Highways and Byways in Cambridge and Ely Part 28

Over the westernmost archway is a modern window inserted by Bishop Yorke toward the close of the eighteenth century, noteworthy only for its Flemish gla.s.s. In the lower southern light we see St. John the Evangelist playing with a partridge, ill.u.s.trative of the legend which relates how his disciples found him, as an aged man, thus engaged, and how, in answer to their expression of surprise at this unwonted relaxation, he remarked to them "A bow cannot be kept always strung."

Strange to say, this story, which would seem specially fitted to call forth the painter's gifts, is almost unknown to art.

Through the southern of these archways we step into the western transept, the Baptistery of the cathedral, where stands a font of modern date. Here to the east is the apsidal chapel known as St.

Catharine's. All tracery and ornament around us is still strictly Norman in character, and zigzag moulding prevails; but we can see here how the round arched stone-work, as it intersects, forms graceful lancets, thus suggesting the pointed or two centred arch; and when once the architect's eye had caught its beauty, he refused to let his compa.s.s trace out the simpler one-centred arch of the Norman period, and Early English architecture came in with a rush.

St. Catharine's Chapel is used daily by the students of the Ely Theological College, and a beautiful altar of alabaster and jasper, placed here in 1896, harmonises, in its character of dignity and permanence, with the Norman stonework around. The apse in which it stands is a modern restoration, having been for many years a ruin; indeed the whole of this western transept was for long cut off from the Tower by a wall of stud and plaster, and served as a workshop and lumber-room, where materials for use in the repairs of the Cathedral could be stored, till Dean Peac.o.c.k set himself in 1842 to remedy this condition of things. It is now one of the most romantic corners of the Minster.

We return to the Tower, and pause for a moment to notice "the Maze"[224] inlaid in marble in the pavement. From this quaint design at our feet we turn to look at the roof of the nave over our heads, painted with scenes from the Old and New Testaments. The western end is the work of Mr. Le Strange, who died in 1864, before his work of love was completed. Happily it was continued and finished by Mr.

Gambier Parry, as devoted a lover of the Church and of art, a personal friend of Harvey Goodwin, who was Dean at the time, and at whose request the artist undertook the arduous task of roof-painting. A slight change in the character of the designs shows where one painter ended his work and the other took it up.

[Footnote 224: This is a wholly modern device. Mediaeval mazes are common in Continental churches; but none are found in England.]

These over-head paintings take us from the Creation of Man and his fall, through the old Testament up to the Annunciation and Nativity, in a series of scenes instructively thought out; while Patriarchs and Prophets lead on to the Evangelists. Some part of the design is said to be due to a visit paid by Mr. Le Strange, on the advice of Sir Gilbert Scott, to the Church of Hildesheim in Hanover, where there existed a then untouched painted ceiling of mediaeval date; but in the main it was his own conception.

Let us next turn aside into the southern aisle to look at the "Prior's Door." If we find it locked we can get it opened by asking one of the vergers to let us go through it. We shall thus obtain a sight of its outer mouldings; bold and fantastic, yet withal dignified and graceful, executed about the year 1180, and due, it may be, to some Masonic Company that had handed on its traditions from east to west, generation after generation; perhaps to members of that "Comacine Guild" that had its headquarters on an island in Lake Como, where its members had taken refuge from the Gothic invaders of Italy. In the tympanum, within a vesica shaped panel, is sculptured our Lord in Glory, holding in His left hand a book and a cross, while the right is raised in the act of blessing. On the door-posts are carved designs somewhat grotesque, suggesting the Signs of the Zodiac, and the course of human life.

This unique doorway opens into the garden of the Deanery, where once stood the Cloisters. In the walls that bound it, traces of the cloister windows still remain, now filled in with brickwork. The garden has its own especial charm, in its gay borders and pleasant paths; but when we picture what once it was, when we recall the cloisters we have perhaps ourselves seen, at Westminster, at Salisbury, at Gloucester, at Chester, we cannot but feel this walled-in garden, attractive though it is, a place of ruin. Beyond almost any other abbey where the church still stands, Ely has been robbed of her cloisters. They once ran round this garden, the southern wall of the nave forming one side, the whole being thus sheltered from the northern wind, while catching all the warmth and light of the sun. Traces are still left in the masonry, proving that Norman cloisters once existed here, but that these were removed and replaced during the fifteenth century.

Could we have pa.s.sed through this ornate doorway while the cloisters were still in use, what should we have met with in this "haunt of ancient peace"? We should have entered a covered cloister forming a square, with each side approximately one hundred and forty feet long,[225] its windows opening into the well-turfed cloister garth.

