Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum

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Title: Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum
Author: White, Gleeson, 1851-1898
Language: English
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CHURCH OF SALISBURY***

First Edition, December, 1896.
Second Edition, revised, and with Eighteen additional Illustrations,
1898.

[Illustration: SALISBURY CATHEDRAL FROM THE BISHOP'S PALACE.
_From a Photograph by Catherine Weed Ward._]

THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF SALISBURY

A Description of Its Fabric
and a Brief History of the
See of Sarum

GLEESON WHITE

With Fifty Illustrations

[Illustration]

London George Bell & Sons 1898

Chiswick Press:--Charles Whittingham and Co.
Tooks Court, Chancery Lane, London.

GENERAL PREFACE.

This series of monographs has been planned to supply visitors to the
great English Cathedrals with accurate and well illustrated guide
books at a popular price. The aim of each writer has been to produce a
work compiled with sufficient knowledge and scholarship to be of value
to the student of archæology and history, and yet not too technical in
language for the use of an ordinary visitor or tourist.

To specify all the authorities which have been made use of in each
case would be difficult and tedious in this place. But amongst the
general sources of information which have been almost invariably found
useful are:--firstly, the great county histories, the value of which,
especially in questions of genealogy and local records, is generally
recognized; secondly, the numerous papers by experts which appear from
time to time in the transactions of the antiquarian and archæological
societies; thirdly, the important documents made accessible in the
series issued by the Master of the Rolls; fourthly, the well-known
works of Britton and Willis on the English Cathedrals; and, lastly,
the very excellent series of Handbooks to the Cathedrals, originated
by the late Mr. John Murray, to which the reader may in most cases be
referred for fuller detail, especially in reference to the histories
of the respective sees.

GLEESON WHITE.
EDWARD F. STRANGE.
_Editors of the Series._

AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

The authorities consulted in the preparation of this book are too
numerous to quote in detail. But the admirable works by the late Rev.
W.H. Jones have been proved so full of useful information that the
service they rendered must be duly acknowledged, although in almost
every instance further reference was made to the building itself--or
to officially authenticated documents. Nor must the help of one of the
cathedral cicerones be overlooked, in spite of his desire to remain
anonymous; for his knowledge of the building served to correct several
mistakes in the first edition. One moot point concerning the bishop
commemorated by an effigy in the North Choir Aisle is left an open
question. Local authorities insist that it should be attributed to
Bishop Poore, antiquarians of distinction affirm that it represents
Bishop Bingham.

The illustrations, with the exception of a few details from Britton
and Carter, are from photographs most courteously placed at my
disposal by Mrs. H. Snowden Ward, or from the series published by
Messrs. S.B. Bolas and Co., Carl Norman and Co. (now The Photochrom
Company, Ltd.), Poulton and Sons (of Lee) and Witcomb and Son, of
Salisbury, in each case duly acknowledged below the engraving.

G.W.

CONTENTS.

PAGE
History of the Cathedral 1

Description of the Exterior 16
Tower and Spire 18
West Front 25
North Porch 32
Nave and Choir 32

Description of the Interior--Plan 37
Nave 39
Transepts 42
Monuments in the Nave 43
Monuments of the Boy Bishop 49
Choir Screen 52
Organ 52
Choir and Presbytery 52
Roof Paintings 53
Choir 54
Choir Stalls 57
Reredos 57
High Altar 58
East Transept 61
Eastern Aisle 63
Lady Chapel 63
Monuments in Choir, etc. 65
Chapter House 71

The Cathedral Precincts 80
Cloisters 80
Library 82
Muniment Room 84
The Close 86
Bell Tower 87
Hungerford Chapel 88
Beauchamp Chapel 89
The Stained Glass 91

History of the See 95

The Diocese of Sarum 99
List of the Bishops 99

The Close and Churches 115

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE
Salisbury Cathedral, from the Bishop's Palace _Frontispiece_

Arms of the Cathedral _Title_

Salisbury Cathedral, the West Front _Face_ 1

Salisbury, from Walpole's "British Traveller" 1

The Cathedral from the South 3

The Cathedral and Bell Tower, from an old print 19

Portals of the West Front 27

Details of Main West Portal _Face_ 30

One Bay of the Nave, Exterior 33

The Choir Screen 36

The Nave--looking West 38

The Nave--South Side 40

North Aisle 41

Nave Transept 42

Effigy of a Bishop 44

The Choir--looking West 55

The Reredos and High Altar 58

The Choir--looking East 59

Portion of the old Organ Screen 62

Piscina in South Choir Aisle 63

Altar and Triptych Reredos in Lady Chapel _Face_ 64

South Choir Aisle, showing Lady Chapel 68

South Choir Aisle, showing Hungerford Chapel _Face_ 68

Chantry of Bishop Bridport 69

The Chapter House--Interior _Face_ 70

The Chapter House--Exterior, and Bosses 72

The Chapter House--Details of Sculpture 73

The Chapter House--Details of Sculpture 77

The Chapter House--Painted Decoration 79

Tomb of Sir John Montacute 79

The Cloisters 81

The Cloisters looking North 82

Rings found in the Lady Chapel 84

Hanging Parapet in the Close 86

Old Wall Painting, "Death and the Gallant" 88

Interior of the demolished Beauchamp Chapel 90

Fragments of old Stained Glass 92

Tomb of William Longespée, 1st Earl of Salisbury 94

Tomb of the Boy Bishop 98

Monument attributed to Bishop Poore 103

North Choir Aisle with Bingham Monument 104

Brass of Bishop Wyville 114

The High Street Gate, North and South Fronts _Face_ 116

The Church House 117

The Poultry Cross 118

Old Plan of Salisbury 119

Plan of the Cathedral 121

[Illustration: SALISBURY. THE WEST FRONT.
_From a Photograph by Carl Norman and Co._]

[Illustration: Salisbury Cathedral.][1]

HISTORY OF THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF S. MARY.

There is probably no cathedral church in Europe, certainly no other
English one, that has such a clear record of its history as Salisbury.
Whereas in almost every other instance we have only vague legendary
accounts of the original foundation of the building, in this case
there is a trustworthy chronicle of its first inception and each
successive stage of its progress extant.

Owing to reasons noted in another chapter, the former cathedral at Old
Sarum was condemned to be abandoned, and a new site chosen for its
successor; Bishop Richard Poore, through whose efforts the change of
locality was effected, is said to have hesitated long before he could
find one suitable. Wilton, then a place of some importance, attracted
him first. There is a more or less accurate MS. extant which professes
to give an account of his tentative attempts to induce the Abbess of
Wilton to permit him to build his church in a meadow of her domain. An
old sewing-woman (_quaedam vetula filatrix_) is said to have
attributed his frequent visits to quite another motive; she inferred
that the Bishop had a papal dispensation to marry, and was a suitor
for the hand of the Abbess. The negotiations failed: "Hath not the
Bishop land of his own that he must needs spoil the Abbess? Verily he
hath many more sites on which he may build his church than this at
Wilton," was the reply of the Abbess to his demand. During his period
of indecision the Virgin appeared to him in a vision, and commanded
him to build his new church in a place called Myr-field, or, as some
accounts have it, Maer-field. He searched vainly for a piece of ground
by that name, that he might obey the supernatural edict, until by
chance he overheard a labourer (or a soldier, the legends vary,)
talking of the Maer-field, and then having, as he thought, identified
the place, which appears to have been within his own demesne, he
commenced to plan the present building. Another tradition ignores the
dream, and says the site of the cathedral was determined by an arrow
shot from the ramparts of Old Sarum.

Misled by the similarity of sound, the name Maer-field has been,
naturally enough, interpreted to mean Mary-field. The apparently
obvious form "Miry-field,"--as, according to Leland, it appears on an
old inscription,--in spite of the marshy nature of the site, is
probably a mere coincidence. Nor is Thomas Fuller's "Merry-field, for
the pleasant situation thereof," better worth attention. The generally
accepted theory at present is that _maer_, the Anglo-Saxon word for a
boundary, supplies the clue. A hamlet, Marton, near Bedwin, another of
the same name now corrupted to Martin, near Damerham, might each be
truly described as boundary-towns. In Wiltshire to-day 'mere-stone' is
the local idiom for a boundary-stone. Mere is alike the name of a
hundred and of a parish in Wilts, both near its borders. The site of
the present cathedral is at the junction of three ancient
hundreds--Underditch, Alderbury, and Cawdon--the south-east wall of
the close being the boundary line which divides the cathedral
precincts from Cawdon.

Not only from the fact that the site was given by the bishop may we
infer that the Poores were a wealthy family; but his brother Herbert,
who was his immediate predecessor in the see, is described in the
Osmund Register, as _dives et assiduus_ (rich and painstaking), and
Richard Poore before his enthronement was a benefactor to the
monastery of Tarrant, in Dorsetshire, his native village. Later we
find he gave a large estate at Laverstock to his new cathedral. Hence
the old theory that his name was derived from Poor or Pauper, as it
appears in several old chronicles, is untenable. Possibly like the
Irish Poer or Power, it may be traced to the word _puer_, used in a
restricted sense to denote the sons of royal or noble families not yet
in possession of their heritage. A Prince of Wales in past times has
been known as Puer Anglicanus, the Spanish "Infanta," the prefix
"Childe," have all been cited in support of this theory. It is said
indeed that the Childes trace their descent from the Le Poers, and
Childe-Okeford and Poorstock, two villages in Dorset are quoted in
evidence[2].

[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL FROM THE SOUTH.
_From a Photograph by Messrs. Poulton._]

Whatever the origin of his name there is little doubt that the Bishop
was wealthy, and absolute certainty that he was a powerful and capable
ruler--the whole story of his successful efforts to carry out his
scheme proves this much, were other testimony wanting. Even his choice
of a site is justified by results, although earlier accounts
unanimously agree in saying it was little better than a swamp. That
such descriptions of the place were true is evident enough; the
subsidence of the tower piers show that their foundation was insecure,
and the curious feature of a continuous base to the piers of the nave
prove also that provision was taken from the first to overcome this
obstacle. We have frequent records of floods to the extent at times of
causing the daily service to be suspended owing to the water actually
being within the building itself; as late as 1763 there is an account
of a specially high one thus interrupting the daily ritual. The whole
valley of the Salisbury Avon to its sea-mouth at Christchurch, about
twenty-nine miles distant is still under water for months at a time
during a wet winter.

Of course the abundance of water has evoked the usual comparison with
Venice. Thomas Fuller, who for the sake of his usual sagacity may be
forgiven an allusion so unfounded, says: "This mindeth me of an
epitaph made on Mr. Francis Hill, a native of Salisbury, who died
secretary to the English liege at Venice--'Born in the English Venice,
thou did'st die, dear Friend, in the Italian Salisbury.'"

One of the reasons most frequently alleged for the abandonment of Old
Sarum was its lack of water; but if it was deemed unadvisable to
acknowledge the political and administrative reasons which really
decided the change, it is just possible that the superfluity of water
was found useful as a plausible explanation of the removal on hygienic
grounds; or it may even be that the whole story of the scarcity of
water at Old Sarum was a later invention to excuse its unwelcome
abundance in the new locality. Bishop Douglas is credited with the
saying, "Salisbury is the sink of Wiltshire plain, the close is the
sink of Salisbury, and the bishop's palace the sink of the close."
Certainly the site lacks the natural dignity of position such an
edifice demands, and which Lincoln, Durham, Ely, and many another
English cathedral, show was frequently deemed essential. Thomas
Fuller, who occupied a stall at Salisbury, has written, "The most
curious and cavilling eye can desire nothing in this edifice except an
ascent, seeing such as address themselves hither can hardly say with
David, 'I will go up to the house of the Lord.'"

The temporary chapel of wood, commenced on the Monday after Easter in
1219, must have been a modest structure, since on the next Trinity
Sunday the Bishop celebrated mass, and the same day consecrated a
cemetery there.

In the MS. by William de Wanda, precentor and afterwards dean of
Sarum, preserved in the Cathedral Library, we have a record of the
very first ceremonies connected with the Cathedral, which being
probably trustworthy in the main is so curiously interesting in
itself, that it deserves quoting freely, from the version given by
Francis Price, clerk of the works to the Cathedral, and author of a
very interesting monograph upon it, published in the latter part of
the last century. We find that in the year A.D. 1220, on the
day of St. Vitalis the Martyr, being the fourth of the calends of May
(which was the twenty-eighth of April), the foundations were laid by
Bishop Richard Poore. "On the day appointed for the purpose the bishop
came with great devotion, few earls or barons of the county, but a
great multitude of the common people coming in from all parts; and
when divine service had been performed, and the Holy Spirit invoked,
the said bishop, putting off his shoes, went in procession with the
clergy of the church to the place of foundation singing the litany;
then the litany being ended and a sermon first made to the people,
the bishop laid the first stone for our Lord the Pope Honorius, and
the second for the Lord Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury and
Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, at that time with our Lord the King
in the Marches of Wales; then he added to the new fabric a third stone
for himself; William Longespée, Earl of Sarum, who was then present,
laid the fourth stone, and Elaide[3] Vitri, Countess of Sarum, the
wife of the said earl, a woman truly pious and worthy because she was
filled with the fear of the Lord, laid the fifth. After her certain
noblemen, each of them added a stone; then the dean, the chantor, the
chancellor, the archdeacons and canons of the church of Sarum who were
present did the same, amidst the acclamations of multitudes of the
people weeping for joy and contributing thereto their alms with a
ready mind according to the ability which God had given them. But in
process of time the nobility being returned from Wales, several of
them came thither, and laid a stone, binding themselves to some
special contribution for the whole seven years following."

Another account, differing from the more generally accepted version
just quoted, says that: Pendulph, the Pope's legate, in 1216 laid the
first five stones; the first for the Pope, the second for the King,
the third for the Earl of Salisbury, the fourth for the countess, and
the fifth for the bishop. This statement is wrong in date, for Bishop
Poore was not translated to the see of Sarum until the year 1217. In
the charter of Henry I. the first stone is mentioned as having been
laid by the king, _i.e._, in his name.

"On the 15th of August, 1220, at a general chapter when the bishop was
present, it was provided that if any canon of the church failed paying
what he had promised to the fabric for seven years, that next after
fifteen days from the term elapsed, some one should be sent on the
part of the bishop and chapter to raise what was due from the corn
found on the prebend, and so long as he should remain there for that
purpose he should be maintained with all necessaries by the goods of
the said prebend. But if the prebend or any person failing in the
payment of what was promised be in any other bishopric than Sarum,
such canon should be denounced to that bishop by the letter of the
bishop and chapter for his contumacy, either to be suspended from
entering the church, or from celebration of divine service, or
excommunicated according as the chapter shall judge it."

In the year 1225, Richard Poore, Bishop of Sarum, "finding the fabric
of the new church was by God's alliance so far advanced that divine
service might be conveniently performed therein, he rejoiced
exceedingly, since he bestowed great pains and contributed greatly
towards it. Thereupon he commanded William the Dean to cite all the
canons to be present on the day of S. Michael following, at the joyful
solemnity of their mother church, that is to say, at the first
celebration of divine service therein. According on the vigil of S.
Michael, which happened on a Sunday, the bishop came in the morning
and consecrated three altars, the first in the east part, in honour of
the holy and undivided Trinity and All Saints, on which henceforth the
mass of the Blessed Virgin was appointed to be said every day. And the
said bishop offered that day for the service of the said altar and for
daily service of the Blessed Virgin, two silver basons and two silver
candlesticks which were bequeathed by the will of the noble lady
Gundria de Warren to the church of Sarum. Moreover the bishop gave out
of his property to the clerks that were to officiate at the said mass
thirty marks of silver a year until he settled so much in certain
rents, and likewise ten marks every year to maintain lamps round the
said altar. Then he dedicated another altar in the north part of the
church in honour of St. Peter, the prince of the apostles, and the
rest of the apostles; he also dedicated another altar in the south
part thereof to St. Stephen and the rest of the martyrs. At this
dedication were present: Henry, Bishop of Dublin, Stephen, Lord
Archbishop of Canterbury."

We read further in the same chronicle that the bishops and their
retinues were entertained for a week by Bishop Poore at his sole
charge.

The next day, the feast of SS. Michael and All Angels, the Archbishop
of Canterbury preached to a large company including many English and
foreign prelates, Otto, the Pope's nuncio, and others. On the Thursday
following, "Our Lord the King and Hubert de Burgh the justice came to
the church and the King there heard the mass of the glorious Virgin
and offered ten marks of silver and one piece of silk, and he granted
to the same place that every year there should be a fair." The same
day the justice made a vow that he would give a gold text set in the
precious stones and the relics of divers saints in honour of the
Blessed Virgin Mary, and the service of the new church; afterwards the
King went down with many of his nobles to the Bishop's palace and were
entertained. On the Friday following Hubert de Burgh offered his
"texte after John, gilt with gold and having precious stones and
relics of divers saints."

"On the Nativity of our Lord following, the King and his justice
Hubert de Burgh came to Sarum on the day of the Holy Innocents, and
there the King offered one gold ring with a precious stone called a
ruby, one piece of silk, and one gold cup of the weight of ten marks;
and when the mass was celebrated the King told the dean that he would
have that stone which he had offered and the gold of the ring applied
to adorn the text which the justice had before given; and then the
justice caused the text which he had given to be brought and offered
with great devotion on the altar."

On the 10th of January, 1226, William Longespée, Earl of Salisbury,
returned from Gascoigne, where he had resided twelve months with
Richard, the King's brother, for the defence of Bordeaux (after three
months on the channel between the Isle of Rhè and the coast of
Cornwall, owing to the tempestuous weather, that so long delayed his
landing), "and the said Earl came that day after nine o'clock to
Sarum, where he was received with great joy, with a procession for the
new fabric." The scandalous account of his death (as given by Stow),
which occurred at the castle of Old Sarum, on the 7th of March in the
same year, and the part played in the transaction by Hubert de Burgh
cannot be told here, beyond the fact that the justice was strongly
suspected of poisoning him. On the 8th of March, at the same hour of
the day on which he had been received with great joy, he was brought
to New Sarum with many tears and lamentations, and honourably buried
in the new church of the Blessed Virgin. Matthew Paris gravely records
that at his funeral, despite gusts of wind and rain, the candles
furnished a continual light the whole of the way. Of all secular
figures connected with this cathedral his is perhaps the most
prominent, nor is his fame merely local. He was active in public
affairs during the reign of King John, and one of the noticeable
heroes in an expedition to the Holy Land in 1220, when, at the battle
of Damietta, Matthew Paris tells us, he resisted the shock of the
infidels like a wall. He fought both in Flanders and in France, was at
his King's side at Runnymede, and a witness to Magna Charta--a copy of
which famous charter, made probably for his special use, is still
preserved in the cathedral library.

In 1226, on the Feast of the Holy Trinity, which was then the 18th day
of the calends of July, the bodies of the three bishops, Jocelin,
Roger, and Osmund (the latter not yet canonized), were brought from
Old Sarum. Whether their tombs were also brought, is not said, nor is
any mention made of Herman, who by popular report is credited with a
monument in the cathedral.

A Charter of Henry III., dated 30th of January, 1227, gives certain
powers to make new roads and bridges, to inclose the city of New
Saresbury, to institute a fair from the Vigil of the Assumption of the
Blessed Mary to the octave of the same feast, etc., etc. This
development of the city, more especially by its roads and bridges, is
held to have been fatal to the prosperity of Wilton, which from that
time ceased to progress, and was over-shadowed by the now rapidly
increasing New Sarum.

Bishop Poore was ably supported in his great undertaking by a group of
notable men, among whom were: William de Wanda, the Dean, who threw
his whole soul into the work, and traversed the diocese of London to
collect alms in its behalf, besides leaving us most elaborate accounts
of the various ceremonies; and the Precentor, Roger de Sarum, a man of
some weight, who soon after became Bishop of Bath and Wells; Henry de
Bishopston, a learned man and a scholar, should also be remembered,
and, if Leland could be credited, we should need to add another member
to this group, and find in Robert Hilcot, of Sarum, the author of the
"Philobiblon" so generally attributed to Richard de Bury.

After Bishop Poore was translated to Durham, his three successors,
Bishops Robert Bingham (1229-1246), William of York (1247-1256), and
Giles of Bridport (1257-1262), continued the works of the new building
with great energy. In 1258 it was consecrated--some accounts say by
Bishop Giles of Bridport, "who covered the roof throughout with lead,"
but more probably by Boniface of Savoy, Archbishop of Canterbury.
Henry III. and his queen were present at the consecration; and as
indulgences of a year and forty days were offered to all who should be
present during the octave of the dedication, vast crowds visited it.
It was not entirely completed according to a note in a Book of
Statutes, until 1266, and it has been said that with all our modern
appliances we could hardly shorten the forty-six years it occupied.
The cost of the whole building, according to ancient authority, was
about 40,000 marks, equal to £26,666 13s. 4d., of the money of that
day, and probably equivalent roughly to half a million in our own
time. Among many benefactors, one, Lady Alicia Bruere, who according
to Leland contributed the marble and stone for twelve years, deserves
to be mentioned. The cloisters and chapter house were not commenced
until the episcopate of Bishop Walter de la Wyle (1263-1271) and
possibly not completed until some ten years later. From the will of
Robert de Careville, the treasurer in 1267, we find that there were
seven altars in the church at this date; he bequeathed seven pounds to
provide fourteen silver phials (each bearing a representation of three
keys) in order that each altar might have two. The erection of the
spire, evidently not included in the original plan, is often
erroneously assigned to Wyville (1336-1375), who certainly completed
the wall of the close, and enlarged the cloisters. The King granted
him a charter for this purpose, and also gave him the stones of the
old Cathedral, many of which, with the Norman work upon them, may be
seen plainly at the present time. (See p. 22.)

It is interesting to note that not only is Salisbury the most complete
example of its period in this country, but is also the first important
building carried out entirely in the style we now know as early
English. Henry III. is believed to have been so enthusiastic in his
admiration of Bishop Poore's new Cathedral that he set about the
rebuilding of Westminster Abbey, which was commenced in 1245 and
completed in 1269, as far as the east end of the choir. The early
English work at Salisbury has a certain poverty of detail when
compared with Westminster, and the "Angel Choir" of Lincoln
undoubtedly surpasses both; yet the effect of Salisbury has a
character of its own and a purity in its ornament that is in itself a
distinction. The Cathedral of Amiens, of exactly the same date, covers
71,000 square feet, Salisbury but 55,000; the vault of Amiens is 152
feet high, Salisbury only 85; but, as Fergusson observes in his
"Handbook of Architecture," the fair mode of comparison is to ask
whether the Cathedral of Amiens is finer than Salisbury would be if
the latter were at least twice as large as it is.

