation of the plates than a complete treatise.
I am indebted to Mr A.H. Lyell, the honorary secretary of the Royal
Archæological Institute, for a copy of the Rev. J.L. Petit’s paper, and
to Messrs S. B. Bolas & Co., and Mr A.J. Loughton of the Market Place,
Southwell, for the use of the photographs--duly attributed to each.
A. D.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.--History of the Building--
Part I. The Town and Church 3
Part II. Constitution of the Chapter 18
CHAPTER II.--The Exterior--Nave and Transept--
Part I. Norman 24
Part II. Early English 46
Part III. Early Decorated or Geometrical 52
CHAPTER III.--The Interior--
Part I. Norman 57
Part II. Early English 73
Part III. Decorated 87
CHAPTER IV.--The Palace and Wolsey 110
CHAPTER V.--The Dissolution of the Chapter 124
APPENDICES
A. The Culdees 128
B. A story of the supernatural 128
C. Chantries, chapels, and altars 128
D. A story of Charles I. 129
E. Patronage of the chapter 129
F. The last of the clergy 130
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Southwell Cathedral from the West _Frontispiece_
Arms of the See _Title_
Southwell, and Palace Ruins, from the Parks 3
Detail of Transept 26
Pinnacle--Central Tower 27
North Porch 31
North Porch, Chimney of 32
North Porch, Interior 33
West Door 36
West Front (in 1850) 39
Doorway facing the Palace 43
Flying Buttress and Pinnacle of Choir 48
Clerestory Window 56
Bay of Nave 58
Nave--looking East 59
Nave, Pillar in 61
Nave, North side of Arcade 63
Nave, South Aisle 65
Norman Arch of Central Tower 69
Sculpture on Norman Capitals 71
Choir, looking East 75
Choir, Sectional drawing of one Bay 77
Choir from South Aisle 79
Choir, looking East 81
The Sedilia 83
Arcading of the Vestibule 89
Doorway to Chapter-House 93
Canopies of Stalls 96
Details of Doorway 97
Capital--Chapter-House 99
Capital--Chapter-House 100
Capital--Chapter-House 101
Carving of Stall Canopy 102
Rood Screen from the Nave 103
Rood Screen--Under the Screen, looking South 106
Choir, looking West 107
Southwell, West Tower before Restoration 125
PLAN 131
[Illustration: _S. B. Bolas & Co., Photo_.
SOUTHWELL FROM THE PARKS--THE PALACE RUINS IN FRONT.]
CHAPTER I
HISTORY OF THE BUILDING
PART I.--THE TOWN AND CHURCH
The compilers of Domesday found Southwell with “clerks” holding
prebends: before the close of the thirteenth century these canons
or prebendaries had been gradually raised by successive endowments
to their final complement of sixteen. The chapter thus constituted
successfully survived the storm and stress of the Tudor Reformation,
only to experience dissolution from the zeal for change following in
the train of the first Reform Bill. Limitations of space permit only
of a bird’s-eye sketch of the rise and progress of this remarkable
college, the history of which is identical with the history of the
town, and to a certain extent of the county; and which has left as its
enduring monument that stately minster, since 1884 the cathedral church
of the new diocese for Notts and Derbyshire.
Existing remains demonstrate that in the time of the Roman occupation,
the four wells with their abundant supply of fresh spring water
attracted a few Britons. Of these wells, one is at the south-east of
the town, and, from its situation on the property of the Lord of the
Manor, was subsequently called the Lord’s Well; two more are within
the minster precincts--the Holy Well in the open court, and the Lady’s
Well in the churchyard; and a fourth, St. Catherine’s, to the west,
where the chapel of that name was built. Six or seven miles to the
north-east, a neighbouring village received the name of Norwell; and
for a parallel reason came the name of _the place by the south wells_,
and thence =Southwell=, the first syllable pronounced as in Southwark.
The researches of Gibbon led him to conclude that the Britons had some
thirty to forty bishops and a widespread organisation; but of Southwell
and the surrounding district there is really nothing known for certain
during this time beyond that it was christianised.
After the withdrawal of the Romans there is a blank of more than two
hundred years until, under date A.D. 627, Baeda records that Paulinus
of York, one of the missionaries of Augustine, who had the active
support of his convert, King Eadwine of Northumbria, baptised in the
river Trent; and to these two--Paulinus and Eadwine--the invading
Angles of the Trent Valley owed their conversion.[1]
During the troubled times that followed, the northern part of the Trent
Valley--parts of Lindsey and Southumbria--was now in one kingdom, now
in another; now in one diocese, now in another. It will come as a
surprise to most people to learn that what was afterwards called Notts,
or, at least, that part which included Southwell, was for a short time
not only in the diocese of Leicester, but in the province of Lichfield.
The diocese of Leicester came to an end--the chroniclers tell us
they know not how--and after the disappearance of the short-lived
archbishopric of Lichfield, at the beginning of the eighth century,
Southwell went back to the province and diocese of York.
It was after this that Southwell became an important religious centre.
At Ripon and Beverley the early missionary priests had given way to
a more settled ministry; and at Southwell secular canons, who were
also parish priests, were by degrees appointed. Whether at Beverley or
Ripon they were ever regulars had better be left an open question; at
Southwell, when we first come across them, they had been already for
some time in existence as seculars. They were in effect before they
were supported by separate prebendal endowments _Colidei_ or _Culdees_,
as at York--that is to say, bound by no especial vows, and belonging
to no particular order.[2] A mapping-out of the country into parishes
had begun in the days of Theodore of Tarsus: it took centuries to
complete. Many villages around Southwell were quite out of the reach
of any parish priest, and the resident clergy, besides serving their
own church, supplied the deficiencies of the district. Why was it that
so small and obscure a place was chosen in preference to Nottingham?
The answer must be that its very quietness and remoteness was in its
favour, since at the same time it was both central and accessible.
Nottingham was the scene of constant strife, and became one of those
“five burghs,” such a source of contention between English and Dane:
Southwell was comparatively exempt. It was not liable to siege and
capture first by one and then by another; if any place was peaceful,
that place was Southwell. The archbishops wished for a capital for
the southern part of their diocese with a cathedral church and staff
of clergy, to be what Beverley was for the east and Ripon for the
west, and Southwell, with its long traditions, was ready at hand.
And afterwards, while the Danes were ravaging Northumbria, it was
impossible for the archbishop to obtain anything from his property
there: and in order that he might have a livelihood, the see of
Worcester went with York. During this time (972-1016) Southwell became
a convenient half-way house between the two dioceses.
The earliest recorded endowment, though not of necessity the first
granted, is a royal donation to Oskytel the Danish Archbishop of York
(_circa_ A.D. 956) of a demesne of twenty _mansas_ at Southwell; and
power was especially retained to the archbishop to dispose of it at
his death as he deemed best. Archbishop Alfred Putta (1023-51) was a
great supporter of secular foundations. Beverley and Southwell both
benefited from his liberality. Most likely during his reign that rude
Anglo-Saxon church was built, which supplanted some other of which we
have no information. Putta lived a great deal at Southwell, and died
there, so that a manor house or palace was then in existence. He was
buried at Peterborough Abbey. Kinsius, his successor, gave to the old
minster two bells.
We have now come to a time when we may speak of the county of Notts,
and of canons and their prebends, and we can well understand why any
archbishop, monk though he might be, as Kinsius was, would encourage
establishments like Southwell. Of what practical use to a diocese
was a body of Benedictines? Their interests were confined to the
boundaries of their own monasteries; but secular clergy appointed
by the archbishop himself were of great assistance. As the parishes
increased in number, and the outside duties were by degrees confined
to their own particular churches, they could still help in many ways
in general diocesan matters; and in this way York, Beverley, and Ripon
grew up, not to mention smaller colleges like Howden. The system was
abused afterwards; but originally it was of great practical utility.
In the eleventh century, if not in the tenth, certain of the clergy
had separate endowments or _prebends_, and their outside duties were
confined to one particular church, situated in the township or parish
of the endowment, while one residence in Southwell and a second in the
prebendal village were allotted to them, and afterwards their stalls
and benefices came to be called by the names of these particular
prebends. In this way the Culdee system developed into the prebendal;
and what with the archbishop’s occasional residence, and the staff of
clergy, we can understand the statement of Leland: “Ther was a Se at
Southwel of the Merches which now longeth to the Archbishop of York.”
Before the Conquest Southwell was the southern capital of the diocese.
Aldred, to whom befell the strange fortune of consecrating both Harold
and William, enlarged York and Beverley; and Hugh the Chanter of York
tells us that he made prebends at Southwell.[3]
By the time of his death (1070 or 1075) the following at least were in
existence, although it might be later on they were called by their
local names:--Normanton, Norwell Overhall, Norwell Palace Hall (or
Palishall), Oxton and Cropwell, Woodborough, North Muskham.
Aldred attempted, without success, to enforce celibacy amongst the
clergy.
=The First Norman Archbishops=.--With Aldred, that judicious benefactor
of Southwell, passed away for a long period the archbishops who spoke
and taught in the common tongue of the people. His successors looked
down on the English as the English had previously looked down on the
Britons, and appointed other Normans to the stalls, with whom they
could take counsel; and the strange sight began to be witnessed of
prebendaries using a kind of “pigeon” English to make themselves
understood. The first Norman, Thomas I. of Bayeux, “a prelate of great
genius, and a friend of the Muses,” had to part with Lindsey (and for
a time with Newark) when the capital of the huge neighbouring diocese
was removed from the Oxfordshire Dorchester to Lincoln. Lincoln is now
reckoned as of a venerable antiquity, yet her chapter is appreciably
the junior of Southwell. Archbishop Gerard (21 May 1108) died at
Southwell while asleep in his garden, and with a MS. on astrology
under his pillow, and was buried at York. His successor Thomas II.
(1108-1114), a son of the first Norman bishop of Worcester, addressed
a pastoral letter to the people of Nottinghamshire, begging for their
contributions for the building of the church of S. Mary of Southwell
_(de Suwellae)_ “and that ye may the more willingly do this, we release
you, so that you need not visit every year the church of York, as all
our other people (or parishioners) do, but the church of S. Mary of
Southwell instead, and there have the same pardon as at York.”
This letter helps to explain the _raison d’être_ of Southwell. York
was too far away for the Notts people, 70 to 80 miles from Nottingham
by road, and Southwell was central for the whole county. The favourite
Norman system of choosing the leading town was not adopted because
a chapter and a residence were both in existence at Southwell, and
because of the situation of the town. Driven like a wedge into
the southern province, if Nottinghamshire was to make procession
anywhere, Southwell was easier of access than Nottingham. Already for
administrative purposes the archbishop’s capital for the county, the
minster now became the mother church in every respect.
But if this was to be the case, the small and roughly-built minster
then standing was quite inadequate according to the more magnificent
Norman ideas. _Every one_ of the old Saxon cathedrals either had or
then was undergoing the process of pulling down, only to be rebuilt on
a larger scale and in a better manner. Southwell’s turn came rather
late in the day; and the proportions and the masonry both benefited
in consequence. As at York, the work was done piecemeal, the old
coming down as the new progressed. Thomas could hardly have lived long
enough to see the whole completed, with its chancel square at the
east and four eastern apses now no more; but he would at least have
the gratification of knowing that everything was advancing towards
completion.[4]
The late Mr J.R. Green has made clear one obscure point in this
universal system of rebuilding on a more magnificent scale. Where, we
ask, did the money come from? Neither the contributions of the liberal,
nor forced labour, would suffice. The Jews found the money required.
They had come over with or after the Conqueror, and settled in the
towns in their different Jewries under the king’s immediate protection.
“Castle and cathedral alike owed their existence to the loans of the
Jews.” The Jewish money-lenders of York and Lincoln assisted in the
building of Southwell.
By this time, if not earlier, the number of stalls was ten, Norwell
Tertia Pars, Oxton Altera Pars, and St. Muskham having been created,
and the office of sacrist or sexton raised to the dignity of a canonry.
Henry I. and Stephen both granted rights and immunities, civil,
criminal, and forest. Archbishop Thurstan (1119-1135) founded the
stalls of Beckingham and Dunham, prebends in the north of the county,
with the village tithes and some glebe, and Halloughton or Halton, near
to Southwell. Pope Honorius (_circa_ 1125) wrote to the archbishop
against the marriage of the cathedral clergy. “In your churches [York,
Beverley, Ripon, Southwell] be earnest to reform discipline, and
restore the refectory at Southwell to the good condition in which it
existed in times past.” The pope objected to the canons being married
and living with their families; he wanted them to be celibate, and take
their meals together; but he was mistaken in supposing that they ever
had done so at Southwell.
Alexander III. promulgated two bulls, one to the minster clergy
(1171), and the other to his “well beloved the archdeacon, dean[5]
and the other clergy of the county.” After confirming the Whitsuntide
procession and directing that the chrism or consecrated oil should be
distributed at that synod by the rural deans throughout the county, he
exempted the chapter from the control of the archbishop, and almost
annihilated the authority of the latter.[6]
Archbishop Roger had obtained the pope’s support to disallow the
over-lordship of Canterbury, and this was the payment demanded. It was
a cruel blow, for the church and its staff owed nearly everything to
the archbishop, and the prebendaries were his advisers and assistant
curates. Now they were quite independent. An _imperium in imperio_ was
established, and what York lost Rome was expected to gain. The chapter
naturally preferred being placed on an equality with York; for in spite
of Whitsuntide processions and synods, York, as in the matter of the
confirmation of the Halloughton prebend, had exercised some sort of
authority. Now they could do so no longer, and the two chapters became
in every sense equal. The canons were also permitted to appoint vicars
both to their stalls and to their parishes.
