XK AY ._. \ \ \ \\ \ RAY AY YY \\\ \\ A \\ \ \ AYN \“"“" \ ~ Le BY ee OW AASA/ EIS sI or OND WITH ILLVSTRATIONS BY Mohs} og orgy Oe ra od _— CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY THE BROWN-PENNELL COLLECTION GIFT OF RALPH M. BROWN, '01 IN MEMORY OF HIS MOTHER ANNA MELIUS BROWN 1941 Cornell University Library NA 5461.V27 1893 4 :Canterbury, Peterbor “Wii 741 6B sin.over ENGLISH CATHEDRALS Tee \ Mi) i kK |, Pa \ il | Wit dee hae hi Titi | ST. PAUL’S, FROM CHEAPSIDE. ENGLISH CATHEDRALS CANTERBURY . PETERBOROUGH DURHAM SALISBURY - LICHFIELD - LINCOLN: ELY:- WELLS WINCHESTER - GLOUCESTER: YORK LONDON BY Mrs. SCHUYLER VAN RENSSELAER AUTHOR OF ‘‘' HENRY HOBSON RICHARDSON AND HIS WORKS" ‘‘SIX PORTRAITS” ETC. ILLUSTRATED WITH ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FOUR DRAWINGS BY JOSEPH PENNELL ALSO WITH PLANS AND DIAGRAMS “All which may be more clearly and pleasantly seen by the eves than taught in writing ; but this much was said that the differ- ence between the old and new work might be made manifest.” Gervase : On the Burning and Repair of the Church of Canterbury. Decond Edicion, Revised and Corrected. NEW YORK: THE CENTURY CO. 1893 ; $$ tc S165, spe aa, G COPYRIGHT, 1887,'1888, 1889, 18 90, 1892, By THE CENTURY Co. THE DE VINNE PRESS. TO THE MEMORY OF MY FATHER GEORGE GRISWOLD IN WHOSE COMPANY I FIRST SAW THE BUILDINGS OF THE OLD WORLD INTRODUCTION SOME years ago | was asked to write descriptions of twelve of the English cathedrals for “The Century Magazine,” and was promised the invaluable help of Mr. Pennell’s drawings. A summer in Eng- land was the immediate result, and the final result is this book, the text of which, although not much extended, has been largely re- written since the chapters severally appeared in the magazine. This revision, forced upon my conscience by a wider acquaintance with French architecture than I previously possessed, has, I believe, made the critical passages more instructive, and increased the trustworthi- ness of my estimate of English mediaeval architecture as a whole. France—as I always knew, but never thoroughly realized until I traveled through all its provinces three years ago—held the cradle of Gothic art, and nursed it to its fullest stature and noblest strength; and no account of the Gothic styles of any other land can be clear or just which does not constantly keep in the reader’s mind French aims, expedients, and achievements. An amateur myself, I need hardly confess that this is a book for amateurs, not for architects. It is for those who love, rather than for those who want to study, architecture. Yet I have tried to make it a book such as architects would be willing to put into the hands of ignorance. That is, while dealing only with those broad, obvious, and chiefly esthetic aspects of the art which can be made plain to any eye, however unversed in structural science, I have tried to show, keeping as far as possible from technical language, that, in archi- tecture, the zesthetic is based upon the practical ideal; that we cannot appraise the one without understanding the character of the other, at least in a rudimentary way; that we cannot ask What? in pres- 1x x Introduction. ence of any architectural feature or general effect without also ask- ing Why?, and that, if an effect or feature is to please a cultivated taste, it must give a good account of itself to a reasoning mind. We have had many books about English medizval architecture written for professed students, many handbooks concerned simply with local matters of fact, and many charming accounts of the impression which beautiful buildings made upon eyes that did not stop to analyze either their architectural peculiarities or their historical affinities. I have tried to do something a little different. My book is meant for the untraveled unprofessional American who wants to understand in a general way why the great churches of the Old Country deserve to be admired, and for his traveled brother who wants to realize a little better why he himself admired them. It is not a history of English architecture, and it is not a full and faithful picture of the churches it professes to describe. It is simply a sketch of English cathedral-building, based upon such evidence as twelve typical ex- amples could supply. But I have tried to make it an architectural rather than a pictorial sketch; and I hope it may awaken, in the audience to which I appeal, the feeling that architecture is extremely interesting, not only as a record of changing esthetic moods, but also as one of the truest records of the general development of human intelligence, and of the general course of national and inter- national history. It was not an easy task to select the twelve cathedrals which would best enable me to make plain the story that I wished to sketch. It is true that no marked provincial manners of building complicated the question in England as they would have done in France, where, in passing from district to district, architectural history must be studied afresh from the beginning. Yet the English cathedrals pre- sent varied pictures when they are contrasted with each other, and also when the different parts of one are compared among themselves. During the long medieval period, partial rebuilding was practised in England much more constantly than in other lands. No English cathedral remains intact as built by any single generation of men L[ntroduction. xi except the Renaissance cathedral of St. Paul in London. No other is throughout in the same style; many of them show major parts of the most striking dissimilarity; and there are some which it is impossible to credit chiefly to any special epoch. Thus I could not simply take up one church after another, and use each to illus- trate a certain phase of medizval art. Sometimes, as with Salisbury, I could find one which, in almost all its parts, represents such a phase. But even the witness of Salisbury had to be collated with that of other Lancet-Pointed structures; and sometimes one or two conspicuous parts of a cathedral, rather than its aspect as a whole, dictated its selection. This means, of course, that I have always been forced to describe a style by speaking first of a portion of one church and then of a portion of another, and usually to describe a church by touching upon several styles. This was the only method by means of which I could trace the thread of English architectural history from its beginning in the hands of the Normans to its end- ing in the hands of Sir Christopher Wren. And therefore, in spite of their nominally independent character, my chapters are not well- rounded monographs. None of them will seem quite clear unless the preceding ones have been read, and some of them will seem very incomplete indeed until later ones assist their words. More- over, in writing for the magazine, it was needful to keep my chapters of about equal length; thus, all desirable explanations could not be given at the first desirable moment; and, in revising the book, I found I could not alter the original arrangement without making quite a different book. Another question increased the difficulty of my first choice. Had I thought only of the stones of England’s cathedrals, and not at all of their written records, I could not even have hinted at the whole of their significance. Architectural interest preponderates upon one cathedral site, historical interest on another; and both had to be weighed together before my selection could be made. The cathe- drals of Canterbury, Peterborough, and Durham, Salisbury and Lich- field, Lincoln, Ely, and Wells, Winchester, Gloucester, York, and London, xii Introduction. were chosen partly because of their typical importance as buildings, and partly because of the length and richness of their lives as cathe- dral buildings. Yet this list includes almost all the English cathedrals of highest architectural rank. St. Albans, Norwich, and Exeter are the others which most loudly cried for mention. But St. Albans has no cathe- dral record at all—it was raised to cathedral dignity only a few years ago; and Norwich, architecturally, is close akin to Peterborough and Ely, neither of which could possibly be left out; so it is only Exeter Cathedral whose voice sounds very reproachfully in my ears. This, I confess, found no place simply because the available places were only twelve. But I hasten to add that my decision to exclude Exeter rather than any of the present twelve was approved by so competent a judge as Professor Freeman. As he said that a better list of twelve cathedrals than ours could not be compiled, I hope my readers will be content with the road I have taken to sketch for them the development of English architecture and the importance of English cathedral establishments. A word now as to the meaning of the word cathedral, which may not be perfectly plain to all American ears. This term is not a synonym for a church of the first architectural importance, or for the most important church in an important town. Architecture has really nothing to do with it, nor have municipal con- ditions; and it is an adjective etymologically, a noun only by virtue of long usage. A cathedral church is a church, large or small, old or jew, which holds a bishop’s chair,—his cathedra,—and is thus the ecclesiastical centre of a diocese. With the setting up of this chair the title comes, with its removal the title goes; there is no other cause or definition of it. Of course men always felt that architectural splendor should ex- press and enhance ecclesiastical rank; yet the mere abbey or colle- giate church often equaled the cathedral church in all except dignity of name and service. Sometimes such a church was raised to cathe- dral rank at a day long subsequent to its erection. Sometimes ii L[utroduction. Xili was shattered into fragments by that hammer, called “Reform,” with which the sixteenth century warred against monasticism. And some- times it has remained intact to our own day as a non-episcopal, non-monastic temple. Among the churches of this last-named class a few are architec- turally the peers of the cathedrals; and one of them— Westminster Abbey—is perhaps the finest church in all England. But a cathe- dral has an historical significance which even Westminster lacks; or, more truly, the historical significance of Westminster is different from that of the cathedrals. And I am the more content to have had my examples confined to the cathedrals as the design of Westminster is semi-French, not typically English. If, as I hope, this book gives some readers their first knowledge of medizval architecture, they may wish to know how such know- ledge can best be increased. I am sorry to say that no architec- tural history which has been written in English seems to me broad and fair enough in its point of view—impartially international enough —for the right instruction of transatlantic students. An inspirit- ing account of Norman architecture may be found in Vol. V of Freeman’s “History of the Norman Conquest”; and such a general history as we desire might well have been written by Freeman in his later years. But the one that he did write dates from his under- graduate years, when he had never been out of his own country; and while it has great interest for those who can test and appraise its statements, it is valuable to the beginner chiefly as laying stress upon the historically interpretative character of architectural develop- ments. The most popular of all general histories, Fergusson’s, is precious for its pictures; but its text is often as eccentric in judg- ment as misleading with regard to matters of fact. Liibke’s “His- tory,” too, is neither rightly philosophical in mood nor always reliable in statement. And as it is with general histories of architecture, so it is with treatises on medizval architecture, and so it is with treatises on English architecture. In short, I know of only one book in the English language which to xiv Introduction. me seems really good for beginners’ use. This is an American book —Charles H. Moore’s “Development and Characteristics of Gothic Architecture.” We may object to the narrow significance which Mr. Moore constantly gives to the term “Gothic,” feeling that he might better have used, instead, some term like “the best Gothic” or ‘complete Gothic.” But, nevertheless, his volume is a wonderfully good brief exposition of the fundamental characteristics of the medizval styles; and almost all that it tells us of their comparative excellence in different lands is true. If a reader has mastered this book, and especially if he has also made acquaintance with the principal articles in Viollet-le-Duc’s great “ Dictionnaire raisonné de l'architecture,” and with some such consecutive historical treatise as Chateau’s “ Histoire et caractéres de l’architecture en France,” he will be in a position to profit by the information contained in English works, without suffering from their insular points of view. But before Mr. Moore wrote I could not have pointed to a really ‘‘safe” book in our language upon medizval art, while, good as French books are with regard to French architecture, and therefore with regard to the noblest mediaeval developments, they give scarcely a side- glance of attention to English developments. Even Mr. Moore’s book only touches upon English developments in subsidiary fashion; and, moreover, it is not a history but an analyti- cal sketch. A complete and impartial history of Romanesque and Gothic art still remains to be written; and, I believe, no one but an American will ever write it. National prejudices seem phenome- nally strong when architecture is in question—a proof of its intimate connection with national life and national temperaments. But we Americans have no inborn ineradicable preference for any given form of mediaeval art, no innate instinct to defend, against all aggressors, the fame of any local development. As Mr. Moore’s is the first good sketch of Gothic aims and results that has been written in the Eng- lish language, so one of his countrymen may be expected to write the first good general history of medizval architecture. May its coming not be long deferred! [utroduction. XV As regards particularly the English cathedrals, I am glad to con- fess my own great indebtedness to Murray’s “Handbooks,” and to say that they are indispensable to the tourist. Compiled by differ- ent hands, they vary somewhat in excellence; and they are simply descriptive of local facts, not critical or broadly historical. But they point out facts with regard to the structure of the cathedrals not easily to be learned elsewhere; they give the salient points of local history ; and they include instructive biographical lists of bishops and other local dignitaries. All the other good monographs which I have been able to find relating to the cathedrals on my list are noted at the beginning of the respective chapters. M. G. VAN RENSSELAER. Marton, MassacHUusETTs, August, 1892. Since the first edition of this book was issued I have again carefully revised it in every part, paying due attention to all the published criticisms which I have seen, and submitting various doubtful points to the trained judgment of a well-known professor of architectural history. Thus, I think, the book has again been considerably im- proved; and this is especially true of the brief sketch of the de- velopment of Gothic vaulting, now transferred from Chapter XI to Chapter I. M. G. VAN RENSSELAER. Lake Priacip, New York, August, 1893. li CONTENTS CHAPTER I THE CATHEDRAL CHURCHES OF ENGLAND CHAPTER II THE CATHEDRAL OF CHRIST’S CHURCH, CANTERBURY CHAPTER III THE CATHEDRAL OF ST. PETER, ST. PAUL, AND ST. ANDREW, PETERBOROUGH . CHAPTER IV THE CATHEDRAL OF ST. CUTHBERT, DURHAM CHAPTER V THE CATHEDRAL OF ST. MARY, SALISBURY . CHAPTER VI THE CATHEDRAL OF ST. MARY AND ST. CHAD, LICHFIELD CHAPTER VII THE CATHEDRAL OF ST. MARY, LINCOLN . CHAPTER VIII THE CATHEDRAL OF ST. ETHELDREDA AND ST. PETER, ELY. xvii PAGE 28 60 83 113 140 165 194 XVill THE CATHEDRAL OF ST Contents. CHAPTER Ix . ANDREW, WELLS CHAPTER X THE CATHEDRAL OF ST. PETER AND ST. PAUL, WINCHESTER THE CATHEDRAL OF ST THE CATHEDRAL OF ST THE CATHEDRAL OF ST CHAPTER XI . PETER, GLOUCESTER CHAPTER XII . PETER, YORK . CHAPTER XIII . PAUL, LONDON PAGE 227 261 298 329 362 INDEX OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE ST. PAUL’S, FROM CHEAPSIDE . Ree dae 2m 6. ie . . . . . FRONTISPIECE INITIAL “I.” (TRANSITIONAL CAPITAL, GALILEE-CHAPEL, DURHAM.) I Drawn by A. RANDOLPH Ross. PLAN OF NORWICH CATHEDRAL ....... Ba ile Sen ta Ca. Ge 8 Two Bays OF CHOIR, INTERIOR, PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL . 8 Drawn by E. J. MEEKER. CENTRAL TOWER, NORWICH CATHEDRAL E35 = ess 9 Drawn by A. D. F. HaMLIn. LANCET-WINDOWS, CHESTER CATHEDRAL . . : Bots, Week Ss LO Drawn by A. D. F. HaMiin. CLUSTERED PIER, WORCESTER CATHEDRAL... eee ae . 10 Drawn by J. F. RUNGE. CLUSTERED PIER, EXETER CATHEDRAL . os ane gh oe ee = (FT Drawn by J. F. RUNGE. CAPITAL, WELLS CATHEDRAL . . : £5 — é II Drawn by A. RANDOLPH Ross. . ONE BAY OF THE “‘ ANGEL CHOIR,” INTERIOR, LINCOLN CATHEDRAL 13 Drawn by A. D. F. HAMLIN. PLATE TRACERY. GEOMETRICAL TRACERY, RIPON CATHEDRAL... 13 FLOWING TRACERY, WELLS CATHEDRAL ; b& ‘ ; 14 Drawn by A. D. F. HAMLIN. PERPENDICULAR WINDOW, WEST FRONT, NORWICH CATHEDRAL .. 14 Drawn by A. D. F. HAMLIN. FRENCH FLAMBOYANT TRACERY, ROUEN CATHEDRAL . nigh We ha. Drawn by E. J. MEEKER. Two Bays oF NAVE, INTERIOR, WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL... . . 15 Drawn by E. J. MEEKER. CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL INITIAL “C.” (EARLY GOTHIC CAPITAL, CHOIR OF CANTERBURY.) . 28 Drawn by A. RANDOLPH Ross. CANTERBURY, FROM THE NORTHEAST . é ou Drawn by JosEPH PENNELL. Engraved by JoHN P. Davis. 30 xX1x i1* XX Index of [lustrations. CANTERBURY, FROM THE WEST 4% 4 4 4 6 ode GSO ae ES Drawn by JosEPH PENNELL. MERCERY LANE : Syd & to, eh the Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by R. C. COLLINS. CHRIST’S CHURCH GATEWAY, FROM MERCERY LANE. ..... Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. CANTERBURY, FROM THE NORTHWEST . by BGs Gr eeepc Re a eos Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. THE CATHEDRAL, FROM CHRIST’S CHURCH GATEWAY ....... Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by H. E. SYLVESTER. PLAN OF CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL Othe Bcd Me ah hs ye od See Se THE CATHEDRAL, FROM THE SOUTHWEST, AT SUNSET ...... Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by J. H. E. WHITNEY. Two BAYS OF THE CHOIR ......... .. 0. 8 se eee Drawn by A. D. F. HaMLin. CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL, FROM THE RIVER STOUR. ....... Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by H. Davipson. THE SOUTH SIDE OF THE CATHEDRAL . Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. THE East END OF THE CATHEDRAL Drawn by JosePH PENNELL. Engraved by A. GAMm. THE CENTRAL (“BELL HARRY”) TOWER, FROM THE “DARK ENTRY” IN THE CLOSE : Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. NORMAN STAIRWAY IN THE CLOSE Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. THE CATHEDRAL, FROM THE “GREEN COURT” IN THE CLOSE Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by K. C. ATwoop. THE CATHEDRAL, FROM THE NORTH. Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. THE CENTRAL TOWER, FROM THE NORTHEAST ........., Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by G. P. BARTLE. LAMBETH PALACE, LONDON; RESIDENCE OF THE ARCHBISHOPS OF CANTERBURY SS Aes Ge Gus CM Se Sine ae cae Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL INITIAL “T.” (WHEEL-WINDOW, WEST FRONT OF PETERBOROUGH.) Drawn by A. RANDOLPH Ross. PLAN OF PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL .........,.,. PAGE 31 32 33 36 39 43 44 45 47 50 51 52 53 54 55 58 59 60 62 Index of [ustrations. Two Bays OF THE NAVE Bl ie Zhe tal St ge eas & Drawn by JosEPH PENNELL. Engraved by M. J. WHALEY. WESTERN TOWERS OF THE CATHEDRAL, FROM THE CLOISTER Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by J. F. JUENGLING. THE WEST FRONT, AND BISHOP’S PALACE ‘ Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by H. E. SYLVESTER. THE CATHEDRAL, FROM THE BISHOP’S GARDEN . Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by P. AITKEN. THE NORTH SIDE IN 1885. Ss GP Seals fa Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by H. E. SYLVESTER. THE GATEWAY, FROM THE MAIN DOOR OF THE CATHEDRAL . Drawn by JosEPH PENNELL. RECONSTRUCTING THE TOWER, 1885, FROM THE CHOIR Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by A. GAMM. THE CATHEDRAL IN 1885, FROM THE SOUTH Drawn by JosEPH PENNELL. Engraved by H. Davipson. THE CATHEDRAL, FROM THE MARKET-PLACE Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. DURHAM CATHEDRAL DURHAM CATHEDRAL, FROM THE SOUTHWEST Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by H. Davipson. INITIAL “F.” (CAPITAL, GALILEE-CHAPEL, DURHAM CATHEDRAL.) Drawn by A. RANDOLPH Ross. THE CATHEDRAL AND THE CASTLE, FROM THE NORTH Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by J. H. E. WHITNEY. PLAN OF DURHAM CATHEDRAL AND MONASTIC BUILDINGS . THE WEST END OF THE NAVE, FROM THE NORTH DOOR Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by H. WoLrF. VIEW FROM THE NAVE INTO THE NORTH ARM OF THE TRANSEPT Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. THE NAVE, FROM THE NORTH AISLE Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. THE GALILEE-CHAPEL Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. THE CATHEDRAL, FROM THE SOUTHEAST . Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. THE CATHEDRAL, FROM THE NORTHWEST ...... Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by F. H. WELLINGTON. THE BISHOP’S THRONE Drawn by JosEPH PENNELL. xxi 65 68 71 73 74 76 77 79 80 82 83 85 86 88 gl 92 95 97 99 102 XXil Index of [llustrations. PAGE THE NORTH SIDE OF THE CATHEDRAL, FROM DUN Cow LANE. . . 105 Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. THE CATHEDRAL, FROM THE NORTH. ae hoe , & re . . 108 Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. DURHAM, FROM THE RAILROAD STATION. ... . Le ye a Se ae ET Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by H. E. SYLVESTER. SALISBURY CATHEDRAL INITIAL “A,” (EARLY ENGLISH BASE, TOMB IN SALISBURY CATHE- DRAL.). . . 8 OE a elie = ES 113 Drawn by A. RANDOLPH Ross. THE SPIRE OF SALISBURY. ..... bt hk, Oh) cores : ne 116 Drawn by Jos—EpH PENNELL. Engraved by J. H. E. WHITNEY. THE CATHEDRAL, FROM THE BISHOP’S GARDEN ..... . . 11g Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by R. C. COLLINS. SALISBURY CATHEDRAL, FROM THE NORTHEAST. . . ; . 121 Drawn by Jos—EPpH PENNELL. Engraved by H. E. SYLVESTER. NORTHEAST GATEWAY TO THE CLOSE . . Se dainty Vi) i a 4 « 122 Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. PLAN OF SALISBURY CATHEDRAL . a ; A gt cf Macs 123 EXTERIOR OF TRIFORIUM-WINDOW, NORTH ARM OF TRANSEPT. . 124 Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. INTERIOR OF CLEARSTORY-WINDOW, NORTH ARM OF TRANSEPT . . 125 Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. THE CLOSE AND A PART OF THE WEST FRONT... . : #27 Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by J. A. NAYLOR. ONE BAY OF THE NAVE, CATHEDRAL OF AMIENS ....... 130 Drawn by VIOLLET-LE-Duc. ONE Bay OF THE NAVE, SALISBURY CATHEDRAL . i Bees Se 131 Drawn by A. D. F. HaMLIn. THE CLOISTER zs 2g ao oe ee GER2. Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. THE BISHOP’S PALACE : be yA erg bi 2 a - 135 Drawn by JosEPpH PENNELL. Engraved by O. NAYLOR. A GATEWAY TO THE CLOSE. b i ‘ : Be ate Ge 137 Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. THE SPIRE, FROM THE AVON .. . ogi “ie BR a oh Men Ge) Shean a Gee, AEZO Drawn by JosEpH PENNELL. L[ndex of [lustrations. LICHFIELD CATHEDRAL INITIAL “F.” (DECORATED WALL-ARCADE, CHOIR-AISLE OF LICH- FIELD.) bo GOS a Drawn by A. RANDOLPH Ross. LICHFIELD CATHEDRAL, FROM THE EAST . Drawn by JosEPH PENNELL. Engraved by H. Wo Lr. THE SPIRES BY MOONLIGHT i, Seed Ri: Gehed. ae Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by RopeRT Hoskin. PLAN OF LICHFIELD CATHEDRAL SCHEME OF THE NAVE Drawn by A. D. F. HAMLIN. THE NAVE AND THE WEST END, FROM WITHIN THE CHOIR, SHOW- ING DECORATED WINDOW . Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. WATCHING GALLERY OVER THE SACRISTY DOOR Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by M. JonEs. SCHEME OF THE CHOIR, SHOWING DECORATED TRACERIES Drawn by A. D. F. HAMLIN. THE LADY-CHAPEL, FROM THE HIGH ALTAR Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. THE SPIRES OF LICHFIELD, FROM THE SOUTHWEST Drawn by JosepH PENNELL. Engraved by K. C. ATWoop. THE SOUTH SIDE OF THE CATHEDRAL . ; Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by A. GAMM. DOORWAY IN THE NORTH TRANSEPT-ARM Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. THE WEST FRONT : Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. THE CENTRAL DOORWAY, WEST FRONT Drawn by JosepH PENNELL. Engraved by A. GAMM. LINCOLN CATHEDRAL INITIAL “N.” (EARLY ENGLISH CAPITAL, CHOIR OF LINCOLN.) Drawn by A. RANDOLPH Ross. THE CATHEDRAL, FROM THE POOL... 2 o Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by J. H. E. WHITNEY. THE EXCHEQUER GATE AND THE WEST FRONT OF THE CATHEDRAL Drawn by Jos—EPH PENNELL. THE WEST FRONT, FROM THE MINSTER-YARD Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by H. E. SYLVESTER. XXlil PAGE 140 14] 144 146 147 149 153 154 156 158 159 160 161 165 166 168 169 xxiv Index of Illustrations. PLAN OF LINCOLN CATHEDRAL THE CHOIR-STALLS, LOOKING WEST Drawn by JosepH PENNELL. ONE BAY OF THE ANGEL CHOIR Drawn by Jos—EPH PENNELL. THE CENTRAL TOWER AND GALILEE-PORCH Drawn by JosEPH PENNELL. THE SOUTHEAST PORCH . Drawn by JosePpH PENNELL. THE East END AND THE CHAPTER-HOUSE Drawn by JosEPH PENNELL. Engraved by H. E. Svevedven, THE CATHEDRAL, FROM THE HIGH STREET Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by H. WoLr. ON THE BANKS OF THE WITHAM Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by H. E. Soiepecii, THE SOUTH SIDE OF THE CATHEDRAL . . Le Gk OS 208 : Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. ELY CATHEDRAL INITIAL “I.” (EARLY ENGLISH CLEARSTORY-WINDOW, RETROCHOIR OF ELY.) 6 Drawn by A. Ranivprsl Ross. ELY CATHEDRAL — ACROSS THE FENS Drawn by JosepH PENNELL. Engraved by R. C. Gaiege THE WEST FRONT OF THE CATHEDRAL AND THE BISHOP’S PALACE . Drawn by JosEpH PENNELL. Engraved by H. E. SYLVESTER. THE OUSE BS Gah : é ‘ Drawn by Tasnan Pama Engraved by J. H. E. WHITNEY. SCHEME OF THE PRESBYTERY AND RETROCHOIR Drawn by A. D. F. HAMLIN. PLAN OF ELY CATHEDRAL . ; ‘ Ye Sat dev Sues Be THE LANTERN, FROM THE NORTHEAST . Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. SCHEME OF THE CHOIR . Drawn by A. D. F. HAMLIn. ELY, FROM THE SOUTH % Aad Ss j Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by J. H. E. WHITNEY. CATHEDRAL AND SPIRE OF ST. MARY’S CHURCH, FROM THE SOUTHWEST Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by H. E. SYLVESTER. THE CATHEDRAL AND THE LADY-CHAPEL, FROM THE SOUTHEAST . Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. 171 174 179 182 190 192 194 195 196 199 202 205 206 209 213 216 221 SOUTHWESTERN PART OF THE CATHEDRAL, FROM A GARDEN IN THE CLOSE . Lndex of Illustrations. Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. THE CATHEDRAL, FROM THE SOUTH Drawn by JosepH PENNELL. Engraved by H. E. SyLVESTER. ELY, FROM UNDER THE RAILWAY BRIDGE INITIAL ‘“W.” Drawn by JosEPH PENNELL. WELLS CATHEDRAL Drawn by A. RANDOLPH Ross. WELLS, FROM THE NORTHEAST Drawn by Jos—EpH PENNELL. Engraved by H. Wotr. THE Moat Drawn by Jos—ePpH PENNELL. Engraved by G. P. BARTLE. WELLS, FROM THE SOUTH Drawn by JosepH PENNELL. Engraved by F. H. WELLINGTON. PLAN OF THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE NAVE, FROM THE NoRTH AISLE Drawn by JosEPH PENNELL. NAVE, LOOKING EAST : j Drawn by Jos—EPH PENNELL. Engraved by J. H. E. WHITNEY. CHOIR, LOOKING EAST. Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. RETROCHOIR AND LADY-CHAPEL Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by H. E. SyLvesrer. CHAPTER-HOUSE, WELLS Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. WEST FRONT OF THE CATHEDRAL Drawn by JosEPH PENNELL. Engraved by H. E. SyLVESTER. CATHEDRAL, FROM ToR HILL Drawn by JosEPH PENNELL. EAst END OF THE CATHEDRAL, FROM THE GARDEN Drawn by JosepH PENNELL. Engraved by H. E. SYLVESTER. BISHOP’S PALACE Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. VICAR’S CLOSE fey GE. ne Be I. 2 Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by W. H. Morse. ENTRANCE TO THE BISHOP’S PALACE Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. (Boss, CEILING OF LADY-CHAPEL, WELLS.). . . XXV PAGE 222 223 220 227 228 229 240 243 247 253 255 256 259 XXVi L[udex of Illustrations. WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL WINCHESTER, FROM THE EASTERN HILLS Drawn by Jos—EpH PENNELL. Engraved by H. E. Suapmerien: INITIAL “W.” (FRAGMENT OF EARLY ENGLISH WORK.) THE CATHEDRAL, FROM THE FIELDS . Drawn by Jos—EpH PENNELL. Engraved by H. E. Gaines. PLAN OF WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL IN THE SOUTH AISLE OF THE CHOIR, LOOKING WEST Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by J. F. JUNGLING. DIAGRAM SHOWING WYKEHAM’S TRANSFORMATION OF THE NAVE THE CHOIR AND PRESBYTERY, LOOKING EAST Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by J. A. NayLor. IN THE RETROCHOIR fe es Ho a ae Drawn by Jos—EPH PENNELL. Engraved by O. NAYLor. IN THE RETROCHOIR, LOOKING EAST Drawn by JosEPH PENNELL. Engraved by M. J. Nae THE NAVE AND TRANSEPT, FROM THE NORTHWEST Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by H. E. SyLVESTER. WINCHESTER HIGH CROSS, AT THE ENTRANCE TO THE CLOSE... Drawn by JosEPH PENNELL. A GATEWAY IN THE CLOSE. i, & i 4 Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by M. JoneEs. IN THE CLOSE : Drawn by JosEPH PENNELL. THE LONG WALK IN SUMMER Li 4 Drawn by JOSEPH PENNEIL. Engraved by C. J. WADDELL. THE WEST FRONT on ee Be é : Drawn by JoszPH BERNE, Engraved by K. C. ATWoop. THE CATHEDRAL, FROM THE SOUTHEAST. Drawn by JosepH PENNELL. THE LONG WALK IN WINTER . Drawn by JosEPH PENNELL. THE DEANERY : 5. che LB! of AiO Sich om Ge HA Drawn by JosEPH Bunweun, Engraved by E. H. Newman. GLOUCESTER CATHEDRAL IniT1aL “A.” (THE “ WHITE Hart,” BADGE OF EDWARD IL, FROM HIS TOMB.) ss a Drawn by A. Ranweieic Ross. PAGE 260 261 265 266 268 269 271 273 275 278 283 286 289 290 293 294 296 297 298 Lndex of Lllustrations. THE CATHEDRAL, FROM THE Docks Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. GLOUCESTER, FROM THE SEVERN os Ue Drawn by JosEPH PENNELL. Engraved by CHanins STATE. SouTH PoRcH Drawn by JosEPH Panini: THE NAVE, LOOKING TOWARD THE CHOIR Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by R. C. CoLLins. THE SOUTH AISLE OF THE NAVE, LOOKING EAST INTO THE TRANSEPT Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by H. E. SYLVESTER. THE NAVE, FROM THE NorTH AISLE Drawn by Jos—EPH PENNELL. Engraved by H. E. Syivnenen. PLAN OF GLOUCESTER CATHEDRAL ST. PAUL’S CHAPEL, NORTH ARM OF TRANSEPT Drawn by JosepH PENNELL. Engraved by GrorGE H. WHITTLE. THE CHOIR AND PRESBYTERY, LOOKING EAST Drawn by JosEPH PENNELL. Engraved by J. Naytor. NORTH AISLE OF THE NAVE, LOOKING EAST INTO THE TRANSEPT . Drawn by Jos—EPH PENNELL. Engraved by H. E. SyLVESTER. THE SOUTH AISLE OF THE NAVE, LOOKING WEST FROM THE TRANSEPT Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by R. C. CoLLins. THE CATHEDRAL, FROM THE SOUTHEAST. (FROM THE TOWER OF ST. JOHN’S CHURCH.) . Drawn by JOSEPH PuNivent, THE LADY-CHAPEL, LOOKING TOWARD THE CHURCH Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by M. Jones. THE NORTH WALK OF THE CLOISTER, WITH THE LAVATORY Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by T. SCHUSSLER. THE CATHEDRAL, FROM THE NORTHWEST. (FROM THE TOWER OF ST. MARY DE LODE.) . Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. THE CATHEDRAL, FROM THE NORTH . Drawn by JosEPH PENNELL. YORK CATHEDRAL INITIAL “A.” (EARLY ENGLISH CAPITAL, FROM THE TRANSEPT OF YORK CATHEDRAL.) Drawn by A. RANDOLPH Ross. York MINSTER, FROM THE NORTH Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by H. E. Sioa eres PLAN OF YORK CATHEDRAL . XXVvil 299 301 393 306 308 399 310 311 313 314 317 318 321 323 325 329 331 333 Xxviii Index of Illustrations. THE WEST FRONT at Sitrxt, fag nei dats ey Drawn by JOSEPH puniett. Engraved by H. E. SYLVESTER. Tue SoUTH TRANSEPT-END AND THE CENTRAL TOWER, FROM THE STONEGATE Soy Bnd hs at Dye Drawn by JosEPH Bier. Engraved by W. H. Morse. THE FIVE SISTERS, FROM THE SOUTH TRANSEPT ENTRANCE Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by C. A. POWELL. THE NORTH TRANSEPT-ARM, FROM THE NAVE Drawn by Jos—EPH PENNELL. THE NAVE, FROM THE NORTH AISLE Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by H. E. Soci iat THE CHOIR-SCREEN . é Drawn by Jos—EPH PENNELL. THE SOUTH AISLE OF THE PRESBYTERY, LOOKING WEST Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. THE East END, FROM THE NORTH AISLE OF THE RETROCHOIR Drawn by Jos—EPH PENNELL. THE SOUTH SIDE OF THE MINSTER Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. THE EAST END AT NIGHT oe oe ee ae Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by F. W. SUTHERLAND. THE CHAPTER-HOUSE, FIVE SISTERS, AND CENTRAL TOWER, FROM THE NORTH Drawn by JOSEPH Sraiveen, ST. PAUL’S CATHEDRAL THE WEST FRONT OF ST. PAUL’S, FROM FLEET STREET . Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by W. H. Morse. INITIAL “I.” (THE DOME OF ST. PAUL’S, FROM THE FIRST DESIGN OF SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN.) Drawn by A. RANDOLPH Ross. OLD ST. PAUL’S, FROM THE SOUTHWEST . Drawn by W. J. Barr. PAUL’S CROSS, FROM AN OLD PRINT Drawn by W. J. Bakr. THE DOME, FROM PAUL’S WHARF PIER Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. PLAN OF ST. PAUL’S AS FIRST DESIGNED BY WREN PLAN OF ST. PAUL’S THE WEST Door. fe OS : as Drawn by JosEPH BENWetT, Engraved by W. H. Morse. 334 336 337 339 342 344 345 347 350 356 357 361 362 365 366 371 374 376 378 Lndex of Illustrations. SRL PAGE THE NorTH AISLE OF THE NAVE ...... ar ee eee ee Drawn by JosEPH PENNELL. Engraved by J. W. Evans. SECTION SHOWING INNER AND OUTER DOMES, WITH THE INTERMEDIATE CIP RTGS a, cee het ate a, See Gye de Be EB . 382 THE DOME, FROM THE RIVER. ase “As A ae ae Re AG ce 9 B85 Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. THE INTERIOR OF ST. PAUL’S, LOOKING FROM THE NAVE INTO THE CHOIR. .. goog hd Gd Jee OB RF Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by H. E. SYLVESTER. THE WESTERN AISLE OF TRANSBPT... 2 2.54 © 4s Gy es ey wo 988 Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by C. A. POWELL. THE WEST FRONT OF ST. PAUL’S, FROM LUDGATE HILL . .... . 390 Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by W. H. Morse. THE FONT LI do Meld AB hd 1 Gite Hy + + 392 Drawn by JosEPH PENNELL. Engraved by ALLEN IRWIN. ST. PAUL’S, FROM WATERLOO BRIDGE —A FOGGY MORNING. . .. . 394 Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by H. E. SYLVESTER. THE CHOIR, LOOKING EAST . 396 Drawn by JOSEPH PENNELL. Engraved by K. C. ATWoopb. For the illustrations “Two Bays of Choir, Peterborough Cathedral” (page 8), and “Two Bays of Nave, Winchester Cathedral” (page 15), we are indebted to Sharpe’s “Seven Periods of English Architecture,” and for the illustration “White Hart,” Badge of Edward II. (page 298), to “Records of Gloucester Cathedral.” ENGLISH CATHEDRALS CHAPTER I THE CATHEDRAL CHURCHES OF ENGLAND | \ a N no country should the ecclesiastical importance S| of a church be confounded with the civic im- portance of its site. In Continental countries, indeed, the chair of a bishop or archbishop was always set in some local centre of secular power, and often secular as well as ecclesiastic authority was intrusted to him. But even there the two kinds of dignity — episcopal and muni- cipal — were theoretically distinct, and in England there was seldom a close connection between them. In England we must be very careful not to picture a cathedral church as standing, of necessity, in a town which has at any time been great; and this fact. is extremely interest- ing, for, after a lapse of many centuries, it illustrates the two most im- portant chapters in English history. It shows how the English people possessed themselves of the land of Britain, and how the Christian faith was established among them. of I Tue earliest island Church, of course, had not a drop of English blood in its veins. It was British and Roman in a union whose elements we cannot now definitely balance. When the Romans went and the Eng- lish came (those Jutes and Saxons and Angles whom we usually call the Anglo-Saxons), their heathen triumph swept Briton and Church away together—not wholly out of the island world, but out of most of those districts which now form England proper. Sparks of Christianity may I 2 English Cathedrals. have lingered here, dimmed, confused and scarce perceived amid Brit- ish serfs and bondwomen, but a Christian Church persisted only in Ire- land and in those portions of the larger isle which lay beyond the conquered north or bordered on the western sea. Later on, this elder Church threw out fresh shoots and played a dis- tinct part in the reévangelizing of the land. But the main influence toward this result, the stock which budded first when the land was a land of Englishmen, and afterward absorbed and assimilated all the potency of the ancient sap, came at the end of the sixth century direct from Rome, sent by Pope Gregory the Great and brought by St. Augus- tine and his forty monkish missionaries. In the constructive times which were then beginning, the state of England was very different from the state of Gaul, or Italy, or the Rhine provinces at the time when their Churches had been given coherence of form and fixity of feature. The destruction of Roman or semi-Roman civilization—wreck and ruin unparalleled elsewhere—had meant the disappearance of all but a few of the largest towns and the establish- ment of a number of petty rulers who were merely rulers of tribes, and, far from basing their authority on preéxisting civic authority, often had not an even nominal capital. So when English bishoprics were laid out’ the first thing considered was the demarcations of these tribal settlements, the limits of the little kingdoms into which the land had been divided. In accordance with political boundaries diocesan boundaries were established, and then the best spot was chosen for the planting of the bishop’s chair. Sometimes the choice fell naturally upon one of the few remaining ancient burghs, as on London or on York, but sometimes it fell upon a town, like Can- terbury, which had never been very conspicuous, or upon an isolated foundation which missionary hands had set and watered in the wilderness. Of course the voice of time did not everywhere indorse the early arrangement. With changing conditions came many changes of cathe- dral station. Certain southern sees, defenseless in their rural solitude against the Danish devastator, were shifted to more easily protected spots; and when the Norman conqueror lifted his strong hand, the Church of England proved as plastic as the State beneath it. Yet many of the cathedrals still stand where they stood at first, and the aspect of all, when collectively considered, is extremely characteristic. It is totally unlike the general aspect of the cathedral churches of 1 Theodore of Tarsus, as Archbishop of Canterbury, did much of this work in the later years of the seventh century. Cathedral Churches of England. 3 Continental lands where a multitude of cities had ruled encircling dis- tricts for centuries before Christianity was preached. There it was first preached to these cities, first accepted by their indwellers; and they naturally added the new ecclesiastic to the old temporal suprem- acy. French dioceses still follow the lines of Roman districts, and their present cathedral towns are the old Roman centres. In the origin of the word “pagan” we read the history of the evangelizing of the Continent, but it is a word which could never have been evolved in England. Here there were no great municipal centres of authority, neither in the earliest English times nor at any later day. The land was long divided, but it was not split up between rival towns. It has often been torn asunder since, but no part has ever been the prize of civic duels. And these facts, with their still persisting influence upon English life and sentiment, speak very clearly from the cathedral churches. The Conqueror tried hard to bring about a state of things more like the one he knew at home, and even England has not been unaffected by the general modern impulse toward centralization of all kinds of power. Yet many episcopal chairs still stand where the early missionaries put them; and though one of the new bishops of our day is at home in the large modern town of Manchester, he has still younger brothers at Southwell and St. Albans—two spots where, to Continen- tal eyes, nothing but the great church itself can seem to deserve the cathedral name. Thus the cathedrals of England show not only a general unlikeness to their foreign rivals, but also a delightful diversity among themselves. Now we find the great fanes of London, Lincoln, and York standing in towns which were notable at the dawn of history. Again, as beneath the towers of Durham, we see a town which has considerable size and independent importance, but which owed its origin to the setting up of its cathedra and still visibly confesses the debt. And yet again there are cathedral cities'-— Wells and Ely are the extreme examples—which are but little parasitical growths around the base of the church, living only, even in these latter days, because the church is itself alive. The most clearly and typically expressive of English cathedrals do not hold a strong military position, or rise close above the steep steps of a city’s roofs, and are not pressed upon by the homes of laymen and the crowds of street and market-place. They are set about with great masses of foliage and isled in wide peaceful lawns, the very norm and 1In accurate parlance a ‘‘city”’ in England is any cathedral town, however small, and no other town, however great. 4 English Cathedrals. model of England’s verdure, although the fragmentary walls and crum- bling gateways which keep distant guard around them testify that they were not built in such piping times of peace as ours. But even when there is a nearer approach to such stations as are common across the Channel, it is charming to see how the cathedral site still does not wholly misrepresent national characteristics. Even St. Paul’s has some shreds of dusty foliage to show; and though the huge fagade of Lin- coln looks out on a small paved square, and our first glimpse of York shows the long south side through the narrow perspective of an ancient street, as we turn their mighty shoulders we find broad grassy spaces to prove we are in England still. Therefore there is one thing that cannot be disputed: we may do as we like on the Continent, but an English pilgrimage must be made when the tree is in leaf and the sward in flower. II As the focus of the religious life of the diocese, and at first the hearthstone of a bright missionary fire, a cathedral needed a staff of clergy specially devoted to its wide-spread work, specially charged and enabled to be the bishop’s helpers. In a large town this staff, this “cathedral chapter,” scarcely required organization. But the peculiar state of early England naturally brought about an intimate union be- tween the cathedral establishment and some great collegiate or monastic body. Sometimes such a body was formed to meet the cathedral’s requirements, but often its prior existence had dictated the position of the bishop's chair. The union once accomplished, both parties waxed great by mutual aid. The “house” was exalted by the episcopal rank of its head; the bishop’s arm was strengthened by the wealth and in- fluence of the house; and the great church-edifice was the work and the home and the glory of both. In some cases, I say, the cathedral chapter was collegiate and in some it was monastic. That is, its members were sometimes ‘‘secular” priests bound by no vows save those which all priests assumed, living as members of a collegiate foundation but not living in common, each one having his own individual life and home which often meant in earliest times his own lawful wife and children; and sometimes they were monks, bound by monastic vows, and called “regulars” because they lived in common according to the rules of a monastic order. Many chapters were disturbed and reorganized in many ages accord- ing as those in authority above them gave preference to the monkish Cathedral Churches of England. 