Chapter VII: TUDOR.—In 1488 was erected the chantry of Bishop Alcock at the east

end of the north aisle of the choir; and in 1534 that of Bishop West in a similar position in the south aisle. They are perhaps the two most superb chantries in England, of marvellous richness and delicacy and vigour. That of Bishop West is of exceptional interest for its Renaissance vaulting and scroll-work. One so rarely sees in an English cathedral the delicate art of the early Italian Renaissance.

VIII. In 1539 the monks were expelled; secular canons took their place. In 1699 Sir Christopher Wren contributed a classical doorway to the north transept. The roofs of the nave and the lantern were painted _c._ 1862 by Mr. Le Strange and Mr. Gambier Parry. To Sir Gilbert Scott is due the gorgeous reredos.

The Cathedral Church of St. Peter, Exeter.

In the days of the so-called Heptarchy, the divisions of the Church followed those of the State. The diocese of Lichfield was conterminous with the kingdom of Mercia. In the same way the diocese of Winchester was coextensive with the kingdom of Wessex. Thus Devonshire, so far as it had been colonised by Anglo-Saxons before the eighth century, formed part of the diocese of Winchester. But these vast dioceses were too cumbrous to work. They had to be subdivided. So a western diocese was lopped off from Winchester, and a Bishop of Sherborne was appointed as its head. Then, as the far west grew in population and importance, two more bishoprics were created—those of Crediton and Cornwall. These two, however, were soon amalgamated; and Cornwall has had no bishop of its own from the Conquest till the recent formation of the Bishopric of Truro.

Just before the Norman Conquest Bishop Leofric removed the see from the open town of Crediton to the walled city of Exeter, largely in consequence of attacks of Scandinavian pirates. At Exeter Leofric found a Benedictine monastery, dedicated to St. Mary and St. Peter. This conventual church he made his cathedral. “He was installed in the episcopal chair by Edward the Confessor, who supported his right arm, and Queen Eadgytha his left”; representations of which were inserted in the fourteenth-century sedilia. The Benedictine monks were removed by the Confessor to his new abbey at Westminster, and Leofric supplied their place by a body of secular canons, who lived together, however, and to some extent observed monastic discipline. Leofric was left undisturbed in his bishopric till his death, 1072. His successor, also, though a Norman, was English and conservative by training; the venerable Anglo-Saxon church was good enough for him. But William Warelwast (1107-1128) was a great building prelate, and it was he who commenced the existing cathedral. Exeter Cathedral, therefore, was commenced much later than most of the Norman cathedrals. This Norman cathedral of Warelwast seems to have been partly remodelled in the early years of the Lancet period (1194-1206) by Bishop Marshall. Later, but still in the Lancet period, Bishop Bruere (1224-1244) settled the cathedral establishment, and provided for his dignitaries a chapter-house, as well as stalls in the cathedral. In the Geometrical period Bishop Bronescombe (1257-1280) seems to have made a few changes at the east end of the choir. Then came the great builder of all, Bishop Quivil, who formed the bold idea of remodelling the whole cathedral, as left by Bishop Marshall. The work which Bishop Quivil commenced was carried out, and precisely in accordance with the original plans, by Bishops Bitton, Stapledon, and Grandisson, who completed the transformation of the cathedral about 1350. Other great prelates did good work later—especially Brantyngham, Stafford, Lacy, Bothe, Courtenay, Fox, King, and Oldham. The Bishops of Exeter were in nearly all cases men of the highest ability, rank, and importance.

Up to 1551 Exeter was one of the greatest prizes in the Church of England. It possessed thirty-two manors, fourteen palaces—two in Cornwall, nine in Devonshire, one in Surrey, one in London, of which Essex Street, Strand, is a reminder. The present value of the income of the see would be at least £100,000. The first of the Protestant bishops was Miles Coverdale, who with Tyndale translated the Bible. Seth Ward (1662-1667) “cast out the buyers and sellers who had usurped the cathedral, and therein kept distinct shops to vend their wares.” In the evil days of the Puritans the cathedral had been divided into two churches by a vast whitewashed wall, built on the choir-screen and separating choir from nave. The Independents worshipped in the nave, the Presbyterians in the choir. Here they had what they called “great quiet and comfort,” till Seth Ward pulled the wall down. Seth Ward’s restoration of the cathedral cost him £25,000—representing a far greater sum nowadays. He put the cathedral in substantial repair; and the restoration by Sir G. G. Scott, in 1870, did little damage.

BISHOP WARELWAST.

Nothing remains of the church of the Anglo-Saxon monastery; nor is there any Early Norman work, for, as we have seen, that church was allowed to remain standing till the year 1107. But in the first half of the twelfth century a Norman cathedral was commenced, and possibly finished, by William Warelwast and his successors. That cathedral included both the existing towers; it also included an aisled nave of the same dimensions as the present one. The narrowed span of the westernmost arches of the pier arcade is to be accounted for only on the supposition of the existence, to the west, of the wall of a pre-existing west front (cf. Lincoln nave). Also traces of Norman buttresses and pilasters, and one base, have been found in the walls of the north and south aisles of the nave. And traces of an apse have been found at the end of the third bay of the choir. So it is plain that the twelfth-century cathedral had west front, nave and aisles, transeptal towers, a choir of three bays, an apse at the end of the choir, and probably some minor apses.

BISHOP MARSHALL.