There has long been a tradition that Elias de Dereham was the
architect of this stately pile, and the information gathered together
by the Rev. J.A. Bennet, in a paper read before the British
Archæological Association at Salisbury on August 5th, 1887, certainly
does much to strengthen the belief. From this account, and other
sources, we find that Elias de Derham is first mentioned in the Rot.
Chartarum, Ap. 6 (6 John, 1208)? where he is described as one of the
King's clerks and Rector of Meauton. In 1206 he appears to have been a
royal official. In 1209 he is reported to have been the architect for
the repairs of King John's palace at Westminster. In 1212 he attached
himself to the opposite party, but was taken again into the King's
favour in the following year. We have specially interesting notice of
his work in 1220, when he was engaged upon the shrine of St. Thomas at
Canterbury. Matthew Paris, in his account of the translation of St.
Thomas, distinctly states that the shrine was the work of that
incomparable officer, Walter de Colchester, Sacrist of St. Albans,
assisted by Elias de Dereham, Canon of Salisbury. Leland mentions, in
an extract from an old "Martyrologie" of Salisbury, that he was
rector--or director--of the new church for twenty-five years from the
beginning, whether he means architect or clerk of the works is not so
clear. His name, as one of the Canons of the Cathedral, occurs eleven
times in the "Osmund Register" at Salisbury. There are also references
to him in the "Book of Evidences" (Liber Evidentiarum) among the
bishop's muniments, as the builder of the original Aula
Plumbea--Leden-hall--a famous old house in the close. The document is
entitled "_Scriptura de domibus de Leden-hall per Eliam de Dereham
sumptuose constructis_," "a deed concerning the house called
Leden-hall, built at great expense by Elias de Dereham." This
residence house remained six centuries after in the gift of the Bishop
of Sarum.

During the year in which he accompanied Bishop Poore in his
translation to Durham, and from 1230 to 1238, he was employed upon
some architectural work connected with Durham Cathedral, which, when
Bishop Poore accepted it was a stately Norman fane with an apsidal
choir; he removed this east end, and remodelled it in the early
English manner. The chapel of the Nine Altars, as this portion is
called, is remarkably similar in its details to much of the work at
Salisbury. It is curious that two southern churches so near as
Salisbury and Christchurch Priory should be found influencing or
influenced by the great northern cathedral, but the likeness between
Flambard's Norman work at Christchurch and the same bishop's work at
Durham is as strongly marked as the Early English of Bishop Poore at
both the churches in which he was enthroned. That Elias de Dereham is
responsible for much of the work of both cathedrals is also a fair
assumption. Curiously enough his name, hitherto hastily assumed to be
equivalent to Elias of Durham, has probably no connection with that
city; whether, however, his patronym should be traced to the Norfolk
Dereham, or the Gloucester Dyrham, it is impossible to say with any
certainty. On somewhat insufficient grounds it has been hazarded that
his portrait may be found in a figure on the east side of the
staircase buttress of what was formerly the great entrance to Wells
Cathedral.

Owing to the fact that the original design of the building was fully
carried out, with the addition of a tower and spire, its architectural
history ceases just where most others begin their chequered career. At
the time of the Reformation it suffered but little, except in the
wholesale destruction of its stained glass. Dr. Pope, in his "Life of
Bishop Ward," says that even during the Civil War, when it was
abandoned, workmen were engaged to keep it in repair, who when
questioned as to the authority by which they worked, said, "Those who
employ'd us will pay us; trouble not your selves to inquire who they
are. Whoever they are, they do not desire to have their names known."
We find as evidence of the secret influence exerted in its behalf that
when one of Waller's officers sent up to the Parliament certain plate
and a pulpit cloth from Salisbury Cathedral, he was ordered to restore
them, as it was considered that he had overstepped his commission; all
that was retained being certain copes, hangings, and a picture of the
Virgin.

At the Restoration, Bishop Ward, after a great thunderstorm in 1668,
when fears were entertained for the safety of the spire, called in Sir
Christopher Wren, who, after examining the tower, expressed his belief
"that a spire was not contemplated by its builders;" that "out of fear
to overburden the four piers of the tower, its inside was carried for
40 feet above the nave with a slender hollow work of pillars and
arches, nor hath it any buttresses; the spire itself is but 9 inches
thick, though the height be above 150 feet." This work of pillars and
arches led him to conclude that the architect laid his first floor of
timber 40 feet higher than the vault beneath.

Dr. Walter Pope, in his "Life of Bishop Seth Ward," 1697, describes
the restorations accomplished by this excellent prelate: "There being,
therefore, not much to be done as to reparation, he employ'd himself
in the Decoration of the Cathedral: First, at his proper charges
Paving the Cloyster. I mean that side of it which leads out of his
garden into the church. At his exhortation, and more than
proportinable (_sic_) expence the Pavement of the Church was mended
where it was faulty, and the whole Quire laid with white and black
squares of marble. The Bishops, Deans, and all the Prebendaries Stalls
made New & Magnificent, and the whole church was kept so clean, that
anyone who had occasion for Dust to throw on the Superscription of a
Letter, he would have a hard task to find it there.... His next care
was to repair, I might almost say rebuild his Palace, which was much
ruined, the Hall being pulled down, & the Greater part of the House
converted to an Inn ... what remained of the Palace was divided into
small Tenements and let out to poor Handicraft-men. This dilapidation
was the work of one Van Ling, a Dutchman, by trade a Taylor, who
bought it of Parliament when Bishop's lands were exposed to sale."

In the minutes of the chapter for August 26th, 1789, we find
instruction given to Wyatt "to make new Canopies to the Stalls, to
build a new Pulpit and Bishop's Throne, to put new Iron Rails to the
Communion, with coping thereon, and set new blue stone steps to
receive the same, to put two Wainscot Screens across the Aisles, to
lay blue stone paving in the Lady Chapel, in squares to be cut out of
the old gravestones, and enrich the side walls according to the
drawings, to clean and colour the church from the East end of the
Transept, and make the Screen to the Western Side of the organ." They
also ordered "the beam in the choir to be removed, the North and South
Porches to be taken down, the south door near the Verger's house
stopped up, and another opened near the Chapter Vestry, to open out
the Chapel in the great North and South Transepts, and to convert the
north-east transept into a morning chapel, to remove certain monuments
in consequence of alterations in St. Mary's Chapel, & to take down the
Beauchamp & Hungerford Chapels, on the plea that they were in a state
as to greatly exceed any ordinary or possible means of repair." These
formal instructions were not merely obeyed but exceeded, and the
demolitions of that time confront the student of the building in all
his researches. Of late years many minor alterations have been carried
out, with a view to restore monuments to their original site, and, as
far as possible, to obliterate Wyatt's damage; but the two superb
chantries, the bell tower, the painted glass, and many other important
features are hopelessly effaced, and the cathedral, spared by its
avowed foes, has met with its greatest disaster from the hands of
former guardians.

For the last thirty years the work of restoration has been gradually
carried on until its recent completion. An arrangement was made in
1862 by which the Ecclesiastical Commissioners permitted the Dean and
Chapter to spend £10,000 on the building, as part of a payment in lieu
of transfer of their property. Sir G. Gilbert Scott had control of the
restoration. Owing to the necessary work proving far more costly than
the sum allowed was able to effect, a public meeting was held,
subscriptions were started, and ultimately sufficient money raised to
repair thoroughly the exterior of the building. The tower and spire
were strengthened by an ingenious system of iron ties planned by Mr.
Shields, the well-known engineer. The west front was restored, and
more than sixty statues placed in its vacant niches. In the interior
the Lady Chapel was restored, and its floor laid with encaustic tiles
from the designs of ancient examples in various parts of the
cathedral. The walls were cleaned, and the paintings of the roof
reproduced by Messrs. Clayton and Bell. The choir was restored in
memory of Bishop Hamilton, and the old choir stalls cleared. The
organ-screen built by Wyatt out of fragments of the Hungerford and
Beauchamp chapels was removed. Throughout the building the Purbeck
marble shafts have been most carefully preserved and repolished.
Besides this much decorative work of various sorts, including some
excellent examples of modern stained glass and metal work, has been
added from time to time. At present the interior has less obvious
evidence of age than any other English building of its date, but for
this the modern restorer is not entirely responsible, as Wyatt
rendered much alteration needful, and the design of the work has, as
we have remarked elsewhere, a curiously modern quality in its finish
and symmetry which is apt to mislead a casual observer.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The headpiece is from an engraving in Walpoole's "British
Traveller."

[2] A paper on this subject was printed in the Wiltshire Archæological
Mag., No. lvi.

[3] So misspelt in the text quoted.

THE CATHEDRAL--EXTERIOR.

Salisbury stands alone among English cathedrals for unity of design.
To own its possession of this quality, which is undoubtedly both the
earliest and the most mature impression the cathedral imparts, is by
no means equivalent to unqualified praise. There are buildings of
equal and less importance, whence illustrations might be taken for a
complete history of every period of Gothic architecture; here the
examples would be limited not only to one style, but if we except the
upper stories of the tower and its spire, the cloisters, and a few
minor additions, to a very restricted use of Early English, as it was
practised from A.D. 1220 to 1258.

Another uncommon feature not so apparent at first sight, but yet
almost, if not quite as rare, is that the present building was erected
on a virgin site. It is hard to find a mediæval church of any
importance in England that is not only upon the self-same site, but
more often in part upon the actual foundation of an earlier edifice.
Consistency is the especial character of Salisbury, and now, owing to
Wyatt's iconoclastic destruction of the two later chapels at its east
end, we have in Salisbury "the most typical English cathedral," which
is also our most complete example of Early English.

That this artistic unity is as interesting as a design subsequently
modified by other influences, may be an open question. There are those
who think Salisbury "faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly
null," yet they would hardly dare to continue the quotation and say it
was "dead perfection, no more." Even at a time when mediæval art was
not generally appreciated in England, this cathedral won admiration
from chance visitors such as Evelyn, who saw it in July, 1654, and
pronounced it "the completest Gothic work in Europe." Pepys, who also
left his impressions of it, says: "The minster most admirable, as big
I think and handsomer than Westminster, and a most large close about
it and offices for the officers thereof, and a fine palace for the
bishop." In later times Motley, the historian, thought it "too neat."
Henry James calls it "a blonde beauty among churches," and even hints
that it is a little banal. Another American critic, Mrs. Van
Rensselaer, in a sympathetic study of the cathedral which appeared in
"The Century Magazine," says: "If we think it feeble, it will be
because we cannot see strength where it has been brought to perfect
poise and ease. If our verdict is 'banal,' it will be because we
cannot tell the commonplace from the simply and exactly right, or we
do not know how rare the latter is--because we long for eccentricity
as a proof of personality, and need what the French call _emphase_ to
impress us; there is no over-emphasis about Salisbury, neither in its
effect as a whole, nor in any of its parts, neither in its design, nor
in its treatment. But just in this fact lies its greatest merit, and
just by reason of this fact, joined to its mighty size and its
exceptional unity, it is intensely individual, personal, distinct from
all other churches in the world."

Dean Stanley, in comparing it with Westminster Abbey, hardly
overpraised it in saying: "Salisbury is all-glorious without,
Westminster is all-glorious within." Canon Venables considers it "as
an architectural composition, more especially as seen from the
outside, the most perfectly designed building in the world." Elsewhere
he speaks of it as "presenting none of those architectural problems so
baffling and perplexing at Canterbury, Lichfield, or Lincoln." Its
appearance from a distance has been the theme of poets, and a
favourite subject for artists. Constable especially delighted to paint
it. Among several of his different versions of the theme, the view
from the meadows (with the rainbow), made popular by Lucas' mezzotint,
is perhaps the best known.

Studying the building more closely one feels it is not accident that
gives to it its peculiar charm, but pre-arranged design; the idea of
one conception carried to its logical completion. This striking unity
(despite the afterthought of the spire) certainly helps to impart an
air of modernity to the building, that is lacking in far less ancient
work, for oddly enough it is often the decaying features of the
latest decorated style that impress the vulgar by their apparent age.
The extreme care in the masonry has imparted a machine-like finish. As
Professor Willis wrote: "The regularity of the size of the stones is
astonishing. As soon as they had finished one part, they copied it
exactly in the next, even though the additional expense was
considerable. The masonry runs in even bands, and you may follow it
from the south transept, eastward, round to the north transept, after
which they have not taken such great pains in their regularity. It is
almost impossible to distinguish where they could have left off, for
it is hardly to be supposed they could have gone on with all at the
same time."

If at first sight this regular and symmetrical detail offers a
suspicion of mere mechanism, yet it is no less evident that after
longer study the charms of this exquisite structure tell with a
lasting power. Too subtle to extort admiration at first, it bewitches
a student of architecture who notes the scholarly reticence of its
detail, the masterly way in which, as a rule, the construction is
legitimately ornamented and the decoration made an integral part of
the whole design.

=The Tower=, with its famous spire, needs no apologist to justify its
claim to be considered the most beautiful, not merely in England, but
in Europe. From the time Leland naïvely wrote, "the tower of stone and
the high pyramis of stone on it is a noble and memorable 'peace' of
work," every critic of the cathedral praises the tower unreservedly,
although Defoe was anxious to improve it, for he said: "The beauty of
it is hurt by a thing easily to be remedied, which is this. The glass
in the several windows being very old, has contracted such a rust,
that it is scarcely to be distinguished from the stone walls;
consequently, it appears as if there were no lights at all in the
tower, but only recesses in the stone, whereas could the windows be
glazed with squares and kept clean, which might be done, they would be
plainly visible at a distance, and not only so, but from the adjacent
hills you would see the light quite through the tower, which would
have a very fine effect." It is curious to remember that perfectly as
it accords with the rest of the pile, so that it seems the very
central motive of the whole scheme, yet it is really an addition. Like
the touch of genius which by one word changes a good poem to a
flawless lyric, so the creator of this crown to an already beautiful
building by his final touch seems to have imparted additional beauty
to that which already existed. The first idea was doubtless to add a
lantern after the style of Ely, or at most a wooden spire. That the
lower part of the tower is part of the original design, and intended
to be open to the church, is proved by the presence of a series of
detached Purbeck marble columns in the style of the rest of the
internal masonry, which, hidden by the groining, or half-concealed by
later masonry, were obviously meant to be part of the decoration of
the interior, but again, the original plan of the tower made no
provision for the huge weight of a stone spire. Indeed, it is quite
doubtful if in its first state it was able to support itself, for
curiously designed abutments are built in the triforium and clerestory
of the nave, choir, or transepts on each of its four sides. The
stonework of these is Early English, which if slightly later than the
first story of the tower, is yet considerably earlier than its two
upper stories. Notwithstanding the faulty construction that needed
additional work so soon after it was erected, about fifty years later
a daring architect super-imposed two stories, and added the lofty
spire, which still stands, despite an early settlement which deflected
it 23 inches out of the perpendicular. But its stability can hardly be
reckoned a tribute to the judgment of the architect, for many times
since complex arrangements of iron bands and ties have been added to
ward off such a disaster as that which lost Chichester its spire in
1861, and has caused many others to be rebuilt from the very
foundations. By a report of Sir Christopher Wren made in the time of
Bishop Seth Ward, two hundred years ago, it is evident that in his
time the deflection was not increasing, nor do quite recent
observations show any reason for serious anxiety. This haunting fear,
however, has led to curiously precise experiments for ascertaining the
state of the spire. Francis Price, at the end of the last century,
describes many of these, especially one carried out in the presence of
the bishop, on July 18th, 1717; he also illustrates an elaborate
system of additional bands and ties in his time. During the
restorations that were begun in 1863, a further arrangement of iron
bands, planned by Mr. Shields, the engineer, was introduced into the
lantern story of the tower.

[Illustration: SALISBURY CATHEDRAL AND BELL TOWER.
_From an Old Engraving._]

Parker, in his "Glossary," believes the date of the spire to be about
1300; other authorities fix it thirty years later. Certain deeds in
the "Book of Evidences" preserved among the Cathedral muniments show
that in 1326 Edward III. granted a license for surrounding the close
with a wall, and in 1331 authorized the bishop and canons to use the
stones of the church of Old Sarum for that purpose. But against the
theory that the material thus obtained was used in the tower also,
there is the patent fact that while on many stones in the wall there
are traces of Norman mouldings and other evidence of former use,
neither in the tower nor spire do the stones betray any such origin.
Modern antiquaries are wellnigh agreed upon the earlier dates; for in
the Capitular Register, begun in 1329, there is no mention of the
spire, which could hardly have escaped record had so important a work
been then in progress. In support of this theory it is urged that from
1258 to 1297 the deans were men who took great interest in the fabric
and are entered in its calendar of benefactors. Three of these became
successively Bishops of Salisbury. But the deans who were appointed
after 1297 were chiefly foreigners, several being cardinals and
relatives of the Pope, whose duties elsewhere would have left them
little but a purely temporal interest in the building. One of them,
Peter of Savoy, was in conflict with his bishop, and evaded an
episcopal admonition ordering him to residence.

Bishop Godwin, in his "Catalogue of Bishops," notes that in 1258 the
cathedral was rehallowed by Boniface, Archbishop of Canterbury, and
this fact is the basis of most of the argument for the earlier date of
the spire, the completion of which, according to some, could alone
have justified the ceremony.

Remembering that Winchester had lost its central tower, which fell in
1107, we can understand the reasons which induced the original
architect to distrust a spire, and to adopt a lantern in its place.
If, however, timidity delayed it at first, when it was undertaken, its
builder left it not only the most lofty in England then and since, but
in actual effect the most lofty in the world. This is claimed in spite
of its 404 feet being exceeded by Amiens (422 feet), and Strasburg
(488 feet), and although it might appear special pleading to urge such
a theory against contradictory facts, yet since at Amiens the nave
roof is 208 feet high, against the 115 feet of Salisbury, it is
obvious that the apparent height of the latter exceeds its French
rival. At Strasburg the excess of elaboration in the ornament is
detrimental to the effect of height, and the same may be said of
Antwerp or Mechlin, where the whole effect is not so much that of a
spire, as of an elaborately fretted finial, insubstantial if exquisite
in itself, but merely an added ornament, not appearing part of the
solid structure.

Despite the somewhat ornate details of the upper stories and spire,
they accord well with the rest of the building, and, although typical
Early Decorated of the time of Edward III., fail to clash with the
more severe Early English work. These two stories have elaborately
canopied arcades running round them, the windows being pierced through
two of the arches on each façade and not emphasized by any special
treatment. Above each story is a traceried parapet of lozenge
decoration, the same design being repeated in the two bands that
encircle the spire itself. At each of the four angles of the tower is
an octagonal turret with crocketed spire. Amid a coronet of decorated
finials the great octagonal spire grows naturally with no abrupt
revelation of its change of plan. The whole cresting of the tower, and
the perfectly natural way in which its lines continue easily into the
graceful spire itself, are triumphs of successful design. The
silhouette of the mass against the sky so precisely reaches the ideal
effect that it is difficult to restrain oneself to sober criticism in
describing it, yet the result is achieved so naturally that until we
compare it with others, especially with modern ones, we hardly do
justice to the subtle beauty that gives it a right to the supremacy it
has won. The timber framework erected as a scaffold during the
progress of the building still remains inside the spire and helps to
impart strength to it; those curious in such matters will find a mass
of information and many plans and drawings of its internal
construction in Francis Price's "Antiquities of Salisbury, 1774." In
1762, during the progress of some repairs to the capstone and the
addition of a new copper vane, the workmen discovered a wooden box,
and inside it a round leaden one 5-½ inches in diameter and 2-¼
inches deep, which contained a piece of woven fabric.[4] This was
conjectured to be a relic of the Virgin Mary, the patron saint of the
church, which had been deposited there to guard the lofty spire from
danger by lightning or tempest. When tested on the 600th anniversary
of the building the spire showed, it is said, no further deflection
from that registered two centuries earlier. Consequently the
settlement in the two western piers being so long at a standstill, and
the repeated additions of metal work to strengthen the spire being
apparently entirely successful, there seemed no reason to doubt but
that in the natural course of events it would remain for many
centuries a landmark to its neighbourhood and one of the greatest
triumphs of English mediæval workmanship.[5] Richard de Farley, a
Wiltshire man, is supposed to have been the architect of the spire;
that his artistic instinct was right is evident to-day, but his
engineering foresight seems less certain, as in all probability the
settlement began almost immediately after the erection. Indeed it is
said that the efforts to obtain the canonization of Osmund were
started in 1387 to increase the popularity of the cathedral as a place
of pilgrimage, and thereby to augment its revenue, so that funds might
be forthcoming for the additional work needed to support the tower.
Frequent references to miracles at his shrine show that the saint was
popularly adored long before his canonization in 1456. A local
superstition says the tower was builded on woolpacks. According to
Pliny's account, the temple of Diana of Ephesus was made firm with
coats or fleeces of wool; but it is inconceivable that bags of wool
were employed in either case for the foundation. At Rouen in Normandy
a similar legend refers to butter as the foundation of one of the
western towers, which tradition, absurd though it be, supplies the
idea of a butter tax, which in turn suggests a wool tax, that in such
a district as this would have been naturally a profitable source of
revenue.

Probably because of the early trouble with the foundation of the great
tower, there was from the first no intention of making it a belfry.
Even before the spire was decided upon, the oscillation of a mass of
swaying bells was obviously too dangerous to be seriously considered.
A special campanile, as at Chichester, was therefore built at the
north-west corner of the close. Its style was evidently similar to
that of the cloisters and the chapter house. Multangular in form, an
early historian calls it, but the engravings still existing show it to
have been a somewhat ordinary specimen of Early English design. Its
special feature was a single central pillar of Purbeck marble that
supported the weight of the bells and belfry. The spire was doubtless
of wood, and, apparently, the upper lantern-like tower also.[6]
Although its destruction is not ordered in the official document
wherein the Chapter gave Wyatt authority to do so much mischief, on
some pretext, probably his craze for what he called "vistas," it was
demolished in the terrible destruction of 1789, opening up a view of
the Cathedral that was entirely unnecessary, and wilfully destroying a
feature of the close that could ill be spared.

The custom of climbing the spire during the Whitsun fair, to which
Francis Price, in a naïve description, attributes much damage to the
leadwork of the roofs, has only ceased in recent times, some sixty or
seventy years ago. Arnold, a watchmaker, wound up his watch while
leaning actually against the vane. When a lad, during a royal visit,
stood on his head on the capstone, George III. refused to reward him,
saying that he was bound to provide for the lives of his people. On
June 26th, 1741, the timber braces of the spire were found to be on
fire. According to Francis Price, "there was, about ten o'clock the
night before in a very great storm, a particular flash of lightning
observed by many of the inhabitants to strike against the tower with a
sort of smacking noise, and then to have been lost.... It may well be
called dreadful since, had it continued half an hour longer, all the
assistance on earth could not have prevented the total destruction of
the pile."

