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)
Two other manuscripts, relics of the old monastic library, have been
found on the shelves, but the rest are scattered. This library must have
been a rich one, for in a list, of as early as 1202, discovered by Mr.
Rye in the Royal MSS. at the British Museum, there are as many as 241
works enumerated, mostly theological. Leland probably carried off many
of them, since, out of eighty-six manuscripts in the British Museum,
indexed there as having once belonged to the Rochester Monastery, no
less than eighty-three are in the old Royal Collection. They are on
vellum, partly illuminated, and many contain terrible anathemas against
any who should deface or steal them. Two others have been found among
Archbishop Parker's MSS. at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and one
in Archbishop Laud's bequest to the Bodleian. The famous #Gundulf Bible#
has an interesting history. All traces of it are lost between the time
of the Suppression and 1734, when it was sold from the possession of a
clergyman, Herman Van de Wall, at Amsterdam. Later, in the 1788 edition
of the Custumale, we read that it had been again sold, not many years
before, at Louvain, for 2,000 florins. It came back to England
afterwards and, at the sale of the Rev. Theodore Williams in April,
1827, passed into the famous collection of Sir Thomas Phillipps for
L189.
Leaving the library we pass to the #South Choir Aisle#. This is twice as
wide as that on the north side, and has acquired its present form by a
curious series of changes. It was originally of the same width, and the
south tower stood in the angle between it and the south transept. After
the great twelfth century fires, a wall was carried eastwards from the
middle of the tower to form the north side of the cloisters, which were
then being repaired. A little later, possibly at the time when the south
choir transept was built, the original aisle wall was removed and the
whole space between the choir proper and the new cloister included in
the aisle. The tower was not yet removed, in fact its demolition did not
occur until about one hundred years later, towards the end of the
thirteenth century. The present wooden roof was then erected, instead of
a fine vaulting springing from a central pillar, which seems to have
been originally intended.
[Illustration: TOMB OF BISHOP BRADFIELD
(FROM A DRAWING BY R. J. BEALE).]
The flights of twelve and ten steps, which together take up the whole
width of the aisle, lead respectively, up to the eastern part of the
church and down to the crypt. The wooden enclosure over the crypt
entrance is used as a vestry. Two doors open into the south choir
transept, one from the vestry and one directly from the aisle itself.
[Illustration: THE CRYPT, LOOKING TO THE NORTH-EAST
(FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY MESSRS. CARL NORMAN AND CO.).]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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