Part 9

The plan is the usual cross. A lofty tower rises from the intersection, and was formerly surmounted by a spire, taken down for safety's sake. The screen and reredos, the pillars, the arches of naves, and the north and south arches of the choir belong to the Norman period. The Early English claims the triforium, the Lady Chapel, clerestory, and the stone vaulting. The north transept is by Bishop Aquablanca, 1245-1268, whilst the south-east transept dates from the Late Decorated style.

For over 450 years a number of additions and restorations have afforded every facility for the skill of the architect, not always happily taken advantage of. The great western tower unfortunately fell down in 1786, and caused considerable damage to the west front and adjacent work. Mr. Wyatt, during modern restorations, in 1842 and 1863, rebuilt the tower. The west front, soon after its misfortune, was restored in a style different from the original. The whole exterior of this edifice presents a curious variety of architectural style. This capitulation of bishops and dates is possibly dry reading, but it is absolutely necessary to determine the date of the different erections and restorations, and their successive styles of architecture.

Near the choir was the shrine of St. Ethelbert, which was destroyed during the Commonwealth of Cromwell. Another attraction to the pilgrims was the tomb erected to the memory of Bishop Cantelupe, who died in 1282. His heart was brought to Hereford and buried in the north transept of the Cathedral, and he was canonised in 1310. The pilgrims resorted to this place, as it was reputed that no less than four hundred miracles had been performed there. In consequence of this the succeeding bishops altered the quarterings of their ancient arms, which were those of St. Ethelbert, and assumed the paternal coat of Cantelupe. This change constitutes the present arms of the bishopric.

Amongst many other memorials is one to Bishop Aquablanca. A plain marble tablet was also erected to the memory of John Philips, a well-known author of poems entitled "The Splendid Shilling," and "Cyder."

Perhaps the most interesting item, as well as the most curious of all the old maps, is the "Mappa Mundi," preserved in the south choir aisle. It was compiled somewhere about 1275 to 1300, by a monk of Lincoln. How it ever came to Hereford appears to be an enigma. The most likely solution is that the monk may have been transferred from Lincoln to this see.

The "Hereford Map," as it is called, is a great picture, more to be classed as a grotesque work of art than a valuable aid to geography. It is, at least, a gigantic attempt to represent the whole world, with the introduction of the main features, the people, industries, and products of each country. It is one mass of legendary figures, and the farther we get from England, which is hardly recognisable, the more grotesque and improbable become the monsters. The Minotaurs and Gog-Magog of Tartary, the dog-faced, the horse-footed, and flap-eared freaks of nature of the far east, together with the one-legged, one-eyed, four-eyed, headless, and hermaphrodite tribes who fringe the Torrid Zone, give us an interesting idea of the imposition by travellers upon the minds of the people of that period, the thirteenth century. Even the fishes, supposed to be peculiar to each sea, are carefully depicted. Truly it is a wonderful work of imagination, not the less to be respected for that, and quite alone deserves a journey to Hereford.

An epitome of the chief historical events of the city will be a sufficient guide to its status. Except cider making, it has no industries of special note.

To the fortifications erected in the time of Athelstan, and nearly perfected in Leland's time, was added a castle by Edward the Elder. In 1055, two miles from this place, Griffith the Prince of Wales defeated Ralph Earl of Hereford; and the Welsh, having thus taken the city, spent their time in reducing it to a heap of ruins. Harold, afterwards king, attacked and defeated the Welsh, and repaired and enlarged the fortifications in view of further invasions. In the conflicts between Stephen and the Empress Maud, Hereford was successfully defended for the latter by Milo, to be reduced by the King in 1141. At the commencement of the parliamentary war, Hereford was garrisoned for the King, but surrendered, without a blow being struck, to the army of Sir William Waller in 1643. On the retreat of this knight the Royalists occupied it, and under the governorship of Barnabas Scudamore, Esquire, made a stubborn resistance against the Scots, under the Earl of Leven, and obliged them to raise the siege.