Low-recessed archways in the cathedral wall, facing south (one of which still exists), would hold a set of aumbries or cupboards containing a good library of books of reference, the works of the great doctors of the church, and of profane authors as well. Of such books there was an ample and well-replenished store, for Bishop Nigel had, towards the close of the twelfth century, bequeathed certain t.i.thes to provide for the "making and repairing of books" at Ely, and this bequest would doubtless be spent on books for purposes of study in the cloister, as well as for use in church. Opposite to these aumbries we should see a row of carrells, or wainscoted cells, under the windows, each holding a desk fitted up suitably for reading and writing, large enough for the use of one monk, and there we should see him in his black Benedictine robes seated at his work. Through his bit of the window, if his eye wandered from his books, he could look out on the pleasant plot of enclosed gra.s.s, and see the other three sides of the cloister. During the fifteenth century gla.s.s came into use in the cloister windows, chiefly on the side next the church, where most of the writing and reading was done. It would appear that the cloisters were not only used for study but served also as a school-room, where novices and choir boys received instruction; and the part chiefly dedicated to study was the northern side, close to the bookcases. The Cloister, we must remember, was the centre of monastic life, giving its very name to the calling of a monk, for here the brethren spent their working hours.

[Footnote 225: This was the average length in the larger abbeys, notably surpa.s.sed only by the splendid dimensions of Glas...o...b..ry, where the cloisters were a square of 221 feet on each side.]

We shiver at the very thought of the cold that life in the cloister must have entailed. We hear of a scribe whose hands were so paralysed by cold that he had to delay finishing his copy of the works of Bede; one author had to lay aside his writing for the winter till spring should return. No attempt was made to heat the cloisters, but in mid-winter a single fire was kept burning in a room called the "_calefactorium_" where the brethren might go in turn to warm themselves. We speak of life in the open air as an idea of modern days; in truth it had been forestalled by the monks of old. The cloisters were lighted by lamps fed with grease from the kitchen, and the candles used were of rush-pith dipped in the same.

Silence was maintained in the cloister, and the monks used signs instead of words when asking for a book. Strict rules were laid down as to the keeping clean and putting back of books. One Benedictine writer adds to his ma.n.u.script the following note: "Whoever pursues his studies in this book should be careful to handle the leaves gently and delicately, so as to avoid tearing them; and let him imitate the example of Jesus Christ who, when he had quietly opened the book of Isaiah and read therein attentively, closed it with reverence and gave it again to the minister." The lending of books was counted as one of the princ.i.p.al works of mercy, but only to be done under the most careful regulations as to the return of the volume lent. Such is in outline the scene we should have beheld had it been our lot five hundred years ago on this very ground,

"To walk the studious Cloister's pale."

We now re-enter the cathedral through the Prior's Door, and taking a few steps further along the interior of the aisle we come to Owen's Cross. Owen was St. Etheldreda's faithful steward, the "Primus Ministorum" (or "Over-alderman," as the Anglo-Saxon has it,) of her fenland kingdom, and governor of her family. His Welsh sounding name bears witness to his being a fenman of British ancestry. Bede tells us that Owen was a man of much piety; that when his royal mistress no longer needed his services he forsook the world and became a monk under St. Chad, Bishop of Lichfield. Owen set forth on his journey to the monastery dressed in a plain garment, carrying a pick-axe and bill-hook, to denote that as he was little capable of meditating on the holy scriptures he would the more earnestly apply himself to the labour of his hands, and had not come to the monastery, "as so many do," to live idle. St. Chad received him with much favour, and it was Owen who was permitted to hear the angelic voices that announced to the holy bishop that he was to die within seven days.

Owen was himself canonized, and this cross became an object of veneration at Haddenham, where pilgrims from Cambridge crossed the Ouse. During the eighteenth century its mutilated base was brought into the cathedral from Haddenham, where it had long served as a horsing-block. It is now more worthily placed, and we can still read the inscription in Latin which runs as follows (the name of Owen being Latinized almost out of recognition),

LUCEM TUAM OVINO DA DEUS ET REQUIEM.

AMEN.

Grant O G.o.d to Owen Thy light and rest. Amen.

A little further on, still in the south aisle, we come to the "Monks'

Door," with its strange outer carvings of dragons, its one door-post enriched with spiral fluting, a sister doorway to the prior's, but by no means a twin. Almost touching it is the half of an ancient arched doorway now walled up, its door-post spirally and deeply sculptured.

In both doorways one door-post is hidden by the masonry of a great b.u.t.tress built here by Alan of Walsingham to support his central tower. We are here in the last remnant of Ely's cloisters, and let us not fail to observe the recessed archway for books in the southern wall of the nave mentioned above. Before leaving the aisle we should notice that its windows are for the most part late insertions, the original Norman fenestration being replaced by Perpendicular.

