•-«*> 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 BAILY A WOODS. CIRENCESTER. 
 
 
/vu/Vt- 
 
All rights reserved 
 
 
THE WHITE ROBE 
 | OF CHURCHES of 
 
 ? THE XI th CENTURY^ & 
 ^ PAGES FROM THE STORY OF 
 v GLOUCESTER CATHEDRAL 
 
 BY THE VERY REV? 
 H. D. M. SPENCE, D.D. 
 DEAN OF GLOUCESTER 
 
 1 a. D. 1003. The world, startled 
 from its death-sleep , put on its 
 White Robe of Churches — 
 R. Glabek, c. a.d. 1030. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 J. M. DENT fc? CO. 
 
 29 6- 30 BEDFORD STREET, COVENT GARDEN 
 4 i8 99 
 
To 
 
 H.R.H. the Princess Henry of Battenberg 
 
 ( Princess Beatrice of England ) 
 
 This study with its quaint but storied 
 title is dedicated. 
 
 When your Royal Highness deigned to show me the 
 beautiful ruin of your Castle of Carisbrooke, and dwelt 
 upon its pathetic memories, the profound interest that 
 you felt in the reliques of the great past of England was 
 evident. 
 
 In addition to much undeserved kindness, you have 
 now allowed me to dedicate to you this little study of a 
 half-forgotten page of history. I gratefully avail myself 
 oj the gracious permission. 
 
 H. D. M. S. 
 
 The Deanery, Gloucester, 
 
 Oct . 1899. 
 
 b 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 0NES wh<> lwes and works ‘ da y ly !J day in a great mediaeval 
 cathedral , whose dwelling is an old abbatial house with a 
 wonderful record of some eight hundred years, can scarcely 
 fad do be influenced by such storied surroundings The 
 blessed shadow of the house of God always rests on the 
 anciemt Gloucester deanery— the home of a long line of 
 abboUs, priors, deans-the shadow of a superb house of 
 God, beautiful as in the far -bach days of the Plantagenet 
 kingss, perhaps even fairer to look on, as far as the outer 
 walls are concerned, for the long centuries of sunshine and 
 of sUorm have painted the white stone of nave and tower, 
 of transept and of choir, with pale soft colours inimitable 
 m their grey beauty, colours which only the long lapse of 
 time i can produce. 
 
 Living, working, in such a charmed home, where bits of 
 the wonderful abbey church are ever meeting the gaze, 
 from deanery window, from garden alky, from the quiet 
 city street, questions are ever and again coming up, as, for 
 instance, at what special epoch, and under what special cir- 
 cumstances, were these inimitable mighty prayer -homes 
 bu ilt ? an d what special inspiration f red the builders' hearts * 
 was there any ancient type after which these grand piles 
 
 vii 
 
Introduction 
 
 were designed and finished ? who were the builders ? what of 
 the vanished dwellers in these abbeys and these cloister s t 
 have they any special story ? 
 
 It was in f raming replies to these and many such-like 
 queries that this little book slowly grew into its present 
 form. The glorious cathedrals , the mediaeval abbeys , it 
 will be seen , are largely made up erf the churches zvhich 
 composed the White Robe erf which the Benedictine 
 monk , llaoul Glaber , wrote nearly nine hundred years ago 
 ( Glaber s work was put out aboid A.D. 1030). 1 
 
 The special inspiration which moved the builders of the 
 churches and abbeys which arose in the world of Wester n 
 Christendom in the eleventh and twelfth centur ies, and 
 zvhich are still in large part yet zoith us , is discussed at 
 some length. It came with the great awakening of the 
 Church after its long torpor or death-like slumber , the 
 remit of the barbarian raids which desolated Western 
 Christendom , especially during the ninth and tenth cen- 
 turies. The builders were in great measure the monastics, 
 to zohom the great revival in question was largely owing , 
 the Benedictine Abbey of Cluny ( Burgundy ) being the 
 cradle efthis new and mighty mediaeval monasticism of the 
 West. The principal divisions zvhich made up these vast 
 
 1 In a strictly accurate sense the exact truth of these words might 
 be challenged. Very few of the churches which Raoul Glaber watched 
 with strange joy and amazement arising so suddenly, remain. Most of 
 them seem to have perished through want of skill in the builders. 
 What we now see were their immediate successors built on the same 
 lines, though larger, built too within a hundred years or thereabouts of 
 Raoul Glaber’s own time, but with the experience which disaster 
 had taught. 
 
Introduction 
 
 pile's of abbeys and cathedrals are the subject of the next 
 section. A short historical account of ‘ the genesis and the 
 dev/elopment of the crypt , the nave , the transepts, ami the 
 chonr , with its altar or holy table, together with the rise 
 of tihe Lady Chapel, the latest development in these prayer- 
 homes, is then given, ami these parts of a great church are 
 discussed at some length. 
 
 The story of the builders of the great piles, and of the 
 dwellers in the neighbouring cloisters and adjacent rooms 
 andl, halls leading from the cloisters, forms the next and 
 concluding section — what these men did, and hozo they 
 worked, is briefly examined, and some of the principal 
 uses of portions of the vast “ hives 11 which grew up 
 around the abbey church are detailed and illustrated. 
 
 But the writer feels hozo sadly insufficient after all are 
 the replies which his little book gives to the questions which 
 are ever arising in the mimls of those zoho love to 
 wander through and meditate in the hallowed precincts of ‘ 
 which the book treats. His hope is that the reader, if he be 
 interested in these sketches — they are but sketches — zoill be 
 induced to search deeper into the lore which has gathered 
 round these sacred half-forgotten subjects ; the more he 
 studies, the clearer ami more definite zoill his conviction 
 become of the earnestness, the spiritual fervour, and the 
 true devotion which lived in those ages men are some- 
 times pleased to call the “ dark ages." And while recog- 
 nising the sad admixture of many errors and grave faults 
 in <a religious society which has played so conspicuous, and, 
 
Introduction 
 
 on the whole, so beneficent a part in the story of the past, 
 but which has, as far as England is concerned, passed away 
 for ever, he will acknowledge that in the vanished system 
 of monasticicisrn, all along its singular history, surely light 
 — true light — alternated zvith darkness. 
 
 x 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION vii 
 
 CHI A P, 
 
 I. THROUGH THE AGES 
 
 II. THE MISERY OF THE TENTH CENTURY . . II 
 
 IIT. CONDITION AND INFLUENCE OF THE CHURCH DURING 
 THE PERIOD FOLLOWING THE DEATH OF CHAR- 
 LEMAGNE • ■«... X cj 
 
 IV. THE SOURCE OF THE REVIVAL OF THE ELEVENTH 
 
 CENTURY . . . . . . # 21 
 
 V. SOME DETAILS OF THE REVIVAL OF THE ELEVENTH 
 
 CENTURY ... .... 25 
 
 VI. THE WHITE ROBE OF CHURCHES ... 34 
 
 WII. ENGLAND IN THE TENTH CENTURY ... 42 
 
 VIII. THE WAVE OF RELIGIOUS REVIVAL REACHES ENG- 
 
 LAND ........ 47 
 
 IX. CHURCH BUILDING IN ENGLAND AFTER A.D. I070 53 
 
 X. THE MEANING OF THE TERM “ROMANESQUE” .. 6l 
 
 XI. THE STORY OF GLOUCESTER .... 68 
 
 XII. THE CRYPT . . . . . . . 77 
 
 XIII. THE NAVE OF GLOUCESTER : ITS ARCHITECTURE 
 
 AND PROBABLE SCHEME OF COLOUR DECORA- 
 TION 9I 
 
 XIV. THE NAVE : WHENCE CAME THE MEDIAEVAL PASSION 
 
 FOR COLOUR 1 ? 
 
 XV. THE NAVE . . . . . . . IIO 
 
 XVI. DEVELOPMENT OF THE NAVE ITS SYMBOLISM . 122 
 
 xi 
 
Contents 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 XVII. THE TRANSEPT . . . . . . 134 
 
 XVIII. THE TRANSEPT THE PECULIAR ARCHITECTURAL 
 
 INTEREST OF THE SOUTH TRANSEPT IN GLOU- 
 CESTER CATHEDRAL . . . . . 141 
 
 XIX. THE CHOIR . . • . • • 153 
 
 XX. STAINED GLASS . . • • • 179 
 
 XXI. THE HOLY TABLE OR ALTAR . . . . 210 
 
 (1) In the Church of the Catacombs. 
 
 XXII. THE HOLY TABLE OR ALTAR . . . . 22 2 
 
 (2) After the “Peace” of the Church (A.D. 313). 
 
 XXIII. THE LADY CHAPEL . . . . . .244 
 
 XXIV. THE TOWER SPIRE BELFRY BELLS ORGAN . 268 
 
 XXV. THE CLOISTER . . . . • . .289 
 
 XXVI. ON THE LIFE LED BY THE MONK . . . 321 
 
 APPENDIX 338 
 
 INDEX 342 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Gloucester Cathedral. (In Photogravure ) . Frontispiece 
 
 From a photograph by F. H. Evans. 
 
 Ground Plan of Gloucester Cathedral . To face page 348 
 From F. S. Waller’s “ Notes and Sketches.” 
 
 Mosique op Santa Sophia, Constantinople . . page 3 
 
 Basilica of S. Paul-without-the-walls, Rome . 5 
 
 From Corroyer’s “ Architecture Romane.” 
 
 Basilica op SS. Nereus and Achilles . . To face page 6 
 
 From Sir G. G. Scott’s “ History of English Church 
 Architecture."’ 
 
 Church op S. Vitale, Ravenna .... page 7 
 From Corroyer’s “ Architecture Romane . ’ 
 
 Interior op Santa Sophia „ 10 
 
 The Abbey of Citeaux 27 
 
 From Viollet le Due’s “ Piet, de l' Architecture.” 
 
 Gateway of the Abbey of Cluny . . . . „ 3 1 
 
 From Corroyer’s “ Gothic Architecture.” 
 
 Interior of the Church of Vignory ... „ 36 
 
 From Corroyer’s “ Architecture Romane.” 
 
 Ground Plan of the Abbey of Cluny ... „ 37 
 
 From Viollet le Due’s “ Diet, de V Architecture.” 
 
 Church of S. Mark’s, Venice (Exterior) ... „ 39 
 
 Church of S. Mark’s, Venice (Interior) ... „ 4° 
 
 xiii 
 
List of Illustrations 
 
 Abbey Church of S. Albans page 
 
 Peterborough Cathedral M 
 
 From a photograph by Wilson, Aberdeen, 
 
 Battle Abbey .... 
 
 » 
 
 Romanksque Ambulatory from the South 
 
 Transept, Gloucester. . . . To face page 
 
 From F. S. Waller’s “ Notes and Sketches.” 
 
 View of Roman Gloucester ... „ 
 
 From a water-colour sketch by Mr. Kemp, Head- master 
 of the School of Art, Gloucester. 
 
 Crypt of S. Eutropius, Saintes .... page 
 From Viollet le Due’s “ Diet . de V Architecture." 
 
 Crypt of S. Seurin „ 
 
 From Viollet le Due’s “Diet, de V Architecture.” 
 
 The Crypt of Gloucester. (In Photogravure.) To face page 
 From a photograph by F. H. Evans. 
 
 The Nave of Gloucester .... „ 
 
 From a photograph by F. H. Evans. 
 
 Gloucester Cathedral, North Aisle from 
 
 Ambulatory „ 
 
 From a photograph by F. H. Evans. 
 
 A Mediaeval Screen page i 
 
 From Viollet le Due’s “ Diet, de V Architecture.” 
 
 A Coventry Mystery „ i 
 
 Hell Mouth in the Mystery Plays . . . „ i 
 
 Representation of the Prodigal Son i 
 
 Reims Cathedral „ i 
 
 From Viollet le Due’s “ Diet, de l' Architecture.” 
 
 Paul’s Walk 
 
 From W. H. Ainsworth’s “ Old St. Paul’s." 
 
 xiv 
 
 51 
 
 57 
 
 59 
 
 64 
 
 68 
 
 80 
 
 83 
 
 87 
 
 92 
 
 96 
 
 05 
 
 ! l6 
 
 19 
 
 21 
 
 24 
 
 To face page 
 
 128 
 
List of Illustrations 
 
 Plain of the Ulpian Basilica, Rome . . . page 
 
 Plain of the Basilica of S. Paul-without-the- 
 
 walls, Rome „ 
 
 Tomib of Edward II. in Gloucester Cathe- 
 dral ....... To face page 
 
 jFrom a photograph by F. H. Evans. 
 
 Basiilica of S. Clement, Rome page 
 
 JFrom Corroyicr’s “ Architecture Humane." 
 
 Plain of the Cathedral of Paris . . . . „ 
 
 jFrom Viollet le Due’s “ Diet, de V Architecture." 
 
 Plan of the Cathedral of Bourges . . . „ 
 
 jFrom Viollet le Due’s “ Diet, dc l' Architecture. " 
 
 Chohr of S. Denis, Paris „ 
 
 uFrum Viollet le Due’s “ Diet, de l' Architecture." 
 
 Veiil of Perpendicular Tracery in the Choir of 
 
 Gloucester ...... To face page 
 
 .From F. S. Waller’s “ Notes and Sketches.” 
 
 Thes Choir of Gloucester .... „ 
 
 .From a photograph by F. H. Evans. 
 
 Grhsaille and Border, Bourges .... page 
 jFrom Mehson’s ‘ ‘ Les Vitraux." 
 
 “ Shgnature” Window at Chartres. . . . „ 
 
 .From Merson’s “ Les Vitraux .” 
 
 “Sicgnature” Window in S. Denis . . . . „ 
 
 From Merson’s “ Les Vitraux." 
 
 Thee Rose Window at Reims „ 
 
 From Merson’s “ Les Vitraux.” 
 
 Renaissance Window in S. Gudule, Brussells . „ 
 From Merson’s “Les Vitraux." 
 
 Window in the Chapel of New College, 
 
 Oxford. {In Photogravure) . . . To face page 
 
 From a photograph by Hills & Saunders. 
 
 XV 
 
 135 
 
 137 
 
 148 
 
 157 
 
 161 
 
 161 
 
 165 
 
 170 
 
 176 
 
 1S8 
 
 190 
 
 192 
 
 195 
 
 199 
 
 202 
 
List of Illustrations 
 
 The East Window, Gloucester 
 From a photograph by F. H. Evans. 
 
 To face page 
 
 206 
 
 Gallery with Loculi 
 
 From Smith’s “ Dictionary of Christian Antiquities .” 
 
 page 
 
 213 
 
 Table Tomb 
 
 From Smith’s “ Dictionary of Christian Antiquities." 
 
 
 214 
 
 Arcosolium 
 
 From Smith's “ Dictionary of Christian Antiquities . ” 
 
 
 215 
 
 Altar of S. Alessandro 
 
 From Smith’s “ Dictionary of Christian Antiquities." 
 
 
 224 
 
 Altar of S. Ambrogio, Milan . 
 
 From Smith’s “ Dictionary of Christian Antiquiti 
 
 es.” 
 
 
 227 
 
 Altar of S. Denis 
 
 
 55 
 
 236 
 
 The Altar and Reredos, Gloucester 
 From a photograph by F. H. Evans. 
 
 To fcwe page 
 
 240 
 
 The Lady Chapel, Gloucester. 
 From a photograph by F. H. Evans. 
 
 
 page 
 
 254 
 
 The Lady Chapel, Salisbury . 
 
 
 5 ’ 
 
 263 
 
 Notre Dame, Paris 
 
 
 55 
 
 271 
 
 Main FAgADis of Laon Cathedral . 
 From Corroyer’s “ Gothic Architecture .” 
 
 
 5 ) 
 
 2 73 
 
 Tower of S. Pierre, Caen 
 
 From Corroyer’s “ Gothic Architecture.” 
 
 
 5 ) 
 
 275 
 
 Tower of the Cathedral of Freiburg-in-Breisgau 
 From Corroyer’s “ Gothic Architecture." 
 
 55 
 
 276 
 
 Tower of Antwerp Cathedral 
 
 From Corroyer's “ Gothic Architecture.” 
 
 
 55 
 
 2 77 
 
 Tower of Gloucester Cathedral . 
 
 
 55 
 
 279 
 
 From a draining by Herbert Railton. 
 
 xvi 
 
List of Illustrations 
 
 The Deanery, Gloucester .... 
 From a drawing by Herbert Railton. 
 
 The Cloister Garden, Gloucester . 
 
 From a drawing by Herbert Railton. 
 
 . page 290 
 
 295 
 
 Gloucester Cathedral : The Cloisters — 
 
 South Walk and Carrels. . . To face page 300 
 
 From a photograph by F. H. Evans. 
 
 The Little Cloisters op Gloucester . „ 306 
 
 From a photograph by F. H. Evans. 
 
 Gloucester Cathedral : The Cloisters — 
 
 East Walk. (In Photogravure) . „ 312 
 
 From a photograph by F. H. Evans. 
 
 Gloucester Cathedral : The Cloisters — 
 
 North Walk with Recess for Lava- 
 
 torium „ 318 
 
 From a photograph by F. H. Evans. 
 
 Entrance to the Chapter-House, Glou- 
 
 CESTER ....... ^ 322 
 
 From a photograph by F. H. Evans. 
 
 Gloucester Cathedral : Carrel in South 
 
 Cloister j} 335 
 
 From a photograph by F. H. Evans. 
 
 *** The Author wishes to express his sincere obligations and hearty thanks to 
 Mr. John Murray , for permission to reproduce the illustrations on pp. 213, 214, 
 215. 22 4 . 227; to Mr. F. S. Waller for the use of his drawings in “ Notes and 
 Sketches" ; and to Messrs. Hills ff Saunders for similar kindness in regard to 
 their photograph of the “ Reynolds ” window. Also to Messrs. Seeley & Co. 
 for the cuts from their English translation of Corroyer’s ‘ ‘ Gothic Architecture 
 and to Messrs. Simpkin, Marshall , &• Co. for the illustration facing p. 6. 
 
 XVII 
 
A FEW IMPORTANT DATES TO ILLUSTRATE 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 A.D. 
 
 313 Edict of Constantine the Great establishing Christianity 
 as the religion of the Roman Empire. 
 
 455 Sack of Rome by Genseric the Vandal. 
 
 476 Western Empire extinguished by Odoacer the Herule. 
 
 494 fOstrogothic rule in Italy under Theodoric. 
 
 466-1 \ isigothic rule in South Gaul under Euric (later in Spain 
 l also). 
 
 481 Frankish rule in North Gaul under Clovis. 
 
 527—565 Justinian, Emperor of the East, reconquers Italy, &c. 
 
 568 Lombard rule in Italy. 
 
 622-713 Mohammed and the Arab Conquest of most of the East, 
 Syria, Egypt, Africa, and Spain. 
 
 73 2 / R' se °f the Frankish power. Arabs defeated near Tours. 
 768— 814V Reign and Conquests of Charlemagne. 
 
 814-900 The Raids and Conquests of the Northmen or Danes in 
 Northern and Central Europe. 
 
 888 / ^ inal break-up of Charlemagne’s Empire and Dynasty, 
 f The Misery of Europe. 
 
 900 ( Hungarian raids (Turks, Scythians, Tartars) over 
 J Germany, Gaul, Italy. 
 
 934 & 955 | Hungarian raids finally broken up by Henry the Fowler, 
 I and Otlio the Great. 
 
 BRITAIN. 
 
 449 f First landing of Jutes in Britain. 
 
 473- 8o t First landing of Saxons and Engles. 
 
 588 l Conquest of Roman-Britain by North-folk completed. 
 
 787 f First coming of Danes (Vikings). 
 
 878 1 King Alfred’s first victory over Danes. Peace of Wedmore. 
 
 xix 
 
A Few Important Dates 
 
 A FEW DATES ILLUSTRATING CHAPTER II 
 
 Rough Periods of Duration of Barbarian Invasions. 
 
 714-900/ 
 
 787-950! 
 
 884-955) 
 845 1 
 
 911 
 
 987 
 
 1000 
 
 1035 
 
 978-1016 
 
 1016-1041 
 
 1041-1066 
 
 Saracens. 
 
 Northmen (Vikings). 
 
 Hungarians or Magyars. 
 
 Raynar Lodbrolc, the Viking, raids Paris. 
 
 Establishment of Rollo in Normandy. Treaty of Claire 
 sur Epte. 
 
 Hugh Capet, and commencement of a stable government 
 of part of France. 
 
 Universal expectation of the end of the world. 
 
 William (the Conqueror) succeeds to the Duchy of Nor- 
 mandy. 
 
 ENGLAND. 
 
 Ethelred— Edmund Ironside- -Danish wars and successes. 
 Canute and the Danish supremacy in England. 
 
 Edward the Confessor. Anglo-Saxon supremacy restored. 
 
 A FEW DATES ILLUSTRATING CHAPTER III 
 
 A.D. circa. 
 
 880-90-1047 Period over which stretched the general degradation 
 of the Papacy. 
 
 904 Sergius III. In this Pontilicate began influence of 
 Marozia and her daughter. 
 
 956 John XII. The most infamous of the line of evil 
 Popes. 
 
 999 (Gerbert) Silvester II. One of the rare exceptions in 
 the evil line. 
 
 1033 Benedict IX. Shares the palm of infamy with 
 John XI 1 . 
 
 1048 (Bruno of Toul) Leo IX. began a nobler succession of 
 Popes. 
 
 XX 
 
THE 
 
 WHITE ROBE OF CHURCHES 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THROUGH THE AGES 
 
 A monk of the great Benedictine Abbey of Cluny, one 
 Raoul Glaber, in a History of bis own Time, finished 
 about a.d. 1047, writing of the year 1003, fells us how 
 everywhere, especially in Italy and in Gaul, men began to 
 restore and to renew churches, how all Christian peoples 
 seemed to contend with each other which should raise 
 the most superb houses of God. “ It was as though the 
 world had arisen and tossed aside the worn-out garments 
 of ancient time, and wished to apparel itself in a white 
 robe of churches.” 
 
 Let us glance for a moment through those earlier cen- 
 turies of which the monk Raoul Glaber was speaking, 
 — and see what had been happening in those far-back 
 ages — and how it came to pass that in a.d. 1003 the 
 Christian world was determined “ to apparel itself in a 
 white robe of churches.” 
 
 For the first 280 years of its existence, the position 
 of the Christian community, in the midst of avowed and 
 
 A 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 often of relentless enemies, requiring more or less secrecy 
 and privacy for its public services, rendered the erection 
 of any but the humblest buildings exceptional. The 
 expression we come upon in the New Testament Epistles, 
 “The Church which is in the house” of such an one, 
 points unmistakably to the meeting of the little com- 
 pany of believers in the dwelling of one of its members, 
 and the Room or Rooms set apart for the purpose formed 
 the earliest Christian oratories or chapels. The primitive 
 chapels and oratories of the Catacombs belong to the 
 same class of simple early churches. That there were 
 examples of other and more considerable buildings is 
 evident from the reference of Eusebius to the earlier 
 church at Tyre, destroyed in the Diocletian persecution. 
 But such buildings, erected before the peace of the 
 Church, were evidently exceptional, and probably were 
 not of any very great size or importance. 
 
 But all was changed by the promulgation of the 
 celebrated Edict of Milan by the Emperor Constantine, 
 in the year 313, which announced that Christianity 
 henceforth was to be the religion of the Empire. At 
 once in various centres great buildings were erected or 
 adapted for the use of the vast numbers of the Roman 
 world who were prepared openly ' to profess their accept- 
 ance of Christian doctrines. 
 
