Читать книгу From Paddington to Penzance - Charles G. Harper - Страница 12

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The ancient capital of all England lies in the quiet valley of the River Itchen, a small stream which, some twelve miles lower down, empties into Southampton Water. The naïve remark of the schoolboy upon the “coincidence” of great cities always being situated upon the banks of large rivers did not, when Winchester was the metropolis, have any application here, but in the light of subsequent history it may show the reason of the city’s decadence.

From the earliest times Winchester was a city of importance; Briton and Roman, Saxon, Dane, and Norman alike made it a place of strength. Under Cerdic, first king of the West Saxons, the city became the capital of that kingdom, and at the dissolution of the Heptarchy, capital of united England.

But it was under the rule of the early Plantagenet kings that Winchester attained the zenith of its prosperity as the seat of government and as a centre of the woollen trade. Now the court has departed, and the manufacture utterly died out; but Winchester is a prosperous city still—gay with the rubrical gaiety of a cathedral city—the centre of an agricultural district, and the capital of a diocese.

Of feudal Winchester much has been destroyed; but from the remains of its two great castles, and of the city gates and walls, one may conjure up the city of the two first Norman kings, held under stern repressive rule, when despotic power lay in the hands of alien king and noble. Then the New Forest lying near was a newly created desolation; and the country-side, now dotted with villages, a sparsely settled tract. And even in the city itself there were long hours when all was silent and lonely; for when the curfew rang out, who dared to disobey its warning note? Then the city was given up to darkness, the watchmen at the closed and guarded gates, and the sentinels pacing the walls; for though, mayhap, there were no danger threatening from without, it must perchance be watched for and combated from within.

ENTRANCE TO THE CLOSE, WINCHESTER.

The curfew bell has been sentimentally revived, and tolling nightly from the old Guildhall, awakens dim vistas of social history. The custom has, of course, lost all its harsh significance, but it is one not lost upon him who cares for tradition in an age that makes for novelty; when vaunting soaps affront the eye of the wayfarer in their garish advertisements, and the voice of the touter (commercial, social, political, and religious) is heard in the land crying new lamps (of the sorriest) for old.

But the word “lamps” reminds me that Winchester public lamps have long been lighted with oil, for the Corporation and the Gas Company have agreed to differ; so, pending wiser counsel in the Company’s ranks, the City Fathers, good souls, put back the clock of social history some sixty years by re-adopting paraffin as an illuminant.

Thus local history wags at Winchester, with but few excitements, and those magnified to things of greatest import, by reason of their rarity.

To attempt to give here the briefest outline of Winchester’s long and stirring story were indeed vain; but a succinct account of its Cathedral may be of interest, as therein lies in these days most of the charm of the place. It is an epitome of architectural history unsurpassed in England.

One might, as a stranger, wander through the city for some while without finding the Cathedral, and then, perhaps, be compelled to inquire the way, for it is not possessed of soaring spire nor lofty towers, to guide the pilgrim from afar.

The first impression one gets of the building is of its great length: it is, indeed, the longest cathedral in England. The exterior, seen from the north-west corner of the close, is, perhaps, disappointing, with its long, unbroken, roof-line and low central tower, showing an almost entire absence of that picturesque grouping which is the charm of many others. But Winchester Cathedral has an interior equalling, if not surpassing, all others in beauty and interest.

The present cathedral is not the first nor second building of its kind erected here. Even before the Christian era its site held buildings devoted to worship; for the old chroniclers, the monks, to whom we owe most of our early history, have stated that the temple to Dagon stood on this spot.

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL.

Up to the time of the Norman Conquest the history of the Cathedral is one long account of building, destruction, and rebuilding—for those were troublous times, and religious institutions fared no better than secular.

Walkelin, the first Bishop of Winchester after the Conquest, was appointed in 1070. In the year 1079 he began to rebuild the existing Saxon cathedral from its foundations; and in 1086, the king, for its completion granted him as much wood from a certain forest as his workmen could cut and carry in the space of four days and nights. But the wily bishop brought together an innumerable troop of workmen who, within the prescribed time, felled the entire wood and carried it off. For this piece of sharp practice Walkelin had to humbly implore pardon of the enraged William.

In 1093 the new building was completed, and was dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul.

ST. SWITHUN AND THE INDIGNANT TOURIST.

The Cathedral is now (or, at least, part of it is) dedicated to Saint Swithun. Now, Swithun was a holy man who died in the odour of sanctity and the Saxon era. He was Bishop of Winchester, but lowly minded indeed, for he desired his body to be buried without the building, under the eaves, where the rain might always drip upon his grave; but disregarding the spirit of the saint’s injunctions, the monks “howked” his corpse up again, after first complying with the letter of them by burying him for awhile in the cathedral yard. They proposed to enshrine the body within the Cathedral, but the saint, who had apparently obtained in the meantime an appointment as a sort of celestial turncock, brought about a continuous rainfall of forty days and nights. After this manifestation, the monks concluded to leave Swithun alone, and he lies in the close to this day. Unfortunately, the saint seems to have ever after made an annual commemoration of the event, commencing with July 15th. This would be a comparatively small matter did he confine himself to that period alone; but unlike the gyrating turncocks of our water companies, he is constantly on duty, more particularly when holiday folk most do fare abroad. Perhaps Swithun is offended at his name being so continually spelled wrongly—Swithin: perhaps—but, no matter. Anyhow, he is more addicted to water than (if all tales be true) holy friars were wont to be, either for external or inward application. What does Ingoldsby say of one typical friar—I quote from memory (a shocking habit):—

“Still less had he time to change the hair shirt he

Had worn the last twenty years, probably thirty,

And which by this time had grown somewhat dirty.”

But no more frivolity: let us, pray, be serious.