Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Wells Part 12

[Ill.u.s.tration: Procession Path And Lady Chapel.]

THE PROCESSION PATH, or, to use the uglier and more accurate word, the Retro-choir, is a rectangular s.p.a.ce between these chapels and the transepts, on the north and south, and the Lady Chapel and presbytery on the east and west. This s.p.a.ce is vaulted; and the vault is carried by four slender piers of Purbeck marble, with attached shafts, in the midst, by a group of Purbeck shafts on each of the two piers which lead into the Lady Chapel, and by the light blue Purbeck shafts of the eastern arches of the presbytery. As two of the middle piers (which are set diagonally from north-east to south-west, and from south-east to north-west) are in a line with the pier-arches of the choir, while the other two, though in a line with those of the Lady Chapel (which themselves project into the Path), are without those of the choir, a complicated system of vaulting and a charming arrangement of piers is the result. Indeed, this exquisite group of piers has never been surpa.s.sed, and nothing can be found that better ill.u.s.trates the subtlety and extreme refinement of the last stages of Gothic architecture at their best. At whichever point one stands fresh beauty is apparent. It is merely a device for connecting Lady Chapel with choir, while leaving a wide path free for processions, yet what a gem of perfection has been drawn from the need! As one sits at the corner near the south wall of the Lady Chapel, one can best appreciate the range of vaulting, which, though it is doubled here, is of the same height as that of the aisles, running faithfully round to cover the ambulatory which encircles the choir, while on either side the pillars soar upward to the higher vault of the Lady Chapel and the yet higher ceiling of the choir. Opposite are the painted fragments of gla.s.s in the north choir aisle, seen through the arches of the presbytery, and the windows over the range of tabernacle work in the choir itself. On the left the south aisle can be seen stretching onwards, across the bright break of the transept, to the west end, and on the right are the gorgeous windows of the Lady Chapel. Everywhere the slender pillars stand, and the mouldings branch away from their rich capitals, each doing its appointed work, calculated and exact, in what would seem at first but a lavish profusion of marble shaft and moulded stone. Yet we can hardly now imagine what it all was like before the richly-decked altars were torn down, the painted windows knocked to fragments, the canopies, tombs, and images defaced or destroyed.

The vault is lierned with richly-carved bosses still warm with the marks of gilding; both on the bosses and the capitals the foliage is of the crumpled character suggestive of the oak-leaf.

Unlike the piers of the Lady Chapel, the bases here are of marble, though the plinths are of stone. Two grotesque heads, lower than the bosses, at the north and south-western angles, hold three ribs in their mouths, the ribs, which end there in seeming futility, being used to cover an awkward corner of the vaulting.

GLa.s.s IN THE CHOIR AISLES AND CHAPELS.--A good deal of gla.s.s in a more or less fragmentary condition survives in the eastern portion of the church. It is fine work of the first half of the fourteenth century.

In the south aisles there is good gla.s.s in all the upper lights; the third window has later gla.s.s in the lower lights, which bears the date 1607, and consists of coats of arms and a series of small square pictures of foreign type. The east window of St. Catherine's chapel is composed of fragments fitted together at random; in the upper lights of the south window are rather coa.r.s.e heads of St. Aldhelm, St.

Erkenwald, and other saints: two of them should be noticed for the early form of papal tiara. In the corresponding chapel of St. Stephen both the east and north windows are the same, the north window even containing a second head of St. Erkenwald; the other saints are inscribed--"St. Stephanas Papa" (the Pope Stephen, who died 257), "S.

Blasii Epi" (St. Blaise), and "S. Marcellus Papa"; in the topmost light of both windows is a small figure of Our Lord.

