English Cathedrals Illustrated: Second and Revised EditionBond, Francis
History
English Cathedrals Illustrated: Second and Revised Edition
Bond, Francis
Cathedrals -- England; Cathedrals -- Wales
Up to this point the works had gone on continuously for a century. What
enabled the monks to undertake such a great work as the rebuilding of the
whole cathedral, and why, after doing so much, they suddenly stopped,
has now to be explained. The secret of the flush of money at Rochester
was that in 1201 the monks acquired a new saint, St. William. “He was
by birth a Scot, of Perth; by trade, a baker; in charity so abundant
that he gave to the poor the tenth loaf of his workmanship; in zeal so
fervent that in vow he promised, and in deed attempted, to visit the
places where Christ was conversant on earth; in which journey, he made
Rochester his way, where, after that he had rested two or three days, he
departed toward Canterbury. But ere he had gone far from the city, his
servant—a foundling who had been brought up by him out of charity—led
him of purpose out of the highway, and spoiled him both of his money
and his life. The servant escaped, but his master (because he died in
so holy a purpose of mind) was by the monks conveyed to St. Andrew’s
and laid in the choir. And soon he wrought miracles plentifully.” It
was, then, from offerings at the shrine of St. Thomas of Perth, left by
countless pilgrims on their way to the shrine of a yet greater Thomas
at Canterbury, that the expenses of the new choir were paid. And it was
simply because in the course of eighty years the repute of the murdered
baker had paled and waned before the ever-growing fame of the murdered
archbishop, that the monks had to renounce, once for all, their ambitious
project of rebuilding the whole of the nave. It seems, however, that
they were for a considerable time unwilling to give up hope; for one bay
of the Norman triforium was pulled down, leaving a gap, which was not
filled up till the fourteenth century; when, oddly enough, it was rebuilt
in the same Norman style as before, but in greensand—a rare mediæval
example of “architectural forgery” (cf. Durham Galilee).
[Illustration: CHOIR.]
V. But though the rebuilding of the nave was definitely abandoned, a good
deal of work was done in the Curvilinear period (1315-1360). The central
tower was at length erected; it was removed in 1749. A solid stone
screen was built between the piers, as at Ripon; the south aisle of the
choir was brought into its present form by the absorption of Gundulph’s
southern tower; a grand doorway to the chapter-house was built, and
monuments were erected to Bishop Hamo de Hythe (d. 1352), and Bishop John
de Sheppey (d. 1360).
The monks now also provided a Lady chapel. This they got in a very
inexpensive way—a proof that their resources had greatly fallen off—by
appropriating for the purpose the southern transept, the two eastern bays
of which they threw into one to form a recess for the altar of the Virgin.
VI. After this little was done at Rochester, except to build out a
chapel of three bays westward from the south transept, giving a sort of
nave to the Lady chapel.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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