5 or the secular life. But it is only needful to note the interference of the Reformation which has left its traces in a nomenclature that may easily confuse a foreign ear. The merely collegiate chapters were al- lowed by Henry VIII. to survive. The Catholic priest eventually be- came a Protestant clergyman, and thereby his life and functions were conspicuously altered; but the chapter as such was not annihilated, and so a cathedral whose chapter was collegiate at the time of the Refor- mation is known to-day as a cathedral ‘‘of the Old Foundation.” But the monkish chapters were dissolved and done away with in the clean sweep that Henry made of all monastic things. With one or two exceptions, due to the abolition of the see itself, they were reorgan- ized with new blood in another shape; and a cathedral whose history reads thus is one “of the New Foundation,” while the same name is given to all those which were first established in Henry’s day with Protestant bishops, deans, and chapters, or have been thus established at any later time. So, we see, a cathedral of the New Foundation is not of necessity new in anything but the character of its chapter. It may be a church like Peterborough or Gloucester, each of which boasts a very ancient fabric but was first raised to cathedral rank in the sixteenth century. Or it may be a church which has held cathedral rank since such rank was first given in its district—it may be Rochester, or Worcester, or even Can- terbury, the hoary mother-church of all. These arid definitions have more than a merely historic bearing. As we pass from one cathedral to another we shall see how radical were the architectural differences that resulted from the existence here of a collegiate chapter and there of a monastic. And the general fact that such chapters existed in so dignified an estate and so intimate a union with the episcopal power is another great cause of the general unlikeness in aspect between English cathedrals and their rivals over-sea. I have spoken of the wide lordly spaces in which they usually stand, and which show that they were first and the cities second in importance. But within these spaces they did not stand in grave hie- rarchic isolation. They stood side by side with the homes of those who served their altars, and labored for their interests, and dispensed their bounty, and swung their spiritual, and sometimes, too, their temporal, sword; side by side with chapter-houses and dormitories, cloisters, refec- tories, and libraries, with schools and infirmaries, bishops’ palaces and canons’ dwellings—yes, and warriors’ castles also. Keeping within the [* 6 English Cathedrals. precincts of England's cathedrals, we may study the traces of nearly every kind of medizeval architecture, from the most gorgeously ecclesiastic to the most simply domestic, most purely utilitarian, most frankly mili- tary. And the fact, I say, is characteristically English: no series of cathedrals in any other land is so all-embracing, so infinitely diversified, There is nothing on the Continent which resembles, for instance, those wide green shaded acres amid which Salisbury stands, or matches the palace beyond embowered in its fairy-land of garden. There is nothing abroad with a great cathedral church as its central feature which reveals the cloister-life of the middle ages as does the ruined monastic estab- lishment at Canterbury —ruined because it was monastic; and there is nothing which reveals the collegiate life of the same epoch as does the group of still existing homes at Wells—still existing because they were not monastic. III A.most every step in the development of English architecture may be read in the cathedral churches. The only blank their record leaves is at the very beginning: their only lack is of pre-Norman relics. This lack is not due to any want of early effort, but in part to Danish torches and in part to Norman energy in reconstruction. When architecture was a vital art, growing from year to year, developing from hand to hand, altering logically and inevitably to meet each new requirement and suit each generation’s novel taste, small reverence was felt for earlier work that seemed out of touch with the current time. Long before the Conquest there had been large cathedral churches in England, often of wood but sometimes of stone. But they melted like snow beneath the hand of the Norman, in whose virile soul zeal for religion and love for building were as potently developed as rage for battle, dominion, and earthly pelf. Although English cathedrals sometimes stand on the sites they consecrated at the dawning of Christianity, they nowhere show above the level of the soil a single stone of ante-Norman date. Architectural history, as these churches tell it, begins with the coming of the Normans. But thence it may be traced through every age down to that of the classic revival; and this age, too, fortunately found its best expression in the cathedral of St. Paul in London, which is not so much a type of English Renaissance effort as its one and only splendid flower. With St. Paul’s our survey may contentedly close, for since St. Paul’s was built English ecclesiastical architecture has seen no development of a genuinely vital and creative kind. Cathedral Churches of England. 7 As new civilizations based themselves upon the decaying elements of Roman ‘life, so the architectural styles which we call Romanesque were evolved from the Roman manner of building. Roman halls of justice supplied an excellent model for Christian churches; and the round arch and the column, which the Romans of classic times had used together but had not united, were now brought into an integral union. The intermediate entablature was thrown aside, and the arch was sprung from the capital itself. This apparently sim- ple innovation—first attempted, so far as we know, in the palace of Diocletian at Spalato—marked the birth of a new art. In it there lay in embryo all those varied and magnificent developments which we understand by medizval architecture. From it gradually sprang the lofty slender clustered pier, the pointed arch, the wide-spread traceried window, and the vaulted ceiling, for it meant not only that a new architectural expedient had been found, but that old canons of proportion and relationship had once and for all been broken through. At the time of the Conquest every Christian land practised some form of Romanesque. The one that ruled in England, and is commonly called the Saxon style, is explained to us by still surviving small ex- amples. It was avery primitive form, not only because rudely wrought, but because close akin to the earliest forms which had been developed in the south of Europe. Naturally it was displaced by the form which the Normans had developed on the mainland, since this was much more highly organized and was worked with a much more skilful hand. Even before William’s coming the change had begun with the influx of Normans to Edward the Confessor’s court and his building of Westminster Abbey in what was called “the new Norman way.” And after William came it gradually gained possession of the whole land, though for a long time yet the Old English manner seems to have survived in lowly structures and remote localities, and though its influence somewhat modified even the greatest buildings. Insular work soon became Norman, but it was not precisely the same as Con- tinental Norman. That cruciform ground-plan for a church which was slowly evolved from the Roman basilican plan was already well established in Norman architecture. The cut on page 8 of the plan of Norwich will show its principal features —the long nave with aisles to right and left, the transept forming the arms of the cross, and the choir forming its upper extremity which always pointed toward the east. This was the plan of a large church in the eleventh century; and it survived 8 English Cathedrals. through all later ages, although with modifications which were nowhere more conspicuous than upon English soil. In the next illustration we have the interior design of a great Nor- Zone e ahs a's * Cc B i a e «a ° ao¢ ous wooden ceilings, a A, . ee above which, of e es «. course, as above e . o 8 all stone vaults, wees rose more or PLAN OF NORWICH CATHEDRAL. NORMAN STYLE. less steeply A. Nave. B. Crossing under central tower. 1 ter C, C. Transept. E. Constructional choir. pitched On F. Apse. G. Eastern aisle. K. Site of ¢ Lady-chapel (destroyed). D, H, I, and roofs of timber Supine | Sheathed with lead. In the twelfth century the wooden nave-ceilings of mostof the early churches in Normandy itself were replaced by stone vaults; but in England similar changes were not made. Should we lay this divergence to mere timidity arising from the incompetence of those native workmen who must have labored for the foreign architect? Perhaps; but perhaps in part at least to the influence of a strong taste native to the soil. In all after times, a love for wooden ceilings characterized English builders. They could not but yield largely to the nobler titles of the vault. But even in the finest Gothic period man church —the pier-arches supported by massive piers or pillars marking off nave from aisles; then the triforium-arcade opening into a second story above the aisles; and then an upper range of windows standing free above the aisle-roofs and expressively called the clearstory. Only the aisles of early Norman cathedrals were vaulted with stone. Their wide central areas were covered with flat painted ZL 2 yee ee 2 Wes S| DP ql Ay i fi SBMA Wereey | 3 Ly he ~~ re (fea ~ ' } Z| cdsatiaisnaatioa icles as. I Teas | Wecekedbe laud TWO BAYS OF CHOIR, INTERIOR, PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL. NORMAN STYLE. we sometimes find them imitating its lithic forms in wood, and in the latest Gothic period (which, mechanically speaking, was the cleverest of all) they frequently built open timber roofs—not, indeed, in their greatest churches, but in their smaller ones and their vast and splendid civic halls. Cathedral Churches of England. 9 The great length and relative narrowness of Norman churches is even more conspicuous in England than in Normandy; and as a love for immense length only increased with the development of English architecture, we may recognize it, I think, as another sign of native taste. Such immense extension joined to in- considerable height would have given Norman ir churches a very, monotonous aspect had it not | been for the semicircular shape of the eastern end, the great square tower which rose above the crossing of nave and transept, and the two smaller towers which usually flanked the west facade. Norwich is the only cathedral tlie in England that keeps its Norman east end Al ibssersgrmssrinmnmenter and tall central tower; and no Norman cathe- | CHrOO@OI!lO dral-spire survives. Ieylede Inside, the central tower was open as a WW teamerve “lantern” far above the level of the other ceil- 11 ita bbe lg ings, and was sustained by four huge angle- | | piers joined by lofty arches at the inner ends VLE ill of the four arms of the cross. Ornamentation was more profuse in the later than in the earlier Wig eal | WoL SAREE SR <4 <) CVE Hy periods of the style, but was never so profuse _ |jj Lean || | . 1 -) \ in these great cathedrals as in smaller works. SS, pee | Their vast proportions and the sturdy grandeur _|fllP=- Zoi) . . i} t emt of their mighty features seem to have been LM SSS: thought effective enough without much carven —_cenrraL TOWER, NORWICH decoration. Effort of this sort was concen- CeT EER AE NORMAN STYLE. trated chiefly upon the doorways, where rude but picturesquely telling figure-sculpture and thickly woven leaf and basket-like designs often mingled in rich luxuriance. But though within the church the strong capitals and huge arches are either severely plain or are emphasized by great bold simple zigzags, rolls, and billet- mouldings, we must not forget that the whole interior, now scraped to a stony whiteness, was originally plastered and clothed with painted patterns. IV Wir the dawning of the thirteenth century the round arch gave place to the pointed, and what the world with obstinate incorrectness calls Gothic architecture started on its splendid course. This is not 10 English Cathedrals. yet the place to discuss the why or the how of the advent and adoption of the pointed arch. It may suffice to say that though it was first used in France! as the basis of a new form of art, and though the idea of LANCET-WINDOWS, CHESTER CATHEDRAL. EARLY ENGLISH STYLE. used in France almost from the very beginning of Gothic For a time she built her pointed windows very tall and slender, and grouped them together without actually uniting them to form a single complex opening. Lancet- windows were used in other countries, and in Normandy effort. style. such use came without a doubt from France to England, yet England employed it for a time after a fashion of her own. Her early treat- ment of the pointed arch was so different from that which prevailed elsewhere, and also from her own later treatment, that she claims she has one more Gothic style to show than any other land. In France Romanesque art passed into the typical form of Gothic art without a pause upon any clearly defined intermediate station. But the Lancet-Pointed or Early English style of the thirteenth century was such a station, marked by buildings quite distinct in aim and expression from those which came before and after; that is to say, it was long before England used those compound lights, united into one window by geometrical traceries, which were : : CLUSTERED there was some approach to a consistent Lancet-Pointed PIER, But they were nowhere so long and variously and WORCESTER CATHEDRAL. exclusively employed as in England; it is only here that a genuine Lancet-Pointed style developed and prevailed. EARLY ENGLISH. All features now grew in grace and slenderness. The massive square or circular pier became lighter, and was set about with smaller shafts in more or less intimate union. The capital abandoned its square top, 1In the eleventh century “France” did not mean at all what it means to-day. The name then be- longed only to the Ile-de-France, that district lying around Paris which was the domain of the Capetian kings themselves, not of one of their great vassals And this district, this old domaine royal, with adjacent portions of surrounding provinces, has always been France in an architectural sense. or rivals. The styles which developed in the various other provinces that now form France are properly to be called by their respective provincial names. It was only in late medizeval days that, with the grow- ing power of the monarchy, true French Gothic spread itself abroad through districts each of which in earlier periods had worked after a manner of its own. we Cathedral Churches of England. II or abacus, for a circular one. The chisel showed new skill and a novel choice of motives in the succession of deep-cut mouldings which de- fined the outline of the arch, and in the crown of quaint non-natural but lovely curling leaves that was set around the capital. And pointed vaults replaced the flat wooden ceiling. Conspicuous, too, with the advent of the thirteenth cen- tury was the alteration of the ground-plan. In the first place, bs “ty, , the eastern arm of the cross be- came much longer,—a change which was due in part at least to the growth of saint- and relic- worship. No great house was too poor in history to supply some local sainted founder, pa- ctusterep pier, '0n, bishop, martyr, when the EXETER popular love of pilgrimages was CSEHEDRSE: at its height; and none was so same’ blind to the chance of spiritual and temporal profit but that it could perceive the obligation to give him noble sepulture. The crypt beneath the choir had sufficed for all burials at an earlier day; but now behind the high altar in the church itself holy bones were laid in greater state, famous relics were shown in a more splen- did pageant, and miracles were performed in presence of far vaster throngs of the devout. Thus the eastern arm was obliged to stretch itself out to a length which has of course become wholly useless under the changed conditions of a less emotional time and faith. When speaking architecturally we cannot help calling this eastern arm of a church the “choir.” But in Norman days it did not hold the true choir—the ‘ritual choir” or ‘singers’ choir,” the place set apart for those who performed the complicated choral service. This true choir was an inclosure, fenced off on three sides from the lay congre- gation but open toward the east, which extended across the transept beneath the lantern and often into the nave, leaving the short east limb, dominated by the altar near its end, as the presbytery for the higher clergy. This disposition has in certain cases been preserved. But usually, in one Gothic period or another, the singers’ stalls were moved back into the eastern arm, the lateral screens running between pier and pier and leaving the aisles free on either hand, and the west- ; ia CAPITAL, WELLS CATHEDRAL. EARLY ENGLISH. 12 English Cathedrals. ern one standing between the angle-piers eastward of the crossing; and thus the ritual choir became part of the constructional. A second transept—a feature rarely used except in England—was then some- times built to the eastward of the main one, perhaps to give fresh architectural voice to the ecclesiological distinction between choir and presbytery. These arrangements all show in the plan of Salisbury Cathedral in Chapter V; and there we also see still another English innovation, and a most important one. The semicircular end, or apse, with which the Norman finished the eastern limb, and often the transept-ends as well, was retained all through the middle ages in all Continental countries, though sometimes altered to a polygonal shape and sometimes surrounded by a range of chapels. But in the early thirteenth century the English abandoned it in favor of a flat east end with great groups of lofty windows; and this form of termi- nation was ever after as persistent, as characteristic, in England as was the apse elsewhere. Whither must we look for the explanation of so marked a difference in times when a single faith prevailed, and when no nation built in self- contained privacy but each helped the others with ideas and inventions, and often with exported artists too? Doubtless once more to the per- sistence of ante-Norman tastes, to the strength of preferences native to the soil, inherent in the air, partly suppressed so long as the domi- nating Norman was still an alien in the land, but quick to reassert them- selves when his acclimatizing had been brought about. Indeed, if we may believe the seemingly logical conclusions of certain careful stu- dents, this ante- Norman influence was ante-English even; the true first birth of the flat east end, they tell us, must be sought in those little Irish chapels which are the only relics in the whole island realm of the days when its Church was British. The characteristic love of the English builder for longitudinal exten- sion does not show merely in the length of his naves, or of his choirs as compared with his naves. Beyond his unusually long choirs he almost always threw out further chapels of considerable size. ‘Lady-chapels” they were most often, dedicated to the Holy Mother whose cult, like that of all lesser saints, developed so enormously during the twelfth century. Sometimes this chapel is of the same height and width as the choir itself, forming part and parcel of it in an architectural sense. But more often it is a lower building into which we look through the pier- arcade of the flat choir-end, while above its roof this end rises far aloft, with vast windows and gable finishing the true body of the church. Cathedral Churches of England. 13 But, as we see again on the plan of Salisbury, all the minor termina- tions are flat as well as the main one. The apse has disappeared altogether, only to be resuscitated now and then in places where, as at Westminster Abbey, foreign influence is plainly perceived. Gradually —nay, rapidly, in less than a century—the Lancet- an y= BE PLATE TRACERY. ONE BAY OF THE “ANGEL CHOIR,” INTERIOR, LINCOLN CATHEDRAL. GEOMETRICAL TRACERY, RIPON CATHEDRAL. DECORATED STYLE, Pointed gave place to the full-blown Gothic style, which in England is commonly but not very sensibly called the Decorated style. Window- traceries were now developed, passing through successive stages as “plate” and “geometrical” and “flowing”; and the sculptor went 14 English Cathedrals. more directly to nature for the more varied patterns of his leafage. Now the scheme of the island architect resembled that of his foreign brother. But his pe- culiar ground-plan persisted, and in cer- tain important respects he was still conspicu- ously himself. And when the purest time of flowering was over, when each FLOWING TRACERY, WELLS great building CATHEOEAL nation entered DECORATED STYLE, upon a period which, though vigorous and admirable, was nevertheless a period of exaggeration and a FRENCH FLAMBOYANT TRACERY, ROUEN CATHEDRAL. pushing to extremes and there- fore of incipient decline—then the English architect became again more individual in his mood. Then, indeed, insular pe- culiarities were more strongly marked than ever before, and a style was evolved which is the only one that can boast an un- disputed claim to English origin. Late French Gothic became in- comparably exuberant and unfet- ——= — tered; it twisted and wove its traceries, for instance, into such PERPENDICULAR WINDOW, WEST FRONT, fl lik . NORWICH CATHEDRAL. ame-like, Wavy, stone-denying ivSeRiaRD NNO RAN Ae: forms that its name, Flamboyant, Cathedral Churches of England. 15 is picturesquely lucid. But late English Gothic stiffened into a fash- ion which is just as well named Perpendicular.1 The mullions of its windows almost abandoned their curves, and were cut across by strong horizontal transoms; and the panel-like forms thus pro- duced were carried over, as su- perficial decoration, upon the wall-spaces between. In both countries the arch took on a va- riety of complex shapes; but its most characteristic shape in France was the reversed or ogee curve, and in England the low four-centred curve—the former somewhat too free, the latter somewhat too rigid in expression. CACO CONT |: Vv ConTrRaAsTING — Perpendicular and Flamboyant work, we seem to see in England architectural prose andin Francearchitectural poetry. The prose is very clever and impressive, and sometimes truly TWO BAYS OF NAVE, INTERIOR, WINCHESTER majestic; but it lacks that purely CATHEDRAL. esthetic feeling and that rich PERPENDICULAR STYLE. sensuous beauty which breathe from the work of France, always seductive, imaginative, full of passion and fire, though now run a little wild, grown over-daring, fanciful, and almost freakish. And the same qualities which come out so strongly in this latest, least reserved and temperate, most individual and there- fore most perfectly expressive period, are clearly if less conspicuously marked in the developments that had gone before. Nothing is more characteristic of English Gothic architecture than its love of lowness, its persistent neglect of those effects of vertical extension which French Gothic loved beyond all else. Extreme elevation means, of course, 1 Here we find the converse of the facts noted re- ous Flamboyant style was never usedin England. On garding lancet-windows. Flamboyant windows may _ the other hand, there is nothing away from England’s Ie foundin English Decorated work, but a homogene- shores which at all resembles her Perpendicular work. 16 English Cathedrals. very daring constructional processes; and may we not read a national instinct against it as proof of a national spirit of caution, timidity, self- restraint—as proof of a prosaic temper in the race? Remember that we cannot judge Gothic as we should classic architects. Self-restraint, balance, and repose formed the essence of classic art, and success with it was greatest when these qualities were most perfectly achieved. But the spirit of Gothic art was audacious, emotional, imaginative, mobile, and aspiring. In one word, it was romantic; and we all know that romantic means the very opposite of classic. As the poetry of Greece differs in character and ideals from the poetry of the Teutonic races, so Greek architecture differs from the architecture which bloomed when Teutonic blood had leavened and transformed the heritage of classic civilization. To be relatively cautious, unimaginative, unambitious, un- aspiring, meant, with Gothic builders, not to show the highest zsthetic meaning latent in the elements of their art. And this, I think, despite all the grandeur and the beauty that they wrought, was the case with the architects of England. The imaginative power of this race ex- pressed itself best in poetry, while that of the races which blended in the lands we now call France expressed itself best in art. The fact is as clearly proved by the decorations as by the main fabric of medizval churches. The wealth of imaginative resource and of manual skill shown by the carven ornaments and especially by the figure-sculpture of all the provinces of France is not even remotely paralleled in England, while the English feeling for color, as revealed in painted glass, is not nearly on a par with the French. It is impossible to realize this difference unless one has studied the Gothic work of both these lands. Westminster Abbey, for instance, with its one hundred and one feet of height, is the loftiest church in England, and, revealing everywhere a strong French influence, it cannot be taken as a type of national effort. York measures only ninety-two feet, and all the other cathedrals are lower still. Now ninety, or eighty, or even seventy feet of height may sound tremendous in transatlantic ears, may look tremendous to transatlantic eyes taking their first lesson in the magnificence of medieval work. But imagine what such a height must mean if actually doubled; or go to France and see, or to Cologne, which, again, is really a French church though standing on German soil. See the extraordinary beauty, the extraordinary sublim- ity of such proportions; feel their mystery, their poetry, their over- whelming impressiveness —spiritual, emotional, not coldly intellectual in quality. Then you will realize that these were the truest Gothic Cathedral Churches of England. 17 builders, and that their power came from poetic audacity, from strength of imaginative impulse; for height, in an interior, is the great enchanter, the great poetizer and soul-subduer. Length is seen and understood and valued at its worth. Height is felt, and the longer we submit our- selves to its influence the more bewildering and supernal it remains. One argument, indeed, is sometimes urged in favor of the vast length of English cathedrals and that wide spread which their narrowness permits in the transept-arms, as compared with the broader, shorter, compacter, if taller, area of French cathedrals. In France we most often see the total effect of a great church as we enter; we receive a tremendous impression which we know will be developed and enhanced from future points of view, but will not be succeeded by others of differ- ent kinds. But in England we enter what seems a treasure-house of impressions that may prove ever new and various as our steps extend. Of course the realization of this idea is helped by the diversity in date between part and part which is so conspicuous in English cathedrals, and therefore the traveler often votes them more interesting than their rivals. But does not such a decision imply that he cares less for pure archi- tectural beauty than for mere picturesqueness, or for the gratification of mere curiosity? However large it may be, a church is a single build- ing. Therefore, should we not rate its excellence just in proportion to the unity of the impression it makes? In fine French churches, I may add, this unity means no lack of minor parts and features to gratify the natural desire that absolutely everything should not be revealed at the first broad glance. What I want to explain is simply that the typical French interior strikes us as a single body composed of many parts, and the typical English one as a compound body. I think the question of true superiority is settled by these facts; and I am sure it must decide itself as they decide it if the traveler stays long enough near French and English cathedrals for the prickings of curiosity to be dulled and the worth of first impressions to be tested by familiarity. It may be more interesting to explore a church like Winchester or York. It is surely more satisfying to sit day after day in one like Amiens or Rheims. Of course such a difference in interior effect is translated by an equal difference in external aspect. The contrast is very great between the compact broad tall body of a French church, with its ranks of flying- buttresses, and the long low narrow self-sustaining body of an Eng- lish one; and the claim of the latter to superiority is far more often pleaded than that of the interior it covers. But if English cathedrals 2 18 Linglish Cathedrals. were judged apart from their lovely surroundings, I think such pleading would be less emphatic. The greatest merit of the long low English sky-line is the way in which it permits an extraordinary dignity in the towers. During the Romanesque period the main external feature of a church was almost always a central tower. As the Gothic body grew tall in Continental countries, this tower inevitably shrank into a mere lantern or spirelet, or disappeared altogether, while its former subordinates, flanking the west- ern front, usurped its vanished glory. But in England the central tower kept all its early preponderance and grew to greater than its early size, while, for a time, the western ones remained its lesser but still magnifi- cent neighbors. The narrowness of the church compelled the transept- arms to spread far beyond the line of nave and choir, and thus the eye was assured of the stability of the tower above the’crossing; and the lowness of the roofs quickly disengaged all the towers and gave them immense apparent size even when they were not really very tall. Thus, through the spreading of his transept and the soaring of his central tower, the island architect gave his exterior a pyramidal shape in which all parts and forms led up to a common centre. The charm of his arrangement is undeniable, but its grandeur is less than that of a church like Notre Dame in Paris, for instance, where we have no central tower but two great western ones, a magnificent circular sweep at the eastern end, and light yet sinewy lines of flying-buttresses to support the lofty clearstory. As regards ecclesiological expressiveness we may say, I think, that each type suits the sites, surroundings, and special purposes character- istic of the land which developed it. In France a cathedral was built in the heart of a city, and, especially in the days of Gothic art, was built by and for the people at large; and thus it was doubly fitting that its west front—the place of entrance—should be most conspicuously accentuated. But in England a cathedral most often stood apart from the city’s streets, encircled by subordinate structures of its own, and was built first of all for the sake of the body of clergy who served it; and thus the English accentuation of the crossing of nave and transept —the centre, the heart, of the edifice —justifies itself to both mind and eye. The great defect of the English arrangement we shall discover as we pass churches of different periods in review: it was difficult to supply a composition dominated by a central tower with an entrance front which should assert its own importance and yet not assert it too boldly. Cathedral Churches of England. 19 VI Tue lowness of an English cathedral and the small service it asks from the flying-buttress are often praised for the repose of aspect they confer. Nor is this repose a quality to be wholly condemned, given the usual character of English sites. But I have already said that repose, as distinct from strength and stability, is not the typical expression of Gothic architecture. This typical expression is one of aspiring yet easy effort, of vitality, of the exercise of a force which seems to uplift rather than simply to bear. If we ask the reason why, we are brought at once to the study of con- structional facts. Thus far I have merely spoken, from the broadly esthetic point of view, of such superficial effects as appeal to every eye. But it is very important to learn that, in architecture, a radical unlikeness between effects is always born from a difference in construc- tional processes, and that all esthetic judgments must take this differ- ence into account. The typical expression of Gothic churches simply translates the fact that the beginning of Gothic art meant the dawning of a new constructional ideal which, by the aid of newly adopted practi- cal expedients, was gradually brought to full and perfect realization. The radical change which came about when Romanesque builders used arch and column in a novel way was followed by another when early Gothic builders discovered the constructional potency of the pointed arch. As the form of churches, determined by the disposition of their ground-plans, did not greatly alter, this second change is less apparent to uncritical eyes than the one effected by the substitution of the church- plan for the temple-plan (which meant the shifting of colonnades from the exterior to the interior), and by the placing of the arch directly on the pier. But in one sense it was a change of even greater significance. A classic temple is a system of sturdy walls and colonnades all helping to sustain a solid roof. Soisa Romanesque church, and, in consequence, perfect repose is a quality common to both. But it is not a quality proper to a Gothic church, because this is a highly organized framework of piers, arches, and buttresses, so disposed that the spaces of wall and roof between them merely serve for enclosure. A Romanesque church, like a Greek temple, stands by virtue of inertia; but a perfect Gothic church stands by virtue of a skilfully balanced system of thrusts and coun- ter-thrusts concentrated upon special points of support. The Gothic con- structional scheme could never have been developed without the pointed arch; but this is only one element in the scheme, and the simple fact that 20 English Cathedrals. it is used does not make a building Gothic. Arabian mosques have pointed openings, but their constructional scheme is really the same that we find in Grecian temples and Romanesque cathedrals. Accord- ing as the general Gothic scheme is consistently and logically used, a Gothic church is architecturally poor or fine, no matter what may be its claim upon our feeling for picturesqueness or for grandeur; and the further this scheme has been carried, without a loss of either the fact or the air of stability, dignity, and grace, the nobler has been the architect's success. Let me once more assert these facts: 4A Romanesque church stands by virtue of inertia, a perfect Gothic church by virtue of a system of con- centrated thrusts and counter-thrusts,; for they are absolutely funda- mental and explanatory, prescribing that the two kinds of buildings must be judged by different sets of canons. We cannot test the true architectural excellence of any medizeval church unless we apply the proper set to all its forms and parts, although, of course, other con- siderations constantly come in play to settle questions of beauty in the widest possible sense. We shall see, as our study extends, how a knowledge of the true criteria of Gothic art may affect our judgment with regard to all the points of difference hitherto noted as distinguish- ing English Gothic from French, and especially the vexed questions of relative height and the development of flying-buttresses. Now I will only say in passing that if these criteria were always remembered when English Gothic is judged, its claims to equality with French would find less hearty support. They would prove that while the French architect was more poetic in his results, he was also more logical in his aims, more consistent in their realization. They would show, indeed, that it was just because he most clearly conceived the esthetic ideal proper to the new system of construction and most unflinchingly expressed it, that he put a higher degree of poetry into his results. It was because Frenchmen were the most logical of Gothic builders that they could dare to be the most imaginative and ambitious. VII Mvcu mathematical knowledge would be needed really to explain the character and development of Gothic vaulting, and many mathematical diagrams in illustration. But even in these pages the subject cannot be altogether avoided, for the vault was the most important feature in Gothic architecture. Indeed, it created Gothic architecture. Had Ro- Cathedral Churches of England. 21 manesque architects been content with flat wooden ceilings, such a structure as a Gothic church could never have been thought of; and had they been content with vaults as the Romans bequeathed them, it could never have been built. The earliest form of stone ceiling used by Romanesque builders in the west of Europe was the barrel-vault, or wagon-vault, of the Romans, which, as its names imply, is a continuous ceiling of semi-cylindrical shape; and they often strengthened it with great arches thrown across from wall to wall, which may be likened to the hoops of a barrel or those which support the canvas on such wagons as used to be called “prairie- schooners.” But while church-naves were still covered in this way, the narrower lower aisles were often covered with groined vaults. From each pier of the arcade between nave and aisle, an arch was thrown across to the aisle- wall, corresponding with the pier-arches in height and span; and each of the square compartments thus created was covered by a ceiling which, in theory, was composed of two barrel-vaults interpenetrating at right angles and thus giving rise to four sharp edges, or arrises, which started from the four corners of the base of the vault, and ran up to unite at its apex. These groined vaults had also been used by the Romans. But the Romanesque architect soon innovated upon his inheritance by build- ing strong ribs along his arrises, thus accenting their lines as those of two diagonal arches intersecting at the apex of the vault, as we see in the pictures of the north aisle of Gloucester in Chapter XI and of the south aisle of Durham in Chapter IV. This was not done, as might be fancied, merely to improve the look of the work—it was done to sim- plify and facilitate construction ; for the new diagonal arches are really new constructional features, architectural bones solidifying the substance of the vault, vaulting-ribs which, like permanent centrings, uphold the curved fields between them, and allow them to be built of very small stones and to be comparatively thin. This clever architect did not know that in devising these ribs he had sown the seed which was to grow into a new form of architecture; but he soon perceived that the addi- tional strength which he had conferred upon groined vaults would per- mit him to substitute them for the barrel-vault above his wide naves. But, as round arches which rise from the same level can reach the same height only when of the same span, he could use groined vaults well only above square compartments ; over an oblong compartment he was obliged either conspicuously to stilt some of his arches, or to use for others a segmental form which meant both ugliness and construc- 2% 22 English Cathedrals. tional weakness, or to start different arches from different levels, which was not easily managed with current methods of design. Therefore, if his groined vaults were to be perfect ones, not only had his aisle to be of the same width as one bay in his pier-arcade, but his nave had to be exactly twice this width, and each compartment of its vaulting had to embrace two bays of the wall-design. This necessity is revealed by that alternation of form in the piers of the great arcade which we find in many late Norman and early Gothic churches: the sturdier or more complex piers bear the supports of the vaulting-ribs, and the interme- diate ones directly sustain no part of the vaulting, or else, as in the choir of Canterbury, carry intermediate ribs, thrown across the nave between the diagonal ribs, which bring the vaults into what is called a sexpar- tite form.’ Thus we have a clear instance of the way in which the char- acter of the vault was expressed by the design of the church’s wall, the concentration of part of the thrust of the vaults breaking that uniform series of piers which we see, for instance, in the nave of Peterborough, and which was appropriate when a flat ceiling was used, or a barrel- vault whose thrust was more equally distributed along the walls. Of course vaulting-shafts were not demanded by barrel-vaults unless trans- verse ribs were to be prepared for; nor were they ever demanded by flat ceilings. But it seems almost certain that all the great early Nor- man naves which were covered by flat ceilings were intended, from the first, to be covered by vaults of some kind, and that either cautious- ness or lack of funds prescribed the substitution—temporary or not as the case might prove—of the flat boarded ceilings. Nothing more than this could be done, however, while the architect was tied to the round arch. He was obliged to support vaults which exerted an enormous thrust ; he was obliged to observe certain relative proportions, not only in the design of these vaults, but in that of every portion of his edifice; and his difficulties were great indeed when he wished to cover irregularly shaped compartments, such as those which occur in the encircling aisle of an apse where the inner side of each compartment is much narrower than its outer side. But before the middle of the twelfth century it was perceived in France that pointed arch-forms would exert a much less powerful thrust, and would give the architect much greater freedom in design. The height of his arches would no longer be strictly determined by their span: 1 In this form two transverse skew-vaults, sepa- cut of the choir of Canterbury, is somewhat awk- rated by the transverse rib, are grouped between ward-looking, and hence the form was early aban- each pair of diagonal ribs; the result, shown in the doned. Cathedral Churches of England. 23 narrow ones could be carried as high as wider ones, and so he could adapt his vaulting to compartments of an oblong or even of a quite irreg- ular shape, without much constructional difficulty and with no offense to the eye. At first pointed arches were used only where constructionally re- quired; as we shall see in the choir of Canterbury and the nave of Durham, the transverse arches of the vault were pointed, while the diagonal ribs retained their semicircular sweep. But, of course, it was soon felt that, constructionally and zsthetically, a concord of forms was desirable, and the pointed arch gradually ousted the round one from its place, first in all the major features, and then in the minor ones and in every decorative detail. And this change was naturally accelerated by the fact that, as I have said, a pointed arch exerts a lesser thrust than a semicircular one. Vaults and walls could be more freely de- signed with pointed arches than with round ones, and they could also be more lightly and therefore more economically constructed. ! All through the finest Gothic period French vaults were built in the simple quadripartite shape which is shown in our drawing of the nave of Amiens, or in the sexpartite shape of which the early type is shown in the cut of the choir of Canterbury, the piers in the former case being all alike, and in the latter alternating in design. Even with pointed arch-forms the architect was not perfectly free to design as he chose; he could not build arches of any span and height he might desire, and spring them all from the same level, without producing vaulting- surfaces of awkward curvature, and courses of masonry twisted, skewed, and tapering from the diagonals to the wall-ribs. But he could stilt vaulting-ribs without producing forms as disagreeable as those which result from the stilting of round arches, because of the less abrupt and violent transition from the vertical spring of the stilted rib to its steep curve of large radius, as compared with that occurring in the case of a stilted round arch with its sharper curve. All the pressure of these vaults was concentrated by the system of ribs upon the vaulting-shafts 1 When the history and nature of the develop- southern and southwestern provinces which are part ment of medizval architecture were less well un- derstood than they are to-day, many curious theories were propounded to account for the introduction of the pointed arch into northwestern Europe ; but the simplest explanation is now felt to be the truest. Doubtless the familiarity of the Crusaders with the pointed arch as used in Arabic architecture had something to do with its adoption in twelfth-century France. But before the twelfth century it had been employed in the domical and barrel vaults of those of modern France; and it had also been used in many countries in far pre-Christian times. It is a very obvious constructional form, and its adoption to meet an obvious practical need in twelfth-cen- tury France was in no sense remarkable. The re- markable fact is that, while elsewhere it had not structurally affected the design of the buildings in which it was employed, in northern France it im- mediately became the inspiration and main resource of an entirely novel architectural scheme. 24 English Cathedrals. and flying-buttresses, and by these was transmitted to the piers and aisle-buttresses, so that the filling of the spaces between the ribs could be made extremely light. But these spaces still had to be skilfully con- structed as segments of an arch-like ceiling, and this involved much intelligence on the designer's and the mason’s part. It is important here to note a radical difference in constructional spirit between the architects of France and England, for it determined striking artistic differences in their work which persisted until the latest days of medizval art. Great mathematical ability has always distinguished the French race, and it nowhere shows more plainly than in the fact that their Gothic architects were wonderfully skilful stereotomists. That is, they delighted in clever, scientific solutions of the difficult geometrical problems in- volved in the tasks of the stone-cutter and mason. All through the great struggle with the problem of vaulting large areas, their point of view was the geometrical one. Curiously enough, considering their equally remarkable artistic supremacy, they seem to have thought less of the artistic effect of their nave-vaults than of their scientific plotting-out and execution; and the admirable shaping of their stones, with their con- verging and twisting joints, is the marvel of modern builders. The English, on the other hand, showed in their treatment of this great problem the practical common sense which has always distin- guished their nation. Their desire was to build their vaults as easily as possible. Therefore, while the French clung to the simple early schemes which involved large boldly curved vault-surfaces, the English soon mul- tiplied their ribs and used them in a variety of ways, thus cutting up the intermediate surfaces into smaller portions which could be filled with the exercise of much less ingenuity on the part of either the preparatory designer or the executive artisan. The most common type of English ceiling for a while was one where a cluster of ribs spread upward from each support in a fan-like way un- til all the ribs, from end to end of the nave, impinged at equal intervals upon a longitudinal rib which followed the line of the apex of the vault. This kind of ceiling is shown, with three ribs in each group, in the pic- ture of the nave of Gloucester in Chapter XI, while the effect of more numerously membered groups is shown in the illustration of the nave of Lichfheld in Chapter VI, and is indicated in that of the Angel Choir of Lincoln in Chapter VII. Later on, many intermediate ribs were intro- duced between the main ones of a vault, forming star-vaults or lierne- vaults of close and complicated patterns, such as are suggested by our Cathedral Churches of England. 