Highways and Byways in Cambridge and Ely Part 26

The fact that Ely had been made a Bishop's See did not prevent her from remaining a monastery, the home of busy monks, living in refinement and cleanliness according to the Benedictine Rule. Year by year they beautified their Abbey Church; the western tower rose stage by stage till it became, as it still continues to be, a landmark for the surrounding plain. During the episcopate of Eustace, lasting from 1198 till 1215, the western porch, known as the Galilee, came into being.

The year of his death was disastrous for Ely. It was then raided by a horde of foreign mercenaries, hired by King John to support him against the Barons; they robbed the Minster of its treasures, and only on receiving a heavy ransom were they dissuaded from burning it. "When the Barons" (who were in London, at that time their headquarters) "heard these things," writes the chronicler, Roger of Wendover, "they looked one upon the other and said, 'the Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.'"

Later in the same century a Choir, or Presbytery, of exquisite design and workmanship, in the Early English style, was thrown out eastward by Hugh de Northwold, Bishop of Ely from 1229 till 1254. We have heard already of this prelate, and we must now do more than mention his name. It was he who had been chosen to take the "toilsome and perilous" journey to Provence, thence to bring back Eleanor as bride for Henry the Third, and that weakling monarch turned to him on other occasions, when in need of a trusty servant.

We read that the Presbytery of Ely Minster was built at the sole expense of Hugh, Bishop of that place, a special observer of all that was honourable and good. His hospitality knew no bounds. At the dedication of his presbytery and other works in the Minster, the King himself, with his eldest son, Prince Edward, a boy of thirteen, was present; innumerable prelates and n.o.bles came to Ely, and after a due observance of spiritual festivities (which included the rededication of the whole church to St. Peter, St. Mary, and St. Etheldreda), were regally entertained by the Bishop in the leaden-roofed palace he had lately built; yet he lamented the small number of the a.s.sembled guests, declaring that the entertainment was in great measure shorn of its dimensions. He, however, "rejoiced in spirit that by G.o.d's favour he had been allowed to wait for that day, in which he had seen the happy consummation of all his designs."

This dedication took place in 1252. "Two years later the good bishop died at his manor at Downham, and his body was carried with much reverence to Ely, where it was buried in a magnificent Presbytery which he had founded and built." Such is the witness of Matthew Paris, a contemporary chronicler. We may mention that the income of the See of Ely was at this time equivalent to 30,000 a year.

Many years had gone by since the festivities thus described for us, when Henry and his son again appeared before Ely under very different circ.u.mstances. The Barons who had fought against the King, in their struggle to secure const.i.tutional liberty, had met with a crushing defeat at Evesham (1265), where their heroic leader Simon de Montfort had been slain. Their lands had been virtually, though not nominally, confiscated, and for this reason they called themselves "the Disinherited," and gloried in the name. They refused to accept defeat, and made the Island of Ely their headquarters. In vain did the Bishop, Hugh de Balsham (the founder of Peterhouse), endeavour to prevent this occupancy of his domains; his efforts were fruitless, and only brought upon him the reproaches of the King and many others, who attributed his misfortunes to his incapacity. The insurgent Barons refused to quit the Island, and lived on there, supporting themselves by raid and pillage, as Hereward and his comrades had done of old. We are told that they entered Cambridge, and carried off abundance of booty; and that they seized on the persons of Jews and other rich citizens residing there, and took them back to the island as prisoners, to be set at liberty only on the payment of a heavy ransom.

The inhabitants of Lynn, then as now the chief seaport of the Fenland, found these marauding Barons such objectionable neighbours, that they resolved on an expedition against them. A number of citizens, mostly of the lower orders, manned a fleet of boats and went up the river toward Ely. Forewarned of their coming, the insurgent Barons met them drawn up on the bank, with a great array of standards and banners; then, feigning terror at the approach of the enemy, they fled inland; whereupon the men of Lynn, unversed in war and its strategy, landed intent on pursuit. Suddenly they found themselves surrounded by the foe; in vain were their efforts to regain their boats; many were slain by the dauntless Barons, others were made prisoners, while the few who escaped were received with derision on their return to Lynn.

