We have already said sufficient of Inigo Jones, how he flagged [i.e. cased] the outside of the nave and transept, says Wren, "with new stone of larger size than before."[42] Owing to this, the plates are silent as to the window mouldings and other details. Let us pass on to the
INTERIOR.
The Nave was of eleven bays (not twelve), with triforium and clerestory, and aisles in addition. The outer coating only of the pillars was of good stone. Wren says, "They are only cased without, and that with small stones, not one greater than a Man's Burden, but within is nothing but a Core of small Rubbishstone, and much Mortar, which easily crushes and yields to the Weight." Even the outer casing, he adds, "is much torn with age, and the Neglect of the Roof."[43] Double engaged shafts reached to the clerestory, and supported the springers. The actual arcading sprang from these shorter engaged shafts, which had cushioned capitals; and the arcading of the triforium was similar. The mouldings of the arches of arcading and triforium look like the lozenge. The vaulting, too heavy for its supports, was quadripartite, with cross springers intervening, and the longitudinal rib unbroken. The Transepts were each of four bays, and in their details similar to the nave. Their north aisles were shut off by blank walls which displayed here and there the architecture of the rest; and each aisle of four bays was further divided into two equal parts of two bays each, making four compartments altogether. In one or other of these four the Consistory Court, according to Wren, was held. To the arcading of nave and transepts, Wren says that in later years four new and stronger piers were added in the common centre under the tower for the purpose of strengthening it. As these are not shown in Dugdale's plates, we can only conjecture their date to have been after the fire of 1445. By the plan they were far more massive than the others, and we can well understand Wren's complaint that they broke in upon the perspective.
THE NAVE OF OLD ST. PAUL'S.
After Hollar.[ToList]
The dates of the nave and transepts have already been suggested. After the fire of 1087, Bishop Maurice and his successor built everything afresh on a larger scale. The fire of 1136 did great damage, and restoration on a considerable scale was effected. Mr. E.A. Freeman, by a happy coincidence, touches on restorations at Wells of this time, and contrasts our two dates.[44] After the fire of 1136 the restoration would be in a style "somewhat less massive, somewhat more highly enriched." I have already pointed out Freeman's statement that the custom towards the middle of the eleventh century was to throw a coating of the more refined Romanesque of the day over earlier Norman work, and this agrees with the statements both of Wren and Pepys.
We may, then, assume that while the former ground-plan and general outline remained the same, after 1136 the pillars were encased and more elaborate mouldings added. By another statement of the same authority[45] it would seem that "the vaulting shafts run up from the ground" belong to the second restoration, when the vaulting itself was completed, and the date of this is indicated in Bishop Basset's letter of 1255.
Hence the nave and transepts were restored after the transitional Norman style, and vaulting shafts added in the fully developed Early English style, while the window tracery and other details of the isolated north aisles of the transepts were Geometrical. The four piers supporting the central tower were of a later date; but surely there must have been others, though less massive, before, otherwise it is difficult to understand how the tower and spire were supported.
Dugdale gives only two monuments in the nave. Thomas Kemp, who died bishop, reposed under the penultimate arch in the north side, in a chapel enclosed by a screen and railings. The second was that of Sir John Beauchamp, who died in 1358, and whose monument was under the eastern arch on the south side. Somehow the populace entertained the idea that this latter was the burial place of Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, uncle to Henry VI., who was murdered in 1447 and buried at St. Alban's. The adjacent part of the south aisle was called Duke Humphrey's Walk: and the tomb seems to have been a sanctuary. At dinner-time, needy people who lacked both the means to purchase a meal and friends to provide them with one, and who chanced to loiter about this sanctuary, were said to dine with Duke Humphrey, and the phrase was equivalent to having no dinner at all.