Chapter VII: Preface (7)

Mr. Haddan, in the new collection of Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents (i. 393), prints an account of the Church of Llandaff, 1193-1218. Bishop Henry of Abergavenny founded fourteen prebends, the duties of eight of which were to be discharged ("defungi debent") by Priest Vicars ("Vicarii Sacerdotes"), four by Deacons, and two by Subdeacons. The fourteen Vicars have now dwindled to two.

[45] Ang. Sacr. i. 563. "Hic erexit ecclesias parochiales de Ilmestre et Longe-Sutton in præbendas ecclesiæ Wellensis; quarum primam Abbati de Muchelney, secundam Abbati de Athelney et eorum successoribus contulit in perpetuam possidendas." These prebends no longer exist, having vanished along with the monasteries by whose Abbots they were held.

[46] This most important statute is printed in the Monasticon, ii. pp. 291, 292. Its date is 1242, the thirty-seventh year of Jocelin's episcopate. He records what he had done for the fabric of the church, which he found dangerous by reason of age ("periculum ruinæ patiebatur pro suâ vetustate." See above, p. 67). He had built, enlarged, and consecrated it ("ædificare coepimus et ampliare, in quâ ... adeo profecimus, quod ipsam ... consecravimus"). Then he goes on to say that the common ("communa") revenues of the ministers of the church had hitherto been scanty ("tenuis et insufficiens"), and that he had done much to enlarge it. It would seem then that the greater part of the estates of the church had been cut up into separate prebends, and that, before Jocelin's gift, the Chapter as a body kept but little. He then recites the consent of the Dean and Chapter to his ordinance in words which mark a very different relation between the Bishop and his Chapter from what had been in the days of Gisa and John of Tours. The change is made "consensu Johannis Sarraceni, Decani, et Capituli nostri Wellensis, qui pure et simpliciter et absolute, de merâ et spontaneâ voluntate suâ, nostræ super hoc se supposuerunt ordinationi et statuto." Then come the rules by which the Bishop, the Dean and the other dignitaries, the other Canons, and the Vicars, were on each day of residence to receive certain sums of money. They had hitherto received their daily portion, partly in money, partly in bread. The amount was now raised, and it was paid wholly in money. The Bishop had thirteen pence, the Dean and other dignitaries twelve pence, each simple Canon sixpence, each Vicar a penny, for each day of residence. At the end of the year the overplus was to be divided among those Canons who had kept the prescribed residence, which is thus defined: "Residentes autem interpretamur quoad participationem residui in fine anni omnes illos Canonicos qui _per medium annum_, sive continue sive interpolatim, fecerint in villam [sic] residentiam, præter Decanum, Præcentorem, Cancellarium, et Thesaurarium, quos interpretamur residentes si _per duas partes anni_ fecerint residentiam sive continue sive interpolatim."

Each Canon had thus three available sources of income, his own prebend, the daily distribution, and the distribution at the end of the year. The first was irrespective of residence, the latter two depended on residence.

[47] I have to thank Mr. Serel for a manuscript extract containing some details of this strange practice, as it stood at Wells. In the fourteenth century the custom was that each Canon, at the beginning of his residence, should feast the Bishop, Dean, Canons, Vicars, and all other officers of the church ("quoscumque alios dictæ ecclesiæ ministros"), at a cost which often reached two hundred marks (133_l._ 6_s._ 8_d._), or even a hundred and fifty pounds; sums which, at the then value of money, must have been enormous, and which contrast strikingly with the pence and loaves of the older daily distribution. In a bull of Pope Boniface the Ninth, in the year 1400, this custom is condemned; it is pronounced to be "consuetudo quæ corruptela potius est dicenda," and he speaks of the cost as "inutiles sumptus ac expensæ." Instead of this waste upon eating and drinking, each simple Canon, on his admission to residence, is to pay a hundred marks, and each dignitary a hundred and fifty, to the maintenance of the fabric, and the support of the other burthens of the church ("in subsidium sustentationis fabricæ et relevamen supportationis aliorum onerum"). This was a very heavy tax, and might hinder many from residing; still, at least, the money went to a good end. This was presently so interpreted that the Dean and Residentiaries gave out of each sum so paid ten marks to the fabric, ten to the Vicars, and divided the rest among themselves. This practice was confirmed by a second bull of Pope Nicolas the Fifth, in 1433; and these regulations were confirmed by Henry the Eighth in 1539, at the advice of Lord Cromwell, who, it is not to be forgotten, would, as Dean (see p. 148), receive a share of the spoil.

Notwithstanding the commutation of the burthen from a feast to a fixed sum of money, it appears that it again became usual, "not only to pay these sums of money upon admission to a Canonry [that is, on admission to residence], but also to make a prodigious entertainment for the Bishop, Dean and Chapter [meaning the Dean and Residentiaries], the Prebendaries in town, Vicars, Proctors of the Court, and Officers of the church, _and their wives_, and also for the Mayor and Corporation, and other principal inhabitants of the Liberty and City."

The Canons' and Vicars' wives were certainly not contemplated either by Pope Boniface or by King Harry.

[48] This and all other points in the constitution of the Chapter of Saint David's has been treated of by Archdeacon Jones, in our History of Saint David's, p. 310, et seqq. The Saint David's history is throughout worth comparing with the Wells' history.

