Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Saint Paul Part 4

There remains, however, this peculiarity, that according to the prints the main aisle windows were uniform throughout, and with Geometrical tracery. The vaulting differed from the nave in this, that the diagonals, where they met the longitudinal rib, had bosses, and three single cross ribs alternated instead of one. The longitudinal rib was again unbroken throughout.

That part of the Choir devoted to public worship was limited to the first seven bays, of which the three to the east were on a higher level. The stalls of the dignitaries extended four bays, and shut out the aisles. On the north side the organ occupied the third bay, and on the south the bishop's cathedral throne, as now, was at the end. The Chapel of St. Mary, or Lady Chapel, was east of the presbytery at the extreme end, with St. George's to the north and St. Dunstan's south; and the whole of the s.p.a.ce outside the presbytery--north, south, east--was taken up by some of those monuments which contributed so much to the beauty and interest of the interior, and they even encroached inside. Dugdale gives some seventy to eighty. Between the altar and the Lady Chapel was St. Erkenwald's noted and richly decorated shrine, and the tombs of Bishop Braybroke and Dean Nowell.

Hard by in the north aisle slept John of Gaunt under his magnificent canopy; and supporter of Wycliffe though he was, his tomb was rifled and defiled during the Commonwealth. Near at hand was the monument of Sebba, King of the East Saxons--a convert of Erkenwald, from whom he received the cowl. In the disgraceful chaos after the Fire, the body of Sebba, says Dugdale "was found curiously enbalmed in sweet odours and clothed in rich robes." Here also could be read the unflattering epitaph over the monument of Ethelred the Unready; and hard by the tomb of John of Gaunt, in December, 1641, the corpse of another Fleming by birth was interred. Sir Anthony Van Dyck had spent the last nine years of his life in England at the invitation of Charles, and this great pupil of Rubens was probably the last buried in the choir before the Civil War. The Lady Chapel contained a wooden tablet to Sir Philip Sidney, with the inscription:

"England, Netherlands, the Heavens and the Arts, The Souldiers and the World, have made six parts Of n.o.ble Sidney; for none will suppose That a small heap of stones can Sidney enclose.

His body hath England, for she it bred; Netherlands his blood, in her defence shed; The Heavens have his soule, the Arts his fame, All Souldiers the grief, the World his good name."

Another wooden tablet in the north aisle was to the memory of his father-in-law, the statesman Walsingham; and numerous other statesmen, n.o.bles, divines, and lawyers were buried, or at least remembered. We can but regret that these are now things of the past, and gone, with the exception of the effigy of Dean Donne--as remarkable as the man himself--and a few mutilated remains. Even Colet's is gone.

Before descending to the Crypt we may remark that the Interior must have fully emphasised the sense of majestic beauty produced by the Exterior. The long perspective eastward from the West Door, flanked on either side by the arcading and terminating with a glimpse of the rose window over the choir screen, as depicted in Dugdale, leaves nothing to be desired.

=The Crypt or Shrouds.=--The crypt was underneath the eight eastern bays of the choir, and was about 170 feet in length.[48] The entrance was from the churchyard on the north side, and the gloom was lit up by bas.e.m.e.nt windows both at the sides and east end. An additional row of piers down the centre supported the choir pavement above; and the whole undercroft may best be described as of eight arches in length and four in breadth, the arches springing from engaged columns and the vaulting quadripart.i.te.

The mouldings of the cl.u.s.tered columns were plain rounds and hollows, and everything throughout appears to have been uniform and of the same date. The four western bays, rather more than half, formed the parish church of St. Faith; the eastern part the Jesus Chapel, which, after the suppression of the Guild, was added to St. Faith's. These two parts were separated by a wooden screen, and over the door was an image of Jesus, and underneath the inscription:

"Jesus our G.o.d and Saviour To us and ours be Gouernour."

These remarks about the Jesus Chapel, be it noted, date only from the reign of Henry VI., by whom the Guild was incorporated, and the members of which held high festival on the days of the Transfiguration and of the Name of Jesus.

At the south-west corner of St. Faith's, but outside, was the Chapel of St. John the Baptist, and near this were the three Chapels of St.

