“The vault is of Perpendicular design, and known as lierne; such vaults may be distinguished by the fact that between the main ribs, springing from the vaulting shafts, are placed cross ribs forming a pattern, as it were, and bracing the main ribs, but not in any great measure structural. This vault at Norwich may be taken as typical of the last legitimate development of the stone roof; it was the precursor of the later fan-vaulting, such as we find in Henry VII.’s chapel at Westminster, where legitimate construction was replaced by ostentatious ingenuity and the accumulation of needless ornament and detail.
“To all those who take an interest in early stone-cutting, this vault of Norwich is a store of inexhaustible treasure; the bosses, rudely cut as they are, tell their own tales with singular truth and directness. Their sculpture may not display the anatomical knowledge of the work of the Renaissance; yet it has a distinct decorative value that has been seldom equalled in the later decadent period. The fourteen large central bosses on the main longitudinal ribs present in themselves an epitome not only of Bible history, but of the connecting incidents forming the theme of Christian teaching. In the tenth bay, on the longitudinal rib, there is, in place of a boss, a circular hole through the vault. It is supposed to have been formed to allow a thurible to be suspended therefrom into the church below. Harrod, quoting from Lambard’s ‘Topographical Dictionary,’ says: ‘I myself, being a child, once saw in Poule’s Church at London, at a feast of Whitsontide, wheare the comyng down of the Holy Gost was set forth by a white pigeon that was let to fly out of a hole that is yet to be seen in the mydst of the roof of the great ile, and by a long censer which, descending out of the same place almost to the very ground, was swinged up and down at such a length that it reached at one swepe almost to the west gate of the church, and with the other to the queer [quire] stairs of the same, breathing out over the whole church and companie a most pleasant perfume of such sweet things as burned therein.’
“It is probable that the hole in the nave vault at Norwich was used for a similar purpose; and its position would seem to agree with such use, situated as it is about midway between the west end and where the front of the mediæval rood loft occurred.”—(C. H. B. Q.)
In the aisles we find Decorated windows, and in the triforium, Perpendicular windows.
The Choir-Screen was erected by Bishop Lyhart in 1446-1472, but only the lower part survived the fury of the Puritan mob. The organ was placed in its present position in 1833. Immediately under the organ loft is a single compartment, blocked off from the north and south aisles by screens that originally belonged to one old screen (Perpendicular). This ante-chapel was formerly the chapel of Our Lady of Pity.
The Choir extends a little into the nave, and, therefore, beyond the tower and transepts. There are sixty splendid Choir-stalls of the Fifteenth Century, with ornate misereres. The Bishop’s Throne and Pulpit are modern. The old Pelican Lectern, in the Decorated style, should be noticed.
Norwich: East