English Cathedrals Illustrated / Second and Revised Edition

by Francis Bond

The bishopric of Durham has a long history, though the cathedral was not at Durham till 1018. The conversion of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, north of the Thames, had been brought about by the missionaries of the Irish and Scottish church. Augustine’s mission in Kent, and that of Paulinus in the north—both sent from Rome—had for their object, not so much the conversion of England, as to induce the English Christians to transfer their allegiance from the Celtic to the Roman Church. The success of Augustine’s mission had been but short-lived. He landed in England A.D. 597; his death occurred in 605; and in 616 the Kentish kingdom relapsed into paganism. Paulinus landed in 601; proceeded to Northumbria in 625, but left it in 633, when, like Kent, most of Northumbria relapsed into paganism. The real “apostle of the north” was not Paulinus, but Aidan, who was sent at the request of King Oswald from Iona, and in the year 635 became the first bishop of the north of England.

(1) For thirty years the see was at Lindisfarne (Holy Island), but the jurisdiction of the bishop extended over all England north of the Humber, and over the south of Scotland (635-665). (2) In 678, Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury split up the vast Northumbrian diocese into the four bishoprics of York, Lindisfarne, Hexham, and Whitherne in Galloway. Twelve bishops ruled the now curtailed see from 678 to 900, the cathedral still remaining at Lindisfarne. The second of these was the famous St. Cuthbert (685-688). (3) In fear of the Danes, the body of St. Cuthbert was removed to Chester-le-Street, seven miles north of Durham, and eight bishops had their cathedral at Chester-le-Street (900-995). (4) Once more, in fear of the Northmen, the see was removed—this for the last time—to Durham. Including Aldhun, the last bishop of Chester-le-Street and the first bishop of Durham, there have been, up to 1898, sixty-one bishops of Durham.

In the earliest days, we always read of monks as carrying about the relics of St. Cuthbert and serving the cathedral. Later on, but still in Anglo-Saxon days, the monks gave way to Secular Canons. These in turn were replaced by Benedictine monks by the Norman bishop, William of St. Carilef (1081-1096). In 1540 the monastic establishment was suppressed, and the cathedral was placed on the New Foundation, like the Benedictine cathedrals of Canterbury, Winchester, Ely, Norwich, Rochester, and Worcester, with an establishment once more of Secular Canons.

NAVE.

In Anglo-Saxon days England was divided into provinces, whose earls exercised quite as much power as the Viceroy of the Empress exercises nowadays in India. These powerful and dangerous viceroyalties the Norman sovereigns abolished, with two exceptions. To guard the Marches against the Welsh, they left the old Earldom or Viceroyalty of Chester, putting it in the hands of a layman. To guard the Scottish border, they united with the Bishopric of Durham the Earldom of Northumberland. Between Tees and Tyne, and in some external districts, the Bishop of Durham had palatine jurisdiction. Here the King’s writ did not run; but the writs were drawn in the name of the bishop. As feudal lord, his seat was Durham Castle; as bishop, Durham Cathedral. Hence that wonderful group, castle and cathedral, which one sees from the Wear bridge towering overhead; unique in England, but not rare in the cities of the Prince-Bishops of the Holy Roman Empire: Lausanne, Chur, or Sitten. With the Bishop of Durham rested the power of life and death in case of murder, or even of treason itself. The most magnificent of all these powerful prelates was Anthony Bek (1283-1310). His own personal followers, when he marched with Edward I. against the Scots, included 26 standard-bearers, 140 knights, 1000 foot, and 500 horse. “Surrounded by his officers of state, or marching at the head of his troops, in peace or in war, he appeared as the military chief of a powerful and independent franchise. The court of Durham exhibited all the appendages of royalty; nobles addressed the palatine sovereign kneeling; and instead of menial servants, knights waited in his presence-chamber and at his table, bareheaded and standing.” But in 1536, Henry VIII. swept away the most important of the powers of the Counts Palatine. The ancient form of indictment “contra pacem Episcopi” was altered to “against the King’s peace,” and the King’s writ ran in Durham see. Still, the palatinate county of Durham was not fully an integral part of the realm, and up to 1675 did not send members to Parliament. It was not till 1836 that the privileges of the County Palatine were fully and finally vested in the Crown. Even now, the towers of Durham have a stern military air, such as no other English cathedral possesses; for a parallel to which we must go to the fortress-cathedrals of Albi and the south-west of France. Durham cathedral is “half House of God, half castle ’gainst the Scot.”

Of the Anglo-Saxon cathedrals in wood or stone nothing remains. The architectural history of the present cathedral commences with the accession of the second Norman prelate, William of St. Carilef, or St. Calais on the southern border of Maine, who was bishop from 1081 to 1095, and is said to have laid the foundations of the Norman cathedral in 1093 on August 11th. The building operations of the Norman cathedral admit of a threefold division: (1) The choir and choir aisles; the arcade and triforium of the eastern aisles of both transepts; the crossing; the first bay of the nave and the first arch of the nave-triforium; and the whole of the outer walls of the nave up to the top of the aisle-arcade of intersecting arches. All this is supposed to have been built by William of St. Carilef between August 11th, 1093, and January 6th, 1096; i.e., in two and a half years; which seems impossible. (2) In the interval of three years between Carilef’s death and the appointment of Ralph Flambard, the monks are said to have finished the transepts. (3) Between 1099 and his death in 1128, Ralph Flambard finished the nave. These three divisions are architecturally correct; they are borne out by differences of detail; and they follow the same order of building which was observed elsewhere. But it does not follow that the exact dates given above, on mediæval authority, are correct.

The most important matter is the date of the high vaults. From architectural evidence it is pretty clear that the vaulting was executed in the following order: (1) the vaults of the aisles of the choir and transepts, said to be not later than 1099; (2) the high vault of the choir, now destroyed, said to be not later than 1104; (3) the vaults of the aisles of the nave, said to be not later than 1128; (4) the high vaults of the transepts and nave, said to be not later than 1133. The chronology of the high vaults is a very important question in the history of mediæval architecture, especially as affecting the reputation of English architects. If the above dates are correct, it was the Durham architect, and not a Frenchman, who was the first to solve the great problem of mediæval architecture: how to construct and keep up a ribbed vault, oblong in plan, over a central aisle. With it goes the question of priority in the use of flying-buttresses to take the thrust of a high vault. If the dates given above are correct, Durham was a generation ahead of the whole world in the construction of a high vault and in the use of flying-buttresses.

WEST TOWERS.