The inhabitants, at the Restoration, for their loyalty to the royal cause, received from Charles II. a new charter with extended privileges, and new heraldic arms testifying to their fidelity to the House of Stuart. Previous to this Charles I. had been generous enough to reward the many sacrifices and sufferings of the loyal citizens by granting the city its motto of

Invictae fidelitatis praemium.

Lincoln

Lincolia.

("Doomsday Book.")

The commercial importance of Lincoln, whatever it may be now, was at one time considerable. At the time of the Norman survey it commanded sufficient attention to cause the entry of the city in the "Doomsday Book" as one of the leading centres of commerce. This happy state was continued, or rather increased, by the famous Ordinance of the Staple in the reign of Edward III. He was an ambitious monarch, and desired to become master of France. If we recall the battles of Cressy and Poitiers, we can readily understand what an enormous expenditure would be required for the proper conduct of the war. By some means or other the English revenues had to be found. This was met to a great extent by the Ordinance of the Wool Staple, enacted by Edward III., who, besides waging war in France, was keen on the extension of foreign trade. By charters granted to merchants of Gascony, who imported wine and other commodities, and by giving special protection to the Flemish weavers in England, the King enhanced the prospects of trade. But the most important of all his commercial projects was, as we have said, his scheme, finally declared in 1353, by which a staple for English exports was established under the direct control of the Crown. Thus the monopoly of wool, which accrued so advantageously to Bruges and other cities on the Continent, and had become unbearable, was in 1353 transferred to England. For the exclusive sale of wool ten English towns were chosen. They were situated within easy distance of the coast, or the town was in connection with a convenient port. Of these ten towns with corresponding ports, Lincoln with Boston was chosen as a staple town for wool. This with other sources of trade, such as the staple of lead and leather, flourished in Lincoln from Edward III.'s time till the commencement of the eighteenth century, when the trade of the town declined. Through the several plagues prevalent in the fourteenth century, such as the black death and other epidemics similar in death-dealing if not in character at that time, especially about the year 1390, many towns in England were much decayed. Except London, York, Bristol, Coventry, and Plymouth, the afflicted towns did not regain the population they enjoyed in the fourteenth century till the Tudor period, and some, notably Sarum and Leicester, not until late in the reign of Elizabeth. The decline of Lincoln, though progressive, in a way appears to have been truly a gradual decay, and more terrible in its imperceptible undermining than any knock-down blow, for it never recovered its old trade prosperity; whilst Norwich, which before the plagues was next to London, bore relatively and even greater and sharper evidence of the terrible visitation, yet managed somehow to hark back in a measure to days of its former glory. The old saying which ran "Lincoln was, London is, York shall be" indicates, far more than anything else, the change of Lincoln's fortunes. Whatever its shortcomings may be, Lincoln possesses a most interesting record of antiquity. Its minster is truly a gem, for it is not only the earliest example of a pure Gothic building in Europe, but presents a delightful study of every kind of style, from the early Norman down to the Late Decorated.

Of the many characteristics of this interesting edifice--the foundation of Remigius--we will note the chief. The building material consists of the oolite and calcareous stone of Lincoln Heath and Haydor, the surface of which, when worked upon with tools, appears to become quite hardened.

Remigius adopted the plan of the church at Rouen as the model of his foundation, which he laid in 1086. It was completed by his successor, Bishop Bloet. The accidental fire that broke out gave his successor, Bishop Alexander, the opportunity of repairing it. To prevent a like occurrence, this prelate conceived and carried out his idea of covering the aisles with a vaulted roof of stone. It had a disastrous effect in that its pressure weighed too heavily upon the walls. It necessitated a thorough overhauling by St. Hugh, a subsequent bishop, in the reign of Henry II. He rebuilt the church upon a plan then newly introduced, and greatly enlarged it by taking down the east end and re-erecting it upon a far bigger scale. Since his time the Cathedral has undergone several alterations and embellishments at the fostering care of several succeeding prelates. On the magnificent central tower there used to be a lofty spire, which was blown down in 1547. The two western towers were also deprived of their spires in 1808 to avert a similar calamity. The approximate dates of the different portions of the Cathedral are:

The central west front and the font belong to Remigius' period.

