PRINTED BY C. J. CLAY. M.A. 
 AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2014 
 
 https://archive.org/details/architecturalhisOOwill_0 
 
THE 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 
 
 OF 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. R WILLIS, M.A, F.RS., &c. 
 
 JACKSONIAN PROFESSOR OP THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 READ AT THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE ARCHiEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE 
 OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND, AT DORCHESTER, AUGUST 4, 1865. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE : 
 DEIGHTON, BELL, AND CO. 
 LONDON: BELL AND DALDY. 
 1866. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The Abbey of Glastonbury is one of those to which 
 a peculiar interest has been always attached. The 
 boldness of its legendary history, which claims for its 
 site the privileges of being that on which the first 
 Christian church was erected in our island, and the 
 burial-place of King Arthur and Joseph of Arimathea : 
 also the peculiar architectural character and beauty of 
 the chapel which now bears the name of St Joseph, 
 its singular plan and position ; and lastly, the picturesque 
 remains of the great church itself, little inferior to the 
 chapel in beauty, and of the celebrated kitchen and 
 barn; — these furnish sufficient grounds for the interest 
 which has been maintained up to our own time, and 
 has made this place the theme of so many writers, 
 ancient and modern, that the subject might appear to 
 have been exhausted in all directions. 
 
 Yet it must have been perceived by the readers of 
 these writers, that the interpretation of the documentary 
 evidence, with reference to its application to the build- 
 ings, is still enveloped in indecision and conjecture. 
 
vi 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Yet few monasteries have left to us a better col- 
 lection of historical documents, including the memoranda 
 of Leland and William of Worcester, both written before 
 the Reformation, or furnish a more instructive example 
 of the manner in which such buildings were carried on 
 and altered. My first acquaintance with these venerable 
 ruins in 1863 convinced me that the cloud of vague 
 conjecture which still hung over their architectural his- 
 tory might be partly dispelled by a personal and re- 
 peated study of the structures themselves, combined with 
 a careful analysis of the chronicles and records, selecting 
 from them those passages only which have reference to 
 the arrangement and purposes of the buildings, the 
 time and mode of their construction, the manner of 
 raising funds for that object, and the motives which 
 caused them to be undertaken. This in fact is the sys- 
 tem that I have pursued throughout my researches into 
 the Architectural History of so many Cathedrals and 
 Monasteries, and the following pages contain the result 
 of its application to Glastonbury. Several visits to the 
 ruins, employed in sketching and measuring; alternating 
 with the home examination at leisure, of the docu- 
 mentary evidence; have emboldened me to assert with 
 confidence the identity of the so-called chapel of St 
 Joseph with the Lady chapel of the Abbey church and 
 with the site of the original wicker church or "Old 
 Church," the '^Vetusta Ecclesia" of William of Malmes- 
 bury, and thus not only to fix the date of this most 
 valuable piece of transition work to the year 11 84, but 
 to identify a spot, which, without crediting the tradition 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 vii 
 
 literally which assigns the date of the "Old Church" to 
 A.D. 63, was certainly occupied by one of the very ear- 
 liest of the British churches. 
 
 I have pointed out that the tradition of the visit 
 of Joseph of Arimathea, hinted at by Malmesbury, and 
 evidently neither really credited by him, nor held forth 
 as one of the prominent attractions of the site up to his 
 time or that of his continuator Adam de Domerham, 
 was brought into excessive importance and made a source 
 of profit and honour to the Monastery in the fourteenth 
 century. Thus, finally, the popular name of St Joseph's 
 chapel has superseded the original dedication of the Lady 
 chapel. 
 
 Lastly, I have shewn that the crypt is entirely 
 a construction of the fifteenth century, inserted in a 
 building which had no previous crypt, and have endea- 
 voured to explain the steps by which this remarkable 
 undertaking was carried out. As far as I know, this 
 fact has escaped all previous writers. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. Documentary History from a.d. 63 to the great fire in 1184 . . 1 
 
 II. Identity of St Joseph's chapel with the site of the wicker church 
 
 and the Lady chapel of the Abbey 13 
 
 III. Documentary History of the great church from 1184 to the sup- 
 
 pression of the monastery 22 
 
 IV. Structural History and description of the great church . . 34 
 
 V. St Joseph's chapel 47 
 
 VI. The crypt of St Joseph's chapel , . 60 
 
 VII. Final arrangement of St Joseph's chapel . . . . '. 73 
 
 VIII. History of the Monastic Buildings . . . . . .82 
 
 Description of the plates 87 
 
 Directions to the Binder. 
 
 Place plate 1 to face the title page, and the remainder of the plates at 
 the end of the volume. 
 
ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY OF 
 
 GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 CHAPTEH I. 
 
 DOCUMENTARY HISTORY FROM A.D. 63 TO THE GREAT 
 FIRE IN 1 1 84. 
 
 The singular position and proportion of St Josepli's 
 Chapel, projecting from the west end of the great church, 
 makes it the great characteristic feature which distinguish- 
 es Glastonbury Abbey. It can only be understood by 
 taking a cursory view of the legendary history of the 
 monastery, not because implicit credence can be accorded 
 to these tales, but that they were taught by the monks 
 to the devotees who flocked to their shrines, and the 
 peculiar arrangement of the church was adjusted in ac- 
 cordance with them. 
 
 It is true that these legends have been recited in 
 every essay upon this subject, in some form or other, 
 and may be found even in the guide-books, yet I must 
 be permitted to state briefly those parts of them only 
 which relate especially to the history of the structures 
 I am about to consider. 
 
 This I shall do in the form of a continued narrative, 
 which, might be termed the Pretensions of Glaston- 
 bury, written, with the original book of Malmsbury, 
 lying before me\ and preserving, as far as possible, his 
 phraseology in the legendary portions. 
 
 1 The early traditions were first chronicle which is made up of a scries 
 collected by William of Malmsbnry in a of extracts from documents, short nar- 
 
 1 
 
 I 
 
2 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 
 
 Id the year of our Lord 63, St Phihp, then 
 preaching the word in France, sent twelve of his 
 disciples into Britain for the same purpose. Their chief 
 being, as it is reported, his dearest friend Joseph of 
 Arimathea. 
 
 The king and his barbarian people rejected the mis- 
 sion, but permitted the missionaries to retire to the pre- 
 sent site of Glastonbury, at that time an island, called 
 Yniswitrin, on the confines of his dominions, covered 
 with trees and brambles, and surrounded by marshes. 
 Afterwards, two other pagan kings, hearing of their 
 holy life, granted to each of them a portion of land. 
 
 These saints, thus dwelHng in the same desert, were 
 after a short time admonished in a vision, by the Arch- 
 
 ratives and charters, concluding with 
 the succession in 1129 of Henry de 
 Blois, the fourth Norman Abbot, to 
 the see of Winchester. This chronicle 
 was continued by Adam de Domer- 
 ham to 1290, and finally, J. Glaston 
 wrote a complete chronicle of the Ab- 
 bey from the beginning, in which he 
 employs those of the above writers, 
 and continues the history to 1493. 
 That this Malmsbury is identical with 
 the historian of the Kings and Bishops 
 of England, is shewn by a passage in 
 his Gesta Regum (Savile, p. 14), in 
 which he alludes to the first chronicle 
 by its owTi title, De Antiquitafe Glas- 
 toniensis Ecclesiw, when praising the 
 virtues of King Ina, especially for 
 building the monastery of Glaston- 
 bury, "the additional splendour he 
 gave to it, is shewn in the book which 
 I have written concerning the anti- 
 quity of that monastery" (cui quan- 
 tum splendoris adjecerit, libellus ille 
 docebit, quern de mUiquitate ejusdem 
 Monasterii elaboravi"). 
 
 From internal evidence afforded 
 
 by his writings, this historian is sup- 
 posed to have died in 1142 or 3. 
 The last event recorded in his An- 
 tiquities of Glastonbury is the acces- 
 sion of Abbot Henry de Blois to the 
 bishopric of Winchester in 11 29, and 
 tliis chronicle is preceded by an ad- 
 dress to that bishop, in which the 
 author commends the work which he 
 has completed to his indulgent per- 
 usal and attention. The bishop died 
 in 1 1 74, ten years before the great 
 fire. Yet the chronicle contains se- 
 veral allusions to this fire, and a de- 
 scription of its effects, evidently by an 
 eyewitness. 
 
 Now, as the complete chronicle was 
 delivered to a bishop who died long 
 before it happened, it follows that 
 these allusions must have been in- 
 terpolated by some subsequent wri- 
 ter. Indeed, every one of these al- 
 lusions has the air of a marginal gloss. 
 Amongst them we may well include 
 the puerile stories of the hiding and 
 finding of Dunstan's relics, in which 
 most of them occur. 
 
OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 3 
 
 angel Gabriel, to construct a cliurcli in honour of the Vir- 
 gin Mary, in a certain place indicated. 
 
 They, not slow in obedience to the divine precepts, 
 did there construct, in accordance with that which had 
 been shewn to them, a chapel {capellam), whose walls 
 below were formed round about with twisted or wattled 
 rods, misshapen in form but endowed abundantly with 
 heavenly virtues. And this chapel, because it was the 
 first in that region, was by divine command, dedi- 
 cated to the Virgin. The twelve dwelt in this spot, 
 dying off one after the other, until the place became 
 a solitude and a resort of wild beasts. The oratory 
 of the Virgin (pratorium B. Virg'.) remained concealed 
 and unknown for many years \ At length, in the year 
 1 66, Pope Eleutherius, at the request of Lucius, king 
 of the Britons, sent two missionaries named Phaeanus 
 and Deruvianus, who baptized the king and his people 
 in that year, and in the course of their subsequent pro- 
 gress through Britain, preaching and baptizing, they ar- 
 rived at the island Avallonia (or Yniswitrin) i.e. Apple 
 land, which they entered. 
 
 There they discovered the church {ecclesia), the work 
 of the disciples of St Philip, and were miraculously in- 
 formed of its divine dedication to the Virgin Mary. One 
 hundred and three years had elapsed between the advent 
 of the first missionaries and the coming of the second. 
 These two saints protracted their dweUing in this place 
 for nine years, and elected out of tlieir converts twelve 
 persons, who with the consent of King Lucius, took up 
 
 ^ Malmsbury here informs us that Augustine's. The name of this writer 
 
 he derived the above narrative partly and his period are not mentioned, but 
 
 from a charter of St Patrick, dated he may be identical with Melkin, who 
 
 after 430, which he gives verbatim, flourished c. 550 (vide below, p. 15). 
 
 and partly from the writings of an The charter is a series of inconsisten- 
 
 r.ncient British historian, whose works cies and absurd visions, 
 he had found at St Edmund's and St 
 
 1—2 
 
4 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 
 
 their residence in the island in separate places as ancho- 
 rites, and in the same spots where the primitive twelve 
 had dwelt. In the old church {vetustam ecclesiam) they 
 frequently met for the daily performance of divine ser- 
 vice. They obtained from the king the confirmation of the 
 old grants of twelve pieces of land for their sustenance. 
 
 Their number was now maintained by the election of 
 others as death removed these second occupants, and this 
 system continued until the Irish apostle St Patrick 
 visited this spot about 300 years afterwards. Certain 
 devout converts added to the church thus discovered 
 another oratory in stone work, which they dedicated to 
 Christ and the holy apostles Peter and Paul. And by 
 their labours the vetusta ecclesia of St Mary at Glaston 
 was repaired and restored. 
 
 The island was now becoming inhabited by settlers 
 from the northern parts of Britain, and the church, 
 which from its antiquity was, by the English especially, 
 denominated the Old Church, or Vetusta Ecclesia, became 
 a most attractive place of pilgrimage for all ranks, and 
 was frequently visited by holy and learned men. 
 
 Thus Gildas, the historian, ended his life here in 512, 
 and was buried in the vetusta ecclesia before the altar. 
 St Patrick, returning from his successful mission to Ire- 
 land in 433, visited Glastonbury, and found the twelve 
 anchorites living as above in separate dwellings. He 
 taught them the regular coenobial life, assuming the 
 office of abbot, and so remained for 39 years, until his 
 death in 472, at the age of iii. He rested in the vetusta 
 ecclesia, at the right (or south) side of the altar for 710 
 years, until the church was consumed by fire\ His body 
 was placed in a stone pyramid close to the altar on the 
 souths 
 
 ^ Which by these dates must be ^ Beside the personages already 
 the fire of 1 1 84. mentioned as buried in the old church 
 
OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 5 
 
 St David, the archbishop of Menevia, who died in 
 540, IS related to have prepared a solemn dedication for 
 tHis vetusta ecclesia, but was warned in a dream that it 
 Had been at the beginning dedicated to the Virgin bv 
 the Lord himself. The archbishop therefore built another 
 church near the first, and dedicated that to the Virgin\ 
 
 Thus far our narrative has been wholly or partially of 
 a legendary character, but one fact can be certainly derived 
 from it, namely, that there existed on the spot which is the 
 scene of the tale, a structure of twisted rods or hurdles, 
 which was believed to have been built as a Christian 
 oratory, and reported to be the earliest church erected in 
 Britain. Also, that it especially bore the name of Vctusta 
 Ecclesia, the ^^Old Church," and was dedicated to the 
 Virgin Mary. To shew the veneration in which the struc- 
 ture itself was held, the chronicler records, that "according 
 to the traditions of the fathers, St PauHnus, archbishop 
 A.D. 625 of York, and subsequently bishop of Eochester, 
 to 644. clothed the Old Church, which before was made 
 
 on account of their connexion with 
 the abbey, a long list of the bodies of 
 other celebrated saints were laid claim 
 to in this establishment under various 
 pretences, many of which existed in 
 duplicate in other monasteries, but 
 were asserted to have been removed 
 to Glastonbury from the ruins of 
 monasteries destroyed in 754 in .the 
 Danish excursion. Thus they asserted 
 the possession of St Hilda, abbess of 
 Whitby, of the venerable Bede, St 
 Aidan of Lindisfarne, also of St Dun- 
 stan in 1012, removed from the ruins 
 of Canterbury after the Danish sack 
 in 1 01 1, of which more presently. 
 
 St Benignus, who visited Glaston- 
 bury in 460, was a disciple of St Patrick 
 and his third successor in the Irish 
 episcopate. He was translated to 
 
 Glastonbury in 901, or, as Malnisbury 
 says in another place, in the days of 
 Turstinus, the first Norman abbot 
 He was in 109 1 brought to the great 
 church and placed before the high 
 altar (J. Glaston, 160). 
 
 ^ It be observed, throughout 
 these legends, that the fact of the 
 dedication of the church to the Virgin, 
 in 63, is never said to have been jier- 
 formed by the agency of man, but to 
 have been divinely effected and com- 
 municated in dreams to the mis- 
 sionaries, and this fact again in ano- 
 ther dream to St David in the sixth 
 century, it follows that it is not 
 worthy of the slightest attention. 
 The church was probably dedicated 
 to the Virgin Mary for the first time, 
 when St David visited it. 
 
6 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 
 
 of intertwined rods, with boards, and covered it with lead 
 from the top to the bottom^"; and he continues, *^ as- 
 suredly this praiseworthy man exerted all his skill to do 
 this, in such a manner that the church should lose none 
 of its sanctity, but acquire great increase of embellish- 
 ment. For it is certain that the adornment of churches 
 renders them more impressively influential in alluring 
 uncultivated* minds to prayer, and in bending the stiff- 
 necked to submission." 
 
 We have now arrived, however, at a period of au- 
 thentic history, and may pursue the narrative of the 
 successive changes in the buildings with more con- 
 fidence. 
 
 William of Malmsbury, in his Deeds of the Bishops^', 
 speaks of Glastonia as a town nestled in a morass, which 
 can only be reached on foot or on horseback, and with 
 A.D. 620 advantage either in respect of site or plea- 
 *° santness. Here King Ina, by the advice of the 
 blessed Aldhelm^, built a monastery and endowed it 
 largely. In the Antiquities of Glastonbury , Malmsbury 
 says, that Ina founded the major ecclesia^ the great 
 church of the Apostles Peter and Paul. He then takes 
 occasion to say that as several separate basilicas stood 
 on this spot, it may be well to enumerate them with 
 their founders. 
 
 The first and oldest was that built by the twelve 
 disciples of the Apostles Philip and James. This stood 
 to the west of all the others. 
 
 The second was made by St David, at the east part 
 of the oldest church, in honour of the blessed Mary. 
 
 The third was made by the twelve converts who came 
 
 ^ " Paiilinum...asserit patrum tra- deorsum coopemisse," p. 300. 
 ditio, ecclesise contextum dudiim, ut ^ £>e Gestis Pontificum, p. 254. 
 diximus, virgese, ligneo tabulatu in- ^ Aldhelm, bishop of Slierborn 
 
 duisse, et plumbo a summo usque (705 — 709). 
 
OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 7 
 
 from the north part of Britain, and this stood similarly 
 to the east of the vetusta ecclesia. 
 
 The fourth and greatest was built by Kino- Ina in 
 honour of the Saviour and the Apostles St Peter and 
 -Faiil, to the east part of all the others, for the soul 
 ot his brother Mules. 
 
 ^ We gather from this, that at the beginning of the 
 eighth century, these hasilicas, chapels or churches, con- 
 stituted a group of separate buildings, after the mlnner 
 of the Greek convents. The old wicker church, or vetusta 
 ecclesia, stood to the west of all the others, and the major 
 ecclesia of King Ina to the east of all the others. 
 
 The two first were dedicated to the Virgin, and the 
 fourth (as well as the third, as appears above) to Christ 
 and the Apostles Peter and Paul. 
 
 It may be remarked here that the history of Can- 
 terbury Cathedral resembles that of Glastonbury Abbej^, 
 in that St Augustine at his coming in 602, found there 
 an early church. This however had been constructed by 
 Eoman believers and he consecrated it, as is well known. 
 Also that in 740 another church was constructed by 
 Archbishop Cuthbert to the east of it and almost touch- 
 ing it, after the same manner as the basilicas above men- 
 tioned. Many other similar cases might be adduced. 
 
 The monastery of King Ina brilliantly maintained a 
 A.D. 871 succession of monks up to the coming of^the 
 9°°- Danes in the time of King Alfred. But then, 
 like others, it remained for years in a state of desola- 
 tion. At length the illustrious Dunstan, a monk of the 
 house, repaired all that the wars had ruined, by the 
 liberal help of the Kings Edmund and Edgar \ King 
 Edmund had appointed Dunstan abbot for the purpose 
 of introducing the Benedictine rule into England, and he 
 
 1 Malmsbury, Gest. Pont. p. 254, De vita Dunstani,]). 100. 
 and J. Bromptou, p. 758; also Osbern 
 
8 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 
 
 immediately, according to his biographer Osbern, set 
 about to lay the foundation of a large church and a 
 complete set of monastic offices according to a plan which 
 had been shewn to him. When these were finished he 
 assembled a numerous and worthy body of monks, and 
 thus became the first abbot of the first Benedictine 
 monastery in England ^ But this monastery remained 
 complete with its books^ ornaments, and estates, until 
 the time of the Normans, whose first abbot, Turstinus, 
 was installed in 1082. 
 
 How far the wicker church or its representative, and 
 the other basilicas, were affected by these changes we 
 are not informed^, but it is certain that at the time of 
 the Conquest the churches were considered as consisting 
 of two only, namely, the vetusta ecclesia, dedicated to the 
 Virgin and representing the primitive wicker church, and 
 the major ecclesia, the great church. This distinction is 
 expressed in Malmsbury's mention of Abbot Tica, who 
 died in the eighth century I He was buried in the 
 right corner of the g7^eat church, near the entry or pas- 
 sage to the old church;'' and we shall find it laid down 
 
 ^ Dunstan was appointed abbot of 
 Glastonbury in 940, consecrated arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury in 957, and died 
 in 988. 
 
 2^t is in the highest degree im- 
 probable that the wicker church, 
 clothed with boards and lead by 
 Paulinus in 625, should have remained 
 in this condition for 560 years, and 
 through the Danish ravages to the 
 time of the fire of 1 1 84, as John of 
 Glaston asserts in an addition at the 
 end of the paragraph concerning the 
 work of Paulinus, which he has copied 
 fvom Malmsbury (vide page 5, above). 
 The ground of his assertion appears 
 to be another sentence of Malmsbury, 
 which declares that St Patrick "was 
 
 buried in 472, and rested in the ve- 
 tusta ecclesia, at the right side of the 
 altar for 710 years, until the burning 
 of the church" (p. 4, above). These 
 numbers shew that the fire of 11 84 
 was meant, but as Patrick was buried 
 in a stone coffin, the church above 
 might have been rebuilt over and 
 over again without disturbing him. 
 