Great works were commenced between 1194 and 1206; they extend over a large part of the cathedral. First, there is the doorway, early Lancet, leading from the south aisle of the nave to the cloister, near the north-west corner of the south tower; and near here, on the south wall of the nave, are several consecration crosses of Marshall’s date. Then, passing round or through the cathedral to the north side, there will be found buttresses of very early character, heavy, low, and of few stages: (1) at St. Edmund’s chapel, to the north-west of the nave; (2) to the north porch; (3) on the north side of the nave. We may conclude then, that the works included the addition to the nave of a south-east doorway, St. Edmund’s chapel, and a north porch, and possibly the remodelling of the clerestory of the whole nave. But what is more important, the choir, instead of being three bays long plus an apse, was now made eight bays long. The Norman apse was pulled down, the three bays of the Norman choir seem to have been allowed to remain. This work, especially the eastward extension of the choir, represented a great amount of building. The new eastern bays of the choir were finished, at any rate as far as the springers of the vault; for it has been found that the present vault of the choir incorporates the lower part of the ribs of Marshall’s vault; this, of course, would be of simpler character, and was designed to be four or five feet lower than the present one. Similar great eastward extensions were going on all over England in the thirteenth century; especially the building of Lady chapels: there seems to have been quite an outburst of Mariolatry at this time.

BISHOP BRUERE (1224-1244).

Proceeding to the chapter-house, it will be found that the lower part was built in the later years of the Lancet period. To the same date belong the misereres of the choir. This bishop gave the cathedral body its present constitution: dean, precentor, chancellor, treasurer, and canons; it is natural that he should have constructed for them their chapter-house, with its fine arcade; and their stalls. The misereres, with their stiff trefoiled foliage, are the earliest set in the kingdom, and of exceptional interest. Bishop Bruere had travelled in the East, and designs in tapestry brought back by him may have been copied: _e.g._, there is the earliest representation of an elephant; a later one occurs at Boston; there are mermen and mermaids, and an illustration of the Romaunt of the _Chevalier au Cygne_; also Nebuchadnezzar saddled—unless this is the favourite subject of the weakness of philosophers before the charms of women, as exemplified in the temptation and fall of Aristotle.

BISHOP BRONESCOMBE (1257-1280).

The windows north and south of the retro-choir probably belong to this period. The roll-moulding appears on the principal curves only of the tracery; ever after it spreads over the whole of the tracery. The lower lights of these windows are lancets; the circles in the head are cusped. The chapels of St. Mary Magdalene and St. Gabriel, on either side of the Lady chapel, seem also to have been remodelled at this time; for the side windows of these two chapels have geometrical tracery earlier than that of the Lady chapel.

BISHOP QUIVIL (1280-1292).

And now we come to the rebuilding of the whole cathedral. In spite of the great changes that took place in Gothic architecture during the next seventy years, the original design—that of Quivil—was adhered to almost to the very last. With the exception of a few Curvilinear windows in the western bays of the nave, all the main features of the building are as they were designed in the closing years of the thirteenth century. It is, of course, this exceptional unity and harmony of design that makes Exeter what it is—one of the most satisfactory mediæval interiors in this country. In cathedrals such as Rochester and Ely a Norman nave jars on a Gothic choir; or, as at Lincoln and York, two styles of Gothic mingle and conflict. But at Exeter, looking forward from west to east, hardly anything obtrudes on the original design. In no other cathedral, except Salisbury, do we find similar unity of design; but in the design of Salisbury simplicity becomes bareness and poverty. It cannot be compared for one moment with the richness of the lovely decorated work of Exeter. Yet greater unity and harmony is gained by the way in which the battlements and pinnacles, flying-buttresses, and cresting weld together the exterior; and the high vaults the interior, as at Norwich. The adherence, too, for so long a time to Bishop Quivil’s design is interesting, because it shows that in the early years of the fourteenth century there was at Exeter, as at Beverley, Westminster, Ely, and St. Albans, a strong current in the direction of conservation of good design. Piers and vaulting and bosses and corbels and triforium and windows of the nave, built long after he was dead and gone, are all but reproductions of Quivil’s early work. Most remarkable of all, perhaps, is the adherence to Quivil’s window tracery—the rose, the lily, and the wheel. Even the great west window, one of the last works, is but Quivil’s straight-spoked wheel translated into flowing lines.

Quivil commenced his work in the two Norman towers, in which he inserted tall arches, thus making them an integral part of the church. He also built the arches of the crossing, and provided abutment to the west by building one new bay on either side of the nave. All that one sees here—the first bay of the nave, and the alterations in the transepts, the window tracery, the piers and arches, the pierced balconies hung up on the walls of the towers, the substitution of Purbeck marble for stone shafts—is Quivil’s work. As to the easternmost bay of the nave on either side, it differs from the rest of the nave in having a wider arch; while its clerestory windows have the same straight-spoked wheel as Quivil’s windows in the transept; the mouldings of the capitals of the first two piers correspond with those of the transeptal arches; the bases are lower than those elsewhere in the nave; the bosses of the aisles are flatter; even the flying-buttresses differ.

Now that he had remodelled the centre of the church, Quivil set to work to recast the eastern parts of the church, commencing at the far east end, so as to interfere with the services as little as possible. He first transformed the Lady chapel; to him are due the shafts, sedilia, double piscina, and the vaulting, the rib-mouldings of which are of earlier character than those of the choir; and the windows, which closely resemble those of Merton College, Oxford, which we know was commenced in 1277. In the centre of the Lady chapel Bishop Quivil is buried; he died in 1291. The chapels on either side may have been remodelled or partly remodelled by Bronescombe; but the east windows are later in style, and are Quivil’s.

The piers hereabout are very interesting. Those of the Lady chapel looking into the side chapels are composed of four columns. The north-east and south-east piers of the choir have clusters of eight shafts instead of four; while in the pier between them the cluster of eight is developed into a cluster of sixteen columns. Finally, notice that these piers are set diamond-wise, with four flat faces, and the angles to the north, west, south, and east.

BISHOP BITTON (1292-1307).