 The Basilica was at once adopted as the most con- 
 venient model for the larger churches of the new worship. 
 Among the buildings which surrounded the Forum of 
 any Roman city, the Basilica was the most important. 
 It was a long hall, usually closed at the end opposite 
 the entrance by a semi-circular wall. In this building 
 the citizens transacted public business ; a portion of it 
 being used as a Court of Justice. But it served, too, 
 
 2 
 
Through the Ages 
 
 many of the purposes of the modern “ Exchange.” Its 
 size amd general arrangement designated it as the best 
 model for the Christian Churches of the Empire. Possibly 
 in a few instances the original Basilica was at once 
 
 Santa Sophta, Constantinople. 
 
 adopted for Christian worship, but in the vast majority of 
 cases, copies of the Basilica, more or less modified, were 
 erected, notably in Eome and then in Constantinople. 
 Several stately churches upon this model were the work 
 of Constantine, the first Christian Emperor. 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 The Basilican form, however, was not exclusively 
 followed. From the earliest period of the adoption of 
 Christianity by the Empire — we are speaking of the 
 fourth century — a good many circular churches were 
 built. Generally speaking, the West, however, remained 
 faithful to the Basilican form for its churches, known 
 as the Latin style. In the East, notably after the great 
 building period of the Emperor Justinian (a.d. 532), a 
 square or round pattern with a vault surmounted by a 
 cupola, after the example of S. Sophia, the famous 
 church of the “Holy Wisdom,” the masterpiece of 
 Justinian’s architects at Constantinople, was largely 
 followed. 
 
 A feeling of disappointment naturally arises when we 
 search in vain for traces or records of any considerable 
 number of important ecclesiastical buildings between the 
 early years of the fourth and the early years of the 
 eleventh centuries in the West. But it must be remem- 
 bered what happened during those hapless seven hundred 
 years. Flood following flood of barbarian conquerors 
 pouring over first one land, then another, swept away 
 or wrecked well-nigh every church, and before the hapless 
 country had recovered from the effects of one terrible 
 catastrophe, another devastating invasion overwhelmed 
 the land. Within a hundred years of the Edict of 
 Constantine proclaiming Christianity as the religion of 
 the Roman world in a.d. 313, the danger of Italy, the 
 centre of the Empire, became acute, and the legions 
 stationed in distant countries and remote frontiers 
 were recalled for the defences of Italy and Rome. In 
 the year 455 Genseric the Yandal sacked the imperial 
 city. In a.d. 476, Odoacer the Herule finally swept 
 away the last vestiges of the old imperial rule, and 
 
 4 
 
Through the Ages 
 
 a few years later Theodoric the Ostrogoth displaced 
 Odoac:er. What hope was there of seeing, in such a 
 calamitous period, any number of enduring monuments 
 of architecture ? 
 
 In the East, for a time, things were more still. The 
 torrenits of the Confederacies of the Northern Barbarians 
 had spent their strength before they reached the mighty 
 walls of Constantinople, and the strange pathetic ruins 
 of many churches of considerable size and magnificence 
 
 Basilica of S. Paul-without-the-walls, Rome. (Transverse Section.) 
 
 in Central Syria tell us that between the earlier years 
 of the fourth and the closing years of the fifth century 
 a period of comparative stillness favoured the develop- 
 ment of Christian architecture in parts of the decaying 
 but still powerful empire of the East. The sixth century, 
 moreover, witnessed the great reign in the East of the 
 Emperor Justinian, a.d. 533-565, whose generals, Beli- 
 sarius and Narses, once more, for a brief interlude, made 
 the name of Rome famous and feared in the barbarian- 
 
 5 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 harassed West as in the East. Once more, for a few 
 years, Italy was ruled by a powerful Eoman emperor. 
 Justinian was a great church-builder, and some of his 
 lordly churches are with us still. S. Sophia at Constan- 
 tinople and S. Yitale and S. Apollinaris at Ravenna, to take 
 conspicuous examples, are still among the architectural 
 glories of the world. But the “ stillness ” was but of short 
 duration, for before the sixth century had run its course 
 the Lombard invader had reconquered the fairest and 
 largest portions of Italy 1 ; and the following century (the 
 seventh) witnessed the sudden rise of the Mahommedan 
 power in the East. With extraordinary and undreamed- 
 of rapidity, well-nigh the whole of the Eastern Empire was 
 overrun by Arab (Mahommedan) conquerors, whose first 
 work was the destruction or spoiling of every Christian 
 church. Syria, Egypt, Africa, all passed for ever, as far as 
 men could foresee, out of Christian influences — and the 
 Eastern Empire, reduced to very narrow limits, dragged 
 on for centuries a precarious, and comparatively speaking, 
 an uninfluential existence. 
 
 To return to the West — we will dwell for a brief space 
 on the fortunes of the great province of Gaul, which 
 stretches from the River Scheldt and the sands and dunes 
 of Frisia on the North Sea, to the Pyrenees and the Medi- 
 terranean on the south, from the long seaboard of the 
 Atlantic in the west to the snowy mountains of Switzer- 
 land in the east. Gaul, in the days of the first Christian 
 Emperor, Constantine, boasted, it is said, of more than a 
 hundred cities, rivalling those of Italy in wealth and in 
 
 1 During the Lombard supremacy in North and Central Italy there 
 was a time of comparative “ stillness,” lasting about two hundred 
 centuries (A.D. 568-774). In this period a certain number of churches, 
 &c., were built under Lombard influence. 
 
 6 
 
Through the Ages 
 
 population. Very early had the threatenings of the resist- 
 less barbarian torrent been heard in this mighty province 
 
 of the West. It had even witnessed a terrible raid of Ger- 
 man invaders as early as a.d. 253. But until the close of 
 the fourth century Gaul had, although at intervals suffer- 
 
 7 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 ing grave damage, made head against the invading hordes. 
 But still during the century which followed the Christian 
 edict of Constantine, the Gallo-Roman dwellers in that 
 great division of the Empire were more busied in building 
 fortifications round their defenceless cities, than in erect- 
 ing churches in them ; and in the latter years of that 
 fourth century we read how these new walls were largely 
 constructed of stones and materials taken from their 
 noblest civic buildings. But their defences were of no 
 avail ; for in the year 407 the Teutonic hordes, in vast force, 
 swept over Gaul, and from that date the old Gallo-Boman 
 society may be said to have ceased to exist. The Visigoths 
 now occupied South Gaul and Spain, while the Franks, 
 another group of Teuton tribes, took permanent possession 
 of the northern and central portions of the great Gaulish 
 province, the Goth leaving behind him no monumental 
 traces of his long occupation. Gradually, as the years 
 passed, the Frank drove the Goth further and ever further 
 south, until only Spain and the district on the Mediter- 
 ranean seaboard, known as Septimiania, remained to the 
 Visigothic conqueror. 
 
 The Frankish tribes, as time went on, displayed peculiar 
 powers of organisation and of self-government. They 
 adopted, as in fact with greater or less zeal did all these 
 wandering Teuton peoples, with especial earnestness the 
 religion of the conquered Roman Provincials. In the year 
 732 the Frankish conquerors earned the gratitude of the 
 Christian world by a signal victory, which one of their 
 distinguished chieftains, Charles Martel, gained over a 
 great army of Arab (Mahommedan) conquerors, between 
 Tours and Poitiers. These Arabs, after crushing the 
 Visigoths of Spain, had penetrated far into Central Gaul. 
 Thus for ever were the victorious Mahommedan hordes, 
 
 B 
 
Through the Ages 
 
 who had already conquered and desolated the fairest 
 provinces of the Eastern Empire and Spain, thrust back 
 from the West. 
 
 A grandson of this Charles Martel consolidated the 
 already vast Frankish dominion, and succeeded in estab- 
 lishing a great Frankish empire, which included well-nigh 
 the entire West, Gaul, Germany, and Italy. For a brief 
 space while this Frankish hero lived, it seemed as though 
 a general “ stillness ” would once more allow the arts and 
 pursuits of peace to flourish. This hero is known in 
 history as Charlemagne, and under his strong wise rule, 
 after a long interval, again we hear of certain great churches 
 rapidly arising in various centres of the West. But when 
 he passed away in the year 814, his sceptre fell into weaker 
 hands. The vast Frankish empire of Charlemagne was 
 divided, and again subdivided. A new family of bar- 
 barians from the extreme north of Europe suddenly made 
 their appearance, and under the dreaded names of Danes, 
 Northmen, or Vikings, desolated vast districts of Northern 
 and Central Europe, which, under the new Teutonic races, 
 were slowly recovering the long series of the earlier 
 invasions and raids of the Lombards, the Saxons, the 
 Goths, and the Franks, and before the end of the ninth 
 century the misery and desolation of the West and East 
 had reached its extreme point. It was, perhaps, the 
 darkest moment in the history of the world. 
 
 In this “bird’s-eye view” of a history of the West after 
 the edict of Constantine of a.d. 313, we have omitted to 
 speak of the fortunes of our island. They closely resemble 
 those of the rest of Europe, differing only in the degree of 
 ruin which followed in the wake of the barbarian invasions 
 of the fifth and sixth centuries. In Britain the disaster 
 was, perhaps, more complete. The Saxons had thoroughly 
 
 9 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 exterminated the Roman British Provincial before the 
 close of the sixth century, and when in the ninth century 
 the Northmen or Danes spread desolation over Europe, 
 slowly recovering from the earlier Teutonic invasions, no 
 country suffered so severely and was so cruelly harassed 
 by the Northmen as was Anglo-Saxon Britain. 
 
 Interior of Santa Sophia, Constantinople. 
 
 IO 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE MISERY OF THE TENTH CENTURY 
 
 In order to grasp the full meaning of the marvellous 
 Renaissance of the Church in the eleventh century, we 
 must: for a brief space dwell on the extreme woe and 
 sadness of the one hundred and fifty to one hundred 
 and eighty years which immediately preceded that great 
 awakening. 
 
 A story is told of the great Emperor Charlemagne, how 
 once from his palace near Narbonne he saw the black 
 sails of some Viking pirate ships hovering close to the coast. 
 The courtiers, to their surprise, saw him weeping. “Would 
 you know why, my fideles ? ” asked the mighty conqueror. 
 “ I have no fear of these sea-pirates, but I am sorely dis- 
 tressed because I foresee the woe which these strong sea- 
 robbers will one day work to those who come after me.” 1 
 This curious traditional prophecy of Charlemagne was terri- 
 bly f ulfilled. Among the barbarians who desolated Europe 
 when the strong hand of the great emperor no longer held 
 the sceptre of the West, the Vikings or sea-robbers of the 
 northern seas were long the deadliest foes of Christianity 
 and <of civilisation. After the death of Charlemagne, a.d. 
 814, his vast empire gradually crumbled to pieces. No 
 prince of his dynasty arose powerful enough to unite, for 
 any lengthened period, even a portion of the divided mon- 
 archy sufficient to make head against the terrible invaders 
 
 1 Monach. S. Gall , 1. ii. c. 22. 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 who from all sides ravaged the European countries. The 
 one hundred and eighty or two hundred years which fol- 
 lowed the death of Charlemagne is the gloomiest period 
 in the history of Christianity. In the western countries 
 especially, the northern sea-pirates, sailing up the great 
 river highways of the Rhine, the Seine, and the Loire, 
 harassed and desolated the land. Contemporary chroniclers 
 tell us in Gaul alone of some fifty separate invasions of 
 these terrible sea-pirates. They pillaged, burnt, and de- 
 stroyed monastery, village, and city, sparing none. Long 
 and dreary is the catalogue of fair cities then destroyed. 
 Treves was burnt, Cologne was burnt, Coblentz, Cambrai, 
 Aix-la-Chapelle, Rouen, Amiens, Orleans, Chartres, Tours, 
 Toulouse, Paris, amongst many others, were ravaged and 
 partially wrecked. W ell-nigh all the great Roman cities of 
 the north and west of Europe were more or less destroyed or 
 sacked ; schools of learning, monuments of art, churches, 
 monastic communities, without number, perished in these 
 awful raids. Gaul, especially, suffered at the hands of 
 these redoubtable sea-robbers. So great was the desola- 
 tion produced by their repeated raids that at one period 
 we read of vast packs of wolves roaming unchecked 
 through the once fertile Aquitaine, while in the historian 
 Michelet’s words, “ Wild animals seemed to have taken 
 possession of desolated France.” 
 
 In the southern districts of Europe, in Sicily, Italy, 
 Spain, and the south of France, the fierce Mahommedan 
 Saracens were almost as much dreaded as were the Viking 
 pirates in the north. As early as the middle of the ninth 
 century, the Saracen fleets were masters of the Mediter- 
 ranean ; Spain, Sicily, and a large portion of Italy were 
 in their hands, and even sacred Rome beheld the Moslem 
 at her gates burning and plundering the once wealthy 
 
 12 
 
The Misery of the Tenth Century 
 
 and prosperous territories in the neighbourhood of the 
 imperial city. 
 
 On the eastern frontiers a yet more savage and redoubt- 
 able foe appeared. From the south-east of Europe burst 
 without any previous note of warning upon appalled 
 Christendom a horde of savage warriors, who have been 
 described as wild beasts let loose upon mankind. These 
 were the Magyars or Hungarians, who from a.d. 884 to 
 936 (perhaps the yet later date of a.d. 954 would be 
 more accurate) were the common terror of Christendom. 
 They swept in desolating incursions over the whole of 
 Germany and Switzerland. Italy, too, was exposed to 
 their fearful ravages, which were extended to large 
 portions even of the south of France. What the 
 Viking spared or overlooked, the more terrible Hungarian 
 gathered in his awful gleaning. And be it remembered 
 Europe was exposed to these frightful raids, more or less, 
 for a long period. While, as we have said, the anarchy 
 and fierce internal dissensions, which after the death of 
 Charlemagne, existed in all the countries of Europe, pre- 
 vented anything like a systematised resistance to these 
 wild waves of foreign savage invasion. Gradually, how- 
 ever, as the tenth century advanced, a more powerful and 
 better organisation was formed in several states which made 
 up Western Christendom. In Germany, Otho the Great, 
 a.d. 951, welded together a confederation more powerful 
 than had existed since the death of Charlemagne. In 
 Gaul, the Viking settlement in Normandy and the adjacent 
 provinces had become an orderly and disciplined state. 
 While in the centre of Gaul (Royal France), a.d. 987, 
 Hugh Capet had laid the foundation of a stable king- 
 dom, and his son, Robert the Pious, who succeeded him, 
 “ seems,” in Michelet’s words, “to have disarmed the 
 
 1 3 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 divine anger in his simplicity of mind, having the peace 
 of God incarnate in him.” The perpetual Viking raids, 
 after the first establishment of the Norman Duchy, grew 
 rarer and less destructive. The dreaded Hungarian 
 power was shattered first in a.d. 926 by the victory of 
 the German hero Henry the Fowler, and was completely 
 broken by the prowess of Otho the Great, in a great battle 
 fought in a.d. 954. 
 
 But it was indeed a desolated and impoverished empire, 
 which, exhausted by long years of anarchy, internal wars, 
 and foreign invasions, slowly regained strength as the 
 melancholy tenth century drew to a close. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 CONDITION AND INFLUENCE OF THE CHURCH DURING 
 THE PERIOD FOLLOWING THE DEATH OF CHAR- 
 LEMAGNE 
 
 What now of the Church during this age of confusion, 
 bitter disaster, and awful depression, did it in any 
 respect as a guide, a comforter, an example among the 
 sorely-tried and harassed peoples of Western Christen- 
 dom, fulfil its high and saintly mission ? Alas! the faithful 
 historian has no fair picture of the Church’s conduct in 
 that darkest of all ages to paint. That the clergy suffered 
 with the people is indubitable, that a vast number of 
 their fairest churches were burnt and destroyed, that their 
 monasteries were largely pillaged and even completely 
 wrecked, that their property of all kinds was enormously 
 diminished in value, is certain ; probably their losses were 
 greater by far than the losses of any other class in the 
 community, for the bitter hostility of the Yikings especi- 
 ally to Christianity is notorious, and something more than 
 a mere love of plunder influenced their behaviour to the 
 helpless monasteries, and moved them to single out the 
 churches and ecclesiastical buildings as the peculiar 
 object of their passion for wrecking and destroying. 
 
 But the chronicler of Church history during that 
 melancholy age is obliged to record that at no period 
 in Christian story was the life of the vowed ministers 
 of the religion of the Crucified so scarred and defaced 
 
 l S 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 by human passions, so devoid of any lofty ideal or noble 
 purpose, as it was in that age of anarchy, disaster, and 
 universal depression. 
 
 And yet its opportunities all through this period of 
 gloom were immense ; its power through all the troubles 
 and sorrows occasioned by internal dissensions and terrific 
 barbarian invasions was ever great. “ Its immortal order 
 rested on no precarious or hereditary descent. The cathe- 
 dral or the monastery might be burned, the clergy and 
 the monks massacred. A new generation arose imme- 
 diately among the ruins, resumed their wasted estates, 
 and repaired their shattered buildings. . . . Still it re- 
 newed its strength, recovered its dilapidated resources, 
 found some latent power which brought it back to its 
 commanding superiority, revenged itself for its humilia- 
 tion, and still grew on under every, it might seem, fatal 
 change in the political atmosphere.” What a splendid 
 power for good might not churchmen have been in such 
 a melancholy time ! 
 
 “ But instead of Christianising the world, themselves 
 had become secularised.” 1 Their leading men played the 
 part of insolent nobles and selfish leaders rather than 
 peaceful prelates and quiet teachers of their Master’s 
 Gospel, and the rank and file of churchmen as a rule 
 only too faithfully copied the evil example set by their 
 bishops, abbots, and leading men. Of course there were 
 bright exceptions in this sad catalogue of men who so 
 grievously fell short of the duties of their high calling — 
 noble exceptions — but the above dreary summary is a fair 
 picture of the large majority of churchmen. Even inonas- 
 ticism, where at least better things might have been hoped 
 for, was at its lowest ebb in the tenth century of our era. 
 
 1 Milman, “ Latin Christianity,” Book V. chap. iv. 
 
 16 
 
The Church — Tenth Century 
 
 The Church during this gloomy century and a half 
 emphatically lost much of its moral influence. It became 
 like the society around it — materialistic, violent, even 
 careless and reckless of human life. Many of the priests 
 openly robbed and plundered their flocks. They suffered 
 their churches in many instances to be desecrated, their 
 morals were often lax, their lives were dissolute, they 
 consented to their highest dignities being bought and sold. 
 They were in not a few instances married, and handed 
 down their sees and abbeys to their children, looking 
 upon ecclesiastical benefices and preferments as private 
 property. The future of the Church of Christ in that fatal 
 age seemed melancholy in the extreme, almost hopeless. 
 
 The degradation of the Church during this gloomy 
 age was largely increased by the shameful example set 
 by Rome and her Popes. The indefinite but wide claims 
 of Rome to a universal supremacy, if not authority in 
 the Church, had been lately enormously increased by the 
 policy of Pope Nicholas I., who died a.d. 867. This 
 Nicholas, if he did not promulgate, at least caused the 
 recognition of the False Decretals as the Law of the 
 Church. 
 
 These “Decretals,” now universally confessed to have 
 been a “ pious fraud,” asserted the supremacy, the unap- 
 proached dignity and privileges of the Bishop of Rome, 
 and supported the tremendous assumption upon the evi- 
 dence of a collection of letters and decrees of some twenty 
 of the oldest Roman bishops, from S. Clement, who fol- 
 lowed S. Peter, to Melchiades, bishop a.d. 31 1-3 14. 
 
 In the last quarter of the ninth century the chair of 
 S. Peter, whose occupants made this vast claim — a claim 
 scarcely disputed, be it remembered, by a very large 
 portion of Western Christendom — was filled by a long 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 succession of pontiffs who, with rare exception, owed 
 their election to some crime perpetrated by themselves 
 or their adherents, by men who, after a brief occupancy 
 of the great See, disappeared from the scene as sud- 
 denly and miserably as they had appeared upon it. The 
 memory of some of this evil line of popes who, with 
 rare exception, continued through the whole of the tenth 
 century, and even into the eleventh, is disgraced by a 
 record of crimes so foul that the historian shrinks from 
 even naming them. The learned Benedictine Mabillon, 
 whose writings are esteemed authoritative even by all 
 serious Koman Catholic scholars, confessed that most of 
 the popes of the tenth century lived rather like monsters, 
 or like wild beasts, than like bishops. A few details will 
 illustrate the strange and woeful state of degradation into 
 which the Mother Church of Western Christianity, with 
 her awful claims to supreme power, had sunk, and in 
 which she remained during that long sad period of which 
 we are speaking. Before Sergius IV., a.d. 1009 (of un- 
 enviable notoriety) became Bishop of Koine, seven, some 
 historians reckon nine, popes had succeeded to the great 
 office in thirteen years. 
 
 It was when Sergius III. was occupying the chair of 
 S. Peter, a.d. 904-91 i, that we first hear of the infamous 
 Theodora and her daughters, who for many years at their 
 pleasure disposed of the papal tiara, procuring in suc- 
 cession the election of their evil friends and their own 
 sons. In a.d. 956, Pope John XII., with a cynical con- 
 tempt for even the degraded public opinion of the time, 
 made his bishop’s palace a school of prostitution. He 
 was murdered under circumstances of nameless shame. 
 Other prelates followed — men who won the great office 
 only to dishonour it by crime, and who vacated it by violent 
 
 18 
 
The Church — Tenth Century 
 
 death. “To seek counsel from such a monster,” said a 
 Bishop of Orleans to the Council of Bheims, a.d. 991 (he 
 was alluding to John XII.), “even if he be set on a lofty 
 throne blazing with purple and gold, is to address a block 
 of marble.” Barely in the dreary catalogue of the men 
 who claimed the obedience and reverence of the Western 
 Church do we come upon a reverend or dignified figure. 
 Gerber t, known as Sylvester II., a.d. 999, one of those 
 rare personages who was celebrated in all lands for his 
 great learning and abilities, was credited in that dark age 
 for having dealings with the Evil One, from whom he 
 had learned the secret of his power and acquirements. It 
 was this Gerbert who said, “ Romanorum mores mundus 
 perhorrescit.” The famous scholar, Cardinal Baronius, 
 a.d. 1588-1607, alluding to the foul line of Bishops of 
 Borne, curiously bases upon it an argument for the Divine 
 authority of the papal church, which he urges continued and 
 kept extending in spite of such monstrous iniquities which 
 for generations were enthroned at the head of it, staining 
 it, he allows, with defilements which cannot be effaced. 
 
 One grievous result from the shameful example of Borne 
 was the universal practice of simony which disgraced the 
 Church, and effectually poisoned its life. It became the 
 general impression that at Borne everything was venal, 
 that every office from the highest was purchasable. The 
 example was fatally followed in other countries. The 
 bishop too often bought his see, and proceeded to indem- 
 nify himself by selling the inferior prebends or cures. 
 Wide-spread indeed was the evil. Great lords and 
 princes bestowed not unfrequently great bishoprics on 
 their sons, even if these were infants. We read, for 
 instance, of a child only five years old made Archbishop 
 of Bheims, of a Bishop of Narbonne only ten. Churches 
 
 19 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 were bequeathed to daughters as their dowry. How ter- 
 rible was this crime of simony in high places is sadly 
 apparent from the Acts of the Councils of Eheims and 
 Mentz — a.d. 1049-1050 — under the presidency and in- 
 fluence of the austere and saintly Bruno of Toul, who as 
 Pope Leo IX. inaugurated a new and nobler line of Bishops 
 of Borne. In this memorable Council the Archbishops 
 of Eheims and Sens, the Bishops of Nevers, Constance, 
 Nantes, Langres, Beauvais, and Amiens and others, were 
 brought to confess that they had either bought these high 
 dignities themselves, or had obtained them through pur- 
 chase by their parents or relatives. 
 