25 pictures of the choirs of Ely and Wells, and of the Lady-chapel at Gloucester; and in many of these the intermediate vaulting-surfaces were so small that (especially where vaults took so low a curve as in Eng- land) they could be kept almost flat, and each could be filled with stone without the exercise of much more geometrical ingenuity than would have been required to cover it with wood. As tastes differ, so, of course, do judgments with regard to the rela- tive degrees of beauty secured by French and English vaulting expe- dients. The modern Englishman, and often the American too, while acknowledging the superior geometrical excellence and lucidity of the big simple French vaults, finds their few and thin ribs and their plain surfaces cold, bare, and inappropriate to the elaborateness of the lower portions of a fully developed Gothic interior, and rejoices when, once in a- while, as over the crossing in the cathedral of Amiens, he finds that even thirteenth-century Frenchmen sometimes thought them too plain and bare, and added intermediate ribs in considerable number. But a modern French architect, analyzing the elaborateness of an English vault, and seeing the reasons for it, is distressed by the lack of thorough geometrical skill which it reveals, and finds its multitudinous ribs and bosses puerile and overdone. To me, the plainness of French vaults has rarely seemed unsatisfactory, especially as their height removes them so much farther from the eye than English vaults, while such English vaults as those above the naves of Gloucester and Lichfield and the Angel Choir at Lincoln have always seemed unfortunate in expression. A longitudinal rib following the apex of a vault appears to strengthen the vault just where it needs strength- ening least, and accentuates length in ceilings which much more greatly need to have their height emphasized; while ribs which rise in equal- membered clusters and end at equal intervals from each other along this longitudinal rib also accentuate length, and accord less well than trans- verse and diagonal ribs with walls which are conspicuously divided into compartments. No interior covered in this way has, it seems to me, a truly aspiring, characteristically Gothic look. A ceiling like Lichfield’s or Lincoln’s is hardly more Gothic in effect than a barrel-vault of pointed section would be. Indeed, it is easier to fancy that it was evolved di- rectly from the barrel-vault than to understand that quadripartite and sexpartite vaults were intermediate between them. The later English ceilings, with their rich multitude of interwoven ribs and accentuating bosses, are much more agreeable to the eye, and are more beautiful than any others when covering small elaborate rooms 26 English Cathedrals. or chapels. But in very large constructions I think they lack dignity, decision, and constructional expressiveness. A network seems to have been substituted for a true framework of ribs; even when we know that it is a framework properly playing its part, we do not clearly see how the pressures are transmitted to the ground. And of course such a net- work is least pleasing when, as we shall find to be the case in the choir of Wells, an actual barrel-vault is covered with a fretwork of ribs which have no real connection with its structure. To say, however, that, even when well used, the English star-vault or lierne-vault is illogical and in- artistic, is distinctly misleading. The most elaborate arrangement of ribs, if it forms a self-supporting framework, is a strictly logical devel- opment from the first simple use of diagonal ribs. The final development in English vaulting was, like all the features of the Perpendicular style, a distinct reaction from what had gone before. After thinking that he could not build his vaults with too many ribs, the architect conceived the idea of building them with none at all. Fan- vaulting is, in fact, a system of construction where the body of the vault sustains itself, and such raised lines as may appear on its surface— whether simulating ribs or not—are simply superficial and decorative, like the adornment of that barrel-vault in Wells Cathedral to which I have already referred and which was built in the Decorated period. Fan-vaults are shown, as covering the crossing of nave and tran- sept, above the great brace between the piers in the picture of the nave of Wells in Chapter IX, and as roofing the cloister of Gloucester in Chapter XI. Asa rule, it is a great mistake to think that a new architectural process was perfected all at once, to say that a new archi- tectural feature was invented. Such processes are almost always ten- tative at first; such features are almost always evolved rather than created. But fan-vaulting must have been an exception to this rule. No gentle successive experimental steps can have led up to its per- fected form. Some one man, in some one place, must first have thought of building these great inverted cones; and, once conceived, there was no reason why he should not immediately build them well. And this man’s work, it is commonly believed, we see in the cloister of Gloucester Cathedral. Perhaps he got the first idea of his forms from those Early English ceilings which show groups of equal ribs, or, very likely, from the fan-like divergence of the ribs which spring from the central col- umn in a typical English chapter-house; but the constructional scheme was all his own. It was quickly adopted in all parts of England, but in other countries fan-vaults are never seen. Cathedral Churches of England. 29 VIII [ Hope all this will not read as though my admiration for English cathedrals were small. It is really so great that I despair of finding a vocabulary rich and telling enough to express it. But unreasoning praise is not the truest sort. One cannot rightly admire without un- derstanding, or love without appreciating ; and the only way to under- stand and appreciate is through processes of comparison. And if, in learning the varied charm and majesty of the great churches of Eng- land, we likewise learn that those of another land are in some ways still more wonderful, need we be distressed by the fact? It should simply deepen our sense of the superb ability of medizval builders, and heighten the pleasure we feel in any chance to study the actual work of their hands. Moreover, although to enjoy all diversities in architectural beauty we must recognize them as diversities, of course we need not always be trying to hold a critical balance true between them. There is no more stupid mood for student or traveler than one which refuses to delight itself in anything but the very best. The second best—yes, the twentieth best—produced in the noble days of art is good enough to give a wise man pleasure, and the wiser he is the more pleasure he will be able to take in it. We want to learn in which respects Eng- lish cathedrals surpass those of France and in which they are inferior. But it would be very foolish, during an English pilgrimage, always to defer to French ideals. Why indeed should we, pilgrims from afar whose fathers bought us better blessings by the sacrifice of our artistic heritage, feel always bound to carp at the fact of its rich diversity ? Unless we are pedants or puritans in taste, or responsible professors of the art of building, or architects forced to choose texts for our own new efforts in the vast stone cyclopedia written by dead generations, we need not always be asking, Which is better, this or that? Most often we may feel that, whether French or English churches are the finer, it is well for us that French churches are tall and English ones are low; that some were reared on narrow ancient streets and others on broad verdurous lawns; that we have there the circling apse, with its arching chapels and its coronal of flying-buttresses, and here the great flat eastern wall—at Ely with its lancet-groups, at Wells with its vista into lower further spaces, at Gloucester with its vast translucent tapestry of glass. Surely the more variety the better, for us who have not to teach or to build but only to enjoy. CHAPTER II THE CATHEDRAL OF CHRIST'S CHURCH, CANTERBURY ANTERBURY Cathedral was entirely rebuilt by the Normans, but it now retains so little Norman work that we must go elsewhere to understand how a Romanesque church was designed. The tourist who wishes really to study the development of English architecture will be wise if he comes to Canterbury only after he has been at Norwich, Peterborough, and Durham. But when history’s claims are considered with those of art, the long cathedral tale commences in the Kentish capital. Here the conversion of the English was begun; here the first Christian shepherd of the English had his seat; it was not the chair of a bishop merely, but the throne of a primate; and in it the Primate of All Eng- land still sits to-day. Whatever we may do when we travel, we should read first of the cathedral which is the mother-church of England by the double title of earliest birth and constant rule. I In this delectably little island the same mzse-en-scéne has often served for the playing out of various dramas. The soil is everywhere rich with buried history and set thick with the artistic relics of all eras, and the air is never free from mighty memories. Britain among the lands is as Rome among the cities: 1 The chief authority for students of this church is Professor Willis’s “ Architectural History of Canter- bury Cathedral,” published in 1845, but now unfor- tunately out of print. It contains translations from all the ancient writers who mentioned the building, chief among whom were Eadmer the Singer, who was a boy in the convent schoolin the time of Lanfranc, 28 the story of any one of her districts and Gervase, who was a monk of Christ’s Church when the Norman choir was burned and the present one erected. A mass of varied and interesting informa- tion is contained in Dean Stanley’s ‘‘ Historical Memorials of Canterbury,” while the cathedral of Sens is described in Naudin’s “ Fastes de la Sénonie” and, of course, in Viollet-le-Duc’s “ Dictionnaire.” Lhe Cathedral of Christ's Church, Canterbury. 29 is as difficult to tell in brief as the story of any Roman site. Rarely indeed can we say, For this reason is this place of interest. There are usually a score of reasons, a dozen interests of successive date; and we often come upon historic repetitions of so happy a sort that they seem to have been planned by some great cosmic playwright in the interest of artistic unity, of dramatic point and concentration. There were, for instance, many spots along the coast where St. Augustine might have landed when he was on his way to Canterbury and the court of Ethelbert. But the spot where he did land chanced to be on the Isle of Thanet at the mouth of the Thames, just where the first of those heathen English whom he came to convert had disembarked a century and a half before. The cathedral which he soon established with archiepiscopal rank has always remained the mother-church of England; but in one sense the term is still better deserved by little St. Martin’s high above it on the east- ward hill. Look narrowly at these ancient walls and you will find em- bedded in them fragments more ancient still,— bits of Roman brick which tell that when St. Augustine came in the year 597 there stood on this same site atiny British church. Somehow it had weathered the storms of pagan years and now was the private oratory of Queen Bertha, who had been taught Christianity in her early home at Paris. Here St. Augustine held his first service under an island roof, here he baptized his first convert, — King Ethelbert himself,—and hence he passed as con- secrated primate with banner and silver cross and pomp of singing down through the beautiful valley of the Stour to the royal town beneath. Although it is very old, St. Martin’s has certainly been rebuilt since the sixth century, and none but the most easy-going of sentimentalists will believe quite all he is told about its furniture and tombs. But, disin- herited of gray memorials by the accident of birth across the sea, we find it interesting enough to stand upon a spot where such tales can be told with any color of likelihood; and besides, from the shadow of St. Martin’s dusky yews, which represent the first tiny rootlet of Eng- lish Christianity, we get the finest possible outlook upon that greater church which typifies the full-grown faith. Gazing across the broad valley to its far-off western hills, we see the town in the low middle distance with the remains of the great suburban monastery founded by St. Augustine and named for him, and, in the very centre of the picture, the cathedral that he called Christ’s Church uplifting its gigantic towers and showing in the mere spread of its transept a length so great that it may easily be mistaken for the length of nave and choir instead. If an Oo Lenglish Cathedrals. CANTERBURY FROM THE NORTHEAST. American could see but one English landscape, he might well choose this; and if he could choose his hour, it might well be from one of those summer afternoons when the witchery of sloping light enhances the charms of color, and shines through the perforations of far-off pin- nacle and parapet until their stone looks like lace against the sky and their outlines seem to waver in harmony with the lines of cloud above. Sentiment in the traveler means, I think, something close akin to the love of symbolism. It asks for correspondence between body and spirit. It demands that sight and imagination shall be gratified to- gether, that a town shall keep to the eye the tacit promise conveyed by the sound of its name. As we travel, sentiment is disappointed, alas, how very often! But Canterbury keeps its promises with un- usual fidelity. From afar it seems not so much a town as a great solitary church standing on a slight elevation and backed by higher hills. And a humble town it is in fact, low-roofed and narrow-bordered, with no touch of municipal dignity and no evidence of private wealth, breathing The Cathedral of Christ's Church, Canterbury. aT a breath of almost country air, basking sleepily in a mood of almost rural quiet, resting meekly at the foot of its mighty church, guarding tenderly the ruins of its great monastic houses. But in all this we find no dis- appointment, for the greatness of Canterbury was never material. It was spiritual, or, if I try for the truest term, it was emblematic. Canter- bury’s power was simply the power of those great men who, taking their name from her, were less often within her gates than far away, helping or hindering kings and parliaments in their ruling of the land; and the authority she delegated to them stood not upon temporal but upon CANTERBURY FROM THE WEST. ecclesiastical might. So it is fitting that she should have been small and modest in street and square, great and beautiful only in the body of her splendid temple. In medizeval days her walls were of course complete ; the Conquer- or’s castle, now a wreck, was haughtily conspicuous; and sleepiness was certainly not her mood while she witnessed the sumptuous living and parading of bishop, abbot, priest, and knight, and the bloody wrangling of each with the others, and felt the pulsing of that vast pilgrim-tide which brought from every English shire and every foreign land its motley myriads to the wonder-working shrine of Thomas Becket. But, never- theless, the city itself must have been so nearly the same in general effect that we can easily people it anew with its tumultuous shows of faith and superstition, force and fraud, humility, luxury, pride, licen- 32 English Cathedrals. tiousness, and greed. Modern growth has not burst its ancient body asunder and reworked it into a larger shape. Nor, on the other hand, has modern life gone wholly from its streets and left them to 2.0. OLLINS 200 MERCERY LANE.? solitude and death. Canterbury is alive despite the long cessation of the ecclesiastical industries of old; she is not dead, but merely dozing in a peace unbroken by the rushing secular traffic of to-day. II Tue main approach to the cathedral has always been through Mercery Lane, which took its title from the arcades of booths where 1 The house to the left of the picture stands on the spot where stood the Checquers Inn of Chaucer’s time, and the old vaulted cellars still exist beneath it. The Cathedral of Christ's Church, Canterbury. a3 mementos of pilgrimage were sold. Christ's Church Gateway, which now marks its termination, is a fine bit of Perpendicular work dating from the early years of the sixteenth century. Underneath it we pass into a broad turfed space, still called the Churchyard, which was once the burial-ground for pilgrims who had died at their goal; and from here the western front of the cathedral and its long south side show in a perspective of lordly picturesqueness. CHRIST’S CHURCH GATEWAY FROM MERCERY LANE. On this spot too, as well as on the eastern hill, St. Augustine found a surviving British church which he reconsecrated and repaired. It is said to have been a basilica imitated from old St. Peter's in Rome, without a transept, but with an apse at either end. Unchanged, it seems to have served the archbishops of England until the tenth century; and thereafter, largely rebuilt and with heightened walls but still essentially the same, it housed them for a century more. Hither 3 34 English Cathedrals. Dunstan, the mightiest of ante-Norman prelates, came to begin his rule of the Church while persisting in his efforts to rule the State. Here he warred against his political enemies and the great enemy of mankind, but with peculiar vigor against the secular clergy. The story of such old ecclesiastic fights is interesting by virtue of its departure from what seem to us properly ecclesiastic methods of com- bat. There is a mine of strange suggestiveness in Dean Milman’s phrase: “It was not by law, but by the armed invasion of cathedral after cathedral, that the married clergy were ejected and the Benedic- tines installed in their places.” Yet did not “the dove which erst was seen of John in Jordan” hover over Dunstan in a burst of celestial light at the hour which made him primate? Was he not a visible child of heaven and a miracle-worker while he lived, and a saint and still greater miracle-worker after death? Archbishop Alphege, who accepted murder from the Danes rather than rob his people and live by the gold which he knew would but bribe to further rapine and bloodshed, was also canonized and also wrought marvels with his bones; and these two saints, whose fame reposed on such very different grounds, were supreme in the archiepiscopal storehouse of relics—lying on either side of the great altar in which was enshrined the head of St. Wilfrid of Ripon—until St. Thomas arrived with a higher title still. True saint or not, however, Dunstan was a mighty artist before the Lord, work- ing with pen and brush, in gold and silver and brass and iron, in the casting of bells, in the making of musical instruments, and the making of music upon them. Richer clay than modern nature uses must have formed the substance of these famous men of old, meddlers in every department of human effort and easily masters in all. Twenty-three years after Dunstan died there happened, in 1011, the murder of Archbishop Alphege and the sacking of the cathedral by the Danes. Canute repaired it as best he could, and hung up his golden crown in vicarious atonement for his fellow-countrymen’s sacrilege. But the last archbishop to stand within its shattered, patched-up walls was that Stigand whose figure shows so vividly on the striking page where Freeman has painted Harold struggling with the Conqueror. When William came to Harold’s throne and Archbishop Lanfranc to Stigand’s, Norman fires had completed what Danish fires had begun. Lanfranc was compelled to build an entirely new church, and naturally began it in the “new Norman manner,” after the pattern of St. Stephen’s church at Caen on the Norman mainland; and in the short space of seven years he had raised it “from the very foundations and rendered Lhe Cathedral of Christ's Church, Canterbury. oh it nearly perfect.” Only a few years afterward, however, during the primacy of Anselm, Lanfranc’s choir was pulled down and reconstructed on a much larger scale. Ernulph and Conrad, successively priors of the convent, were the architects of this new choir, which was conse- crated in the year 1130, when Henry I. of England was present with David of Scotland and ‘every bishop of the realm,” and so famous a dedication had “never been heard of since the dedication of the temple of Solomon.” This was the church—Lanfranc’s nave and Anselm’s choir—in which Becket was murdered on December 29, 1170. But four years later it was half ruined by a great catastrophe described in graphic words by Gervase, an eye-witness. He gives Anselm’s reconstruction the name of one of its architects. The “glorious choir of Conrad,” he says, caught fire in the night, cinders and sparks blowing up from cer- tain burning dwellings near at hand and getting, unperceived, a fatal headway between “the well-painted ceiling below and the sheet-lead covering above.” But the flames at last beginning to show themselves, “a ery arose in the churchyard, ‘See, see, the church ts burning!” Valiantly worked monks and people together to save it. The nave was rescued, but the whole choir perished, and “the house of God, hitherto delightful as a paradise of pleasures, was now made a despica- ble heap of ashes.” Monks and people then addressed themselves to lamentation with true medizval fervor. They ‘‘were astonished that the Almighty should suffer such things, and, maddened with excess of grief and perplexity, they tore their hair and beat the walls and pavement of the church with their heads and hands, blaspheming the Lord and his saints, the patrons of the church. Neither can mind conceive nor words express nor writing teach their grief and anguish. Truly, that they might alleviate their miseries and anguish with a little consolation, they put together, as well as they could, an altar and station in the nave of the church, where they might wail and howl rather than sing the nocturnal services.” Is not the value men set upon their work a reflex of the amount of enthusiasm they have put into its making? Should we not know, with- out further witness, that an age which could lament like this must have been an age of mighty builders? And indeed these Canterbury folk went mightily to work when the first spasm of rage and grief and fear had passed. French and English architects were called in to give ad- vice, and a Frenchman, William of Sens, “on account of his lively genius 36 English Cathedrals. and good reputation,” was chosen to begin the rebuilding.’ Though he had labored only four years when a fall from a scaffold forced him to relinquish his task, he had finished the walls of choir and presbytery, and was preparing to turn their vaults. His successor —also “ William by name” though “English by nation, small in body but in workman- CANTERBURY FROM THE NORTHWEST. ship of many kinds acute and honest”—constructed the retrochoir for Becket’s shrine and the circular terminal chapel now known as “Becket’s Crown.” The goodly work of these two Williams still stands as when they wrought it, to the glory, one cannot but confess, rather of St. Thomas than of God. Lanfranc’s nave and transept, being in “ notorious and evident state of ruin,” were rebuilt in the fourteenth century, in the earliest version of the Perpendicular style. The southwestern tower was replaced in the middle of the fifteenth century, and about 1500 the great central tower was raised above the crossing, while the north- 1 Sens was in intimate relations with Canterbury during a long period, and Becket himself had spent much time there while in exile. His episcopal robes are still preserved in the treasury of its cathedral. Lhe Cathedral of Christ's Church, Canterbury. ay western tower survived as Lanfranc had left it until 1834, when, alas, it was pulled down and rebuilt to “match” its Perpendicular companion. Ill To understand the cathedral as it is to-day we must understand St. Thomas's posthumous part therein. We must know the réle that relic- worship played, more or less through many centuries and in every part of Christendom, but with especial architectural emphasis in the twelfth century and on English soil. Then and there the fame and frequentation, the wealth and power of a church depended chiefly upon the relics it possessed or could lay plausible claim to owning. From the armed hand to the lying mouth, the bribing ducat and the secret theft, there was no device which holy ecclesiastics scorned or feared to use in their great task of enriching their churches with the blood and bones and heterogeneous relics of departed sainthood. For many years the neighboring monastery of St. Augustine outranked the cathedral establishment of Canterbury in every way except in dignity of name, because, in deference to an old law forbidding intramural interments, the bodies of St. Augustine him- self and his immediate successors had been placed in its suburban keep- ing. But Cuthbert, the twelfth archbishop, says Gervase, “sought and obtained from Rome the right of free burial for Christ’s Church. He was the first who, by the will of God, the authority of the high pontiff, and the permission of the King of England, was buried in Christ’s Church, and so also were all his successors save one alone, named Jam- bert.” The profit to house and church was immediate, for almost every archbishop of Canterbury seems, in those days, to have been canonized. But what immense gain might result from such an innovation was more clearly shown when Becket went bleeding to his tomb and, as St. Thomas of Canterbury, became the most famous intercessor in all Europe. Before this time the custom of burying saints behind the high altar instead of in the crypt beneath had been well established; and when Anselm pulled down Lanfranc’s new choir simply that he might build a larger, it was certainly in deference to the growing need for proper sepulchral space. It is true that Becket himself was first buried in the crypt. But the reason and manner of his death, with the haste, terror, and intimidation which followed, were the choosers of his grave. When, four years later, Anselm’s choir was burned, Becket was already can- onized and world-renowned; and when it was rebuilt his due enshrine- a* 38 English Cathedrals. ment was the main concern. Often hereafter we shall see how the choir of a cathedral grew to its enormous size through its ownership of some saint’s dust, but nowhere is a saint’s dominion so plainly petrified as at Canterbury. Rarely has so honorable a monument been decreed a mortal; and rarely has a mortal who stands well within the borders of authentic history been so diversely judged. Unfortunately, most of our early ideas about Becket came to us as part of our Puritanical inheritance, dictated in utter oblivion of the unlikeness of his time to ours. And still more unfortunately, the most brilliant account of him that appeals to adult eyes is Mr. Froude’s, written by a pen which brought to the task of an historian the methods of a prosecuting attorney. Of course the most obvious thing to say about Becket is that he was fighting against the Crown and for the Church and a foreign head of the Church; and Church against State in the world of to-day would of course mean menace to men’s liberties. But the twelfth century was not the nineteenth, or even the sixteenth, and when its own perspective is understood it shows us Becket in a very different light. It shows that he was no saint as we count saints to-day, no churchman or states- man of a pattern we should praise to-day, and perhaps not consciously a champion of the people while an opponent of the king; but neverthe- less a great, almost an heroic, Englishman, in every way a brave man, in many things a wise man, after current lights a conscientious one, and, whether designedly or not, a mighty agent in winning the long fight for English liberty. It is here his name should be enrolled, in the narrative of that long struggle which began with the very birth of the English people—before the actual birth of the English nation—and by no means closed on the scaffold of King Charles. With all its faults, the Church of Becket’s day was the only possible helper of the people. With all his tyrannous intentions, the Bishop of Rome was just then a less dangerous shepherd than Henry, the Angevin king. When we read the signature of a later archbishop on the Great Charter of free- dom—when we find Stephen Langton heading the list of those who compelled King John to do the nation’s will, and defying at once the despotisms of royalty and of Rome—it is but just to remember that Becket, defying royalty in the name of Rome, combating a ruler far more powerful than John, had taken the first step which made Lang- ton’s step secure. A later Henry saw this truth. “Reforming” the Church less with the wish to purify religion than to extend the royal power, Henry VIII. had St. Thomas’s shrine destroyed, his body oo Lhe Cathedral of Christ's Church, Canterbury. THE CATHEDRAL, FROM CHRIST’S CHURCH GATEWAY. 40 English Cathedrals. burned, his face obliterated from painted glass, and his name stricken from calendar and mass-book, more because he had been a “traitor” than because he had become a fosterer of superstition. The blood of a ‘martyr was in Becket’s case the seed of wealth and power to the Church and of some more or less pious kind of piety, as well as of that frightful dissoluteness which the old poets paint as the result of Canterbury pilgrimages. But its greatest interest for us is as one of the germs of that splendid stock of English freedom to which Americans, as well as Englishmen, are the fortunate heirs. The archbishop who gave his life to uphold the standard of the Church against the blows of the king, and the Puritan who beat down king and Church together beneath the standard of liberty, had more in common than either in his day could possibly have understood. We may stand with reverence by the now shrineless centre of Canterbury’s retrochoir, as well as by the vacant chapel in Westminster Abbey where the bones of Cromwell briefly lay. IV Ir one comes from the Continent, it is a surprise to find only a single little unused doorway in the west fagade at Canterbury, and to see the main entrance in a great porch projecting from the southern side of the southwestern tower. This, however, is the most characteristically English position for the main entrance to a church, as is proved by very many of those rural churches which, more wholly than their vaster sisters, were the outcome of local tastes and old traditions. Ina huge church like Canterbury’s, great western portals are indisputably better from an architectural point of view. Yet for once we may be glad to find so English a feature as the southern porch, because it alone speaks a word to remind us of the original cathedral. All that survives to suggest the church of the British-Roman Christians, of St. Augustine, Dunstan, Alphege, and Stigand, is this successor of that great ‘“Suth- dure” where, says an old English writer, ‘all disputes from the whole kingdom which cannot legally be referred to the king’s court or to the hundreds or counties do receive judgment.” Passing through it into the extreme west end of the church, we see the nave as Chaucer’s pilgrims saw it, only now it is bare and then it was clothed. Five centuries have wrought a great change, but only a superficial one—a decorative, not an architectural change. I need hardly explain why and how all beauty save that of the stones them- Lhe Cathedral of Christ's Church, Canterbury. 41 selves has vanished. The chartered havoc of King Henry’s delegates and the lawless havoc of Cromwell’s are among the most familiar scenes of history; and every tourist knows enough to take account, as well, of eighteenth-century neglect and whitewash and of modern “restoration.” In the old days an interior like this was covered in every inch of wall and floor and ceiling with color and gold in tints that charmed the eye and figures that warmed emotion, and was lighted by windows like colossal gems and tapers like innumerable stars—color and light and incense- smoke mingling together to work a tone of radiant depth and strength. It was furnished with altars, tombs, chantries, trophies, statues, and em- broidered hangings, trodden by troops of gaudily dressed ecclesiastics, and filled with a never-lessening crowd of worshipers. To-day it is bare and cold and glaring, scraped to the very bone, stripped of all except the architect’s first result, and empty even of facilities for occa- sional prayer; for at Canterbury, as in many another English church of largest size, only the screened-off choir is put to use, while the nave is abandoned to the sight-seer’s undevoutness. Protestantism, from an artistic point of view, is not a very successful guardian of Catholic cathedrals. Even in its present state, the effect of Canterbury’s nave is majestic and tremendous as we enter, although on the ground-level we can see only the nave itself, and, higher up, above tall barriers of central screen and iron aisle-gates, only dim vistas of upper arcades and arched choir- ceilings. In certain other cathedrals all the old barriers to foot and eye have recently been swept away, and the change is usually considered happy; but it is a question whether, given the peculiar elongated plan of English churches, the realization of magnitudes thus secured is not too dearly bought. To decide this question, it is certainly best to put French ideals out of mind. Ina long, low, and narrow English church, with its far- projecting transepts, great mystery and impressiveness spring from the old arrangement—a mystery as of holier holies beyond the first, an impressiveness as of endless spaces extending from this space already so enormous, a suggestion not of mere magnitude but of infini- tude. These have a potent charm; and why not preserve this charm to the full, since, with such a ground-plan, no degree of openness can pro- duce the French effect of colossal unity? In fact, these English churches were meant to be divided, and the historic as well as the artistic sense is hurt by opening them out. They were not intended first of all for lay- men’s accommodation, as were the cathedrals built by the communes of 42 English Cathedrals. France to meet their civic no less than their religious needs. They were special places of worship for the cathedral chapter. The people were given free access to the nave, and at proper times were admitted within the eastern limb to gaze upon its crowning glories and to pay reverence to its holy dead. But they did not belong there, and the old screens express the fact. The peculiarity of the Canterbury arrangement is that the choir- screen, standing betwixt the piers to the eastward of the crossing, is at the top of a flight of steps which rise from a high platform that fills the whole of the crossing and is itself approached by another flight ascend- ing from the nave. If from the balustrade of this platform we look down into the north arm of the transept, we see the very spot where Becket fell, and even some of the very stones that saw his fall. In the reconstruction of the fourteenth century there were left undisturbed a fragment of the eastern wall of the transept against which he braced himself when the hot hand-to-hand fight was nearly over, and a piece of the pavement on which his brains were scattered by the point of Hugh de Horsea’s sword, while the doorway through which he had entered from the cloister was not wholly destroyed. All the rest of the Norman transept-arm is gone, including the pillar, supporting an upper chapel, to which he clung for a moment, and the stairs by which he sought to reach the altar. But the exact situation of these last is shown by a corresponding flight which still exists in the south transept-arm; and altogether it needs scarcely an effort to bring the whole tragedy back to mind exactly as it passed in that dim December twilight. Few tragedies in history or in story have been so grandiosely mourn- ful as this which shows us a great leader ensnared by generous con- fidence, with a cursing band of royal bloodhounds at his throat, and all his monkish friends save three in howling flight; retreating step by step and growing prouder and sterner with each, not for an instant demoralized into flight himself; fighting with voice and hand till fight showed itself vain, and then accepting death with noble composure and meek words of prayer, falling beneath the cruel thrusts so calmly that the folds of his clothing were undisturbed. If it was not the death of a 1 The steps which lead up to the platform between formandthe nave. As a Lady-chapel then filled the the western piers of the crossing are not marked on our plan. While Lanfranc’s nave existed an altar stood on the platform, and another screen — the true rood-screen, bearing a great crucifix and the figures of the Virgin and St. John — rose between the plat- opening from the north nave-aisle into the transept, pilgrims visiting the scene of the martyrdom could approach only through a passage leading underneath the platform from the south transept-arm — greatly, of course, to the increase of dramatic effectiveness. Lhe Cathedral of Christ's Church, Canterbury. 43 martyr, it was surely the death of a man who believed in the virtue of his cause. The thrilling tale is told with such exceptional fullness by contemporary mouths, and the place where we recall it is so appropriately impressive, that we can hardly turn our thoughts to the hundred other memories which haunt the cathedral’s air. Nor has it even yet dropped out of the popular mind. A shabby, grimy personage—a tramping artisan by his bag of tools—spoke to me one morning in the deserted nave while service was being read in the choir, and after a very confused pre- amble asked whether I could show him the spot where Becket died. I do not think he mentioned Becket’s name, but he wanted to see ‘‘the place where they beat him down on his knees and dashed his brains out on the stones”; and he shifted his bundle as he spoke, and punctuated his phrase with a sweep of the arm that showed his im- agination had been touched indeed. It might have been interesting to inquire whether he thought Becket a traitor or a martyr, whether sympathy or hatred had prompted his quest. But though one may walk in the nave while service goes on in the choir, good manners and the verger object to conversation, and my artisan re- mains as mysterious to me as the great prelate probably does to him. Vv Few English cathedrals will give you pleasant ideas of Protestant hospitality. The restrictions that will meet you are many, and savor more of commercial than of ecclesiastic cause. a a a a a Ue a a \\ ig th (5 bam © §& Le i i g e ‘1 o 6 ¢ @ poo 2 oe I} q Py @ © ic 5 d i _ a PLAN OF CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL.! FROM MURRAY'S ‘‘ HANDBOOK.” A. South porch. C. Nave. D. Transept of the martyrdom. E, Dean’s (formerly Lady) Chapel. I. Choir. LL. Eastern transept. M. St. Andrew’s Tower. N. St. Anselm’s Tower. O. Trinity Chapel. Q. The corona. 2. The spot where Becket fell. 7. Position of Becket’s shrine (destroyed). 8. Monu- ment of the Black Prince. 9. Monument of Henry IV. 13. Monument of Cardinal Pole. 24. Monument of Archbishop Ste- phen Langton. Almost everywhere you must write your name 1 The internal length of Canterbury Cathedral is 514 feet, and the spread of the transept is 148 feet 6 inches. The cloister is 134 feet square, and the chapter-house is 87 feet long by 35 feet in breadth and 52 in height. 44 English Cathedrals. in a big book like a hotel register and pay a sixpence before you can enter the choir. But nowhere except in Westminster Abbey will your subsequent steps be so hampered as at Canterbury. Nowhere else does the verger shepherd his tourist flock so sternly, or so quickly turn it out into the nave again when his poor, parrot-like, peregrinating reci- THE CATHEDRAL, FROM THE SOUTHWEST, AT SUNSET, tative is finished. Some sort of a safe-conduct, preferably a written permit from the dean, is essential if you would see Canterbury’s choir with pleasure or profit. The first thing that strikes even a slightly practised eye is the un- likeness of the choir to the usual English type either of its own date or of any other. The second transept, lying far to the eastward of the first, has its parallel in three or four other great churches. But instead of a long level floor, broken only by a few steps in front of the altar, here is a floor raised higher and higher by broad successive flights, giving an unwonted air of majesty and pomp. The lines of the great arcades and of the aisle-walls are not straight, but, beyond the second The Cathedral of Christ's Church, Canterbury. 45 transept, trend sharply inward; an almost straight-sided space succeeds ; and then the far-off termination is neither the broad semicircular Nor- man apse nor the flat east end of later days. The walls sweep around as though to form a simple apse, but toward the centre of the curve they open out again into a slender lofty chapel almost circular in plan. All these peculiarities give an individual accent and a special beauty to the choir; and all have a curious historic interest. The Norman choir of Anselm, Ernulph, and Conrad so nearly perished in the great fire of 1174 that almost the whole of the in- terior now shows the touch of the two Williams. But the lower portion of the outer walls sur- vived, together with two circular chapels, named for St. Anselm and St. Andrew, which had pro- jected from the sides of the apse. From the centre of the old apse- line there had also projected to the eastward a square chapel de- dicated to the Trinity, and this, says Gervase, was the place as- signed for the new shrine of St. Thomas, ‘‘where he celebrated his first mass, where he was TWO BAYS OF THE CHOIR. wont to prostrate himself with edi att geg etiam OT Gan eg tears and prayers, under whose crypt for so many years he was buried, where God for his merits had performed so many miracles, where poor and rich, kings and princes, had worshipped him, and whence the sound of his praises had gone forth into all lands.” A mere isolated chapel could no longer serve the demands of his fame—he needed a digni- fied open space with circumambient aisles to receive a thousand pil- grims at once; and yet sentiment required some witness to the existence of the ancient chapel. So, partly to preserve the old walls and lateral chapels, and partly to retain in the central alley of St. Thomas’s rest- ing-place the dimensions of Trinity Chapel, that inward trend of col- umns and walls was adopted which at first we may think a beautiful but merely wilful device. There has been more doubt with regard to 46 English Cathedrals. the exact reason for the round terminal chapel. The architectural name of such a feature is a “corona”; this was easily translated as “Becket’s Crown,” and legend interprets the translation to mean that here stood a separate shrine for the scalp which was severed from Becket’s head by De Brut’s fierce final blow. It is certain that some- where in the church this scalp was long exhibited in a jeweled golden box, but actual witness to the association of relic and chapel does not exist, and a better explanation is given by Viollet-le-Duc, who believes that the cathedral of Sens had been finished in precisely the same way, although its corona was afterward destroyed by fre. It is impossible to separate by a clear line the handiwork of the two Williams in the choir of Canterbury, but from end to end it is so con- sistent, and so distinctly French, that we must believe that the first one designed as well as planned it all; and in design it so closely resembles the cathedral in his own town of Sens that we can hardly doubt that the same brain conceived them both.’ It has the very greatest value in the student's eyes, for it marks the introduction of the Gothic style into Eng- land, and it also serves as a standard by which he may measure the dif- ference between the Gothic ideals of England and France. Of course it is not as serviceable in this respect as the later churches of France itself where the Gothic scheme is fully developed; yet it shows us a true French Gothic effect, and explains the factors which compose it. Although the new ideal is not yet matured, elaborated, and refined to its complete expression, it has found clear expression; and we realize that it cannot be identified with the mere adoption of the pointed arch, the entire suppression of the roundone. If such a scheme as we see, for instance, in the cut on p. 8 were to be carried out with pointed arches only, it would still be Norman in feeling and air. But here the feeling, the character, is quite different, although the semicircular shape is retained in some of the arches. This radical change in effect is partly due, of course, to the change in most of the arch-forms and in the decorative features, but it is largely also a matter of pro- portions; it means a new scale of relationship between the height and diameter of all constructional features. But this itself means some- thing still more fundamental—that change in the constructional ideal of which I spoke in the previous chapter. The new desire has been to build not solid walls pierced by openings, but a framework of supports which shall sustain both walls and roof. This desire is still very mod- estly conceived, yet we can read it in the slenderness of the piers (which, 1 The cathedral of Sens was finished in 1168, seven years before the choir of Canterbury was begun. ‘TVMGUHEVO AWNALENVO WOW CHAD WALT WAOLS The Cathedral of Christ's Church, Canterbury. gil th Wt I iM Hi th wl) | Hild Wit \ iy te i y i 47 48 English Cathedrals. indeed, are columns rather than piers), in the treatment of the minor shafts which bear the ribs of the vaulting, in the larger size of the win- dows, in the generally increased accentuation of vertical lines, and the general suggestion of a grouping of parts. We shall see how the typically French character of the work is shown by the vaulting-shafts when we come to speak of true Early Eng- lish Gothic. But another un-English point—and one which influences much more strongly than might be thought the whole effect of the interior—is found in the character of the capitals. In truly English work, as soon as a capital loses its Norman form and feeling it assumes an elongated cup-like shape, is topped by a round abacus, and is orna- mented either with a succession of mere mouldings or with a peculiar blunt and knotted kind of foliage. These Canterbury capitals are quite different from Norman types, but equally different from Early English types. They are low and broad, the abacus is rectangular, and the rich, varied, and delicate ornamentation shows forms which are palpably classic in their origin, and often distinctly Corinthianesque.* In short, these are early French capitals in the full sense of the term. We seldom see their like in England, and never so profusely and con- sistently used as here. As his execution of French William’s design progressed, English William altered his constructional as well as his decorative details a little, but throughout the upper church he adhered to the French capital and its square abacus. In truth, the whole choir of Canterbury is a work which we must contrast with English build- ings, which we can compare only with Gallic ones. The contrast will be more clearly pointed in later chapters. The comparison shows that, after all, William of Sens was some- what influenced by the soil and the site on which he built. There are some round arches at Sens also, but their different disposition at Canterbury seems to show a desire to harmonize the new work with the remaining portions of the Norman walls. Four occur in the pier-arcade (two on either side) just where Becket’s shrine once stood; and though the lights of the triforium-arcade are pointed, they are grouped in pairs beneath comprising semicircles. The clearstory, however, shows only the pointed arch, and the use of both forms in the vaulting is not a local peculiarity. The great length of the choir is of course an English feature; but the com- 1 The initial which begins this chapter shows a the transept of York Cathedral which is reproduced capital from the choir of Canterbury, andit may be at the head of Chapter XII. compared with the true Early English capital from Lhe Cathedral of Christ's Church, Canterbury. 49 parative lowness of the eastern part, while it strikes us at first in the same way, is the outcome less of any great divergence from con- temporary French proportions than of the gradual elevation of the floor. English, again, is the use of dark marble for the minor shafts, contrasting sharply, now that all the old paint has vanished, with the pale-yellowish stone. On the other hand, not only the capitals but also the piers which bear them are French, being sometimes composed, as at Sens, of a pair of great twin shafts; French once more are the arches, modeled in two orders with square sections, and likewise the bands encircling the vaulting-shafts as well as these shafts themselves. But the in- creased importance assumed by these bands in the corona, where English William deserved his name a little better than in the retro- choir, predicts that they were afterward more conspicuously used in insular than in Gallic work. Like the nave, the choir now owes its beauty almost altogether to the architect. A few of the tall windows still keep their gorgeous fig- ured glass, and the array of tombs—once as long and varied as that in the Westminster of to-day, and infinitely more artistic—is still suggested by a noble if fragmentary sequence. We may still see the sepulchre of Henry IV.,and those of Cardinal Pole and other famous primates; and, touching the chords of sentiment more strongly, the one where the rust- ing armor of the Black Prince hangs above his recumbent figure. Nevertheless it is difficult to conceive what must once have been the crowded picturesqueness, the eloquent story-telling of this choir. Nor does the tramping verger with his apathetic band of Philistines very well represent that enormous throng which once ascended the stairways on its knees, pausing by the various chapels to pay homage to the arm of St. George, to a piece of the clay from which Adam was moulded, to the bloody handkerchief of Becket, and to four hundred other relics of equal cost and authenticity. It is hard to picture this throng kneeling at last around the lofty shrine of St. Thomas, in awed awaiting of the moment when its wooden cover should be raised and all its blaze of gold and jewels shown—-scintillating in the midst that priceless gem, the Regale of France, which had leaped from the ring of Louis VII. to fix itself in the shrine when he refused to donate it. The solemnity and dazzle and incomparable pomp of such a show are as impossible to conceive as the mental mood of philosophers and princes who could thus revere a saint like Becket while ignoring the one great service that he really rendered to his race. 4 50 English Cathedrals. VI Ture are only fragments of Norman work above the ground in this cathedral, there is not a bit of genuine Early English work, and the Dec- orated period has left no trace in its actual construction, although the screen which surrounds the singers’ choir is an exquisite example of thir- | teenth-century art. When we pass ; of THE SOUTH SIDE OF THE CATHEDRAL. from the choir out into the nave again, we go at one step from French twelfth-century work to Perpendicular of the fourteenth century. The change is great indeed. There we had strong simple piers supporting the vaulting-shafts but not combined with them; square capitals, con- spicuous and elaborate; a high and open triforium-arcade; and a clear- story with three tall arches in each compartment. Here the pier-arches are much loftier, and so, of course, are the aisles beyond them; the pillars are like vast bundles of reeds, and their capitals are so small The Cathedral of Christ's Church, Canterbury. 51 that they pass almost insensibly into the ribs of the vaulting ; and the triforium has lost its old individuality —it is merely the continuation over a solid background of the traceries of the clearstory windows, each of which fills a whole compartment of the upper wall. But, as Monk Gervase asks, “who could write all the turnings and windings and appendages of such and so great a church as this?” So much work of the wonderfully prolific Perpendicular period will meet us else- where that at Canterbury we may quickly pass it by. In a late ver- sion of this same style is the Lady-chapel, now called the Dean’s, lying eastward of the Transept of the Martyrdom. No crypt in the world, I imagine, is larger than Canterbury’s, or so é 5 ia THE EAST END OF THE CATHEDRAL. rich in historic associations. It begins, as crypts in England always do, just eastward of the crossing, leaving the four great piers that sup- port the tower to be assisted by the solid earth; and thence it extends under the whole of the long east limb, following the same outlines with transept and chapels of its own. All the part which underlies the choir proper and the transept was built in the Norman style by Ernulph, Anselm’s first architect, who doubtless worked into his fabric the remains of the earlier Norman crypt. Romanesque architecture shows, of course, at its heaviest and sternest in such subterranean constructions, which 52 English Cathedrals. could have no great height, which asked for little ornamenting of their dark expanse, and which bore the weight of the upper church on their shoulders. But there is a truly cyclopean impressiveness about Er- nulph’s crypt, with its perspectives of low semicircular arches, massive stumpy columns and plain cubical capitals; it has a further architectural THE CENTRAL (“BELL HARRY”) TOWER, FROM THE “DARK ENTRY” IN THE CLOSE. interest as preserving the exact extent and shape of the choir which he and Conrad built above it; and through it we look eastward into a labyrinthine columned space, much airier and lighter, growing higher and higher with the gradual rise of the floor of the retrochoir above, and showing sharply pointed arches and slender shafts, some of which The Cathedral of Christ's Church, Canterbury. 53 prove that a rich scheme of decoration was begun though never carried out. This portion, in the early Gothic style, underlies the retrochoir and chapels built by William the Englishman; and, whether he de- signed it himself or not, it is much more English in execution than the structure above it, the national round abacus being used on all the capitals. With its high ceiling and its many windows open to light and air, this part of the crypt hardly deserves its name, typically illustrated by the Norman part—dark, low, heavy, and sepulchral. It is more properly an undercroft or lower church. But, whatever we may call it, admiration is instant; the rising levels of Canterbury’s floor are as fortunate in effect below as above the ground. The Norman crypt was dedicated to the Virgin,and her chapel still remains within it, now inclosed bya rich late Gothic screen. Not far off, in the south transept-arm, is the chantry endowed by the Black Prince on his wedding-day. And just where the Norman work meets English William’s, under the former site of Trinity Chapel, we see, as Gervase tells us, the spot where Becket was first interred. Here lay King Henry during his abject night of penance, here he bared his body to the monkish lash, and hither came the early pilgrims until, in the year 1220, the body was translated to its new tomb overhead. Stephen Langton was then at home again from exile, and he worked with the young son of his adversary John to organize a spectacle of unrivaled pomp and uncalculating hospitality. Princes bore the pall, bishops followed by scores, and the Archbishop of Rheims said mass at a tem- porary altar set up in the nave, where the vast concourse could be accommodated best. So magnificent a pageant had never been seen before even in that age of shows, and it saddled the diocese with a 4* NORMAN STAIRWAY IN THE CLOSE. 54 English Cathedrals. THE CATHEDRAL, FROM THE ‘GREEN COURT” IN THE CLOSE. debt that could not wholly be discharged till the time of Langton’s fourth successor. But passing years brought very different figures into this crypt. In the sixteenth century Queen Elizabeth gave the whole of it for the use of a colony of French and Flemish Huguenots; the wide central spaces were filled with their silk-looms, and the south aisle, around the Black Prince’s chantry, was screened off for their church. It is interesting, but not surprising, to find the descendants of these old-time refugees still worshiping in the same place; for, when untempted by the desire for liberty or ducats, Englishmen are phenomenally constant to the past. VII Tue west front of Canterbury is a poor English imitation of the fine French type, showing little evidence of well-thought-out design. The towers do not harmonize with the huge Perpendicular window that fills the whole space between them, and the poverty of aspect which always results when doors are unduly small is exceptionally apparent. Nat- Lhe Cathedral of Christ's Church, Canterbury. 55 urally the east end is more French in expression, but the very low pitch of its roof gives it local character; and almost everything else in the exterior is English: the two transepts, the tremendous length of the choir, the insignificance of the buttresses, the size of the cen- tral tower, the comparative smallness of the western ones, and the de- sign of all the three and of the nave as well. But it is only when we follow along the whole south side (noting on our way that rich Norman work in the eastward transept and St. Anselm’s chapel which explains the style of the burned interior), when we round the tower-like eastern end and find the wonderful THE CATHEDRAL, FROM THE NORTH. picturesqueness of the northern aspect,— it is only then that we realize how truly English Canterbury is. To the south the cathedral close was nar- rowed by the impact of the city’s streets, and so the dependent structures could not be placed in this, their customary place. But on the north the domain of the monastery extended to the far-off city-wall, and here Lanfranc and many later archbishops and priors made a great and splendid sequence of green quadrangles and conventual buildings. Henry VIII. suppressed the convent, deposed the prior, scattered the hundred and fifty monks, and replaced them with the dean and dozen canons whose successors still bear rule. The buildings were somewhat damaged at that time, were left for years to neglect, and then were beaten into pieces by Puritanical hands. Now it needs careful study to trace what they all must have been — the two immense dormitories; the great infirmary with its nave and 56 English Cathedrals. aisles and its chapel to complete the resemblance to an imposing church; the vast guest-houses, here for noble, there for more plebeian, and there again for wandering pauper pilgrims; the tall water-tower, the library, the treasury, the refectory, the stables, granaries, bake- houses, breweries, and all the minor architectural belongings of so numerous a brotherhood devoted to such comfortable living and such lavish hospitality. To-day, the great square of the cloister still stands contiguous to the church itself, chiefly as rebuilt in the Perpendicular period, but the same in plan and in occasional stones as when Becket passed along it to his death. The adjoining chapter-house is also pre- served, a large rectangular room, partly in the Decorated and partly in the Perpendicular style; a beautiful room, but much less individual in its interest than the polygonal ones we shall find elsewhere. Near by, again, are the old water-tower and a maze of connecting passages and rooms. Then at a distance from all of these, far off to the north- ward, are a couple of Norman gateways, and a charming external staircase, the only one in all England which remains as built by Nor- man hands; and scattered everywhere are fragments large and small of many kinds and dates, sometimes rebuilt to serve an alien purpose, sometimes ruins merely. But ruin in an English spot like this does not mean desolation or the loss of loveliness. It means a consummate pictorial beauty which, to all eyes except the serious student’s, well replaces architectural perfection. These casual-seeming columns, these isolated tall arcades, these un- glazed lonely windows and enigmatical lines of wall, all alike are ivy- covered and flower-beset, embowered in masses of foliage and based on broad floors of an emerald turf such as England alone can grow. And above and beyond rises the pale-gray bulk of the cathedral crowned by its graceful yet stupendous tower, telling that all is not dead which once was so alive, speaking of the England of our day as reconciled again to the England of St. Thomas. If, within the church, we pro- test against Protestant guardianship, without we are entirely content. Ruined or rebuilt though they are, the surroundings of Canterbury seem much more living, as well as much more lovely, than the undis- turbed accompaniments of many a Continental church where a lingering Catholicism has kept the medizval charm of the interior; for nature is always young, and the Englishman knows how to make good use of her materials. Even the modernized dwellings in which dean and canons live — partly formed of very ancient fragments, partly dating from intermediate times—have a pleasant, homely, livable look which Lhe Cathedral of Christ's Church, Canterbury. 57 one rarely finds abroad. And if there is tennis on the old monks’ turf, or a tea-party under the ancient elms, we are glad as of an- other item delighting the eye, and another link binding actual life to the life of long ago. But, architecturally speaking, the best proof of the English aspect of the cathedral itself is gained from some spot a little further off. Here we fully understand its incredible length and the triumphant dominance of the great ‘Bell Harry” tower. Nowhere out of England can we see a Gothic central tower in such supremacy, or any tower of just this shape—four-square in outline through all its two hundred and forty-five feet, finished with a parapet and tall angle-pinnacles, and never intended to support a spire. Such a tower, accompanied by lower brethren to the westward, overtopping so long and low a church set amidst such great conventual structures and above such masses of verdure, apart and distinct enough from the dwellings of laymen for dignity but not for isolation of effect— this we can see in England only, and nowhere in England in greater perfection than here. VIII A HUNDRED Other points of peculiar interest might be noted in Can- terbury Cathedral, and a hundred other facts of curious historic flavor might be quoted from its chronicles. I am especially tempted to dwell upon the proofs of Becket’s phenomenal renown—to tell how for cen- turies no royal Englishman omitted homage, and how royal strangers also came to pay it, kings and princes many times, more than once an emperor of the West, and once at least an emperor of the East; to recite how Henry V. journeyed hither fresh from Agincourt, how Ed- ward I. hung by the shrine the golden crown of Scotland and was married in the Transept of the Martyrdom, and how Charles V. of Ger- many, going nowhere else on English soil, yet came here with Henry VIII., each in the springtime of his youth and pride, to pay the king- defier reverence just before the day of the Field of the Cloth of Gold. And as a set-off to such tributes I should like to describe the visit of the skeptical but philosophic Erasmus and the equally skeptical but far franker Colet; and the final spoiling of the shrine ordered in his later years by the same Henry who had made the pilgrimage with Charles, when two great coffers, needing each some eight strong men to bear it, could hardly hold the gold and gems, while the lesser valuables filled a train of six-and-twenty wagons. Then is there not 58 English Cathedrals. that long list of archbishops whose beginning was with St. Augustine himself and whose end is not even yet? Were not its representatives for many ages not only first in the ruling of the Church but scarcely second to the king in the ruling of the State— treasurers, chancellors, vice-regents, guardians of princely children, or leaders of the people, or cardinals of Rome, or teach- ers or martyrs of the new anti- Roman faith? I may explain, however, that in later mediaeval and still more in modern times the archbishops of Canterbury have often had little to do with Canterbury it- self. At the beginning the tie between the archbishop and his titular church and town was close indeed. He was not only primate of England, but bishop of the Kentish land and prior of Christ’s Church convent too; and his life was intimately intertwined with local happenings. But as his power grew and his duties ex- panded, he was forced to think THE CENTRAL TOWER, FROM THE ever more and more of England, NORTHEAST. ever less and less of Canterbury. The office of prior was conferred on another, and even diocesan matters were practically in humbler hands. Lambeth Palace in London became the primate’s chief resi- dence, and when not there he was much more apt to be in some splen- did country home than in his Canterbury dwelling. This separation between the spiritual and the civic centres of the realm was often declared useless and even harmful; a demand for greater centralization was often heard even before London’s supremacy was achieved, while Winchester was still the royal town; and to London the seat of the primacy would certainly have been transferred had not a single occurrence fixed Can- terbury in its rank. This occurrence was the murder of Becket, bring- ing about his canonization and wonder-working and the sudden rise of Canterbury from a humble provincial town to a place of world-wide fame and peculiar sanctity. When Henry VIII. made his new ecclesiastical Lhe Cathedral of Christ's Church, Canterbury. 59 arrangements Canterbury’s title was too well established to be taken away. Since the Puritans destroyed the old buildings there has, indeed, been no archiepiscopal palace at Canterbury; but this is an unimportant detail. As the Kentish capital was from the first, so it remains—the city of the mother-church; and so it very surely will remain as long as there is an England and a Christian faith. Had all other monuments of Becket perished as utterly as the Reformers meant they should, this greatest monument, carved from the very constitution of the English State, would still bear him its conspicuous witness. + t be eee LAMBETH PALACE, LONDON. RESIDENCE OF THE ARCHBISHOPS OF CANTERBURY. CHAPTER III THE CATHEDRAL OF ST. PETER, ST. PAUL, AND ST. ANDREW, PETERBOROUGH HE claims of history took us first to Canterbury Cathedral, and if we followed their leading again we should go next to Winchester. But as our main purpose is to understand the de- velopment of English architecture, it will be best, now that we have glanced at the begin- ning of the ecclesiastical story, to follow the artistic story by consecutive steps. Therefore I must speak now of some church where Norman work has been largely preserved amid the alterations of later days; and although the cathedral of the West-Saxon capital, like that of the Kentish cap- ital, was once altogether Norman, Winchester has been as thoroughly transformed as Canterbury, and to-day its principal portions are in the Perpendicular style. The Norman style is represented best at Peter- borough and Durham. Durham Cathedral is the more splendid struc- ture of the two, but it is also the more individual. It stands only for itself and a few smaller churches, while Peterborough is a typical example of Anglo-Norman work. I In the eastern part of England the Normans built three great sister- churches, similar in dimensions and design. All three are now cathe- dral churches — Norwich near the coast, Ely in the centre of the fen-lands, and Peterborough on their western skirts. But Peterborough 1 Thomas Craddock’s “ General, Architectural,and Paley’s “ Remarks on the Architecture of Peter- Monastic History of Peterborough Cathedral” gives borough Cathedral”; and as it is published at a more trustworthy analysis of this church, I think, Peterborough, it may easily be procured by the than Murray’s “Handbook,” which is based on _ tourist. 60 Peterborough Cathedral. 61 was not a cathedral till long after it had assumed its present aspect. For centuries it stood apart from the main currents of national life ; its influence, though great, was distinctly local; and its annals were marked by few famous names or conspicuous happenings. Through many centuries it was built and rebuilt and enlarged as a mere abbey- church, a private place of worship for a house of Benedictine monks. Yet architecturally it bears comparison with the greatest of cathedrals, and therefore it has peculiar interest as proving the enormous extent and long duration of monastic wealth and pride and power. The abbey, then called Medeshamstede, was founded by Peada, the frst Christian king of Mercia, less than sixty years after the land- ing of St. Augustine. Its church was finished by his successor, and dedicated to St. Peter. The pope granted the brotherhood extraordi- nary privileges, the king endowed it with some four hundred square miles of land, and for two hundred and fifty years it lived and pros- pered greatly. Then its buildings were utterly swept away by Danish rovers, and the eighty-four brothers were slaughtered to a man. A full century passed before, in 972, the monastery was refounded, re- endowed, and rechristened Peter’s-borough. Edgar was then king and Dunstan primate, and the Benedictines whom they so greatly fa- vored were naturally placed in the new establishment. This second church was also troubled by the Danes. But the most interesting chapter in its history tells of those later days when Danes and Englishmen joined in a last resistance to the Norman interloper, and when Hereward ruled the ‘Camp of Refuge” in the neighboring Isle of Ely. Hereward’s story, made so familiar by the touch of mod- ern romance-writers, rests only on long subsequent and dubious tradi- tions. Yet their survival in such richness of detail proves at least that he must have been a valiant leader and one whom the popular heart held very dear; and our own mood grows so sympathetic when we read that we hardly care to ask for history’s exact decisions. We like to believe in Hereward’s midnight vigil at Peterborough’s altar; and we are probably right in believing that a little later he came with his band of outlaws,—monks, peasants, and soldiers, Englishmen and Danes,—and despoiled that altar and the whole church of St. Peter, carrying off its treasures to prevent their falling into the grasp of the advancing Norman. The local monks were inclined to favor Englishnien, not Normans; yet so high-handed an act could not fail to seem sacrilegious in their eyes, and they resisted it as best they might. Hereward burned their homes and drove them forth, 62 English Cathedrals. but, it seems, without needless cruelty; for when William’s fighting abbot came in his turn, he found the hospital still standing over the head of a single invalid old brother. This Norman abbot, Thorold, chastised Peterborough as vigorously as William had expected. OLOISTERS a dhclient a PLAN OF PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL! FROM MURRAY'S ‘‘HANDBOOK.”’ A.A. Portico. B.B. Western transept. C. Nave D. D. Transept. E. Choir. F. Retrochoir, or ‘‘ New Building.” 10. Place of Mary Stuart’s tomb. 11. Tomb of Catherine of Aragon. He ruled for twenty-eight years, ‘a mas- ter of the goods of the ab- bey and a scandal to the Church.” And, “being a sol- dier by choice and a monk for convenience and emolu- ment,” and knowing himself well hated within his own walls, he brought in a troop of men-at-arms and built them a castle close by the church’s side. When this castle was destroyed is not exactly known; but its site is traced in a mound, called the Tout-hill, which rises, overshadowed by great trees, to the southward of the cathedral and to the eastward of the bishop’s— once the abbot’s — palace. In 1107 Ernulph, whom we have known as prior at Canterbury, was promoted to be abbot at Peterborough. Later he was made bishop of Rochester, and in all times and places was a mighty and persistent builder. But here he speaks only through tra- dition: the dormitory, the refectory, and the chapter-house he built have utterly disappeared. The second Old English church stood unchanged by Norman hands until 1116, when, like its predecessor, it was wholly swept away by fire. 1 Peterborough Cathedral is 480 feet long outside the walls, and 426 feet inside; its transept measures 203 feet outside and 185 feet inside; and the breadth of its facade is 153 feet. Peterborough Cathedral. 63 In 1117 the present structure was begun. John of Sais was abbot, but whom he had for architect we do not know; nor are the later chronicles of Peterborough anywhere illumined by those citations of an artist’s name which give to Canterbury’s such a vivid charm. Under John of Sais the choir was built in part, and it seems to have been finished under Martin of Bec; for he brought his monks into the new structure “with much pomp” in 1143, and a consecration implies that the choir at least is complete. The central tower was erected soon after 1155; and this in its turn implies that the transept and a portion of the nave must have been standing to support it. There- after the work seems to have gone on slowly westward. Slight differ- ences in construction and design mark its successive stages. Though the same general scheme persists till we come almost to the western wall, it is easy to see that more than once the original plan was altered for the increase of size and splendor. The nave had already been given two bays more than was at first intended when a second ambitious impulse added still another space, which, as it has a lateral projection beyond the main line of the aisle-walls, is called a western transept. In this the pure simple Norman style is no longer used, but a later lighter, richer version of round-arched design,—that ‘“ Transi- tional” style which served to prepare the way for Gothic. And when we cross the threshold and look at the outside of the western wall, we see still another step in development. I do not yet mean when we look at the huge arched portico, but at the veritable wall of the church behind it as seen through the portico arches on page 65. This wall shows the pure Early English style, though its inner face is built almost entirely with round arches. [Evidently the great change of style had come about while it was being raised; and its constructors, true to the medieval spirit, had abandoned the old manner as quickly as they could. For the unity of their work as a whole they did not care—only for the harmony of such portions as a single glance might cover. Their idea was evidently to build some such fagade as we shall see at Wells and Salisbury, with tall towers on either hand and projecting buttresses in front. But before the task was accomplished a new hand once more took control. Again the design was changed, and again for the sake of greater grandeur. One of the towers was finished no fur- ther than necessity compelled for the safety of the front; the other, though now conspicuous with four corner pinnacles, is still much lower than it should have been; and the buttresses remained unbuilt while 64 English Cathedrals. a second entire facade was thrown out—the great portico with its three majestic arches, its small flanking towers, and its pointed gables. II Tue contrast is very striking as we pass through this portico and the elaborate late Norman western transept into the earlier Norman nave. It is very striking, and very impressive in its proof that what we vaguely call medieval art was in truth a succession of many arts widely unlike each other in proportions, features, and details, aiming at very different constructional and decorative ideals, and inspiring very differ- ent emotions in the modern mind. In this nave we find neither the grace, the lightness, nor the aspiring lines which show themselves outside, no elaboration of minor parts, and very little sculptured ornament. The plainly fluted capitals and the boldly treated mouldings give scarcely a faint prediction of that ‘cut work and crinkle-crankle” which to John Evelyn in the seventeenth century summed up the characteristics of medizval work. This Nor- man work is strong to massiveness, plain almost to baldness. It is Titans’ work, immense, austere, and awful. To the men of Evelyn’s day, and also to the men of late mediaeval days, it doubtless seemed barbaric. But it is not barbaric, and it is not even primitive, archaic, though so sternly simple and severe. It is too grand in its air for bar- baric work, which is never more than grandiose; it is too dignified, and too refined in its feeling for proportions and relationships despite its lack of delicate detail; and it has that air of entire success, of the perfect realization of an aim, which always marks a complete and never a ten- tative stage in architectural development. It does not seem tentative when compared with Gothic work, any more than Egyptian temples do when compared with those of Greece. It proves that its builders knew precisely what they wanted to accomplish, and were able to accomplish it with precision. We may call the design primitive, remembering the more audaciously and subtilely constructed work that later centuries produced; but it is really the final, perfected effort of a style which had been developed by generations of able architects. It exactly and completely expresses the aims and ideals of the Norman race at the apogee of its power. I confess that we cannot help thinking the nave much too narrow for its length. Only 79 feet wide, and extending, with its eleven huge bays, for 226 feet, we may feel that it looks more like an avenue of Peterborough Cathedral. 65 entrance than a cathedral nave, more like the approach to some huge sanctuary than an integral part of the sanctuary itself. But this merely proves that our taste differs from Norman taste. It does not imply any such lack of architectural com- petence as would be implied did we find a want of balance and harmony in the [ arrangement or pro- portioning of the va- rious features which compose the design. a The Anglo-Norman : chose a ground-plan Le which to us seems | © ! less nobly impressive | ,| than that of other . |. medizval builders; but we can find no fault with the way in © which he constructed his building upon the lines thus prescribed. —\f We feel that his de- ~ Nib sign might have been more beautiful had it been morerichly dec- orated by the chisel, but we remember how much it was once enhanced by paint; and as a design, even now in its nakedness, TWO BAYS OF THE NAVE! it is admirably com- plete—excepting only as regards the roof of its central space. The aisles are vaulted with stone, but the broader main alley is covered with a board ceiling which once lay quite flat, although in later days, to make room for the pointed arch which now helps to sustain the central 1 See also the drawing of two bays of the choir, on page 8. 66 English Cathedrals. tower, its middle portion was raised a little and the side portions were slanted. Its painted decoration still survives from an early though uncertain day—small figure-designs enframed in lozenge-like patterns of black. When the walls were painted too it looked better, of course, than it does to-day, contrasted with the stony whiteness of everything below. But even then it must have seemed a pauper finish to such strength of arch and pier and wall. Only a huge and massive barrel- vault with mighty semicircular ribs could properly have carried out the ideal achieved in the great series of semicircular features beneath it. Yet we must believe that its builders found this ceiling satisfac- tory, or knew, at least, that they could not compass anything better; for there is no preparation for a possible future vault. The starting- point for the ribs of a vault must lie much lower than the cornice of the clearstory wall; but here the great supporting shafts, which rise from the floor between bay and bay, run straight up to this cornice: they are not anticipatory vaulting-shafts, but must have been built simply to bear the rafters of the wooden ceiling. Turn back now into the western transept, and we shall be still more thoroughly convinced that, except as regards their ceiling, the builders of the nave had perfectly expressed the Norman ideal. Here the con- structional features are almost altogether the same, but their propor- tions are all changed. The result is light, graceful, rich, and aspiring, as compared with the solidity, simplicity, solemnity, and reposefulness of the nave. Yet we do not feel that the new qualities have been per- fectly achieved. We feel that a struggle is going on between the new ideal and the old constructional means. From our far point of his- torical vantage, we can clearly see that the time for new constructional means was near, that the advent of Pointed architecture was at hand. And so this Transitional work may in one sense be considered more primitive than the pure Norman which antedates it, for it is tentative work; it seems to be groping toward a development which later gen- erations were to carry to perfection. There is a good deal of such late Norman or Transitional work in England, but there is comparatively little work that resembles it in France. There early Gothic followed immediately upon perfected Romanesque. There the pointed arch was used constructively before it was introduced as an ornamental or subordinate feature, as it is intro- duced on the western wall of the Transitional transept at Peterborough. There novel constructional desires preceded, predicted, and inspired the broad new ideal which was to realize itself in Gothic architecture, Peterborough Cathedral. 67 while in England this ideal seems to have stirred men’s minds before they had felt structurally cramped by the limitations of the round arch. In France the desire to build great vaults well was the beginning of the new development; the pointed forms thus imposed on the builder quickly spread to all parts of his construction, and his ideal transformed itself by a natural, logical process. But we know how little, in comparison, twelfth-century builders in England thought of their vaults. When their style altered, it seems to have been rather by reason of a change in taste than of a development in constructional desires. So it seems fair to assume that their taste had been influenced by a knowledge of what was being done across the Channel. We feel like saying that they turned to Pointed architecture, not that they evolved it. And a comparison of dates will support such a conclusion. The choir of Canterbury was begun in 1175 and finished in 1184; I have told how nearly pure Gothic it is, and there are earlier structures in France which are purer still. The nave of Peterborough was begun in 1177 and was not finished till near the end of the century; but if we compare it with the adjacent choir (which was built between 1117 and 1143), we see exactly the same constructional scheme, and only a few changes in decorative detail. The mouldings and ornaments of the pier-arcade are different, but are still thoroughly Norman; the only hint of the coming revolution speaks from the pointed hood-mouldings above the semicircular clearstory arches. An exact date for the western transept cannot be given, but it must have been built about the beginning of the thirteenth century ; its western wall was of course the latest, and it is only on this wall that the Transitional character of the whole is emphasized by the use of a few pointed features. III As is frequent in England, the transept at Peterborough has an aisle only along its eastern face. The semicircular apse with which the cen- tral alley of the choir was finished still remains; but its main apertures have been altered to a pointed shape and, like the round-arched win- dows above, have been filled with rich Decorated traceries ; and through them we look into a great and elaborate eastern space. This was added during the Perpendicular period, between 1438 and, probably, about 1510. Very boldly and beautifully certain nameless architects then went to work to meet the need for more altar-accommodation in the already gigantic church. The aisles of the choir seem to have been stopped 68 English Cathedrals. flat by their Norman builders parallel with the beginning of the curve of the apse, but in Early English days square chapels had been thrown out from their ends. Now chapels and aisle-ends were all torn down to give free sight and passage into a single great undivided one-storied apartment which was built across the whole width of the church and as high as the aisle-roofs, and which, after the lapse of four centuries, is still called the New Building. But the central apse was preserved, the WESTERN TOWERS OF THE CATHEDRAL, FROM THE CLOISTER. massive sweep of its upper stories rising high above the roof of the New Building, while the lower story projected into it, and the great pier-arches, with their fringe of Decorated tracery, allowed the eye to pass from the old work to the new. Stand within the New Building now, and you will be interested to see that its architects were so sure of the fundamental success of their bold scheme that they did not care to obliterate all signs of the piecing they had done. The projecting Norman wall was flanked by slender Perpendicular pillars, was partly remodeled in detail, and was overlaid with Perpendicular ornament. But a Nor- Peterborough Cathedral. 69 man string-course was allowed to remain; also many traces which the weather had made on the wall while it was still an external wall, and even one or two of the iron fastenings which had held the shutters when its arches were still windows. In construction and details, as well as in the daring good sense of its conception, the New Building is a very fine example of Perpendicular art, while its rich fan-vaulting* seems particularly clever in contrast to the work of those early builders who scarcely ventured upon vaults at all. But we are not yet on the true birthplace of the Perpendicular style and once more may pass it briefly over. The ceiling of the choir is an elaborate vault, also of Perpendicular design, but it is not built of stone. Singular, indeed, seems the per- sistence of that ancient instinct which, in the lavish and ambitious fif- teenth century, could impel an architect thus to imitate with wooden ribs and panels the forms he was eminently able to construct in stone. Once the deception is discovered, we almost feel that the flat boards of the Norman were a dignified device: at least they did not profess to be what they were not. And very far superior to a simulated vault seem those open wooden roofs, with their splendid series of sculptured beams and ties and traceries, which, at this same time, the English architect was using in his secular structures and smaller temples. The fact that all the apertures in the apse had been filled with tra- ceries during the Decorated period, long before the New Building was thought of, is only a type of the constant retouching that went on for centuries throughout the church. Art grew too vitally and vigorously in those centuries for any one to be quite content with what his ances- tors had bequeathed, and if nothing important could be built or rebuilt there was always something which might be manipulated into harmony with current tastes. At one time or another almost every window in Peterborough was altered in shape or filled with traceries, so that now we may see Early English, Decorated and Perpendicular lights everywhere contrasting curiously with each other and with the old Norman walls. IV Come now outside St. Peter’s,” and let us look at that western portico which is the most famous feature in any of England’s famous churches. secrated with holy oil, though built of old,” should 1 For the character of fan-vaulting see the illustra- receive consecration within the space of two years. tion of the cloister at Gloucester in Chapter XI. 2 In the year 1237 the Council of London issued Accordingly Peterborough was dedicated in the a decree that all churches “not having been con- name of St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. Andrew, and a 70 English Cathedrals. There is nothing like it in England or elsewhere, and there are few parts of a church in any land which so surprise and dazzle us and seem at the first glance so supernaturally effective and imposing. Is it really as beautiful as it is striking? Is it as good in an architectural sense as it is amazing and delightful to the eye that loves grandeur and picturesqueness ? A little examination will show that its builder committed many sins in working his ambitious purpose. To begin with, this “majestick front of columel work” does not strengthen the main fabric of the church as buttresses would have done; there is no structural connection between them. Of course, the vaulted ceiling of the portico rests on the west wall of the nave; but the tall clustered piers, if unassisted, could not even bear the weight of this ceiling and of the three huge arches. Arches and pillars so vast as these seem, indeed, well able to sustain their own weight and a great deal more, even though they rise eighty feet from the ground. They look like mammoth branching trees, and appear to stand as a tree does, by natural cohesion and elasticity. But their stones are as subject to the laws of gravity and pressure as though differently arranged. An arch will not break in at the apex as a lintel breaks down in the centre; but it will burst outward, it will give way at the haunches, unless prop- erly reinforced. Every one knows that the vaults of a tall Gothic nave would burst out the clearstory walls but for the inward thrust of the arches that are called flying-buttresses. But just as surely would these flying-buttresses fall were they not held at one end by the buttresses of the aisle-walls, and at the other by the outward pressure of the nave- vaults. No one part sustains the other—all are kept in equilibrium by the opposite pressure of other parts. The Arab rightly says that ‘“‘an arch never sleeps,” and the bigger it is the more sturdily it must be built and abutted if its perpetual pressure is not to tear it in pieces. These piers and arches at Peterborough could not have stood at all without the help of the flanking towers. Even with that help they were unable to stand. Only a hundred and fifty years after they were built they had to be strengthened by a porch, or parvise, built within the cen- tral arch up to half its height. This is a charming feature in itself, and was very scientifically used, but, of course, it injures the effect of the portico; and despite its introduction, and the fact that all parts of the fabric have at other times been braced and tied together with the figures of its patrons stand in niches, one in of the saint who occupies the central gable, and for each of the gables of the portico. But we can whom the abbey and town had been called centuries hardly help calling the church simply by the name __ before. A a ze > S) o a > OW 1IVd S.dOHSIA GNV SLNOMI SAM OHL Peterborough Cathedral. 