English Cathedrals Illustrated: Second and Revised EditionBond, Francis
History
English Cathedrals Illustrated: Second and Revised Edition
Bond, Francis
Cathedrals -- England; Cathedrals -- Wales
The ancient kingdom of East Anglia was converted to Christianity by a
Burgundian monk, Felix, who became the first bishop of East Anglia—the
diocese, as usual, being coextensive with the kingdom—and fixed his see
at Dunwich in 630. The see was subdivided by the Archbishop Theodore, the
great organiser of the English Church, in 669. It was again reunited,
and the cathedral was at Elmham, till the bishop migrated in 1070 to
Thetford, and in 1094 to Norwich.
The present cathedral was commenced in 1096 by Herbert de Losinga, who
is usually described as a Lorrainer. He is recorded to have finished the
whole cathedral before his death in 1119 as far as the altar of the Holy
Cross, which would stand in front of the choir-screen. His successor
finished the nave and west front, and carried up the central tower
(1121-1145). The plan is that of Gloucester and Leominster; the rudiments
of it appear in the ancient church at Bethlehem and in St. Sepulchre at
Jerusalem. There was an enormously long aisled nave of fourteen bays,
aisleless transepts of three bays, an aisled presbytery of five bays,
a semicircular apse, a processional aisle or ambulatory encircling the
apse, and three segmental chapels radiating from the ambulatory; also
eastern apses to the transepts. All this remains, except the easternmost
apsidal chapel, which was replaced in the thirteenth century by an oblong
Lady chapel, itself pulled down in the sixteenth century; and the apse
of the south transept, which was replaced by an oblong chapel in the
thirteenth century.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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