Bishop Quivil (1280-1292).
And now we come to the rebuilding of the whole cathedral. In spite of the great changes that took place in Gothic architecture during the next seventy years, the original design—that of Quivil—was adhered to almost to the very last. With the exception of a few Curvilinear windows in the western bays of the nave, all the main features of the building are as they were designed in the closing years of the thirteenth century. It is, of course, this exceptional unity and harmony of design that makes Exeter what it is—one of the most satisfactory mediæval interiors in this country. In cathedrals such as Rochester and Ely a Norman nave jars on a Gothic choir; or, as at Lincoln and York, two styles of Gothic mingle and conflict. But at Exeter, looking forward from west to east, hardly anything obtrudes on the original design. In no other cathedral, except Salisbury, do we find similar unity of design; but in the design of Salisbury simplicity becomes bareness and poverty. It cannot be compared for one moment with the richness of the lovely decorated work of Exeter. Yet greater unity and harmony is gained by the way in which the battlements and pinnacles, flying-buttresses, and cresting weld together the exterior; and the high vaults the interior, as at Norwich. The adherence, too, for so long a time to Bishop Quivil’s design is interesting, because it shows that in the early years of the fourteenth century there was at Exeter, as at Beverley, Westminster, Ely, and St. Albans, a strong current in the direction of conservation of good design. Piers and vaulting and bosses and corbels and triforium and windows of the nave, built long after he was dead and gone, are all but reproductions of Quivil’s early work. Most remarkable of all, perhaps, is the adherence to Quivil’s window tracery—the rose, the lily, and the wheel. Even the great west window, one of the last works, is but Quivil’s straight-spoked wheel translated into flowing lines.
CHOIR AND TRANSEPT.
Quivil commenced his work in the two Norman towers, in which he inserted tall arches, thus making them an integral part of the church. He also built the arches of the crossing, and provided abutment to the west by building one new bay on either side of the nave. All that one sees here—the first bay of the nave, and the alterations in the transepts, the window tracery, the piers and arches, the pierced balconies hung up on the walls of the towers, the substitution of Purbeck marble for stone shafts—is Quivil’s work. As to the easternmost bay of the nave on either side, it differs from the rest of the nave in having a wider arch; while its clerestory windows have the same straight-spoked wheel as Quivil’s windows in the transept; the mouldings of the capitals of the first two piers correspond with those of the transeptal arches; the bases are lower than those elsewhere in the nave; the bosses of the aisles are flatter; even the flying-buttresses differ.
Now that he had remodelled the centre of the church, Quivil set to work to recast the eastern parts of the church, commencing at the far east end, so as to interfere with the services as little as possible. He first transformed the Lady chapel; to him are due the shafts, sedilia, double piscina, and the vaulting, the rib-mouldings of which are of earlier character than those of the choir; and the windows, which closely resemble those of Merton College, Oxford, which we know was commenced in 1277. In the centre of the Lady chapel Bishop Quivil is buried; he died in 1291. The chapels on either side may have been remodelled or partly remodelled by Bronescombe; but the east windows are later in style, and are Quivil’s.
The piers hereabout are very interesting. Those of the Lady chapel looking into the side chapels are composed of four columns. The north-east and south-east piers of the choir have clusters of eight shafts instead of four; while in the pier between them the cluster of eight is developed into a cluster of sixteen columns. Finally, notice that these piers are set diamond-wise, with four flat faces, and the angles to the north, west, south, and east.