The three west portals and Norman portion of the west tower above the screen to the third story are 1148.

The nave, its aisles, and north and south chapels of the west end were finished in 1220.

The Early English work of the west front and the upper portions of the north and south wings with the pinnacle turrets date from 1225.

The west porch of the main transept is 1220.

The lower courses of the central tower date from 1235, while the upper ones originated in 1307.

The gables, the upper parts of the main transept, the parapets of the south side of the nave, the south wing, the west front, and the screen in the south aisle take us back again to the year 1225. The subsequent additions are:

The west door of the choir aisles in 1240; the south porch of the presbytery in 1256; the choir screens in 1280, and ten years later the Easter Sepulchre. The fine circular window at the end of the north transept, and especially the ones in the south transept, attract considerable attention. They are called respectively "The Dean's Eye" and "The Bishop's Eye," and are supposed to belong to the year 1350. Perhaps they are better known as the rose windows, which were more popular in France than in England. They exhibit a network of interlacing stems in imitation of the freedom of the briar-rose, and show the advanced skill of the workmen upon the plate-tracery they formerly put up as a masterpiece in the close vicinity of the rose windows.

For purposes of fortification, if necessary, Remigius chose the summit of the hill close to the Castle as the site. The Cathedral, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, thus, from its commanding station, forms a magnificent object seen from many miles around, and in the days of pilgrimage must have held out a welcome beacon of hope to the weary pilgrims.

Of the many famous prelates of this see must be mentioned Remigius, Bloet, St. Hugh, and Fleming, who died in 1431. The latter was the founder of Lincoln College at Oxford. Just at the back of this college is situated the well-known college of Brazennose, the foundation of another Lincoln Bishop, namely Smith, who died in 1521.

Again, Polydore Vergil, W. Paley, Cartwright the inventor of the power loom, and O. Manning the celebrated topographer are some of the many capitular members of whom Lincoln may well be proud.

Another attraction that Lincoln possesses in its vicinity is the race-course just beyond Newland.

For the early history of Lincoln we must go as far back as the Saxon days. After the departure of the Romans, Lincoln was the chief city of the district. It was the capital of the kingdom of Mercia, as it now is of the county of Lincolnshire.

Besides being described like other cities as being locally in the county of Lincoln, it is said to be in the wapentake. This is a departure from the "hundred" only in name, not in purpose. In the northern counties of England the wapentakes denoted the usual divisions answering to the hundreds of other counties. The origin of the wapentake is woepenge-toc, woepentac, from the Icelandic vapnatak. It literally means a weapon-taking or weapon-touching, and became an expression of assent. It was anciently invariably the custom to touch lances or spears when the hundreder, or chief, entered in his office. Tacitus, in the "Germania," gives a full description of this interesting rite.

In the Low Countries words very similar appear as the names of streets. At Bruges, in Belgium, there is the "Wapen-makers Straat," which means nothing more or less than that in that street was originally carried on an industry of warlike implements made by "weapon-makers."

In this wise Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, and Nottinghamshire were divided into wapentakes instead of "hundreds."

