St. Augustine and his missioners had come from the monastery of St. Andrew, Rome. To St. Andrew, therefore, they dedicated the first Saxon cathedral. In 1542 the cathedral was re-dedicated to Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary of Rochester. Till 1077 the cathedral was served by secular canons; Gundulph replaced them by Benedictine monks.
I. In 1888 the foundations of an early church were found. It had an apse, but neither aisles nor transepts; walls only 2 feet 4 inches thick; 42 feet long, 28 feet broad. From the resemblance of its plan to that of St. Pancras, Canterbury, and the presence of Roman brick in the walls, it seems as likely to be a Romano-British as an Anglo Saxon church.
II. Between 1080 and 1089 Bishop Gundulph completed a Norman cathedral, except the western part of the nave. In plan it was entirely different from any Norman cathedral of the day: one can hardly help believing that it must have been designed by an Englishman. The plan of it is given in the Builder. It was a long oblong aisled cathedral, with nave and aisles running on without a break from the west end of the nave to the east end of the choir. But in the choir the side-aisles were cut off from the central aisle by a solid wall, as in the contemporary choir of St. Albans and in the Premonstratensian abbey of St. Radigund, near Dover. There was probably no crossing, and therefore no central tower. There were no transepts proper; but, as in such Anglo-Saxon churches as Worth, low porch-like transepts projected north and south, with a breadth of only 14 feet. The east end, as in most Anglo-Saxon churches, was square; and there projected from it eastward a small square chapel. Beneath was a crypt, the western part of which remains. There were two towers, both abnormal in position. The southern tower was set in the angle of the choir and the south transept, and may have been the belfry. The other tower, fragments of which still remain, was set in a similar position, but entirely detached. Being detached, and having walls six feet thick, it was no doubt a military keep. Gundulph was fond of building keeps; those of the Tower of London and Malling still exist. Rochester was exposed to and had suffered from attacks of the Danes, sailing up the Medway, in 840, 884, and 999. There was a striking memento of them on the great west doors of the cathedral, which Pepys, as late as 1661, found “covered with the skins of Danes.” We may conjecture that it was as a refuge against similar attacks that Gundulph built the northern keep.
All this work of Gundulph’s is now gone except portions of the crypt, the keep, and the nave. The original monastery was built in the normal position, south of the nave. To enclose the cloister, therefore, on the north, the south side of the nave was proceeded with next. The south aisle-wall is very thin—as was customary in Anglo-Saxon architecture—and we may conjecture that English influence stopped at this point; for the piers and arches of the nave are quite Norman in character. Of Gundulph’s nave there remain on the south side five arches, together with the lower parts of the walls of both aisles. It is very doubtful whether he built any part of the triforium or clerestory. At present his work can only be seen in its original condition from the side of the aisles. The pier arches had originally two square orders, which remain unaltered on the side of the aisle (cf. Winchester transept). Gundulph’s masonry was in rough tufa.
III. Late Norman.—The works on the church were now probably suspended for a considerable time, while the monks, as at Gloucester, replaced the temporary buildings of the monastery by permanent ones. These temporary wooden buildings seem to have been situated in the usual position—viz., south of the nave. It was probably not to interfere with these that the permanent monastic buildings were placed in an abnormal position, south of the choir. Much of this work was done by Bishop Ernulph (1115-1124), who had been a great builder at Canterbury, while prior, and at Peterborough, as abbot. Parts of the cloister, refectory, and chapter-house remain.
NAVE, NORTH SIDE.
When at length the builders returned to the nave of the cathedral (c. 1120), fashions had changed. Gundulph’s eleventh-century design and his rough tufa masonry seemed archaic and barbaric. His tufa was therefore cased with good Caen stone, as was done later in the century at Chichester; his piers and capitals were remodelled, and on the side of the nave the outer square order of the pier-arch was covered with zigzag ornament. The aisles, as at Hereford, where a precisely similar transformation of eleventh-into twelfth-century work was taking place at the same time, were left unaltered. Gundulph had placed pilasters along the inner face of the aisle-walls, evidently intending that the aisles should be vaulted; but his successors apparently thought the walls too thin, as at Carlisle, to support a vault; so, instead of vaulting the aisles and obtaining thus a continuous passage the whole length of the church, they constructed a passage in the thickness of the wall of the triforium. Thus Rochester, like Vignory, has the distinction of possessing a sham triforium. Waltham Abbey also has a triforium arcade, but no triforium floor; but that is because the vaults which originally covered the aisles had subsequently to be taken down.
Still later—about the middle of the twelfth century—is the west front, with its magnificent doorway, and the diaper of the triforium.