Bishop Quivil had only touched the fringe of the choir, but he must have collected much material for its transformation; for his successor completed it, even the vaulting, in fifteen years—the last fifteen years of Edward I. It seems to have been done in two sections; first, the four eastern bays of Bishop Marshall’s work, then the older bays to the west. It is clear that the builders took away both piers and arches from underneath Bishop Marshall’s clerestory wall, and put in new ones, without bringing the wall down—a kind of engineering feat which the mediæval builders undertook with a light heart. The new piers all consist of “vast horizontal slices of Purbeck marble, from nine to fifteen inches thick”; the arches of native sandstone. These immense marble piers give the interior of Exeter a magnificence rare in England, only to be paralleled by the marble churches of Italy. The colour-contrast, too, between the blue-grey marble of the piers, the yellow sandstone of the arches, and the white Caen stone above, is delightful. The mouldings of Bitton’s work are clearly distinguishable from those of Quivil, and were retained, with little variation, to the west end of the cathedral. Bitton got himself into some curious difficulties by retaining instead of pulling down the twelfth and thirteenth-century clerestory walls. The first of the two, the western, was the thicker wall. Hence the piers to support it had to be thicker: they exceed the eastern piers in diameter by nine inches. But by bringing both eastern and western piers to the same line facing the central aisle of the choir the difference of nine inches appears only in the side-aisles, where it is less noticeable. Again, the length of the western bays was 2½ feet greater than that of the four eastern ones. When, therefore, Bitton set out the seven eastern pier-arches there remained an awkward gap of 2½ feet between the last arch and the great pier of the crossing. This he bridged over by the tiny arch which appears at the extreme west of each arcade of the choir, the incongruity of which was largely masked later by the great choir-screen. He seems to have worked to the middle of the choir—first from the east, then from the crossing. When, however, the two sets of arches met, they did not fit, and the clumsy junction had to be botched over by the aid of a stilt.

BISHOP STAPLEDON (1308-1327).

But though the remodelling was complete, even to the vaulted roof above, the choir was all naked and bare; and the next bishop set himself, not to carry the work into the nave, but to complete the equipment of the choir. In one respect Bitton’s choir was weak in design: it had a triforium in the choir bays (the four to the west) but not in the bays of the sanctuary. Bitton’s eastern clerestory windows were splayed down till they rested on the summits of the new pier-arches; to the same line were continued downward the shafts in the jambs of his windows. This diversity of treatment of the two halves of the choir must have had a most discordant effect; and Stapledon corrected it very cleverly by adding a triforium to the east in such a way that though the eastern arcading is not so deep as the western, yet in perspective the difference is hardly noticed. Probably the next thing was to glaze the remainder of the sixty choir windows, only eighteen of which were filled with stained glass at Stapledon’s accession. It seems likely that nearly all the stained glass for the choir and the transepts came from abroad—from Rouen. For the nave, later on, the place of the laity, English glass, cheaper and not so good, was thought sufficient. The glass was inserted by Walter le Verrouer (he has descendants still living in Exeter), at the moderate price of 6_s._ for a fortnight’s work, of himself and “two boys,” for one pair of clerestory windows. Hitherto the clergy had sat in the transept and the western bays of the nave; now, as in many other cathedrals, the stalls were moved into the western bays of the choir. (The present canopies of these stalls are modern.) Next came the Bishop’s throne (A.D. 1316), intended for his Lordship with a chaplain on either side; “a magnificent sheaf of carved oak, put together without a single nail, and rising to a height of 57 feet. The lightness of its ascending stages almost rivals the famous ‘sheaf of fountains’ of the Nuremberg tabernacle. The cost of this vast and exquisitely carved canopy (about twelve guineas) is surprisingly small, even for those days. The carved work consists chiefly of foliage, with finials of great beauty, surmounting tabernacled niches, with a sadly untenanted look, however, for lack of their statuettes. The pinnacle corners are enriched with heads of oxen, sheep, dogs, pigs, and monkeys.” Next came what is perhaps the most exquisite work in stone in England, as the throne is unparalleled in woodwork—the sedilia; the seats of the priest to the east, and to the west of him, those of the Gospeller and Epistoler. These sedilia have been preferred even to the shrine of Beverley and the Lady chapel of Ely. “The canopy of the seat nearest the altar,” says Mr. Garland, “deserves particular attention. It is adorned with a wreath of vine leaves on each side, which meet at the point and there form a finial; and never did Greek sculptor, of the best age, trace a more exact portrait of the leaf of the vine, nor design a more graceful wreath, nor execute his design with a more masterly finish.” It is regrettable that the carving of the sedilia is attributed to a Frenchman. Then came the great work of all—the high altar, with its reredos, perhaps the most magnificent in Europe; the cost of it would amount now to £7,500. Of this not a fragment remains. Finally, the choir was closed in with a great screen to the west, from which was read the Epistle and Gospel, as in the two ambos of the early Christian basilicas. And on it was placed an organ; the ancient and best position for a cathedral organ. The accounts show that 500 lbs. of iron bars were used to hold the screen together. This concluded Bishop Stapledon’s work, except that he built a cloistered walk as far as the doorway of the chapter-house. “The cathedral of Exeter,” as Stapledon’s successor wrote to the Pope, “now finished up to the nave, is marvellous in beauty, and when completed, will surpass every Gothic church in England or in France.” Stapledon died in 1327. The completed choir was consecrated by Bishop Grandisson in 1328.

BISHOP GRANDISSON (1328-1369).