[49] In the Charter of Elizabeth, of which I shall have to speak again, each of eight Residentiaries is required to reside three months in the year; and, if a Dignitary, four. This arrangement would always give two Canons at least in residence at once.

[50] The round, rather than polygonal, chapter-house at Worcester, where the style is still Romanesque, is probably the earliest example, and that at Howden the latest. Lincoln, Westminster, Salisbury, Lichfield, and Margam, are also examples. The earlier and later chapter-houses, as at Canterbury, Durham, Bristol, and Exeter, are oblong, sometimes with an apsidal end.

[51] The grandest example of these undercrofts that I know of is under the dormitory of Battle Abbey. The arrangements of the church were ruled by the position of the high altar, which marked the site of the English standard. The result was that the dormitory was driven over the side of the hill, and had therefore to be supported by an undercroft, which at the extreme southern end rises to a prodigious height.

The undercroft of the Wells chapter-house is no more a crypt than the undercroft of the palace, or than the chapter-house at Llandaff, which simply consists of four bays of vaulting, with a central pillar, just like many undercrofts of this kind.

The undercroft of the palace at Wells has its parallel at an earlier time in the magnificent example of Romanesque date in the Bishop's palace at Angers.

[52] I must here quote Professor Willis, as reported in the Bristol Volume, p. xxviii. "The first thing to be noticed is under date 1286, when a Chapter was called together, and there was laid before them the urgent necessity which appeared from the state of the church, not only that the new structure, which had been a long time begun, should be finished, but that the whole fabric might be repaired and sustained, and such new constructions as were requisite be carried out. In 1286, however, comparing the probable date of the building which I suppose to be called the new structure, it can only be the chapter-house; and the lower part of it, commonly called the crypt, was, as I conclude, then completed.... The structure of the chapter-house consists of two parts, and it is quite evident that the crypt was separated from the upper part by a very considerable interval. I conceive, therefore, that in 1286 the portion of the chapter-house called the crypt was completed." In the Somersetshire Transactions, xii. 19, the Professor adds that "it was agreed that each Canon should pay a tenth of his prebend yearly for five years."

Bishop Godwin says (p. 300) of Bishop William of March, "In this mans time [1293-1302] the chapter-house was built, by the contribution of well-disposed people; a stately and sumptuous worke." Godwin wrote, I suppose, from local tradition, as there is nothing like it in the Canon's history in Anglia Sacra. His date quite falls in with the Professor's extracts.

[53] The Early English fragments which have been built up in the chapel in the Vicars' Close, as well as those which are lying about in the undercroft of the chapter-house, can hardly fail to belong to the destroyed east end. Yet the fragments in the Vicars' chapel agree rather with the style of the west front than with that of the other parts of the church; and they agree with the fragments built into the rectory-house at Wookey (now called, without any reason, Mellifont Abbey), which can hardly fail to have been parts of Jocelin's house there. The fragments in the undercroft have the tooth-moulding, which, I think, is not found anywhere else in the church, though it is in the undercroft of the chapter-house.

As for the actual form of the east end, it is plain that it was not an apse, nor yet a square east end of the full height, like York, Ely, and Southwell. It will be seen on the ground-plan that the aisles of Jocelin's work run a bay to the east of the site of his high altar. This shows that there was a procession-path and most likely a chapel beyond it on the site of the present presbytery, though it is possible that it ended in a mere retrochoir, like that at Abbey Dore, or that carried round the northern apse at Peterborough.

[54] The church of Glastonbury is, I need not say, of far more ancient foundation than that of Wells; it was its junior simply as a cathedral church. Bath is immeasurably older than Wells as a city, and as a church also, if we accept the foundation of Osric in 676. Even the foundation of Offa in 775 comes before Wells had gained any importance. See Monasticon, ii. 256, though it is hard to understand how a monastery could be destroyed by Danes before the time of Offa.

[55] Angl. Sacra, i. 564. "Hic sibi similem anteriorem non habuit, nec hucusque visus est habere sequentem."

[56] Ib. "Tandem defunctus, in medio chori Welliæ honorifice sepelitur." Godwin adds, "He was buried in the middle of the Quier that he had built, under a Marble tombe of late yeeres monsterously defaced."

LECTURE III.

[1] The story, as given by the Canon of Wells, may be read at length in Anglia Sacra, i. 564, with Wharton's note, and more briefly in Godwin's quaint English, p. 297. It is summed up in the Tewkesbury Annals (Ann. Mon. i. 133): "Magister Rogerus Cantor Sarum eligitur in Episcopum Bathoniæ. Confirmatur a Domino Papâ, non obstantibus cavillationibus Canonicorum Wellensium. Consecratur, intronizatur, et Dominus Rex reddidit ei omnia temporalia, in Junio." This annalist, as a monk, looks on the complaints of the seculars of Wells as "cavillationes."

[2] Anglia Sacra, i. 565. "Unde Episcopus Rogerus in tantum ita instantius penes Papam procuravit, quod ipse pacem fecit inter partes prædictas, et formam apposuit in eorum mutuis electionibus de cætero faciendis, quæ usque hodie observatur."

[3] The chief of these were the _custodia_ or wardship of the Deanery, _i.e._ the profits of the decanal estate during a vacancy, which had no doubt hitherto gone to the Bishop as superior Lord, as those of the Bishoprick itself went to the King. He also gave them two-thirds of the profits of all the parish churches in the diocese during their vacancies, which had hitherto gone to the Bishop; the remaining third he gave to the Archdeacons.

[4] Godwin gives the list in p. 298. His burial in the Lady chapel in the cloister has been already mentioned; see above, p. 17.

[5] Anglia Sacra, i. 566. "Ubi ad præsens multis fulget miraculis."

[6] Ib., 567. "Ad cujus tumbam olim multa præclara fiebant miracula." The wonders at the tomb of William of March seem to have ceased when the Canon wrote, while those at the tomb of William Button still went on. This agrees with what Godwin says, p. 299: "Many superstitious people (especially such as were troubled with the tooth-ake) were wont (even of late yeeres) to frequent much the place of his buriall, being without the North side of the Quier, where we see a Marble stone, having a pontificall image graven upon it."

[7] His building of the hall is mentioned in Anglia Sacra, i. 567, as also the advancement of his own family. So Godwin, 299, who speaks of "That goodly hall of the pallace at Welles, pulled downe some fifty yeeres since by a knight of the court, that for a just reward of his sacrilege, soone after lost his head." This means Sir John Gates, of whom more anon. Robert Burnell was first Treasurer and then Chancellor of England, and in 1278 was elected Archbishop of Canterbury, but the election was annulled by Pope Nicolas IV. In Rymer's Foedera, vol. i. part ii. p. 559, will be found a letter of Edward I. to the Pope on behalf of his Chancellor. He speaks of the "fidelitatis suæ constantia quam ad recolendæ memoriæ dominum, Henricum Regem Angliæ, illustrem genitorem nostrum, et nos ac totam ecclesiam Anglicanam semper hactenus habuit incorruptam, et a quâ nullo umquam tempore nubulo vel sereno flecti potuit seu etiam deviare." He also calls him "vir tam in temporalibus quam in spiritualibus circumspectus, vir mitis, affabilis, vir benignus, vir etiam misericordiæ, mansuetudinis, caritatis, et pacis." Two of his brothers were drowned in 1282, in the Welsh war; see Trivet, p. 305.

On the works of Gower at St. David's, see the History of St. David's, pp. 190-194.

[8] I must again quote Professor Willis, in the Somersetshire Proceedings, xii. 19. "In 1326 a grant of the land at the east end of the Cathedral by the bishop to one of the canons, measures its length of fifty feet eastward from the wall of the _newly-constructed chapel_ of the Blessed Mary." This plainly means the Lady chapel at the east end, distinguished as a new building from the older Lady chapel in the cloister. The Bishop is, of course, John Drokensford, Bishop from 1309-1329. In the Bristol report of Professor Willis (p. xxix.) he is strangely called _Tokenfield_, which I am sure is not the Professor's own description of him.

[9] Of the coved or waggon roofs of the West of England and South Wales, which modern church-restorers generally think it such a great feat to get rid of, I have written and spoken till I am nearly tired of the subject. The arch employed is of all manner of forms, but in a wooden construction the semicircular arch has the best effect. A roof of this sort is the same thing in wood which a barrel-vault is in stone, and the vault of the choir at Wells is a barrel-vault, modified by the clerestory windows. Earlier barrel-vaults of Romanesque date, identical in principle with the Somersetshire wooden roofs, may be seen in Saint Sernin at Toulouse and the chapel in the White Tower of London, and, to come nearer home, in the priory church of Ewenny in Glamorganshire.

[10] Somersetshire Archæological Proceedings, xii. 19. "In 1325 the bishop gave half the proceeds of his visitation to the '_novum opus_' of the church at Wells, and an order was made that, because the stalls were ruinous and misshapen, every canon should pay for making his own new stall, and the dean sent to Midelton for boards to make the new stalls." Midelton is what we now call Milton. The Dean was John Godele, Dean from 1308 to 1333. The Bishop was of course Ralph.

[11] Anglia Sacra, i. 569. "Sepultus in presbyterio ecclesiæ Wellensis inter gradus chori et summum altare in tumbâ de alabastro, cui imago supponitur valde conforma figuræ illius."

[12] Godwin, p. 302. "His body was buried before the high altar under a goodly monument of Alabaster, compassed about with grates of yron. About a 60 yeeres since (for what cause I know not) it was remooved to the North side of the presbytery, but lost his grates by the way."

[13] Somersetshire Archæological Proceedings, xii. 19. "In 1318 receivers were appointed for the tenths, given in aid of the _new campanile_, and for the oblations to Saint William.... In 1321 we find a grant from the clergy of the Deanery of Taunton in aid of the roofing of the _new campanile_," meaning, not improbably, a wooden spire. By Saint William is meant Bishop William of March; see p. 107.

[14] Ib., 21. "In 1337 a convocation was summoned to consider, among other matters, the raising of money by the non-residents for paying a debt of 200 li. incurred for the restoration of the greatest part of the fabric. In 1338 another Convocation was summoned, because the church of Wells is so enormously fractured and deformed ('enormiter confracta ... totaliter confracte et enormiter deformate'), that its structure can only be repaired, and with sufficient promptitude, by the common counsel and assistance of its members." This evidently means, as the Professor explains it, the damage done by the weight of the new tower, and the props which we now see are evidently the result of the repairs then ordered.