In the north aisle, the first window (counting from the east) contains a St. Michael; the next a crucifix and a figure of St. Mary Magdalen, with some sixteenth-century coats (including the curious arms of Bishop Knight, p. 87) in the lower lights. Similar coats are in the third window, which has a figure of St. John Baptist. The fourth window contains modern gla.s.s erected in honour of Bishop Ken (p. 157), as a memorial to Dean Plumptre, who died in 1891. In the centre Ken is represented in full pontifical vestments, below him angels are supporting his arms impaled with those of the see; over his head is the favourite superscription of his letters, "All glory be to G.o.d,"

and at his feet his rule of life "_Et tu quaeris tibi grandia? Noli quaerere_" (Jer. xlv. 5). The left-hand panels represent St. Paul teaching Timothy (because Ken wrote the "Manual for Winchester Scholars," and the "Exposition of the Catechism"), Christ's charge to St. Peter; the right panels represent St. Paul before Agrippa and St.

Peter in prison (because Ken was one of the seven bishops imprisoned by James II.). The two lower panels represent labourers going to their work singing _Benedicite_, and a priest and choristers chanting _Nunc Dimittis,_ in allusion to Ken's morning and evening hymns.

THE LADY CHAPEL was finished in 1326, before the presbytery was added to the present choir, and thus it belongs to the middle of the Decorated period. In plan it is octagonal, the three western sides consisting of the three arches by which it is opened to the rest of the church. It could, in fact, stand perfectly well as a detached building like the Lady Chapel at Gloucester, and doubtless it did so stand while the presbytery was a-building; but its connection with the church itself allows its apsidal west end to be cunningly combined with the beautiful pillars which support the vault of the ambulatory.

The arrangement by which these three western sides project into the ambulatory is more easy to see than to describe; from the west side of the piers which support them spring the vaulting ribs of the retro-choir, while on the east side of the piers the shafts rise much higher up to carry the loftier vault of the Lady Chapel. As the chapel is not a perfect octagon like the chapter-house, but is elongated from east to west, this vault was difficult to manage, and its lines are somewhat distorted in consequence. The vault springs from triple shafts between fine traceried windows of five lights, and its ribs meet in a boss containing a beautiful figure of our Lord seated on a throne with outstretched arms; the colour and gilding are well restored.

Professor Willis said that "the polygonal Lady Chapel and the vaulted work which connects it with the presbytery is a most original and unique piece of architecture, of pure and beautiful design." As to the first part of this sentence there can be no difference of opinion, and all will agree as to the fineness of the general effect of the chapel; yet there may well be two opinions as to the purity of the work. I confess that the following criticism (_Builder_, Aug. 1862) from a lecture of Mr E.W. G.o.dwin seems to me to be not entirely without justification:--"With the single exception of the way in which the vaulting is managed, I look upon this Lady Chapel as no better than the other work of the same date. There is a weakness about the constant recurrence of the same form in the tracery of the windows; the lines of the vault are, in some cases, clumsy to a degree; and the capitals have lost their constructional character altogether. The growth and vitality, the change and joyfulness, so visible in the earlier caps, especially those with figures, are no longer to be seen.

Leaves are now stuck on; or, at the best, wreathed round the bell of the capital; and so the _function_ of the capital--the upbearing principle--is lost." So much for its defects. The peculiar excellence of the chapel is that it gives that apsidal ending to the church which adds so much to its beauty both within and without, and yet does not interfere with the square end of the presbytery.

The Lady Chapel has been fitted up for the use of the Theological College, and its furniture contrasts favourably with that of the choir. A litany desk, stalls, and credence-table in oak have recently been given, and a retable carved by Miss Neville; the altar cross, however, is too stunted for its position. The eagle lectern, in spite of its dark appearance, is modern, of Dean Goodenough's time. The doorway on the south side led to the old vestry, so wantonly destroyed in the present century: now that the chapel is in daily use the need of the vestry is much felt, and a cupboard in St. John's chapel has to serve for a makeshift. The gas-brackets are of later and more pleasant work than those elsewhere.

