Chapter IX: PERPENDICULAR.—Large windows were inserted in the aisles (c. 1390)

and the west end (fifteenth century) to light the nave; and a doorway from the choir to the Archbishop’s palace on the south.

X. There is an alabaster monument of Archbishop Sandys (_d._ 1588), of unusually good design. To the same century belongs the fine Renaissance glass (French) in the east of the choir.

XI. There were originally sixteen canons or priests at Southwell in charge of the services. But as they mostly resided in their country parishes, they were allowed to appoint sixteen vicars or deputies, to do their work for them. These vicars, like the canons, formed a college or corporation. The vicars also found the work hard, and were aided by paid lay-clerks and choir-boys. Besides these there was a college of thirteen chantry-priests. In later days there used to be in residence at Southwell only one canon out of the sixteen; he came into residence only once in four years, and only stayed three months. The handsome block of brick houses to the east of the minster was built in 1780: the eastern house for the canon in residence; the two houses on each side for four of the vicars (the number of whom had dwindled to six).

The Cathedral Church of St. Andrew, Wells.

“The traveller who comes down the hill from Shepton Mallet,” says Professor Freeman, “looks down on a group of buildings without a rival either in our own island or beyond the seas.” “From a distance,” says Mr. Peabody, “the towers and lantern of the cathedral rise above rounded masses of green foliage. When we reach its walls, we find them springing from the azure depths of crystalline pools, from emerald lawns and arching trees, the home of cawing rooks and soaring pigeons. Close to the very walls of the ancient cathedral rises one of the noblest springs in the world, to which city and cathedral owe their name; an ever-abounding and magnificent outburst of waters at the side of the Lady chapel, surging up in a boiling heap in the midst of the unfathomed depths of a translucent pool; then bounding over in an impetuous cascade, which carries it into the Bishop’s moat, to encircle palace and rampart and towers, till it rests in glassy clearness over many-coloured forests of branching or feathery or star-like water-weeds. Never did a Frenchman form such harmonies of church and scenery as one sees at Lichfield, at Salisbury, and at Wells, in their setting of close and cloister and lake, of brilliant garden and clipped green lawn and immemorial elms. Above rise three gray, time worn towers; the music of the chimes vibrates and dies away:

“‘Lord, through this hour
Be Thou our guide,
That by Thy power
No foot may slide.’

So from hour to hour chant the bells over the peaceful beauty of the bishop’s gardens and terraces and the ancient ivy-clad palace; while within the lonely nave, as the fading sunlight shines through the western window, and casts its coloured glories on sculptured tomb and carved boss and gray stone wall, the organ notes pulsate through the stony fabric:

“‘Through long-drawn aisle and fretted vault
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.’

The great solemn place is filled with the thrilling sweetness of boyish voices, and we heartily join in their tuneful, long ‘Amen,’ as it rings and resounds down the empty nave, and echoes again and again from distant chapel and far-receding vaults.

“The Bishop’s palace is romance made tangible, even to ‘spell-bound princes oaring their way as swans among the lilies of the moat.’ In this home of peace good Bishop Ken led his simple, happy life, awaking with the sun and joining with the birds in their morning hymn, and each eventide singing to his lute—

“‘Glory to thee, my God, this night,
For all the blessings of the light.’

Beyond the gardens and the moat run avenues of stately elms; hard by, to the north, are the cathedral’s triple towers, and, for background, the mighty range of the Mendips; all round is meadow-grass; to the west nestles the little town, with the stately tower of St. Cuthbert’s church; and, five miles away, conical tors rise on either side of the isle of Avalon, the storied land of Glastonbury, where twice each year bloomed the sacred thorn struck by Joseph of Arimathea from a thorn in the Saviour’s crown; where, too, lies King Arthur, borne thither after the fatal battle of Camelot, and buried in an unknown grave with the inscription, ‘Hic jacet Arturus rex quondam rexque futurus.’ This land of Somerset to the Englishman should be holy ground.”

The peculiar charm of Wells lies, as Professor Freeman remarks, in the union and harmonious grouping of the cathedral with its surroundings. It does not stand alone. On the other hand, it is not crowded by incongruous buildings, like the great cathedrals of France, rising in precipices from narrow lanes or stone paved _place_. Nor, again, is it isolated from those buildings which are its natural and necessary complement—the palace of the Bishop, the deanery, the residence of the Archdeacon, the Cathedral school, the Vicar’s Close, the homes of precentor, organist and architect. Nearly all the officials still live in the houses which Bishop Beckington built four centuries ago. And with the most perfect and picturesque of all these, “a double row of little ancient houses,” the Vicar’s Close, the north transept of the cathedral is connected by a delightful mediæval bridge.