[15] The likeness had struck myself independently, but I see that Professor Willis (p. 22) quotes the same name as applied by Leland to the props of the same kind afterwards inserted under the central tower at Glastonbury.

[16] Anglia Sacra, i. 570. "Iste ad constructionem occidentalis turris in parte australi Wellensis ecclesiæ duas partes expensarum apposuit; ac pro vitro occidentalis fenestræ ejusdem ecclesiæ centum marcas persolvit; duasque magnas campanas in dictâ turri australi pendentes fieri fecit propriis sumptibus." Godwin (302) adds to the account of the bells, "The bigest of which being cast fower times since I was of this church, now at last serveth for the greatest of a ring, the goodliest for that number (being but five) (I thinke) in England."

[17] Godwin, 304. "It is supposed he was a great benefactor and contributor toward the building of the North-west tower at the West ende of the Church, which his armes fixed upon divers places of the same doo partly shew."

[18] "He built our Library over the Cloysters," says Godwin, in his account of Bubwith, p. 304. But I do not see how this is to be reconciled with what he says in the next page; "He [Beckington] built (as to me at least wise seemeth) the East side of the cloyster."

[19] There are others of the kind, the west front of Exeter for instance, where I suppose that most people would allow that the shape is positively unsightly. The earliest English instance I know of was the Romanesque west front of Malmesbury Abbey. It is now in ruins, owing to the fall of the western tower which was afterwards added. But it is easy to make out that the oldest front had a blank wall between turrets, instead of either towers or the natural endings of the aisles without towers.

[20] This arrangement gives the church of Wells and Rouen a sort of western transept. There is also a western transept at Lincoln and at Peterborough, but it is formed in a different way by a projection beyond the towers.

There is something analogous to Wells and Rouen in the west front at Ripon. The towers are now at the ends of the aisles, but, as they were at first without aisles, they must have been built as a projecting transept.

[21] This custom of a sham gable or other finish between the towers, having no reference to the gable of the nave, is common both in French and German churches. It is carried to its furthest extreme in the churches of Brunswick, where any one coming from the due west would take each church to be nearly double the height that it really is.

[22] I am here speaking of polygonal apses only. In our large Romanesque churches the round apse was commonly used, but their choirs have commonly been altered or destroyed, so that the only round apses that we now have on a very large scale are those of Norwich and Peterborough. In Normandy many more have been preserved, and they are also much more common in smaller churches. Canterbury Cathedral has an apse to the choir of intermediate date, besides the round chapel at the extreme east end, answering in some measure to our polygonal Lady chapel.

[23] The Wimborne arrangement of a central and western tower was once much more common than it is now, but in many cases one of the towers has either never been carried up or has been afterwards destroyed, as at Hereford, Shrewsbury, Malmesbury, Bangor, and Christ Church in Hampshire. The arrangement still remains on a vast scale at Ely, and on a smaller at Purton in Wiltshire and in the two lesser churches at Coutances.

[24] Anglia Sacra, p. 569. "Episcopale palatium apud Welliam forti muro lapideo circumcinxit, et aquam undique circumduxit;" and again, "Palatium episcopale Wellense muro lapideo batellato et cornellato cum fossatis claudere fecit."

[25] Bishop Godwin tells the whole story in his quaint way (p. 301). "This man is famous for the first foundation of our Vicars close in Wels. The memory of which benefit is to be seene expressed in a picture upon the wal at the foot of the hall staires. In it the Vicars kneeling, seeme to request the Bishop in these words

Per vicos positi villæ, pater alme rogamus,
Ut simul uniti, de [te?] dante domos maneamus.
_Disperst about the towne, we humbly pray,
Together, through thy bounty, dwell we may._

He answereth them thus:

Vestra petunt merita, quod sint concessa petita,
Ut maneatis ita, loca fecimus hic stabilita.
_For your demaund, deserts do plead, I will do that you crave,
To this purpose established, here dwellings shall you have._

This picture being now almost worne out; at what time of late yeeres the Vicars by the gratious favour of her Maiesty had their revenues confirmed to them, being in danger to be spoyled of them by certaine sacrilegious cormorants; they likewise caused a picture of excellent workmanship to be drawen, contayning a memoriall of both the one and the other. These buildings being erected; toward the maintenance of some hospitality in them, he gave unto that new Colledge, the mannor of Welsleigh, and allotted them twenty nobles yerely to be paid out of the vicarage of Chew. He built moreover a house for the Queristers and their master."

[26] See above, p. 173.