After the death of Roger the see was vacant for a number of years,
and, in the absence of King Richard, William, Bishop of Ely and papal
legate, as chancellor, acted as regent. He controlled the northern
province, and punished those who had violated the king’s peculiar
by massacring Jews. Richard, however, despatched to England Hugh,
Bishop of Durham, with full power as justiciary north of the Humber.
At Ely the two prelates met; and on Hugh presenting his credentials
superseding William in the north, William said that he would cheerfully
resign his power there. William then inveigled his rival to the quiet
and seclusion of Southwell, and here, having Bishop Hugh completely in
his power, put him under arrest. He kept him in custody in the palace
until Hugh had promised to resign Windsor and all the other places
entrusted to him; and even then would not release him until he had
his son (so Roger de Hoveden calls him) as his hostage. William was
eventually deposed by John and the council.
When Richard returned he chose Southwell for the place at which to meet
William the Lion of Scotland in order to settle differences. After
reducing Nottingham by the help of some engines which threw large
stones, Palm Sunday 1194 saw Cœur de Lion at his palace or hunting-box
of Clipstone in Sherwood Forest, and William at Worksop. Each rested
“on account of the solemnity of the day,” and on the morrow (4th April)
met at Southwell. Roger de Hoveden says that they repaired the next day
to Melton, but Florence of Worcester that they continued at Southwell
over the Tuesday, and that during their stay, William demanded of
Richard “all the dignities and honours which his predecessors held
in England,” and that Richard answered, that “he would give him
satisfaction after he had consulted his barons.” The council was held
at Northampton on Easter Eve, and Richard declined to concede the
demands of the Scotch King.
=Archbishop Walter de Gray= (1216-56).--Beyond that Pavia, daughter
of Nigel de Rampton, and widow of Robert de Maluvel, founded the
fourteenth prebend, that of Rampton, some twenty miles north of
Southwell, there is nothing to record before Gray’s episcopate. The
diocese was in a constant state of turmoil and disorder from political
affairs, and this had its effect upon the architecture of the minster.
From the late Norman of Thomas II. there is nothing until we arrive at
the maturity of the Lancet Gothic or Early English of the thirteenth
century. The transition between the two is entirely wanting. Gray was a
great and many-sided prelate; in spite of his political duties, he both
governed his diocese and built extensively. At Southwell he considered
the Norman choir too small, and issued (1233) an indulgence for thirty
days for the completion of that Early English building, which to this
day, although externally shorn of its high roof, is internally almost
exactly as he left it, and a fitting commemoration of his reign. He
also endeavoured to mitigate some of the harmful results of the Bull
of Independence. As the canons were allowed to appoint vicars, it was
equivalent to granting them leave of non-residence. Gray tried to
enforce that they really should appoint deputies, both vicars-choral
for their stalls, and perpetual vicars for their prebendal parishes.
Other ranks of the minster clergy date from his time. At first
the vicars-choral said or chanted the masses for the dead; but in
1241 Robert de Lexington, canon of one of the Norwells, and Chief
Justiciary, founded two chantries in the church, and made provision
for a third to be removed there from a chapel in the town. He gave to
the chapter the presentation of Barnburgh in South Yorkshire, and, by
some power difficult now to understand, provided that the rector was
to pay 23 merks yearly for the support of two priests, two deacons and
two sub-deacons, “who for ever at the altar of the blessed Thomas the
Martyr in the church of Southwell” were to celebrate the divine offices
for the repose of his own soul and those of his relatives and others.
As a distinct body ranking below the vicars-choral, the chantry priests
now became a regular part of the minster staff, and eventually numbered
thirteen.
As the prebendaries might now be non-resident without his licence,
Gray tried to establish a dean as head of the chapter in permanent
residence. He was only visitor and patron, and in having no regular
president, other than the senior canon in residence, Southwell differed
from all other churches. York had its dean, Beverley its provost, Ripon
its permanent president in the prebendary of Stanwick; and during
Gray’s time a dean named Hugh appears for a short time. But it was not
to be; and we soon hear no more of him.[7]
Gray’s reforming zeal urged the chapter to consent to various statutes
and regulations. Those who were ordained to serve in the church had
to pass an examination before the canons in residence, and to be of a
good character. A canon, accompanied by a vicar and the registrar, was
to visit yearly the churches within the jurisdiction, and put an end
to abuses. The canons-resident were likewise given complete authority
over all the other clergy, and these were to be fined for absence
from worship. The readers of the lessons _(lectiones)_, whether in
the choir or pulpit, were to look the passages over beforehand, and
to read audibly and distinctly. Those who failed in this, and more
particularly those who upset the gravity of the others, were to be
flogged in the chapter-house. The inferior clergy of the choir were
to look over their music before service, were not to use their books
during service, but to look at the music or order board (_tabulam_).
Bad and violent language outside the church was punishable by one
flogging or a shilling fine, or, as a second alternative, by the
wearing of the _bulgewarium_ round the culprit’s neck “according to the
ancient use of the church.” The same offence committed inside was to be
punished by two floggings or a two shillings fine, and for the third
expulsion ensued.
By the Portsmouth charter of Henry III., dated July 1253, in
confirmation of previous ones, the chapter in civil and criminal
matters over its officials and property became, if anything, more
independent than ever of the ordinary law of the land. “The canons of
S. Mary of Southwell shall enjoy the same privileges and immunities
as those of S. Peter of York, particularly they shall receive the
amercements of their tenants, and fines for all such offences as they
have been guilty of ... exemptions from tolls and duties, from suits
of counties, hundreds, and wapentakes, and from all gelds such as
Danegeld, Horngeld, etc. etc., and that they shall have their courts of
justice with soc and sac.” There is also mention made at this period of
rights of some kind over parts of Sherwood Forest.
=Archbishop John Romanus= (1286-96).--Romanus had a somewhat troubled
reign. He had quarrels with the Pope, who wanted to appoint foreigners,
and with the York chapter about his right of visitation. This latter
was settled by arbitration, and is of interest as the Southwell
statutes were always based on York. The archbishop was to visit once in
five years, and was to enter the chapter-house unattended by chaplains
or clerks, two canons sworn to secrecy being the only persons allowed
to act with him; and canonical obedience was to be rendered by the
dean.[8] The visitation held at Southwell on the Tuesday after the
Epiphany 1294 has been preserved, and from this we gather that the old
provisions, which enacted that non-resident canons were to provide
vicars, had not been carried out, for it was decreed that they were
to provide perpetual vicars (_vicarii perpetui_) to their parish
churches before the next visitation. Vicars-choral and clerks were
forbidden to laugh and talk in the choir, particularly during service,
under pain of expulsion, and no women, other than relatives of good
repute, were to live in the houses of the vicars-choral and perpetual
vicars. The number of stalls was brought up to sixteen by the addition
of Eaton, and by carving N. Leverton out of Beckingham. In this way
the archbishop endeavoured to provide for the residence of at least
some canons; and the non-resident were to provide proctors or proxies
(generally their vicars-choral) to answer for them in chapter.
But his abiding work is architectural. At York he laid with great
ceremony the foundation-stone of a new nave, and at the same time a
new chapter-house was commenced there, and both have survived the
storm and stress of six centuries. At Southwell he determined that the
canons should likewise have a fitting house. The masons had now become
a highly-organised body with supervisors, surveyors, overseers and a
host of other officials. The master masons were first-rate architects,
and the men below them--the freemasons--were not merely workmen but
sculptors and artists.[9] Alike in elegance of proportion and elaborate
beauty of detail, architecture was rapidly approaching the full glory
of the Decorated epoch, and during his time was commenced at least, if
not finished, that miracle of mediæval inspiration, the chapter-house.
At York, to help in meeting the cost of the new buildings, offenders
of various kinds were punished by the infliction of fines, the amount
of which was determined by the penancers. At Southwell, the archbishop
resorted to a method which no doubt increased his popularity. At this
same visitation of 1294 it was decreed that the houses (_i.e._ both in
Southwell and on the prebends) of the alien canons, which had fallen
into a ruinous condition, were to be repaired within a year under
penalty of a heavy fine to go to the fabric of the new chapter-house.
As the revenues of these _alienigenae_ were collected by local
officials, the penalties could be easily deducted, and by one and the
same decree this prelate showed his objection to these foreigners,
mulcted them in part of their benefices, prevented money from crossing
the Alps, and aided the addition of the finest member to the minster.
“The Sainte Chapelle at Paris, the Angel Choir at Lincoln, fall into
a second rank compared with this Southwell chapter-house.” Nothing is
known of the older one.
=Archbishop Thomas de Corbridge= (1300-4).--Corbridge endeavoured to
check the abuse of illiterate clerks, by decreeing that no candidate
was to be ordained by title of the chapter and no vicar was to be
appointed until a satisfactory examination had been passed before the
chapter. The canons were to pay the stipends of both their vicars
punctually, so that the latter need not wander about the country
to the scandal of all good people. The services were to be better
rendered; and the precentor was to examine the music books and see
that they agreed, to prevent discord in the singing, while the decani
and cantoris sides were to be equal. As visitor he insisted that the
statutes of Romanus were to be carried out, and that in the prebendal
churches perpetual vicars were to be appointed within a year; his
predecessor had granted five years in vain. Whilst he ruled that there
must always be in residence three, or at least two, canons; he saw how,
in spite of the recently added stalls, neither he nor his successors
could enforce even so much as that, and it was settled that when none
were resident “from any cause inevitable and legitimate, leave having
been asked of us,” some discreet person under oath was to govern, while
only canons who had duly qualified as residents were to share in the
common fund. The reign of Corbridge was short; he left no mark in the
diocese, but his efforts to purify the chapter were praiseworthy. He
died at the palace, and was buried in the choir near the pulpit; but
the exact spot is now lost.
The Bull of Independence did its work; and non-residence became the
rule. The popes further made use of their claim to appoint foreigners
to vacant stalls; and amongst others Stephen de Ferentino, cardinal
priest, held Norwell Overhall, and Stephen of St. Mary beyond Tiber,
also cardinal priest, held Normanton, both during the thirteenth
century. The kings, like the popes, wanted the stalls as a cheap way
of paying those priests who served them as lawyers and secretaries. In
this way John Clavell, the king’s clerk, received Norwell Overhall; and
in the fourteenth century, William de Melton (who succeeded Dominus
Lambertus, a foreigner appointed by Letters Apostolic) obtained a
stall, holding, at the same time, another in Lincoln, the provostship
of Beverley, and the archdeaconry of Barnstaple. He gave these up on
his accession to the throne of York in 1317. His active life was mainly
spent as secretary to Edward II., and lord keeper and then treasurer to
Edward III. It is unnecessary to multiply instances. Mr Gairdner has
pointed out how monarchs found their shrewdest administrators in the
ranks of the clergy; and this was a cheap and easy way of paying them.
It was not expected that a candidate for the priesthood should have
what an age with a higher standard would call vocation. A promising
young man applied for orders as he would now try for the Civil Service
or be called to the Bar. Nobody expected him to be a winning preacher,
or to have an ardent zeal for souls. For years it was well that he
employed himself usefully somehow, and did not, on the plea of dulness
and boredom, live a life of complete idleness or worse away from
Southwell.
In the first half of the fourteenth century the beautiful rood screen
was carved: the last work worthy of praise, for it was followed by
the insertion of the huge west window with the idea of lighting up
the gloom of the nave, and the lowering of the roofs throughout. In
numerous cases brought before the courts of law, the chapter proved
their rights to their property and privileges; and benefactors
multiplied. Amongst others, Canon Richard de Chesterfield (1379) built
a new home for the sixteen vicars-choral on the site of the present
one. Canon Thomas Haxey (1415) built another for the chantry priests on
the site of the present Grammar School, and Archbishop Cardinal John
Kempe (1439) purchased for three hundred merks, from the Crown, the
confiscated alien priory of Ravensdale in Lindsey, and presented it to
the vicars-choral.
Later on the triennial visitations (1469 to 1540) by the chapter show
that the inferior clergy had deteriorated in religion and morals, more
than one-half being frequently accused of offences more or less serious.
There is an inventory of the goods of Richard de Normanton, parish
vicar in 1369.[10] This functionary performed the duties of parish
priest for the residuary parish, and was appointed by the prebendary
of Normanton; and for certain purposes the parishioners had part of the
minster allotted to them as their “parish church within the collegiate
church.” The parish altar was dedicated to St. Vincent, and had one
frontal of silk, and a second of coarser material, decorated with the
royal arms; and there were four towels (_tobalia_), two ferials and a
corporal. For mass were five sets of vestments, each with chasuble,
stole, fanon (or maniple), alb, amice, and girdle. Two were reckoned
as “principals,” one with and the other without the tunic; the others
were for ordinary Sundays and week days. Two cushions covered with
red syndon and a lectern belonged to the altar, as did nine napkins,
besides a carpet for “double” feasts. At Easter the parishioners made
their communion at a long table (_mensa domini_) covered with two long
cloths.
The choral robes (for the parish vicar assisted the choir) were cope,
almuce (_almicium_, not the _amicium_ or amice for celebrations),
rochet and surplice (_super-pellicium_). The parish plate included
two silver-gilt chalices, of which the more valuable was for Easter,
a portable silver-gilt cross, and a plated staff; and there were
candlesticks of iron or wood and a gilt copper cup for the host. A
breviary or portiforium with music was estimated at five pounds--a
chantry priest’s stipend; and Richard was provided with surplice or
lantern for visiting the sick, as well as with a set of sermons on the
epistles and gospels throughout the year. Undoubtedly the parishioners
were accustomed to hear somebody’s sermons read; and the parish priests
performed the duty instead of a prebendary.
