Читать книгу Highways and Byways in Cambridge and Ely - John William Edward Conybeare - Страница 8

King's College Chapel.

In the lower left-hand light Joachim and Anna are meeting before the Temple gate; and in the right-hand Anna is sitting up in a blue bed with red curtains, watching the infant Mary being washed. Mary has long golden curls, and her face is that of an adult; but Dr. James considers this head a later insertion. This window is known to have been repeatedly and promiscuously repaired (even as early as 1590), and was in utter confusion till the latest releading (1896). The repairs seem to have been executed with any old bits of glass the glazier might happen to have in stock. On one fragment (now removed) some coins of Charles the First were represented. Most of the windows have suffered, more or less, in this way, but none (except that over the south door) to the same extent as this first window, which though the first in order of subject, seems not to have been the first inserted, or at least completed; for at the top may be read the date 1527, whereas the window over the screen on the north side contains that of 1517.

These two dates are respectively near the inception and the completion of the glazing, which was begun 1515, the year when Luther began the Reformation by the publication of his famous Theses, and finished 1531, the year in which that Reformation was first inaugurated in England by the King being declared Supreme Head of the Anglican Church. The windows, however, must have been designed at a date considerably earlier, for in the heraldic devices which fill the small top lights Henry the Seventh, not Henry the Eighth, is treated throughout as the reigning monarch; his shield being blazoned in the central compartment, while the latter is only commemorated by the initials H. K.—the last standing for his ill-fated wife Katharine of Aragon. These heraldic devices are the same in all the windows, and show the rival roses of York and Lancaster, the Tudor Portcullis and Hawthorn Bush, the Fleur-de-lys, and the initials H. E. (for Henry the Seventh and his Queen, Elizabeth of York). All the glass is of English manufacture, the work of four London firms, but it seems probable that the artists were to some extent under both Flemish and Italian influence.

Passing on to the second window, we find it thus arranged:

Type Presentation of a golden table in the Temple at Delphi.	Type The Marriage of Tobias and Sara. (Tobit vii. 13.)
Antitype Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple at Jerusalem.	Antitype The Marriage of Mary and Joseph.

The first scene here is the only instance in the Chapel of a non-Scriptural incident being made use of as a Type. It is the Classical legend (found in Valerius Maximus, an obscure Latin writer used in the sixteenth century as a school book), which tells how a question as to the ownership of a golden table found in the nets of some Milesian fishermen was referred to the Delphic oracle of Apollo for solution. To whom should this table of pure gold be made over? The Oracle replied "To the Wisest." The prize was therefore given to Thales, the wisest Milesian of the day, who modestly passed it on to another sage, and he to yet another. Finally, after thus going the round of the Seven Wise Men of Greece, it came into the hands of Solon the Athenian, who declared that "the Wisest" could be no other than Apollo himself, and accordingly presented the table to the God in the Temple of Delphi. By a strange application, this tale was considered, in mediæval literature, as typical of the Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple at Jerusalem; her purity and that of the gold being, apparently, the connecting idea.

In the window we see the offering of the golden table; Apollo being represented by a golden image bearing a shield emblazoned with the Sun, and a banner. Beneath is Mary, as a young girl dressed in blue, walking up the steps of the Temple; an incident much dwelt on in the legend. In the upper Marriage scene note the Angel Raphael, the comrade and guide of Tobias; and, in the lower, Joseph's rod, the sign from which (a dove appearing upon it) marked him out, amongst all her suitors, as Mary's destined husband. This scene suggests a reminiscence of Raphael's well-known cartoon on the subject, which had lately been painted.

In the third window the arrangement is:

Type The Fall (Eve's disobedience).	Type The Burning Bush (remaining unconsumed).
——	——
Antitype The Annunciation (Mary's obedience).	Antitype The Nativity (Mary remaining a Virgin).

Note the human head and hands of the Serpent, and the brilliant ruddiness of the apple. Also the ruby flames of the bush, and the representation of God the Father at its summit. Moses is in the act of putting off his shoes from his feet. In the Nativity scene the Babe can only be discovered by following the gaze of the child Angels who are clustering round in adoration. Contrary to the usual convention, which shows Him sitting on His Mother's knee as if a couple of years old, He is here represented realistically as an actual new-born baby. Above both lower lights in this window is a renaissance arcading.

