Part 3

If you look at the baby’s forehead you can trace the letters of her name, ‘Anne’; and this tells you that the tomb is what is known as a ‘chrysome’--that is, it is the burial-place of a little child who died within a month of its baptism, and who was buried in its baptismal robe. As a rule in such a case, a cross is marked on the baby’s brow, but this child is marked with its name instead.

The girl-mother, for she was only eighteen, who died when her baby was born, and was buried along with her, was the wife of a knight named Sir Alexander Denton, who was so broken-hearted at his loss that he made up his mind that he would never marry again, and that when he died he also would be buried here.

But in later years he married another lady, and, after all, was buried in a church in Buckinghamshire, though, as you see, his effigy has been placed here to make the family group complete.

There are three very ancient things belonging to this Cathedral at which we must look before we leave it--a very old map, which hangs in that wooden case on the wall, quite close to the ‘chrysome’ tomb; a very old chair which stands on the north side of the altar; and a very old manuscript, which we can see in the library.

Let us look at the map first. At one time it was believed to be the oldest map in the world, and although an older one has been discovered in Germany, the two must have been made about the same time, for they closely resemble each other.

As you may think, it is very precious, so precious that during the time of the Civil War it was hidden under the floor of a little chantry on the other side of the church, and was only discovered some hundred and fifty years ago.

If we examine it we shall see what the people who lived in the year 1300 or thereabouts imagined the world to be like. To begin with, they made the top of the map east, and the bottom west, so their ideas of direction were different from ours.

The world is round, surrounded by the sea, and at the top of it lies the garden of Eden, with rivers running out of it. In the centre is Jerusalem, and all round that city are representations of Old Testament events: the Flood, and the Ark; the Red Sea, and the journey of the Children of Israel; Lot’s wife, etc.

Great Britain is marked on the map, with the names of very few towns, but most of the Cathedrals are noted; while the other countries of Europe are also shown, with the animals which were supposed to live there, and it is very curious to notice how monkeys were believed to live in Norway, and serpents in Germany.

We must not spend too much time here, however, for we have still to see the old chair and the old book.

The chair is in the sanctuary, on the north side of the altar. It stands here because it was used as the Bishop’s chair (for it is so plain we can hardly call it a throne) until the present throne, which stands near the choir-stalls, was erected.

We do not know when it was made, or how many Bishops have sat in it, but it must be at least nearly eight hundred years old, for we know that the wicked King Stephen visited Hereford, after its Bishop had been forced to fly, and in his pride and arrogance dared to sit in his place during Service, wearing his Royal crown.

Now let us go out by this door in the south wall of the nave, and pass along what is known as the ‘Bishop’s Cloister,’ until we come to the library which is built on the site of the ‘Old West Cloister.’ The building is new, but the books it contains are very ancient and valuable.

For this is a chained library--that is, most of the books are fastened by chains to a rod which is placed above the shelf on which they stand, so that anyone can take them down, and lay them on the broad desk-like shelf which finds a place below the bookshelves, and read them there, but they cannot be taken away.

Here is the very ancient book which I have mentioned. It is a copy of the Gospels, written in Anglo-Saxon characters, and it must be at least a thousand years old.

But old as it is, there are many other books, bound in boards of thin oak covered with sheepskin, which are quite as interesting.

Here are two Prayer-Books, for example, one of which lets us see the Order of Service used at Hereford in 1265, the other that which was used at Bangor, in Wales, in 1400.

They are quite different, and, as you look at them, the librarian will tell you that one is ‘Hereford Use,’ the other ‘Bangor Use.’

For you must understand that long ago the Service in church was not the same all over England, as it is to-day. One form of Service was used in one Cathedral, and in all the surrounding district; another, a little different, was used in another, and so on.

In this way there was a ‘Roman Use,’ which was the same as that used in Rome; a ‘Sarum Use,’ which was the most common, and was the same as that used at Salisbury; a ‘Hereford Use’; a ‘Lincoln Use’; a ‘York Use’; and a ‘Bangor Use.’

Let us take down this enormous volume, and see what it contains. The whole of the Books of Genesis and Exodus, with beautifully printed notes, and spaces for other notes, which have never been put in. Look how straight and neat and symmetrical the columns of printing are, and the spaces between them. How did the monks manage this, do you think? See, these tiny punctures in the vellum, like tiny pin-pricks, tell us. They used a little wheel with tiny spikes in the rim, to space their columns.

Here is an ancient book of devotion. To whom did it belong? Open it and you will find out, for ‘H. Latimer’ is written inside--he who died for his belief at Worcester.

Here is the ‘Neuremberg Chronicle,’ a famous book in bygone days, for it was almost the only picture-book that children had, and it contains two thousand quaint woodcuts, showing the progress of the world from the Creation down to the time it was written.

Here is a ‘Breeches’ Bible, which gets its name from the fact that the printer has printed that Adam and Eve made themselves ‘breeches’ instead of ‘aprons’; and near it is a ‘Cider’ Bible, which was printed by a man named Nicolas de Hereford, who was so accustomed to the beverage used in his native county that he translated the verse in Judges, which tells us that Sampson’s mother was to drink no strong drink, by ‘drink no cider.’

Here we can see William the Conqueror’s seal, and here is that of Oliver Cromwell.

Indeed, there are so many interesting and curious things to be seen in the chained library at Hereford that a book could be written about them alone.

BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD