Читать книгу The Cathedral Church of Oxford - Percy Dearmer - Страница 4
CHAPTER I.
THE HISTORY OF THE BUILDING.
ОглавлениеThe "Cathedral Church of Christ in Oxford" has had a somewhat unfortunate history. Built for the small monastery of St. Frideswide, with no thought of any ampler destination, it was in the sixteenth century raised to the rank of a cathedral, just after it had been reduced in size by the destruction of the bays of the nave, and sunk out of sight among a mass of college buildings. Nor was this all the indignity it suffered; for it had also to do duty as the chapel of the new academic foundation which Wolsey established, and very soon the cathedral was forgotten in the college chapel. So neglected was it that Britton wrote at the beginning of the present century—"It is very common for visitors, and even those of rather refined and critical minds, to leave Oxford without examining the building now under notice." A century earlier Browne Willis had been content to make the astounding observation: "'Tis truly no elegant structure."
The first church on this site was that built by St. Frideswide, "The Lady," as she was afterwards called in Oxford, and her father Didan, about the year 727. The story of this saint, which no visitor to her church should omit to read, will be found in our chapter on the History of the Foundation.
A contemporary of the Venerable Bede, she was one of those noble and devoted souls who (as Dr. Jessopp reminds us) made Anglo-Saxon monasticism the brightest spot in the history of English community-life. The monks and nuns of that period were in fact missionaries, who spread the Christian faith among the half-civilised pagani, or country-folk; and, by the wise method of planting themselves in remote districts, and quietly living the gospel they preached, touched the hearts, and won the souls, of their rough neighbours. Thus, without the use of force, without even the exercise of royal authority, says Professor Freeman, the whole of England had, by the time of the birth of St. Frideswide (c. 700), accepted the Christian faith. But the religion of the country districts must have still been of a very untutored description; and St. Frideswide was one of those who spread in the South, just at the time when Mercia was the paramount power in England, the finer civilisation which had already established itself in the North, and produced kings like Edwin, saints like Aidan, and poets like Caedmon. Whatever may be the authority of the legends which gathered about her name, it is certain that she gave up her high estate, "devoted herself and all her worldly goods to the service of Christ and her poor brethren," refused the offer of a royal marriage, escaped the persecutions of her suitor, "and finally died in the odour of sanctity, blessed by the poor and ignorant people to whom she had devoted her troubled life."
Of the place where she established the little church, part of which can still be seen in the walls of the cathedral, Dr. Liddell, the late Dean, thus writes:—
"Meadows unbroken by human habitations or human cultivation, a river wandering through them as it listed, unbarred by locks, or weirs, or mills, the hills down to their margin clothed in primeval forest. The bank of gravel which still slopes down to what we call Christ Church Meadow, offered a dry and pleasant site; the river supplied fish for the inmates of the new convent; the Trill-mill stream bears testimony by its name to the fact that its water was in early times, perhaps the earliest, used to turn the wheel which ground their corn; the neighbouring forests supplied abundant wood for fuel, as well as game for food, and acorns for the swine; the rich meadows of the valley furnished pasture to the flocks and herds. In those days, no doubt, the existence of such a peaceful community exercised a humanising and softening influence over the rude thanes and their clansmen and serfs, who had as yet perhaps hardly heard the name of Christ."
THE CATHEDRAL AT THE END OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY (from an old engraving).
Our next glimpse of the church is a terrible one. Despairing of beating back the Danes, Ethelred the Unready gave the mad and treacherous order for the Massacre of St. Brice's Day, 1002. "Urged by secret orders from the king," says Mr. J.R. Green, "the West Saxons rose on St. Brice's Day, and pitilessly massacred the Danes scattered defencelessly among them. The tower of St. Frideswide, in which those of Oxford had taken refuge, was burnt with them to the ground." This account is touched up by Mr. Andrew Lang with a little local colour:—"We are tempted to think of a low grey twilight above that wet land suddenly lit up with fire; of the tall towers of St. Frideswyde's Minster flaring like a torch across the night; of poplars waving in the same wind that drives the vapour and smoke of the holy place down on the Danes who have taken refuge there, and there stand at bay against the English and the people of the town." A finishing touch comes from the old chronicler, William of Malmesbury:—"Into the tower of St. Frideswyde they were driven, and as men could not drive them thence, the tower was fired, and they perished in the burning."
This closes the first era in the history of the church: the old ecclesiola of Didan and his daughter was gutted by the fire, and its roofs and furniture destroyed. Indeed, until lately it was held that the whole building was of wood, and perished therefore with the tower and roof, no vestige of it remaining for later times. But the recent investigations of Mr. J. Park Harrison, an archaeologist of remarkable devotion and insight, have proved that the east wall of the eighth century church, with two of its primitive arches, still remains, a venerable relic of times past, as part of the wall of the cathedral; while the foundations of the three apses, into which the three low arches once led, have been discovered in the garden to the north-east of the church (see pp. 33, 34). So did Anthony à Wood, when in the seventeenth century he wrote of "the antientist buildings" as "on the east and north side of the church," speak more truth than even he himself was aware.
After the slaughter of St. Brice's Day, King Ethelred made a vow that he would rebuild St. Frideswide's church. And well did he keep it; if in 1004 he built the splendid church which forms the main part of the cathedral as we know it to-day, sparing the more sacred part of the rude old building, it may be, because of the veneration in which everything connected with St. Frideswide was held. His charter contains the following sentence:—
"In the year of our Lord 1004, in the 2nd indiction, and in the 25th year of my reign, according to the disposal of God's providence, I Ethelred ruling over the whole of Albion, have with liberty of charters by royal authority and for the love of the Almighty, established a certain monastery situated in the city which is called Oxoneford, where the body of St. Frideswide reposes."
And here another question of the deepest architectural interest occurs. This church of Ethelred's was of a size and magnificence until lately considered not to have been attainable in England till many years after the Conquest. It was therefore taken for granted that the church was wholly rebuilt in the years 1160–1180, and that Ethelred's work was as entirely lost as Didan's was supposed to be. Dr. James Ingram, President of Trinity, had, it is true, written in the thirties to prove that the cathedral was Saxon, but, great authority as he was, he wrote at a time when architectural history was in its infancy; and at the restoration of 1869, Sir Gilbert Scott was content to write—"Dr. Ingram evinces great anxiety to prove that traces of his (Ethelred's) work still exist, but I need hardly say there is not a shadow of foundation for such a supposition." However, a greater authority than either of the preceding showed that the tide of knowledge was turning against the accepted view. Professor Freeman in his "History of Architecture" wrote that the cathedral might be "in the main portions of the fabric a monument of the later days of Saxon architecture," and that "the evidence between the conflicting statements which would assign it, some to the days of Æthelred II., others to those of Henry I., seems very evenly balanced;" in the former case, he said, "we have a complete minster of comparatively small size, but of the fullest cathedral type, belonging to the early part of the eleventh century." Mr. J.H. Parker, himself, who had been the chief authority for the theory that the Saxon architects built almost entirely in wood, at length changed his mind; and even went so far as to say, in the fourth edition of his "A.B.C. of Gothic Architecture," that "the Saxons, at the date of the conquest, appear to have been more advanced in the fine arts, such as sculpture, than the Normans," that "their work was more highly finished, had more ornament," and that their masonry was more finely jointed than that of the Normans.
Following up these admissions, Mr. Park Harrison carried on the most thorough investigations, examining almost every stone in the building, investigating Saxon MSS., and travelling over England and Normandy for the purposes of comparison. As a result he succeeded in convincing Professor Freeman, Professor Westwood, and other experts in Anglo-Saxon archæology, that Ethelred's church was still in the main extant; and at this moment his theory has a good many supporters. Without committing ourselves irrevocably to Mr. Park Harrison's conclusions, some of which are naturally not so well established as others, we may, in the majority of cases, accept them, at least provisionally. Many allusions to them will occur in this book; and here, therefore, it is well to say that, ingenious and striking as they are, many high authorities are still unconvinced, and that we cannot venture to predict how much of them may be damaged or maintained by future research.
In this place the following summary of the evidence will suffice:—
1. There is no document or anything tending to show that the original fabric, as restored and enlarged by Ethelred, was ever rebuilt on a new plan.
2. Several of the choir capitals differ essentially in their ornamentation from any others in the cathedral; but resemble very closely the ornamental work in illuminated MSS. of Ethelred's time. They should consequently belong to the church as enlarged by him in 1004 (p. 72).
3. The junction of the eleventh century, or Ethelred's work with the later work, is clearly visible at the north and south-west corners of the choir; and the abaci, though resembling each other, are of different thickness. The ashlar work is different, and the courses are not continuous (p. 61).
4. The manner in which the Norman vaulting shafts are inserted in the north choir aisle implies that vaulting was not contemplated in the original plan of the church, and that the aisle was built at a date when vaulting ribs were not in use (p. 33).
5. The introduction of attached shafts in the tower piers shows that additions were made, about 1160, to earlier work with roll mouldings corresponding with those of the choir: similar proofs of alteration are to be seen in the imposts of the tower and transept arches, which have been cut through to admit late Norman capitals (p. 58).
6. There is also good evidence that the Norman Presbytery is not part of the original choir, or the earliest part of the church, as was assumed, but probably stands on the site of an apse which belonged to Ethelred's building (p. 79).
7. The worn condition of the choir capitals can only be accounted for by the state of disrepair into which the church had fallen by the middle of the twelfth century (p. 74).
CHRIST CHURCH FROM THE GARDEN OF THE CANON OF THE 2ND STALL, 1857.
The reason is not far to seek for the unusual magnificence of Ethelred's plans. His brother-in-law was Richard II., Duke of Normandy, whose fame as an art-patron and church-builder was spread so far that, according to the Chronicles of Fontenelle, "bishops and clergy, abbots and monks," travelled from all parts, from Greece and Armenia, to visit him, and William of Jumièges speaks of him as producing a kind of renaissance in his country. It so happens that one bay remains in the abbey church of Fécamp of the original building commenced by Duke Richard in 1001, just before Ethelred began his operations; and the capitals in this bay are ornamented with the same curious twining foliage that is found in the choir at Oxford. It is more than likely, then, that the Saxon king sought assistance from the cultured court of Richard-le-bon; the Queen Emma may well have been anxious to have the church rebuilt on a scale that would accord with the monastic buildings of her own land; and so important was the work considered, that King Ethelred (as we learn from his charter) had contributions given him for carrying it on by his whole people.
CHRIST CHURCH IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
But more troubles were to follow, for Ethelred had yet to pay the penalty for the massacre of St. Brice's Day, and his "long reign of utter misgovernment" was interrupted in 1013, when the heathen Viking Sweyn drove him out of his kingdom to take refuge in Richard's court in Normandy. The exile of the king, and the triumph of the Danes, who besieged and took Oxford in the same year, must have interrupted the work there for a time; and a remarkable break of joint between the masonry of the choir and the south transept bears silent witness to the dislocation of the Anglo-Saxon rule (p. 61). When Sweyn died in 1014, Ethelred returned, and for three years, with the help of his noble son Edmund Ironside, held Canute in check. At this time the work at St. Frideswide's was probably resumed, the king being doubtless anxious to complete the fulfilment of his vow at a time when he sorely needed the divine assistance; and a certain difference in the character of the capitals and foliage in the transepts points to their having been built at this time, for they bear traces of oriental influence similar to that in the church at Bernay which Duke Richard was building in the year when Ethelred was with him in exile, and the eastern monks were flocking to his court in Normandy. But it is probable that, what with the strain of the terrible war, and the constant drain of the Danegelt, the work was never finished according to Ethelred's complete design, for he died in 1016, and his son Edmund Ironside only reigned for seven months.
Nor have we any record that anything further was done under Canute or Edward the Confessor. Though it is not at all improbable that Canute continued the work, for we know that he restored many monasteries which had been injured or destroyed by his father, being very fond of the monks; and that the Witenagemot met several times at Oxford during his reign. His marriage to Ethelred's widow Emma, also, placed him in the same relationship to the Norman court as Ethelred himself. The church must have been in use during this time; for we read that in the reign of Edward the Confessor troubles arose owing to the substitution of Regulars for the Secular Canons. Under King Harold the Seculars were restored, and, says Anthony Wood, "It was not long after this but that, 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—a few persons all that while only remaining in it." In this ruinous state it proved a kind of white elephant that no one cared to possess; given first to Abingdon Abbey, and then to Roger, Bishop of Salisbury, it was at last handed over to Henry I., who made Guimond his chaplain Prior.
Although the whole church has been sometimes attributed to Prior Guimond, it is probable that he was too much taken up with restoring order to devote himself to architecture. And, as there is no suggestion in history that Ethelred's church was destroyed, so there is no mention of any building by Guimond. William of Malmesbury, his contemporary, praises his piety and learning (excellentis literaturæ et non aspernandæ religionis), but is totally silent about architectural talents. Besides, the establishment was at that time too impoverished for anything of the kind, many of the lands and revenues having been alienated, as we learn from the Domesday Book. If Guimond built at all, he would have had enough to do, we may imagine, in adapting the tumble-down monastic buildings for their occupation by canons regular. Sir G.G. Scott attributes the Norman doorway into the chapter-house to him; and he may have begun the restoration by putting a roof on the old church; for the weathered condition of some of the choir capitals bears out the historians who tell us that in the eleventh century the place was become ruinous.
