On the Lady Chapel in Chester Cathedral

by George Becher Blomfield

I think it fair to state in my own defence, if the information which I am able to give shall appear to be meagre and imperfect, that, when I entered upon the subject I had hoped to meet with some materials elucidating the origin, uses, and characteristics of Lady Chapels, which I have failed to discover. I have not been able to find that the subject has been specially investigated, or that the history of Lady Chapels, as separate from that of Cathedrals, has ever been traced up to its source. I believe it to be a yet unexplored mine of antiquarian lore, and one well worthy of the labour of the ecclesiastical archæologist. But, for myself, having neither leisure nor opportunity to explore it thoroughly, I must be content to give such few and simple elements of the history as I have been able to glean out of the few books within reach.

It is well known that all the European nations, from the earliest introduction of Christianity among them, have directed their most solemn worship towards the East,—a custom which we may clearly trace to the course which the progress of the Gospel took in its advance through Europe, arising from the East, and going on still towards the West, and thus realizing to each nation the Scriptural promise of the “rising of the Sun of Righteousness with healing on his wings.” The hope, also, of the re-appearing of the Saviour has always been directed towards the East; and as that hope was of a very vivid and energetic character in the earlier times of the Church, it gave further strength to the habit of addressing their devoutest aspirations in that direction. As soon as the acknowledgment of Christianity by the Empire admitted of the erection of public buildings for the celebration of divine worship, the system of Orientation was introduced into them. The altar was placed in or near the eastern extremity of every church: all the higher ceremonies of religion, and especially the administration of the Lord’s Supper, were celebrated there; and thither the eyes and thoughts of the congregation were directed as to the place of sacredness and honour. For a long period the eastern part of the churches was especially held sacred to the name and honour of Jesus Christ. But when the worship of the Virgin Mary began to assume the prominence which it has ever since held in the Romish Church, and to eclipse that of our Lord himself, it was usually celebrated in the eastern portion of the church; and, as if to give to it more special honour, the recess or chapel at the eastern extremity, adopted from the holy place of the Temple at Jerusalem, was appropriated to it. And a still further eastern end was frequently thrown out from the original structure, where the worship of the Virgin might be specially celebrated; where her statues, and shrines, and offerings might be placed; and to which not only the gaze of the people in the choir, but of the officiating priest himself as he stood before the high altar, might be constantly directed. Thus, according to the quaint remark of Fuller, a gradation of reverence was established—“The porch said to the church-yard, and the church said to the porch, and the chancel said to the church, and the Lady Chapel said to them all: ‘Stand further off, I am holier than thou.’”

It sometimes, indeed, happened in particular Cathedrals or churches that there was a Saint connected with the place who was locally held in higher honour, on account of the miraculous powers attributed to his or her relics, than even the Virgin Mary, and in such cases the eastern chapel was devoted to the honour of that Saint: as that of Becket, at Canterbury; St. Cuthbert, at Durham; St. Ethelreda, at Ely; St. Alban, at St. Albans; and St. Edward, at Westminster Abbey. In such cases we find the Lady Chapel placed elsewhere, as at Canterbury in the north aisle of the nave; at Durham, at the west end, where it is called the Galilee; at Rochester, in the south transept; at Oxford and Bristol, on the north side of the choir. In all the other Cathedrals the Lady Chapel is at the eastern extremity.

In the Cathedral of Chester it is most probable that the eastern extremity of the Norman choir was occupied by the chapel and shrine [5] of St. Werburgh, reaching as far as the eastern arch of the present choir; and, if so, the chapel of the Virgin would be at the extremity of the south aisle of the choir. Although the present building is far more extensive than that of Norman times, we shall probably find the same principles of structure and arrangement still adhered to. We have a niche still remaining, indicating the existence of an image of the Virgin, and a piscina, implying an altar, at the eastern termination of this aisle; and these are probably the vestiges of an earlier arrangement which had appropriated that part of the building to the worship of the Virgin, and they were merely repeated on the new and enlarged choir, though the altar of the Virgin was then removed to a more honourable place.

At the date of the erection of the present Lady Chapel, which I shall endeavour to fix about A.D. 1280, St. Werburgh had begun to decline somewhat in popular estimation; no miracles were ever performed at her shrine, and the taste of the age was for some demonstration of the power of the saints. There happened also to be a burst of devotion at that period towards the Virgin Mary. And therefore, when the Norman Chapel of St. Werburgh was pulled down, and the choir extended, it was natural that a new and more sumptuous chapel should be given to the honour of the Virgin, occupying the same relative position, at the eastern extremity of the choir. The original position of the shrine of St. Werburgh was probably preserved under this new arrangement; but instead of being in a separate chapel to the east of the Choir, it now fell within the Choir, which was lengthened so as to include it. In this position it is believed to have remained until the period of the Reformation, when the stone structure containing the shrine was removed and converted into a throne for the Bishop. Thus, without doing disrespect to the patron saint of the Church, the Virgin Mary was honoured with a new Chapel, to which special care and large expenditure of means were devoted.

