Chapter I: The History of the Building (2)

Richard of Gainsborough now lies buried in the cloisters of the minster. To those who have visited the Abbey of Crowland, on the southern borders of the county, the following statement by Sir G. G. Scott may be of interest. In speaking of the old ruined western front, he says that the details "are hardly to be surpassed, and are the more interesting as having been evidently the work of the architect of the eastern part of Lincoln Cathedral. Even the stone is from Lincoln" ("Lectures on Mediæval Architecture," vol. i. p. 194).

Like the choir of St. Hugh, the Angel Choir stands at the threshold of a new period in architecture. "The style is the earliest Geometrical, of which the triforium and windows are among the best examples in the world." [7] No hard-and-fast line can be drawn, of course, between the different phases of English Gothic, and when we consider that the period during which the Angel Choir was being built includes the last years of the earliest style, and carries us well into the style which followed, it is not difficult to reconcile the words of two eminent authorities on the subject. Fergusson says that "true geometric (window) tracery is ... seen in perfection in the Angel Choir at Lincoln," whilst in Rickman's book we read that we have here the "richest ... and latest work" of the Early English style. Both writers would undoubtedly agree that it is "one of the most beautiful examples of the best period of English art," "simply perfect in its proportion and details." It may be hardly necessary to remark that the name is due to the beautiful sculptured angels filling the spandrels of the triforium.

The 6th October 1280 was the proudest day in the history of the city. Perhaps never, before or since, has such an august assembly gathered within her walls. The body of the Saint of Lincoln was to be translated to the costly shrine in the centre of the Angel Choir. The ceremony was magnificent. Edward himself was present, and supported on his own shoulder the saint's remains as they were carried to their new resting-place; with him was his beloved queen Eleanor, whose effigy was so soon to be placed beneath the same roof. The king and queen were accompanied by Edmund, Earl of Kent, brother of Edward, and his wife; the Earls of Gloucester and Warwick; the Archbishop of Canterbury; the bishops of Lincoln, Bath, Ely, Norwich, Worcester, Llandaff, Bangor, and St. Asaph; the bishop-elect of Exeter; and two hundred and fifty knights. The shrine, ornamented with gold and silver and precious stones, was raised on a lofty stone pedestal, and about thirty years after was protected by an iron grille, wrought by Simon the Smith. It is recorded that the fastenings of the grille were still to be seen in the pavement at the middle of the last century, but all traces have now entirely disappeared. It must have been soon after the translation that the head was removed from the body, and enclosed in a metal case, enriched with gold and silver and precious stones. A keeper was appointed to guard the precious relic during the day, and two had this charge at night. Yet, in spite of all such precautions, it was stolen from the church in the year 1364; the head was thrown into a field, and the case sold in London for twenty marks. The thieves were robbed of their ill-gotten gains on their way back, and were afterwards convicted of the crime, and hanged at Lincoln. The head was found and restored to the cathedral. The treasurer John de Welburne (d. 1380) either restored the old shrine or made a new one of the same materials. The accounts for many years of the receipts and expenditure at the half-yearly opening, when the relics were exhibited to stimulate the offerings of the faithful, are preserved in the muniment room. At Pentecost 1364 (the year of the theft) the amount received was £36, 2s. 3d., and at Pentecost 1532 it had fallen to £2, 2s. 5d., a sure sign of the decline of relic worship. In the year 1540, this shrine shared the fate of so many other precious relics, finding its way to the melting-pots of King Henry VIII.

