From a photo by Albert F. Coe, Norwich
NORWICH CATHEDRAL.
The conquest of England by William, Duke of Normandy, had a vast influence on the ecclesiastical buildings of the country. On the continent art had advanced at a pace unknown in this island, and the plain and massive churches scattered over the land must have seemed very rude structures in the eyes of the prelates who came in the victor’s train. S. Edward the Confessor, with his Norman predilections, had no doubt accustomed his courtiers to some aspects of foreign art, and through his influence the so-called Norman architecture preceded the Normans in the country; but such instances of it as were to be seen must have been few, and probably confined to the southern counties.
Scarcely had the Conqueror’s throne been secured before his countrymen, placed in the abbeys and sees of England, began to rebuild, on [p 58] new and grander plans, the churches under their charge.
Lanfranc, who ascended the throne of S. Augustine in 1070, set himself to the work of rebuilding Canterbury Cathedral, not contenting himself with any enlargement or embellishment of the older fane, but making a clean sweep of that, and beginning from the foundations. S. Anselm, and the prior of the monastery, Ernulph, took up the work and enlarged upon Lanfranc’s design, pulling down and re-building the choir. Early in the next century, namely in 1130, the new Cathedral, completed under the supervision of Conrad, successor to Ernulph, was solemnly dedicated with great pomp in the presence of the Kings of England and of Scotland.
RIPON CATHEDRAL.
Meanwhile, Thomas of Bayeux, who became Archbishop of York in the same year as that in which Lanfranc obtained his English see, was busy rebuilding his Minster at York. William of Carilef commenced the magnificent pile, forming one of the finest Norman churches in existence, which crowns the Wear at Durham, in 1093; and Ralph Flambard took up the work three years later, completing it in 1128. London [p 61] was deprived of its Cathedral by fire probably about 1088, and the work of restoration was at once undertaken by Maurice, its Norman bishop. In 1079 Bishop Walkelyn began the erection of a cathedral church at Winchester, in the place of the old Saxon building which had first been founded on the conversion of King Cynegils, about 635. In all parts of the land, east and west, north and south, the builders were at work, rearing massive temples to the glory and honour of God. The chink of chisel and the blow of hammer rang everywhere in the ears of the eleventh century in England. Bishop Herbert Losinga laid the first stone of Norwich Cathedral in 1096, at which time Remigius of Fescamp had been some twenty years at work on that of Lincoln, and had passed away, leaving the completion to others. The new Norman Cathedral of Hereford was begun by Robert Losinga, who reigned as bishop from 1079 to 1096. Abbot Simeon began to build the Minster at Ely about 1092; Worcester was commenced by Wulfstan in 1084; five years later the foundation of Gloucester was laid; and in 1091 S. Osmund consecrated the church of S. Nicholas at Newcastle. Other cathedrals which were built, or [p 62] rebuilt, at about the same date include those of Carlisle, S. Albans, Rochester, Chester, Lichfield and Oxford.