Part 20

As is indicated by the form of dedication of 1218, “The cathedral church of the Blessed Virgin and Saint Peter and of the Holy Confessors Oswald and Wulfstan,” Worcester, is one of the pre-Conquest cathedrals. With Hereford, Leicester, and Lindsey, it was carved out of the immense see of Lichfield, which was coextensive with the kingdom of Mercia, by Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury towards the end of the seventh century. Through the influence of Dunstan, who was Bishop of Worcester from 957 to 961, its secular canons were replaced by Benedictine monks by his successor, St. Oswald; and the cathedral was served by monks till the time of Henry VIII., when it was put upon the new foundation and reverted to secular canons. In 1062 St. Wulfstan became bishop. From his “great piety and dovelike simplicity” of character, he had great influence in the English Church, and was allowed by the Conqueror to retain his bishopric. He repaid William by beating off Robert Courthose, Duke of Normandy, when he attacked Worcester, and retained the see till his death, at a great age, in 1095. In the year 1201 miracles commenced at his tomb, “from fifteen to sixteen per diem being cured from every kind of sickness.” In 1203 he was canonised. The shrines of St. Wulfstan and St. Oswald stood on either side of the high altar, like those of St. Dunstan and St. Elfege at Canterbury,—in front of it, not at the back, as at Winchester, St. Albans, and elsewhere.

St. Oswald, late in the tenth century, had rebuilt the cathedral in the style of his day. Of this Anglo-Saxon cathedral nothing is left, unless it be the balusters in the arcade of the slype. This work of the holy Oswald Wulfstan now pulled down, with many searchings of heart. Almost he repented of his purpose. Long he stood silent in the churchyard, deeply groaning. At last he burst into a flood of tears. “We wretches,” said he, “pompously imagining that we do better work, destroy what the saints have wrought.” Many centuries have passed since Wulfstan’s day, and there have been many “restorations” of Worcester cathedral, but there is no record that any one but Wulfstan commenced his work with tears and groans. Our modern “restorers” enter on their work with light hearts. Rather one would venture to suggest that when a restoration is resolved on, dean and chapter and eminent architect should betake themselves in sad procession to the cathedral, intoning penitential psalms with humble and contrite hearts, observing the day as a day of humiliation.

Wulfstan commenced the new cathedral in the new Anglo-Norman style in 1084, and the monks entered four years later. This, of course, does not imply that the whole cathedral was finished; but only so much of the eastern limb as was sufficient for the daily services; and even this probably not carried higher than the triforium, and provided merely with a temporary roof Many fragments of the lower part of the walls and piers of Wulfstan’s church remain above ground, showing that it was coextensive with the present nave and transepts.

Wulfstan’s crypt is almost wholly intact, and enables us to restore the plan of the eastern limb. This consisted of an apse surrounded by an ambulatory, and extended as far as the centre of the present eastern transept. On either side of the choir-aisles apsidal chapels projected eastward from the Norman transept. It is possible that this may explain the curious Norman building on the north side of the choir of Ripon. To simplify the vaulting problem, by making the compartments as small as possible, the crypt was divided into more than a hundred compartments. Owing to the curve of the apse many of the compartments are not square; yet the difficulty of vaulting triangles and trapeziums was successfully overcome, even at this early date. When nearly all the other traditions of Roman methods of construction had been lost, the architects of mediæval Christendom still retained in their crypts the traditions of Roman vaulting. Even the Anglo-Saxon crypt of the village church of Wing has stone vaulting. In the ante-room of the library are preserved the north doors of the cathedral (fourteenth century), under one of the hinges of which are authentic fragments of the skin of some poor wretch flayed alive for sacrilege. The slype, the undercroft of the refectory, and the south-east entrance near it, also belong to Wulfstan’s work.