By the erection of the Angel Choir, the ground plan of the minster was completed almost as it is now. Since that time, the three towers have been raised to a greater height, the cloisters and library constructed, the minster yard protected by gates, and several alterations made in the details of the main building. In the year of the translation of St. Hugh's remains, Oliver Sutton succeeded Richard de Gravesend as bishop. He removed the canons' stable, which stood in close proximity to the minster, and began the erection of the cloisters, starting the work, as his registrar, John de Schalby tells us, by a gift of fifty marks from his own purse. Since Lincoln was a secular foundation, and was never the church of a monastery, there was no absolute need of the cloisters at all, but it is a pity, since they were undertaken, that the work was not more substantially done. Three walks still remain, after having been strengthened by buttresses, and finally reconstructed, owing to the insecurity of the original foundations; the fourth has quite disappeared, and has been replaced by a most incongruous classical structure, after the design of Sir Christopher Wren. The date of the cloisters can be given approximately; they are mentioned as being in progress in a letter of Bishop Sutton's, dated August 23rd, 1296, and such a flimsy structure would probably not take long to finish. Up to this time the central tower still remained as it had been left by Grosseteste. But in the year 1307 Bishop Dalderby issued letters of indulgence for raising it to a greater height. The work was begun on the 14th March in that year, and was probably completed during the next four years, since in 1311 a question arose regarding the cords for two bells which had been lately hung in the tower. A tall spire of wood, coated with lead, was afterwards added. A Lincoln historian of the early part of the present century assigns this spire to Bishop Dalderby, but little reliance can be placed in his testimony, since he ascribes the companion spires on the west towers to the same bishop, and the upper storeys of these towers were not added until a century later.

During this episcopate occurred the trial of the Knights Templars in the chapter-house. A Bull of Pope Clement V., the creature of the French king, who feared the immense power of the knights, pronounced the suppression of the Order in the year 1309. The cruelties with which this was carried out abroad were avoided in this country. The English Templars were put under custody in London, Lincoln, and York. From Lincoln the larger number were transferred to the Tower of London, but Bishop Dalderby was reluctantly compelled to preside at the trial of the others.

In order to trace the history of the walls and gatehouses protecting the close, it is necessary to go back a few years. Edward I. had, in 1285, received a petition from the canons, praying that the close might be fortified. Their plea was, that it had become positively dangerous to attend the midnight services of the church, owing to the number of evil-doers who thronged the precincts. The licence from the king in the year 1285 to the dean and chapter, giving them permission to erect the close wall, is still preserved at Lincoln. The wall was commenced, and in the thirteenth year of Edward II. (1319), permission was given for the addition of towers. Double gateways were erected to guard the approaches. Before we come to speak of the upper storeys of the western towers, a few less important matters may be recorded. It is not difficult to see that the tracery which fills the round window, "the Bishop's eye," of the southern limb of the great transept, does not accord in style with its surroundings. The flowing lines mark a period subsequent to the geometrical forms of the Angel Choir, and later by more than a century than the wall in which the window is placed. This window and that in the gable above, the latter only to be seen from the outside, must be assigned to about the middle of the fourteenth century. About this time, Lincoln received a treasurer, who has left abiding traces in the minster. John de Welburne has already been mentioned as having restored the precious shrine of St. Hugh. Perhaps the greatest of his benefactions are the present magnificent choir-stalls, the finest examples in the kingdom. He also constructed the vaulting of the central and western towers, and placed over the great west door the respectable row of royal statues. Welburne died in the year 1380; this we learn from a volume relating to his chantry and other foundations, written in 1382. The tracery of the three west windows has been assigned by some to him, and by others to a bishop who lived more than half-a-century later. They may be considered as belonging to the end of the fourteenth century, and mark the entrance into the next stage of Gothic architecture, the Perpendicular. The two western towers, St. Mary's and St. Hugh's, had been awaiting their completion for many years. They were now raised to a height of nearly 200 feet, by the addition of early Perpendicular storeys, constructed immediately above the Norman work of Alexander the Magnificent. These towers, as well as the centre one, were crowned by tall spires of wood, coated with lead. The height of these timber spires was 89 feet from the base to the ball, and another 12 feet to the top of the vane; their fate will be recorded later.

Besides the three west windows, and the upper portions of the western towers, the only other parts of the minster in the Perpendicular style are the three chantry-chapels added to the Angel Choir. The first of these was built by Bishop Fleming (d. Jan. 1430-1), and stands on the north side. Bishop Russell (d. 1494) added another opposite to it on the south side. The third chapel was constructed by Bishop Longland (d. 1547). It is a copy of Bishop Russell's, and stands on the same side of the choir, to the west of the doorway. The old library, of which a fragment only remains, was erected in the year 1442 over the east walk of the cloisters. In the year 1609 it suffered severely from fire, and in 1789 all that remained was taken down, with the exception of the part forming a vestibule to the new library.