Another peculiar distinction of this city was its former government by a portreve. The term is now obsolete, but in the old English law it denoted the chief magistrate of a port or maritime town. In its old form it was written "portgerefa," a combined word meaning port, a harbour, and "gerefa," a reeve or sheriff. In the third year of the reign of George I. the city, with a district of twenty miles round it, was erected into a county, under the designation of "The City and County of the City of Lincoln." It was also entered as a maritime county. The extreme flatness of the Lincolnshire coast, with the slow sluggishness of the lower part of the course of the rivers, caused, in remote ages, the inundation of a great tract of land. The feasibility of reclaiming some portion of these fens received the attention of the Romans. They constructed the large drain called the car-dyke, signifying the fen-dyke, carrying it from the river Witham, near Lincoln, to the river Welland on the southern side of the county, with the object of draining the waters from the high grounds and of preventing the inundation of the low grounds. This policy was adopted in subsequent reigns with great success, and is even to this day continued. It has been the means of bringing rich tracts of land into cultivation, and of dispelling the unhealthy miasma which once caused the great prevalency of the ague fever. From fragments of vessels found near its channel it is affirmed that large ships of bygone days could formerly sail up the river Witham from Boston to Lincoln, but now it is only navigable for barges.

In 1121 Henry I. materially altered the great Foss-Dyke, extending a matter of eight miles from a great marsh near Lincoln to the river Trent, to serve the double purpose of draining the adjacent level and of constructing a high waterway for vessels from the Trent to Lincoln.

For defraying the expenses of draining, it appears that in general a rate was levied upon all lands in the contiguous wapentakes.

With this preface of the general character of the district, we propose to give a history of the city from its commencement.

On the summit of a hill close to the river Lindis, which is now called the Witham, the ancient Britons established a city of considerable importance from the most remote period of the British history. They christened the city after the original name of the river. This, on the invasion of Britain, passed into the hands of the Romans. They made it one of their chief stations in this part of England and established a colony. Instead of calling the city something "cester," they appear to have Latinised the Celtic name, signifying "the hill port by the pool," and called it Lindum Colonia. Through process of time and differences of pronunciation, consequent on the various dialects spoken successively by the Saxons, Danes, and Normans, the title became abbreviated to Lin-coln. The date of the Roman occupation is given as being in the year 100 A.D.

Their plan of the city consisted of the form of a parallelogram about 400 yards in length by the same number of yards in breadth, defended by massive, strong walls and intersected by two streets running at right angles.

Presumably the extremities of these streets pointed to the four cardinal points. They terminated in gates, the sole one of which--an excellent example of Roman architecture in England--is the North Gate, or, as it is generally called, Newport. It is composed of a central arch, with two lesser ones, one on either side, and is on a lower level than that of the street. Through this gate passes the great Roman Road called Ermine Street, out into the country for a distance of about ten miles or so. To the south-west of this entrance is supposed to have been a mint. This seems to be borne out by the discovery of many Roman coins found in the vicinity. The Exchequer Gate is a very fine specimen of the thirteenth century. It bears a carved representation of the Crucifixion, which lends it considerable interest.

At the top of High Street is Pottergate and Stonebow, over which is the Guildhall. The latter is an ancient embattled structure, rebuilt in the reign of Richard II.

Besides the Northgate, the Romans appear, according to remains found, to have contributed the inevitable bath and sudatorium. On their departure from Britain, Lincoln was made the capital of the kingdom of Mercia by the Saxons in 518. Vortimer, who endeavoured to oppose them, was slain and interred here. From 786 Lincoln suffered repeatedly from visitations of the Danes, control being recovered by Edmund II., according to agreement with Canute in 1016. Throughout the whole of this period the only peace the city had enjoyed was when Alfred the Great subdued the Danes. However, Edmund II., better known as Edmund Ironsides, did not live many days longer, being murdered at Oxford. Whereupon, in 1017, Canute took possession of the murdered monarch's territory, in which Lincoln was included. William I. then came along in 1086, swept away close upon two hundred houses to make room for the erection of a castle--on a site which meant the occupation of nearly one-fourth of the old Roman city.

The Castle still has traces of Norman work, the foundations of which were formed of enormous beams of wood and a mixture of thin, coarse mortar, used for pouring into the joints of masonry and brickwork, usually called "grouting."