 The charter of king Cnut giving 
 privileges to Glastonbury in 1032, 
 is promulgated in lignea basilica 
 (323). 
 
 3 Malmsbury, p. 301, "...Tica cum 
 valefecisset vitse, in dextero angulo 
 major is Ecclesice juxta introitum ve- 
 tustce notabilem accepit sepultu- 
 ram..." 
 
OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. q 
 
 with equal clearness in the account of the rebuildino- of 
 the churches after the great fire of 1 1 83. 
 
 After Norman abbots were established in this place 
 they soon began their usual course of reconstructing the 
 great church and monastic buildings in their own manner 
 
 ^^A new church commenced by the first Norman 
 abbot was pulled down to the ground by his successor 
 Herlewin because it did not correspond in magnitude to 
 the revenues, and he began a new one upon'^whic]! he 
 spent 480 pounds^" 
 
 Herlewin was abbot during nineteen years, from iioi 
 to 1 1 20. This period was amply sufiicient to complete 
 at least all the portions of a Norman church that were 
 required for the services, and even more, if the works 
 were carried on continuously and energetically. No far- 
 ther particulars of it are recorded. His successor Sigfrid 
 occupied the abbacy for six years, and the next abbot, 
 Henry de Blois, succeeded in 11 26. He was made 
 bishop of "Winchester eight years after, but retained the 
 care of Glastonbury to the end of his life, and presided 
 over it altogether during forty-five years. He was a great 
 builder and his works are thus recorded by Adam de 
 Domerham (p. 316). "In this monastery he built from 
 the foundations a Belltower, Chapterhouse, Cloister, Lava- 
 tory, Refectory, Dormitory and Infirmary, with its chapel; 
 a beautiful and ample palace ; a handsome exterior gate- 
 way of squared stones ; a large brewhouse ; many stables 
 for horses, and other works ; besides giving various orna- 
 ments to the church." 
 
 From this enumeration it is plain that the abbot 
 occupied himself wholly with the construction of a com- 
 
 1 Ecclesiam a prsedecessore in- cccclxxx libras dispendit (Malm, 
 
 clioatam, quia magnitudmi posses- p. 533)- For J. Glaston sub- 
 
 sioniim suarum non respondebat, solo stitutes circa quam consummandam 
 
 tonus emit et novam inchoavit, in qua ( 164). 
 
10 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 
 
 plete Norman monastery, and as the diurch is not 
 alluded to, we may suppose that it was finished before 
 he came into power in 112 6. It would thus have been 
 in use for more than sixty years, when the fire of 11 84 
 dismantled it. 
 
 This abbot also assigned to the sacrist's fund a pension 
 for the maintenance of a wax-candle to burn perpetually 
 before the image of the Virgin Mary in the vetusta 
 ecclesia, a phrase which at that period, when a new 
 Norman great church had just been completed could only 
 apply to the smaller one which occupied the site of the 
 wicker church of the Virgin. 
 
 It is also related that at this time, ''a precious 
 portable altar of sapphire which Saint David had presented 
 to Glastonbury, but which in the time of the wars had 
 been concealed in a place long forgotten, was discovered 
 in a certain recess in the church of St Mary. Abbot 
 Henry decorated it with silver and gold and precious 
 stones, as it now appears ^" 
 
 These passages seem to shew that the old church 
 had not been rebuilt by the Normans, but remained as 
 they received it from the Saxons at the Conquest. 
 
 This opinion is strengthened by comparing the pas- 
 sages in Malmsbury, from which we learn that in this 
 vetusta ecclesia, or wicker church, St Gildas, St Patrick, 
 St Indractus and others were buried, with the passage 
 of Domerham's chronicle which informs us that after the 
 fire these very saints were dug up in the vetusta ecclesia 
 and placed in shrines. 
 
 In II 71 Henry de Blois died and Abbot Robert 
 succeeded, and ruled the abbey seven years. After his 
 death ^' it remained in the hands of King Henry the 
 second for many years, and was committed to the charge 
 
 ^ W. Malmsb. 305, J. Glaston, hands of King H. VIII. at the disso- 
 168, This sapphire came into the lution of the Abbey. 
 
OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 11 
 
 of Peter de Marci, a Cluniac monk, who was his came- 
 rarius or chamberlain." 
 
 During this time, on the 25th May, the day of St 
 Urban, 11 84', ^^a fire consumed the whole monastery, 
 except a chamber with a chapel built by Abbot Robert, 
 in which the monks afterward took refuge, and except 
 a campanarium built by Bishop Henry. The beautiful 
 group of edifices so lately erected by this bishop, with 
 the church venerable to all, and sheltering so many 
 saints, were reduced to a heap of ashes. Soon after this 
 Peter de Marci died suddenly in the year 1184^" In a 
 passage apparently interpolated into Malmsbury's Chro- 
 nicle, it is said of this fire that '4t consumed not only the 
 church and the rest of the buildings, but its ornaments, 
 its treasures, and, ivliat luas more valuable, the greater 
 "part of the relicsT The writer declines to dwell upon the 
 afEiction thereby occasioned, but adds, that the monks 
 sought consolation by employing themselves in gather- 
 ing together the few fragments, principally of relics, 
 which had escaped the flames. 
 
 The abbey was at this time, as already stated, in the 
 hands of the king; and in his charter, issued soon after 
 the fire, we read his declaration that, Because that what- 
 soever a man soweth, that shall he also reap, I, in the act 
 of laying the foundation of the church of Glastonbury 
 (which, being in my hands, has been reduced to ashes by 
 a fire), do decree, by the persuasion of Heraclius, the 
 patriarch of Jerusalem, Baldwin, archbishop of Canter- 
 bury, and many others, that, God wilHng, it shall be 
 magnificently completed by myself or by my heirs ^" 
 
 1 1 1 84, 30 H. II. "Eodem anno 
 combusta est Abbatia de Glastyng- 
 birie." Rog. de Hoveden, Annales, p. 
 624. Savile. 
 
 ^ Domerham. 
 
 3 "Quoniam quse seminaverifc ho- 
 mo, hsec et metet; Ecclesise Glasco- 
 niensis fundamentum jaciens, quse, 
 dum in manu mea fuerat incendio 
 consumpta in cinerem resedit: earn 
 
12 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 The direction of the works was committed to his 
 camerarius, Badulphus, the son of King Stephen. He 
 completed the church of St Mary in the place where 
 from the beginning the vetusta ecdesia had stood, build- 
 ing it of squared stones of the most beautiful workman- 
 ship, omitting no possible ornament. It was dedicated 
 by Reginald, bishop of Bath, on St Barnabas' day 
 (June ii), A.D. 1186, circ{ter\ He repaired all the offices 
 of the monastery, and, lastly, laid the foundations of the 
 ecdesia major, 400 feet in length, and 80 feet in 
 breadth." 
 
 Domino volente, persuadentibus Era- 
 clio, Patriarchse HierosolymitaiiO, 
 Baldwino Arch". Cant\ Ricardo 
 Wintoni. Ep". Bartli°. Exoni. Ep''. Ra- 
 dulf°. de Glanvill, cum multis aliis, 
 per me aut per heredes meos consmn- 
 mandam magnificentiis reparare de- 
 'crevi" (Hearne, Hist, of Glaston- 
 bury, p. 126). The charter is not 
 dated, but the signature of the bishops 
 and the date of the fire place it be- 
 tween 1 1 83 and 1 1 86. 
 
 ^ "Ecclesiam sanctse Marise in 
 loco quo primitus vetusta steterat, ex 
 lapidibus quadris opere speciosissimo 
 consummavit, nichil ornatus in ea pr?e- 
 termittens, quaiyi dedicavit Reginal- 
 dus tunc BatJionice episcopus. A". D\ 
 mill\ centes\ octogesimo circiter 
 sexto, die S". Barnahmy Ad. de 
 Domerham, 335, and Joh. Glaston, 180, 
 who adds the sentence in italics, pro- 
 bably from the bishop's register. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 IDENTITY OF ST JOSEPH's CHAPEL WITH* THE SITE OP THE 
 WICKER CHURCH AND THE LADY CHAPEL OF THE ABBEY. 
 
 The date of the dedication of St Mary's cliarcli (1186, 
 circiter) is recorded in a manner which shews that the 
 document from which it was taken^ probably the bishop's 
 register, did not furnish the last figure precisely, but only 
 inferentially. Probably it was entered between two other 
 events that were accurately dated: 11 86 would give 
 barely two years for the building of St Mary's church, 
 and we are at liberty to suppose that rather a longer 
 time was actually occupied. Still, the short time shews 
 that it was a small work, and the expressions employed 
 with respect to the site, ^' where from the first the vetusta 
 ecclesia had stood," leave no doubt that it was erected 
 on the spot, traditionally occupied by the wicker church 
 of St Mary, and that it is identical with the so-called 
 Joseph's chapel, standing to the west of the major ecclesia, 
 but separated from it as the primitive church of St Mary 
 stood with respect to the other basilicas^ and subsequently 
 to the great cliurcli of King Ina. 
 
 I will now endeavour to shew that it was also the 
 Lady chapel of the Abbey church. 
 
 The common assertion that the Lady chapel of Glas- 
 tonbury was on the north side of the choir of the great 
 church is founded upon a sentence of Leland, who, after 
 
14 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 
 
 transcribing and noting in order the monuments and 
 inscriptions in the transepts, choir, presbytery, and nave, 
 concludes with, ^^In Capella S. Marioe, a Boreali parte 
 Chori in Sacello, Joannes Biconel Miles et Elizabeth. 
 Gul. Semar Miles in eadem Volta';" that is to say, In 
 the chapel of St Mary, on the north part of the choir, in 
 a small chapel," are buried the persons indicated. 
 
 Now the choir" in question has been assumed to 
 mean the cfioir of the great church; consequently, the 
 sentence would place the Lady chapel on the north part 
 of the great church. But the word choir" may mean 
 the choir of the Lady chapel itself; in which case, the 
 persons indicated would be buried in a small sepulchral 
 or chantry chapel on the north side of the choir of the 
 Lady chapel , which I venture to say is the true inter- 
 pretation, for it will appear as we proceed to be perfectly 
 consistent with other evidenced 
 
 The most complete testimony to the identity of this 
 Norman chapel with the wicker church and the Lady 
 chapel of the abbey, is obtained by comparing the narra- 
 tive of William of Worcester's visit in 1480 with the 
 tradition of the burial of Joseph of Arimathea here, 
 w^hich had gradually acquired such immense importance 
 at the time of the Beformation, as I will first shew. 
 
 In Malmsbury's Chronicle the name of Joseph occurs 
 but once, at the beginning, when he tells us that ^^St 
 Philip sent twelve disciples, over whom, as it is reported 
 {ut ferunt), his dearest friend, Joseph of Arimathea, the 
 same who buried our Lord, presided." Not another allu- 
 sion is made to him, not even in the charter of St Patrick, 
 
 ^ Ilin. f. 86. might well have been one of those 
 
 ^ On the north side of the eastern parasitical chantries that occur so 
 
 part of the Lady chapel there are commonly in such positions. Some 
 
 manifest indications which shew that writers place the Lady chapel at the 
 
 an attached building had been added east end of the great church, 
 to it between the buttresses, which 
 
OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 15 
 
 wliich contains a summary of the history of the mission ; 
 or in the list of the various rehcs deposited at Glaston- 
 bury \" although that list begins with the 'Hwelve disci- 
 ples of St Philip." Evidently Malmsbury attached no 
 credence to the legend of J oseph, and it was not at that 
 time put forth as one of the great glories of the abbey 
 that Joseph was buried there. Adam de Domerham, 
 the next chronicler, is equally silent on this subject, and 
 we are thus carried to the end of the thirteenth century. 
 
 The belief that Joseph of Arimathea was really buried 
 in the cemeter}'^ appears in the fourteenth century; when 
 in 1345 J. Blome obtained a royal licence ^'io seek within 
 the boundary of the monastery of Glastonia for the body 
 of Joseph of Arimathea," in consequence, as he asserts, 
 of a divine injunction and revelation made to him. The 
 licence^, dated June 10, 1345, permits him to dig within 
 the precinct of the monastery for this purpose, provided 
 that it be done without endangering the church and 
 buildings, and also with consent of the abbot and con- 
 vents This is the only record left of the project, but the 
 chronicle of R. de Boston (p. 137), under the year 1367, 
 states that the bodies of Joseph of Arimathea and his 
 companions were found in this year at Glaston ^ ; a pro- 
 bable mistake for sought. These are at least indications 
 of the growing tendency to encourage the belief in a 
 tradition to which, as I have shewn, the earlier chroni- 
 cles of the monastery attached but small credence. On 
 the contrary, John of Glaston, their last historian, writing 
 at the beginning of the fifteenth century, dwells upon 
 this tradition and spares no pains to establish it. 
 
 The authority which John Glaston quotes in support 
 of the actual burial of Joseph in the cemetery is an 
 ancient British historian, named Melkin, who lived before 
 
 1 p. 301. 
 
 2 Rymer, V. 458. 
 
 ^ Sparke, Script. 
 
16 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 
 
 Merlin^ and wrote concerning the mission of St Philip's 
 disciples; that they died in succession, and were buried 
 in the cemetery. Amongst them Joseph of Marmore, 
 named of Arimathea, receives perpetual sleep. And he 
 lies in linea hifurcata near the south corner of the oratory, 
 which is built of hurdles \" 
 
 It is worth remarking here that when Leland visited 
 Glastonbury, about 1540, Abbot Whiting admitted him 
 to the library of the monastery, in which he found a 
 fragment of Melkin's history, Historiolam de rebus Bri- 
 tannicis: an author, as he tells us, entirely unknown to 
 him. He read this fragment with great interest and 
 pleasure, and found in it the very narrative quoted above. 
 Doubtless the manuscript was the identical one employed 
 by John of Glaston, whose chronicle was unknown to 
 Leland. Melkin was placed by Leland in his catalogue 
 of British writers^, and figures accordingly in the works 
 of his copyists, Tanner, Gale, Pits, and others. 
 
 Leland gathered from the manuscript that the author 
 was a Welshman and a Bard, and that he flourished 
 about the year 550 A. d. ; that is to say, about five hun- 
 dred years after the alleged burial of J oseph. He cannot 
 therefore be considered as an authority in that matter, yet 
 John of Glaston accepts his account unhesitatingly, and 
 interpolates J oseph in the sentences which he copies from 
 Malmsbury. To the list of the saints buried at Glaston- 
 
 ^ " Inter quos Joseph de Marmore 
 ab Arimathea nomine, cepit somnum 
 perpetuum etjacet in linea hifurcata, 
 juxta meridianum angulum oratorii 
 cratihus prwparatis^^ (Melkin, apud 
 Glaston, pp. 30 and 5 5). 
 
 Linea, according to Ducange, is 
 an under garment, close fitting, and 
 made of linen ; " vestis interior stricta, 
 ex lino confecta, unde nomen ;" "a 
 camisia, subucula, or shirt;" the epi- 
 
 thet hifurcata, peculiar, I believe, 
 to this example, appears to imply that 
 it was divided below into two flaps 
 like that ordinary garment. The pas- 
 sage therefore simply reads that 
 Joseph of Arimathea was buried in a 
 linen shirt. A dalmatic, being open 
 at the sides below, also deserves the 
 epithet bifurcate. 
 ^ Leland, De scriptorihus, p. 41. 
 
OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 17 
 
 bury he adds not only J oseph of Arimathea but also his 
 son Josephes^ 
 
 This tradition not only brought a great accession of 
 devotees and pilgrims to the abbey, but gave rise to an 
 intense desire in all ranks of the people to be buried in 
 or near the holy ground that was the resting-place of so 
 many saints, for which privilege they gave immense gifts. 
 
 Now William of Worcester visited Glastonbury about 
 1478, and, according to his practice, gives us the particu- 
 lars and measures of the whole church and its appen- 
 dages. After surveying the choir and the nave he comes 
 to the Lady chapel, which he describes in the following 
 sentence : 
 
 Church of the " The length of the chapel of the Blessed 
 
 at thetn^o7 Mary, which is conterminous with the west 
 
 the west door 
 
 of the nave of P^^^ ^^^^ ^^'^^ church, is 
 
 the church. 2^ yards and its width is 8 yards, and on both 
 sides there are large windows. And opposite the second 
 window on the south there are in the cemetery two 
 stone crosses hollowed, where the bones of King Arthur 
 were buried, and where m Imea hifurcata lies J oseph of 
 Arimathea^" 
 
 This last phrase, identical with that of Melkin and 
 John of Glaston^, identifies the Lady chapel in which 
 Worcester was standing with the traditional site of the 
 wicker church, while his exact description of the position 
 of this Lad^ chapel attached to the ivest end of the church, 
 
 1 J, Glaston, p. 16. 
 
 2 Eccl'ia b'te 
 Marie in 
 fine occi'tlis 
 pte navis 
 dc'e ecclie 
 
 p. 16, above. 
 
 Long'do capelle b'te Marie que est 9t'mia ex 
 p'te occnt'li p'te Navis ecciie Qtnet. 34. virgas 
 lati*^". ej's Qti'et 8 virgas 
 Et in qlbt latere s'nt fenestre magne 
 Et ex opposite s'cde fenestre ex p'te m'idio". 
 est in cimit'io due cruces lapidee concavate 
 ubi ossa Arthuri regis recondebat' ubi in linea 
 bifurcata jacet Jh'o ab Arimathea. 
 
18 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 
 
 shews that it was identical with the present chapel of 
 St Joseph; and if more evidence be required, the coinci- 
 dence of the dimensions will supply it. For Worcester's 
 measure gives 102 feet long by 24 broad, and the interior 
 is actually 109 by 24 mean. 
 
 The length being measured from one end to the other 
 also shews that when "Worcester measured it, it was 
 thrown into one apartment as at present. 
 
 After the Reformation, the ruins and history of Glas- 
 tonbury occupy many writers. Camden, in his Britannia 
 (1607), amongst other things, quotes from Giraldus the 
 finding of King Arthur's tomb, but not a word of the 
 state of the ruins, or of St J oseph. But Hollar, in the 
 first edition of the Moiiasticon, 1655, engraves views and 
 a plan of the ruins, in which the western chapel is lettered 
 Josephi sacellum. Mr Ray, in his Itinerary, 1662, rode 
 to Glastonbury, and ^^saw Joseph of Arimathea's Tomb 
 and Chapel at the End of the Church, &c." p. 261. 
 
 Hearne gives an excellent anonymous History of 
 Glastonbury, known however to have been written by 
 Mr Ey ton, 1 7 1 6, a Boman Catholic. He tells us that 
 ^' St Joseph's chapel was so called , not that it was dedi- 
 cated to him, but because St Joseph built itT p. 24. 
 
 Stukeley, in his Itinerary, p. 153, gives drawings and 
 a plan, dated on the plate 17th Aug. 1723, and simply 
 terms the chapel in question, ^Hhe chapel of Joseph of 
 Arimathea, the patron and asserted founder of the whole. 
 This they say was the first Christian church in Britain. 
 The present work is about the third building on the 
 spot.'' It appears probable from this series of writers 
 that the name of Joseph's chapel had been popularly 
 fixed upon the Lady chapel even before the Reformation, 
 and it has retained it to the present time, as a most 
 curious record of the permanency of local superstition. 
 But the memoranda of Leland and Worcester shew that 
 
OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 19 
 
 the monks themselves termed it the chapel of St Mary ; 
 and from all existing documents, it is manifest that the 
 epithet Saint" was not prefixed at Glastonbury to the 
 name of J oseph of Arimathea until the 1 8th century. It 
 first occurs in Mr Eyton's history, as above, and is now 
 always employed in the name of this remarkable building \ 
 In Spelman's Concilia, Vol. i. page 20, there is given 
 the impression of an inscribed brass plate, which, as he 
 relates, was dug up at Glastonbury, and came into his 
 possession. The shape of the plate is an irregular octa- 
 gon with a prolongation below, and from each side a little 
 ear projects, with a hole through it, by means of which 
 the plate was anciently riveted to a stone pillar, as the 
 inscription testifies. The plate is covered by a Latin in- 
 scription in black letter, not later than the 14th century; 
 and Spelman has printed this inscription from the plate 
 itself, by using it as an engraver's plate. But as this 
 reverses the letters of the inscription, he has also given a 
 transfer from the impression on the opposite page, by 
 which the inscription is presented as it appeared on the 
 plate itself. 
 