Robert of Cricklade, called Canutus, another excellent man, was next prior. He ruled from 1141 to 1180. There was a copy of one of his works, says Dr. Ingram, in the library of Balliol College in Leland's time. In 1158 Cricklade obtained a confirmation of the privileges of the priory from Pope Hadrian IV. (Nicholas Brakespear, the English pope) who wore the tiara from 1154 to 1159. It was probably at this time that the restoration of Ethelred's church was begun, for the monks would almost certainly not have undertaken such extensive works until their property was secured them.
Robert of Cricklade did not build a new church, but it was probably he who restored Ethelred's church on the old plan, rebuilding those portions of the walls that required it, and inserting most of the later Norman work, especially the clerestory and presbytery. Much of the earlier work appears to have been imitated at this time, as is known to have been the case elsewhere when enlarging or rebuilding a church; and some of the carved work was used again. Cricklade appears, from architectural evidence, to have left most of the old pillars, but he rebuilt two of those in the nave, and reduced the girth of the rest.
The restoration must have been pretty well finished by 1180, for in that year the relics of St. Frideswide were translated "from an obscure to a more noted place in the church," by the new prior Philip, who himself wrote a book, "De Miraculis S. Frideswydæ." The "obscure" place was doubtless the southernmost of the three early Saxon apses, recently discovered outside the east wall of the north choir aisle (see p. 37). So important a ceremony could not have taken place till the church was fit for the great company that assembled there; for the translation was regarded as an event of national interest—King Henry II. possibly, and the Archbishop of Canterbury certainly, being present, with many other prelates and nobles. This occasion may have also been the inauguration of Oxford University, since seven years afterwards we come upon the first mention of regular students.
Here is Wood's account of this the first translation:—
"After they were meet, and injoyned fasting and prayers were past, as also those ceremonies that are used at such times was with all decency performed, then those bishops that were appointed, accompanied with Alexio, the pope's legat for Scotland, went to the place where she was buried, and opening the sepulchre, took out with great devotion the remainder of her body that was left after it had rested there 480 yeares, and with all the sweet odours and spices imaginable to the great rejoycing of the multitude then present mingled them amongst her bones and laid them up in a rich gilt coffer made and consecrated for that purpose, and placed it on the north side of the quire, somewhat distant from the ground, and inclosed it with a partition from the sight hereafter of the vulgar."
The fame of her miracles spread over all England, and multitudes came to be healed, many of whom went away whole and rejoicing.
But the troubles of the Priory were not yet over. During the priorate of Philip in 1190, a great fire broke out in Oxford, which destroyed a large part of the city. St. Frideswide's did not escape, and, though the church itself does not seem to have suffered materially, it is probable that the monastic buildings were much injured, the chapter-house and cloisters among them; for the old Norman doorway has, through all the changes of seven centuries, borne the red marks of the fire, and bears them as unmistakably to-day.
This mishap did not mark an era in the architecture of the church; for nothing can with certainty be pointed to as the work of the last decade of the twelfth century; nor indeed do we find that any important work was undertaken till, well into the thirteenth century, the spire was added. The monks seem to have patched up the ruined chapter-house as best they could, for it was not till about the middle of the thirteenth century that the present beautiful room was built. About this time the second bay of what is now the Latin Chapel was also added.
It seems certain now that the Lady Chapel, though it was undoubtedly vaulted, and its pillars cut into Early English shafts, was not built for the first time at this period. Part of the wall between it and the Latin Chapel remains in all its primitive roughness, while there is no sign of a wall between it and the north choir aisle. Its east wall is even older, for it contains one of the eighth century arches already alluded to.
In 1289, Robert de Ewelme being prior, the relics of St. Frideswide were again translated. "The old coffer," says the Oseney Chronicle, "of St. Fritheswyda was translated, and placed in a new and more precious one in the same church, and near the place where the old one had stood." Its marble base has recently been discovered, and replaced in what seems to have been its old position. The beautiful northernmost chapel, called the Latin Chapel, was added in the fourteenth century, the single Early English bay being incorporated, and the north wall of the Lady Chapel further opened out, for this purpose. Some of the Norman windows were also altered to Decorated. The Norman windows at the east end were replaced by a large five-light window, which was spoilt in the seventeenth century, and ultimately removed by Sir Gilbert Scott. Decorated windows of three lights were also placed at the east ends of the choir aisles, and a four-light window in the Lady Chapel. These all went in the seventeenth century, but the beautiful window in St. Lucy's Chapel survived. All the fourteenth century work belongs to a rather late division of the Decorated style.
