Читать книгу Oxford and Its Story - Cecil Headlam - Страница 6

“whether by the negligence of the Seculars or the continuall disturbance of the expelled Regulars, it was almost utterly forsaken and relinqueshed, and the more especially because of that troublesome warre betweene King Harold and William the Conqueror.”

For the nunnery which S. Frideswide founded had soon ceased to be a nunnery. By the irony of fate, soon after her death, the nuns were removed, and the priory was handed over to a chapter of married men, the Secular Canons, whom S. Dunstan, in his turn, succeeded in suppressing. But the nuns never came back, for, after many vicissitudes, the priory was finally restored, under Henry I. (1111), as a house of the Canons Regular of S. Augustine. Some have thought that Guimond, the first prior (1122), was responsible for the building of the whole church, but he more probably found enough to do in re-establishing order and restoring the monastic buildings. His successor, Robert of Cricklade, perhaps it was who restored Æthelred’s church on the old plan and inserted most of the later Norman work, especially the clerestory and presbytery.

The triforium and clerestory in the nave (roofed in with sixteenth-century wood-work) give us an interesting example of the latest Norman or Transitional style. The clerestory consists of a pointed arch enriched with shafts at the angles, and supported on either side by low circular arches which form the openings of a wall passage. The arrangement of the triforium is remarkable. The massive pillars of the nave are alternately circular and octagonal. From their capitals, which are large, with square abaci, spring circular arches with well-defined mouldings. These are, in fact, the arches of the triforium, which is here represented by a blind arcade of two arches set in the tympanum of the main arch. The true arches of the nave spring from half capitals, set against the pillars, and are plain, with a circular moulding towards the nave. The crown of these arches is considerably below the main capitals of the pillars, from which the upper or triforium arches spring. The half capitals assist in carrying the vaulting of the aisles.

The whole arrangement, rare on the Continent, is extremely unusual in England, but occurs, for instance, in the transept of Romsey Abbey. The pillars of the choir date, as has been said, from Æthelred’s day; the rest is twelfth-century restoration, save the rich and graceful pendent roof, which accords so strangely well with the robust Norman work it crowns. The clerestory was converted into Perpendicular, and remodelled to carry this elaborate vaulting, which should be compared with that of the old Divinity School, or Henry VII.’s Chapel at Westminster, and attributed, not in accordance with tradition to the time of Wolsey, but to the close of the fifteenth century.

The very effective east end is a conjectural restoration of the old Norman design, and was the work of Sir Gilbert Scott, who also opened the lantern-story and made many other sweeping changes and restorations, necessitated by the previous restorations of seventeenth-century Dean Duppa, and the neglect of his successors.

When Cricklade’s restoration was finished, or nearly so, it was decided, in order to revive the once so famous memory of S. Frideswide, to translate her relics from their obscure resting-place (probably the southernmost of the three Saxon apses) to some notable place in the church. The King, the Archbishop, many bishops, and many of the nobility and clergy gathered together to take part in this great ceremony. The bones of the Saint were taken up, set in a rich gilt coffin and placed on the north side of the choir. Miracles were wrought at the new shrine, and pilgrims crowded thither.

The money brought in by these means was badly needed, both for the purpose of the restoration which had been in process, and which was further necessitated by the great fire which destroyed a large part of Oxford in 1190, and, whilst damaging the church, much injured the monastic buildings. The fine old Norman doorway of the Chapter house, which is attributed to Prior Guimond (1122), still bears the red marks of that fire. The Chapter house itself is a very perfect chamber of the early English period. The rich and graceful carving of the capitals, the bosses of the roof, and the curious corbels, the superb glass in the side windows, the beautiful arcade of five arches, pierced for light, which fills the entire east end, complete and confirm, so pure are they in style, so excellent in detail, the just proportions of this noble room.

Early in the thirteenth century was built also the upper portion of the tower, and that lowly spire was added, which appears scarce

Oxford Cathedral

peeping above the College buildings, modestly calling attention to the half-concealed site of the smallest cathedral in England. Oxford is a city of towers, and domes, and steeples, all of which possess their own peculiar character and beauty. As different as possible from the perfect proportions of Magdalen Tower or the ornate magnificence of the elaborate spire of the University Church, this spire is low and simple—squat almost in appearance. Its lowliness is easily explained. It was perhaps the very first spire built in England. The masons were cautious, afraid of their own daring in attempting to erect so lofty a construction, octagonal, upon the solid base of the Norman lower story. In this first effort they did not dream of the tapering elegance of the soaring spire of Salisbury, any more than of the rich ornamentation, the profusion of exuberant pinnacles, the statues and buttresses, gargoyles, crockets and arabesques, with which their successors bedecked S. Mary’s or the Clocher Neuf of Chartres. Strength and security was their chief aim here, though the small turrets, terminating in pyramidal octagons, which surmount the angles of the tower, are the forerunners of that exuberant ornamentation.

In 1289 the bones of S. Frideswide were again translated. They were put in a new and more precious shrine, placed near where the old one stood. Fragments of the marble base of this shrine have been found, pieced together and set up in the easternmost arch between the Lady Chapel and the north choir aisle. These fragments of a beautiful work are themselves beautiful; they are adorned with finely carved foliage, intended to symbolise S. Frideswide’s life when she took refuge in the woods.

The story of the destruction of the shrine is a strange one. Before the Reformation the Church of S. Frideswide and her shrine had enjoyed a high reputation as a place of sanctity. Privileges were conceded to it by royal authority. Miracles were believed to be wrought by a virtue attaching to it; pilgrims from all parts resorted to it—among them Queen Catherine of Aragon.

