Читать книгу The Cathedrals of Great Britain - P. H. Ditchfield - Страница 8

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The famous Abbey Church of Westminster, though not a cathedral, must be included in our chronicle of the chief ecclesiastical buildings in this country. It is the coronation church of the sovereigns of England, the final resting-place of many, the national tomb-house of our heroes and great men, as well as a triumph of Gothic architecture of singular beauty and attractiveness. For one brief space at the time of the Reformation there was a Bishop of Westminster, but the see did not long continue, and it is for other reasons that Westminster must find a place in this volume. In early Saxon times a chapel dedicated to St. Peter was built by Siebert in the seventh century on an island rising from the marshy ground bordering the Thames. It was called Thorney, and the eastern portion of the water in St. James's Park is a part of the arm of the Thames which encircled the sanctuary of the monks and the palace of the Anglo-Saxon kings. Here was established by Dunstan a colony of Benedictine monks. In the charters of Edgar (951) the original boundary of Westminster is clearly defined, though this charter is esteemed doubtful by Kemble, and the importance of Westminster gradually increased. Edward the Confessor took a particular interest in the place, and began his building of the Abbey in 1050. On Childermas Day (the Feast of the Holy Innocents) 1065 the choir was finished and consecrated, and on "Twelfth Mass Eve" the king died and was buried here. The Bayeux tapestry depicts the scene of this Royal funeral, and gives a representation of the church. The earlier church still remained as the nave of the new choir. A few fragments of Edward's work remain beneath the pavement of the present choir. The work progressed while William Rufus was building his Royal palace, and at the time of his death the transepts and first bay of the nave were completed, the first conspicuous example of a great Benedictine church in England. Henry I. and Matilda were crowned here with much pomp, and all the monarchs since the time of the Conqueror. Early in the days of Henry III. a new lady chapel was built, and this inspired the artistic soul of the young king, who determined to build an abbey worthy of the honour of God in the best and newest style of architecture. He was a Frenchman in feeling, and had passed many days at the Court of St. Louis. So his new monastic church must be fashioned in the French style; his monks must speak French, and he chose a French model for his architecture, for the plan of his church with its French chevet, and for the radiating chapels of the choir. But in spite of this French design our Westminster remains "a great French thought expressed in excellent English"; it is like "one of Chaucer's lays, a sweetly English poem inspired by a French romance," and is the most finished product of the Early English of the first half of the thirteenth century. Its French peculiarities may be seen in the narrowness and height of the bays of the choir, its plan with regard to the radiating chapels, and in the tracery of the windows. The work began in 1245 with the east end, and all the building as far as the fourth bay of the nave was finished in 1269. The noble re-founder was buried in his glorious minster. Edward I. brought here the coronation stone of the Scottish kings, and had it placed in the new throne which he fashioned to enclose it. In the fourteenth century much building was done to perfect the monastery. In the time of Richard II. the reconstruction of the old nave was in progress, and Henry V. took much interest in it. His father died in the Jerusalem Chamber. The building of the nave continued, and the well-known Whittington, "thrice Lord Mayor of London," in 1413 helped forward the work by liberal contributions. The Tudor badges in the vaulting of the last bays show the later character of that portion of the building. Henry VII. built the beautiful and famous chapel at the east end in place of the Lady Chapel built in 1220, which is such a perfect example of the best Perpendicular work. It was finished about 1520.

DEAN'S YARD, WESTMINSTER, IN 1730

At the dissolution of monasteries Westminster shared the fates of the rest, and the last abbot, Benson, became the first dean, and for a brief space there was a bishop. Protector Somerset turned his greedy eyes upon the noble minster, and was with difficulty induced to refrain from plundering it overmuch. Indeed, he had thoughts of pulling it down, but was propitiated by bribes of some manors and many loads of Caen stone for the building of his new palace, Somerset House. The services were of course changed, and many goodly treasures sold; during the brief reign of Mary the Roman Catholic ritual was restored, and the Confessor's shrine re-erected; but Elizabeth turned out Abbot Ferkenham, and constituted Westminster a collegiate church with a dean and twelve prebendaries. The remains of poor Mary Queen of Scots were brought here by James I. and laid side by side with Queen Elizabeth. Here in the gatehouse Sir Walter Raleigh was imprisoned. Soon the tumults of the Civil War arose, but Westminster happily escaped the fury of the Puritans. The noted Westminster Assembly was called together in Henry VII.'s Chapel in 1643, for the purpose of "settling the government and liturgy of the Church of England and clearing of the doctrine from false aspersions and interpretations." This Assembly took upon itself to denounce the Book of Common Prayer and to substitute the Directory for Public Worship. Many restorations of the fabric have taken place since the Restoration of the monarchy. Sir Christopher Wren was a wonderful architect, but he was scarcely the man to tamper with an ancient and beautiful Gothic building. He set to work to rebuild the western towers, which were finished after his death in 1739. New stone-work has been erected in place of the old in most of the exterior of the Abbey, and Sir Gilbert Scott and Mr. Pearson were responsible for the restoration of the north front of the north transept. The complete story of the Abbey of Westminster would tell of all the pageants and coronation festivals which have taken place therein, to which another has just been added when King Edward VII. and his queen were crowned; it would tell of the last solemn rites of monarchs and great men, poets, sages and generals who sleep within the hallowed precincts. But the story must be left to others, and we will now examine the details of this ancient pile which is so closely connected with all the chief events in English history.

The Exterior

The West Front is flanked by two towers 225 feet high, built by Wren, and finished by his pupil, Hawksmoor, about 1740. In the centre of the front is the great Perpendicular window, beneath which is a row of niches. The entrance porch has a groined roof. The nave is remarkable for its length and height. On the north side we notice that there is a wealth of buttresses. Strong buttresses support the aisle walls, and from these flying buttresses stretch across to the walls built on the central arcade. The four eastern buttresses comprise the part of the church finished by Henry III.; the rest of the nave, with the exception of Wren's towers, was built during the last half of the fourteenth century and the beginning of the fifteenth. The figures in the niches are modern.