Towards the end of the fifteenth century the Perpendicular style began to spread over the church. Besides the windows of the nave and north transept aisles, the clerestory of the choir was remodelled to carry the elaborate vaulting, which was probably also added in this century, and not by Wolsey as has been supposed, though the work may have been completed in his time. The similarity of the vaulting to that of the Divinity School in Oxford enables us to fix the date pretty accurately at 1480.
Another characteristic feature of the church was made at this time, to wit, the fine chantrey tomb, called the Watching Chamber, but very probably the third and last "shrine" of the patron saint. The cloisters were also reconstructed, and, in order to make room for their eastern side, the western aisle of the south transept was destroyed.
We are able to fix the date of the great north window of the north transept, and of the commencement of vaulting in its northern bay, because they were paid for out of a bequest of a monk, James Zouch, who died in 1503, and is buried under the window. One may conjecture that the whole of the church would have been vaulted in a style similar to that of the choir, if the dissolution of the priory had not come, and left this one bay as a pathetic little protest against the sweeping reconstructions of Cardinal Wolsey.
Indeed Wolsey, who in 1524 created Christ Church as a college, did nothing but harm to Christ Church as a church. It used to be thought that he had thrown the vault over the choir, and even that he had built the palpably early English spire!—an idea which throws a curious light upon the architectural knowledge of our grandfathers. But, alas for his reputation, the only work connected with the church that can with certainty be attributed to him is the destruction of one half of the nave. For, in order to build the great quadrangle now known as "Tom Quad," he demolished its three western bays, and was apparently only prevented from carting away the whole church by his sudden fall from the royal favour in 1529. His scheme for "Cardinal College," as Christ Church was at first called, was one of extreme magnificence; and he began—much to the amusement of Oxford—with the splendid kitchen, still in daily use. Tom Quad gives one some idea of the scale on which he formed his plans: it, however, has never been properly finished, as it is too large and too much inhabited to be fit to receive the cloister for which it was designed. The real cloisters are of much more modest dimensions. Wolsey destroyed one side of them in order to build the college Hall.
In justice, however, to Wolsey it must be stated that he commenced to build a new chapel along the north side of Tom Quad, which, judging by the foundations that some draining operations in the canon's gardens have recently disclosed, would have rivalled the chapel of King's College, Cambridge, in size, and have been about 100 feet longer than the actual length of the cathedral. To this the Aubrey MSS. (written about 1670) refer:—"Ye foundations of that famous begun Chapel or Cathedral of Cardinal Wolsey which went towards the blue Boare in Oxford and pulled down by Dean Fell about 1671." Aubrey also mentions that the height of the walls of this chapel was seven feet at the time of Wolsey's disgrace. The west end ran in a line with the front of the octagonal turrets in St. Aldate's Street, and the walls reached nearly to Fell's passage into Peckwater.
To the sixteenth century belong also the flat wooden roofs of the nave and transepts, and perhaps the concealment of the lantern story of the tower.
The Reformation, apart from the usual destruction of altars, furniture, plate, and ornamental work generally, is chiefly remembered in the history of the church by the demolition of St. Frideswide's shrine. Anthony à Wood says of the third shrine that, "being adored till the dissolution of the religious houses, it was then, 30 Henry VIII. [A.D. 1538], amongst others, taken down, and all the offerings conveyed into the King's Treasury." We give an account of the curious incidents connected with the demolition in our description of the shrine itself.
An inventory taken in the last year of Henry VIII.'s reign is interesting for the glimpse it gives us of the rich ornaments which even then survived, and must have made so vast a difference in the appearance of the church. They were confiscated, no doubt, as being "monuments tending to idolatrie and popish or devill's service, crosses, censars, and such lyke fylthie stuffe," to quote the curious phrases used by Bishop Horne of the plate of Trinity College.