=The West Front= of the Cathedral was, beyond doubt, the last portion
of the original design to be carried out, for among its details the
ball-flower, a typical feature of the decorated style, frequently
occurs. The governing idea of its façade is indefensible. Not merely
because in common with Wells, Lincoln, and other churches, it does not
emphasize the construction of the nave and aisles, and hides them by a
screen, but because the screen itself poses as an integral part of the
building. Even considered solely as an architectural composition,
without regard to the building it professes to decorate rather than
hide, it is hardly good. The two western towers it unites are, in
themselves, not sufficiently important in comparison with the rest of
the edifice; in fact, they are little more than finials to the screen.
In many similar structures the unity of effect gained at the expense
of theoretical consistency justifies the departure; here it is merely
a huge surface adapted to display a great number of statues. Rich as
it appears now that its long empty niches are again repeopled, it is
of no remarkable excellence either in mass or in detail. Its worst
fault, however, is that unlike Exeter, it does not content itself by
frankly assuming to be nothing more than a screen, but at first sight
appears to be the legitimate finish of the nave and aisles. A recent
critic, defending the façade in spite of its architectural isolation
from the building in its rear, points out that the chief objection to
the west front is that it is wanting in that repose and refinement of
detail which characterize the rest of the building, and that its
design is entirely out of keeping therewith, and also complains that
"the ragged outline at the angles produced by the high relief and
rather clumsy sections of the decorative detail has a very bad
effect." It has been suggested that as from the position of the site
there was never a chance of the building being seen from a
distance--owing to the level country around it, the projection of the
transepts and the group of the whole pile could never tell out as they
would had it been on a hill, therefore the form chosen was
deliberately adopted to give a factitious importance to the west front
on its own merits. The continental builders with much more lofty nave
and aisles, and with their habit of making the west door the principal
entrance, were able, by enriching its portal and decorating the
natural divisions of the building, to attain a stately form that
honestly fulfilled its purpose; here the magnificence is secured by
masking the low aisles of the nave with a wall that is a mere
theatrical adjunct, its simulated windows and its stringcourses
marking stories that do not exist. Apart from theoretical criticism,
it is not quite admirable in itself; the three doorways are hardly of
sufficient importance, the central window is somewhat larger than it
should be to accord with the scale of the whole façade, while the
apparently built up windows above the genuine windows of the nave
aisles, whose roofs have their apex about on a level with the sills of
the large central lancets, are as much frauds as any of those sham
windows in symmetrical Renaissance work, which so excite the ire of
ardent champions of Gothic purity.

It consists of five bays, of which the lateral ones are square
turrets, covered with arcades, and terminated by spires. The lower
story of the central bay is composed of three pedimented porches
deeply recessed, each with a niche in its gable. Above these is a
story of canopied trefoiled arches, with quatrefoil lozenges in
their centres. Over this arcade is the large west window, a triplet of
lancets with slender shafts and chevron ornament. Above this again is
a band of quatrefoils at the foot of the gable, which is filled with
double couplets of lancets with quatrefoils above their heads; and in
the upper spandrils is a quatrefoiled aureole. The buttresses flanking
this central bay have similar arcading continued around them. The side
bays each have a triple porch, a two-lighted window with a quatrefoil
in the head, with a window of the same form above it, and higher still
the arcading continued from the towers.

[Illustration: PORTALS OF THE WEST FRONT.
_From a Photograph by S.B. Bolas and Co._]

In 1863 the hundred and odd niches designed to contain statues were
either despoiled or had never been occupied, with the exception of
eight which held figures mutilated beyond certain recognition. Mr.
Cockerell conjectured that two on the buttress of the south tower
represented St. Peter and St. John the Baptist, on that to the north
St. Paul and St. John the Evangelist, while a figure facing north on
the same buttress he believed to represent Stephen Langton, Archbishop
of Canterbury. Other figures are supposed to commemorate Bishop Poore,
William Longespée, 1st Earl of Salisbury, St. Stephen, and Bishop
Giles de Bridport.

A sketch by Hollar, dating from the beginning of the seventeenth
century, shows the niches completely filled; and Hatcher claims from
this evidence that we are warranted in assuming that the figures were
destroyed by Ludlow's troopers when he garrisoned the belfry. But such
an assumption requires many facts to support it which are not
forthcoming. We have no proof that Hollar's sketch was intended to be
a literal transcript of what he saw; it is quite possible that for the
sake of effect he preferred to complete the design according to the
supposed intention of its builders. We are not certain that the niches
were all filled originally; it is quite possible that some were
purposely left vacant for future benefactors. We know also that during
the Civil War the whole fabric of the Cathedral escaped serious
injuries. The Hyde family, powerful at that time, had friends on both
sides, and we find record of certain articles sent up to Parliament by
one of Waller's officers were ordered to be restored. On the other
hand, the Visitation of Cathedrals, ordered and undertaken during the
reign of Edward VI., had especial instructions to remove images. In
addition to these objections to attributing the destruction of the
figures to the Ludlow soldiers, there is also to be considered the
natural decay of carving exposed to the open air, which might
reasonably account for the dilapidation of a certain number.

However, whether wantonly destroyed or not, it is certain that the
present figures must be all regarded as modern, since the eight
actually left have been, with the exception of St. John the Baptist,
very much restored. Redfern, the well-known sculptor, is responsible
for the present statues. If not possessing the vigour of the old work,
which from fragments in other parts of the building was certainly
superior to these modern additions, yet they are creditable in design
and scholarly in treatment.

The arrangement is probably in harmony with the original scheme. It
represents the orders of terrestrial and celestial beings mentioned in
the four verses of the hymn, "Te Deum Laudamus." In "The Legend of
Christian Art," by the Rev. H.T. Armfield, Minor Canon of Salisbury
(published in 1869), the symbolism and history of the whole design is
given at great length. Here it must suffice to quote a few of the more
salient points.

The statues are arranged in five horizontal lines from north to south,
exclusive of the figure in the "vesica," the oval above. In the
principal niches of the top row is a tier of angels, below this a tier
of Old Testament patriarchs and prophets, then a tier of doctors,
virgins, and martyrs, and lowest of all a tier of worthies, including
princes, martyrs, bishops, and founders connected with the diocese and
the Cathedral.

The Vesica contains a figure of our Lord seated, known technically as
a "Majesty." In the tier of angels below, noting them from left to
right, are the celestial hierarchies, Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones;
Dominions, Powers, and Authorities; Principalities, Archangels,
Angels. The Old Testament prophets are: David with the harp, Moses
with the Tables of the Law, Abraham with the knife, Noah with the ark,
Samuel with a sceptre, and Solomon with a church. The eight vacant
niches should contain figures of Isaiah, Ezekiel, Elijah, Melchizedek,
Enoch, Job, Daniel, and Jeremiah. The tier with the Apostles observes
this order: On the northern turret St. Jude with a halberd, St. Simon
Zelotes with a saw, St. Andrew with the cross that bears his name, St.
Thomas with a builder's square; on the north buttress St. Peter with
the keys; on the southern buttress St. Paul with a sword (both
these are restorations of ancient figures); on the southern turret St.
James the Less with a club, St. James the Greater with a pilgrim's
staff, St. Bartholomew with the knife of his martyrdom and St.
Matthias with a lance.

[Illustration: DETAILS OF MAIN WEST PORTAL.
_From a Drawing by H.P. Clifford._]

The tier of the doctors, virgins, and martyrs, keeping to the same
order, shows: St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, with a scourge in his
right hand, and a bishop's staff in his left; St. Jerome in a
cardinal's hat, with a church in his right hand and a bible in his
left; St. Gregory in papal tiara, the legendary club on his shield,
his pastoral staff doubly crossed, and a book, typical of his
writings, on his left. On the smaller north buttress, near the turret,
is a restored figure removed from its original place, which represents
St. Augustine, wearing a bishop's mitre, and holding his hand as in
the act of benediction. On the greater north buttress is the figure of
St. Mary the Virgin, to whom the church is dedicated. This figure is
also restored. In the eleven niches over the central door are, with
their various symbols: St. Barbara, St. Catherine, St. Roche, St.
Nicholas, St. George of England, St. Christopher, St. Sebastian, St.
Cosmo, St. Damian, St. Margaret, and St. Ursula. On the greater south
buttress is St. John the Baptist, and on the lesser an old figure
unrestored, supposed to represent St. Bridget. On the southern turret
are St. Mary, St. Agatha, St. Agnes and St. Cecilia, each wearing the
martyr's crown. The tier of worthies comprises: Bishops Giles de
Bridport and Richard Poore, and King Henry III. as a founder. Bishop
Odo, with a wafer in his hand, commemorating the legend of his
miraculous proof of the transubstantiation of the Blessed Sacrament;
St. Osmund, Bishop Brithwold, St. Alban, St. Alphege, St. Edmund, and
St. Thomas of Canterbury.

Another figure on the north side of the north-west turret, for some
time assumed to be St. Christopher, is now assigned to St. Birinus, or
possibly with more truth to St. Nicholas, who had an altar dedicated
to him, "probably just at the back of this spot."

On the apex of the west front is an ancient carving of a bird on a
scroll, which has puzzled many specialists. Mr. Armfield believes it
to be intended for a dove, the emblem of the Holy Spirit, in a scroll
to typify The Word, and thus with the "Majesty" near, to be a
representation of the three persons of the Trinity, in a mode in
accordance with English taste.

=The North Porch= is a massive structure of two stories. The upper,
now used as the dean's muniment room, has, like a similar example at
Christchurch, Hants, no certain indication of its original use.
Whether it was a dwelling for sacristans, a school, or a library, was
doubtful; but later opinion thinks it was unquestionably used by the
sacristans, since it is said that "the sub-treasurer of Sarum, who was
usually one of the vicars choral, pledged himself to see that the
clerks told off for given duties slept in the church in their
accustomed places; and for himself he promised that unless lawfully
excused, he would sleep each night in the treasury." Against this
theory, however, it might be urged that the muniment room at the angle
of the south-east transept is identified as the ancient treasury.

This porch, sometimes called the Galilee, was possibly a place where
penitents met, and from which they were expelled from the church on
Ash-Wednesday until Maundy Thursday. Externally, although of exquisite
proportions, it has no very important details, yet its pinnacles
deserve notice; but the interior is very beautiful, the walls have
sunk panelling, a base arcade of foliated arches, and in the upper
tier large foliated circles with sub-arches, each comprising two
trefoiled arches with quatrefoil heads. Mr. G.E. Street, who
thoroughly appreciated this particular period of English Gothic as his
work at the New Law Courts proves, just before his death restored this
part of the cathedral admirably.

Another porch, formerly the entrance to the north transept, removed by
Wyatt for the most trivial reason, is now in the grounds of the
college which occupies the site of the secular buildings belonging to
the church of St. Edmund, founded in 1268.

=The Exterior= of the =Nave= is simple, but with excellently disposed
features. The triple lancets of the clerestory occur in pairs between
flying buttresses with tall finials; below these, in the aisles, are
two two-light windows, divided by lesser buttresses terminating in
gables.

The fronts of the main transepts show four stories, the two lower
being divided into three bays by buttresses, and flanked by pinnacled
buttresses at each side. The doors that had a ritual use have long
since been walled up both on the north and south sides. A triplet
window is in the lower stage, three-light windows with quatrefoil
heads occupying the second, while the third has an arcade of six
lancets below a floriated circle flanked by sunk panels and
quatrefoils. The windows in the gable consist of two lesser windows,
two-light, with quatrefoil heads, beneath a large octofoil, the whole
grouped with blank panels at the side, beneath a cinquefoil moulding.
The aisle has flying buttresses reaching to the clerestory, and good
angle-pinnacles. The choir transept has no dividing buttresses, and a
different grouping of windows. In the lower stage is a triple lancet;
there is a group of three two-light windows in the story above, and in
the upper one an arcade of four lancets grouped under a comprising
arch with a quatrefoil in the head. The gable is lighted by a triplet
window flanked with blind lancets, and terminates in a cross.

[Illustration: ONE BAY OF THE NAVE (EXTERIOR), NORTH SIDE.]

The transepts differ slightly in detail on their north and south
fronts. It has also been pointed out that while in the one transept
the lancet form rules, in the other the free employment of the circle
and the quatrefoil almost foreshadows the Early Decorated style. The
windows of both are so singularly pure in design and beautiful in
proportion, that they have often been selected as typical examples of
the best work in their style.

The east front of the choir is flanked with square pinnacled
buttresses. Above the Lady Chapel is an arcade with five members
pierced with three windows, and in the gable a similar arrangement of
five lancets, three being windows, arranged in harmony with the
triangular space it fills. The flying buttresses on the south side
were added by Bishop Beauchamp in 1450-58.

The east front of the Lady Chapel is divided by buttresses into three
bays, and has crocketed gables to each. The aisles show a lancet in
the lower story, with a blind couplet beneath a quatrefoil in the
gable; the central compartment has a triplet in each story.

The south side corresponds in character to the north, but is partly
hidden by the chapter house, the muniment room, the library, and
cloisters. The walls of the latter are high, and the quadrangle they
inclose entirely separated from the building, the long narrow space
between being known as the Plumbery.

Many consecration crosses of beautiful design are to be found on the
building marking the spots touched by the oil of unction at the
dedication of the edifice. (See initial letter, page 1.)

The cathedral is built of freestone from the Chilmark quarries twelve
miles distant, with a lavish use of Purbeck marble in its interior.
The grey colour of the leaden roofs and the pure unstained tone of its
walls, impart a quasi-modern aspect to it, which, no matter how little
justified by facts, always presents Salisbury to one's mind, as a late
addition to the superb array of English churches; yet considering that
as we see it from the Close no portion (except possibly the spire)
later than the twelfth century comes into the picture, there is no
other cathedral that so little justifies such an impression, and one
cannot escape a return to the first reason advanced, namely, that its
singular unity has given it an aspect of perpetual youth.

[Illustration: THE CHOIR SCREEN.
_From a Photograph by Carl Norman and Co._]

FOOTNOTES:

[4] This was carefully replaced in its original position inclosed in a
copper cylinder.

[5] Recently, however, anxiety has been again aroused, and the spire
has been once more strengthened.

[6] This lantern story was removed in 1757 by order of the Dean and
Chapter.

THE INTERIOR OF THE CATHEDRAL AND CHAPTER HOUSE.

The ground plan of Salisbury is a well-proportioned double cross with
the arms, of the choir transepts, more important than usual. Indeed,
the exquisitely proportioned and balanced symmetry of every portion,
as of the whole, which almost places Salisbury among classic
buildings, is as marked in its ground plan as in any part of the
building. As an appreciative student of the building has written:
"This is the great beauty of Salisbury, the composition of its mighty
body as a whole. So finely proportioned and arranged are its square
masses of different heights and sizes, so splendid are the broad
effects of light and shadow they produce, so appropriate is the slant
of the roof lines, and so nicely placed and gracefully shaped are the
simple windows, that for once we can give no thought of regret either
to the circling apses of continental lands or the rich traceries and
surface carvings and figures--sculptures of later generations. The
whole effect is in the strictest sense architectural. Few large
buildings teach so clearly the great lesson that beauty in a building
depends first of all upon composition, not decoration; upon masses,
not details; upon the use and shaping, not the ornamentation of
features; and very few show half so plainly that mediæval architects
could realize this fact. We are too apt to think that Gothic art
cannot be individual without being eccentric, or interesting without
being heterogeneous ... but Salisbury is both grand and lovely, and
yet it is quiet, rational, and all of a piece, clear and smooth, and
refined to the point of utmost purity. No building in the world is
more logical, more lucid in expression, more restful to the mind and
eye."[7]

[Illustration: THE NAVE, LOOKING WEST.
_From a Photograph by Messrs. Poulton._]

The number of its pillars, windows, and doorways is said to equal the
hours, days, and months of the year; hence the local rhyme,
attributed, on the authority of Godwin, to a certain Daniel Rogers:

"As many days as in one year there be,
So many windows in this church we see;
As many marble pillars here appear
As there are hours throughout the fleeting year;
As many gates as moons one year does view--
Strange tale to tell! yet not more strange than true."

Fuller, speaking of these, by a curious lapse falls into the vulgar
error of believing Purbeck marble to be an artificial product melted
and poured into moulds, says: "The cathedral is paramount of its kind,
wherein the doors and chapels equal the months, the windows the days,
the pillars and pillarets of fusile marble (an ancient art now
shrewdly suspected to be lost) the hours of the year; so that all
Europe affords not such an almanac of architecture. Once walking in
this church (whereof then I was prebendary) I met a countryman
wondering at the structure thereof. 'I once,' said he to me, 'admired
that there could be a church that should have so many pillars as there
be hours in the year, and now I admire more, that there should be so
many hours in the year as I see pillars in this church.'"

=The Nave.=--The first glimpse as we enter by the west door is
undoubtedly impressive, notwithstanding the absence of colour and the
lack of mystery for which the complete vista obtained at such a cruel
cost by Wyatt is insufficient compensation. The whole scheme of
decoration in its pristine state must have been extremely beautiful.
"If you can imagine it with the walls and piers exhibiting strong
contrasts of colour in the dark and polished Purbeck shafts and the
lighter freestones, the arches picked out with colours, the groining
elaborately decorated, and the whole lighted by brilliantly painted
windows with a preponderance of dark blue and ruby, together with a
flood of white light showing through the lancet of the centre, we may
be allowed a doubt whether Tintern or York could have compared with
it." Add to this picture the movable hangings and decorations of its
many altars, and we cannot honestly attribute the coldness of the
present effect to any fault in the original design. Elsewhere this
austerity of monochrome is modified to a great extent by the variety
(anachronisms though they be) of later architectural insertions.
Salisbury, through the very purity of its design, especially suffers
from its translation from chromatic harmony to monotone, for although
possibly the architectural details are thereby rendered more apparent,
yet the exaggeration of what is after all but the skeleton of the
building, destroys the effect of the whole as its architect imagined
it.

Clustered columns of unpolished Purbeck marble on a quatrefoil plan,
with smaller detached shafts of lustrous marble at the cardinal
points, support, on either side, the ten great arches of the first
story of the nave. These polished shafts are generally in two pieces,
with a brass ring covering the joint; Francis Price discusses, at
great length, this constant feature of the whole building, and points
out, that although most of the shafts were probably not in place until
after the masonry was fairly set, yet frequently subsequent settlement
has crushed them; although, in the nave, the main piers in small
blocks laid according to the natural bed of the stone, are still
perfectly sound. The large arches are gracefully moulded with masses
of carved foliage at the intersections.

[Illustration: THE NAVE--SOUTH SIDE.]

In the nave of this cathedral we have a very uncommon feature in the
connected base of the main columns, which was doubtless introduced to
aid in distributing the weight over a larger surface, and so to
overcome the treacherous character of the foundation.

The triforium, which, from its style, naturally suggests comparison
with Westminster, and the Angel Choir of Lincoln, is simple, but
extremely beautiful. Each of its rather flat-pointed arches, equalling
in span that of the main arch below, is subdivided into pairs, which
again each inclose two smaller ones. These are decorated with trefoils
and quatrefoils, alternately with cinquefoils and octofoils.
Immediately above the carving, at the intersection of the main arches,
is a corbelled head, from which rises a triple vaulting-shaft with
foliated capitals, on a line with the base of the clerestory. This
upper story has, in each bay of the vaulting, simple lancet windows
grouped in threes. The arches here, as in almost every instance
throughout the building, are supported by Purbeck marble shafts. The
nave aisles are lighted by double lancet-windows in each bay. The most
noticeable feature of these aisles is the stone bench which extends
the whole length of the building on both the north and south sides.

[Illustration: NORTH AISLE.]

The west wall is panelled in three main arches, with an upper story
reaching to the height of the triforium base, and containing an arcade
of four arches, subdivided each into two smaller trefoiled ones, with
cinquefoil heads. Above these is the triplet lancet of the great west
window. The effect of the nave looking west is clearly shown in the
photograph here reproduced.

Of the chapels and altars once existing we have records in various
documents. In the "Sarum Processional" twelve altars are mentioned,
dedicated respectively to SS. Andrew, Nicholas, John the Baptist,
Margaret, Mary Magdalene, Laurence, Michael, Martin, Catherine,
Edward, Edmund the King, and Edmund, Archbishop of Canterbury. The
sites of these so far as they can be traced appears to have been: St.
Catherine and St. Martin in the north choir transept, St. Nicholas and
St. Mary Magdalene in the south, and St. Edmund of Canterbury and St.
Margaret respectively in the north and south great transepts.

Throughout the nave it is evident that the first plans were rigidly
obeyed, although the severity of the early years of the style had
become much modified before the work was finished. The absence of
ornate decoration, the simplicity of the mouldings, and the
plate-tracery of the triforium all indicate the first period of "Early
English."

[Illustration: NAVE TRANSEPT.]

The dimensions of the nave are: 229 feet 6 inches long, 82 feet wide,
and 81 feet high. The aisles are 17 feet 6 inches wide, and 39 feet 9
inches high.

=The Nave Transepts= are in three stories, with eastern aisles
divided into three bays. The screens inclosing chapels in these were
demolished by Wyatt. Above the entrances to the great transepts are
arches inserted by Bishop Beauchamp (1450-1481) to withstand the side
thrust of the great tower. These are of perpendicular work, with their
spandrils panelled and their cornices battlemented, as shown in the
engraving. Canterbury and Wells, in a far more prominent fashion, have
similar features; in this instance the addition appears to have
succeeded in its purpose to insure the stability of the tower. In the
choir transepts these additional features take the form of an inverted
arch, above the main arch. The vaulting of the tower roof is also in
the perpendicular style and shows excellent groined work. Both Sir
Christopher Wren and Francis Price, call its four main pillars the
legs of the tower.

Of the transept Fuller says: "The cross aisle of this church is the
most beautiful and lightsome of any I have yet beheld. The spire
steeple (not founded on the ground, but for the main supported by four
pillars,) is of great height and greater workmanship. I have been
credibly informed that some foreign artists beholding this building
brake forth into tears, which some imputed to their admiration (though
I see not how wondering could cause weeping): others to their envy,
grieving that they had not the like in their own land."

=Monuments in the Nave.=[8]--The peculiar arrangements of the ancient
monuments in two long rows on the continuous plinth that connects the
bases of the pillars on each side of the nave is another of Wyatt's
freaks during his terrible innovations in 1789. Not only did he sever
the historical associations of centuries by these arbitrary removals,
but paid so little attention to consistency that portions of monuments
belonging to entirely different periods were combined with curious
results, and remains transferred to other "receptacles" than those
designed for them. It is true that the effect of the present
arrangement is not entirely bad, but it was not worth achieving at
such a cost.

The first monument on the south side as we enter by the great west
door, is in memory of Thomas Lord Wyndham of Finglass, Lord Chancellor
of Ireland, (1) who died in 1745; the marble figure of Hibernia which
surmounts it is by Rysbrack. At the western base of the first south
pillar is a Purbeck marble slab, (2) coffin-shaped, probably the
oldest monument in the building. This is usually assigned to Bishop
Herman, whose tomb it is supposed to have covered in Old Sarum; but no
evidence exists to support this theory. In the first place his
original burial-place is entirely unknown, and William de Wanda, who
chronicles minutely the removal of the bodies of other bishops from
the old cathedral, does not even mention Herman's name.

[Illustration]

The next (3) is an effigy of a bishop in full pontificals, also
believed to have been originally at Old Sarum. The carving is rich,
and the design a fine example of the early Norman style. The chasuble
is decorated with stars, and the dalmatic has a rich border.
Elaborately carved foliage, with birds, frames the figure, which has
its right hand raised in the attitude of benediction, and grasps a
pastoral staff in the left. It is usually believed that it
commemorates Bishop Jocelin, who died in 1184, and was probably
removed from Old Sarum at the translation of the bodies of the three
bishops. The head of the effigy is evidently a much later restoration,
probably, from the style of the richly ornamented mitre, about the
time of Henry III. or Edward I. As the face is cleanly shaven, while
the seal of Bishop Jocelin depicts him as bearded, some antiquaries
hold this monument to belong to Bishop Roger, and assign to Bishop
Jocelin the one formerly attributed to Bishop Herman. If, however,
differences of opinion exist concerning the identity of these two
effigies, they are as nothing compared to the uncertainty regarding
the next, (4) which represents a bishop holding a pastoral staff. Down
the front of this cope are the words, "Affer opem devenies in idem."
Hatcher and Duke believe that it represents Bishop Jocelin. Britton,
Gough and Planché, prefer to think that it commemorates Bishop Roger.
Its inscription on the edge of the slab runs:

"Flent hodie Salesberie quia decidit ensis
Justitie, pater ecclesiæ Salisberiensis
Dum viguit, miseros aluit, fastusque potentum
Non timuit, sed clava fuit terrorque nocentum
De Ducibus, de nobilibus primordia duxit
Principibus, propeque tibi gemma reluxit."