Such practices and privileges seemed to the zealous Reformers to call for summary interference. The famous shrine was doomed to destruction, and was actually destroyed. The fragments were used either at the time, or not long afterwards, to form part of the walls of a common well. The reliques of the Saint, however, were rescued by some zealous votaries, and carefully preserved in hope of better times. Meantime Catherine (the wife of Peter Martyr, a foreign Protestant theologian of high repute, who had been appointed Regius Professor of Theology) died, and was buried near the place lately occupied by the shrine. Over her grave sermons were preached, contrasting the pious zeal of the German Protestant with the superstitious practices that had tarnished the simplicity of the Saxon Saint. Then came another change. The Roman Church, under Mary Tudor, recovered a brief supremacy. The body of Peter Martyr’s wife was, by order of Cardinal Pole, contemptuously cast out of the church, and the remains of S. Frideswide were restored to their former resting-place. But it does not appear that any attempt was made to restore the shrine. Party zeal still prevailed. Angry contests continued between the adherents of the two parties even after the accession of Elizabeth.

At length the authorities of Christ Church were commissioned to remove the scandal that had been caused by the inhuman treatment of Catherine Martyr’s body. On January 11th, 1562, the bones of the Protestant Catherine and the Catholic S. Frideswide were put together, so intermingled that they could not be distinguished, and then placed together in the same tomb: “Iam coeunt pietas atque superstitio.”

Under the easternmost arch, between the Lady Chapel and the Latin Chapel, is the fine chantry tomb, an elaborately wrought and very beautiful example of Perpendicular workmanship, which is supposed to have been the third and more splendid shrine of S. Frideswide, or else to have served as a “Watching Chamber,” as it is

Hall Stairway Christchurch Herbert Railton Oxford

commonly called, to protect the gold and jewels which hung about the earlier shrine.

Under the Prior Guimond there was certainly a school connected with the convent. Whatever the origin of the University may have been—and there are those who maintain that it sprang from the schools of S. Frideswide as naturally as that of Paris from the schools of Notre Dame—it is pleasant to remember, when you stand in the middle of Tom Quad, that you are on the site of this, the first educational institution of Oxford, just as when you stand in the Lady Chapel of the Cathedral you are on the site of the old priory, the mother church of the University and town.

Another faint echo of the priory days may be traced in the annual Cakestall in S. Olds, which is a survival of the Fair of S. Frideswide that used to last seven days. During that time the keys of the city passed from mayor to prior, and the town courts were closed in favour of the Pie-Powder Court,[2] held by the steward of the priory for the redress of all disorders committed during the fair.

The entrance to the Cathedral is through the two arches in the cloisters, directly opposite to you as you pass into Tom Quad beneath Tom Tower. This curious entrance reminds you at once of the peculiar position of the Cathedral as three parts College chapel. Tom Quad is the largest quadrangle in Oxford (264 by 261 feet), and was begun by Wolsey on a scale which is sufficient evidence of the extreme magnificence of his plans for “Cardinal’s College.” It was begun, but has never been finished. The shafts and marks of the arches, from which the vaults of the intended cloister were to spring, are, however, plainly visible. Of the old cloister of the monastery no trace remains save the windows and door of the chapter house; the fifteenth-century cloisters that do exist are not to be compared with those of New College or Magdalen. One side of them was destroyed by Wolsey to make room for the College Hall. On the south side of the cloister is the old library, which was formerly the refectory of the monastery. With the chapter house doorway it survives as a relic of the old conventual buildings, in quiet contrast to the splendour of the superb kitchen, and the still more magnificent hall, with its valuable collection of portraits. The vaulted chamber, which contains the staircase by which this hall is approached, is one of the most beautiful things in Oxford. The lovely fan-tracery of the vault and the central pillar were the work of “one Smith, an artificer from London,” and were built as late as 1640, in the reign of Charles II. It affords a striking instance of the fact in architectural history, that good Gothic persisted in Oxford long after the influence of Italian work had destroyed it elsewhere.

To make room for this magnificent quadrangle of his the Cardinal also destroyed the three western bays of the Church of S. Frideswide. He had intended to build a new chapel along the north side of Tom Quad which should rival the chapel of King’s College at Cambridge. But this work was interrupted by his fall. The foundations of the chapel have been traced, and they show that the west end ran in a line with the octagonal turrets in S. Aldate’s Street, and the walls reached nearly to Fell’s passage into Peckwater.

For its massive walls Wolsey used some of the stones from the demolished Osney Abbey. The building at the time of his fall had risen some feet above the ground. Dean Fell, it is supposed, used it as a quarry for the construction of his own quadrangle. Now, there had been constructed a new straight walk in the Meadows, and Fell, anxious to improve it, carted the chippings from his own work to lay on it. The chippings were white, so the walk got the name of White. This was corrupted at the end of the eighteenth century to Wide Walk, and hence to Broad

Christ’s Church

Walk—its present name—which really describes it now better than the original phrase.

The destruction of the western bays of the church by Wolsey accounts for the shortened aspect of the nave, slightly relieved though it is by the new western bay which serves as a sort of ante-chapel to the nave and choir which now form the College Chapel of Christ Church. But the appearance of the Cathedral owes something of its strangeness to the fact that it represents, in general plan, the design of King Æthelred’s Church reared upon the site of S. Frideswide’s.