To the early part of the twelfth century belongs the circular chapter-house. Most monastic chapter-houses were constructed in a rectangular form, which best fitted on to the side of a cloister. But the cathedrals of secular canons, when they had chapter-houses, followed the Worcester precedent, except that they were built polygonal instead of circular. Such was the beauty, however, of the new form, that the monastic houses also, in later times, themselves frequently adopted the polygonal form, as at Westminster, Evesham, Belvoir (Benedictine); Margam and Abbey Dore (Cistercian); Alnwick, Cockersand, Thornton, Carlisle, Bridlington, Bolton (Canons Regular). Usually the polygonal chapter-house had a central pier; but it was dispensed with at York and Southwell. The polygonal chapter-house never appears in France; it is one of the most beautiful features in English Gothic.

In the twelfth century, about 1160, some weakness seems to have shown itself in or near the west front, and the two western bays of the nave were rebuilt in the style of the day. In the importance given to the triforium, in the semicircular arches which occur in triforium and clerestory, and in the use of the chevron ornament, the work is still Romanesque. But pointed arches also occur both in triforium and clerestory; while the ground-story, with the exception of the square abacus, is purely Gothic. The clustered piers, the rich vaulting-shafts, and well-moulded arches, together with the square abacus, all remind one of the work at Wells (1171-1191); the foliage of the capitals, however, is less advanced.

At length the turning-point was reached in the fortunes of Worcester. The body of St. Wulfstan, after lying dormant for more than a century, began to work miracles. Pilgrims came in crowds. It was the age of pilgrimages. Even King John came with offerings; and his body was brought here for burial. With the pilgrims came the need for more accommodation in the eastern limb of the church, and from the pilgrims came the money to provide it. Winchester choir was not long enough to provide for the crowds who resorted to the shrine of St. Swithun, the Healer; Rochester had turned a Scotch baker into St. William of Perth, and had to provide eastward extensions; Ely had to rebuild its presbytery to give room to the votaries who came from all East Anglia to venerate St. Ethelreda; Durham erected the Chapel of the Nine Altars to accommodate those who flocked from all northern England to the shrine of St. Cuthbert; Canterbury crypt—spacious as it was—was too strait for the pilgrims who came from all over Christendom to worship the relics of its murdered archbishop; both Lincoln and St. Alban’s were crowded out, and later in the century were to build eastward in honour of St. Hugh and St. Alban. St. Wulfstan, being the newest saint, was for a time exceedingly popular.

Miracles had commenced at Worcester in 1201; about 1204 the reconstruction of the eastern limb had commenced; and within the next forty years the old Norman choir had disappeared, and the present eastern arm was finished. In plan it is a sort of combination of the earlier eastern extensions at Hereford and Winchester. As at Hereford, a small eastern transept was provided, and a shallow Lady chapel; but the space between the eastern transept and the Lady chapel was three bays each way, as in De Lucy’s work at Winchester. The apsidal chapels of the Norman transept were also pulled down, that of the south transept being replaced by an early Gothic chapel. The efficacy of the saint and the liberality of the pilgrims are shown not only in the scale of the new work, but in the wealth of detail. Especially beautiful was the arcading round the walls. Perhaps the only work to compare with the choir of Worcester is the presbytery of Ely; but in the proportions of its members the Ely elevation has the best of it. The Worcester architect followed the proportions of the two Transitional bays at the far end of the nave; and thus, as compared with Ely, the pier-arcade is too stumpy and the triforium too large. The crypt of Wulfstan’s church, as we have seen, only extended as far as the new eastern transept. To get the work east of the new transept on the same level as the rest, the builders would have had to extend the crypt eastward. Crypts, however, had gone out of fashion with the ritualistic need of them; therefore the builder very sensibly built the eastern part of the choir on the level, not of the western bays of the choir, but of the nave. But he has been credited with æsthetic reasons for the course he adopted. A fine effigy of William de Blois, who commenced this thirteenth-century choir, lies on his tomb in front of the Lady chapel.