The diocese of Wells is an offshoot of that of Winchester. When Wessex grew populous, the bishopric of Sherborne was split off from that of Winchester; and in 909 the shire of the Sumorsaetas was split off from Sherborne, and the men of Somerset got a bishop of their own. The diocese long had two cathedrals: one at Wells, served, as at this day, by secular canons; the other at Bath, served by the monks of the Benedictine abbey. The latter was suppressed by Henry VIII., and ever since the bishop has been but in name Bishop of Bath.

Of the earlier cathedrals not a trace remains. The oldest part of the present cathedral consists of the nave, transepts, and the piers and arches of the three western bays of the choir. All this was designed, and much of it built in the time of Fitz-Bohun, who became bishop in 1171. The design is what is called Transitional. It is not early Transitional; for there is none of the heaviness and massiveness of the early Transitional work of Malmesbury, Kirkstall, or Fountains. It is not middle Transitional; for the semicircular arch, which still appears here and thereat Ripon, is conspicuously absent. It is late, very late, Transitional work, done at the very end of the Transitional period (1145-1190), and therefore contemporaneous with the famous French choir of Canterbury (1175-1184) and the beautiful presbytery of Chichester (built after the fire of 1187). But it is more Gothic than either Canterbury or Chichester. In fact, Wells is the most advanced of all the cathedral designs of the Transitional period. There is indeed little of the Romanesque or Norman about it; still it is there. Among the survivals of Romanesque feeling may be noticed the zigzag ornament in the doorways of the north porch, the classical character of several foliage-capitals, the retention of man-headed birds and other Romanesque monsters in the capitals, and, above all, the universal square abacus. All these, however, except the square abacus, find parallels in advanced Gothic work of the thirteenth century elsewhere. And as we find precisely the same stiff foliage-capitals in Chichester presbytery subsequent to 1187, and in St. Joseph’s chapel, Glastonbury (1180-1190), we may be certain that the design belongs to Fitz-Bohun’s episcopate, before whose death in 1191 the church was rising fast, and its style an object of universal admiration.

Now this is a very important matter, at any rate to Englishmen. In the first place, we are provided with another example of first-rate importance, of what architects were doing in this country just before the final plunge into Gothic, _i.e._, just before St. Hugh commenced his work at Lincoln. Hitherto we have had to rely on what we see in Canterbury choir; now we have Wells also. To these we may add the little-known Abbey of Dore, in the Black Mountains. In its lovely choir we go one step farther. Even the square abacus, universal at Wells, alternates there with the round form, and is more and more infrequent as one proceeds to the retro-choir, where indeed the work, to all intents and purposes, is pure Gothic. And thus we get what we never had before, a bridge or series of stepping-stones to Gothic architecture. Formerly one passed at a bound, an impossible bound, from Canterbury choir to Lincoln Minster. Now we can leave out the French work of Canterbury choir altogether, and accomplish the passage from Norman to Gothic through Malmesbury, Kirkstall, Ripon, Wells, Abbey Dore. Before, it was inconceivable how Lincoln came into existence; it was an architectural Melchisedek, without father or mother; and those who did not believe in spontaneous generation in architecture were driven, in spite of their wishes, to seek out an ancestor for St. Hugh’s choir in France. Now the whole difficulty is removed, the missing link has been found, Lincoln is but the logical development of Wells and Abbey Dore. The architectural chain is complete. Lincoln is no Melchisedek we have found its parents; and, what is profoundly satisfactory, they are true-born Englishmen, not Frenchmen. Wells, therefore, deserves all the attention that the architectural student can give to it, as evidence that the Gothic architecture of England did not originate with the French choir at Canterbury of William of Sens, but is native and indigenous to the soil.

The design of the nave of Wells, however, has more than archæological interest; it has a decided artistic distinction of its own. In the first place, the interior looks taller than it is—_i.e._ it is the very reverse of Lichfield. It is but 67 feet high, and is thus one of the lowest of our cathedrals; but so just are its proportions, so well adjusted the tall clerestory to the stages below, that to the eye the ratio of height to breadth is entirely satisfactory. Equally remarkable is the way in which the impression of great length is produced. This is due to the obliteration of vertical divisions in the triforium and ground-story, which are not separated off, as usual, into bays by vaulting-shafts. The vaulting-shafts are stopped just below the sill of the clerestory, and the triforium runs in an uninterrupted arcade, the whole distance from west to east. Such a treatment of the triforium is unusual in England, but is found also at Glastonbury and Llandaff: perhaps it hails originally from Matilda’s church, the Abbaye aux Dames, at Caen. And the free flow, east and west, of the broad horizontal band of the triforium is aided still further by designing it void of shafts, bases, and capitals alike. The central tower seems to have collapsed in 1248, and many of the capitals seem to be of this or of a still later date. The capitals, corbels and the carving generally of this part of the cathedral are most spirited and interesting; there is hardly any mediæval work in the country to excel it in spirit, variety and execution; it should be examined with the utmost care. When you have seen the carving in Wells cathedral, you will not be so much surprised at the excellence of that in the choirs of Lincoln and the west front of St. Albans. The plan of the piers should also be noted.

