II. Transitional.—The upper stories of the western transept, the western turrets, and the upper arches of the crossing, were not completed till about 1170. About the same date are the Infirmary chapel and the Refectory; the former east, the latter south of the cloisters.
III. Lancet (1190-1245).—Early in the thirteenth century the Galilee porch was added, in the same position as at Durham. Externally the design is commonplace; internally, “with its rich outer and inner portals, its capitals carved with delicate curling leafage, its side arcades in double rows of trefoiled arches, and the profuse dog-tooth enrichment of its mouldings, it is one of the loveliest things ever built, and one of the most English in its loveliness.” The early date of 1200 is assigned to this and to the equally beautiful western porches of St. Alban’s. If so, Gothic must have advanced with lightning speed from the jejune work of Lincoln choir and Winchester retro-choir.
Next, about 1234, the Norman apse was pulled down—partly, perhaps, because it had become unsafe, its foundations not having been carried down to the solid rock, but, much more from the need to provide more accommodation for the crowds of pilgrims to St. Audrey’s shrine. The apse was replaced by a presbytery of six bays: a presbytery of inexpressible loveliness. “Nowhere,” says Mr. Freeman, “can we better study the boldly clustered marble pier with its detached shafts, the richly floriated capitals, the yet richer corbels which bear up the marble vaulting shafts, the bold and deftly cut mouldings of every arch, great and small. Lovelier detail was surely never wrought by the hand of man.” The piers are closely spaced; and the arches, therefore, as at Beverley, are sharply pointed—in beautiful harmony with the Lancet windows. On the other hand, the trefoiling of the triforium arches contrasts delightfully with the pointed arches of pier-arcade and clerestory. Only at Beverley can the beauty of Ely presbytery be paralleled; but at Beverley the design owes everything to the architect; at Ely the sculptor may claim half the credit. Worcester choir may be placed next in order; its proportions, indeed, are very similar to those of the Ely work. The presbytery was completed in thirteen years, and cost what is equivalent to £120,000 of our money—£20,000 per bay.
OCTAGON AND CHOIR.
IV. Geometrical.—With this superb eastern extension the monks remained satisfied for some seventy years. Nothing was done in the cathedral except the insertion of large Geometrical windows to give more light to the chapels in the eastern aisle of the south transept.
V. Curvilinear (1315-1360).—But in the fourteenth century a most wonderful series of great works was carried out in Ely; the noblest works of that or perhaps of any period of mediæval building in England. First of all, it was resolved to give the Blessed Virgin the honour so long withheld from her at Ely. At Ely her rightful position in the presbytery had been usurped by St. Ethelreda, as at Durham by St. Cuthbert. Following the precedent of Bristol and Peterborough, a vast Lady chapel was now built for her on the north side of the choir between 1321 and 1349. Later on, Ely Lady chapel in turn gave birth to King’s College chapel at Cambridge. It is a wonderful piece of mediæval engineering; the vault—a very flat one—being upheld by the mathematical minimum of wall and buttress. But it was more than engineering. It was the product of a time when “Catholic purity in the best natures was still allied to the tenderness of chivalry”—
“When in reverence of the Heavene’s Queene
They came to worship alle women that beene.”
It is said that when Pugin saw the ruins of its arcade, once so glorious in its beauty—wherein are carved, in the spandrils above each canopy, incidents in the scriptural and legendary history of the Blessed Virgin—he burst into tears. He estimated the cost of the restoration of the Lady chapel at £100,000, but said that no workmen could be found competent to do the work.