The Bishop and the burghers of Lynn had failed alike to overcome the Disinherited; the Papal Legate now tried what he could do, as the state of affairs in the Fenland was growing desperate. He sent messengers admonishing the insurgents "to return to their Faith and to obedience to the Roman Curia, and to unity with Holy Mother Church; and to cease from robbery and to make reparation." To this, from their fastness, the Disinherited reply, "that they hold the same Faith as other Catholic men; that they believe and keep the articles of the Creed, that they believe in the Gospels, and in the Sacraments of the Church as the Church Catholic believeth, that they are ready to live and die for this Faith. They avow further that they do indeed owe obedience to the Church of Rome as the Head of all Christendom, but not to the avarice and greed of those who ought to govern it better."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Ely: The Presbytery._]

They urge that they had been unjustly disinherited by order of the Legate, and that he ought to make amends to them; that he had been sent to England to make peace, but that by adhering to the King he kept up the war: that the Pope had ordered that no one should be disinherited, but that the King had demanded a ransom equivalent to disinheritance; that their first oath had been for the benefit of the kingdom and the whole Church; that they were still ready to die for it. They a.s.serted, moreover, that many of the partisans of the King and Prince Edward had committed robberies, feigning that they belonged to the Disinherited; they insisted that their own lands must be restored to them, so that they might not be under the necessity of pillaging. Lastly, they exhort the Legate to recall his sentence; otherwise they would appeal to the Apostolic See, to a General Council, and, if needs must, to the Supreme Judge of all (_i.e._, the G.o.d of Battles), "seeing that they fight for the common weal of Church and Realm."

Such was the daring message that, according to Matthew Paris, issued, in the year 1267, from the Fenland stronghold. The Bishop and the men of Lynn had failed to daunt the recusants, and now the Legate had met with no better success. The following year came the King in person, along with his valiant son Edward "Longshanks," to try what the Strong Hand could do; and besieged the island. We can imagine how the father and son, as they sighted Ely, must have felt the contrast between their approach this time and their arrival fifteen years before. Then all was peace and welcome, now it is bitter war. They had Scottish troops at their command, and by constructing bridges of hurdles and planks they forced an entrance to the island; and soon the insurgents had no choice but to yield; some surrendered, while the rest took to flight. Their cause seemed lost; but in truth it was destined to triumph, for when Edward the First, six years later, returned as King from his Crusade, he granted all, and more than all, that the Barons had asked for, by calling into being England's first representative Parliament.

Throughout the course of these wars and tumults the House of G.o.d at Ely stood uninjured in beauty and security. But about the opening of the fourteenth century there appeared cracks in the great Central Tower. These ma.s.sive Norman towers were not so strong as they looked, their piers being not, as they appeared to be, of solid stone, but only hollow pipes filled in with rubble. It was known that a similar tower at Winchester had fallen; the same disaster now threatened Ely; the monks were warned against entering the Abbey Church, and were bidden to say their office in an ancient chapel adjoining the Chapter House.

The catastrophe long foreseen came to pa.s.s on February 22, 1322. Late in the evening, as the monks were retiring to their dormitories, "with such a shock," says the chronicler, "that it was thought an earthquake had taken place," the tower fell toward the east, crushing the walls and pillars of the Norman choir. Northwold's presbytery further east remained unhurt, nor did the shrine of St. Etheldreda behind the high altar receive any damage. The nave and transepts likewise escaped injury. No one was killed, for in consequence of the timely warning the church was deserted.

Providentially the monk at this time in charge of the Cathedral fabric was an architect of rare genius, the most gifted, probably, that England has ever produced. For the Sacrist when this calamity befell was none other than the famous Alan of Walsingham, who was called by his contemporaries "the flower of craftsmen," and he it was who, in virtue of his office, was responsible for repairs. In the full vigour of life, a man of twenty-eight, who had been trained as a goldsmith, he rose to the occasion, and proved well able to cope with the problem and task before him.