What happened to the nave between 1245 and 1317 is not known. There is no work in the cathedral of that date. But between 1317 and 1327 Bishop Cobham commenced the reconstruction of the north side of the nave. It is therefore Curvilinear work. It is not, however, typical work of the period. With that tenderness for older design which one sees at Ely, St. Alban’s, Beverley and Westminster, the architect has suppressed his individual preferences, and designed his work so as to be a nice transition from the twelfth-century bays near the west front to the thirteenth-century bays of the choir; so his piers and his clerestory are a Curvilinear version of the work immediately to the west of him, while his triforium is a repeat of that of the choir. But before the new work on the north side was joined up to the Transitional bays of the nave money seems to have become scarce at Worcester. Pilgrims had begun to desert St. Wulfstan for newer if not holier saints. Hitherto St. Wulfstan had had a monopoly in the West-country. There was not another saint of equal efficacy till you reached Winchester. But in 1287 Bishop Cantilupe began to bring the dead to life at Hereford; and in 1327 Edward II. was buried at Gloucester, and miracles soon followed there also. So Worcester now had rival miracle-workers on either side. The result was that it was found impossible to finish the Curvilinear work, although the pier-arcade was complete all along the north side of the nave, and there only remained to build two bays of the triforium and clerestory.

Building operations seem to have halted for some thirty years; and when they were resumed, _c._ 1360, the completion of the north side and the rebuilding of the south side of the nave were carried out in a balder and more economical way. All this Perpendicular work, including the completion of the new tower, seems to have been completed before the end of the fourteenth century. About the same time the great transept was vaulted and panelled, somewhat after the fashion of the Gloucester work. The transept is a tangle of early Norman, late Norman, Transitional, Curvilinear, and Perpendicular work. Evidently there are breaks and lacunæ in the architectural record of Worcester which we have no materials for filling up. In the fifteenth century the monks seem to have rebuilt their cloister.

A late and interesting bit of design is to be seen in the chantry of Prince Arthur, elder brother of Henry VIII., who died in Ludlow castle in 1486. The flat roof, with its fan-vault, skeleton ribs and pendant, is an anticipation of the vaulting of his father’s chapel in Westminster Abbey.

Externally the cathedral is wholly nineteenth-century work: decay of the stone had rendered recasing unavoidable. Within, much of what pretends to be thirteenth-century detail is really work of the nineteenth century, commonplace in design, coarse in execution; some of it by Perkins, some by Scott; everything is shiny and new; nothing has ever been done so bad as the “restoration” of Worcester choir and presbytery.

The Cathedral Church of St. Peter, York.

I. York Minster has had many predecessors—Romano-British, Saxon, Norman and Transitional cathedrals. From the two first periods nothing survives, unless it be two walls in herring-bone masonry in the crypt. Little remains of Norman work except in the western portion of the crypt. In the centre of the crypt are fine fragments of the Transitional choir of Archbishop Roger, whose work is seen at Ripon. The present cathedral is mainly of three periods. The great transept was designed in the Lancet period; the nave, chapter-house and vestibule were built in the latter part of the Geometrical period; the retro-choir, choir and towers are Perpendicular. But though the work is of three periods, it is practically of only two designs, the choir and retro-choir being only a Perpendicular version of the design of the nave.

II. As at Lichfield and Wells, the canons of York in the end left not a fragment of the earlier work visible above ground. They must have had vast resources at their disposal, in addition to what they received in offerings at the shrine of the local saint, St. William of York. He died in 1154; he was canonised in 1227. It was about this latter date that the rebuilding of the cathedral commenced; and it is not unreasonable to believe that the offerings from his shrine had something to do with the vastness of scale on which the new work was planned; the new transept being not only exceptional both in height and breadth, but also in having aisles on the western as well as on the eastern side—an extravagance unknown in our Gothic cathedrals, except at Wells. It is amusing to find the double-aisled transept in the sub-cathedral of Beverley Minster. There seems to have been an internecine rivalry between the canons of Beverley and York. Both churches have double aisles to the central transepts; both continue in full height to the east end; both have western towers; and though Beverley has no central tower, it has by compensation an aisled eastern transept, where York has but transeptal bays. Moreover, the high vaults of Beverley are of stone. In beauty of proportions and of detail—in everything but scale—Beverley has much the best of it.

