Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Winchester: A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal SeeSergeant, Philip Walsingham
History
Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Winchester: A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See
Sergeant, Philip Walsingham
Winchester Cathedral
Next the western end of Beaufort's chantry is the tomb of William de
Basynge, prior of this church (_quondam Prior istius ecclesiae_), as his
inscription states, promising 145 days' indulgence to whoever prays for
his soul three years. He died in 1295.
On the south wall facing the same chantry is a marble monument of the
Royalist, Sir John Clobery; and near this is a large slab in the floor,
in memory of Baptist Levinz, Bishop of Sodor and Man, and prebendary of
Winchester, who died in 1692.
On the end wall of the ambulatory, to the left of the entrance to the
Chapel of the Guardian Angels, is a fine monument, somewhat mutilated,
to Ethelmar or Aymer de Valence, half-brother of Henry III., who was so
unpopular a bishop at Winchester. Only his heart is in the cathedral,
having been conveyed hither from Paris, where his body was buried. The
facts are commemorated by the following inscription on the presbytery
wall:--
Corpus Ethelmari
Cuius Cor Nunc Tenet
Istud Saxum Parisiis
Morte Datur Tumulo
Obiit A.D. 1261.
When Winchester was attacked by the so-called religious zeal of the
Puritans, Ethelmar's heart was disturbed, as is recorded by a writer of
the period, who says that "when the steps of the altar were levelling
with the rest of the ground one of the workmen accidentally struck his
mattock on this stone and broke it; underneath which was an urn wherein
the heart of this Ethelmar was, being enclosed in a golden cup, which
thing ... being conveyed to the ears of the committee-men they took the
cup for their own use, and ordered him to bury the heart in the north
isle, which he accordingly did." The heart, he goes on to say, was "so
entire and uncorrupt" that it was "as fresh as if it had just been taken
from the body, and issued forth fresh drops of blood upon his hand. This
I had from the mouth of the workman himself, whom I believe." The slab
which once covered the heart shows, within the symbolic vesica, "in a
trefoil canopy the half-length figure of the Bishop, mitred and in his
episcopal robes, his uplifted hands holding a heart, his pastoral staff
represented as resting on his left arm." Below are his arms and the
inscription in Lombardic letters, + _Ethelmarus. Tibi Cor Meum Dne._
[Illustration: THE LADY CHAPEL. _Photochrom Co. Ltd., Photo._]
[Illustration: DETAIL OF LADY CHAPEL.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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