Turning from the building itself to the internal history of the minster, we find that, towards the middle of the fifteenth century, dissensions had arisen among the cathedral body, which, if not of such historical importance as the differences under Grosseteste, are of sufficient interest to be worth recording. They give considerable insight into the ecclesiastical life of the time. John Mackworth, the dean, was a man of violent temper. In 1435, having some difference with the chancellor, Peter Patrick or Partridge, he entered the church one day during vespers, attended by ten armed servants. The chancellor was dragged from his stall in the choir, brutally assaulted, and left in a wounded condition on the pavement of the church. It is said that over this affair the point was raised during the trial at Westminster, whether the Cathedral Close was in the _county_ or the _county of the city_ of Lincoln; the delinquents had been described as of the former, and since this was not legally correct, they escaped the punishment they richly deserved. Matters came to a crisis, and the chapter brought before the bishop, William Alnwick, forty-two charges against their dean. The following are sufficient to shew Mackworth's haughty temper:--He would not walk in processions in a straight line; he had fraudulently kept back from the chapter 25s. 8d.; he came to the chapter attended by armed men to the great terror of the canons; at vespers and prime he made the bell stop before the officiating priest had arrived, but made the choir wait for him, if he was late; he had pulled down part of the wall of the cloister to build a stable. The dean in return accused the chapter of appropriating to their own use the cloth bought out of the common funds of the church for clothing the poor. The matter was settled in 1439 by a "Laudum" of the bishop, who set himself the task of constructing a new body of statutes for governing the church; these are still in use. Dissensions, however, did not end here, and we find a complaint made to the bishop four years later, that the dean had, in the choir, called the precentor a "buffoon" and a "vile tailor," and had offered personal violence to him. In 1449 the bishop issued a commission for the trial of the dean, but died before it could take place.

Before speaking of the grievous losses which the minster sustained under Henry VIII., it may be well to refer to a Visitation which was undertaken by Bishop Smyth in the first year of the sixteenth century. The charges then brought against the dean, George Fitzhugh, shew the deplorable negligence of the cathedral body with regard to the sacred building under their care. The dean stated that all was right in the cathedral, but from the following statements it would appear that there were several abuses which might with advantage have been corrected. It was affirmed (1) that the chaplains often resorted to a chantry within the church, and there played at dice, bones, and cards in questionable company, often staying till after midnight; (2) that the servants of the dean and other residentiaries did great mischief to the fabric of the church, by breaking the glass windows and the stone tracery with their arrows and crossbow bolts, and by piercing the lead on the roof with their missiles. In the examination that followed it was found that, though large sums had been spent on the fabric, there was still urgent need of further repairs, and an appeal to the public was necessary. We may well be grieved at "the great mischief" done at this time, which would partly account for the dilapidated state of some of the stained glass windows; but the minster was to suffer far more severely under Henry VIII. In the Chapter Acts of 1520 we find mentioned the "head of seint hugh closed in silver gilt and enamelled." The treasure belonging to it is also carefully detailed, down to "a littil blew stone" and "ij qwysshyns of silk." Thus zealously had it been guarded ever since the mishap of 1364, but its doom was now pronounced. At the end of a "Registre and Inventarye of all Jewell Westimentes and other ornamentes in the yere of ow^r lorde god m.ccccc.xxxvj," is "A Copye of the Kinges Lettres by force whereof the shrynes and other Jewels were taken" [1540]. Part of the letter may be given here: "For as moch as we understand that there ys a certain shryne and di[vers] fayned Reliquyes and Juels in the Cathedrall church of Lyncoln with [which] all the symple people be moch deceaved and broughte into greate su[per]sticion and Idolatrye to the dyshonor of god and greate slander of th(is) realme and peryll of theire own soules,

