We have recorded the building of the Cathedral and some of the principal national events of which it was the scene. But it is also necessary, if our conception of its history is to aim at completeness, to consider the character of its services, of its officers, of its everyday life.
We speak of St. Paul's as "a Cathedral of the Old Foundation," and of Canterbury and Winchester as of "the New Foundation." What is the difference? The two last named, along with seven others, had monasteries attached to them. Of such monasteries the Bishop was the Abbot, and the cathedral was immediately ruled by his subordinate, who was the Prior. Other monasteries also had Priors, namely, those which were attached to greater ones. Thus the "Alien" houses belonged to great monasteries at a distance, some of them even across the sea, in Normandy. These houses became very unpopular, as being colonies of foreigners whose interests were not those of England, and they were abolished in the reign of Henry V. When Henry VIII. went further and dissolved the monasteries altogether, it became needful to reconstitute those cathedrals which were administered by monks. St. Paul's not being such, remained on the old foundation; Winchester, of which the Bishop was Abbot of the Monastery of St. Swithun, was placed under a Dean and Canons, as was the great Monastery of Christchurch, Canterbury. The last Prior of Winchester became the first Dean. It is clear, therefore, that the Dean of Winchester stands on a somewhat different historical footing from the Dean of St. Paul's,[page 53] and it becomes necessary to say something about the latter.
The word Dean belongs to the ancient Roman law, Decanus, lit. one who has authority over ten, as a centurion was one who had authority over a hundred. The Deans seem originally to have been especially concerned with the management of funerals. Presently the name became adopted to Christian use, and was applied in monasteries to those who had charge of the discipline of every ten monks. When the Abbot was absent the senior Dean undertook the government; and thus it was that in cathedral churches which were monastic it gradually became the custom to have one who acted as Dean, and this system was gradually adopted in secular cathedrals, like St. Paul's. In monasteries, however, the Dean was so far subordinate to the Prior that he had charge of the music and ritual, while the Prior had a general superintendence.
The clergy of St. Paul's then were seculars. There were thirty of them, called Canons, as being entered on the [ list ] ([κανών]) of ecclesiastics serving the church. Each man was entitled to a portion of the income of the cathedral, and therefore was a "Prebendary," the name being derived from the daily rations (præbenda) served out to soldiers. There were thirty Canons or Prebendaries attached to St. Paul's, and these with the Bishop and Dean formed the Great Chapter. To them in theory belonged the right of electing the Bishop; but it was only theory, as it is still. The real nominator was the Pope or the King, whichever happened at the crisis to be in the ascendant.
In early days the Bishop was the ruling power inside the cathedral. At its first foundation, as we have seen, it was the Bishops who exerted themselves to raise the money for the building. But as time went on the Bishops, finding their hands full of affairs of state, stood aside in great measure, retired to their pleasant home at Fulham, and left to the Dean greater power. And thus it was that, as we have already told, Dean Ralph de Diceto built the Deanery. And thus gradually the Dean became practical ruler of the cathedral—the Bishop had no voice in affairs of the Chapter, except on appeal. And it is a curious fact that the Canons attempted to exclude the Dean from the managing body, as having no Prebend. He could expel from the choir, and punish the contumacious, but they contended that he had no power[page 54] to touch the revenues. It was because of this that Bishop Sudbury (1370), in order to prevent the scandal of the Dean being excluded when the Chapter were discussing business, attached a prebendal stall to the Deanery, and thereby enabled him to preside, without possibility of cavil, at all meetings of the Chapter.
As the Canons, or at any rate many of them, had other churches, they had each his deputy, who said the service in the Cathedral. Each Prebendary had his own manor, and there were other manors which belonged to the common stock, and supplied the means of carrying on the services and paying the humbler officials. The Canons, it will be remembered, were secular, not monks; but they had a common "College," with a refectory, kitchen, brewhouse, bakehouse, and mill. Archdeacon Hale computed that the manors comprised in all about 24,000 acres, three-eighths of which were managed by the cathedral body, and the rest let to tenants, who had protecting rights of their own. In addition to these were the estates attached to the Deanery.
But with the changes which Time is always bringing, it came to pass that some of the Canons, who held other benefices (and the number increased as the years went on), preferred to live on their prebendal manors, or in their parishes; to follow, in short, the Bishop's example of non-attendance at the cathedral. And thus the services devolved on a few men who stayed on and were styled Residentiaries. These clerics not only had their keep at the common College, which increased in comfort and luxury, but also came in for large incomes from oblations, obits, and other privileges. At first it seemed irksome to be tied down to residence, but as time went on this became a privilege eagerly sought after; and thus grew up, what continues still, a chapter within the chapter, and the management of the cathedral fell into the hands of the Residentiaries.
A PONTIFICAL MASS.
'Ad te levavi animam meam.'
From a Missal of the Fifteenth Century. British Museum, 19897.