How to Visit the English CathedralsSingleton, Esther
History
How to Visit the English Cathedrals
Singleton, Esther
Cathedrals -- England
The =Presbytery= is the earliest part of the cathedral. It consists of
four compartments, or bays, and terminates in a semicircular apse of
five compartments. We find here Perpendicular arches, a lofty Norman
triforium, and clerestory windows of the transitional period from
Decorated to Perpendicular. The whole effect is Norman and noble.
Unfortunately the old glass of the windows has perished.
The aisles of the presbytery are also called the =Processional Path=, and
consist of four bays, and five around the apse. A door in the north
aisle opens into the gardens of the Bishop’s Palace; and in this aisle,
at the fourth bay east of the tower, there is a very peculiar
bridge-chapel that spans the aisle. Critics say that it formed the
ante-chapel to the reliquary chapel projecting northward from the outer
wall of the Cathedral, and that it was probably built as a bridge for
exhibiting relics as the processions passed along underneath.
On the south side of the presbytery (third bay) is the =Chapel of St.
Mary the Less=, or =Bauchon Chapel= (Fourteenth Century). It projects
beyond the wall. The vault is Fifteenth Century, and the bosses
represent the Life, Death and Assumption of the Virgin. This is now the
Consistory Court.
The =north transept= is without aisles or triforium. Arcading decorates
the wall up to the clerestory. Above is a lierne vault of later date, of
course, than the transept. The old apsidal chapel on the east (dedicated
to St. Anne) is now used as a storeroom.
A staircase in the east wall of the north transept leads to the
tower-galleries and walks, very interesting in themselves and affording
glimpses through their openings into the nave, presbytery and transepts
below.
Between the south aisle of the presbytery and the =south transept= a
beautiful screen of late Perpendicular tracery fills the Norman arch.
The roof, like that of the north transept, originally of wood, was
destroyed by fire in 1509, and a new vault added in Perpendicular times.
Of the three chapels grouped around the presbytery the =Jesus Chapel= on
the north and the chapel on the south, =St. Luke’s=, remain. The
=Lady-Chapel=, at the extreme east, has perished.
The Norman Lady-Chapel was partly destroyed by the fire of 1169, and was
succeeded by an Early English chapel of the Thirteenth Century. This was
destroyed in the Sixteenth Century; but the finely proportioned entrance
arches still remain. They are ornamented with the dog-tooth.
It is not often that ancient altar-pieces are found in the English
cathedrals; but Norwich possesses a =Retable=, supposed to be the work of
an Italian painter of the Fourteenth Century. It is in five panels--The
Scourging, Bearing the Cross, Crucifixion, Resurrection and Ascension.
It was formerly in the Jesus Chapel.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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