=The Brothers Booth.=--There is a ready explanation of Archbishop
William Booth (1452-65) making Southwell his favourite residence. Like
a wise man, he did not care to have anything to do with the Wars of
the Roses; and during the whole of this time Southwell, true to its
traditions, was remote from armies and battlefields. He improved the
stipends of the chantry priests, and enlarged the chapel of Henry le
Vavasour outside the south-west angle of the nave, the home of the
Grammar School, and there he elected to be buried.[11] His successor,
George Neville, brother to the king-maker, was unwise enough to
interfere in matters of State, and was rewarded by the seizure of his
vast private property and exile and imprisonment at Calais and at
Guisnes. At Neville’s death William’s brother Laurence was translated
from Durham, and during his reign (1476-80) showed his brother’s
preference for Southwell. He added two chantries to the Vavasour or
Grammar School chapel, and was buried by his brother’s side. This
adjunct, needlessly pulled down in the last century, came to be called
the Booth chapel. While Laurence was at Southwell, in July 1479, the
two resident canons gave themselves leave of absence, pleading the
ravages of the plague.
=Canon Christopher Urswick, LL.D.=--Amongst the non-resident
dignitaries immersed in affairs of State was Christopher Urswick,
instituted to Norwell Palishall by proxy (6th April 1509). He was taken
into the service of the Lady Margaret, wife of Richmond and mother of
Henry VII., whose third husband was Stanley the first Earl of Derby
of the present creation. Engaged in plots and suffering exile for his
mistress and her son, after Bosworth he became Henry’s chaplain and
almoner, and obtained the deanery of York, which he exchanged for a
canonry on receiving the more coveted deanery of Windsor. He was also
at some time or other rector of Hackney and archdeacon of Richmond, of
Wells, and of Surrey. Before he was a prebendary he would accompany
Henry on the royal progress through the north, when the king, avoiding
Newark on account of the plague, passed through Southwell on his way
from Lincoln to Nottingham. He was employed as special plenipotentiary
to settle with the Emperor Maximilian I. the terms on which Henry
was to be admitted into the Holy League. He died in 1522, and Wolsey
appointed to the vacant stall his own illegitimate son, Thomas Wynter.
Urswick is chiefly mentioned here, because to him belongs the
distinguished honour of figuring in Shakespeare (_Richard III_. Act iv.
scene 5). To him, on the eve of Bosworth, Stanley laments that his own
hands are tied, as his son is a hostage in Richard’s power--
My son George Stanley is franked up in hold.
If I revolt, off goes young George’s head.
It is unnecessary to remind the reader that “Sir” does not there mean
a knight, but is the equivalent for the modern “Reverend.”
PART II.--CONSTITUTION OF THE CHAPTER
The constitution by which the minster was governed was unique, and so
remarkable as to require a special summary, excepting in so far as has
been already anticipated.
Southwell was the cathedral city and mother church of the county from
the time that Nottinghamshire first became a county at all--let us say,
from a hundred years before the Conquest. The Whitsuntide procession
merely emphasised and ratified this fact. At this festival a synod was
held, which would seem to have been more for the purpose of festivity
than of legislation, and the chrism or holy oil was distributed through
the rural deans to the various parishes of the county. Each parish had
to pay a specified tax, called the Pentecostal offering, varying from
the humble sixpence of Staunton to the merk of Nottingham and Newark.
Of this offering ten per cent. went to the sacrist, and forty per
cent. each to the prebendary of Normanton and the residents’ common
fund; altogether some fifteen or sixteen pounds. In the palmy days of
pilgrimages and processions Southwell must have looked very gay at
Whitsuntide. After gradually dying out, Archbishop Drummond, in the
last century, on his own authority, put a stop to the little that was
left of this time-honoured pageant. It is strange that no one has ever
been able to fix the exact day of the week on which it was held.
=The Liberty= of Southwell and Scrooby was a civil jurisdiction of
the archbishop as a great landowner, and extended over some twenty
parishes. Besides his Southwell manor house or palace, he had another
at Scrooby, on the famous north road near the Yorkshire border[12];
and his property was for the most part contiguous to these two seats.
Within his Liberty he appears up to quite recent times to have been
very much his own Lord Lieutenant and High Sheriff, with sessions
independent of the county, and justices of the peace of his own
nomination.
=The Peculiar= of Southwell was an ecclesiastical jurisdiction of
the chapter over the ancient manor or lordship of Southwell and the
prebendal villages. With the exception of ordination and confirmation,
the canons were their own archbishop, as they were their own archdeacon
and rural dean. They had full authority over their subordinates,
including the perpetual vicars of the prebendaries, and over all,
clergy and laity alike, for certain matters then seemingly reckoned as
ecclesiastical offences, such as slander, perjury, and immorality. They
could punish by fine, suspension, penance, and ex-communication, but in
later years dropped the punishment of flogging.
The court of the chapter (or rather Dr William Worseley, the one
resident canon) sentenced Cristina Saynton to walk three Sunday
mornings before the Cross in the processions, carrying a wax candle,
and clad in a loose unfastened “tunic,” with bare feet and legs,
and towel over her head. Agnes Nothorne was sentenced to walk round
Edingley Churchyard on Palm Sunday, barefooted, and with a net over
her head; and on Good Friday to approach the Cross with bended knees,
and then crawl with bare feet and head covered as before, and kneeling
before two altars in the church, say before each five times the Lord’s
Prayer, the Ave Maria, and the Creed.
This ecclesiastical jurisdiction included the proving of wills of all
persons; and the records contain many instances of probate. To this was
added the civil jurisdiction of “assizes of bread and ale,” with power
to punish fraud, and authority over weights and measures. In respect
of their own property, the chapter had their court “views of Frank
pledge,” etc., and the individual prebendaries likewise had theirs in
respect of their endowments in land; and there were appeals from the
prebendal courts to those of the chapter. In short, they had a complete
feudal jurisdiction, both over their own lands and over those they held
in trust for the service of the minster and for their subordinates.
But there were in addition certain marked privileges. The lands of the
prebends were free from the authority of the sheriff and all other
officers of the king, unless the canon consented. The canons had “in
their houses and lands Soc and Sac, Tol and Theam, and infanganthef
(the right of executing a thief) and intol and utol, and all those same
customs of the honour and liberty which the king has in his own lands.”
Their tenants were almost, if not entirely, exempt from military
service, and their taxes, when any were required, were levied by the
York Convocation, to which they sent a proctor, and not, it would seem,
by king and parliament; and the fines did not go to the Crown.
Although a large part of the manor had been mapped out into
daughter parishes, such as Edingley and Upton, a residuary parish
of considerable area always remained[13]; and from the beginning of
non-residence the chapter delegated their pastoral duties to the
parish vicar. There were five chapels in the town, besides chapels
of ease in the more remote parts of the parish. The actual town was
divided into the Burgage, between the Greet and the market-place, and
the Prebendage; and the latter was chiefly ecclesiastical property
of various kinds. To the church itself appertained the old tradition
of sanctuary. A man charged with murder even, or an outlaw, could
take sanctuary for thirty days; and if by that time he had not made
his peace, some of the clergy were to escort him for thirty leagues
(_leugae_), “with some sign of the Church’s peace,” and also relics,
wherever the accused wanted to go, and bring him back three times.
Interference involved the crime of “breaking the Church’s peace.” It is
difficult to say when sanctuary was abolished or died out.
Another peculiar privilege was, that the clergy were not tried by
the usual courts for the most serious crimes. There is only one such
recorded, a bad case of felony[14]; and this came before “judges (or
justiciaries) of our Lord the King, nominated (? deputatis) to preserve
the peace,” and was tried at the south door of the church or in one of
the canons’ houses. Whether these judges were the ordinary itinerant
justices, or those of the Court of Eyre north of the Trent, or the
archbishop’s in right of his liberty of Southwell and Scrooby, or a
special commission--this is a puzzle.
=The Clergy and Staff.=--The archbishops were at first head of the
chapter, and the canons their curates. They must have begun to lose
touch when, in the twelfth century, the chapter became independent.
Henceforth they were visitors, and at their visitations held what were
in reality courts. Subsequently the statute of Premunire, by putting a
stop, or at least a check, to papal bulls, and that of Provisors, by
forbidding the appointment of foreigners to vacant stalls, increased
somewhat their authority. They were always patrons of the sixteen
stalls by right of their having endowed them (with one exception); and
it is clear from what happened in Wolsey’s time, that they could by use
celebrate when they pleased, and appoint the preachers. Sometimes, but
not always, the statutes or decrees of the chapter read _de consensu &
voluntate _ of the archbishop.
The prebendaries, addressed in chapter as “venerable,” were sixteen
in number, and their prebends were:--Beckingham, Dunham, Eton,
Halloughton, N. Leverton, N. Muskham, S. Muskham, Normanton (with the
chancellorship), Norwell Overhall, Norwell Palishall (or Palace Hall),
Norwell Tertia Pars, Oxton cum Cropwell, Oxton Secunda Pars, Rampton,
Sacristaria, Woodborough.
By the valuation of 1547, Norwell Overhall was worth £50 a year, and
Eton only £2. These valuations were, however, below the real profits,
as the tenants paid part of their rents in a lump sum (technically
called a “fine”) at the commencement of the lease. The chapter, in
conjunction with the church-wardens appointed by them, controlled their
common fund for the residents as well as the fabric fund or “ladie
land,” and they were trustees of the endowments of the inferior clergy,
and the several miscellaneous bequests for tapers, lamps, etc.
Next we may place the perpetual vicars, of whom there were twelve,
Normanton (within the residuary parish) and the Sacrist prebend (the
duties of which were limited to the church) not requiring them.[15]
Their stipends from land, the lesser tithes, rent charges on the
prebends, and other sources were small. They had no duties in the
minster itself, but were subject to the chapter. Each canon appointed
the vicar of his prebend. The daughter churches of the parish were also
under the chapter.
Passing over the parish vicar, there were vicars-choral for all
the prebends; and these performed, as deputies of the canons, the
long round of daily services. They were paid £3 a year by their
prebendaries, and shared in their own common fund, and lived in common
in their own college. They had a common seal for their property, but
were never a separate corporation, being appointed by their canons and
under the control of the chapter, who made the bye-laws that governed
them. In chapter meetings they often acted as proctors or proxies for
their absent chiefs. One of them was appointed “hebdomodary” each week,
and took the priest’s part. They had a precentor for each side of the
choir; and there seems to have been as well a precentor in chief. They
were always in priests’ orders, and the chapter strictly prohibited
their holding any care of souls. Their use was that of York. In ancient
times they were not called minor canons.
Next ranked those peculiar officers against whom Sir Walter Besant
waxes so eloquent. The chantry priests or chaplains were an offshoot
of the vicars-choral, who previously said or sang the appointed masses
for the departed. The earliest donation was that of Prebendary and
Justiciary Robert de Lexington, 9th October 1241; and the latest that
of Laurence Booth (1479), who endowed two in the Vavasour Chapel:
altogether thirteen priests, and nine or ten altars. They “followed
the choir,” or, in addition to their specific duties, assisted in the
singing; and the priest of St. Nicholas also served the parochial
chapel of ease of Halam, while others performed similar outside duties,
and one was usher of the Grammar School and a second “player at the
organs.”
The chantry priests, besides their endowments, which averaged four
or five pounds a year each, shared a small common fund, and, thanks
to Canon Thomas Haxey, from the year 1415 lived together in their
own house on the site of the present Grammar School, and could lodge
outsiders. The chantry of St. John the Evangelist was in the gift
of the vicars-choral, and to the rest the chapter appointed. The
vicars-choral were generally promoted from this body. Next ranked
two deacons, who, besides other duties, marshalled the processions,
and two sub-deacons: the pay of the former being £3, 10s. and of the
latter £2, 13s. Clerks were ordained as sub-deacons, and advanced
to priests’ orders; and all four offices were sometimes combined
with vicar-choralships. The six choristers were laymen, as was the
incense-bearer or thuribuler. Then there were the registrar (an
important official), the master of Our Lady’s works, the vergers, or
wand-bearers, and others: altogether some sixty or more, not counting
the wardens who were generally vicars-choral. But the list of offices
is not yet exhausted; for the prebendary of Normanton, in his capacity
of chancellor, was the secretary for education for the county, and
appointed to such grammar schools as Nottingham, Newark, and Wollaton,
as well as to Southwell.
Southwell Grammar School must be one of the very oldest educational
establishments in the country, and the present headmaster (appointed
by the bishop of the diocese) has a long unbroken line of predecessors
going back to Norman times. The master was a vicar-choral or chantry
priest, and received £2 a year out of the Normanton prebend, and his
assistant half that sum. Complaints were made latterly that the master
shirked his duties, was too fond of giving “remedies” or holidays, so
that the boys paid their parents’ substance for nothing, and allowed
English to be talked in school instead of Latin. The “Song School” was
a separate establishment, of which the master was paid £1 a year, and
taught other subjects besides singing. Possibly his pupils were choir
boys, and the school held in the north transept chapel of the nave.
The sacrist, besides his vicar-choral, had “clerks” under him; and
complaints were made that these, as well as other clerks and ministers
of the church, did not attend the Grammar School. At Wollaton school,
adults (_viri_) were likewise taught; and at Southwell, it would
seem that these “clerks” received, or were supposed to receive, some
smattering of Latin with a view to ordination, for in spite of their
name they do not appear to have been already in orders.
The archbishop presented to the Hospital of St. Mary Magdalene; and
there was a nunnery. No trace is left of either of these institutions.
In value and importance, Southwell ranked below London and York, but
quite on a level with many cathedrals.