In the fourth window we have:

Type The Circumcision of Isaac.	Type The visit of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon.
——	——
Antitype The Circumcision of Christ.	Antitype The visit of the Wise Men to Christ.

The face of Abraham and that of the officiating priest below are both good, and so is that of the Queen. The Epiphany Star is a fine object, and the effect of its light irradiating the thatch of the manger-shed is most powerfully rendered.

The fifth window gives us

Type The Legal Purification of a woman.	Type Jacob's flight from the vengeance of Esau.
——	——
Antitype The Purification of Mary.	Antitype The Flight into Egypt.

In the Purification scene the faces of Simeon, who is the main figure, Mary, and Joseph (carrying the dove-cage), are all worth looking at. So is Joseph in the Flight episode; which, however, is chiefly remarkable for introducing in the back-ground a legend from a late carol, which tells how Herod's soldiers pursued the Holy Family, and how the pursuit was miraculously checked. The fugitives met a husbandman, and instructed him to answer any inquiry for them by saying, "They passed whilst I was sowing this corn"; which was actually the case. But, lo! when the pursuers shortly came up the corn had sprung up, and was ripe already to harvest. It takes some little trouble to decipher this scene. The Purification is seen through an arcade of the Temple, on the frieze of which is a group of classical horsemen like those of the Parthenon.

The next window is that over the great organ screen dividing the ante-chapel from the choir. It is arranged thus:

Type The Golden Calf (the introduction of Idolatry).	Type The Massacre of the Seed Royal by Queen Athaliah.
——	——
Antitype The idols of Egypt falling before the Holy Child (the overthrow of Idolatry).	Antitype The Massacre of the Innocents by King Herod.

The Golden Calf is set high on a magnificent ruby pillar. Before it Moses is breaking the Tables of the Law; one fragment of which shows a Flemish inscription. Below, an idol is falling headlong from a precisely similar pillar. The kneeling figure in this scene is the Governor Aphrodisius, who was converted by the miracle; as is recorded in the apocryphal "Gospel of the Infancy." In the Massacre scene Queen Athaliah is represented by a conventional figure of the Virgo Coronata (with her Babe in her arms). The artist evidently had this figure in stock, and used it rather than take the trouble of producing something less incorrect. Near her there is a minutely depicted mediæval thatched house worthy of notice. So is the business-like callousness in the expression on the leading soldier's countenance. This window bears, as has been said, the date 1517, written 15017.

We are now in the choir, where our first window gives:

Type Naaman washing in Jordan.	Type Esau tempted by Jacob to sell his birthright.
——	——
Antitype Christ baptised in Jordan.	Antitype Christ tempted by the Devil.

All three Temptations are given, the first being in the foreground. The countenance of the Devil (as a respectable old man) is a marvellous study.

The second window in the choir is:

Type The raising of the Shunamite's son.	Type The Triumph of David (I Sam. xvii).
——	——
Antitype The raising of Lazarus.	Antitype The Triumphal Entry.

The Shunamite's house is another bit of minute detail. Note the dishes on the shelf in front. Note also the magnificently gigantic head of Goliath borne by David on the point of the Philistine's own huge sword.

The third window:

Type The Manna.	Type The Fall of the Angels.
——	——
Antitype The Last Supper.	Antitype The Agony in Gethsemane.

The manna is shown as falling in the shape of Communion Breads. Below, Christ gives the sop to the red-haired Judas, while Peter, who thus becomes aware of the traitor's identity, clenches his fist with a gesture of menace extraordinarily forcible.

The connection between the right-hand subjects is not obvious. Dr. James suggests that it refers to Christ's speaking of the casting out of Satan as a result of His Passion (John xii. 31). The smaller scale of this scene, and the nimbi given to Christ and the Apostles point to its having been the work of a special artist.

The fourth choir window:

Type Cain murders Abel.	Type The mocking of David by Shimei.
——	——
Antitype Judas betrays Christ.	Antitype The mocking of Christ.