The chronicler tells us how he "rose up by night and came and stood over the heap of ruins, not knowing whither to turn. But recovering his courage, and confident in the help of G.o.d and of His kind Mother Mary, and in the merits of the holy virgin, Etheldreda, he set his hand to the work." In answer to his prayers, an inspiration came to him. In place of the square tower that had fallen, he would build one octagonal in form, with a wider base gained by cutting off the angles of the transepts and choir, and he would crown it with a lantern of woodwork. His idea was bold and original, and the lantern-crowned Octagon of Ely Cathedral as it now stands, a glorious specimen of the Decorated work of the fourteenth century, still bears witness to the genius and courage of the young architect who designed and engineered it, while at the same time he planned the reconstruction of the Norman choir.

With this scheme in his mind, Alan of Walsingham set labourers at once to remove the huge ma.s.s of rubbish, and meantime he sent far and near to procure timber for the work in hand; while the famous quarries of Barnack in Northamptonshire supplied him with stone. By 1349, after twenty-six years of toil, the tower with its lantern of wood was finished. This wood was covered outside with lead, while within it was gorgeous with gold and stencilled painting, all the work of the most skilled hands that could be hired. We are told that the Sacrist himself provided gold florins to be turned into leaf by "Ralph le goldbeter." The very names of the workmen employed have an interest for us, as we read of John Attegrene, the master mason, of William Shank, the chief decorator, of John of Burwell, the best wood-carver.

Nor must we forget John Hotham, of whom we shall hear more. Being Bishop at this juncture, he provided funds for the restoration and beautifying of his cathedral.

King Edward the Third and his well-loved Queen Philippa came down to see the work, already famous, that was being carried out at Ely. In honour of her visit the Queen brought her robes of state, embroidered with "squirrels," first worn at her thanksgiving for the birth of the Black Prince. These robes she gave to the Prior John of Crauden, to be made into three copes and other vestments for the clergy. Whether the ancient cope still preserved at the Deanery can be identified as one of these is doubtful. It is of rich myrtle-green velvet, worked in gold thread, silk, and pearls, with plume-like flourishes that might well suggest the term "squirrels." Along its straight edge there is laid on a richly embroidered border, representing the Annunciation in the centre and saints with their emblems on either side. The design of the border indicates that it belongs to a date somewhat subsequent to 1330, the year when the Black Prince was born; but, seeing that it is quite separate from the velvet, it must have been added later, and the main portion of the vestment may actually be part of Queen Philippa's gift.

But we must not suppose that the Ely builders were engaged during these twenty-six years only on the Octagon Tower and the adjacent restoration. Almost contemporary with the tower is Prior Crauden's lovely chapel, built to the south of the Minster from the designs of Alan of Walsingham, while at the same time, adjoining the north-eastern transept, there arose the glorious Lady Chapel. The foundation-stone of this wondrously elaborated edifice was laid in 1321, on Lady Day, by Alan of Walsingham himself; for it was he who, as architect, designed the building, though the actual carrying out of the work was committed to John of Wisbech, the Subsacrist of the Abbey.

The funds were partly supplied by Bishop Montacute (whose premature death prevented the full completion of the design); partly by "the alms of the Faithful," or, as we should now say, by public subscription, and partly from a find of treasure-trove which is thus picturesquely described by the Abbey chronicler:

"Now when the aforesaid chapel was in beginning, this Brother John had but little money in hand, or laid by, for the prosecution of so great a work. He betook himself therefore to prayer, and thereafter called his mates together, some being monks, some, likewise, seculars. And them he besought to meet at a certain hour, and help him in digging out a square trench which might serve for the foundation of the whole fabric.