 The long-drawn-out tragedy of the tenth century closed 
 with a fearful looking for the end of the world, which 
 men very generally believed would come about the year 
 1000. Strange and terrible portents seemed to herald 
 and accompany the fatal date. One of the most striking 
 was a famine which prevailed with greater or less severity 
 in many parts of Europe for some five years. Sickness 
 and grievous epidemics were naturally the accompani- 
 ment of such a famine. The monk, Kaoul Glaber, enumer- 
 ates a long sequence of these melancholy catastrophes. 
 But the early years of the next century saw the dawn of 
 a better state of things, and a general awakening to a 
 nobler life was at hand. And slowly as the eleventh 
 century advanced, the Church awoke to a sense of its 
 responsibility ; and the records of the eleventh century 
 have indeed a different colouring to that of the gloomy 
 events of the century and a half which preceded it. The 
 awakening, which soon became general, is one of the 
 remarkable facts in the story of Christendom. 
 
 20 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE SOURCE OF THE REVIVAL OF THE ELEVENTH 
 CENTURY 
 
 Raoul Glaber , 1 the Benedictine, with whose graphic 
 words we opened our story, finished the history of his 
 own time in the year 1047. He was therefore an 
 eye-wittness of many of the later scenes which he so 
 graphically describes. He lived in the awful days which 
 close what has been termed the iron age of history, and 
 watched the dawn of the great revival of the eleventh 
 century. After the fateful year 1000 had come and gone, 
 and the world still went on as it had done aforetime, the 
 monk Glaber tells us how there passed over men a new 
 fervid spirit which inspired them everywhere to repair, 
 adorn, and even to build, churches. It was as though the 
 old religious fervour, so long dormant in the Western Church, 
 had suddenly awoke to life and activity. But the feeling 
 of gloomy apprehension that the close of the present dis- 
 pensation was at hand, which had been long weighing 
 upon men’s hearts, was in many cases not entirely dis- 
 pelled when the year 1000 had passed, and the world 
 remained unharmed. Some now feared the terrors of the 
 millennium still lay before them, and would come when the 
 Lord appeared in judgment in 1033, reckoning the 1000 
 years from the date of the Master’s ascension. But that 
 
 1 Glaber dedicated his book to the world-famous Abbot of Cluny, 
 Odilo. He is supposed to have died in Odilo’s great religious house. 
 
 21 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 year, too, came and went, and nothing happened. After 
 a.d. 1033, wrote Glaber, “the rains ceased, the clouds 
 vanished, the bright heavens were seen again, abundant 
 harvests once more gladdened men’s hearts, prices were 
 reduced, the poor were relieved, and the gloom anl terror 
 disappeared.” 
 
 An extraordinary reaction in Church life indeed set in, 
 a reaction which gathered life and strength as the century 
 advanced. Various causes contributed to this remarkable 
 and striking renaissance of religion. Political reasons 
 had, of course, much to do with it. We have already 
 touched upon some of the more obvious of these. The 
 cessation of the Hungarian invasions, the gradual settle- 
 ment of the Northmen in England and Normandj, which 
 put an end to the long-drawn-out Viking raids which' for 
 so many years had harassed Northern, Western, and even 
 Central Europe, the increasing power of the empiie in the 
 centre of Europe, and the rise of a more stable and in- 
 fluential dynasty in France, all this made for the com- 
 parative “stillness ” of Western Christendom. 
 
 In the Church — which in the darkest hours of the 
 gloom and terror of the ninth and tenth centuries had 
 been the shame rather than the support of the Western 
 world — a new spirit had arisen, a spirit whict by no 
 means suddenly took the world by storm, but which, 
 stirred up by slow and painful striving, spread ovn many 
 years of patient prayer and work, aroused the slumbering 
 Church to a sense of its responsibility, to a knowledge of 
 its missed and wasted opportunities. 
 
 Very largely this noble and far-reaching work, which 
 succeeded in arousing the entire Western Chujch, was 
 done by a religious house in the Burgundy district 
 of the east of France, near Macon, south of the ancient 
 
 22 
 
Church Revival — Eleventh Century 
 
 town, of Dijon, among a small group of Benedictine 
 monks. 
 
 The monasteries of the West were, with very rare ex- 
 ceptions, occupied by monks belonging to the order of S. 
 Benedict. It has already been noticed that the discipline 
 and life of monastics had seriously deteriorated before 
 the beginning of the tenth century, this deterioration 
 being largely due to the same causes of misery and inva- 
 sion which affected all classes and orders in the Western 
 world. 
 
 Ini the year 909, William, surnamed the Pious, Duke 
 of Aquitaine, founded a new religious house at Cluny, 
 near Macon, and placed it under the old Benedictine rule, 
 but the new community was to be guarded with new and 
 austere regulations. It was the rare fortune of this 
 newly- founded monastery that for more than a century 
 and a half it was ruled by a succession of extraordinary men 
 — Odo, Mayeul, Odilo, and Hugh were equally distin- 
 guished by their piety, their learning, and their marvel- 
 lous talent for organisation. The story of the rise of 
 Cluny from the position of a small unknown religious 
 house to its place as the head and centre of the culture 
 and religious zeal of the West, reads like a romance. 
 
 It was under the rule of Odo, the second abbot, a.d. 
 927-942, that Cluny became really a power in the reli- 
 gious world. In his time a number of other monasteries 
 became associated in the reform of Cluny, taking the 
 famous Burgundian House not only as their model but 
 recognising it as their chief, from whose abbot they took 
 their directions. To Mayeul, a.d. 965-994, who followed 
 Aymard, the third abbot, the legends of the Order of 
 Cluny relate how an angel communicated the details of 
 the famous rule of Cluny. Under Mayeul the power and 
 
 23 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 influence of the house of Cluny continued rapidly to in- 
 crease. Odilo, who became abbot in a.d. 994, and who 
 ruled for the long period of fifty-four years, was head of 
 a vast communion. The network of monasteries which 
 looked to Cluny as their mother house, and faithfully 
 kept her traditions, spread over a large part of Central 
 and Northern Europe. In the contemporary chronicles, 
 so great was his well-deserved fame, that Abbot Odilo is 
 sometimes designated as the “ Archangel of Monks.” 
 
 The long reign of Abbot Odilo, lasting over half a 
 century, came to an end in a.d. 1049, when a still more illus- 
 trious abbot was elected to direct the now world-famed 
 Cluny. This was Hugh, who for sixty years played one of 
 the most distinguished parts in the theatre of European 
 politics and religion. This Hugh was the adviser and 
 friend not only of the chief ecclesiastics of all the western 
 lands, but was more or less intimately connected with 
 most of the princes and statesmen in Europe of his day. 
 
 After the death of Abbot Hugh in a.d. 1109, the 
 mighty Burgundian abbey continued to flourish, and the 
 Clunician congregation rapidly multiplied in the various 
 countries of Western Christendom. But the stupendous 
 work, of which we are about to give some brief details, 
 and which had the preponderating influence in bringing 
 about the great Church awakening and revival of the 
 eleventh century, was virtually done before Hugh passed 
 away. Under Abbot Hugh it is computed that as many 
 as 314 religious houses, very many of them of great size 
 and magnificence, belonged to the “ obedience ” of Cluny. 
 
 Before the close of the twelfth century (Abbot Hugh 
 died in A.D. 1109), the number of religious communities 
 belonging to the Clunician rule amounted to the enormous 
 number of some 2000 ! 
 
 24 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 SOME DETAILS OF THE REVIVAL OF THE 
 ELEVENTH CENTURY 
 
 Cluny and its daughter-houses were by no means only 
 vast communities devoted to prayer and meditation — 
 lonely islands of prayer in the midst of restless, war- 
 loving peoples. They were, it is true, made up of com- 
 panies of men who prayed much, who led stern, austere 
 lives, essaying to set an example of rigorous self-denial 
 and self-surrender to a generation which had well-nigh 
 forgotten all the acknowledged obligations of Christianity. 
 But Cluny and its congregations sedulously devoted them- 
 selves specially to education. In their cloister-schools were 
 trained well-nigh all the men who stood by the thrones 
 of the various European princes of the eleventh century. 
 Most of the thought-leaders of that time were educated at 
 Cluny, or occasionally in one of its great daughter-houses. 
 The monks of Cluny were, besides, indefatigable agricul- 
 turists; and owing to their care and skill vast tracts of land, 
 which, during the troubles of the ninth and tenth centuries 
 had become waste and desolate, fens and forests, became 
 once more valuable and useful as pastures, gardens, and 
 corn lands. The revival of agriculture in many parts of 
 Europe was the direct work of these devoted Clunicians. 
 
 Several of our modern historians 1 do ample justice to 
 
 1 For instance: Milman (“Latin Christianity”), Montalembcrt 
 
 (“Monks of the West”), Viollet-le-Duc (“ Dictionaire de l’Architec- 
 ture”), Corroyer (“Architecture Gothique”), &c. 
 
 2 5 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 Cluny, and dwell with much insistence upon the boundless 
 and extraordinary influence of this great monastic estab- 
 lishment upon the life of the Western world and the Church 
 in the end of the tenth and all through the eleventh cen- 
 turies — an influence which was not exhausted even in the 
 twelfth century. It was in Cluny that we must seek and 
 find the nursery which furnished the monastic schools of 
 Europe with teachers in every branch of learning and art. 
 It was Cluny which, in the highest conceivable degree, 
 displayed the marvellous reconstructing, reanimating 
 energy of monasticisin. Comparatively unknown and un- 
 distinguished, it worked slowly through most of the gloomy 
 tenth century ; but in the succeeding age the fruit of its 
 quiet, patient work was apparent ; and largely through its 
 inspiring example the Church generally awoke from its 
 long and death-like lethargy. It was Cluny, too, that 
 inspired, and, indeed, supplied, some of the new line of 
 Popes who restored the long degraded Papacy to its 
 ancient position of moral supremacy. 
 
 Hildebrand, somewhile prior of the great Burgundian 
 House, counsellor and friend of the earlier Popes of the 
 new and nobler line, under the well-known name of 
 Gregory VII., raised the Papacy to a position of splendour 
 and power undreamed of by even his most illustrious and 
 far-seeing predecessors in the Papal chair. 
 
 In very widely extended, and in very different centres 
 and in divers manners, was the new zeal for godliness, 
 the new religious earnestness manifested — the zeal and 
 devotion which, as far as we can trace the story, seem to 
 have begun in Cluny, and through Cluny slowly to have 
 been spread abroad. It even touched and moulded the 
 lives of great princes who possessed almost boundless 
 mesns of inlluencing thousands of their subjects for weal 
 
& & 
 
 Citkaux Abbey. 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 or woe. So in England we note the sudden, almost mar- 
 vellous, conversion of that descendant of a long line of 
 Pagan Vikings bitterly hostile to Christianity, Canute, 
 a.d. 1014-1036, in whose wise reign again and again 
 we see the hand of an earnest, God-fearing king. 
 After a brief interval of some four years Edward the 
 Confessor (a.d. 1042-1066) followed on the English throne. 
 The Saint-king, with all his shortcomings, left an impress 
 on his country as deep, perhaps deeper, than that left by 
 any other of the long line of princes who preceded or 
 succeeded him in our England. 
 
 In Normandy, that great province whose influence was 
 extended far beyond the confines of the provinces ruled 
 by the descendants of Rollo, Duke Richard le Bon, a.d. 
 996-1026, according to his lights, was an intensely religious 
 man. Chroniclers half-ironically have attached to him 
 the appellation of “ the monks’ friend.” His son, the 
 eccentric though able Robert the Magnificent, died “a 
 palmer” in the course of an ill-judged pilgrimage to the 
 Holy Land; but ill-judged though it was, the same 
 religious spirit was at work and prompted the fatal 
 journey. His mighty son, the “ Conqueror,” be it remem- 
 bered, whose life-work for good and for evil we do not 
 venture here to discuss, chose as the minister of his reign, 
 as the loved and chosen counsellor of his life’s great work, 
 the holy Lanfranc, the wise, far-seeing prelate. 
 
 In Royal France, i.e. that part of France south of the 
 great Norman duchy, and including much of the central 
 districts, Hugues Capet, A.D. 987-996, gave the new royal 
 dynasty, of which he was the founder, a religious character. 
 He is well named “ The King of Priests.” His son and 
 successor, Robert the Pious, a.d. 996-1030, was emphati- 
 cally a saint, though strangely enough Rome has 
 
 28 
 
 never 
 
The Work of £ Cluny ’ 
 
 ccanonised him. His life story is coloured with quaint 
 tand curious acts of kindness and devotion. In some 
 irespects he resembled the English Confessor king. 
 
 The dates connected with these princes, so strongly 
 iinfluenced by the religious spirit of the age, are most 
 ^significant : 
 
 France (Royal), . . a.d. 987-1030 
 
 Normandy, . . . A.D. 996-1035 
 
 England, . . . A.D. 1014-1066 
 
 (closely corresponding as they do with the dawn and pro- 
 gress of the great revival of religion in the eleventh 
 (century. 
 
 The spirit awakened by Cluny touched Rome and the 
 Papacy last of all. The new life there only really began 
 iin a.d. 1048. For in Rome, the heart of Western Chris- 
 tendom, the sleep of Christianity for a long period too 
 closely had resembled death. But at last Rome arose, 
 and then in good earnest her bishops addressed themselves 
 with splendid vigour to the stern task of a complete 
 reformation, not only in their own city but throughout 
 the Western Church, wherever simony or other grave 
 scandals existed. Here Cluny was especially conspicu- 
 ous, not merely as an inspirer of the Papacy, but even 
 supplying from her community several of the Popes 
 of the new vigorous line. Of the eleventh century 
 Pontiffs, the most eminent are, Gregory VII. (Hilde- 
 brand), Urban II. (the Patron of the First Crusade), and 
 Paschal II. 
 
 The same century of the great revival (the eleventh) 
 and the first years of the following (the twelfth) witnessed 
 
 29 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 the foundation of those various orders which formed so 
 conspicuous a feature in the religious life of the Middle 
 Ages. Monasticism, which in past ages had played so 
 great and beneficent a part in Christendom, had withered 
 away, and with rare exceptions, in the ninth and 
 during most of the tenth centuries, monasteries had 
 become homes of sloth and even of vice. The example 
 of Cluny had not only reanimated and reinvigorated 
 the great Benedictine Order, but had inaugurated a 
 new era of discipline and even of saintliness accord- 
 ing to the monastic idea of holiness. Men in dif- 
 ferent countries were scarcely satisfied even with the 
 Cluniac reform ; they thirsted after a still greater degree 
 of austerity and self-denial. In Italy this fervour pro- 
 duced the stern and rigorous Order of Camaldoli, founded 
 a.d. 1018, and of Yallombrosa a.d. 1039. In France we 
 read of the establishment of Grammont (the Grandi- 
 montani) in a.d. 1074, and of the yet more famous Car- 
 thusians, a.d. 1084, and of the company of Fontevraud in 
 a.d. iioo. In a.d. 1098 the Cistercian Community, an 
 offshoot of the Benedictine Order, first appeared, and 
 with extraordinary rapidity, as the twelfth century ad- 
 vanced, the popularity of this new great order equalled 
 and even surpassed even that of the Cluniacs. But the 
 fervour for monasticism was not yet exhausted. The 
 rigid Praemonstratensians appeared in the neighbourhood 
 of Laon in the north-east of France in a.d. 1119, while 
 early in this century (the twelfth) the great military 
 orders of the Hospitallers and the Templars arose in a.d. 
 
 1 1 1 3, and a.d. 1118 respectively. 
 
 Differing in some points from the monastic orders 
 enumerated above, the Augustinan Canons, who subse- 
 quently became widely spread and very numerous, were 
 
 30 
 
The Work of c Cluny ’ 
 
 first established comparatively early in that same age at 
 Avignon in a . d . 1038. 
 
 'This bare catalogue of religious orders, which soon 
 covered France and England, Italy and Germany with 
 ne w monasteries inhabited by many thousands of “ reli- 
 gious,” will give some faint idea of the effect of the start- 
 limg and tremendous religious revival in one phase of 
 
 religious life of that strange age. The world had never 
 witnessed anything similar before — will it ever again ? 
 And, as far as human agency can be traced, the mighty 
 change was in great measure owing to the example and 
 influence of the Burgundian House of Cluny. 
 
 The success which attended the reform work of Cluny, 
 and the far-reaching effects of its example, were no doubt 
 
 31 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 owing in no small measure to the rare wisdom, piety, and 
 learning of those great churchmen we have alluded to 
 above, who filled the office of abbot of the famous house 
 during the latter part of the tenth and eleventh centuries. 
 
 Their great influence with the sovereigns and princes 
 of their own time we have already briefly noticed. One 
 striking and original piece of policy devised by Abbot 
 Odilo (a.d. 999-1049) deserves special mention. The 
 “Truce of God” was Odilo’s handiwork, and was very 
 generally adopted, and in some countries, notably in the 
 southern part of' France, fairly observed, but its influence 
 was felt, even though the fierce passions of that age of 
 soldiers often broke through its blessed restraints. The 
 “ Truce of God ” forbade all fighting from the Wednesday 
 evening of each week until the Monday morning, as well 
 as during the holy seasons of Lent and Advent. The 
 “ Truce ” contained other provisions which attempted to 
 soften the conditions of life in that rough fighting age. 
 The contemporaries of the four abbots were well aware 
 of the commanding personality of the chiefs of the great 
 Clunician Order. These abbots might have occupied 
 any position in the hierarchy of the Church, from the 
 chair of S. Peter downwards. But they preferred, as 
 might have been expected, the unique post they occu- 
 pied at Cluny. Extraordinary privileges were attached 
 by the grateful Bishop of Rome to the “ mother house,” 
 which had done so much for the fallen see in her hour 
 of sore need, and in a.d. 1120 the dignity of the car- 
 dinalate was conferred on the holders of the abbot’s 
 office in Cluny, while the four great abbots, above dwelt 
 upon, were eventually canonised, and rank as saints in 
 the long list of famous churchmen. Nor was pious legend 
 wanting, for we read, in language which reminds us of 
 
 32 
 
The Work of c Cluny 5 
 
 momkish lore of the far-back days of Bede, in the eighth 
 century, how Abbot Fulgence of Afliighem saw in a dream 
 two beds of gold borne to heaven by angels, and how it 
 was revealed to him that the one belonged to S. Anselm 
 of Canterbury and the other to S. Hugh of Cluny. Anselm 
 and Hugh had been close friends. They died within a 
 few days of each other in the Eastertide of a.d. 1109; 
 while Godefroy, Bishop of Amiens, relates another vision 
 of a. procession of saints, who from their heavenly home 
 had gone forth to meet and welcome their new companion, 
 Hugh of Cluny. 
 
 # 
 
 33 
 
 c 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE WHITE ROBE OF CHURCHES 
 
 Among the first works of the awakened Western Church 
 seems to have been that zeal and fervour for the repair of 
 the ancient religious fabrics, and more especially for the 
 building of a multitude of new houses of prayer, which 
 Raoul Glaber describes so picturesquely as “ the new 
 white robe of churches,” so conspicuous in the early years 
 of the eleventh century of our era, in which age the deso- 
 lating invasions of the barbarians had well-nigh ceased, 
 and a more stable and responsible government was being 
 gradually but surely established throughout European 
 countries. The awful dread of the approaching end of 
 the world was gradually rolled away, and a great renova- 
 tion of the monasteries and monastic life was in rapid 
 progress, together with a general awakening of the Church 
 after its long sleep. 
 
 But though this building work in the early years of the 
 eleventh century was so general, though the number of 
 the new churches, including the humble village churches 
 and the more stately abbeys and cathedrals, was very large 
 — so large that eye-witnesses spoke of the work then done 
 as belonging to the supernatural — very little of it seems 
 to have endured. Whole countries may be searched in 
 vain, and no vestige of the many buildings found ! And 
 while in some lands fragments, built into later work, are 
 discoverable by the lynx-eyed antiquarian, very few, 
 indeed, are the churches now with us which can be 
 
 34 
 
What is the c White Robe 5 ? 
 
 asccribed to the building zeal of the first half of the 
 ekeventh century. 
 
 The truth is, that when, after the long sad period whose 
 dreary story we have faintly sketched, men began to 
 buiild again, after ancient patterns, the art of building 
 in many respects was a lost art, and the new churches 
 sooon crumbled away and had to be entirely rebuilt. And 
 thien, in very many cases, they were re-erected on a yet 
 lairger and grander scale than had been attempted in the 
 eairlier years of the eleventh century. The vast churches, 
 thte lordly abbeys, which were the work of the last quarter 
 of the eleventh and the first half of the twelfth centuries, 
 suipplied a want which had begun to be felt. The great 
 “ arwakening,” which we have been painting, was no pass- 
 ing emotion. It was very real. The monasteries grew 
 grceater and more thronged. Thousands, whose . fathers 
 duiring the woe and confusion of the preceding ages of 
 sorrow cared nothing for and thought little of service or 
 prrayer, now began to assemble in God’s houses. 
 
 This is the answer to the question often put, but 
 rairely answered, why at this epoch were so many and such 
 vaist abbeys and churches erected in the different countries 
 of Europe. And not only were many a church and abbey 
 re— erected as the eleventh century wore away on a grander 
 amd vaster scale, but now the work was good, and the 
 buiildings endured. Men had gradually learned through 
 disaster 1 the secrets of a well-nigh lost and forgotten art. 
 
 11 This is no fancied picture. The curious faultiness and subsequent 
 crmmbling away of the many sacred buildings which were the outcome 
 of ithe first splendid fervour of the “ awakening ” is tersely but admir- 
 ablly described by Quicherat, Mdanges d’Archdologie et d'Histoire { Moyen 
 agee), p. 434, Paris 1886, who cites many interesting examples of these 
 chuirches erected in the first fervour of the earlier years of the eleventh 
 cemtury but which soon perished. 
 
 35 
 
religion, have well-nigh as a whole completely perished 
 and disappeared ; the churches of the later years of that 
 
 3 6 
 
 The White Robe of Churches 
 
 Whereas the churches of the early years of the eleventh 
 century, erected in the first fervour of the renaissance of 
 
 Interior op the Church op Vignoiiy, Haute Marne, France. 
 

 What is the c White Robe 5 ? 
 
 century and first half of the following (the twelfth), have 
 
 Ground Plan of the Abbey of Cluny. 
 
 in many instances, endured the stress and storm of 800 
 
 37 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 years, and are with us still, the marvel and delight of our 
 own days, matchless in their solemn beauty. Few can 
 gaze upon one of those glorious abbey-churches, the work 
 of that far-back strangely-inspired age, without awe, or 
 enter it without devotion. 
 
 The abbey church of the great Burgundian monas- 
 tery of Cluny was an admirable example of the great 
 building work of which we have been speaking. All 
 through the tenth century, as we have seen, was 
 Cluny at work (the first abbey was founded about a.d. 
 909) ; the holy influence abroad gradually spreading far 
 and wide, while at home the mother house was becoming 
 larger and larger. While Odilo was abbot, somewhere 
 between a.d. 994 and a.d. 1049, the first important 
 church was built, “I found,” said Odilo, “an abbey of 
 wood; I leave behind me an abbey of marble.” Especially 
 we read of the stately cloister of Odilo’s building. 
 
 The century wore on. In the year 1089 Odilo’s suc- 
 cessor, the yet more famous Abbot Hugh, finding the 
 church of Odilo too small for the vastly increased numbers 
 of the renowned community, determined to rebuild the 
 abbey of Cluny on a grander and vaster scale. We may 
 also fairly assume that in common with the large majority 
 of the churches built in the earlier period of the great 
 awakening, the abbey of Cluny, as well as being too 
 small for the increasing house, was falling into ruins. 
 So Abbot Hugh began to build in 1089 his new abbey. 
 
 The legends of Cluny tell us how S. Peter himself 
 revealed to the monk-architect Gauzon in a dream the 
 plan of the new church, which, in truth, when completed, 
 was the greatest of all the great churches of the West! 
 Generally, its proportions were 580 feet in length and 
 1 20 feet in width, and it remained fairly perfect almost 
 
 38 
 
What is the c White Robe ’ ? 
 
 to our days. Its ruin in the end was owing to the fury 
 of tthe revolution in the last years of the eighteenth 
 centtury, not to the ravages of time. 
 
 Church of S. Mark, Venice. 
 