Cain is killing Abel with a large bone. Note the ruby fires of their respective altars in the back-ground, Abel's spiring upwards in full flame, while Cain's is blown down to the earth. In the betrayal scene the face of Malchus, as he lies upon the ground with his broken lantern under him, should be observed. It is highly expressive.

The fifth window:

Type Jeremiah in prison.	Type Noah mocked by Ham.
——	——
Antitype Christ before Annas.	Antitype Christ mocked by Herod.

We have now reached the last window of the northern range, that in the north-east corner of the Chapel. It shows us:

Type Job scourged by Satan.	Type Solomon crowned by his mother. (Cant. iii. 11.)
——	——
Antitype Christ scourged by Pilate.	Antitype Christ crowned with thorns.

In the scourging scene we may note the singularly unpleasing features and expression of the Saviour's face; which Dr. James holds to be purposely so delineated, in reference to the words of Isaiah: "He hath no form nor comeliness, and when we see Him there is no beauty that we should desire Him." We do not, indeed, find in the entire series of windows one single attempt to represent Him worthily. The conventional face, familiar throughout the ages to Christian Art, even from the first century, and probably a real recollection of Him, is consistently departed from (as is characteristic of the Renaissance period), and with it has gone every divine and exalted association. Where even the genius of Michael Angelo failed, we cannot look to find the glassworkers of London succeeding.

The great east window has no central messengers, and thus contains six scenes, each occupying three lights, arranged thus:

Type The Nailing to the Cross.	Type Christ crucified (the Piercing).	Type The Descent from the Cross.
——	——	——
Antitype Ecce Homo!	Antitype The Sentence.	Antitype The Way of Sorrows.

There is little to call for special notice in this window. Structural conditions necessitate the Cross being of abnormal height. In the background of the Way of Sorrows is a vivid ruby patch, which may be meant for the Field of Blood.

Turning to the south-east window, we are confronted with an entirely exceptional development. The whole of the upper half is occupied with a single subject (the Brazen Serpent), and that in Early Victorian glass inconceivably poor and crude. The lower half is ancient and typical, the type and antitype being placed side by side:

Type Naomi bewailing her husband. (Ruth i. 20.)

Antitype The Holy Women bewailing Christ.

The history of this marked departure from the norm is that the buildings of the Great Court were planned to abut upon the Chapel here, so as to block the lower half of the window, for which, accordingly, no glass was provided. That which is there now was originally in the upper half and was moved down in 1841, the Brazen Serpent being substituted for it. The remaining windows on this side of the choir also underwent a sad amount of "restoration" at the same period.

The next window (the fifteenth in the entire sequence) is of the normal arrangement.

Type Joseph cast into the pit.	Type The overthrow of Pharaoh.
——	——
Antitype Christ laid in the Sepulchre.	Antitype The Harrying of Hell.

The last scene is a most forcible representation of Christ's victorious "Harrying of Hell," as conceived by mediæval imagination and referred to by Dante in his Inferno. The Conqueror of Death has forced His resistless way through the shattered gates of Hell, on which He stands, treading under His feet the gigantic leaden-coloured bulk of their demon warder. Before Him kneels Adam, at last rescued from his age-long captivity, and other Holy Souls. In the back-ground a blue devil gazes in dismay from the red mouth of Hell (represented after the usual mediæval fashion, as an actual mouth, with teeth, etc.), while another, in livid green, is dancing with demoniac rage above, and yet another, white and gold, is scudding away in terror as fast as his wings will carry him.

The remaining windows of the choir on this side deal with the Resurrection. In the first of these (the third from the east) the subjects are:

Type Jonah escaping from the Fish.	Type Tobias appearing to his mother (who had thought him dead).
——	——
Antitype Christ arising from the Sepulchre.	Antitype Christ appearing to His Mother.

The Fish is represented as a long green sea-serpent with a black, cavernous mouth, out of which Jonah is stepping. In the background is a ship, and, beyond, Nineveh. The Sepulchre is in the frequent unscriptural shape of a table monument.

In the right-hand type, Tobias has his dog with him, and also his angel guardian Raphael. That Christ appeared to His Mother is first found in St. Ambrose, who mentions it as undoubted. She is here shown kneeling at a prayer-desk.