In that wonderful survey of his--the "Doomsday Book"--fifty-two parishes are stated to have composed this city.

The Castle in 1140 figured in the disputes between the Empress Matilda and Stephen, the latter of whom was crowned here in 1141. Stephen was, however, made prisoner, but was afterwards exchanged, and lived three years later to celebrate Christmas here. But prior to this period Lincoln was for the first time erected into a see in the reign of William Rufus.

In pursuance of a decree of a synod held at London at this time, that all the episcopal sees should be removed to fortified places, Remigius, the Bishop of Dorchester, determined to establish the seat of his diocese at Lincoln. He built the church and an episcopal palace, but died just before its consecration.

His work was completed by his successor, Robert Bloet. In the reign of Henry II. the Diocese, which once extended from the Thames to the Humber, was curtailed to add a part to form that of Ely. It again suffered diminution in Henry VIII.'s time, when the limits of the Sees of Oxford and Peterborough were defined. In spite of it all, Lincoln's see is fairly extensive, though it suffered again in 1884. Prior to this monarch's reign Lincoln had as many as fifty-two churches, but when he decided upon reformation from Popery their number was greatly diminished. Their names, still preserved, are the sole reminders of their former existence, with the exception of fourteen which remain. These have probably been rebuilt.

Before entering further concerning the See, and the Cathedral founded by Remigius, which was constantly in the hands of the architect even down to recent years, we shall add the chief political events subsequent to Stephen. On the death of this monarch, Henry II., probably not satisfied with his coronation in London, underwent the ceremony again at Wigford, a place just a little to the south of Lincoln city.

John here early in his reign received the homage of David the King of Scotland. During the struggle with the barons in 1216 the citizens remained loyal to their sovereign; but their city was taken at last in 1217, and invested by the barons under Gilbert de Gaunt, afterwards created Earl of Lincoln. After the disaster that overtook John's army in the passage across the Wash, and his death, which took place soon afterwards, his son Henry III. was loyally assisted by the inhabitants against the barons, who had summoned to their aid Louis, the Dauphin of France. The Castle, however, remained for many years in the possession of the Crown. Eventually it became the summer residence of the celebrated John of Gaunt. He was Earl of Lincoln, and in 1396 married here Lady Swinford, who was a sister-in-law to Chaucer.

Several times Parliament was held in Lincoln; namely, twice by Edward I., and in 1301 and 1305; twice also by Edward II.; and in the first year of Edward III.'s reign.

Henry VI. paid a visit, as did also Henry VII., who held a public thanksgiving for his victory over Richard III. at the battle of Bosworth Field.

Throughout the parliamentary war the inhabitants were staunch supporters of the Crown. The city was stormed by Earl Manchester, an indefatigable soldier of Cromwell. The Commonwealth troopers during their occupation created considerable havoc in the ecclesiastical buildings. According to their invariable custom they stabled their horses and housed themselves within the cathedral walls. Not satisfied with that, they damaged the tombs and deprived the niches of their statuary.

To go back a matter of four hundred years to this period, the population of Lincoln rose _en masse_ against the Jews. They were alleged to have crucified a little Lincoln boy, presumably a Christian, at a place called Dunestall in the year 1255. The enraged mob wreaked their vengeance by causing the execution of eighteen Jews, murdering many more, and later on making a saint of the victim, under the name of "little Saint Hugh." The punishment seems to be out of proportion to the crime. In fact little Hugh's crucifixion appears rather to have served as an excuse for the wrongful persecution of the Semitic race than for the proper administration of the law irrespective of creed. Even to this day this regrettable racial feeling is kept alive. In the middle ages this bitter feeling was fostered and brought about chiefly owing to the wonderful success of the Jews in England, who grew rich upon the profits accruing to usury, which they alone might exercise. Among many prominent instances of popular vengeance, besides little St. Hugh's murder, are the tombs of boy-martyrs, shrines which became often the most popular in the Cathedral.