There were eight altars in the aisles and body of the church, in addition to the high altar. The furniture then remaining of the high altar and choir was catalogued (only that the spelling was obscurer) as follows:—"Upon the high altar a here-cloth, 40s. Item, two altar-cloths, one of olde diaper, and the other of fine linen cloth. Item, a mass-book and a desk. Item, a great sacring bell. Item, 4 high latten candlesticks. Item, a canopy with a pix of copper. Item, 4 desks with two cloths of old silk. Item, a pair of organs, with a turned chain to the same. Item, 2 forms. Item, a canopy over the Dean's head of old silk. Item, 15 antiphoners and 9 grayells." After some more books comes:—"Item, a foot-cloth for the high altar of old tapestry." All the hangings of the side altars are enumerated, besides their vestments, candlesticks, etc. Thus the south choir aisle had "4 hangings for above and beneath the altar, whereof two of white satin Bruges, and the other two of yellow and red," and two altar-cloths; St. Lucy's Chapel had "two altar-cloths of old diaper, two hangings for the altar for above and beneath, the one of old needle-work, and the other of buckram"; the four altars on the north of the choir were hung with "dornaxe," diaper, yellow and white baundkin.
The description of some of the fourteen copes sounds very beautiful, for instance:—"2 copes of red silk, woven with sunbeams of gold;" "one cope of blue silk, woven with flower de luce, roses, and crowns of gold, and a whole suit to the same." There were also copes of purple and red, branched with gold, of red and white flowers, bordered with clouds, of red and green, of velvet and baundkin, and chamlet; and many suits of vestments besides; and tunicles, albs, and amices for the choristers.
The inventory also contains, among other items, heavy silver bowls and other vessels belonging to the "house plate," and the "church plate," which we here give in the original spelling:—"A pixe of the ymage of God, gilte, weing 33 oz. Itm. a highe standing pixe wth a cover gilte, weing 23 oz. dim. Itm. a crosse wth Mary and John and a fote to the same gilte, weing 114 oz. Itm. a ship [incense-boat] and a spone gilte, weing 12 oz. dim. Itm. two bassings parcell gilte, weing 92 oz. Itm. a halliwater [holy water] bokett, and a sprinkell, whitt syluer, weing 33 oz., 2 greatt sensors, and a litle sensor, whit syluer, weing 170 oz. Itm. two crowetts [cruets] of whit syluer, weing 8 oz. Itm. a little paxe gilte, weing 3 oz.; 4 chalesses, gilte, wth patentts, weing 95 oz. Itm. 3 chalesses wth patentt, whit syluer, weing 50 oz. Itm. a litle cros, parcell gilte, weing 51 oz. Itm. a crismatory gilte, not weighted. Itm. 2 gospells, plated wth syluer of thonesyde [the one side], not weighted. Itm. two maces for the preuelege, plated wth syluer vppon yeron [iron], not weighted. Itm. two virge roddes, plated wth syluer vppon yeron, not weighted; 4 rectors staves, the haadds of syluer wherof two gilte, not weighted. Itm. two stavis for the crosse, plated with syluer, not weighted."
When, in 1546, St. Frideswide's became the cathedral church of the four year old diocese of Oxford, the momentous change in its character left no mark upon its architecture. The great alterations in the fabric and fittings had either happened already or were yet to come.
During the deanery of Brian Duppa in 1630, the unhappy church suffered a sweeping restoration, which well-nigh destroyed its ecclesiastical character altogether. As Dean Duppa was a cultured man himself, and wrote a life of Michael Angelo, his work was all the more disastrous—a mere Philistine would have probably been content to let well alone. To begin with, he, "being minded to adorn it," says Wood, "did first take down all the old stalls in the choir, and in their places put up those that now are," those great ugly pews, that is, which Dean Liddell removed. Then, in laying down his new pavement, he removed many of the old monuments, "having most of them," continues the old antiquary, "Saxon inscriptions on them; which being looked upon by the dean and canons as old superfluous stuff, and unhandsome to be mixed with their new pavement, they did cause them to be thrown out of the church, as also those out of the cloister." The remaining monuments he moved to the aisles, having, with two exceptions, "duly deprived them of their brasses." Thus was a priceless record of the priory's history lost to us. Most of his work has during this century been undone; but one memorial of him remains, a valuable historical landmark, and full of the characteristics of its age—the Jonah window at the west of the north aisle of the nave.
In order that the windows of the aisles might be "beautified with glass, admirably well performed by the exquisite hand of Abraham Ling, a Dutchman, an. 1634," Brian Duppa and his chapter altered the whilom Perpendicular windows, sawing away "the fine architecture or crustation of those windows," and changing them from three lights with tracery to two plain lights, the author of the "Anatomy of Melancholy" being the donor of part of the new glass. The priceless old glass, which had been set up by ancient priors of St. Frideswide's, and contained pictures of the life of "The Lady," besides the arms of many benefactors, was ruthlessly sacrificed. This act of vandalism has led to still more unfortunate reprisals in our own time; for Van Ling's old glass, which had great merits, was taken away at the last restoration, and replaced by some entirely uninteresting modern stuff (to say the least of it), while the tracery was remade into a respectable nineteenth century parody of the original Perpendicular.
