English Cathedrals Illustrated / Second and Revised Edition

by Francis Bond

Bishop Marshall.

CHOIR.

Great works were commenced between 1194 and 1206; they extend over a large part of the cathedral. First, there is the doorway, early Lancet, leading from the south aisle of the nave to the cloister, near the north-west corner of the south tower; and near here, on the south wall of the nave, are several consecration crosses of Marshall’s date. Then, passing round or through the cathedral to the north side, there will be found buttresses of very early character, heavy, low, and of few stages: (1) at St. Edmund’s chapel, to the north-west of the nave; (2) to the north porch; (3) on the north side of the nave. We may conclude then, that the works included the addition to the nave of a south-east doorway, St. Edmund’s chapel, and a north porch, and possibly the remodelling of the clerestory of the whole nave. But what is more important, the choir, instead of being three bays long plus an apse, was now made eight bays long. The Norman apse was pulled down, the three bays of the Norman choir seem to have been allowed to remain. This work, especially the eastward extension of the choir, represented a great amount of building. The new eastern bays of the choir were finished, at any rate as far as the springers of the vault; for it has been found that the present vault of the choir incorporates the lower part of the ribs of Marshall’s vault; this, of course, would be of simpler character, and was designed to be four or five feet lower than the present one. Similar great eastward extensions were going on all over England in the thirteenth century; especially the building of Lady chapels: there seems to have been quite an outburst of Mariolatry at this time.

Bishop Bruere (1224-1244).

Proceeding to the chapter-house, it will be found that the lower part was built in the later years of the Lancet period. To the same date belong the misereres of the choir. This bishop gave the cathedral body its present constitution: dean, precentor, chancellor, treasurer, and canons; it is natural that he should have constructed for them their chapter-house, with its fine arcade; and their stalls. The misereres, with their stiff trefoiled foliage, are the earliest set in the kingdom, and of exceptional interest. Bishop Bruere had travelled in the East, and designs in tapestry brought back by him may have been copied: e.g., there is the earliest representation of an elephant; a later one occurs at Boston; there are mermen and mermaids, and an illustration of the Romaunt of the Chevalier au Cygne; also Nebuchadnezzar saddled—unless this is the favourite subject of the weakness of philosophers before the charms of women, as exemplified in the temptation and fall of Aristotle.

Bishop Bronescombe (1257-1280).

The windows north and south of the retro-choir probably belong to this period. The roll-moulding appears on the principal curves only of the tracery; ever after it spreads over the whole of the tracery. The lower lights of these windows are lancets; the circles in the head are cusped. The chapels of St. Mary Magdalene and St. Gabriel, on either side of the Lady chapel, seem also to have been remodelled at this time; for the side windows of these two chapels have geometrical tracery earlier than that of the Lady chapel.

Bishop Quivil (1280-1292).

And now we come to the rebuilding of the whole cathedral. In spite of the great changes that took place in Gothic architecture during the next seventy years, the original design—that of Quivil—was adhered to almost to the very last. With the exception of a few Curvilinear windows in the western bays of the nave, all the main features of the building are as they were designed in the closing years of the thirteenth century. It is, of course, this exceptional unity and harmony of design that makes Exeter what it is—one of the most satisfactory mediæval interiors in this country. In cathedrals such as Rochester and Ely a Norman nave jars on a Gothic choir; or, as at Lincoln and York, two styles of Gothic mingle and conflict. But at Exeter, looking forward from west to east, hardly anything obtrudes on the original design. In no other cathedral, except Salisbury, do we find similar unity of design; but in the design of Salisbury simplicity becomes bareness and poverty. It cannot be compared for one moment with the richness of the lovely decorated work of Exeter. Yet greater unity and harmony is gained by the way in which the battlements and pinnacles, flying-buttresses, and cresting weld together the exterior; and the high vaults the interior, as at Norwich. The adherence, too, for so long a time to Bishop Quivil’s design is interesting, because it shows that in the early years of the fourteenth century there was at Exeter, as at Beverley, Westminster, Ely, and St. Albans, a strong current in the direction of conservation of good design. Piers and vaulting and bosses and corbels and triforium and windows of the nave, built long after he was dead and gone, are all but reproductions of Quivil’s early work. Most remarkable of all, perhaps, is the adherence to Quivil’s window tracery—the rose, the lily, and the wheel. Even the great west window, one of the last works, is but Quivil’s straight-spoked wheel translated into flowing lines.