SOUTH TRANSEPT.
VII. From 1235 to 1253 the see was occupied by a man of the highest vigour and ability—Bishop Grosstête—who signalised his rule by many great works. Luckily St. Hugh had been canonised in 1220, and money, no doubt, flowed in abundantly from the pilgrims. But in 1239 the central tower fell. It seems to have fallen to the south-east, and to have damaged seriously the adjacent parts of the transept and choir, and in particular the south side of the choir and the south-east transept. Everything else had to be laid aside to get the mischief repaired. The repairs seem to have been executed with the greatest haste and carelessness. The new mouldings on the western side of the westernmost arches of the choir did not fit the old, and a ring of stone was worked to hide the awkward junction. Every arch in the south triforium is out of centre, and the trefoils and quatrefoils are cut most clumsily. In the end bays of the triforium of the choir and transept the central stalks “were replaced by ugly moulded blocks resembling nothing so much as a pound of candles.” The reconstructed arches may be recognised by having hood-moulds. The canons wanted to get back into their choir as soon as possible, and may well have regarded the whole affair as merely a makeshift till the nave should be finished, and they could transfer their services to it, and then pull down and rebuild St. Hugh’s choir more stably and in greater height. In the south-east transept the inner wall of the tower was taken down, and the upper part of the end wall was rebuilt. This work was done more carefully, there being no need to hurry over it, as it did not interfere with the use of the choir.
ANGEL TRIFORIUM.
The canons could now resume their work in the nave. But their resources had been heavily taxed by the unexpected demands made on them by the fall of the central tower. They took counsel, unfortunately, with economy. The original design had been, probably, to make the nave very much longer than it is now, and then to build a brand-new west front, as at Wells and Lichfield. The nave needs much greater length, being of the exceptional breadth of forty-two feet. Now it was decided not to sweep away, but to utilise the Norman west front and western towers as far as possible, and to curtail the nave accordingly. Unfortunately, the new cathedral had not been built at right angles to the Norman façade. The axis, therefore, of the remaining bays of the nave had to deviate so as to strike the façade as centrally as possible. Moreover, the western vault of the nave was too lofty for the façade, so it was suddenly dropped two feet at the end of the five eastern bays; and the distance between the completed bays and the façade being insufficient for two arches of the span of the eastern ones, the two western bays had to be built narrower than the rest. A different vault, too, was built in the aisles of these two bays.
All this is regrettable; but though Lincoln minster is shorter than it should be, its vast spaces, dimly lighted with scanty beams filtering through narrow lancets, are wonderfully impressive; the distances, yet further enhanced by the interposition of organ and screen, seem really infinite. It is not, like Ely, a study in contrasts, but in harmonies. The design of the nave leads without a break to that of the transepts; the design of the transepts to that of the choir; the design of the choir, aided by the rich stalls and screens, to the splendour of the presbytery, where the light breaks forth at length to irradiate the loveliness of moulding and foliage and sculptured imagery.
Though the length of the nave was now curtailed in the altered design, some compensation was found in throwing out a flanking chapel on either side of the two westernmost bays. The position of these chapels may be founded on those of Ely; it was repeated by Wren in St. Paul’s. In all three cathedrals it gives a noble air of spaciousness on entering by the western doors. The vault of the northern chapel is supported, as if it were a chapter-house, by a beautiful central pier. This pier consists of eight shafts of Purbeck marble, very acutely pointed, once so highly polished, like the rest of the Purbeck shafts, says a mediæval versifier, that they positively dazzled the eyes.