In the next window we find:

Type Reuben finds Joseph taken away from the pit.	Type Darius, at the Lions' den, sees Daniel living.
——	——
Antitype The Marys find Jesus taken away from the Sepulchre.	Antitype Mary Magdalene, at the Sepulchre, sees Jesus living.

In the last scene Christ is represented with a spade, inasmuch as Mary Magdalene supposed Him to be the gardener. Her very pronounced costume, with its astonishing golden ear-covers, is probably a German fashion of the early sixteenth century.

The fifth window gives the story of Christ's appearance to the disciples who went to Emmaus:

Type Tobias, on his journey, is joined by the angel Raphael, in appearance a wayfaring man. (Tobit, v. 4.)	Type Habakkuk shares his meal with Daniel at Babylon. (Bel and the Dragon, v. 33.)
——	——
Antitype The two disciples on their journey are joined by Christ, in appearance a wayfaring man.	Antitype Christ shares the meal of disciples at Emmaus.

Observe that the bread in Our Lord's hand appears to be, not broken, but cut clean as with a knife. There was a mediæval legend to the effect that He showed His divine power by thus breaking it. Note, too, Raphael's brilliant green and crimson wings, put in to denote his angelic nature, though the story postulates their absence.

The following window (that next to the screen) deals with the story of St. Thomas (John xx.), and has been wrongly arranged: what are now the right-hand scenes should be the left so as to come first. It now stands thus:

Type The Prodigal Son returns to his Father.	Type Joseph meets Jacob in Egypt.
——	——
Antitype Thomas returns to belief in Jesus.	Antitype Jesus meets His Disciples at Supper.

We find in the first scene here what is perhaps the most ably drawn figure in the entire series of windows, that of the Elder Brother. Observe the utter contempt and disgust written on his face and in his whole attitude. He wears a pair of most aggressively red leggings.

The window over the organ loft shows us the Ascension, and the Coming of the Holy Ghost.

Type Elijah going up into Heaven.	Type Moses and the Israelites receiving the Law at Pentecost.
——	——
Antitype Christ going up into Heaven.	Antitype Mary and the Disciples receiving the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

Elijah is deliberately turning round in his golden chariot of fire to cast down his ample ruby mantle upon Elisha. Moses is taking the Tables of the Law from the hand of God.

The subjects of the three windows between the screen and the south door are all from the lives of St. Peter and St. Paul, and nearly all from the Acts of the Apostles, from which also all the texts are taken. Accordingly the place of the usual prophetic Messengers is, in these windows, taken by figures of St. Luke (all identical), habited in the costume worn by a Doctor of Medicine in the sixteenth century. The series of type and antitype is dropped in these windows, and no strict chronological order is observed in the sequence of the subjects. Probably some have been misplaced, either originally or at one of the various releadings to which they have necessarily been subjected. Every century brings fresh need for this operation.

The subjects in the first window are:

Peter and the Apostles entering the Temple.	Peter and John bound and scourged.
Peter and John healing the lame man in the Beautiful Gate.	The Death of Ananias.

The design of the last scene is directly copied from Raphael's well-known cartoon.

The second window gives:

The Conversion of St. Paul.	St. Paul at Damascus and his escape in a basket.
St. Paul adored at Lystra.	St. Paul stoned at Lystra.

The third window is also Pauline:

St. Paul giving a farewell blessing before embarkation.	St. Paul before the Chief Captain at Jerusalem.
St. Paul exorcising the demoniac at Philippi.	St. Paul before Caesar at Rome.

The first of these scenes is interesting. The text (Acts, xvi. 2) connects it with St. Paul's departure from Troas on his first voyage to Europe. But the subject seems to be the touching scene at Miletus (Acts, xx) on his final departure for Jerusalem. The ship here, whence the boat is rowing to fetch him, should be noticed, as it is a fine and accurate specimen of sixteenth century naval architecture. Observe the lateen yard on the mizen mast. The man who drew that ship, unlike most artists, knew his ropes, they are all in their right places. In the last scene note the startled and awed expression on Nero's almost obliterated face, also his Imperial crown.