 The great church-building work in that marvellous 
 age on the continent of Europe has been thus graphically 
 though roughly sketched. “ S. Mark’s at Venice was 
 
 39 * 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 not finished till the end of the eleventh century, to 
 
 be by us freshly admired after eight hundred years. 
 
 40 
 
 Interior of the Church of S. Mark, Venice. 
 
What is the c White Robe ’ ? 
 
 Tke cathedral of Pisa, wonderful alike for its grand 
 proportions and the charming completeness of its 
 melodious details, was finished with the same century 
 (the eleventh). The cathedrals of Siena, Modena, Parma, 
 and other Italian cities, belong to the same age; while 
 in Northern Europe, the new and urgent spiritual forces 
 were equally breaking into sudden exhibition in immense 
 and lovely structures.” 
 
 “ The church at Freyburg in Baden, in which Bernard 
 aftterwards preached the Crusade, belonged to this period. 1 
 St rasburg, Mayence, Treves, Worms, Basel, Brussels, Dijon, 
 bloomed into the beauty of their superb churches. The 
 cathedral of Chartres, with its pointed arches, flying 
 buttresses, and the marvellous glass which even the fires 
 of Pmvolution have spared, was begun about a.d. 1060, 
 though principally finished more than a century later. 
 The cathedrals at Autun and Poitiers, the abbey church 
 at Vezelai, with S. Stephen’s at Caen, and many others, 
 are of the same time. All Northern Europe was flower- 
 ing into Christian architecture, delicate and mighty, as 
 Alpine slopes with sudden exuberance clothe themselves 
 in wealth of blooms when the icy fetters have been 
 removed.” 2 
 
 1 Of course most of those here named were greatly changed and 
 m odified in the course of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, like 
 that great English church on which we are presently to dwell. 
 
 2 Of course in this rough picture much in connection with these 
 caithedrals in their completed form would require careful supplement- 
 ing and explaining, even correcting, but I have given the striking pass- 
 age verbatim from Dr. Storr’s (of Brooklyn, New York) interesting 
 and graphic “Lectures on S. Bernard of Clairvaux,” published in 
 1892. 
 
 4 I 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 ENGLAND IN THE TENTH CENTURY 
 
 In our own England, during the greater part of the 
 ninth and tenth centuries, although the particular cir- 
 cumstances were somewhat different, the desolation of 
 the Church was well-nigh as complete and far-reaching 
 as on the continent of Europe. England was spared, it 
 is true, the crushing calamity of the Hungarian invasion. 
 But the Viking raids in our island were of a more 
 disastrous and enduring character even than the bar- 
 barian invasions on the continent. These raids began in 
 terrible earnest in a.d. 829, and for nearly fifty years 
 they ceaselessly harassed unhappy England. And the de- 
 solation, especially in everything pertaining to the Church, 
 which they had wrought in the island was too thorough 
 and far-reaching to be repaired by the splendid successes 
 of Alfred and the kings of his house. In Southern 
 England, which Alfred and his successors had won back 
 from the Danish Vikings, in the last years of the ninth 
 century, the Church had recovered but only partially 
 from the great disaster, when there followed a renewal 
 of Viking wars lasting for many years, when Ethelred 
 the Unready was king; and it was not until the eleventh 
 century was far advanced that the great awakening of 
 Christianity and the consequent passion for church build- 
 ing really reached England. It had begun, it is true, with 
 the days of Canute and of the Confessor, but it 
 
 42 
 
 was 
 
England — Tenth Century 
 
 intterrupted by the Norman Conquest, and it was only 
 whhen something like “ stillness ” had been effected by 
 thee bloody and stern work of William the Conqueror 
 thaat the same phenomenon was visible in the great 
 islland as on the continent of Europe. 
 
 The picture painted by King Alfred’s own hand, some- 
 tirme in the last twenty years of the ninth century, 
 giwes a vivid representation of the state of the Church 
 ini England after the Danish Vikings had wrought their 
 deastruction. Alfred had driven them back from the 
 somthern and central districts of the island, and had 
 ag^ain firmly established the Anglo-Saxon rule over the 
 somthern half of England. This was what he found 
 wlhen the Danish invasion had been rolled back into the 
 lainds north of the Humber. “ The ruin that the Danes 
 haad wrought had been no mere material ruin. When 
 tlney first appeared off her shores (roughly in the early 
 yeears of the ninth century), England stood in the fore- 
 frcont of European culture ; her scholars, her libraries, 
 hter poetry, had no rivals in the Western world. But 
 alll, or nearly all, of this culture had disappeared. The 
 airt and learning of Northumbria had been destroyed 
 att a blow. The very Christianity of Mid-Britain was 
 slhaken ... its letters and civilisation were more than 
 slhaken ; they . had vanished in the sack of the great 
 albbeys of the Fens.” 1 
 
 The following are the words of the great Anglo-Saxon 
 krins : “ I remembered also how I saw, before it had all 
 boeen ravaged and burnt, how the churches throughout 
 tlhe whole of England stood filled with treasures and books, 
 amd there was also a great multitude of God’s servants. 
 . . . But now,” wrote the king, “ so clear was learning 
 
 1 Green, “The Conquest of England,” chap. ix. 
 
 43 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 decayed among English folk, that very few were there on 
 this side the Humber that could understand their rituals 
 in English, or translate aught of Latin into English, and 
 I think there were not many beyond the Humber. So 
 few of these were there, that I cannot bethink me of a 
 single one south of the Thames when I came into the 
 kingdom. . . . Thanks be to God that we have now some 
 teachers in our stalls.” 1 Again the scholar king, grieving 
 over the decadence of all learning, and mourning over 
 “ the little fruit which the ecclesiastics of his day had of 
 the books which they possessed ” (such as the works of 
 Bede, for instance, because they were written in Latin and 
 not in their own language), wondered that the great and 
 wise men who were formerly in the English nation had 
 not translated books written in Latin into their own 
 native tongue. He writes his own reply to his question 
 thus : “ I soon answered myself, and said that they did 
 not think men would ever become so careless, and that 
 learning would so decay.” 
 
 Briefly to sum up : For some fifty years before the 
 victory of Alfred, the state of the Church in England 
 was dreary in the extreme. Everything seemed ruined. 
 Alfred, it is true, accomplished something of a revival in 
 the south and midland districts, but more than half of the 
 island remained under the Viking rule. After Alfred’s 
 death in a.d. 901, during the first half of the tenth century, 
 things in the Church made no progress ; on the contrary, 
 everything in the Church seemed rather going backwards. 
 The ceaseless wars waged by his gallant successors against 
 the Danish possessors of the north of the island, were 
 sadly inimical to any progress. After Athelstan’s vic- 
 
 1 Preface to Alfred’s translation of “Gregory’s Pastoral,” written by 
 the king himself. 
 
 44 
 
England — Tenth Century 
 
 torious reign, something like “ stillness prevailed over a 
 great part of England, and enabled Dunstan, a really great 
 churchman, again to build up in a measure Church life in 
 England, but the renewal of the Danish supremacy in the 
 latter years of Dunstan s life in the days of Ethelred, threw 
 again all things into confusion. Under the strong rule 
 of Canute once more something of a Church revival took 
 place, which, with some interruption during the short 
 reigns of his sons after his death, continued steadily 
 under Edward the Confessor. Then the Norman Conquest 
 again arrested all progress for a season. But when the 
 confusion and troubles of the Norman Conquest were in 
 some measure quieted down, then the great revival which 
 witnessed the building of the houses of God we are about 
 to speak of began in earnest. The following little table of 
 dates will illustrate the story of the ninth and tenth 
 centuries in England we have been briefly sketching : 
 
 Coming of the Vikings. 
 
 Alfred’s great victory over the Vikings. 
 
 Partial stillness in southern England. 
 Death of Alfred. 
 
 Kings of the House of Alfred. 
 
 Dunstan’s influence. 
 
 The Danes again obtain general supremacy 
 in England. 
 
 Canute’s reign. 
 
 Edward the Confessor. 
 
 The Norman Conquest. 
 
 Stillness in England. The great revival of 
 Church building under Lanfranc, the 
 Norman archbishop, began in real earnest. 
 
 On the whole, it may be safely affirmed that during 
 
 45 
 
 A.D. 
 
 829 
 
 8 7 X 
 
 90I 
 9OI— 978 
 946- 978 
 
 978-IO16 
 
 IO16-IO35 
 
 IO42—I066 
 
 I066—IO70 
 
 IO70 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 the two centuries of gloom, the ninth and tenth, the 
 condition of the Church in England was somevhat less 
 deplorable than that of the Church on the continent 
 of Europe. 
 
 There was a period certainly, roughly calculated, ex- 
 tending over about fifty years, from a.d. 829 to a.d. 871, 
 when, owing to the cruel and generally successfil Viking 
 invasions, Church life was well-nigh swept out of our 
 island. The picture drawn by the great Alfred, above 
 quoted, tells us how dreary and forlorn was the state to 
 which England had been reduced when he succeeded in 
 partially rolling back the torrent of Danish invaders. 
 
 But then he partially succeeded in restoring Church 
 life in England, and for the rest of the Anglo-Saxon 
 period, from 871 to 1066, the Church lived, md was 
 again a power in the land, though it must be confessed 
 the Church life thus restored was, after all, but a maimed 
 one ; but it was, comparatively speaking, free fran those 
 awful crimes of simony and evil-living which vere the 
 sad characteristics of the Church on the cont.nent of 
 Europe during this dark time. The noble impube given 
 by King Alfred to its life almost crushed out in the Danish 
 raids, never again died out. No such personality as that 
 of Alfred appeared in the Church of the continent after 
 Charlemagne passed away in 914. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE WAVE OF RELIGIOUS REVIVAL REACHES ENGLAND 
 
 The mighty wave of the religious revival, which so power- 
 fully stirred men’s hearts early in the eleventh cen- 
 tury, gradually spread throughout Central and Northern 
 Europe, only reaching Rome and changing the character 
 of the Papacy when the century had run well-nigh half 
 its course. The “ wave ” naturally affected England, but 
 for a long period its operation in the island was less 
 noticeable than on the continent of Europe. The reason 
 no doubt was, first, the comparatively little contact of the 
 Church of England with foreign thought, and secondly, 
 in England things were not so evil in the Church as in 
 France and Italy. In England, we must remember, 
 between a.d. 871 and a.d. 10 66, evil was largely kept 
 at bay by the noble work and example of Alfred, and 
 somewhat later by the powerful and healthy influence of 
 that great churchman, Duustan, by the strong religious 
 instincts of the great Dane, King Canute, and lastly by 
 the quiet holy life and reign of Edward the Confessor. 
 
 But such facts as the building of the abbey of Waltham 
 by Earl Harold, and the erection of the mighty abbey of 
 Westminster by King Edward — Westminster Abbey 
 being not only by far the largest church in England, but 
 one of the grandest on this side of the Alps — tell us that 
 the newly-awakened fervour had reached the island king- 
 dom, and was bearing its fruits. But though in England 
 
 47 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 the great awakening in its full strength was somewhat 
 delayed, it came at last, and in good earnest. 
 
 On the Continent, after the reform of Rome in the 
 middle of the century, the immense impulse which had 
 come to the Church was wonderfully quickened. The 
 monastics, the new orders and the old, multiplied with 
 strange rapidity. The Cluniacs, though still maintaining 
 their ascendency, stood no longer alone. In Italy and 
 Germany, as in France, new houses of fresh orders kept 
 arising, new churches of a size hitherto undreamed of 
 were designed and gradually built. 
 
 The last years of the century witnessed the beginning 
 of another Benedictine reform, whose monks, under the 
 famous appellation of Cistercians, positively outnumbered 
 eventually all the earlier foundations. Nor was this 
 religious fervour confined to the clergy and monks, but 
 more or less it permeated all ranks and orders among 
 the laity. The great Pope Hildebrand, once a Cluniac 
 monk, under the name of Gregory VII., conceived the 
 magnificent idea of a general European crusade, which 
 should conquer for Christendom the holy places of the 
 Gospels in the Holy Land, desecrated by the conquering 
 disciples of Mahommed. This was in the year 1074. 
 Hildebrand did not live to see his mighty project realised. 
 But one of his immediate successors, Urban II., ten years 
 after the death of Hildebrand, succeeded in uniting all the 
 peoples of the West in the stupendous enterprise. And 
 so the wonderful eleventh century closed. Never before 
 had Christianity exercised so wide, so general an influence 
 over the nations. 
 
 In England, when the Norman Conquest was completed, 
 the year 1070 witnessed again something like stillness 
 
 48 
 
Church Revival in England 
 
 in the long-harassed country. The Anglo-Saxon Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury being formally deposed, the first 
 place in the English Church was filled by King William 
 the Conqueror’s friend and chief adviser Lanfranc, who 
 was without doubt the ablest and, after Pope Gregory 
 VII. (Hildebrand), the most renowned of the ecclesiastics 
 of that age. The new Norman archbishop at once set 
 himself to remodel, and in some respects to reform, the 
 Church in England. Quietly, with few overt acts of 
 high-handed tyranny, William and Lanfranc in a com- 
 paratively short time filled the great places in the English 
 Church with Normans and other foreigners whom they 
 could fully trust to carry out their policy, and as the 
 bishoprics and abbeys fell vacant through death, they 
 were filled up by the nominees of the king and the 
 archbishop. In a few cases deposition anticipated death, 
 but, as a rule, the changes among the bishops and abbots 
 were carried out without violence. Most of these appoint- 
 ments, as would have been expected, considering Lanfranc’s 
 high, pure character, were conscientiously made, and the 
 men thus chosen to rule the island Church were wise, 
 good men, well fitted to carry out the changes and reforms 
 desired by Lanfranc. 
 
 The most striking of these changes and reforms were : 
 
 (1) , the altered relations of England and the Papacy. 
 In the reign of William the Conqueror and in the Primacy 
 of Lanfranc began that long line of Legates from the Pope 
 exercising their great, though at first undefined, powers, 
 markedly influencing the work and action of the Church 
 of England, until the fall of Wolsey under Henry VIII. 
 
 (2) , The great revival and reform of monasticism in Eng- 
 land. The Benedictines were enormously multiplied, 
 while the new reformed orders began to send considerable 
 
 49 D 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 colonies to England. This wonderful increase in monasteries 
 and in their foundations continued without a break all 
 through the reign of the Conqueror and the Norman 
 kings of his house and during the period of the Angevin 
 Henry II. These, perhaps, constituted for the time the 
 most marked of the ecclesiastical changes in our island. 
 
 (3) Besides this great change in English Church life, 
 several of the bishoprics were removed from their old 
 seats into the more populous centres, such as Lincoln, 
 the older Salisbury, Bath, Chichester, and Norwich, 
 in place of the ancient episcopal homes of Dor- 
 chester, Sherborne and Ramsbury, Wells, Selsey, Elmham. 
 
 (4) Within the Church the marriage of priests, which 
 had been to some extent permitted in Anglo-Saxon times, 
 was sternly forbidden, thus carrying out one of the great 
 principles which actuated the far-seeing designs of Hilde- 
 brand and the great continental teachers. These teachers 
 aimed at the establishment of the clergy as a distinct 
 order cut off from all ties of citizenship and kindred. 
 
 The result of the great changes and reforms of Lanfranc 
 undoubtedly raised the standard of the English Church 
 intellectually and morally ; above all, it brought the 
 great island Church into more immediate touch with the 
 mighty wave of religious enthusiasm which was passing 
 over continental Europe ; but, on the other hand, it 
 weakened its insular independence, making it more like 
 the other Churches of the West. The Church of England 
 henceforth was no longer, as in the days of Canute and 
 Edward the Confessor, a purely national Church, but 
 virtually it became and continued all through the Middle 
 Ages a province of a vast foreign ecclesiastical empire, 
 whose centre and capital was Rome. 
 
 One great fact almost immediately resulted from this 
 
 5 ° 
 
Church Revival in England 
 
 putting England in close touch with the continent of 
 Europe. With this our little present study is especially 
 connected. The wave of religious enthusiasm which, 
 as the monk Eaoul Glaber tells us, stirred men’s hearts 
 to build everywhere new houses of prayer in inconceivable 
 numbers, and with a hitherto undreamed of magnificence 
 
 Abbey Church op S. Albans. 
 
 at last, reached our island, and very soon after the year 
 1070 the great building work really began in England. 
 The new Norman bishops, and in not a few instances 
 the new Norman abbots of the English monasteries, set 
 themselves to convert the old churches of their sees and 
 their xeligious houses into lordly cathedrals and stately 
 
 5 1 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 abbey churches; such churches which, with one or two 
 solitary exceptions, had never been seen before in this 
 island. They arose with incredible swiftness in all parts 
 of England— to take a few notable instances — on the hill 
 of Lincoln, on the cliff of Durham by the rushing Wear, 
 in the fen-lands of Ely, in the Severn-watered meadows 
 of Gloucester, Tewkesbury, and Worcester; at Norwich, 
 Rochester, and Canterbury, in the east of the island ; 
 at York, Southwell, and S. Albans in the midland 
 counties ; at Ripon, and Carlisle, in the more northern 
 districts; at Winchester and Chichester in the south. 
 In all these and in many other historic centres were 
 great churches completed before the end of the eleventh 
 or in the early years of the twelfth century. Stupendous 
 houses of prayer and teaching were designed, and many 
 of them finished in the days of Lanfranc, or in the years 
 immediately following. These mighty piles in all their 
 changeless solemn beauty exist still; in most of them, 
 it is true, the taste or want of taste of succeeding 
 generations has changed, improved, or marred the grand 
 work and simple telling decorations of the first master 
 builders. But the plan and the designs, and, in some 
 well-known instances the bulk of the original work of 
 our noblest minster churches remain, as in the great 
 building days of the first famous Norman king and his 
 minister, the archbishop and scholar, Lanfranc, and of 
 their immediate successors. 
 
 5 2 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 CHURCH BUILDING IN ENGLAND AFTER A.D. IO70 
 
 Writers, in speaking of these great churches, are in 
 the habit of summarily disposing of the question of their 
 vast size, by alluding to them as belonging to the 
 dominant fashion of the day, as being instances of the 
 grand conception of the Norman prelates and archbishops, 
 as though the great churches of the last quarter of the 
 eleventh century were “great” because of the pride and 
 taste of the building ecclesiastics of the day — of men 
 like Lanfranc and Serlo, Gundulf and Eemigius, William 
 of Warelwast, and William Carilef. The truth really is, 
 these vast buildings satisfied a want — they were needed for 
 the worshippers. The wonderful religious revival of this 
 century had enormously multiplied the worshippers in 
 all lands. The number of professed “ religious,” too, as 
 we have already remarked, had increased almost beyond 
 conception, and the numbers of lay people who thronged 
 the services were multiplied in almost like proportion, 
 and in England when the great wave of piety had really 
 reached the island, the same results, visible on the con- 
 tinent of Europe, demanded the sudden increase in the 
 size of the buildings, so noticeable in the great Norman 
 churches built in this period. To take a conspicuous 
 though perhaps an extreme instance : the Benedictine 
 monastery of S. Peter’s, Gloucester, contained at the 
 period of the Norman Conquest only some half-dozen 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 professed monks. Under Serlo, the Conqueror’s chaplain, 
 the first Norman abbot, these numbers had increased to 
 a hmdred. 
 
 Ve have here only noticed a few of the grander and 
 moB conspicuous abbeys and minsters, but a crowd of 
 lessir churches were dotted in vast numbers through the 
 length and breadth of the land. It is singular how, after 
 sonn 800 years, what a vast number of Norman churches 
 of dl sizes, or of churches containing Norman work, re- 
 maii in well-nigh every district in England. Of a truth, 
 although somewhat later, owing to the circumstances 
 abo T e related, than on the continent of Europe, before the 
 century (the eleventh) had closed, England, too, had put 
 on Eat “ white robe of churches ” which Eaoul Glaber, 
 the Benedictine, alludes to as one of the most conspicu- 
 ous signs of the great revival. But, although somewhat 
 tardly, in no country were so many noble churches 
 buiL, and with such extraordinary rapidity as in England. 
 
 how as men gaze on these vast piles, some of them 
 beaitiful and strong as in those far-back days when 
 Wiliam the Conqueror and his friend and minister, 
 Lanranc, and the men they chose as the chief ministers of 
 the English Church, first planned and then proceeded to 
 erec; those mighty houses of prayer — they ask naturally 
 and wonderingly whence came the gold necessary 
 for these vast and most costly works so plentifully 
 scattered over the country — whence came the enormous 
 resoirces required for such a number, and in many 
 case such mighty buildings ? We may reply with 
 littb hesitation, that in England the great wave of 
 religious zeal, when it fairly reached our 8h9I§§; wa§ aided 
 by ; peculiar state of things which existed in no other 
 couitry in Europe, by “ a something ” which explains the 
 
 54 
 
Church Building in England 
 
 reason for this wonderful liberality on the part of the 
 layanen to the Church of England, which supplies a reason 
 for their almost boundless expenditure on the Church 
 fabrics, great and small, which have ever since excited the 
 wonder and admiration of thinking men. 
 
 That “something” is capable of explanation. While 
 the conquest of England was in progress, neither William 
 nor his chieftains appeared conscious of the awful wrong 
 they were working. But when all was over, and the 
 hideous aspect of the brilliant feat of arms, termed the 
 Norman Conquest, was unveiled, not a few of those mighty 
 followers of Norman William, the men who had profited 
 by the iniquity of the Conquest, saw at length what a 
 terrible deed had been accomplished. It was a wild and 
 ruthless age, and men recked little of the suffering and 
 woe of those around them, but there was a new, strange 
 spirit abroad, a spirit of religious awe which permeated, 
 as we have seen, all sorts and conditions of men, and not 
 a few of those Norman nobles were, when the Conquest 
 was over, powerfully influenced by it. Hence the attempt 
 to still in some degree the remorse stirred up by the sense 
 of the great wrong, to atone for the misery and destruction 
 they had wrought, by lavish donations to the cause of that 
 God whom they justly felt they had deeply offended. This 
 is in all probability the cause of the enormous gifts which 
 the Church received in the years following the Anglo- 
 Norman settlement of a.d. 1070. It is a fact that more 
 religious foundations were established in England, and 
 churches and abbeys built in the days of the kings of the 
 Anglo-Norman House and of Henry II., than during the 
 whole preceding or subsequent period of English history. 1 
 
 1 That a vast proportion of the Norman abbeys and churches were 
 abbeys and churches of “expiation” is undoubtedly a fact which has 
 
 55 
 
The White Jtobe of Churches 
 
 The Anglo-Norman churcies and abbeys were thus largely 
 churches and abbeys of expiation. 
 
 As examples of the gnat churches built in this age we 
 will instance, with a ver T few necessary details, just five 
 or six of the more prominent of the churches erected 
 in the latter years of this eleventh century. We can, 
 after 800 years, feast our eyes upon their massive, 
 awful beauty. They g've us some notion how the 
 
 scarcely received sufficient notice. The stubborn but ill-conceived 
 resistance to William’s conque'ing forces during the four or five years 
 which followed the battle of Histings, compelled the Norman Duke to 
 act as “conqueror” rather than as the lawful king, the rightful 
 successor to the Confessor he claimed to be, and vast confiscations 
 proceeded to mark his slow bul irresistible progress from Hastings to 
 Exeter, from Exeter to York, :rom York to Durham. The enormous 
 confiscations without doubt inficted untold sufferings upon thousands. 
 According to common report 6c,ooo knights received their fees or rather 
 their livings from the Conqueror. The numbers probably are exagge- 
 rated, but the race of Anglo-I»anish and English nobility, the Anglo- 
 Saxon Earls, and the greater Thegns disappeared. But no political 
 exigency can ever excuse the awful harrying of the country north 
 of York, or the desolation of the great district known as the New 
 Forest. There was indeed Utter oppression; much cruel wrong 
 inflicted by William and his chef tains on the great masses of Anglo- 
 Saxon society, especially on tie higher grades of that society. And 
 this cruel wrong was recognisel by the Normans themselves. In a.d. 
 1070 or 1072, a general penance was decreed by the Norman prelates, 
 confirmed by the delegates fr)m the See of Rome on all, from the 
 highest to the lowest, who hal shared in the deeds which established 
 William on the throne. [Freenan throws doubt, without assigning any 
 sufficient reason, on the genuinmess of the documents which relate the 
 story of this penance. Palgravo, however, accepts this penance decree 
 without hesitation.] The Chioniclers, Orderic, Wace in his poem 
 “ Le Roman de Rou,” and Matlhew Paris, all with more or less detail 
 dwell on William’s penitence when dying, for the cruel wrong he 
 and his men-at-arms had done to conquered England. The words of 
 Orderic which he puts into the nouth of the conqueror are remarkable : 
 “ Sic multa millia pulcemmse mentis senum ffSll 
 
 funestus trucidavi,” and so are the words of Matthew Paris, “Multum 
 se confitebatur peccasse in Anglorum nobilitatem, quos falsis decepit 
 pollicitis.” 
 
