In order to trace the history of the walls and gatehouses protecting the close, it is necessary to go back a few years. Edward I. had, in 1285, received a petition from the canons, praying that the close might be fortified. Their plea was, that it had become positively dangerous to attend the midnight services of the church, owing to the number of evil-doers who thronged the precincts. The licence from the king in the year 1285 to the dean and chapter, giving them permission to erect the close wall, is still preserved at Lincoln. The wall was commenced, and in the thirteenth year of Edward II. (1319), permission was given for the addition of towers. Double gateways were erected to guard the approaches. Before we come to speak of the upper storeys of the western towers, a few less important matters may be recorded. It is not difficult to see that the tracery which fills the round window, "the Bishop's eye," of the southern limb of the great transept, does not accord in style with its surroundings. The flowing lines mark a period subsequent to the geometrical forms of the Angel Choir, and later by more than a century than the wall in which the window is placed. This window and that in the gable above, the latter only to be seen from the outside, must be assigned to about the middle of the fourteenth century. About this time, Lincoln received a treasurer, who has left abiding traces in the minster. John de Welburne has already been mentioned as having restored the precious shrine of St. Hugh. Perhaps the greatest of his benefactions are the present magnificent choir-stalls, the finest examples in the kingdom. He also constructed the vaulting of the central and western towers, and placed over the great west door the respectable row of royal statues. Welburne died in the year 1380; this we learn from a volume relating to his chantry and other foundations, written in 1382. The tracery of the three west windows has been assigned by some to him, and by others to a bishop who lived more than half-a-century later. They may be considered as belonging to the end of the fourteenth century, and mark the entrance into the next stage of Gothic architecture, the Perpendicular. The two western towers, St. Mary's and St. Hugh's, had been awaiting their completion for many years. They were now raised to a height of nearly 200 feet, by the addition of early Perpendicular storeys, constructed immediately above the Norman work of Alexander the Magnificent. These towers, as well as the centre one, were crowned by tall spires of wood, coated with lead. The height of these timber spires was 89 feet from the base to the ball, and another 12 feet to the top of the vane; their fate will be recorded later.
Besides the three west windows, and the upper portions of the western towers, the only other parts of the minster in the Perpendicular style are the three chantry-chapels added to the Angel Choir. The first of these was built by Bishop Fleming (d. Jan. 1430-1), and stands on the north side. Bishop Russell (d. 1494) added another opposite to it on the south side. The third chapel was constructed by Bishop Longland (d. 1547). It is a copy of Bishop Russell's, and stands on the same side of the choir, to the west of the doorway. The old library, of which a fragment only remains, was erected in the year 1442 over the east walk of the cloisters. In the year 1609 it suffered severely from fire, and in 1789 all that remained was taken down, with the exception of the part forming a vestibule to the new library.
Turning from the building itself to the internal history of the minster, we find that, towards the middle of the fifteenth century, dissensions had arisen among the cathedral body, which, if not of such historical importance as the differences under Grosseteste, are of sufficient interest to be worth recording. They give considerable insight into the ecclesiastical life of the time. John Mackworth, the dean, was a man of violent temper. In 1435, having some difference with the chancellor, Peter Patrick or Partridge, he entered the church one day during vespers, attended by ten armed servants. The chancellor was dragged from his stall in the choir, brutally assaulted, and left in a wounded condition on the pavement of the church. It is said that over this affair the point was raised during the trial at Westminster, whether the Cathedral Close was in the county or the county of the city of Lincoln; the delinquents had been described as of the former, and since this was not legally correct, they escaped the punishment they richly deserved. Matters came
to a crisis, and the chapter brought before the bishop, William Alnwick, forty-two charges against their dean. The following are sufficient to shew Mackworth's haughty temper:—He would not walk in processions in a straight line; he had fraudulently kept back from the chapter 25s. 8d.; he came to the chapter attended by armed men to the great terror of the canons; at vespers and prime he made the bell stop before the officiating priest had arrived, but made the choir wait for him, if he was late; he had pulled down part of the wall of the cloister to build a stable. The dean in return accused the chapter of appropriating to their own use the cloth bought out of the common funds of the church for clothing the poor. The matter was settled in 1439 by a "Laudum" of the bishop, who set himself the task of constructing a new body of statutes for governing the church; these are still in use. Dissensions, however, did not end here, and we find a complaint made to the bishop four years later, that the dean had, in the choir, called the precentor a "buffoon" and a "vile tailor," and had offered personal violence to him. In 1449 the bishop issued a commission for the trial of the dean, but died before it could take place.
W. Giles, Photo.]
Before speaking of the grievous losses which the minster sustained under Henry VIII., it may be well to refer to a Visitation which was undertaken by Bishop Smyth in the first year of the sixteenth century. The charges then brought against the dean, George Fitzhugh, shew the deplorable negligence of the cathedral body with regard to the sacred building under their care. The dean stated that all was right in the cathedral, but from the following statements it would appear that there were several abuses which might with advantage have been corrected. It was affirmed (1) that the chaplains often resorted to a chantry within the church, and there played at dice, bones, and cards in questionable company, often staying till after midnight; (2) that the servants of the dean and other residentiaries did great mischief to the fabric of the church, by breaking the glass windows and the stone tracery with their arrows and crossbow bolts, and by piercing the lead on the roof with their missiles. In the examination that followed it was found that, though large sums had been spent on the fabric, there was still urgent need of further repairs, and an appeal to the public was necessary. We may well be grieved at "the great mischief" done at this time, which would partly account for the dilapidated state of some of the stained glass windows; but the minster was to suffer far more severely under Henry VIII. In the Chapter Acts of 1520 we find mentioned the "head of seint hugh closed in silver gilt and enamelled." The treasure belonging to it is also carefully detailed, down to "a littil blew stone" and "ij qwysshyns of silk." Thus zealously had it been guarded ever since the mishap of 1364, but its doom was now pronounced. At the end of a "Registre and Inventarye of all Jewell Westimentes and other ornamentes in the yere of owr lorde god m.ccccc.xxxvj," is "A Copye of the Kinges Lettres by force whereof the shrynes and other Jewels were taken" [1540]. Part of the letter may be given here: "For as moch as we understand that there ys a certain shryne and di[vers] fayned Reliquyes and Juels in the Cathedrall church of Lyncoln with [which] all the symple people be moch deceaved and broughte into greate su[per]sticion and Idolatrye to the dyshonor of god and greate slander of th(is) realme and peryll of theire own soules,
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