 The inscription recites at length the visit of the first 
 missionaries, with Joseph of Arimathea at their head, 
 the miraculous dedication of the first church to the Yir- 
 
 1 A piece of indirect evidence to 
 the position of the Lady chapel is 
 contained in the following transac- 
 tion. When Savaricus was made bishop 
 of Wells (II 92 to 1206) he annexed 
 the abbey to the bishopric, assuming 
 the title of bishop of Glastonbury. 
 The papal confirmation of this trans- 
 action commands that "the bishop 
 shall have those houses near the ca- 
 pellam heatw Mariw, which belonged 
 to the abbot, with the inclosure by 
 the wall which extends from the 
 larder to the corner of the said cha- 
 
 pel, and he shall be allowed to make 
 his portal towards the market-place 
 of Glastonbury." Ad. Domerh. p. 42 1 • 
 This is clear evidence that the so- 
 called chapel of St Joseph is the 
 chapel of the Virgin, as the position 
 of a wall connecting the kitchen court 
 of the abbot, where the larder would 
 be, with the Joseph chapel is well 
 known. It is shewn at the bottom of 
 the plan Fig. i, extending from the 
 right, where the kitchen court is 
 pkced, and running within a few feet 
 of the west end of the chapel. 
 
 2—2 
 
20 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 
 
 gin, as revealed by the dream of St David, and the ad- 
 dition which he made to the first church, which is said 
 to have been hke a chancel projecting eastward. It then 
 proceeds as follows: '^Lest the place and magnitude of 
 the first church should by such augmentations be for- 
 gotten, this column was erected on a line passing through 
 the two eastern angles of that church, and protracted 
 southward, thus cutting off the aforesaid chancel. And 
 the length of the church was 60 feet westward from that 
 line. Its breadth 26 feet; and the distance from the 
 centre of this column, to the middle point between the 
 two said angles, is 48 feet." These dimensions are very 
 nearly those of the Norman chapel itself. Its length 
 inside is 55 feet, outside 64 feet, supposing its east wall 
 standing. Its breadth inside is 24 feet 6 inches, and 
 outside 32 feet 6 inches. 
 
 Evidently the plate was fixed to a stone pillar in the 
 old cemetery of the monks, on the south of St Joseph's 
 chapeP, and was possibly a second edition of an older 
 one that was perishing by age. The plate is now, I pre- 
 sume, lost^ I describe it simply as offering an example 
 of the care with which the monks fostered the traditions 
 of their church, and presented them to the multitude. 
 
 The pillar is alluded to in the preface added to John 
 Glaston's chronicle by a greatly subsequent writer 2, in 
 which the early legends are summed up. The writer, 
 after relating the addition of a chancel by St David, adds*, 
 
 ^ In the plan I have marked the ^ Printed in Hearne's Johii of 
 
 spot, 48 feet south from the centre of Glaston, and Dugdale's Monasticon. 
 the chapel, which would be the site ^ "Et ut semper nosceretur ubi 
 
 of the pillar. Capellse istse conjungebantur qusedam 
 
 2 Hearne says that in Mr Brough- piramis in parte septentrionali exte- 
 
 ton's time it was in the custody of rius et quidam gradus interius, et 
 
 Thomas Hewes, of the city of Wells, meridies linealiter eas abscindunt. 
 
 Hearne's Glastonbury, p. 118. Juxta quam lineam secundum quos- 
 
 Broughton's Age of Faith, Vol. i. cap. dam antiquorum jacet Sanctus Joseph 
 
 22, p. no. cum magna multitudine sanctorum." 
 
OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 21 
 
 ^^And that the point wliere this chancel joined the 
 church might be always known, a certain pyramid out- 
 side on the south, and a certain interior step within, 
 on the same meridian line, marked the division between 
 them. Near this line, according to certain ancient writers, 
 lies St Joseph with a great multitude of saints." This 
 writer appears to confound the meridian line with the 
 linea hifiircata. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF THE GREAT CHURCH FROM 1 1 84 
 TO THE SUPPRESSION OF THE MONASTERY. 
 
 The position and date of the church of St Mary being 
 fixed, we may proceed with the history of the new 
 ecclesigb major, or great church, of which, as we have seen, 
 the foundations were laid by the king's camerarius, 
 Radulphus, son of King Stephen, 400 feet in length and 
 80 feet in breadth. The chronicler Domerham goes on 
 to relate that, '^Persevering in the work continually he 
 spared no expense, for the king supplied the means when 
 the resources of Glastonbury failed. 
 
 ''In the foundations of the church were placed the 
 stones, not only of the great palace, built by Bishop 
 Henry, but of the entire wall which surrounded the court 
 of the monastery. 
 
 " Great part of the ecclesia major having been built, 
 the rest would have been beautifully completed had the 
 Lord prolonged the king's life. But alas, covetous death 
 snatched him away too hastily, and the monks, just re- 
 covering breath from their last misfortune, were smitten 
 with a heavier wound, for he died on the 6th of July, 
 1 189, after reigning for 35 years. 
 
 " He was succeeded by his son Pichard, whose war- 
 like tastes diverted his attention from the building of 
 Glastonbury church. Wherefore the work stopped, be- 
 
ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 23 
 
 cause no funds were forthcoming to pay the wages of the 
 workmen." 
 
 As the fire happened in 1184, the work had only pro- 
 ceeded for five years. The abbot at this period 
 A.D^ii89to ^^^g Henry de Soliaco, nephew of Henry II.; 
 
 but he lent not his hand to the work of re- 
 building, and quarrelled with the convent." The monks 
 therefore set about to raise money by the usual expedi- 
 ent of " sending preachers selected from their brethren 
 through various provinces with relics' and pontifical indul- 
 gences, to solicit alms for the carrying on of the work." 
 Thus says the historian. 
 
 It may be remarked in this place that the old 
 church of St Mary had preserved up to the time of 
 the fire the arrangements of the Saxon church. The 
 body of St Patrick (who died in 472) rested in a stone 
 pyramid at the south or right side of the altar, which 
 pyramid the historian tells us had been subsequently 
 plated handsomely with gold and silver. 
 
 St Gildas remained in front of the altar, as he was 
 buried beneath the pavement in 512. The martyr 
 St Indractus and his companions had been translated 
 hither by King Ina. The former was placed in a stone 
 pyramid at the left of the altar, the others buried under 
 the pavement. Beside these, a quantity of relics of 
 innumerable saints are mentioned which were placed 
 above the altar or elsewhere. When the fire happened, 
 Malmsbury expressly declares that it consumed the 
 greater part of the relics, a phrase which may be sup- 
 posed to include the latter class; for those which were 
 enclosed in tombs or buried under the pavement must 
 have escaped. There were also many shrines and relics 
 in the great Norman church which must have sufiered. 
 
 It was in perfect accordance with the practice of the 
 period at which this fire took place, that the monks 
 
24 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 
 
 • should remove the remains of these saints from their 
 tombs and from under the pavement, and place them in 
 coffers or shrines as they were called. Domerham ex- 
 pressly states that at this time/' that is to say, during 
 the reconstruction of the church, 'Hhe bodies of the 
 saints, Patrick, Indractus and Gildas, were dug up in the 
 vetusta ecclcsia, and placed in shrines;" which manifestly 
 admitted of being removed to make way for the work 
 of rebuilding, and also of being displayed at the proper 
 time for the attraction of offerings. 
 
 But sudden difficulties require extraordinary remedies, 
 and I have often had occasion to point out that in the 
 middle ages the raising of funds for the rebuilding of 
 churches, after great conflagrations or the sudden ruin of 
 a tower, has been promoted by the opportune production 
 of a new and attractive saint, or of some monkish marvel, 
 that served to direct popular attention to the church and 
 bring offerings to the treasury. 
 
 Accordingly it happens that at the very period we 
 are considering the monks produced the relics of St Dun- 
 stan, and the abbot disinterred King Arthur and his 
 queen. These afterwards ranked amongst the greatest 
 attraction and ornaments of the Abbey church. 
 
 I will relate the leading particulars concerning the 
 relics of St Dunstan on the authority of Malmsbury or 
 his interpolator ^ 
 
 The monks of Glastonbury asserted that, after the 
 Danish sack of Canterbury in loii, while that church 
 remained desolate for many years, a party was despatch- 
 ed from their monastery to steal the body of Dunstan. 
 They broke open his tomb, carried off his bones, his 
 ring, and other relics, and were received with great joy 
 on their return to Glastonbury. This translation, as 
 they termed it, took place in 1012. But when they 
 
 ^ Malmsbury, 301. 
 
OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 25 
 
 began to consider tlie case coolly, they perceived tliat 
 possibly, after the country had recovered its prosperity 
 and the church of Canterbury its authority, the Arch- 
 bishop might insist upon the restoration of the abstracted 
 relics. They therefore commissioned two of the older 
 brethren to undertake the deposit of the holy bones in 
 some secure place known only to themselves. This 
 secret to be handed over to another only when the last 
 possessor was on the point of death, so that one person 
 only should possess it until the time came when it could 
 be safely revealed. These trustees enclosed the bones in 
 a box with proper inscriptions, and hid it in a hole which 
 they dug under the pavement of the great church, near 
 the holy water at the right hand of the entrance, and 
 there it remained undisturbed for one hundred and 
 seventy-two years, as Malmsbury or his interpolator 
 declares. 
 
 But although the hiding-place was concealed, the pos- 
 session of these relics was not forgotten, for about a 
 century after these transactions the monks began to 
 boast that Dunstan was in their possession, and immedi- 
 ately a strong letter was written from Canterbury by 
 Edmer, reproaching them for their dishonesty, and ridi- 
 culing their pretensions, on the ground that fifty years 
 before, he himself had witnessed the translation of Dun- 
 stan's coffin inviolate, upon the occasion of the building 
 of Lanfranc's cathedral. This letter seems to have pro- 
 duced no result. 
 
 When the fire happened in 1184, and the monks 
 were dolefully collecting their scorched relics, and trying 
 to make the most of them, they became anxious to find 
 Dunstan. It soon appeared that the secret of the hiding- 
 place was known to most of the monks. Two, bolder 
 than the rest, raised the stone near the holy water-stoup 
 and found the box beneath, strongly bound with iron. 
 
26 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 
 
 The prior and convent assembled, the relics and the ring 
 were found, as well as the inscriptions, painted by those 
 who concealed the box, which declared the remains to be 
 those of St Dunstan. 
 
 The monks now took courage to produce the relics 
 for the first time to the world, and accordingly they 
 were placed in a shrine handsomely clothed with silver 
 and gold. The arm and forearm of St Oswald, king and 
 martyr, were enclosed in the shrine, which was removed 
 to the great church, and as Malmsbury's interpolator 
 states, great miracles and cures were wrought upon the 
 worshippers \ 
 
 That it was, up to the Reformation, one of the prin- 
 cipal shrines of the great church, is proved by the second 
 correspondence which took place between the authorities 
 of Canterbury and Glastonbury upon the subject, in the 
 1 6 th century I This throws so much light upon the 
 nature and intensity of relic worship in the middle ages, 
 that I will extract some particulars from it. 
 
 A formal scrutiny of the shrine of St Dunstan was 
 made at Canterbury in 1508 in presence of Archbishop 
 "Warham and Prior Goldston. They report to the Abbot 
 of Glastonbury that their shrine contained all the prin- 
 cipal bones, and as much of the body as could possibly 
 have remained entire after so many centuries, besides a 
 leaden plate bearing the name of the saint and other 
 matters. Also that it exhibited no appearance of having 
 been ever opened. The archbishop therefore requires the 
 abbot and rest of the convent to abandon their pretensions 
 to the possession of St Dunstan, and no longer to offer 
 the relics for the adoration of the people. The Abbot of 
 Glastonbury (Bere) replies, amongst other things, that if 
 
 ^ I have condensed the above his- ham, 336. J. Glaston, 1 80. 
 tory of St Dunstan's rehes from ^ Anglia Sacra, Vol. 11. pp. 222 — ■ 
 Malmsbury's Chronicle, 304. Domer- 233. 
 
OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 27 
 
 any bones remain in the shrine of Canterbury, they must 
 have been left behind by those who removed the rehcs 
 to Glastonbury; and declares that for more than two 
 hundred years the shrine of their patron St Dunstan has 
 been set up in the church under the sanction and au- 
 thority of the Bishop of the Diocese, with power to re- 
 move it from place to placed That yearly, on the feast 
 of their patron, all the parishioners, laying aside domestic 
 work, keep holiday, and come to the abbey church, both 
 men and women, with the greatest veneration. And 
 should any one refuse to do so, and continue to attend 
 to his work or affairs, nothing prospers with him in that 
 year, and grave injury results to his property and his 
 family. And this, he declares, perpetually happens. 
 Whoever, he adds, saw the earnest concourse of people 
 daily supplicating at this shrine with bare feet, and gar- 
 ments cast aside, would say, ^^Let them alone, lest haply 
 
 we be found even to fight against God^" The reply of 
 
 the Archbishop, after enlarging in strong terms upon the 
 indecent phenomenon of two churches claiming respec- 
 tively the possession of the body of the same saint, de- 
 clares that unless the Abbot transmits to him before All 
 Saints' Day, evidences to satisfy him of the genuineness 
 of these relics, the strongest legal measures shall be put 
 in action to terminate this scandal. 
 
 I will now, without stopping to discuss doubtful points, 
 simply relate the leading parts of the history of the disin- 
 terment of King Arthur s remains, as I gather them from 
 the best authorities^. 
 
 It happened that King Henry the Second, on occa- 
 sion of his expedition for the conquest of Ireland^, em- 
 
 ^ An inventory of the bones in the 
 shrine of St Dunstan at Glastonbury, 
 is in the Cotton MS. Titus, D. vii, i, 
 and printed by Hearne. 
 
 2 Acts V. 38, 39. 
 Vide Leland's Assertio Arturii. 
 
 ^ A,D. 1 171. 
 
28 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 
 
 barked with his army from Milford Haven. But while 
 waiting at Menevia (St David's) for that purpose, he was 
 entertained at his feasts, after the manner of the country, 
 by the songs of the Bards with their harps. 
 
 One, the most learned of these, sang the praises and 
 history of the renowned King Arthur, comparing him 
 with the future conqueror before whom he stood, who lost 
 not a word, but listened with the most intense gratifica- 
 tion and pleasure, and dismissed the Bard with a munifi- 
 cent reward. 
 
 From him he learnt the traditional particulars of 
 Arthur's mortal wound at the battle of Kamlen in Corn- 
 walP, and how he was conveyed by water to the monas- 
 tery of Avalonia, and buried near the old church there, 
 in a wooden coffin, deep in the ground. Also, that the 
 spot was marked by two pyramids richly sculptured, and 
 set up to his memory. 
 
 The king earnestly pressed upon his nephew Henry 
 de Soliaco, then, or soon after, abbot of Glastonbury, the 
 importance of removing the remains of King Arthur to a 
 more honourable position, within the church, in accord- 
 ance with the ideas and practice of that time. But it 
 was at the beginning of the reign of Bichard I.^ that the 
 abbot, on a certain day, commanded the place indicated 
 between the pyramids, to be surrounded with curtains 
 and excavated. Everything happened in accordance with 
 the legends of the British Bard. They dug sixteen feet 
 downwards, and then came to a wooden sarcophagus of 
 enormous size, made out of a hollowed oak. 
 
 When raised to the surface and opened, its cavity was 
 found to be divided into two parts. The one which occu- 
 
 ^ This event took place in the Cronica Persorana, and is the most 
 
 middle of the sixth century, c. 543. consistent with the history of the 
 
 2 1 191 is the date given by Wend- abbey, 
 over and Matthew Paris, and the 
 
OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 29 
 
 pied two-thirds of the length from the head, contained the 
 bones of a man of immense stature, so great, that the leg- 
 bone, or tibia, set upright on the ground, reached to the 
 middle of the thigh of a tall living man. 
 
 In the shorter cavity were deposited the- bones of a 
 female, supposed to be those of his queen Ginevra; and 
 there was seen a tress of flaxen hair, preserving its form 
 and colour. But a certain monk snatching at this too 
 hastily, in the attempt to raise it from its recess, it imme- 
 diately fell to dust. 
 
 They also found a leaden cross with a Latin inscrip- 
 tion, declaring that " Here lies buried, in the island Ava- 
 LONiA, the renowned King Arthur." 
 
 The relics were removed to the great church, built by 
 Henry II., and placed in a chapel in the south aisle, 
 through which is a passage to the almery^ Afterwards 
 they were transferred to a black marble mausoleum, divided 
 within into two parts, as in the original receptacle. The 
 king's relics at the head of the tomb, the queen's at the 
 foot, towards the east. This was placed in the middle of 
 the presbytery; and finally, in 1276, Edward I. and his 
 queen visited Glastonbury, and the sarcophagus was 
 opened for their inspection. The separated bones of the 
 king, of marvellous magnitude, were seen. The sepulchre 
 was ordered to be placed before the high altar. The 
 skulls of the king and queen to remain outside for the 
 devotion of the people. Leland saw the tomb at the 
 latter end of the 15th century. 
 
 Malmsbury (p. 306) mentions the burial of Arthur 
 
 ^ The words employed by the monk and as this would be deposited in the 
 
 of Glastonbury, quoted by Leland in almonry, or eleemosynaria, of the 
 
 reference to this first place of deposit, monastery, the word may be fairly 
 
 are "Porticus ad meridiem est, et translated ^Zmonr?/ or a?m^r?/. This 
 
 sacellum, quo itur in gazophylaciumr monastic office was always placed close 
 
 Assertio Arturii, p. 55- Gazophy- to the entrance gate of the curia or 
 
 lacium is, properly, the chest in which outer court, 
 alms to be given to the poor are kept, 
 
30 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 
 
 and his queen between two pyramids in the monks' 
 cemetery, which Worcester saw on the south side of 
 the chapel'. But Malmsbury describes two other pyra- 
 mids^, which, he says, stand several feet distant from 
 the vetusta ecclesia, and in front of the monks' cemetery. 
 The nearest to the church is 26 feet, the other 18 feet, 
 high ; and he describes their ornaments and unintelligible 
 inscriptions. He professes entire ignorance of the origin 
 of these pyramids and their meaning, but suggests that 
 they contain bones deposited in cavities within the stones ; 
 and that the words inscribed upon them, are the names 
 of the persons. 
 
 We may now return to the large church, great part of 
 which was built, as we have seen, when King Henry died 
 in 1 189, and the monks were driven to their wits' end to 
 
 raise money for completing it. This was dedi- 
 ^32/^°^*° cated in the time of Abbot Galfridus Fromond, 
 
 and must therefore have been roofed in and 
 completed in all essential parts. 
 
 Walter de Tantonia, his successor, died eleven days 
 after he was consecrated abbot. He was previously prior. 
 
 He made the "pulpitiim (or choir screen) of the church, 
 with ten images, and set up the great rood with the cru- 
 cifix, Mary and John^" This must have been done when 
 he was prior, and probably before the dedication, as neces- 
 sary for the completion of the fittings of the church. 
 Leland notes that he was buried in the transept before 
 the crucifix," that is to say, in front of his work, as was 
 very usual. 
 
 AD 1322 "^^^ ^^^^ abbot, Adam de Sodbury, '^vaulted 
 to 1335- nearly the whole of the nave, and ornamented it 
 
 1 p. 17, above. chapel. He mistook them for Arthur's 
 
 2 Part of them were standing in pyramids (or stone crosses, as they 
 Whitaker'stime( 1 777), on the edge of are now termed), Life of St Neot, 
 the burial-ground, a few feet from p. 35. 1809. 
 
 the north-west angle of St Joseph's J. Glaston, 250. 
 
OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 31 
 
 with splendid painting." He was buried in the nave, 
 also under his work. ^' He gave the great clock, which 
 was remarkable for its processions and spectacles V after 
 the manner of that period. Leland records the po- 
 sition of the clock, at the south part of the transept, and 
 the inscription on it : Petrus Lightfote, monachus, fecit 
 hoc opus," which gives the maker's name. The clock 
 itself, or rather great part of its automatic mechanism, 
 is in Wells cathedral to this day, whither it was trans- 
 ferred after the fall of Glastonbury; this automatic 
 clock is the oldest on record as a clock, self-striking 
 hours with a count wheel, the next being Walingford s, 
 at St Alban's, 1326 to 1334, and the next the Horloge 
 du Palais at Paris, made by a German, Henri de Vic, 
 in 1370. 
 
 This abbot also gave organs of wondrous magnitude 
 and endowed the Lady chapel with four additional priests, 
 of which more below. He also decorated the high altar 
 with an image of the Virgin in a tabernacle of the 
 highest workmanship ^ 
 
 The eastern part of the church, according to this 
 history, appears to have been now completed for service, 
 but was soon subjected to alterations and improvements, 
 for the record of which we are indebted to Leland alone, 
 for although John Glaston's Chronicle is continued down 
 to the year 1493, it contains no allusions to the works in 
 question. 
 
 \^ Leland says, writing in Latin, that Abbot 
 
 to 1374- "Walter Monington, buried in the choir, made the 
 vault of the choir and presbytery, and enlarged the 
 
 1 " Magnum horologmm processio- 
 nibus et spectaculis insigiiitum et 
 organa mirse magnitudinis in eadem 
 (Bcclesia) constmxit." J. Glaston, 
 263. 
 
 2 Mr Warner (xciv.) refers to this 
 passage as authority for asserting that 
 he built the Lady chapel 90 feet long 
 at the east end of the church. 
 
32 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 
 
 length of the presbytery by two archest This is 
 another example of a benefactor buried in the place of 
 his work. 
 
 In a subsequent page we find— ^' There be vj goodly 
 windows in the top of eche side of the Est part of the 
 Chirch. There were 4 of old Time sins 2 addid and 
 the Presbyterie enlonggid by Gualter Monington Ab- 
 bate." William of Worcester confirms this, by a note 
 that '^in each part of the choir are six great high win- 
 dows, glazed... and in each side of the aisles of the 
 choir 8 windows." 
 
 A.D. 1493 No other works about the church are men- 
 to 1524. tioned till we pass over more than a century, to 
 Abbot Richard Beere. Leland's visit to this abbey was 
 made, as he tells us^^ in the time of Beere's successor, 
 Richard Whyting, the last abbot, and he records his 
 works in the following memoranda : 
 
 "Abbate Beere buildid Edgares Chapel at the Est 
 End of the Chirch but Abbate Whiting performed sum 
 part of it. 
 
 " Bere Archid on bothe sides the Est part of the 
 Church that began to cast out. 
 
 ^' Bere made the Volte o the Steple in the Transepto 
 and under 2 Arches like S. Andres Crosse els it had 
 fallen. 
 
 Bere made a rich Altare of Sylver and Gilt and set 
 it afore the High Altare. 
 
 Bere cumming from his Embassadrie out of Italie 
 made a Chapelle of our Lady de Loretta joining to the 
 north side of the Body of the church. 
 
 He made the Chapelle of the Sepulcher in the South 
 
 1 These are the words of the ori- et aiixit loiigit. Presbyterii 2. Arcu- 
 
 ginal Latin, vide Leland's Itinerary, bus." 
 
 Vol. III. fol. 85, &c.: "Gualterus ^ yj^jg ^is account of the discovery 
 
 Monington in Choro Abbas Glaston. of the MS. of Melkin in the library at 
 
 Hie fecit Voltam Chori et Presbyterii Glastonbury, p. 16, above. 
 
OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 33 
 
 End Navis Eccl. whereby he is buried suh piano mar- 
 more yn the South Isle of the Bodies of the Church\" 
 
 Thus ends the recorded history of the building of the 
 great church. It was rich in monuments and saints. In 
 the presbytery the monument of King Arthur and his 
 queen was placed in front of the high altar, with King 
 Edmund the Elder on the north side, and Edmund 
 Ironside on the south, as founders of the church. King 
 Edgar, another founder, had a chapel allotted to him, 
 apparently at the east end, for he was a saint, and his 
 bones were translated to a shrine. 
 
 The dedications of the chapels have been lost, but we 
 may suppose that they were appropriated to St Dunstan, 
 St Patrick, St Benignus, St Gildas, and the other saints, 
 to whose entire bodies the history of the abbey lays claim. 
 
 The monuments of benefactors to the works of build- 
 ing and ornamentation are remarkable, as I have en- 
 deavoured to shew, for the numerous examples they 
 present of being placed in contiguity with the works 
 themselves. 
 
 ^ Leland also found a lectern of operis ex dono Eichardi Bere, Abbatis 
 his gift in the choir, " Lectura antiqui Glaston." 
 
 3 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 STRUCTURAL HISTORY AND DESCRIPTION OF THE GREAT 
 
 CHURCH. 
 
 Having now collected all the documentary information 
 that belongs to the construction and alteration of the 
 great church, I will proceed to apply it in illustration of 
 the plan and arrangement of the building itself, of which 
 unfortunately so few fragments remain. When the 
 chronicler Domerham speaks of the fire, he declares that 
 it consumed the whole monastery and the church, 
 reducing them to a heap of ashes. This expression is 
 to be understood as applying to the burning of the roofs 
 and wood-work of the buildings, and the general deso- 
 lation which an extensive conflagration produces, the 
 stone-walls escaping either unhurt or suffering only to a 
 certain extent from calcination. For in other cases where 
 a church and all its monastic offices are said to have been 
 utterly consumed, as at Worcester^ in 1202, abundant 
 remains exist of Norman work to shew that the fire did 
 not essentially damage the walls. And in this example 
 at Glastonbury it is simply said that when the king's 
 camerarius came down after the fire he " repaired all the 
 offices." We hear no more of them till the fourteenth 
 century, when the cloister and its chapter-house, dormi- 
 
 ^ Vide my Arch. Hist, of Worcester^ ATchceological Journal, Vol. xx. 
 
ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 35 
 
 tory, refectory, &c. were rebuilt. But the " cliurcli," under 
 which term the vetusta ecclesia and major ecclesia are 
 included, was dealt with in a manner due to royal 
 devotion and magnificence. We have seen that the 
 vetusta ecclesia was built from the foundations on its old 
 site, complete, and in the richest and most substantial 
 style of that time. But the great church was laid out, 
 apparently, without the least respect to the plan of the 
 old one, excepting, perhaps, its western boundary, and 
 on the highest scale of magnitude. 
 
 "We have not a fragment remaining to shew the 
 extent of the first Norman church, and may therefore 
 dismiss it altogether, conjecturing only that part of its 
 nave was possibly roofed in and fitted up for the use of 
 the monks during the construction of the new church^, 
 which, of course, was commenced at the east end and 
 carried on westward, and, as we have seen, was not 
 dedicated till after 1303, 119 years after its commence- 
 ment. As the plan shews, it was a cruciform church, 
 square ended, the nave contained ten severies, the eastern 
 arm of the cross four severies, at first, augmented to six 
 in the latter half of the fourteenth century. The tran- 
 septs had three severies each, two of which had chapels 
 projecting eastward, and the third opened to the aisle of 
 the choir as usual. But these chapels have the pecu- 
 liarity, that they consist of two compartments each, or in 
 other words, as the plan will shew, that the transept has 
 an eastern aisle and chapels of one compartment beyond 
 that. 
 
 It may be remarked that the mother church of Wells, 
 set out after the above was commenced, has the same 
 number of severies in the nave and transepts. But the 
 eastern arm had but three, augmented to six, in the first 
 
 1 Domerham has informed us that Robert's chapel uumediately after the 
 the monks took refuge in Abbot fire (vide p. 1 1, above). 
 
 3—2 
 
86 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 
 
 half of the fourteenth century, which, perhaps, induced 
 the Glastonians to enlarge their own choir about the 
 same time. Wells, however, has western aisles to the 
 transepts, but no chapels projecting from their eastern 
 aisles. 
 
 There is no evidence to shew whether or no this 
 church had western towers. It is not probable that 
 these members were omitted. "Worcester mentions an 
 entrance porch of large dimensions \ which I imagine 
 was placed in a similar position to that of Wells, on the 
 north side of the nave, and therefore opposite to the 
 principal gate of the abbey, which Hollar places on the 
 north of the cemetery of the laity, and at the end of 
 a short lane opening from the great street at a point 
 facing the parish church of St John. A small chapel 
 through which was the passage to the " gazophylacium " 
 or almery, is mentioned as the place where the remains 
 of King Arthur were deposited at first. 
 
 Only two severies remain to shew us a specimen of 
 the design of the central parts of this great church. 
 These are on the east side of the transepts, both in similar 
 but opposite positions, and each including one of the tower 
 piers. Not one of the ordinary piers remains either in 
 nave or choir. But the general plan of the latter piers 
 can be obtained by inference from the great tower pier 
 and from the north-west respond of the nave. The 
 transept severy has in its lower story the pier arch 
 which gives entrance to the end of the side aisle. Above 
 is a triforium and a clerestory; the clerestory has one 
 
 ^ "Porticus introitus ad magnam on the ruin of the eastern tower 
 
 ecclesiam ; continet ejus longitudo vi- piers, shew that the triforium of the 
 
 dehcet 1 5 virgas et latitude 8 virgas." choir was lower than in the transept, 
 
 The great thickness of the side- and consequently the clerestory 
 
 aisle walls indicates a high trifo- higher. Wells also has thick side- 
 
 rium, and the roof lines that remain aisle walls. 
 
OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 37 
 
 large window, and in front of it the usual triple arcade, 
 consisting of a high, wide, stilted pointed arch, with a 
 low narrow pointed one on each side. The gallery passage 
 passes between the window and arcade as usual. But 
 the shafts which commonly support this arcade are not 
 employed. The arch moldings here are continuous. 
 
 The fragment of the south side-aisle wall of the choir, 
 which is still standing, is shewn in elevation, fig. 2, and 
 its plan in fig. i from X to F. In the elevation the 
 numerals correspond to those in the plan. These 
 drawings shew that the aisle included eight severies 
 from the tower pier A at the west end to the east wall 
 at G. The first severy (i, 2, fig. 2) reckoning from the 
 west, contains a pier arch opening to the transept chapels 
 H, I (fig. i), which were possibly employed as vestries 
 on this side of the church. The second contains a window, 
 which is skewed aside to avoid the chapel on the south 
 of it, as the plan shews. 
 
 The next four severies, which extend to i), have a 
 window each. The last two from D to F are separated 
 from the former by two respond piers at D, very near 
 together (7, 8 in the elevation), indicating that opposite 
 to them was a thick terminating east wall Fe, the gable 
 of the choir. Such a pair, for example, occur at Sher- 
 borne in the same position. 
 
 The last two severies hke the others are provided 
 with windows, but the wall is thinner, and manifestly 
 belongs to a later style. Yet the windows themselves 
 are exactly the same as those of the earher wall CX. 
 Turning to the elevation we find that the responds 
 7, 8, 9 differ from the earlier ones i to 5. All of them 
 consist of a triple group of shafts, but the earher shafts 
 are plain cylinders, the three later have a sharp vertical 
 edge or keel upon them and their bases have high cylin- 
 drical plinths with the same keel. But the earher shafts 
 
38 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 
 
 I to 5 have their bases set upon thin semi-octagon plinths 
 which rest on the bench table, like those of the side-aisle 
 wall of the nave and Norman chapel. 
 
 The later bases are found along the east wall Ff 
 (fig. i). The capitals of the responds from i to 7 (fig. 2) 
 have the semi-octagon abacus with foliage forming one 
 bushy capital common to the three shafts of the triple 
 group below it, although the neck mold follows the plan 
 of the shafts. 
 
 But the capitals of 8, 9 have the abacus composed 
 of separate portions appropriated to the three shafts, so 
 that the foliage and abacus combine with the neck mold 
 in representing a group of three united capitals. The 
 moldings of the abacus are also much later in style. 
 
 The wall from 2 to 6 has a bench table, upon which 
 the bases of the responds stand, but this table extends 
 only eight or nine feet beyond 6 and is then cut ofi*. 
 
 Now these appearances are quite consistent with the 
 written history, which tells us that Abbot Monington 
 elongated the choir. The choir had four high windows 
 at first," and, consequently, four pier arches below, which 
 (vide plan) extended from A to B. Bh is therefore the 
 place of the original high east gable of the choir. 
 
 But as the original side-aisle wall extends two severies 
 farther to it is plain that this old choir, like those of 
 all the great churches of this period, had the side aisle 
 continued behind the eastern gable, so as to connect the 
 north and south aisles into a procession path, and that 
 there were chapels projecting from this procession path 
 eastward. The procession aisle extended from C to c, 
 and the line Dd is the position of the east wall of the 
 chapels, so that the last severy (6, 7, fig. 2) of the side 
 wall was the side of the south chapel. 
 
 "When Monington added two arches {B to fig. i) 
 on each side to the length of the choir his new eastern 
 
OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 39 
 
 gable was placed at Ee, and the old side aisle and chapel 
 wall CD served the purpose of a side-aisle wall to his 
 new pier arches. 
 
 But beyond these he erected a new procession path 
 and chapels in the space DdfF, apparently exactly on the 
 same plan as those he had pulled down to make room 
 for the extension of the presbytery. 
 
 It must be observed in fig. 2, that the capitals of all 
 the responds from i to 5 are at the same level, and that 
 those from 6 to 9 (and of course 10, which has disap- 
 peared in ruin) are three feet higher. 
 
 The change of elevation is made at 5. The capital of 
 every one of the responds receives on its abacus three 
 separate vault ribs of the side-aisle vaults; namely, one 
 transverse rib in the centre and one diagonal rib on each 
 side of it. The wall ribs of the vaults of Glastonbury 
 pass down from the apex of the wall continuously, until 
 they reach the string mold under the windows, and there 
 the wall rib mitres like a picture-frame and runs horizon- 
 tally above it. 
 
 At the change of elevation on the abacus of 5 a small 
 shaft is provided on the east side of the transverse rib, 
 with a small capital which receives the diagonal rib of 
 the compartment 5, 6. The molding of this little shaft 
 is of the same section as the rib\ 
 
 According to the explanation I have given, the wall 
 from I to 5 was opposite to the oldest pier arches. 
 The severy 5, 6 was the south end of the procession 
 path, and 6, 7 part of the side wall of a chapel. It 
 must be supposed therefore that this increase of eleva- 
 tion in the shafts was intended to give greater loftiness 
 
 1 In the compartment i, 2, the 
 wall rib after descending, like the 
 others to the level of the window sill, 
 
 again rises to pass over the pier arch, 
 as the drawing shews. 
 
40 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 
 
 of character to the chapels, and to the procession path 
 which led to and extended in front of them. 
 
 No change takes place in the height of the arches, 
 the apexes are exactly at the same level from one end 
 to the other of the series in the elevation (fig. 2). Con- 
 sequently the ridges of the side-aisle vaults were of the 
 same elevation throughout the side aisles. 
 
 The only remains of the east wall Ff (fig. i) of the 
 chapels are two fragments, three or four feet high, shewn 
 by the dark shade upon the plan. One of these retains 
 (at Gu) a portion of the eastern part of one of the dividing 
 walls of the chapels, shewing its parallel face above the 
 string course, exactly in the manner of the dividing wall 
 between the chapels L of the north transept, and of 
 the narrow space between the two respond piers at D. 
 
 There are distinct traces of the attachment of altars 
 to the wall at the places marked with + . 
 
 These evidences are sufficient to shew that a series of 
 chapels existed at the east end of the church, similar to 
 those at X, K, I, H, on the east sides of the transepts. 
 
 The only doubtful point to be decided is whether the 
 number of chapels was four or five, or in other words, 
 whether two or three chapels were placed between G 
 and g. I have introduced three for the following reasons. 
 
 It happens that in Wild's plan of the ruins made in 
 181 3, he has inserted at %o and x 'Hhe bases of two 
 pillars of singular form and situation, probably part of 
 the crypt," as he says^ 
 
 These pillars, evidently exposed at the time of his 
 visit, consist of a respond, with a portion of wall project- 
 ing eastward, and evidently the same as the partition 
 walls of the transept chapels K, Z, or as the partition wall 
 Gu, when it was complete. 
 
 They stand also exactly in the line opposite to the 
 
 * Britton's Arch. Antiquities^ Vol. iv. p. 195. 
 
OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 41 
 
 respond t, or x of my plan. I have no doubt that these 
 were the foundations of the separating walls, and that 
 they therefore shew the number of chapels between 
 G and g to have been three. 
 
 • But William of Worcester, describing the arrange- 
 ments to the east of the altar of Glastonbury writes, 
 In orientali parte altar is Glastonie. Spacium de le rere- 
 des ex parte orientali magne altaris sunt 5 columpnse seria- 
 tim et inter quamlibet columpnam est capella cum altare. 
 
 Et spacium capellae in longitudine continet 5 virgas, 
 Et spacium interceptum inter capellas et le reredes con- 
 tinet similiter 5 virgas." 
 
 The reredos manifestly was erected against the piers 
 of the eastern gable wall Ee; and he, describing the 
 arrangement of the space behind it, tells us that there 
 are five columns in a row, and alternating with each 
 column is a chapel with an altar." 
 
 The columns must be the six responds t, u, iv, &c., 
 and the passage as written would give five responds 
 and four chapels between them. 
 
 But the position of the altar between u and w of my 
 plan, and the foundations preserved in Wild's plan, 
 appear so strongly to prove that there were five chapels, 
 that I am led to the conclusion that Worcester has fallen 
 into a mistake which he is very apt to commit, namely, 
 when counting the number of arches in an arcade, to set 
 down the pillars as equal in number with the arches. 
 
 According to my own measurements, the width of 
 the chapels t, u and y, z, at the end of the aisles, and 
 taken between the walls, is 14 feet 6 inches\ The dis- 
 tance from the face of the partition y to that of u is 
 
 1 The dimensions which Worcester with the actual measure, as nearly 
 
 gives for the length of the chapels, as usual ; for the length from the 
 
 5 yards, and 5 yards for the breadth corner at F to the respond at D is 
 
 of aisle behind the reredos, agree 31ft. 3 in. 
 
42 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 
 
 38 feet 10 inches. The thickness of the partition walls 
 is 2 feet 10 inches. This distance will allow of a central 
 chapel 14 feet in breadth, and of two lateral chapels of 
 9 feet 7 inches in breadths 
 
 It is probable that, as at Wells, the choir gable was 
 sustained by three equal pier arches, and the vault ribs 
 springing from these to the three unequal arches that 
 opened to the chapels would produce an effect of intri- 
 cacy of the same kind. 
 
 Unfortunately the practice in respect to these ruins 
 until the beginning of this century and later was always 
 to remove not merely the wrought stones, but also to 
 eradicate the foundations. And although the remains 
 have been for many years protected from this kind of 
 destruction, there is no hope left of recovering any 
 details of plan by excavations. Happily for the inte- 
 rests of archaeology the present proprietor Mr Austin is 
 an ardent admirer of these magnificent and beautiful 
 fragments of antiquity, and spares no pains to preserve 
 them from further mutilation. 
 
 A strong double buttress is placed on the south side 
 of the wall at and of course a similar one was on 
 the north at d. They were employed to receive flying 
 buttresses from the great gable Ee which terminated the 
 choir. Such a pair of flying buttresses are in the same 
 position at Winchester, with long buttresses below, and 
 serve to resist the thrust of the great arched window of 
 the gable. 
 
 Two other buttresses are at G and at the east end 
 of Glastonbury, and received flying buttresses from the 
 east ends of the clerestory at right angles to the former 
 
 ^ In Borromeo's rules the breadth If the space Gg at the east end of the 
 
 of the side chapels of naves are said choir were divided into two chapels, 
 
 to be from 9 ft, 7 in. to 1 5 ft. The width their width would be 1 8 ft. 
 of the transept chapels at ^is 16 ft. 
 
OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 43 
 
 pair. A similar pair may also be seen at the end of 
 Winchester choir. Leland's note,, which tells us that 
 Abbot Bere arched on both sides the east part of the 
 church that began to cast out or lean outwards, appa- 
 rently refers to these buttresses. 
 