[27] I must again quote Godwin, p. 306. "To his successor he gave 100_l._, upon condition he would accept it in lieu of all dilapidations, otherwise willing his executors to spend it in lawe against him: and lastly unto his executors he left onely 20_l._ a piece, requiring them to imploy all the rest of his goods to good uses at their discretion. They answered very justly, the trust reposed in them, and that with such discretion as well as fidelity, that I should do them wrong not to remember them. The one was Richard Swanne, Provost of Welles and parson of Yevelton, that heretofore had beene executor after the same sort unto Richard Praty Bishop of Chichester (this man dwelt in the cannonicall house that is neere the market place). Another was, Hugh Sugar Doctor of lawe and Treasurer of Welles (he built the chappell all of free stone, which was of wood before, adjoyning to the great pulpit, and dwelt where I now do, in the middle house of the three that joyne upon the Cambray). And the third was John Pope Doctor of Divinity Prebendary of Saint Decumans and parson of Shyre. These three (as I have beene told by old men) lye buried in a ranke together, over against the great pulpit under three marble stones of one fashion. The Bishops goods that remained unbequeathed, they bestowed for the most part, in building the Vicars close at Welles, which had beene begun by Bishop Ralfe long before; a sumptuous and beautifull worke."

[28] Some remarks of Mr. Dimock's on this subject will be found in the Proceedings of the Somersetshire Archæological and Natural History Society, lxii. 33.

[29] At Hereford some of the Priest Vicars bore the title of Minor Canons. I do not know in what they differed from the rest of the body.

[30] He seems not to have done anything for the fabric, though the north-west tower was still unfinished. But he gave tithes and other property to the Chapter for various purposes, one of which was keeping a common table; "ad mensam capitularem et alia onera in ecclesiâ Wellensi supportanda." Anglia Sacra, i. 570.

[31] Anglia Sacra, i. 570. "Fecit etiam construi per executores suos in vico vocato _la Mounterye_ mansiones pro xiv capellanis in dictâ ecclesiâ Wellensi indies celebrantibus." Godwin calls it "a colledge at Welles for fowerteene priests, at the ende of the lane now called Colledge-lane." On the history of this foundation, see Monasticon, viii. 1465.

[32] In the account of the Deans in Anglia Sacra, i. 590, we read of him. "Vir impense literatus, postquam in utrâque academiâ Anglicâ bonis studiis operam dedisset, in Italiam profectus, Guarini Veronensis disciplinæ se tradidit."

[33] See Mr. Parker in the Somersetshire Archæological Society's Proceedings, xi. 144 and xii. 25. Mr. Parker may be implicitly trusted on all architectural points, but he has quite failed to grasp the history of the foundation.

[34] When I wrote this passage and an earlier passage in p. 23, I did not think how near my worst fears were to being accomplished. The organist's house at Wells, more strictly the house of the _Informator Puerorum_ (see above, note 25), a house of the fifteenth century, stands to the south-west of the church, and was connected by some smaller buildings with the west wall of the cloister. The north gable, with a singularly elegant window of two lights, formed a striking object in crossing the Cathedral green, and held no mean place among the general group of buildings of which the church was the centre. For a long time past the building had been in a disgraceful state, and a munificent private offer to repair it was, for what reasons no man can guess, refused. Since that time, the buildings which connected the main body of the house with the cloister have been pulled down. This was a senseless act; for, though they had been much patched and mutilated, ancient portions still remained, and, in any case, their presence kept the house in its proper position as part of a whole. At last, on the night of April 12th, 1870, the ancient roof of the house, which still remained, fell in, damaging the gable and shattering the tracery of the window. How this came to pass there is no distinct evidence, but it is believed on the spot not to have been wholly accidental. Thus it is that our antiquities are daily perishing, because, while a taste for them and an appreciation of their value is daily spreading, those whose duty it is to preserve them are often those who have the least feeling for them. In the present case the damage which has been already done is the result of wilful neglect, but the complete destruction of the building would be a further act of wanton barbarism. I am by no means certain that the house could not even now be saved by a careful repair; but even if destruction has gone too far for that, what remains ought to be kept as a well-preserved ruin, and not to be swept away for any frivolous private purpose.

[35] In this point of view the history of Wells is well worthy of the care of students of municipal history. The number of boroughs which arose under the shadow of abbeys, as at Saint Alban's and Bury Saint Edmund's (on which last see Mr. Green's papers, published in Macmillan's Magazine in the course of 1869), is not small; but of _Bishops' boroughs_ there are not many. Durham and Salisbury (see above, p. 3) are the nearest examples, but their history is not exactly the same as that of Wells. Coventry, a still greater city, grew up under the shadow of an Abbey which became a Bishoprick.

[36] Catalogue of Bishops, p. 307.

[37] This was done in the year 1526 by authority of a bull of Pope Clement the Seventh; see, for instance, the account of Daventry Priory, in Northamptonshire, in the Monasticon, v. 176.

[38] This was in 1414. A list of the houses suppressed is given in the Monasticon, viii. 1652. Among them was the Priory of Stoke Courcy, in our own county, which was a dependency of the Abbey of Lonley in Maine. Most of the estates of these monasteries went to the various foundations which grew up in the fifteenth century, as several of the Colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, the College of Eton, to which Stoke Courcy went, and Saint George's Chapel at Windsor. It should be noticed that this suppression took place under King Henry the Fifth and Archbishop Chicheley, than whom there certainly never was a more religious King or Primate in England. We have here the closest parallel to the disestablishment and disendowment of the Irish Church.

