Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Chichester (1901): A Short History & Description of Its Fabric with an Account of the Diocese and SeeCorlette, Hubert C. (Hubert Christian)
History
Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Chichester (1901): A Short History & Description of Its Fabric with an Account of the Diocese and See
Corlette, Hubert C. (Hubert Christian)
Chichester Cathedral
Walcott shows by his study of the early statutes of the cathedral that
"in 1359 the first fruits of the prebendal stalls were granted to the
fabric; and in 1391, one-twentieth of all their rents was allotted by
the dean and chapter to the works, which embraced works round the high
altar, for, in 1402, materials 'ad opus summi altaris,' were stored in
S. Faith's Chapel. A 'novum opus,' a term applied to some special
building, was also in progress." [10] These remarks are of interest,
since about the end of the fourteenth century a beautiful wooden
reredos was built across the east end of the sanctuary. It was placed
just west of the feretory of S. Richard. In many old prints its
character is represented, and Dallaway gives some dimensions of it in
the long section he shows of the church as it was before the reredos
was removed (see page 2). The feretory no doubt had a reredos at this
point, but what the type of this earlier arrangement may have been it
is impossible exactly to tell. But the work which took its place was
evidently beautiful, as the many remains still in existence prove to
those who may examine them. Walcott [11] gives some interesting details
concerning this work. From the representations, descriptions, and
remains of it, it may be gathered that the whole was much carved,
niched, and canopied, and decorated in colour; and there is a note
extant showing that Lambert Bernardi in the sixteenth century repaired
"the painted cloth of the crucifix over the high altar." [12] This
reredos had a gallery across the top of it, from which the candles on
a beam over the altar could be lighted and a watch kept over the
precious jewels in S. Richard's shrine. The whole screen was made of
oak, and those old sketches and drawings, or prints, of it still
preserved, help dimly to show what had been its character. An old
letter in the British Museum refers to it as having the finest "glory"
above the high altar "we have ever seen." But this so-called "glory"
was an eighteenth-century production. Much of the reredos is still
hidden away unused in the chamber over the present library of the
church, and since its first removal it has travelled as far as London
in search of a friendly purchaser. In the chapter on Chichester in
Winkles's "Cathedrals" a view in the "presbytery," dated 1836, [13]
shows the reredos still in its place where it remained till after the
fall of the spire. There are in existence two drawings of considerable
interest. [14] One of these shows the east end and the other the west
end of the choir as it was about the beginning of the last century (c.
1818); the other indicates what were the changes made after 1829, when
the altar was set back six feet farther eastward. The latter was taken
from a water-colour drawing supposed to have been made by Carter, an
architect of Winchester.
[10] Walcott, p. 16.
[11] "Early Statutes."
[12] Walcott, p. 23, note _a_.
[13] See page 45.
[14] See drawings in vestry of cathedral.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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