XXII
I notice that there is a great tendency among those who have to describe Rochester Cathedral to dismiss it with the remarks that it is quite small, and that it was “restored” in 1825 and 1875. These, of course, are the merest ineptitudes of criticism, and if we allowed praise or censure to be awarded according to the bulk, then that hideous elephantine conventicle, Jezreel’s Temple, on the summit of Chatham Hill, would easily bear away the bell.
But size has little to do with a right appreciation of architecture. Chasteness of proportion, the degree of artistry shown alike in details and in the execution of the whole, are the sole considerations that shall weigh with those who take any sort of an intelligent interest in the architecture of cathedrals; and the admiration of a thing that “licks creation” in the matter of measurement is senseless if it is not wedded to a proper perception of the justness of the parts that go to make its bulk.
The Cathedral of Saint Andrew at Rochester is at least equally interesting with that of Canterbury; and that this should be so is only natural, for one is the complement of the other. Canterbury was the earliest Cathedral in England; the See of Rochester was established immediately afterwards, and was for many years not only intimately associated with that great metropolitan church, but was actually dependent upon it. Then, the early Norman Archbishops and Priors of Canterbury and the Bishops and Priors of Rochester were often intimate personal friends who had come over together from Normandy to England; and the close relations thus established lasted for many years. The See of Rochester was founded by Saint Augustine about A.D. 600, and by him the first Bishop was consecrated, four years later.
ROCHESTER CATHEDRAL
But when the Norman Conquest brought a new era of church building into England, Rochester Cathedral was rebuilt. Gundulf, the second Norman Bishop, the friend of Anselm and Lanfranc, the greatest military and ecclesiastical architect of his time, prepared to erect a new and grander edifice on the ruins of the Saxon church. The number and extent of this great architect’s works are simply prodigious. How he could have packed into even his lengthy life the duties of a Churchman, which we are told by those who knew him he never missed for a single day; the cares of statecraft which also fell to his lot; and the building, not only of his Cathedral, but also of the Tower of London, Rochester Keep, Dartford Church, Malling Abbey, and minor works, we are at a loss to conceive. He was consecrated in 1077 and died in 1108, before he had completed his work here. Ernulf, Prior of Canterbury, succeeded him, and finished the building, which was consecrated in 1130, in the same year that witnessed the completion and consecration of Ernulf’s and Conrad’s new Cathedral at Canterbury. Here, then, we see at once the close connection between the architectural history of these two neighbouring churches. Ernulf had a hand in both; a very large share of the crypt, the west front, and a part of the nave of Rochester was his; while at Canterbury the crypt and the choir were built in collaboration with Prior Conrad. These facts partly explain the unusual and beautiful feature of a choir raised many feet above the level of the nave, which is characteristic both of Canterbury and Rochester Cathedrals, and seen nowhere else in England. And not only in these most prominent features of their architectural construction are the two buildings alike; their stories run curiously parallel, both in their building and in their destruction. Less than fifty years after their simultaneous consecration, both churches were partly destroyed by fire, and their ruined portions rebuilt in the Transitional Norman and Early English styles, by those two architects who are supposed to be one and the same person—William de Hoo, Bishop of Rochester, and that “William the Englishman” who succeeded French William of Sens in rebuilding the choir of Canterbury. At that time, allowing for the great difference in their relative sizes, the two Cathedrals must have borne a strong likeness to one another; and when we look upon Ernulf’s nave here, we look upon the likeness of the nave at Canterbury until that period, between 1390 and 1421, when Prior Chillendon replaced Lanfranc’s work with the light and lofty, but exceedingly uninteresting, Perpendicular nave that now forms the western end of the Primate’s Metropolitan Church.
Fortunately for ourselves, who think Norman work not the flower of ecclesiastical architecture, but the most interesting and æsthetically satisfying next to the incomparable grace of the Early English period, Rochester was too poor a See to be able to embark on extensive schemes of rebuilding, and we are spared the rather vulgar ostentation of skill and wealth to which the Perpendicular style lends itself. Little could be added to the dignity and solemn majesty, the right proportions and impressive simplicity, of this massive Norman nave. Here came Cromwell, whose soldiers quartered their horses in the aisles, leaving the building so desecrated that a saw-pit sunk afterwards in the pavements seemed a scarcely worse use of the House of God. Here also eighteenth-century monumental masons have contrived monuments bad enough, even for the surroundings of classic architecture, but no less than an affront in this place; while the half-learnt Gothic restorations of Cottingham, whose puerilities of seventy years ago were seen in the choir, are a sorrow to behold.
A GOOD SAMARITAN.
A long line of tombs and effigies, from Bishops down to a Good Samaritan in seventeenth-century costume, carved grotesquely and all out of drawing, on the pavement of the Lady Chapel, claim attention, and easily first among them is the beautiful coloured effigy of Bishop John de Sheppey, discovered, built up in his recess, in 1825. The plain tomb of Gundulf is shown, and the resting-place of Bishop Walter de Merton, drowned while crossing the Medway in a boat, 1277. The authorities of Merton College have restored and beautified the tomb of their founder, and it lies, painted and decorated, near the grave of St. William.