71 72 English Cathedrals. iron bars, the arches and piers are now conspicuously awry. Indeed, more than once it has been said that they should all be taken down and reconstructed. But had it been solidity itself, this portico would still have been an irrational piece of work. It lacks not only structural connection with the church, but structural affinity with its design. It deliberately mis- represents the forms which lie behind it, and to which it pretends to be an introduction. Its three arches profess, of course, to represent the three longitudinal divisions of the nave, and they lead us to think that the aisles lie some sixty-five feet apart instead of only forty-six. This implies, of course, that the arches are not, like those of Rheims or Amiens, a true development and glorification of the doors which stand within them. They are as independent in station as in structure, and have absorbed all the dignity they should have shared with the portals proper. In fact, this front is not a true front or even a true portico; it is merely a screen, and a screen which bears false witness to the work that lies behind it. Moreover, if we consider it simply in itself, we see that the general design has been sacrificed to the magnificence of the arches —the gables are too small and delicate to match with them, and the flanking towers too insignificant. In truth, no doors, no gables, and no towers could have been built to keep such arches fitting com- pany. Given piers and arches of this size, it was inevitable that the rest of the composition should suffer, and that the church behind should be misrepresented; —any possible accompanying features would seem too mean for their vastness, any possible interior would seem too small and low for their grandiose predictions. And finally we can find a fault even in the arches themselves. Judged either intrinsically or as a frontispiece to a nave with narrower aisles, it seems unfortunate that the central arch should be the narrowest of the three.! These facts certainly prove that the portico lacks that rational, logical character which every architectural work must have to be really excel- lent, whether we appraise it from a constructional or from a purely zs- thetic point of view; and the fact that no other qualities can quite make up for a lack of real excellence may be proved by the test of thorough acquaintance. This front could never seem unimpressive, no matter how long we might dwell face to face with it; but once we have measured the source of its magnificence, understood its character as a piece of design, it never again makes quite the same impression that it did at first. However we may be thrilled by the colossal charm of its vast 1 The wheel-window in one of the gables of the portico is shown in the initial at the head of this chapter. Peterborough Cathedral. fo i % £ 4, THE CATHEDRAL, FROM THE BISHOP’S GARDEN. tripled curves, and by the play of light and shadow around its lofty clustered piers, the eye protests against the insignificance of its other features, and the mind against its want of a logical reason for being. It always looks very splendid, but it never looks even approximately right; and if the observer does not feel distressed by this conflict be- tween pictorial charm and structural significance, he should confess, in all humility, that architecture is not the art he was born to love. What he really loves are such things as appeal to the pictorial sense, to the poetic sense, to the imaginative faculty, and to the emotional chord. Architecture appeals to all of these—but to something else besides; and only when a work of architecture satishes everything to which it can appeal may we pronounce it absolutely fine. Yet I, for one, am very glad that this daring, illogical piece of work was built. It is worth while, now and then, to have the imagination powerfully thrilled even though the reason may not be contented, to have the eye astonished even though it be not satisfied; it is worth English Cathedrals. | | di I ‘ | a ee ; ial iv PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL—THE NORTH SIDE IN 1885 Peterborough Cathedral. as while to sit in front of Peterborough and dream what the church would have been, could any one indeed have built it to match with these su- pernally majestic arches. In a more prosaic mood we confess that Gothic art would never have reached its full nobility, power, and beauty did this portico reveal its truest temper; yet we are interested to see how splendid a thing it could produce even when ambition so far o’er- leaped itself. And, finally, while there is always pleasure in looking at a splendid thing which we know to be unique, in this case there is great instruction too. Peterborough’s portico makes us realize what temptations lay latent in the materials of Gothic art; we feel that where one man ventured to build like this a hundred men must have been as- sailed by ideas as illogically grand. So, when we remember that there is nothing like this portico in character, either among the porticos or among the other features of Gothic churches,—that nothing else reveals so great a talent led so far astray from the paths of architectural right- eousness,—keen indeed grows our sense of the general self-restraint and wisdom of medizval builders. Strangely enough, not only is the name of the architect of this por- tico unknown, but even that of the abbot who employed him. Nothing dates the fabric except the voice of its Early English style, which indi- cates the first half of the thirteenth century. Some think that French genius must have been at work upon it; and certainly it bears more likeness to current French than to current English conceptions. But all its details are English in character, and they are less richly applied and less skilfully worked than they would have been by Gallic hands; and, besides, one cannot really believe that any thirteenth-century Frenchman, even far away from home, would have designed in so illogi- cal, unscholastic a way. The portico seems to me rather the work of some exceptionally brilliant Englishman who had seen the great portals of France and had wished to surpass them, but, led on by an imagina- tion that was more poetic than architectural in quality, ended by cre- ating something wholly new—something superior to his models in bigness, audacity, and pictorial effect, but far inferior in good sense, constructional excellence, decorative finish, and true architectural beauty. He must have been a great artist; but there were much better archi- tects, much greater artists, then alive in France. Vv Oursipg, the east end of Peterborough is very picturesque, with the old Norman apse raising two ponderous round-arched tiers above the 76 English Cathedrals. light, low, square mass of the Perpendicular New Building, crowned with a rich parapet and statues. As thence we pass along the north side of the church, through the beautifully planted churchyard thickly sprinkled with old stones, we find a succession of pictures which could ey A soles ae ote fo< es ta) FG: aceians THE GATEWAY, FROM THE MAIN DOOR OF THE CATHEDRAL. hardly be surpassed. And at the west the front rises superbly above a broad green lawn, or, if we stand further away in the market-place of the town, above a beautiful gateway built by the Normans but largely altered by later hands. But it is only such near views as these which are really fine at Peter- borough. The town lies flat, and gives only a flat site to the church; and the church itself is so low, its central tower is so stunted, and its group of western turrets is so insignificant, that from a distance it does not make a very grand effect. In the year 1885, when our pictures were made, there was no cen- tral tower at all. The great man who built the portico was not the Peterborough Cathedral. 77 only Peterborough architect who knew more, or cared more, about effectiveness than about stability. The Norman tower was raised on such inadequate supports that at least as early as the year 1300 it A hs ; ult se (Sa ol i ly RSE al ; W | NA Se Ne wl ine vm l j wy i Billy y " Hit | (ef i ih “T, a i en ii Fl i Foe eT OANA Ui AAA Lag AN ASHLONT CE MMM A le EY Rael Pe h i = I ila aa Aa ita dl ii idl Me RECONSTRUCTING THE TOWER, 1885, FROM THE CHOIR. cried aloud for reconstruction. So it was taken down, and its substruc- ture was strengthened. The large arches which opened from nave and choir into the crossing were rebuilt in a pointed shape; and though 78 English Cathedrals. the other two, opening from the transept-arms, were left intact, pointed relieving-arches were built solid into the walls above them. Then a lower tower was constructed, finished by a wooden lantern which was removed in the eighteenth century. But during many years of the present century it was plain that the tower had again grown insecure. Its pillars were bent and bulging, and the arches of choir and transept were visibly strained. To pre- vent such a catastrophe as befell the tower of Chichester Cathedral in 1861, the whole work was again pulled down, and more completely than in 1300. When I saw the church in the summer of 1885, the four great angle-piers with their connecting arches were again erect. They had been rebuilt from a lower point than they had touched be- fore,—from the very rock beneath the treacherous fen-land soil,—and the old stones, carefully kept and numbered, had been replaced with as much fidelity as perfect firmness would permit. Shrinkage of the soil, consequent upon the draining of the adja- cent fens, had contributed toward that dislocation of the fabric which ruined the tower, and which, even at the very ends of choir and tran- sept, is visible to the most careless eye. But a great deal of the blame must also be laid to the account of the first builders’ want of thought or want of knowledge. It was singular to hear from the architect in charge of the repairs how superficial had been the foundations of so vast a work as the tower. And it was surprising to see how poor was the actual substance of the apparently titanic piers of the arcades. Portions of the casing of the choir-piers had been removed for need- ful patching. Under so vast a weight of wall, would “good builders” have constructed piers 11 feet in diameter with a skin of cut and cemented stone only g inches thick, and a core of uncemented frag- ments which deserved no finer name than rubbish? One could well believe the architect when he said that but for the extraordinary tough- ness of the white Barnack stone the whole fabric must long ago have twisted, torn, and wrenched itself asunder. And such a poor kind of construction seemed doubly daring when one noted the proportions of the old tower-supports. At Norwich the Norman tower still stands; but the great angle-piers beneath it are 10 feet in diameter and only 45 feet in height, while the arches between them have a span of only 23 feet. Is it any wonder that the tower of Peterborough fell, since the span of its arches was 35 feet, and the height of its piers was 52 feet while their diameter was only 7 feet— 4 feet less than the diameter of the arcade-piers in the choir? Peterborough Cathedral. 79 THE CATHEDRAL IN 1885, FROM THE SOUTH. VI Ir would be hard to exaggerate the wealth or the renown of this monastery during all those ages when it was called the ‘Golden Borough.” The Pope had decreed that any “islander” who might be prevented from visiting St. Peter’s at Rome could gain the same in- dulgence by visiting St. Peter’s here; and so great in consequence grew the sanctity of the spot that all pilgrims, even though of royal blood, put off their shoes beneath the western gateway of the close. Many precious relics, too, the monastery owned —chief among them the famous “incorruptible arm” of St. Oswald, the Northumbrian king. But the irreverence of Reforming years was as signal as had been the reverence of Catholic generations. Henry left the church intact, divided its revenues with the new cathedral chapter he established, and made its time-serving abbot the first bishop of the see. But the Crom- wellites nearly obliterated the monastic buildings, and nearly ruined the church itself. Its splendid glass was shattered, its great silver- mounted reredos was broken into fragments, and its monuments and carvings were mutilated or wiped out. The vast picture of Christ and 80 English Cathedrals. the apostles on the ceiling of the choir was used for target-practice, and the soldiers did their daily exercising in the nave. Even the actual fabric of the church was attacked, and one arch of the portico was pulled down. Later, this arch was rebuilt with the old stones, and the whole church was repaired. But repair meant further ruin too, THE CATHEDRAL, FROM THE MARKET-PLACE. Materials were taken from the domestic buildings to patch the walls of the church, and a beautiful Early English Lady-chapel which pro- jected from the northern transept-arm was destroyed with the same end in view. Little now remains within St. Peter’s to give it an interest apart from that which its architecture offers. Yet we can still find two tombs which vividly bring back the past. Singularly enough, they are the tombs of two discrowned queens. Mary Stuart was beheaded at Fotheringay, eleven miles west of Peterborough, and was buried be- neath the pavement of the south choir-aisle; and as we stand over her empty grave she seems a more real figure than in the crowded mausoleum at Westminster, whither her son removed her bones. The other tomb, under the flagging of the north choir-aisle, still holds its tenant, Catherine of Aragon. Thanks to the Puritan, nothing does her honor except a simple name and date—unless, indeed, we may credit the tale which says that Henry raised St. Peter’s to cathedral Peterborough Cathedral. 81 dignity in answer to her dying prayer that she might be given a monument befitting a queen. The monastic buildings once covered a space four times as great as that occupied by the church itself. But sadly few are the fragments which now bear witness to them. A splendid Early English gateway gives access to the bishop’s palace on the right hand of the western close as we approach. The dwelling itself is largely modernized, yet it is picturesque, and preserves some portions of the old abbots’ home. Opposite, across the close, built into the modern grammar-school, is a charming apse—all that remains of the Norman chapel of St. Thomas of Canterbury. South of the church the cloisters are but fragmen- tary, many-dated ruins. The vast arches of the old infirmary stretch uselessly across a narrow path, or are built, very usefully, into the walls of the canons’ modern houses; and over a wide distance other relics may be studied with some interest when one is on the spot. Ruin was a great deal more complete at Peterborough than at Canter- bury; and though Peterborough’s picture of united old and new is very charming, it is not half as beautiful as the one that the mother-church of England offers. The town of Peterborough, offspring and creature of the monastery, has no independent civic history to tell. Nor has it any great interest for the eye, being a commonplace little provincial centre of some ten thousand inhabitants. On market-days, however, its streets are agree- ably full of life and bustle, and the market-place, opposite the cathe- dral, is prettily carpeted by a hundred white and blue umbrellas. The most interesting of the neighboring villages is Castor, which reveals its Roman origin by its name as well as by the relics of its camp. Castor is not cozy and green and shady like most of its neigh- bors. But on top of its low bare hill stands one of the finest small Norman churches in England, cruciform in plan and still bearing its central tower. This tower seemed to me more beautiful in design than the great one at Norwich; and it has peculiar interest if we are right in believing that it was built by the same hands which con- structed the neighboring cathedral, and may show the pattern which the cathedral’s own tower showed in its earliest days. 82 f:nglish Cathedrals. DURHAM CATHEDRAL, FROM THE SOUTHWEST, CHAPTER IV THE CATHEDRAL OF ST. CUTHBERT—DURHAM ROM the east let us go now to the northeast of England where we shall find another great Norman cathedral, but one differing widely from the sister-churches that were built at Peterborough, Ely, and Norwich. Durham is the most imposing of English cathedrals, and it stands on the finest of Eng- lish sites, while structure and site agree and harmonize so well that nature seems to have built a great work of her own just that man’s work might complete and crown it. Here we have no steep-pinnacled hill which architecture might adorn but could not really improve. We have a broad promontory with tree-clad sides and a level top, where a great building of some sort was required by the eye, and where the largest and boldest of churches would seem neither too large nor too bold. Durham’s site, in fact, is a lordly pedestal upon which the cathedral sits as a king sits upon a throne made splen- did to enhance the royal splendor. No English site except Lincoln’s is so grand as this; and on the hill of Lincoln natural beauty does not aid and soften grandeur as it does on St. Cuthbert’s promontory.’ I I wave spoken of that early Church which had Christianized a great part of the British Islands under Roman rule but had been driven out of the southern districts during early Anglo-Saxon years. When the 1 The best guide to this church is a small volume one of the most learned archeologists in England. called “Durham Cathedral,” which contains an ad- This volume can be obtained in the book-shops at dress delivered in 1879 before a local society of ar- Durham, and it seems to have formed the basis of chitects and antiquaries by the Reverend William the treatise included in Murray’s series of “ Hand- Greenwell, one of the canons of the cathedral and books.” 83 84 English Cathedrals. good seed sent from Rome began to bear fruit among the heathen English, this old Church sent its missionaries also. Ireland had been its nursing mother for two centuries; but Irish monks were constantly at work in Scotland, and no early monastery was more famous than that which St. Columba established in the sixth century upon the island of Iona off the western Scottish coast. The Northumbrian land seems not to have been christianized during the British-Roman period. So far as we know, the gospel was first accepted there by any conspicuous body of adherents when Paulinus, one of the emissaries of Rome, came from Kent, early in the seventh century, with Ethelbert’s daughter, the bride of King Edwin of North- umbria. And even this evangelization was not final. In 633 Edwin was slain by Penda and Cadwalla, heathens of vigorous arm; Paulinus was obliged to fly, and the district was left again to paganism. But when Oswald conquered in his turn, he brought back the Christian faith which he had imbibed in Scotland, and sent to Iona for priests to help him teach it to his people. One of these priests was Aidan, whom he made the first bishop of the new diocese which he established— the dio- cese which is now of Durham but was then called of Bernicia and had its first centre at Lindisfarne. From Scotland too, a little later, came Cuthbert, the great patron-saint of Durham. A shepherd in the valley of the Lauder, an evangelist who preached far and wide in a savage and desolate country, then prior of the Abbey of Melrose, then for twelve years a simple monk at Lindisfarne, and for nine years a hermit ina rude cell on the island of Farne, then bishop at Hexham and at last, in 685, bishop at Lindisfarne, Cuthbert shared with Oswald and Aidan the honor of the final conversion of the northeastern land; and thus we see that it owes its faith of to-day, not to St. Augustine’s mission, but to the old pre-English Church. Cuthbert, Oswald, and Aidan were all canonized by Rome, and in their case at least the halo was worthily given; for Oswald was a truly Christian and kingly king, and Aidan and Cuthbert were saints of a true saintly type. Aidan’s name is less well remembered now, but St. Oswald the king and St. Cuthbert the monk are still alive in men’s minds, not only at Durham which is their monument, but wher- ever the outlines of Christian history are read. Oswald was slain by Penda, and his head and arms were exposed on stakes on the battle- field. But afterward they came into ecclesiastical keeping; one of the “incorruptible” arms we have heard about at Peterborough, and the head was buried in St. Cuthbert’s coffin at Durham. The Cathedral of St. Cuthbert—Durham. 85 THE CATHEDRAL AND THE CASTLE, FROM THE NORTH. To Northumbria, as well as to the fen-lands, the Danes in the ninth century brought their swords and torches. The monks of Lindisfarne fled before them, carrying the holy coffin. For eight years they wan- dered, until, in 883, they settled at an old Roman station — Chester-le- Street—which was given them by a christianized Danish king. Thence they removed again, and again for fear of the rovers, about a century later. First they sat at Ripon for a few months, and then they turned back northward, doubtless encouraged to think once more of Chester- le-Street. But when they reached a spot a little to the eastward of Durham, St. Cuthbert caused his coffin to remain immovable for three days, and finally made known his wish to be sepultured where the cathedral now stands. The first church here was built of wood; but at the end of four years it had already been replaced by one of stone, and this stood until after the Conquest, while some of its materials, perhaps, still survive in the Normans’ reconstruction. 6* 86 English Cathedrals. II THERE were times and places when the first thought of a monastic colony was for comfort and retirement, for fertile surroundings and facil- ities of access. But in the north of England in Danish days inacces- sibility, impregnability, was the thing to be desired; and St. Cuthbert LIAISNVHL suvity yai31079 PLAN OF DURHAM CATHEDRAL?! AND MONASTIC BUILDINGS. FROM MURRAY'S ‘‘HAND-BOOK TO THE CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND.” A. High altar. C. Site of St. Cuthbert’s shrine. E. Refectory. F. Dormitory. K. Prior’s (now dean’s) house. 16, Bede’s tomb. showed wonderful posthumous wisdom in selecting the final home of his perplexed, itinerant “congregation.” There is a large town now where there was then a wilderness; a wide-spreading, busy town overhung by that gray smoke-cloud which is the invariable sign in England of commercial life; a town so modern in mood that it is hard to think of it as only an alien growth from an old 1 Durham Cathedral measures 420 feet in length inside the walls, and 172 feet across the transept. The Galilee-chapel is 76 feet 6 inches long and 48 feet wide. Lhe Cathedral of St. Cuthbert— Durham. 87 monastic root. It lies chiefly to the eastward of the church, stretching out far to north and south, and divided again and again by the quick S-like curves of the River Wear—a stream which is not a sluggish canal like the Ouse at Ely, but even to American eyes a fine little river bordered by woods that have the true forest look. All along the west- ern bank these woods extend, and up the face of that great steep rock on the eastern bank which supports the church, jutting out like a bold cape and clasped on three sides by a horseshoe sweep of the stream. Where the cliff is steepest toward the west rises the front of the cathe- dral, close above thick clambering trees; to the south its long side overlooks the monastic buildings and the shady gardens which touch the Wear; and to the northward, at some distance but still on the same plateau, springs sheer with the face of the rock a great castle founded by the Conqueror. Castle and church together form a group and hold a station to which we may find parallels on the Continent but not in England. And I think there can be nothing else in England, or in all the world, quite like the walk which we may take along the river’s opposite bank, following its many bends, passing its high. arched bridges, having the forest on the one hand and on the other the matchless panorama that man has worked from nature’s brave suggestions. The usual approach to the promontory is, of course, from the town behind it. Through a steep narrow street we come up near the castle, and thence, beyond the broad flat Palace Green, we see the north side of the church filling the whole view from left to right—from the crowd- ing houses about its eastern to the crowding trees about its western end. The old monastic “congregation of St. Cuthbert” had lapsed into “secular” ways before the Normans came. But the second Norman bishop, William of Carilef, made radical changes, bringing in monks from Wearmouth and Jarrow, and establishing a great Benedictine house at Durham. On his return from a three-years exile—the price he paid for his share in the rebellion against William Rufus—he set about building himself a new cathedral too. Its foundation-stones were laid beneath the eastern end of the choir in 1093, and in the four short years which remained to him Carilef seems to have completed the choir, the eastward wall of the transept, the crossing with its tower, the ad- jacent first bay of the nave-arcade, and the two long outer (aisle) walls of the nave. Three years after his death Ralph Flambard, William Rufus’s famous chancellor, was appointed bishop. During these years the monks had 88 English Cathedrals. THE WEST END OF THE NAVE, FROM THE NORTH DOOR. nearly completed the transept, and Flambard completed the whole of the nave and its aisles (excepting the roofs), and the western towers up to the same height as the walls. During another interregnum, which followed his death in 1128, the monks roofed-in his nave and aisles; and the western towers were finished in the Transitional period. The windows throughout the church have been enlarged from time to time. The east end of the choir was conspicuously changed in the thirteenth century, and the vaulting of its central alley was renewed. In the fifteenth century the central tower was injured by lightning, and The Cathedral of St. Cuthbert —Durham. 89 its upper portions had to be rebuilt. But with these exceptions the whole vast Norman body remains as at first constructed. Ill APPROACHING the church across the Palace Green, we enter by what has been the chief doorway since the twelfth century—a doorway toward the western end of the north aisle; and we see at once how greatly the interior design of Durham differs from that of the typical Norman church. The vertical proportioning is quite unlike what we have found at Peterborough; the pier-arcade is much higher and the triforium-ar- cade relatively lower. Instead of a uniform succession of rectangular pliers with attached semi-shafts, we find such piers alternating with immense cylindrical ones, not shafted or moulded, but decorated with deep incised lines forming various patterns— spirals, flutings, and reticulations. From end to end the scheme is the same; Flambard merely carried on the design of St. Carilef with minor constructional improvements and a richer amount of detail. Round pillars occur in the early mediaeval work of every land, vary- ing from slender columns to much sturdier but still columnar forms such as we see in Notre Dame at Paris, and to still more massive shapes where the column is no longer suggested, but the immense body, built up of a multitude of small stones, may be described as a circular piece of walling, and the relatively insignificant capital as a mere cornice curved around it. The Durham piers are of the last-named type, and no others of the type are so magnificent. They cannot anywhere be matched for immense size, for fine proportions, or for the wonderful effectiveness of their incised decoration. With their aid Carilef and Flambard created the most imposing interior of the time. The unusual height of the pier-arcade, which involves of course the same height in the aisles, prevents the tunnel-like effect which distresses us a little at Peterborough, and gives a much nobler air of space and freedom, while majesty and beauty are increased by the contrasting outlines of the alternated piers. This interior has not only a titanic solemnity, but a titanic pomp which takes us back to the colonnades of Egypt. But there is none of the grace of Egyptian columns (which are true columns despite their size) in the cylindrical piers of Durham, and the design as a whole is less refined and self-possessed than that of Peterborough; in its audacious immensity it does not so plainly seem to be the per- 90 English Cathedrals. fected result of a long and consistent development. We are half tempted to say that Durham is almost barbaric as compared either with the more reposeful ee of Egypt or with the soberer dig- reticent nature of its decoration, so boldly yet so sparingly applied, speak of cultivated, practised builders, clever of hand and sensitive of eye. In fact, it looks just as it should look,—it seems the work of men born near the centre of contemporary civilization but transplanted to a fresh soil on its outskirts, breathing the air of the adventurous north, and all aflame with pride and vigor from the recent conquest of a realm. Certainly we would not exchange Durham Cathedral, on the spot where it stands, for any other church in the world, and when possessed by the spell of its awful beauty we can hardly remember that any other church in the world is so fine. In one way it is certainly the finest of all the great Anglo-Norman churches. All its parts are vaulted. The choir-vault was renewed in the latter half of the thirteenth century, but the nave-vault is still as it first was built, with the main or transverse arches of ‘pointed shape but the diagonal arches round, and the great ribs adorned by Norman zig- zags. |The character of the shafts which flank and rise above the rectangular piers shows that some sort of a vault was contemplated when the walls were raised. But it is a question whether this vault was actually built at once or whether a flat ceiling was used for a time, as we know to have been the case in the south transept-arm. Some authorities affirm that it was built at once and give its date, therefore, as about 1130, while others believe it was not constructed until near the middle of the following century. In the latter case it would belong to a period when the Early English, or Lancet-Pointed, style was fully developed. Medizval architects seldom abandoned current fashions for the sake of harmonizing their work with their predecessors’, so it seems unlikely that such vaults—Transitional in form and Norman in deco- ration—can have been erected after the complete triumph of the Gothic style. Yet this is not half so hard to believe as that Transitional vaults can have been built by Anglo-Norman architects as early as 1120, ten years before the construction of the choir of St. Denis, where the first perfect Gothic vaults were achieved, and in the very year when the Transitional vaults of the famous portico of Vézelay were being raised. Perhaps we may conceive it possible that some French archi- tect gave Durham’s vaults their present shape at this phenomenally early day. But, if so, they must be looked upon as anomalies in the The Cathedral of St. Cuthbert — Durham. gI history of the English transition from Romanesque to Gothic art, not, like the vaults of St. Denis, as representatives of a general ten- dency, as a stage in a consistent course of development. As late as iy Sf , ee th 0" VIEW FROM THE NAVE INTO THE NORTH ARM OF THE TRANSEPT. the very end of this century, we know, Anglo-Normans were roofing all their other great naves with wood, and not even preparing for future vaults, while the round arch still ruled the whole constructional scheme. 92 English Cathedrals. Of course such a ceiling as Durham’s is not only grander in itself than a flat one, but makes the whole effect of the church much grander, giving added height, greater unity, and a far nobler look of strength. An impression of ‘rocky solidity and indeterminate duration” is what dol [rower Sy _ ee, THE NAVE, FROM THE NORTH AISLE. Dr. Johnson said he received in Durham Cathedral when starting on his Scottish tour; but all his most sesquipedalian adjectives could not have translated the impression which it really produces. It is worth noting that its effect must always have been pretty nearly as it is to-day. So few remains of paint have been found on the walls that it seems improbable that any general scheme of chromatic adorn- The Cathedral of St. Cuthbert— Durham. 93 ment was ever applied to them. Nor is the eye impelled, as in so many *other cases, to clothe them with imagined hues. Nakedness is the last word which suggests itself; color could hardly add to the beauty of this soft warm yellowish stone, accented by the bands of carving and the strong incised patterns on the circular piers. It is wonderful to see what decorative emphasis is-given by so simple a device as this incising— what an amount of richness and vivacity it brings into the seriousness of the immense design. We are sometimes told that the lines were prob- ably once filled with metal or with colored pastes. But no traces of such fillings have been found, the incisions are much deeper than would have been required to hold them, and, again, the eye does not imagine them desirable. No colored lines, however brilliant, could be so effective as the inky, velvety black lines of shadow which now con- trast with the gradually shading pale-yellow tones of the rounded sur- faces. ‘‘The maximum of effect with the minimum of means” is always a sentence of praise, and one rarely sees it quite as well deserved as by these singular decorations at Durham. IV THE main entrance to the church was originally a large western door opening from the flat margin of the cliff. But soon after 1150 Bishop Hugh de Puiset (who was a nephew of King Stephen, and is commonly called Bishop Pudsey) covered this part of the rock, quite out to the embowering trees which thence descend the steep slope to the Wear, by a large Galilee-chapel a single story in height. The porch, or narthex, of the earliest Christian churches sometimes survived in England as a large low portico, projecting in front of one of the principal doors, which was called a Galilee-porch to explain that, like the ancient narthex, it was a less sacred spot than the interior of the church itself. Such a porch was the architectural expression of the biblical term ‘Galilee of the Gentiles”; but while Durham’s Galilee was this, it was something more as well. It was a true porch, lying in front of the main entrance with a door of access in its northern side; but it was a Lady-chapel also. This peculiar composite character is explained by the single fault which tradition fastens upon St. Cuthbert. He had a very pronounced dislike for women; or, to give gentler ex- planation to the foible of so gentle a saint, we may fancy that he had a very godly fear of them, for which, deep down in his holy bosom, he felt some good human excuse. Centuries after his death his suscepti- 94 English Cathedrals. bilities were respected by the builders of the present church. Far away from his shrine, near the west end of the nave, they worked a line of blue-stone across the pavement, and with almost Mohammedan scorn forbade a feminine foot to cross it. And when in later days men threatened to outrage his feelings, the saint himself remonstrated. When Bishop Pudsey tried to build a chapel for the Blessed Virgin in the usual place —eastward of the choir—the foundations refused to bear their load, and this, of course, was ‘“‘a manifest sign” that the work “was not acceptable to God and his servant Cuthbert.” So Pud- sey began again westward of the nave. As the foundations now rested upon rock, no supernatural mandate checked him, and, seeming to have thought the ewes of his flock hardly treated, he made his Lady-chapel in Galilee as well, “into which women might lawfully enter.” We feel that he did no more than his duty by the sex when we read that the first person interred in the new chapel was an illegitimate son of his own. But the most famous tenant of this chapel is the Venerable Bede. Few men who lived so long ago are of such vital interest and value now as Bede, and by the graves of few can we feel so well assured that they really rest within. Bede was a monk at Jarrow, and his bones reposed there from the eighth to the eleventh century, when they were most piously stolen by the sacrist of Durham and placed in Cuthbert’s hos- pitable coffin. Pudsey built them a separate shrine which, two hundred years later, was removed into his chapel. The Reformers destroyed it, but reburied the bones beneath a plain square tomb; and here they were searched for and found in the year 1830. Then was cut the epi- taph which we now may read: “HAC SUNT IN FOSSA BEDA) VENERABILIS OSSA.” But its words are of high traditional antiquity and, of course, not of a mere man’s inditing. When the early sculptor paused to find a fitting adjective, an angel suggested the one which is still commonly coupled with the old historian’s name. The chapel in which he sleeps is very singular and charming. It -was built in the Transitional period, with round-arched arcades divid- ing it into five aisles of almost equal height, the elaborately moulded arches, carved in many rows of zigzags, resting on coupled columns which were joined by their bases and capitals while their shafts of dark marble stood free. To-day the effect is not so light and delicate as Lhe Cathedral of St. Cuthbert— Durham. 95 when the eye could pass between these coupled shafts; for in later years two other shafts, not of dark marble but of stone, were added to each group, forming a solid moulded pier. But the forms are so slender and fragile and graceful that, despite the round arches and the zigzags, the effect is not characteristically Norman. It certainly is not Gothic either, and the simple scheme of arcades without upper stories or vaults THE GALILEE-CHAPEL. makes it seem quite unecclesiastic. It is an effect which was never exactly reproduced, either in or out of England, but which, by a scarcely strained comparison, more than one writer has called ‘almost Saracenic,”* The side-walls of the Galilee have been raised and its windows have been enlarged and fitted with traceries. No west window gives an unobstructed outward view, but by a little effort we may get par- tial glimpses of the splendid panorama that stretched in front of the 1 The cut at the head of this chapter shows one of the capitals in the Galilee-chapel. 96 English Cathedrals. doorways of the church before the chapel was constructed. For the sake of this panorama the chapel came nigh to perishing a hundred years ago. The thrice notorious “restorer” Wyatt then proposed to pull it down and run a driveway around the cliff; and the dean had no thought of objecting until the Society of Antiquaries interfered. ~ In this Durham Galilee, as before the portico of Peterborough and beneath the lantern which we shall find at Ely, we learn why English architecture has a singular charm for almost every tourist: it often shows him something that no knowledge of other things has led him to ex- pect,—something quite individual, apart, and fresh. No one can antici- pate how an English builder may have planned or designed any part of his construction. What his neighbors were doing was no bond upon him, as such bonds were usually felt in mediaeval years; nor did he always stop to think whether the fundamental laws of good construction or of good design would sanction his impulses. Sometimes he made a magnificent mistake, as in the Peterborough portico; sometimes he made a magnificent success, as in the Ely lantern; and sometimes, as in this Galilee at Durham, he produced a work which, although by no means a mistake, charms us rather by pictorial beauty than by serious architectural merit. These facts must stimulate the interest of all trav- elers; but they deepen the satisfaction rather of the uncritical than of the critical eye. This Galilee, for instance, is a lovely thing to look at and remember—a surprising delight when we see it, a unique picture to store away in the mental gallery we are gathering. But it teaches us little with regard to the general history of medieval architecture. It tells us nothing of what went before or after, and nothing of what was being done elsewhere. It does not help to solidify our concep- tion of that steady stream of progress which led from the tentative round-arched work of the eleventh century to the perfected Pointed work of the thirteenth. It has small value as a link in that marvel- ous chain of logical development which we must want to understand if we care for architecture on its noblest side. Often, as we travel through England, we have these same words to say; and more and more the impression deepens that this is not the best place to study medieval art from the historic standpoint. More and more we feel that, as Anglo-Norman art was an importation, so, for a long time after its death, the impulse toward fresh developments came from external sources. We feel this, without studying dates and historic facts, simply because we see no such consistently, harmoniously advancing current of art as meets the eye in France, but, instead, many proofs that the The Cathedral of St. Cuthbert — Durham. 97 great guiding principles of Gothic architecture were not firmly grasped and many signs that clever individuals worked pretty much as personal impulse dictated. THE CATHEDRAL, FROM THE SOUTHEAST. SHOWING THE EXTERIOR OF THE NINE ALTARS. Tue next addition to Durham cathedral was the eastern transept, or Chapel of the Nine Altars, begun in the Early English period and finished in the Decorated. Like the New Building at Peterborough, it is a vast rectangular apartment lying across the east end of the church. But its arrangement is different in many ways. It is considerably broader than the church; instead of rising only as high as the aisles, it is as lofty as the choir proper; and three vast pointed arches connect it with the church, the old central apse as well as the choir-ends having been torn down to make room for it. No rows of columns break its wide and ? 98 English Cathedrals. soaring space, and the simply designed but delicately enriched vault sweeps overhead in magnificent great curves. The eastern and south- ern walls are divided into bays of different widths by great clusters of shafts which bear the vaulting-ribs; in the broad bay that forms the centre of the long east side stands a group of three lancet-windows with a large rose-window, ninety feet in circumference, above them; and in each of the narrower bays is a single lancet surmounted by another single light. The north side, completed at a later day, is filled by one vast Decorated window with beautiful geometric traceries. Face to the westward now, and see how the chapel is connected with the choir-end by the three great arches. The floor of the choir proper lies considerably higher than that of its aisles, but even these lie higher than the pavement of the chapel, so beneath each of the lateral arches is a flight of steps leading up into the aisles. Above these arches, which rise to the same height as the aisle-ceilings, are triforium-arcades and then clearstory-windows looking out above the aisle-roofs, while on either side, where the chapel stretches beyond the aisle-walls, are tall lancet-windows in double ranges. The central arch rises as high as the choir-ceiling, and below is blocked by the end of the choir-floor, projecting as a raised platform; and upon this platform, within the choir but visible from the chapel, stood St. Cuthbert’s shrine. All around the chapel, beneath the windows and across the face of the platform, runs a graceful arcade with trefoiled arches and dark marble shafts, its rich details having grown from lovely Early English to love- lier Decorated as the work grew from east to west; and under this arcade against the eastern wall stood the nine altars from which the structure took its name. It would be hopeless to try to paint the beauty of this chapel, where the simplicity of the design was so exquisitely adorned, yet so well pre- served, by the decorations. The ancient figured glass has perished and the ancient painted color. Many of the lancets still keep the tra- ceries with which they were filled in the Perpendicular period, and the rose- window —clearly seen through the great choir-arch from the very west end of the church — was rebuilt by Wyatt. But the traceries do not really hurt the effect save to a purist’s eye. The modern glass is unusually good, except in one window where it is phenomenally bad. Most of the sculptor’s work remains, and all the striking color which the architect produced by setting against his pale-yellow stone great shafts and capitals of black polished marble beautifully flecked with fossil shells. To the modern architect the most remarkable points The Cathedral of St. Cuthbert— Durham. 