CHAPTER II
EXTERIOR--THE NAVE AND TRANSEPT
PART I.--NORMAN
Very happy in their choice of situation, the first builders selected
an extensive tract of meadow land with a gentle slope from west to
east; and consecrated the meadow itself for a burial-ground. Later
builders never changed this site; and the church of Edwy and Edgar,
and that of the eleventh century, as well as the present one, occupy
the ground on which first stood a rude and hastily-constructed edifice
of wood. Every one must at once be struck with the ample and unbroken
space on all sides, allowing, as it does, full justice to be done to
the fair proportions. In mediæval, as in modern, buildings the site
is often too limited or too insignificant to do full justice to the
architecture. It is otherwise here, and to this charm is added a second
which, again, modern architects are apt to ignore. The building follows
the natural slope of the ground it occupies; it is not constructed
upon an artificial dead level. And the advantage of this in adding to
the picturesque appearance becomes evident as we look at the building
as a whole from different points of view: it grows upon one. And this
effect of the spacious churchyard is still further enhanced by the
position of the surrounding houses. There is not an unsuitable building
in sight. The beautiful avenue of elms, called the Prebends’ Walk,
at the northern side, half-conceals, half-reveals a row of detached
houses environed by gardens, some of them in the prosperous days of
the collegiate chapter prebendaries’ residences. The buildings of the
Grammar School are at the north-west angle. Along the west side are
other houses, and the churchyard surroundings are completed by the
gardens and partially restored ruins of the palace of Wolsey and of
Sandys, and by the open gateway and railing which leave to view the
lawn-covered Vicars’ Court with its five houses. The old Whitsuntide
ceremonials, in times when Whitsuntide fell ten days later than now,
were rendered more impressive by the surrounding bloom; and at no
time of the year does the general aspect now present a more charming
appearance than at the County Choral Festival in June, when the foliage
of the trees, arrived at its first maturity, has not yet lost its early
freshness.
The principal gateway is on the west: a simple Norman structure with
a niche overhead, in which, before the destructive days of Puritan
iconoclasts, was placed a statue. The work on either side dates from
the beginning of the nineteenth century. A second and plainer gives
entrance on the north by the Prebends’ Walk; and a third by the Vicars’
Court.
There is no eminence from which to get a bird’s-eye view. The western
front and towers are commanded from the west gateway, the ground
sloping gently. Standing by the corner of the palace and vicars’
gardens we get the south-east view of choir, south transept, and
central tower. Going round to the north-east, and standing by the small
entrance from the street by the corner house of the Vicars’ Court,
the solid Early English choir on the left, the late Norman central
tower in the middle, and the elegant Decorated chapter-house with the
restored high-pitched roof are grouped together. And the due north view
from the north gateway comprises the beautifully broken front from the
west tower and north porch to the late Early English of the transept
chapel, the whole being flanked on the left by the chapter-house. But
the grouping of the three towers can only be properly appreciated from
a greater distance: from the meadows on the south-east, where they
combine with the palace ruins, or from the more distant view when
approaching by rail from Rolleston.
The external dimensions in feet are as follow:--Extreme length, 318,
of which the Norman nave and tower comprise 185; extreme length of
transepts, 137; breadth of nave, 72; breadth of south transept, about
40; of north, a trifle less; breadth of choir, same as nave, and
including the two chapels, 108.
Thus it will be seen that Southwell occupies a place amongst the
smaller cathedrals. Not only is it less than Durham, York, and Lincoln,
but also than Norwich and Exeter. It is, in fact, a little larger than
Rochester. The original Norman choir was of course different. The
dedication is to the Blessed Mary the Virgin of Southwell.
The stone chiefly came from quarries in the neighbourhood of Mansfield,
twelve or fourteen miles away through Sherwood Forest. That used by the
Norman builders is of a dark yellowish hue, while their Early English
and Decorated successors found some of a lighter hue with blue-tinted
veins. Fortunate in other matters, Southwell was fortunate in the
choice of material. That eminent geologist Sir Roderick Murchison
once expressed his regret that, when the Houses of Parliament were
rebuilt, these quarries were not used. “If the Mansfield stone had
been selected, not one pinnacle in that otherwise grand building would
have been subjected, as it now was, to perish.” There is no fear of
the minster perishing. Nave and transepts have already withstood the
storms and rains of seven hundred and fifty years of the climate of
the midlands, and choir and chapter-house almost as long. And this
stone was chiselled by competent masons, after the fine pointed masonry
of the later Norman had taken the place of the ruder work of earlier
churches.
=The Central Tower= is a massive building of rather less than 40 feet
square, and rises 105 feet from the ground. The decoration of the upper
part is divided into two stages, separated by string courses; and the
four faces of the same stage are alike. The lower consists of an arcade
or series of arches; and, as is so often the case in Norman buildings
of the twelfth century, these arches intersect. This same intersecting
work is repeated in the corresponding stage of the north-west tower, as
well as on either side of the interior of the north porch. The arcade
of the upper stage is different in design, inasmuch as the arches are
separate and do not intersect. They are seven in number. The space on
either side of the central arch is rather more than the others; and
the three central arches are pierced for windows, and, like the windows
in the other towers, were once divided by a shaft into two lights.
Above the upper stage the usual Norman corbel table is carried round
the four sides. Originally the tower may have ended with a simple
parapet; but if there were any spire, it would probably be of stone,
of no great height, and rising from the outer surface of the walls--in
fact, little more than a roof of pyramidal shape. The present roof
dates from after the fire of 1711. The parapet is an addition, but
contains stones with the Norman zigzag and circular hollow work. As
the transept gables are similarly ornamented, it is assumed that these
stones were removed from there and placed in their present position
when the transept roofs were lowered; and accordingly the parapet of
the tower is of the same date as the debasing of the transept roof.
This--Mr Dimock’s theory--has been generally adopted by experts, and is
interesting as an example of how archæologists are enabled to mark even
the minor changes in detail. The somewhat elaborately carved pinnacles
are, like the parapet, out of place on a Norman tower, although of
Norman masonry. Originally placed at the ends of the transept gables,
they corresponded with others in the north porch. Seen from below, they
look too dwarfed and insignificant for their present altitude.
[Illustration: WALL OF TRANSEPT]
[Illustration: PINNACLE--CENTRAL TOWER]
=The Bells=, eight in number, are in this tower. If the first pair, the
gift of Archbishop Kinsius before the Conquest, were ever placed here,
they have long since been either destroyed or recast.
An inscription on the wall of the interior, near the north door of the
choir, tells us that “Thomas Wymondesold, of Lambeth in the county of
Surry, Esquire, gave unto this church a set of chimes and 20 shillings
per annum for ever toward the keeping of them. 1693.” Wymondesold’s
gift was reduced to a shapeless mass by the above-mentioned fire of
1711, and Ruddall of Gloucester cast a new peal with the following
inscriptions:--
1st. Abraham Ruddall of Gloucester cast us all 1721.
2nd. Peace and good neighbourhood.
3rd. Prosperity to this Town.
4th. Prosperity to our Benefactors.
5th. From Lightning and Tempest, Good Lord, deliver us.
6th. Prosperity to the Chapter.
7th. Prosperity to the Church of England.
8th. I to the Church the Living call, and to the Grave do
summon all.
Since then some have been recast and the inscriptions altered--
2nd. G. Mears, founders, London, 1849. 4th. T. Mears of
London, fecit 1819. 5th. T. Mears of London, fecit 1819.
The wish expressed on the sixth bell has unhappily not been fulfilled.
The chimes are set to the National Anthem.
=The Nave and Aisles.=--The length, including the west towers, of
the external wall is 135 feet, the breadth 73. The division is into
seven bays (broken on the north side by the famous porch) separated by
buttresses. The effect is massive, stern, and bare to a degree. The
buttresses are flat: of the same breadth and thickness throughout, and
terminate in the parapet wall, which overhangs sufficiently to receive
them. They would seem to have been constructed as much for ornament as
for support. The only other relief of the Norman builders was those
slightly projecting horizontal bands, the string courses. Two of these
go round the whole of the Norman building, including the buttresses,
excepting where by later alterations or other causes the continuity is
broken. The lower of these, with heavy zigzag or chevron moulding--a
peculiarity of late Norman--passes underneath such of the original
windows as are left. But, as is so commonly the case, after-ages found
that these windows did not give sufficient light, and enlarged several
of them. The string course had to be removed to its corresponding
position underneath the new windows, and was connected with the old by
upright and vertical bands, the material being found in the somewhat
similar zigzag mouldings of the sides of the destroyed Norman windows.
This ready and economical use of the displaced stonework gives a
peculiar appearance to the exterior of the early Perpendicular windows,
which architecturally are quite out of place. The higher continuous
string course above the aisle windows was not broken from this cause,
and remained unaltered until the great west window was inserted.
Exceedingly interesting are the small and plain square windows in the
aisles above the second string course, intended to give light to the
triforium. In the nave and both aisles the projecting eaves have given
place to parapets, supported by the old simple yet bold nebule corbel
table beneath.
As has been just stated incidentally, the windows of the two nave
aisles represent various ages and different styles. Fortunately, from
some unexplained reason, one of the original lights has been left
intact, that in the north aisle nearest to the north-west tower, and is
similar in detail to the lower tier of the transepts. In this we again
meet with the zigzag ornament round both the sides and the arch, with
outer side shafts supporting a semicircular edge-roll above; while the
hood-moulding or dripstone is of the double billet, like the zigzag, a
favourite Norman moulding. In the south aisle the three windows nearest
to the tower at the west are imitations of the one just mentioned.
They were put in about 1847, when the last remains of Booth’s (or
Le Vavasour’s) Chapel were removed, and the old foundation near the
north-west tower disturbed.
The four windows in either aisle to the east are early Perpendicular
of the end of the fourteenth century. They are of three lights, and
the arches are four-centred. They have transoms, while the tracery
of the upper part is in flowing lines. The outer hood-moulding or
dripstone arch terminates with the head-dress of the latter part of the
fourteenth century. These windows are poor and meagre, and unworthy
of their position; but are historically interesting as specimens of
the work of a time when the land had been stricken down and everything
upset by the great pestilence. The remaining window--that immediately
to the west of the north porch--is modern. A pleasing detail is the
central broken string course of either aisle. This is simply a
continuation of the plain square abacus or top ornament of the side
shafts of the first Norman windows. Broken by both buttresses and
windows, it supplements the continuous upper and lower string courses,
and assists them in relieving the bareness of the walls.
=The Clerestory of the Nave.=--Rising above the aisles the clerestories
constitute one of those features which makes Southwell quite unique
amongst English churches. The circular windows lighting up the interior
of the nave are so peculiar, as to make the architect, when he first
sees them, imagine himself for the moment in Normandy or the German
Palatinate; and, in common with other details presently to be noticed,
mark off the Norman exterior as belonging to that particular late style
and period sometimes called Romanesque. “More singular perhaps than
beautiful” is an authoritative criticism passed upon them. In these
windows the only ornament is the plain round-patterned mouldings,
suggestive of gigantic wedding rings, which encircle them. The parapet
and corbel are of the same style as those of the aisle beneath; and
there are no buttresses, the round windows alone separating the
different bays. Generally when the high-pitched Norman roof has been
(as at Southwell) replaced by one of lower elevation, we find that
the clerestory windows are inserted at the same time; but here these
plain circular windows, lighting up the interior, form part of the
original building, and no other church in England possesses the same
characteristic.
[Illustration: _S. B. Bolas & Co., Photo_.
NORTH PORCH.]
[Illustration: CHIMNEY--NORTH PORCH.]
=The North Porch.=--The north side of the nave differs from the south
in its possession of this charming feature which occupies the third bay
from the west. It is universally cited, with such examples as Sherborne
and Malmesbury, as one of the finest specimens left. Perhaps it excels
both of these, and certainly adds materially to the general beauty and
interest of the north view, while the details are full of interest.
Externally it is some 19 ft. broad, the massive walls leaving an
internal breadth of about 14 ft., and it projects from the nave about
22 ft. In the outer portal two semi-cylindrical shafts worked into and
engaged with the front terminate in capitals with cushion and scalloped
mouldings. From these capitals (or, more accurately, from the string
course above) spring the arches of two orders, with square, round, and
hollow mouldings. That lower continuous zigzag string course, already
described, is here utilised in an ingenious manner. Continued from
beneath the aisle windows, it passes along the outside walls of the
porch. Next it forms the abacus (or top of the capitals) of the pillars
of the outer portals, and then doubles round along the interior walls
above the arcading, finally losing itself in the outermost capital
of the inner portal. Above the outer portal is the gable formed by
an angle of about thirty degrees. Three windows, the centre by a
frequent arrangement larger than the others, give light to the quaint
_paradise_ or upper room. These windows, glazed with diamond panes,
have, as elsewhere, their inner arches unbroken by capitals or abaci,
and ornamented with the zigzag; but the outer arch has the shafts and
capitals, and is less ornamented; and above these the dripstone with
the triple nebule and finished off with grotesquely carved heads. The
two gable ends are crowned with round turrets pointed at the summit;
and the western serves the purpose of a chimney flue to the upper room,
being pierced with air holes. When this arrangement was first made it
is impossible to say. The interior walls to the height of the continued
string course are richly adorned with arcades. These are formed of the
beautiful intersecting arches, and rest upon plain stone benches. The
inner portal is formed by six receding arches. In the innermost the
unbroken and rich zigzag is repeated; in the rest the arches stand upon
shafts and capitals, and exhibit great variety of moulding, that next
to the innermost having the unusual beakhead. This inner doorway almost
comes up to the west door of Rochester in showing what the Norman
craftsmen were capable of; and it is a pity that the waggon-vaulted
roof of unfinished stone is too plain to harmonise. The oaken doors
of the fourteenth century have flowing tracery carved on the wood.