 This abbot also introduced arches under the great 
 tower arches to prevent them from giving way. The 
 term St Andrew's Cross, which Leland applies to them, 
 shews that they were like those at Wells in the same 
 position under the tower arches; consisting namely of 
 a low pointed arch with an inverted arch above, form- 
 ing a figure at the meeting of their apices resembling 
 the cross of St Andrew. 
 
 As Bere is also said to have built Edgar's chapel at 
 the east end of the church, it is probable that this 
 chapel was one of those that we are considering, and 
 that Bere fitted it up, and completed it. 
 
 The complete eradication of the east wall of the 
 church in the centre may be accounted for by supposing 
 that the central chapel projected eastward, as I have 
 shewn in the plan, and that this chapel was Edgars; 
 for if it had been only one of the ordinary chapels, it 
 would not have been worth mentioning as a distinct 
 building. 
 
 Fragments of the respond, pier arch, and triforium, 
 as well as the entire lower part of the jamb of a cleres- 
 tory window, still adhere to the eastern faces of the 
 tower pier, especially the southern one. From these it 
 appears that a Perpendicular facing had been given by 
 Monington to the old triforium and clerestory when he 
 elongated the choir. This consists simply of tiers of 
 panelHng, beginning from the spandrels of the pier 
 arches. 
 
 As far as I was able to observe, the string mold of 
 the choir windows within is at the same level as that of 
 
44 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 
 
 the nave. But the stone bench of the choir is 7 feet 
 below that string, and that of the nave 10 feet 7 inches. 
 Thus the pavement of the side aisle of the choir is 3 feet 
 7 inches above that of the nave. The nave is 6 feet above 
 the Early English galilee, which height is divided into 
 13 steps, at 5^ inches to each step. 
 
 A tolerably level grass-plot now occupies the eastern 
 ruin, extending beyond the tower arch. The nave is 
 occupied by another at a lower level. The boundary of 
 the two is a well-defined slope, like the edge of a terrace, 
 with rustic steps in the middle, built up of the voussoirs 
 of the crypt of St Joseph's chapel. This terrace slope is 
 placed on the line hh in the plan. It may be inferred 
 that the transept pavement was all on the higher level 
 when the church was complete. 
 
 CoUinson, the historian of Somersetshire, writes^, that 
 ''under the body of the church there were three large 
 vaults, supported by strong massive pillars, in which were 
 entombed many corpses of the most illustrious persons." 
 By the hody of a church is generally understood the nave. 
 But it is possible that Collinson did not use the word 
 strictly in that sense. These vaults belonged, of course, 
 to a crypt, the position and history of which cannot be 
 inferred from so meagre a notice. This crypt may either 
 have been a relic of the Norman church, or a part of 
 King Henry's church, or a late construction, like that 
 under the Lady chapel. The windows of the side aisles 
 of the choir are of the pointed Norman type throughout. 
 Their escoinson arches within are ornamented with zigzag 
 work of the late intricate kind, in which straight lines 
 alternate with the angles, thus : — y — y — . These occur 
 in the north porch of Wells Cathedral. In the south 
 w^all of the presbytery aisle three different patterns of this 
 class, distributed in successive order, are used in the six 
 
 ^ Vol. II. p. 259. 
 
OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 45 
 
 remaining window heads. Unfortunately, tlie eastern- 
 most is utterly ruined. 
 
 To judge from the remains of the transept and its 
 chapels, zigzag was profusely given to the pier arches, 
 and even to the triforium of these portions of the church. 
 
 Four of the side-aisle windows of the nave remain on 
 the south side at iV, O, P, Q, in the plan. The escoinson 
 arches of these windows are not pointed as in the choir, 
 but are roundheaded, like those of St Joseph's chapel; 
 and the zigzag work is only given to the alternate ones, 
 as 0 and Q; the others have plain moldings. Only half 
 of the wall of the compartment Q remains, and this re- 
 tains the jamb of the cloister door-way below. The vault 
 shaft between P and Q has a springing stone with the 
 branching ends of vault ribs of a Decorated pattern, 
 shewing that the five compartments from P westward 
 were vaulted at a later period than the other five. This 
 is explained by the chronicle which states that 
 A^D. 1322— ^Y^^ Abbot Adam de Sodbury vaulted the greater 
 'part of the nave\ This was after the dedi- 
 cation of 1303. 
 
 The windows of this wall opened above the cloister 
 roof, their sills are consequently raised higher than those 
 of the choir, and the outer archheads which received the 
 glass are raised much higher than the crown of the inner 
 or escoinson arches, and are of the pointed form. This 
 compensates for the higher window sills by enabling the 
 light to slant downwards to the roundheaded archheads 
 w^ithin. 
 
 Although the nave, as far as the fragments shew, was 
 completed with the same details as the east end of the 
 
 ^ Page 30, above. The Norman 
 cloister was rebuilt by Abbot Chinok 
 (1374 to 1420), and the toothings of 
 
 the flying buttresses that spanned 
 the roof of the cloister still remain. 
 
46 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 church, the case is different with the west front, of which 
 the central door, and a portion of the walls, remain. This 
 is in fully developed Early English of its later character, 
 and thus far Wells and Glastonbury resemble each other ; 
 for, as I have shewn^, Wells nave was carried on in the 
 original style westward to the end, although that style 
 was in disuse elsewhere. But the west front was built 
 in connexion with it, in the Early English of the period 
 of its erection. 
 
 At Glastonbury, the west end was also provided 
 with a galilee in the style of this front, by which the 
 Norman Lady chapel was united to the great church. 
 
 Thus, the isolated buildings which were commenced 
 at the west end by the Norman chapel, and then abruptly 
 recommenced at the east end of the great church, were 
 then carried on westward, until at its junction with the 
 first work, the late style was brought into contact and 
 contrast with the first style. 
 
 1 In a Lecture given at Wells to shire Archaeological Society, of which 
 the Archaeological Institute in 185 1, an abstract is given in their Volume 
 and later in 1863 to the Somerset- for that year. 
 
CHAPTEE V. 
 ST Joseph's chapel. 
 
 I WILL now return to the Norman chapel and the Early 
 English addition by which it was united to the great 
 church, which collectively bear the name of St Joseph's 
 chapel ; and will endeavour to describe the architectural 
 character of these two buildings and their purposes, as 
 well as the changes of arrangement that were made in them 
 in course of time; and lastly, the structural history of the 
 crypt. I have reserved these descriptions for the conclu- 
 sion of this Architectural History, because, notwithstand- 
 ing that the Norman chapel was built before the great 
 church, the Early English addition and the crypt followed 
 the completion, or was carried on simultaneously with the 
 changes of the church, and, consequently, their histories 
 should naturally be placed after the buildings of the 
 church have been thoroughly explained. 
 
 The Norman chapel as it was first built in 1184 was 
 an isolated rectangular edifice with a turret at each angle, 
 and it remained isolated until the Early EngHsh portion 
 was built, by which it became connected with the west 
 front about the middle of the thirteenth century. Subse- 
 quently the east Norman wall was pierced by a large arch, 
 the flat piers or pilasters of which remain, and shew its 
 exact position. 
 
 The style of decoration h florid, and the workman- 
 
48 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 
 
 ship admirable, fully justifying the assertion of the chroni- 
 cler that it was built of squared stones of the most 
 beautiful work and no possible ornament omitted^" 
 
 Its plan, apparently simple and regular, consisting of 
 four similar severies, presents upon close examination 
 some singular irregularities, which we will enquire into 
 presently. 
 
 Rich interlacing arcades with Purbeck shafts, ornament 
 the space beneath the windows within and without. Pur- 
 beck vault shafts in quadruple groups carried the vault 
 ribs. Their plinths rest on semi-octagon blocks or foot- 
 stalls, which project from the face of the stone bench. 
 
 Two richly carved Norman doorways occupy the north 
 and south walls of the second severy from the west. 
 
 The south door, which opens to the ancient cemetery 
 of the monks, the reputed site of the graves of King 
 Arthur and Joseph of Arimathea, and also to the side 
 of the church on which the monastery stands, w^as pro- 
 bably employed by the priests, and also for introducing 
 visitors and devotees into that venerated ground; while 
 the north door, opening into the ordinary cemetery of 
 the laity, was intended for the people. The latter 
 cemetery was entered by the great north gateway, which 
 opened toward the High street of the town. 
 
 There is another small, ornamented door on the south 
 side in the eastern compartment; but this was introduced, 
 as its decorations shew, in the fifteenth century, after 
 the chapel had been elongated, and will be described 
 below. 
 
 Four roundheaded Norman windows on each side, 
 richly molded, give light to the chapel, in addition to 
 a triple window at the west end. Possibly there was 
 a similar one in the east wall. 
 
 ^ See page 1 2 above. 
 
OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 49 
 
 The wall ribs and transverse ribs of the vault are 
 pointed arches, and the latter have rich complex zigzag 
 ornaments; but the diagonal and wall ribs have plain 
 moldings. The capitals throughout are foliaged, and the 
 square or octagonal abacus employed. No example of 
 the round abacus occurs in this Norman chapel, but it is 
 used in the Early English portion and in the west front 
 of the church. 
 
 The buttresses have a peculiar termination finishing 
 with a corbel, which probably carried an image. 
 
 The round church of the Temple, dedicated 1185, and 
 therefore nearly co temporary with our chapel, resembles 
 it in having piers formed of four separate shafts with 
 a connecting ring in the middle. Pointed arches for the 
 piers and the vault ribs, and round arches for the windows 
 and doors. An intersecting round-arched arcade also runs 
 round the triforium, but the arcade of the side aisle wall 
 is of pointed arches. No zigzag work occurs in the Tem- 
 ple, and the moldings belong to a school of masons dif- 
 ferent from those of Glastonbury. Some of them appear 
 to have had their forms altered by subsequent workmen. 
 
 The interior of our chapel is divided into four severies. 
 These are separated from each other by the vault shafts 
 which are placed against projecting piers. Their capitals 
 are united under a semi-octangular abacus, from which 
 the vault ribs spring. At the angles a single shaft re- 
 ceives the vault ribs (fig. 4). 
 
 The outer face of the side walls is divided also into 
 four severies. A square turret is placed at eacli angle, 
 and between the turrets the severies are separated by 
 buttresses of the same projection as the turrets, but their 
 faces are rather more than half the breadth of the latter. 
 
 The chapel exhibits some strange irregularities of plan 
 and elevation which deserve attention. These are faith- 
 fully shewn in the plates. But it will be seen that in 
 
 4 
 
50 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 
 
 these the chapel itself is represented in simple outline. 
 The architectural details being omitted excepting in the 
 crypt ; for the chapel itself has been completely illus- 
 trated in many works, but the crypt, as far as I am aware, 
 has never been architecturally investigated, nor have 
 architectural drawings of it been published. 
 
 To understand the irregularities we must consider the 
 common case of a similar building, in which the buttresses 
 are placed opposite to the transverse ribs of the vaults, 
 as they ought to be, in order to resist the outward 
 pressure of those vaults, which is the purpose for w^hich 
 they are intended. 
 
 This sketch represents a corner of such a building 
 with its angle turret and buttresses. A, B, C, D are the 
 dividing lines of three severies AB, BC, CD, of equal 
 breadth. 
 
 1 ' 
 
 L. 
 
 L 
 
 m 
 
 
 
 But it is evident that ah, the breadth of the outer 
 wall of the first severy, is less than AB \yj half the 
 breadth hh of a buttress; and he, the outer wall of the 
 second severy, is less than BC by two halves of a but- 
 tress : thus the intermediate outer severies he, &c. are 
 necessarily narrower than oh. This could only be reme- 
 died by placing the side a of the turret at e, so that ae 
 should be equal to half a buttress, which would make 
 the turret too massive ; or else by making the end severy 
 AB of the vaulting narrower than the middle ones. 
 
 This difficulty always occurs at the ends of a vaulted 
 building. Generally two buttresses at right angles to 
 
OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 5[ 
 
 each other, as shewn by the dotted lines hk, are used, 
 but this does not afFect the irregularity. It follows that 
 in the end severy AB, the centre of the inner wall cannot 
 be opposite to the centre of the outer wall ab, and there- 
 fore the window cannot coincide with the centre of the 
 outside compartment if it does with the inside, and vice 
 versa. 
 
 Our Norman architect disposed of the difficulty by 
 abandoning the principle of placing the buttresses oppo- 
 site to the vault shafts, and also the principle of placing 
 the windows in the centre of the external compartments. 
 
 The plan of the chapel (fig. 4) shews that the outside 
 severies are made all of one breadth, and the inner seve- 
 ries also of one breadth, certain minor inaccuracies ex- 
 cepted. 
 
 The exterior elevatioD, fig. 5, shews that the windows 
 are placed quite out of the centre of the outside severies, 
 and (as the section fig. 6 shews) are, with one exception, 
 in the centre of the interior severies. The eastern- 
 most window. My has its ornamental inner arch (or 
 escoinson arch, as it is termed) in the centre of the 
 compartment. But minor inaccuracies in setting out the 
 plan, which it would occupy too much space to explain 
 fully, have forced the centre of this arch so near to the 
 buttress, that the window light is pierced considerably 
 to the east of that centre, to enable it to be freed from 
 .the buttress. 
 
 Fig. 9, plate vii. is a plan of the turret at the north- 
 east angle to explain the junction of the Norman chapel 
 with the Early English part, and also the construction of 
 the flat pier which belongs to the great connecting arch. 
 The plan of the eastern wall through which this arch was 
 cut is given in dotted lines. 
 
 The shafts in the Norman chapel were detached and 
 probably Purbeck, and those of the internal and external 
 
 4—2 
 
52 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 
 
 arcades had a curved channel sunk in the wall behind, as 
 shewn in this plan. This artifice gives lightness of effect 
 by providing a free space between the shaft and the wall, 
 and at the same time enables the shafts to be set nearer 
 to the wall. The same device occurs in the presbytery 
 of Rochester cathedral. 
 
 The walls of the chapel within and without are of 
 exquisite masonry^ the beds worked with such truth that 
 the mortar joint is scarcely perceptible. Like all me- 
 diseval walls it is formed of rubble within, faced with 
 ashlar (as shewn in fig. 9). The courses of stone on the 
 exterior run continuously at the same level round the 
 buttresses and behind the arcade shafts, and the courses 
 of the interior also run continuously. But there is no 
 coincidence between the levels of the inside courses and 
 the outside courses. 
 
 In fig. 8 the courses are laid down to scale ^ in the 
 section of the wall on the left side of the drawing, and 
 the great vault shaft, CL, with the interior and exterior 
 shafts of the arcades are shewn in their relative positions. 
 It will be seen that the two sets of shafts are alike in 
 height and diameter, but the base line of the former is 
 2 feet 2 inches lower than that of the latter. 
 
 In fig. 9 the columns of the internal arcade are 
 shewn at i, 2, 3 ; 4 is the vault shaft ; 5, 6 are the 
 places of the shafts which carried the arcade of the 
 original east wall, which we may suppose was continued 
 above the altar in a similar manner to the arcades of the 
 nine altars at Durham. Externally, the shafts of the 
 north wall are shewn at 13, 14, 15, and the places of 
 similar shafts at 9, 8, 7, on the outside of the east wall. 
 
 It happens that the channelled recess for the shaft 9 
 still remains, and in a position which upon examination 
 
 ^ This although laid down for con- wall really belongs to the north wall, 
 venience on the section of the south 
 
OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 53 
 
 I found to be exactly symmetrical with tlie shaft 13, to 
 which it corresponds on the north wall, as 14 and 15 
 correspond to 8 and 7 respectively \ 
 
 Now the external ashlaring remains perfect from J to 
 but is broken off there^ having been removed to allow the 
 bonding of the Early English wall. It is resumed at M, 
 and continues from M to N and R. At R it is necessarily 
 cut off by the opening of the arch. 
 
 But from careful measurements I ascertained that the 
 courses of masonry at RN correspond exactly with the 
 general external system at JL, course for course, to the 
 height of 7 feet 7 inches above the basement, moreover, 
 in the channel behind 9, the half decayed Purbeck block 
 remains below, which was once the plinth and base of the 
 shaft 9, and this is exactly at the same level as the ex- 
 ternal bases at 13, 14, i5; arfd therefore totally different 
 from the level of the inner bases at i, 2, 3. This is suf- 
 ficient to shew that the Norman chapel had no chancel, 
 for as NR is thus shewn to be a continuation of the 
 outside wall there is no room left for the walls of a 
 chancel between the eastern turrets, indeed Lady chapels 
 were not furnished with chancels, and apsidal recesses 
 had been abandoned at the date of this building. 
 
 There is an irregularity in the plan of the angle 
 RNM of the turret with respect to X, which appears to 
 indicate that in the original state of the Norman chapel 
 
 1 The diagonal line 4Z which joins 
 the internal angle of the chapel with the 
 external angle L of the turret, makes 
 angles of 45° with the walls of the 
 chapel, and shews that the eastern 
 turrets were placed symmetrically to 
 the eastern angles, in the same manner 
 as at the western angles. The chan- 
 nelled walls behind the arcades are 
 also in the plane of the return of the 
 
 turrets. Thus AN is in one straight 
 line on the plan, and similarly, BG. 
 Also the dotted line which joins the 
 angles 13 and 9 is at right angles to 
 the diagonal a,L, and is bisected by it. 
 Therefore the channelled recess and 
 its shaft at 9 and the similar recess 
 and shaft at 13 stand symmetrically 
 with respect to the turret, 
 
54 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 
 
 there was a projecting graduated buttress on the eastern 
 faces of the turrets. 
 
 Between L and ilf a mass of irregular rubble, W, projects 
 beyond the base line of the building, and above this are 
 indications of some subsequent jutting appendage, which 
 may have been an oriel chamber, or a stair tower. But 
 the Early English wall between LM and the next but- 
 tress is entirely demolished, so as to make it impossible 
 to determine the exact nature of this addition. Leland, 
 as we have seen (p. 14, above), records a sepulchral chan- 
 try chapel in a position which would agree with this 
 point. This chapel may be supposed to have been carried 
 by an arch from buttress to buttress on the outside so as 
 not to obstruct the crypt window below \ 
 
 The face QR of the pier has three vertical channels 
 for shafts at 10, 11, 12, which were exactly the same in 
 dimensions as the arcade shafts of the original building, 
 with bases and capitals, and a ring in the middle in- 
 dicated by its narrow course of masonry. 
 
 Now as the courses of masonry at Q belong to the 
 inner ashlar, and at R to the outer ashlar, the coursing 
 of the face of the pier is necessarily irregular. It is 
 manifest that the intermediate stones of its face (white, in 
 the plan) were derived from the demolished east wall, as 
 well as the three above-mentioned shafts, bases, and 
 capitals which stood in front of them. The plinths of 
 these shafts stand upon a projecting mass of masonry 
 QSTR, shewn also in the section (fig. 6), and this is 
 
 1 The fragment of the eastern wall western turret HI, a relation easily 
 
 BG, fig. 6, which still projects from the observed by means of the shafts with 
 
 south wall above the ruin of the spring which these turrets are faced. As 
 
 of the flat soffitted arch, enables its far as my observations went, the two 
 
 position with respect to the south- cases are exactly alike, as the mea- 
 
 east turret DE above, to be compared surements from which I constructed 
 
 with the similar relative positions of the plan fig. 9 also shew, 
 the western wall FG, and the north- 
 
OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 55 
 
 plainly indicated by the masonry itself, to have been built 
 up from the old foundation wall of the east end, and 
 underpinned to the stones at Q and R. 
 
 The three capitals sustain a long string course ob- 
 tained from the same source, and the arch itself has a 
 broad soffit concentric with the original eastern wall rib 
 of the Norman chapel, under which it was inserted. This 
 soffit was ornamented with panels of shallow tracery of 
 which only a small portion remains (fig. 6), containing 
 the lower ends of the panels. These shew that there 
 were two parallel sets; but the heads of the panels having 
 vanished, there is no clue to the style to which they 
 belonged. 
 
 We may now examine the Early English building 
 which unites the Norman chapel with the church. Un- 
 fortunately the spoilers' hands have spared but one com- 
 partment of this, and that one is greatly dilapidated. 
 But the wall rib of its vault remains, and records that the 
 ridges of the Norman and Early English transverse vaults 
 were at the same level at the side walls (vide fig. 6), and 
 that therefore the arch above described, with its broad 
 soffit, was parallel to the vaults of the two buildings 
 which it connected. 
 