ST. WILLIAM
Saint William of Perth was for long the chief glory and principal source of income to the Priory and monks of Rochester. He was a wealthy Scottish baker who, having amassed a fortune, probably both by overcharging for his bread and in the giving of short weight, determined to go on pilgrimage. He must have been a superlative rogue and cheat, for nothing less than a pilgrimage to Jerusalem would serve his purpose. However, he never reached the Holy City; for, having arrived at Rochester in 1201, and having contributed magnificently to the shrines there, he was murdered by his guide while journeying hence to Canterbury. At least, so runs the story, but I believe the monks themselves did the deed. They were exceedingly poor, having by some unexplained excesses squandered the wealth which the once highly venerated bones of Saint Paulinus had brought them, and they had already melted down the silver shrine of that Saint to pay their way withal. The competition of Canterbury, too, was killing, and the fame of Paulinus paled before that of Becket; and so they probably conceived the idea of murdering the rich pilgrim in order to obtain at once a remunerative martyr of their own, and to put themselves in funds with the wealth he carried about with him. If the Dean and Chapter of Rochester could in after years wilfully appropriate to their own uses an annual income of several thousands of pounds intended for educational purposes, and become thus common thieves and peculators, what scruples could be supposed to hinder the monks of the dark ages from becoming murderers?
The south-east transept has a curious mural monument to Richard Watts; with a coloured and very life-like portrait-bust “starting out of it like a ship’s figure-head,” and underneath is a brass to the memory of Charles Dickens. On the eastern wall is a medallion profile of Joseph Maas, the singer, vulgar and amateurish beyond the power of words to tell.
ROCHESTER CASTLE
Rochester Cathedral is not rich in decorative carvings, but its two enriched doorways are famous. One is the beautiful Norman west door, of five receding arches, carved over with a profusion of characteristic Norman scrolls; interlacing patterns; semi-human and half-supernatural figures of appalling build and ferocious expression; and flanked by two statues supposed to represent Henry the First and Queen Matilda. The other is the unsurpassed Decorated doorway of the Chapter House, whose sculptured emblematic figures of the Church, and of angels, priests and bishops are at the other, and more beautiful, end of decorative art.
Having seen all these things, the verger who has hitherto shepherded his flock of visitors through these upper regions, takes them down a flight of stone stairs and unlocks the door of the crypt. An ancient and mouldy smell rushes up from the dark labyrinth of pillars and indistinct arches, and the ladies of the party pretend to be terrified. But they might just as well be afraid of a coal-cellar, which is generally darker and dirtier, for neither bones nor coffins, nor anything more awful than a few shattered fragments of architectural carvings are to be seen. The usual legends current in most old places would have us believe that a subterraneous passage runs between Castle and Cathedral, and certainly they are sufficiently near one another for such a communication to have been made; but these legends have never been resolved into fact. Near neighbours they are, and the Cathedral has suffered not a little at different times from this close proximity. For when Rufus besieged the Castle, and when, in 1215 and 1264, it was closely invested for respectively three months and a week, the Cathedral had its share of the violent doings that resulted in the Keep being undermined and the wooden bridge of Rochester burned. Gundulf’s Tower had not been completed when that mighty master-builder died, and although it is generally ascribed to him, it seems really to have been finished under the supervision of an inexperienced architect employed by that Archbishop William de Corbeil to whom and his successors of Canterbury Henry the Second granted “the perpetual charge and constableship of the Castle of Rochester.” This prelate died in 1139, and the irony of circumstances decreed that only one other of the Archbishops to whom the “perpetual constableship” was granted should ever exercise the rights and privileges of the gift. This was Stephen Langton. The Castle was found to be too important in those times for it to be held by any other than the King, and so to the Crown it reverted. Now that it is ruined and open to the sky the Mayors of Rochester are ex officio constables, and they wear a sword on grand occasions as an outward and visible sign of their dignity.
Rochester Keep rises to a height of a hundred and twenty-five feet. Walls ranging from ten to twelve feet in thickness attest its old-time strength, and the ornamentation both of the State apartments, and of the Chapel on the third floor, betokens a considerable display made in those far-off times. But although one of the loftiest Norman keeps extant; though strong and internally ornate, it seems to have been built by a copyist of Gundulf who perhaps had neither his resources nor his love of a neat and workmanlike finish. Whatever the cause, certain it is that here we miss the close-jointed external ashlar that we are accustomed to see in such grand contemporary Norman keeps as those of Castle Hedingham and Scarborough. Ashlaring has been only sparingly used for quoins and dressings of door- and window-openings, and the exterior of this keep chiefly shows a broad expanse of roughly set Kentish rag-stone. The result, although it does not commend itself architecturally, is at least bold and rugged and altogether satisfying to the artist.
There is, according to a legend of unknown age, a vast treasure buried beneath the ground here; concealed in some mysterious crypt whose door may only by rarest chance be found. From this door hangs a Hand of Glory, and not until the Hand is extinguished, finger by finger, can it be forced open. Absolute silence is to be observed by the adventurer while extinguishing the Blazing Hand, or the mystic power is broken. There was once, says a sequel to the foregoing legend, a bold and fortunate spirit who had by some means discovered this hidden door. He extinguished the guardian Hand, all but the thumb; and, proceeding to snuff this out also, he uttered an incautious exclamation of triumph. The fingers instantly burst into flame again, and the man was dashed senseless to the ground; nor was he ever again so fortunate as to recover the spot.