Access to the upper room or paradise is obtained from the triforium.
The fireplace, chimney, and cupboards, made out of the thickness of
the walls, show the dwelling-place of the sacrist, whose duty it was
to sleep in the church that he might be at hand to ring the bells and
perform other offices. This paradise over a Norman porch has set
archæologists to work in order to find others; and they have succeeded
in discovering one only, that of Bredon, in Worcestershire. But the
peculiarities of this member of the north front of the cathedral are
its least charm.
The outer archway and gable, the intersecting arcades of the inside
walls, and the glorious inner portal, are matched by the way in which
the whole combines with the varied architecture of the north front. In
the floor is the slab of the grave of some unknown person who died in
1536. The inscription is illegible, but the “tau” =T= cross and heart
have been deciphered. Is it by any chance that the last sacristan’s
clerk of the old order of things elected that his lifeless remains
should sleep their long last sleep underneath the time-honoured chamber
where he had been wont to take his nightly rest?
[Illustration: _S. B. Bolas & Co., Photo_. NORTH PORCH, INTERIOR.]
=Booth’s Chapel.=--The curious, by scanning closely the south wall
of the nave near the south-west tower and the adjoining ground, may
discern some recent alterations. It is the site of a chantry chapel
dedicated to St. John the Baptist, and erected about 1280 by one of
the prebendaries Henry le Vavasour. This means that Le Vavasour gave
or bequeathed some small endowment to support a priest whose duty it
was to celebrate a specified number of masses for the repose of the
soul of some particular person, probably of Le Vavasour himself. At
first it was always called after the patron saint. Archbishop William
Booth (1452-65), who enlarged it, was buried here; and his brother,
Archbishop Laurence Booth (1476-80) endowed two more chantries to Our
Lady and St. Cuthbert. He had previously (1457-76) been Bishop of
Durham, and hence St. Cuthbert’s name. At the time of his death he was
busy in improving the chapel, and directed in his will that his body
was to be interred in the south side. It is now impossible to trace
the exact spot where the remains of these two prelates, who were so
attached to Southwell, and who died there, were laid, nor of those
others whom we know by the wills proved before the chapter to have been
buried inside. The second chantry and altar thus founded in 1480 are
the only dedication to the Blessed Virgin within the minster, although
the church itself was named in her honour; for there never has been any
Lady Chapel properly so called. Yet this name is given to the chapel by
William Enkersol, chantry priest of St. John the Baptist. In his will
he directed “my bodie to be buryed in the churche yerde of our ladie
of Suthwell beforesaide of the est side _of our ladie is chapel_.”
From the death of Archbishop Laurence the building was called Booth’s
Chapel; and the only chantries we are able to localise are the three
here. Dickinson tells us that the windows formerly contained the
coats of arms of the Booth family and their connections. While still
a chantry, it was also the Grammar School under the direction of the
prebendary of Normanton, _ex officio_ chancellor. As the Grammar School
it continued until in the year 1784 it was demolished on the ground
that it marred the symmetry of the buildings; and on the site of the
old chantry house the present school was built, after the chapel had
been its home for nearly four hundred years. During some alterations
in 1847 the wall of the aisle fell in, and was then restored to its
present state. In its later days the chapel was also used as the
library; and when pulled down, the books and manuscripts were deposited
in the north transept chapel of the nave.
[Illustration: _S. B. Bolas & Co., Photo_.
WEST DOOR.]
=The West Front.=--The western door has a striking resemblance to
the still more beautiful inner one of the north porch, and likewise
illustrates the care bestowed by Norman artificers upon this part of
their edifices. It is of five arches; and here again the innermost
arch is unbroken and profusely adorned with the familiar zigzag.
The outer four rest upon shafts with scalloped capitals, and are
alternately ornamented with the edge-roll and zigzag, two with each
kind of moulding; and the hood-moulding above is of the double billet.
The oaken doors, of the same date as those of the north porch, are
covered with elaborate iron scroll work. Very beautiful is the effect
of doorway and door; and we wish the same could be said of the window,
but we have unhappily come to the great eyesore and disfigurement of
the building. For this great west window takes up almost the whole
space between the towers from doorway to summit. The style is late
Perpendicular--probably not earlier than 1450. It is of seven lights,
with many mullions and transoms and much tracery. In itself this does
not harmonise or blend with Norman architecture, and the straight
perpendicular lines of the tracery are inelegant; but the chief fault
is the enormous size, occupying the entire centre of the front and,
without exaggeration, suggestive rather of a railway station or the
Crystal Palace than of a Norman nave. The string courses of the two
towers tell us the probable size and position of the original windows,
even though not connected from tower to tower; so do the transepts,
and suggest three lights one above the other, either arched as in the
nave aisles, or circular as in the clerestory, with perhaps at the top
a small square window like those beneath the clerestory. What windows
the Normans put in they put in after some such fashion as this. Then
came the Early English architects, and they may have inserted larger
lancet-headed lights, which would match well enough with the rest, and
display no such incongruity as we now see. Rochester Cathedral and the
little-known priory church of Cartmel are two other typical examples
of this fifteenth-century want of taste. Can we then assign any reason
for this? I think we can, as has been already foreshadowed in the
description of the four eastern windows of the nave aisles. Norman
windows were small for two reasons: light was not valued, and glass was
scarce, if used at all, for we cannot trace glass prior to the closing
years of the twelfth century. Early English builders made their windows
larger than the Norman, and the Decorated still further increased the
size. But both performed their work in such due proportion as to take
away the idea of gloom and add to the beauty. So things went on until
in the middle of the fourteenth century came that terrible pestilence
which, among other and more important things, in some buildings
seems to have broken the orderly and systematic evolution of our
architecture. The old school appears to have died out, and the new were
not always mere copyists or followers who made gradual alterations of
merely minor importance, but alas! sometimes parodists.
Certainly we owe much to men like William of Wykeham; but let us in
our ecclesiastical architecture fix upon the exact year of 1350. Let
us compare in the same building what was finished before this with
what was finished after, and we arrive at this result--evolutionary
development of beauty before, evolutionary development of ugliness
after. Undoubtedly this theory works out at Southwell. The north
porch and west doorway are more beautiful than any earlier Norman;
the Early English choir is more beautiful than these; but the great
glory of Southwell is neither nave nor choir, but the chapter-house
of 1290, while the least beautiful parts are the eastern windows of
the nave aisles of a century later, and worst of all this great west
window of the fifteenth century. Let those whose recollections go
back twenty years add the flattened and debased roofs that everywhere
obtained, and the minster surely points the moral and adorns the tale.
The improvements of men are often more destructive than the hand of
time.[16]
The height of the western towers is 99 feet, and with the modern spires
149 feet; the external base a square of 23 feet. They are divided into
seven stages.
The buttresses, flat and broad, are placed near the angles, and extend
to the height of the parapet--that is to say, to the summit of the
fifth stage, while the different stages are separated by plain string
courses. In the second stage from the ground the west windows are
imitation Norman of quite recent introduction, copied from the original
in the nave aisle and transepts, for the Normans themselves left these
lower stages blank. Formerly Decorated windows of three lights of the
time of Edward III., with double foliated tracery, were inserted, and
that of the southern tower, after various vicissitudes, has found a
home in one of the gardens of the Vicars’ Court. The slits piercing the
wall at different heights near the outer angle are staircase windows.
The fifth stage has an arcade of three round arches on each face; the
centre, which has zigzag mouldings, pierced for lights. It is when we
come to the sixth stage, the first above the base of the roof, that
we notice an interesting difference in the work of the two towers.
Here the Normans artistically began their more elaborate decoration,
so as to finish off their work gracefully. In the northern tower is
an arcading of intersecting round-headed arches, similar to those of
the central tower, and in the interior of the north porch; but in the
southern tower the design differs, for the workmen caused the arches to
stop at the point of intersection, the upper stones being omitted. The
result is, that these arches are not round-headed, but lancet-shaped.
Intentionally or unintentionally, the round Norman dies away into the
pointed Gothic of Early English. Was the pointed arch invented in this
way? This used to be maintained, and there is something to be said in
favour of a theory so ingenious; but the general consensus of opinion
amongst experts is not to extend inferences from this interesting
peculiarity too far. The pointed arch, in its use upon a large scale
for doorways, aisles, windows, and the like, it is now held, was of
independent origin. The ornamentation is continued in the top stage,
where the arcades are similar to those of the fifth, excepting that
the central light is larger and double. The Normans, when they crowned
their towers with spires at all, generally made them correspond in
plan. Thus to the square towers of Southwell they would have added, if
they added anything, pyramidal or square spires, and these would be of
no great height; but we do not know how they finished off here, and are
equally ignorant of any early alterations. Engravings up to the fire
of 1711 (which has to be so frequently mentioned) show spires which
seem too lofty and tapering for Norman work; but no one is satisfied as
to their date. After the fire, similar ones of wood and sheeted lead
took their place. At the beginning of this century the lower part of
the northern tower threatened danger, and the spires, being ignorantly
thought too heavy for safety, were removed, and parapets and corner
pinnacles to match the central tower substituted.
The restoration under the auspices of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners
included the addition of spires 50 feet high, after the pattern of
those removed, and this was accomplished by 1880. There will always be
a difference of opinion as to whether there was any gain, for these
spires do not match the flat summit of the central tower. It is not
only that while all three still possessed the same pattern of summit
that they were cited as amongst the finest specimens of their kind;
but so great an authority as Mr E.A. Freeman, whose knowledge of
architecture extended over Western Europe, was always wont to declare
that the grouping of the three, as he saw them before 1880, was as
nearly as possible perfect. And it is extremely doubtful whether the
new spires resemble the original Norman at all. The straight lines of
the string courses, and the flat buttresses of the towers added to the
clerestory windows, give the peculiar tone and character to the nave,
and assist in marking it off as belonging to that Norman style, more
Continental than English, called Romanesque.[17]
[Illustration: WEST FRONT: (AS IN 1850) THE TOWERS WITHOUT THE SPIRES,
THE SOUTH TOWER SHOWING THE EARLIEST POINTED ARCHES IN THE TOP STAGE
BUT ONE.]
=The Transepts=, or the transept (for the term is sometimes used in
the singular), were intended to carry out the idea of a cross. In such
early buildings as the basilican churches of Rome they are represented
by a space at the east end, and the head of the cross is only an apse.
In course of time arms were extended, especially towards the east, as
in the original Norman choir of Southwell, and the Early English choir
is almost as long as the nave. Still later, the Decorated nave of York
was made of the same length as the choir. At Southwell the dimensions
are 128 feet by about 40, but owing to the chapel on its eastern side,
the north front is not quite equal to the south. With exceptions
comparatively slight, to be mentioned presently, the Norman work has
not been tampered with.
Of the three string courses mentioned in the description of the nave,
the highest and the lowest are here continued, and above them a third,
level with the base of the clerestory; the three together dividing
the different fronts into four stages, which are further relieved by
buttresses reaching up to the corbel tables. The windows of the second
stage are of the usual pattern of the original aisle windows of the
nave. In the third stage they are larger, and the inner arches have
the edge-roll, while the outer have large, rude cable moulding of a
peculiar pattern--“a series of what is called the double cone, arranged
spirally after the fashion of the ordinary cable moulding.” The hood
is of three overhanging rows of a small square-footed nebules. The
transoms and mullions are later and questionable additions. The topmost
stage has the circular windows like those of the clerestory; but in
the north transept there is the cable moulding of the usual pattern,
alternating with a special row of beads instead of the plain rounds or
“large wedding rings.” The gables of the north and south fronts, low
pitched and without windows, are exceedingly singular and striking, the
whole surface being filled in with zigzag and small circles, incised in
the north front and embossed in the south. Altogether these details
display many peculiarities, and one writer describes the general effect
as “almost barbaric.” The bear on the north gable was formerly in the
workshop of one of the builders employed, and from thence found its
way to Upton Hall, two miles away, and elsewhere. It was placed in its
present place on the supposition that it originally occupied the same;
and a modern lion to match now adorns the south gable.
In the south front facing the palace is a doorway of moderate size,
which was restored in 1847. It is original Norman of three orders,
profusely enriched with zigzags, and of the usual pattern, the inner
order continuous, and the two outer arches resting upon detached jamb
shafts, with the zigzag string course running over all as a hood-mould.
There was no corresponding door in the north transept, for that shown
in old engravings, an after-addition, has been filled up. A residence
stood on the site of the palace from the earliest times, and this south
door was intended for the use of the inhabitants. In the east wall of
the south transept two short buttresses, which stop in the third stage,
and the pattern and arrangement of the stones show that a chapel with
an apse has been pulled down; and the former existence of this explains
the absence of windows excepting in the top stage.
[Illustration: _S. B. Bolas & Co., Photo_.
DOORWAY FACING THE PALACE.]
With the transepts we have come to the end of the existing Norman
exterior; and the present is a suitable place to add a few remarks
on the roofs, and on the Norman choir which has been pulled down and
superseded.
In both late Norman and Early English work the roof was generally high
pitched; and the marks on each face of the central tower proved that
the entire roof was elevated to an angle of about forty-five degrees.
In course of time the ends of the beams became decayed, and then in a
degenerate age ensued an unhappy change. In order that the work might
be cheaply done, the rotten ends were sawn off, and the old beams still
used; but, so as to make their now shortened dimensions of sufficient
length, the high pitch had to give way to one much lower. A general
rule may be laid down that whenever a twelfth-century roof has been
lowered the cause and the method were of this nature.