Grandisson was “the most magnificent prelate who ever filled the see of Exeter.” He had been nuncio to the Pope at the courts of all the noblest princes of Christendom. He was even strong enough to bar the way to Archbishop Meopham, of Canterbury, when he attempted to enforce a Visitation of the cathedral. Great as were his riches and magnificence, he was a strict economist. He lived forty years Bishop of Exeter; finished his cathedral, did many great works elsewhere, and yet died wealthy. Quivil, we have seen, had built one bay of the nave. It remained for Grandisson to complete the remaining seven bays. The piers of the nave were erected by 1334; the whole work was complete in 1350. Stapledon had commenced the Cloister; Grandisson built the north walk, running, in curious fashion, under a second and outer range of flying-buttresses, as does the cloister of Westminster. The west front (except the west screen) was now built, but not the fan-vaulting of the north porch, which is later. And the curious Chapel of St. Radegunde in the thickness of the west wall he remodelled, to form his mortuary chapel, expecting there ever to lie, looking towards the nave where his great work had been done. But his tomb was destroyed by Elizabeth’s Visitors, and his ashes were scattered to the winds.

As we stand near his empty grave, we see before us the whole of the great mediæval design, that was due in inception to Quivil, and was realised and consummated by Bitton, Stapledon, and Grandisson, in the seventy years between 1280 and 1350. What strikes one, first, is that with revenues so immense, the bishops should have been satisfied with a cathedral so small—its area is less than half that of York. On the other hand, at York, owing to the vast dimensions of the new cathedral, commenced simultaneously with the new work at Exeter, the builders were unable to roof it in stone.

Secondly, one wonders that they allowed their hands to be fettered, their design to be cramped, by the preservation not only of the aisle walls, but of the clerestories of Warelwast and Marshall’s cathedral. But it is just in the subjugation of these limitations, in converting them into the special glory and distinction of the Exeter design, that the genius of Quivil’s architect shines forth most vividly. He was limited by the area of the old cathedral, east to west, north to south: not even the tiny transepts might be enlarged. But what was more serious, he was limited as to height. He was unable to raise the vaulting or the pier-arches more than five feet. His internal elevation, then, for a Gothic church of 1280, had to be exceptionally low. He determined, therefore—it was an intuition of genius—to see what could be done in architecture with lowness and breadth. Everything should be broad and low, outside as well as inside. Look at the east end of the choir—its two arches broad and low; above it, the great window—broad and low. Nowhere but at Exeter do you find these squat windows with their truncated jambs; here they are everywhere—in the aisles, in the clerestory, in choir, chapels, transepts, and nave; even in the great window of the western front: broad and low windows everywhere.

Still more original is the external realisation of the design; central tower and spire, western towers and spires, alike are absent. Long and low, massive and stable, stretches out uninterruptedly the long horizontal line of nave and choir. Breadth gives in itself the satisfactory feeling of massiveness, steadfastness and solidity; and this is just what is wanting in the all-too aerial work of Salisbury and Beauvais; vaulted roofs at a dizzy height resting on unsubstantial supports and sheets of glass. But the Exeter architect has emphasised this satisfactory feeling of stability still further. The window tracery is heavy and strong; the vault is barred all over with massive ribs; in the piers there are no pretty, fragile, detached shafts; the massive clustered columns look as if they were designed, as they were, to carry the weight of a Norman wall.

But an interior may easily be made too massive; if it is not to be a Salisbury cathedral, it need not be a Newgate Gaol. How was the prison-like appearance of an interior but 68 feet high, with a stone vault of exceptionally heavy appearance weighing it down, to be avoided? How was oppressive heaviness to be counteracted? Triumphantly, by transparency. By stretching out the windows from buttress to buttress, aisle and clerestory became practically one continuous sheet of glass; the church was flooded with light and atmosphere; the heavy vault seemed to float in the air, borne up but by the lilies and roses and wheels of the window tracery, and rows of painted saints in tabernacles of silver or of gold. There is no heaviness even now in the interior of Exeter; though the silvery panes of the choir, the golden glass of the nave, have perished long ago.

Another distinctive feature in Exeter, as in Salisbury, is that the architect produces his effect mainly by architectural means—is not driven to rely on sculpture. All the principal capitals have mouldings, not foliage. Only in the great corbels of the vaulting-shafts and in the bosses of the vault, does he permit himself foliage and sculpture. Wonderful carving it is; the finest work of the best period, when the naturalistic treatment of foliage was fresh and young. Very remarkable these corbels are, with their lifelike treatment of vine and grape, oak and acorn, hazel leaf and nut. Unfortunately the corbels, and still more the bosses, are so high up that their lovely detail is thrown away; and they are out of scale.

And the patterns of the window tracery are wonderfully diverse. It is not, as in Lichfield nave or King’s College Chapel, where every window is like its neighbour; when you have seen one, you have seen all. Here, all down each side of the church, every window differs. In dimensions, in general character, they agree; in details they differ; each window is a fresh delight; we have what even in Gothic architecture we rarely get—diversity within similarity.

Another striking feature of the design is its perfect bilateral symmetry. Gothic churches are, as a rule, most irregular, most unsymmetrical in outline; as a consequence, very picturesque. It is a mistake, however, to believe that they are intentionally unsymmetrical and picturesque. A Gothic architect no more aimed at irregularity than did the architect of the Parthenon. Only he was not a purist on the subject. If practical requirements—_e.g._, the needs of ritual—made it necessary to break in on the lines of a symmetrical design, he broke in on them without the slightest hesitation; the building had to conform to its destination. But where a single design was carried through from end to end, it was as symmetrical as a Classical temple. So it is at Salisbury; so it is at Exeter. Every window has its exact counterpart on the other side of nave and choir. Transept answers to transept, screen to screen, St. John the Baptist’s chapel to St. Paul’s, St. Andrew’s chapel to St. James’, St. George’s chapel to St. Saviour’s, St. Mary Magdalene’s chapel to St. Gabriel’s. But the architect was not so infatuated with the idea of symmetry as to place a porch on the south side because there was one on the north, or a chapter-house on the north because there was one on the south; which is just what the academic professors of Classical architecture would have done.