Church Building in England 
 
 great Anglo-Norman builders of the “ Revival ” we 
 have dwelt upon, expressed in stone the religious feel- 
 ings of that strange age. At Canterbury Lanfranc found 
 the cathedral in ruins, and in seven years restored the 
 chuirch from its very foundations, and “rendered it,” we 
 are told, “ nearly perfect after the Norman manner.” In 
 a.d. 1093 William Carilef began, and Ralph Flambard, 
 
 Peterborough Cathedral. 
 
 the minister-bishop of Rufus, by 1128 well-nigh com- 
 pleted, the matchless pile which to this day looks down 
 upon the river Wear. It stands before us now much 
 as the old Norman builders left it, simply peerless in 
 its stern and rugged beauty, within and without per- 
 haps the finest Romanesque church in England, some 
 think in the world. In East Anglia, in Norwich 
 
 57 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 Cathedral, largely the work of Bishop Herbert of Losinga, 
 commenced in the year 1096, we have the second largest 
 nave in England, with its massive piers rising up 70 feet, 
 presenting to the eye a marvellous vista of two tiers of 
 round-headed arches resting on Norman shafts, the whole 
 scarcely changed, though the colour and gold which once 
 beautified the interior has vanished in the long centuries 
 of wear and tear and partial neglect. In Ely the wondrous 
 pile of S. Ethelreda still remains “ the monarch of the Fen 
 Lands,” as it has been well termed. Hard by, the mighty 
 Norman abbey of Peterborough is a noble example of a 
 great Norman house of prayer, and has been well de- 
 scribed as “ expressing the aims and ideals of the Nor- 
 man builders of the age of the Conquest.” The solemn 
 repose of the Norman nave of Peterborough is almost 
 unbroken by ornamentation, and yet the triple row of 
 arches gives an appearance of richness beyond compare. 
 The monotony of the stony whiteness of the vast interior 
 with its death-like hue, it must be remembered, was 
 broken in the early years of the twelfth century with the 
 wealth of colour and gold with which the Norman artists 
 veiled much of the white stone of massive arch and pillar. 
 The gold and colour, alas, have long disappeared. 
 
 In the south-west of the island, in the country known 
 as the Severn Lands, the Norman builders were especially 
 busy, and splendid specimens of their craft, and of the 
 devotion and lavish liberality of the conquerors, yet remain 
 in the noble abbeys of Gloucester and Tewkesbury. Sin- 
 gularly little interfered with in the eight centuries which 
 have elapsed since they were consecrated to the service of 
 Almighty God, the imposing naves of Gloucester and of 
 its twin sister at Tewkesbury, with their lofty arcades of 
 gigantic columns crowned with huge round arches of the 
 
 58 
 
Church Building in England 
 
 well-known Romanesque type, bear their witness to the 
 daring and grand conception of the great Norman building 
 abbots of the end of the eleventh century. 
 
 Nowhere else in Europe are such mighty columns to be 
 seen. Though in exquisite grace and perfect proportions, 
 they fall short of Durham, or even of Peterborough and 
 Norwich, yet in grandeur and majesty these vast churches 
 stand absolutely unrivalled. We speak alone of the naves, 
 for in both these stately churches the eastern limbs — the 
 
 Battle Abbey. 
 
 choirs — have been altered to suit a later architecuuial 
 fashion. These will suffice us as prominent examples of 
 ‘‘the white robe of churches” with which the Normans 
 covered the England of the last years of the eleventh 
 and the early years of the twelfth centuries, the age when 
 the great religious fervour in good earnest reached the 
 shores of this great island. In the same period, too, arose 
 the cathedral and abbey churches of Chichester, a.d. 
 1090— 1120; Lincoln, a.d. 1086-1092; York, a.d. 1070- 
 
 59 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 iioo; Rochester, a. d. 1083; Winchester, a.d. 1079-1093; 
 Worcester, a.d. 1084; Carlisle, a.d. 1092; the mighty 
 abbeys of S. Albans, a.d. 1077-1115, Evesham, Battle, 
 Ripon Minster, Chester, and a host of others, not a few 
 of them of vast dimensions, abbeys, minsters, collegiate 
 churches, monastic churches, 1 parish churches, many of 
 which, in whole or in large part, still bear the ineffaceable 
 mark of the men who built them in that age of fervour 
 and devotion. 
 
 1 Monastic Churches . — Of these alone, in the days of William the 
 Conqueror, that is, between 1070-1087, 45 new monasteries were 
 founded ; in the days of William Rufus, 25 ; of Stephen, 122 ; of 
 Henry II., 124 ; of Richard Coeur-de-Lion, 44 ; of John, 62 ; of Henry 
 III., 74. These numbers do not include colleges and hospitals, a 
 goodly number, each of which possesses its church. 
 
 60 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE MEANING OF THE TERM “ ROMANESQUE 
 
 We have so far lightly sketched in “ the story of the 
 ages” which elapsed between the epoch of the “ Peace of 
 the Church,” immediately following the edict of the 
 Emperor Constantine, a.d. 313, and the death of the 
 Emperor Charlemagne in a.d. 814. And with a little 
 more fulness we have painted the dark period when the 
 barbarian hordes of Northmen, Saracens, Hungarians, 
 and others desolated the Western world, between the 
 years a.d. 8 14, when Charlemagne died, and the years of the 
 great religious awakening, commencing about a.d. 1003, 
 dwelling especially on the mighty influence which the 
 Burgundian monastery of Cluny had in this awakening, 
 which resulted in the restoration of Christianity as a 
 great and ever growing power from early in the eleventh 
 century onwards. 
 
 During the first fifty or sixty years of the eleventh 
 century we spoke of the earlier efforts of church builders 
 to erect churches somewhat after the style of the builders 
 of the earlier centuries which immediately followed the 
 time of the “Peace of Constantine,” and how in these 
 fifty or sixty years their architectural skill, long disused, 
 at first failed them, and how very soon these earlier errors 
 were corrected; and, taught by the disasters which so 
 generally befel their work, these men learned how to 
 build more securely. 
 
 61 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 The second half of the eleventh century witnessed the 
 rising throughout Europe of an infinite number of cathe- 
 drals, abbeys, and churches of varied sizes, many of them 
 of vast dimensions. After a.d. 1070 we noticed that the 
 wave of Church enthusiasm reached England in its full 
 force, and, owing to peculiar and special circumstances 
 which we have explained, an enormous zeal for church 
 building was awakened in our island, and that then many 
 of the great cathedrals and abbeys, still the pride and 
 glory of our land, were erected apparently regardless of 
 cost, with strange and even startling rapidity. 
 
 Now we propose to take one of these mighty English 
 religious piles then erected as our special subject, and in 
 detail to examine its various parts as we now see them, 
 many of them little changed since those great builders 
 and designers first designed and completed them with 
 marvellous skill and forethought. And as we speak of 
 the various parts of this vast abbey, now the well-known 
 cathedral of Gloucester, we shall, as we come in turn to 
 each of its main important divisions, trace the genesis, the 
 development, and the history of that portion of the build- 
 ing from very early times. This we propose to do in 
 the case of the cry r pt, the nave, the transepts, the choir 
 and the altar, the cloister, and its immediate surroundings. 
 
 Ihe example we have selected for our purpose is one of 
 those great abbeys, the pride of the Severn Lands, in the 
 west of England. Here, in the ancient Roman city of 
 Gloucester, we possess an almost perfect instance of a 
 mighty Romanesque abbey, mostly designed and probably 
 well-nigh completed in the last quarter of that famous 
 eleventh century which witnessed so marvellous a change 
 in the fortunes of the Latin Church of the West. We 
 style it Romanesque, although many of its architectural 
 
 62 
 
The New Term ‘ Romanesque ’ 
 
 features subsequently, as the centuries advanced, were 
 changed and modified according to the fashion and taste 
 of succeeding centuries. These changes will be presently 
 noticed and explained. 
 
 We have twice dwelt with peculiar insistence upon the 
 vastriess of many of these new churches of the second 
 half of the eleventh century : and we have shown that 
 this feature, their great size, was owing to no mere 
 fancy of the builders, to no fashion of the age, but that 
 it simply represented a need of that period of the great 
 religious revival. Men, laymen as well as professed 
 “ religious,” thronged these houses of prayer in numbers 
 never seen before. Nowhere more notably than in 
 England is the difference in the dimensions of the re- 
 ligious buildings erected in the last years of the eleventh 
 century, compared with the dimensions 1 of the religious 
 buildings which had been erected in the times preceding 
 the great Eevival, more marked. 
 
 We have styled the mighty abbey of Gloucester we are 
 going to describe a Romanesque abbey. What, now, is 
 the meaning of the term ? 
 
 Romanesque is the equivalent of the French Romane, 
 the latter being comparatively a new term, and seems to 
 have been first generally used to express a great architec- 
 
 1 The smallness of certainly the large majority of early churches in 
 England is remarkable. The very few still remaining to us are con- 
 spicuous examples. The foundations of the Roman-British church at 
 Silchester, the church of Aldhelm at Bradford-on-Avon, Earl Odda’s 
 church at Deerhurst (Gloucestershire), the wooden church at Green- 
 street, Essex, are all very small. After the Conquest, from the year 1070 
 onwards, an almost universal destruction of the more important older 
 ecclesiastical buildings took place. They were removed to make way 
 for the grand and vast conceptions of Norman prelates and architects. 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 tural style by the French writer De Caumont, about a.d. 
 1825. It is a strange mistake which describes “Roman- 
 esque ” as debased Roman architecture ; it is an indepen- 
 dent style of the highest historical interest, and although 
 it may generally be called the round-arch architecture, it 
 possesses somewhat different characteristics in different 
 lands, e.g. in Norman England, in “ Royal ” France, in 
 Aquitaine, in Germany. Romanesque architecture has a 
 distinct date, commencing at the beginning of the eleventh 
 century with the great Revival on which we have been 
 dwelling. It continued to be the church architecture of 
 the West through the great church-building age of the 
 eleventh, and through most of the twelfth century, when 
 in the last decade it gave place generally to Gothic forms. 
 It has been well described by Quicherat as an “ architec- 
 ts qui renferne un peu d’Asiatique, un peu de Byzantin, 
 beaucoup de Romain, et elle est ni Asiatique, ni Byzan- 
 tine, ni Romain, mais Romane.” 1 
 
 The far-back Ancestor of the Romanesque of the 
 eleventh century was undoubtedly the earliest anti- 
 classical Roman form before any Greek features were 
 introduced into what is known as the classical Roman 
 style. The great invention, for that it virtually was, of 
 the cupola or dome in Constantinople, in the time of the 
 Emperor Justinian, and subsequently very generally 
 adopted in the East, and which largely influenced the 
 Romanesque architecture in Italy and in the south of 
 France, was unknown and completely ignored in Anglo- 
 Norman architecture. The Dome — the great feature of 
 
 1 Compare Be Caumont, “ Abdcddaire d’Architecture Religieuse ” ; 
 Quicherat, “ Moyen age, Melanges ” ; Corroyer, “ Architecture Romane ” ; 
 Freeman, “Norman Conquest,” vol. v. ; MUman, “Latin Christianity,” 
 vol. vl; Sir Gilbert Scott, “ Lectures on Mediaeval Architecture,” &c. 
 
 64 
 
The New Term c Romanesque ’ 
 
 the mighty Romanesque Church of S. Mark’s at Venice, of 
 S. Front in the south of France, and of many other less 
 known religious buildings of this period — is absolutely 
 non-existent in our old English architecture . 1 
 
 The aspect of “Romanesque,” the invention of the 
 great eleventh century “Revival,” is “religious in the 
 extreme, it possesses ” — as might be expected from the 
 strange fervour of the age which introduced it — “ a stern- 
 ness and dignity almost unearthly — a majestic severity of 
 sentiment, which seems, as it were, as if intended to 
 rebuke the unpitying barbarity of the age, and to awe 
 its rude and lawless spirits into obedience to the precepts 
 of the Divine law. Its aspect is religious to the utmost 
 extreme; but it expresses the stern, uncompromising 
 severity of religion, rather than its more winning and 
 elevating attributes.” 2 
 
 It was the spirit of Hildebrand and Lanfranc, and of 
 the great Oluny fathers, who reformed the laxity and 
 disorder which had arisen in the course of the misery 
 and gloom of the ninth and tenth centuries. ^Some- 
 what fancifully, but not untruthfully, Romanesque has 
 been painted as the “ La Trappe ” of architecture ; as shel- 
 tering this austerest of orders, this sternest of brother- 
 hoods, kneeling in ashes, and chaunting in an undertone, 
 with bowed heads, none but penitential psalms. Its 
 massive forms speak of the fear of sin — of the dread of a 
 God whose wrath could only be appeased by the Advent 
 
 1 Freeman (“Norman Conquest,” vol. v. chap, xxv 5 ), however, has an 
 interesting theory respecting the unacknowledgeu influence of the 
 Byzantine dome — “Wherever a central lantern, be it an octagonal 
 cupola or simply a square tower, forms the dominant crown of the 
 building, we see an architectural trace of the great architectural in- 
 vention of Eastern Rome. . . .” 
 
 2 Sir Gilbert Scott, “ Royal Academy Lectures,” vol. i. lecture ii. 
 
 65 E 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 of the Son. Many cathedrals, of which Gloucester is a 
 good example, as we shall presently see, austere at their 
 birth, are cheerful and even smiling as they are com- 
 pleted , 1 when the stern and gloomy forms of Eomanesque 
 gave place gradually to the lighter and more graceful 
 Gothic, with its exquisite and touching fancies. The 
 older and more austere style imperceptibly melted 
 into more ornamental forms, with their marvellous and 
 elaborate symbolism — the gloom and comparative dark- 
 ness which shrouded the massive arches and gigantic 
 shafts of the earlier builders being dispelled by the 
 mighty windows of translucent jewelled glass — the glory 
 of the Gothic schools, which in the last years of the 
 twelfth and through the thirteenth and fourteenth cen- 
 turies replaced the Eomanesque builders of the first age 
 of the “ Eevival.” 
 
 The great structural feature of the Eomanesque builders 
 was undoubtedly the introduction, or more accurately the 
 reintroduction, of the stone vault. The builders found 
 the churches of Western Europe, like the early Basilicas, 
 for the most part covered with timbered roofs — easily 
 destroyed, often the prey of fire. 
 
 It is interesting to mark how, gradually, they felt their 
 way to this new feature in church architecture. We have 
 already noticed the failure and collapse of their earlier 
 efforts during the first half of the eleventh century. In 
 the second half they discovered the lost secret of vault- 
 ing ; this vaulting, in the ninth and tenth centuries, had 
 been used, with rare exceptions, only in the case of quite 
 small and narrow crypts. In many, however, of the great 
 abbeys which arose in the second half of the building cen- 
 
 1 See Huysman, “ La Cathddrale,” chap. iii. 
 
 66 
 
The New Term c Romanesque ’ 
 
 tury — the eleventh — we find the side aisle, and sometimes 
 the apse at the east end, skilfully covered with a stone 
 vault ; but the large space of the nave was not as yet 
 undertaken. The vaulting of larger spaces was really 
 never attempted till quite the last days of the Roman- 
 esque builders ; 1 so in Gloucester we find both the south 
 and north aisles were stone vaulted, while the roof of the 
 nave was covered with a wooden ceiling. The original 
 Romanesque vaulting of the north aisle still remains, an 
 example of their beautiful enduring work, as far as they 
 dared undertake it, in the matter of roofing. The crypt 
 of Gloucester, as might have been expected, is vaulted, 
 the space so covered in the crypt being comparatively 
 narrow. 
 
 1 There are, however, in the south of France some exceptions to the 
 rule. The early vaulting of large spaces appears in such mighty 
 churches as S. Sernin, at Toulouse, where a great barrel vault was 
 erected as early as the closing years of the eleventh century. This 
 important church was consecrated by Pope Urban II. 
 
 
 67 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE STORY OF GLOUCESTER 
 
 In the second century of the Christian era, Gloucester 
 was already a considerable frontier fortress of the Roman 
 conquerors. After a time, upon the lines of that im- 
 portant fortified camp, which Claudius and Hadrian 
 originally built upon the banks of the Severn waters 
 over against the wild and turbulent tribes of the Silures 
 of Southern Wales, arose the great place of arms we 
 know as Gloucester, which soon became the chief city 
 and emporium of all the Severn Lands. The Roman 
 city is with us still, beneath our feet. A spade or pickaxe 
 can at this moment be scarcely used in parts of the 
 modern city without disclosing the mighty wall of the 
 Italian conqueror, the substructure of a temple or of 
 a municipal building, or the discoloured mosaics of a 
 temple. After some 300 years the Roman Legion left, 
 summoned back to defend Italy from the barbarian 
 hordes from the North, which in the fifth century were 
 threatening the fatherland. For about 1 50 years, after the 
 period of the Roman life in Britain came to an end, an 
 impenetrable mist, as far as history is concerned, settled 
 over Gloucester ; probably during this century and a half 
 the old Roman provincial life went on much as before, 
 though on a narrower and less magnificent scale. 
 
 But this came to an end too. Through the dim mist 
 which had settled over Gloucester after a.d. 409, we 
 
 68 
 
Gloucester Cathedral 
 
 catch sight of a terrible battle between the Northmen 
 invaders and the British provincials. At the battle of 
 Deorham, in the neighbourhood of Aquse-Solis, the 
 modern Bath, the prince or petty king of Gloucester, 
 among other British chieftains, was slain. The battle 
 and rout of Deorham took place in a.d. 577, and 
 Gloucester straightway, with other important places, 
 notably Bath (Aquae-Solis) and Cirencester (Corinium), 
 fell into the hands of the Northern conquerors, who were 
 West-Saxons under a chief named Ceawlin. 
 
 For about 100 years after the fight at Deorham, as far 
 as we know, Gloucester lay desolate and ruined. This 
 brings us nearly to the end of the seventh century. 
 Henceforward we are standing on surer ground as we 
 proceed with our story. A very ancient historical 
 document of high antiquity, printed in Dugdale’s 
 “ Monasticon,” many of the details of which are in 
 the main supported by the annals of the great Bene- 
 dictine House which subsequently was founded at 
 Gloucester, tells us how, towards the end of the seventh 
 century, the North-folk conquerors of the Severn Lands 
 became Christianised, and how a certain under-king 
 Osric, a near kinsman of Ethelred the Northman over- 
 king of the Mercians, founded the abbey of Gloucester. 
 In the first instance, the rulers of this newly founded 
 religious house were abbesses, and the new monastery, 
 founded no doubt in the first instance as a missionary 
 establishment with the view of Christianising the neigh- 
 bouring districts, was one of those singular double 
 foundations not uncommon among Celtic people, contain- 
 ing monks and nuns, dwelling, however, entirely apart, 
 but under the general rule of an abbess, like the famous 
 religious house of Whitby under the princess Hilda (a.d. 
 
 69 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 614 to 680). This Hilda of Whitby was a kinswoman 
 of Osric, who probably founded his new Gloucester 
 Abbey on the lines of his kinswoman Hilda’s house at 
 Whitby. Osric's sister, Kyneburga, became the first 
 abbess of Gloucester Abbey, and eventually this Osric, 
 who subsequently succeeded to the throne of Northumbria, 
 was in a.d. 729 interred in the Gloucester church which 
 he had founded, and his honoured remains, through all 
 the changing fortunes of the great church, have been 
 carefully preserved, and now (a.d. 1899) lie in the place 
 of honour on the north side of the altar or Holy Table 
 in the choir of the present cathedral. This Osric, like 
 Hilda, and Ethelred the Mercian king above alluded to, 
 belonged to the old royal stock of Deira, south of the 
 Northumbrian district, and claimed descent from Odin, 
 the deified hero of Norse mythology. 
 
 After Kyneburga, Osric’s sister, abbesses continued to 
 rule in the Gloucester monastery, ladies apparently of 
 high dignity, until the year 767. The last of these bears 
 the name, strange among the North-folk, of Eva. Then 
 succeeded a period of war and tumult, and the religious 
 house of Gloucester for some fifty years lay deserted 
 and desolate. But in a.d. 823, Beornwulf, king of Mercia, 
 rebuilt it and changed its form, placing in it secular 
 clergy, for the most part married, and living much as 
 laymen, though under a prescribed rule of life. This 
 arrangement lasted about 200 years, when again the form 
 of the religious house was changed by King Canute, who 
 introduced the Benedictine order — this was in the year 
 1032. Gloucester continued a Benedictine monastery 
 from the time of Canute until the final suppression of 
 monasteries in 1540 under Henry VIII. 
 
 The monastery, probably including the church, was 
 
 70 
 
Gloucester Cathedral 
 
 destroyed by fire, but through the exertions of Aldred, 
 Bishop of Worcester, afterwards Archbishop of York, 
 the abbey church was rebuilt from the very foundation, 
 and was completed in the year 1048. It was this Aldred 
 who placed the crown of England on the heads of Harold 
 the Saxon and William the Norman Conqueror. Some 
 portion of this abbey of Aldred certainly still exists in 
 the great Romanesque church of Gloucester, which in all 
 its glory and beauty, though many changes have passed 
 over it, is with us still. When Aldred completed his 
 building work here, Edward the Confessor was living. 
 
 The following little table of dates will serve to illustrate 
 the foregoing brief record of the fortunes of Gloucester 
 up to the close of the Anglo-Saxon period. 
 
 The Roman city was founded in the course of the 
 second century. 
 
 The Roman Legion left Britain and Gloucester . 409 
 
 For 160-170 years petty (native) British kings ruled 
 in the city. 
 
 Geawlin , the West Saxon, destroyed the city . . 577 
 
 Osric, the Mercian sub-king, founds the religious House ) 
 of Gloucester. His sister, Kyneburga, became abbess / 
 Abbesses continue to rule it until . . . . 767 
 
 [The abbey of Osric was deserted for about fifty years.] 
 Beornwulf, king of Mercia, rebuilt it, and gave it to ) 
 
 secular priests. They held it some 200 years . f ^ 
 
 King Canute gave the abbey to the Benedictines . 1032 
 
 The abbey was burnt, and was rebuilt by Bishop ) 
 
 Aldred of Worcester in the seventh year of King /■ 1048-9 1 
 Edward the Confessor 2 . . . , ) 
 
 1 The“Historia Monasterii” of Abbot Froucester gives a.d. 1058 
 as the date of Aldred’s Church ; 1048 is, however, specified in the 
 “ Memoriale.” 
 
 2 The substance of the facts relating to the early history of Gloucester 
 
 71 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 In the reign of Edward the Confessor, a.d. 1042-1066, 
 Gloucester became, and continued during the reign of 
 William the Conqueror, the place where the king wore his 
 crown at the Christmas Feast as he wore it at Winchester 
 at Easter. It was emphatically “ a royal city,” and be- 
 came one of the chief places for state gatherings for the 
 whole kingdom, one of the three capitals of England, the 
 other two being Westminster and Winchester. Very 
 many of the principal events in English history happened 
 at Gloucester during the reign of the Confessor, of 
 William the Conqueror, and of William Eufus. The 
 Confessor especially seems to have been constantly here, 
 and doubtless worshipped in the new minster built by 
 Aldred, and apparently completed in the seventh year of 
 his reign. 
 
 During the troublous times which followed the death of 
 Edward the Confessor the Benedictine house of Gloucester 
 faded away. Other circumstances, too, had apparently con- 
 tributed in the latter years of the Confessor to the falling 
 off in the number of its dwellers, and in a.d. 1072, when 
 the Norman Serlo was appointed Abbot, we read that 
 
 here given are in the main derived from the “ Historia Monasterii 
 S. Peter, Gloucestrias,” an account of the monastery from the founda- 
 tion to the early years of Kichard II., usually ascribed to Abbot 
 Froucester (A.D. 1381-1412). The registers of the abbey were put 
 together in Froucester’s time from materials possessed by that abbot. 
 Some few of the details given here are from the important “ Memoriale 
 ecclesias Gloucestrias compendiarium,” which is printed, as above 
 stated, by Dugdale, “Monasticon Anglicanum.” The original of this 
 document cannot be found. An English translation of the time of James 
 I. is in the Lansdowne MS. Some yet earlier memoranda relating to 
 what happened at Gloucester as early as a.d. 189, appear in the 
 “Memoriale.” But, as the writer tells us, he can give no certain warrant 
 for these very early particulars. They have, in consequence, been 
 omitted in the above short epitome of the history of Gloucester 
 Abbey. 
 
 72 
 
Gloucester Cathedral 
 
 only two monks and eight boys (probably novices) occu- 
 pied the monastery. 
 
 We now have come to the time when it is clear that 
 most of this great Romanesque cathedral was completed. 
 In 1072, about six years after the battle of Hastings, the 
 Norman Conquest was virtually over, and England, though 
 sorely wounded, was at peace, then under William and Lan- 
 franc, as we have noticed above, the great wave of Church 
 awakening passed over the land. As in so many other 
 ecclesiastical centres, Gloucester, its monastery and its 
 abbey, was placed under the rule of a Norman ecclesiastic. 
 It was a rough, stern piece of work, that Norman invasion 
 and conquest, bringing in its wake much suffering, inflict- 
 ing many cruel wrongs, but in many ways it brought new 
 life, new aims, noble purposes, especially into the Church. 
 One of the Conqueror’s chaplains, Serlo, a monk of S. 
 Michael’s (Mont S. Michel) was chosen for the task of 
 renovating the decaying religious house of Gloucester. 
 This Serlo seems to have been a man of singular power 
 and ability, devoted to Lanfranc and Lanfranc’s school, 
 and thoroughly imbued with the new spirit which was 
 then inspiring the Church far and wide on the continent 
 of Europe with new life and higher aspirations. Like 
 most of the great Norman ecclesiastics, Serlo was a great 
 builder. Appointed abbot in 1072, he does not seem to 
 have begun his building operations before 1089. During 
 this period of sixteen or seventeen years, he evidently 
 enormously increased the reputation of his “house.” 
 From being but a small decaying community of Benedic- 
 tines, under his rule it became one of the largest and most 
 prosperous of the English monastic establishments. The 
 old abbey of Aldred was, as years passed on, manifestly 
 
 73 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 too small for Serlo’s largely increased community, too 
 small for the crowds of lay-folk who worshipped in the 
 abbey. As we have already noticed, the great building 
 prelates of the close of the eleventh century, and through 
 much of the twelfth, in so many instances, rebuilt and 
 enlarged their churches, the great awakening of religion 
 bringing an enormous addition not only to the professed 
 workers, but also to the worshippers. 
 
 We perhaps shall never be able exactly to discriminate 
 in our Romanesque abbey of Gloucester how much of the 
 work of Aldred, who lived in the Confessor’s days, remains 
 to us, more perhaps than the modern antiquary usually 
 seems to think. Undoubtedly the western limb of the 
 great church is Serlo’s, including the nave with its vast 
 cylindrical columns and the two transepts, although the 
 Norman Romanesque work in the transepts is largely 
 veiled by the building operations of the fourteenth century. 
 The exact date of the Romanesque of the eastern limb, the 
 choir portion, is a more difficult problem to solve, while 
 the crypt is a still greater difficulty, as we shall see when 
 we come to describe it in detail. Here probably much 
 of the work of Aldred remains. 
 
 A stranger gazing for the first time on the solemn beauty 
 of the pale grey mass of Gloucester Cathedral, knowing 
 nothing of its story, would wonder if he were told how 
 that was the great “ Romanesque ” abbey about to be 
 described. For from whatever side the cathedral is ap- 
 proached, owing to the changes made by the builders of 
 the fourteenth century, there is little of Romanesque in 
 its outward appearance. Looking at it from the College 
 green or Close on the north side, a long row of Decorated 
 windows of the time of Edward I. meets the eye. Higher 
 
 74 
 
Gloucester Cathedral 
 
 still are seen the Perpendicular clerestory windows of a 
 later period, surmounted by parapets of a like date ; 
 above, the mighty tower, unmistakably a fifteenth 
 century creation, with its inimitable grace and beauty, 
 dominating the whole. All this seems to negative the 
 idea of its being a “ Romanesque ” building ; only on a 
 closer view, as one wanders round the charmed pile, 
 the round-headed windows of the great eastern limb of 
 the cathedral, and the tall flanking towers of the tran- 
 septs, with the same small round-headed windows, give 
 unmistakable evidence of an older school of builders than 
 the men of the new architectural schools of the Plan- 
 tagenet Edwards having been at work, at some remote 
 period, on the mighty building. 
 
 But any illusion that Gloucester Cathedral was the 
 offspring of a later period, when Decorated or Perpen- 
 dicular architecture, when Gothic in one form or another 
 had displaced for ever the older forms of architecture, is 
 dispelled when the threshold of the southern porch or of 
 the western doors is once crossed. 
 
 The stranger finds himself, as the outer portals close 
 behind him, in a building which, perhaps more than any 
 other of the mighty eleventh century abbeys in this or 
 any other land, at once shows him what was a vast 
 Romanesque church of the first great building age of the 
 awakening of the Church to real life. No ornament of 
 any kind serves to distract his attention; no vista of 
 round arch piled on round arch, as at Peterborough, or 
 Norwich, or Durham, charms the eye with its perplexing 
 beauty of detail. The nave of Gloucester is sternly, 
 austerely simple. Vast pillars of most unusual height, 
 coupled together with immense round arches, support a 
 small triforium and clerestory, which at first are hardly 
 
 75 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 noticed. The vista of vast columns and the mighty round 
 arches surmounting them completely fill the thoughts. 
 Here we have a most conspicuous example of the round 
 arched style. There is no mistaking the school which 
 designed these. It is indeed “ Romanesque ” ; some would 
 say even exaggerated Romanesque. Nowhere in the 
 world 1 is there anything like them. It would be a 
 misuse of language to call this singular and impressive 
 nave beautiful in the ordinary sense of the word. It is 
 not beautiful, but it is something more — it is awe-in- 
 spiring. It suggests power, endurance, devotion, dread 
 of the unseen world, the fear of God, rather than the love 
 of God, and, perhaps more than any other building in the 
 world, reveals to us the secret of the hearts of these 
 Romanesque designers who learned their craft in the first 
 fervour of the religious age which produced Hugh, abbot 
 of Cluny, Hildebrand, best known as Pope Gregory VII., 
 and Lanfranc, the minister and intimate of William the 
 Conqueror — of the age which culminated in the wild, 
 beautiful dream of the first and greatest crusade. 
 
 1 Of course I except Tewkesbury Abbey, some ten miles north of 
 Gloucester, but Tewkesbury was evidently built by the same architec- 
 tural school, probably by the same master of his craft, as Gloucester, 
 about ten years later. The nave is almost a copy of Gloucester, a little 
 smaller, but save in these two abbeys of the Severn Lands we nowhere 
 find similar features. 
 
 ?6 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE CRYPT 
 
 We shall return to this nave in due course, after speaking 
 of that part of the building which is manifestly, at least 
 in part, of older date even than the nave, which was com- 
 pleted before the eleventh century had run its course. 
 
 The crypt is the oldest part of our abbey. We will 
 henceforth preserve the title “ abbey ” in our “ study,” for 
 the term “cathedral” only belongs to it after the sup- 
 pression of the Benedictine house of Gloucester in the 
 days of Henry VIII., a.d. 1540-41. 
 
 The crypt of Gloucester is of great size, ranking in 
 extent and in dimensions with the more famous of the 
 great crypts of the churches of the West. 
 
 To trace the origin of the “ crypt,” we must go back to 
 the very early days of the Faith. In the first instance, 
 it was simply a very small chamber dug out underground, 
 in which in all secrecy were deposited the remains of 
 some Christian, in many instances a martyr, whose 
 memory was held in especial veneration. Over this under- 
 ground chamber a little oratory or church was erected, 
 the altar being placed immediately above the little sacred 
 mortuary chamber. The crypt which contained the re- 
 mains of the dead was called generally “ the confessionary.” 
 The name crypt, from the Greek word KpxnrTeiv, to hide 
 or conceal, speaks of the care with which the early Chris- 
 
 77 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 tians concealed the hallowed remains of one who was dis- 
 tinguished for devotion, who had been done to death for 
 the “Faith.” As time went on, these early confessionaries 
 were often enlarged for the reception of more of the faith- 
 ful dead whose memories were held in peculiar honour, 
 while at the same time the original little oratory or chapel 
 built over the “confessionary” became often a large church. 
 The symbolism of the statement of Revelation vi. 9, where 
 S. John relates how beneath the altar he saw the souls of 
 the martyrs, no doubt contributed to, if it did not suggest, 
 this early practice of erecting an altar exactly over the 
 confessionary. 
 
 Gradually after the “ Peace of the Church,” in the 
 days of Emperor Constantine, early in the fourth cen- 
 tury, it seems to have been the custom to construct a 
 considerable building under the church, known as the 
 crypt. This was in fact the old confessionary, greatly 
 enlarged. In it the tomb of the saint especially honoured 
 in the city or the district, and to whose memory the 
 church was originally dedicated, was carefully constructed, 
 as, for instance, in the crypt of S. Benignus at Dijon, and 
 in the crypt of S. Mary Magdalen, the Redeemer’s friend, 
 at Vdzelay. Such highly-prized remains, however, were 
 not always forthcoming, and as time went on, crypts were 
 often constructed where no “ confessionary ” containing 
 the body of a “ saint ” had previously existed, though of 
 course the majority of the earlier crypts contained the 
 bodies of one or more renowned holy persons. This 
 custom of erecting churches over a crypt, large or small, 
 although very general in the West, 1 was rarely, if ever, 
 
 1 Quicker at, in his “ Mdlanges d’Archdologie et d’Histoire,” tells 11s 
 how most of the Gallic churches erected in the Merovingian period 
 (ninth century) possessed a crypt. Some of these’are still existing. 
 
 78 
 
The Crypt 
 
 practised in the East. It is singular that the very ancient 
 Irish churches or oratories contain no confessionaries or 
 crypts. This probably points to the Eastern origin of 
 Irish Christianity. The churches whence they derived 
 their knowledge of Christianity had no such custom. 
 The crypt seems to have been peculiarly a Latin 
 feature. 
 
 In the great awakening of the eleventh century the 
 crypt became a common feature of the abbeys and 
 churches of the West which were rebuilt and restored, or 
 newly erected. In important churches they were not 
 unfrequently of large dimensions. In some instances, as 
 above stated, the original idea of their being the “ confes- 
 sionary,” or tomb of a saint or martyr, was partly lost 
 sight of. In Gloucester, for instance, no tradition of any 
 such tomb is preserved. The crypt was simply an under- 
 ground church. 
 
 Eadmer, the friend of Anselm, who filled the office of 
 precentor of Canterbury Cathedral during the earlier years 
 of the twelfth century, thus describes the crypt of the 
 great Canterbury church, which was the most important 
 of the Anglo-Saxon minsters, and had been restored and 
 partially rebuilt by Archbishop Odo, a.d. 950. This 
 church was destroyed by fire immediately after the 
 Norman Conquest. The Canterbury monk tells us how 
 he could bear witness to the state of the old church, for 
 he remembered it as a boy at school. 
 
 After describing the position of the altar, he went on to 
 say that ‘‘below was a crypt which the Eomans term ‘ the 
 Confessio ’ ; and its vault was raised so high that the plat- 
 form above it could only be reached by ascending many 
 
 79 
 
Crypt op S. Eutropius at Saintes. 
 
The Crypt 
 
 steps. Within the crypt, towards the east, was an altar, 
 which held within it the head of the blessed Fursaeus. 
 (This was a celebrated Irish missionary, who preached 
 with great success among the East Angles in the first 
 half of the seventh century.) Enclosed within the 
 curved portion of the crypt extended westward a single 
 passage-way leading to the resting-place of the blessed 
 Dunstan (Archbishop of Canterbury, who died in a.d. 
 988), which was separated from the crypt itself by a 
 strong mass of masonry; for that most holy father lay 
 buried at a great depth before the aforesaid steps, and 
 a large and lofty tomb of pyramidal form was erected 
 above him, having at the head of the saint the matutinal 
 altar.” 
 
 Curiously enough, the fashion, so universal in early 
 times in the churches of the West, and which was 
 largely followed in the great revival of the eleventh 
 century, of constructing these elaborate subterranean 
 churches, entirely went out towards the end of the 
 twelfth century. Even in the more important abbeys 
 they no longer appear. The reason for this great change 
 in the plans of churches, no doubt, was the practice, 
 which soon became general, of bringing up the hallowed 
 chests or coffins, which contained the remains of famous 
 saints, from the tomb in the crypt, and of placing them in 
 reliquaries above ground, behind one or other of the altars in 
 the choir. These reliquaries were of considerable size and 
 often of extraordinary richness, and were plainly visible as 
 they 'towered high above the altar. The earliest instance 
 of this removal of the bodies of the saints from the crypt 
 to the church above ground is perhaps in the abbey of 
 S. Denys, near Paris, where this bringing up bodies of 
 the holy dead was carried out by Abbot Suger, the famous 
 
 81 F 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 minister of Louis VII., King of France, in the first half of 
 the twelfth century. Suger brought up the bodies of S. 
 Dionysius (S. Denys), the Areopagite, S. Rusticus, and 
 S. Eleutherius, enshrining them in great magnificence 
 behind the high altar in the church above. This prac- 
 tice soon became very general in the cases of churches 
 which possessed such hallowed relics, and the fashion of 
 constructing crypts beneath churches completely went 
 out, and with very ; few exceptions no crypt was in- 
 troduced into any of the churches built after the last 
 half of the twelfth century. The new custom which 
 placed the remains of the saint in the conspicuous and 
 often gorgeous reliquary on high behind the altar, where 
 the worshippers could see the shrine, completely destroyed 
 the old raison d’Stre of the crypt, and thus effectually 
 extinguished the sentiment and tradition of earlier days 
 which demanded the presence of a crypt of large or small 
 dimensions, even though the church was not the fortunate 
 possessor of the relics of any renowned and specially 
 revered saint. 
 
 The general plan of the more important of these 
 subterranean churches is much the same, and will be 
 described when we speak of the crypt of Gloucester. 
 The most notable English crypts are at Canterbury, York, 
 Winchester, Gloucester, and Worcester. In France, the 
 crypts of S. Benignus at Dijon, and in the cathedral of 
 Chartres, are perhaps the vastest in size. That of Vezelay 
 (Yonne) is specially interesting, as it contained tradi- 
 tionally the sepulchre of S. Mary Magdalene, and still 
 preserves the remains of a very ancient crypt. That of 
 S. Eutropius at Saintes (Charente Inffirieure) is of great 
 magnificence and of large size. S. Avitus of Orleans 
 boasts one of the most ancient of existing crypts. It cer- 
 
 82 
 
The Crypt 
 
 tainly dates from before the ninth century. In Germany, 
 Spires possesses a famous crypt. At Bamberg and at 
 Strasburg there are two crypts. In some of these 
 curious subterranean churches there are wells, the waters 
 
 Crypt of S. Seurin. 
 
 of which in certain instances were supposed to contain 
 healing powers. 
 
 In the enormous crypt beneath the cathedral of 
 Chartres, the most ancient parts of which date back to 
 the fourth century, there was an ancient well (Puit des 
 
 83 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 Saints Forts) into which tradition says the bodies of 
 S. Modeste and other martyrs were cast in the first ages 
 of Christianity ; but the well in question has been built 
 over, and the exact situation of this sacred spot is now 
 uncertain . 1 
 
 The following vivid picture of a service still held in 
 one of the most ancient of these strange subterranean 
 churches at Chartres, still used for worship, has been lately 
 given by a French writer. “ The centre aisle, forming a 
 low nave, had chairs on either side, leaving a narrow 
 space to give access to the altar. It was scarcely 
 possible to see. The sanctuary was lighted only by tiny 
 lamps from the roof, in little saucers of lurid orange or 
 dull gold. An extraordinary mild atmosphere prevailed 
 in this underground structure, which was also full of a 
 singular perfume, in which a musty odour of hot wax 
 mingled with a suggestion of damp earth. But this was 
 only the background, the canvas, so to speak, of the 
 perfume, and was lost under the embroidery of fragrance 
 which covered it, the faded gold, as it were, of oil in 
 which long-kept aromatic herbs had been steeped, and 
 old incense powder dissolved. It was a weird and 
 mysterious vapour, as strange as the crypt itself, which 
 with its furtive lights and breadths of shades, was at 
 once penitential and soothing. . . . The tiny transept 
 had its little altar with a Greek cross in relief against 
 a purple disk. Overhead the enormous curve of the 
 
 1 See generally on the special architectural features of the crypts 
 above noticed, and on the subject generally, Quiche-rat (“Melanges 
 Archdoliques, &c.”), Be Caumont (“Abdcddaire de l’Architecture 
 Rdligeuse ”), Corroyer (“Architecture Romaine ”), Viollet-le-Buc 
 (“Dictionnaire de 1’ Architecture,” s.v. Crypte, &c. ”), A, Clcrval 
 (“Chartres”), and the essay on English church architecture by G. G. 
 Scott (1881). 
 
 84 
 
The Crypt 
 
 vaulting hung heavy, and so low that a man could touch 
 it by stretching out an arm. It was as black as the 
 mouth of a chimney, and scorched by the fires that in 
 past days had consumed the successive cathedrals built 
 above it. ... A sacristan came in and lighted the tapers 
 on the high altar ; then strings of silver-gilt hearts 
 became visible in the semicircle all along the walls, 
 reflecting the blaze of flames, and forming a glory for a 
 statue of the Virgin sitting stiff and dark, with a Child 
 on her knees. This was the famous Virgin of the Cavern, 
 Ndtre Dame de sous terre of Chartres. ... In this 
 atmosphere of prayer, crushed in by the heavy roof,” 
 the writer tells us how, “ in the midst of kneeling Sisters 
 of Mercy and other worshippers, he was struck with a 
 sense of some early Christian rite buried in the catacombs. 
 Here were the same ecstatic tenderness, the same faith ; 
 and it was possible to imagine some apprehension of 
 surprise, and some eagerness to profess the faith in the 
 face of danger. And thus in a vague image, the sacred 
 cellar held the dim picture of the neophytes assembled 
 so long since in the underground caverns of Rome .” 1 
 Very different indeed to the Chartres crypt is the 
 appearance of the subterranean church at Gloucester. 
 Whereas at Chartres, it has never, or at all events only 
 during a brief period in the revolutionary years at the 
 close of the eighteenth century, ceased to be used as a 
 favourite and revered place of worship ; here at Gloucester 
 for some three centuries and a half it has been utterly 
 disused. The great English crypt presents a forlorn, 
 almost a ruined, appearance. The altars are gone, the 
 side chapels defaced, the massive walls are discoloured, 
 the pavement is rough and uneven, no trace of the 
 1 Huysman’s “ La Cathedrale.” 
 
 85 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 ancient colour and gold which once adorned it remains ; 
 only in quite late years have the custodians of the 
 cathedral at Gloucester paid any attention at all to this 
 precious relic of Aldred and Serlo, the Saxon and Norman 
 builders of the eleventh century; and their care has 
 been simply confined to the few necessary repairs to the 
 masonry, which, however, was too solid and massive to 
 require much attention. Perhaps the antiquary may 
 rejoice at this neglect, as nothing has been done in the 
 past 350 years which can interfere with his observation 
 of the ancient details, indeed they are more easily studied 
 than would have been possible in the early years of the 
 sixteenth century when the Benedictine dwellers in 
 Gloucester were ejected, for everything which veiled 
 the old masonry has been long removed. But the 
 reverent worshipper is naturally dismayed and shocked 
 when he wanders through this ancient, deserted, and, 
 alas ! desecrated sanctuary. 
 
 But, as we said, the present state of the Gloucester 
 crypt is everything that the curious antiquary could 
 desire ; unhindered by any attempt at restoration, or by 
 any furniture or decoration, he can at his leisure examine 
 the original masonry of the different builders, now bare 
 and stripped, and draw his conclusions as to the dates 
 of this, for the most part, most ancient work. 
 
 The arrangement of this subterranean church follows 
 pretty closely the ordinary arrangement of the other more 
 important crypts on the continent and in England. It 
 extends underneath the choir overhead, the aisles sur- 
 rounding the choir, and the small projecting chapels. 
 “ Its outer walls are about 10 feet thick, and the aisle floor 
 is on an average 8 feet below the level of the soil 011 the 
 outside of the building. The centre part is divided by 
 
 86 
 
The 
 
 ancient co’ 
 
 only in 
 
 cathedr 
 
 precis 
 
 buib' 
 
 bef 
 
 ir 
 
 »o 
 
The Crypt 
 
 two rows of small columns, irregularly placed, from which 
 spring arches carrying the floor of the choir above. In 
 design these small columns in the centre of the crypt 
 vary greatly as to their capitals, abaci, and bases, all of 
 which are strikingly different from the half-columns with 
 cushion capitals attached to the outer walls, on which 
 rest the ribs they mutually carry. So different are these 
 two rows of columns of the central part as to make it very 
 questionable if by far the larger portion of these little 
 pillars does not belong to a yet earlier church .” 1 As 
 regards the enormously thick semicircular columns in the 
 ambulatory which encircles the inner portion of the crpyt, 
 although of great antiquity, and of early Norman work, 
 they do not belong to the original structure, but they are 
 really casings built round and enclosing the earlier and 
 smaller piers, and the ribs springing from their capitals 
 are built under as with a view to support the earlier 
 vaulting. There are at the east end two large piers of 
 Perpendical work, no doubt whatever erected in the four- 
 teenth century to carry the increased weight overhead of 
 the choir, which was carried up to a much greater height 
 in the restoration and alteration of the abbey in the days 
 of Edward III. 
 
 Thus in the Gloucester crypt we find work apparently 
 of four distinct dates. The massive piers at the east end 
 are unmistakably of the middle of the fourteenth century, 
 and are clearly “ Perpendicular ” in style ; and the reason 
 of their being placed in the position in which we find 
 them is clear — the great weight of the raised choir of 
 the builders of Edward III.’s time rendered necessary 
 additional foundation works, and these piers were then 
 
 1 F. S. Waller (resident architect of the cathedral), “Notes and 
 Sketches.” 
 
 87 * 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 erected for the purpose. They did their work well, 
 for they have sufficed to carry the additional weight of 
 the changed choir, and though five centuries and a half 
 have elapsed since they were erected, no sign of sub- 
 sidence or any other mischief has anywhere appeared. 
 The great, round half-columns, with the cushion capitals, 
 in the ambulatory which encircles the inner portion of 
 the crypt, are without doubt the work of Serlo, at the 
 close of the eleventh century. The date of the smaller 
 piers round which they are built is uncertain ; not im- 
 probably they formed part of Aldred’s church, completed 
 in 1048 or 1058. We pass to the inner division of the 
 crypt. Here the little double row of columns belong 
 without doubt to an earlier date than any of Serlo’s work. 
 That they represent a part of Aldred’s work is highly 
 probable ; but it is a question whether they do not repre- 
 sent a yet earlier school of builders even than Aldred’s ; 
 in which case, when Aldred rebuilt the church in the 
 days of Edward the Confessor, he re-used these pillars 
 belonging to the older church which he replaced. These 
 pillars have been dated by some experts as not much 
 later than the year 1000, possibly even earlier. Some 
 years before Aldred’s restoration, the records tell us that 
 in a . d . 1022 King Canute made a great change in the 
 abbey of Gloucester, and replaced the secular priests, 
 introduced by Beornwulf, King of Mercia in A.D. 823, 
 by Benedictine monks. Building work may have been 
 carried on when this great change of Canute was effected, 
 but we possess no account of it. On the whole, it seems 
 safer to ascribe this part of the crypt to Aldred, although 
 the little columns in question seem to suggest an older 
 date. 
 
 Radiating from the ambulatory which encircles the 
 
 88 
 
The Crypt 
 
 inner portion are five chapels. Most of the work in these 
 is of the time of Serlo (close of the eleventh century), but 
 they contain the ruined remains of Sedilia, altars, Piscinee, 
 &c., generally of early date, but subsequent to Serlo. One 
 of them, on the north side, was beautifully vaulted and 
 decorated as late as the latter part of the thirteenth 
 century. 
 
 There are, as we have remarked, no remains of any 
 shrine or tomb of any special saint or holy man in the 
 Gloucester crypt, nor in the monkish records or in the 
 “ Memoriale ” is there any tradition of such an inter- 
 ment. This crypt is an example of the “sentiment” 
 or fashion which in not a few instances suggested, 
 in very early times, the building of these vast subter- 
 ranean churches, even where there was no tradition of 
 a tomb of martyr or saint. The ancient practice during 
 the second and third centuries, of the worship of the 
 early Christians in the Poman catacombs, no doubt con- 
 tributed to this “ sentiment.” 
 
 In the sad and melancholy underground church, which 
 sleeps its death-sleep beneath the glorious Gloucester 
 minster, with its low-browed arches, its massive, heavy 
 pillars, its curious brown and pallid tints, its ruined altars, 
 here and there its scarred and broken tracery, there is a 
 strange pathos, a something which goes home to many 
 hearts ; it tells the story of a long-forgotten life of super- 
 stition it may have been, but still of an earnest, prayer- 
 filled life in the midst of a rude and war-filled age; it 
 seems to tell of men, world-weary, sin-weary, who had 
 crept in here to pray and to meditate during the few 
 months, perhaps years, still left of a life spent in very 
 different scenes from the crypt and cloisters of the abbey 
 church, and there to die on the ashes -strewn floor 
 
 89 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 of a cell of the infirmary hard by — not sorrowfully, not 
 gladly, perhaps, but still trustfully, with hope in their 
 hearts, with even more than hope, with confidence — 
 feeling that beneath them were the everlasting arms. 
 Here in this crypt, no doubt, had knelt many a Nor- 
 man baron who had put on the Benedictine cowl; 
 many a man-at-arms who had fought under the Plan- 
 tagenet banner on stricken fields — men who had sinned 
 deeply in their day, and in an agony of sorrow and 
 remorse had sought peace in the great Gloucester house 
 of prayer, and probably had found it. The memories of 
 unnumbered prayers are thick in this solemn, deserted 
 crypt. The gorgeous choir above, with its wealth of 
 colour and gilding, with its carved stalls, its vast trans- 
 lucent window, its wondrous roof — all tell still of service 
 of song and prayer, but of song and prayer unbroken for 
 eight long centuries — service of prayer paid to God and 
 His Christ, changed, adapted to successive generations, 
 but unbroken, ever ascending, incense - like, to God’s 
 Throne. But in the deserted and solitary crypt all this 
 is but a memory. 
 
 90 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE NAVE OF GLOUCESTER: ITS ARCHITECTURE AND 
 PROBABLE SCHEME OF COLOUR DECORATION 
 
 There is no doubt about the date of the Gloucester nave. 
 It was undoubtedly the work of Serlo, the first Norman 
 abbot. The period spent in building this part at least of 
 the massive and mighty church is usually given as about 
 eleven years, from a.d. 1089 to 1100, in which year we 
 read of a solemn consecration by Bishop Wulstan of Wor- 
 cester, who preached on that occasion a famous sermon on 
 peace. Serlo was a good example of the higher ecclesi- 
 astics of his time. He was one of the new school of 
 earnest and devoted prelates, a man we read “ humble to 
 the good, menacing and terrible to the proud.” An able 
 organiser, trained in the stern school of the monastics of 
 the second half of the eleventh century, devoted and 
 earnest, he had attracted the notice of the Conqueror and 
 Lanfranc, and on the recommendation of Osmund, the 
 chancellor, in a.d. 1072, was appointed abbot of Glou- 
 cester on the death of Abbot Wulfstan, who had gone 
 on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and died there. 
 
 We know little of Serb’s earlier career beyond the 
 fact that he had been once a secular priest, a canon of 
 Avranches. Then, desirous of leading a more austere life, 
 he became a monk at S. Michael’s Mount, and eventually 
 a chaplain of William the Conqueror. 
 
 Gloucester Abbey and Monastery possessed a great 
 
 9 1 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 name and a far-reaching tradition. It was specially 
 important owing to the city which clustered under the 
 shadow of the religious house, which had long been a 
 favourite royal residence. The Confessor often dwelt in 
 Gloucester. Athelstan had died there. The “Gemots,” 
 or public assemblies or Parliaments held at Gloucester 
 under the presidency of the sovereigns during the tenth 
 and eleventh centuries, were numerous. 
 
 The Conqueror when in England loved to spend his 
 Christmas feast in Gloucester. It shared with Win- 
 chester and Westminster the position of a royal city. 
 
 But as an ecclesiastical foundation, when the Normans 
 ruled in England, whatever it once had been, it was in a 
 state of decay. Perhaps the 1 ST orman chronicler exaggerates 
 this fallen state of the religious house when he tells us 
 how at Serlo’s advent only three monks and some six 
 boys remained in the once famous monastery. Be this 
 as it may, under Serlo the Norman monk, and with the 
 help and protection of William and Matilda, the little 
 company rapidly grew, and Serlo, before he passed away 
 ruled over a hundred monks, and to these must be added 
 a crowd of servants, officials, and novices, who made up 
 the company of an important Benedictine house of the 
 eleventh and twelfth centuries. Serlo undoubtedly raised 
 the Gloucester monastery to the position of one of the 
 most famous monastic establishments of the land, a 
 position it maintained until the day of the dissolution 
 in 1540, some four and a half centuries later. 
 
 The Norman monk, besides his other qualifications, was 
 emphatically a great builder. His work here at Gloucester 
 ranks with that of Gundulf at Rochester, Herbert of 
 Losino-a of Norwich, William of S. Carilef, and Flambard 
 of Durham. It is doubtful whether or no he designed, or 
 
 92 
 
The Nave 
 
 merely completed, the east limb of the great abbey, but 
 the nave, with its amazing pillars and massive arches, 
 which, with Tewkesbury Abbey, stands alone in these 
 particulars, was certainly the work and thought of Serlo 
 and his architect. 
 
 This is how the Guide Books describe it : “ The nave, 
 as it is, 174 feet long by 34^ feet, 67 feet 7 inches high, is 
 quite unique. The unique feature is the great height of 
 the massive circular columns, fourteen in number, and 
 the consequently somewhat dwarfed triforium or gallery 
 running over the main arches. The original Norman 
 clerestory and the flat wooden roof of Serlo is gone, and 
 the present vaulted roof was the work of the monks in 
 a.d. 1242, when a fire had destroyed the wooden roof. 
 The effects of this fire are still visible in the vivid red 
 colour of the lower parts of the huge columns, stained 
 by the burning rafters fallen from the roof. Serlo had 
 vaulted the aisles, but the skill of the early Romanesque 
 builders of his day was not equal to the vaulting of so 
 large a space as the nave. His vaulting still remains, 
 however, in the north aisle.” 
 
 The fourteen pillars are 30 feet 7 inches in height, 
 about twice the height of those at Norwich. The Norman 
 piers have round unadorned capitals. A cable moulding 
 runs along just above the arches. The west end of the 
 nave, for some unknown reason, probably on account of 
 the falling of the western towers, was reconstructed by 
 Abbot Morwent, a.d. 1421-27, in the style known as the 
 Perpendicular. 
 
 The general aspect of this nave, grand and massive 
 though it be, is cold, not beautiful, but impressive and 
 solemn. At night, when lit up and filled with wor- 
 shippers, the cold, dead character disappears, and it 
 
 93 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 presents an appearance of rare and peculiar beauty. 
 But viewed in daylight, it lacks something. It was not 
 thus that Serlo left it, not thus that the great mediaeval 
 abbots who followed Serlo were accustomed to see the 
 nave of their glorious abbey. From the end of the 
 eleventh century down to the suppression of the 
 Benedictine house in 1540 the now cold white nave 
 glowed with colour and with gold ; nor is this mere sur- 
 mise. Very carefully have the traces of the vanished 
 glory been searched out, with this result. 1 “ Although,” 
 writes one who, from long years of scholarly observation, 
 is singularly competent to speak here, “ painting and gilding 
 were no doubt largely employed to ornament the ribs and 
 bosses of the vaulting, the capitals of the columns, the 
 various mouldings, the plain surfaces of the walls, the 
 monumental effigies, &c., yet comparatively few traces 
 remain. This is chiefly owing to this mode of enrichment 
 having been obliterated by whitewash, which can hardly 
 be removed without injury to the colour beneath. . . . 
 During the repairs of the nave (1856), painting was dis- 
 covered on the vaulting. [He is speaking of the work 
 done in a.d. 1242, after the fire had destroyed the original 
 wooden roof of Serlo, which, without doubt, was coloured 
 and gilded.] The vaulting shafts are of marble, and the 
 capitals, corbels, bosses, and mouldings were formerly 
 
 1 This accurate description of the remains of colour and gold is 
 chiefly quoted from the notes of Mr. F. S. Waller, who for some forty 
 years or more has been the resident architect of the Cathedral, 
 assisted at his own request from time to time by Sir Gilbert Scott and 
 Mr. Pearson. 
 
 It may be as well to state that at the present time and for many years 
 past the most conservative treatment of all the old fabric has been 
 adopted, defective portions, whether of wood or stone, have been, and 
 are now, simply repaired but never renewed, unless they have become 
 untrustworthy and dangerous. 
 
 94 
 
The Nave 
 
 painted. The painting may be thus described. The 
 hollow of the abacus of the capitals red, the lower members 
 of the same green, the whole of the bell red, the leaves 
 alternately green and yellow, with the stalks running 
 down of the same colour with the red bell of the capital, 
 the vertical moulding between the marble shafts red and 
 blue alternately, the lower shafts green and blue, with red 
 in the hollows. The foliage on these also is green and 
 yellow. Some of the horizontal mouldings are partly 
 coloured also. The bosses in the groining are yellow and 
 green, as in the capitals. All the colouring, which was very 
 rich, was effected with water-colours. In one instance 
 only has any gold been discovered, and that upon one of 
 the bosses in the roof, other gold work having' quite dis- 
 appeared.” 
 
 ‘ Traces of painting were found on the large columns. 
 A diapering of red stars can still be detected on the second 
 pier from the east, on the north side of the nave. On the 
 upper part of the west side of the corresponding column 
 on the south were indications of a light canopy of wood 
 or stone fastened to the face of the pier, the whole sur- 
 rounded by painting, divided at intervals by bands en- 
 riched with fleur-de-lis and emblems of the Trinity, and 
 the interspaces draped with the letters I.H.S. and M with 
 crowns over them. 
 
 Over the west door, opening into the cloister from the 
 north aisle of the nave, are traces of twelve saints painted 
 in the stone panels. The five crockets of the arch over 
 the door were certainly gilded. On the main ribs of 
 Serlo’s original vaulting in this aisle many stars, orna- 
 mented crosses, &c., and dark colouring in the hollows 
 of the diagonal ribs remain.” 
 
 Although we are here dwelling on “ the nave,” it will 
 
 95 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 be worth while, as we are especially dealing with the 
 question of mediasval colouring, briefly to quote the results 
 of the observations of this careful and accurate “ master 
 of the works ” of our day and time on colour ” remains in 
 other parts of our cathedral. “ On the south wall of the 
 chapel (S. Andrew’s), east of the south transept, traces 
 of a figure in slight relief were lately found. Around were 
 painted figures of angels and scrolls. The next chapel to 
 the east had the walls painted with roses, separated by 
 horizontal stripes, both of a red colour. The vault, walls, 
 and windows of the north chapel, in the triporium over 
 Boteler’s chapel, are still covered with painting, chiefly 
 scroll work, of a red colour, and of the fourteenth century. 
 The panelling at the back of the seditia of the choir, prior 
 to its restoration, exhibited the remains of red colour 
 in its forty-eight small compartments. The bosses in the 
 vaulting at the east end of the choir were coloured red 
 and blue. Traces of red and other colours are discernible 
 on the columns of the ambulatory of the choir. On the 
 wooden panelling of the chapel of S. John the Baptist, in 
 the south transept, at the back of the choir- stalls, are 
 painted in diagonal rows the initials of the saint, S. in 
 blue and J. B. in red, under crowns. The reredos in this 
 chapel, once ornamented with painting, is still left, though 
 much defaced and broken. 
 
 The niches and shafts between the windows in the 
 Lady Chapel still show plain indications of colour. But 
 the reredos exhibits the finest remains of this kind of 
 u decoration in the Cathedral. On account of its having 
 been sadly defaced in the Reformation, or more probably 
 in the great Rebellion, it was covered up by Bishop 
 Benson (in the eighteenth century) with a plain stucco 
 front with rays, clouds, and cherubs painted on it. This 
 
The Nave 
 
 was removed in the year 1 8 li , when the delicate and 
 elaborate tabernacle work covered with gilding and oil 
 colours was brought to light. The prevailing back- 
 grounds of the statues (all lost) are red, but some of 
 the vertical mouldings are in blue. The three principal 
 niches have gilt diaperings of foliage, cinquefoils, &c. 
 Other portions have suns or stars, the dividing shafts 
 have twisted bands with intersecting lines enclosing 
 fleur-de-lis most delicately drawn and gilded. Other 
 remains of painting and gilding will be found on the 
 monumental effigies, especially that of Abbot Parker (or 
 Mai verne sixteenth century), in places most protected 
 from injury.” Even in the curious, little seen, incon- 
 spicuous cloister passage, adorned with very early 
 Norman arcading of the eleventh century, leading from 
 the east walk of the cloisters into the garden, show, in 
 the arcades towards the eastern end of the “ way,” clear 
 traces of very ancient wall painting. 
 
 Such an accurate and patient summary of the remains 
 of colour and gilding in a great Komanesque abbey com- 
 piled from observations stretching over many years, leads 
 to the calm and deliberate conclusion that certainly from 
 the end of the eleventh century to well-nigh the middle 
 of the sixteenth century, our fathers, who designed, built, 
 altered, as their various schools of architecture came into 
 fashion, the mighty mediaeval churches, very largely used 
 colour and gold as a means of ornamentation in every part 
 of the building. Very little of a great Benedictine abbey 
 indeed seems to have been uncoloured. Our present taste 
 — some would say want of taste — may severely condemn 
 this love of colour, but the fact is there, and in all 
 studies and descriptions of these inimitable works of our 
 “ fathers ” this general use of colour deserves a far more 
 careful and sympathetic consideration than this great 
 
 97 G 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 feature in the mediaeval abbeys and churches is in the 
 habit of receiving. It is too often slurred over, for- 
 gotten, ignored. After 450 years — many of them years 
 of utter neglect and carelessness — after several raids 
 of iconoclasts, of men often earnest and devoted, it is 
 true, but who hated the soft, brilliant loveliness of 
 these decorations of the mediaeval artist as tending to 
 superstitious reverence — after many coats of destructive 
 and hateful whitewash plastered over tomb and altar, 
 over wall and roof, over pillar and arch, still the patient 
 investigator finds well-nigh everywhere the dim lines of 
 the old fair colour, and the tarnished, almost obliterated 
 remains of gold. He finds it (this colouring) in every por- 
 tion of this scarred grey abbey, some of it laid on by the 
 men of Abbot Serlo, William the Conqueror’s chaplain ; 
 some of it, the handiwork of Abbot Thokey, the friend of 
 the hapless Plantagenet Edward II., and of his successor, 
 Wigmore, the founder of the Perpendicular School ; some 
 of it owing to the loving care of the last abbots who 
 bore rule in the storied Benedictine house, just before the 
 crash came, when Henry VIII. was king. 
 
 The colours lay once, some would say, in the form of 
 a barbaric adornment on the huge cylindrical pillars of 
 the Romanesque nave, and on the mighty piers of the old 
 Norman or Norman-Saxon choir-ambulatory, they gleamed 
 and shone on the early attempts of timid vaulting in the 
 aisles. They were laid on in a picturesque confusion of 
 beauty over the elaborate work in the early English 
 clerestory, and a little later over the daring vaulting 
 of the nave. 1 And the taste for colour grew as time 
 
 1 G. S. Scott, in his essay on “ English Church Architecture,” 
 thus writes of S. Albans Abbey, the first in rank among abbeys, 
 built by Paul, an ambitious monk of S. Stephen’s, at Caen, a re- 
 
 98 
 
The Nave 
 
 went on. The gorgeous vaulting of the soaring choir 
 was aflame with colour and with gold. The Lady Chapel, 
 probably never finished, was once, as far as we can 
 judge, splendid with coloured devices, and if, as some 
 think, the colour ended where the great glass wall begins 
 in that delicate and matchless Mary Chapel, the white 
 walls of the upper portion of the Lady Chapel were 
 left simply as a silver setting to the beautiful stained- 
 glass windows, the great feature of the Lady Chapel, 
 
 lation of Lanfranc, a.d. 1077: “Plain as is the internal architec- 
 ture of this enormous pile, the arches being perfectly square 
 though of several orders . . . nevertheless, the effect aimed at 
 was, m relief, one of great refinement. ... The whole was de- 
 corated in colour. Of this system of coloured enrichment sufficient 
 remains to enable us to form a fair notion of what the complete 
 effect must have been. . . . Almost every portion of this fine work— 
 [Mr. Scott is speaking of the north side of the nave of the noble church 
 where the original Norman design remains unaltered ; the words were 
 written in 1881] shows remains of a coloured decoration. Against 
 each pier stood an altar ; over each of these nave altars is painted a 
 crucifixion, having below it a predella of smaller subjects which have 
 reference to the dedication of this particular altar. . . . These paint 
 ings range from the work of the original builders down to the early 
 part of the thirteenth century, but they are all treated on the same 
 simple system, and produce both as to colour and treatment a per- 
 fectly harmonious whole.” Our writer went on to say how “Every 
 ancient edifice, whether of Egyptian, Greek, Roman, or Mediaeval 
 times, was carefully faced internally with wrought stone, or with 
 plaster, and decorated throughout in colour, or it might be encrusted 
 with marble and mosaic. The notion of leaving the interior of a 
 building as rough and rugged as an exterior generally must be has 
 been from a very early date abandoned by civilised man. ... A 
 Norman interior so treated ( i.e . restored upon the principle of a spurious 
 truthfulness, its painted decorations, its enriched plaster-work all 
 removed, and the naked brickwork carefully pointed in coloured 
 mortar), serves to illustrate the barbarism, not of the eleventh centurv 
 but of the nineteenth.” ■” 
 
 Nor in matters of coloured decoration did the great medieval archi- 
 tects by any means propose to confine themselves to the interiors of 
 their noble erections. Viollet-le-Duc dwells eloquently on the splendid 
 
 99 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 through which the light came in soft waves of ruby 
 red and sapphire blue. There was scarcely any white 
 glass apparently, not even pearly grisaille, as far as we 
 can see, in this typical Benedictine abbey of the green 
 Severn lands. The windows were all richly stained, 
 but save in the famous East window of the Choir and 
 in the great East window of the Mary Chapel, with its 
 beautiful patchwork tapestry made up of fragments from 
 many an ancient broken window, the old stained glass 
 has to a great extent disappeared. Still enough brilliant 
 
 effect of a judicious use of colour and of gold on parts even of the 
 exterior of a mighty abbey. He takes as his example the Cathedral of 
 Notre Dame at Paris, erected between a.d. 1140 or 1160 and a.d. 1235, 
 being commenced at that early period when Romanesque was giving 
 place everywhere to Gothic forms The exterior of the great west 
 front of that noble House of God of Notre Dame, once glowed with 
 colour. The three grey portals were richly adorned. Above the 
 portals, the famous gallery of kings was all ablaze with colour and 
 gold, and the stone tracing of the vast rose window, higher still, 
 gleamed too with rich gilding. 
 
 Bitterly lamenting the cold and monotonous taste of later times, he 
 asks “ Pourquoi nous privons-nous de toutes ces ressources fournies par 
 Tart.” From the sixteenth century, however, onwards, all attempts at 
 colour in the exterior of this glorious building had apparently ceased. 
 
 It is of course, nowhere even suggested in these remarks that colour 
 adornment was universal or even common on the exterior walls of an 
 abbey, or on any portion of them, at any period of the Middle Ages ; 
 probably reasons for economy which were ever carefully weighed would 
 stand in the way of such a costly and perishable ornamentation. It is 
 only asserted that such adornment was regarded as a high ideal, 
 seldom, perhaps, carried out save in such buildings as in the great 
 Paris Cathedral. 
 
 Very few, if any, remains of this beautiful exterior coloured work 
 anywhere remain to us. The rays of the sun, the rains and winds of 
 five or six hundred summers and winters, the unreasoning fury of 
 the iconoclast, the too skilfully used tools of the restorer have effectu- 
 ally done their work. And what our “ fathers ” have worked in this 
 particular has disappeared, and only lives in a few rare fragmentary 
 remains, and in the few detailed records of their labours which have 
 chanced to come down to us. 
 
 IOO 
 
The Nave 
 
 fragments, plentifully dotted about, in the many windows 
 remain to tell us the story of the glass artist of the 
 past. Once, it is certain, our cathedral of Gloucester — 
 Nave and Aisles, Choir and Transepts, the broad Ambu- 
 latories and the stately Lady Chapel, like the glorious 
 cathedral of Chartres now, received its light through the 
 medium of jewelled glass of the painters of the thirteenth, 
 fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE NAVE : WHENCE CAME THE MEDIAEVAL 
 PASSION FOR COLOUR ? 
 
 Whence now came this great passion for. colour ? As 
 the churches and abbeys were multiplied in the great 
 awakening of the eleventh century, and became ever 
 larger, grander, more stately, as the century drew to an 
 end, this love of colour seems gradually to have seized 
 upon men. Wall-painting of these far-back ages has faded 
 and indeed well-nigh disappeared, but the coloured glass 
 fragments that remains tell us of the progress which was 
 made in the art men had come to love. The matchless 
 windows at the west end of Chartres, dating from the 
 first half of the twelfth century, are silent but eloquent 
 witnesses of the skilful glass colourists who lived in the 
 half-century which followed the Conqueror’s death, and 
 the colouring of the glass of the twelfth and thirteenth 
 centuries, be it remembered, has never been surpassed and 
 scarcely ever equalled. These dates give us a clue to the 
 answer to our question — ivhence came this taste, this 
 passion for colour — was it not from the East ? The 
 thousands of crusaders, including in their ranks many 
 monks and ecclesiastics, brought back the taste for rich 
 and varied colouring, and developed it as years went on. 
 The date of the great mediaeval love for colour exactly 
 coincides with the era of those strange Eastern wars which 
 
 102 
 
 
Colour in Churches 
 
 began to absorb men’s hearts at the close of the eleventh 
 century, and which preserved their curious attraction 
 all through the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The 
 first crusade, with its enormous host under Godfrey de 
 Bouillon and Robert of Normandy was in a.d. 1095. The 
 second , excited by the preaching of Bernard of Clairvaux, 
 bears the date of a.d. i 147. The third, in which Richard 
 Cceur-de-Lion was the heroic figure, was in a.d. 1191, 
 while the eighth crusade, in which the saint king, Louis 
 IX. of France, fought and died, is dated a.d. 1270. 1 
 The glory of colouring, as far as we can judge from 
 the glass -painters who worked in such piles as the 
 cathedrals of Chartres and Bourges, had reached by this 
 time its highest development. 
 