We have now almost completed our round of the Chapel, and are again at the south door by which we entered. Only two more windows remain, and in these we return to the typical treatment of Our Lady's life. That over the south door has, by accident (as it appears), been more shattered and defaced than any other in the Chapel. It is arranged thus:

Type The death of Tobit.	Type The burial of Jacob.
——	——
Antitype The death of Mary.	Antitype The burial of Mary.

Mary is dying with the full rites of the Church. St. Peter sprinkles her with holy water, while St. John places in her hand a lighted "trindall" (three candles twisted together). The prayer book and cross are borne by other Apostles. Her bier is covered by a white pall with gold cross, and two severed hands may (with difficulty) be seen clinging to it. This refers to the legend that a certain Jew who sought to overthrow the bier was thus miraculously dismembered, and did not recover his hands till he penitently besought her to restore them.

Finally the south-west window completes the wondrous series:

Type The Translation of Enoch.	Type Bathsheba enthroned by her son Solomon. (I. Kings, ii., 19.)
——	——
Antitype The Assumption of Mary.	Antitype Mary crowned by her Son Jesus.

The west window remained unglazed, for some unknown reason, till as late as 1879, when there arose a benefactor, Mr. Francis Stacey, a Fellow of the College, who has left this noble memorial of his generosity. The glass is by Messrs. Clayton and Bell, and the subject, as is usual in west windows, is the Last Judgment. The heraldic devices in the tracery are not those found in the older windows, but comprise (in order) the Tudor Portcullis,[20] the Plantagenet Rose, and the shields of King's College, Eton College, Cambridge University, King Henry VI., King Henry VII., King Henry VIII., Queen Victoria, and Stacey. There are also the shields of the See of Lincoln, whose Bishop is ex officio Visitor of the College, impaling Wordsworth (then Bishop), and of Okes (then Provost of the College).

The glass of King's College Chapel by no means exhausts the interest of the building. The next point to be observed is the great organ screen, erected during the brief ascendancy of the miserable Ann Boleyn, whose initials are carved upon it. On either side of the door-way, within, are emblazoned the twin shields of King's and Eton; differing only in that the former bears three red roses, the latter three white lilies (not fleurs-de-lys) on the sable ground beneath the chief, with its lion of England and fleur-de-lys of France on their respective red and blue. The organ itself was not put up till 1606, but the nondescript Renaissance dragons supporting it show that the case must have been in hand more than half a century earlier. They are for all the world like Raphael's wonderful creations in the Vatican. The great trumpeting angels on the top of the organ are eighteenth century work. Originally much smaller angels stood there, which in the seventeenth century were replaced by pinnacles. The doors of the screen belong to the Laudian revival, and bear the arms of Charles the First. The west door of the Chapel is of the same period, but the north and south doors are the original ones.

The Choir stalls date from Henry the Eighth, but the elaborate coats of arms carved over each were not added till 1633, and the canopies not till 1675. The magnificent brass lectern was given by Provost Hacombleyn, at the opening of the chapel; but the present altar is a very modern addition, having been only put up in the twentieth century. It stands, as directed by the Founder, no fewer than 16 feet from the eastern wall. The wood-work of the sanctuary walls is not even yet (1910) fully completed. It is of Renaissance character, as is also the altar. The lighting of the Chapel, it should be said, is still, happily, done only with candles; and, on a winter afternoon, their twinkling points of fire, in endless range, amid the vasty gloom, give an impression of mysterious solemnity to be obtained nowhere else.

Beautiful as the Chapel is, it would, had the designs of the Founder been carried out, have been yet more beautiful. His Will expressly deprecates that "superfluitie of too gret curious werkes of entaille and besy moulding" which the ante-chapel now exhibits in the elaborate series of Royal coats of arms beneath every window. They are beautifully carved, it is true, and we may note that the attitudes of the supporters (the Tudor dragon and greyhound) are in no two cases identical. But the whole effect is somewhat to weary the eye. So also do the perpetual roses and portcullises with which the walls are bestudded. One of the former, however, deserves special notice, as in it is framed one of the very few mediæval images of Our Lady which has weathered the storm of the Reformation. It is to be found at the southern corner of the west wall, and is what is known as a Rosa Solis. The inner petals are sun-rays, and in the midst is the "Woman clothed with the sun." (The White Rose of York is also sometimes represented in the windows as a sun-rose, the sun being also a Yorkist badge, but in this the rays are external to the flower.)