When this was done at Southwell we do not know, but shall probably be
not far out of our reckoning in assuming that the low roof and the
west window, both out of place, were the work of the same designer and
the same time. Thoroton’s “History of Notts” and Hollar’s engravings
in Dugdale’s _Monasticon_ both show the low roof. After the great
fire the restoration was carried out by the ignorant and indifferent
chapter on the same lines; and the material itself was poor and covered
with slate. “The poor church has become,” complained Mr Dimock, “in
comparison with what it once was, mutilated, debased, and earth
clinging; a wretched lifeless monument.” And in endorsing this his
friend Mr E.A. Freeman, in his characteristic _Saturday Review_ style,
added--“A poor parody of its former self,” “the mutilated wreck of
storm and fire, the victim of a base economy which executed essential
repairs at the smallest possible cost, and brutally pulled down what
it was inconvenient to restore.”[18] But these two and others of a
like mind and a like authority were fortunately able to influence that
slowly-moving corporation, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners; and at
length that body resolved to devote part of the corporate revenues
of the dissolved and extinct chapter to a thorough restoration after
the designs of Mr Ewan Christian. In 1879-80 the roofs, excepting the
choir, were restored to their original pitch, and the old material
was cast aside for massive English oak covered with cast-lead. In
this not only was the external roof made after the original pattern,
but, in thus going back to archæological correctness the dignity and
stateliness of Archbishop Thomas the Second’s minster were greatly
enhanced. Looked at, then, from either point of view--that of antiquity
or that of beauty--it is difficult to see how exception can be taken
for leaving out of our estimate the western towers the two combine.
Yet, at the time, the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings
was up in arms, and Mr Christian’s noble conceptions vigorously
opposed. A wordy war of the roofs followed, and it was gravely
contended, although the four faces of the central tower told their own
tale of the pitch of the original roofs, that the taking away of the
flattened floor of 1711 was an act of vandalism. Had this low covering
been constructed on Norman lines, it would have been another matter; Mr
Christian would then have been in a dilemma as to whether archæology or
beauty ought to be satisfied. As things really were, both were on his
side. Fortunately the controversy was useless, and Mr Christian and his
skilled workmen had their way. It is amazing that any highly-cultivated
body of men, students of art in art’s highest phases, should ever have
raised such a storm in a tea-cup; but when we come to the interior of
the choir they will appear in a light even worse.
The foundations show that before the present Early English choir a
Norman choir extended eastwards from the base of the central tower to a
length of 59 feet--that is to say, to less than half of its beautiful
successor. It had north and south aisles of about 40 feet in length,
terminating in apses. In all probability it was of the same date as
the nave and transepts, and not part of the earlier church existing
in the eleventh century, for there are sufficient marks upon the east
side of the central tower to suggest that the triforium and clerestory
corresponded to the nave, in which case they would naturally be of the
same date. The external breadth was the same as now, but the extra
thickness of Norman walls made the internal breadth about a foot
less.[19]
It becomes, then, comparatively easy to picture to ourselves in rough
outline the Norman church of the twelfth century as a whole. Substitute
for the present choir one reaching only some 60 ft. eastwards of the
central tower, with aisles and clerestory similar to the nave, and
terminating with a rectangular eastern wall. Make the aisles terminate
with apses, and add to the east face of either transept a short and
broad apsidal chapel. Next add windows after the patterns of the
transepts and put a high-pitched roof everywhere with overhanging eaves
and no parapets; and we have a general idea. The one difficulty is
how to crown the tower summits. Mr J.H. Parker seemed to think that,
judging by such stone specimens as are still left, wherever in late
Norman there is anything to be called a spire at all, it is of low
proportions, “little more than a pyramidal roof, but becoming gradually
elongated as time advanced, and so leading the way to the gracefully
elevated spire proper of the Early English.” We may then finish off the
three towers with pyramids of four sides and overhanging eaves.
The date of the Norman work can be disposed of in a few words.
Archbishop Thomas the Second wrote his letter to the people of Notts,
asking for contributions for the building of their mother church,
during his episcopate, which began in 1109 and lasted only six years.
This evidence is corroborated by the building itself. The general good
workmanship, the fine pointed masonry, and the Romanesque details
of the exterior synchronise with the archbishop’s letter, as do the
edge-roll flanked by hollows, the more elaborate zigzag and other
mouldings, which could only have been made with a skilfully-used
chisel. From 1110 to 1115 is then the date of commencement, while it is
well not to attempt to decide the duration of the building operations.
Amongst others, the naves of Durham, Norwich, and Rochester are
contemporary.
PART II.--EARLY ENGLISH
=The Choir=.-One of the few good services rendered by King John was
the influence he brought to bear upon the York chapter to elect Walter
de Gray to the long-vacant see. A wave of enthusiasm for the new style
was passing over the land, and Gray encouraged fresh works at York,
Ripon, Southwell, and elsewhere. When the new building was commenced
at Southwell, first of all an Early English addition was made to the
existing Norman choir, and the high altar was removed nearly 70 feet
eastwards. After this had been finished, the Norman choir and choir
aisles were pulled down, and on their site the Early English choir
completed, and, with the exception of the roof, almost exactly as we
now see. The foundations of the eastern part are entirely of local
stone, but on the site of the older choir a quantity of Mansfield
stone is used, which came from the fabric pulled down. This method of
enlargement by degrees was not uncommon. The plan is of eight bays,
not counting a small blank bay at the junction with the transepts. The
choir aisles extend along six of these, and from the fifth a small
transeptal chapel projects on either aisle. The dimensions in feet
are--Length, 128; of aisles, 98; breadth, including aisles, 73; and
including the two transept chapels, 108; breadth of east end, 40.
The material is sandstone. The northern front was afterwards in a
great measure hidden away by the erection of the chapter-house and
vestibule. The walls are less thick than in the Norman work, and
generally this part is less massive, and the roof was loftier. There
used to be a doorway on the south side, apparently for the convenience
of the palace, but this has long since been closed.
=The South Front=.--The base mouldings show the first point of
difference from the Norman work. These mouldings and the continuous
string course below the second or window stage run all round the
eastern part of the building--the early Decorated additions on the
north side equally with the Early English, and are distinguished for
their bold and effective outline, and more particularly for their
deep undercutting. A second point of difference from the Norman, and
more striking, is seen in the buttresses. They have a much greater
projection, and less breadth, although unusually broad for Early
English work, and are square in the lower stage, but chamfered--_i.e._
the edges are shaved off--above. They are finished off with lofty
acute-angled heads or pediments, which have their faces sunken. These
heads rise up above the parapet wall, and are ornamented with that
typical Early English moulding, the so-called _dog-tooth_. Some idea
of it may be gained in the following way:--Take four (or in certain
instances only three) leaves of the common beech, place their stems
together so as to overlap a little, and cause this central point to be
raised somewhat after the fashion of a dwarfed pyramid. The simpler
term of “leaf” moulding would be more suggestive than “dog-tooth.”
The buttresses at the angles, both of the transept chapel and of the
east end of the aisle, are grouped in pairs, one on either front.
These are without the lofty pediment, but terminate in a slope beneath
the cornice. The windows in the bays formed by the buttresses are
single-light lancets and without tracery. Between the two south
transepts--those of the nave and choir--are four bays; the two
central have the windows in pairs, the others singly. The circular
turret-shaped projection at the south-west angle of the choir transept
is a staircase leading to the triforium, which causes the adjacent
window to be smaller. On the other hand, the single window to the west
is larger. These windows are the typical lancets of their period, the
pointed arch appearing as though formed on an acute-angled triangle.
So are those in the transept chapel, and the smaller one in the gable
of the east end of the aisle and the pair beneath it. These are all
deeply set and with chamfered jambs. The outer arches spring from
single shafts, engaged and with the fillet moulding--a small flat
band placed between the rounds, which first came into vogue at this
time--and have bold hood-moulds. The cornice moulding of the aisle is
original, but the parapet above a later substitute for the eave roof.
The displacement of the roof of the transept chapel by lowering to
the flat level of the second stage has caused this to resemble a mere
projection from the adjacent aisle; but the marks on the clerestory
wall show clearly that originally it possessed a high-pitched roof and
lofty gable, and formed a transept to the choir proper, as did the
other on the north side. In consequence, above the aisle the bay of the
clerestory is here blank, while the others have a pair of small lancets
placed a little apart. Here, again, the jamb shafts are engaged, while
the hood-moulds are beautifully enriched with the dog-tooth. Above the
clerestory the parapet is original and extremely fine. It is carried
on a corbel table of grotesque heads, with cornice mouldings enriched
with dog-tooth, as also above the plain face in a deep hollow below the
ridge. The two flying buttresses were added later, as the pinnacles
adorned with crockets show. The licence of 1337 probably points to
their age. There must have been alarm for the stability of the wall and
roof, and these were placed as supports. Formerly the western one had a
water drain emerging from the heavy stonework at the base.
[Illustration: FLYING BUTTRESS AND PINNACLE OF CHOIR.]
=The Chancel=.--By this is meant that part of the choir east of the
aisles. In a minster dedicated to St. Mary we expect to find a Lady
Chapel eastward of the high altar; but there is none here, neither has
there ever been: her altar was elsewhere.[20] This east end extends
two bays beyond the aisles, and is square-fronted like York. It has
been remarked--“The architecture here is in the purest and most refined
Early English style; very reticent of ornament, but with an almost
Greek refinement and delicacy in the design of the buttresses, and the
general composition of the lines; and in general effect, and in the
detail of the buttress-heads, the base course, and other points, is so
similar to the work of the nave and south transept of Lincoln that one
cannot but think some of the same hands were employed on both.”[21]
This may well have been the case, as these parts of Lincoln were
erected between 1203-1253, during the episcopate of William of Blois
and his two successors. All the buttresses, both those which separate
the two easternmost bays and those which stand in the usual pairs at
the angles are of larger dimensions in width and projection than the
others farther west. Otherwise they are similar in character, and have
four string courses between the base and parapet. The pairs at the
corners have massive octagonal pinnacles, shafted at the angles, have
each side finished with a sharp gabled head enriched with dog-tooth,
and at the summit conical cappings with ribs rising to the apex from
the capitals of the angle shafts. The arrangement of the windows is
as follows:--The bays adjoining the aisle have them in pairs, and
the easternmost bays singly; the east front has four--both stages
everywhere the same. The windows on the north and south sides are
similar to those previously described; but the east front calls for
remark. The arrangement of four in each stage is singular; and when in
the same stage all four are of equal height, peculiarly so. In those
rare instances of a series of four the rule is for the central pair
to be higher than the outside ones. In the upper stage are also blank
arches adjoining the buttresses; as is the case with the adjacent
bays. The abaci of these lancets are continued round the buttresses
and walls as string courses, dividing the two stages into upper and
lower parts. The windows, deeply set, have the sides chamfered; and
the finely-moulded triple clustered shafts are filleted. The arches
are enriched with the dog-tooth, and the outer one constitutes a
continuous arcade. In the lower stage, almost the entire width of the
front is occupied: in the upper the windows are less deeply set and in
consequence narrower, but the blank arches completely fill up the whole
available space between the buttresses, and here the lights are of a
greater height; and this heightening and narrowing, so as to add to
the effect, must be pronounced most successful. The windows of the end
bays are similar in pattern; and the chancel, flanked as it is by the
aisles and chapels, in spite of being “very reticent of ornament”--for
there is no tracery--has been commended and admired by every expert and
architect who has seen it.
But as with the west front, so here again with the east we have
to lament that later men have marred what their predecessors have
bequeathed to them. Early English roofs were almost, if not quite,
universally of a steep slope, more so than the Norman; and at Southwell
the marks still left, and particularly on the east front of the central
tower, demonstrate that this was the case. The old lofty roof is gone
and the old lofty gable with it; and above the third stage a dwarfed
window in a dwarfed gable, and a late battlement surmounted by a late
cross is what we now see. What used to be seen at first was this
lofty gable pierced either with yet another tier of lancets or with
a circular light after the manner of the circular windows of York,
Lincoln, and Beverley, the whole surmounted by a lofty cross rising
above the lofty buttress-heads, conspicuous from far and near. We have
only to go to Lincoln (or indeed judge by the restored roof of the
nave) to see what a difference this makes. When was this, “as complete
a mutilation as the headless trunk of some fine ancient statue,”
perpetrated? Some time after the completion of the chapter-house, and
by the same people, or at least in the same spirit, as that which
lowered the roof and pierced the west wall of the nave.
=The North Front=. From the exterior the only parts visible are the end
bay of the aisle and the transept chapel; and this latter is partly
overlapped by the chapter-house. The details are similar to the rest;
but the flying buttress has no pinnacles, and the small window in
the gable of the aisle has a peculiar flattened hood-mould, almost
semicircular. There seems to be no reason for this difference from the
corresponding window on the other side. When standing against the north
front of the chapel, one is almost shut in by the buttresses of the
chapter-house.
The choir illustrates that the striking difference between the Norman
and Early English styles lies not only in the greater massiveness of
the former, and in the pointed lancet arches of the latter, but also
in the greater window space, the chancel alone possessing twenty ample
lights. It has been proved that glass came into use in Early English
times, and this circumstance may explain the development.
The indulgence of Archbishop Walter Gray fixes the date of the
commencement of building at about 1230.
=The North Transept Chapel=.--Before leaving the Early English part
of the exterior, and still taking the building in its chronological
order, this addition to the Norman transept next demands attention.