We now come to the wonder of Ely, of which we have already heard much, its Octagon Tower and Lantern. Other features in the cathedral we may meet with elsewhere, but this central feature was not itself a copy, nor has it served as a pattern--it remains alone, a brilliant make-shift, a great Necessity having proved the mother of a great Invention. We can hardly here enter into the details of this Octagon Tower as an engineering feat, but we can remind our readers how, by enlarging the base of his steeple, by making it rest on eight supporting piers, instead of on four like its fallen predecessor, Alan of Walsingham gave it greatly increased stability.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _The Tower from the Cloisters._]

Thomas Fuller, whom we have quoted before, thus racily describes the Lantern at Ely, as it was at the close of the Commonwealth, and draws from it the lesson he loved to find underlying outward things. After speaking of the beauty of the minster, he goes on to say, "The lanthorn therein, built by Bishop Hotham, is a masterpiece of architecture. When the bells ring the woodwork thereof shaketh and gapeth (no defect but perfection of structure) and exactly chocketh into the joints again; so that it may pa.s.s for the lively emblem of the sincere Christian who, though he has _motum trepidationis_ of fear and trembling, stands firmly fixed on the basis of a true faith."

We, too, can admire the ingenuity with which the woodwork forming the Lantern is fitted together so as to be self-supporting; and our attention should be called to the vast size of the eight upright beams of oak above us, fore-shortened, as we see them from the floor, so that we hardly realise that the length of each is sixty-eight feet. We can well believe the chronicler who tells us that Alan "procured them with much trouble, searching far and wide, and with the greatest difficulty finding them at last, paying a great price for them, and transporting them by land and water to Ely." During the nineteenth century, when this woodwork had to be restored, and to some extent replaced, the difficulty met with in procuring and conveying the timber required was almost enough to daunt those responsible for the work.

On the central boss of the groining we see a half-length figure of Christ in Glory, carved in oak, the right hand raised to bless, considerably above life size. In the sacrist's accounts for the building of the Lantern, under the date of 1340, occurs this item: "Paid to John of Burwell, for carving the figure upon the princ.i.p.al Key Vault, two shillings and his keep at the Prior's table." A good two-shillings' worth, even if we multiply the sum by thirty to make it equivalent to the present value of coin.

The modern gla.s.s of the windows above these arches commemorates those whose names are connected with Ely; eight personages in each window.

The south-east window gives us in its upper lights, St. Etheldreda as Queen, with her father and her two husbands; below she appears again as Abbess, with Bishop Wilfrid and the two sisters who followed her as Abbesses, s.e.xburga and Ermenilda. In the north-east window is represented her niece Werburga, who also became Abbess, and St.

Withburga; and, on a line with these ladies, St. Edmund and Archbishop Dunstan; in the lower four lights stand Bishop Ethelwold, Earl Brithnoth, Abbot Brithnoth, and King Edgar the Peaceful, the refounder of the Abbey after the Danish desolation. The north-west window depicts in the upper tier four kings of England, William the Conqueror, Henry the First, Henry the Third, and Edward the Second. In the row beneath stand Abbot Simeon, Hervey, the first Bishop of Ely, Bishop Northwold, and Alan of Walsingham. In the four upper lights of the south-west window are portrayed Queen Victoria in her Coronation robes, Prince Albert arrayed as Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge, Edward the Third and Queen Philippa; below come Bishop Turton and Dean Peac.o.c.k, who both contributed to the cost of this gla.s.s, and in a line with them are Bishop Hotham and Prior Crauden.

At the ends of the hood-mouldings of the diagonally placed arches of the Octagon are carved eight heads. Edward the Third in his crown gazes with kingly bearing across the archway at his Queen, Philippa, who wears an expression of cheering benignity, well becoming a queen; Bishop Hotham looks his part, and Prior Crauden has the countenance of a saint and an enthusiast. On the north-western archway Alan of Walsingham, clean shaven, and his master mason, with flowing locks, face each other carved in the stone that they knew so well how to manipulate. The seventh and eighth heads are grotesque.

Slightly higher than these portrait heads, supporting canopied niches, come the celebrated corbels on which are sculptured the leading events of the life of St. Etheldreda in the following order:

I. She appears at her second marriage, as a most reluctant bride, forced into holding the bridegroom's hand.

II. Having escaped from her husband, she takes the veil from St.

Wilfrid.

