History of the Cathedral Church of Wells: As Illustrating the History of the Cathedral Churches of the Old FoundationFreeman, Edward A. (Edward Augustus)
History
History of the Cathedral Church of Wells: As Illustrating the History of the Cathedral Churches of the Old Foundation
Freeman, Edward A. (Edward Augustus)
Wells Cathedral
The choir and presbytery, as we see them now, were thus finished in the
course of the first half of the fourteenth century, but there may be
some question as to the exact date. Professor Willis quotes an order of
Chapter in 1325, by which each Canon was ordered to make his own stall
at his own cost. The Professor infers that at that time the new choir
was ready for the stalls to be placed in it.[10] But perhaps the words
need not absolutely bear that meaning; and one or two things seem to
me to look the other way. First of all, the style of the presbytery
seems to point to a time somewhat later in the century. The windows
have fully advanced, and not very good, Flowing tracery, and in the
east window there is a distinct approach to the Perpendicular lines
of the next style. The other details too seem to belong to quite the
later stage of what is called the Decorated style; they show decided
signs of the near approach of the latest form of Gothic, our own local
Perpendicular. Then again, our famous Bishop Ralph of Shrewsbury, who
sat from 1329 to 1363, and of whom I shall have presently to speak more
fully, was buried between the steps of the choir and the high altar,
having seemingly a detached tomb in the middle of the presbytery.[11]
His tomb, which was fenced in by a grating, was afterwards moved to
the north side of the presbytery, but, as Bishop Godwin says in his
quaint fashion, it "lost his grates by the way."[12] But the original
place of Ralph's tomb was a place of special honour; it was the place
of a founder; Ralph held the same place in the new choir which Jocelin
had held in the old one. The inference seems irresistible, that Ralph
stood to the new work in somewhat of the same relation in which Jocelin
stood to the old; that he was in some sort its founder; that, at the
very least, it was done during his episcopate. I confess that these
two considerations seem to me to outweigh the presumption drawn from
the order of Chapter about making the stalls, which, after all, might
have been made as a precaution before the works in the choir were begun
just as well as after they were ended. I believe therefore that the
recasting of the eastern limb, the addition of the new presbytery,
the change of the old presbytery into a choir, and the architectural
changes following on the change of arrangement, belong mainly to the
days of Ralph of Shrewsbury.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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