We have seen how the design gained special distinction from the very limitations imposed by the lowness of the early cathedral, the upper parts of which it was desired to preserve. It was again to the early design that Exeter owes another distinction among English interiors. In the early design the towers were just those which we still see; there was no central tower. The very fact that Quivil’s architect did not rush off at once to build a central tower, and be like everybody else, shows what backbone and insight the man had. Cathedrals without central towers were as rare in mediæval England as cathedrals with central towers are rare in the Île de France. Yet he advised his employers—or was it they who instructed him?—not to build a central tower. Central towers, standing as they do on four thin legs, are dangerous: many have fallen; others are always threatening to fall—_e.g._, Salisbury. But they are objectionable on another ground. The great piers on which they stand are an enormous block in the lengthened vista, which is the one great charm of an English cathedral, as compared with the lofty but short cathedrals of France. The fact that there is no tower over the crossing, and no tower-piers in the way, produces the most open, uninterrupted, and impressive vista of any cathedral in England. The screen being low, one sees the whole noble design in one glance from far west to far east. We have nothing like it: though it finds its counterpart in the great French cathedral of Bourges.

Another point should be noticed. Although the nave is in nearly all important respects of late Geometrical design—the exception being some Curvilinear windows with flowing tracery in the westernmost bays of the nave—yet the architects were not such purists as to carry out their minor work in anything but the style of their own day. Even in the choir, the architecture of which is Geometrical both in character and in date, all the minor work is developed Curvilinear—_e.g._, the great screen with its depressed ogee arches, the throne of the bishop, the sedilia.

PERPENDICULAR WORK (1360-1485).—Much minor work remained to do. In the remaining years of the fourteenth century the west front, which seems to have been heeling over, was buttressed by the erection of the western screen. The west and south walks of the cloisters were added. The great east window was substituted for an earlier Geometrical one which seems to have fallen into decay. In the fifteenth century the towers were crowned with battlements and turrets, as we see them now. The upper part of the chapter-house was rebuilt. Bishop Stafford erected canopies over monuments in the Lady chapel.

TUDOR WORK (1485-1519).—The Tudor work is exceptional in importance. It includes the north entrance and other late portions of the western screen, two exquisite chapels, both built by Bishop Oldham—his own chantry (St. Saviour’s) on the south side of the retro-choir, the Speke chantry (St. George’s) on the north—and in addition, Prior Sylke’s chantry in the north transept. All this work is admirable in design and execution. In Oldham’s chantry is a charming series of owls, with the scroll DAM, a rebus on his name, proceeding from the beak of each little owl. To Bishop Oldham also (1504-1519) is due the grand set of stone screens—one of the glories of the cathedral—no less than ten, which veil all the nine chapels and Prior Sylke’s chantry, and add fresh beauty to the beautiful choir.

Whatever else, then, the student and lover of Gothic architecture omits, he must not omit to visit Exeter. He will find it fresh and different from anything he has seen before. Its unique plan, without central or western towers, the absence of obstructive piers at the crossing, the consequently uninterrupted vista, the singleness and unity of the whole design, the remarkable system of proportions, based on breadth rather than height, the satisfying massiveness and solidity of the building, inside and outside, and at the same time the airiness and lightness of the interior, the magnificence of its piers of marble, the delightful colour-contrast of marble column and sandstone arch, the amazing diversity of the window tracery, the exquisite carving of the corbels and bosses, the abundant and admirable Tudor work, the wealth of chantries and monuments, the superb sedilia, screen, and throne, the misereres, the vaults, the extraordinary engineering feats from which its present form results, the originality of the west front and of the whole interior and exterior, place Exeter in the very forefront of the triumphs of the mediæval architecture of our country.

The Cathedral Church of St. Peter, Gloucester.

The foundation of Gloucester, like that of Ely, has gone through many changes. In 681 it was founded as a nunnery, and remained so till 767. About 821 it was refounded for secular priests; who, in the time of Canute, through the influence of Dunstan, were replaced by Benedictine monks. It remained a Benedictine monastery till 1541, when it was placed on the New Foundation, thus reverting to secular priests once more. The abbey-church then became a cathedral, with a diocese carved out of that of Worcester.

The present cathedral is recorded to have been commenced by Abbot Serlo in 1088, and to have been completed and consecrated in 1100. This statement seems to be generally accepted; but the chief evidence for it, as for the architectural history of the cathedral generally, is the chronicle of Abbot Froucester. Froucester, however, lived two hundred years after the foundation of the Norman cathedral, and his authority on this point can hardly be considered decisive. The plain architectural facts tell a very different tale. In the first place, the design of the nave and presbytery is totally different; the presbytery is archaic and rude, the nave highly advanced in design and elaborate and rich in ornament. The former may well belong to the last decade of the eleventh century; the latter is a whole generation later. In the presbytery the piers are low and of enormous bulk—such vast wasteful blocks of masonry as are to be seen in the nave of St. Alban’s, the choirs of Hereford and Chichester and Norwich: all of them commenced in the eleventh century. In the nave of Gloucester the piers rise to the exceptional height of 30 feet; for a parallel one must go to Tewkesbury, which was not consecrated till 1121; and even that consecration does not necessarily include the nave, where alone these towering cylinders are found. Again, in the presbytery of Gloucester the pier-arcade and triforium are about equal in height. So they are also in the eleventh-century work of Winchester, Norwich, and elsewhere. The diminutive triforiums of the naves of Gloucester and Tewkesbury are without a parallel in English work, though the Abbaye-aux-dames at Caen may be quoted on the other side. Again, the pier-arches of the presbytery are in two square orders, and the vault of the aisle is unribbed. In the nave the orders of the pier-arches are enriched with pairs of rolls and zigzag; the vault of the north aisle has diagonal ribs of late Norman character; and the string-course of the clerestory is a twisted cable elaborately enriched. The aisles, too, are very broad and very lofty.

