Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Wells: A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal SeeDearmer, Percy
History
Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Wells: A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See
Dearmer, Percy
Wells Cathedral
It may be well here to say a word about the general classification of
these earlier capitals, since their date is a matter of great
architectural interest. I would venture to divide them into five
groups--
1. Those of the three western bays of the choir: simple carved foliage
of distinctly Norman character, as in the north porch: these belong to
the time of Reginald (1174-1191).
2. The four eastern bays of the nave and its aisles. Some of these may
belong to the first period, though later than the choir: they are more
advanced in the foliage, and teem with grotesque birds and beasts.
Some, however, of the caps in these bays are of quite different
character (p. 80); they contain _genre_ subjects of perfectly
naturalistic treatment, very different to the St. Edmund of the north
porch capital, but exactly similar to the figure caps of the
transepts. They must therefore have been carved later than the death
of Saint William Bytton.
3. The western bays of the nave. These, which are of much less
interest, belong to the period of Jocelin's reconstruction
(1220-1242). They are characteristic examples of rich stiff-leaf
foliage, freer than that of the earlier work, but much less varied and
without either human figures or grotesques.
4. On the eastern range of transept piers. These would seem also to
come within Jocelin's period, with the exception of the third pier of
the south transept.
5. On the western range of transept piers (p. 89), with which must be
classed those later caps already referred to in the nave under group
2. Their date is settled by the fact that they abound in unmistakable
representations of the toothache. Now Saint William Bytton died in
1274, and his tomb became immediately famous for cures of this malady.
In 1286 the chapter decided to repair the old work, no doubt because
the offerings at his tomb had brought money to the church; this part
of the church had been damaged ever since the fall of the _tholus_ in
1248. The caps must therefore have been carved during the episcopate
of Burnell (1275-1292). Mr Irvine, indeed, suggests that the figure of
the woman taking a thorn ("bur") from her foot may contain a reference
to Bishop Burnell. The undercroft passage, with its curious corbels
and bosses, was probably also a part of the old work then completed,
as it contains one "toothache" head. Although the introduction of such
finished figure-subjects into the capitals suggests this lateness of
date, they are still completely Early English in style, and a great
gulf is fixed between them and the Decorated caps of the chapter-house
begun by Burnell's successor, William de Marchia (1293-1302).
[Illustration: The South Transept From North Side Of Nave.]
[Illustration: Capitals In Transept]
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