A version given in the Wilts Archeo. Mag. vol. xvii. runs: "They mourn
to-day at Salesberie because there has fallen the sword of justice,
the Father of the Church of Salesberie. While he lived he sustained
the oppressed and wretched, and feared not the arrogance of the
powerful, but himself was the scourge (literally, the club) and terror
of the guilty. He traced his ancestry from dukes and noble princes,
who shone near thee as a precious gem." Another item of indirect
evidence supplied by this inscription is worth noting, namely, the "l"
in Sa_l_isberie. The period when this letter superseded the "r" was
about the time of Jocelin's death. Only a single coin of Stephen's has
the "l."

To Bishop Roger reference is made on page 100, and it is evident that
even the fulsome praise of an epitaph would hardly go out of its way
to describe him as "sprung from dukes and noble princes." Planché,
despite this objection, does not deem it convincing, as poor priests
were often of noble lineage. If, however, we assume it represents
Bishop Jocelin, one of the house of Bohun, a great Norman family, and
compare the effigy with the seal of that bishop, the later theory that
deprives Bishop Roger of this much discussed monument will probably be
chosen as the most acceptable. In a record at least three centuries
old his burial-place is said to be near the chapel of St. Stephen; and
in a plan of the Cathedral, dated 1773, and in Price's account, 1774,
a plain slab with a cross upon it, in a shallow recess of the wall
east of the north aisle, is assigned to Bishop Roger.

But this and the other disputed monuments are undoubtedly genuine
memorials of the earliest bishops, and not merely interesting for that
reason, but as (with the exception of two slabs dated 1086 and 1172 in
Westminster Abbey) the earliest examples of their class in England.
Although the question of their identity of the individuals they
commemorate were best left to those few who are peculiarly concerned
with the history of the period that includes them.

Near these effigies is a slab with faint traces of an incised figure,
which may possibly have represented an abbot or prior. It can hardly
be intended for a bishop, as no mitre can be traced, and the staff is
held in the right hand. The monument (5) on the plinth under the next
arch is also beyond identification.

Next in order comes the altar tomb (6) which now contains the remains
of Bishop Beauchamp, who died in 1481. When this was removed from the
aisle at the north end of the great transept it was empty, and showed
no trace of its original dedication. During the wanton demolition of
the Beauchamp chantry, where, "in marble tumbes," with his father and
mother on either hand, the remains of Bishop Beauchamp had been
unmolested for over three hundred years, his own tomb was "mislaid"
and never recovered. It is pleasant to note that even the apologists
for Wyatt felt this incident was beyond their sympathy. Dodsworth
naïvely remarks, "After this the greatest possible care was taken that
nothing of the kind should again occur," and so far as we know, not
even a prior was subsequently lost. Of this bishop much is said
elsewhere in this book, and his beautiful chantry described on page
90.

The elaborate effigy (7) beneath the next arch represents Robert Lord
Hungerford clad in a superb suit of fifteenth century plate armour,
with the collar of SS. round his neck, and with "his hair polled" in
the fashion of Henry V. A superbly decorated sword and dagger hang
from his jewelled girdle at his side, while his feet rest upon a dog
wearing a rich collar. This monument was placed originally between the
Lady Chapel and the (Hungerford) chantry founded by Margaret, his
widow. By his will Lord Hungerford directed that his body should be
interred before the altar of St. Osmund. The tomb beneath the effigy
is made up from portions of the chapel.

The monument known as Lord Stourton's (8), removed from the east end
of the Cathedral, is next in order. Its three apertures on each side
are said to be emblematic of the six sources of the river Stour, which
rises at Storrhead, the ancient family seat, from whence the name is
derived. The whole shape of the tomb is so unusual that in spite of
the theory that it represents the six sources of the Stour, the
curious arched openings appear as if pierced to exhibit something
behind them. Yet this could not have been an effigy, for the interior
is divided by a solid partition of stone. The pillars which stood
between the arches are gone. Lord Stourton, to whom it is attributed,
was hanged with a silken cord on March 6th, 1556, in the Salisbury
market-place. The tragedy is too long to give in detail, as it is
told in the country histories and elsewhere, here a brief summary must
suffice:--When his mother became a widow Lord Stourton attempted to
induce her to sign a bond promising that she would never re-marry. The
family agents, a father and son named Hartgill, sided with Lady
Stourton and seemed to have influenced her in declining to assent to
the scheme. The Hartgills after much physical maltreatment at the
hands of Lord Stourton's mercenaries, took legal action against him,
with the result that he was fined and imprisoned for awhile in the
Fleet. When let out on parole he invited the Hartgills to meet him
that he might pay them the fine. Upon their appearance at Kilmington
Churchyard, the appointed place, they were seized by armed men,
carried away and murdered in cold blood in full sight of Lord Stourton
himself the same night. For this he was committed to the Tower, tried
at Westminster and hanged with four of his men at Salisbury. So late
as 1775 a wire twisted into a noose was suspended above his tomb.

The mutilated effigy (9) of Bishop de la Wyle (died 1271) rests on a
base made up of portions of later work. The last monument on this side
(10) is of the famous William Longespée, 1st Earl of Salisbury, the
natural son of Henry II. by Fair Rosamond. This effigy still shows
traces of the gorgeous ornament in gold and colours with which it was
originally decorated. Westmacott, the sculptor, says: "The manly,
warrior character of the figure is particularly striking even in its
recumbent attitude, while the turn of the head, and the graceful flow
of lines in the right hand and arm, with the natural heavy fall of the
chain armour at the side, exhibit a feeling of art that would not do
discredit to a very advanced school." The figure is clad in mail
armour, which covers the mouth in a peculiar fashion, and wears a
surcoat falling in simple folds, almost Greek in feeling, that are
somewhat curious in connection with the rich mediæval luxuriance of
the surface ornament. On his shield are borne six heraldic leopards or
lions. The slab and effigy are stone, but the base is of wood
encircled by an arcade of trefoiled arches. One of its compartments
protected with glass yet shows a piece of the beautiful diaper work,
in silver overlaid on white linen, remains of the rich colourings of
two successive periods are present on the effigy itself. (See p. 94.)

Crossing the nave, and following the northern base of the pillars, we
find a very beautiful alabaster monument (11), with the effigy of Sir
John Cheyney (died 1509) clad in military garb, and wearing the collar
of SS. with the portcullis badge of Henry VII. suspended therefrom.
Sir John Cheyney was the standard-bearer of Henry of Richmond at
Bosworth Field. To quote from Hall's "Chronicle"--"King Richard set on
so sharply at the first brount that he ouerthrew th'erle's standard
and slew Sir William Brandon, his standard-bearer, and matched hand to
hand with John Cheynye, a man of great strength, who would have
resisted him, and the said John was by him manfully ouerthrowen."
Wyatt, in his ghoulish explorations exhumed Sir John's bones, and
confirmed the legend of his gigantic stature; the thigh-bone was found
to be twenty-one inches in length, four inches more than the standard
average. His original tomb was destroyed with the rest of the
Beauchamp chapel, and his remains now lie beneath this effigy. Under
the next arch to the westward are two tombs (12,13) deprived of the
brasses they once bore, which represented Walter, Lord Hungerford, and
his first wife, Catherine Peverell. The famous iron chapel has been
removed to the choir by their descendant, the Earl of Radnor, who
converted the monument into a family pew.

The plain altar tomb of St. Osmund, that, moved hither by Wyatt, stood
until 1878 below the next arch of the nave; is now replaced in the
Lady Chapel on its former site.

The effigy of Sir John de Montacute (14) (died 1389) clad in mail and
chain armour, is, according to Meyrick, "a good specimen of highly
ornamented gauntlets, of a contrivance for the easier bending of the
body at the bottom of the breastplate, and of the elegant manner of
twisting the hanging sword belt, pendant from the military girdle,
round the upper part of the sword." The head of the figure reposes on
a helmet, a lion couches at his feet. Armorial bearings appear on
shields at the sides of the tomb. (See p. 79.)

Then we come to Chancellor Geoffrey's tomb (15), and the next (16) has
not been identified. The larger effigy (17) on the last portion of the
northern plinth is of William Longespée, fourth Earl of Salisbury; the
figure wears chain armour, and lies with its legs crossed and hands
grasped upon his sword. He was twice a Crusader, in 1240-1242, and in
1249, when he served with St. Louis of France at Damietta, he fell in
battle near Cairo in 1250, and was buried in the church of the Holy
Cross near Acre. The night he was killed, according to Matthew Paris,
his mother, the Countess Ela, saw in a vision "the heavens opened, and
her son armed at all points, with the six lioncels on his shield,
received in triumph by a company of angels." Many strange marvels were
reported to have been worked by his bones.

=The Boy Bishop.=--Near this monument is the one (18) known as the
"Boy Bishop." Hidden for a long time underneath some seats near the
pulpit, it was brought to light in 1680, and moved to its present
position. At first it was covered with a wooden box; for which later
on, owing to the great curiosity shown by the public, the strong iron
grating which now protects it was substituted. (See p. 98.)

Notwithstanding that the ceremony of the Boy Bishop was observed at
Salisbury for many centuries, there is no reasonable proof that this
effigy has any connection therewith. Even John Gregory, whose famous
treatise on the Boy Bishop is printed in "Gregorii Posthuma,"
1649-1669, admits there that it might well seem impossible to everyone
that either a bishop should be so small in person or a child so great
in clothes. Thomas Fuller also echoes the same objection when he
writes: "But the curiosity of critics is best entertained with the
tomb in the north of the nave of the church, where lieth a monument in
stone of a little boy, habited all in episcopal robes, a mitre upon
his head, a crozier in his hand, and the rest accordingly. At the
discovery thereof, formerly covered over with pews, many justly
admired that either a bishop could be so small in person or a child so
great in clothes; though since all is unriddled; for it was then
fashionable in that church (a thing rather deserving to be remembered
than fit to be done), in the depth of Popery, that the choristers
chose a boy of their society to be a bishop among them from St.
Nicholas' till Innocents' day." If the effigy represents a boy it is
hard to explain why it is not life-size. Stothard in his "Monumental
Effigies," in common with most later authorities, favours the idea
that it is a miniature representation of a real bishop. Canon Jones
suggests probably Walter Scammel, Henry de Braundeston, or William de
la Corner. Mackenzie Walcott inclined to the belief that it
represented Bishop Wykehampton, who died 1284. A small figure of
Bishop Ethelman, 1260, about the same date, is in Winchester
Cathedral; there is also one 14-½ inches long in Abbey Dore Church,
Herefordshire, one at Ayot, St. Lawrence, Herts, 2 feet 3 inches, and
other small effigies of knights and civilians elsewhere. According to
Digby Wyatt the custom of burying different portions of the body in
different places was common in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries;
from which he infers that probably these figures commemorated the
place of sepulture of the heart.

Whether the monument in question be connected with the Chorister
Bishop or not, there are so many records of the function with which
popular credence has associated it, that a short digression is almost
unavoidable. The pamphlet by John Gregory is elaborately minute and
much too long to be quoted fully, yet some of the facts he brought
together may be briefly noted. It seems that on the feast of St.
Nicholas, the patron saint of children, the choir-boys[9] elected one
of their number, who from that day to the feast of the Holy Innocents,
December 28th, bore the rank and exercised the functions of a bishop,
the other choristers being his prebendaries. During his term of office
he wore episcopal vestments. On the eve of the Holy Innocents he
performed the entire office, excepting the mass, as a real bishop
would have done. At Salisbury on that day the boy-bishop and his
boy-prebendaries went in procession to the altar of the Holy Trinity,
taking precedence of the dean and resident canons. At the first
chapter afterwards the boy bishop attended in person and was permitted
to receive the entire Oblation made at the altar during the day of his
procession. The names of many of the choristers and the amounts of the
oblations offered for the boy-bishops are the subject of many entries
in the capitular registers of both English and continental churches.
Bishop Mortival in his statutes, still preserved among the cathedral
muniments, orders that the bishop of the choristers "shall make no
visit (some commentators consider this has been misinterpreted, to
infer that elsewhere he held visitations), nor keep any feast, but
shall remain in the Common Hall, unless he be invited to the table of
a Canon for recreation." The order of service in use in this diocese
has been preserved (MS. No. 153 of the Cathedral Library); in it we
find as a special collect, "O Almighty God, who out of the mouths of
babes and sucklings," etc., not, however, quite in the form in which
it appears in the Prayer Book of Ed. VI.

The spectacle was so popular, and attracted such great crowds, that by
special edict it was prescribed that the penalty of the greater
excommunication should be incurred by those who might interrupt or
press upon the boys during their procession or in any part of their
service.

In spite of the doubts thrown upon the monument at Salisbury, it is
distinctly recorded that if a boy-bishop died during his term of
power, he was to be buried in his vestments and have his obsequies
celebrated with the pomp pertaining to an episcopal funeral.

This custom was not confined to this cathedral, but practised at many
others in England and on the Continent, where we find records of much
greater power being exercised by the boy-prelate, extending even to
the presentation to prebends. At Winchester it was certainly observed.
So far back as 1263 we find it described at St. Paul's Cathedral as an
ancient custom. Several sermons preached by the boy-bishops are still
preserved; one is reprinted in the Camden Society's "Miscellany," vol.
vii. Dean Colet (once a prebendary of Sarum) in his statutes for St.
Paul's school directs: "All these children shall every Childermas day
come to Paules Church, and here the Childe-bishoppes sermon, and after
be at high masse so each of them offer _one peny_ to the childe
bishoppe. And with the maisters and surveyors of the scoole in general
procession when they be warned they shall go tweyne and tweyne
togither soberly, and not singe oute, but saye devoutly tweyne by
tweyne seven psalmes with letany." (Add. MS. 6174.) At York the mock
prelate held office longer, and wielded far more power than his
fellows of Sarum.

In 1299, on December 7th, a boy-bishop at Hoton, near
Newcastle-on-Tyne, said vespers before Edward I., then on his way to
Scotland.

At Salisbury in 1542 Henry VIII. forbade the ceremony by royal
proclamation. It was revived under Queen Mary, and finally abolished
on the accession of Queen Elizabeth.

Not entirely alien to the subject is the office of the bishop's boy,
which is probably peculiar to Salisbury. His duty is to call at the
palace before every service and inquire if the bishop will attend. He
is formally appointed by the bishop, who lays his hands upon him, and
repeats a prescribed office.

A nameless tomb (19), and a memorial (20) to Dr. Daubigny Turberville,
an oculist of Salisbury, who died April 21st, 1696, complete the more
important monuments of the nave. Several mural tablets on the aisle
walls are of hardly sufficient general interest to need description.
In Price's "Antiquities of Salisbury," and many of the numerous works
devoted to the cathedral, copies of nearly all the epitaphs are given,
but, except in very special instances, they form peculiarly depressing
reading.

=The Choir Screen= was given as a memorial of the late Mr. Sidney Lear
by his wife, to whom the cathedral is indebted for many of its modern
enrichments. It is entirely of wrought metal, by Skidmore, of
Coventry, and a good example of its class. It replaced the organ
screen compiled by Wyatt from fragments of the Hungerford and
Beauchamp chantries; to erect which he removed the original screen of
exquisite workmanship, as may be seen by portions now placed along the
west wall of the north-east transept.

=The Organ=, that stood on the old screen until lately, was built by
Green, of Isleworth, and a gift from King George III. in his capacity
as "a Berkshire gentleman," that county being included in the diocese
of Sarum until 1836. It was given by the Dean and Chapter to the
church of St. Thomas. The present organ, a fine instrument, built by
Willis, was the gift of Miss Chafyn Grove, is placed in the second
arcade on each side of the choir, the necessary connecting mechanism
being in a tunnel below the pavement, while the larger pipes and the
bellows are inclosed within a screen in the north transept. The oak
case is from a design by the late Mr. Street.

=The Choir and Presbytery= are very similar to the nave in the main
features of their design. The piers show a different plan, which
provides for eight shafts of Purbeck marble to each. The inner
mouldings of the arches exhibit the "dog-tooth" ornamentation of their
period. The triforium and clerestory differ slightly from the
corresponding parts of the nave. In each of the last two bays of the
presbytery the triforium has five small cinquefoil arches. At the east
wall of the choir above the reredos is an arcade of five
simply-pointed arches, below a triplet window in the gable, which is
filled with stained glass, given by the Earl of Radnor in 1781, and
representing "The Brazen Serpent," after a design by Mortimer.

The choir still bears traces of Wyatt's destruction. He removed the
original reredos behind the high altar and the screen before the Lady
Chapel, so that both, with the low eastern aisle, were thrown into the
choir. He shifted the high altar from the choir to the extreme east
end of the Lady Chapel, sacrificing several chantries and tombs to do
so. Views of the cathedral after his reign of terror fail to show any
gain to compensate for so much loss; the extreme length is not
apparently an advantage, while the bare look of the interior seems
decidedly intensified by the increased vista that he was so delighted
to obtain, and for which with a light heart he effaced the silent
records of dead centuries.

=The Decorations of the Roof= of the choir and presbytery are
reproductions by Messrs. Clayton and Bell of the original paintings,
which dated probably from the thirteenth century. The series,
commencing from the west, shows twenty-four prophets and saints, all,
with the exception of St. John the Baptist, selected from the Old
Testament. Taking them in lines parallel with the choir screen, the
first row contains (reading from the left, as one faces the altar):
Zechariah, Daniel, Ezekiel, and St. John the Baptist; the second:
Zacharias, Joel, Hosea, and Zephaniah; the third: Job, Habakkuk,
Nahum, David; the fourth: Moses, Micah, Jonah, and Jacob; the fifth:
Malachi, Obadiah, Amos, and Isaac; and the sixth: Haggai, Jeremiah,
Isaiah, and Abraham. In the square of the transept crossing are
(following the same order): St. Thomas and St. Andrew, St. Matthew and
St. John, St. Philip and St. Simon, St. Bartholomew and St. Matthias.
At the left the last panel on that side contains St. Peter and St.
Andrew, while another in the opposite corner has St. James and St.
John. In the centre is a figure of Christ, in majesty, surrounded by
the four evangelists.

From this point to the east the panels are devoted to secular subjects
typifying the twelve months, "The signs of the Zodiac," Price calls
them: January, warming at a fire; February, drinking wine; March,
delving; April, sowing; May, hawking; June, flowers; July, reaping;
August, threshing; September, fruit; October, brewing; November,
cutting wood; December, killing the fatted pig. The originals were
white, or rather buff-washed, in the last century. Owing to the
tenacity of this wash, and the friable non-adhesive quality of the
paint it covered, it was found impossible to remove the additional
coating without destroying the original paintings. Tracings of some of
them were made by Messrs. Clayton and Bell; but although the
semi-transparent character of the buff wash allowed the subjects to be
discerned from below; on nearer inspection the details became blurred
and shapeless.

The theory that the paintings of the choir had been re-painted before
their defacement by buff wash seems hardly likely from the state
reported by the restorers. The idea probably arose from an extract,
itself possibly interpolated, frequently quoted from one edition of
Defoe's "Tour through the Island of Great Britain:" "The choir
resembles a theatre rather than a venerable choir of a church; it is
painted white with the panels golden, and groups and garlands of roses
and other flowers intertwined run round the top of the stalls; each
stall hath the arms of its holder in gilt letters or blue writ on it;
and the episcopal throne with Bishop Ward's arms upon it would make a
fine theatrical decoration, being supported by gilt pillars and
painted with flowers upon white all over. The roof of the choir hath
some fresh painting, containing several saints as big as life, each in
a circle by itself and holding a label in their hands telling who they
are. The altar piece is very mean, and behind this altar, in the
Virgin Mary's Chapel, are some very good monuments." But in the first
edition of the same book Defoe himself says: "The inside is certainly
hurt by the paltry old paintings in and over the choir, and the
whitewashing badly done, wherein they have very stupidly everywhere
drawn black lines to imitate joints of stone." In another edition of
1724 the passage reads: "The painting in the choir is mean and more
like the ordinary method of Common Drawing Room or Tavern painting
than that of a church." Whatever be the actual value of the painting
on its own merits, as a record faithfully transcribed of very early
roof-decoration, it has an interest of its own far beyond much more
important work of later periods.

[Illustration: THE CHOIR, LOOKING WEST.
_From a Photograph by Messrs. Carl Norman and Co._]

=The Choir.=--In the second bay from the east, on the north side of
the choir, stands the chantry of Bishop Audley, who died in 1524.
This excellent example of late Perpendicular work was built by the
bishop himself in 1520. Its style is not unlike the chantry of Bishop
Fox at Winchester with octagonal shafts, (similar to those of the
Salisbury Chapel at Christchurch,) which impart a semi-Oriental touch
that is so characteristic of this final development of Gothic art. The
images it once enshrined are lost, but the original rich colouring is
still distinguishable on the fan tracery of the roof. The arms and
initials of its founder are borne on the shields of the cornice. In
the corresponding bay on the south side is the chantry founded by
Walter Lord Hungerford, in 1429, and removed from the nave in 1778 by
his descendant, the Earl of Radnor, who converted it into a family
pew. It has been re-decorated, and new emblazonments added. The arms
of its founder and his two wives appear on the base. The
superstructure is of iron, and a fine example of its class, which
includes among the few still extant the chantry of Edward IV. (died
1483) at Windsor, and that of Henry VII. at Westminster Abbey (died
1509). The Audley and Hungerford chantries are the most important left
in a cathedral once rich in their kind, as the report of the
alienation of their endowments proves.

Of modern fittings, the Brass Lectern was given by members of the late
Dean Lear's family. A brass eagle is mentioned by Price, and said to
have been given in 1714 at a cost of £160. The pulpit is modern, with
carved medallions on its sides.

The bishop's throne, a lofty modern structure, made by Earp of
Lambeth, was presented by those clergymen who had been ordained in the
cathedral. It replaced one given in 1763.

=The Choir Stalls= are made up from work of different periods, the
seats and elbows being probably part of the original work; the poppy
heads of the benches are of the time of Henry VIII. Much later Sir
Christopher Wren added to the stalls, and still later Wyatt placed
canopies over them, which have since been removed. The dean's seat has
been said to be of the time of Charles I.

=The Reredos= is modern. It was given by Earl Beauchamp in memory of
Bishop Beauchamp (1450-81), whose chantry Wyatt swept away. Its design
is adapted from the old choir screen, now in the Lady Chapel, and the
monument of Bishop Bridport. A large centre panel, eight feet in
height, has a bas-relief of the Crucifixion, with the Virgin and St.
John; in the head of the central arch are angels amid foliage. On each
side are two storied canopied niches, containing statues of the two
Maries, and of St. Osmund and Bishop Beauchamp. The whole rises up to
a gable terminating in a gemmed and floriated cross. The back facing
the Lady Chapel is richly panelled. The sides are also elaborately
decorated with birds. The design by Sir Gilbert Scott was executed at
a cost of about £1,800 by Messrs. Farmer and Brindley.