Indeed, everything in the presbytery has an early look, except its plan and the shape of its apses. The plan is exceedingly complicated; with apse, ambulatory, and radiating chapels. But all three features appear in the ancient church of Vignory, which cannot well be later than the middle of the eleventh century. The radiating chapels, indeed, go back to the very earliest days of Christian architecture; for they formed part of the Basilican church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, as built, A.D. 326, by the Emperor Constantine; and have survived all the transformations which that church has undergone. That the apses, indeed, should not be semicircular—as they are even in St. Hugh’s choir of Lincoln—but polygonal, is certainly startling; though here also there are precedents as far back as the sixth century, in such Byzantine churches as that of S. Apollinare in Classe, near Ravenna. In the nave, on the other hand, everything points to a date well advanced—certainly not earlier than 1122. Not only the loftiness of the columns, but the fact that they are columns, is a mark of twelfth-century work. The column does not occur in Normandy, the mother of our Romanesque; but everywhere the compound pier. Capital and abacus, too, are circular on plan; this is usually a sign of late Norman work. The nave of Southwell, which also has circular capitals and abaci, was not built before 1120. But the ornamentation of the nave is decisive: the zigzag and the cables could not have been executed in the days of Prior Conrad of Canterbury, before the chisel had come into use.

Something, however, was consecrated at Gloucester in 1100; and that was probably the eastern arm of the church—not necessarily the chapels—and as much of the rest of the church as was necessary to complete the enclosure of the monastery: viz., part of the north transept and the wall of the north aisle of the nave as high as the sills of the windows. Then the monks probably turned their attention to the domestic buildings of the monastery, which till now may have been temporary buildings of wood, and only some twenty years later resumed work in the church, which they then completely finished.

Perhaps the first thing to do would be to add the top storey to the presbytery; for a church seems not unfrequently to have been consecrated before its clerestory was built, a temporary roof being erected at the level of the triforium. The presbytery being at last really completed, the monks would then proceed to complete the transepts and the crossing, to build the lower stage of the tower, and the nave and west front. When they did reach the nave, they altered the design altogether; as did the Tewkesbury monks also. They put up naves of the worst possible proportions; with piers so lofty that triforium and clerestory were almost squeezed out of existence.

Both have, of course, been credited with some artistic motive. To me it seems that they had found the choir, with its squat pier-arches, intolerably dark; and when they reached the nave, they saw that if they adhered to the early design, the nave would be even darker than the choir. For on the north side the cloister abutted on the aisle-wall, whose windows therefore had to be placed very high up in the wall: giving hardly any light to aisle and nave. To remedy this, therefore, regardless of appearances—for mediæval architects were practical builders first, artists only afterwards—they put up these colossal columns 30 feet high, raising the arches nearly 40 feet above the pavement. In that way the light from the high windows of the north aisle was enabled to penetrate into the church.

Another very remarkable feature in the design of the eastern limb is the utilisation of the triforium. In many churches—_e.g._, in Beverley and Lincoln minsters—the triforium seems not to have been intended to be used. At Beverley it is walled off from the nave; at Lincoln it has no floor. But in the earlier churches some ritualistic use must have been made of it. At Winchester, Ely, and the Abbaye-aux-hommes at Caen, return-aisles were constructed at the ends of the transepts to provide a broad path by which processions might pass along the triforium from the choir, round the transept, to the nave.

At Gloucester one step further is taken. All the five apses are built two stories high, the upper story of each opening into the triforium: so that five additional chapels are gained for the church. Moreover, since the crypt passes beneath all five apses, another set of five apsidal chapels is obtained underground; so that, without taking into account chapels otherwise arranged for, Gloucester possesses in the minor apses alone no less than fifteen chapels. In fact, leaving out of account the central aisle, Gloucester presbytery is really three churches—an upper, middle, and lower church. The amount of accommodation gained by this ingenious planning is immense.

One wonders that the plan of radiating chapels and practicable triforium was not adopted more frequently. It occurred at Tewkesbury and at Leominster; but in the end it was superseded by the eastern transept thrown across the choir centrally, as at Lincoln, or at its eastern termination, as at Fountains. In Lincoln choir, St. Hugh’s architect, hesitating between two opinions, built eastern transepts as well as return-aisles and apsidal chapels.

For nearly a century the architectural history is a blank. Early in the thirteenth century the wooden ceiling of the nave was replaced by the present quadripartite vault. This involved the demolition of the Norman clerestory, except the jambs of its outer arches, which may still be seen, enriched with zigzag. The north chapel of the crypt also was vaulted, and two windows were inserted in the eastern chapel of the crypt. About the middle of the century were built the north doorways of the cloister, and the vaulted passage in its north-east corner; also part of the west front of the nave was reconstructed. A little later was built, now moved to the north transept, the reliquary (or perhaps it is a gateway), one of the most lovely designs of the thirteenth century, worthy to be put in comparison with the Beverley staircase and the western porches of Ely and St. Albans. Of the time of Henry III. is the oak effigy of Robert Courthose, Duke of Normandy, eldest son of the Conqueror (_d._ 1135), which lies on a wheeled chest of the fifteenth century, and was formerly placed in the centre of the choir. On the whole, there was not much to show at Gloucester, with the exception of the nave-vault, for the long period 1150 to 1318.

But about the latter year the Norman south aisle of the nave had got into a very dangerous condition. The north aisle was safe, its wall being propped up by the cloister roof. But the vault of the south aisle had thrust the wall eleven inches out of the perpendicular. To save the vault, Abbot Thokey built on to the Norman pilasters the present beautiful buttresses. But the new buttresses also swung over four inches, and the Norman vaulting had to be taken out; the aisle received a new vault, and its eastern bays were enriched with ball-flower. The beautiful windows are of late Geometrical character, and are smothered in ball-flower. The profuse employment of ball-flower is quite a characteristic of the fourteenth-century Gothic of the West country; it is equally remarkable in the grand windows of Leominster, and at Ledbury and Hereford. “A horizontal line drawn just below the spring of the arch of each window at Gloucester cuts through thirty-two bands of ball-flower.” There are no less than 1400 ball-flowers in each window.