Mr Ferrey discovered fragments of a reredos at the east end of the chapel, and set them up as best he could to form the present reredos: the original arrangement seems to be lost, for some of the pedestals are on the level of the floor, while some of the niches at the top are cut in half. Mr Ferrey restored the whole chapel at the same time, and paved it with tiles.

GLa.s.s IN LADY CHAPEL.--The large windows of this chapel are all filled with beautiful fourteenth-century gla.s.s, but alas! in a marred condition. The side windows contain fragments packed together anyhow.

The eastern window was made up out of old pieces by Willement at Dean Goodenough's restoration, and its colour almost completely spoilt by modern insertions. The harm, however, is not irreparable, for the figures are almost entirely genuine, and the bad effect is mainly due to Willement's blue background. A careful examination would easily separate the new from the old, and it would be quite easy at the present day to remove the bad work and replace it by gla.s.s that would carry out the old harmony of colour. The lower lights are filled with two tiers of figures in canopies, David and other patriarchs in the upper tier, and the following well-chosen series in the lower:--The Madonna in the midst, on her right the Serpent and Eve, on her left the Brazen Serpent and Moses. The upper lights of this window contain angels bearing the instruments of the Pa.s.sion, which are unspoilt, as are also the busts of patriarchs in the north-east window, and of bishops in that on the south-east. Three of the topmost lights contain emblems of the Evangelists, the fourth is lost. One inscription remains, _Ista capella constructa est_ ... but the date is gone.

A tall and light monument stands between the Lady Chapel and St.

Catherine's; its crocketed finials, filled with tracery, rise almost to the ceiling. The canopy is open at the sides and western end, but the eastern end forms a niche; this part has been restored in colour and gilding, it is powdered with _fleurs-de-lys,_ and bears a shield containing the _Agnus Dei_. No other part shows any trace of colour.

The base is much higher than that of an ordinary tomb, and the canopy seems to have been somewhat altered at Ferrey's restoration.

The spot where the altar of St. Catherine and All Virgins stood is now "Sacred to the memory of John Phelips Of Montacute in this county esquire. Descended from a line of ancestors, Whose names for two centuries and a half abound in the annals of the county, He succeeded at an early age to the paternal estates, And sustained the wonted hospitality of his house. He soon became a most active and intelligent magistrate," etc., etc.

THE CHAPTER-HOUSE STAIRCASE is entered by the doorway in the eastern aisle of the north transept. There are few things in English architecture that can be compared with it for strange impressive beauty; the staircase goes upward for eighteen steps and then part of it sweeps off to the chapter-house on the right, while the other part goes on and up till it reaches the chain-bridge; thus the steps lie, worn here and there by the tread of many feet, like fallen leaves, the last of them lost in the brighter light of the bridge. Here one is still almost within the cathedral, and yet the carts are pa.s.sing underneath, and their rattle mixes with the sound of the organ within.

The date of the staircase is clearly somewhere between that of the chapter-house and that of the church itself. It is later than the church, for it is built up against the transept b.u.t.tresses, and it contains some of the best examples of simple geometrical tracery, while there are nothing but lancet windows in the church of Reginald and Jocelin. But the simple geometrical tracery of its two four-light windows prove that it was finished before the chapter-house was begun.

The arches of these windows are rampant, to follow the level of the stairs; their beautiful circular tracery is ma.s.sive, deeply-moulded, and filled with remnants of rich gla.s.s; their shafts of blue lias have naturalistic capitals which are in striking contrast both to the Early English carving in the church and the full Decorated of the chapter-house itself. Below the windows is a stone bench rising in steps with a foot-pace of similar construction; this arrangement adds much to the effect of the staircase, though it is marred by a modern hand-rail.