 The Early English building is considerably broader 
 than the Norman chapel, and although very nearly of 
 the same interior length measured from the .Norman par- 
 tition wair, is divided into three severies instead of four. 
 
 Two opposite doors occupy the central compart- 
 ments. The north, of rich Early EngHsh work, is 
 nearly perfect, and the south utterly obUterated beyond 
 evidence enough to shew that a door was there. A hand- 
 some ffight of steps, extending across the whole from 
 wall to wall, occupied nearly the whole of the eastern 
 
 ^. The length of the Norman chapel lish building, 5 1 feet, 
 is 53 feet, and that of the Early Eng- 
 
56 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 
 
 severy, and led up from the pavement of this building to 
 the great west door of the church, which terminates the 
 interior eastward, and was designed and built in connec- 
 tion with it. The steps themselves have all disappeared, 
 but the traces of their abutments and housings on the 
 north wall of the building were sufficiently distinct to 
 enable me to obtain the section sketched in fig. 6. 
 
 This Early English portion has been so mercilessly 
 stripped of its ashlar, and in other respects ruined, that it 
 is impossible to recover the complete details of its archi- 
 tecture. But enough remains to shew that, although in 
 a different style from the Norman, it was designed in 
 imitation of it, and with its leading architectural lines so 
 nearly at the same level, that it must have been intended 
 from the beginning that the east wall of the Norman 
 chapel should be removed so as to make the second 
 building a continuation of the first. In both, the vaults 
 rise from vault shafts, whose plinths project from the 
 front of the stone bench, and their abacuses are at the 
 level, and in continuation of the string mold under 
 the windows. Also the wall below the windows is orna- 
 mented in every severy with an arcade interrupted only 
 by the doors, in the first building of interlacing round 
 arches, and in the second of richly molded round- 
 headed trefoil archest A single window occupied in each 
 severy the wall above the arcade. Not one of these in 
 the second building is perfect enough to shew its details, 
 but they appear to have been of one light simply. 
 
 The springing stones of the vault of the Early En- 
 
 ^ I have sketched the arcade in carried up simultaneously with the 
 
 the eastern compartment of fig. 6, to west front of the church, probably 
 
 shew its arrangement in connection because it formed the lower stage of 
 
 with the rising steps. The irregular a buttress to the front ; and that the 
 
 coursing of this eastern severy and of connecting wall between the Norman 
 
 the wall east of the door jamb indi- chapel and this first erected portion 
 
 cates that the greater part of it was was built afterwards. 
 
OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 57 
 
 glish building shew that there were two intermediate 
 ribs between the transverse and wall ribs, as in the pres- 
 bytery of Ely Cathedral, finished about the middle of the 
 thirteenth century. But the rib moldings here appear to 
 be of rather a later type than those of Ely. The dotted 
 lines in the compartment vi. vii. of fig. 4 shew the plan 
 of the ribs. The outer surfaces of the walls are in worse 
 order than the inner ; but it may be perceived that the 
 buttresses had niches or tabernacles for images in the 
 upper story, after the manner of Ely presbytery \ 
 
 Architectural researches are sadly obstructed in this 
 place by the matted stems of ivy which cover the walls in 
 all directions, concealing some of the most beautiful de- 
 corations, and gradually helping to moulder and decay 
 the details of this valuable specimen of mediaeval art. 
 
 In considering the objects for which this Early En- 
 glish building was constructed, it at once appears that the 
 flight of steps leading up to the west door of the church, 
 combined with the two lateral and opposite doors, wholly 
 unfit it for the reception of an altar at its eastern portion, 
 and shew that it could not have been intended in the first 
 instance for a second chapel. 
 
 The only purpose it could have served was that of 
 a Galilee porch to give access to the western door from 
 the old cemetery on the south, and from the cemetery of 
 the laity on the north. It was probably used for the 
 egress and regress of processions on certain feast days. 
 Privileged persons would have been permitted to enter 
 the porch and occupy the western severy and the gradu- 
 ated bench tables that flank the steps of the eastern one. 
 
 It also greatly improved the dignity and architec- 
 
 1 I have sketched these roughly as shewn m fig. 5. Part of the stones 
 
 m fig. 5 at 6. The base mold of the of the south junction of these bases 
 
 Early English wall is five inches happens to remain in situ (near F, 
 
 higher than that of the Norman wall, fig. 4)- 
 
58 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 
 
 tural effect of the group of two churches. For the dis- 
 tance of the small vetusta ecclesia or Norman chapel 
 from the great west front of the great church was but 
 fifty feet, and the two buildings when entirely discon- 
 nected must have stood in damaging contrast to each 
 other. But by uniting them, the two became parts of a 
 whole; and the length of the smaller building, now in- 
 creased to 1 1 5 feet, compensated for its inferior altitude, 
 and added to the magnitude of the mass. 
 
 Yet, although this Galilee was intended for a purpose 
 different from that of the Norman chapel, we have seen 
 that its architectural lines were arranged so that it might 
 serve internally as a continuation of it. 
 
 It is manifest that it rendered the east windows of 
 the chapel useless, and the only way in which the con- 
 tinuation could have been intended was by substituting 
 an arch of connection for the east wall, and placing a 
 reredos on or near 'the site of that wall, which would 
 separate the chapel from the Galilee porch behind it. 
 The reredos rising to or near the level of the string 
 maid over the arcades would give to the Norman 
 chapel the benefit of the light from the Galilee windows 
 with increased space and air, and the perspective of the 
 Galilee vault, in the manner which imparts so great a 
 charm to the mediaeval churches. 
 
 A small lateral door at the north and south extremity 
 of the reredos according to the usual arrangement, 
 would give to the priests the advantage of passing from 
 the great church to the chapel through the galilee. 
 
 There are no traces of the abutments of such a par- 
 tition, or reredos, against the present walls, but the most 
 probable place for them is at H and K (fig. 4), where a 
 plain face of Norman ^ wall about two feet five inches broad 
 
 1 Shewn more clearly at Ng , fig. 9, and below B in fig. 6. 
 
OP GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 59 
 
 occurs on each side, and v/ould hardly have been allowed 
 to remain in this state in the enriched Gahlee porch if 
 it had not been destined for such a purpose as this from 
 the beginning. The western face of the reredos would 
 thus coincide with the line RT, fig. 9, which is the eastern 
 face of the back wall of the Norman arcade, and it would 
 rest upon the Norman foundation wall of the demolished 
 eastern gable, which wall extended farther eastward than 
 the gable itself, because it had to carry the sloping base- 
 ment mold\ 
 
 The panelling of the soffit of the connecting arch 
 seems to shew that the opening of the arch between the 
 chapels was not carried out immediately after the com- 
 pletion of the Early English Galilee, for such panelling 
 belongs to the end of the thirteenth and to the succeed- 
 ing centuries. Possibly the Early English work may 
 have been carried on slowly to its completion with the 
 same style and moldings as when first designed, as 
 in the case of the nave of the church and other ex- 
 amples. 
 
 X 
 
 ^ Vide longitudinal section, fig. 6. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE CRYPT OF ST JOSEPH'S CHAPEL. 
 
 The building itself shews that the arrangement I have 
 described in the last chapter turned out to be a transition 
 one. 
 
 William of Worcester has already given us reason 
 to believe that when he saw it c. 1480^ the Lady chapel 
 was all laid into one^, and I will now proceed to develope 
 this transformation, which is confirmed by the remains of 
 the building. One of its most curious features is the 
 crypt", which extends continuously from the western wall 
 of the chapel to the foot of the flight of steps at the 
 west front of the church ; thus occupying the whole 
 ground-floor excepting the eastern severy of the Early 
 English porch, which was appropriated to the great steps, 
 under which this crypt was not extended. 
 
 I shall as I proceed adduce abundant evidence to 
 shew that this crypt was entirely a construction of the 
 fifteenth century, never contemplated by the original 
 builders, either of the Norman chapel or of the Early 
 English porch, and therefore utterly unprovided for in the 
 structure of either. 
 
 The vault of this crypt was in a state of utter ruin 
 
 ^ See p. 18, above. transverse sections figs. 7 and 8, plate 
 
 ^ See the plan of the crypt in fig. 3, vi. 
 the longitudinal section fig. 6, and the 
 
ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 61 
 
 when Stukeley saw it in 1724. He relates that under- 
 neath the chapel of J oseph of Arimathea " was a vault, 
 now full of water, the floor of the chapel being beaten 
 down into it. It was wrought with great stones. Here 
 was a capacious receptacle of the dead ; they have taken 
 up many leaden coffins and melted them into cisterns. 
 Hence is the subterranean arched passage to the Torr 
 according to their notion^" 
 
 In 1826 Mr John Fry Beeves', the then proprietor 
 of the monastic enclosure, cleared out all the earth and 
 ruins, and repaired and improved the stone steps which 
 led down to it. Soon after this the walls of the chapel 
 appear to have threatened failure, and led to the con- 
 struction of the transverse brick bonding arches which 
 now connect these walls at the level of the chapel pave- 
 ment. But the crypt itself is now completely emptied 
 of ruins and rubbish, perfectly dry and open to the sky. 
 Its floor is simply hard earth, excepting a portion at the 
 east end where one severy of the vault still exists, but 
 unfortunately in a very trembling condition. That por- 
 tion retains a coarse pavement of plain tiles. 
 
 The construction and proportions of this crypt and 
 
 1 It was still in this inaccessible 
 condition in 18 13, when Wild made 
 his drawings for Britten's Architec- 
 tural Antiquities, Vol. iv. In the 
 section of the chapel the upper part 
 of the crypt is indicated. Nash, in 
 the Vetusta Monumenta, 181 5, ig- 
 nores it altogether. No drawings or 
 details of it have ever been published 
 as far as I am aware, except by Mr 
 Warner, who engraved sketches of the 
 one complete vaulted compartment of 
 the crypt, and of the arch of the well, 
 from Buckler's drawings. He attri- 
 butes the crypt to Abbot Herlewin (p. 
 xxxviij.), and declares the western 
 moiety to be the original, the eastern 
 
 half somewhat later (p. Ixxviij.). 
 
 The only modern notice of this crypt 
 that I have met with after Warner's, 
 is in the proceedings of the Somerset- 
 shire Archaeological Society on occa- 
 sion of the visit of that body to the 
 ruins in 1859, when Mr J.H.Parker, 
 of Oxford, declared that he was "in- 
 clined to identify St Joseph's chapel 
 with the church of St Mary, dedicated 
 in 1 186, and added, that "the crypt is 
 naturally the most ancient part, but 
 it differs from the superstructure only 
 so much as the subterranean part 
 usually does from the upper part." 
 
 2 Warner's Glastonbury, 1826, p. 
 Ixxvi. 
 
62 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 
 
 Stukeley's record of the leaden coffins taken out of it 
 shew that it was not built^ like the early crypts, for 
 subterranean chapels and places of interment with se- 
 pulchral monuments ; but for the reception of coffins like 
 a catacomb or charnel. There are no traces of altars or 
 piscinas, or other evidence of ritual apparatus. A rude 
 block at the north-east angle has indeed been mistaken 
 for a piscina, but is not pierced, and is apparently a 
 bracket to support a lamp. Mr Warner tells us, that 
 when the crypt was cleared, the Roman Catholic clergy 
 said that it was not intended for worship. 
 
 The reason for its construction may be found in the 
 revival of the tradition of St Joseph, and in the words 
 of the preface to Glaston's Chronicle, that in the old 
 times kings and queens, bishops and nobles of both 
 sexes, esteemed themselves blessed if they could but 
 obtain the privilege of a burial-place on that ancient 
 site where Joseph was buried with a multitude of 
 saints, or even elsewhere with a small portion of that 
 holy earth. 
 
 The manner of its construction, according to my 
 examination of the ruins, will be understood from the 
 section (fig. 7, plate vi.^). 
 
 The section, which looks westward, is made on the 
 right side through the wall and respond 6 (fig. 6) cutting 
 along the transverse rib of the vault. The left-hand half 
 of the section is taken through the middle of the com- 
 partment 6, 7, and therefore through the crypt window. 
 
 Mediaeval buildings of importance are provided with 
 substantial foundation walls which are carried down to 
 the firm ground below. Of such walls I have seen many 
 which happen to have been exposed during repairs, as for 
 
 ^ This belongs to the two eastern as shewn in the section of the western 
 compartments, but the principle is compartment (fig. 8). 
 exactly the same in the whole crypt, 
 
OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 63 
 
 example, at tlie cathedrals of Lichfield, Ely, Hereford, 
 and others ; in which, not only the outer walls, but the 
 ranges of piers, are set upon continuous foundation walls 
 of rubble constructed with great care. That this was the 
 case at Glastonbury is manifested by the crypt itself ; and 
 was necessary, because the Norman building was erected 
 in an ancient cemetery, employed for centuries, and the 
 earth consequently wholly unfit to bear an important 
 building without such deep foundations. The level of the 
 ground when the walls were built is marked by the base- 
 ment moldings as at A, fig. 7. Below this the rubble 
 foundation wall extends downwards twelve or more feet, 
 as the case may be, and its thickness corresponds to that 
 of the upper wall measured at the level of the basement 
 and pavement, which is six feet. The pavement of the 
 crypt is eleven feet below the pavement of the Galilee. To 
 form this crypt, it was simply necessary to take up the 
 latter pavement and excavate the earth from between the 
 foundation walls to the required depth. For the con- 
 struction of the vault the inner rough surface of the walls 
 was then lined with a wall of coursed rubble which serves 
 as the facino: of the north and south boundaries of the 
 vaulted compartments. 
 
 No wall ribs are employed for the vault, but this 
 facing is rebated" or set back over the arched 
 line of abutment of the vault so as to form a resting- 
 place for it (as at fig. 7, B, C). As the whole of these 
 vaults have fallen, with the exception of the eastern 
 compartment, this construction is plainly seen, in the 
 longitudinal section (fig. 6) from one end of the crypt 
 to the other. 
 
 The transverse and diagonal vault ribs spring in a 
 group from low pilasters or responds {DF, fig. 7) be- 
 tw^een which these facing walls were built. 
 
 In most of these compartments a window is provided 
 
64 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 
 
 of a kind which is usual in crypts. Sections of two of 
 them appear in the left-hand sides of fig. 7 and 8. 
 
 The floors of crypts are always sunk to a lower level 
 than the outer surface of the ground, but not so com- 
 pletely as in the present example, in which the outer 
 surface of the ground (A) coincides with the crown(^) 
 of the vault. In the Norman crypts that were planned 
 simultaneously with the superstructure, the outer surface 
 level is at half, or two- thirds, of the height of the vault, 
 so as to allow the window of the crypt to open fairly 
 into the open air; as, for example, at Canterbury and 
 Winchester. There the windows are pierced completely 
 through the thick wall, and their inner sills coincide with 
 the inner surface of the wall. 
 
 In the later crypts, as at Becket's corona and Boches- 
 ter, the window opens inwards to a deep arched recess, or 
 rear-vault, which rises from the floor of the crypt. This 
 feature is employed in our case ; but, in addition, the arch 
 or vault which crowns it is sloped upwards and outwards 
 excessively, so as to enable the external window frame to 
 be placed in the basement moldings of the chapel im- 
 mediately under the cap mold. 
 
 The back wall of the recess, instead of being vertical, 
 slopes backwards so as to admit the light, and act as 
 a retaining wall or buttress against the high mass of 
 earth without, and also to avoid the necessity of cutting 
 away too much of the foundation wall out of which these 
 recesses were excavated. Thus the original structure 
 of the chapel is not nearly so much weakened by the 
 formation of these recessed windows as might appear at 
 first sight ; indeed the sections shew that the greater part 
 of the arched recess is contained in the facing wall with 
 which the foundation walls are lined, and that the outer 
 opening of the window is a comparatively small breach 
 in the original basement mold. But the arch-heads of 
 
OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. ^5 
 
 the recesses are of various forms, and all of a Perpen- 
 dicular character. The jambs of the recesses are care- 
 fully built with quoins of masonry, and evidently con- 
 structed at the same time as the facing wall which they 
 pierce. 
 
 The longitudinal section shews that on the north side 
 the first severy of the vault has a doorway instead of a 
 window, this being, in fact, the entrance to the crypt from 
 without. The second severy is bounded by a blank wall, 
 for being under the entrance doorway, it was not only 
 unadvisable to risk the settlement of the wall above, but 
 also impossible to gain light to a window. The four re- 
 maining severies have windows. 
 
 Having now described the features which are com- 
 mon to the whole crypt, we will proceed to details, 
 which vary in different parts of it. 
 
 The two eastern severies are exactly alike, their vault 
 is ribbed in a peculiar form shewn in the plan, with 
 diagonal ribs that meet before they arrive at the centre 
 of the vault, and unite in a horizontal transverse ridge 
 rib, which forms a cross with the lonmtudinal ridofe rib. 
 
 The ribs are composed of old Norman voussoirs, 
 but are set in the form of the four-centered arch, which 
 belongs to the Perpendicular period. The shafts of their 
 responds are built of the same voussoirs. Their section 
 is given at A, plate ii. These Norman materials were 
 probably derived from monastic buildings in course of 
 reconstruction. 
 
 In fact the chapter-house, the refectory and dormi- 
 tory, first built by Abbot Henry de Blois in the 12th 
 century, were rebuilt in the 14th and 15th centuries by 
 Abbots Monington and Chinok, and one of these may 
 well have supplied the stones on the present occasion. 
 But the manner in which the shaft of the responds, whose 
 plan is that of a single voussoir, is made to branch 
 
 5 
 
65 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 
 
 upwards into three separate ribs of the same size and 
 section, gives rise to a most picturesque, or rather gro- 
 tesque, device, which is shewn in the woodcut. 
 
 Perspective sketch of the pier. 
 
 The shaft E, formed of four Norman voussoirs, stands 
 upon a plinth D, Upon the voussoirs is set a large 
 stone block Fy forming a rude capital and abacus. Upon 
 this is a large springing block G, which is shaped so as 
 to receive on the upper surface the lower voussoirs of 
 three distinct ribs, its form being ingeniously managed 
 so as to represent them as dying downwards upon, or 
 interpenetrating the upright prism, which is a continua- 
 tion of the abacus upwards. 
 
 Evidently the base, the capital, and the springing 
 block, as well as the key-stones upon w^hich the ribs 
 mitre and intersect, belong to the period of construction 
 of the crypt. The arch-heads, or escoinsons, of the win- 
 dow recesses, are also of pure Perpendicular form, but 
 
OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. ^7 
 
 the molding which ornaments them is a thick roll, or 
 howtellj evidently intended to match the Norman vous- 
 soirs. 
 
 The longitudinal section, fig. 6, and plan, fig. 3, shew 
 that these two severies of the crypt stand just to the east 
 of the foundation wall ^ 5 of the old eastern gable CB 
 of the Norman chapel, so as to admit of this portion of 
 the crypt having been completely constructed wdthout 
 disturbing that chapel. 
 
 At whatever previous time the eastern gable of the 
 chapel had been pierced for the construction of the con- 
 necting arch, it is plain that the foundation wall of that 
 gable lying beneath its pavement would not have been 
 eradicated. Thus the earth contained between the east 
 face of this foundation wall and the lateral foundation walls 
 of the Galilee could be excavated, and the crypt completed 
 thus far. A retaining wall however had to be built (at 7) 
 at the foot of the steps \ The springing blocks at the 
 eastern corners of the crypt against this retaining wall 
 are not provided with stumps of diagonal ribs eastward, 
 and the key-stone of the vault itself is not provided 
 with a stump for continuing the ridge rib eastward, 
 which is sufficient to shew that the crypt was not meant 
 to extend farther that way. 
 
 The next step in the formation of the crypt was to 
 extend it under the Norman chapel, which was probably 
 carried out after a considerable interval of time; for 
 the construction of the western portion is slighter, and 
 differs in many respects from the eastern. 
 