LANCET PERIOD. _West Front._—Looking westward, we see to the south (on the left) the chapel of St. Edmund, and to the north the chapel of the Holy Cross, now the Consistory Court. The west front, including these chapels, is Bishop Jocelyn’s work; it is in the purest early English Gothic, probably built after his return from exile in 1213, and finished by him before 1239. There has been, however, some rebuilding here, and a parapet added, in the fifteenth century. Passing out, we can now survey the famous façade, and its immense collection of sculpture—by far the best mediæval figure-sculpture in England, and only surpassed by the yet finer and earlier sculpture of Chartres and Rheims. The visitor will do well to study it in detail in the admirable series of photographs, taken when the scaffolding was up for the restoration of the façade. Professor Cockerell suggests that the façade is to be regarded as a Te Deum in stone.

As for the composition of the west front, it has been severely criticised, but two things must be borne in mind. The first is, that the towers were probably designed for spires. Add the spires, and as Notre Dame, Paris, the squatness of the façade disappears. Secondly, it was designed for the sculpture—a sort of open-air reredos—and not the sculpture for the façade. Nevertheless, it is not good, even as a reredos. The windows are mere slits in the wall, the doorways mere “holes for frogs and mice.” It lacks variety: the six big buttresses project, but have all the same amount of projection. The arcading below the west window is confused and muddled, and cut into anyhow by the central doorway. Nevertheless, its great breadth makes this façade of Wells more impressive than any other in the country, except that of Peterborough. What would it be with the spires added!

GEOMETRICAL PERIOD. _Undercroft, Staircase, Chapter house._—When the west front had been peopled with statuary, the undercroft of the chapter-house was built. A similar chapter-house, two stories high, once existed in precisely the same situation _i.e._—east of the north transept—at Beverley minster, the exquisite staircase to which still survives. Westminster chapter-house and that of Old St. Paul’s also had undercrofts. These undercrofts probably served as sacristies. The staircase or vestibule to the chapter-house, with simple tracery of cusped circles in its windows, is also of the early Geometrical period: its date is 1286-1320. The work here deserves the closest inspection; it is the best work in Wells cathedral, and unsurpassed by anything in Great Britain. The naturalistic foliage of the capitals and corbels is superb: especially notice the first corbels, representing a monk and a nun treading on serpents. The staircase leads by the chain bridge to the vicars’ close, as well as to the chapter-house. The chapter-house is one of the noblest in England. The long-lobed trefoils in the window tracery indicate that it is a work of the latter half of the Geometrical period (1280-1320); the profusion of ball-flower round and beneath the windows, and the ogee dripstones outside the windows, would seem to indicate that it was not completed till the very end of the period. Canon Church has ascertained that it was not finished before 1320.