The south transept was built 1230-1241, the north transept 1241-1260. The façade of the south transept is confused and commonplace, overloaded with ornament, and cut up too much with windows; that of the north transept—with the Five Sisters—is of noble simplicity. In the south transept is the beautiful monument of Archbishop Gray (1215-1255), the builder also of Ripon west front and Southwell choir. “The view which is presented to the visitor on entering this transept is without doubt the finest in the cathedral. The magnificent spaciousness of the transept, the majesty of the lofty lancets which nearly fill the north gable, the solemn light struggling through their ancient diapered glass, the great central tower with its unrivalled lantern, combine to produce an impression fully sustaining the great reputation of the minster.” In proportions the design of the transept is not a success; the elevation dwindles away upward, the triforium being made far too large at the expense of the clerestory. In itself the triforium is a very fine composition, only there is not room for it, nor is it in harmony either with the pier-arcade below or the clerestory above. It is the largest and most complex triforium in the country; consisting of two pairs of acute lancets below, set under two acute lancet arches, which again are set under an outer arch almost semicircular. This was the last big triforium built in England (save the exceptional one in Ely choir). There had always been a feeling in favour of the diminution of the triforium. Even in the twelfth-century naves of Tewkesbury and Gloucester the triforium had been cut down to very small proportions; in Beverley choir the triforium is greatly attenuated; and very soon afterwards the triforium was to be seen nearing extinction in Exeter choir and in the nave of York itself.

III. At this period (_c._ 1260) we must think of York Minster as possessing the present spacious transept, a Transitional choir of the character of that of Ripon, and a Norman nave. When the work of rebuilding was resumed, the Transitional choir—which must have been spacious and convenient—was spared once more, and the canons proceeded to take down and rebuild the Norman nave, laying the foundation stone in 1291, and beginning at the south-east. The new nave is so exceedingly broad and lofty that it is probable that it was built round and over the top of the old Norman nave. The money came from “indulgences, penances, briefs, bequests, and offerings at the shrine of St. William.” The nave, like the whole minster, is exceedingly impressive in the vastness of its spaces: no building of such dimensions could fail to be impressive. Its proportions, however, are not good. The broadest cathedral nave in England (its span is 45 feet), and the loftiest (it is nearly 100 feet high), it ought to be one of the longest, which it is not: it is even shorter than the transept. Matters are made worse, as in Lincoln nave, by the wide spacing of the piers, the result of which is greatly to reduce the apparent length of the nave. It contains only eight bays. Had it been divided into ten or more bays, it would have looked far longer. It was designed not so much on architectural lines as a glass-house. The canons wanted the greatest possible breadths of stained glass in aisles and clerestory. The error was seen and corrected in the choir, which, though no longer than the nave, has nine bays instead of eight. It is possible that nothing but want of funds prevented the canons from continuing the nave farther westward. The exceptional height and breadth of the nave made it very costly; and the funds plainly ran short, for, though begun in 1291, it was not roofed till 1360. To make matters worse, the canons were building a new chapter-house and vestibule at the same time as the nave: so that funds may well have failed. Nevertheless, at Ely, equally large works were completed before 1360, though they were not commenced till 1321, and were executed with much greater richness of detail than in York.