[Illustration: THE HIGH ALTAR AND REREDOS.
_From a Photograph by Messrs. Poulton._]

=The High Altar=, the credence table, and sedilia, are excellent
examples of modern work. The altar itself is of English oak. Its
design comprises an arcade with seven openings, divided into three
panels, with much elaborate carving. It was given by those who had
received confirmation at the hands of Bishop Hamilton. The altar
cloths, worked and given by Mrs. Sidney Lear, are highly finished
examples of modern ecclesiastical needlework. The credence table, of
somewhat elaborate design, is of carved oak with a marble top. The
altar rails are of brass, the grills of wrought iron, at each side of
the reredos screen the choir partially from the Lady Chapel.

[Illustration: THE CHOIR, LOOKING EAST.
_From a Photograph by Messrs. Poulton._]

The definitely planned order of the subjects of the ceiling decoration
is held to indicate originally a different place for the high altar
than its present site, which is the same as that reported by Leland
two hundred years ago, and until attention was drawn to this fact was
generally accepted as its original position. From the rood screen the
sequence of the figures of the patriarchs and prophets leads up to the
climax of "Our Lord in Glory." At this point the capitals of the
Purbeck shafts surrounding the pillars supporting the arch on which
this figure is painted, are carved in foliage, unlike the others
throughout the building, which are invariably moulded only. The whole
subject is discussed at length in a paper printed in the "Wilts
Archæological Magazine," vol. xvii., in a way that supports the
hypothesis advanced. A somewhat important piece of circumstantial
evidence came to light during the late restoration, namely a windlass
close to the pier on the north side of the supposed original site of
the altar, which was possibly intended to raise and lower a
baldichino, or ciborium that hung originally over the altar, or still
more probably the pyx, which as many instances show was usually
suspended above it.

Possibly the altar was moved when, owing to the early settlement of
some of the piers, it was found necessary to wall up the space between
the arches opening into the choir transepts, and insert the
perpendicular arches as a counter thrust to the strain of the central
tower. It is hardly conceivable that the evidence offered by the roof
paintings, and the solitary instance of carved capitals, can be
misleading on this point.

=The East= (or =Choir=) =Transept=, which on the north side, screened
as it is from the aisle, is used and known also as the Morning Chapel,
has on its west wall a portion of a very beautiful screen of Early
English work. Of this John Carter, from whose pages the accompanying
sketch of a portion is reproduced, says that it was moved during
Wyatt's restoration, as he naïvely puts it, "during the late
dilapidatious innovations, and modern fanciful introductions so fatal
to our study of antiquities." Other authorities consider its original
position uncertain. Yet since its architecture is obviously coeval
with that of the building, and the arches inserted by Bishop
Beauchamp show proof of having been planned to rest on something at
the base of the tower piers, there can be little doubt that when Wyatt
removed the screen to re-erect a medley of his own composing made of
fragments of the demolished chantries, he disturbed one more of the
original features of the cathedral.

[Illustration: PORTION OF THE OLD ORGAN SCREEN.
_From a Drawing by H.P. Clifford._]

A curious double aumbry in the north wall of this chapel is unusual,
not merely in the pitch of its arches, which are triangular gables,
but also in the solid stone shelves dividing its space into six
compartments; other aumbries in this church show similar features, but
this alone retains its original wooden doors. The superb brass of
Bishop Wyville (illustrated on p. 114) is in the pavement of this
transept. It is illustrated in almost every work on monumental brasses
as a notable example. A canopied lavatory of beautiful design is upon
the east wall to the right, the altar being not in the centre, but
almost in the corner on the left-hand side.

=The Eastern Aisle= is not so important as similar "processionals" at
Exeter, Winchester, and some other English churches; still, the grace
of its clustered columns, like those of the Lady Chapel, give it a
character of its own.

[Illustration: PISCINA IN THE SOUTH CHOIR AISLE.]

=The Lady Chapel=, originally separated from the choir, thrown into
the presbytery by Wyatt for the sake of his much overrated vista, is
once again partially hidden by the reredos and the grille work of the
screen on either side. As the earliest portion of the building, and
the only part Bishop Poore lived to see completed, it would not lack
interest, were it commonplace in character; but it is on the contrary
a particularly graceful example of its time. The whole chapel is
divided into a nave and side aisles by single and clustered shafts of
Purbeck marble. These extremely slender shafts look unequal to the
heavy groined roof they support; for although nearly thirty feet high,
the four largest are not quite ten inches in diameter, while the
clustered ones are mere rods. Francis Price, whose interest in the
building, as he showed throughout his monograph, was that of a
practical builder, was "amazed at the vast boldness of the architect,
who certainly piqued himself on leaving to posterity an instance of
such small pillars bearing so great a load. One would not suppose
them," he says, "to stand so firm of themselves as even to resist the
force of an ordinary wind." The modern colouring of this part of the
building, including the low eastern aisle immediately behind the
reredos, is claimed to be an exact restoration of the original, but it
is hardly agreeable. The black of the newly polished marble shafts,
the dull green of other parts, with the red, green, and white of the
vaulting ribs, is more bizarre than beautiful. In regarding traces of
mediæval colouring one often forgets that time has blended
harmoniously a scheme otherwise entirely crude, and to modern taste
unpleasing. How far in English instances this is emphasized by the
absence of rich hangings, carpets, vestments, and pictures, it is not
within our subject to inquire; but since such restoration of the
primitive colouring offends one less in churches that still preserve
the more ornate furniture of the Roman Ritual, it is at least a moot
point.

The triple lancet east window at the end of the Lady Chapel was filled
formerly with stained glass, representing "The Resurrection," after a
design by Sir Joshua Reynolds; it is now replaced by modern glass in
memory of the late Dean Lear. An altarpiece, composed of fragments of
the destroyed Hungerford and Beauchamp Chapels, was set up here by
Wyatt. It has lately been replaced by a triptych designed by Sir
Arthur Blomfield, with very beautiful panels painted by Mr.
Buckeridge. The seven-branched candlesticks in black-wood, silver
mounted, are by the same architect. The altar frontal, designed by Mr.
Sidney Gambier Parry, and worked by Mrs. Weigall, is so good that it
must not be overlooked. The altar itself is of stone from an old
altarpiece. Under the windows runs a series of niches, once in the
Beauchamp Chapel. Above these rich and delicate canopies, with foliage
and fan-tracery springing from corbelled heads, runs an exquisitely
sculptured frieze.

In this place, after he was canonized in 1456, the shrine of St.
Osmund was erected. His supposed tomb, moved by Wyatt to the nave, is
now replaced between the Lady Chapel and the southern aisle. Of the
shrine no trace remains; but legends of the miracles worked at it, and
the special indulgences granted to the pilgrims who visited it, prove
that it existed on this spot. The date MXCIX. inscribed upon this slab
has been questioned, on the authority of a diary made by Captain
Symons (in 1644), now in the British Museum, in which an entry occurs
with reference to this inscription, "a blew stone rising four ynches
from the ground, the east end narrower than the west, this lately
written Anno MXCIX.," but whether he means to infer that it was lately
restored, or that the date itself was a later addition, is not quite
clear. The characters of the inscription Planché pointed out
correspond in form with those at the time of William the Conqueror,
and as sepulchral effigies are uncommon until the middle of the
twelfth century, the presumption is in its favour; still it is
somewhat pathetic to find that the evidence which serves to connect
this otherwise unknown monument with the famous St. Osmund, the
greatest figure, not merely of the cathedral, but of the English
Church of his time, is not absolutely beyond suspicion. Yet even if
the Roman numerals were a later addition, it is hardly credible that
the shrine of so popular a saint could have been wrongly identified.
When Wyatt, according to his usual habit, explored the interior of the
tomb, nothing was found within it.

[Illustration: ALTAR AND TRIPTYCH REREDOS IN THE LADY CHAPEL.
_From a Photograph by Witcomb and Son, Salisbury._]

In 1540 Leland saw here a "ballet," which he transcribes for his
Itinerary, with an inscription commanding the faithful to pray for the
repose of the soul of Richard Poore.

=Monuments in the Transept, Choir and Lady Chapel.=--The most
important on the west wall of the north great transept is a brass (21)
in memory of John Britton, who did so much to revive a taste for
archæology and ecclesiastical art by his splendid series of monographs
on the cathedrals, and his topographical works. A fine monument of its
class is one by Bacon (22), which represents Moral Philosophy mourning
over a medallion of James Harris, author of "Hermes" and father of the
first Earl of Malmesbury; to whose memory close by is a full-length
portrait figure by Chantrey. A figure (23) of Benevolence lifting the
veil from a bas-relief of the good Samaritan, by Flaxman, commemorates
William Benson Earle, Esq., of the Close, Salisbury. On the north wall
of this transept is a canopied effigy (24) of a bishop said to
represent John Blythe, who died in 1499. It was originally in the
ambulatory of the Lady Chapel, behind the high altar, until Wyatt
removed it to its present site. In this transept is the statue (25) to
Sir Richard Colt Hoare, author of the "Histories of Modern and Ancient
Wiltshire," and other works. It is a seated figure not without
dignity, by R.C. Lucas, a native of Salisbury. A portrait bust to
Richard Jefferies, with a long and eulogistic inscription, is upon a
bracket on the west wall.

Two other monuments by Flaxman deserve notice. That to Walter Long,
Esq. (26), a medallion supported by two figures representing Justice
and Literature, and one (27) to his brother, William Long, in florid
Gothic style, with figures of Science and Benevolence. Dr. Waägen, in
his "Art Treasures of Great Britain," says: "The three monuments by
Flaxman (in Salisbury) two of which are in Gothic taste, prove that he
was superior to most English sculptors in knowledge of the
architectonic style. There is nothing extraordinary in the design, but
the workmanship is good, and there is real feeling in the heads."

In the north choir aisle, at its junction with the great transept, is
a large Purbeck marble altar tomb (28), with panels and tracery,
despoiled of the brass legend and armorial bearings it formerly
exhibited. This is supposed to have commemorated Bishop Woodville, who
died 1484. Two marble slabs that until 1778 were in the floor of this
side beneath the first arch of the choir, and in the corresponding
place on the south side, have been also stripped of their brasses
which showed them to belong to Bishop Simon of Ghent, 1315, and Bishop
Mortival, 1330.

On the bench of this aisle is a figure (29) of a skeleton said to
represent a man named Fox, who tried to fast forty days. A similar
legend is told of the next figure (30), in memory of Dr. Bennett,
Precentor of Salisbury (1541 to 1544). It is needless to say that both
stories are mere inventions; in many monuments the effigy of the hero
commemorated was shown in full pomp above, while in a niche below the
skeleton was depicted, by way of pointing a moral too obvious to need
further comment.

A brass, in replica of the original, has been reinserted in the marble
slab that commemorates Bishop Jewell (1560-71) (31). The next monument
(32), for a long time attributed to Bishop Bingham (1229-47), has a
flat pointed arch terminating in a decorated finial, above which rises
a sort of pyramid of three stories, below is a slab formerly inlaid
with brass. Later antiquaries, in spite of the fourteenth century
character of its detail, assign it to Bishop Scammel (1284-87). The
Audley chapel (33) is entered from this aisle.

In the north-east choir transept aisle are three gravestones of
Bishops Wyville (1375), Gheast (1576), and Jewell (1571), removed from
the choir when its marble pavement was laid down. In the floor of this
transept, which is known also as the morning chapel, is the famous
brass to Bishop Wyvill (34), one that has been repeatedly figured in
various works on memorial brasses, and it is generally ranked as one
of the most interesting of existing examples. Near this is another
brass (35) commemorating Bishop Gheast. The lavatory (36) is noticed
elsewhere.

In the Lady Chapel, under an arched niche in the north wall, is a
coffin-shaped tomb (37) assigned to Bishop Roger, by those who refuse
to accept the effigy in the nave as his monument.

The monument (38) at the end of the north aisle of the Lady Chapel is
a typical example of the mixed classical style so dear to the early
seventeenth century taste. The effigies below its canopy, supported on
twisted Corinthian pillars, represent Sir Thomas Gorges and his widow,
a maid of honour to Queen Elizabeth. Its medley of obelisks, globes,
spheres, and images of the four cardinal virtues is more curious than
interesting. Interred near in the choir, and all without monuments are
many of the Earls of Pembroke and their wives, including "Sidney's
sister, Pembroke's mother."

In a niche of the east wall of the choir, behind an arcade of three
pointed arches with cinquefoil heads, is a Purbeck marble effigy (39)
of a bishop supposed by many to represent Richard Poore. It has been
ascribed to Bishop Bingham because its bearded face fails to agree
with that depicted on the seal of Bishop Poore, and also because an
entry in an old book of records says that he was buried on the north
side of the altar. This monument was removed by Wyatt to the
north-east transept, to what is supposed to have been its original
position. The effigy, whoever it represents, is a fine one, the
pastoral crozier of particularly graceful design; above it is an angel
supporting the circle of the sun and the crescent of the moon.

The slab which is believed to commemorate St. Osmund (40) is now
restored, and placed where his shrine stood formerly, between the
south choir aisle and Lady Chapel.

At the east end of the south aisle is the gorgeous monument (41) to
Edward, Earl of Hertford, son of the Protector Somerset, uncle of
Edward VI., and of his wife Catherine, sister to Lady Jane Grey. The
effigies are both in a praying attitude, the Earl in armour. It is
elaborately ornamented and splendid in gold and colours, restored by
order of the late Duke of Northumberland. It is more ornate than
modern taste desires, but still to call it "stately, though
tasteless," as does one chronicler, is somewhat harsher criticism than
is justified. It is seen in the illustration of the choir aisle given
here.

[Illustration: SOUTH CHOIR AISLE, LADY CHAPEL.
_From a Photograph by Norman._]

In the south wall is an altar tomb (42), now assigned to William
Wilton, Chancellor of Sarum (1506-23). On its cornice are shields
bearing the device of Henry VIII. and Catherine of Arragon, a rose and
a pomegranate; the arms of Bishop Audley, and those of Abingdon Abbey;
also the rebus W.I.L. and a Tun.

The monument (43) to Bishop Moberly, designed by Mr. Arthur Blomfield,
is an excellent example of the modern revival. The monument (44) to
Bishop Hamilton is also interesting as almost the last design prepared
by Sir George Gilbert Scott, and one well worthy of its author.

Next to the Hungerford iron chantry (45) is the monument (46)
ordinarily assigned to Bishop William of York, but, like many of the
bishops' tombs in this cathedral, without any certain clue to its
identity. It consists of a pointed, crocketed arch, terminating in an
elaborate finial; with a flat slab below, originally inlaid with a
brass.

[Illustration: SOUTH CHOIR AISLE, SHOWING THE HUNGERFORD
CHAPEL.
_From a Photograph by S.B. Bolas and Co._]

In the south choir transept is the very beautiful chantry (47) to
Bishop Giles de Bridport. On either side the gabled roof is carried by
two open elaborately moulded arches with quatrefoil heads, inclosing
two trefoil arches supported by clustered detached shafts. Each arch
has a triangular hood moulding, crocketed with carved finials. The
spandrils are ornamented with very interesting carvings. These have
been interpreted to mean: on the south side, the birth of the bishop,
his confirmation, his education, and possibly his first preferment; on
the north, the bishop doing homage for his see, a procession with a
cross-bearer (generally accepted as a memorial of the consecration of
the building by this bishop); his death; and finally his soul borne
up to heaven by an angel with outspread wings.

[Illustration: CHANTRY OF BISHOP BRIDPORT.
_From Britton's "Cathedrals."_]

The recumbent effigy has figures of censing angels at its head. The
whole style of this exquisite structure is akin to that of the
cloisters and the chapter house. The artists who executed the
sculptures are believed to have been contemporaries of Niccola Pisano.
A chantry was formerly attached to this monument, to the east of which
is a double aumbry, or cupboard, for the reservation of the sacrament.

Near this is a tablet to the memory of Canon Bowles, whose edition of
Pope plunged him into a bitter controversy with Lord Byron. He was
author of many books, including a Life of Bishop Ken. A large modern
monument to the late Bishop Burgess is against the south wall. On the
west wall is the monument (48) of Bishop Seth Ward, whose additions to
the palace, after the Restoration, are mentioned elsewhere. The Izaak
Walton, whose gravestone is near, was the son of the famous angler.
Near is one to the memory of the father of the poet Young, and a
modern tablet to Richard Hooker, author of "Ecclesiastical Polity."

In the south choir aisle is a rather interesting monument (51) to
Bishop Davenant, who is usually credited with the honour of being one
of the translators of the Bible. It is of white marble with two black
Corinthian pillars, surmounted by a mitre and arms. There is also a
tablet in coloured relief to the memory of Mrs. Wordsworth, wife of
the bishop; and a brass, cruciform in shape, inserted in a polished
granite slab, which forms a memorial to Canon Liddon.

Many other monuments of ancient and modern date that concern forgotten
celebrities, or are of purely local interest, cannot be catalogued.
Nor is it needful to insist on morals they mostly enforce, that really
all recent works of this class lack the dignity which has given the
word monumental a new meaning.

On the bench opposite is the monument (52), an altar tomb with shields
and initials, of Bishop Salcot (or Capon), whose notoriety as a
"time-serving courtier" is mentioned in another chapter.

A pseudo-classical monument near (53), with vine-leaves and grapes in
green and gold entwined round black Corinthian pillars, is to the
memory of Sir Richard Mompesson, knight, who is represented in
armour, and Dame Katherine, his wife, clad in black robe with gold
flowers.

[Illustration: THE CHAPTER HOUSE.
_From a Photograph by Carl Norman and Co._]

Close to the south transept, in the choir aisle, is the altar tomb
(54) of Bishop Mitford, 1407, which Britton rightly calls a noble
monument. In the spandrils of the flat arch of its canopy are armorial
shields. Lilies and birds, holding in their beaks scrolls, inscribed,
"Honor Deo et gloria," are on its cornice. The shields on the north
bear the bishop's arms and those of his see; on the south are
quartered the arms of England and France, and the ensign of Edward the
Confessor--the cross _patonée_ surrounded by five martlets.

Here also is a modern altar tomb (55), from a design by Mr. G.E.
Street, to the memory of John Henry Jacob, and a fine Jacobean
monument with bust and Latin inscription to Lord Chief Justice Hyde.

Among many other post-reformation monuments are those to: Bishop
Fisher (56) on the east wall; a canopied altar tomb (57) in the Gothic
style to the memory of Edward and Rachel Poore (died 1780 and 1781),
the collateral descendants of the famous bishop, and a marble slab set
in a Gothic frame to Canon Hume (died 1834).

On the south wall of the nave (58) there is an effigy of Mrs. Eleanor
Sadler, who died July 30th, 1622, and was interred "according to her
owne desire under this her pew, wherein with great devotion she had
served God dailie almost L years." Amid other monuments on this wall,
dating from late in the seventeenth century to the present day, is a
small tablet (60) to one of the most famous Salisbury men in modern
times, the Right Hon. Henry Fawcett, M.P., late Postmaster-General,
who died in 1884.

=The Chapter House=, which is entered from the eastern walk of the
cloisters, dates probably from the time of Edward the First; later it
may be, but certainly not earlier than the commencement of his reign,
as, during certain excavations for underpinning the walls in 1854,
several pennies of that king were found below its foundations. The
architecture is somewhat later in style than that of the cloisters,
and if it be not, as its admirers claim, the most beautiful in
England, it has few rivals. Like Westminster, Wells, and other English
examples, except York and Southwell, it has a central pillar, from
which the groining of the roof springs gracefully in harmonious
lines. A raised bench of stone runs round the interior. At its back,
forty-nine niches of a canopied arcade borne on slight Purbeck marble
shafts mark out as many seats. They are apportioned as follows: those
at each side of the entrance to the Chancellor and Treasurer
respectively, the rest to the Bishop, Dean, Arch-deacons, and other
members of the chapter.

[Illustration: THE SOUTH SIDE OF THE CHAPTER HOUSE.]

[Illustration: BOSSES FROM THE CHAPTER HOUSE ROOF.]

The plan of the building is octagonal, about fifty-eight feet in
diameter and fifty-two feet in height. Each side has a large fanlight
window with traceried head. Below these windows and above the canopies
of the seats is a very remarkable series of bas-reliefs, noticed more
fully later on. The bosses of the roof are somewhat elaborately
carved; one north of the west doorway has groups of figures on it,
apparently intended to represent armourers, musicians, and
apothecaries, possibly commemorating guilds who were benefactors to
the building; the others have foliage chiefly with grotesque monsters.
On the base of the central pillar is a series of carvings taken
probably from one of the many books of fables so popular in the middle
ages. These were reproduced from the originals, which are preserved
in the cloisters.

[Illustration: DETAILS OF SCULPTURES IN THE CHAPTER HOUSE.
_From Photographs by Catherine Weed Ward._]

The quatrefoil over the doorway has an empty niche, and it is not
possible to say with certainty whether it was originally filled by a
crucifix, as Mr. Mackenzie Walcott infers from the symbols of the
Evangelists in the angles of the panel; or, with a seated figure of
our Lord in majesty; or, as a third archæologist has suggested, a
coronation of the Virgin. Filling the voussoirs of the arch of the
doorway are fourteen small niches containing subjects from the
Psychomachia of Prudentius, the Battle of the Virtues against the
Vices. The figures are not easily identified, but Mr. Burges, whose
"Iconography of the Chapter House" is the most important monograph on
the subject, suggests that on the right-hand side the figures in the
third niche from the top appear to represent Concord triumphing over
Discord; in the sixth, Temperance is pouring liquor down the throat of
Intemperance; on the seventh, Fortitude tramples on Terror, who cuts
her own throat. On the left hand in the first niche Faith is trampling
on Infidelity; in the second, a Virtue covers a Vice with her cloak,
while the Vice embraces her knees with one hand and stabs her with a
sword held in the other. This incident is taken from Prudentius:
"Discord by stealth wounds Concord; she is taken and killed by" Faith,
which latter incident may be represented in the next compartment. In
the fourth niche, Truth pulls out Falsehood's tongue; in the fifth,
Modesty scourges Lust; in the sixth, Generosity pours coin into the
throat of Avarice. To quote the words of the author from whom these
interpretations are derived: "These sculptures are of the very highest
class of art, and infinitely superior to any work in the chapter
house; the only defect is the size of the heads: probably this was
intentional on the part of the artist. The intense life and movement
of the figures are worthy of special study." These allegories are
common in paintings and sculptures of this period; at Canterbury the
same subjects are incised on the pavement that surrounds the shrine of
St. Thomas à Becket.

On the spandrils of the continuous arcade, sculptures in high relief
once restored as far as possible in the original colours are now again
scraped clean, and with the new heads to the figures look so modern
that it is hard to believe they are contemporary with the building
they adorn, yet since on the whole the restoration has been
faithfully accomplished they may be studied as peculiarly valuable
examples of early mediæval sculpture, showing certain naïve qualities
that raise them far above the usual level of contemporary work. They
are supposed to have been defaced by the Commission sitting in this
building during the time of the Rebellion. The subjects are:

_West Wall._

1. A Representation of Chaos.
2. The Creation of the Firmament.

_North-west Wall._

3. The Creation of the Earth.
4. The Creation of the Planets.
5. The Creation of the Birds and Fishes.
6. The Creation of Adam and Eve.
7. The Seventh Day.
8. The First Marriage.
9. The Temptation of Eve.
10. Adam and Eve hiding.

