Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Rochester: A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal SeePalmer, G. H. (George Henry)
History
Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Rochester: A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See
Palmer, G. H. (George Henry)
Rochester Cathedral (Rochester, Kent, England)
Lambarde, staunch Protestant as he was, saw in these fires a token of
God's disapproval of such monastic institutions. After telling of the
foundation by Gundulf, he continues, "but God (who moderating all things
by his divine providence, shewed himselfe alwaies a severe visitour of
these irreligious Synagogues) God (I say) set fire on this building
twise within the compasse of one hundreth yeeres after the erection of
the same." He then goes on to attribute the quarrels between Bishop
Gilbert de Glanvill and the monks, and the church's losses through
these, and its spoliation by King John's troops, to the same divine
judgment. His book contains a great amount of accurate information, but
often, as here, and in his account, quoted above, of Gundulf's really
good and useful work, shows the strong prejudices of the ordinary
English Protestant of his time.
In one or other of these two fires the eastern arm and transepts of
Gundulf's fabric, and Ernulf's conventual buildings, must have been much
injured if not reduced to ruins, and to the date of the second the outer
part of the north choir aisle possibly belongs. Probably about 1190,
Gilbert de Glanvill, who was Bishop of Rochester from 1185 to 1214,
built a new cloister and the lower part of the outer wall of the south
choir aisle as a portion of it. A great deal of work was done about that
time to the conventual buildings by different priors and monks. Many
records relating to it are gathered together in Mr. Ashpitel's paper.[4]
He evidently thought that the church was then neglected--though, as we
shall see, it does not seem to have been so--and apologizes for the
monks, pointing out that there must have been enough of the nave left
for services, and that, this being the case, it was natural for them, in
their almost complete homelessness, to think of their dormitories, etc.,
before anything else.
[4] See footnote on p. 6.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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