The history of Lady Chapels, as they are found appended to all the larger Churches of Europe, and forming a part of the interior arrangement of the smaller ones, can hardly be investigated without some reference to the rise and progress of the Mariolatry of the Church of Rome. Such reference would hardly fall within the range of subjects usually treated of by this Society, and would lead us off into questions of theology and ecclesiastical history far too extensive to be dealt with in a brief and popular lecture. I shall therefore content myself with observing that the exaltation of the Virgin Mary as an object of worship took its rise in the fifth century, and advanced by gradual stages of growth until we find in the eleventh century, about the date of the Conquest, that a daily office was instituted in her honour, divine titles began to be ascribed to her, and every imaginable epithet, expressive of adoration and extravagant superstition, was lavished upon her in the writings of the time. It was at this period, just when the first Norman Earl re-founded the Monastery of St. Werburgh, and erected the building of which so many portions still remain, that Lady Chapels began to be added to churches in this kingdom. The worship of the Virgin, which had then assumed a very prominent and elaborate character, required a separate place for the celebration of it. And it is not uninteresting to remember that Anselm, Abbot of Bec and Archbishop of Canterbury, whom Hugh Lupus brought to Chester in order that he might re-model the conventual establishment, was a devoted worshipper of the Virgin Mary, and introduced into England a festival in honour of the Immaculate Conception. He would take care, therefore, that all honour was done to her, and all due provision made for the celebration of her worship in the new conventual church. We have no exact plan of that Norman structure, but from the vestiges of it which were discovered in 1841, it was apparent that there was an eastern apse or chapel, extending beyond the choir itself, which was intended probably as the chapel of the Virgin, though, as we have suggested, used as a site for the shrine of St. Werburgh. All this structure disappeared at the end of the 13th century, to make way for the present buildings, and just at this period the enthusiasm on the subject of the honour due to the Blessed Virgin was at its height.

We will endeavour now to fix, as nearly as we can, the date of the present Lady Chapel. Upon comparing it with the Chapter House the earliest of our buildings of the Early English period, a marked difference appears in the composition of the mouldings, the form of the window jambs, the size and character of the bosses, bespeaking for the Lady Chapel a more advanced period of the style. We find here, externally, ponderous upright buttresses, chamfered at the angles, and with indications of clustered columns on those of the eastern part of the building. A rich and deep hollow cornice, with very large and massive single dog-tooth ornaments, placed above a foot apart, over-hangs the outer wall, but it is now concealed under the roof of the side aisles. We have, internally, multiplied round-and-hollow mouldings around the windows, interspersed with the dog-tooth mouldings; bold and massive ribs in the groined roof, with very rich and highly-wrought bosses of great size at the intersections of the main ribs. These indications of an advanced style lead us to fix the date of erection at the period of transition from the Early English to the Decorated Order, or about the close of the 13th century. This would bring us to the time when Simon de Albo Monasterio was Abbot of St. Werburgh. He was the most able of the Abbots of Chester, and the most magnificent in his architectural restorations. His accession to the Abbacy is dated as A.D. 1265, and he lived until 1289, in the reigns of Henry III. and Edward I. In the 12th year of Edward I. we have a record of a precept being granted to allow venison from the King’s forests of Delamere and Wirral, for the support of the Monks of St. Werburgh who were engaged in the building of their church. It is clear that the first building on which they were then engaged was the present Lady Chapel, which bears evidence of the desire of the Abbot to make it worthy of her to whom it was dedicated, and of his own character for munificence. It is not improbable that this Chapel was all that was finished during the life-time of this Abbot, for there is an evident decline of architectural effort and means in the eastern portion of the choir, which was erected immediately after the Chapel. The great arch which unites the choir with the Chapel is remarked upon by Rickman, for the richness of its multiplied rounds and hollows, but this richness is not carried on to the westward. I may here remark, by the way, that this arch seems to have been formed out of the old Norman east window of the original Lady Chapel, as there are plain indications of Norman structure in the wall on each side of it. We venture then to fix the date of the erection at about 1280.

The Lady Chapel, as built by Simon de Albo Monasterio, was without aisles; the outer walls being buttressed and corniced as before described, and with a parapet, of which no portion now remains. There were three triplet windows on each side, of which the jamb mouldings only remain. The tracery of four of them was entirely removed when the side aisles were built, and that of the other two replaced at the same period by coarse perpendicular tracery. The eastern window was probably of five lights. Traces of its mullions yet remain, running down on the external face of the eastern end. Sufficient vestiges of the composition of the exterior of the Chapel yet remain to admit of its being restored externally, as well as internally, to its original form.

It does not appear that there was any entrance to the Chapel, as it was first built, except through the eastern arch from the choir. We enter it now through the side aisles, one of the windows having been cut away on each side, down to the base of the wall, in order to open this passage. This was probably done at the same time that the high altar was erected in the choir and elevated upon a platform so lofty as wholly to obstruct the passage under the eastern arch. This platform, which buried the columns up to four feet above the base mouldings, was considerably lowered in 1841.

When we enter the Chapel, the first thing perhaps that strikes us is the lowness of the ceiling, being only 32 feet from the floor to the central rib, for it is one characteristic of the buildings of this date that they rise far above the height of the Norman vaulting, and give a great impression of loftiness and lightness. The causes of this defect, if it be one, in this building, seem to have been two:—In the first place, it was necessary to keep the roof at such an elevation as would not interfere with the light of the upper east window of the choir. In the second place, the floor of the Chapel has been raised above its original level, as will be apparent from the line of the stone bench which runs round the exterior; and from the position of the Sedilia at the east end. Of the eastern window, as well of the two which are near it, on the north and south, it is obvious to remark that the tracery is of a late Perpendicular character, while the jamb mouldings are of late Decorated. Thence arises one of the chief defects of the interior of the Chapel,—the want of harmony in its architectural details, striking the eye most forcibly in the east window, the plain perpendicular tracery of which is so manifestly incongruous with the pointed English character of the surrounding features of the building. The liberality of the citizens of Chester has indeed in some measure diminished the unpleasing effect of this contrast, by the introduction of a fine east window of painted glass, designed by Pugin, and executed by Wailes in his best manner. But it is impossible not to regret that the tracery itself was not restored to its proper character before the painted glass was introduced; nor is it unreasonable to hope that this may yet be done, and that the fine window of five lights may yet be reconstructed, in order to complete the restoration of the interior of this beautiful Chapel.