Old St. Paul's Cathedral

by William Benham

As years went on, the provision for all these Chantries being found inadequate to maintain them, some were united together, and thus, at their dissolution in the first year of Edward VI., it was found that there were only thirty-five, to which belonged fifty-four[page 60] priests.

In addition to the Chantries were the Obits held by the Dean and Canons, particular anniversaries of deaths. They varied in value according to the donors' endowment from 4l. to 10s. Dugdale gives a long list of them.

This cathedral was wonderfully rich in plate and jewels, so much so that, as Dugdale says, the very inventory would fill a volume. To take only one illustration: King John of France when he was brought here by the Black Prince "gave an oblation of twelve nobles at the shrine of St. Erkenwald, the same at that of the Annunciation, twenty-six floren nobles at the Crucifix by the north door, four basins of gold at the high altar; and, at the hearing of Mass, after the Offertory, gave to the Dean then officiating, five floren nobles, which the said Dean and John Lyllington (the weekly petty canon), his assistant, had. All which being performed, he gave, moreover, in the chapter-house, fifty floren nobles to be distributed amongst the officers of the church."

With regard to the character of the services before the Reformation, we have but few data to go upon. In 1414 Bishop Richard Clifford, with the consent of the Dean and Chapter, ordained that from the first day of December following, the use of Sarum should be observed. Up to that time there had been a special "Usus Sancti Pauli."

There was an organ in the church, or rather, to use the old phrase, a "pair of organs," for the instrument had a plural name like "a pair of bellows." Organs were in use in the church at any rate in the fourth century, and were introduced into England by Archbishop Theodore. In old times there was no official organist; the duty was taken by the master of the choristers or one of the gentlemen of the choir. In churches of the regular foundation a monk played.

English Church music, in its proper sense, began with the Reformation. In the Roman Church, the great genius of Palestrina had produced nothing less than a revolution as regards the ancient Plain Song; and with the English Liturgy we associate the honoured names of Tallis, Merbecke, Byrd, Farrant in the early days, and a splendid list of successors right down to our time, wherein is still no falling off. Tallis is supposed by Rimbault to have been a pupil of Mulliner, the organist of St. Paul's, but there is no evidence to support[page 61] this. It must be confessed that his service in the Dorian mode, which heads the collection in Boyce's Cathedral Music, and which is indeed the first harmonised setting of the Canticles ever composed for the English Liturgy, is very dull, but his harmony of the Litany and of the Versicles after the Creed, has never been equalled for beauty. His Canon tune, to which we sing Ken's Evening Hymn, is also unsurpassed, and his anthem, "If ye love Me," is one of wonderful sweetness and devout feeling. John Redford was his contemporary, and was organist of St. Paul's, 1530-1540. His anthem, "Rejoice in the Lord," is as impressive and stately as Tallis's that I have just named. It is frequently sung at St. Paul's still. William Byrd was senior chorister of St. Paul's in 1554. I hold his service in D minor to be the finest which had as yet been set to the Reformed Liturgy—the Nicene Creed in particular is of marvellous beauty. Tallis had not attempted "expression" in his setting of the Canticles. The meaning seems to breathe all through Byrd's harmonies. I did not know until I read Sir George Grove's article upon him, that Byrd secretly remained a Roman Catholic, but I long ago made up my mind, on my own judgment, that his most pathetic anthem, "Bow thine ear," was a wail over the iconoclasm in St. Paul's. He died in extreme old age in 1623. Morley was another organist of St. Paul's, the author of a fine setting of the Burial Service. Paul Hentzner, who visited St. Paul's in 1598, says in his Itinerary, "It has a very fine organ, which at evensong, accompanied with other instruments, makes excellent music."

Concerning the dramatic performances which went on in the cathedral at certain times, there is nothing peculiar to St. Paul's that I know of to mention. These performances were originally intended for instruction, pictorial representations of scenes from the Bible and Church History, but often degenerating into coarse buffoonery and horseplay. The "Boy Bishop" was for many generations an established institution. One ceremony there was, peculiar to St. Paul's, namely, "The Offering of a Buck and Doe." Sir William le Baud in 1328 made a yearly grant to the Dean and Canons of a doe to be presented on the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, and of a fat buck to be offered at the midsummer commemoration of the same Apostle.

These were to be offered at the high altar by Sir William and his[page 62] descendants, and afterwards to be distributed among the Canons resident. This gift was in acknowledgment of a grant which they had made him of twenty-two acres of land adjoining his park in Essex. There was a grand ceremonial on each occasion, the Canons wore their best vestments and garlands of flowers, and there was a procession round the church, with the horns of the buck carried on a spear, and a great noise of horn-blowers. Camden describes it all, as an eye-witness. This festivity came to an end in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.