[39] The suppressions under Henry the Eighth were the most complete contrasts to the suppressions under Henry the Fifth. The small portion of the monastic estates which went in any way to the public service, in the foundation of bishopricks and colleges and in providing for the defence of the coast, was a trifle compared with the boundless wealth which was squandered and gambled away among Henry's minions, to say nothing of the wanton and brutal desecration of churches and consecrated objects.

[40] We should always distinguish between the two suppressions of Henry the Eighth's reign. The suppression of the lesser monasteries was done legally by Act of Parliament. The greater monasteries were suppressed by extorting from each Abbot and Convent an illegal surrender, which surrenders were afterwards confirmed by Act of Parliament. But Abbot Whiting never surrendered, so that the seizure of Glastonbury Abbey was simple robbery. The Abbot was of course really hanged for refusing to betray his trust. The nominal charge on which he was condemned by commissioners sent to "try and execute" him--the thing being thus arranged beforehand--was a ridiculous pretence of his having robbed the goods of the monastery, that is, having tried to save them from those who wished to rob them. This should be borne in mind, as I have seen it said over and over again that the Abbot was hanged for denying the King's supremacy, which the Abbot and Convent of Glastonbury, like other Abbots and Convents, had acknowledged long before.

[41] See above, p. 46.

[42] The list of Deans in Anglia Sacra, i. 590, says, "vir laicus, decanatum Wellensem ab anno 1537 pessimo exemplo tenuit. Capite plexus est 1540. 28. Julii."

[43] See Hook's Lives of Archbishops, viii. 18.

[44] Saint George's Chapel at Windsor was not suppressed; otherwise the few collegiate churches which still survive, including those of Ripon and Manchester, which have become cathedral, were refounded under Elizabeth and James the First. It was now that Beverley and several other great churches, as well as some smaller ones, like Stoke-sub-Hamdon in our own county, ceased to be collegiate.

[45] The deed of pretended exchange is printed in the Monasticon, ii. 294. See also Godwin, p. 311; and Collinson's Somersetshire, iii. 395.

[46] It was now that the Palace at Wells was restored to the Bishoprick. After the execution of Somerset it had passed to Sir John Gates, the destroyer of Stillington's Lady chapel, who was beheaded along with John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, in 1553. He is the knight of the court, of whom Godwin speaks in his account of Bishop Burnell.

[47] On the history of the so-called Priory, see the Monasticon, vii. 664.

[48] See note 44.

[49] See above, p. 50.

[50] See Godwin, p. 311.

[51] This strange document, dated in 1592, has, as far as I know, never been printed, and I have only seen an English translation. It first recites the doubts as to the legal position of the Chapter, arising out of the surrender made by Dean Fitz-Williams in the time of Edward the Sixth, and the consequent establishment of a new Deanery by Act of Parliament. The Queen then founds the cathedral church anew, with all its dignities and prebends as they existed before. She then goes on to found "certain other dignities or offices," namely those of the Canons Residentiary. The names of the existing Residentiaries are recited, and the Dean and Canons Residentiary are constituted a corporation, by the title of the "Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral Church of Wells." To this newly-founded corporation the Queen grants the cathedral church, its appurtenances and movable goods, the Chapter-house and other lands and property, namely such as had been the common property of the Chapter. She then grants to them power to make, under certain conditions, statutes "for the good rule, government, and ordering of the Canons Residentiary and _other Prebendaries_ in the said Cathedral Church." She then prescribes the number of Residentiaries, who are not to be fewer than six nor more than eight, and the manner of their election. They are to be chosen from the Prebendaries, a strong preference being given to the Dignitaries, including the Archdeacons, and the Dean having a right to a Residentiary's place if he chooses to claim it. The term of residence is fixed at four months at least yearly for a Dignitary being a Residentiary, and at three months at least for a Residentiary not being a Dignitary. These, it will be remembered, are exactly half the terms of residence fixed by Jocelin; see above, p. 90. The document then goes on to regulate the visitatorial powers of the Bishop, which are taken for granted. Then follow grants to the different Dignitaries and Prebendaries of their several corpses, and provision is made for the payment of certain customary sums to the fabric, the Vicars, and other purposes. Then come the names of the existing Prebendaries; and it is ordered that the Prebendaries "shall for ever be joined and combined with the aforesaid Dean and Chapter and their successors, to the ends, intents, and purposes following only, that is to say, the Prebendaries aforesaid, every of them and their successors, and the successors of every of them, shall have a stall in the choir of the Cathedral Church aforesaid, and that they and every of them shall have a place and voice in the Chapter of the said Cathedral Church only to elect a Bishop to the Episcopal See of Bath and Wells aforesaid, whenever it shall be needful." The Bishop's right of appointing to dignities and prebends is then renewed, saving only that the right of appointing to the Deanery is reserved to the Crown. The remaining provisions are merely formal.

