When Remigius, anticipating the policy of the Council of London, transferred his see from Sidnacester (Stowe) to Lincoln, he found the king’s new castle already occupying the south-west quarter of the area within the Roman walls of the old Colonia; and purchased the south-east quarter for the site of his new cathedral; a wide open space only separated the castle-gate from the humbler gate of the cathedral close. The old inhabitants, reinforced by the new military and ecclesiastical populations, found the northern half of the city too strait for them, and a new walled town sprang up at the foot of the hill, and soon stretched out a long, narrow suburb southward, along the high-road, defended by parallel dykes. The situation was a fine one. The long tableland to the north here falls steeply to the level of the river Witham, and overlooks another long level stretching southward. From the north, the castle keep and the minster towers (when they were built) could be seen from every yard of the twelve miles of perfectly straight Roman road which ran northwards towards the Humber. Seen from the south, the view of the city was a glorious one. The new buildings of the castle and minster extended in a long line on the brow of the hill; an irregular line of steep street connected the old city with the new town at its feet; the river, enlarged and made navigable by the Romans, protected the approach from the south, and wound through low ground past the monastery of Bardney, and, in later days, the castle and collegiate church of Tatteshall, to the port of Boston at its embouchere. Durham only of English cathedrals occupies so advantageous a site, and, together with its palatine castle, presents as noble an architectural effect. The church grew century after century, after the manner of cathedrals. A portion of the west front of Remigius still remains surrounded by the later work of Alexander; St. Hugh of Avalon added the magnificent choir; Grostete added the central tower and the parts adjacent; and so at last the Church attained the magnificent proportions which still excite our admiration. The bishop’s palace was built on a levelled space of the hillside south of the cathedral; the ruins of the “early English” halls and towers founded by St. Hugh, finished by Hugh of Wells, and the chapel added by Alnwick, still remain; and the pleasant hanging gardens above and below the buildings. The cathedral close was inclosed[349] by a wall, and its entrances at the north-east, south-east, and west were defended by gates; the “exchequer gate” at the west had a gate-house with a large chamber in the upper story. The principal residentiary buildings of a monastery were grouped in a customary order round the cloister court; but the houses of the dignitaries of a cathedral were arranged as convenience suggested. The deanery[350] stands north, and the sub-deanery south of the church; on the east side of the close still remain two old stone houses with picturesque oriels, which were—and are—the official residences of the chancellor and the precentor; the chancery has a private chapel in it.
Lincoln, from the Fens.
In the fourteenth century it became the custom, for their greater convenience and better discipline, to incorporate the[351] vicars choral, and to place them in a court of their own. The vicar’s court remains at Wells, Hereford, Chichester, and York. That at Wells, for fourteen priests, is a long inclosure with a row of seven small stone houses on each side, a chapel, with a library over it at the further end, and a hall over the entrance gate, from which there is a picturesque covered way over the public road into the north transept of the church, by which the vicars could go in comfort to their daily duties—like the pope’s covered way from the Vatican to the Castle of St. Angelo. There are only some remains of the vicar’s court at Lincoln, on the east side of the palace grounds, the old Roman wall dividing them. Every cathedral had a number of chantries, one of the very earliest was that to Bishop Hugh of Wells, in this cathedral. The Burghersh chantry, founded by Bartholomew Burghersh, had five priests, who, with the six choristers and their schoolmaster, formed a corporate body, and all lived together in the chantry-house, which still remains in very perfect condition on the south side of the close. Among the interesting features of Lincoln, the treasurer had charge of a dispensary, which contained his stock of medicines; walls of an apartment in the cathedral are still surrounded by the niches.[352]
The chapter-house of a cathedral, served by seculars, was a very important feature. In monasteries it was always quadrangular, but in secular cathedrals, for some unknown reason, it was always polygonal.[353] It had always a central pillar, from which the groining spread on all sides, like the leaves of a palm-tree; externally it was covered with a tall conical roof. Here the dean and chapter met for the transaction of their capitular affairs, and here the bishop held his synods.
The camera communis (common room) of the canons intervened between the north transept and the chapter-house; over the vestibule was the office of the master of the works. Near by, north-east of the chapter-house, is a well, covered with a little stone octagonal building with conical roof. When we call to mind that there are wells within several cathedral churches—at York, in which King Edwin was baptized by Paulinus, at Winchester, and elsewhere—we are led to conjecture that the water of these wells may have been used for various ritual purposes.
The date of the incorporation of the Dean and Chapter of Lincoln is 1086, and the bishop gave it statutes which seem to have been derived from Rouen.[354] The historian, Henry of Huntingdon, gives a charming description of the members of the original chapter, who were personally known to him, for he was the son of one of them.[355]
“Ralph the Dean, a venerable priest. Rayner the Treasurer, full of religion, had prepared a tomb against the day of his death, and oft sate by it singing of psalms and praying long whiles, to use himself to his eternal home. Hugh the Chancellor, worthy of all memory, the mainstay and, as it were, the foundation of the Church. Osbert, Archdeacon of Bedford, afterward Chancellor, a man wholly sweet and loveable. William, a young Canon of great genius. Albin (my own tutor) and Albin’s brothers, most honourable men, my dearest friends, men of profoundest science, brightest purity, utter innocence, and yet by God’s inscrutable judgement they were smitten with leprosy; but death hath made them clean. Nicolas, Archdeacon of Cambridge, Huntingdon, and Hertford—none more beautiful in person, in character beautiful no less, ‘Stella Cleri,’ so styled in his Epitaph [Henry’s father]. Walter, prince of orators. Gislebert, elegant in prose, in verse, in dress. With many other honoured names with which I may not tax your patience.”[356]