In 1327 Abbot Thokey made the fortune of Gloucester abbey. On September 21st Edward II. had been murdered at Berkeley castle. Bristol, Kingswood, and Malmesbury monasteries were appealed to, but none dared receive his body for interment, fearing the anger of the Queen and her party. Abbot Thokey brought the body to Gloucester in his own carriage, and caused it to be solemnly buried in the presbytery. Soon miracles were wrought at the tomb, pilgrimages set in, immense sums were contributed in offerings; Gloucester, like Hereford, had got a saint, and, like Hereford, used the vast income that accrued—enough, it is said, to have erected a brand-new cathedral—in improvements in their abbey-church. The tomb of the murdered king, erected by his son, Edward III., still exists, and the leaden coffin below, in which, when opened in 1855, the body was found “in a wonderful state of preservation.” (We wonder what would be said if our antiquaries exhumed the bodies of George III. and Archbishop Benson, and stole their rings and vestments to put them in a show-case in the vestry.) On one side of the monument, facing the aisle, is the bracket on which offerings were laid; above is one of the loveliest Curvilinear canopies in existence, but much restored. To the same period belong various windows inserted in the aisles and chapels and triforium of the presbytery.

The monks, no doubt, with the rich revenues now at their disposal, would have liked to rebuild the presbytery _de novo_. But it was crowded every day and all day with the pilgrims from whom the money came. They had therefore to confine themselves to such improvements as could be effected without interfering with the flow of pilgrims and of cash. The first thing needful was to provide more light: above all, in the presbytery, where the centre of attraction was; and in the crossing, where their daily services were held. Secondly, the church had suffered severely from fire in 1088, 1102, 1122, 1179, and 1190. The nave had already been safeguarded against fire by vaulting; it was desirable to extend the same protection to the transepts and presbytery by covering these also with stone vaults. Thirdly, if the money held out, it might be spent in prettinesses.

First, there was the lighting problem. Abbot Thokey had done a good deal in improving the lighting of the south aisle of the nave, and the aisles and chapels and triforium of the presbytery. Abbot Wygmore commenced operations in the south transept. The north transept was in daily use, as the cloister was on the north side of the nave, and the monks passed through the north transept to their daily services in the crossing. The improvements in the presbytery were postponed for a time, so as not to interfere with the pilgrims. In six years, before 1337, Wygmore is recorded by Froucester (who was himself Abbot from 1381 to 1412) to have cased, lighted and vaulted the south transept.

If Froucester is correct—and his evidence is almost that of a contemporary—we have in the south transept of Gloucester one of the greatest puzzles in the history of mediæval architecture. The whole of this work in the south transept is in the Perpendicular style—early Perpendicular, but still Perpendicular in principle. Yet we have to believe that it is contemporaneous with the utterly different Curvilinear work that was being done everywhere else in England; that it was contemporaneous with the Curvilinear monument of Edward II. in Gloucester itself; with the Percy shrine at Beverley, with the Lady chapel, octagon, and choir of Ely. It seems incredible. But Gloucester presbytery was not taken in hand till after the south transept, and it was finished not later than 1350, if that be the true date of the glass of the great east window. No other Perpendicular work occurs in the kingdom till that of Edingdon church (1352-1361), and the work done by Bishop Edingdon in the western part of Winchester nave. So that, if we accept Froucester’s statement, we have to believe that while the rest of the world was executing Curvilinear designs, the Gloucester masons, not later than 1330, had worked out the Perpendicular style.

We have to believe, also, that though this style ultimately became universally popular in England, overspread the whole country, and maintained its hold on English architecture for three centuries, at the outset it smouldered at Gloucester, unnoticed, unappreciated by anybody, till Edingdon took it up twenty years later in rebuilding the church of his native village. All the other improvements in mediæval building were caught up instantaneously—passing from one end of the kingdom to the other with the rapidity of the fashion of a Paris bonnet or mantle. England hesitated long before it could consent to exchange the richness of Curvilinear for the baldness of Perpendicular design. However, the new design of Gloucester, blazoned abroad everywhere as it was by admiring pilgrims, showed the capacities of the new style. It was seen to be sound and strong from a building point of view—and cheap. That turned the scale. Perpendicular came in with a rush. So,

“Si parva licet componere magnis,”

the Royal and Ancient game of golf smouldered on for centuries at Blackheath, till the psychological moment came, and it passed on to Westward Ho, and then swept like wildfire over all England.

The first question the monks had to decide was that of lighting. Their answer was a momentous one. They decided to get additional light by raising the walls of transept and presbytery, and inserting immense clerestory windows. The nave was internally 67½ feet high. To get a big clerestory, they raised the south transept and presbytery to the height of 86 feet. Similar tall clerestory windows were being built, but in the Curvilinear style, in the choirs of Lichfield and Wells. But as yet clerestory windows were, as a rule, rather small; and some big churches of the Curvilinear period, such as Grantham and Patrington, had no clerestory at all. For what was to be the glory of the closing days of English Gothic architecture—the Lantern type of church—we must give the credit to the masons of Gloucester. And also for the new type of window. The new big window, occupying the whole breadth and nearly the whole height of the end wall of the south transept, had to be strengthened by cross-bars or transoms; and the tracery of the head had to be strengthened by the substitution of vertical straight lines, as far as possible, for curves. Here, then, we have the genesis of the Perpendicular or Rectilinear window.