The evident object of this document is to legalize a certain state of things which had gradually grown up by abuse. It had probably become customary for the non-resident Canons to be summoned to meetings of the Chapter only when a Bishop was to be elected. They were now formally deprived of their right to vote at other times. The Dean and Residentiaries, who had hitherto been simply certain of the Canons or Prebendaries selected for a certain purpose, were now themselves made the corporation, and the corporate style of Dean and Chapter was transferred to them. From this some grotesque results follow. The Chapter is first of all defined as a body of which the non-residentiary Canons are not members, and then the non-residentiary Canons are defined to be members of that body for one particular purpose; and the old formula, according to which each Canon had "vocem in capitulo et stallum in choro," is preserved, with the restriction that the voice is to be used only at the election of a Bishop. Then the practice by which the consent of the existing Residentiaries was needful for any Canon to keep valid residence is stiffened into an actual election by the existing Residentiaries. Lastly, the custom by which the Chapter always elected a nominee of the Crown to the Deanery is changed into an actual nomination of the Dean by the Crown. In all these cases the object is to legalize by royal authority an existing vicious practice.

It is curious to mark how, in the teeth of all this, some ancient customs are still retained as matters of form. The Canon, on his first appointment to his prebend, is solemnly installed in choir and chapter-house, but no such ceremony follows on his election to a residentiaryship, when he is simply put in possession of a house. This is of course because, under the older state of things, the Residentiaries were not a distinct body, but simply those among the Canons on whom the duty of residence fell on behalf of the whole. When a Canon began to reside, he was not invested with any new office; he therefore needed no new installation. By the Elizabethan Charter the Residentiaries were changed into holders of distinct dignities or offices, but no form of installation was prescribed, or could be prescribed, because the Residentiary retained the stall which he held before, and had no special stall as Residentiary. With the careless modern practice of Residentiaries or other Canons occupying stalls which belong to others of their brethren neither ancient order nor the Elizabethan Charter has anything to do.

It is worth noticing that in the list given in Collinson's Somersetshire, of the Chapter as it stood in his time, the Dignitaries and Prebendaries are all put in their proper order, with the words "Canon Residentiary" added to those who happened to be so. It is now the fashion to print the Residentiaries first in larger type, and the other Canons after them in smaller type. Such are the straws which show the way of the wind, and thus does oligarchy grow in all times and places.

[52] The actual rights of the non-residentiary Canons, both at Wells and elsewhere, is a question of law, to be settled by a legal examination of various local statutes and general Acts of Parliament. The result would probably not be exactly the same in every church. But it is certain that, if our capitular bodies are to be of any use at all, they must be restored to their old broad basis. A body of forty or fifty clergymen, the pick of the diocese, partly resident at the cathedral, partly elsewhere, might be trusted to do many things which an oligarchy of four or five cannot be trusted to do. In the New Foundations the object would be gained by giving votes in Chapter to the Honorary Canons.

[53] It would hardly be believed, except that the same havoc has been wrought in some other churches, that in an English cathedral church, in the year 1869, four stoves of incredible ugliness were set up, _with chimneys driven through the vaulted roof_! For the better display of one of them, part of Bishop Beckington's canopy, already moved from its place, was cut away; but, on the coming into residence of a Canon of better taste, it was put back. If the church wanted warming, the object might surely have been gained in some other way. In Bristol Cathedral there are stoves which are no disfigurement whatever.

[54] They would, however, have a precedent in the famous scene between Archbishops Richard and Roger in the time of Henry the Second, which I will describe in the words of Godwin, p. 51. "At the time appointed the Legate came and tooke his place, and the Archbishop of Canterbury sate him downe next unto the Legate upon the right hand. After this in came Roger Archbishop of Yorke and would needes have displaced Canterbury to sit above him: that when the other would not suffer, he sate him downe in his lap. The other Bishops present, amased at this strange behavior of the Archbishop of Yorke, cried out all upon him; the Archbishop of Canterburies men by violence drew the other out of his ill chosen place, threw him downe, tare his robes almost from his backe, trode upon him, beate him, and used him so despitefully, as the Legate, whether for shame or for doubt what might happen to him selfe in such a tumult, got him out and went his way."

On the tomb of the doer of this havoc is written, with an unconscious sarcasm, "Multum ei debet ecclesia Wellensis." The words seem happily borrowed from Lucan's address to Nero:

"Multum Roma tamen debet civilibus armis,
Quod tibi res acta est."

Dean Jenkyns, however, did not employ fire; the stoves were reserved for the next æra.

[55] There is much in the details of the work at Llandaff which is fairly open to censure, but the principle of arrangement is thoroughly good throughout, and the general effect is admirable.

[56] It is proposed to "restore," as it is called, the west front at a cost of many thousand pounds, while there are no signs of any movement towards getting rid of the crying abuses in the inside of the church. I believe there is no fear of the wanton destruction of any of the ancient work, or of any such absurdities as putting up new statues. Still it seems to me to be a strange putting of the cart before the horse to spend such a sum, or indeed to spend a single farthing, on purely ornamental work, while the arrangements of the inside are such that the church does not properly fulfil its first duty as a place of worship. When the nave of Wells Cathedral is again applied to its proper use, it will be time enough to think of canopies and carved work on the outside. And I am by no means clear that purely ornamental work of this kind ought to be restored at all. Anything that is really needed for the safety of the fabric should be done with all boldness, and all really essential features should be made good. If the western towers were likely to fall, it would be a matter of duty to support or to rebuild them, as the case might call for. And as the doors and windows are essential parts of the building, I should without scruple restore their decayed bases, mouldings, and other portions. But as to the purely ornamental work, the statues and their canopies, it seems to me that their value comes wholly from their being genuine parts of the original work, and that any modern repair is out of place. I should take every means to preserve them and keep them in their places; but, if they fall or crumble away, I should not replace them. I therefore greatly regret, on every ground, to see a work undertaken which can hardly fail to have the effect of putting off the real restoration of the church of Wells for many a day.