CURVILINEAR PERIOD. _Lady Chapel_, _Choir_, _Central Tower_.—But a much more important work remained, which had hitherto been postponed, owing perhaps to the great expense involved in the completion of the west front and the chapter-house. It was to extend the choir eastwards. Many of the great cathedrals had finished their eastward extensions long before. Canterbury choir had been prolonged at the beginning of the twelfth century, and again about 1180. Hereford also was lengthened about 1180. The Angel Choir of Lincoln had been built about 1280. But at Wells, Lichfield and Chester, the extension of the choir was not effected till the Curvilinear period (1315-1360). As at Lichfield, the Wells architect seems first to have built the Lady chapel as a detached building, afterwards joining it up to the Transitional bays of Fitz-Jocelyn’s choir. As every one knows, it is the most beautiful east end we have in England. It may be worth while to try to see how this design was arrived at—a design as exceptional as it is effective. The simplest form of east end in English Gothic is seen at York and Lincoln: it consists merely of a low wall with a big window above it. The next improvement is to build an aisle or processional path behind the east end; at the same time piercing the east wall with one, two, or three arches. This was done at Hereford about 1180; and on a magnificent scale in the Chapels of Nine Altars at Durham and Fountains early in the thirteenth century. But the French apsidal cathedrals—of which we have an example in Westminster—have not only an encircling processional aisle, but also a chevet of chapels radiating out from it; thus providing ever-changing vistas of entrancing beauty. The next step in England also was to provide our rectangular choirs with a chevet as well as with a processional aisle. An early example of this plan is to be seen at Abbey Dore, in Herefordshire, about 1190. It occurs early in the thirteenth century, on a still grander scale, at Salisbury; where one finds not one, but two processional aisles, as well as chapels to the east of them; and, in addition, a Lady chapel projecting still farther to the east, thus producing a design of great complexity and beauty. Nevertheless, at Salisbury, since the chief supporting piers of the retro-choir and the chevet are in a line with those of the choir, there is by no means the same changeful intricacy of vista that affords one ever fresh delight in an apsidal church. At Wells, however, the architect attained all the success of the Continental builder, simply because he built his Lady chapel not rectangular but octagonal. For, to get this octagon, of which only five sides were supported by walls, he had to plant in the retro-choir two piers to support the remaining three sides; and these piers are necessarily out of line with the piers of the choir. He had got the Continental vista. He saw it; but he saw also that it could be improved upon. And he did improve it, by putting up an outer ring of four more piers round the western part of the octagon of the Lady chapel. It was an intuition of genius: it makes the vistas into the retro-choir and Lady chapel a veritable glimpse into fairyland; and provides, here alone in England, a rival to the glorious eastern terminations of Amiens and Le Mans. And that is not all. We saw in the chapter-house the grand effect of the central stalk branching upward and outward in all directions, like some palm tree transmuted into stone. This beautiful effect he transfers to the retro-choir, but multiplied—four palm trees in place of one; for each of the four external piers of the octagon emulates the chapter-house’s central stalk. “It is difficult to determine whether the effect is more striking in the early morning, when the ancient splendours of the stained glass, are reflected on the slender shafts of Purbeck marble and the clustered vault; or at the late winter services, when the darkened figures of saints and prophets in the clerestory combine with the few lights burning in the choristers’ stalls to add something of mystery and solemn gloom to the maze of aisles and chapels, half hidden, half revealed” (Murray). And where did the idea of having an octagonal Lady chapel come from? Possibly it came from Lichfield. If one follows the outline formed by the five walls of Wells Lady chapel and the four _outer_ piers, which complete the octagon, it will be seen that the Wells octagon is of precisely the same elongated form—two long sides and six short ones—as the chapter-house of Lichfield. We may fairly suppose, then, that the Wells architect got the design for his east end by tacking on the elongated octagon of Lichfield chapter-house to the rectangular retro-choir of Salisbury. This Lady chapel is an early work of the Curvilinear period; for it seems to have been complete in 1324. The windows have beautiful reticulated tracery of early type. There is lovely carving in the capitals, bosses, reredos, sedilia and piscina. The Curvilinear foliated capitals here and in the choir should be compared with the somewhat earlier capitals of the chapter-house, with the early Geometrical capitals of the staircase, the Lancet capitals of the west front, and the still earlier ones of porch, nave, and transepts. The ancient glass here and in the Jesse window of the choir is superb in colour.

CHOIR.—The works in the choir consist of three parts. (1) The construction of three new eastern bays, to join up the Lady chapel to the western bays, as at Lichfield and Chester. (2) The transformation of the three western bays, except the piers and arches, and of the aisles. (3) The vaulting. All the lower work is of great beauty, especially the tabernacle work which replaces the triforium. The foliage of the capitals is naturalistic, and curiously diminutive. The vault, however, is unusual and objectionable in character. It is really a reproduction in stone of a kind of vault—the wagon or barrel vault—which, executed in wood, is a special peculiarity of Somerset. This type of stone tunnel, with ill-arranged liernes, sham ribs carved on its surface, and holes cut into it to admit the heads of the clerestory windows, is fortunately confined to Wells. It is, moreover, a gross blunder in design. The pattern of the ribs would be excellent in a flat ceiling; but in perspective it comes out all wrong, because the architect has omitted to take account of the curves of the vault. The stalls, with their stone canopies, are modern, with ancient misereres. The Transitional windows of the aisles were also replaced by Curvilinear ones.

Finally, the church assumed a more dignified appearance externally, for the _Central Tower_ was carried up to its present height between 1318 and 1321; but as yet there were no western towers. As was so often the case, the raising of the central tower “caused the four great piers, on which it rested, to sink into the ground. This, of course, tore away the masonry of the four limbs of the church from the piers, and yawning gaps began to appear between the tower arches and the main walls of the church.” The piers had to be strengthened and the gaps filled up. This was done about 1338. At Canterbury and Salisbury the central piers were strengthened by running across a horizontal stone girder; at Wells the exceedingly strong and exceedingly ugly form of an arch carrying an inverted arch was adopted. This stone framework thus assumes something of the shape of St. Andrew’s Cross, by which name it is generally known. The eastern arch is not strengthened in this fashion, but by a massive screen, which is practically a solid wall, as at Canterbury, York and Ripon. What makes the St. Andrew’s crosses more objectionable still is the hugeness of their mouldings, whose vast scale dwarfs everything in the cathedral into insignificance: in this respect they compare very unfavourably with the horizontal girders at Canterbury. Probably one of the last works of the Curvilinear period was to crown the whole exterior of the cathedral with a fine pierced parapet.