The amiable and terrible Duppa also ruined the Decorated windows of three lights which terminated the aisles of the choir by converting them into his favourite two-light windows; and the beautiful four-light window of the Lady Chapel was similarly treated. The great north transept window was likewise impoverished in its tracery; and at the end of the seventeenth century the great east window was reduced from five to three lights by the same curious and unaccountable perversion of taste. One more memorial of Dean Duppa defaced the cathedral down to our time. This was the strange arrangement of stone screens by which the eastern chapels were separated from the transepts, and the most romantic feature of the church destroyed. They were particularly offensive, as they finished in a half-circle turned upwards, so that, with the Norman arch above, a complete circle was formed. However, the fine pulpit and organ-screen must be set down to the credit of this period.
Dean Duppa's successors signalised themselves, as far as the cathedral is concerned, only by the erection of monuments, some gruesome, and all heavy. Their work for the college was more considerable, and we shall enumerate it in our chapter on the Exterior.
A great deal of mischief was done to the painted glass during the Civil War, many of the windows being destroyed, and not one left quite perfect; but otherwise the church escaped pretty well. Indeed, in this orderly country a great deal more damage has been done by lawful authority than by popular riots.
Up till Dean Liddell's time the cathedral was in as bad a state as most of the other cathedrals of England. A writer in the "Ecclesiologist" for February 1847 thus bewails its then condition:—
"We now come to the present estate of the cathedral, which is more deplorable than can be imagined. It is really wonderful that the cathedral of an English diocese, and the chapel of one of our greatest colleges, should remain in a condition which would disgrace the meanest hamlet. In the first place, it will hardly be credited by those whose eyes have not witnessed the sacrilege, that a portion of the church is actually desecrated. In so vast a college the hire of a single room cannot be dispensed with, but the House of God must be defiled; a bay of the south transept and one of the adjoining chapels are blocked off to form a residence for the verger. On this subject we can hardly trust ourselves to speak.
"The fittings up of the choir are of the most wretched and irreverent description. The stalls are of seventeenth century work, and by no means a favourable specimen: those of the dean and canons are marked by canopies. The episcopal throne is meanness itself, and can hardly be distinguished without a most diligent search: on the prayer-books nearest to it, and nowhere else, are inscribed the words 'Christ-church Chapel,' as if to warn the Bishop off the forbidden ground. Nearly the whole area of the choir between the stalls is filled with benches looking west, and in which kneeling is all but impossible. These are occupied by the overgrown mass of undergraduates, and at the 'canons' prayers' partly by choristers. Further, that not an inch of available space may be lost, an arch on each side is blocked up by a gallery, which at surplice-prayers, when the students and commoners attend, is filled by the choir thus displaced. Finally, behind the stalls are some darksome dens, occupied by women, which greatly encumber the choir aisles. The screen [then blocking up the choir] is a cumbrous piece of work contemporary with the stalls, but of better character: it supports, of course, a vast and unsightly organ. The miserable appearance which is thus produced in this really noble chancel is almost indescribable. The whole seems so narrowed and confined; one feels pent in without the least scope for one's energies. Of the service performed within the degraded choir we can only trust ourselves to say that it is the most slovenly and irreverent that we have ever witnessed in any English cathedral."
The stalls seem to have been particularly bad. The "Gentleman's Magazine" for 1856 says that "the choir aisles and the chapels were also excluded from view, and almost from any participation in the service, by the box-like framing, which rose to the height of eleven feet from the paving." Of course, all this had caused serious damage to the architecture: the pillars on the north and south side of the choir were, for instance, squared, and their bases cut away; thus mutilated they had been "encased with heavily moulded Italian framing intermixed with some remnants of Jacobean workmanship."
But since the fifties the appearance of the cathedral has been completely changed. Dean Liddell began the restoration in 1856, when Mr. John Billing was employed to repair some parts of the walls that had become unsafe, and to remove the galleries and high pews. The work then done was only temporary; the reseating whereby decent accommodation was provided for the whole college was managed out of the old woodwork, not a plank being taken out or carried into the church; the organ was moved for the time into the south transept, so that the choir could be thrown open to the nave, and other work of a simple and necessary character carried through.
In 1870, Dean Liddell employed Sir G. Gilbert Scott to carry on the great restoration, whereby very considerable changes were wrought in the fabric itself.