Before the Chain Gate was made, the vestibule ended with a graceful window of four lights similar to those at the side. The upper part of the window remains, but the lower part is occupied by a Perpendicular doorway, and the whole now forms a screen which, by breaking the light, adds considerably to the charm of the staircase. Through this doorway, where they are cut away to allow the door to open, the steps continue for two stages, but in a narrower flight. Here the windows are Perpendicular, and the vaulted ceiling has given place to a wooden roof, for this is the Chain Gate, as light and pretty within as without. It was only an after-thought, a matter of convenience, thus to connect the chapter-house with the Vicars' Close, and the screen that now breaks the light had for a century and a half been the outside window, just as the blocked window of the transept had been the outer light for the fifty years before the staircase itself was thought of. It was just a practical matter-of-fact device; but what magnificent utilitarianism, what an inspired after-thought!

[Ill.u.s.tration: Steps Of Chapter-house Vestibule And Pa.s.sage Over Chain Gate.]

The main gallery of the Chain Gate is shut off by a door which, if it were kept open, would make the prospect even more beautiful than it is. Two corbels which support the vaulting-shafts of the lower staircase should be noticed; they both represent figures thrusting their staves into the mouth of a dragon, but that on the east (wearing a hood and a leathern girdle round his surcoat) is as vigorous in action as the figure on the west side is feeble. A small barred opening in the top of the east wall lights a curious little chamber, which is reached from the staircase that leads to the roof.

THE CHAPTER-HOUSE is entered by a double-arched doorway, the small vault between the arches having an odd boss composed of four bearded heads. There are marks in the wall which lead one to think that the doors were hung in a wooden screen under this vault. The old doors are now used in the house of the Princ.i.p.al of the College, where they were identified by Canon Church. They have little slits in them, through which those in the chapter-house could speak with those without, who no doubt waited for admittance on the stepped stone bench of the staircase. Grooves in the two inner shafts of the doorway seem to have been made for the insertion of some light screen, by which the entrance was divided into two pa.s.sages for ingress and egress. The absence of doors certainly adds to the rather cold unfurnished appearance of the chapter-house in its present condition.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Chapter-House--Doorway.]

The room itself ("a glorious development of window and vault" it has been called) is one of the best examples of that type of chapter-house which belongs mainly to the thirteenth century, and is a peculiar glory of English architecture. Of octagonal plan, its vaulting ribs branch out from sixteen Purbeck shafts which cl.u.s.ter round the central pillar, typifying the diocesan church with all its members gathered round its common father, the bishop. Each of the eight sides of the room is occupied by a window of four lights, with graceful tracery of an advanced geometrical type. These windows, which are among the finest examples of the period, have no shafts, but their arch mouldings are enriched with a continuous series of the ball-flower ornament. Most of the old gla.s.s, in which ruby and white are the predominant colours, remains in the upper lights.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Chapter-House--Interior.]

Under the windows runs an arcade which forms fifty-one stalls, separated into groups of seven by the blue lias vaulting-shafts at the angles, but in the side which is occupied by the doorway there are only two stalls, one on either side of the entrance. Two rows of stone benches are under the stalls, and there is a bench of Purbeck round the base of the central pier. The arcade strikes one as too shallow: its canopies, which rest on blue lias shafts, are ornamented with feathering, crockets, finials, and an interesting series of small heads. Some of the heads wear crowns, mitres, hoods, and square caps; others are grotesque, though I cannot detect the "jesters" to which some writers refer. Some of the heads have the same formal twist in the hair as those of the large corbels in the nave (p. 81). The heads on the side opposite the door are all (with the exception of one modern head in plaster) covered with the early form of papal tiara, a conical hat with a crown round its rim. On this side, in the middle stall, is the bishop's seat, and here are traces of colour; the little heads are still pretty with pink cheeks and painted eyes and hair, and above the canopy the saltire of St. Andrew is discernible.

Thus the bishop still retained, at least in theory, the head-ship of the chapter. The dean sat on one side of him, the precentor on the other, and the rest in due order from the archdeacons and officers down to those in minor orders. Even the boys of the school were admitted to part of the meetings, and they stood on the floor round a desk which was in front of the chief pastor. "There every morning,"

says Canon Church (_Chapters in Hist, of Wells_, p. 333), "after the prayers of the third hour and the morning ma.s.s, the chapter of the whole body was held for the daily lection and commemoration of brethren departed, for maintaining discipline, hearing complaints, pa.s.sing judgment, inflicting punishment; for ordering the services of the day and of the week--for sitting in council and drawing up statutes."