PERPENDICULAR PERIOD.—The central tower being saved, the next thing was to carry up western towers. Of these the southern was built after the year 1386; the northern tower is later than 1424. Moreover, Perpendicular tracery was inserted in many of the Transitional windows—_e.g._, by Bishop Beckington in the clerestory and aisles of the nave (1443-1464). The same prelate built the three gatehouses, all of which display his rebus, a beacon in flames issuing from a barrel: viz. the Chain Gate, the Penniless Porch (opening to the Market Place), and Browne’s Gate (at the end of Sadler Street). The Early English Cloister was also rebuilt between 1407 and 1470. Of the earlier cloister the outer walls and two lovely doorways survive. As Wells was not a monastic cathedral, the cloister was a mere _objet de luxe_, except so far as it provided an enclosure for the cemetery and a covered way to the Bishop’s Palace. Accordingly, it is incomplete; the northern walk is wanting; and the chapter-house is on the other side of the cathedral.

The Cathedral Church of the Holy and Indivisible Trinity at Winchester.

The present legal designation of Winchester cathedral dates only from the time of Henry VIII. It was originally the church of the abbey of St. Swithun; and, next to St. Swithun, its greatest patron was St. Birinus. Later on, an alternative dedication was to St. Peter and St. Paul.

It is the longest mediæval cathedral in Europe. Once it was surpassed by old St. Paul’s, London; now its only rival is St. Alban’s. But Winchester has an internal length of 526 feet 6 inches; exceeding that of St. Alban’s by 5 feet 4 inches. Vast as it is, no cathedral shows up so little. It has but one tower, and that barely overtops the roof; in outline it is depressed and monotonous; there are none of the double transepts, and lofty side-porches, which so picturesquely break up the lines of Salisbury, Lincoln, and Hereford. It has no conspicuous façade to give it grandeur to the west; it lacks the wide reach of open square and verdant close that delights at Salisbury and Wells. So far from dominating the city, like Lincoln or York, it hides out of sight. You walk all the length of the High Street and never get a glimpse of it. Never was such a retiring cathedral. Generally, it is approached from the High Street through a hole in the wall; up a narrow passage, and down an avenue of obscuring elms. Slowly its huge mass uprears itself, sprawling over the ground like some stranded prehistoric monster. And, externally, it is as plain as it is huge: mainly an enormous bulk of blank wall. Once it presented a better appearance; for though the Lady chapel to the east was rather shorter, to the west the nave was 40 feet longer, and was flanked, like Southwell, by two Norman towers, forming a western transept, after the manner of Ely and of Peterborough. The present west front does anything but prepare us for an interior so vast; it seems rather the approach to some parish church of the second rank. All the more, perhaps, is one struck with the glorious interior.

The arrangement of the cathedral should be compared with that of St. Alban’s. It consists of (1) nave, (2) choir, (3) presbytery or sanctuary, (4) feretory or saints’ chapel, (5) retro-choir, (6) Lady chapel.

In the NORTH TRANSEPT we are in presence of the earliest work in the cathedral. Much of it is the work of Bishop Walkelin (1070 to 1097); and, with the exception of some traceried windows inserted early in the fourteenth century to give more light to the eastern altars, it remains much as he left it. As his work is in the transepts, so once was the whole cathedral. As finished before the close of the eleventh century, Winchester, in vastness of scale and stern power, must have been one of the most impressive cathedrals of England: more overwhelming than Ely or Peterborough; not inferior even to Durham. I am not sure that every change and transformation that took place at Winchester between the eleventh and the sixteenth century was not a change for the worse. For of the earliest temples of our race, torn as it were out of the solid rock, Walkelin’s cathedral was the most awful and the most religious. As it is one of the earliest, so it was, artistically, the grandest of our Romanesque cathedrals. The south transept of Hereford and the north transept of Chester are, in comparison, humble indeed. In colossal scale it finds one rival only—the mighty church of St. Alban. Artistically, they are miles apart: as far apart as two designs can be, one conditioned by the use of stone, the other of brick.