 "When the middle foundation wall {A 5, figs. 3 and 
 6) had been removed and the pavement and earth below 
 it cleared out from the Norman chapel to the requisite 
 
 1 When this portion of the crypt probably through one of the win- 
 was completed the entrance to it was dows. 
 
 5—2 
 
68 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 
 
 depths the space (i — 5) was divided into four severies, 
 equal in number to the severies of the chapel above. 
 But as the division of the crypt starts from a point 5, 
 at the east end outside the thick wall {A 5), and the 
 division of the chapel from a point above A, inside the 
 thick wall, it follows that the responds and transverse 
 arches that separate these crypt vaults do not stand op- 
 posite to either the vault shafts above or the buttresses 
 outside \ This distribution is enough of itself to shew 
 that this crypt forms no part of the original structure 
 of the chapel. 
 
 The transverse ribs 4 and 3 are continuous arches 
 made of Norman voussoirs (fig. plate 11.), of a different 
 section from those of the eastern crypt. The diagonal ribs 
 {D and E, plate 11) are of the common Perpendicular 
 section with plain chamfered edges, and they die upon a 
 springing block interposed between the vertical shaft and 
 the arch, and shaped soas to receive them. 
 
 In the compartment (4, 5, fig. 6) the complex spring- 
 ing block of the eastern vault at K has the bed and 
 stump of the diagonal rib formed of the section A, plate 
 II., already described, looking westward and prepared by 
 the constructors of that vault, thus shewing that the 
 extension of the crypt westward was intended from the 
 beginning to have been on the same pattern. But the 
 corresponding diagonal rib of the springing block at L 
 of the later builders has its section in the simple cham- 
 fered form. It must be presumed therefore that they 
 carried this diagonal rib across and allowed it to rest 
 upon the stump which had been provided, without 
 an attempt to reconcile the difference. I have already 
 said that this crypt was formed not for ornament but 
 for use. 
 
 ^ This triple discordance is clearly shewn in the plan of the crypt (fig. 3), 
 
OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 69 
 
 In figs. 6 and 8 it will be seen that by adopting the 
 continuous arches the capital of the respond employed 
 in the eastern crypt was got rid of and the springing 
 block simplified. In fig. 8 EF is the shaft of the re- 
 spond of Norman materials, resting on a plain Perpen- 
 dicular plinth, FG the springing block, GII the trans- 
 verse arch of Norman voussoirs. In plate ii. fig. BDCCE 
 is a plan of this impost, employed at 4 and 3, shewing 
 the transverse continuous arch of Norman voussoirs and 
 the Perpendicular chamfered ribs which abut against and 
 interpenetrate with the transverse arch, forming discon- 
 tinuous imposts. These interpenetrations take place in 
 the springing block. 
 
 The transverse rib at 2, fig. 3, and the western rib 
 I at the west end are, with the respond shafts, of 
 decided Perpendicular. 
 
 On the left half of fig. 8 the arch IH is that which 
 forms the wall rib of the western wall (at i, fig. 6) ; ^ is 
 the rough face of the wall against which the vault abutted. 
 The springing block at 1 shews the bed of the diagonal 
 rib branching with a discontinuous impost from the 
 respond. H is the west end of the longitudinal rib, which 
 remains embedded in the wall. 
 
 When the crypt windows are viewed from the outside 
 of the building it will be found that they are all charac- 
 terized by the rude manner in which their outer openings 
 are cut through the basement mold, in positions utterly 
 irrespective of symmetry or of the integrity of that im- 
 portant member of the architectural decoration. Not one 
 of them is placed in the centre of the severy, and the 
 vertical sides of the opening expose the rubble core of 
 the sloping masonry, as shewn in the section of the 
 crypt at / (fig. 7). 
 
 This rough work, as at F and G, fig. 4. ^lay be con- 
 trasted with the treatment of this basement at the side of 
 
70 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 
 
 the Norman doorways as at D and E. There also, the 
 sloping basement is cut down vertically on each side of 
 the doorway to allow of free access to the door. But as 
 this was part of the original construction the masonry is 
 set in accordance with it so as to cover the core. 
 
 The heedless manner in which the crypt windows 
 burst through the sloping basement is best shewn in the 
 ground plan of the chapel (fig. 4), and in the exterior 
 elevation^ fig. 5. But the relation of these windows to 
 the crypt is given in the plan of the crypt (fig. 3). 
 
 The elevation of the chapel shews these windows, 
 which have either two or three square headed lights 
 separated by massive mullions^ The strongest instance 
 of their interference with the existing edifice is in the 
 eastern vault 6, 7, where the window arch head rising 
 obliquely outwards and upwards from the crypt, under the 
 doorway arch, brings the window frame to the level of the 
 cap molding of the basement as in all the others. This 
 window head still exists entire as shewm. But as in this 
 case it is brought out under the doorway, it must, when 
 completed, have made it necessary to raise the threshold 
 of the doorway at least two feet three inches above its 
 original level 2, and to approach the doorway by steps car- 
 ried on an arch to admit light to the window; or, which 
 is more probable, its presence shews that when the crypt 
 was constructed, the arrangement of the chapel and 
 
 ^ These mullions are inserted un- 
 der the lintel of the windows in an 
 unusual manner. Instead of the ordi- 
 nary straight horizontal joint, which 
 makes it necessary to carve the mitred 
 junction of the mullion with the lintel 
 upon the lintel stone itself, the head 
 of the mullion is cut so as to fit the 
 chamfered front of the Hntel, and the 
 two are united by a thin tenon in the 
 mullion, as if they had been made by 
 
 a carpenter instead of a mason. The 
 structural bearing of the lintel upon 
 the mullion is thus confined to the 
 flat bed which connects the vertical 
 sides. These sides shew that the 
 lights were grated with three irons, 
 the holes for the reception of which 
 are shewn in the sections, figs. 7 and 8. 
 
 ^ In fig. 6 the dotted lines in the 
 doorway shew the height of the new 
 threshold. 
 
OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 71 
 
 Galilee was altered so as to dispense with the doorway 
 altogether ^ 
 
 The most obviously striking proof of the intrusion of 
 the crypts into a building that was not intended for them 
 is the fact, that their vaults are so constructed as to raise 
 the pavement of the Norman chapel to the level of the 
 stone bench which surrounds the wall, and thus completely 
 to destroy the bench itself, which forms only a continuation 
 of the pavement. Intlie sections, figs. 6, 7, 8, the hnings 
 of the side walls of the crypt, built to carry the vaults, 
 still stand perfect, but the vaults have all fallen, and have 
 been cleared away, with the exception of the eastern one. 
 The apexes of the lining walls rise above the old pave- 
 ment line, and the upper surface of the vaults that rested 
 upon them must have risen still higher. The faces of 
 the old bench table are seen between these linings, and 
 shew the old level 2. The thresholds of the doorways A 
 and B (fig. 4) are unmistakeably raised above their origi- 
 nal level to coincide with that of the stone bench. 
 
 In the Early English Galilee the vault was not so 
 constructed as to affect the level of the pavement ; but it 
 has so happened that the pressure of the earth on the 
 outside of these walls has forced them inwards, and thus 
 distorted the two transverse ribs that remain in such a 
 manner as to force the key stone upwards, and make it 
 appear as if the pavement must have risen nearly to 
 the bench table, in the same manner as in the western 
 crypt. 
 
 1 Mr Wild's engravings in 18 13, 6, and the transverse section, of the 
 shew this doorway neatly walled up Norman chapel, fig. 8 : in the latter, 
 so as to exhibit its inner and outer the hne is the level of the old 
 arch lines. Its jambs are half buried pavement; CD the level of the new 
 in the soil so as to hide the window. pavement, which was laid to coincide 
 This walling up was probably done at with the stone bench; A" is the face 
 the period we are considering. of the western wall. 
 
 2 Vide the longitudinal section, fig. 
 
72 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 The entrance to the crypt is at the north-west corner 
 by a Perpendicular doorway M (fig. 3) of the same age as 
 the crypt. When first cleared out by Mr Keeves, the 
 stone steps that led down to it were broken, dislocated, 
 and useless. Mr Reeves removed them, and excavated 
 the passage twelve or fifteen yards northwards, so as 
 to make the present convenient flight of steps between 
 walls. In doing so '^eighteen coffins were found, all 
 placed east and west. The length of one was eight feet 
 three inches inside, and the whole length of it was filled 
 up by the skeleton. All the coffins were made of oak 
 two or three inches thick. Under the head and shoulders 
 of each corpse was placed a bundle of wood shavings. 
 Beneath, and on the right side of each skeleton, a rod of 
 thorn or hazel, of the same length as the coffin. Three 
 of the coffins lay under the masonry and steps which led 
 into the crypt, and were therefore interred previously to 
 the formation of the crypt, and therefore before the end 
 of the eleventh century^,'' as Mr Warner writes, but for 
 which I beg to substitute the fifteenth century. 
 
 ^ Warner's Glastonbury, p. Ixxx, 
 
CHAPTEE YII. 
 
 FINAL ARRANGEMENT OF ST JOSEPH's CHAPEL. 
 
 We have now traced the western appendage to the great 
 church through its successive conditions of an isolated 
 Norman chapel in the 12th century, united to the church 
 by the Galilee porch in the 13th century, and provided 
 with a crypt in the 15th century. It only remains to 
 consider how the interior of the chapel was finally ar- 
 ranged after the crypt was completed. 
 
 The history of the Galilee at Durham cathedral ap- 
 pears to illustrate so well the boldness with which changes 
 and alterations were made in this department of the 
 church in the middle ages, that I will briefly explain it. 
 For these two Galileos resemble each other in combining 
 a porch with a western Lady chapel, and are the only 
 two English examples of western Lady chapels'. The 
 
 ^ The positions of twenty-four of 
 the principal English Lady chapels 
 with respect to the church are as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 Sixteen at the east end : — namely, 
 Eleven at the east end as a separate 
 chapel. — Gloucester, Exeter, Chi- 
 chester, Hereford, Winchester, 
 Sherborne, Chester, Wells, Nor- 
 wich, Salisbury, Lichfield (Nor- 
 man foundations). 
 Five at the east end, in continua- 
 tion of the choir at the same al- 
 
 titude. — Lincoln, Old St Paul, 
 Worcester, Lichfield, York. 
 Five at the side of the north tran- 
 sept. — Ely, Peterborough, Bristol, 
 St Frideswide at Oxford, Canter- 
 bury. 
 
 One at the south side of the nave. — 
 
 Rochester. 
 Two at the west end of the nave. — 
 
 Glastonbury, Durham. 
 The Saxon cathedral at Canterbury 
 also had the Lady chapel at the west 
 end. 
 
74 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 
 
 Norman nave of Durham has a great ornamental west 
 doorway at A (see plan, fig. lo, plate vn.), which originally- 
 opened upon a space of ground, bounded westward by 
 a steep cliff, under which the river flows. 
 
 "When Bishop Pudsey undertook the con- 
 ^^97"^"^" struction of a Lady chapel, the dislike of St 
 Cuthbert to the fair sex having, according to 
 the well-known legend, compelled this bishop to alter 
 his original plan of placing it at the east end of the 
 church, where the saint was buried, and build it at the 
 west end; the result was the present elegant and unique 
 Galilee of Durham. The distance of the old west front 
 from the cliff being little more than fifty feet, he ob- 
 tained space by extending this chapel so as to cover 
 nearly the whole of the west front, dividing it into five 
 aisles, of which the two outer ones are low. 
 
 It was entered by a door on the north side at B. 
 Its central aisle was terminated eastward by the west 
 door of the cathedral, and it contained two altars. The 
 one at C, dedicated to '^St Bede," at the extremity of 
 the south aisle, the other at D, to our Lady of Pity," 
 at the extremity of the north aisle, as shewn in the plan. 
 The lateral doors ^, into the cathedral were pierced 
 afterwards, as will presently appear. 
 
 By this arrangement, the Lady chapel or Galilee, as 
 it is termed in the original documents, was also a porch 
 to the west door of the cathedral, to which it led from 
 its own lateral door B exactly in the manner of Glaston- 
 bury. But as it impeded the free access to the west 
 door, the bishop opened a new lateral entrance to the 
 cathedral on the north side, and built a porch there, 
 marked north porch on the plan. 
 
 This Galilee, or Lady chapel, at Durham, remained in 
 its original state till the time of Bishop Langley (1406 
 to 1438). He founded a chantry of the Virgin for the 
 
OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 good of his soul, after the manner of his time, where, to 
 use the quaint phraseology of the ''Rites of Durham," 
 " our Ladies masse was sung daily by the maister of the 
 Song Schole with certain decons and quiristers, the mas - 
 ter playing upon a paire of faire organes." 
 
 Finally, the bishop, in his will, bequeathed his body 
 to be buried in his church of Durham, in the chapel of 
 the blessed Virgin Mary, called the Galilee, " in capella 
 beatse Mariae Virginis vocata le galilee." For the due 
 performance of the above service, he thoroughly repaired 
 and fitted up the Galilee, apparently at that time in a 
 ruinous condition. 
 
 He closed the original central doorway of the nave 
 with a thin wall, employing the recess thus formed as a 
 place for his new altar of the Virgin (at A), which he 
 endowed as above, and supplied a new communication 
 between the Galilee and nave, by opening doors (E, F) 
 on each side into the side aisles of the latter. 
 
 To the west of this uew Virgin altar, at a sufficient 
 distance from it to admit of the performance of the ser- 
 vices, he built for himself a tomb [L), on each side of 
 which steps led up to the altar platform \ The original 
 door B was also walled up, and another opened at G. 
 
 If we now return to Glastonbury, we find that J ohn 
 of Glaston, in his biography of Abbot Adam de Sodbury 
 (1322 to 1335), informs us that ''he assigned to the sa- 
 cristary^ twenty marcs yearly for the maintenance of four 
 priests, well skilled in song, who, together with the two 
 
 1 The history of these curious more particularly in Billing's Dur- 
 
 changes was developed for the first ham Cathedral. 
 
 time by the Rev. James Raine, in his ^ Sacrlstary is the oflfice and en- 
 
 Brief Account of Durham Cathedral, dowment of the sacrist. Vide Du- 
 
 published anonymously in 1833. The cange. "Sacrista sacrorum custos. 
 
 questionable taste of modern restora- Sacristaria, sacrista munus Monachi- 
 
 tions has swept away these curious chum, cum reditu etprsediis annexis" 
 
 arrangements, but their details are (Ducange). 
 preserved in Carter's engravings, and 
 
76 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 
 
 anciently appointed to the gaUlee\ and the other two 
 maintained by the sacrist and eleemosynary, shall daily 
 chant her service in the chapel of the Blessed Virgin, clad 
 in surplice and amice, and shall come in the aforesaid 
 form, to the solemn masses of the choir." ^' He also pro- 
 vided eight surplices and eight decent amices for the 
 chapel of the Blessed Mary, for the purpose of vesting 
 the aforesaid chaplains^." 
 
 My purpose, in the digression to Durham, is to shew 
 that, in the 15th century, the complete endowment of a 
 daily Virgin mass was accompanied there by a refitting 
 of the interior of the Lady chapel, and the unscrupulous 
 closing of the great west door of the cathedral, to 
 supply a conspicuous central position for the altar. We 
 may therefore suppose that the earlier endowment of a 
 daily Virgin mass at Glastonbury, by Abbot Sodbury, 
 may have led to arrangements and contrivances for 
 increasing the space of the chapel, which also involved 
 the closing of the west door of the church. And this 
 
 ^ " Hie etiam assigiiavit officio sa- 
 cristariae singulis annis viginti marcas 
 pro susteiitacione quatuor sacerdotum, 
 bene cantantium qui cum duobus de 
 Galilcea antiquitus ordinatis et aliis 
 duobus per sacristam et elemosiuarium 
 exhibendis, in Capellse beatse virginis, 
 superpelliciis et aimiciis induti, cotidie 
 de melodico cantu deservient et veni- 
 ent in forma predicta ad missas chori 
 solennes....Providebit insuperocto su- 
 perpellicii et octo almicia honesta ad 
 capellam beatse Marise pro capellanis 
 predictis vestiendis," &c. J. Glaston, 
 p. 268. 
 
 Galilee a. Ducange quotes many 
 passages which shew that this word 
 was appropriated to a porch of the 
 church, or (as he observes, some of 
 the passages may be interpreted) to 
 
 the nave. "Similiter cum redeunt ad 
 introitum Ecclesias : ad exitus vero 
 Galilese sunt parati duo famuli Elee- 
 mosynarii." Bernardus, Mon. in Con- 
 suetud. Chmiacensih. "i)^ mensu- 
 ratione officinarum. Galilsea longi- 
 tudinis lxv pedes, et duse turres 
 ipsius galilsese in fronte constitutae, et 
 subter ipsas atrium est ubi laici stant, 
 ut non impediant processionem, &c." 
 Guidonis Disciplina Farfensis. 
 
 2 It also appears from the preface 
 of the Cottonian MS. of John of Glas- 
 ton's history, that in memory of the 
 twelve primitive hermits, twelve bre- 
 thren of the monastery were daily 
 assembled in the old church, at the 
 service of the Blessed Virgin and the 
 saints there deposited. 
 
OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 77 
 
 necessity was combined with the urgent want of room 
 for the burial of persons attracted to the spot by the 
 newly developed legend of Joseph of Arimathea. The 
 latter difficulty inspired the monks with the project of 
 forming the crypt. That done, the extension could only 
 have been made by removing the reredos farther eastward 
 into the Galilee. 
 
 As the intrusion of the crypt windows into the doors 
 of the Galilee shews that they were closed up and aban- 
 doned, we may suppose that the reredos was fixed as near 
 to the western door of the cathedral as would leave a 
 space for a small vestry behind it. This western door 
 would allow the ecclesiastics to pass from the church to 
 the Lady chapel through the lateral doors of the reredos, 
 and thus the united length of the Norman chapel and 
 Galilee would form one long Lady chapel, as William of 
 Worcester describes it in 1478, 34 yards in length and 
 8 yards wide. 
 
 After all, this arrangement appears to grow naturally 
 out of the works consequent on the determination to 
 make a crypt. I have shewn that the crypt was first 
 made on the eastern side of the partition wall between 
 the Norman chapel and the Galilee. While this work 
 was going on, a temporary partition would have been set 
 up in the great arch and the Galilee porch surrendered 
 to the workmen without stopping the daily service in 
 the Norman chapel. That crypt finished, some years 
 probably elapsed before the western crypt was begun. 
 But then the partition wall must have been again set up 
 and the altar of the Virgin transferred to the Galilee 
 porch, thus initiating the final scheme of arrangement. 
 The crypt beneath the Norman chapel was then built and 
 the new pavement laid and the whole brought into one. 
 That these works of alteration were not recorded is to 
 be accounted for by the usual practice of monastic chro- 
 
78 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 
 
 niclers, which is^ to omit the mention of works which 
 were carried on from the funds of the monastery and 
 accumulated offerings, and merely to record specific 
 works which were undertaken by the Abbot or Bishops 
 whose biography they are writing. 
 
 The passage quoted above (p. 75) relating to Abbot 
 Sodbury's endowment of the Lady chapel is especially 
 valuable, because it shews that the term ^'Galilee" was 
 applied anciently to the western appendage at Glaston- 
 bury, and seems to have included not only the porch but 
 the chapel, as priests were appointed to it. We thus 
 obtain a third English example of a Galilee, hitherto, I 
 believe, unnoticed, the other two being Ely and Durham \ 
 Now at Durham and Glastonbury we have seen that the 
 Galilee is an appendage to the west end of the great church, 
 which combined a porch of entrance to it and a chapel 
 with one or more altars. At Ely the term has been by 
 modern antiquaries limited to the western porch, but in 
 the earliest published plan, given by Browne Willis, in 
 his Cathedrals," 1727, it is applied to the whole western 
 transept, in a manner which indicates that he was merely 
 employing the common phraseology of the period, tradi- 
 tionally handed down from the middle ages. The south 
 arm of the transept is lettered the South Galileey the north 
 arm the Ruined part of the Galilee. A.s each arm of this 
 transept had a chapel projecting eastward, this English 
 Galilee like the two others combines a western porch with 
 chapels at the west end of the cathedral, which were 
 accessible without entering the nave itself. They were 
 probably provided for persons who were excluded, tem- 
 porarily or permanently, from the great church, for 
 reasons connected with ecclesiastical discipline, or for local 
 reasons, like the aversion of St Cuthbert to females. 
 
 ^ The south porch at Lincoln is also called the Galilee, but upon no 
 documentary evidence. 
 
OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 70 
 
 A few words must be said about a well in the crypt, 
 which has attracted more attention than it deserves. On 
 the south side of the crypt, in the third severy, 4, 5 (fig. 
 3), is a late Perpendicular doorway N leading to a pas- 
 sage OP cut through the foundation wall and continued 
 southwards to its termination at a length of seventeen feet, 
 by a wall P. At the end of the passage, on the left hand 
 and at the level of the pavement, is a small low arched 
 recess Q sunk four feet into the side wall. The recess is 
 about five feet wide and contains a well R supplied by 
 an excellent spring. The mouth of the well is a circular 
 opening in the pavement two feet two inches in diameter 
 and is covered over head by the arch. The arch of the 
 recess is round-headed and richly carved with zigzag 
 work of the same character as that which decorates 
 the windows of the chapel above and those of the great 
 church. 
 
 Opposite this well, westward, is a newel stair or 
 "vice" of only five steps, which lead by a short passage 
 ST, which runs northward (side by side on the higher 
 level with the passage OP from the crypt) to a flight 
 of stone steps TV (see plan of chapel, fig. 4) partly in the 
 thickness of the chapel wall, and finally to a small ogee- 
 headed doorway W pierced through the interior arcading. 
 In fact, the well and the newel stairs and the passages were 
 on the floor of a small low building erected on the south 
 side of the chapel. The traces of the abutment of its 
 walls and roof upon the outer wall of the chapel are plain 
 and unmistakeable. The roof had a ridge but was very 
 slightly inclined. The steps from T to W are formed in 
 a peculiar manner to allow of a steep ascent. They are 
 arranged in two sets side by side, each step twice as high 
 as an ordinary one, and the treads of one set halfway 
 between the treads of the other. A person ascending 
 from the landing T begins with the left foot and the 
 
80 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 
 
 eleventh step lands him at W (as the numerals on the plan 
 between X and W indicate). But the outbuilding had a 
 floor at the level of the chapel pavement, resting on the 
 vault which covers the passage from the crypt and the 
 staircases, and the opening of the peculiar stairs is so 
 narrow that it is easy to step from X to W over it. 
 Thus the door W also gives an entrance from the ceme- 
 tery to the chapel. The east wall was joined to the 
 chapel wall by sinking a groove in the latter to receive 
 it, which cuts through the wall in a way that shews the 
 whole to have been formed at the time of the upper 
 doorway, in the 15th century, and it was apparently only 
 a covered way from the doorway to the steps and well 
 beneath, to enable the priests to draw water as required. 
 
 But the well itself is as old as the chapel, and stands 
 completely outside of the foundation wall. Its mouth, 
 which coincides with the level of the crypt floor, is there- 
 fore belov7 the original pavement of the chapel. Pre- 
 vious to the formation of the crypt it must have been 
 reached by a flight of steps from the cemetery, and the 
 water employed for washing or for any other ordinary 
 purpose; the arch was built against the foundation wall 
 after the completion of the latter. Its junction with it, 
 by a straight joint, is visible at the side of the passage 
 (at Y), which, as already shewn, was cut through that 
 foundation wall when the crypt was made in the fif- 
 teenth century. The junction of the fifteenth century wall 
 with the foundation is seen at Z. The passage O, cut 
 through the foundation not only gave access to the well 
 from the crypt, but also supplied access from the chapel 
 above to the crypt. 
 
 Before the crypt was cleared by Mr Reeves in 1825, 
 the entrance, and a very short portion only, of the passage 
 was perceptible. With the usual popular love of the 
 marvellous, and especially in the matter of subterraneous 
 
OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 81 
 
 passages, tliis was universally believed to lead to the 
 Tor. When it was manifested that it only led to this 
 well, the well was immediately pronounced to have been 
 a holy well and to have been used by the monks in aid of 
 their miracles, and also as an object of pilgrimage. Yet 
 not a word of a holy well" is to be found either in the 
 mediaeval chronicles and itineraries, or in the local tradi- 
 tions that hung about the place after the dissolution, and 
 have been told to the curious" visitor ever since'. 
 
 1 The discovery of this well led to 
 great excitement in the town, the Ro- 
 manists said the well was not an object 
 of pilgrimage, but for local conveni- 
 ence ; the room for a vestiary, or place 
 for putting on or changing the priests' 
 
 garments, and the well for washing 
 them in ; but Mr Warner " doubts the 
 explanation" (p. Ixxx.), which, never- 
 theless, appears to be the exact truth 
 of the matter. 
 
 G 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 HISTORY OF THE MONASTIC BUILDINGS. 
 
 Much of the history of these monastic buildings is 
 recorded by John Glaston and Leland, and is worth 
 reciting, for comparison with the progress of similar 
 establishments. We have seen that Abbot Henry 
 de Blois built a complete set of monastic offices between 
 1 1 26 and 1 171. In after- times his chapter house was 
 rebuilt by Abbot Monington (1341 to 1374), and com- 
 pleted by Abbots Chinok and Frome. 
 
 His refectory or fratry, his dormitory and his cloister, 
 were rebuilt by Abbot Chinok (1374 to 1420). 
 
 The great guest-hall or abbot's hall was begun by 
 Abbot Froment (1303 to 1322), carried on by his succes- 
 sors, and finished by Monington. 
 
 Abbot Breynton (1335 to 1341) made the prior's hall 
 and kitchen with other offices, and the steps which led 
 up to the orchard, sumptuously and beautifully con- 
 structed; he also began the abbot's chapel, which was 
 completed by his successor. 
 
 Finally, Abbot '^Bere (1492 to 1524) buildid the new 
 Lodging by the great Chambre caullid the Kinges 
 Lodging in the galery. Bere buildid the new Lodginges 
 for Secular Prestes and Clerkes of our Lady. 
 
 ^'He made an Almose House in the north part of 
 
ARCHITECTUrxAL HISTORY OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 83 
 
 the Abby for vij or x poor Wymen with a Chapel." 
 Leland^ iii. 86. 
 
 The monastic buildings have, with the exception of 
 the abbot's kitchen, entirely disappeared. A few foun- 
 dation lines are laid down in Wild's plan of the church. 
 Stukeley's drawings are so extremely incorrect that very 
 little can be inferred from them. It is only necessary 
 to compare his sketches of St Joseph's chapel with the 
 existing ruins to understand how utterly incapable he 
 was of drawing mediseval architecture. 
 
 We may gather from them, however, that the north 
 wall of St Joseph's chapel was then complete from one 
 end to the other, yet he has omitted in his views of the 
 ruins the pyramidal capping of the turrets altogether, 
 although two of them still exist. His sectional restoration 
 is so ridiculously unlike the reality that it is not worth 
 dwelling upon. 
 
 A considerable fragment of the north wall of the choir 
 with pier arches and also a detached pier seems to have 
 remained in his time. But with this exception the ruins 
 were as nearly as possible in the same state as they are 
 now. The abbot's lodging, introduced complete into his 
 37th plate, is copied, as he tells us, from a drawing made 
 by his friend Mr Strachey, before it was pulled down 
 by the Presbyterian tenant. 
 
 All that can be said of the disposition of this monas- 
 tery is that the cloister was on the south of the church, 
 the cemetery of the laity on the north, and that it followed 
 the ordinary Benedictine arrangement. The cloister, as 
 usual, had its chapter-house on the east side, separated 
 from the transept gable by the passage termed the 
 slype," and these are easily traceable by the foundation 
 walls. The latter gave access to the space eastward, 
 where, probably, the ordinary cemetery of the monks was 
 situated, and also to the infirmary, with its chapel, 
 
84 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 
 
 kitchens, &c., of which however no remains exist. The 
 refectory occupied the south side, also shewn by the 
 parallel foundation walls. 
 
 The principal portal of the abbey is placed by Hollar 
 on the north boundary of the common cemetery, and 
 therefore opposite to the north porch of the nave. It 
 was at the end of a lane which led from the principal 
 street of the town, and from St John's church. This 
 cemetery was bounded westward by a wall, which ex- 
 tended from the north-west corner of St Joseph's chapel, 
 and cut off public access round the west end of it. But 
 there was a gateway arch close to the chapel at n in the 
 plan (fig. i), and a building, of which a small fragment 
 0 remains and shews that its lower story was vaulted. 
 
 On the south side of this chapel was the ancient 
 cemetery of the monks, to which so much importance 
 was attached. This was bounded on the east by the 
 buildings that occupied the west side of the cloister, 
 and on the west by a wall which passed from the above- 
 mentioned small building within a few yards of the west 
 end of the chapel, and reached very nearly to the abbot's 
 kitchen. Its south boundary appears to have been the 
 wall of the abbot's guest-hall and kitchen court. 
 
 Two stone crosses stood in front of this cemetery^ at 
 and q (fig. i) and two others near the spot marked I, op- 
 posite the south side of the chapel. Each pair of stones 
 marked the grave of some distinguished person, the latter, 
 of Arthur, and stood, the one at the head, the other at 
 the feet, and therefore in a line east and west. The first 
 pair remained until a short time previous to Whitaker's 
 visit to the site in 1777. They had been (in his words, 
 p. 35) reduced to the height of only nine or ten feet, yet 
 even then exhibited some of their old engravings upon 
 them, and in this state were they then dragged away, 
 
 ^ Vide p. 30, above. 
 
OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 85 
 
 though some of the most celebrated monuments in Bri- 
 tain, to make a post to a field, or form a prop to a cot- 
 tage. When seen for the last time by any historical eye, 
 they stood in their original position, on the edge of the 
 burying-ground, and a few feet from the north-western 
 angle of the church There are still shewn the cavi- 
 ties in which the pyramids were set ; two large hollows, 
 having a smaller hollow for the sepulchre between 
 them\" 
 
 In this cemetery was also set up at h, the pillar 
 described at page 20, above, which marked the dimensions 
 and position of the wicker-church, and stood 32 feet south 
 of the chapel wall, on the same meridian line as a certain 
 interior step which coincided with the east end of the 
 primitive building. 
 
 This step was probably the one which in the first 
 state of the Norman chapel was placed near the middle of 
 the eastern severy and belonged to the altar platform . 
 Its abutment against the wall is shewn in fig. 6 above L. 
 
 The curia or entrance court of the monastery for the 
 laity and guests was entered from the street or road 
 which runs from the market-place eastward, by another 
 abbey gateway, which stood south-west of the church. 
 The almery was there, and a group of chambers, 
 halls, and kitchens, devoted to the lodging and enter- 
 
 1 It is strange that Whitaker (p. 
 33) quoting Malmsbury's words, failed 
 to perceive that he, in one and the 
 same page, describes two pair of 
 crosses in diflferent positions, one dis- 
 tinctly attributed to Arthur, the other 
 as standing in front of the monks' 
 cemetery, and it is still more strange, 
 that Whitaker (p. 34) quoting William 
 of Worcester's memorandum concern- 
 ing the two pyramids of King Arthur, 
 which he saw opposite the south win- 
 
 dow, omits the latter phrase; appa- 
 rently, because he was unable to re- 
 concile it with the position of the 
 crosses he was describing, at the west 
 end of the chapel, and which he had 
 hastily assumed to mark Arthur's 
 grave. 
 
 2 The point h on the pkn, fig. i, 
 should have been placed farther west- 
 ward, opposite the middle of the east- 
 ern severy. 
 
86 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 tainment of the pilgrims of all ranks, and, as in all 
 monasteries, placed remote from the cloister buildings 
 and church. 
 
 Here too were the granaries, brewhouse, bakehouse, 
 stables, &c. But of all these buildings the traces are so 
 completely destroyed, that no plan can be traced of them. 
 The abbot's kitchen alone has been preserved from de- 
 struction. The abbot's guest-hall is placed by Hollar 
 parallel and nearly opposite to St Joseph's chapel, which 
 is probably its correct place, because it is thus brought 
 into the usual position in respect to the kitchen. 
 
DESCRIPTIOxN OF THE PLATES. 
 
 The plates of this work are designed especially for the explanation of 
 the construction and arrangements of the buildings and not for the 
 display of their architectural beauties, for these have been amply and 
 well represented and recorded, architecturally and picturesquely, by the 
 best artists in each department from Hollar in 1655 to the present 
 time; and are now also illustrated by photography and accessible 
 
 to air. 
 
 The present lithographs are copied from the drawings which I laid 
 down on a large scale from my own measurements and investigations, 
 and employed for the illustration of the lecture which formed the basis 
 of this volume. In them the different styles of architecture were 
 denoted by tints of bright colors. These colors, for convenience, have 
 given place in the lithographs to tints of shade I'uling on a simple 
 system; according to which Norman work is represented by crossed 
 diagonal lines. Early English by crossed rectangular lines, first Perpen- 
 dicular by parallel vertical lines, second Perpendicular by parallel 
 diagonal lines. 
 
 It must also be remarked that in the exterior elevation and longi- 
 tudinal section of St Joseph's chapel the architectural details of arcading, 
 moldings and vaultings are omitted for reasons explained at p. 50. 
 
 ^ The following list includes, I be- 
 lieve, all the standard works that contain 
 engravings of Glastonbury, and (in italics) 
 the names of the artists who made the 
 drawings. Hollar, 1655, in Dugdale's 
 Monasticon; Stevens, Monasticon, 1720; 
 Stuheley, Itinerarium Curiosum, 1724; 
 Grose, Antiquities, 1753; Carter, Ancient 
 Architecture, 1800 ; Storer, Antiquarian 
 and Topographical Cabinet, Vols. ii. v. 
 VI. 1807, &c.; Wild, in Britten's Archi- 
 
 tectural Antiquities, Vol. IV. 18 13; Nash 
 in the Vetusta Monumenta, Vol. iv. 18 r5 ; 
 Coney and Nash in the New Monasticon, 
 Vol. I. 1 8 1 7 ; Buchler, in Warner's His- 
 tory of the Abbey and Town, 1826. 
 (Amongst the drawings of this artist, we 
 find the newly cleared crypt, the well, 
 the Glastonbury chair, and the clock-face 
 from Wells.) Puyin, in his Specimens, 
 gives the kitchen, and the George Inn, 
 1833. 
 
88 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 
 
 Plate I. Fig. 1. Plan of the Abbey church of Glastonbury. 
 
 This plan differs from those that have been hitherto published in the 
 disposition of the east end of the great church, the evidence for 
 which is fully stated in Chapter lY. I have also inserted a north 
 porch (p. 36), and several particulars relating to the arrangements 
 of the cemetery of the monks (p. 85). The parts of the church 
 that remain are distinguished by a darker shade. 
 
 As not a fragment of the lateral portions of the west front is left, it is 
 impossible to determine whether or no it had western towers or 
 doorways on each side at the extremities of the aisles. 
 
 Plate II. Fig. 2. Elevation of the south east side aisle wall of the 
 
 church. 
 
 This elevation illustrates, in conjunction with the plan, the evidence for 
 the original arrangement of the east end and the. form of the 
 subsequent elongation in the fourteenth century (p. 31). In this 
 sketch I have denoted the respond piers by a series of numerals 
 beneath the base line of the elevation, and in referring to the 
 severies have distinguished them as severy 4, 5, or 6, 7, and so on. 
 
 The coloured tint distinguishes the portions of this wall which still 
 remain. The lighter tint from 7 to 10 indicates the later wall, the 
 courses of masonry shew a seam on the west side of the respond 7, 
 which indicates the junction of new work with old. But the two 
 fissures in the wall between the bench table and string mold, in 
 5, 6 and 6, 7, indicate a repair of the portion of wall between 
 them. 
 
 Below the point marked 1 1 on the tops of 5, 6, there is a vertical groove 
 in the face of the wall which begins on the string course and pass- 
 ing behind the wall rib rises to the top of the wall. The use of 
 this is not apparent. It may have received a rope passing down- 
 wards from a sanctus bell in a turret above, or a bell to summon 
 the monks. 
 
OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. g9 
 The figures beneath the elevation are details of moldings. 
 
 A, the section of the Norman voussoirs of the eastern crypt of St 
 
 Joseph's chapel (Chap. YI. p. 65, &c.). 
 
 B, the section of two responds and ribs of the western crypt. The 
 
 dotted lines BGGU form a plan of the impost of the vault ribs 
 (pp. 68, 69). 
 
 F, a vault rib of the great church and the Norman part of St Joseph's 
 
 chapel. 
 
 G, the base of the responds, 7, 8, 9, 10, Fig. 2. 
 
 ffj the base of the responds, 1 to 6, Fig. 2, and of the fragment of the 
 nave, Fig. 1, iV^ to Q, 
 
 Plate III. contains a plan of the crypt (Fig. 3) and a plan of the 
 chapel (Fig. 4), drawn on the same scale and placed, the one ver- 
 tically above the other, so as to admit of a direct comparison of 
 the two. 
 
 No plan of the crypt has hitherto been published, and the present one 
 is the result of my own investigations and measurements. The 
 plans of the chapel, given by Nash and Wild in the Vetusta 
 Monumenta, and Britten's Architectural Antiquities, are excellent, 
 as far as they go. I have, however, supplied the steps to the great 
 church and other details. 
 
 In these plans, which are fully explained in Chapters V. and YI., the 
 buttresses of the chapel are denoted by Roman numerals, which 
 also serve to indicate the severies externally and internally as 
 explained for Fig. 2 above. 
 
 The transverse ribs which divide the severies of the crypt are denoted 
 by Arabic numerals. 
 
 N.B. The doorway M of the crypt is reached by a flight of steps 
 descending between parallel walls. These are omitted in the plan, 
 but described at pp. 61, 72. 
 
 7 
 
90 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 
 
 Plate TV. Fig. 5, is an elevation of the north side of St J oseph's chapel 
 in outline, omitting the arcades of the Norman wall and other 
 decorations. The Arabic numerals shew the portions of the divid- 
 ing lines of the crypt severies, and coincide with the same nume- 
 rals in Fig. 3. The only purpose of this elevation is to shew the 
 manner in which the windows and doorway of the crypt are cut 
 through the basement mold of the building, and intrude into the 
 doorway of the Galilee porch in severy 6, 7 (pp. 69, 70). It also 
 shews the additional threshold stones of the Norman doorway, 
 inserted when the pavement of the chapel was raised to the level 
 of the old bench table by the new crypt (p. 71). 
 
 Plate Y. Fig. 6, is a longitudinal section of St Joseph's chapel, for the 
 purpose of explaining the crypt and the piers of the arch 'of com- 
 munication between the Norman chapel and the Galilee porch. 
 The former is the subject of Chapter VI., the piers and arch of 
 communication of Chapter Y. p. 51, and following. The Arabic 
 numerals placed below the base line of the drawing are, as in Figs. 
 3 and 5, employed to denote the severies. 
 
 In examining the section it must be remembered that the vault ribs 
 have all fallen with the exception of those of the eastern compart- 
 ment, 6, 7. The diagonal ribs of this are not fully drawn in the 
 sketch, because the shade ruling, which denotes the age of the 
 crypt, rendered it difficult to introduce many architectural lines. 
 
 But the plan of this severy (Fig. 3) combined with the section (Fig. 7) 
 will completely explain the vault. In the other compartments the 
 responds retain only the springing block, with here and there 
 a voussoir or two still adhering to the upper bed. Each arch- 
 headed compartment between the responds (as at iV) is simply the 
 end wall of the vaulted severy. The spandrels between these 
 arch-formed lines (as P) are of rough rubble, set back sufficiently 
 from the face of iV to allow the vaults to rest upon the arch line 
 (p. 63). No molded w^l ribs are employed in the crypt, as the 
 springing block, engraved at page 66, shews. 
 
 Plate YI. contains two transverse sections — Fig. 7 of the eastern crypt 
 and Fig. 8 of the western crypt — fully explained in Chapter Yl. 
 p. 62, and following pages. 
 
OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY. 
 
 91 
 
 Plate VII. Fig. 9, is a plan of the north-east turret of the Norman 
 chapel which illustrates pages 51 to 54 above. In this figure it 
 must be remarked that the shade ruling is employed merely to 
 distinguish the external ashlar from the internal ashlar, and not, 
 as in the other figures, with any reference to styles. In fact, the 
 ashlars so marked are parts of the same Norman wall. 
 
 Fig. 10, a plan of the west end of Durham Cathedral with its Galilee, 
 belongs to the comparison of it with the Galilee of Glastonbury, 
 given in Chapter YII. 
 
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