99 THE CATHEDRAL FROM THE NORTHWEST. about the chapel are the way in which the vaulting-ribs were made to unite and harmonize the alien western and eastern walls, and the way in which the end of the church was altered, so that the transition be- tween plain massive Norman and light elaborate Gothic work might not be too abrupt. Among all the examples of constructive ingenuity and of artistic feeling that I saw in England there was none which impressed me quite so forcibly as the management of this transition. The Nine Altars was proposed and prepared for by Bishop Le Poore, begun in 1242 by Melsanby, the prior of the convent under Bishop Farnham, and finished probably under Bishop Robert of Holy Island, about forty years having gone to its perfecting. Who was its actual designer cannot be said, but the name of one architect concerned with it has been accidentally preserved. Local documents always call it the nova fabrica ; and in one such document, a real-estate conveyance now in the chapter-library, a witness is written down as Magzster Ricardus de Farinham tunc architector nove fabrice Dunelm. It is probable that 100 English Cathedrals. this Richard Farnham was a relative of Bishop Farnham. But who- ever he was, and however great or small his share in the chapel, we are glad for him that he has thus emerged from that medizval limbo which is filled by so many great artists’ nameless shades. VI Tue picture made by Durham’s rocky pedestal and rock-like church and castle is as interesting to the mind as to the eye, for it clearly ex- presses a combination of temporal with ecclesiastical grandeur which _ was unique in the kingdom of England. In Norman days the bishops of Durham were made palatine-princes as well, and allowed to rule over a wide surrounding district with al- most autocratic powers and privileges. Thenceforward during four hun- dred years they were the judicial and military as well as the spiritual lords of their people. They owed the king feudal service, but they owed him little else. Those who did wrong within their borders were said to have broken, not the peace of the king, but the peace of the bishop; and with the bishop rested the power of life and death even when murder or treason itself was in question. The bishops of Ely were the only other prelates in England to whom palatine powers were given; and at Ely these powers meant very much less in practice than they did among the successors of Cuthbert. No English lords save the palatine-counts of Chester equaled in degree of independent authority and local influence the palatine-bishops of Durham. Far from the centre of royal rule, the king was content to let them do as they liked with their own, asking in return that they should keep a keen eye and a strong hand upon the ever-threatening, often flaming, Scottish Border. As a consequence, the bishops of Durham figure on history’s page more like great military than like great ecclesiastical rulers. Some- times they were high-placed functionaries at the court of the king; but more often they remained in their own diocese, lording it in that great castle which served them instead of a palace, or fighting the Scotch, now single-handed and now beneath the banner of the king. The most powerful and splendid of them all was Anthony Bek, who died in 1310. He was called “the proudest lord in Chrestientie,” and we can well understand why when we read of him as prince-bishop of Durham, king of the Isle of Man, and Patriarch of Jerusalem; when we hear how he went with Edward I. to Scotland with twenty-six standard- bearers and a hundred and sixty-four knights as his private following, The Cathedral of St. Cuthbert— Durham. | 101 and with fifteen hundred soldiers of the Palatinate who were also bound to do his personal bidding ; and when we learn how the ‘court of Dur- ham” exhibited in his day all the pomp and etiquette of a royal house- hold. ‘Nobles addressed the palatine sovereign kneeling, and instead of menial servants, knights waited in his presence-chamber and at his table bare-headed and standing. . . . . . His liberality knew no bounds, and he regarded no expenses, however enormous, when placed in competition with any object of pleasure or magnificence.” Even the great king Edward was moved to fear or envy by his wealth and power and, perhaps, ambition. But Edward II. took him back into favor, and he remained bishop and prince till his death. He spent much on build- ings as well as in every other way, yet he left greater riches behind him than any of his forerunners; and despite his extravagance and pomp he is described as an active, industrious, and singularly temperate man. It is impossible here to hint at even the most remarkable bishops who filled this powerful chair, or at even the most important wars in which they played conspicuous parts— wars which sometimes eddied about the very foot of the pedestal where their church and castle stood. Even the private history of the monastery might furnish forth a long and lively chapter, for the monks of Durham seem to have been almost as turbulent as the people of the Border, or else the bishops ruled them with a hand made heavy by long wielding of temporal weapons. Feuds within the convent were constantly occurring, and long and bitter dis- putes about the episcopal succession; and more than once there was riot, if not bloodshed, within the very walls of the church. History and poetry have done even more than constructive art to make the name of this cathedral famous. ‘Half house of God, half castle ’gainst the Scot,” it is constantly pictured by bards and chroni- clers from those of the earliest time down to that modern singer who interweaves its grandeur with the tale of Marmion. And whenever, wherever, we find it referred to, it is not as the mere resting-place of some saint beloved of pilgrims, or as the mere sponsor of some prelate whose life was largely separated from its own, but as the veritable home of mighty rulers, as itself a mighty stronghold and the centre of local military life. Truly the records of these English sees are as di- verse among themselves as each in itself is picturesquely varied. Far more than was the case with any other English see, the power of Dur- ham made the power of the men who sat on its throne. For a parallel to the réle which it played in history we must look abroad—to the great episcopal fortress-towns of France or to the great electoral bish- 7 102 English Cathedrals. oprics of Germany. Thus, I repeat, its admirable position—set on its truculent rock and supported by its frowning castle—has an even greater historic than pictorial value. THE BISHOP’S THRONE. Vil At Canterbury primate and abbot, warrior, prince, and king, were sepultured close about St. Thomas, the posthumous association being thought to honor and to profit them and in no way to dishonor or dis- please the martyr. It was thus at Westminster, too, around the shrine of Edward the Confessor, and in almost all medieval churches in all countries. But it was very different at Durham. Never was a dead saint so “exclusive” as St. Cuthbert, who had been so meek and humble The Cathedral of St. Cuthbert — Durham. 103 while alive. Not only all feet of living women but all bones of departed men were strictly forbidden to approach his thrice-holy shrine, or even to rest beneath the wide-stretching roof that covered it. Naturally no king or prince sought burial at Durham; and local dignitaries, even though as mighty as Flambard himself, were interred outside the church, the chapter-house being the most honorable place assigned to them. This rule was enforced until great Anthony Bek came to die. He was buried in the Nine Altars; but a tradition (which architectural evi- dence proves false, but which is significant none the less) says that even his body might not be carried through the church, and that a break was made in the chapel-wall to admit it. Thirty years later the first layman was interred in the church—Ralph, Lord Neville, who had commanded the English at the battle of Neville’s Cross. But even in subsequent centuries burials were rare in Durham, and the only monu- ment which now stands in its choir is that of Bishop Hatfield, who died in 1381. This monument was built by Hatfield himself, and is surely one of the most self-asserting of all such anticipatory memorials. The tomb proper is low and modest enough—a mere sarcophagus upon which lies an alabaster figure of the prelate. But above it, forming a vast structure which seems to exist simply to protect and honor it, rises the episcopal throne. Here every subsequent bishop has sat, and with each must have seemed to sit the spirit of Hatfield. No such splendid cathe- dra was ever built elsewhere in England; but its splendor was wholly appropriate as expressing the paramount temporal power of Durham's incumbents. This was the throne, not of a bishop merely, but of a prince- palatine as well. Now that the old palatine powers and privileges have gone to the crown, one may think, perhaps, that Queen Victoria has a better right to sit upon it than the ecclesiastic who preserves so scant a shred of temporal authority. But despite the lack of tombs, this throne was not the only thing which in earlier ages made Durham’s choir magnificent. An immense four- teenth-century reredos, elaborately carved with niches containing more than a hundred figures, rose behind the high altar. Lines of carved stalls encircled the singers’ choir. At the end of the north aisle, near the Nine Altars, “was the goodliest fair porch, which was called the Anchorage, having a marvelous fair rood with the most exquisite pictures of Mary and John, with an altar for a monk to say daily mass, being in ancient times inhabited with an anchorite. ” Opposite, at the end of the south aisle, was a screen “all adorned with fine wainscot work and 104 English Cathedrals. curious painting,” in front of which stood the “Black Rood of Scotland,” taken from King David at the battle of Neville’s Cross, made of silver and “being, as it were, smoked all over.” At the western end of the north aisle stood another “porch” and rood; and, of course, the chief screen of all shut off the choir proper from the rest of the church, stand- ing just west of the crossing, flanked by the great Neville chantry. English Puritans seem to have spared the furnishings as well as the body of Durham. But much damage was done by Scottish prisoners who were confined within it in 1650, more was done by renovations in the last century, and still more by “restorations” in the first half of our own. Everything has gradually been swept out of the choir except the throne which has lost its color and gilding, the reredos which now lacks its hun- dred figures, and the stalls which were sadly cut and altered some forty years ago. At this time too was ruthlessly destroyed a splendid Renais- sance choir-screen built by Bishop Cosin in 1660 to replace the ruined ancient one of stone. Its superb carvings of black oak seemed to modern purists out of keeping with a medieval interior, though in reality they must have harmonized well with the heavy Norman forms about them; and modern eyes thought it a pity that there should not be a “clear view” from end to end of the great church, though no such view would have been tolerated by its builders, the choir being the monks’ and the nave the laity’s place of worship. The present screen is a fragile, un- dignified tracery of white marble —“ pure” pseudo-Gothic, very likely, but very certainly a more inappropriate feature than was the massive wooden structure of which a few fragments may be studied in the castle. But the supreme ornament of Durham’s choir was St. Cuthbert’s shrine. This stood, as has been said, in the choir behind the high altar, on a floor raised above the level of the aisles and projecting like a plat- form into the Nine Altars. Steps for the use of pilgrims led up from the aisles, and doors in the reredos admitted the ecclesiastics. The shrine, as we read of it, was rebuilt in 1380. A base of green marble was worked into four seats where cripples or invalids might get rest and healing, and upon this base stood a great work of enamel and gold sprinkled with princely jewels, containing “the treasure more precious than gold or topaz,” and shadowed by that banner of St. Cuthbert which went so often over the Border, and by many another flag dedicated by an English or captured from a Scottish hand. At the time of the dissolution of the monasteries, Henry’s “visitors ” broke open the shrine and within it found St. Cuthbert “lying whole, uncorrupt, with his face bare, and his beard as of a fortnight’s growth, Lhe Cathedral of St. Cuthbert — Durham. 105 and all his vestments about him.” They destroyed the shrine, but respected the body and reburied it beneath the floor —and this by express order of the king, the saint of Durham having incited to super- stition merely, and not, like the saint of Canterbury, to treason also. In 1827 the tomb was again opened, and in the presence of more os rane Semel Nd Pea THE NORTH SIDE OF THE CATHEDRAL, FROM DUN COW LANE. scientific observers. In it was found the coffin which was made by Henry’s officers in 1542; within this the successive fragments of two other coffins, proved by their decorations to be those of the interment at Durham in Flambard’s time (1104), and of the original interment at Lindisfarne in 698; and then an entire skeleton wrapped in the rags of once-rich robes, and a second skull. The bones were reverentially re- 106 English Cathedrals. placed, but the other objects found in the tomb may now be seen in the chapter-library: an ivory comb; a tiny oaken portable altar plated with silver; an exquisitely embroidered stole and maniple of Old English workmanship ; another, later, maniple ; part of a girdle and two bracelets woven of gold and scarlet threads; a gold cross set with garnets, at least as ancient as St. Cuthbert’s own time; and pieces of rich figured robes of Oriental or Sicilian origin. The altar and the comb agree with a description given of the contents of the coffin when it was examined in 1104; and the more ancient embroideries have been identified by the lettering they bear as those which Athelstan is recorded to have given to the shrine when he visited it at Chester-le-Street in the year 934. Can the most skeptical tourist think that either here or by the tomb of Bede such sentiment as he may have to spend will be wasted on menda- cious bones? Surely here beneath the pavement of Durham’s choir must veritably sleep the body of St. Cuthbert the monk and the head of St. Oswald the king. Vill Tue. west front.of Durham is one of the finest in England. Its rich yet simple Norman and Transitional features are enlivened but not dis- turbed by the great middle window which was inserted in the Decorated period ; and the low projecting Galilee does not seem at all out of place, as the nearness and the steepness of the cliff premise that here the main entrance will hardly be found. The huge imperial majesty, though not the beauty, of the building is best realized from the Palace Green, where the whole north side lies un- shrouded before us. But here too we most clearly see, on near approach, how fortunate it would have been had Wyatt and others like him never lived. In ignorant distrust of the effects which the weathering of seven centuries had wrought, they flayed and cut and pared the mighty sur- face with a pitiless hand, removing in many places several inches’ depth of stone, and actually casing the central tower with cement. As much as possible has been done in recent years to repair their ravage. But the beautiful color and texture which time alone can give have perished, and the planed-off inches have left the mouldings and window-jambs so shallow that the old accent of massiveness and force is hopelessly impaired. No one but an Englishman, and no Englishman born earlier than the Perpendicular period, would have built a great church-tower like this central one at Durham—>so tall and massive yet so simple in out- The Cathedral of St. Cuthbert — Durham. 107 line, and finished by a parapet with no thought of a spire or of any visible sort of roof. The earlier western towers had been given wooden spires covered with lead; but in the seventeenth century these were removed, and in the eighteenth the turreted battlements were added. Continental critics would tell us that such a group as we now behold has far too military an air to be ecclesiastically appropriate. The ques- tion is one for taste, not argument, to decide. But I may say that if spireless battlemented towers can ever be appropriate upon a church, they surely are upon Durham’s. If ever a house of God could lawfully assume a semi-military, half-forbidding, wholly uncompromising air, it was surely the one where the palatine-bishops were throned. Yet this church held the shrine of the peaceful Cuthbert as well as the chair of the warlike Bek, and in its far-off greatest years it played a réle of gentle ecclesiastical ministrance as well as of stern ecclesiastical control.) “Many a blood-stained foot has fled wildly toward it over the broad Palace Green, and many an innocent foot hounded by accusing cries. It was a famous “sanctuary” where any culprit charged with any crime could find inviolable shelter, kindly entertainment for thirty- seven days, and then, if still unjustified or unpardoned, safe transpor- tation to the coast and passage over-seas—paying only by a full confession and a solemn oath never to return to England. From a chamber over the north porch a monk watched ceaselessly to give im- mediate entrance; and even before entrance was given, as soon as the knocker on the door was grasped, “St. Cuthbert’s peace” was won. The chamber was destroyed by Wyatt, but the knocker hangs where it has hung since late-Norman days. The empty eye-sockets of the grotesque yet splendid mask of bronze were once filled, perhaps, with crystal eyeballs; or, perhaps,—and this is what we prefer to fancy,— a flame was set behind them that even he might not go astray whose flight should be in the darkness. High up on the northern end of the Nine Altars stand the sculptured figures of a milkmaid and a cow. The group is comparatively modern, but it perpetuates a very ancient legend. It was a woman seeking her strayed beast who guided the bearers of St. Cuthbert’s coffin when they could not find the ““Dunholme” where he wished to rest. IX On the south side of the cathedral we find the great aggregate of once-monastic buildings in a singularly complete condition. When the 108 English Cathedrals. monastery was “resigned” to King Henry VIII., and when the chapter was dissolved during the Commonwealth, the buildings were not greatly disfigured; and in 1660, at the time of the Restoration, the chapter was reconstituted with Sudbury as dean. In consequence, there is no place THE CATHEDRAL FROM THE NORTH. in England where we can so well understand what a great monastery looked like in pre-Reformation days, or how its populous colony lived. We should find the picture still more complete but for the demon of last-century renovation. The chapter-house, for instance, kept its Nor- man form uninjured until the year 1796—a great oblong room finished toward the east with a semicircular apse, vaulted throughout, paved with many sepulchral slabs bearing famous ecclesiastical names, and encircled by a tall arcade with intersecting arches, below which was a stone bench for the monks in council, and at the east end a stone chair where the long line of prelate-princes had sat for consecration. No other Norman chapter-house as fine as this remained in England, and The Cathedral of St. Cuthbert — Durham. 109 no other building whatsoever to show how the Normans had vaulted their apses. Yet, to make things more comfortable for modern dean and canon, the apse and the adjacent walls for about half the length of the room were pulled down, and the mutilated remainder was inclosed and floored and plastered so that not a sign of its splendid stones re- mained. A few years ago, however, these stones were again exposed to view, and the ground outside, once covered by the apse, was carefully examined. Several very ancient tombs were then identified, and in the library may now be seen three episcopal rings which were found within them—all set with great sapphires, and one of them having been Ralph Flambard’s. Our plan will show how the chapter-house opens upon one side of the cloister and how its other sides are built against the church itself, the dormitory and the refectory. The arrangement has always been the same; but almost all parts of the buildings have been more than once renewed. The cloister-walks date from the Perpendicular period, as does the dormitory above its crypt, while from the same level the refectory was rebuilt after the Restoration. The dormitory formed for many years part of a canon’s house, but has now been brought back as nearly as possible to its old estate. }The wooden partitions which divided it into separate sleeping-cells have disappeared, of course; but one hardly regrets their absence, as it leaves free to the eye the whole vast interior, —194 feet in length,—lighted by ranges of noble traceried windows and covered by an oaken ceiling, rude yet massive and grand in effect, the great tree-trunks which form its beams scarcely having been squared by the axe. The room now holds a portion of the valuable chapter-library, and sundry other interesting collections—of brilliant episcopal vestments, of coins and seals, and of Roman, Old English, and Norman antiquities of Northumbrian origin. The main portion of the library, including a collection of illuminated manuscripts which has hardly a superior in England outside of the British Museum, is housed in the old refectory. Here, too, are kept the relics which were found in St. Cuthbert’s grave and the fragments of his earlier coffins. He who wishes to understand the far-off roots and the first crude growths of medieval art in the north of England finds his best place of study in these richly filled and wisely administered libra- ries at Durham.’ 1] should be very ungrateful did I forget to note — whose pleasure and instruction infinite pains are will- that in one important respect Durham stands at the ingly taken by all dignitaries and officials, from the head of the English cathedrals. Here, of all places, highest to the humblest. I find T am by no means the tourist feels himself a welcome guest, and one for alone in remembering one of the vergers, Mr. Wea- 110 English Cathedrals. Many minor rooms and buildings lie around or near this cloister, chief in interest the monastery kitchen. I think there is but one other kitchen of the sort still intact in England, and that one—at Glaston- bury—now stands isolated in a field and never knows the warmth of useful fires, while this one still serves the household of the dean. It is a great octagonal structure, with a steep roof which covers a remarkable vaulted ceiling —so stately a structure that a passer-by, used to modern ways of living and modern architectural devices, would (but for its chim- neys) surely think it a baptistery or a chapel, never a kitchen. The old priors’ house also remains as the dwelling of the modern deans, but altered in the usual practical irreverent way, the private chapel forming now three chambers. Beyond all these stretch the dean’s lovely gardens, the quiet circle of the canons’ houses, and the quiet sweep of their own outer gardens look- ing down upon the Wear. So much remains at Durham, in short, that it is hard to remember that certain things have perished even here, among them the hospice of the monastery and its church-like hospital. The picture is not quite so lovely as that which greater ruin has wrought at Canterbury. But it is as beautiful in a soberer fashion, and it has the added charm of a lifted outlook over a splendid landscape. Surely there can be nothing like it in all the world—nothing at once so homogeneous yet so infinitely varied, so old in body yet so alive and fresh in mood. There is no class or kind of building which is not rep- resented between the castle on the northern and the garden-walls upon the southern verge of this rich promontory. There is scarcely a year of the last eight hundred which has not somewhere left some traces upon it. There is no sort of life which it has not seen, and the sort which prevails to-day is as wholly different from the ancient sorts as fancy could conceive. Yet nowhere can we choose a date and say, Here the old life ceased and the new began. Nowhere can we put finger on a stone and say, This was to serve religion only, or material existence only, or only war or ostentation; or, This was for use alone, or for beauty alone. All times are here and all things are here, and all aims and motives have here found expression; but all things are intertwined in Lone great entity, and all times join in one vast historic panorama. And this means that ¢#zs is England. Not in some new Birmingham, therall, as a pearl of his kind. More than one widely interesting to the ignorant yet instructive even to the traveled architect has cited him in my hearing as professional sight-seer, and filled with an enthusi- the best guide he had met in Europe— fully and asm as wise and discriminating as it is warm and correctly informed, patient and clear in exposition, contagious. Lhe Cathedral of St. Cuthbert — Durham. 111 hot with money-making fires, black with art-destroying cinders, and deaf to the voice of long-dead years; and not in some old deserted Kenilworth or Fountains, beautiful only, useful no longer, a monument of death and destruction, a milestone to show how wide a space may lie between the currents of medieval and of modern life — not there do we find the real England really pictured; but here in this Durham, which DURHAM, FROM THE RAILROAD STATION. was once military and monastic and feudal, and is now commercial, col- legiate, domestic, and in politics sometimes Liberal, yet where there has been neither sudden change nor any forgetting, and little abandonment or loss—only slow natural growth and development, and the wear and tear and partial retrogressions which all growth, all development must involve. Modern life standing upon ancient life as on a worn but puis- sant and respected pedestal; learning alive despite the hurry of trade ; re igion alive despite the widening of the moral horizon; Protestantism grown from Catholicism, yet not harshly dissevered from its rituals or 112 English Cathedrals. traditions nor scornful of its artistic legacy; things monastic sup- planted by things domestic within the Church, yet the Church still served with reverence, dignity and grace; the aristocrat, the soldier, and the prelate still keeping some shreds of civil power notwithstanding the upgrowth of the plebeian layman’s power — this is what England means to those who see her land and her living as a whole. This and all of this is what Durham means to those who study its stones and its records together. And all this is typified in that splendid throne of its bishop-princes, in which a bishop still sits but a prince no longer. As this throne still stands in use and honor, so the old order of things is still revered in the land, while the loss of the color and gold which once adorned it may seem to tell of the gradual perishing away of England’s old artistic gift, and the mutilation of the effigy it covers may seem to speak of the shorn authority of that class which once had no rivals in its ruling. x Ir is hopeless to try to tell which are the best points for seeing Dur- ham from a distance—they are so many, and each in turn seems so supremely good. Some of the very best, moreover, we are sure to get, as from the railroad station which lies a little out of the town to the northwest, and from the road which thence brings us over a great bridge near the castle. It is hopeless also to try to describe the outward view which may be had from the cathedral’s central tower. It is not a very pleasant task to climb to the top of any such old construction. Medizval builders had little care for the life or limbs of sight-seers; or perhaps medieval sight-seers did not seek for views as we do to-day. It is like a bad dream to clamber up this tower — up a narrow winding staircase to the church’s roof, and then up a still narrower and steeper and darker one to the roof of the tower, turning about on exiguous steps uneven from the tread of centuries, and feeling our way by the rough convex stones. But it is like another sort of dream to come out at last, after more than three hundred painful mountings, upon the broad parapeted platform and see the magnificent wide panorama undulating away into the hilly distance and enlivened beneath the church’s feet by the silver twistings of the Wear. Standing here we can see where the battle of Neville’s Cross was fought; and here the monks crowded to see it, in terror, doubtless, lest defeat might mean an instant siege within their home. CHAPTER V THE CATHEDRAL OF ST. MARY — SALISBURY .|FTER seeing Peterborough and Durham we may best go southward to Salisbury, where we shall find an explanation of that Early English, or Lancet-Pointed, style which suc- ceeded the Norman. The history of this cathedral church is un- matched in England. Its foundations were laid upon a virgin site in the year 1220; thirty- eight years later it stood complete to the top of the first stage of its tower; and time respected the unity thus achieved—no great calam- ity brought ruin upon any part of the structure, and no new needs provoked its alteration. A single style rules it from end to end, inside and out, from foundation-course to roof-crest. Only the spire and the upper stages of the tower were added in a later century, and to most observers even these look of a piece with all the rest. It was by méans of an act of transplantation, however, and not of new creation, that its thirteenth-century builders made Salisbury Cathe- dral all their own. The body of their church was new and the spot upon which it stood, but in name and soul it had already long existed. I Asout the year 705 the great diocese of Winchester was divided, and its western portion became the diocese of Sherborne. In the tenth century this in its turn was cut into two or three, one being called of Ramsbury or Wiltshire. At the time of the Conquest Bishop Herman occupied the chairs of both Ramsbury and Sherborne. As he was a foreigner by birth, William did not dispossess him; and when William’s council decreed the removal of isolated rural chairs to places of more 8 113 114 English Cathedrals. importance, Herman planted his at Old Sarum, and the names of the two earlier dioceses were lost in that of Salisbury. Old Sarum we say to-day, when speaking of the site of Herman’s cathedral, and Salisbury when speaking of the place where the new one was built in the year 1220. But the names are the same, one be- ing the medizval Latin and the other the modern English form of the earlier English Searobyrig or Sarisbyrig, itself derived from the Roman Sorbiodunum. From prehistoric days Old Sarum was for centuries a strong and famous place. No spot in all England is of more curious interest now. Who expects in this crowded, living little land to hear of a city wiped utterly from sight, turned into such a “heap” as those cities of the plain whose punishment the prophets foretold? Who expects to see sheep feeding and ploughshares turning where there were once not only Roman roads and ramparts but a great Norman castle and cathedral? Yet this, and nothing but this, we see at Old Sarum. Its broad, desolate hill lies isolated in a valley near the river Avon,’ not very far from the skirts of the wide table-land called Salisbury Plain. Even the roadway leaves it at a distance. First we pass through an inn-garden, then cross a long stretch of slightly rising ground, and then climb successive steep and rugged though grassy slopes. These show in scarcely broken lines the trend of the ancient walls and fosses. Their main portions are of Roman origin, but, if we may believe tradition, the outermost line was added by King Alfred when the Danes were on the war-path. Once on top of the hill we find it a broad, rolling plateau, bearing here and there a group of trees, but nowhere a building, and only in two places any relics of man’s handi- work —two shattered, ragged bits of wall. Most of it is covered with rough grass, very different from the fresh turf of English lowlands, but far off to the westward there are signs of agricultural labor. This is where the great cathedral stood; and much else once stood where now is an almost Mesopotamian solitude—all the adjuncts of a cathedral, ecclesiastical and domestic; all the parts of a stronghold which was a royal residence as well; and all the streets and structures of a consid- erable city, stretching down the hill and out into the valley. Hence, as from an important centre, once radiated six Roman roads. Here Briton and Saxon fought, and the victors held their parliaments, and were in their turn assaulted by the Dane. Hither were summoned all the states of the realm to do homage to William the Norman, and, a 1 This is not Shakspere’s Avon, but another of the name which flows southward to the Channel. The Cathedral of St. Mary — Salisbury. pis century later, all its great men to pay reverence to that young son of Henry I. who was to perish in the wreck of the White Ship. Here was drawn up the “Ordinal of Offices for the Use of Sarum” which became the ritual rule for the whole south of England. Here, in a word, for several centuries and under the dominion of five successive races— British, Roman, English, Norman, and again in the new sense English —was a great centre of ecclesiastical and military power. To- day it is nothing but a heap. Citadel and lordly keep, royal hall and chapel, cathedral, chapter-house, and close, convents, parish churches, municipal buildings, burghers’ homes and streets, and the mighty walls which once inclosed them, all have been swept away, and their very stones removed for use in distant spots. The colossal earthworks which once bore the walls are not greatly damaged; the little village of Strat- ford-under-the-Castle marks, perhaps, the site of a valley-suburb; and the two forlorn patches of wall may still stand for generations. But above ground nature has reclaimed all else to barren unity. Below ground a long passage is known to exist, though its entrance has been closed for a century; and in 1835 a band of antiquaries laid bare for a moment the foundations of the cathedral church. It was 270 feet in length, and had two western towers with a great Galilee-porch be- tween them a transept and aisles, and a deep choir which, as was usual in later English but not in Norman days, ended in a flat east wall. It was consecrated in the year 1092, and was begun by Herman, finished by his successor Osmund, a companion of the Conqueror, and much altered and enlarged by Roger, the warrior-bishop of King Stephen’s time. It seems to have been inclosed by the fortifications of the castle, and in this fact we have the reason for its eventual abandonment. From the beginning the close association of ecclesiastical and mili- tary power was a source of trouble. At Durham the bishop had been the first comer and was indisputable head of the community, and the might of the sword always assisted the might of the staff. But the Bishop of Sherborne and Ramsbury came to Sarum, so to say, as the guest and dependent of its military chief. Some of his successors united both titles, as was the case with the bloody and potent Roger. But from Roger’s day onward church and castle were at feud, and the burghers of Sarum, who were tenants in part of the one and in part of the other, fed and fanned the discord. Municipal disputes were then not settled by words. Hand-to-hand struggles were frequent in Sarum, and naturally the priests did not often have the best of the matter. In the reign of Richard I., for instance, ‘‘such was the hot entertainment 116 English Cathedrals. THE SPIRE OF SALISBURY. Lhe Cathedral of St. Mary — Salisbury. rity on each part” over certain disputed boundaries “ that at last the Cas- tellanes, espieing their time, gate between the cleargie and the towne and so coiled them as they returned homeward that they feared any more to gang about their bounds for the year.” Moreover, the cathe- dral establishment was sadly cramped for space; the town “wanted water so unreasonably as (a strange kind of merchandise) it was there to be sold”; the hill was cold and cheerless, and the wind blew over the lifted church so that often “the people could not hear the priests say mass.” And then, on general principles, ‘‘ What,” as one of its canons exclaimed, ‘‘has the house of the Lord to do with castles? It is the ark of the covenant in a temple of Baalim. Let us in God’s name,” he added, ‘descend into the level. There are rich champaigns and fertile valleys abounding in the fruits of the earth and profusely watered by living streams. There is a seat for the Virgin patroness of our Church to which the whole world cannot afford a parallel.” Times had changed since that distraught eleventh century when such spots as Durham and Sarum had seemed the best for churchmen’s homes. What they wanted now was not convenience of defense but freedom of access, and the chance to live well as anywhere they could live in safety. So, in the reign of Henry III. and the bishopric of Richard Poore, the first stones of a new cathedral were laid in the valley.!| As it stood more than a mile away from the old one, we can perhaps as readily believe that the Virgin showed the spot to the bishop in a dream as that he marked it by an arrow shot from the ramparts of Old Sarum. With the ecclesiastics went most of the burghers of the hill-town. At once its importance departed and, more slowly but as utterly, its very life. The stages of its decline cannot be traced with surety. But the mere fact that after the time of Bishop Poore history refers to it very seldom and as though by chance, proves how quickly it died. A writer who visited it in 1540 says that not a house then remained, that the castle was a heap of “notable ruinous building,” and that in a chapel dedicated to Our Lady burned the only lights which proved man’s presence. Yet nominally Old Sarum existed as a town until the year 1831. Until then two so-called representatives of its chimeri- cal inhabitants sat in the Parliament of England. As it gradually dwindled, the new city of the priests waxed and grew, absorbing its life-blood, stealing away the stones of its body. 1 This is the same Richard Poore who, a little later, as Bishop of Durham, founded the Chapel of the Nine Altars. 8* 118 English Cathedrals. Peace dwelt within the borders of New Sarum, and the only ram- parts it needed were the low walls which still fence in its close—signs not of anticipated conflict, but merely of the Church’s separation from the world. II Apart from its great central feature, modern Salisbury is not an interesting town. The main streets are commonplace, though in out- of-the-way corners we find picturesque bits of domestic work and a Perpendicular church or two; and while the chief square is spacious, it has scarcely more architectural dignity than that of some New Eng- land city of the second rank. But doubtless it was once more interest- ing; the scene-painter bids us think so when “ Richard III.” is being played, and the time comes for Buckingham’s execution. And beyond the suburbs, out in the valley of the Avon, the England of to-day is as lovely as ever, and from here the town seems a pretty enough base for the splendid spire which soars above it. All possible adjectives of de- scription and nouns of comparison have been worn threadbare in the attempt to paint this spire. But no words can do the work. To call it a titanic arrow weakly pictures the way it lifts itself, seemingly not toward but into the blue of heaven. To liken it to the spear of an angel does not figure the strength which dwells in its buoyant outline. We may speak of it for the thousandth time as a silent finger of faith pointing to the home of the faithful, and not hint at the significance it wears to the imaginative eye, or may cite with emphasis the four hun- dred feet it measures and not explain the paramount place it holds in the landscape— how it is always the centre and finish of every scene, whether we stand far away or near ; how it persists in our consciousness even when our backs are turned, or when the blackness of night shuts it out from corporeal vision. Standing just beneath it, we cannot but keep our eyes perpetually lifted to its aérial summit, to mark how the clouds appear.to be at rest and it appears to move, like a gigantic lovely dial-hand actually showing us for once the invisible revolution of the globe. When we are far away, on the desolate levels of Salis- bury Plain, we see its isolated slender stateliness for miles after town and church have vanished beneath the plateau’s edge; and when it also disappears it still seems to be watching us; it is still the one thing with which imagination takes account until we are finally in presence of that huge circle at Stonehenge, in comparison with whose age Salisbury’s Lhe Cathedral of St. Mary — Salisbury. 119 spire is modern. The whole of architectural progress lies between the forms of these two famous monuments. Here are rough uncouth mono- liths, raised by brute strength and standing by the force of mere inertia —there, delicately chiseled blocks piled in myriads one upon another to a dizzy height, the utmost science and the subtilest art creating and maintaining them. Here is the impressiveness of matter subdued by THE CATHEDRAL, FROM THE BISHOP’S GARDEN. mind into positions full once of a meaning that now is lost, but not subdued into the remotest semblance of grace or beauty. There, a strength infinitely greater is combined with the last word of grace and beauty, and expresses meanings, faiths, emotions which are still those of our own world. Yet there is no undecipherable stage in the long sequence which lies between. The steps are close and clear— not, indeed, in England, but in other lands that we know as well— which lead from men who were content to set two great stones over against each other, lay a third on top, and call them a temple, to men who caressed their stones into exquisite forms and surfaces, raised them 120 English Cathedrals. in complicated harmonies of outline, and crowned them with pinnacles —as light as air, as strong as iron—which all but touched the clouds. It is interesting, too, to remember that, new as Salisbury seems when compared with Stonehenge, the one can boast no earlier name than the other. The Druids may very well have built Stonehenge, but the barbarians whom the Druids ruled must have camped before the Romans on the hill of Sarum. Perhaps from this same spot, in- deed, went forth the constructors of the undated temple as well as those of the thirteenth-century church. One can easily understand how attractive their new site must have seemed to the emigrating priests—low and level, warm and fertile, and close to the silver Avon’s banks. But its tempting unlikeness to their old position brought them new discomforts. The land lay so low as to be almost swampy, and the river ran so close that in times of flood it ran into the church: an even worse visitor than the wind of the hill-city, as it could enforce the discontinuance of services for days together. Even until comparatively recent years local grumblers called the cathe- dral close the sink of the city, and the palace the sink of the close. But no hint of such discomforts appears to the eye. The close is simply one of the greenest, freshest, and sweetest of earthly spots; and outside of fairy-land there can be nothing lovelier than the palace and its gardens, except the garden and palace at Wells. If Durham seems the petrified interpretation of the Church Militant, Salisbury is the very type and picture of the Church of the Prince of Peace. Nowhere else does a work of Christian architecture so express purity and repose and the beauty of holiness, while the green pastures which surround it might well be those of which the psalmist wrote. When the sun shines on the pale gray stones, the level grass and the silent trees, and throws the long shadow of the spire across them, it is as though a choir of seraphs sang in benediction of that peace of God which passeth understanding. The men who built and planted here were sick of the temples of Baalim, tired of being cribbed and cabined, weary of quarrelsome winds and voices. They wanted space and sun and stillness, comfort and rest and beauty, and the quiet ownership of their own; and no men ever more perfectly expressed, for future times to read, the ideal that they had in mind. The cathedral stands upon a great unbroken, absolutely level lawn which sweeps around it to west and north and east, while close beyond it to the south rise the trees of the episcopal garden. Cloisters and chapter-house lie also to the south, and upon the other sides nothing is visible except the lawn itself, the magnificent trees which circle at a The Cathedral of St. Mary — Salisbury. 