"We Let you w[~y]t that (we) beinge mynded to bringe o^r lovinge subiectes to y^e righte knowledge of y^e truth by takynge away all occasions of Idolatrye and supersticion. For y^e especiall trust (and) confidence we have in yowr fydelytyes, wysdoms and discre[~c]ons, have (and) by theis presentes doe aucthorise name assign and appointe you fowre or three of you that immediatelye uppon the sighte here of repairinge to y^e sayd Cathedrall church and declaringe unto y^e Deane Recydencyaryes and other mynisters there(of) the cause of yowr comynge ys to take downe as well y^e sayd shryne and supersticious reliquyes as superfluouse Jueles, plate copes and other suche like as yow shall thinke by yowr wysdoms not mete to contynew (and) remayne there, unto the wych we doubte not but for y^e considera[~c]ons rehersed the sayde Deane and Resydencyaryes w^th other wyll be conformable and wyllinge thereunto, and so yow to precede accordingly. And to see the sayd reliquyes, Juels and plate safely and surely to be conveyde to owr towre of London in to owr Jewyll house there chargeing the m^r of owr Jewyls w^th the same.

"And further we wyll that you charge and co[~m]ande in owr name the sayd Deane there to take downe such monumentes as may geve any occasioñ of memorye of such supersticion and Idolatrye hereafter...."

Underneath is the following "memorandum," proving how great was the treasure possessed at that time by the authorities of the minster:--"Memorandum that by force of the above wrytten comyssyoñ there was taken owt of ye sayd Cathedrall church of Lyncoln at that tyme in gold ij^{m}vj^{c}xxj oz (2621 oz.), in sylver iiij^{m}ij^{c}iiij^{xx}.v oz (4285 oz.); Besyde a greate nombre of Pearles & preciouse stones wych were of greate valewe, as Dyamondes, Saphires Rubyes, turkyes, Carbuncles etc. There were at that tyme twoe shrynes in the sayd Cath. churche; the one of pure gold called S^t Hughes Shryne standinge on the backe syde of the highe aulter neare unto Dalysons tombe, the other called S^t John of Dalderby his shryne was of pure sylver standinge in y^e south ende of the greate crosse Ile not farre from the dore where y^e gallyley courte ys used to be kepte."

Harry Lytherland was the last treasurer of Lincoln. As he saw the last of the treasures carried away, he cried "ceasing the Treasure, so ceaseth the office of the Treasurer," and flinging down the keys on the pavement of the choir, he walked out of the church. This occurred on the 6th June 1540; Lytherland never sat in his stall again. Of the risings in 1536, resulting from the religious changes, Lincoln was one of the chief centres. The Lincolnshire insurgents, assembled at Horncastle, sent six demands to the king, the last being that Bishop Longland should be deprived. The Chancellor of Lincoln was captured and conveyed to Horncastle, where he was killed, and his garments and money were distributed among the rebels. The Abbot of Barlings rode into Lincoln with his canons in full armour. A number of insurgents gathered in the city, and the bishop's palace was attacked and plundered. The rebel council was sitting in the chapter-house when the messenger arrived from the king. His answer was characteristic; he reproved them for "their presumptuous follie and rebellious attempt," called the shire "one of the most brute and beastly of the whole realm," and summoned the people to depart quietly to their homes. An attempt on the part of the gentlemen to read the letter secretly caused a panic among the commons, who decided to kill them all. The gentry hurriedly escaped into the chancellor's house, where they barricaded the door. Shortly after, the commons, deserted by their leaders, and "each mistrusting other, who should be noted the greater meddler, suddenlie ... began to shrinke, and got them home to their houses without longer abode" (Holinshed's "Chronicles "). On the arrival of a royal force, the cathedral was "turned into an arsenal, fortified and garrisoned." Lord Hussey, a prominent Lincolnshire noble, was executed, and the Abbot of Barlings was hanged, together with the Abbots of Whalley, Woburn, and Sawley. Another event which occurred towards the end of the same reign should not pass unnoticed. Anne Askew was a member of an old Lincolnshire family, being the daughter of Sir William Askew or Ayscough; her birthplace was probably Stallingborough, near Grimsby. "When she was at Lincoln," we are told, "she was seen daily in the Cathedral reading her Bible, and engaging the clergy in discussions on the meaning of particular texts." Her bold opinions at last brought her to the stake in 1546, at the age of twenty-five, a martyr to the doctrines of the Reformation.

