Fig. 268.—Waltham Abbey.
At Durham we have a glorious temple erected by Norman bishops, over the shrine of a British saint. The body of St. Cuthbert, after many journeyings and sojournings, had eventually become domiciled at Durham; for,
“After many wanderings past,
He chose his lordly seat at last,
Where his cathedral, huge and vast,
Looks down upon the Wear;
There, deep in Durham’s Gothic shade,
His reliques are in secret laid.”
The existing cathedral was commenced in 1093, by the Norman Bishop de St. Carileph. Malcomb, king of Scotland, and his true-hearted English queen, Margaret, assisted in laying the first stones.
Sir Francis Palgrave tells us that Bishop de St. Carileph obtained the design abroad during three years’ exile from his see. I know not of any church like it abroad, but this is no refutation of the statement, which seems by no means an unlikely one, and is, I think, founded on ancient authority. However this may be, a design more noble can scarcely be conceived, and I think it must be admitted that, among all the churches erected by the Normans in England, this is the noblest though far from being the first in size.
Its great beauty is internal, and arises from the carrying throughout the principle of alternating clustered piers and vast round columns, the latter having their shafts decorated with spiral, zigzag, intersecting, and vertical flutes.
This principle, in an isolated form, we find elsewhere: as in two bays at Norwich, and a similar number at Selby, and more perfectly at Waltham, and at Lindisfarne; Durham, however, seems to have taken the lead in carrying it throughout the church. But still more remarkable is the stupendous scale and noble proportions in which it is produced.
Though the church was begun by Carileph, he only survived its commencement for three years, and a like interval of vacancy followed his decease. During this time the monks, under their zealous prior, Turgot, carried on the work, which, on the succession of Ralph Flambard to the see, in 1099, is said to have been completed.
It is clear that the general design had been laid down under Carileph, as the choir, transepts, and nave agree in their leading idea; so that, whatever influence the previous building experience of Flambard obtained during his holding the deanery of St. Paul’s or elsewhere may have had upon the details of his nave at Durham, we must award the honour of the scheme, as a whole, to Carileph’s architect, who had supplied him the design during his exile in Normandy. Both bishops were as far as may be from the beau ideal of