But not all the work of the Winchester transepts is by Walkelin; it is Norman, but part of it is a rebuilding rendered necessary by the fall of the central tower in 1107. The original work is readily distinguished. Those parts of the transept which are the nearest to the central tower have fine-jointed masonry; the vaulting of the aisles has ribs; the piers are larger. The further and earlier part of the masonry is much ruder, and the joints wider; the vaulting is without ribs, and the piers are smaller. In both parts the arches are square-edged, greatly adding to the peculiar severity of the aspect of this part of the church. The pier-arches are raised on stilts in order to get their crowns on a level with the intersection of the diagonal groins or ribs; for the earlier vault-builders imagined that all the arches of a vault must rise to the same level. The cushion or cubical capitals are of a simple type, little subdivided. Both transepts have double aisles. Lanfranc, in his metropolitan cathedral at Canterbury, was content with an aisleless transept; but Winchester cathedral was built on a scale befitting the capital of the Norman realms. At either end, too, of the transepts is an aisle—_i.e._ to the north and south; this unusual feature enabled processions to pass uninterruptedly round the triforium. We hear that in 1111, the bishop having sorely taxed the monastery to provide funds for the rebuilding of the central tower, “the monks reversed their crosses, head down, feet up, and made procession barefoot against the sun, contrary to ecclesiastical use,” round the broad triforium. Ely once had similar end-aisles, and still has both eastern and western aisles to the transepts.

THE CRYPT.—From the north transept one descends to the crypt, which is well worth a visit, when not under water. The level of the river seems to have risen since the eleventh century, causing the crypt to be frequently flooded. It extends to the extreme east end of the present cathedral, and is in three parts. The first part, the western, consists of the substructure of the original choir, showing that it consisted of four aisled bays and an apse with ambulatory. Secondly comes a very remarkable feature, of the same date—viz., a long aisleless chapel of three bays, also apsidal, beneath the present retro-choir. Whether the chapel above it was a Lady chapel is a matter of uncertainty; for Lady chapels do not seem to have come into fashion till the thirteenth century. Thirdly, to the extreme east, comes the substructure of Courtenay’s Lady chapel, built between 1486 and 1492. Most interesting of all is the sacred well, immediately beneath the high altar; far older than Norman crypt or Norman cathedral; the holy central spot of by-gone Saxon and even British minsters.

SOUTH TRANSEPT.—Crossing the choir, we pass down a flight of steps to the south transept. At the top of these steps are the bolt-holes of the iron gates, which are now placed in the north-west corner of the nave, but which once stood here as a barrier to the pilgrims, who were allowed access to the north transept and choir aisles, but not to the choir itself, or to the south transept. They entered the cathedral by a doorway which may still be seen from the outside at the south-east corner of the north transept. In the south transept the same two periods of Norman work are recognisable which we saw in the north transept; but the three aisles have been shut off by walls and screens, forming chapels on the east side, and a chapter-room and treasury on the west.

THE CENTRAL TOWER fell in 1107. Its fall was regarded as a judgment; William Rufus having been buried under it in 1100. The piers, as strengthened, are “most unwieldy and intrusive from their excessive size and squareness of form; the largest tower-piers in England in proportion to the span of the arches that rest upon them.” The tower-windows could formerly be seen from below, as well as a grand specimen of late Norman arcading: now hidden from view by the wooden fan-vault erected in 1634. The eastern and western arches of the tower are left wide, so as not to interfere with the principal vista of the cathedral; the northern and southern arches are contracted to gain strength. The northern and southern sides of the piers were designed nearly flat, so as not to interfere with the stall-work of the monks. This is one of the cathedrals where the choir occupies, in part, its original position, and has not been moved eastward into the sanctuary. But originally the monastic choir of Winchester extended still farther to the west, occupying not one, but three bays of the nave; and was separated from the western bays of the nave by a great rood-screen. The old arrangement has been preserved at Norwich and Gloucester, and has been restored at Peterborough. Before leaving the south transept, the northern bay of the western triforium should be noticed. It has been only partially transformed into Perpendicular after the style of the nave; for the semicircular upper arch of the triforium can still be seen. This helps us to restore in imagination the original triforium of the whole Norman nave.

Of the Transitional period of our architecture, 1145 to 1190, only two traces seem to remain at Winchester. One is the doorway below the triforium-bay mentioned above. Its zigzag ornament is of Norman character, but the obtusely pointed arch shows that it is subsequent, yet not much subsequent to 1145. This doorway, with its queer fluted pilasters, may have been built by Henry de Blois (1129-1171) when he walled off this western aisle to serve as a treasury. If so, it is the only trace in the structure of this, the greatest of all Winchester’s bishops. The other is the font.

CHAPEL OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE.—Now we return to the north transept, which is cut off from the choir by a massive stone wall, the object being to keep the pilgrims out of the choir, and, perhaps, to support organs. At the end of the twelfth century a curious chapel was built on to this wall: it contains frescoes representing the Passion of our Lord.

