English Cathedrals Illustrated / Second and Revised Edition

by Francis Bond

FERETORY.

The Presbytery.—The space between the central tower and retro-choir was occupied by the Norman choir, less its apse, up to about 1320, when this choir was pulled down and the present pier-arcade was built, with the clerestory; which latter, however, received new window-tracery in the sixteenth century. To the same period, the Curvilinear, but a little later, belongs the exquisite series of nine tabernacles in the retro-choir, on the wall at the back of the feretory; the naturalistic foliage of which is perhaps the best work in the cathedral. Below is an original entrance to the crypt, now called the “Holy Hole.” Above it accordingly is the inscription:

“Corpora sanctorum sunt hic in pace sepulta

Ex meritis quorum fulgent miracula multa.”

The Nave.—We now pass into the south aisle of the nave. The nave is of exceptional interest, for three reasons. In the first place, for its vast length of 12 bays of 250 feet. Norwich has 14 bays of 230 feet. Secondly, because, after the work at Gloucester, it is the earliest work we possess in the Perpendicular style. Thirdly, because its Perpendicular vesture is little more than skin deep, the solid core of every pier and every wall, from pavement to roof, being Norman. It is just this combination of the massive solidity of Romanesque with the grace and elegance of Gothic which makes it what it is, the finest nave in the country. The walls are Norman; built, in Norman fashion, of rather small and square blocks; they are thick, nearly 10 feet thick at the top; outside the south aisle may still be seen the flat Norman buttresses; hidden behind the balustrade of the clerestory are the upper arches of the Norman triforium, one of which we saw in the south transept. The vault rests on the original Norman vaulting-shafts, though they are stopped by Perpendicular capitals. They are not really stopped, however; for when we mount up to the back of the vault we find the vaulting-shaft, piercing through the vault, rising to the very top of the wall, to support, as they once supported, a wooden ceiling like that of Peterborough. Near the eastern end of the south aisle the lower part of a Norman shaft has been left; probably because it was covered up by some later shrine or altar. Crossing the nave, still clearer evidence of the character of the early work is to be seen in the second and third piers from the east of the north arcade. These were covered up by a great rood-screen, now destroyed.

NAVE.

Putting this evidence together, it is plain that we have here a Norman nave transmogrified—Norman in core, but with a Perpendicular casing. This casing, however, is not merely skin-deep, as in Gloucester choir, where the Norman work can be seen at the back of the Perpendicular screens and panelling. The casing at Winchester goes at least one stone deep into the piers. But it was not executed all in the same way. Bishop William of Wykeham’s work, in the seven western piers of the southern arcade, has the new mouldings cut in the original Norman stones. But in the rest of the piers it was found simpler and cheaper to withdraw the Norman stones one by one, and replace them with new stones with Perpendicular mouldings cut on them. The small Norman windows, of course, were destroyed altogether, and replaced by short and broad windows by Bishop Edingdon, probably about 1360, perhaps under the superintendence of William of Wykeham, who was his secretary, in the extreme west of the nave; and by taller and more graceful windows in the later work of William of Wykeham and his successors. The mouldings of all this Perpendicular work are rather large and coarse; but we must remember that the architect was restricted at first to such mouldings as could be developed out of the Norman detail, and in any case they had to be in harmony with the big and heavy Norman vaulting-shafts which were retained unaltered in the Perpendicular design. About the same time forty feet of the western bays was pulled down. Edingdon’s work in the nave may be distinguished by the broad windows, two in the north and one in the south aisle; and by the cusps in the panelling, which in Edingdon’s work are foliated, and in the later work are left plain. In the new design the internal elevation consists of two parts—a tall pier-arcade, and a clerestory with a balustrade in front of the lower part of it.

How low the original Norman pier-arcade was, is shown by the Norman capitals which are left in the eastern piers of the northern arcade. The Norman triforium was exceptionally large. Its floor was on a level with the capitals of the new arches, and it reached up to the sill of the present clerestory windows. A glance round the corner into the transepts will make this clear. Again, the Norman nave had a flat wooden ceiling like that of Peterborough; this was replaced by a magnificent lierne vault of stone, completed by Wykeham’s successors, as is shown by the arms of Cardinal Beaufort and Bishop William of Waynflete on the bosses of the vault and in the string-course under the triforium. Magnificent as this vault is, it was no improvement to break the free flow of the diagonal and ridge-ribs by the insertion of these little liernes or tie-ribs. The earlier vault of Exeter is massive enough and quite sufficiently complicated without them. In the aisles the liernes are grouped into simple hexagonal or “stellar” patterns. The vault of the nave is often said to be unsupported by flying buttresses. They are there, however, between the vault and the outer roof of the aisles, sheltered from the weather, as are the Norman flying-buttresses of Durham and Gloucester.