Chapter VIII: TUDOR.—Early in the sixteenth century the canons unhappily

determined to give their unique church more of the look of a cathedral by adding aisles to the nave. It is pleasant to add that they were unsuccessful. The nave is exceedingly low in proportion to its exceptional span, and being, moreover, unprovided with a triforium, does not look in the least like a cathedral, but like a very inferior parish church. Externally, the buttresses are of fine composition, and if the pinnacles were completed, the nave would be very handsome externally.

In 1593 the central spire—of timber and lead—was struck by lightning, and in 1660 it was removed. It was 120 feet high. In 1664, for fear of a similar catastrophe, the western spires also were removed. The result is that, seen from a distance, _minus_ spires and _minus_ pinnacles, Ripon Minster is stunted and squat.

The Cathedral Church of St. Andrew, Rochester.

Rochester and London, next to Canterbury, are the oldest of all the English bishoprics, unless, indeed, we are prepared to accept a pre-Augustine bishopric of Hereford. St. Augustine, soon after his landing in 597, came to preach at Rochester. His reception was not encouraging; the rude people hung fish-tails to his coat. Wherefore in anger the saint prayed “that the Lord would smite them _in posteriora_ to their everlasting ignominy. So that not only on their own but on their successors’ persons similar tails grew ever after.” The worst of it was that the story spread, and not only Rochester people but all English folk were believed on the Continent to be _caudati_ (tailed). So that even in the sixteenth century “an Englishman now cannot travel in another land by way of merchandise or any other honest occupying, but it is most contumeliously thrown in his teeth that all Englishmen have tails.”

Among St. Augustine’s Italian missioners were St. Justus and St. Paulinus. St. Justus became first bishop of Rochester in 604. St. Paulinus, after eight years of mission work in Northumbria, became bishop of Rochester in 633. The first English bishop was St. Ythamar (644-655). These three were the chief local saints of Rochester in early days.

St. Augustine and his missioners had come from the monastery of St. Andrew, Rome. To St. Andrew, therefore, they dedicated the first Saxon cathedral. In 1542 the cathedral was re-dedicated to Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary of Rochester. Till 1077 the cathedral was served by secular canons; Gundulph replaced them by Benedictine monks.

I. In 1888 the foundations of an early church were found. It had an apse, but neither aisles nor transepts; walls only 2 feet 4 inches thick; 42 feet long, 28 feet broad. From the resemblance of its plan to that of St. Pancras, Canterbury, and the presence of Roman brick in the walls, it seems as likely to be a Romano-British as an Anglo Saxon church.

II. Between 1080 and 1089 Bishop Gundulph completed a Norman cathedral, except the western part of the nave. In plan it was entirely different from any Norman cathedral of the day: one can hardly help believing that it must have been designed by an Englishman. The plan of it is given in the _Builder_. It was a long oblong aisled cathedral, with nave and aisles running on without a break from the west end of the nave to the east end of the choir. But in the choir the side-aisles were cut off from the central aisle by a solid wall, as in the contemporary choir of St. Albans and in the Premonstratensian abbey of St. Radigund, near Dover. There was probably no crossing, and therefore no central tower. There were no transepts proper; but, as in such Anglo-Saxon churches as Worth, low porch-like transepts projected north and south, with a breadth of only 14 feet. The east end, as in most Anglo-Saxon churches, was square; and there projected from it eastward a small square chapel. Beneath was a crypt, the western part of which remains. There were two towers, both abnormal in position. The southern tower was set in the angle of the choir and the south transept, and may have been the belfry. The other tower, fragments of which still remain, was set in a similar position, but entirely detached. Being detached, and having walls six feet thick, it was no doubt a military keep. Gundulph was fond of building keeps; those of the Tower of London and Malling still exist. Rochester was exposed to and had suffered from attacks of the Danes, sailing up the Medway, in 840, 884, and 999. There was a striking memento of them on the great west doors of the cathedral, which Pepys, as late as 1661, found “covered with the skins of Danes.” We may conjecture that it was as a refuge against similar attacks that Gundulph built the northern keep.

All this work of Gundulph’s is now gone except portions of the crypt, the keep, and the nave. The original monastery was built in the normal position, south of the nave. To enclose the cloister, therefore, on the north, the south side of the nave was proceeded with next. The south aisle-wall is very thin—as was customary in Anglo-Saxon architecture—and we may conjecture that English influence stopped at this point; for the piers and arches of the nave are quite Norman in character. Of Gundulph’s nave there remain on the south side five arches, together with the lower parts of the walls of both aisles. It is very doubtful whether he built any part of the triforium or clerestory. At present his work can only be seen in its original condition from the side of the aisles. The pier arches had originally two square orders, which remain unaltered on the side of the aisle (cf. Winchester transept). Gundulph’s masonry was in rough tufa.