_North Wall._

11. The Flight from Paradise.
12. The First Labour.
13. Cain and Abel's Offering.
14. The First Murder.
15. The Punishment of Cain.
16. The Command to Noah.
17. The Ark.
18. The Vineyard of Noah.

_North-east Wall._

19. Noah's Drunkenness.
20. The Building of Babel.
21. Angels appearing to Abraham.
22. Abraham entertaining the Angels.
23. The Destruction of the Cities of the Plain.
24. Lot's Escape.
25. Abraham and Isaac.
26. The Sacrifice of Isaac.

_East Wall._

27. Isaac and Jacob.
28. Esau and Isaac.
29. Rebecca and Jacob.
30. Jacob and Rachel.
31. Rachel, Jacob, and Laban.
32. Jacob and the Angels.
33. The Angel touching Jacob's thigh.
34. Jacob meeting Esau.

_South-east Wall._

35. Joseph's Dream.
36. Joseph relating his Dream.
37. Joseph in the Pit.
38. Joseph sold into Egypt.
39. Joseph's Coat brought to Jacob.
40. Joseph and Potiphar.
41. Potiphar's Wife.
42. Joseph accused.

_South Wall._

43. Joseph in Prison.
44. Pharaoh's Baker and Butler.
45. Pharaoh's Dream.
46. Pharaoh's Indecision.
47. Joseph before Pharaoh.
48. Joseph as Ruler.
49. Joseph's Brethren.
50. The Cup placed in Benjamin's Sack.

_South-west Wall._

51. The Discovery of the Cup.
52. His Brethren before Joseph.
53. Jacob on his Way to Egypt.
54. Joseph and his Brethren pleading.
55. Joseph protecting his Brethren.
56. Moses on Sinai.
57. The Miracle of the Red Sea.
58. The Destruction of the Egyptians.

_West Wall._

59. Moses striking the Rock.
60. The Law declared.

[Illustration: SCULPTURE IN THE CHAPTER HOUSE.]

[Illustration: DECORATIONS IN THE GROINING OF THE CHAPTER
HOUSE.]

The modern decoration of the chapter house includes stained glass of a
geometrical pattern in the eight windows, which, if not peculiarly
good, is harmless enough. Some diaper wall painting, shown in the
photograph reproduced here, which until lately decorated the back of
the arcade is now entirely cleaned off. The tiles of the floor have
been reproduced from the designs of the original Norman pavement. The
vaulted roof is re-painted in exact accordance with its original
design. The marble shafts of the arcade are re-polished, and the
central shaft has also been re-worked to a smooth surface. Gilding has
been applied freely to the bosses of the roof and the capitals of the
pillars. The ancient table, shown in the engraving, has also been
restored; it is a very interesting specimen of early decorated
furniture.

[Illustration: TOMB OF SIR JOHN MONTACUTE.
_From a Photograph by Catherine Weed Ward._]

FOOTNOTES:

[7] "The Century Magazine," March, 1888.

[8] The numerals in brackets refer to the position of each monument as
shown on the plan.

[9] In 1448 Nicholas Upton the precentor tried to limit the choice of
the choristers to three candidates selected by the chapter; but this
attempt to curtail their privilege was successfully resisted by the
boys.

THE CATHEDRAL PRECINCTS.

The common practice of writers who are describing any one of our more
important cathedrals is to declare that altogether it may be fairly
called the most beautiful. So great is the fascination exercised by
continual study of a single mediæval building which has escaped
destruction, or over-restoration, that such a statement may be
advanced in all good faith. In claiming, however, that the cloisters
of Salisbury are on the whole the most beautiful in England, it is
merely re-asserting what many critics of Gothic architecture have
already decided to be true. The cloisters of Gloucester are far
richer, the space they cover at Wells (like Salisbury, not a monastic
establishment) is greater, and in other details these may not be the
finest. But, as a whole, their beautiful proportion and the general
symmetry of their design make them worthy adjuncts to a building which
is pre-eminent for these special qualities.

Situated, according to the usual custom, on the south-west side of the
cathedral, with their western wall in a line with its west front, they
are exceedingly picturesque. Even so far back as the time of Leland,
we find him declaring that "the cloister on the south side of the
church is one of the largest and most magnificent in Britain." Yet, as
a recent critic has observed, from a purely technical point of view,
there is "too great a mass of blank wall above the arcade." The green
sward of the large garth, 140 feet square, with its covered walks, 181
feet long, on each side, and the fine group of cedars in the centre,
showing against the cool grey of the stonework realize the ideal of
that cloistered solitude so dear to the poets; it should not be
forgotten, however, that the arrangements of this cathedral are not
monastic, for it was never aught but a collegiate building. The style
is late thirteenth century with windows of exceedingly graceful
design; double arches with quatrefoils above, united in pairs with a
large six-foiled circle in the main head. The upper portions of the
tracery had, not so long ago, traces of coloured glass here and there,
but whether this feature was part of the original scheme is very
doubtful. The shafts, originally of Purbeck marble (replaced in 1854
by stone) both between and in the centres of the windows have simply
moulded capitals; while those of the clustered columns at the main
angles are carved. Modern opinion is inclined to date the beginning of
the work between 1260 to 1284; but so late as 1338, as a dated charter
in Bishop Wyville's time which refers to the enlargement of the
cloisters shows, they were not quite completed; hence it is inferred
that a part, possibly only one side, was built at first. The north
arcade is entirely independent of the south wall of the nave, the long
space between being known as the Plumbery. The garth is used as a
burial ground, and in the cloisters are many monuments, but none of
more than local interest, except possibly a tablet to the memory of
Francis Price (died Mar. 20th, 1753, aged 50), the cathedral
architect, whose excellent monograph devoted to the building is still
one of the most useful books of reference on the subject. The drawing
here reproduced from Britton's "Salisbury," shows the work before its
restoration by Bishop Denison; but it has been chosen because it
suggests the peculiar beauty of the place better than any photograph.
From the cloisters a very charming glimpse of the spire may be
obtained.

[Illustration: THE CLOISTERS.
_From a Photograph by Messrs. Poulton._]

[Illustration: THE CLOISTERS, LOOKING NORTH.]

The =Library= occupying the upper story that extends over part of the
eastern arcade is an important collection, its manuscripts alone
filling a hundred and eighty-seven volumes. These (with one
exception, bequeathed by Bishop Denison, a splendidly illuminated
breviary _circa_ A.D. 1460, containing among other specially
interesting matter the order of service for the installation of the
Boy-bishops,) have been in the possession of the dean and chapter at
least four hundred years, and range in date, according to the best
authorities, from the ninth to the fourteenth centuries.

Among the most important is (No. 150) A Psalter, of the Gallican
Version, on vellum, 160 folios, tenth century. The decorations of this
MS. are somewhat rude, the initials and colouring throughout being
chiefly in red. Internal evidence fixes its date about A.D.
969. A Psalter (No. 180) on 173 folios, contains in parallel columns
the Gallican and Hebrew of Jerome's translation, and other matter,
with ornamental initials and devices; a Lectionary on vellum, 190
folios (No. 153) is a finely written manuscript, with elaborate
initials in gold and colours, this is about A.D. 1277. A
fifteenth century "Processional for the Use of Sarum," on vellum, 50
folios (No. 148) contains some entries that throw light on various
local customs, as for example, the distribution of the carpet used in
the enthronement of the bishop, which was laid from _ostio hospicii
agni_ to the altar in the treasury. The unique "Tonale secundum usum
Sarum" bound with an "Ordinale secundum usum Sarum" (No. 175) is of
the fourteenth century, on 214 folios of vellum. In a volume (No. 39)
is a copy of the Gospel of Nicodemus in an English version beginning,
"Whanne Pylatus was reuler and justyse of ye Jewerye, and Rufus and
Leo were consuls." Another book of more than ordinary interest is
Chaucer's translation of Boethius' "De Consolatione Philosophiæ," on
vellum in double columns, fifteenth century. A twelfth century MS. of
the "Historia Regum Brittaniæ," by Geoffrey de Monmouth (No. 121); and
the "Historia Miscella" of Paul Warnefrid, are among many others that
deserve mention.

Among the printed books of the Library are about a score belonging to
the fifteenth century, and one hundred of the sixteenth. Some of these
are of extreme rarity. In a copy of Sibbes' "Returning Backslider" is
this couplet (attributed to Doddridge) in the handwriting, with
autograph, of Isaac Walton:

"Of this blest man let this just praise be given,
Heaven was in him before he was in heaven."

Bishop Gheaste was a benefactor to the library, and left it a large
legacy, the foundation of the present collection of printed books.

The library is shown to the public on certain days, and the clergy of
the diocese have the privilege of borrowing books therefrom.

According to the "Inventory of the Riches of the Cathedral Church of
Sarum," made by Master Thomas Robertson, treasurer of the same church
in 1536, 28th year of Henry VII., we find images, "of God the Father
with our Saviour young, of silver and gilt with gold, ornate with red
stones weighing 74 ounces." Others of Our Lady, including a "grate and
fair ymage sitting in a chaire ... her child sits in her lap very
costly and fair to look upon." Reliques of the 11,000 virgins, in four
purses; Pyxides of Ivory of Chrystal, and silver gilt, "Cruces" of
Gold and Silver. And a great Cross silver and gilt with images on the
crucifix, Mary and John, and the left part of the cross--weighing 180
ounces. Calices (chalices), Fereta, Candelabra, Philateria,
Tabernucla, Ampulæ, Thuribula, Chrismatones, Copes and Chasubles,
Mitres, Basons, Garlands, and hangings, Morses and many other items.
Also the textus, which was given by Hubert de Burgh, here described as
"A text after Matthew having images of St. Joseph, and our Lady and
our Saviour all in a bed of straw, in every corner is the image of an
apostle," and a huge list of items not merely interesting in
themselves, but as evidence of the wealth of the cathedral.

[Illustration: RINGS FOUND IN THE LADY CHAPEL.]

=The Muniment Room=, which is approached from the south choir
transept, is part of a two-storied building, octagonal in plan. The
ground floor, formerly the sacristy, is now used as a vestry for the
canons; the upper one, a dimly-lighted room, with an oak roof
supported by a central column of wood, is the muniment chamber. Traces
of a cross on the central pillar support the theory that the "Altar in
the Treasury," referred to in various early documents, stood here. The
solidity and strength of the building, and the fact that it was
undoubtedly the store house for the vestments and treasures of the
church, leaves little doubt that the supposition is true.

A very fine cope chest, reproduced by Mr. William Burges in his
"Architectural Drawings," 1870, until lately preserved in the vestry,
now in the north choir aisle, has a quaintly-carved capital on one of
its shafts that suggests a very early date for its construction. The
heavy lid was originally lifted by a rope and windlass. Although
possessing no traces of painting or gilding, and but little carving,
it is both curious and interesting as a specimen of woodwork coeval
with the cathedral itself. A somewhat similar one exists in
Westminster Abbey, in both the lifting lids worked on very slight
pivots. At Westminster the chains remain. In 1834 a writer described
the room as "a feast for moths and spiders;" now it is kept in
admirable order. The most important of its extremely valuable
documents have been printed in a volume devoted to Sarum in the
"Master of the Rolls Series," in the late Canon Jones' "Fasti
Ecclesiæ: Sarisberiensis." In addition to these historic papers there
is an immense quantity of Chapter Registers and other MSS. of more
local interest. Many of the chests and presses date from early times,
when the three keys needed to open each were severally in the charge
of three of the cathedral dignitaries. The contemporary copy of Magna
Charta, made for William Longespée, first Earl of Salisbury, and
referred to elsewhere, is sometimes exhibited here.

The documents which contain "the statutes and ordinances" by which the
cathedral is governed, extend over six centuries, commencing in 1091
and ending 1697. These were edited by Dr. Edward A. Dayman, and the
late Rev. W.H. Rich Jones, Vicar of Bradford-on-Avon, whose researches
in the past history of not merely the cathedral, but the whole
district, were so extended, that it is impossible to do justice in
every instance to many facts which have been taken from his pages in
the preparation of this handbook. The privately printed volume,
published in 1883, contains the Latin text with English notes of these
various documents. The details of most of these, although of immense
value to antiquarians, are too technical to be available for quotation
here, but the indirect allusions to customs and manners of the past,
makes many a paragraph pleasant reading, although the whole document
may refer to merely the working details of administration. The
statute, dated A.D. 1319, relating to the rights of the boy
bishop, is one of the few that have more than local interest.

[Illustration: HANGING PARAPET ON THE EAST WALL OF THE CLOSE.]

=The Close= is certainly a fit setting for the jewel it surrounds, and
with full remembrance of the superb position of Durham, the
picturesque eminence of Lincoln, the dignity that marks the isolated
hill whereon Ely towers over the fens around it, the harmonious
environment of Wells, and many another site made memorable by its
cathedral, Salisbury is, in its own way, not less beautiful. The quiet
tranquillity of the large lawn, the half-hidden houses that nestle
among its trees, the sense of being completely shut off from the
work-a-day world, impress one as much as the apparent vastness of the
area thus devoted to the cathedral. Leland, in his "Itinerary," was
equally struck with its beauty, although, as the frontispiece shows,
the surroundings were very different before Wyatt's exploits, and
probably in Leland's time preserved still more of their mediæval
aspect. He says: "The great and large embatelid waulle of the palace
having 3 gates to entre into it thus namyd: the close gate as
principale by north ynto the town, Saint Anne's gate by est, and
Harnham gate by south toward Harham bridge. The close wall was never
ful finished as in one place evidently apperith I redde that in Bishop
Rogers days as I remembere a convention was between him and the Canons
of Saresbyri de Muro clausi."

Whether the builders of our great churches were conscious of the
beauty of their surroundings, or whether no little of that loveliness
is but the slow result of centuries of care and the accident of
natural growth, need not be discussed. That to an American especially
this peculiar beauty tells with great force we can readily believe,
and Mrs. Van Rensselaer, whose paper on Salisbury has been quoted
before in this book, expresses admirably the feeling, which, whether
it be true or only imaginary, is no doubt the impression of such a
place as the Close of Salisbury on many an educated visitor.
"Salisbury," she writes, "is the very type and picture of the Church
of the Prince of Peace. Nowhere else does a work of Christian
architecture so express purity and repose and the beauty of holiness,
while the green pastures that surround it might well be those of which
the Psalmist writes. When the sun shines on the pale grey stones, and
the level grass, and the silent trees, and throws the long shadow of
the spire across them, it is as though a choir of seraphs sang in
benediction of that peace of God which passeth understanding. The men
who built and planted here were sick of the temples of Baalim, tired
of being cribbed and cabined, weary of quarrelsome winds and voices.
They wanted space and sun, and stillness, comfort and rest, and
beauty, and the quiet ownership of their own; and no men ever more
perfectly expressed, for future times to read, the ideal they had in
mind."

The =Bell Tower=, a striking feature of the close as it was before
1789, is shown on page 19, in the facsimile of an engraving originally
published in 1761, and re-engraved in the superb County History in
1804(?). This shows the campanile standing at the north-west corner of
the inclosure.

In style it was about the same period as the chapter house and
cloisters. The plan appears to have been square, although one writer,
frequently quoted, calls it multangular; the stone tower was in two
massive stories with lancet windows in the lower, and windows with
plate tracery above, with a spire apparently of wood crowning the
whole. Leland speaks of it as "a notable and strong square tower for
great belles, and a pyramis on it, in the cemiterie." It was evidently
massive enough to have stood for centuries, and the single pillar of
Purbeck marble, "lying in its natural bed," which was the central
support that carried the bells, the belfry, and the spire, is
specially mentioned by Price as perfectly sound, but he owns that the
leaden spire, and a wooden upper story, were decayed, and puts forward
a design of a sham classic dome which he hopes might be erected in its
place. When the cathedral was visited in 1553 by the Royal Commission
there remained a peal of ten bells, and the re-casting in 1680 of the
seventh and eighth by the Purdues, local founders, is recorded among
the muniments. The sixth is now the clock bell of the cathedral, but
the fate of the others is absolutely unknown.

[Illustration: DEATH AND THE GALLANT.]

Several of Wyatt's iconoclastic blunders have been already mentioned;
we now come to his chief iniquity. The =Hungerford Chapel=, demolished
by Wyatt, stood at the east end of the building on the north side of
the Lady Chapel, with which it was connected by openings cut in the
main wall. This chapel was one of those of which Fuller so quaintly
wrote, "A chantry was what we call in grammar an adjective, unable to
stand of itself, and was therefore united for better support to some
... church." An addition to the building in a much later style, it was
founded by Margaret (daughter and sole heir of William, Lord
Botreaux,) in 1464; she was interred within its walls in 1477. Her
history, too full to note here, is a sad one, the loss of her movable
goods by "fyre" in Amesbury Abbey being but a small incident among her
many troubles. A peculiarly interesting inventory of the ornaments and
furniture that she gave to this chantry has been preserved; it is
printed in Dugdale's "Baronage," vol. ii., p. 207, and also in "The
Wiltshire Archæological Magazine," vol. xi. The chapel, in the
somewhat florid late Perpendicular style, had a large east window of
five lights, and three of triple lights in its north wall. The outside
was adorned with shields and devices of the family, and crested with
battlements. Within it had a richly-groined roof, and underneath a
large arch cut in the north wall of the Lady Chapel, and therefore
opening into the hall of the chantry, stood the monument of Lord
Hungerford, surmounted by an ornamental four-arched canopy. This altar
tomb, now devoid of the gold and colour that once enriched it, is in
the nave. Its armour, "like a lobster," with its peculiar pattern, its
large shoulders and elbow-pieces, and its jewelled girdle, is quoted
by Meyrick as a very fine example of its period. Above were eight
niches of demi-quatrefoiled arches, with a fascia of quatrefoils
surmounted by a cornice of oak leaves. Between the monument and the
doorway was a series of wall-paintings of great interest. One, "Death
and the Gallant," has been engraved, and the dialogue below it
preserved. As the verses are archaic in spelling, it may be best to
follow a more modern version ("Wilts Archæological Magazine," vol.
ii., p. 95):

"Alas, Death alas! a blissful thing thou were
If thou wouldst spare us in our lustiness,
And come to wretches that be of heavy cheer
When they thee ask to lighten their distress.
But out, alas, thine own self-willedness
Harshly refuses them that weep and wail
To close their eyes that after thee do call.

Graceless Gallant in all thy lust and pride
Remember this, that thou shalt one day die,
Death shall from thy body thy soul divide--
Thou mayst him escape not certainly,
To the dead bodies (here) cast down thine eye;
Behold them well, consider too and see,
For such as they are, such shalt thou too be."

Of this Mr. Francis Douce, in his volume "The Dance of Death," says it
was "undoubtedly a portion of the Macaber Dance, as there was close to
it another compartment belonging to the same subject. This painting
was made about the year 1460, and from the remaining specimen its
destruction is greatly to be regretted, as judging from the dress of
the young gallant the dresses of the time would be correctly
exhibited."

There were other wall paintings, including a large St. Christopher
with the Christ Child on his shoulder, and an Annunciation, said to
have been a fine work. An interesting memorial of the chapel as it
stood in the middle of the seventeenth century, is to be found in an
MS. pocket-book, still preserved in the British Museum (Harl. MS.
939), which belonged to a Captain Symons, of the Royalist Army. When
he visited Salisbury in 1644 he made many notes and sketches of the
armorial bearings in this chantry.

=The Beauchamp Chapel.=--The interior view here reproduced from
"Gough's Sepulchral Monuments of Great Britain" although not very
clear is curiously interesting, conveying as it does trustworthy
evidence of the building so wantonly swept away.

[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE DEMOLISHED BEAUCHAMP CHAPEL.]

Of the Beauchamp Chapel, on the south side of the Lady Chapel, there
appears to be no exterior view extant, but from sketches of its
interior, and descriptions, it must have been a fine specimen of its
period, and worthy of its designer, the builder of St. George's
Chapel, Windsor. It was larger and more elaborate in detail than the
Hungerford chantry, but like it in plan, and similarly lighted by one
large east window, and three in the side wall. The remains of its
founder, Bishop Beauchamp, reposed in a plain tomb in the centre. In
the wall on the north side were exquisite canopies above the tombs of
the father and mother of the bishop. An altar tomb of Sir John Cheyne,
now in the nave, stood formerly at the south-west corner (see page
48). There was a custom that on Christmas Day and all holy days the
wives of the mayor and aldermen and gentry of the city, came to
prayers in the Beauchamp chapel in the evening with flambeaux and
torches, excepting on Innocents' Day, when they went to their own
parish churches. In an interesting Guide to the Cathedral, now in the
British Museum, annotated in the last century by some visitor, we
find an entry concerning this chapel, "The ceiling is of Irish oak,
and never known to have spiders or cobwebs in it."

Much of the carved work in both these chantries was employed elsewhere
in the buildings. The plea put forward for their removal was founded
on a report by Francis Price thirty-six years before, wherein he
considered them unsafe. When the Hungerford Chantry was added one of
the outside buttresses of the Lady Chapel aisle was removed to make
room for it; the opening pierced through the main walls of the
cathedral into both the chapels were also sources of weakness. Wyatt
seized upon these facts, and with the precedent of Price's report,
declared the chapels unsafe, and also, which was no doubt his real
motive for action, that "their lack of uniformity" injured the
appearance of the buildings. Wyatt's ideal virtues were of the lowest
order, to obtain neatness and tidiness he was prepared to sacrifice
any and every thing, and the two chapels were obviously not in the
style of the cathedral, nor, unluckily (for had they been they might
yet be standing), precisely symmetrical in effect, so they were swept
away. These actions at Salisbury, and similar destruction at Lincoln,
Hereford, and elsewhere, have made Wyatt's name odious; but deserving
though he be of all blame, it must not be forgotten that restorers of
to-day, even at Salisbury, have effaced much interesting work of past
time on the same pretext: that it failed to accord with the rest of
the work to which it was obviously a late addition. This plea,
specious and even excellent in theory, has probably done more
irreparable injury to our ancient buildings than even the iconoclasts
of the Reformation. A shattered ruin may convey a clear idea of its
original state, while a smooth, pedantic restoration will obliterate
it entirely.

=The Stained Glass= throughout the whole building survives but in a
few instances, and these, with two exceptions, not in their original
places. Of its wholesale destruction we have sad evidence extant in a
letter, dated 1788, from John Berry, glazier, of Salisbury, to Mr.
Lloyd, of Conduit Street, London. It may be transcribed in full, to
show how reckless the custodians of the fabric were at that
time:--"Sir. This day I have sent you a Box full of old Stained &
Painted glass, as you desired me to due, which I hope will sute your
Purpos, it his the best that I can get at Present. But I expect to
Beate to Peceais a a great deal very sune, as it his of now use to
me, and we do it for the lead. If you want more of the same sorts you
may have what thear is, if it will pay for taking out, as it is a Deal
of Truble to what Beating it to Peceais his; you will send me a line
as soon as Possoble, for we are goain to move our glasing shop to a
Nother plase, and thin we hope to save a great deal more of the like
sort, which I ham your most Omble servant--John Berry."

