Highways and Byways in LincolnshireRawnsley, W. F. (Willingham Franklin)
History
Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire
Rawnsley, W. F. (Willingham Franklin)
Lincolnshire (England) -- Description and travel
Bishop Alexander, like St. Hugh, died of a fever, which he caught at
Auxerre in France, where he had been to meet the Pope. Those French towns
seem to have been pretty pestilential at all times. _Bishop Chesney_
succeeded him, and either he or Bishop Bloet began the episcopal palace.
He assisted at the Coronation of Henry II. in Lincoln, and founded St.
Catharine’s Priory. He died in 1166, and, after the lapse of six years,
_Geoffrey Plantagenet_, son of Henry II. by Fair Rosamund, held the See
for nine years, but was never consecrated. In 1182 he resigned, and was
afterwards made Archbishop of York. He gave many gifts to the cathedral,
and notably two “great and sonorous bells,” the putative parents of
“Great Tom.” _Walter de Constantiis_ followed him, but was in the very
next year translated to Rouen, 1184, and again the See was vacant for the
space of two years.
[Sidenote: ST. HUGH]
In 1185 an earthquake did great damage, and in the following year _Hugh
of Avalon_, the famous St. Hugh of Lincoln, was appointed Bishop by Henry
II. He widened the west end by putting a wing to each side of the work
of Remigius, and put a gable over the central arch, and began his great
work of making a new and larger cathedral with double transepts and a
choir 100 feet longer and a nave ten feet wider than that of Remigius,
starting at the east and building the present ritual choir and both the
eastern and western transepts. In this his work was of a totally new
character, with pointed arches, and “is famous as being the earliest
existing work of pure English Gothic.” But Early English work, so says
Murray, was already being done at Wells in 1174, twelve years earlier,
and it was there that the Gothic vaulting and pointed arch was first seen
in England. From the great transept to the angel choir is all his design,
and it bears no trace of Norman French influence in any particular.
The name of Hugh’s architect is Geoffrey de Noiers, his work is more
remarkable for lightness than for strength, and in about fifty years
Hugh’s tower fell, setting thereby a bad example which has been followed
so frequently that Bishop Creighton’s first question on visiting a new
church used generally to be, “When did your tower fall?”
[Sidenote: BISHOP GROSTESTE]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account