Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Winchester: A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See — John Shaqi
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
chronicle itself or to Willis in the "Proceedings of the Architectural
Institute" for 1845. Though Wolstan thus describes Athelwold's
undertaking at great length, it does not appear that the bishop actually
did more than commence the restoration of the original buildings, for
his successor is exhorted in the letter to carry out Athelwold's design.
The chronicler Rudborne makes mention only of the dedication of a
minster in honour of the Apostles Peter and Paul, in the presence of
King Aethelred, Archbishop Dunstan and eight other bishops, on October
20, 980 A.D. John of Exeter ascribes to Athelwold the entire rebuilding
of the cathedral, but the Winchester annalist does not mention
Athelwold's great works.
From Athelwold's death to the succession of Walkelin the history of the
cathedral is little more than a record of its bishops; but with Walkelin
we reach a very important epoch in its existence. In 1079, the
Winchester Annals relate, this bishop began to rebuild the cathedral
from its very foundations, as was commonly done by the Norman
ecclesiastics of the time. According to this account, it was in 1086
that the king granted Walkelin, for the completion of his new building,
as much wood from the forest of Hempage (three miles distant from the
city on the Alresford road) as he could cut in four days and nights.
Walkelin collected all the men he could, and within the given time
removed the whole forest. The king, passing its site, cried: "Am I
bewitched? or have I taken leave of my senses?" But the bishop, when he
heard of his anger, pleaded to be allowed to resign the see if he might
but keep the chaplaincy and the king's favour. At this William relented,
saying: "I was as much too liberal in my grant as you were too greedy in
availing yourself of it" (Willis). In 1093 the new church was formally
consecrated, and on April 8, "in the presence of almost all the bishops
and abbots of England, the monks came with the highest exultation and
glory from the old minster to the new one: on the Feast of S. Swithun
they went in procession from the new minster to the old one and brought
thence S. Swithun's shrine and placed it with honour in the new
buildings; and on the following day Bishop Walkelin's men first began to
pull down the old minster, and before the end of the year they
demolished the whole of it, with the exception of one apse and the high
altar." When the old high altar was pulled down, we are told, "the
relics of many saints were found." The cathedral, as Walkelin designed
it, was for the most part so strong that its core and much of its actual
work remains to this day; but the central tower lacked the stability of
the rest, for on October 7, 1107, during the vacancy which occurred
after Walkelin's death, it fell. The monkish chroniclers attributed the
fall to the fact that William Rufus, "who all his life had been profane
and sensual and had expired without the Christian viaticum" (Rudborne),
was interred beneath it in 1100.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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