Another feature which shows that the York canons had started their work without considering whether they would be able to finish it is the omission of a stone vault, which was plainly contemplated at the outset; the pinnacles built for the purpose of weighting the buttresses against the thrusts of a stone vault still existing on the south side. When the north side was built, the canons had abandoned hope of vaulting the nave in stone, and so did not put up big pinnacles. It is well to remember, however, that the exterior of the nave was designed originally to have flying-buttresses and big pinnacles on both sides. In the end, as in Selby choir, a sham vault of wood was put up. One cannot help regretting these shams. It would have been Gothic to recognise honestly that the ceiling was wood, and to design it in wood and not in lithic fashion. Then we might have seen an English Gothic cathedral with such a hammer-beam roof as that of Westminster Hall: very magnificent it would have been.

Side by side with the nave went up the chapter-house. It belongs to the middle of the Geometrical period, _c._ 1300; later in character than its sister at Southwell, and but little earlier than the chapter-house of Wells. Externally, it is provided with buttresses and pinnacles and flying-buttresses and flying bridges to resist the thrusts of a stone vault. Yet no stone vault is there, but another sham vault of wood. The detail of the chapter-house, inside and outside, is of exquisite beauty.

At first the chapter-house was a detached building, but a vestibule was soon added. Parapet-mouldings of the chapter-house may now be seen inside the vestibule.

A very curious and bold specimen of mediæval engineering may now be mentioned. If the western bays of the great transept next to the central tower be examined, it will be seen that in the clerestory and in the triforium these bays are exceedingly narrow, but that in the ground-story the narrow arch corresponding to the narrow bays of the triforium and clerestory has been moved, and a wider arch substituted. The fact is, when the transept was completed, the Norman nave, which was still standing, had a very narrow aisle. Consequently the builders of the transept built a pair of narrow arches, on either side of the central tower, leading from the transept into the Norman aisle. Later on, as we have seen, the Norman nave and aisles were pulled down, and the present nave was built. Its aisles are exceptionally broad. The result was that the piers of the two narrow arches found themselves in the very middle of the new broad aisles of the nave—a most awkward obstruction to processions passing from aisle to transept, or _vice-versa_. So the triforium and clerestory was underpinned, the Lancet piers next to the tower were taken down and then put up again clear of the aisles, and the two arches also on either side of the tower were taken down and rebuilt with the same stones, each in the place of the other. The result is that, counting from the end-walls of the transepts, in the triforium and clerestory there are three of the bays wide and one narrow, while in the ground-story there are two wide, one narrow, and one wide bay. Similar changes took place on the eastern side of the transept when the choir was built.

Later on, when the central tower was built, its great weight sank the piers on which it rests eight inches into the ground, and the adjoining masonry was dislocated. The result was that it was found necessary to rebuild the third piers on both sides of both transepts (counting from the end-walls) as well as the first pier on the western side of the north transept, and at the same time to block up all the four narrow arches with solid masonry (cf. CARLISLE, and EXETER).

IV. The west front of the nave was not finished till the very end of the Curvilinear period, to which period belong also the treasury and sacristy, and also Archbishop Zouch’s chapel, unless the latter was rebuilt _c._ 1396.

V. Immediately that the nave was roofed in, the canons commenced to rebuild the eastern limb. Meanwhile architectural fashions had changed. While the York people were lingering over their Geometrical nave, a whole architectural period had passed away, leaving behind few traces at York except in the west front. When the new choir was commenced in 1361, the Curvilinear style had disappeared before the new Perpendicular style, invented at Gloucester and taken up by Bishop Edingdon at Winchester. The style, however, was still new, and though the Winchester work is purely Perpendicular, the York design still retains in the window tracery reminiscences of the flow of curve that Edingdon and Wykeham had replaced by grilles of horizontal and vertical bars.

Only the eastern part of Archbishop Roger’s Transitional work was at first pulled down, the services going on without interruption in the western bays. The four new eastern bays—designed as a retro-choir, the altar standing originally one bay more to the west than at present—may be distinguished at once externally by the unusual feature of having an external instead of an internal arcade to the clerestory; this gives a fine play of light and shadow.