CHOIR, LOOKING WEST.
VIII. Tudor.—Early in the sixteenth century the canons unhappily determined to give their unique church more of the look of a cathedral by adding aisles to the nave. It is pleasant to add that they were unsuccessful. The nave is exceedingly low in proportion to its exceptional span, and being, moreover, unprovided with a triforium, does not look in the least like a cathedral, but like a very inferior parish church. Externally, the buttresses are of fine composition, and if the pinnacles were completed, the nave would be very handsome externally.
In 1593 the central spire—of timber and lead—was struck by lightning, and in 1660 it was removed. It was 120 feet high. In 1664, for fear of a similar catastrophe, the western spires also were removed. The result is that, seen from a distance, minus spires and minus pinnacles, Ripon Minster is stunted and squat.
The Cathedral Church of St. Andrew, Rochester.
FROM NORTH-EAST.
Rochester and London, next to Canterbury, are the oldest of all the English bishoprics, unless, indeed, we are prepared to accept a pre-Augustine bishopric of Hereford. St. Augustine, soon after his landing in 597, came to preach at Rochester. His reception was not encouraging; the rude people hung fish-tails to his coat. Wherefore in anger the saint prayed “that the Lord would smite them in posteriora to their everlasting ignominy. So that not only on their own but on their successors’ persons similar tails grew ever after.” The worst of it was that the story spread, and not only Rochester people but all English folk were believed on the Continent to be caudati (tailed). So that even in the sixteenth century “an Englishman now cannot travel in another land by way of merchandise or any other honest occupying, but it is most contumeliously thrown in his teeth that all Englishmen have tails.”
Among St. Augustine’s Italian missioners were St. Justus and St. Paulinus. St. Justus became first bishop of Rochester in 604. St. Paulinus, after eight years of mission work in Northumbria, became bishop of Rochester in 633. The first English bishop was St. Ythamar (644-655). These three were the chief local saints of Rochester in early days.