"At the appointed time, accordingly, they met one night, and began to dig, each separately by himself in the place a.s.signed to him. Thus it chanced that the aforesaid Brother John was digging, all alone by himself, in the place allotted to him. And, by the special will, as we verily believe, of G.o.d, he found there, not one of his mates wotting thereof, a brazen pot full of money, as if placed there on purpose to relieve his need.

"And when the whole night was well nigh spent, in the earliest dawn, a small rain came on, to the annoyance of those digging.

Calling then his mates from their work, he said: 'Brethren mine, and fellow labourers, yea, most heartily do I thank you for all your long and well-wrought task. And good it is now to pause a little after your work. Therefore I commend you to G.o.d. And may He pay you a full worthy wage for your labour.' But when they drew off, he himself remained on the spot all alone, and bare off that urn, as secretly as he might, and hid it in the dormitory under his own bed. And he took that money, all befouled with rust as it was, and cleansed off the rust by rubbing it with chalk and water, and paid therefrom, while it lasted, the wages of his workmen."

From this account it would seem that this money was not gold, as that never tarnishes, but silver; probably old Saxon coins hidden at the time of the Danish sack of Ely. Even in the fourteenth century money was still largely estimated by weight, without much regard to the particular coinage; so that these old pennies would still be good currency.

The chapel is surrounded by seats of stone, each with its canopy of the same material, a veritable dream of artistic design and workmanship. With its completion, at the close of the year 1348, John of Wisbech ended his work on earth; a few months later, on June 18th, 1349, he, like many another priest of these eastern counties, fell a victim to the Black Death, which in some districts slew nine priests out of ten. He left as his monument this church, a wonderful example of the latest Decorated work, in its detailed sculpture and all but Perpendicular windows. It is built of clunch, a local stone that lasts well for interior use, but perishes somewhat when exposed to the weather. This was brought by water from Reach, where the great quarries from which it was hewn may still be seen.

This chapel was built, as its name denotes, in honour of the Virgin; above and below its canopies stood figures of exquisite grace, representing, for the most part, scenes from her life as related in the Apocryphal Gospels and later legends then current. For two hundred years these sculptures remained intact, till Thomas Goodrich became Bishop in 1533. He held the See for twenty-one years, and he made it his business deliberately to deface all this statuary. We may attribute his action either to his zeal for the extirpation of Mariolatry, or to his fear lest sacred legend should be confounded with sacred history. Whatever may have been the actuating motive, his deeds as an iconoclast remain before our eyes. In October, 1541, he issued a mandate to the clergy of his diocese, ordering the utter abolition and destruction of all shrines, images, and relics; and we find it hard to forgive him for such indiscriminating breakage, even when we remember how much we owe to him for his admirable setting forth of our duty to G.o.d and to our neighbour preserved to us in the Catechism of the Church of England. He was also the translator of St.

John's Gospel in the version known as the "Bishop's Bible."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Ely Lantern._]

With the close of the fourteenth century the development and beautifying of Ely Minster almost comes to a standstill. She is rich in Norman, in Early English, in Decorated work; but when Perpendicular architecture arose, that type peculiar to England, there came a pause at Ely; and the instances of the Perpendicular style to be met with here are comparatively unimportant insertions. In Bishop Alc.o.c.k's Chapel, built by 1500, we meet with late Perpendicular work; while in Bishop West's, built about 1525, are traces of the Renaissance decoration that came in with the revival of cla.s.sical literature and art. Such decoration gained hardly any foothold in England, and is extremely rare within our sh.o.r.es, but on the Continent it swept away before its inrush many a shrine of earlier date, sparing nothing for the sake of its a.s.sociations or antiquity. With Bishop West's Chapel, the story of growth and development closes. Then came the Reformation under Henry the Eighth, and we come face to face with the work of iconoclasts rather than of builders.

