St. Augustine landed in Kent A.D. 597. In the next year Peada and Wolfhere, successive kings of Mercia, founded a monastery at Peterborough, then called Medeshamstead (“the homestead in the meadow”), and consecrated the church in the names of St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. Andrew. Then said King Wulfhere with a loud voice: “This day do I freely give to St. Peter and to the abbot and to the monks of this monastery these lands and waters and meres and fens and weirs; neither shall tribute or tax be taken therefrom. Moreover I do make this monastery free, that it be subject to Rome alone; and I will that all who may not be able to journey to Rome should repair hither to St. Peter.” This consecration took place in 664. In 870 this, the first church, was destroyed by the Danes. It was not fully rebuilt till 972. Abbot Elsinus (1006-1055) collected many curios: pieces of the swaddling clothes, of the manger of the cross, and of the sepulchre of Christ; of the garments of the Virgin, of Aaron’s rod, a bone of one of the Innocents, bits of St. John the Baptist, St. Peter, and St. Paul, the body of St. Florentinus, for which he gave 100 lbs. of silver, and, most precious of all, the incorruptible arm of the Northumbrian king, Oswald, believed by half the population of England to be an effectual cure for diseases which defied the material power of drugs. Here is Bede’s account of it: “When Oswald was once sitting at dinner with Bishop Aidan, on the holy day of Easter, and a silver dish of dainties was before him, the servant, whom he had appointed to relieve the poor, came in on a sudden, and told the king that a great multitude of needy persons were sitting in the streets begging alms of the king. He immediately ordered the meat set before him to be carried to the poor, and the dish also to be cut in pieces and divided among them. At which sight the Bishop laid hold of the King’s right hand, and said, ‘May this hand never perish,’ which fell out according to his prayer; for his arm and hand being cut off from his body, when he was slain in battle, remain entire and incorrupted to this day, and are kept in a silver case as revered relics in St. Peter’s church in the royal city.” Even King Stephen came to see it; and, what is more, remitted to the monks forty marks which they owed him. Benedict was a monk at Canterbury when Becket was murdered; and when he became Abbot of Peterborough in 1177, he brought with him the slabs of the pavement which were stained with the blood of the martyr, fragments of his shirt and surplice, and two vases of his blood. So that the monastery was called “Peterborough the Proud,” and waxed rich and mighty, and church and close were holy ground, and all pilgrims, even though of royal blood, put off their shoes before passing through the western gateway of the close.
I. The second Saxon church of 972 seems to have lasted till 1116, when it was destroyed by fire, and the present church, the third, was commenced. The foundations of part of this Saxon cathedral have been recently disinterred beneath the present south transept. It was cruciform, with a square east end. The east limb was 23 feet each way; the transept was 88 feet long. Its walls were under three feet thick, so that it cannot have been intended for a vault. There is no proof that the nave was ever built.
II. In 1116 the Saxon cathedral was seriously injured by a great fire, and next year Abbot John of Sais (Seez) commenced the present Norman cathedral. In 1140 the monks entered on the new choir, which was now complete, together with the eastern aisles and eastern wall of the transepts. It is possible that the monks patched up the damaged Saxon church sufficiently to allow service to be held in it from 1116 to 1140.
When they entered into their new Norman choir, the first thing they did, probably, was to pull down the choir and transept of the Saxon church, and on the site to erect the rest of the present south transept.
CHOIR AND TRANSEPT.
Then they built the rest of the north transept. It will be noticed that it is superior in design to the south transept, its windows are splayed, and their ornamentation of later character. This north transept is illustrated by M. Viollet-le-Duc as a specially fine example of English Romanesque.
Next would be built the remaining piers and arches of the crossing, and a low lantern tower of one story only. But the western piers would not stand without abutment, and so a certain amount of the eastern bays of the nave must have been built at the same time. This comprised two bays of the triforium, for the tympana of the two eastern bays of the triforium have rude ornaments not found elsewhere in the nave. Below, it probably comprised four piers and four arches, for the four eastern piers on the north side have different bases from those to the west.
NAVE.