The walls, then, would have been less ornate, and more truly beautiful for the absence of profuse ornament, had the Founder's design been carried out. And we can see that even the exquisite roof was meant to be yet more lovely than as it now enraptures the eye. If we look at one of the soaring pilasters and follow up its lines, we shall see that each of the flutings is prolonged in a rib of the fan vaulting. No, not quite each. There is one member which has no such prolongation, but ends meaninglessly at the capital. And this tells us that the pilasters were designed to carry not a fan but a liern vaulting; so called because it appears to be a mesh of intertwined ivy (lierre) binding the fabric together. And beautiful as a fan roof is, a liern roof is capable of expressing harmonies of proportion yet more delicate and soul-satisfying. How subtle and exalted these harmonies would have been here we shall best learn if we have the good fortune to gain admission to the range of small side-chapels which flank the fane on either hand, nestling between the mighty buttresses. For in these, while the more western have the fan roof, the eastern and earlier built show liern vaulting of the most delicious character.

These side-chapels were intended each to have an altar, at which the Priest to whom it was assigned should say his own Mass daily, while all should meet later before the High Altar to assist at the Collegiate Mass. They are now used for various subsidiary purposes connected with the services. One contains the heating apparatus, another the hydraulic bellows of the organ, while many are mere lumber-rooms. These last are those abutting on the Choir, which have no opening into the Nave, such as those adjoining the ante-chapel possess. Through the gratings we may note some stained glass of an entirely different character from that in the Chapel windows. It is, in fact, of the previous (Fifteenth) Century, and thus older than the Chapel itself. From what earlier building it has been transferred is uncertain. Tradition, for some unknown reason, assigns it to Ramsey Abbey; but it seems more reasonable to suppose that it came from the old church of St. John Zachary hard by, when that was pulled down to make room for the College, and its fragments, as excavation has shown, utilised for levelling the site.

In one of the southern side-chapels will be found a verger, from whom it is well worth while to obtain access to the roof of the Chapel. This is reached by a wide spiral stairway in the north-western turret. Our first goal is a small door (the key of which should be specially asked for) leading into a narrow loop-holed passage, from which we can scramble into the space between the two roofs of the Chapel. We are here on the top of the fan vaulting which we have so much admired from below, and can note with what wondrous skill its huge stones are dovetailed into one another with the round keystone boss in the centre of each span. Above, and only just above, our heads are the mighty beams of Spanish chestnut composing the upper roof, the long vista being lighted by a small grated window at either end.

Returning to the staircase it does not take many steps more to bring us to the roof proper, with its open-work parapets and long leaden slope. This should be climbed to get the full benefit of the view, and those gifted with steadiness of head and sureness of foot will do well to make their way along the ridge from end to end, for each has its own beauties to show. To the West we see below us the great lawn, and the court of Clare, and the river, and the delicious verdure of the Backs, amid which rise the red walls of the Ladies' College at Newnham, and the adjoining Anglican foundation of Selwyn; while beyond is the open country, bounded by the low chalk upland stretching from Madingley Hill on the North to Barrington Hill on the South. The spire, so conspicuous on the summit of this range, is that of Hardwicke Church. To the South we can distinguish the places already described, (the little glass dome of the Fitzwilliam Museum, and the graceful spire of Our Lady's Church, being conspicuous objects,) and, beyond, the distant range of the East-Anglian Heights from the furthest north-east to the furthest south-west, that form the watershed of the wide valley of the Cam. To the East, the tower of the University Church, Great St. Mary's, raises its turrets almost to the level of our feet, and we look down on a maze of Cambridge house-roofs bright with the variegated tiling which is their special and beautiful characteristic. Beyond them the near promontory of the Gog Magog Hills juts out from the East-Anglian Heights on which lies Newmarket. To the North come College after College, Clare, Trinity Hall, Caius, Trinity, St. John's, Magdalene; while the University Library and the Senate House lie nearer still. Due north, across these, and across the wide-flung plain beyond them, the plain of the Southern Fenland, we can, if the day be clear, discern on the far horizon the shadowy towers of Ely Cathedral, fifteen miles away as the crow flies.