Beautiful as is the general effect of the chapter-house, it must be admitted that its detail is inferior to that of the staircase, which is just one stage earlier in the development of architecture. Nor can its capitals be compared for a moment with those in the nave; the lighter form of structure doubtless calls for a lighter cap, but these are distinctly untidy in their decoration. The crockets are very near having that wholesale look which has caused nineteenth-century architects to make so much of this easily debased ornament. The arrangement, too, by which the fine doorway rises into a window of unmodified pattern seems a rather awkward compromise, especially as the line of the staircase roof cuts slantwise across the lights. One cannot help thinking that an earlier architect would have departed from his uniform pattern at this point, and have inserted a window or arcade better adapted to the position, with the addition, perhaps, of sculpture in the vacant s.p.a.ce.

Between the roof and the vault there is a curious chamber which reminds one of the crater of a volcano, and the impression is increased by the sponge-like stone, which has some resemblance to tufa. The open arcade under the roof has served to keep the woodwork in remarkably sound condition.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Chapter-House--Vault.]

THE UNDERCROFT.--Much of the external beauty of the chapter-house, as well as the charm of its staircase, is due to its unusual height above the ground. It rests upon a vaulted chamber or undercroft, which is popularly called the crypt, though that term is not very accurate, as the chamber is not sunk underground, but stands almost on a level with the floor of the church. The innumerable springs in the soil of Wells do not, indeed, admit of a subterranean building. The undercroft was finished before the chapter-house staircase was begun; perhaps its walls were built at the end of Jocelin's episcopate; at any rate it was finished by 1286, and represents the last development of the Early English style. It was used as the treasury, where the vestments, ornaments, registers, and other precious things, both of the bishop and chapter, were kept, and, to increase the security of its ma.s.sive walls, the sacristan had to sleep within them every night.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Chapter-House--Undercroft.]

It is reached by a dimly-lit, impressive pa.s.sage, which is entered from the north choir aisle through a doorway with deeply-sunk mouldings and carved capitals. Two heads, slanting inwards in a rather awkward manner, support the curious pediment-shaped canopy over the doorway. At the commencement of this fine pa.s.sage, just within the doorway, is a small vault supported on extremely odd corbels, as if the mason had taken advantage of the obscurity to wanton with his craft. One is a large head with enormous cheeks, apparently suffering from acute neuralgia; a handkerchief, under which a few comically-stiff curls escape, covers the head and is tied under the chin; another represents two dragons biting each other, with a head upside down beneath them; another, which reminds one of the worst eccentricities of modern crockery, is formed by a hand holding a foliated capital. I suppose that the head with swollen cheeks is really another testimony to St. William Bytton's power over the toothache. The undercroft itself was finished before 1286, perhaps some time before; but the more advanced sculpture of the pa.s.sage looks as if that part were built in the "toothache" period--that is to say, some ten years or so after Bytton's death in 1274.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Chapter-House--Undercroft.]

Certainly the bosses of the vault in the pa.s.sage beyond the doorway are of a character that suggests the transition to Decorated which was in progress at this time. They are elaborate, and, with one exception, through-carved. The first from the door represents a head, the next an _Agnus Dei_, the next two grotesque heads joined together, then apparently the Serpent tempting Eve, then an ox, dragons, two small grinning heads, with animals apparently biting them on one side. The corbels are carved into heads, some crowned, others reversed with the shaft in their mouths. On the right-hand side, as one enters the undercroft, a pretty stone lantern projects from the wall; of the little mullions which form its face, one is set far enough from the wall to admit of the insertion of a lamp.