A few possessions of value appear to have survived the reign of Henry, but these were sacrificed to the rapacious greed of the unscrupulous ministers of his son and successor. The following statement occurs in "An Historical Account of the Antiquities in the Cathedral Church of St. Mary, Lincoln," published in that city in 1771:--"A second Plunder was committed in this Church Anno 1548, during the Presidence of Bishop Holbech, who being a zealous Reformist, gave up all the remaining Treasure which Henry had thought proper to leave behind; this Bishop together with George Henage Dean of Lincoln, pulled down and defaced most of the beautiful Tombs in this Church; and broke all the Figures of the Saints round about this Building; and pulled down those [of] our Saviour, the Virgin, and the Crucifix; so that at the End of the Year 1548, there was scarcely a whole Figure or Tomb remaining." Henry Holbeach became Bishop of Lincoln in the year of Henry VIII.'s death, and soon after that event he surrendered to the Crown twenty-six (or according to Strype thirty-four) rich manors belonging to the see. He died at Nettleham in 1551.

Passing on to the beginning of the next century, a fire which broke out in the year 1609 partly destroyed the old library over the east walk of the cloisters; little further damage appears to have been done.

The turbulent times of the Civil War were disastrous for Lincoln in common with so many other places. An account of the troubles which the struggle brought upon the city is given by Mr. Edward Peacock in the thirty-eighth volume of the _Archæological Journal_. The shire appears to have been distinctly Puritan, and up to July 1643, at any rate, the city was in the hands of the Parliamentarians. John Vicars, the author of "Jehovah Jerah. God in the Mount or England's Parliamentarie Chronicle," printed in London in the year 1644, gives an account of an unsuccessful attempt of the Royalists to capture the city about that time. "And as proeme and preamble to the ensuing tragedie or treacherie, Serjeant Major Purfrey had let into the town, at a back gate, about sixty bloodie cavaliers, all of them disguised in countrie marketmen's habits, who were all hid and sheltred (as it was credibly enformed) in the Deane's house in Lincolne." The attempt was unsuccessful, but the city soon after fell into the Royalists' hands, an event of unhappy interest for our subject, as it gave rise to an attack (in April of the following year) of the Parliamentarians under the Earl of Manchester. The capture of the city was soon followed by the mutilation of its most glorious monument. Through the misguided zeal of the rude soldiers of the Parliament, the stained glass of the minster was nearly all broken, the tombs were injured, and the brasses torn from their matrices. It should yet be remembered that considerable damage had already been done under Henry VIII., and even earlier, and that the injuries of 1644 were not so great as it might appear at first sight. Lincoln was again attacked by the Royalists in 1648, when the bishop's palace was stormed and taken, and the city given over to plunder. In a description of the minster, published in 1771, the following account of the injury is given:--"Bishop Winniff had little Enjoyment of his Honor in presiding over this See; for in the Year 1645 ... he had the Mortification to see all the Brass Work of the Gravestones pulled up, the rich Brass Gates to the Choir and divers of the Chantries pulled down, and every regaining Beauty defaced; and his Church made Barracks; for the prevailing Parties in that unhappy Reign, and his Episcopal Palace totally destroyed, both at Lincoln and Buckden."

During the time of the Commonwealth, the minster passed through a crisis such as it had never before experienced, and such as we may hope it will never experience again. "Certain godly ones," we are told, were "then gaping after its stone, timber, and lead," and the minster was in great danger of being demolished altogether. This fact has been recorded by the late Precentor Venables, who states that the fabric was "only rescued from threatened destruction by the civic worthy, Mr. Original Peart (Mayor in 1650 and Member of Parliament in 1654 and 1656), who represented to Cromwell that 'if the minster were down Lincoln would soon be one of the worst towns in the county.'"