On the whole, it has been real restoration, and not destruction: here and there one might have wished that the changes had been less sweeping, or that the renewed carved work had been left unattempted till such time as the dignity of labour in craftsmanship is recovered; but it remains one of the most judicious and successful works of restoration that this not impeccable age has produced. The difficulties to be encountered were very great, for the church had suffered unusually; a certain amount of rebuilding was therefore inevitable, and besides provision had to be made for the church as a college-chapel as well as a cathedral.
The restoration was preceded by a report on the condition of the building, which Sir Gilbert Scott drew up in 1869. The following extract shows the "reparation" that was needed:—
"It is fortunately the case that the main walls of the building do not show any symptoms of failure or of weakness. The external stone-work is very unequal in its state of preservation, some parts being very much decayed, while others have suffered in a very small degree. On the whole, however, there can be no doubt that the decay is very extensive, and even some parts which, at first sight, seem tolerably sound, are found on closer examination to be seriously decayed. The eastern parts are, as a rule, better preserved than those facing in other directions, though the southern aisle of the choir is also among the least decayed portions. The tower is generally very severely decayed, but the spire less so, though its lights are very much damaged. The reparation of this wide-spread decay is a work requiring much discrimination and judgment. Every stone which retains ancient work in an intelligible state should be carefully preserved, and only such parts renewed as have become shapeless from decay, or the retention of which would tend to future injury.
"Internally, the stone-work generally needs little more than the careful brushing or washing off of the white-wash and the exposure of the original surfaces. This should be effected with extreme care and tenderness, so as not to efface in any degree the original tool-marks or to disturb any ancient wall-painting which may exist. The mutilations which the work has in some places suffered would of course be repaired, as well as any structural defects which may be brought to light."
This proves that Gilbert Scott went to work with a full sense of his responsibility, so far as the "reparation" was concerned. With regard to the "restoration," many complicated questions arose, but Scott generally threw his weight on the conservative side, respecting all the alterations which had been effected before "the extinction of our national architecture in the sixteenth century"; and, happily, respecting as well all the good work of a later date. Thus the organ-case and pulpit were spared. Duppa's work was mostly destroyed, his windows being rebuilt according to their former Perpendicular and Decorated designs, with the one interesting exception already mentioned. To make provision for the church's collegiate use, while rendering it at the same time suitable for diocesan purposes, an iron screen was carried round the nave as well as the choir, and the seats of the nave were set lengthways. This arrangement could not well have been bettered: the college is well accommodated without any blocking up of the church, and the choir is conveniently situated in the eastern bay of the nave. The organ at the same time was moved to the west end of the church, where a new bay was made; and thus, while an increased effect of length was given, a screen was provided for the college-chapel, without hiding any of the old work in the nave, and the choir was no longer hidden by the organ.
The great Decorated east window, which had been spoilt in the seventeenth century, was, after much deliberation, removed; and, traces being found of a large circular window assumed to be Late Norman, the east end was rebuilt in accordance with the conjectured Norman design—a bold venture, but a remarkably successful one. At the same time the two Norman windows at the sides of the presbytery were reopened.
The bay of the south transept, which had been cut off, and used as a house for the verger, was recovered, and the present vestry built therein, in a style, right no doubt in general plan, but not very successful in detail.
The vaulting of the cloister was completed, and, by the happy expedient of building a raised wooden vault in one part, the old chapter-house door was once more fully exposed to view. The division which had entirely spoilt the chapter-house itself was removed; as were also the stone screens which had cut off and defaced the beautiful cluster of north-eastern chapels.
The opening of the lantern-story added greatly to the beauty of the interior, but it made it necessary to chime the bells instead of ringing them; and in 1878 they were removed altogether, as their vibration was considered dangerous to the tower, and an admirably contrived belfry built in 1880 over the staircase of the Hall by Mr. Bodley. Scott also constructed the porch which opens into Tom Quad, and affords an entrance to the cathedral at once more dignified and convenient than before.
Since Scott's time a good many further improvements have been effected, among which may be mentioned the reredos, the stained glass of Sir Edward Burne Jones, the fitting up of the Latin Chapel and recovery of the easter sepulchre therein, the recovery also of the marble base of the second shrine of St. Frideswide, and of the early Saxon arches hard by.
At least it cannot be true now, as it seems to have been fifty years ago, that many persons, visiting Oxford to explore its antiquities, "actually go away without entering the cathedral church, or that undergraduates any longer pass an academical career, content to be aware possibly that Christ Church has its chapel, like other colleges."
