Next to Prior Silkstede's chapel comes the "Venerable" chapel, which serves as a vestry for the minor canons of the cathedral. The screen of this fills the whole archway, the six canopies extending beyond the sweep of the arch. Down each side are untenanted niches, and the openings of the tracery show some beautiful and elaborate iron-work, dating from the Renaissance. A similar screen, though without canopies, divides the Venerable Chapel from Silkstede's.
The Library is approached from an old wooden staircase in the south aisle of this transept. It is a "long, low room, with oaken presses curiously carved and ornamented with gilded knobs, after the fashion of the latter half of the seventeenth century." It contains three or four thousand books, most of which are the gift of Bishop Morley, and there are many fine MSS.; but its chief treasure is a Vulgate of the twelfth century, in three folio volumes on vellum. The gorgeously illuminated manuscript is the best work extant of the Winchester school, and the fact that it was never finished renders it only the more interesting, since thereby the whole process from the first outline to the final touch of colour is evident. A legend concerning Hugh of Avalon, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln (associated with this book), is worthy of mention. Henry II., who founded the Carthusian Monastery of Witham, in Somerset, had appointed Hugh prior in 1175 or 1176, and finding that his monks needed MSS. to copy, and in particular a complete copy of the Bible, promised to give them one. To avoid expense, he borrowed this superb Vulgate from Winchester and sent it to Witham. A chance visit long afterwards of a Winchester monk revealed what had happened, and on the matter becoming known to Hugh, he returned the volume without the king's knowledge.[4] Among other important MSS. in the Library are an eleventh century copy of Bede's "Ecclesiastical History"; a twelfth century "Life of Edward the Confessor," by S. Aelred, Cistercian Abbot of Riévaulx about 1160, containing a portrait of the king within one of its initial letters; a copy of the "Promptorium Parvulorum"; a charter of Æthelwulf, King of Wessex, dated 854 and bearing the signatures of the king, his young son Alfred, and S. Swithun. There are also the chapter-books for 1553-1600; the cathedral statutes, with the signatures of Charles I. and Bishop Laud; the original charter of Henry VIII. to the cathedral, on the dissolution of the priory; and many interesting documents and printed books, some with the original chains which were fastened to their covers. Here also are kept the great seal of Henry V., the pastoral staff from Bishop Fox's tomb, his ring, those of Bishops Gardiner and Woodlock, and the one, set with a sapphire, which comes from the tomb of "William Rufus"—probably, as we have said, belonging to Henry of Blois. The library was built in 1668 A.D.
We may now return to the body of the cathedral and pass to the surroundings of the choir.
The Feretory, where the feretra or shrines of the saints were placed, lies behind the high altar and reredos, and the two doors in the latter give access to it. At one time, before the erection of the reredos, the feretory must have been visible from the choir. Behind the doors is a raised platform, seven feet in breadth, extending right across. The upper surface of this is now only three feet above the ground level, but originally it must have been far higher. Four steps give access to it. Before it is a hollow space with stumps of piers, demonstrating the ancient presence of an arcade in front of the platform. The feretory is without internal decoration, but the exterior of the east wall is adorned with nine rich Decorated tabernacles, with the yet legible names of saints and king who once occupied the eighteen pedestals within them. This inscription is to be found here:—
| Corpora sanctorum sunt hic in pace sepulta, Ex meritis quorum fulgent miracula multa. |
The floor beneath the platform is supported by a small vault, "the entrance to which (to quote Willis) is by a low arch in the eastern face of the wall under the range of tabernacles." This vault is that which was designated as the Sanctum Sanctorum or Holy Hole. The feretory is used as a receptacle for the carved work found at various dates about the cathedral, including portions of statuary once belonging to the great screen. Here lies a really marvellous lid of a reliquary chest, presented in 1309 by Sir William de Lilburn, with events in the life of our Lord and various saints vividly portrayed in colours, and decorated with the donor's armorial bearings. The "Holy Hole" has been used as a receptacle for fragments of various kinds since the end of the fifteenth century, before which it was visible from the choir, for no reredos intercepted the view. Milner states that in 1789 the whole passage and vault was so choked with rubbish that the attempt to enter it had to be abandoned. A more recent observer records that there appears to be no space for a crypt or receptacle for relics within the "Holy Hole," the chest of bones, etc., being placed on the platform over the arcade. The fragments now in the feretory are often very fine, but are most of them sadly mutilated.
The north and south sides of the feretory are flanked by the chantries of Bishops Gardiner and Fox, into which it opens. Gardiner's Chantry, in the Renaissance style, was much damaged by the Reformers, the head being knocked off the figure lying in a long niche on the outside of the chantry, and other indignities committed. Of the tomb nothing now remains, but there is an altar with figures at the back, after Italian models, representing, according to one tradition, Justice and Mercy, while others say the Law and the Gospel. At the east end is a small vestry used as a repository for fragments. The details and the mouldings of Gardiner's chantry are of the Renaissance style, and Britton has described the chapel as "bad Italian and bad English." This is true of the eastern end of the compartment, but there are redeeming features amid the curious mixture of styles. Below the floor-level of this chantry may be seen the base of one of the Norman apse piers, the sole remaining feature of the Norman east end except the crypt.