121 NMS au HOE vib iy ‘i if 4) Hf “TV LCOLE WOM OLA “SLSVAHLLYON 123 English Cathedrals. distance, the low wall of the close, and beyond this the rows of the canons’ vine-wreathed homes. The chief approach is through a gate- way at the northeast angle of the close, whence a path leads to the main door in the north side of the nave. Approaching thus, we see the whole church standing free and see it at its very best. For, as is often the case in England, the west front is the least beautiful part of the structure. Ill As this chances to be the only homogeneous cathedral church in England, we may be very glad that it was built in the earlier years of the thirteenth century. When the corner-stone of its choir was laid the NORTHEAST GATEWAY TO THE CLOSE. Early English, or Lancet-Pointed, style had just thrown off the last trace of Norman chisels, and when its west front was finished this style was just beginning to develop certain ornamental motives which became characteristic of the Decorated period. If Salisbury had been built with the express desire to show what, in its simplest form, the Early English style implied, its witness could not be fuller or more precise. And this style is more truly national than either the Norman which preceded or the Decorated which followed it, although not so wholly, thoroughly national as the Perpendicular style which finished the long course of medizval art. The plan is the ideal plan of a great English church, free alike from Norman and from contemporary foreign influence. The great length The Cathedral of St. Mary — Salisbury. 123 of nave and choir (480 feet) and their relative narrowness, the two transepts each with only one aisle, the shallow buttressing, the square terminations of all the six limbs and of the lower eastern Lady-chapel —all these are characteristically English features. And just as Eng- lish are all the features of the great body raised upon this plan—the tall narrow lancet- windows, the dominant central tower, the compara- tive lowness of the walls, the paucity of flying-buttresses, the elaborateness of the mouldings and the absence of orna- mental sculpture, the low pitch of the roofs and, alas, the mistaken design of the western front. The beauty of Salisbury results from the composition of its immense and va- ried body— from the harmonious contrast- ing of its square masses and simple hori- zontal and vertical lines. We must put French Gothic types quite out of mind if we would appreciate it. We must not ask for imposing grandeur or for lines which everywhere conspicuously aspire. We must not demand a full expression of that Gothic constructional ideal which meant ‘an intelligent combination of pressures always in action, and referring themselves to certain points of support disposed to receive them and transmit them to the ground.” We must not look for decoration that charms the eye and excites the imagination. And we must not even expect to see a composition 4, Nave. B,C, Main Transept. D, Choir BJ. which, if counting many parts, results North Borch 13 Ladycheued 24 Bae in a great entity like Notre Dame or Amiens. If our eyes have been trained abroad, Salisbury may look more like an aggregate of related buildings than like a typical church. Then it is so low and solid and, but for its spire, so lacking in verti- cal emphasis, that, notwithstanding its pointed windows, it expresses PLAN OF SALISBURY CATHEDRAL.1 FROM MURRAY'S ‘‘ HANDBOOK.” 1The external length of Salisbury Cathedral is chapter-house is 58 feet in diameter and 53 feet 480 feet and the internal length 450 feet; the tran- high; and the cloister is 182 feet square. sept is 230 feet long outside and 206 feet inside; the 124 English Cathedrals. rather a Romanesque than a truly Gothic ideal. And when its con- struction is examined we see indeed that the true Gothic ideal did not direct its builders. But take it for what it is and we think it beautiful indeed. Nothing could be more charmingly proportioned and arranged than its rectangular masses of different heights and sizes, or more telling than the broad effects of light and shadow which they produce; nothing could be more appropriate to the altitude of the walls than the slope of the roofs, or more gracefully shaped and disposed than the windows. Those in the main story, like the capitals of the shafts which flank them, are merely moulded. In the upper stories traceries are employed, but sparingly and in simple patterns. The few flying- buttresses add an accent of combined lightness and strength. The cornice is an inconspicuous line of arcad- ing; and the lower walls are relieved by boldly projecting water-tables. The whole effect is strictly architectural. No other medizval cathedral is so entirely devoid of sculptured decoration. This fact alone would deprive it of the right to be called a typical medieval church; yet it gives it special interest as an example of the beauty which medieval architects could compass even when depending solely upon themselves. In the lowness of the wide-spreading structure we find the cause of the superb impressiveness of central tower and spire. Tall though the spire of Salisbury is, two or three others surpass it. At Amiens, EXTERIOR OF TRIFORIUM.WINpow, for instance, the /éche above the crossing HORE A OF TRANSEET, rises 22 feet higher than Salisbury’s apex. But at Salisbury the roof-ridge lies very near to the vaulted ceiling, and this is only 84 feet high, while at Amiens the roof-ridge is 208 feet above the ground.! So, as compared with Salis- bury’s, the spire of Amiens makes the effect of a spirelet only. Yet the enormous spring of the Salisbury steeple does not crush or overwhelm the church, thanks to those wide-spreading limbs which on all four sides sustain its far vertical lines. In fact, no better church than Salisbury could be fancied as a base for one of the greatest spires in the world. 1 I have not been able to discover the exact height of the external roof at Salisbury. The Cathedral of St. Mary — Salisbury. 125 Its successive portions so build themselves up toward the centre that we feel it would be incomplete did a less imposing pinnacle surmount it. The beauty of this church is the beauty of grace, not of power. It is the least masculine-looking of English cathedrals. Yet no one should call it feeble or effeminate; it is feminine, but feminine like a daugh- ter of the gods, divinely tall and most divinely fair. Were the same scheme repeated in a smaller way it might degenerate into pettiness or prettiness. But scale in architecture plays a very vital part in determining the impression pro- duced, and just as important a part in determining the real ex- cellence of a design. The enor- mous size of Salisbury gives its design a force, dignity, and nobil- ity which cannot be at all appre- ciated from a picture. If when we see it we do not receive a powerful impression, this will be because we need what the French call emphase to make strength and majesty apparent. There is INTERIOR OF CLEARSTORY-WINDOW, no strong emphasis about Salis- NORTH ARM OF TRANSEPT. bury. It is not only the most simply treated of Gothic cathedrals; it is also the most reposeful and idyllic. No other is more individual; its union of vast size with simpli- city and feminine loveliness sets it apart from every other church in the world. It expresses a very different phase of medieval art from those we find expressed in France, or in such rich yet masculine buildings as Canterbury and Lincoln. But it voices its own ideal with perfect fullness and clearness, and this was not the conception of any cleverly eccentric individual, but the general ideal of English art in the first half of the thirteenth century. Thus Salisbury, though not in the widest sense a typical medizval church, has yet a typical national interest. It is par excellence the characteristic church of England, for there is no complete large church in the Perpendicular style. And its architectural significance is enhanced, of course, by the ultra-English nature of its site, and the perfect according of site and structure. Put Salisbury on a “tall mountain citied to the top” like Lincoln’s, or in the centre of a close-built Continental town, and it would look out of place, weak, in- effective, and undignified. But what Continental cathedral, what other 126 English Cathedrals. English cathedral even, would look so well in this wide green solitude, separate, quiet, and dreamful amid velvet acres and thick swaying elms? Imagination can hardly dissever it from its environment; it seems to have grown as naturally from the grass as the elms themselves. IV WHEN we are praising Salisbury, however, the west front must be left out of mind. The fagades of England offer a singular subject for study. I have said that as churches grew tall and broad in France the central tower disappeared and the west front profited by the fact. The western towers became of chief importance, and their combination with the tall middle field of wall and with the principal doorways resulted in designs of extraordinary force and splendor. In England, where the body of the church remained low and narrow and the central tower was retained, no such magnificence of fagade was logically possible. But English- men did not do even as well as they might have done with their west fronts. Often they pauperized them still further by removing the chief entrance somewhere else ; and often, on the other hand, they tried to ape foreign grandeur by illogical mendacious expedients. At Salis- bury, for instance, three doors exist in the fagade; but they are so much too small for their places that it hardly needs the corroborating witness of the great porch on the north side of the church to make them seem a mere concession to precedent or to French example. And then above them the wall rises almost as high in front of the low aisles as in front of the taller nave, standing free as a useless screen crossed by rows of simulated windows. The whole structure is a false- hood as plainly as the Peterborough portico, though in a very different and a much less splendid way. It is a mask designed to make the church look greatly larger than it is. When seen directly in front it accomplishes this aim; but, of course, from every other point of view the cheat is apparent. Strictly judged, for the underlying constructional idea, this fagade has no greater merit than a thing we may find in any small American town—a house-front a couple of stories high sur- mounted by another story or two of blank wall behind which, if we stand a little to one side, we see the roof sloping away. Surely they were a singular race, these English architects; now, as in Salisbury’s spire and the Nine Altars at Durham, designing like angels, and again, as in the front of Salisbury, like children who have been impressed The Cathedral of St. Mary — Salisbury. 125 by a certain object but have not realized to what factors its impressive- ness was due. Nothing can please us in this fagade except its details. Even apart from its fundamental untruthfulness it has no merit as a composition. The lateral divisions are too wide for the central one, and the great triple window is too large for its place; the cornices are deplorably weak, and the rows of blank windows are a cheap device to give the wall a semblance of utility. It is less a composition in the true sense than a mechanical assemblage of unconnected features. But it must ( wane _ THE CLOSE AND A PART OF THE WEST FRONT. have had great decorative charm when it stood intact. It was very rich as compared with the great plainness of the rest of the church, and was peopled by a multitude of statues. Time and the Reformation, however, made away with these, and the modern ones which now stand in their places can hardly be called works of art. It is delightful to turn from such a front to the tower and spire which call for unstinted praise. The upper parts are just a century later than the lower, and belong to the Decorated period. But there is a general agreement in the design of the windows, and the richer aspect of the new work harmonizes well with the simplicity below. The tower groups 128 English Cathedrals. and assorts with the body of the church as a full-blown rose groups and assorts with buds; it seems the same idea brought to more luxuriant development. But not merely size, or appropriateness to the substruc- ture, makes this steeple famous. No other in the world, I think, joins such noble proportions to so aspiring an expression, so graceful an out- line, and so felicitous an arrangement of features and of decorative details. Even the earlier of the two spires at Chartres seems heavy in comparison, while the greater elaboration of the later one and of the Strasburg steeple is purchased by a loss of purity in outline and of buoyancy in spring. Still less pure and spire-like are very late spires like those of Antwerp and Mechlin, which hardly possess a sil- houette deserving of the name. And if the open lacework of Frey- burg’s tall pinnacle has a greater picturesqueness, we may still prefer the solid, pure and noble slightness of the great English example, while it alone, among mighty spires, is the central feature of a church which looks as though it might have been erected especially for its support. But this splendid piece of work was not completed without some sin- ning against constructional good sense. It is supposed that the thir- teenth-century builders meant to carry their tower much higher than the single stage which they accomplished; but their foundations, set on spongy soil, showed signs of weakness, and the recent fall of the great neighboring tower at Winchester warned against temerity. Strong abutments had to be added in the upper stages of the church before the fourteenth-century architect could complete the tower and erect the spire. In itself the latter is very daringly yet scientifically con- structed. To a height of twenty feet its walls are two feet thick, but above that they are only nine inches thick, while the scaffoldings on which the masons stood were allowed to remain within them, hung to the capstone by iron rods, and serving by their cross-bars to brace the fabric. Even thus, however, the soil refused to bear the enormous load with steadiness, and in the fifteenth century great braces were in- serted between the four supporting piers inside the church to prevent them from bulging outward to their fall. The point of the spire is now twenty-three inches out of the perpendicular, but the fact is scarcely perceptible; and though signs of settlement show much more plainly within the church, they have not increased for centuries, while modern skill has done its best to guard against further move- ment. Whatever the thirteenth-century designers had in mind, it was surely no such giant pinnacle of stone as this; yet, as the event has The Cathedral of St. Mary — Salisbury. 129 proved, their successors were not altogether too daring; and who can regret that they dared as they did? Vv THE interior of Salisbury is much less satisfying than the exterior. Few churches in England seem colder and barer, for it was greatly injured during the Reformation, and again by Wyatt in the eighteenth century. We may possibly forgive this licensed vandal for having rearranged many surviving monuments after a scheme of his own, placing them upon a low plinth which runs between the columns of the nave-arcade; for, although their historic interest is thus largely de- stroyed, the general effect they make is not bad. But how can we forgive him for shattering the ancient glass, and throwing it “by cart- loads into a ditch,”so that now only two or three windows are filled with a patchwork of fragments, and the church is lighted by a hard white glare? In the choir and the terminal Lady-chapel there are many more tombs, ancient and modern, large and small, simple and elabor- ate. Among them is one supposed to commemorate Bishop Roger and to have been brought from Old Sarum, and another in which lies a woman whom a poet’s lines, more imperishable than brass or stone, have made forever famous — ‘Sidney's sister, Pembroke’s mother.” The great old choir-screen has been removed, as in so many other English churches, and the eye now passes without hindrance from one end of the long perspective to the other. Or, more exactly, it would thus pass but for the huge braces which were built in the fifteenth cen- tury between the piers that support the tower. Each is formed by a strong low arch surmounted by a straight beamlike piece of wall.’ The four great openings are thus divided, so to say, into two open stories, and the Perpendicular decoration on the lower story strikes the only note of discord in the vast architectural unity of the church. The device was clever; but it takes all the remembered beauty of the spire to reconcile us to the need for its adoption. But even if Salisbury’s interior could be seen in its original estate it would not satisfy an eye acquainted with other great churches of its time. This I can best explain by saying that it is contemporary with Amiens, and pointing to our drawings of one bay in the nave of each.” 1 Similar braces, I may note, prescribed by a sim- most conspicuous point of difference between the jlar necessity, exist beneath the tower at Canterbury. two interiors. The highest point of the ceiling of 2These two drawings are not upon the same Amiens is 142 feet above the floor, and the highest scale, and therefore at first sight do not show the _ point of the ceiling of Salisbury is only 84. 9 130 English Cathedrals. Even if we do not compare proportions, but accept the English type of church as an individual type entitled to be appraised by a special zxs- thetic standard, even if we grant that length and lowness may be beau- tiful as well as height and breadth,— even so there can be no question with regard to the inferiority of the Salisbury scheme. Whatever its proportions, we must judge a Gothic building by Gothic canons. We must ask how it is constructed, and whether its features are so ima- gined and disposed as to express that great underlying architectural idea which differentiates Gothic from Romanesque art. A Romanesque church, let me say once more, is com- posed of solid walls and a solid roof, all parts contributing their share to- ward the stability of the whole; and so it stands by virtue of mere inertia. A Gothic church is an organic frame- work of active members upon which all the weight is concentrated while the connecting portions merely play the part of inclosing screens. Every- thing but the piers with their vaulting- shafts, the main arches, the buttresses, and the vaulting-ribs might be torn out of a perfect Gothic church and the church in its constructional essence would still exist —in its fundamentals the architect’s conception would be intact. Look at the drawing of one bay of Amiens, and you will see why. Seti of tae ee Look at one bay of Salisbury, and CAPARORAL OF AMIENS, you will feel that here the Roman- esque constructional ideal still largely persists. Take away the curtain of wall between the arches of this pier-arcade, or between those of this trifortum-story, and everything that is above them would fall. There are no great vaulting-shafts ris- ing from the floor and, aided by strong external buttresses, competent to sustain the ceiling; the vaults rest on corbels in the triforium-stage and are largely supported by the wall. Stone beams, playing the part of small flying-buttresses, do indeed span the triforium-gallery, rest on the shallow external buttress-strips, and help to resist the pressure of Lhe Cathedral of St. Mary — Salisbury. 131 the vaults. There is this much realization ot the Gothic principle; but it is a partial and also a concealed realization, not such a frank and full one, wrought to effects of noblest exterior beauty, as we see in the boldly buttressed nave of Amiens. toward Gothic construction had been made in Norman years; there are con- cealed buttress-arches in the triforium at Durham as well as at Salisbury. Appreciating how the English thus failed to design in accordance with the true Gothic scheme, we are better able to understand why they built their churches so low. PB Sf finAn hs oe PLAN OF THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH AT WELLS.! 1 Wells Cathedral is 385 feet long inside the walls and 135 feet across the transept. The facade is 147 feet 6 inches in breadth. The chapter-house is 52 feet 6 inches in diameter and 42 feet in height. The Cathedral of St. Andrew — Wells. 233 quest, when almost everywhere else in England relics of pre-Norman times had long disappeared from cathedral sites; and it is certain that whatever then remained stood for half a century longer. Savaric, who ruled from 1192 to 1205, forcibly possessed himself of Glastonbury, and there placed a third episcopal chair, so that Joceline, who succeeded him and ruled until 1242, signed Magna Charta as “Bishop of Bath and Glastonbury.” But this was a transitory change; episcopal claims upon the abbey were soon bought off, and Joceline devoted himself to the in- terests of his church at Wells. This he began to rebuild, and the work was so thoroughly done that no more trace remained of Norman than of Saxon art. The choir, the transept, and most of the nave of the new building seem to have been finished by Joceline himself, and, though the west front was left for a later hand, he also constructed a cloister of which certain parts are still preserved. The lower story of the chapter- house, with the bridge which joins it to the church, was completed by 1290, and its upper part about ten years later. Early in the fourteenth century the east limb of the church was enlarged and altered, and the way in which this work was done shows how carefully medieval builders guarded against undue disturbance of a church’s usefulness. Joceline’s choir consisted of three bays and a terminal apse or chapels. The present one consists of five bays, a retrochoir embracing a small second transept, and a polygonal Lady-chapel. First the Lady-chapel was built, then the retrochoir, and then the two adjoining bays, while, we may believe, Joceline’s east wall remained untouched. Then the two additional bays of the choir proper were constructed, and were joined to Joceline’s three after his east wall had been pulled down. And, finally, the upper portions of these three were reconstructed to bring their Early English aspect into harmony with the aspect of the new construc- tions where the Decorated style had been employed. The singers’ choir, which of course had stood in the crossing beneath the central tower, was now removed into Joceline’s part of the choir, formerly the presbytery; and the two new bays became the presbytery, divided by the high altar from the retrochoir. The Lady-chapel seems to have been finished by 1325, and the whole work by 1350. Ralph of Shrews- bury was the bishop from 1323 to 1364; and he also founded the Vicars’ Close, and constructed the walls and moat around the palace, which had been greatly enlarged some fifty years before. By 1321 the central tower had been carried to its present height, the southwestern one was raised before the end of the century, and the northwestern one by the year 1450. All doubtless once supported spires of wood and lead. 234 English Cathedrals. Thus the cathedral church at Wells, unlike the one at Salisbury, was not a new creation on a new site. Yet, unlike most of its other sisters, it was not gradually transformed by the rebuilding of parts some of which survived in their first shape much longer than others. In the Early English period, just when Salisbury was arising, the old church at Wells was swept away and entirely rebuilt; before the end of the Decorated period the new one had been sufficiently enlarged, and stood complete with the exception of its towers; and as it then appeared, so, with very little change, it has come down to the present day. It is therefore another cathedral which may best be examined with Salisbury, Lichfield, Lincoln, and Ely, before we pass to those which will explain the Perpendicular style. And its Early English portions have especial interest as departing from the type which everywhere else prevails. One reason for thinking that Bishop Robert only repaired the Saxon cathedral is the comparatively small size of the present building. When a Norman reconstructed he worked on a very grand scale; but here, although the church is larger than its predecessor, it is nevertheless exceptionally small. Wells measures only 338 feet from its western to its eastern wall, and only 385 feet if we include the Lady-chapel. But the Norman church at Gloucester measures 406 feet without its inde- pendent Lady-chapel; at Winchester, where the Lady-chapel is small, the total length is 525 feet; and at Salisbury, where the chapel resembles the one at Wells, we find 450 feet. Lichfield, the smallest of all the English cathedrals, is only four feet shorter than Wells. II In the design of its nave this cathedral differs from all others in Eng- land. Elsewhere above each of the pier-arches we see one or two great arches in the triforium-story, most often with smaller ones variously arranged within them. Thus groups of apertures are formed which, corresponding with the pier-arches below and the divisions of the clear- story and vaulting above, give definiteness and unity to each successive bay. Each bay, taken from floor to ceiling, is not, indeed, a separate composition to be thought of apart from the others; yet the eye readily notes its individuality, and sees the whole interior as composed of a suc- cession of well-marked divisions. But at Wells the triforium-arches run from end to end of the wall in an unbroken, unvaried series. Such a scheme is used in Great Britain only in these southwestern districts, as here at Wells, at Glastonbury, and in the cathedral church at Llandaff The Cathedral of St. Andrew —Wells. 23% in Wales. But we find it at Caen, on the Norman mainland, in the Norman church built by William the Conqueror’s wife Matilda, although William’s own contemporaneous church in the same town displays the more common triforium scheme. Of course it is impossible to say whether this Norman precedent influenced the men who worked in southwestern England; but we can easily believe it, seeing how strongly some foreign influence has affected other features at Wells. The arch-mouldings are rich, but less boldly treated than in thor- oughly English work of the time; the shafts which encircle the piers are more closely grouped with the central member; the leafage of the capitals, although English in type, has a classic feeling more often perceived in Continental lands; and the square form is used for abaci and bases. But if we look again we see that Englishmen seldom imitated liter- ally, and also that their innovations were not always improvements. The vaulting-ribs spring from corbels, formed of clusters of little columns, which are set on the clearstory string-course. The effect is even less organic than when such corbels are placed lower down; and it is especially bad at Wells on account of the unaccentuated character of the triforium-arcade. Even in Queen Matilda’s Norman church, built fifty years before, there is a nearer approach to Gothic construc- tional ideas; for there great vaulting-shafts run from floor to ceiling, uniting the stories and distinguishing the successive bays. No feature in the nave of Wells expresses verticality or accents the inter-relation- ship of the three stories: all the strong lines are horizontal. Each story is charming in itself, but, as I have often said, no parts or features in Gothic work can be appraised in and for themselves alone. Organic inter-relationship is the essence of perfect Gothic design; and so we cannot apply this term to the nave of Wells, beautiful though we may esteem it. It is beautiful in its own way, owing to exceptional success in all matters of proportion. It is not so long that it seems deficient in breadth or even in altitude; each of its stories is appropriate in height to the height of the others; and the size of their features is well adapted to an interior of these dimensions. There is no shafting at all in the triforium; the arches are merely enframed in roll-mouldings without bases, very much as are those in Queen Matilda’s church. Only, above the actual mouldings of each arch runs a more independent one, ending below in a carved head or boss of foliage,—the characteristically English drip-stone. Sculptured medallions fill the spandrels between the arch-heads, and the heads 236 English Cathedrals. themselves are filled by small ornamental tympana. The window- traceries, which we see in the clearstory in the picture on this page, and can divine in the aisles as well, are of Perpendicular design and were inserted in the fifteenth century. Across the western wall of the nave runs an arcade of five arches, four of them blank, but the central one pierced by the principal door- a)/ BEY yer 1 IM ae € Sie oy i See vn man ‘nmgnnann THE NAVE, FROM THE NORTH AISLE. The Cathedral of St. Andrew —Wells. 237 way. Above are the three tall narrow windows which show in our pic- ture of the exterior of the front, filled with glass which was brought from the Continent in the eighteenth century and has very little merit. From the side of each aisle, near its end, opens a square chapel form- ing the first story of the tower which flanks the facade. A change in the character of the masonry and of the sculptured details appears between the fourth and fifth piers of the nave, counting from the west. It marks no change in style; it merely shows that the whole nave was not erected at once. But the western wall and the tower-chapels really differ from the rest of the nave in style. Here the work resembles the Early English work of other districts, in its round abaci, in the treatment of its carved foliage, and in the black marble used for its minor shafts. It is natural to fancy that the half-foreign, so-called ‘Somerset manner” of building was employed in this district when the pointed arch first replaced the round, but that it did not long persist, pressed upon by the weight of common English practice; and to conclude that the nave was built while it reigned and that the west front shows the triumph of the typical English manner. But an ar- chitect who has had a better chance than any one else to study the question declares that the west front is older than the nave. On both structural and artistic evidence he believes that the front, with the three bays which adjoin it, was built before Joceline’s time, standing in ad- vance of the undisturbed old Norman fagade. Joceline, he thinks, then raised the easterly bays of the nave with the transept and choir; and after his death the old front was pulled down, and the two portions of the new nave were connected, the three westerly (or oldest) bays being then largely reconstructed, and the point of juncture occurring where, as I have said, differences in workmanship are still apparent. If, now, we look at the transept, we again find diversities of design. Its end walls resemble the nave, the triforium being of the same pattern though more simply worked. But along its sides, in both the northern and the southern arm, the triforium-arches are grouped in pairs in the customary English way. The explanation is that the vault or spire (tholus) which, the old chroniclers record, fell in the year 1248, soon after Bishop Joceline’s death, must have been the central tower; and that in its fall it must have carried away the greater part of the tran- sept. The nave also suffered, but probably in a lesser degree; it has evidently been repaired, but its original design was not changed. To repeat: the nave, though palpably built at different times, is all in the “Somerset manner,” and so are the transept-ends; the sides of 238 English Cathedrals. the transept, certainly later in date, are not in this manner, but neither is the western end of the nave, and this, on the best authority, is the earliest part of all. It is an interesting puzzle, for hardly anywhere else in England do we find proof of those conflicts between contempo- rary local manners which often appear on the Continent. There each district had an indigenous art of its own; from earliest days this grew and developed in an individual way until the perfected Gothic of the domaine royal finally overspread all France and penetrated all other western lands; but, as it developed, it was sometimes influenced more or less by the art of neighboring districts or by the hand of imported artists. In England, on the contrary, Norman architecture was im- ported in a fully developed shape, and spread from end to end of the country, varying here and there in certain respects, but not displaying distinct provincial manners. So, too, it was when the Gothic style ap- peared. The scheme, indeed, was not again borrowed entire; it was taken in embryo, and a more national art was born from it. But this art developed alike over the whole country, if we except—I think it is the only exception—the southwestern district whose local manner is expressed in the nave of Wells. And it seems as though even this Somerset manner never ruled in an undisputed way. It seems as though two schools of architects, as we should say to-day, or two com- panies of builders, as we should have said in the thirteenth century, must have worked in rivalry, now the one and now the other getting the upper hand in the cathedral church. If we recognize such an ex- ception to the usual course of things in England, we can accept any date for any portion of the nave and transept which the best authorities give; but if we reject it, and think that all the work in one style must be earlier than all in the other, we are left in a puzzle indeed. IV Over the crossing at Wells there is no lantern carrying the eye up into the central tower; instead, there is a low vault of rich Perpendic- ular tracery. And between the four piers which support the tower stretch four great curious-looking constructions— each formed of a large arch inverted upon the apex of another arch — which at first sight we may take for screens. But they are not screens; they are simply props or braces. In the year 1321 the three upper stages of the tower were built, and in one of them a heavy chime of bells was hung. Six- teen years later the tower had settled so badly that alarming fissures 1 The Cathedral of St. Andrew — Wells. 239 ran from the tops of the great supporting arches, distorting all the ad- jacent parts of the church, and the piers seemed sinking bodily into the ground. The case, we know, was not uncommon. Sometimes it could THE NAVE, LOOKING EAST. be remedied by a mere enlargement of the four angle-piers; and at other times recourse was had to those straight transverse props which we have seen at Salisbury and Canterbury. The device employed at Wells is unique; it is bolder and more ingenious than any other; and 240 English Cathedrals. it is evidently more effectual. Therefore it is more interesting, and Professor Freeman, for one, thinks that it is also more artistic as less conspicuously at variance with the effect of the surrounding work. But could anything be more conspicuous, more startling, than these gigantic twice-contrasted curves, repeating the mighty sweep of the tall tower- THE CHOIR, LOOKING EAST. arches? Do the straight beams at Salisbury assert themselves half so plainly as after-thoughts prescribed by an insistent structural need? The one real argument in their favor is purely sentimental. The church is dedicated to St. Andrew, and, whether by accident or design, they suggest the shape of a “St. Andrew’s cross.” A glance at our ground- Lhe Cathedral of St. Andrew —Wells. 241 plan shows that the piers themselves were strengthened when these props were built. The dark spots indicate the original size of the piers, and the lighter shading gives the amount of their enlargement. The triforium-arches next these piers were filled with solid stone at the same time, and for the same imperative reason. Over the inverted arch of the brace in the picture on p. 239, and beneath the fifteenth-century fan-vault of the crossing, we get a glimpse of another rich ceiling covering the choir; and the illustration on p. 240 shows it more plainly. It is not a pointed vault of any customary pat- tern, but a coved or barrel-vault merely pierced at the sides to give place for the clearstory windows. Such a form is frequent in wooden ceilings, but is very infrequent in those of stone if they date from any period later than the Norman. It is hard to imagine a reason for its use in such a place as this, in the full-blown Gothic time. The effect of its low roundish curve is heavy and crushing; its form does not har- monize with the pointed features beneath it, and, moreover, has been wholly disregarded in the design of the elaborate rib-work with which it is covered and which plays a decorative, not a constructional réle. In the choir-bays next the tower, seen in the foreground of the same picture, we find Joceline’s Early English work in the pier-arcade with its square abaci and close-grouped shafts. But, as we know, the stories above were altered in the fourteenth century when the portions farther east were built, and, like these, they show the Decorated style in its geometrical phase. The new constructional scheme has not yet been developed, but its approach is manifest. Although the triforium has large canopied arches forming groups in each bay, it has no outer win- dows; and the clearstory has only a single wall, and in each bay a single great traceried window which fills the space from side to side. All is much lighter, freer, and more florid than the Early English work in the nave. At the east end is a great window of geometrical tracery; below it run delicate rows of niches covering the blank wall of the tri- forium-story; beneath these stand three of the most graceful arches that ever were built; and through these arches, over the high altar and the reredos behind it, we get an enchanting glimpse into the retrochoir and the Lady-chapel still beyond. There can be nothing more charming in the world than this part of Wells Cathedral as we enter it from the choir-aisle; or, standing as far east as we can, look back into the choir through the three arches in its end. This is the word, however—it is charming work; it is not great, or imposing, or wonderful in any way except in its delicate beauty. It 16 242 English Cathedrals. does not prove a power to deal with the highest, most difficult problems of Gothic design; it does not awe us in the least; we do not marvel how mere men could build it, or, having built it, could turn their hands to the ordinary tasks of life. It is not solemn or impressive as ecclesias- tical work of the noblest type must be; indeed, it might not seem out of keeping if it were turned to some dignified secular use. But to say all this is not to find fault; it is only to mark the kind of work in which Englishmen did their best. In such minor buildings as these termi- nal chapels, as chapter-houses, parish churches, and porches like those at Ely and Lincoln, they were most thoroughly themselves and most entirely successful. When we want the grand and sublime in Gothic art, when we want architecture that astonishes the mind, thrills the soul, and arouses religious emotion yet makes us think the creature man almost the peer of his Creator—then we must go to the tremen- dous interiors of France. When we want the purely lovely and gracious, the simply human and comprehensible in its most delicate form—then we may well content ourselves in England. On the ground-plan the Lady-chapel seems to form five sides of an octagon. But in reality it is a perfect octagon, with five sides project- ing from the retrochoir and three included within it. The five are formed by great windows, each stretching from pier to pier, based on a low plinth of solid wall; and the three by open arches resting on isolated pillars, as may be seen in the picture on p. 243. Thus an octagonal vault is supported by which the scheme is clearly defined to even a careless eye; and outside, too, it is defined by the steep octagonal roof of the chapel, rising higher than the roof of the retrochoir. In the retrochoir, near the isolated pillars of the chapel, between them and the arches of the choir-end, two other pillars are placed, and at both sides others again (not marked on our plan). From each of these springs a great group of vaulting-ribs, as from the support in the centre of a chapter-house. Of course the effect that is so beautiful when only one cluster of shafts breaks into palm-like clusters of ribs is infinitely en- hanced by repetition. With every change of place in this retrochoir and Lady-chapel we see a new grouping of the slender pillars, a new combination of the elaborate lines of the ceiling; and with every change we fancy that we have found the most delightful point of view. The projecting arms of the retrochoir and the corners between them and the Lady-chapel were formerly chapels too, with minor altars, where particular saints were worshiped; and their ancient names are still ap- plied to them. The Cathedral of St. Andrew — Wells. 243 In the choir-aisles the three westerly bays show Joceline’s Early English work, and the others the subsequent Decorated. The contrast between the styles can be better appreciated here than in the choir THE RETROCHOIR AND LADY-CHAPEL. proper, where so much altering has been done—the greater vigor and simplicity of the thirteenth century, the greater richness and delicacy of the fourteenth, with the smaller scale of its details, and the more varied and naturalistic treatment of its carved foliage. 244 English Cathedrals. Vv Tue stone throughout the interior of Wells, relieved not many years ago of its thick layers of whitewash, has a soft creamy-yellow tone, and in the far eastern parts, as well as on the western wall of the nave, the smaller shafts are of polished black marble. The window-traceries of the eastern limb are rich and effective, and the great east window and the two which adjoin it in the clearstory contain such beautiful ancient glass that the eye bitterly complains of the crude modern colors with which the other clearstory lights are filled. It has not the blue radi- ance, enhanced by vivid notes of red, which distinguishes the finest glass in France and shows the noblest beauty the material can com- pass. But it is soft, suave, yet brilliant too, with its browns and greens and yellows enlivened by not a little white. The same characteristics that are expressed in the architectural forms speak once more in this scheme of color. There is less audacity, less virility, less strength of imagination than we find across the Channel, but great harmony, sweetness, refinement, and charm. In the Lady-chapel the glass is also original and of the same date (about 1340), but it has been so largely reset that the old designs can no longer be traced in the mass of gorgeous fragments. The choir has been elaborately refurnished in modern days. From its early days nothing remains except some little mzseveres on the lower range of stalls,' and the lofty episcopal throne which dates from the fifteenth century, but has been radically restored. Ancient monuments are conspicuous in all parts of this cathedral. The space between two of the piers on the north side of the nave is filled by the chantry of Bishop Budwith, who died in 1424. It is built like a sort of octagonal pavilion with doors into nave and aisle, and walls which resemble traceried but unglazed windows. As Perpendicu- lar art was still in its soberer mood, it is not crowned with towering pinnacles such as we shall find on the much more splendid series of tombs at Winchester, but for airy grace its design could hardly be surpassed. Opposite, on the south side of the nave, is the similar chan- try of Dean Sugar, who died in 1489—a heavier piece of work, but bold and fine, with a fan-vault covering the interior, now vacant of its 1 The seat of a stall was madé to turn up against and this was called a miserere. It is here that the the back, as the occupant was required to stand dur- _ medizeval sculptor often expressed his quaintest, ing a portion of the service. But to relieve his most grotesque, and, to our minds, most profane weary bones there was a little projection from the imaginings. under part of the seat against which he could rest, The Cathedral of St. Andrew — Wells. 