Of all English cathedrals Ely perhaps possesses the most complete series of every style of Gothic architecture; and as the Minster records and registers relating to the whole period of her construction have been fortunately preserved, we can date approximately every arch and window, knowing when it was built, and, in many cases, who was the builder. Thus Ely provides a key to the dating of all English Gothic architecture. As we travel through our own country, and on the Continent, we realise the marvellous solidarity that in those Middle Ages held Christendom together. Whenever a new architectural development calculated to promote beauty, strength, or light, came into being in one Catholic land, it spread without fail to the others, even to those furthest removed; what was the fashion in Italy, Spain, or France became the fashion in Scotland, and, so long as the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem endured, even in the Holy Land; where the Crusaders built most diligently, as the yet surviving ruins of their churches and castles abundantly demonstrate, even to the present day.

But with the development of the Perpendicular style, about the year 1375, England began to strike out a line of her own. Buildings of this insular type arose, year by year, all over our land, but it never came into vogue on the Continent, where the more floreated styles of architecture, known as Flamboyant, became prevalent; while in England there was a reaction in the opposite direction in favour of less ornate tracery.

Roughly speaking we may say that mediaeval architecture in England occupied four periods:

Norman architecture prevailed from 1075 to 1175;

Early English from 1175 to 1275;

Decorated from 1275 to 1375;

Perpendicular from 1375 till stopped by the Reformation.

In a careful study of the history of Ely Cathedral we shall find a confirmation of these dates.

Let us, for instance, stand outside the Minster at the east end, and we shall have before our eyes specimens of all these four great styles of Gothic architecture. We can see early Norman work in the transepts begun under Simeon, who was Abbot from 1081 to 1093. If we direct our attention to the east window with its lancet-shaped lights, built by Hugh de Northwold, Bishop from 1229 to 1254, we shall gain an idea of the exquisite grace and beauty of Early English architecture. In the windows of the Lady Chapel, constructed under John Hotham, Bishop from 1316 to 1337, we see Decorated work, with its branching tracery, at its culminating point; while in the chapel built by Bishop West, who filled the See of Ely from 1515 to 1533, on the south side of the east window, we have an instance of Perpendicular tracery, with its characteristic upright shafts running straight from the top to the bottom of the window. Comparing the table given above with the dates at which the work before us is known to have been carried out, we shall find it confirmed, and we may gain much by letting it be well impressed on our minds.

At Ely one feature of beauty is lamentably absent, namely stained gla.s.s contemporary with the building. In the Cathedrals of York and Lincoln much ancient gla.s.s survives, while remnants exist in many village churches; but at Ely, once no less richly be-jewelled, nearly all has been swept away. There is no record of its destruction, which may have taken place under the unsparing hand of Bishop Goodrich, or a century later, it may be, during the Civil Wars. We are the losers, and we can hardly feel that our loss is made good by the coloured gla.s.s with which during the last hundred years many of the windows have been refilled, though here and there fine modern gla.s.s sheds its glow on the grey stonework around.

Yet as we walk round this glorious Minster, surveying it whether from within or from without, the feeling uppermost in our minds is rather one of thankfulness that so much has been spared than of indignation that so much has been destroyed. We can understand what the poet-philosopher Coleridge meant when he spoke of Gothic architecture as "Infinity made imaginable"; and we may enter into the feelings of the peasant woman who, in simpler language, expressed the same idea, when after her visit to Ely Minster she remarked, "That Cathedral is like a little Heaven below; everybody should see it, both rich and poor."

We have now come to the end of the story of the building of Ely Minster; her Bishops and Deans have since then had enough to do in keeping her stonework in repair without adding to it; and this work of restoration has been carried on from century to century with real, if sometimes misguided, devotion. Originators have had their day; the repairer is now in possession.

Great as were the architectural achievements of the seventy monks of Ely, we must not suppose that all their time went in superintending such work. We do not know, indeed, whether they did much of it with their own hands at all. We have, it is true, seen John of Wisbech, the builder of the glorious Lady Chapel, himself digging out the foundations with his mates; but on the other hand we are told how skilled artisans from a distance were hired to undertake the more delicate work in completing the lantern. That the Brethren spent much time in writing we have abundant proof. Our own familiar word _ink_ is a standing testimony to their industry in this respect, being derived from _inc._, the abbreviation universally used in the Abbey account books for _incaustum_, the Latin word for their writing fluid.

