Chapter VI: PERPENDICULAR (1360-1485).—At length Canterbury woke up, and removed

Lanfranc’s nave and transept, which must have looked shockingly low and mean for the last two hundred years in juxtaposition with the stately choir. The new nave, built between 1379 and 1400, is very fine, but somehow no one seems to be a very ardent admirer of it. Its proportions are not good: Winchester nave is about the same height, but is 70 feet longer; York choir is loftier, and is 25 feet longer. But the gravest fault is in the internal elevation. The architect has recognised the value of tallness of pier-arch; but to get this exceptional height of pier and arch, he has sacrificed not only triforium, but clerestory as well. It is fatal to a Gothic design to minimise the clerestory. The choirs of Gloucester, Norwich, Cirencester, are the types to be followed; not the naves of Southwell or Lichfield.

To this period belong also the Black Prince’s chantry, and the screens and reredos of the Lady chapel, all in the crypt; the upper part of the chapter-house, from which all aspect of antiquity has recently been removed; the cloisters; St. Michael’s, or the Warrior’s chapel, which replaced the eastern apse of Lanfranc’s southern transept, and which has a complicated lierne vault similar in character to that of the north transept of Gloucester cathedral; the tomb and chantry of Henry IV., with fan-vaulting, 1433; the western screen at the entrance of the choir; the south-west tower; Deans’ chapel (Lady chapel), which replaced the eastern apse of Lanfranc’s northern transept (1450), and which has fan-vaulting.

VII. To the TUDOR period belongs the Angel or Bell Harry Tower (1495-1503), and the buttressing and arches inserted between its piers. Also the Christ Church gateway. The great tower is remarkable for the unbroken verticality of its buttresses; it is as exceptional as it is successful in design.

The _Chapter-house_ is rectangular, for a rectangular building fitted more easily into the east walk of a monastic cloister. Nearly all the monastic chapter-houses are therefore rectangular, but sometimes had apses; the exceptions being the Benedictine chapter-houses of Worcester, Westminster, Evesham, and Belvoir (which last was exceptional also in position, being placed in the very centre of the cloister), and the Cistercian chapter-houses of Morgam and Abbey Dore, sister designs. While the Secular Canons, having as a rule no cloister, preferred a polygonal chapter-house, as at Lincoln, Beverley, Lichfield, Salisbury, Wells, Elgin, Southwell, York, Old St. Paul’s, Hereford, Howden, Manchester, Warwick. So did the Regular Canons at Alnwick, Cockersand, Thornton, Carlisle, Bridlington, and Bolton. This beautiful polygonal form seems not to occur in France.

At the north-west corner of the cloister is the doorway through which Becket passed to the north-west transept, with his murderers in pursuit of him. Near here is a hole in the wall, the Buttery hatch. In the fifteenth century the south walk of the cloister was divided into “studies” for the monks by wooden partitions (at Gloucester they are of stone), and its windows were glazed.

From the cloister we pass to the _West Front_, and commence the tour of the exterior. The south-west tower (with the Deans’ chapel) was completed by Prior Goldstone (1449-1468); the copy of it was put up in 1834: “it was an eyesore that the two towers did not match.” Very bad modern statues adorn the niches.

Later still (1517) is _Christ Church Gateway_, through which one first approaches the cathedral, with doors inserted in 1662. Originally it had two turrets. Outside it is a monument to the dramatist Marlowe.

On the south side is seen the porch; the nave, a beautiful design; and the charming pinnacle of the south-west transept. East of the Warrior’s chapel is the projecting end of Stephen Langton’s tomb. East of this, the two lower rows of windows are those of Conrad’s choir; the upper row that of William of Sens. The middle windows in the S.E. transept were the clerestory windows of Conrad; the windows above them are those of William of Sens. The three upper stages of the tower on the south of this transept are late Norman work; one of the prettiest bits in Canterbury. Farther east we have French design, pure and simple; here, for the first time in English architecture, the flying-buttresses are openly displayed; notice how flat and plain they are; it had not yet occurred to architects to make them decorative. The grand sweep of apse and ambulatory seems to send one straight back to France. Then comes the broken, rocky outline of the _corona_—the great puzzle of Canterbury. North-east of the corona are two groups of ruined Norman pillars and arches discoloured by fire; once they were continuous, forming one very long building, the _Monks’ Infirmary_, of which the west end was originally an open dormitory, open to the roof, and the east end, separated off by a screen, the Chapel; which has a late Geometrical window. A mediæval infirmary of this type is still in use at Chichester. The Canterbury infirmary had a north transept, called the Table Hall or Refectory (now part of the house of the Archdeacon of Maidstone), in which the inmates dined. On the north side of Trinity chapel is seen the _Chantry of Henry IV._; then _St. Andrew’s Tower_ and the barred _Treasury_; the lower part of the latter is late Norman work, largely rebuilt. The south alley of the _Infirmary Cloister_ was built about 1236. Along this one passes to the _Baptistery_, which was originally nothing but a mediæval water-tower; late Norman below, Perpendicular above. Returning towards the Infirmary, we turn to the north up the east alley of the Infirmary Cloister, now called the “_Dark Entry_,” at the north end of which is the _Prior’s Gateway_. On the left are some Norman shafts and arches of beautiful design. It was the Dark Entry that was haunted by Nell Cook of the Ingoldsby Legends. West of the Prior’s gateway are the two columns from the Romano-British church at Reculvers. On the north side of the Prior’s or Green Court are the Brewery and Bakehouse; to the N.W. is the famous Norman staircase, which originally led to a great North Hall; perhaps a Casual Ward—for tramps too found accommodation at the monasteries.

The Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity, Carlisle.

Carlisle Cathedral, though but a torso, is of exceptional interest, both archæologically and artistically. It dates from the early years of the twelfth century. It was originally the church of the Austin or Black Canons, and also the seat of a bishopric. The Augustinian Cathedral was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary; and it was re-dedicated to the Holy and undivided Trinity when placed on the New Foundation.

I. LATE NORMAN.—The Augustinian house was founded by Henry I. in 1101, at the instigation of Queen Matilda. The Norman church consisted of an aisled nave of seven bays, a transept with eastern apses, and an aisled choir. The stones show the marks of the hatchet; the masonry is well-bonded—too good to be eleventh-century work. The corbel-tables of aisle and clerestory are particularly strong and vigorous. Norman aisles were usually vaulted; but the aisle-walls of Carlisle are so thin that they can never have supported a vault.