245 tomb and effigy. One of the angels carved on the cornice holds the dean’s device—three sugar-loaves surmounted by a doctor’s cap. The plain stone pulpit which stands near by dates from the sixteenth cen- tury. Until our own century’s restorations, there was a slab in the floor of the nave popularly called ‘King Ina’s tomb.” Of course the attribution was absurd; yet it seems almost sacrilegious to have removed a stone which for so many centuries had borne so interesting a title. It is probable that when the eastern limb of the cathedral was finished its early bishops were commemorated in a series of pseudo-historical monuments, for a surprising number of episcopal effigies in the Early English style are still scattered about in the choir-aisle, the transept, and the basement of the chapter-house. In the south choir-aisle a low coffin-like stone once covered Bishop Button, the second of the name, who after his death in 1274 diligently devoted himself to the cure of toothache. The stone has been removed from the place where his body still reposes under the modern stalls; and to make room for the stalls Bishop Beckington's splendid Perpendicular chantry was also ousted. It might seem odd that the monument which it contained was not at least recombined on another spot with the little chapel itself, had we not already learned that the natural course of “restorers” in the ear- lier part of our century was to do the most unnatural possible thing. Now, while the broken chantry mourns in the transept, the monument stands unsheltered near that of the posthumous dentist. It bears two figures—above, an effigy of the prelate in episcopal robes, and below, a wasted body in a winding-sheet—with long-winged angels kneel- ing around them. In the retrochoir, as though guarding the lovely Lady-chapel which was built in his day, lies Bishop Drokensford under a shrine-like canopy. In the south arm of the transept is a Norman font, possibly a relic of Bishop Robert’s church, and if so the only one that remains. In the north arm is a great clock, much repaired at many times, but built in 1325 by a monk of Glastonbury, with a multitude of instructive func- tions, and with stiff little manikins to strike the hours. Richness of effect is greatly increased in the transept by the Perpendicular screen- work that shuts off its aisles and divides them into chapels. The great solid choir-screen has come down from the fourteenth century through many vicissitudes of repair. It was never as signifi- cant in a cathedral with a collegiate chapter as in those which were 1 In the picture on p. 236 Dean Sugar’s chantry and the pulpit may be seen; and they show again toward the right of the illustration on p. 239, while Dean Budwith’s chantry appears toward the left. 16* 246 English Cathedrals. served by monks, who were more in need of isolation for their many special services. I chanced to be in Wells when for the first time the nave was artifi- cially lighted. Nothing could be more beautiful than the effect as, all along the base of the triforium, a million tiny stars of gas shone out in close-set rows. This is the usual mode of lighting old churches in Eng- land, and is far preferable to any arrangement of standards or chande- liers. To be sure, the gas blackens the stone somewhat; but a little “toning” is not unwelcome where, to get rid of the whitewash of cen- turies, an interior has been scraped to painful neatness. The occasion was a harvest festival, and the sight was impressive as the town dig- nitaries entered in a body, in red robes and golden chains, and the bishop made the tour of the nave with his crozier borne in front of him, and his choristers and clergy. But the sermon sounded odd in trans- atlantic ears. This well-to-do flock, in their pretty little town, may have acquiesced when their bishop, coming from what is perhaps the loveliest home in all England, boldly said that God’s gifts, even of a material sort, are equally distributed among all his creatures—that to enjoy the beauties of nature, for instance, one does not need to own them. But suppose his congregation had been gathered from the East End of London? VI WELLS, like Salisbury and Lincoln, has a cloister, although, like Salis- bury and Lincoln, it did not really need one. And here this fact is still more clearly apparent, for while the cloister lies to the southward of the nave, in its true monastic position, the chapter-house stands far away, near the north side of the choir, in its true collegiate position. More- over, the cloister has only three walks instead of the customary four, and it is entered only by a door in the corner of the transept, whereas mon- astic cloisters must have at least two doors—one for the abbot or prior, and one for the monks. Its central green, shadowed by an ancient yew, once served as a place of burial, and its eastern walk led from the church to the palace; but these were its only real uses, for no buildings for life in common ever opened out of it. Two of its walks are now in the Perpendicular style; but the eastern one, over which a Perpendicular library was raised, shows Early English work of Joceline’s time. The chapter-house is the only one in England which has two stories. The council-room itself is raised on a basement or undercroft, which cannot be called a crypt, as it lies above ground and is lighted The Cathedral of St. Andrew — Wells. 247 by tall narrow windows, but which looks cellar-like indeed—dirty, gloomy, and uncanny, and full of broken bits of sculpture and much ecclesiastical rubbish. In the centre of its octagonal space, fifty feet in diameter, stands a rather stumpy clustered pier; the vaults which rise from this descend to rest upon a circle of eight round pillars; and a second sweep of vaults rests on these pillars and the outer walls. THE CHAPTER-HOUSE. Above, in the chapter-house itself, we find the same octagonal shape and a taller, lighter central pier; but, naturally, now that there is nothing but the roof to support, no secondary piers encumber the floor. The style is early Decorated, and the geometrical traceries, interesting to contrast with the flowing ones in the choir of the church, are very fine, although the windows are rather too low for their width, owing to the unusually low proportions of the room itself. The canopied arcade which runs above the canons’ bench is an admirable piece of work, and the deep window-jambs are delightfully adorned with rows of that ball- flower ornament which is as characteristic of the Decorated period as the dog-tooth is of the Early English—an ornament which looks like a round four-sepaled bud just bursting to disclose the folded petals 248 English Cathedrals. within. Ifthe room were a little loftier, and its graceful doorway were a little more happily combined with the half-window above it, even Lincoln’s chapter-house would not be more beautiful. The bridge that we see in the picture on p. 249 carries a staircase which connects the church not only with the Vicars’ Close at its end, but, half-way up, with the chapter-house as well. A more effective mode of approach to the chapter-house could hardly be fancied, and a large staircase of this period is a rare and interesting relic. But, in spite of its dignity, this one does not stand comparison with many that were built in late Gothic and Renaissance times, when, indeed, the attention paid to domestic and palatial architecture first developed all the beauty and constructional significance of which great stairways were capable. Here at Wells no regard was paid to structural expres- sion; the existence of the stair is not indicated by the design of the walls which inclose it. The fine windows bear no relationship to the slope they light, and, consequently, from the outside we should never imagine anything except a level passage to exist within. Of course the interior effect lacks harmony; and the steps themselves are but rudely profiled, while their divergence into the chapter-house is man- aged in a way which seems curiously naive by contrast with the refine- ment, the exquisite finish, of all adjacent features. VII Ir the great fame of the west front of Wells rested on architectural grounds, we might rightly say that the popular voice is not always the voice of good judgment. To be sure, size is a factor that should never be underestimated in architectural work, and this fagade is very large even when not tried by English standards. But it is a sham in the same sense as are those of Salisbury and Lincoln. The great towers do not stand parallel with the aisles, but quite beyond them: the church is not nearly so wide as an end view implies.1| The falsehood is in- stinctively resented, and it actually injures beauty of effect. Neither majesty nor grace of proportion can be claimed for this facade; only its bigness makes it impressive. Nor are defects in proportion pal- 1 The cathedrals of Amiens and Paris, contempo- The west front of Lincoln was built by Bishop rary with Wells, measure 136 and 116 feet across Hugh, a brother of Bishop Joceline. They are the front, while Wells measures 14734. There are called “ Hugh of Wells”’ and “ Joceline of Wells,” French facades a good deal wider still; yet if this as born in the Somerset city where one of them was one were what it pretends to be, it would rank afterward enthroned. among the giants. The Cathedral of St. Andrew — Wells. 249 liated by art in the design. There is indeed great vigor, resulting from the simple repetition of large parts; but it is the kind of vigor which palls with familiarity. After a while we feel that it needed no imagi- native power, and little ingenuity even, to combine these successive buttresses and wall-spaces and cover them with arcades. Examine the arcades themselves, and there is no stronger ground for admiration. Many of the features and details are very charming, but there is some- THE WEST FRONT OF THE CATHEDRAL. times a lack of skill in their combination, as where the tall main arcade cuts into the little one above it. Put this beside the front of Notre Dame in Paris, and we see a merely effective arrangement contrasted with a true architectural conception where all parts are beautiful and each is admirably related to all the others—where the design truth- fully expresses the breadth of the building behind it, and unity of ef- fect coexists with great variety. The three doors at Wells, opening into nave and aisles, confess the true width of the church; and for this 250 English Cathedrals. reason it is fortunate perhaps that they are so small—so very small, as Ruskin says of English doors in general, that we fancy them not portals for the men who could build such churches, but mere “holes for frogs and mice.” Above the roof the towers are Perpendicular works of the fourteenth century, but the fact that they are almost precisely the same deserves remark, as the southern one is more than half a century older than its mate. When the chronicler of England’s ‘Worthies” comes to Somerset- shire he writes: ‘The west front of Wells is a masterpiece of art in- deed, made of imagery in just proportion, so that we may call them ‘vera et spirantia signa.’ England affordeth not the like. For although the west-end of Exeter beginneth accordingly, it doth not, like Wells, per- severe to the end thereof.” The phrase “made of imagery” was per- haps a careless one with Fuller, but it aptly explains where the interest and beauty of the great fagade really reside. Not the architect, but the sculptor has made it illustrious. The statues and groups with which it is covered are later than the front itself; only about the year 1280 were they placed in the niches that had been arranged for them. Some are missing, some are shattered, but many are in good condition; they have not been restored, and they show English sculpture at its very highest level. When complete they included about a hundred and fifty effigies as large as life or larger, and still more of smaller size—effgies of kings and queens and princes and warriors, of angels, apostles, saints, martyrs, missionaries, and bishops, most of them actual or ima- gined portraits, although exact identification is impossible to-day. The lowest tier of arches seems to have been filled with figures of those who had converted the island—St. Augustine and his followers, of course, but also St. Paul, St. Joseph of Arimathea, and others whom local legends named as bringers of the glad tidings in earliest British days. Then comes a line of singing angels, and then a line of medal- lions with subjects from the Old Testament on one side of the central door, and from the New Testament on the other, separated above the door by a niche with a Coronation of the Virgin. A fourth row and a fifth contain the spiritual and temporal lords of the island Church, together with their brethren and allies of other lands. The sixth tier— the little arcade above the largest—shows ninety-two small composi- tions of two or three figures each. All these represent the Resurrec- tion, and are remarkable for the absence of the grotesque monsters, devils, and infernal emblems which commonly accompany such scenes when Continental sculptors have treated them. The simpler, more The Cathedral of St. Andrew — Wells. 251 naturalistic English conceptions may be thought in better accord with modern ideas of artistic dignity; yet from the medizval standpoint we must once more record a relative deficiency in imaginative power. Nor did such little isolated groups demand as much of this power for their arrangement, or as much architectural skill for their placing, as the large compositions which adorn the churches of France. Studying the principal figures, we find that they too are more naturalistic in aim than the best French figures, which, be it noted, are a full century earlier in date. But the aim is not worked out to greater truth of effect, or to so high a degree of beauty. The sculptors who labored at Wells were very remarkable artists, but they had not the high inspiration or the fine technical skill that their French predecessors and contemporaries showed; they did not attempt the noblest problems which medizval architecture permitted; nor is their work so integrally part and parcel of the building as what we see at Amiens, Rheims, or Chartres. But the burden of responsibility for the latter fact at least should of course be laid upon the architect rather than upon the sculptor himself. In the central gable stand twelve angels in a row, with the twelve apostles above them, while in the three great niches atop of all once sat Christ enthroned with the Virgin and St. John. The twenty-four figures which, so to say, formed their footstool are almost intact; but St. John and the Virgin have perished, and only the feet of Christ re- main. In the central portal sits the Virgin again, with the Child in her arms and the serpent under her feet. The sculptured arcades run around the flank of the northwestern tower, but on the southwest- ern one they stop with the facade, probably because of the cloister’s position. When we turn the wind-swept northwest shoulder of the church— called “Kill-canon Corner”—we see that after all something beyond bulk was gained by placing the tower outside the line of the walls. In a lateral view it gives vigor and variety to the long stretch of nave, and groups admirably with a large projecting northern porch. This porch is Early English of the local type, and antedates, perhaps, both the nave and the western front. Rich arcades cover its interior walls, and a lingering Norman influence shows in the zigzags which adorn the mouldings of its deep portal, and in the grotesques that mingle with the foliage on the capitals of its many shafts. 252 English Cathedrals. VIII Ir is the palace garden that gives this cathedral a setting which even in England seems strikingly fair. The close itself is only the green— once a cemetery —stretching in front of the church and some distance farther toward the south. At its southwestern corner rises one of its three gates, opening from the market-place. Another is behind us when we stand as in the picture on p. 249, and the third is then in front of us—the Chain-gate under the stairway-bridge. Passing Wp! tee Ne ara mare if ‘ AR pet Le THE CATHEDRAL, FROM TOR HILL. through this, we pass out of the close and see the chapter-house and the Lady-chapel divided from the street by only a narrow line of gar- den. But to appreciate their beauty as they group with the varied out- lines of the church itself, we must climb the gentle slope of Tor Hill and look back from the southeast. Far off are the western towers, seeming less stunted than when, as we stood beneath them, they were dwarfed by the great breadth of the front. Where choir and nave and transept meet soars the central tower Lhe Cathedral of St. Andrew — Wells. 253 THE EAST END OF THE CATHEDRAL, FROM THE GARDEN. with its light pinnacles. The few buttresses of the newer part of the choir, the low projection of the small eastern transept, the richness of the east window, the true octagonal shape of the Lady-chapel (separated from the choir-end by the lower roof of the retrochoir), and the taller pinnacled octagon of the chapter-house—all these are clearly seen, supported to the left by the library above the cloister-walk and by the roofs of the palace, over a foreground of luxuriant garden and against a background of low rolling hills, with the town looking very tiny, but the tower of St. Cuthbert’s church accenting its existence afar off to the westward. There is little to criticize, much to admire without stint, in the exterior of Wells once the fagade is forgotten; and from this point everything seems perfect except the unpinnacled tops of the western towers. But the best thing of all is the way in which all things are grouped—the free yet harmonious connection of the parts, so that the individuality of each is manifest, yet each sustains and emphasizes and belongs to the others. In Germany and England we often find groups of buildings which may be composed of inferior elements, yet as groups, 254 English Cathedrals. in a general distant view, could hardly be matched in France. A feel- ing for the picturesque, and for natural beauty as contributing toward it, did something to supply among men of Teutonic blood a deficiency in that purely architectural power which has always been strongest in the Latin races. But among all the groups raised by medieval builders, blending nature’s charms and art’s together, there can be none more perfect than this at Wells, where the arrangement is masterly and the elements are very beautiful in themselves. When, near the spot shown in the picture on p. 253, we turn our backs upon the church, we see something much less noble but almost more amazing—a palace which makes the dream of a poet seem prosaic, it is so big yet so pretty, so dignified yet so fantastic, so un- natural to our American eyes yet so natural-looking here. If ever there has been a romantic home, it is this. Not a bishop should live in it, but some festive young seignior with hawks and hounds, going out daily over the drawbridge on a milk-white horse with the longest pos- sible tail; and on the moat, instead of a stout youth in knickerbockers pushing himself about in a punt with a pole, we ought to have seen a boat shaped like a swan, with a silken canopy and a troubadour to sing beneath the oriels. I do not know whether or not we might have gone inside the palace, but who could wish it? No modern men and women, clerical or lay, could “live up” to such an exterior. But not seeing was believing; not seeing, we could fancy them still clad in bro- cades, treading on rushes, and shivering when the tapestries wave as the wind blows in winter through the patched walls and sagging roofs. Patched the walls are in truth, though probably the wind is well enough kept out; and there is no more ‘‘design” to the building as a whole than continuity in its fabric, where each scar and rent seems to have been repaired with the first material that came to hand, and where time and weather have blended all diverse notes of color into a soft general redness, contrasting, just as a painter would have it, with the vivid green of the vines. A big magnolia blooms against one wall, to give the last imaginable touch of poetic charm. John of Tours first built the palace with the materials of Gisa’s structures. Joceline began to rebuild it, adding a chapel, and giving the house itself the vaulted lower story and the great upper hall which still remain, although much altered in feature and function. It would be difficult and not a little painful to trace its later history of addition, de- facement, and repair. From the architectural point of view its exterior has not much more merit now than those curious compounds of unre- The Cathedral of St. Andrew — Wells. 255 lated bits which the scene-painter loves to imagine. But how often have we wished that we could see some actual thing half as pictur- esque as the scene-painter’s unrealities? Here we find it—something real that looks utterly unreal; a house where all the vandalism and unreason of the past have merely worked together for the good of the eye that is wise enough to forget for a moment the meaning of val) ‘ wae ae tT THE BISHOP’S PALACE. architectural unity, and to ask only for effective massing, for lovely contrasts of color, and a mellow air of antiquity and romance. A little way back of the palace a great episcopal hall, the largest in all England, was built before the end of the thirteenth century. Now the picturesqueness of its ruin contrasts with the picturesque preserva- tion of its older neighbor. Four octagonal turrets and four tall win- dows stand in a mantle of ivy, and beyond them the gardens stretch still further, rising to a terrace where we get another admirable view of the mighty cathedral pile, and can see the silhouette of Glastonbury far off against the southern sky. 256 English Cathedrals. The front of the deanery, looking on the northern side of the ca- thedral green near the Vicars’ Close, was rebuilt in the seventeenth century, but inside its square courtyard the work of the fifteenth cen- tury may still be seen. Here Henry VII. was housed, the palace being in too forlorn a state, when Perkin Warbeck’s insurrection brought him to the west. But nothing at Wells is more charming, nothing is quite so indi- vidual, as the Vicars’ Close itself. The canons lived around the cathe- — = THE VICARS’ CLOSE. dral close in separate houses, hardly a trace of which remains. The vicars—their deputies or assistants—were scattered about through the town until, in plaintive Latin verses, they petitioned Ralph of Shrews- bury to give them an abiding-place. Here he housed them, in two rows of tiny homes, shut in at the north by a library and a chapel, and Lhe Cathedral of St. Andrew — Wells. 257 at the south by a gateway with a gallery above opening into a refec- tory and into the staircase that connected with the church. Once there were forty-two houses, each with a single occupant who slept and found retirement in its two cozy rooms, but dined in common with his fellows, studied and worshiped with them in their private library and chapel, and went with them over their private bridge when his duties called him to the cathedral church. Here indeed the ideal of celibate scho- lastic religious life must have been attained by those who sought it with a pure heart and a quiet mind. Nor does the atmosphere of the place seem much changed, despite all the other changes it has seen. Little of Shrewsbury’s Decorated work remains, but that would matter less had the reconstructions of the Perpendicular period been the last. Only one of the houses is intact inside. When priests were permitted to marry, even a priest could not live in two rooms; and gradually several homes have been thrown into one, and laymen have been allowed to occupy them. Yet in the soft glamour of a September twilight it was easy to repeople the inclosure with its ancient fig- ures, and it was almost easy to imagine that theirs must have been an enviable life. In choosing twelve English cathedrals for description, I must have preferred certain others to Wells did the church stand by itself. But its group of minor buildings gives it a claim which could not possi- bly be overlooked. To disassociate an English cathedral from its sur- roundings is as though, in portraying a great tree, one should lop off the lateral branches; and here the tree is not only beautiful but unique. Here, much better than anywhere else, we can learn what was the aspect, in medieval times, of a cathedral church served by a body of priests who were not monks,—by a large collegiate chapter. When we study out its meaning, even the loveliness of the general picture at Wells is not so remarkable as its historic interest. Ix Ir is popularly said in Wells that three railways make it difficult to get there, and that four would make it quite impossible. The trains by which we came from the south certainly showed that we were not ona great highway of travel. They loitered and paused, and gave up their burdens to one another, and then hurried a little, and loitered again, and brought us in at last some three hours late. But they loitered through one of the most beautiful districts of England, and they AZ 258 English Cathedrals. brought us in at sunset to a first impression of incomparable charm; and we felt that they must know this to be their chief if not their only duty. In truth, Wells is such a little quiet city that it seems as though no stranger could come except for the cathedral’s sake. It is the extreme example of a town which absolutely owes its life to the cathedral’s ex- istence. We are surprised to find that it ever wished for a parish church like St. Cuthbert’s—surprised that it dared to realize its wish and give the cathedral towers a rival. Were there space for much else now that art has had its share of all-too-scanty comment, it would be interesting to trace the inner history of the town, for no history of an English town comes nearer to reproducing, on a humble scale, the story of those foreign cities where the bishop ruled bodies as well as souls. But there would be little to tell of the figure that Wells has made in outside happenings. It can never have been much more im- portant than it is to-day; and when its bishops achieved national fame they played their parts at a distance. I have spoken of those who fathered its beautiful buildings, down to Bishop Beckington. There was little left for him to add to the church itself, but his accessory works were manifold; and in the town he did so much that for generations after his death the mayor and cor- poration went annually in state to pray for his soul by the chantry which our ungrateful time has uprooted and defaced. Before his day there were prelates who had not been remarkable as builders only, but a more curious line succeeds him. He was followed by Oliver King (1495-1503), who was potent at court under Edward IV. and Henry VII. Next came an Italian, Hadrian de Castello, if I may use the word of one who never really came at all. He had been legate in Scotland, and, after his return to Rome, Archbishop Morton caused him to be named Bishop of Hereford. From this see he was transferred, while still in Rome, to Wells; and in Rome he was one day asked to break- fast with the Borgia who was pope. The rest of the story is familiar, though one rarely remembers that its hero the cardinal was likewise Bishop of Bath and Wells—the story of the poisoned cup meant for Castello but drunk by the pope and his son Cesar. Even after this Castello had no thoughts of England. He headed a conspiracy against Leo X., failed, fled, and was never heard of again. What a contrast between such a wolf in shepherd’s clothing and a Beckington or a Joceline! And the next name has still a different flavor, being the great Wolsey’s. Wolsey resigned his chair at Wells to take Durham’s The Cathedral of St. Andrew — Wells. 259 chair instead; and, a century later, Laud, who was bishop first of St. David's in Wales, and then of Bath and Wells, passed from Wells to London and to Canterbury. For another really noted prelate we must look ahead nearly sixty years to Ken, of whose appointment in 1685 one of the few anecdotes is told that reflect much credit on Charles II. As a canon at Winchester, Ken had refused the king’s request to take Nell Gwynn beneath his roof. When the see of Bath and Wells was vacant in after years, Charles was asked who should fill it, and he an- swered,—so the story runs,—‘‘Who but the brave little man that would not give poor Nelly a lodging?” At all events, Ken’s inde- pendence, no less than his simplicity, piety, and learning, was proved during every day of his episcopal life. In his time Wells for once came conspicuously before the public eye. The battle of Sedgemoor was fought only a short distance away, and Ken sheltered the refugees, and, with the Bishop of Ely, ministered to Monmouth on the scaffold. He was one of the seven bishops then tried and acquitted at West- minster, and one of the nonjurors after William and Mary came to the throne. Deprived of his see, he died in 1711. Many bishops, like Laud, were translated to Wells from the humbler neighboring sees of Wales, and not a few of them passed on to more exalted English chairs. THE ENTRANCE TO THE BISHOP’S PALACE. Waa tT A ii WINCHESTER, FROM THE EASTERN HILLS CHAPTER X THE CATHEDRAL OF ST. PETER AND ST. PAUL—WINCHESTER INCHESTER Cathedral is the longest medieval church in Europe, now that Old St. Paul’s of London has perished; yet no other makes so poor a showing in the English landscape. As depressed and monotonous in outline as Peter- ==%| borough, it has no conspicuous fagade to give ie it grandeur from a western point of view; nor does so wide a reach of open square and ver- dant close surround it. Seen from the neighboring hills its enormous bulk is of course impressive, but on lower ground the eye cannot often isolate it from the encircling houses. This is especially true of the place from which strangers see it first. It stands near the railroad, yet we may easily fail to realize that we are approaching one of the mightiest, most famous, and most interesting of England’s cathedrals. We must make the circuit of its walls to appreciate their extent, and must enter its portals to comprehend its majesty and charm. Many periods of art contributed to its erection, but to-day it chiefly shows the work of the early Perpendicular period.’ \\) f IN A\ N I THERE was a town on this spot long before the Romans conquered it. They called it Venta Belgarum, but its still earlier name is more often recollected — Caer Gwent, familiar to lovers of Arthurian legend; and tradition speaks more clearly about its first Christian days than about those of Canterbury. Here, it is said, in the year 164, immedi- 1 The standard account of this church is Profes- Zvedand, in the volume which bears date 1845 and sor Willis’s “Architectural History of Winchester which is entirely devoted to Winchester, containing Cathedral.” It was published in the Proceedings also an interesting essay on William of Wykeham, of the Archeological Institute of Great Britain and by Professor Cockerell. I ae 261 262 English Cathedrals. ately after his conversion, King Lucius the Briton erected, on the site of an ancient temple, a church of unparalleled size and beauty. A hundred years later it was destroyed in the persecutions of Diocletian’s time, but was soon rebuilt and remained in Christian use until the West-Saxons arrived and their first king, Cerdic, made it a “temple of Dagon.” Caer Gwent lay in ruins when Cerdic was crowned, but, restored with an Anglicized name, Wint-Ceaster, it grew beneath the rule of his offspring to be the capital of united England; and, though London gradually usurped its place, the imagination looks back to it as back to Canterbury. Winchester politically, like Canterbury spirit- ually, is the mother-city of the English-speaking race. In the year 633 Pope Honorius sent Birinus to convert the West- Saxons. Helped in the work by Oswald, king of Northumbria, friend of St. Cuthbert and hero of Durham, who had come southward to seek the hand of a West-Saxon princess, he baptized King Kynegils and his people and became the first bishop of a new see. A great church was begun to replace the old one, desecrated by Dagon; and though the new cathedra was temporarily set up at Dorchester (now Abing- don) in Oxfordshire, it was removed to the royal town in the reign of King Ina, about the year 700. Winchester’s importance grew steadily with the growth of West- Saxon power. Here reigned Egbert, the first king of all England, and his successors until just before the Norman conquest. Alfred the Great restored the town after its desolation by the Danes; and, that harried Wessex might no longer deserve the reproach of being the most ignorant province in England, he founded, close by the cathedral or Old Minster, a New Minster as a home for scholars. When Ethel- wold, the refounder of Peterborough and Ely, was Bishop of Win- chester, a century after Alfred’s time, he repaired, or probably rebuilt, the Old Minster and, in the year 980, removed beneath its roof the body of St. Swithun, who had been Alfred’s tutor and, afterward, bishop of the see. The translation was delayed by forty days of rain and, in consequence, sun or shower on St. Swithun’s festival, July 15, still pre- dicts the next forty days of weather for the English peasant. The original church had been dedicated to the Holy Trinity. The new one was dedicated to Sts. Peter and Paul; but St. Swithun was re- vered as its real patron, and medizval writers call it the Old Minster or St. Swithun’s Abbey. The chapter had been secular; but Ethel- wold offered the canons, many of whom were married men, their choice between deprivation and a monkish cowl; and when all but three re- Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul— Winchester. 263 fused the cowl, he filled their stalls with Benedictine monks from Abingdon. During the days of Danish dominion, national existence still cen- tred at Winchester. In its cathedral Canute was crowned, and here he placed his golden crown on the head of the crucified Christ, refus- ing to wear it again after his courtiers’ blasphemous adulation on the borders of Southampton Water. Here, too, the story runs, his widow Emma—widow also of Ethelred the Unready and mother of the Con- fessor —was forced by her pious weakly son to walk upon hot plow- shares in refutation of a charge of too close friendship with Bishop Aldwin. The great Godwin died suddenly at a royal feast at Winches- ter, and was buried in the cathedral while all the people of England mourned aloud. William the Conqueror respected the town as the dower-city of the Confessor’s widow, Edith, and it quietly submitted to his rule. Stigand was Bishop of Winchester as well as Archbishop of Canterbury at this time, and he too died here and was buried in the cathedral. And on a neighboring hilltop Waltheof, the “last English Earl,” was beheaded by the Conqueror and “meanly buried on the place of his martyrdom.” The first Norman bishop was Walkelin, a relative of the Conqueror’s. He rebuilt the cathedral from the foundations up, on a site that was far more cramped than we realize to-day, for the New Minster stood so close to its northern side that the chanting in one church could be heard in the other, and William’s great castle crowded close upon its western front. II ALTHOUGH the Confessor had been crowned at the old capital, his love for Westminster, and the development of commercial, life started London in its successful rivalry with Winchester. But it was a long time before Winchester lost its rank. It was William’s English capital, and he was crowned here for the second time with Matilda. Domesday Book was called the “ Book of Winton,” probably because it was here presented to the king; and here, where the curfew-bell still tolls night after night, it first rang out by his hated order. William Rufus too was crowned at Winchester, and, shot near by in the New Forest which his father had watered with the tears of its dispos- sessed peasants, was buried without religious rites in the centre of St. Swithun’s church. Seven years later Walkelin’s massive tower fell down, as though ‘ashamed to shelter the Red King’s corpse.” On the 264 English Cathedrals. day of the burial the witan at Winchester elected Henry I. to the throne; and in a neighboring cloister he found his wife, Edith,—after- ward, as Norman tongues could not pronounce her name, called Matilda or Maud,—the daughter of Margaret of Scotland and niece of Edgar the Atheling, last scion of Cerdic’s stock. In Henry’s reign the New Minster was removed to another site and became Hyde Abbey, while the ground it left vacant was used for the city cemetery and now forms part of the cathedral close. Henry of Blois, a grandson of the Conqueror and Bishop of Winches- ter from 1129 to 1171, was not only the most powerful prelate but the most powerful man in England. A prime favorite with his uncle, King Henry I., to whom he owed his bishopric, neither gratitude nor pledges guided his course in the war which followed Henry’s death. Siding now with his cousin Matilda and now with his brother Stephen, he worse confounded the confusion of his time, but at last was the chief promoter of the settlement which put Stephen on the throne. His political acts may be variously judged, but his private life was pure, and he labored steadily for the good of his diocese. Becket was consecrated by his hands. He was legate of the pope, a great warrior in deed as well as counsel, and the builder of the beautiful and famous Hospital of St. Cross which still stands in its old usefulness a mile away from the cathedral. But in his latter days, in the reign of Stephen, Winchester’s rank as the capital of the realm finally passed away. It is true that Henry II. spent much time at Winchester, married his daughter there to the Duke of Saxony, and there kept the enormous treasure which, when he died, Richard I. eagerly came to seize. It is true, as well, that Richard's second coronation, after his captivity, took place at Winches- ter. But he was first crowned at Westminster, as had been the case with Stephen and with Henry II., when Winchester lay almost in ruins after the long war, and indeed, years before, with Henry I.; and no subsequent English king has thought of Wessex as the political heart of his realm. In 1189 Godfrey de Lucy was made bishop, and he rebuilt the east end of the cathedral while King John was beginning his reign. Bishop Peter de Roches, a Poitevin by birth, and one of the first of those haughty foreign prelates who troubled the realm so sorely, stood fast by John while he struggled with his people, and after his death re- mained Grand Justiciar of England, and was guardian of the new king, little Henry III. The reign of this Henry of Winchester was a trou- blous one for his natal town, what with the Barons’ War eddying close Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul— Winchester. 265 about it, the king’s wranglings with the cathedral chapter over the elec- tion of its bishops, and frequent monkish quarrels with the townsfolk. But a happy day came at last to Winchester, when, at the parliament held there in 1268, Henry made his peace with his son and with the memory of Simon de Montfort. Ethelmar (or Aylmar) de Valence, Henry’s half-brother, had finally been chosen bishop through his insis- tence. After this name come a few of small significance, and then Bishop Edingdon’s in 1346. The Black Death all but depopulated England THE CATHEDRAL, FROM THE FIELDS. in Edingdon’s time and left Winchester with only two thousand in- habitants, yet his architectural works were many and ambitious, both within and without his cathedral. From 1367 to 1486 (a period of a hundred and nineteen years) the chair was filled by three prelates only, and each was a man of exceptional note, even for a bishop of Winchester—William of Wykeham, Cardinal Beaufort, and William Waynflete. Before I speak of them, however, it will be best to glance at the fabric of the cathedral church upon which Wykeham imperish- ably set his seal. 266 “ae © © 6 » PLAN OF WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL.! FROM MURRAY'S ‘‘ HANDBOOK TO THE CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND.” 3, Choir. 5, Slype or Passageway between the Church and the Chapter-house, now destroyed. A, Wykeham’s Chantry. B, Font. D, Edingdon’s Chantry. F, Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre. G, Tomb of William Rufus. H, Bishop Fox’s Chantry. I, Bishop Gardiner’s Chantry. K, Cardinal Beaufort’s Chan- try. L, Bishop Waynflete’s Chantry. N, Bishop de Lucy’s Tomb. P, Chapel of the Guardian Angels. Q, Lady- chapel. R, Bishop Langton’s Chantry. T, Bishop Silk. stede’s Chapel and Isaak Walton’s Tomb. 1. Nave. 2, Transept. 4, Retrochoir. tersection of nave and transept, English Cathedrals. III Tue ambiguous words of early writers led, even in medieval times, to a belief that Walkelin the Nor- man did not entirely renew Ethel- wold’s cathedral, built only a hun- dred years before. It was long argued that its tower at least re- mained, to fall upon the grave of Rufus, and that the new tower was called by Walkelin’s name because it was raised with moneys which he had bequeathed, But it is certain now that a new site was chosen for the Norman church, the Saxon church standing close beside it until it was complete; and that Walkelin’s tower did fall,—as two centuries later fell the one which his brother, Bishop Simeon, erected at Ely,—and was promptly rebuilt as we see it to-day. Walkelin’s church was begun in 1076 and dedicated, with infinite pomp, in 1093. The purely Nor- man character of the crypt helps to prove the change of site, and its plan shows that the shape of the east end of the church above must have been more complex than that of most Anglo-Norman churches. The singers’ choir projected as usual across the in- and it has never been withdrawn within the eastern limb—the architectural choir—as it has in many other cases. The presbytery beyond it ended, at about the point marked X on our plan, in the customary semicircular apse. But around this apse a wide aisle was carried, flanked by a pair of towers; 1 Winchester Cathedral measures 556 feet in length inside its walls, and 208 feet across the transept. Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul — Winchester. 267 and a great doorway in the centre of the curve admitted to a narrower Lady-chapel, which extended past the point marked WV on the plan. Modern excavations have shown that the nave stretched forty feet far- ther toward the west than the line of its present front, and had two enormous towers.’ Except the transept no part of this vast church— five hundred feet in length—now stands intact; and the gradual pro- cess by which the whole of the longer limb was reconstructed is per- haps the most curious on record. In the year 1202 Bishop de Lucy began, in the Early English style, a new retrochoir and Lady-chapel, starting at the fourth pier to the eastward of the crossing. His exterior walls were constructed first and carried past the narrow Norman Lady-chapel without disturbing it. Later, this chapel, together with the aisle around the apse, was torn down and new pier-arcades and vaults were built. The old apse stood inside this newer work until 1320, when the present termination of the presbytery was built in the Decorated style, with a great window in the gable rising close behind the high altar, far above the lower roofs of De Lucy’s retrochoir. In 1350, in the time of Bishop Edingdon, the central alley of the four choir-bays next the crossing was rebuilt in an early Perpendicular style, while their Norman aisles were still suf- fered to remain. Then Edingdon tore down the west end of the church with its towers, rebuilt it forty feet farther to the eastward, and began to rebuild the nave. William of Wykeham continued his work, leaving it at his death, in 1404, to be finished by his successors. About 1470 the Lady-chapel was lengthened toward the east, where three chapels of equal depth had hitherto stood side by side. After the year 1500 the Norman aisles of the choir were at last reconstructed in a style like that of Wykeham’s nave. For fifty years longer splendid tombs and chantries were erected in late Perpendicular ways, and Renaissance architects then added their quota in the shape of minor decorative fea- tures. And thus, although its general aspect is Perpendicular, there is no style or period later than the Conquest which is not represented in this remarkably handled church. Not much need be said about the Norman transept. It has an aisle on each side, and across each end runs another which rises only to the level of the springing of the arches, where it bears a narrow gallery. The tower was once open as a lantern to its full height, but was ceiled lower down in the time of Charles I. The four piers that support it are 1 The nave-aisles seem to have ended where they do to-day, and the extension probably consisted of a wide vestibule flanked by the towers, or a sort of western transept. 268 English Cathedrals. extraordinarily massive, and their masonry is distinctly of two different dates, while the four piers next them in the transept are stronger than those beyond and likewise show marks of alteration. Yet all the work is Norman, and thus structural as well as historical voices witness that Walkelin’s great tower fell, fright- ening his successors into sturdier building. Striking indeed is the contrast between these stern and massive transept-arms and the rich per- spectives which stretch out east and west. The picture on this page puts the spectator upon the raised floor of the southern aisle of the choir. A vast Norman arch curves above him. To the right he sees the wall which in- closes the ritual choir, still ex- tending in the Norman fashion beneath the tower; and if he bends forward and looks to the left, the bald majesty of the tran- sept is relieved by few touches of carven decoration. But the wall of the ritual choir is adorned with the work of a much later age; behind him extends the late-built Perpendicular choir-aisle, with the IN THE SOUTH AISLE OF THE CHOIR, simpler yet light and graceful LOOKING WEST. Lancet-Pointed work of De Lucy beyond it, flanked by luxuriant Perpendicular chantries; and opposite him, under the tall slim arch which Wykeham designed, stretches the long south aisle of the nave— sharply pointed, richly adorned, looking like the work, not only of another age, but of another race than that which built the massive stilted semicircle above his head. IV CrossinG the transept now and turning into the nave, we see one of the most singular and interesting architectural works in the world. In Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul —Winchester. 269 many other churches there are major or minor parts which have been changed by the touch of later ages into marked unlikeness with their former selves. But nowhere else in England was such a transforma- tion effected on so vast a scale, and yet nowhere did it leave so little patent evidence of change behind it. When Edingdon, as I have told, saw fit to take the nave in hand he pulled down the western end. The present west front is entirely his work, inside and out, except for the turrets and gable which were added by Wykeham; and so are the aisle-walls and win- ' dows of one bay on the ee southern and two on the northern side of the nave. But when Wykeham took up his task he showed a more economical yet a bolder spirit. He tore down only a portion of the fabric and then added what was lacking to define the proportions and com- plete the features of a Per- pendicular design. Just how he went to work is clearly shown in the illus- tration on this page, which was first printed with Pro- fessor Willis’s admirable account of the cathedral. The right-hand compart- 5 10 Tot ment shows the original design Gl The Mave tsi: