Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ripon Part 4

[34] The reason of the peculiarity here is the unusual width of the nave. (_See below_, p. 44.)

[35] This will be explained in Chapter III.

[36] See ill.u.s.tration, p. 17.

[37] This was pointed out by Walbran.

[38] The Transitional or Transition-Norman work at Ripon probably was not all erected during Roger's lifetime, but all of it will, in these pages, be a.s.sociated with his name.

[39] Upon a modern Chapter seal there is what is possibly meant for a representation of Roger's church, with western towers, three spires, and no aisles. The seal is a reproduction of another of the time of James I., which may have been reproduced from a third of earlier date.

[40] For the origin and meaning of this knotwork, so often found in these islands on ancient crosses, and for its value as an ill.u.s.tration of the possible connection of Saxon architecture with the Comacine Guild of Italy, see _The Cathedral Builders_, by Leader Scott, pp. 82-99, and p. 145.

[41] This was the case with all the windows of both transepts--in the lower tier at any rate--until the last restoration. The reason why Sir Gilbert Scott has left or renewed the mullions in some of the windows is probably that he did not wish to disturb the memorial gla.s.s.

[42] The suggestion was made by Mr. Francis Bond.

[43] _I.e._, they were probably a Southern Chapel of the choir (_vid.

inf._, Ch. III.). It is doubtful whether this earlier choir itself can have had a crypt.

[44] By Sir Gilbert Scott.

[45] By Walbran.

[46] Lady-chapels are usually found at the extreme east end of the choir, unless that position was wanted for the resting-place of a local saint.

[47] Walbran favoured 1482; Sir Gilbert Scott the middle of the fourteenth century.

[48] See the ill.u.s.tration, p. 2.

[49] _The Builder_, February 4th, 1893.

[50] This last spire must have been erected after all intention of rebuilding the north and west sides of the tower had been given up, and therefore (perhaps) after the dissolution. The three spires are shown upon the seventeenth century communion plate and in several old prints (see the ill.u.s.tration, p. 32). They were wooden and covered with lead, and are represented as octagonal. The two at the west end are shown without parapets at the base, and all three are without those sloping spurs which so often connect an octagonal spire with the corners of the tower.

[51] Dean Waddilove, in his monograph on the Cathedral, mentions that the date 1330 is to be found upon the choir, but he does not say where.

Walbran believed the work to have been executed between 1280 and 1297, and is followed by Sir Gilbert Scott.

[52] The b.u.t.tresses of this east wall were formerly connected at the bottom by a debased battlemented wall, and the s.p.a.ce within was used for sheds, the grooves for whose pent roofs can be seen on the sides of the b.u.t.tresses.

[53] The arch springs from the b.u.t.tress (as an excavation in 1900 showed), and may perhaps be a relieving-arch, to take the weight off a weak place in the foundations. Yet it was not intended, apparently, to be filled up. The stones forming the right edge of the hole are coigns, and have mason-marks on their sides. At the back of the hole the masonry appears to be of some antiquity: may it be part of the foundation of the east end of Archbishop Roger's choir?

[54] There are several prints of the Cathedral, as it was before restoration, in the Ripon Museum.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CONJECTURAL VIEW OF INTERIOR OF ARCHBISHOP ROGER'S NAVE BY SIR G. G. SCOTT.

(By the kind permission of the Archaeological Inst.i.tute.)]

CHAPTER III.

THE INTERIOR.

=The Nave.=--On entering through the west doors a perspective is disclosed of 133 feet to the end of the Nave, 170 feet to the Rood Screen, and 270 feet to the end of the Choir. The Early English builders have preserved two bays of Archbishop Roger's nave and have incorporated them into the west towers,[55] and the two great tower-arches which they have cut through the Transitional walling are very fine specimens of the Early English style. Each of the half-pillars that support them is a cl.u.s.ter of five large engaged shafts separated by very deep hollows, and upon every shaft there is a large fillet, which is carried up into the capital and down over the base. The base consists of two round mouldings separated by a hollow and fillets, and overhangs the plinth so much as to suggest that the floor just here has been lowered. The capitals and the arches themselves (which are of three orders) are moulded with rounds and hollows very strongly marked, and the hood of the southern arch terminates eastwards in a bunch of foliage.

The interior of the towers is more richly treated than is usual. Over the tower-arch is a small arcade of four members with cl.u.s.tered shafts, and with a string below, while the other three walls are plain up to the windows, each of which is flanked, as on the exterior, by two blind lancets. The arcading thus formed has cl.u.s.tered and banded shafts (not detached), behind which ran a pa.s.sage, now blocked, and below the sill, and a little distance apart, are two strings, to the lower of which the sills of all the windows save two descend in steps. The windows are not splayed, and those which now look into the aisles are unglazed, and their flanking lancets are of unequal width. All the arches are much moulded and ornamented with the dog-tooth, and the central shaft of each cl.u.s.ter has a fillet. In each corner a detached shaft springs from a round corbel above the lowest string and rises to the impost of the arches, being banded twice on the way; and from its capital another shaft runs up to the ceiling. The doors to the spiral staircases open into little square lobbies which have vaults with groin-ribs springing from corbels.[56] In the north tower is a modern stained window of some merit.

The two bays of Archbishop Roger's work incorporated in the towers, taken together with another Transitional bay at the east end, make it possible to imagine the whole interior of what must have been the most remarkable nave in England. It was unusually broad. From the ground to the first string (about 16 feet) there was plain wall. Above this was a triforium (if it can be so called[57]) of the unusual height of about 28 feet, and there were thus no windows except in the clearstorey, and there only in alternate bays. According to Sir Gilbert Scott the triforium and clearstorey were probably continued across the west wall.

The bays were alternately broad and narrow, and there is room for five of each sort. The westernmost bay shows in the triforium stage a round arch comprising four pointed arches. Of these the two in the middle are raised above the others on shafts of two stages, in the upper of which the capital is circular and its moulding is continued along the tympanum to the _apices_ of the two lower arches. The tympanum is relieved by a sunk quatrefoil in a serrated circle, and so is the s.p.a.ce under either of the two central sub-arches. The pa.s.sage in this bay has been built up, and the bay itself shortened, probably when the tower arches were made.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CONJECTURAL PLAN OF ARCHBISHOP ROGER'S CHURCH BY SIR G.

G. SCOTT. See _p._ 16.

(By permission of the Archaeological Inst.i.tute.)]

In the adjoining narrow bay, the comprising arch is pointed, there are only two sub-arches, and there are no quatrefoils, except in the tympanum on the north side. Doors have also been inserted in this bay to communicate with the pa.s.sages behind the arcades in the towers.

The shafts throughout are single, and (in the sub-arches) detached, and the details generally are the same as in all Archbishop Roger's work. It is worthy of remark that the tympanum over the sub-arches is flush with the lower part of the wall, and that the comprising arches, with all the walling above them, are a plane in advance. The more natural plan would have been to make the comprising arch flush with the wall below, and to have set back the sub-arches and tympanum. In consequence of Archbishop Roger's arrangement the shafts of the comprising arch stand, not upon the sill of the triforium, but upon corbels, each of which carries two of them and also a roof-shaft[58] which forms with them a cl.u.s.ter.

The clearstorey shows in the broad bay a stilted round arch, pierced, between two small blind lancets, and in the narrow bay three small blind lancets. These arches are not recessed or moulded, and are without hoods, as usual. Their piers, behind which is a pa.s.sage, are square, and the impost moulding is continued as a string.

The roof-shafts have a curious break in them at the impost-level of the triforium, where a face is carved upon them with a band above it. They are banded also by the impost-moulding of either storey, and by the upper string-course, and end in square-topped capitals a little short of the present roof. Throughout Archbishop Roger's church the roof was probably flat, or slightly coved as at Peterborough. The corbels from which the roof-shafts spring are moulded and finished off with scrolls, and are placed at the level of the string-course, which is undercut; but on either side of the tower-arches the shafts have been shortened to a point above the string, which has been made continuous beneath them, and instead of corbels they have grotesque heads carved upon their ends.

Beyond the westernmost roof-shaft there is a further shaft, which at first sight seems to have been the beginning of another bay, but the round moulding which rises from it runs up vertically instead of curving over to form an arch.

The western wall is far more impressive from within the church than from without, and shows the Early English style at its best. The three doorways have stilted segmental arches moulded with rounds, and their hood-moulds are continuous. Their shafts are single and engaged, and in the jambs are holes for the great bars which no doubt held the doors against the Scots in 1318. But if the doorways are plainer, the great lancets above are much richer, on this side than on the other. Their arches have more mouldings, their hood-moulds as well as the string-courses are enriched with the nailhead, the dog-tooth is used more profusely, and the piers are cl.u.s.ters of seven engaged shafts instead of five, banded at half their height and having behind them in both tiers pa.s.sages which formerly communicated with the towers. The gla.s.s, by Burlison and Grylls, is worthy of its framing. It was put up to the memory of the late Bishop in 1886. In the lower tier "the earthly type" is represented by the Parable of the Ten Virgins. In the upper tier, in which the various designs represent "the Heavenly type," the Bride is the Church, and Our Lord is seen enthroned and surrounded by choirs of angels.

The yellow gritstone of the older work is contrasted curiously with the white limestone of the Perpendicular nave, and at the junction the later builders have left a jagged edge. Among very late Gothic buildings there are few indeed which are of so good a quality as this nave of Ripon, which, like the late church towers of Somerset, shows that mediaeval art took long to die out in regions remote from London. It is, indeed, the architecture of the days of Agincourt rather than of the eve of the English Renaissance. The pillars are characteristic of the Perpendicular style, their section being a square with a semi-circle projecting from each side, and the corners hollowed. Their bases have complex plinths of considerable height and are polygonal, but follow roughly the form of the pillar, and the mouldings, as usual in this style, overhang the plinth. The capitals, with small mouldings and many angles, are of somewhat the same form as the bases. On the westernmost complete pillar of the north arcade are two s.h.i.+elds, charged respectively with the arms of Ripon (a horn) and of Pigott of Clotherholme. The arches, instead of being of that depressed form which is so common in late work, are very beautifully proportioned, and their mouldings are bold, numerous and well-cut. There is no triforium; but a pa.s.sage, at a slightly lower level than in Archbishop Roger's bays, runs below the great clearstorey windows, which were once, no doubt, gorgeous with stained gla.s.s. Their arches are moulded, but the splay is left plain. The roof-shafts, which are in cl.u.s.ters of three and have fillets upon them, spring from semi-octagonal corbels, and where each cl.u.s.ter pa.s.ses the string-course there is an angel holding a s.h.i.+eld. A sign of decadence may be found, perhaps, in the way in which the hood-moulds of the windows intersect with these shafts. Though the two sides of the nave are not quite of the same date, they are almost alike, but for some slight differences in the capitals, the arch-mouldings, and the hollows on the pillars; the builders feeling doubtless that any marked variation would mar the general perspective--a consideration which, of course, could not bind them in designing the north aisle. The original Perpendicular roof may have resembled that which now covers the transepts. About 1829 Blore put up an almost flat ceiling of deal. The present oaken vault, by Sir Gilbert Scott, was copied from that of the transepts of York Minster, and is adapted to the old roof-shafts, between which have been added angel corbels of wood. As the ribs intersect near their springing, they weave a network over the whole vault, and the carved bosses at the intersections amount to 107. A pa.s.sing notice is merited by the pulpit, which is Jacobean.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE NAVE, LOOKING WESTWARDS.]

East of the five Perpendicular bays remains the second fragment of the old nave, namely, a portion of a broad bay, partly encased by the later masonry, and one complete narrow bay. In the latter the tympanum on both sides is relieved by a quatrefoil, which here is pierced and not enclosed in a circle, and the last shaft eastwards (one of those of the comprising arch) runs to the ground. Affixed to the north wall is an eighteenth century monument to Hugh Ripley, last Wakeman and first Mayor of Ripon (d. 1637). The original monument was destroyed during the Civil War, but the altar-like erection below the present structure was probably part of it. The roof-shaft west of this bay, for some unknown reason, ends considerably short of the roof in a kind of corbel with rude foliage upon it. In the south wall is a triangular piscina, which, if it is of Roger's date, is among the oldest piscinae in the country.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLAN OF THE SAXON CRYPT.

(From drawings by Mr. W. H. St. John Hope and Mr. T. Wall.)]

=The Saxon Crypt=, sometimes called =St. Wilfrid's Needle=.--From a trap-door in the pavement below the piscina a flight of twelve steps winds down into a flat-roofed and descending pa.s.sage, 2-1/2 feet wide and slightly over 6 feet high, which, running a few feet northwards and bending at right angles round the south-west tower pier, extends eastward for about 10 yards, with a descent of one step near the end, and terminates in a blank wall. There is a square-headed niche at the turn and a round-headed niche at the end, both meant, doubtless, to hold lights. Three feet from the end a round-headed doorway, 2 feet wide and over 6 feet high, opens northwards, with a descent of two more steps, into a barrel-vaulted chamber, 11 feet 5 inches long from east to west, 7 feet 7 inches wide, and 9 feet 10 inches high. In the north wall of this chamber, and approached by three rude steps, is the celebrated St.

Wilfrid's Needle, a round-headed aperture pierced through into a pa.s.sage that runs behind. This aperture was connected with one of those superst.i.tions that so often flourished before the Reformation in notable centres of religion, and ability to pa.s.s through it or 'thread the needle' was regarded as a test of female chast.i.ty; but it was, of course, in the later middle ages that this superst.i.tion arose, and the 'needle' (or rather needle's eye) is evidently only one of the original niches with the back knocked out. Of these niches (which again were doubtless for lights) there are four in the chamber besides the 'needle,'--one in each wall,--and, like the niche, at the end of the pa.s.sage of entrance, they all have semicircular heads each cut in a single stone. That in the west wall has a hole or cup at the bottom, probably to hold oil in which a wick might float, while the others (except the 'needle') have a sort of funnel at the top, doubtless to catch the soot from lamps. In the east wall there is also a round-headed recess of larger size, the meaning of which will be discussed later. An excavation made in 1900 has lowered the earthen floor and revealed a set-off running round the chamber,[59] and upon the ground at the east end are traces of a later mediaeval altar, namely, a long stone parallel with the east wall and having behind it a small rectangular enclosure bounded by other wrought stones. Some of the latter were only laid bare at the above-mentioned excavation, when, moreover, the enclosure was found to be a pit containing bones, some of which had belonged to a man, others to an ox, others to a bird. These were probably regarded as relics, and may have been buried here at the Reformation for safety,[60]

but it is possible that they were placed here at an earlier period, and that this is an instance of a relic-pit. Two other deposits have been found in the crypt in modern times, one behind the niche in the south wall of this chamber, the other behind the niche at the end of the pa.s.sage of entrance. Most of the bones in these deposits were human, but one had belonged to an ox, another to a bird, another to a sheep, while others could not be identified. These bones again were probably 'relics,' and had almost certainly been built up behind the niches at the Reformation[61] for concealment. From the west end of the chamber another doorway similar to the last opens, with an ascent of one step, into a second chamber, 12 feet long from north to south, 4 feet wide, 9 feet high, and roofed with a semi-vault rising eastwards, in which there has been a square opening, probably for ventilation. At the north end a flight of four steps, lighted doubtless from the square niche in the west wall, ascends eastwards to the pa.s.sage behind the 'needle.' Of these steps the lowest occupies the whole width of the chamber, while the second, on being cleaned at the time of the excavation above-mentioned, was found to have its upper and western surfaces sunk in the middle and traversed at one end by two parallel raised bands, and to show traces of that yellow enamel-like substance with which, indeed, the whole crypt seems to have been originally overlaid. In roof, width and height the pa.s.sage at the top of these steps resembles that by which the crypt was approached, but it is spanned at the entrance by a round arch, and gradually ascends, terminating in a staircase now blocked at the fourth step (or perhaps the fifth, since one seems to have been removed at the bottom), while in the roof may be traced the shape of the long opening (rounded at the western end) through which these stairs once led up into the church. From the point at which they are blocked the distance to the arch that spans the pa.s.sage is about 18 feet. It will be noticed that the floor of this pa.s.sage is level with the 'needle,' which on this side, moreover, has been broken through so as to open out like a funnel.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SAXON CRYPT, EAST END OF THE CENTRAL CHAMBER.

(St. Wilfrid's needle on the left.)]

There is little doubt that this crypt is the work of Wilfrid. It strongly resembles another at Hexham in Northumberland, which is almost certainly his since it agrees with a description given by his contemporary Eddius, and (more fully) by Richard, Prior of Hexham in the twelfth century. As, therefore, Wilfrid is known to have built a church in either of these places, and as the crypts remaining resemble each other, and as that at Hexham is almost certainly his, it is natural to conclude that this at Ripon is his also.[62] And the subject has had fresh light thrown upon it as archaeology has progressed. It is thought that the Romanizing party which prevailed at the Synod of Whitby affected for its churches the Italian type,[63] one of the characteristics of which was the _Confessio_, an underground chamber for relics[64] situated under the high altar, and surrounded, except toward the church, by a pa.s.sage reached by steps from the body of the building, whence, moreover, there were generally steps leading up to the floor of the presbytery, and sometimes an incline stretching down to a window that looked into the chamber below. Now the present entrance to this crypt at Ripon is not original. To mention some of the evidences of this, there are in the roof of the pa.s.sage several tombstones (one at the entrance and two beyond the bend) bearing incised crosses of the thirteenth century, and 15 feet west of the doorway into the central chamber there are signs that a cross-wall has been cut through. The only part of the work, then, which is original is that which extends eastwards of this point, and in Saxon times there was probably only one entrance to the crypt, namely by the north pa.s.sage; indeed, it seems likely that the formation of an approach from the nave was contemporaneous with the blocking of that pa.s.sage, and that both alterations were due to the incompatibility of the original disposition of the crypt with the subsequent arrangements of the church above. Now if that original disposition has been indicated correctly, the crypt presented all the more important characteristics of a _confessio_. There is the central chamber with a window looking into it (for this is the probable explanation of the arched recess in the east wall),[65] and there is the surrounding pa.s.sage, which, however, is interrupted at the south-west corner of the crypt in such a way that it is necessary to pa.s.s through the chamber itself.[66] An excavation made in 1891[67]

failed to reveal any traces of a staircase at the east end of the south pa.s.sage, but as there are many instances in Italy of a _confessio_ without a second stair, this failure is of little importance. If, then, this crypt may be a.s.sumed to be a _confessio_, there follows a very interesting consequence. The fact that the surrounding pa.s.sage was entered from the east, that it runs round the west and not the east end of the central chamber, and that the blocked window (if such it be) is in the east wall of the latter, indicates that the nave lay to the east,[68] in other words, that the presbytery was at the west end of the church. Such a position for the high altar is ultra-Roman, was already being discontinued in Wilfrid's day, and had probably never been seen in the north, unless here and at Hexham; all of which considerations, in the light of the known bias and character of Wilfrid, are in favour of the theory above propounded.[69] It is impossible to say with certainty whether Wilfrid's presbytery was apsidal or square; and whether his church had aisles or not.[70]

[Ill.u.s.tration: CONJECTURAL PLAN OF THE CRYPT AND PRESBYTERY IN THE TIME OF WILFRID, BY MR. J. T. MICKLETHWAITE, V.P.S.A.

(By permission of the Archaeological Inst.i.tute.)]