They consist of figures and foliage, and the variety of subjects chosen is no less surprising than the skill the artists have shown in the realization of their ideas. Whether they are peculiar to Exeter or not, it may be safely said that one could not easily find their equals either in design or execution. The subjects treated are too numerous for detailed treatment in this place, but the carving of vines and acorns and oakleaves will be readily admired.
The nave has seven bays, and the arcades are supported by clustered pillars of Purbeck marble, showing various tints of blue and grey. There are sixteen shafts in each pier corresponding with the eight subordinate mouldings in each pair of arches, and the diagonal position of each cluster adds much to its graceful appearance. In the retro-choir there are earlier examples of this kind of pier, showing how the builders experimented with the grouping of the shafts before they attained the perfect proportions of the pillars in the nave and choir. It seems that they utilized the Norman pillars as the central core round which to group the Purbeck shafts. The triforium, in groups of four arches, is unusually low, and rests on small clustered columns, broken in one place only on the north side to make way for the Minstrels' Gallery.
The Minstrels' Gallery.—This is the most beautiful gallery of its kind to be found in England, its twelve decorated niches containing figures of musicians. The musical instruments represented include the cittern, bagpipe, hautboy, crowth, harp, trumpet, organ, guitar, tambour, and cymbals, with two others which are uncertain. The tinted figures of the angels, standing out against an orange-coloured background—each in a separate niche with an elaborately carved canopy—playing upon the various instruments, are admirably carved and most graceful in form and arrangement. The two niches on either side of the gallery contained figures of St. Mary and St. Peter; the niches are supported by corbelled heads of Edward III and Queen Philippa. Edward III created the Black Prince Duke of Cornwall in 1337, and made the city of Exeter part of the duchy. "The city," according to Izacke, "being held of the said duke, as parcel of the dutchy, by the fee farm rent of twenty pounds per ann." To this connexion has been traced the erection of the gallery, for such duchies "were territorial realities," and the prince would be received by minstrels chaunting in the gallery whenever he paid a visit to his feudal dependency. It is asserted that it was first used after the battle of Poictiers, when the Black Prince brought with him to England, visiting Exeter en route for London, the captured French King. But Professor Freeman thinks the Duke did not pay a visit to Exeter at that time, and that local tradition refers really to a later date when "he came home as a sick man" not long before his death.
The lofty character of the clerestory above the gallery, and set somewhat farther back, is remarkable. The tracery of all the windows is of the best type of the fourteenth century and is unrivalled by that of any other English cathedral of similar date. In their main features the opposite windows are alike, though they vary in detail.