III. Her pilgrim's staff bears foliage and fruit.

IV. Seated on a rock, the tide protects her from her husband's pursuit.

V. She is enthroned as Abbess by St. Wilfrid.

VI. Her death and burial.

VII. A prisoner is miraculously released by her prayers.

VIII. The first translation of her body.

Just where the nave and the Octagon Tower join is a slab, which some hold to cover the grave of Alan of Walsingham. A well-worn stone is all we see, but we can trace on it a dimly embossed matrix, showing that once it held a bra.s.s of rich workmanship, since torn away.

Whether this be his tomb or no, Alan has his monument here in the structure we behold above and around us, bearing witness to his life, which ended in 1364 when he had reached the age of seventy. On the bra.s.s which once marked his resting-place we know that there was engraved a lengthy epitaph in Latin verse, still extant, of which we offer an abridged translation as follows:

"These things of note are at Ely, the Lantern, and Chapel of Mary, A windmill too, and a vineyard that yieldeth wine in abundance.

Know that the Choir before you exceedeth all others in beauty, Made by Alan our brother, Alan the wise Master Builder; He who of craftsmen the flower, was gifted with strength in his lifetime.

Alan the Prior, forget not, here facing the Choir lieth buried.

He, for that older Tower which fell one night in the darkness, Here erected, well-founded, the Tower ye now are beholding.

Many the Houses of G.o.d that, as Prior and Sacrist, he builded.

May G.o.d grant him in Heaven a seat as the end of his labour."

From this epitaph we may conclude that Alan of Walsingham had given Ely both a windmill and a vineyard; of these no trace exists (though we know that the mill stood on the summit of "Cherry Hill"); but "the Lantern and Chapel of Mary" and the western bays of the Choir, as built under him at Bishop Hotham's charge, remain for us to this day.

From the Octagon we can view the transepts begun in 1083 by Abbot Simeon. The columns and mouldings bear witness to the fact that these eastern transepts are of earlier date than the nave. At the western corner of the north transept we notice a doorway of cla.s.sical design inserted in 1699 by Sir Christopher Wren, to repair a fall which had taken place there. Before leaving this transept let us enter the Chapel of St. Edmund (one of two screened off chambers against the eastern wall), and take note of the alabaster reredos, exquisite in design and material, placed there in 1898 by Canon Stanton, in memory of his father.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Cathedral Towers._]

On this reredos Christ appears in glory, as the ascended High Priest of His Church, interceding for His people. Beneath on the retable is inscribed in Greek the words: "Able to save them to the uttermost that come unto G.o.d by Him." The chapel is intended to be used for private meditation and for services connected with missionary work. We leave it with the sense that the highest message the minster has to give is still remembered among us.

From the Octagon we may pa.s.s into the Choir, where gates of bra.s.s open through the richly carved screen of oak. This screen is a really beautiful creation of the nineteenth century, while the tabernacled oaken stalls within are mediaeval, dating from 1337, and are yet more beautiful, forming as they do part of Alan of Walsingham's great restoration. For over four centuries these stalls stood where Alan placed them, under the Octagon, separated from the nave by a ma.s.sive Norman screen of stone. About 1770 they were moved by the architect Ess.e.x to the eastern end of the Choir. The stalls having been thus removed, Ess.e.x saw no reason for preserving the Norman screen, so he had it destroyed. Had the venerable structure still stretched across the nave we should feel it purposeless, and it would undoubtedly have been inconvenient: so we ought perhaps to admit that Ess.e.x really conferred on the cathedral a boon by his drastic act on which a less daring and more conservative architect would not have ventured. Still we send a sigh of regret after the ancient work, that had stood through so many centuries only to be pulled down as an enc.u.mbrance, and carted away at last as rubbish.

The stalls after their removal eastward were painted to look like mahogany (!) in accordance with eighteenth century standards of beauty.

They were left in this far eastern position for about eighty years, when they were shifted half-way back again, into their present place, under the supervision of Sir Gilbert Scott, the architect employed to direct the restoration then in progress. Their upper panels have been filled with Bible scenes carved in high relief in wood; mostly the work of a Flemish artist of the nineteenth century. On the south are scenes from the Old Testament, on the north from the Gospels. They repay a careful study, being beautiful and original in design. Twenty-five in number on either side, arranged chronologically, they face each other, answering in several instances as type and ant.i.type; the Deluge corresponds with the Baptism, Jacob's Deception of Isaac with the Betrayal; the Lifting up of the Brazen Serpent with the Crucifixion, the Ascent of Elijah with the Ascension. Whether this is intentional or accidental we leave to be decided by those who, familiar with Bible incidents, are wishful to exercise their ingenuity and their power of discernment, in discovering further and less obvious correspondence.