Collectanea de Diversis Rebus: Addresses and PapersEade, Peter, Sir
Science
Collectanea de Diversis Rebus: Addresses and Papers
Eade, Peter, Sir
English essays; Speeches, addresses, etc., English
Kirkpatrick (1712) says of it: “There is a neat porch of freestone on the
south side of the Church for entrance, with a chamber above it. On each
side of the window, which is in the front, is a niche (with) spired top.
On each side of the arch of the door, cut in stone, is a cherub with an
escocheon before him. That on the east side has two pastoral staffs. On
the (west) a Pall, and at the top of the porch a border of carved work
whereon you see the letter G of the antient form with a crown upon it and
an escocheon with vine branch of various small ones denoting St. Giles,
to whom dedicated.” (These three niches are now empty.) “On the north
side of Church there is no porch, but only a door opposite to that of the
south.” (This doorway no longer exists.)
The Church itself consists of new Chancel, Nave, and North and South
Aisles. The whole building is about 120 feet long, and the nave with its
aisles is 48 feet across. The roof is of good open woodwork, supported
by “Angels bearing shields, emblazoned with the Arms of England, France,
and Castile” (Bayne). And Taylor says the Arms of Norwich Priory are (or
were) seen in this roof. The columns supporting it are light and
elegant. They are four in number, with a pilaster at each end, and they
divide the nave from the aisles. The clerestory windows have been
modernised. They are five in number, and closely correspond to the
larger windows in the walls of the north and south aisles. Of these
there are five in the north side, and four (and the porch) on the south
side.
Blomefield says that “In the west end of the south aisle there was
formerly a chapel, altar, and image of St. Catharine, with a light
burning before it; and against one of the pillars there was a famous rood
called the Brown-rood. There was a Gild of St. Mary kept before the
altar of the Virgin of Pity. The west window in the north aisle was
adorned with the history of Our Lord’s passion; and there were lights
burning before the images of St. Mary, St. John Baptist, St. Christopher,
St. Unkumber, and St. Wilegesartis; besides those that continually burned
before the Holy-rood, or cross, the Holy Sepulchre, and the Sacrament.”
Mr. Hudson says that S. Uncumber and S. Wilegesartis, or Wylgefort, were
the same person, and in the _St. Peter Mountergate Parish Magazine_ for
February of this year (1891) he has thus briefly given her history: “She
was a beautiful maiden who was ordered to marry a man to whom she had a
great aversion. While she was at her wits’ end to know how to avoid her
fate, she was delighted to discover that in the course of a few hours she
had become adorned with a full-grown and very ugly black beard. This, of
course, disposed of the gentleman. Wylgefort lived to be a happy old
maid, and when she died was honoured as a Saint . . . She was thought to
have some special power to uncumber (_i.e._ disencumber, make free)
discontented wives from disagreeable husbands. Hence her popular name.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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