In the reign of William Rufus, that monarch's Commissioners came to Ely, and carried off 300 volumes from the Abbey library, besides all the Service books; and we need hardly doubt that most of these books, if not all, had been copied on the spot. One beautifully written Breviary from Ely is still to be seen in the University Library at Cambridge. It is of the fourteenth century.

The monks and Bishops were, moreover, constructors of bridges, of roads, and of causeways; they made new ones, they restored the old; and they were licensed to exact tolls for the upkeep of their work. In 1480 Bishop Morton led the way towards the draining of the Fens, by cutting the great drain, forty feet across, extending twelve miles, from Peterborough to Guyhirn, and still known as Morton's Leam. The Bishops also built numerous episcopal residences. Among others, Ely Place in Holborn, a castle at Wisbech, palaces at Somersham and Downham, manor houses at Doddington, at Fen Ditton, at Hatfield, were erected as the centuries slipped by; and seeing that the Bishops were also Abbots of Ely, we may believe that the monks did their part in carrying out episcopal work.

Ely possesses a unique record of her early days in her celebrated Liber Eliensis, a folio volume of 189 leaves of vellum, ten and a-half inches by seven and a-half, begun by Thomas, a monk of the convent, who lived about the close of the twelfth century, and professing to give the history of the monastery from its foundation up to his own day. Two copies of this ma.n.u.script are known to exist, bearing witness to the industry of the monks as scribes, while others have doubtless perished. The monks of Ely, moreover, wrote the Episcopal Rolls and Registers with the utmost care; these are still preserved with their entries as to the expenditure of money, as to ordinations, as to the granting of indulgences, as to appeals to the Pope, all kept with scrupulous exact.i.tude.

Ely is rich, moreover, beyond most foundations, in other written records of her past; and these are preserved, some in the Cathedral library, some in the muniment room of the dean and chapter forming part of the restored "Steeple" or "s.e.xtry" gateway, some in the library of Lambeth Palace, some in the British Museum. The existing rolls, or account books, kept by the chief officers of the monastery, number 288 in all, and give us full and clear detail as to what was spent not only on the building, the alms, and the services of the Abbey Church, but also on the food, the wine, the clothing, and the medicine of the monks. One item of medicine is "dragon's blood," one of food is "blankmang, a mixture of rice and almonds."

The following summary from the Chamberlain's Roll, recounting what was the cost of clothing a monk, will show us that he was expected to dress with dignity and comfort. The clothing of an Ely monk was really a very serious item of expenditure. A monk, like the parson of a church, was in England _ex officio_ a gentleman; and his maintenance cost his convent the equivalent of 200 per annum (in the present value of money).[214] Of this sum at least a fourth went in clothing, which, as compared with food, was much dearer then than now. The account books still preserved at Ely give us the items. Each monk received annually the following garments (for which we give the value at the present rate of money):

_s._ _d._

1 Cowl 1 0 0 1 Monk's Frock 5 10 0 1 Pellice[215] 3 0 0 1 Winter coat 4 10 0 1 Summer ditto 4 5 0 1 Shirt (?) 2 5 0 1 Pair of linen drawers 3 0 0 2 Pair boots[216] 2 5 0 1 Pair Gaiters and Slippers 1 5 0 1 "Wilkok"[217] 10 0 1 Counterpane 4 10 0 1 Coverlet 2 0 0 1 Blanket[218] 12 6

[Footnote 214: We find the monks complaining that the 300 a year (equivalent to 9,000 now), to which the Abbey income sank in the twelfth century would barely support forty monks. The best working standard by which to ascertain how much money is worth in any given age is the current day-wage of a labourer. In the fourteenth century this was 1_d._; it is now 2_s._ 6_d._ Therefore money went thirty times as far then as now.]