There seems to be little doubt that the principal organ (if the church
possessed more than one) was frequently placed on the rood-loft, or
“pulpitum,” and the smaller one in the choir. There was an organ as
late as Hollar’s time over the “Den” in the fourth bay of the north
side of the choir at _Lincoln_. By the extracts already quoted from The
Rites of Durham, there was evidently one pair of organs (meaning one
complete organ) on the north side of the choir, and another pair on the
pulpitum there, and from Henry VI.’s “owne avyse” we learn that it was
expressly ordered that the Eton College rood-loft should likewise serve
as an organ-gallery. Among the many interesting items in the accounts of
_Louth_ steeple, dating from 1501-1518, is this:—
“For setting up the Flemish organ in the rood-loft by four days xx_d._”
So that the present position of several of our cathedral organs (which
is fully justified by convenience and æsthetic satisfaction as being
thoroughly Gothic) is only a survival of a very tolerably ancient
practice. Playing the organ (“cuilibet cantancium organum, trahenti
organa”) is mentioned in the Black Book, already quoted from, in 1322.
Canon Christopher Wordsworth[103] considers that the terms _organizacio_,
_organizare_, apply apparently to vocal music at the lectern in choir at
the end of evensong and lauds. Canon Maddison mentions that one of the
vicars received a fee as late as 1536 for playing the organ at the “Jesus
Mass.” On the 10th September 1442, an order for 5 marcs from the fabrick
chest was made for new organs in the great choir, to be constructed by
one Arnold, “organer,” of Norwich, in the best manner possible. On 14th
October (of the same year, I think), Robert Patryngton is commissioned
to find with all speed “a scientific man” who has skill to make the new
organs in Lincoln choir. The organ, which was remodelled and enlarged in
1897-8, was the work of Allen, the case being designed by the late E. J.
Willson in the year 1826.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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