Anne, St. Sebastian, and St. Radegund. Dugdale gives a list of sixteen of the more noted tombs. They include that of William Lyly, the first master of Colet's famous foundation. Had his bones not been disturbed by Wren's workmen, they could still have been found underneath the arcading due south-west from Dean Milman's tomb.[49] To Lyly's memory his son George, Prebendary of Cantlers, also placed a tablet in the nave above.

Having mentioned our last chapel and altar, it may here be added that the records enumerate not less than twenty chapels and three dozen altars altogether. Besides the Guild of Jesus there were four others--All Souls', the Annunciation, St. Catherine's, and the Minstrels--and these do not seem to include the oldest of all, that founded by Ralph de Diceto in 1197, which met four times a year to celebrate the ma.s.s of the Holy Ghost. We now go on to the surrounding buildings.

THE PRECINCTS.

=St. Gregory's=, in reality part of the cathedral with the Lollards'

Tower common to both, is mentioned as a parish church in early doc.u.ments. Pulled down and rebuilt, in the plates of Hollar it appears as an uninteresting building, hiding from view the four west bays of the south aisle of the nave. After the Fire the parish was united for ecclesiastical purposes to St. Mary Magdalen, Old Fish Street, and both have since been by a further union annexed to St. Martin, Ludgate Hill. The Petty Canons were parsons or rectors--that is to say, the income of the benefice was devoted to their support, and so continued until their suppression as a corporation. =The Bishop's Palace= was to the north-west, and joined the tower. We know nothing of its architecture, and it is last mentioned in Inigo Jones' Report of 1631.

=Pardon Church Haugh=, or Pardonchirche Haw, on the north side and east of the palace, was not a church at all, and was situated probably in St. Gregory's parish. How the "Haw," or small enclosure, received its name is doubtful: there may have been some unrecorded connection with pardons or indulgences. Here Thomas a Becket's father, who was Portreeve, built his chapel, rebuilt by Dean Thomas Moore, whose executors added three chantries. The Haugh was environed by a cloister, and the tombs in this part traditionally exceeded, both in number and workmanship, those in the cathedral, but this is all we know about them. In the cloister was the picture of the Dance of Death. Death, represented by a skeleton, leading away all sorts and conditions of mankind, beginning with Pope and Emperor. The accompanying verse of Dean John Lydgate, monk of Bury (or his translation from the French), was as gruesome as the picture.

Somewhere here the Petty Canons had their common hall. Near the cloister, and on the east side, was Walter Sheryngton's Library; and adjacent to the north-west corner of the neighbouring transept, his chapel with its two chantries. East of the Haugh and about opposite the north point of the transept, was the =Charnel=, a chapel with a warden and three chantries. Underneath was a crypt or vault for the decent reception of any bones that might be disinterred, and hence the name.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ST. PAUL'S CROSS.

_From an Engraving in Wilkinson's "Londina Ill.u.s.trata," after the picture in the possession of the Society of Antiquaries, London._]

We have now arrived at the north side of the transept, and inside the angle formed by chancel and transept stood =Paul's Cross=, in St.

Faith's parish. It was an octagon of some thirty-seven feet, and stood about twelve feet from the old cathedral. Mr. Penrose excavated for the site, and found it just at the north-east angle of the present choir. The last structure--of wood on a stone foundation, and with an open roof--was the gift of Thomas Kemp; but a pulpit cover existed in 1241. Above the roof rose the cross from which the name was derived; and from 1595 the whole was surrounded by a low brick wall, at the gate of which a verger was stationed. Against the choir wall was a gallery of two tiers: in the upper was the projecting royal box or closet, below the Lord Mayor's; and the parishioners of St. Faith had a right to seats. In very bad weather an adjournment was made to the crypt; but our st.u.r.dy forefathers endured alike stress of weather, length of discourse, and undiluted frankness of speech, after a manner that altogether puts us, their degenerate descendants, to shame.

From a rude picture, painted in 1620 at the instance of Henry Farley, we can see the preacher for the day with a sand-gla.s.s at his right hand. King James, in his state box, has his Queen on his right, and his unhappy son on his left, with the Lord Mayor below. These are to the left of the preacher, who faces the transept. The congregation, partly composed of parishioners of St. Faith, is seated on forms; and the men wear their steeple-crowned hats. A dog-whipper is vigorously belabouring a poor animal with a cat-o'-nine-tails; but the cries of the victim do not in the least disturb either preacher or audience; and two led horses are behind the preacher. A well-dressed youth, a late arrival, bows and accosts a grave-looking citizen with "I pray, sir, what is the text?" and the citizen answers, "The 2nd of Chron.

xxiv." A second citizen is dropping a coin into a large money-box by the transept door. The subject of the sermon, judging from the text, was the much-needed restoration; and perchance the preacher was none other than the diocesan, James' "king of preachers."[50]

In 1633 the preaching was removed into the choir "for the repaire of the Church," though we cannot quite see in what way this could help the repairing. Those who shortly afterwards obtained control of the City could tolerate neither the name nor the actual cross, and were afraid of disturbances as well. The structure came down, and although it was said at the time only to make way for another "fairer and bigger," was never restored again. The endowments out of which the preachers were paid went to the Sunday morning preachers, and these latter are the legitimate successors of the old-time divines.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CHAPTER HOUSE AND CLOISTER.

_After Hollar._]

=The Clochier=, or =Bell Tower=, with its lead-covered spire crowned with a statue of St. Paul, stood at the east end of the churchyard.

There must have been a tower here from a very early period if this was the bell that summoned the folk-mote. The Guild of Jesus owned the four bells of later times; and when that body was dissolved they reverted to the Crown, and were lost at dice to a Sir Miles Partridge, subsequently executed for sharing in the fortunes of the Protector Somerset. The cloister of the =Chapter House=, or =Convocation House=, shut off almost entirely the west wall of the south transept and four bays of the south wall of the nave. This was of the unusual arrangement of two stories, and formed a square of some ninety feet on the plan, with seven windows in either story. This was called the "Lesser Cloisters," apparently to distinguish it from the cloister of Pardon Church Haugh. In the centre of the square, and approached through a vestibule from the east, was the Chapter House, an octagon with a diameter of nearly forty feet, supported by ma.s.sive b.u.t.tresses.

In Dugdale's engraving the lofty roof has gone; and the tracery of Chapter House and Cloisters alike are Perpendicular. It will be seen there were two places for the two Houses of Convocation, one near the west door of the nave, and this.

There was St. Peter's College, where the Petty Canons lived, Holmes College, and the Lancaster College. Thomas Plantagenet, Earl of Lancaster, executed for high treason against his cousin, Edward II., who was canonised by the people, though not by the Pope, had a tablet somewhere in the church at which miracles were believed to be wrought, and two offices to himself. But whether the Lancaster College referred to him or to John of Gaunt, or where it was situated, is uncertain.

Of all these various buildings which surrounded the cathedral and added to its interest, the curious, by going to the south side of the nave, may discern some traces of the old Lesser Cloisters and Chapter House. Everything else has gone so completely that it would be difficult to fix even the exact site.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLAN OF OLD ST. PAUL'S IN 1666.]

DIMENSIONS.

OLD ST. PAUL'S.

LENGTH of Nave 252 feet LENGTH across Transept 104 feet LENGTH of Choir 224 feet --------- 580 feet LENGTH across Portico 40 feet --------- Total length 620 feet

LENGTH of Transept 293 feet

BREADTH of Nave 104 feet

HEIGHT of Central Tower 260 feet

HEIGHT Spire 200 feet --------- Total height 460[51] feet

HEIGHT of Nave roof 130 feet HEIGHT Choir 143 feet

Area about 80,000 sq. ft.

FOOTNOTES:

[38] Particularly so in the "Gleanings."

[39] _I.e._, a.s.suming that Inigo Jones did not convert pointed into round.

[40] Bishop Fulk Ba.s.set sent out in 1255 letters hortatory for the contributions of the faithful. "Quod Ecclesia St. Pauli, in retroactis temporibus, tantis turbinibus fuit qua.s.sata, &c. _ut totum ejus tectum_, jam quasi in ruinam gravissimam declinare videtur" (Dugdale, p. 9).

[41] "Parentalia," p. 276.

[42] "Parentalia," p. 275.

[43] Ibid.

[44] "Wells," p. 69. His exact dates are shortly after 1088 and 1136.

[45] "Wells," p. 132.

[46] "Parentalia," p. 273.