A visit to St. Stephens rewards the archæologist by a sight of a few old stalls and a font of early date, while the historian associates with it the memory of the celebrated Parker, second Archbishop of Canterbury, who was a native of Norwich, and some say of this parish, but at any rate was singing pupil of the priest and clerk of this church. Parker’s life occupies an important position in history. The son of “a calenderer of stuffs,” in this city, he was at a very early age left fatherless, and dependent upon a mother’s guidance and direction for his education. Her superintending care provided him with a variety of masters for the several branches of learning—reading, writing, singing, and grammar—each being acquired under a separate teacher. He afterwards entered Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, whence he was invited to the magnificent foundation of Cardinal Wolsey’s (now Christ Church) College, Oxford, but preferring to remain at Cambridge, he declined. In 1553, he was made chaplain to Queen Anne Boleyn, and received from her a special commission to superintend the education of her daughter Elizabeth.
He was made chaplain to King Henry VIII., after the death of Anne Boleyn, and continued the same office in his successor’s reign; added to which, he was Rector of Stoke in Essex, Prebend of Ely Cathedral, and successively Rector of Ashen in Essex, and Birlingham All Saints, in Norfolk. He was chosen Master of Corpus Christi College in 1544, and Vice-Chancellor of the University. Happening to be in Norfolk during the celebrated “Kett’s rebellion,” he had the courage to go to the rebels’ camp and preach to them out of the oak of Reformation, exhorting them to moderation, temperance, and submission, which expedition, as we have seen elsewhere, had well nigh terminated fatally.
In 1550–1, he was put in the commission for correcting and punishing the new sect of Anabaptists, then sprung up. In Mary’s reign he was deprived of most of his dignities, upon the plea of his being married, and retired into Norfolk amongst his friends; but upon the succession of his old pupil, Elizabeth, he was exalted to the dignity of Archbishop of Canterbury. Her Majesty made several visits to his house at Canterbury. His efforts to suppress the vague prophecies that were continually being set up in the various dioceses, and exciting the minds of the people, made him many enemies among the Puritans, but he still enjoyed the favour of the Queen. He died in 1576, leaving, amongst numerous
charitable bequests, a legacy to be applied to keeping his parents’ monument, in St. Clement’s church-yard, in repair.
St. Peter’s Mancroft, the brightest star in the constellation of churches that illumine the “Old City,” has beauties and curiosities of almost every variety and character to offer for investigation; but perhaps none so loudly appeal to the senses of the citizens at large as the eloquent “changes” rung upon its magnificent set of bells, whenever occasion offers for a display of the fulness and richness of their tone; and, possibly, their melody is never more appreciated than when it comes forth in the softened echo of the beautiful muffled peal.
Touching the presence of bells in the church, we have noticed elsewhere that they were introduced among the incrustations of Pagan worship that grew up around the early Christian forms, and owed their origin to the superstition that the sound of metal preserved the soul from the danger of evil spirits; but there are other curious facts connected with their history. The Roman Catholic baptised the bell, using holy water, incense and prayers in the ceremony and according to the missal of Salisbury, there were godfathers and godmothers, who gave them names.
A strange allegorical signification of bells after their baptism was written by Durandus, the great
Catholic authority, for the mysterious services of the church. “The bell,” he says, “denotes the preacher’s mouth, the hardness of the metal implies the fortitude of his mind; the clapper striking both sides, his tongue publishing both testaments, and that the preacher should on one side correct the vice in himself, and on the other reprove it in his hearers; the band that ties the clapper denotes the moderation of the tongue; the wood on which the bell hangs signifies the wood of the cross; the iron that ties it to the wood denotes the charity of the preacher; the bell-rope denotes the humility of the preacher’s life,” &c. &c. The description goes on yet further into detail; but the analogies between the subjects and their allegorical representations are so undiscernible, as to make it a somewhat tedious task to follow it throughout.
But St. Peter’s has manifold attractions beyond its bells. It has brasses and effigies, and monuments of every variety, commemorating the pious deeds of clergy and laity, warriors and comedians. Its vestry has pictures and tapestry and quaint alabaster carvings; little chapels jutting out from the nave like transepts, perpetuate the memory of old benefactors; and beneath its pavement lie the remains of the great philosopher Sir Thomas Browne, whose words of rebuke to the sepulchral ambition of the nameless tenants of monuments that make no record of those
that lie beneath, involuntarily arise to the mind while contemplating the spot chosen for his last resting place. “Had they made so good a provision for their names as they have done for their relics, they had not so grossly erred in the act of perpetuation; but to subsist in bones, to be but pyramidically extant, is a fallacy of duration.” And again, “to live indeed is to be again ourselves, which being not only our hope, but an evidence in noble believers; ’tis all one to lie in St. Innocent’s church-yard or the sands of Egypt. Ready to be anything in the ecstacy of being ever, as content with six foot as the moles of Adrianus.”