At the extreme end of the Cathedral once stood another chapel, dedicated to St. Mary the Great, of considerable note in early times—the offerings at the high altar amounting to immense sums—daily mass was said here for the founder’s soul in particular, his friends, relations, benefactors, &c. The chapel was about seventy feet long and thirty broad, and had a handsome entrance from the church; it has long since disappeared. The Jesus chapel on the opposite side is rather a melancholy looking place at present, one high tomb of some pretensions in the centre alone distinguishing it from a lumber room; near this chapel, in the north aisle, is the speculatory before alluded to, as the opening through which the sepulchre was watched at Easter; it has, until recently, been called the ancient “confessional,” a somewhat extraordinary position for such a priestly office to be exercised in, as were
it so, the penitent must of necessity have stood in the aisle on tiptoe to reach the ear of his confessor in the choir, who must equally of necessity have lain upon the ground to receive the confession.
And now we must pass on to the cloisters, where one almost involuntarily cries out for “the monks of old,” to come and give life to the walks among the tombs, no other earthly figure or garb, save a cowled monk, seeming to have place in such a scene. The long lines of beautiful windows, on the one side of pure early English tracery, on another of the decorated period, and another line still more elaborate in its turnings and twistings, while the last bespeaks the perpendicularism that prevails among so many of the windows of the church—each and all are beautiful. The splendidly carved doorway entering into the church, that has puzzled learned and simple alike to interpret truly, is a gem, and the perfectly preserved lavatories at the opposite corner have their own features of interest. The roof, groined and vaulted with sculptured bosses, is covered with fanciful and legendary carvings—the martyrdoms of saints, St. Anthony roasting on his gridiron, &c., St. John the Baptist and Herodias with his head in a charger; the mutilated body of another headless saint has received from some kind charitable hand the blessing of a new head, while the old one is under his arm; the date of this addition or growth is uncertain—it
looks very white, rather new; above the door leading into the ancient refectory is a carving of the Temptation, Adam and Eve and the serpent as usual; about this said carving hangs a tale, another than the story of the Fall of man, and too good to be omitted. The great historian of this comity, and all the little historians that have condensed, contracted, extracted, and dove-tailed little bits of his history together, have all with wonderful precision agreed that above this arch was carved the espousals or Sacrament of Marriage; and upon that foundation, or perhaps rather under that head we should say, entered into elaborate details of how this spot was the chosen site for the celebration of the sacrament of marriage, which every one knows was performed in the porch of the church, and not in the church itself as now, but as this spot is a very considerable number of yards distant from either church or porch, some of those troublesome people who will be continually saying Why? and seeking for a Because, began to look for these espousals, and found only a Temptation. One of these individuals, of a peculiarly persevering nature, earnestly desirous of reconciling these strange discrepancies between the assertion of a respectable old historian, and his own eye-sight, set to work, and the following was the result. He found that much of this good historian’s description of the cloister was a tolerably free translation of an old Latin work by
William of Worcester, the original manuscript of which exists in the library of Corpus Christi, at Cambridge. It was printed and edited, many years ago, by one Nasmith, and an extract is to be found in the last edition of the Monasticon, where the work of a bishop who built one side of the cloister is described as extending to the arches, “in quibus maritagia dependent,” which must be translated “in which the espousals or marriages hang.” Now it seemed to this inquisitive individual that a very trivial error of the transcriber might have entirely altered the sense of the passage; that if the word “maritagia” should turn out to be “manut’gia” for “manutergia,” all the mystery would be explained. Upon inquiry, and inspection of the original manuscript, this proved a correct surmise on the part of the ingenious as well as inquisitive individual, and the arches in which the (manutergia) towels hang, close by the lavatories, turn out to be the substitute for the arches in which the espousals hang. Overlooking the single stroke of a pen, produced these queer misconceptions for above a century.
The following is an epitaph composed for Jacob Freeman, who was buried in the cloister yard, where he used often to lie upon a hill and sleep, with his head upon a stone. The old man was very hardly used by the committee for so doing, and for frequenting church porches, and repeating the common prayer
to the people, in spite of ill treatment, he being often sent to Bridewell, whipped and reproved for it.
EPITAPH.
“Here, in this homely cabinet,
Resteth a poor old anchoret;
Upon the ground he laid all weathers,
Not as most men, goose-like, on feathers,
For so indeed it came to pass,
The Lord of lords his landlord was;
He lived, instead of wainscot rooms,
Like the possessed, among the tombs.
As by some spirit thither led,
To be acquainted with the dead:
Each morning, from his bed so hallowed,
He rose, took up his cross, and followed;
To every porch he did repair,
To vent himself in common prayer,
Wherein he was alone devout,
When preaching, jostled, praying out,
In sad procession through the city,
Maugre the devil or committee,
He daily went, for which he fell
Not into Jacob’s, but Bridewell,
Where you might see his loyal back
Red-lettered, like an almanack;
Or I may rather else aver,
Dominickt, like a calendar;
And him triumphing at that harm,
Having nought else to keep him warm.
With Paul he always prayed, no wonder
The lash did keep his flesh still under;
Yet whip-cord seemed to lose its sting,
When for the church, or for the king,
High loyalty in such a death
Could battle torments with mean earth;
And though such sufferings he did pass,
In spite of bonds, still Freeman was.
’Tis well his pate was weather-proof;
The palace like it had no roof;
The hair was off, and ’twas the fashion,
The crown being under sequestration.
Tho’ bald as time and mendicant,
No fryer yet, but Protestant—
His head each morning and each even
Was watered with the dews of heaven.
He lodged alike, dead and alive,
As one that did his grave survive,
For he is now, though he be dead,
But in a manner put to bed,
His cabin being above ground yet,
Under a thin turf coverlet.
Pity he in no porch did lay,
Who did in porches so much pray;
Yet let him have this Epitaph:
Here sleeps poor Jacob, stone and staff.”
We must not close our chapter on cathedrals and bishops without some little further notice of the more important branch of the subject, although we venture not upon biographies of the many whose names shine forth from among the list of “spiritual fathers,” well meriting more detailed sketching than would be here in place. Hall, Nix, Lyhart, and Goldwell, have had their share of passing comment, but there are other names that must not be looked over in silence. Among the earliest stands Pandulph,
the notorious legate from the Pope, during the troubled reign of John, when disputes about the appointment of Stephen Langton to the archbishopric of Canterbury had had our country under the interdict of his papal majesty; and for six years all Christian rites were suppressed, save baptism and confirmation, in consequence of jealousies between these rival powers upon the vexed question of the right of investiture. It was mainly through the agency of Pandulph that the king was at last inclined to submit, in return for which the bishopric of this diocese was conferred on the successful diplomatist. Walter de Suffield, another name of at least great local repute, was the founder of the Old Man’s Hospital, an institution at this day in the receipt of £10,000 a year, out of which some two hundred old men and women are maintained in clothes, food, and a shilling a day, and lodged in a beautiful old church, founded by Lyhart at a later period, the trustees of such a fund thinking this arrangement preferable to restoring the church to its original use, and providing more suitable buildings for the accommodation of the recipients of the charity. The tomb of Suffield, in his own chapel, at the east end of the cathedral, became a shrine for worship, to which pilgrimages were frequent, and miracles in abundance were said to be wrought.