Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Norwich: A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal SeeQuennell, C. H. B. (Charles Henry Bourne)
History
Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Norwich: A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See
Quennell, C. H. B. (Charles Henry Bourne)
Norwich Cathedral (Norwich, England)
(1.) Our Lord in Gethsemane.
(2.) Christ crowned with Thorns.
(3.) Christ led to Pilate.
(4.) Christ before Pilate.
(5.) Christ Blindfolded.
(6.) Christ Betrayed.
#The Twelfth Bay.--No. 12.#
(1.) Christ taken to the House of the High Priest.
(2.) Christ nailed to the Cross.
(3.) The Soldiers casting Lots.
(4.) The Crucifixion.
(5.) The Entombment.
(6.) Christ in Hades.
#The Thirteenth Bay.--No. 13.#
(1.) Soldiers watching the Holy Sepulchre.
(2.) The Resurrection.
(3.) Three Apostles.
(4.) The Ascension.
(5.) The Virgin praying.
(6.) The Day of Pentecost.
#The Fourteenth Bay.--No. 14.#
(1.) A Miracle of Exorcism.
(2.) The Jaws of Hell.
(3.) The Drunkard's Doom.
(4.) The Last Judgment.
(5.) St. Peter.
(6.) The Holy Trinity.
(7.) Bishop Lyhart, the Builder of the Vault.
To all those who take an interest in early stone cutting, this vault of
Norwich is a store of inexhaustible treasure; the bosses, rudely cut as
they are, tell their own tales with singular truth and directness. Their
sculpture may not display the anatomical knowledge of the work of the
Renaissance; yet it has a distinct decorative value that has been seldom
equalled in the later decadent period. The fourteen large central bosses
on the main longitudinal ribs present in themselves an epitome not only
of Bible history, but of the connecting incidents forming the theme of
Christian teaching. In the tenth bay, on the longitudinal rib, there is,
in place of a boss, a circular hole through the vault. It is supposed to
have been formed to allow a thurible to be suspended therefrom into the
church below. Harrod, quoting from Lambard's "Topographical Dictionary,"
says: "I myself, being a child, once saw in Poule's Church at London, at
a feast of Whitsontide, wheare the comyng down of the Holy Gost was set
forth by a white pigeon that was let to fly _out of a hole that is yet
to be seen in the mydst of the roof of the great ile_, and by a long
censer which, descending out of the same place almost to the very
ground, was swinged up and down at such a length that it reached at one
swepe _almost to the west gate of the church, and with the other to the
queer_ [_quire_] _stairs of the same_, breathing out over the whole
church and companie a most pleasant perfume of such sweet things as
burned therein."
It is probable that the hole in the nave vault at Norwich was used for a
similar purpose; and its position would seem to agree with such use,
situated as it is about midway between the west end and where the front
of the mediaeval rood loft occurred.
#The West Window#, added, as we have already noted by Bishop Lyhart, to
light the vault, resembles that of Westminster Hall in the lines of its
tracery; the glass by Hedgeland constitutes a memorial to Bishop Stanley
(d. 1849).
#West Door.#--The original Norman arch remains over the doorway on the
inside.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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