Two heavy wooden doors at the entrance leave no doubt as to the purpose for which the undercroft was built. The outer door is the most ma.s.sive; it is studded with nails, and has two great bolts and a huge lock: on the outer side a kind of escutcheon is formed round the keyhole by a heart-shaped piece of iron, surmounted by a cross; on the same side there is an iron bar, and the hook to hold it across the doorway. A deep hole has been worn in the pavement by the feet of those who pulled open the door. The inner door is lighter, and ornamented with beautiful elaborate hinges: on this side are deep sockets in the wall, into which the inner bars were run.

In the undercroft itself the walls are impregnably thick, the windows narrow, with wide splays. The vaulting, somewhat later in style than the walls, is an admirable piece of construction, well-fitted to bear the weight of the lofty chamber above. It is also remarkable, Professor Willis points out, for the way in which the arches are disposed without the introduction of ribs. From the round shafts which are grouped about the octagonal pier in the centre spring the vaulting ribs, the extremities of which rest upon eight round pillars; and another set of vaulting ribs spans the s.p.a.ce between these pillars and the eight walls, where they rest upon twelve shafts between the lancet windows. Could anything be more simple and secure in construction, and more varied in effect?

Here, on one of the capitals and on a moulding near the door, we meet with the dog-tooth moulding usually so characteristic of the Early English style. The piscina in the doorway should be noticed for its carving of a dog gnawing a bone.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Section Of Chapter-house.]

A large aumbry is formed by a recess in the thickness of the wall. The parapeted structure opposite is a modern coal-hole, for which some other place might surely be found. There are several stone coffins in the undercroft, and a good many fragments of carved stone, some of which are very fine. Here also is a cope-chest of the usual shape, which allows the copes to be put away with only one fold. Near it there is a large oblong chest covered with iron bands. An iron door which is also kept here is thus described by Mr H. Longden (_Archaeological Journal_, 1890, p. 132): "It is made of slabs of iron nailed to an oak frame-work, and liberally braced across with hinges and diagonal cross-straps, stiffening the door in the best way known at the time. This is not an iron-plated door, but an iron door; it is, in fact, a 'safe' door of the time, and is an uncommon instance. It must be remembered that the slabs of which this door is formed were all beaten out of lumps of iron, and that iron was not then made, as now, in plates, bars, or rods, but ... The lump of iron had to be heated and drawn out on the anvil at a great expenditure of time and labour. Much of the charm of old work arises from the irregularity of the shapes, never quite round, or square, or flat, which the iron took, and we miss this in the neat and mechanically-finished work of the present time."

CHAPTER IV.

HISTORY OF THE DIOCESE.

Legend, which in every ancient city is raised to the dignity of an article of faith, places the origin of Wells diocese in the remote past; and the visitor is required to believe that Ina, King of Wess.e.x, the first great West Saxon lawgiver, the ruler who finally established the English supremacy in the south-west, was also the founder of the see of Wells. He is said to have planted a bishopric at Congresbury, and in 721 to have removed the see to Wells with the help of Daniel, the last British bishop. The story, however, rests upon no good foundation.

Before the middle of the seventh century the heathen invaders were converted by St Birinus, and by the time of Ina Wess.e.x was divided into the dioceses of Winchester and Sherborne, the latter including Somerset, Dorset, and part of Wiltshire. This was all that Ina did towards establishing the diocese of Wells; and it did not go very far, for the special boast of the diocese is that it consists of one county, Somerset, and of nothing else. And so it is that the honour of possessing Ealdhelm, the first bishop of Sherborne, who tramped about, an open-air preacher, in his diocese, belongs to Salisbury and not to Wells; although Doulting, where Ealdhelm fell sick and died sitting in the little wooden village church, is the very place whence afterwards the stone was quarried for the building of Wells Cathedral.

It was under that great warrior, Edward the Elder, that the diocese of Sherborne was divided, and the Sumorsaetas received a bishop of their own, whose stool was placed in the church of St. Andrew at Wells.