The only part visible from the exterior is the north front, which
projects slightly from the transept, the east front being hidden by
the vestibule. A peculiarity is that the buttresses, which project in
the first stage as far as those at the east end, have their angles
chamfered in the second stage only. In the third stage the projection
is diminished; and the chamfering of the stage below ends in a point
against the square face. The buttresses to the west originally
terminated, like those of the choir, with a triangular head, ornamented
with the dog-tooth, but when the gable parapet was added a crocketed
gable head was placed above this head and behind it. The eastern
buttress, adjoining the vestibule, ends in a slope beneath the parapet.
The large window in the second stage is a later development, enlarged
to give more light to the chapel within. The shafts are not purely
circular, but what Professor Willis called _keeled--i.e._ with bands or
fillets in the front resembling the keel of a boat; and they support
an arch with a hood-mould over all. The general appearance is somewhat
heavy and inelegant, as the arch seems too large. Mullions divide the
lower part into three lights, and the tracery above is double foliated,
and what is styled _reticulated--i.e._ diamond-shaped or with squares
placed diagonally. This window, with its peculiarities, affords a
hastily-made example of indifferent and late Decorated; but in the
stage above we go back to pure Early English. This is an arcading
of five lancets, of which two are pierced for lights, supported by
circular shafts detached from the wall. The window in the fourth stage
has an arch resembling the segmental pointed; and the filleted shafts
are engaged. The mouldings of the arch are peculiar; they are not
of the same pattern as the adjoining buttress, but more nearly than
anything else resemble a transition from the Norman nail-head to the
Early English dog-tooth. And the tracery and mullions are very late
work, suggesting that alterations were made long after.
This chapel is partly built upon the site of a smaller apse-shaped
Norman one. A buttress of the north aisle of the choir, partly worked
into the south-east angle of the chapel, shows by the cornice moulding
that the choir wall once joined on to the transept; remains of a Norman
arch are still visible in the transept wall. The work as a whole, and
emphatically the central arcading of lancets, are of the date of the
middle of the thirteenth century. There is documentary evidence that in
1249 and 1260 additions were made to the fabric; and to one of these
dates we may safely assign it.
PART III.--EARLY DECORATED OR GEOMETRICAL
The chapter-house and its vestibule are the last additions to the
fabric, and were added after the chapter had been endowed with the
three additional prebends of Eaton, North Leverton, and Beckingham
at the end of the thirteenth century, and increased to its final
complement of sixteen. The thirteen prebendaries (or such of them
as lived in England and were resident) met before in a smaller and
earlier chapter-house on the same site as the existing one. In view of
the increased number and importance of the college, a more spacious
assembly room was felt to be necessary; and, like their brethren of
York, Lichfield, Wells, and elsewhere, they built the present fine
council chamber for the transaction of business.
This part of the minster belongs to that beautiful style of
architecture which some call Early Decorated and others Geometrical.
It is a legitimate development of the Early English, and prevailed,
roughly speaking, during the last thirty years of the thirteenth and
the first fifteen of the succeeding century, gradually verging into the
Decorated proper.[22]
=The Vestibule.=--The only parts of this seen from the exterior are the
north front and so much of the western as extends beyond the chapel:
this projection is of about twenty feet. It is built outwards from the
second bay of the choir aisle. At the north-west corner are a pair of
buttresses the height of the wall, set at right angles to each other,
with square edges and shallow niches at the top, and terminated with
acute gable heads with crockets and finials. They are surmounted at the
back by other gables standing out from the roof. In the western front
is an ogee-shaped window arch, formed of two contrasted curves and
sharp-pointed. Owing to the difficulty of construction, this form is
not usual for large openings, though common enough over tombs, niches,
and small doorways. The solitary window of the north front has the arch
more equilateral and sharp-pointed than those of the chapter-house.
It is much plainer, and is not sufficiently broad to fill up the
entire space. The arch is of two orders, and springs from attached
keeled jamb shafts: the lights trefoiled at the head, and above two
trefoiled circles with one quatrefoiled under the apex. Generally the
greater plainness, as well as the comparative narrowness, of the north
window, suggest that the vestibule is slightly prior in date to the
chapter-house.
=The Chapter-House.=--On the east side of the vestibule, and at its
northern end, this unique adornment was added to the fabric. It is
in front of the third and fourth bays and the transept chapel of the
choir aisle, completing the enclosure of the open court, and is of such
large dimensions as to overlap the projecting chapel, one of the great
buttresses actually touching. At Wells, where the chapter-house is in
a similar position and on a larger scale, this overlapping does not
occur, as the choir is on a relatively larger scale; and it seems a
pity that at Southwell the example of Lincoln was not followed, and the
chapter-house built on to the end of the vestibule as distinct from the
side. There is nothing in the lie of the ground to prevent this; and
the beautiful northern front of the choir would not have been so much
shut out from view. The only reason that can be assigned is that there
was a wish for an enclosed courtyard; and undoubtedly, whether or not
we accept the tradition that it was anciently used as a baptistery, it
was, as we shall see, used for some purpose of importance.
The building is an exact octagon, each side of 17 feet; and five sides
are visible from the exterior. The basement mouldings correspond with
those of the vestibule; but the continued string course immediately
under the windows is higher, as is the blank stage below. The four
corner buttresses which are visible (the fifth is partly hidden)
show distinctly a point of difference between the two styles of
architecture--the Early English and the Early Decorated. They are
divided into stages, as are the Early English, by a string course
from the spring of the window arches; but are at once narrower and of
greater projection than the corner ones at the east end. The edges are
unchamfered; and the buttresses continue with undiminished projection
until they terminate at a point some feet below the parapet. As with
the vestibule, they have shallow niches at the summit, which are
trefoiled at the top under acute-headed gablets. Above the buttresses
proper and at the back, rising through the parapet, are square
pedestals with rounded edges, with faces sunk concavely to make shallow
niches. Like the niches below, these terminate in a trefoil; and the
pedestals are crowned with pinnacles, with most elaborate crockets and
finials. Some of these really resemble bishop’s _crooks_, from which
the name may have been derived, while others show signs of repair not
always in the best taste. At the base of the pinnacles are grotesque
gargoyle-shaped figures projecting from their feet. As these are not
images of saints, they have been spared by iconoclasts; but we have
to lament that destructive and ill-regulated zeal which pulled down
the statues from their niches, for if the same hands that worked
the carving of the interior worked these, the effect must have been
glorious to a degree. The buttresses more than any other part suggest
York: though it still remains unsettled which of the two chapter-houses
is the older. The original parapet has fortunately been spared. Below
is a corbel table of trefoil arches springing from heads with the
triangular spaces between also trefoiled: next, the hollow cornice
moulding with a late variety of the dog-tooth: next, a broad plain
face, and over all a series of open quatrefoils. Six of the octagon
sides have windows, of which five are visible from the exterior. These
occupy the entire breadth from buttress to buttress; and it is doubtful
whether anything is gained by this. The arrangement at the east end,
where a small blank space is allowed on either side, certainly produces
a better effect; and this enlargement of the Decorated style does not
cause it to compare favourably with its predecessor, so far as this
particular point is concerned. The arches are of three orders; the
shafts attached and keeled with mouldings of rounds and hollows.
The windows are of three lights, trefoiled in the heads, with two
trefoiled circles above, and a quatrefoil above these under the apex of
the arch, very much the same as with the north window of the vestibule.
The cusping is largely pierced and springs from the soffit only, not
from the sloping sides of the tracery as in later work of the kind;
and the mullions have a small shaft in front with base and capital,
and with chamfered sides. By comparing these windows with those of the
choir the difference of style is brought out still more prominently
than by the buttresses or parapets. The roof has been restored to its
old lofty pitch; and all whose memories go back to the old flattened
one, prior to 1881, will unanimously concur in approval. When the
statues were in their places the effect must have been considerably
enhanced; as it is, the exterior scarcely prepares us for the
culminating glories within.
The document of the date 1294 speaks somewhat vaguely of “the new
chapter-house” as either contemplated or building or completed; and
this date agrees with the architecture.
=The Open Court.=--The boundaries are the chapter-house, the small
transept chapel of the choir, the third and fourth bays of the choir
aisle, and the vestibule. The peculiar way in which one of the
buttresses of the chapter-house abuts against the chapel so as to
complete the enclosure is again noticeable, while those parts of the
choir visible from here and from nowhere else suggest regrets that so
fine a specimen of pure Early English was ever hidden away. A doorway,
now blocked up, with a low segmental arch of wedge-shaped stones or
_voussoirs_, at first formed part of the choir aisle. The holy well
was closed up in 1764, after a member of the Fowler family had lost
his life by falling in. It was this well that probably suggested the
tradition of a baptistery standing here.
The north front as seen standing by the Prebends’ Walk or in the
adjoining street affords the most picturesque view of the minster,
broken, as it is, by the north porch, the Norman transept, and the
chapter-house. We have here every kind of architecture from the stern
and comparatively rude late Norman to the elaborate and finished
Early Decorated--one hundred and eighty years of steady progress and
evolution--and this seeming want of unity constitutes an artistic
harmony. But, looking at the south-east front from the more distant
point of view of the parks, it becomes evident that the restoration
is not yet complete, and that the heightening of the nave roof has
rendered the corresponding heightening of the choir roof urgent and
indispensable.
[Illustration: CLERESTORY WINDOW IN NAVE TRANSEPT.]
CHAPTER III
THE INTERIOR
PART I.--NORMAN
=The Nave.=--“Internally the nave at Southwell is a grand specimen of
Norman architecture.” Such is an authoritative criticism passed upon
it; and the massiveness and solidity of the structure is immediately
impressed upon the mind, while the thickness and shortness of the
pillars and the width of the arches further convey the idea of lowness.
And yet this general sternness, not to say gloom, is not what it was
before the windows, and notably the west one, were enlarged. We have
to imagine Norman windows throughout, and without glazing, in order
to picture to ourselves the nave in the days of our rude forefathers.
And as we look round upon the vast quantities of material required in
the construction of the interior, we cannot but wonder at the toil and
industry required to convey all these great blocks of limestone along
the rough paths of Sherwood Forest, and place them in position.
The dimensions already given have, of course, been those of the
exterior; but owing to the thickness of the walls, and notably of the
west front, a sensible diminution has to be made to arrive at the
internal measurements. The length to the inside of the lower arch is
136 feet, and looking through the arch and across the transept to the
rood screen 168 feet. The breadth is 63 feet, and, to give an idea
of the massiveness of the pillars at the base, the width between two
opposite pillars is only some 28 feet, and that of each aisle inside
the pillars is but 12 feet. The aisles extend the entire length, and
are separated from the body by seven pillars on either side, forming
eight bays: the width between two adjacent pillars being about 13 feet
2 inches.[23] The elevation of the walls presents the usual three
stages of nave arcade, triforium, and clerestory in large buildings of
the periods, differing from the later choir. The whitewash on the walls
and the plaster work which formerly filled up the triforium arches were
both removed some years before the more recent restoration was taken
in hand. With the exception of the windows already mentioned and of
the roof and flooring the interior is pure Norman, unchanged since the
first completion; and the Romanesque details noticeable in the exterior
are wanting. There is a small quantity of ornament, particularly in the
different mouldings, to relieve the heaviness of the structure; but
simplicity and massive grandeur, as distinct from grace and elegance,
are what the Normans aimed at; and it is so here.
Formerly the west window, in some of its seven lights, and other
windows of the nave contained coats of arms, of which the church
throughout possessed so many Specimens. Unfortunately these heraldic
emblems fell under the ban of the Roundheads during the Civil War
and the Commonwealth; a few, however, are still preserved in the
chapter-house.
[Illustration: NAVE, SHOWING THREE STAGES IN THE INTERIOR.]
[Illustration: _S. B. Bolas & Co., Photo._
INTERIOR OF NAVE, LOOKING EAST.]
=The Nave Arcade.=--The round pillars are about sixteen feet
in circumference, and only nine in height between base and
capital--_i.e._ the height of the actual circular part is less than
twice the diameter. They have plain square bases; and the round
capitals, of no great projection, have mouldings different in the
different pillars, in their way as interesting a piece of detail as
any in the minster. The first on the south side, reckoning from the
west, and the last on the north have the cable, and others the lozenge,
nebule, and hatchet. But most remarkable is the fifth on the south side
with a series of four--the beaded cable, lotus leaf, triple nebule, and
lozenge. This last seems almost too elaborate for the date, and rather
suggests a decoration of later times. The arches are of two orders of
voussoir-shaped stones: the moulding of the inferior is a square keel
set diamond-wise between two edge-rolls, and of the superior a plain
soffit with a smaller edge-roll flanked with a filleted hollow. Above
the two orders the hood is of a double round billet. Immediately above
the arches the string course separating the two lower stages has the
hatch both on the sides and beneath.
[Illustration: PILLAR IN NAVE.]
=The Triforium.=--The series of arches in the second stage open on
to galleries the complete width of the aisles beneath, and resting
upon their vaulting. Above the round pillars of the nave arcade, and
supported by them, are other pillars, massive and rectangular, and
attached to these two semi-cylindrical shafts with scalloped cushion
capitals. From these shafts spring the two orders of the arch, of the
same span as those of the nave arcade beneath, but of less height and
with similar mouldings. The moulding of the hood above is composed of
three overhanging rows of the square-footed nebule. There is here a
curious circumstance, the meaning of which everyone asks, and which
is deserving of mention. Both from the crown of the arches, and from
the abaci of the capitals of the inferior shafts large stones project.
It would seem that the Norman builders thought these arches too large
to remain without further ornament, and began to place two smaller
arches within each, with an upright continued from the supporting shaft
to the crown of the arch above. This is the case in the triforium of
Romsey Abbey; but either a change of builders or a change of mind took
place at Southwell to prevent the carrying out of this intention. Mr
Christian took the trouble to fill in one of the arches after the
Romsey pattern to judge of the effect.