RETRO-CHOIR.—Traversing the north choir-aisle, we reach the largest retro-choir in England; it consists of three bays, with an east end originally consisting of three chapels all of the same length. The central chapel was elongated in the fifteenth century. This retro-choir was built by Bishop Godfrey de Lucy, between 1189 and 1204, and therefore, with the Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre, is the earliest Gothic work in the cathedral, and but few years later than St. Hugh’s work at Lincoln. De Lucy’s work is not very ambitious, nor very rich, nor artistically on a plane with the early English work at Lincoln, Beverley, and Ely. The great defect is that, in relation to its area, it is so miserably low. To get it high, the architect would have had to sacrifice the east windows of the clerestory of the choir; and this he was not allowed to do. The retro-choir was serviceable in providing room for processions round the high altar, and space for shrines, and in giving additional chapels and altars. Probably, also, the reversion to the favourite square east-end of English church architecture was popular in itself. Almost every Norman cathedral ended in an apse; and in the apse, high raised behind the high altar, sat the Norman bishop, facing the congregation; the hateful symbol of Norman domination. The destruction of the Norman apse may well, then, have been popular. The best part of the design is seen in the southern wall of the Lady chapel, and in the charming vaulted staircases which lead out of the side chapels to the roofs of the retro-choir and choir, and to the clerestory of the choir, from which a good view of the interior and of the interesting vault and glass of the choir is obtained. At the north-east corner of the retro-choir is an effigy in a vesica: it commemorates Bishop Ethelmar or Aymer, whose heart was buried at Winchester in 1261.

THE STALLS.—These are in the Geometrical style (1245-1315), and were executed about the middle of the period. “The beauty and variety of the carvings are wonderful. There is no repetition; and the grace and elegance, as well as the fidelity, with which the foliage is represented, are nowhere to be surpassed. The human heads are full of expression; and the monkeys and other animals sporting among the branches have all the same exquisite finish. Here are also interesting misereres” (Murray).

THE PRESBYTERY.—The space between the central tower and retro-choir was occupied by the Norman choir, less its apse, up to about 1320, when this choir was pulled down and the present pier-arcade was built, with the clerestory; which latter, however, received new window-tracery in the sixteenth century. To the same period, the Curvilinear, but a little later, belongs the exquisite series of nine tabernacles in the retro-choir, on the wall at the back of the feretory; the naturalistic foliage of which is perhaps the best work in the cathedral. Below is an original entrance to the crypt, now called the “Holy Hole.” Above it accordingly is the inscription:

“Corpora sanctorum sunt hic in pace sepulta
Ex meritis quorum fulgent miracula multa.”

THE NAVE.—We now pass into the south aisle of the nave. The nave is of exceptional interest, for three reasons. In the first place, for its vast length of 12 bays of 250 feet. Norwich has 14 bays of 230 feet. Secondly, because, after the work at Gloucester, it is the earliest work we possess in the Perpendicular style. Thirdly, because its Perpendicular vesture is little more than skin deep, the solid core of every pier and every wall, from pavement to roof, being Norman. It is just this combination of the massive solidity of Romanesque with the grace and elegance of Gothic which makes it what it is, the finest nave in the country. The walls are Norman; built, in Norman fashion, of rather small and square blocks; they are thick, nearly 10 feet thick at the top; outside the south aisle may still be seen the flat Norman buttresses; hidden behind the balustrade of the clerestory are the upper arches of the Norman triforium, one of which we saw in the south transept. The vault rests on the original Norman vaulting-shafts, though they are stopped by Perpendicular capitals. They are not really stopped, however; for when we mount up to the back of the vault we find the vaulting-shaft, piercing _through_ the vault, rising to the very top of the wall, to support, as they once supported, a wooden ceiling like that of Peterborough. Near the eastern end of the south aisle the lower part of a Norman shaft has been left; probably because it was covered up by some later shrine or altar. Crossing the nave, still clearer evidence of the character of the early work is to be seen in the second and third piers from the east of the north arcade. These were covered up by a great rood-screen, now destroyed.

Putting this evidence together, it is plain that we have here a Norman nave transmogrified—Norman in core, but with a Perpendicular casing. This casing, however, is not merely skin-deep, as in Gloucester choir, where the Norman work can be seen at the back of the Perpendicular screens and panelling. The casing at Winchester goes at least one stone deep into the piers. But it was not executed all in the same way. Bishop William of Wykeham’s work, in the seven western piers of the southern arcade, has the new mouldings cut in the original Norman stones. But in the rest of the piers it was found simpler and cheaper to withdraw the Norman stones one by one, and replace them with new stones with Perpendicular mouldings cut on them. The small Norman windows, of course, were destroyed altogether, and replaced by short and broad windows by Bishop Edingdon, probably about 1360, perhaps under the superintendence of William of Wykeham, who was his secretary, in the extreme west of the nave; and by taller and more graceful windows in the later work of William of Wykeham and his successors. The mouldings of all this Perpendicular work are rather large and coarse; but we must remember that the architect was restricted at first to such mouldings as could be developed out of the Norman detail, and in any case they had to be in harmony with the big and heavy Norman vaulting-shafts which were retained unaltered in the Perpendicular design. About the same time forty feet of the western bays was pulled down. Edingdon’s work in the nave may be distinguished by the broad windows, two in the north and one in the south aisle; and by the cusps in the panelling, which in Edingdon’s work are foliated, and in the later work are left plain. In the new design the internal elevation consists of two parts—a tall pier-arcade, and a clerestory with a balustrade in front of the lower part of it.

