The Cathedral Church of Oxford: A description of its fabric and a brief history of the Episcopal seeDearmer, Percy
History
The Cathedral Church of Oxford: A description of its fabric and a brief history of the Episcopal see
Dearmer, Percy
Christ Church Cathedral (Oxford, England)
The Lady Chapel is divided from the Latin Chapel by four arches. Of
these the first, being part of the original transept aisle, is very
plain and massive, without mouldings and of one order; it springs from
a square pier with shafts at the corners, and has an extremely broad
soffit. It is almost beyond doubt part of Ethelred's church, and proves
that the transept was finished early. The second arch is Early English,
cut irregularly through the wall, which bears traces of a round arch
above it. The first of the four arches which separate this chapel from
the north choir aisle is similar to the one just described. The rest are
very obtuse; for the two eastern bays of the Lady Chapel are two feet
wider than the others, perhaps in order to increase the accommodation
for worshippers at the shrine of St. Frideswide.
=The "Watching Chamber."=--Next in interest to the "shrine," and far more
imposing in appearance, is the large tomb or watching chamber under the
easternmost arch between the Lady Chapel and the Latin Chapel. Its real
nature is still a matter of dispute: some maintaining it to have been
used as a chantry chapel for the welfare of those who were buried below;
others that it served as a "watching chamber" to protect the gold and
jewels which hung about the shrine of St. Frideswide. But there is much
likelihood that is was built for the new shrine of St. Frideswide, when
the growing taste for elaboration in architecture tired of the comparative
simplicity of the old one. If this be the case, the "watching chamber"
would be in reality the third and last monument of St. Frideswide, the
second being that already described, while of the first (that made for
the Translation of 1180) no trace remains. The _feretrum_ would have been
removed from its position on the second monument, and placed within the
little wooden chapel of the chamber.
Most elaborately carved and crocketed, the "watching chamber" is a
beautiful example of full-blown Perpendicular workmanship; "most lovely
English work, both of heart and hand," according to Mr. Ruskin. It
consists of four stories, the two lower, in stone, forming an altar tomb
and canopy, and the two upper in wood. A door from the Latin Chapel
leads one up a small and well-worn stone staircase into the interior of
the little upper chapel, which is now a rough wooden room. Its extreme
roughness suggests that it was once panelled and otherwise adorned,
while there are marks at its east end, which may be the site of an altar,
or of the _feretrum_ itself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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