Then there was the question of the vault. If we can believe Abbot Froucester, so early as 1337 the monks put over the south transept not only one of the earliest lierne vaults in the kingdom, but one so accurately worked that the junctions of the ribs did not require to be masked by bosses: they mortised the ribs together with as much precision as if they were dealing with joints in cabinet work. And over the choir and under the tower they put up the most amazingly complicated lierne vault that was ever constructed: this, too, not later than 1351.

Thirdly, they appear to have intended to separate the presbytery from its aisles by the usual stone screens—designed to correspond with the tracery of the clerestory windows. This would have left an ugly cavernous arch—that of the eleventh-century triforium—in each bay, between the screen below and the clerestory above. The pattern of the tracery of the clerestory window had been repeated once in the screen below: what more natural than to repeat it a second time in the shape of a screen set in front of the open arch of the triforium? It remained merely to join up the mullions of all three—lower screen, triforium screen, and clerestory window—and the three members were welded together into one composition; harmony and unity reigned from pavement to vault. Here again we have at Gloucester not only the commencement, but the full development of what became the leading principle in later English Gothic—the desire to impose unity on the elevations of their churches by repeats of window tracery. It is but a short step from Gloucester choir to St. George’s, Windsor. The only improvement that was made on the design of the Gloucester choir was that in the next century, when fan-vaulting came into vogue, this also was covered all over with the patterns of the window tracery.

One question still remained unsolved: how to treat the east end of the church. At Norwich, where the Gloucester precedent was largely followed a century later, the apse and ambulatory and chevet of chapels were all retained—with most beautiful effect. At Gloucester—unfortunately, as it seems to me—they pulled down the apse; and on the wall of the three eastern bays of the ambulatory they erected three gigantic windows, so welded together as to compose one window. And, to bring the whole into view, they made the new easternmost bays of the presbytery, which had now to be built, wider to the east than the west. Thus they got one of the biggest windows in the world, and one of the ugliest. However, no one looks at the tracery of the window, but at the painted glass which it still retains. This glass is decidedly Perpendicular in character, but the armorial bearings in it show that it was completed before 1350. All the characteristics of late Gothic glass are there. Thus the canopies and the figures alike are silvery white, and yellow stain is introduced here and there. The drawing, however, is shockingly bad; and the colour is got in a very artless way by inserting backgrounds of vertical stripes of red and blue.

At the same time—between 1337 and 1377—the monks were provided with new choir-stalls. But while stone-work and glass alike are Perpendicular in character, the stalls have bowing ogee canopies, and are quite Curvilinear.

Next the north transept was remodelled (1368-1373). It is very much like its brother, but is eight feet higher, and the vault has bosses.

The next work was the rebuilding of the cloister. This was built between 1351 and 1412. It is covered with a fan-vault, supposed to be the earliest example of the kind. But the supports look as if designed for a lierne vault. It is possible, therefore, that the earliest fan-vaults are those of two monuments in the neighbouring Abbey-Church of Tewkesbury. In the south walk are twenty “carols” or “studies” for the monks; in the north walk a lavatory and a recess for towels.

Between 1421 and 1437 Abbot Morment was guilty of the west front and the two western bays of the nave. He intended to rebuild the whole nave, but could not make up his mind how to do it. The two bays he did build are quite different in height and span and general design. With his big west window, and with the insertion of Perpendicular windows in the north aisle and in the clerestories of the nave, the improvement of the lighting of the church may be said to have been effectually completed.

Instead of going on with Abbot Morment’s rebuilding of the nave, the monks now turned their attention to the central tower. The tower was of no use as a lantern, for the lierne vault of the choir had been carried beneath it. So it long remained unaltered. But in the days of Abbot Seabrooke (1460-1482) it was rebuilt under the superintendence of a monk named Sully, to be in character with the new exterior of choir and transepts. A very imposing tower it is; fully able, from its massiveness as well as from its height, to gather together the masses of the building—all the more so because the transepts are so short. It succeeds where the central towers of Worcester and Hereford fail; in fact, it is as effective in its way as Salisbury spire. The pinnacles, again, bear witness to the love of these later artists for harmony and unity: each pinnacle, with its two ranges of windows, is a repeat of the two stages of the tower below.

Then—after the tower had been erected—it was decided to rebuild the Lady chapel. So an immense detached building was constructed to the east of the great window of the presbytery; without aisles, but with little transepts; almost one continuous sheet of glass, and with a superb vault. This Lady chapel had to be joined up to the presbytery, but the great east window was in the way. However, the difficulty was got over by a series of ingenious shifts and dodges, which must be seen to be appreciated (1457-1499).

And so ended this great building-period at Gloucester (1330-1499), which turned the course of English architecture; so that the Curvilinear style of 1315 to 1360 did not find its natural development in Flamboyant, as on the Continent, but was switched off to Perpendicular and Tudor design.

The Cathedral Church of St. Mary and St. Ethelbert, Hereford.

Hereford boasts a cathedral which, though one of the smallest, is, both externally and internally, one of the most picturesque in the country. To the archæologist and the architectural student, its _mélange_ of styles makes it a perfect treasure-house of mediæval design: early and late Norman, Transitional, Lancet, early, middle, and late Geometrical, Curvilinear, Perpendicular and Tudor work are all well represented in the structure, to say nothing of the Gothic of Wyatt, Cottingham and Scott.

Hereford is one of the oldest of all the sees, going back, at any rate, to the year 601, when St. Augustine had a conference with the Welsh bishops. It owed its riches and reputation mainly to two saints, King Ethelbert and Bishop Thomas Cantilupe. In the year 792 the great King of Mercia, Offa, inveigled Ethelbert, King of East Anglia, to the west of England, where he was treacherously murdered. “On the night of his burial, a column of light, brighter than the sun, rose to heaven;” three days later his ghost appeared and gave directions for the removal of his body. He was interred at Hereford; and in 825 “a noble church of stone” was erected over his remains. Of this or any subsequent Anglo-Saxon cathedral nothing survives.