In 1654, on the 19th August, Evelyn visited the city. He has left to us in his Diary an interesting record of the Lincoln of the Commonwealth:--"Lincoln is an old confused town, very long, uneven, steep, and ragged, formerly full of good houses, especially churches and abbeys. The minster almost comparable to that of York itself, abounding with marble pillars, and having a fair front (here was interred Queen Eleanora, the loyal and loving wife who sucked the poison out of her husband's wound); the abbot founder, with rare carving in the stone; the great bell, or Tom, as they call it. I went up the steeple, from whence is a goodly prospect all over the county. The soldiers had lately knocked off most of the brasses from the gravestones, so as few inscriptions were left; they told us that these men went in with axes and hammers, and shut themselves in, till they had rent and torn off some barge-loads of metal, not sparing even the monuments of the dead; so hellish an avarice possessed them: besides which, they exceedingly ruined the city."

At the Restoration, Robert Sanderson was rewarded for his long faithfulness to the royal house by the bishopric of Lincoln. He had been a chaplain to Charles I., who is reported to have said, "I carry my ears to hear other preachers, but I carry my conscience to hear Dr. Sanderson."

Sanderson died in 1663. Four years later, William Fuller, the antiquarian, was appointed bishop. "He bestowed very much in adorning his church," and restored many of the monuments and inscriptions.

Fuller's efforts at restoring something like order to the grievously ill-used fabric were seconded by those of Dean Honywood, who in 1674 caused the present arcade to be constructed on the north side of the cloisters, with the library above it. Sir Christopher Wren, the architect, did not take the least care to let his work harmonise with its surroundings. From the times of Fuller and Honywood to our own, there have been many whose energy has led them to undertake various works in and about the minster. Some have undoubtedly worked with mistaken zeal; but, taken as a whole, Lincoln has escaped with less injury than many others of our public monuments. In the year 1727 an attempt to remove the timber spires of the western towers, resulted in a serious riot (see p. 56), and the townspeople were only pacified by a promise that the spires should not be touched. No such disturbance occurred when they were finally removed in 1807, the excuse then being that they were very insecure, and would cost much to repair. But it seems that even at this time the removal was not entirely approved of; a lament, clothed in ridiculous rhyme, was published in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ of January 1808, and a local writer two years later relates how the "lofty spires" were "levelled by tasteless inconsiderate improvers." Early in the 18th century the western towers began to shew signs of instability, and caused considerable anxiety. An architect named John James was employed about 1730 to strengthen the towers by constructing arches underneath, which formed a kind of triple porch just inside the church. The materials of the chapel of the old bishop's palace were employed in the construction of these arches. The central porch was reconstructed by James Essex about thirty years later. An anonymous historian of about forty years ago quotes the following extract from a letter written by Sympson, at one time clerk of the works to the fabric, to Browne Willis:--"Before I make an end of this long letter, I must acquaint you that I took down the antient image of St. Hugh, which is about 6 foot high, and stood upon the summit of a stone pinnacle at the south corner of the west front, in the month of June last (_i.e._ 1743), and pulled down 22 foot of the pinnacle itself, which was ready to tumble into ruins, the shell being but 6 in. thick, and the ribs so much decayed, especially on the east side, that it declined visibly that way.... I hope to see the saint fixed upon a firmer basis before winter." The date of this work coincides with that of the appointment of Bishop Thomas (1743-61), who appears to have zealously applied himself to the repair of the fabric. The historian of 1771 writes as follows:--"During the Presidence of Bishop Thomas, and towards the first of the present Bishop Dr. Green, over this See, this Church was repaired and modernised in the State which it is this Day seen. Also, during the Presidence of Bishop Thomas, he set on Foot the appropriating the tenth of the Fines arising from the renewal of the Leases of their respective Estates, as a Fund for the continual Repair of this Church, himself setting the Laudable Example."

The "scraping process" to which the exterior of the minster was subjected under the late John Chessel Buckler of Oxford is within the memory of many. It caused much angry discussion and bitterness at the time, and resulted in the publication of a book, in which Buckler undertook to justify his work on the minster. The chief part of this volume consists in long chapters of abuse, written with a most extraordinary flow of language, and directed against all who ventured to object to the way in which his work had been done.

Under the late consulting architect to the chapter, J. L. Pearson, R.A., many necessary strengthenings and restorations were carried out; but as no radical changes are in progress they do not call for detailed notice in this place.