=The Clerestory=.--The walls of the topmost stage are blank
and uninteresting. The arches of one order only spring from
semi-cylindrical shafts; and shafts and arches are quite plain. They
were considered too remote to be worthy of the ornamentation bestowed
on the lower stages. The circular windows, not seen from below, are so
small and in such deep recesses, as partially to defeat their object of
giving additional light to the body of the building. Between the arches
and the windows a passage constructed in the thickness of the wall runs
round the whole Norman building, nave and transepts alike.
[Illustration: _S. B. Bolas & Co., Photo._
NAVE, NORTH SIDE OF ARCADE, SHOWING PART OF THE TRIFORIUM.]
=The Nave Aisles=.--These, the full length of the nave, are plain and
without the arcading often to be found in Norman churches of this size:
a bench table runs along the foot. Beneath the windows is a string
course chamfered underneath. The solitary window of the whole thirteen
left in its original state--that nearest to the north-west tower--has
the side shafts extensively splayed; the nave arch has a continuous
edge-roll flanked by a filleted hollow, and the sill is worked in
steps ascending to the actual opening. To restore the building to its
original state we have to imagine the remaining twelve windows similar
to this.
The Perpendicular windows are as poor inside as out; but when, as at
the first, the side shafts were ornamented with colouring, they may
have presented a more favourable appearance. All the glass is modern.
Very different in character to the windows are the roof or ceiling
of both aisles underneath the triforium galleries; for here we have
quadripartite vaulting with groined ribs, as fine as any in England.
The ribs spring in the outside from corbels beneath the windows,
and in the inside from the abaci of the capitals of the nave pillars.
Generally they intersect at the keystone without ornament; but here and
there a simple and by no means prominent boss is formed; and underneath
the north-west tower the keystone, by a further development, has a
grotesque double head. The mouldings are a double diamond-shaped
keel between edge-rolls. During the earlier period of the Norman
style the groins were left perfectly plain; and it was not until some
considerable advance had been made that they were constructed with
ribs; and, again, these ribs at first were mere flat bands without
mouldings, so that the aisle roofs show late and complete work.
In the wall of the bay immediately west of the north porch is a
sepulchral recess with Norman arch and late Early English shafts and
mouldings. It contains a slab of Purbeck marble with a raised cross,
which in Rastall Dickinson’s work is placed under the north-west tower;
but is now doubtless in its proper place. When the whitewash was
removed, it was ascertained that the vaulting of this bay alone had
been ornamented with painting. Here lie the remains of some unknown
and unrecorded dignitary of the church, probably a prebendary; and the
painting would seem to show that the bay was fitted up as a chantry
chapel, for masses to be said for the repose of his departed soul.
It is likely that the second bay from the east on the south side was
also used for a similar purpose, as some remains of a sculpture of the
Virgin and lily are still to be traced. The bays of the north aisle
west of the north porch contain no less than seven sepulchral slabs
with incised crosses of the patterns of the twelfth and two succeeding
centuries. These, more or less mutilated, have been gathered from
various parts of the building, and worked into the pavement. One of
these, besides the cross with arms ending in trefoils, has a chalice
tipped as the celebrant would tip in order to partake--the sign of a
priest’s monument. The others do not call for comment, nor does that of
a choir boy in the opposite aisle near the font. The stone font, which
possesses no features of interest, was presented after the restoration
by a resident of Easthorpe named Ballard. By standing at the west end
of either aisle and looking due east a fine view is obtained across the
transepts the full length of the choir aisles, and a second from the
south aisle of the transept chapel.
[Illustration: SOUTH AISLE OF NAVE.]
=The Roof.=--In former days it was justly written: “Grand and striking
as the interior of the nave is, still it is sadly disfigured by the
present flat ceiling.” This charge can no longer be brought; but it
still remains an open question what the original roof of the interior
really was. Professor Freeman remarked of the former ceiling, and
he was as likely to be accurate as any one: “That these ceilings,
however ‘broad and simple in design,’ dwarf the church, and have no
intrinsic beauty to recommend them is certain; and it is equally
beyond a doubt that the interior will gain greatly in dignity by their
removal. But a ceiling either perfectly, as at S. Albans, and the
transepts of Peterborough, or slightly coved, as in the nave of that
cathedral, was the normal covering of the wider spaces of our great
Norman churches; and, if the desire of the architect is to reproduce
the church in its original form, _a ceiling on the old lines_, but of
better workmanship would have been more in accordance with the design
of the first builders.” These remarks apply, it must be remembered,
to the interior ceiling as distinct from the exterior roof; and
whether they are correct or no, the restoration, of which so much was
written, has resulted in a compromise or _via media_: something more
than a ceiling on the old lines, something less than an open roof. Mr
Christian’s work of good oak is barrel-shaped, and somewhat higher than
any Norman ceiling is likely to have been. Whatever fault may be found
with its historical appropriateness as a true and faithful copy of the
original Norman work, there is no doubt that it is a great improvement
artistically on anything we know of before. And it is this in spite of
the disfiguring tie or cross beams found necessary for support.[24]
=The Central Tower=.--Slightly altering the order, this is placed
after the nave, and not before, as in treating of the exterior. By
the removal of the flat ceiling the ringers no longer have a floor to
themselves; and the interior is thrown open as a lantern, excepting
the stages containing the bells and the clock. The base is about 20
feet square. The tower is supported by four massive square pillars,
the most massive in the whole of the interior, with responds attached
for the support of the arches. Owing to their greater size, those of
the western or nave arch project considerably beyond the nave pillars.
For the same reason the eastern pillars do not project so far into
the transepts as those of the western arch; and in consequence the
centres of the north and south arches are not quite in line with the
transepts, and at the same time the transept arches have the greater
span. The arches are of three orders: the east and west spring from the
attached semi-cylindrical shafts; but those to the north and south are
different. Instead of the three more slender shafts, one only, and of
the diameter of the pillars of the nave arcade, like the rest attached
and semi-cylindrical, carries the three orders. One of the mouldings of
the central order of the arches is worthy of mention: it is a cable of
that peculiar form where each fold bulges out from almost a point until
at the centre it becomes a large keeled round, somewhat like, but more
elaborate than, the cable mouldings of the exterior of the transepts.
This is used on both sides of the western arch, and on the transept
side of the eastern; but not on the choir side, for, according to a
common practice, here the ornamentation is less elaborate, and not, as
we should have expected, more so.
In each of the two stages above these great arches, and on all the
four sides of the interior of the tower, are two other arches. These
upper stages, which, looked at from outside the building, are more
richly ornamented than the lowest stage, are simpler in the interior.
In most Norman central towers belonging to the larger churches, we may
remark that the richer work externally corresponds with the plainer
internally, and _vice versa_. These pairs of arches open into galleries
which run all round the tower; and on their outer side are other arches
which in the lower stage correspond and open into the four arms of the
church. In the upper stage are windows opening into the open air, and,
since the removal of the ceiling, giving light to the interior. The two
arcades surmounting the great arches, rising one above the other, with
the light streaming down from the small windows, seen from the outside,
produce a really fine effect, and if only the bells could be removed
to one of the western towers, and the ringers’ gallery removed, this
effect would be enhanced.
The absence of ornamentation in the capitals of the Norman pillars is
continued throughout, with the exception of the eastern arch opening
into the choir. Here, however, are rude attempts at sculpture, wholly
or partially hidden by the organ. Of these some still defy all efforts
to explain what they were intended to represent; and this is not to
be wondered at, seeing that Mr A.J. Loughton of Southwell, who took
photographs when the organ was taken down, describes them as “mere
scratches, if anything, looking better in the photographs than in
the original.” On the northern pillar are, amongst others, the Last
Supper, the Adoration of the Magi, and what is perhaps intended as the
procession to Calvary; while those on the southern pillar include the
Washing of the Disciples’ Feet, the Triumphal Entry, and a varied
group of ornamentation.
[Illustration: _S. B. Bolas & Co., Photo._
NORMAN ARCH OF CENTRAL TOWER, WITH CABLE MOULDING.]
[Illustration: _Loughton, Southwell, Photo._
CAPITALS OF NORMAN PILLARS TO EASTERN ARCH OF TOWER.]
=The Transepts=.--The north and south transepts are with few exceptions
similar to one another, and are best taken together. They retain their
Norman features intact still more than the nave. From the tower arches
either transept extends 43 feet, and is 28 feet broad, and is three
bays in length, two in breadth, and of a height of three stages. The
windows in the lowest stage looking west are more enriched than the
one remaining Norman window in the nave aisles, although externally
similar, as they have an additional order with the edge-roll, springing
from detached shafts. The extra thickness of the walls accounts for
this. Above these in the next stage the window arches spring from
attached semi-cylindrical shafts, and have a cable moulding underneath
a hood of the triple nebule. The windows at the north and south ends
are similar in the lowest stage, with this exception, that in the
south transept the more western one is dwarfed to allow room for the
door leading to the palace. In the second stage they have a rere arch
with the edge-roll, a second order with the cable, resting on detached
shafts, and the hood with the triple nebule. Here, as elsewhere, the
bold cable moulding is exceedingly fine. The plain shafts and arches
of the windows of the third stage nowhere call for comment. Over the
two windows of the first stage at the ends a pair of arches span the
whole breadth, and project two feet. These spring from corbels at the
sides, and from a cylindrical shaft which passes between the windows to
the pavement. The cable moulding of the arches is twisted in opposite
directions. The object of these projections is to support a gallery;
and this gallery, like that in the third stage, is continued in the
thickness of the wall along the sides. The four archways opening into
the nave and choir aisles are without moulding or ornament, save a
plain string, and hood of the double billet; and above these are other
arches in the second stage, less lofty and without the hood, opening
into the triforium galleries. This stage in the two outward bays of the
east side has an arcading of three arches.
Formerly Norman chapels opened from either transept on the east side.
On the north side the larger Early English chapel, to be noticed in due
course, has superseded its Norman predecessor; on the south the east
wall still shows signs of the arch of communication, now blocked up.
It was of two orders--the inner of a double row of cable, and the outer
of the zigzag. There are also signs of a window on a smaller scale but
similar to those in the first stage adjacent, but this has been blocked
up; and this side now presents the peculiar appearance of a large wall
space unrelieved by windows. In the north transept a doorway with a
semicircular arch ornamented with the double billet, judging from
the masonry an after insertion, is situated between the choir aisle
and chapel, and leads to a long narrow room, of which the use is not
apparent.
Over the door in the north transept leading to the belfry is a curious
piece of sculpture about three feet in length, and half as much in
width, forming a tympanum. When Bishop Warburton and his friend Allen
visited Southwell, it particularly attracted their attention, and
they bestowed great pains, but without success, to interpret it. In
the centre an angel is subduing a figure on the right resembling an
impossible bird. On the left a man, but with the head wanting, is also
engaged in subduing what appears to be a lion or a leopard with a
smaller animal represented above, its forefeet resting on the larger
one’s head. Dickinson, taking the smaller figure as a lamb, ingeniously
deciphered it, “Under the protection of the lamb, Daniel was able to
overcome the lion, and Michael the devil.” A second interpretation
substitutes David rescuing the lamb from the lion; and a third renders
it, “Thou shall go upon the lion and adder; the young lion and the
dragon shalt thou tread under thy feet.” Whether or not any of these
was intended, we have the oldest piece of sculpture in the building,
almost as old as anything in the Midlands. Not only does the character
of the workmanship show this, and the way in which it is fitted into
the wall; but when the transept was built and the doorway inserted,
the man’s head was evidently cut away to adapt it to its new position.
Before this it must have served as a tympanum in the earlier building
of the time of the Confessor.
Archbishop Sandys himself will be mentioned in his proper place, but
his tomb at the north-east angle requires notice as the only fine one
in the church. Originally placed, as was right, inside the sacrarium
on the north side, and afterwards removed to the transept chapel of
the north choir aisle, at length it has found another resting-place
in its present position. It is a large alabaster monument, with the
recumbent figure of the prelate above, his robes of long chasuble
with rochet, chimere, and tippet, his hands folded in prayer. A Latin
inscription runs round the top, setting forth the three sees of
Worcester, London, and York, over which he had ruled, and the length of
his successive episcopates. In the front are kneeling figures of his
wife and children, together with his coat of arms, and an inscription
enumerating his virtues.
In the south transept are two tablets on the eastern wall which call
for notice. The first, dated 1750, is an interesting specimen of its
time of marble and painted. The subject of this effigy, a son of Sir
William Cook of Wheatley, near Doncaster, had been chaplain to one of
the archbishops (probably to Launcelot Blackburne), and died prebendary
of York, of Ripon, of Southwell, as well as rector of Stokesley, all
these preferments having been received from the archbishop of the
day, an instance of how recklessly, until checked by the Pluralities
Act, a number of posts were lavished upon the same individual in the
eighteenth century, as well as in the fifteenth. There was no need for
Cook, so long as he found a substitute to take his term of residence,
or made other arrangements with the easy-going chapter, ever to have
been at Southwell in his life. The second is that of John Thomas
Becher, vicar-general and senior prebendary, the friend and counsellor
of Byron’s earlier and happier days.
At the south end of the transepts by the door leading to the palace
the judges presided over those civil cases in which the ministers or
tenants of property of the church were concerned. When a criminal
charge was preferred against any of the clergy, here too the court was
held; when against a layman, in one of the prebendaries’ houses. In
this way, at the summer assizes of 1475, four of the vicars-choral and
three of the chantry priests were indicted for felony.[25]