[Illustration: PORTIONS OF THE OLD STAINED GLASS.]

The fragments that survived were collected some fifty years since, and
placed in the nave windows, and in parts of some of the others. The
most important are in the great west triple lancet, wherein the glass
ranges in date from the twelfth to the fifteenth century. Mr. Winston,
in his Paper read in 1849 before the Archæological Institute and
printed in the Salisbury volume for that year, considered that the
earliest fragments are from a Stem of Jesse about 1240, and some
medallions about 1270. He describes two of the ovals that are on each
side of the throned bishop, a prominent figure in the lower half of
the central light, one of the Christ enthroned, the other of the
Virgin. The two medallions below them he believes represent "Zacharias
in the Temple," and "The Adoration of the Magi." The later glass now
in the same window may be either Flemish work brought hither from
Dijon, or possibly partly from Rouen, and partly from a church near
Exeter. It has been conjectured that in the south lancet the figures
represent SS. Peter and Francis, in the central one the Crucifixion,
the Coronation of the Virgin, and the Invention of the Cross, and in
the north light the Betrayal of Christ and St. Catherine. In two of
the side windows of the nave are the arms of John Aprice (1555-1558)
and Bishop Jewell (1562).

The stained glass in the north choir aisle includes a window executed
by Messrs. Clayton and Bell, in memory of Archdeacon Huxtable, with
figures of archangels and angels in the upper lights, and the Angel
appearing to Gideon, and the Vision of Isaiah, in the lower panels.
Also a window by Clayton and Bell to the memory of the wife of the
Rev. Chancellor Swayne, having for its subject the reply of our Lord
to his disciples. In the east side of the Morning Chapel is a window
by Messrs. Burleson and Gryles to the memory of Mrs. W.R. Hamilton,
with the Nativity, Crucifixion, Resurrection, and the three
archangels, Gabriel, Michael, and Raphael.

In the south choir aisle are two Clayton and Bell windows, to the
memory of George Morrison, and two others excellently treated, both
designed by Holiday, and executed by Powell. In the one eight panels
represent four holy women of the Old Testament, and the four Maries.
This is to the memory of the late Countess of Radnor. In the other, to
the memory of Jacob, the 4th Earl of Radnor, a similar screen of
decoration embodies figures of eight prophets.

In the south-east transept is a window erected to the officers of the
Wiltshire Regiment who fell in the Sutlej Campaign in 1845-6, and in
the Crimean War of 1854-5; also one of "The Raising of Lazarus." In
the upper windows of this transept is a quantity of old glass of
different dates, which had been stored away for over a century in the
roof of the Lady Chapel, until lately collected and placed where it
now is.

The south choir aisle has a window in memory of the late Duke of
Albany, "Jacob's Dream," and two of the intended six windows of a
hierarchy of angels--the Angeli Ministrantes and the Angeli
Laudantes--designed by Sir E. Burne-Jones, and executed by William
Morris, which are notably among the most superb examples of the art of
glass painting since mediæval times. Next in order towards the east is
a window of fine design to the memory of the late Duke of Albany.

In the south-west transept there are three Clayton and Bell windows:
in memory of Archdeacon Macdonald, with three subjects from the Life
of Christ; in memory of Bishop Douglas, and in memory of C.G.
Verrinder; also one to the memory of Sir G.A. Arney, with Moses and
the Tables of the Law, and the Sermon on the Mount; and the large
south window, by Bell, to the memory of Dean Hamilton.

Above the altar is a fine light window of last century work,
singularly good of its kind--bad though the kind may be.

In the south aisle of the nave is a window to the memory of Mr. W.M.
Coates, with subjects, the miracles of healing, executed by Messrs.
Clayton and Bell.

In 1890 a fine modern window, from a design by Henry Holiday, was
inserted in the south aisle of the nave. This has for its subject,
"Suffer little children to come unto me." It is to the memory of John
Henry Jacob and his wife.

In 1620 Dr. Simpson mentions "three great windows newly glazed in rich
colours to make the story of St. Paul."

Throughout the cathedral, and in the Chapter House, were many
specimens of geometrical painted glass, some of which are figured in
Mr. Winston's Paper, before referred to. These have served as motives
for much modern design, which, faithfully as it may have copied the
forms, has generally missed the softened colour that distinguishes the
original work.

[Illustration: TOMB OF WILLIAM LONGESPÉE, 1ST EARL OF SALISBURY
(P. 47).
_From a Photograph by Catherine Weed Ward._]

HISTORY OF THE SEE.

The site of old Sarum--Searobyrig, the dry city, as the Saxons called
it--is about a mile to the north of the present New Sarum, or
Salisbury, to use the more familiar name. It was probably a fortified
place from very early times, long before it became the Roman station
of Sorbiodunum. William of Malmesbury says that "the town was more
like a castle than a city, being environed with a high wall, and
notwithstanding that it was very well accommodated with other
conveniences, yet such was the want of water that it sold at a great
rate." This latter statement, although repeated by every chronicler,
is not supported by investigations of recent explorers, who found an
ample supply in divers wells. Francis Price concludes that "it was
frequented by Roman Emperors from the coins of Constantine, Constans
Magnentius, Crispus, and Claudius, being found frequently among its
ruins." This statement also lacks probability. A legend of the visit
of a single emperor might have been barely credible; but the lavish
variety the otherwise trustworthy historian offers is fatal to one's
belief. Its early history, more or less legendary, need not be
chronicled here. Probably Kenric the Saxon, who captured it in 553,
lived there, and it seems to have been kept in his line until Egbert
united the whole Heptarchy. King Alfred ordered Leofric, Earl of
Wiltunscire, to add to its fortifications, which appear to have fallen
into decay after the Romans held it. In 1003 Svein, King of Denmark,
pillaged and burnt it, but the religious establishments if not spared
were soon re-established, for we find that Editha, Queen of Ædward
the Confessor, conveyed the lands of Shorstan to the nuns of St. Mary,
Sarum. At this time it appears to have possessed a mint, as a coin of
Ædward the Confessor bears an inscription showing that it was struck
by Godred at Sarum.

From the time of St. Aldhelm, in 705, to that of Herman, in 1058,
there are no other facts of its secular history sufficiently pertinent
to our purpose to warrant their quotation here, as the record of the
place is so woven into the lives of its bishops, that the brief
summary of the ecclesiastics who held the see includes all we need of
the history of the city. In this kingdom within a kingdom, a cathedral
surrounded by a fortress, its inhabitants were naturally split into
factions; the soldiers and the clergy failed to agree, and in spite of
the document quoted below, there is little doubt that political rather
than climatic reasons led to the removal of the cathedral. Whether, as
some writers think, it was but an insignificant structure, it is
certainly recorded that the church erected by Osmund took fifteen
years to build. Five days after its consecration, on April 5th, 1092,
it was partially destroyed by a thunderstorm. We find in Robert of
Gloucester's "Chronicle" (Hearnes ed., p. 416) this allusion to the
disaster:

"So gret lytnynge was the vyfte yer, so that it al to nogte,
The rof the Church of Salesbury it broute
Rygt evene the vyfte day that he yhalwed was."

Whether the sentence in an old chronicler that Roger "made anew the
church of Sarum" means it was so seriously damaged by the lightning
that he actually rebuilt it, or merely that he restored it, is not
clear. Roger was the great architectural genius of his time, and from
the evidence of its ground plan, traced in the foundations revealed in
the singularly dry summer of 1834, it may be that the stately edifice,
270 feet long by 75 feet wide, on the plan of a Latin cross, was in
its last state not the work of Osmund. During the excavations at this
time, various fragments of stained glass and several keys were
discovered, also what was apparently the original grave of St. Osmund
before his body was moved to Sarum. An extract from Harrison's
"Description of Britain," prefixed to Hollinshed's "Chronicle" shows
clearly enough the principal events that produced the crisis which
doomed Old Sarum to desolation. "In the time of ciuile warres the
souldirs of the castell and chanons of Old Sarum fell at ods,
inasmuch that often after brawles they fell at last to sadde blowes.
It happened therefore in a rogation weeke that the cleargie going in
solemn procession a controversie fell between them about certaine
walkes and limits which the one side claimed and the other denied.
Such also was the hot entertainment on eche part, that at last the
Castellans espieing their time gate betweene the cleargie and the
towne and so coiled them as they returned homewards that they feared
anie more to gang their boundes for that year. Hereupon the peope
missing their belly-chere, for they were wont to haue banketing at
every station, a thing practised by the religious in old tyme, they
conveyed forthwith a deadly hatred against the Castellans, but not
being able to cope with them by force of arms, they consulted with
their bishop ... that it was not ere the chanons began a church upon a
piece of their own ground.... And thus became Old Sarum in a few years
utterly desolate."

By other accounts we find there was insufficient room for all the
canons to live within the walls, and the right of free egress being
disputed the position became so intolerable, that Bishop Richard
Poore, a man of great force of character, who succeeded his brother,
took up the design Herbert had set aside, and commenced negotiations
in earnest, the result of which is best explained by the following
document:

"Honorius, bishop, Servant of the servants of God to our rev. brother
Richard, bishop, and to our beloved sons the Dean and Chapter of
Sarum, health and apostolical benediction. My sons the dean and
chapter, it having been heretofore alleged before us on your behalf,
that forasmuch as your church is built within the compass of the
fortifications of Sarum, it is subject to so many inconveniences and
oppressions, that you cannot reside in the same without corporal
perils: for being situated on a lofty place, it is, as it were,
continually shaken by the collision of the winds; so that while you
are celebrating the divine offices, you cannot hear one another the
place itself is so noisy: and besides the persons resident there
suffer such perpetual oppressions, that they are hardly able to keep
in repair the roof of the church, which is constantly torn by
tempestuous winds. They are also forced to buy water at as great a
price as would be sufficient to purchase the common drink of the
country: nor is there any access to the same without the licence of
the Castellan. So that it happens on Ash Wednesday when the Lord's
Supper is administered at the time of the Synods, and celebrations of
orders, and on other solemn days, the faithful being willing to visit
the said church, entrance is denied them by the keepers of the castle,
alleging that the fortress is in danger, besides you have not there
houses sufficient for you, wherefore you are forced to rent several
houses of the laity; and that on account of these and other
inconveniences many absent themselves from the service of the said
church."

This mandate, dated at "the Lateran, 4th of the calend of April, in
the second year of our Pontificat," concludes by giving formal power
for the translation of the church to another convenient place.

After the cathedral was removed the prosperity of the place quickly
waned. The new roads and bridges made access to the new city more
convenient. Wilton suffered from the growth of its new rival, but
Sarum ceased to be even a ruin, as the very stones of its cathedral
were ultimately taken to build a wall around the precincts of the new
church, and oblivion soon overtook the ancient city, which to-day is
not even a hamlet, but at most a geographical expression. As a
specimen of an early "burgh," or hill fortress, its form well deserves
study. Its circular walls, and various ditches and ramparts, are shown
in plans in the County History, in Francis Price's book, and
elsewhere.

[Illustration: TOMB OF "THE BOY BISHOP" (P. 49).
_From a Photograph by Catherine Weed Ward._]

THE DIOCESE OF SARUM.

So far as its history concerns us here, it suffices to note that the
greater part of Wiltshire, and those portions of Dorset and Somerset
which had been comprised in the see of Winchester, were, about the
year 705, during the reign of Ina, King of the West Saxons, included
in the new diocese of Sherbourne, which in its turn, about two hundred
years after, _circa_ 905-9, was sub-divided into those of Wells, for
Somerset, and Crediton, for Devon. About 920, a new see was allotted
to Wiltshire, whose bishop took his title from Ramsbury, near
Marlborough, on the borders of the county; and with this was soon
after re-united the smaller diocese of Sherbourne, and in 1075, the
episcopal seat was removed to the fortress of Old Sarum, whence in
1218 it was again removed to the present city. In 1542, part of the
see was devoted to the new diocese of Bristol. The see of Sherbourne,
ruled over by St. Aldhelm from 705 to 709, was a much larger one than
the second diocese of the same name which in 1058 was united to
Ramsbury, under Herman, who held it from 1058 to 1078. The eight
previous bishops are more or less well known, and in the admirable
"Diocesan History" and in the "Fasti Ecclesiæ Sarisburiensis," both by
the late Rev. W.H. Jones, there is much interesting detail of the
earlier rulers of the diocese now called Salisbury.

=Herman=, by birth a Fleming, was one of the ecclesiastics brought
over by Edward the Confessor. His record is unmarked by events that
left lasting results. He made a bold but fruitless attempt to annex
the Abbey of Malmesbury. During his time, as an old writer quaintly
phrases it, "it is agreed by all authors, both printed and in
manuscript, that there was not yet any cathedral, church, or chapter,
either within or without the King's Castle [of Old Sarum], but only a
chapel and a dean." Later authorities, however, assign to him the
commencement, at least, of a cathedral. In Benson and Hatcher's
"Wiltshire," we find it has been conjectured that Herman, on removing
his see to Sarum, found there a chapel and a dean, and that in
exchange for this building he transferred the two cathedrals of
Sherborne and Sunning to the Dean to whose peculiar jurisdiction they
have since belonged; other evidence, however, points to the church
having been begun and finished by Osmund, his successor, whose own
words in the charter of foundation run: "I have built the church at
Sarum and constituted canons therein." An epistle of Gregory IX. to
the bishops of Bath and Wells states that, "Osmund of pious memory had
employed great care as well in temporals as in spirituals, so that he
had magnificently builded the said church from its foundations and
enriched it with books, treasures, ... and lands from his own
property." Herman, like other English bishops who were his
fellow-natives Leofric at Exeter, and Giso at Wells, was not deprived
of his see after the Conquest; but in 1075, in obedience to the decree
of the Council of London that bishops' sees should be removed from
obscure to more important places, he chose the hill of Sarum. His
remains are said to have been transferred to a tomb in the present
cathedral, but later antiquarians decline to endorse the tradition.

=Osmund=, who is believed to have been the nephew of William the
Conqueror, was son of Henry, Count of Seez, in Normandy; he was
created Earl of Wiltshire soon after the Conquest, before he became an
ecclesiastic; Camden speaks of him as the "Earl of Dorset." As the
author of the "Consuetudinariam," the ordinal of offices for the use
of Sarum, wherein he collated the various forms of ritual in use at
many churches, both in England and on the Continent, he won a fame far
more than the building of Old Sarum, were it never so stately a
cathedral, could have secured him. His famous "Sarum Use" was adopted
by almost the whole of England, and reflected glory upon the church
that instituted it, so that in the words of an old historian, "like
the sun in his heavens, the church of Salisbury is conspicuous above
all other churches in the world, diffusing the light everywhere and
supplying their defects." The original manuscript of this great work
is one of the choicest treasures of the cathedral library exhibited to
those who have access to that collection; it is also available to the
ordinary student in a volume entitled, "The Church of our Fathers,"
published by Dr. Rock in 1849. "As a man," says William of Malmesbury,
"Osmund was rigid in the detection of his own faults, and unsparing to
those of others." Although his body and his tomb were moved to the
Lady Chapel of the new cathedral in 1226, and his name adored
popularly, he was not canonized until over two hundred years later.
Pope Callistus, the first of the Borgias, issued the bull on January
1st, 1456, but not, according to rumour, until ample funds had been
supplied to facilitate his action. Some interesting correspondence
relating to it has been lately printed in the "Sarum Charters and
Documents," issued under the direction of the Master of the Rolls. The
bull itself, in the keeping of the chapter, has been printed in Volume
iii. of the great collection of Papal bulls edited by Cocqueline, and
published in Rome, 1743. On July 15th, 1457, according to the
authority of a writer in "Archæologia," Vol. xiv., the translation of
his body was completed, principally at the expense of the bishop, a
huge concourse of people being present at the festival. From the
plentiful accounts of miracles worked at his shrine long before he was
officially canonized, there is but little doubt but that it had become
a favourite place of pilgrimage. He died in 1099, and in spite of his
tomb being removed to the cathedral in 1226 and a stately shrine
erected later, a stone with no inscription but a date of doubtful
authenticity--MXCIX--is all that commemorates him there to-day.

The next bishop was =Roger=, who was elected in 1102, consecrated in
1107, and died in 1139. If his fame as an ecclesiastic is not so
assured as that of his illustrious predecessor, in architecture and in
secular history he has left a decided mark. He was a poor Norman
priest, who won his mitre by singing a hunting mass quickly before
Henry I. Made chaplain by the king on his accession, he afterwards
became first chancellor, and then justiciary. He organized the Court
of Exchequer, which has preserved the earliest official records known
to us. His castles at Devizes, Sherborne, and Malmesbury excited the
jealousy of the nobles; his son was chancellor, one nephew Bishop of
Ely, and another nephew Bishop of Lincoln. Besides much work, now
destroyed, at Old Sarum (so that whether he merely restored the damage
caused by lightning, or rebuilt it from the foundations, according to
the Norman custom, we cannot tell), his additions to Sherborne Minster
are still memorable as a new departure in Norman architecture; in
fact, he has been called the great architectural genius of the
thirteenth century. "Unscrupulous, fierce, and avaricious," he is a
type of the great feudal churchmen when they were veritable rulers.
According to William of Malmesbury, "was there anything contiguous to
his property which might be advantageous to him, he would directly
extort it either by entreaty or purchase, or if that failed, by
force." Although after King Henry's death Henry, Bishop of Winchester,
persuaded him to open the vast treasure of the late king to Stephen,
yet in the fourth year of his reign Stephen imprisoned him, and the
Bishop of Lincoln, his nephew, and seized their castles of Devizes and
Sherborne, Newark, and Sleaford. Bishop Roger the same year, according
to one chronicler, "by the kindness of death, escaped the quartan ague
which had long afflicted him, and died broken-hearted." But another
version says that "he starved to death through a promise to King
Stephen that his castle of Devizes should be surrendered to him before
he eat or drank; but his nephew, the Bishop of Ely, who then had
possession of it, kept it three days before he made the surrender to
the king."

=Jocelin de Bohun=, or, as he is sometimes called, de Bailleul (1142
to 1184), is best known from his quarrel with Thomas à Becket, of
Canterbury. For his share in framing the "Constitutions of Clarendon,"
he was excommunicated by the archbishop. On the death of Roger, in
1139, King Stephen nominated Philip de Harcourt, but the canons
preferred Jocelin, who was not, however, consecrated until 1142. After
the murder of A'Becket he "purged himself by oath of his offences"
towards his late foe. In 1184 he retired to a Cistercian monastery,
and died shortly afterwards. A monument on the south side of the
cathedral nave is attributed to him.

The see was now left vacant for five years, when Hubert Walter, was
consecrated, in 1189; he shortly after went to the Holy Land to join
Richard I. in his crusade. While at Acre he was nominated to the
vacant archbishopric of Canterbury, to which he returned in 1193. He
exercised a powerful influence on both king and people; the latter,
with whom he had never been popular, found at his death that "they had
lost the only bulwark strong enough to resist or break the attack of
royal despotism."

=Herbert de la Poer=, or Poore (1194-1217), who succeeded him, ruled
in a troubled period, when the realm was under the interdict of Pope
Innocent III. Compelled to quit Old Sarum, he died at Wilton in 1217.

[Illustration: MONUMENT LOCALLY ACCREDITED TO BISHOP POORE.]

With =Richard Poore=, who was consecrated Bishop of Chichester in
1215, and in 1217 Bishop of Old Sarum, where he had been dean, begins
the record of the bishops immediately connected with the building. His
history is so intimately bound up with that of the cathedral, that
here it is sufficient to note that he ruled at Old Sarum and Salisbury
until 1229, when he was translated to Durham.[10] His distinct
influence upon the architecture of that cathedral, in connection with
Elias de Derham, is noticed elsewhere. He died at his birthplace,
Tarrant (Tarent Crawford[11]), in Dorsetshire, where he had founded a
Cistercian nunnery, in which his heart is said to have been interred;
his body was taken to Durham, and a monument with his effigy erected
in the new cathedral at Salisbury. The names of St. Osmund and Richard
Poore stand out beyond all others in connection with this see. The one
for the indirect glory he conferred upon it by his memorable ordinal;
the other by his removal of the cathedral and the superb fabric he
left to commemorate his fame. With them, excepting possibly Bishop
Hallam, the record of men of mark ceases; of their successors hardly
one has had a reputation beyond his diocese, and certainly there is
not one whose fame has spread beyond his native land.

[Illustration: NORTH CHOIR AISLE, WITH BISHOP BINGHAM'S
MONUMENT.]

=Robert Bingham= (1229-1246) finished the work of the cathedral
during his eighteen years' rule; but when he died he left it in debt
1,700 marks. His monument, with effigy, is now in the north choir
aisle.

=William of York= (1247-1256) was one of the chaplains to Henry II.;
by his renewal of the vexatious custom of attending the lord's courts,
he became very unpopular. Matthew Paris mentions him as one of the
favourites of the king, and Bishop Godwin says that he was better
versed in the laws of the realm than in those of God.

=Giles of Bridport=, or de Bridlesford (1257-1262), who held also the
Deanery of Wells by a faculty "in Commendam," for Pope Honorius,
continued the works of the cathedral until it was consecrated, in
1258, by Boniface, Archbishop of Savoy, the brother of the queen of
Edward I. He also founded the college of Vaux. In 1260, during his
bishopric, there is a curious entry in a document, lately printed,
which refers to Nicholas of York, Canon of Salisbury, _Le engineur_.

In the same volume (Rolls Chronicles, 1891), there is a note of this
bishop granting 200 lbs. of wax annually from his wardrobe for
increasing the lights in the church, as he had been told that amount
would be sufficient to double the number of the candles at each
ministration.

=Walter de la Wyle= (1263-1271), the founder of the church of St.
Edmund of Abingdon, has a mutilated effigy assigned to him in the
cathedral.

=Robert de Wykehampton= (1274-1284), although elected by the canons,
the monks of Canterbury, and the king, was opposed by the archbishop,
who, after four years' interval and an appeal to Rome, was forced to
consecrate him. He is said to have become blind in 1278.

=Walter Scammel= (1284-1286). Although on his election the monks of
Canterbury appealed to the Pope against it, they subsequently withdrew
their opposition. He was buried near the Audley Chapel.

=Henry de Braundeston= (1287), who died the same year, was buried,
according to Leland, in the Lady Chapel.

=Walter de la Corner= (1289-1291) was one of the chaplains of the
Pope. He was buried in the middle of the choir, "nearly under the
eagle."

=Nicholas Longespée= (1292-1297) was fourth and youngest son of the
first Earl of Salisbury, and Countess Ela.

=Simon of Ghent=, or de Gand (1297-1315), first empowered the mayor
and citizens to fortify the city. According to a document printed in
the "Rolls Chronicles," 1891, the visitation of many of the churches,
about 1300, compares badly with a similar record for 1220; ignorance
of the clergy, gross neglect of the fabric, insufficient and
dilapidated books and vestments, with other evidences of lack of
energy, are very frequent.

=Roger Mortival= (1315-1330) founded a collegiate establishment at
Knowsley, his birthplace. The Library of Merton College, Oxford,
contains many manuscripts, his gift while he was Archdeacon of
Leicester. He is said also to have drawn up the statutes by which the
cathedral is still partly governed.

