The central west front and the font belong to Remigius' period.
The three west portals and Norman portion of the west tower above the
screen to the third story are 1148.
The nave, its aisles, and north and south chapels of the west end were
finished in 1220.
The Early English work of the west front and the upper portions of the
north and south wings with the pinnacle turrets date from 1225.
The west porch of the main transept is 1220.
The lower courses of the central tower date from 1235, while the upper
ones originated in 1307.
The gables, the upper parts of the main transept, the parapets of the
south side of the nave, the south wing, the west front, and the screen
in the south aisle take us back again to the year 1225. The subsequent
additions are:
The west door of the choir aisles in 1240; the south porch of the
presbytery in 1256; the choir screens in 1280, and ten years later the
Easter Sepulchre. The fine circular window at the end of the north
transept, and especially the ones in the south transept, attract
considerable attention. They are called respectively "The Dean's Eye"
and "The Bishop's Eye," and are supposed to belong to the year 1350.
Perhaps they are better known as the rose windows, which were more
popular in France than in England. They exhibit a network of interlacing
stems in imitation of the freedom of the briar-rose, and show the
advanced skill of the workmen upon the plate-tracery they formerly put
up as a masterpiece in the close vicinity of the rose windows.
For purposes of fortification, if necessary, Remigius chose the summit
of the hill close to the Castle as the site. The Cathedral, dedicated to
the Virgin Mary, thus, from its commanding station, forms a magnificent
object seen from many miles around, and in the days of pilgrimage must
have held out a welcome beacon of hope to the weary pilgrims.
Of the many famous prelates of this see must be mentioned Remigius,
Bloet, St. Hugh, and Fleming, who died in 1431. The latter was the
founder of Lincoln College at Oxford. Just at the back of this college
is situated the well-known college of Brazennose, the foundation of
another Lincoln Bishop, namely Smith, who died in 1521.
Again, Polydore Vergil, W. Paley, Cartwright the inventor of the power
loom, and O. Manning the celebrated topographer are some of the many
capitular members of whom Lincoln may well be proud.
Another attraction that Lincoln possesses in its vicinity is the
race-course just beyond Newland.
For the early history of Lincoln we must go as far back as the Saxon
days. After the departure of the Romans, Lincoln was the chief city of
the district. It was the capital of the kingdom of Mercia, as it now is
of the county of Lincolnshire.
Besides being described like other cities as being locally in the county
of Lincoln, it is said to be in the wapentake. This is a departure from
the "hundred" only in name, not in purpose. In the northern counties of
England the wapentakes denoted the usual divisions answering to the
hundreds of other counties. The origin of the wapentake is woepenge-toc,
woepentac, from the Icelandic vapnatak. It literally means a
weapon-taking or weapon-touching, and became an expression of assent. It
was anciently invariably the custom to touch lances or spears when the
hundreder, or chief, entered in his office. Tacitus, in the "Germania,"
gives a full description of this interesting rite.
In the Low Countries words very similar appear as the names of streets.
At Bruges, in Belgium, there is the "Wapen-makers Straat," which means
nothing more or less than that in that street was originally carried on
an industry of warlike implements made by "weapon-makers."
In this wise Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, and Nottinghamshire were divided
into wapentakes instead of "hundreds."
Another peculiar distinction of this city was its former government by a
portreve. The term is now obsolete, but in the old English law it
denoted the chief magistrate of a port or maritime town. In its old form
it was written "portgerefa," a combined word meaning port, a harbour,
and "gerefa," a reeve or sheriff. In the third year of the reign of
George I. the city, with a district of twenty miles round it, was
erected into a county, under the designation of "The City and County of
the City of Lincoln." It was also entered as a maritime county. The
extreme flatness of the Lincolnshire coast, with the slow sluggishness
of the lower part of the course of the rivers, caused, in remote ages,
the inundation of a great tract of land. The feasibility of reclaiming
some portion of these fens received the attention of the Romans. They
constructed the large drain called the car-dyke, signifying the
fen-dyke, carrying it from the river Witham, near Lincoln, to the river
Welland on the southern side of the county, with the object of draining
the waters from the high grounds and of preventing the inundation of
the low grounds. This policy was adopted in subsequent reigns with great
success, and is even to this day continued. It has been the means of
bringing rich tracts of land into cultivation, and of dispelling the
unhealthy miasma which once caused the great prevalency of the ague
fever. From fragments of vessels found near its channel it is affirmed
that large ships of bygone days could formerly sail up the river Witham
from Boston to Lincoln, but now it is only navigable for barges.
[Illustration: LINCOLN