How low the original Norman pier-arcade was, is shown by the Norman capitals which are left in the eastern piers of the northern arcade. The Norman triforium was exceptionally large. Its floor was on a level with the capitals of the new arches, and it reached up to the sill of the present clerestory windows. A glance round the corner into the transepts will make this clear. Again, the Norman nave had a flat wooden ceiling like that of Peterborough; this was replaced by a magnificent lierne vault of stone, completed by Wykeham’s successors, as is shown by the arms of Cardinal Beaufort and Bishop William of Waynflete on the bosses of the vault and in the string-course under the triforium. Magnificent as this vault is, it was no improvement to break the free flow of the diagonal and ridge-ribs by the insertion of these little liernes or tie-ribs. The earlier vault of Exeter is massive enough and quite sufficiently complicated without them. In the aisles the liernes are grouped into simple hexagonal or “stellar” patterns. The vault of the nave is often said to be unsupported by flying buttresses. They are there, however, between the vault and the outer roof of the aisles, sheltered from the weather, as are the Norman flying-buttresses of Durham and Gloucester.

Such are the chief features of this, the finest cathedral-nave we possess, the work of Edingdon, Wykeham, Beaufort and Waynflete. We shall hardly be wrong in attributing the inception of this great transformation to Wykeham, whether as Edingdon’s secretary or as his successor to the bishopric.

We must not, however, overrate, as is often done, the novelty of the proceeding. For an even greater transformation had been wrought at Exeter before this, between 1280 and 1307, by Bishops Quivil and Bitton, who transformed the Transitional Norman choir of Bishop Marshall into the style of their day. From Exeter Wykeham borrowed the idea of the transformation, from Gloucester the style in which the transformation was effected.

From the west door there is a superb view eastwards. The grandeur of the interior of the cathedral is much enhanced by the raising of the choir. This raising of the choir is due, however, to no æsthetic preferences on the part of the architects, nor to any wish to emphasise the importance of the clergy, but simply to the fact that there is a substructure below the choir. Here, as at Canterbury and York, it is a crypt. At Wimborne minster, Hythe church, and Hereford cathedral, it seems to be no more than a processional path, or else a charnel-house. Imposing, however, as this vista is, it is not so long as it might be, and it appears shorter than it really is. In the first place, out of the whole internal length of 526 feet, only 338 feet come into the vista. This is because De Lucy kept his retro-choir so low. Far nobler would have been the interior of Winchester, if, as at Ely, York, and Lincoln, retro-choir and eastern chapels had been kept as high as presbytery and nave. Indeed, the Winchester vista of 338 feet is surpassed even by that of the small cathedral of Lichfield, 371 feet. Secondly, owing to the destruction of screens, the apparent length has been greatly diminished. Formerly there were two solid screens: a rood-screen in the nave, three bays east of the tower; and a choir-screen. Thirdly, as at St. Paul’s, the great wall of the reredos is far too lofty, and is placed much too close to the east end of the presbytery, shearing off another 20 feet of the apparent length of the interior. This reredos, indeed, beautiful as its detail must have been, is a vast mediæval blunder—_i.e._ from an artistic point of view; which point of view, to tell the truth, the mediæval architects cared little about in comparison with the religious purposes which they wished their architecture to subserve. Still here, as at St. Saviour’s, Southwark, one cannot help wishing the reredos away; one would like to see once more behind and above the high altar, on their lofty platform, the shrines of St. Swithun and St. Birinus, and on either side of them such delightful peeps as one has at Wells into retro-choir and eastern chapels. Beaufort’s reredos has much to answer for.

In the south arcade of the nave are the two earliest of the magnificent series of chantries which are the especial glory of Winchester. They should be examined in chronological order. They are those of the following bishops: Edingdon, died 1366; Wykeham, died 1404; Beaufort, died 1447; Waynflete, died 1486; Fox, died 1528; Gardiner, died 1555. Thus they form a continuous record of the growth and development of Perpendicular and Tudor architecture from 1366 to 1555.