[57] If the screen is, which I do not believe that it is, of any constructive use in keeping up the piers of the eastern arch of the tower, the obvious thing is to build a fourth Saint Andrew's cross in the eastern arch as in the other three.

INDEX.

A.

_Abbeville Collegiate Church_, west front of, 125.

_Abbey Dore_, east end of the church, 177.

_Adalbero_, Archbishop, his changes in the Church of Rheims, 32, 165.

_Adam of Domersham_ quoted, 170.

_Adeliza of Löwen_, wife of Henry the First, 43.

_Ælfsige_ detains lands of the Bishoprick, 29.

_Ælfsige_, last Abbot of Bath, 36.

_Æthelhelm_, first Bishop of Somersetshire, 26.

_Alby Cathedral_, absence of transepts in, 116.

_Alexander_, third Dean of Wells, 170.

_Alien Priories_, suppression of, 147.

_Amiens Cathedral_, its great height, 116.

_Andrew, Saint_, his wells, 19;
yields to his younger brother, 36.

_Angers_, undercroft of the Bishop's palace at, 176.

_Apses_, various kinds of, 130;
their rarity in England, 130;
use of, in Romanesque times, 181;
more common in Normandy than in England, _ib._

_Archdeacon of Wells_, ancient house of, 142;
its alienation, 150;
recovery of the other property of, 150.

_Archdeacons_, their rights under the charter of Elizabeth, 188.

_Architects_, employment of professional, in the middle ages, 81.

_Athelney_, prebend attached to the Abbey, 88.

_Augustine_, his mission to Britain, 12.

_Avalon_, see Glastonbury.

_Axe_, the English frontier in 597, 13, 17.

B.

_Bangor Cathedral_, arrangement of towers at, 182.

_Banwell_, history of the lordship, 27, 29, 31;
Bishop's house at, 37.

_Barlow, William_, Bishop, alienates the lands of the see, 149, 186;
partly recovers them, 149.

_Bath_, its Roman origin, 13, 36;
taken by the West-Saxons, 36;
church of, founded by Offa, 36, 177;
monks brought in by Eadgar, _ib._;
burned, 36, 47;
bought by Bishop John, 36, 37, 166;
see of Somersetshire removed to, _ib._;
church rebuilt by Bishop John, 37;
settlement between the Churches of Bath and Wells, 45;
suppression of the Monastery, 46, 148;
restoration of the Church in the seventeenth century, _ib._;
works of Bishop Robert at, 46-48, 167, 168;
date and style of the present church, 48;
monks of, illegally elect Bishop Roger, 105;
gradually neglected by the Bishops, 107;
form of the west front, 125;
alleged foundation of Osric, 177.

_Bath and Wells_, origin of the title, 10, 45.

_Battle Abbey_, lofty undercroft under the dormitory, 176.

_Bayeux_, installation of the Bishop at, 158.

_Beaufort, Cardinal_, enlarges the Hospital of Saint Cross, 163.

_Beauvais Cathedral_, remains of the old church at, 79, 80;
its great height, 116.

_Beckington, Thomas_, Bishop, works of his executors;
his various works, 145;
removal and mutilation of his canopy, 153;
his work in the cloisters, 181;
his will, 182, 183;
his gifts to the Chapter, 183.

_Benefice_, meaning of the word, 59, 169.

_Berengar_, agent of Archbishop Thomas, 173.

_Beverley Minster_, compared with Wells, 124, 130;
unreality of its west front, 128;
east end of, 130;
compared with Wells, 132.

_Bird, Prior_, his works at Bath, 48.

_Bishop_, his share in the daily distribution, 174;
his right of visitation saved by the Elizabethan charter, 187;
election of, under the charter, 187, 188.

_Bishops_, their relations to their cathedral churches, 10, 11, 45;
difference between their position in England and elsewhere, 12;
their ancient territorial style, 12;
how appointed in early times, 25;
Norman and French Bishops after the Conquest, 35;
number of, increased by Henry the Eighth, 53;
their greater power in the old cathedrals, 54;
plunder of, under Edward the Sixth and Elizabeth, 149.

_Bishopricks_ moved from small towns to larger, 35, 166.

_Bishopstool_, meaning of the word, 12.

_Boniface the Ninth_, Pope, his bull about entertainments, 175.

_Bourges Cathedral_, absence of transepts in, 116.

_Bourne, Gilbert_, Bishop, recovers the lands of the see, 149.

_Bridgewater_, more modern than the other Somersetshire towns, 14.

_Bristol_, Church of St. Mary Redcliff, internal effect of height
in, 133.

_Bristol_, position of the Cathedral, 2;
harmless stoves at, 189.

_Brunswick_, sham fronts in the churches of, 181.

_Bubwith, Nicholas_, Bishop, his share in building the north-west
tower, 122;
his gift of the Guild-hall to the citizens, 123;
his buildings in the cloister, _ib._

_Bury Saint Edmund's_, its municipal history compared with Wells, 184.