=Robert Wyville=, or Wivil (1330-1375), was, by Walsingham's account,
not merely destitute of learning, but so deformed and ugly, "it is
hard to say whether he was more dunce or dwarf, more unlearned or
unhandsome," that had the Pope seen him he would never have endorsed
his appointment. He was a militant bishop, and in 1355 instituted a
suit against William de Montacute, and sent his champion clothed in
white to try wager of battle with him. He recovered for his see 2,500
marks and the ancient castle of Old Sarum, also that of Sherborne. He
obtained permission to fortify his manors of Sarum, Sherborne,
Woodford, Chardstock, Potterne, Canning, Sunning, and his mansion in
Fleet Street (now Salisbury Court), "in the suburbs of London." His
brass is in the Morning Chapel.

=Ralph Erghum= (1375-1388) was probably of Flemish birth. He was
translated to Bath and Wells in 1388, where he died in 1400. He is
said to have erected the City Cross as a penance, but the Sarum
register seems rather to indicate that he compelled the Earl of
Salisbury to do so.

=John Waltham= (1388-1395) was Master of the Rolls in 1382, and Keeper
of the Privy Seal in 1391. For a time he resisted the metropolitan
visitation of Archbishop Courtney, notwithstanding that the Bishop of
Exeter had been forced to yield in a similar contest, but when the
archbishop excommunicated him he was compelled to submit. He was
specially in the favour of his king, Richard II., and died Lord High
Treasurer in 1305. He was buried ("not without much general
dissatisfaction," according to Walsingham,) in Westminster Abbey,
where his brass can be seen in the floor of the chapel of the
Confessor, to the right of King Edward's tomb.

=Richard Mitford= (1395-1407) was the favourite, and confessor of
Richard II., but during the so-called "wonderful" parliament he was
imprisoned in Bristol Castle, until released by the King on his
re-assumption of power. In 1389 he was nominated to the see of
Chichester, and translated therefrom to Salisbury in 1395. His tomb
stands in an angle of the south transept.

=Nicholas Bubwith= (1407), at one time Treasurer of England, held
Salisbury for three months only, between the bishoprics of London and
Bath and Wells. He died at Wells, 1424.

=Robert Hallam= (1407-1417). Notwithstanding his brilliant career,
both the origin and birthplace of this prelate are unknown. "Born in
England of royal blood," says one chronicler, but there is no
corroborative evidence. Prebendary of York, Archdeacon of Canterbury
in 1401, Chancellor of Oxford 1403, he left England in 1406 for Rome,
and was nominated by Pope Gregory XII. to be Archbishop of York; this
latter preferment was withdrawn, but in its stead he became Bishop of
Salisbury in 1407. He was at the Council of Pisa in 1409, and, in
1411, was created a cardinal by Pope John XXIII. At the famous Council
of Constance, 1415-1417, he was one of the foremost champions of
religious liberty, and almost alone in condemning the punishment of
death for heresy. Indeed, the whole future of the Roman church is said
to have been changed by his death at the Castle of Gotlieb in 1417,
and the supremacy of the Italian party assured by the decease of its
most formidable opponent. The brass that marks his burial place in
Constance cathedral is supposed to have been executed in England, and
sent thence some time after his death. It is engraved in Kites'
"Monumental Brasses of Wiltshire."

=John Chandler= (1417-1426) is remembered chiefly for his brief life
of William of Wykeham.

=Robert Neville= (1427-1438) was the nephew of Henry IV.; after
holding the see of Salisbury for ten years he was translated to
Durham. He founded the monastery at Sunning.

=William Ayscough= (1438-1450), who has left little record of his
life, met his death during a local rising in 1450, the year of the
Jack Cade rebellion. On the feast of SS. Peter and Paul his church at
Edingdon, near Westbury, one of his palaces, was attacked by a mob,
who seized the bishop in the vestments wherein he had just said mass,
and, dragging him to a hill-top near, there they stoned and beheaded
him, stripping off his garments and dividing them among themselves for
memorials. His body was afterwards interred at Edingdon. Possibly his
scholarship, which separated him from his people, was the real cause
of his unpopularity, which is, however, generally attributed to his
frequent absence with King Henry VI., to whom he was Confessor.

=Richard Beauchamp= (1450-1481) was translated from the bishopric of
Hereford. Son of Sir Walter, and grandson of Lord Beauchamp of Powick,
he was sent on diplomatic missions to various courts, including
Burgundy. In 1471 he was one of the signatories of the truce with the
Duke of Brittany. In 1477 he became Dean of Windsor, and was appointed
by Edward IV. master of the works then in progress, which included the
rebuilding of St. George's Chapel. At Salisbury he left the great hall
of the bishop's palace and his own superb chantry as memorials of his
architectural skill. Elsewhere in this book is a fuller description of
this beautiful tomb demolished by Wyatt. He himself was buried at
Windsor; in an arch opposite his tomb was a missal carved in stone
with a quaint inscription, beginning, "Who leyde this boke here." He
is said to have been the first chancellor of the Order of the Garter,
although Dr. Milner assigns that honour to William de Edingdon.
Whether the first or not, he and his successors in the see held it by
charter of Edward, until they were deprived in the reign of Henry
VIII. In 1671 it was again awarded to the see of Salisbury, but
passed, in 1836, with Berkshire to that of Oxford.

=Lionel Woodville=, or Wydville (1482-1484), nephew of Elizabeth,
queen of Edward IV., was appointed to the see in 1482. His
brother-in-law, the Duke of Buckingham, was beheaded in Salisbury
market place just before the battle of Bosworth. Woodville is said to
have died of grief occasioned by the downfall of the fortunes of his
house on the accession of Richard III.

=Thomas Langton= (1485-1493) is best remembered as a patron of
literature, for which he has been called a second Mæcenas, yet,
despite the "fostering hand he always afforded to learned men," he was
an opponent of Wicklif's heresies, and did his best to stamp them out
in his see when they had gained a number of adherents.

=John Blyth= (1494-1499) was Chancellor of Ireland in 1499. An effigy,
assumed to be his, is in the north transept.

=Henry Dean=, or Denny, or Syer (1500-1501), was translated to
Canterbury shortly after his appointment to Salisbury. He is believed
to have been one of the victims of the Great Plague, and to have died
at Lambeth in 1503.

=Edmund Audley= (1502-1524) was Bishop of Rochester in 1480,
translated to Hereford in 1492, and to Salisbury in 1502. His
beautiful chantry still remains in its original position. St. Mary's,
Oxford, contains a pulpit said to be his gift.

=Lorenzo Campegio=, Cardinal of St. Anastatius, was nominated by Pope
Clement in 1524. He was sent to England to join Cardinal Wolsey in
adjudicating upon the royal divorce. In 1535, when Henry VIII.
disgraced Wolsey, Campegio was also deprived of his see by Act of
Parliament. At Rome, however, he was regarded as Bishop of Salisbury
until his death; and "for some time after" an independent succession
was maintained by the Pope in two English bishoprics, namely,
Salisbury and Worcester.

=Nicholas Shaxton= (1535-1539) was President of Gonville Hall,
Cambridge, and for a while a sturdy supporter of the king. At the time
of Latimer's resignation he also resigned in common with many other
bishops. He was imprisoned, and in 1546 condemned to be burnt, for
denying the real presence; but recanting became prominent as opponent
of the reformers, preaching fiery sermons at the martyrdom of Anne
Askew and others. After he resigned his see he became suffragan to the
Bishop of Ely. He died at Cambridge in 1556.

=John Capon=, or =Salcote= (1539-1557), had been Bishop of Bangor. His
record is notorious for its greed and time-serving. First orthodox,
then Protestant, and one of the revisers of the Liturgy under Edward
VI., again changing under Mary, and one of the judges at the trial of
Bishop Hooper of Gloucester. Fuller impeaches him with Veysey, or
Harman, of Exeter, saying, "it seems as if it were given to binominous
bishops to be impairers of their churches."

=Peter Peto= (1557), a cardinal nominated by the Pope, was refused
possession by Queen Mary, who appointed Francis Malet, Dean of
Lincoln, in his stead, but he in turn, before his consecration, was
ejected by Elizabeth, who had succeeded to the throne meanwhile.

=John Jewel= (1560-1571) is one of the few Protestant bishops
connected with this see who can claim more than diocesan fame. He was
born at Berry Narbor, Devonshire, in 1522, and appears to have
belonged to a good old family. When a Fellow of Corpus, at Oxford, his
adherence to the doctrines of the Reformation caused him to be
expelled; but so greatly was he beloved for his pure life and his
profound scholarship there, that in spite of his expulsion he was
chosen to be Public Orator at his University. His life is too widely
known to need an epitome here. Among his writings, the most famous,
the "Apology for the Church of England," published in 1562, was
quickly translated into every language in Europe. In episcopal matters
he took great interest, and built the library over the cloisters,[12]
besides devoting great care to the education of students, having
always a number of poor lads in his house, and maintaining others at
Oxford, one of whom was the famous "Judicious Hooker." Fuller praises
him in terms that seem, however extravagant, to be generally admitted
by his contemporaries to be fully deserved, and the famous sentence,
"It is hard to say whether his soul or his ejaculations arrived first
in heaven, seeing he prayed dying, and died praying," shows that he
was reverenced by the Reformed Church as a veritable saint. He died at
Monkton Fairleigh in 1571, his tombstone, despoiled of its brass, is
now near that of Bishop Wyvil, whence it was removed from its former
place in the choir.

=Edmund Gheast=, or =Gest= (1571-1577), the first Protestant Bishop of
Rochester, was translated to Salisbury, where he gave a fine
collection of books to the new library of the cathedral. His tombstone
is in the north choir aisle.

=John Piers= (1577-1589) preached before Queen Elizabeth at the solemn
thanksgiving for the defeat of the Spanish Armada. He was translated
to York in 1589.

=John Coldwell= (1591-1596), a physician before he became a cleric, is
also noticeable as the first married bishop who held the see. He was
accused of wasting its revenues, and is responsible for the loss of
Sherborne Castle, which he alienated, says Fuller, "owing to the wily
intrigues of Sir Walter Raleigh."

=Henry Cotton= (1598-1615) was one of the chaplains of Elizabeth, and
a godson of the Queen, of whom she is reported to have remarked that
"she had blessed many of her godsons, now one should bless her." Sir
John Harrington says, "he had nineteen children by one wife, which is
no ordinary blessing, and most of them sonnes. His wife's name was
Patience; the name of which I have heard in few wives, the quality in
none." As the second married bishop he certainly appears to have
supported fully the Protestant opposition to the celibacy of the
clergy.

=Robert Abbott= (1615-1618) was the elder brother of George,
Archbishop of Canterbury. Fuller says, "George was the more plausible
preacher, Robert the greater scholar; George the abler statesman,
Robert the deeper divine. Gravity did frown in George, and smile in
Robert." As one might infer from so strong an opponent of Laud, amid
the large number of his published works most are polemical and
Anti-Romish.

=Martin Fotherby= (1618-1620) held the see but a year, and hence left
no lasting impression upon it.

=Robert Townson= (1620-1621), who attended the execution of Sir Walter
Raleigh, and has left a graphic and touching account of his last
hours, was but ten months bishop when he died, says Fuller, who was
his nephew, of a fever contracted by "unseasonable sitting up to
study," when preparing a sermon to preach before Parliament.

=John Davenant= (1621-1641) attended the Synod of Dort at the bidding
of James I., and was the author of many theological works.

=Brian Duppa=, or =de Uphaugh= (1641-1660) was tutor to the sons of
Charles I., and appointed to Salisbury just before the Commonwealth;
he was deprived almost immediately, and lived in seclusion at Richmond
until, at the Restoration, he was translated to Winchester. His
memorial tablet is in Westminster. Of him Izaak Walton said, "he was
one of those men in whom there was such a commixture of general
learning, of natural eloquence, and Christian humility, that they
deserve a commemoration by a pen equal to their own, which none have
exceeded."

=Humphrey Henchman= (1660-1663) was appointed at the Restoration, no
doubt as a reward for his great services to King Charles after the
battle of Worcester. After holding the see three years he was
translated to London.

=John Earles= (1663-1665), appointed Bishop of Worcester at the
Restoration, was translated to Salisbury in 1663. One of his books,
"The Microcosmographie, or a Piece of the World Discovered in Essays
and Characters," first published anonymously in 1628, was extremely
popular, and ran through many editions; it is still read as a faithful
picture of its times. Hallam in his "Literary History" praises it
highly, Clarendon in his "Memoirs" also eulogizes its author, and
Izaak Walton in his "Life of Hooper" speaks of his innocent wisdom,
sanctified learning, and pious, peaceable, and primitive temper.
Earles was constantly with Prince Charles during his exile, and hence
one of the first ecclesiastics to receive preferment.

=Alexander Hyde= (1665-1667) was first cousin to the famous Lord
Chancellor Clarendon. A portrait, alleged to represent this prelate,
was found by Bishop Fuller in an obscure cottage; it is now in the
Bishop's palace.

=Seth Ward= (1667-1689), who was made Bishop of Exeter at the
Restoration, and translated to Salisbury in 1667, took great interest
in the fabric, and restored the bishops' palace. The survey of the
cathedral by Sir Christopher Wren was undertaken by his request and at
his own cost. He regained for his see the Chancellorship of the Order
of the Garter, lost for a century and a half. He founded the College
of Matrons, and at his death at Knightsbridge in 1688, was buried in
the south choir aisle. Dr. Walter Pope's biography of this bishop is
an interesting record of an eventful life.

=Gilbert Burnet= (1689-1715). Lord Macaulay has summed up the
character of this bishop in terms, that if they convey an impression
of a vain, indiscreet, and somewhat blundering partisan, yet do
justice to the vigour and strength of his character, while of the
"History of his Own Times," and many other volumes yet remembered, he
says: "A writer whose voluminous works in several branches of
literature find numerous readers one hundred and thirty years after
his death, may have had great faults, but must also have had great
merits."

=William Talbot= (1715-1721) was of the house of Shrewsbury, and
father of Lord Chancellor Talbot. He was translated to Durham in 1721.

=Richard Willis= (1721-1723) held the see for two years, when he was
translated to Winchester.

=Benjamin Hoadly=, Bishop of Bangor 1716, Hereford 1721, Sarum 1723.
Owing to the controversy raised by one of his sermons, Convocation was
suspended for 150 years.

=Thomas Sherlock= (1734-1748) was appointed to Bangor in 1727,
translated to Salisbury in 1734, declined the Archbishopric of
Canterbury in 1747, and was translated to London in 1748. In the most
apathetic time of the Anglican Church he is a striking example of
activity and earnestness.

=John Gilbert= (1749-1757) was a turbulent bishop whose record is full
of disputes with the civic authorities at Salisbury.

=John Thomas= (1757-1761), Bishop of Peterborough 1746, and afterwards
Bishop of Winchester, was married four times, and is reported to have
said that he had killed three wives by never contradicting them.

=Robert Hay Drummond= (1761) was translated to the Archbishopric of
York four months after his appointment to Salisbury. He preached at
the coronation of George III.

=John Thomas= (1761-1766), elected Bishop of St. Asaph in 1743, but
consecrated to Lincoln, was eighty years old when translated to
Salisbury.

=John Hume= (1766-1782), Bishop of Bristol 1756, Bishop of Oxford and
Dean of St. Paul's 1758.

=Shute Barrington= (1782-1791), translated to Durham. Excepting Bishop
Wilson, his fifty-six years' tenure of office is the longest in the
Anglican Church. He died in 1826.

=John Douglas= (1791-1807) was present as an army chaplain at the
battle of Fontenoy, in which he very nearly took an active part, but
was so laden with valuables left in his care by officers, that he was
compelled to refrain and be content to remain a non-combatant, and
remove his treasures to a safe place. As author of "The Criterion, or
Rules by which True may be distinguished from Spurious Miracles,"
1754, and many other books, he established for himself a sound
literary reputation. Made Bishop of Carlisle in 1787, and translated
to Salisbury in 1791; he was also Dean of Windsor from 1780 to his
death, when he was buried in St. George's Chapel.

=John Fisher= (1807-1825). Exeter, 1803, Preceptor to Princess
Charlotte.

=Thomas Burgess= (1825-1837). St. David's, 1803.

=Edward Denison= (1837-1854). Brother of a late Speaker of the House
of Commons, Viscount Ossington.

=Walter Kerr Hamilton= (1854-1869). Author of a "Letter on Cathedral
Reform," which followed his exhaustive contribution to the Cathedral
Commission Reports, 1853.

=George Moberley= (1869-1885). Head Master of Winchester, 1835-1866.

=John Wordsworth= (1885).

[Illustration: BRASS OF BISHOP WYVILLE (_see_ P. 66).]

FOOTNOTES:

[10] 14th May, 1228. _Vide_ "Hist. Dunelm. Script.," App. lii.

[11] Others say Tarrant Monkton.

[12] This statement is open to doubt.

THE CLOSE AND CHURCHES.

The =King's House=, which faces the west front, on the western side of
the Close, is a stately building, wherein, tradition says, monarchs
have dwelt. Richard III. is said to have been housed there when the
Duke of Buckingham was brought prisoner to Salisbury; and in the reign
of James I. its owner, Sir Thomas Sadler, was often honoured by visits
from that monarch. Underneath the great gateway which pierces the
building, in the north wall, is the shaft of a "sack lift," a curious
relic of mediæval times. The fine proportions and sturdy treatment of
the architecture of this house deserve study. It is now used as a
training establishment for school mistresses. Close by is the Deanery,
and to the south a building known as the =Wardrobe House=; which name
is supposed to indicate its use in connection with the King's House;
still farther south is =Leden Hall= (or Leyden Hall), hidden behind
trees, so that from the Close you can but catch a glimpse of the
building by Elias de Derham, to which reference has been made earlier
in this book. In the other direction are the =Theological College=, a
very lovely and spacious building, the =Choristers' School=, and many
private houses of great antiquity and considerable beauty. Indeed, it
is possible that at no other place could you find such a display of
English domestic architecture, from mediæval to Georgian times. The
beauty of the Close, well wooded as it still is, despite the havoc
wrought by the terrible gale in March, 1897, is not to be put into
words. No matter how praise were lavished in a description, it would
yet be inadequate. But whether you see it for the first time, or after
many visits, it still keeps its place as the most perfect thing of its
sort in the world.

The =High Street Gate=, which from its position may be regarded as the
chief entrance to the Close, is an embattled structure of two stories,
built, as the pieces of Norman stone work clearly show, from material
brought from Old Sarum. In the niche above the arch on the south side
is a figure, popularly supposed to represent Charles I., although its
proportions more nearly resemble those of James I. It is said that a
statue of Henry III. originally occupied the niche. To the left, as
you have passed the gateway, stands the picturesque =Matron's College=
founded and endowed by Bishop Seth Ward in 1685. Also on the left is a
house formerly occupied by Canon Bowles, and still earlier by
Archdeacon Cole, both Salisbury worthies with more than local
reputation.

=St. Ann's Gate= is in the east wall of the Close, in the southern
angle. It is a long, low two-storied building, with two light
perpendicular windows in the upper story, and from the street outside,
where a projecting window is a noticeable feature, is very
picturesque. In common with the other gates and with the walls of the
Close, Norman stones moulded and carved are visible in many places. A
house near the south side was occupied by Fielding, who moved
afterwards next door to the Friary in St. Ann's Street, and finally to
another at Milford Hill, where he wrote "Tom Jones."

=Harnham Gate= near the south boundary is but a fragment, an embattled
archway devoid of an upper story. Near this gateway, just outside the
precincts, stood the ancient college of De Vaux, founded in 1260 by
Bishop Bridport.

=The Bishop's Palace= is not visible from the Close, but can be seen
through a doorway in the cloisters. It is set in the midst of
delightful gardens, a rambling picturesque building dating from many
periods. Bishop Poore began it--Bishop Beauchamp built its great hall;
within its walls are portraits of all the bishops of Salisbury since
the Restoration.

=The Hospital of St. Nicholas= is situated between Harnham Gate and
Harnham Bridge. The charter of its endowment dates from the castle of
Old Sarum in September, 1227. It still shelters a dozen inmates in a
most picturesque house, part of the original structure. On an islet is
a more modern building, which is on the foundation of the chapel of
St. John, suppressed at the Reformation.

=The Church House=, as it is now called, was formerly known as
Audley House, and belonged to the Earl of Castlehaven who was beheaded
in 1631, and his property divided between the bishop and others. It is
most picturesquely placed by Crane Bridge.

[Illustration: SOUTH FRONT. HIGH STREET GATE. NORTH FRONT.
_From Photographs by Carl Norman and Co._]

=The Poultry Cross= is still standing near the Market Place. At one
time a sundial and ball crowned the structure, but these have been
replaced by a cross. Close by it and scattered frequently throughout
the streets of the city are overhanging houses that betray their
antiquity at a glance.

[Illustration: THE CHURCH HOUSE.
_From a Photograph by Witcomb and Son, Salisbury._]

=The Guildhall=, a very interesting building as engravings show, was
demolished at the end of the eighteenth century. The Joiners Hall, the
Tailors Hall, the Hall of John Halle, the Old George, are still
standing, with some of their features modified but not sufficiently
altered to deprive them of interest.

=The Church of St. Thomas à Becket= is a most picturesque structure,
and, placed as it is in a square of old tiled houses, makes a
delightful picture. It consists of a nave with two aisles, a chancel
with aisles, and a vestry room. It was built in 1240 by Bishop
Bingham. The embattlemented tower has in its south front two niches
containing much mutilated figures of the Virgin and Child and St.
Thomas à Becket. In the porch is a very curious panel with a biblical
subject rudely carved by Humphrey Beckham, who died, aged
eighty-eight, in 1671, and left this as his memorial. The most
striking feature of the interior is the large painting above the
chancel arch, representing the Day of Judgment, in the naïve manner of
its time. A reproduction will be found in Hoare's "Modern Wiltshire"
(vol. 6), and most works on ecclesiastical mural decoration mention it
as one of the most important examples that have come down to us. Other
paintings in the south aisle were brought to light by Mr. G.E. Street
during the restoration in 1867. Without and within it is a building
hardly less worth study than the cathedral itself.

[Illustration: THE POULTRY CROSS.
_From a Photograph by Carl Norman and Co._]

=St. Edmund=, founded by Bishop de la Wyle in 1268 for a Provost and
twelve secular canons, is at the north-east of the city. To the east
of its churchyard is the college of St. Edmunds, on the site of the
convent founded in 1268 by the same bishop. In the grounds of the
college stands the old north transept porch of the cathedral, a
picturesque ruin whose architecture at once disposes of the theory
that it came from Old Sarum.

[Illustration: OLD PLAN OF SALISBURY.]

=St. Martin= is another church of very ancient foundation, containing
an interesting Norman font.

It is impossible to close even the most brief note of objects of
interest at, or near, Salisbury, without naming George Herbert's
church, Bemerton, and Stonehenge; two places which attract pilgrims
from all parts of the world. Yet no space is left to describe them, or
to refer to Henry Lawes, musician, and Philip Massinger, dramatist,
two of the many famous men who had the city for their birthplace. The
cathedral has been the main object of this volume, and other matters,
interesting though they may be, must needs be left untouched here.

THE END.

[Illustration: PLAN OF SALISBURY CATHEDRAL.]

*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum" ***

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