 But while the love of gorgeous and harmonious colour- 
 ing was with little doubt a heritage of the crusaders 
 drawn from their Eastern experience, the symbolism 
 and figure-drawing was of course purely a Western 
 and Christian development. No one, however, can look 
 on the magnificent “ Rose ” windows of Chartres and 
 Amiens and Notre Dame of Paris as in the various 
 and changing lights of morning, mid-day, and afternoon 
 they gleam and glitter in their splendour of harmonious 
 colouring, a very confusion of crushed gems, without 
 being reminded of the exquisite beauty of an oriental 
 embroidery. The source of the inspiration of the great 
 
 1 The same idea is touched upon in the remarkable work on Chartres 
 Cathedral by Huysman, who writes of the Chartres twelfth and 
 thirteenth century glass thus : “ The borders in their design and 
 arrangements of their colours were an evident reminiscence of the 
 Persian carpets, which undoubtedly served as models to the painters ; ” 
 again, speaking of Notre Dame de Chartres as she was presented by 
 the glass-painters, “She sat enthroned in a heaven of ultramarine, 
 surrounded by these oriental hangings of glass — a pathetic reminder 
 of the Crusades .” — La Cath6drale, chap. vi. 
 
 IO3 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 colour artists of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries is 
 unmistakable. 
 
 In our dream of the past of this grand abbey church 
 of Gloucester we have in our little study restored the 
 colour to the walls and columns, to the old flat wooden 
 roof above — a happier feature than the vaulted Gothic 
 roof (also in its turn adorned with colour) which replaced 
 it in the latter years of the twelfth century. We have 
 replaced the colour in the clerestory beautiful work and 
 in the aisle vaulting. We have filled the nave windows 
 alike in aisles and clerestory, with the older and fairer 
 glass with which the craft of mediteval glass-painters 
 adorned a Benedictine abbey like that of Gloucester. 
 And thus we see the mighty nave, as it appeared to the 
 worshippers in the twelfth and following centuries, no 
 longer, as in our day, cold and death-like. We see it 
 somewhat gloomy, perhaps even sombre, for the stained 
 windows were but small when the vast size of the interior 
 is taken into account — but the general effect, lit up as 
 was the church by day and night, with many lights on 
 the numerous altars, must have been indescribably rich 
 and solemn . 1 
 
 Let us dwell with a little more detail upon this 
 
 1 Of course in such a broad generalisation as is contained in the 
 foregoing and following passages no special date of the mediaeval period 
 is alluded to. The ornamentation by colour began doubtless with 
 Serlo, and was gradually continued and developed through a long 
 series of years. Altars, too, through public and private benefactions, 
 were multiplied as time went on. Of the stained glass-work, so 
 marked a feature in churches from the middle of the twelfth century 
 onwards, we have no remains at Gloucester of an earlier date than 
 the first years of the fourteenth century, and very little of that. There 
 may have been, probably was, reasoning from other examples, much 
 of an earlier period, but it has perished in the various periods of stress 
 and storm through which the abbey has passed. 
 
 IO4 
 
Colour in Churches 
 
 interior of the nave. It was, like all important mediasval 
 churches, furnished with many altars. Entering the 
 church at the west end, the first object which would 
 have attracted the eye of the pilgrim or the wayfarer 
 would have been the great crucifix or rood which towered 
 above the screen between the nave and the choir, in the 
 same place probably where now stands the screen sur- 
 
 mounted by the organ. The screen in question is placed 
 across the western arch of the Central Tower. Over the 
 screen was a loft (pulpitum), which had in the midst, upon 
 the side towards the nave, the altar of the Holy Cross. 
 Above the loft or pulpitum was the huge beam which 
 sustained the great crucifix. On this beam very often 
 were the figures of S. John and S. Mary, and sometimes 
 
 105 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 two cherubim. Generally a stone pulpit commanding 
 the nave stood also on the loft below the beam supporting 
 the crucifix. 1 
 
 We have no tradition to tell us what the original 
 Norman screen was like, but in the course of the four- 
 teenth century we read in the Gloucester Abbey records 
 that Abbot Wygmore, a.d. 1329-1337, of whom we shall 
 say more when we come to speak of the south transept 
 and choir, erected a new rood-loft and crucifix and 
 screen, which a little later was elaborately decorated 
 with tabernacle work and statues by Abbot Horton, a.d. 
 1 35 1-1 377 - Wygmore lies buried on the southern side 
 of this screen. 
 
 The screen was pierced then as now by a door leading 
 into the choir, and in front of the door was an altar, 
 commonly called the people’s altar. It is probable that 
 in Gloucester there were two altars, one on either side 
 the door leading to the choir. In the cathedral church 
 of Durham — that most curious treatise called the “ Rites 
 of Durham,” with its detailed picture of the great abbey 
 in the period immediately preceding the dissolution of the 
 monasteries (a.d. 1540) — the people’s altar beneath the 
 rood screen was termed the “ Jesus ” altar. In some 
 abbeys it is termed the altar of the Holy Cross. 
 
 Proceeding down the nave of Gloucester — there were 
 various other altars of which now every vestige has dis- 
 
 1 “ There are many ancient rood-screens and rood-lofts to be found 
 in every part of the country, but there is not, I believe, a single old 
 English rood standing. The systematic destruction of these striking 
 symbols of Christian belief by the English Reformers is the more 
 remarkable from the marked absence of any such animosity in 
 Germany, the country which gave birth to Protestantism. Even to 
 this day in the land of Luther, no such feeling as led to the wholesale 
 destruction of roods in England is to be found.” — G. G. Scott’s “ Essay 
 on History of Church Architecture,” p. 199. 
 
Colour in Churches 
 
 appeared — the names of some of those to whom the 
 altars were dedicated is preserved, such as S. Edmund 
 (Edmund Pdch, archbishop of Canterbury), S. Edward 
 the Confessor. Others were dedicated to the twelve 
 apostles, to S. Thomas Becket, &c. The position of 
 these, however, is uncertain. If the plan of the abbey 
 of S. Albans, which was built about the same period 
 as Gloucester, was followed, at the foot of each of the 
 great piers or columns an altar would have been placed, 
 and this seems in early days to have been a very general 
 English custom. In Germany and elsewhere these nave 
 altars were often arranged in the midst of the aisles, as in 
 the well-known plan of the abbey of S. Gall. But such 
 an arrangement would materially have interfered with 
 the crowds who in the latter part of the eleventh century 
 began to throng the naves of the more important abbeys 
 in the midst or in the immediate neighbourhood of a 
 large city. The Erench habit was to form distinct 
 chapels each with their altar between the buttresses of 
 the aisles. The lights which were continually burning 
 upon these many altars would help to light the somewhat 
 dim and dark building. In the midst of the nave of 
 Lanfranc at Canterbury was suspended a gilded corona 
 or chandelier. Something of this kind might have been 
 in use in Gloucester. For the night services most 
 probably every monk brought with him a little lamp. 
 This is still the case in the Grande Chartreuse and in 
 other Carthusian Houses, where the night service is a pro- 
 longed office, lasting sometimes two or more hours. The 
 fires which so frequently occurred in Gloucester Abbey 
 probably were owing, on more than one occasion, to 
 carelessness on the part of the monks, sleepy and tired in 
 the course of these night services. 
 
 107 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 The general aspect of the nave of Gloucester, with its 
 vast piers, its elaborate adornment with colour and gold, 
 its statuary, all now destroyed, its many dim-lit altars 
 — for the lights were kept burning by day as by night 
 — must have been indescribably solemn and expressive, 
 and it served a great purpose. It was as we have 
 remarked, no mere fashion introduced by the Norman 
 delighting in huge buildings which prompted the erection 
 of such a mighty nave as the one we are endeavouring 
 to describe. The great abbey, erected in the main by 
 the Norman Serlo, served a twofold purpose. It was 
 the church of the large Benedictine community gathered 
 under Serlo’s rule. This community numbered, we read, 
 before his death as many as a hundred monks, without 
 counting the numerous lay brothers and dependants. 
 From two to three hundred at least would assemble in 
 that church, in the portion set apart for their worship at 
 the “ seven ” day or night services. 
 
 It served, too, as the church of the people for as many 
 in the ancient Gloucester city at the gates of the monastery 
 and its neighbourhood who chose to worship in the abbey 
 church. To the citizens must be added a constant stream, 
 now large, now small, of strangers — travellers, merchants, 
 pilgrims — to whom a Benedictine abbey was ever open. 
 
 This frequenting, on the part of the people of various 
 classes and orders, of the abbeys and churches, had 
 largely increased in the course of the great awakening 
 of religion which had taken place in the West uni- 
 versally in this eleventh century. A curious contem- 
 porary reference to the crowds who were in the habit of 
 thronging the nave of Gloucester appears in the account 
 of what took place on the festival of S. Peter ad Vin- 
 cula, August i, Lammas day, a.d. iioo, the day which 
 
 108 
 
Colour in Churches 
 
 preceded the death of King William Rufus through the 
 accidental (was it an accident ?) shooting of an arrow by 
 Walter Tyrrell, when the King was hunting in the New 
 Forest . 1 Immense crowds of people of all ranks were 
 assembled together (in the abbey of Gloucester Monastery), 
 when Fulchered, formerly a monk of Seez and first abbot 
 of Shrewsbury, an eloquent expositor of the Holy Scrip- 
 tures, being chosen preacher as one of the oldest clergy, 
 ascended the pulpit and addressed a sermon to the people 
 in the course of which he is reported to have denounced, 
 though not by name, the wickedness of William Rufus. 
 His words spoken on that occasion suggest that he was 
 aware of the plot which ended in the New Forest tragedy 
 on the following day. The words of Abbot Fulchered 
 spoken to “ the crowds ” in the nave of Gloucester on this 
 occasion are certainly remarkable. “ The anger of the 
 Lord will no longer spare transgressors. . . . The bow of 
 divine wrath is bent against the reprobate, and the swift 
 arrow is taken from the quiver to inflict wounds.” 
 
 1 The story is told by Ordericus Vitalis, born A.D. 1075, a monk of 
 S. Evroult, in Normandy, author of a well-known general ecclesiastical 
 history. From the epoch of the Norman Conquest down to 1141 his 
 history is extremely valuable. See Mr. Hart’s introduction to the 
 Jlistoria et Cartularium (Gloucester), vol. i. (series of the Master of 
 the Rolls), where the episode is given at length. 
 
 IO9 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE NAVE 
 
 Dramatic “ Mysteries ” 
 
 One strange but at the same time very popular use of 
 these great naves of abbatial and cathedral churches, such 
 as, for instance, in Gloucester the Benedictine abbey, in the 
 cathedral church of Wells in England, in the cathedral of 
 Laon in France, was at certain solemn seasons of the year 
 the performance of the Miracle or Mystery play. Some 
 scholars have questioned whether the scene of these 
 curious popular dramatic performances was the abbey or 
 the cathedral church, and have suggested that the scene 
 of these curious plays was the chapter room, or some 
 other large hall or building in the vicinity of the sacred 
 building. But there is abundant evidence that cannot 
 be gainsaid that these Miracle or Mystery plays were 
 at one period actually, and possibly not unfrequently, 
 performed in the church itself. From the earlier years 
 of the eleventh century the peoples of Northern and 
 Central Europe had been awakened to take a new 
 interest in religion, and listened with an evergrowing 
 interest to Christian teachers. The religious teachers 
 of the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries seemed 
 to have considered that one effective form of bringing 
 home to the somewhat rude populations of the early 
 middle ages the great religious truths was by represent- 
 ing in a dramatic and scenic form, striking episodes of 
 
 1 10 
 
The c Mystery ’ Play 
 
 biblical history, and even of certain well-known legends 
 from the lives of the saints. These plays were for a con- 
 siderable period spoken in Latin, and no doubt partly 
 because the utterances were made in Latin, a tongue of 
 course mysterious and unknown to the masses, they main- 
 tained at first their solemn and serious character. Then 
 as time went on, no doubt with a view of still further 
 interesting the people ignorant of the Latin tongue, these 
 “ Mystery ” plays began to be spoken in the vulgar tongue, 
 such as in English or French. The rude and barbaric 
 simplicity of the monkish versions of the old recitals 
 gradually became vulgarised, and buffoonery was mingled 
 too often with sacred dialogue, and in the fourteenth and 
 fifteenth centuries we find these theatrical performances 
 gravely censured, and eventually forbidden by popes and 
 councils. Even as early as a.d. 1210 and 1217 we find 
 the note of alarm struck. 
 
 But there is no doubt that in the twelfth and thirteenth, 
 and even as late as the fourteenth centuries, they were of 
 frequent occurrence in the more important abbeys and 
 churches, and were used as powerful and popular vehicles 
 of instruction by the monks and ecclesiastics of these 
 early mediaeval centuries; and such great naves as the 
 one upon which we are engaged at Gloucester, several 
 times each year, no doubt, were the scenes of such scenic 
 and dramatic representations, which were witnessed by 
 numbers of the citizens. 
 
 “What a theatre! Such religious uses could not 
 desecrate buildings so profoundly hallowed; the build- 
 ings would rather hallow the spectacle. The theatre was 
 the church soaring to its majestic height, receding to its 
 interminable length, broken by its stately divisions, with 
 its many chapels, with its succession of arches. What 
 
 1 1 1 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 space for endless variety, if not for change of scene ! 
 How effective the light and shade, even by daylight ; how 
 much more so heightened by the command of an infinity 
 of lamps, torches, tapers, now pouring their full efful- 
 gence on one majestic object, now showing, rather than 
 enlightening, the deep gloom ! 
 
 “ How grand the music (even though somewhat rough 
 and unscientific from the modern stand-point), either per- 
 vading the whole space with its rolling volumes of sound, 
 or accompanying some solemn or tender monologue ! . . . 
 There was no event, however solemn and appalling, up to 
 the Passion, the Resurrection, the Ascension, which was 
 not, wrought into action, preached in this impressive way 
 to awe-struck crowds. Legend, like the gospels, lent itself 
 to the same purpose ; instead of being read it was thrown 
 into a stirring representation, and so offered to spectators 
 as well as to hearers. . . . What remains, the dry skele- 
 ton of these Latin ‘ Mysteries,’ can give no notion of what 
 they were when alive ; when alive with all their august 
 impressive enthralling accessories, and their simple, un- 
 reasoning, but profoundly agitated hearers .” 1 , 
 
 One of the most dependable proofs that we possess of 
 the widely extended prevalence of the custom of perform- 
 ing miracle-plays in certain great abbeys and churches in 
 the early middle ages on the occasion of important festal 
 seasons, is the reference to the practice by Durandus , 2 
 Bishop of Mende (Languedoc). In the “ Rationale ” he 
 writes as follows in his description of the office of the 
 
 1 Dean Milman, “Latin Christianity,” Book xiv. chap. iv. 
 
 2 See Durandus, “ Rationale divinorum, officiorum,” Liber vi. cap. 
 lxxxvii. An account of this greatest of mediaeval liturgiologists, to 
 whose vast and exhaustive work reference will often be made, is given 
 below. 
 
The ‘ Mystery ’ Play 
 
 night of the Easter Festival : “ After the singing of the 
 Third Response with the ‘ Gloria Patri,’ the choir is left, 
 and a solemn procession takes place with lighted tapers 
 to the spot where the sepulchre has been erected. Then 
 certain persons arrayed as the holy women and the dis- 
 ciples John and Peter, are introduced, who come to the 
 sepulchre to see what had happened. Other actors come 
 forward habited as angels.” Then follows a short descrip- 
 tion of a miracle play, in which the chorus take a part. 
 Bishop Durandus especially mentions that words are put 
 into the mouths of these actors, composed for the “ play ” 
 not found in holy Scripture, but which, nevertheless, have 
 been approved for their purpose. The position of this 
 weighty reference in a work of such great authority as 
 that of so eminent a liturgiologist as the Bishop of Mende, 
 shows how general was this use in the early mediaeval 
 Church. (The date of Durandus’s work was circa a.d. i 284.) 
 
 A short account of the miracle-play of “The Resurrection,” 
 one of the most famous of these early “ Mysteries,” and to 
 which Durandus most probably refers, will be interesting. 1 
 
 The play begins with the appearance of three monks 
 
 1 “ The Easter Sepulchre ” in later times, as we read in the “ Kites 
 of Durham,” which gives us a picture of a great abbatial church 
 in the fifteenth and early years of the sixteenth century, “ was 
 sett up in the morninge (of Good Friday), on the north side of the 
 Quire, nigh to the High Altar.” But at the period described in the 
 “ Rites of Durham,” the miracle play had generally been discontinued 
 owing to the abuses, above alluded to, which had crept in, and the 
 Easter ceremonial, which had taken the place of the play, was shared 
 in by the monks alone. Durandus, however, evidently referred to the 
 more public dramatic performance in the nave. As we read in the 
 French version of the “Rationale,” the following direction, “On part 
 du Choeur, et on se dirige, avec des Cierges, ct en procession solemnelle 
 vers un endroit, ou Von a appr&tb la representation du tombeau, et ou Von 
 introduit des personnnes sous le forme et Vhabillement des saintes femmes 
 et des deux disciples, savoir Jean et Pierre, Ac. Ac.” 
 
 ll 3 
 
 H 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 dressed to personate the three Maries, who sing in turn a 
 long rythmical hymn-like plaint which begins thus : — 
 
 First Mary. “ Heu ! pius pastor occidit 
 Quem culpa nulla infecit 
 0 res plangenda ! 
 
 Second Mary. Heu verus pastor abiit 
 
 Qui vitam sontis abstulit 
 
 0 mors lugenda ! ” 
 
 The three Maries then agree to go to the sepulchre to 
 anoint the sacred body with spices to arrest corruption. 
 Approaching the tomb they find an angel sitting outside 
 the tomb robed with a golden alb (or long tunic reaching 
 to the feet), with a mitre on his head, in his left hand a 
 palm, in his right a branch with candles. He addresses 
 the Maries as “ Christicolse,” and asks for whom they are 
 seeking. Here the dialogue passes into the words of 
 Scripture. Subsequently the Maries turn from the angel 
 and address the people or the congregation present, and 
 tell them how they have met the angel, and what he told 
 them. Mary Magdalene, now leaving her companions, hur- 
 ries to meet two new actors in the drama — Peter and John 
 — who are hurrying to the sepulchre. These two enter the 
 tomb, and find the body of the Lord gone, and the grave- 
 clothes left there. They tell what they have seen, and 
 leave the stage. Mary Magdalene, however, remains 
 weeping. Two angels are now visible sitting by the 
 sepulchre, and they ask her why she weeps. They tell 
 her by way of comfort how the Lord whom she seeks for 
 is risen. She replies that her heart is also aflame with 
 desire to see her Saviour. After that a monk, habited as 
 a gardener, comes to her and speaks to her. Mary recog- 
 nises the voice of the Lord. The dialogue which follows 
 here is in the words of Scripture. When the Lord had 
 
 114 
 
The c Mystery ’ Play 
 
 uttered the “Noli me tangere ” (touch me not), he leaves 
 her, and Mary turns and speaks to the listening audience, 
 telling them the glad news of the Resurrection, of which 
 she is now an eye-witness. The two angels come forward 
 again and bid the people come and see the place where 
 the Lord lay. The choir then take up the story and sing, 
 closing with the “ Te Deum.” 1 
 
 The clear reference of Durandus to the position of the 
 Miracle Play of the Resurrection in the Easter services, 
 occurring, as it does, in the midst of his careful litur- 
 gical directions and explanations, shows how, in the last 
 quarter of the thirteenth century, these strange religious 
 dramas had become a formally recognised part and 
 parcel of some, at least, of the great festal services of 
 the early mediaeval Church. There were a number of 
 these strange mystery plays extant in the twelfth and 
 two following centuries. The plays generally dealt with 
 purely scriptural subjects, such as “ The Creation of the 
 World/' “The Fall of Man,” “The Story of Cain and 
 Abel,” “ The Crucifixion of Our Lord,” “The Massacre of 
 the Innocents ” (an interesting precis of this last is given by 
 Dean Milman, “Latin Christianity,” book xiv.chap.iv.). We 
 find two plays entitled “ The Sacrifice of Isaac ” and “The 
 Mystery of the Holy Sacrament.” Sometimes a celebrated 
 martyr story, as that of S. Catherine, was represented, or 
 the drama of S. Denys (of France). Occasionally the stage 
 seems to have been a very elaborate piece of carpenter’s 
 
 1 This little mystery play of the Resurrection, which in the early 
 middle ages was a favourite one for the Easter representation, was tra- 
 ditionally composed in the ninth century by a monk of the famous 
 monastery of S. Gall. The above little precis is from the Appendix to 
 the French version of Durandus’s “Rationale,” vol. iv., and is based 
 upon an ancient MS. version originally in the library of the great reli- 
 gious house of S. Benedict on the Loire, 
 
 JI 5 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 workmanship, in the form of a graduated platform in 
 three divisions, rising one over the other, the actors being 
 usually supplied by the monks of the adjoining monastery 
 — some of them habited as women, the boys and children, 
 
 Pilate Delivering Jesus to be Crucified. 
 {Representation of a Coventry Pageant Vehicle of Fifteenth Century.) 
 
 as in the “Massacre of the Innocents,” being no doubt 
 the novices or pupils in the school of the religious house. 
 
 After the fourteenth century these representations 
 became rare ; still, however, in some cathedrals or abbeys 
 they still formed part of the ritual at great feasts, notably 
 
The c Mystery 5 Play 
 
 at Laon, in the north of France, where we hear of them as 
 late as in the fifteenth century . 1 
 
 As the thirteenth century advanced, the great and in- 
 creasing popularity of these sacred performances induced 
 wandering minstrels, jongleurs, trouveres, and other folk 
 who gained a precarious livelihood by singing and reciting 
 to the people, to imitate, in a rough way at first, these 
 miracle plays. 
 
 Later we find the guilds of traders, who in the early 
 Middle Ages played so important a part among the middle 
 
 1 Burandus, Bishop of Mende, Languedoc, whose “Rationale” is 
 quoted in the foregoing account of the miracle play (born in A.D. 1230, 
 died a.d. 1296), was distinguished in early life for his great knowledge 
 of Canon Law, of which he became a public teacher at Bologna and at 
 Modena. His merits were soon recognised, and he received several 
 honorary dignities in the Church, and subsequently the Deanery of 
 Chartres, and during his stirring, work-filled life was largely consulted 
 by several of the Popes of his time. In A.D. 1285 he was elected by the 
 Chapter of Mende bishop of that see. He somewhat later declined the 
 Archbishopric of Ravenna, which was pressed upon him by Pope Boni- 
 face VIII. This eminent theologian was the author of several works 
 which had an enduring success. Among them his “Speculum Judi- 
 ciale,” an exhaustive treatise on Mediaeval Law, had passed through 
 some thirty-four editions between the years 1460 and the close of the 
 sixteenth century. But the work by which Durandus will ever be 
 known by, and to which reference is often made in this book, is his 
 “ Rationale Divinorum Officiorum,” avast and exhaustive treatise, com- 
 pleted about a.d. 1284, on everything connected with a church and its 
 ministers, including the sacred building, its several parts, its sacred 
 furniture, the ministers of the church, their vestments, &c. ; the history 
 and signification of the “Mass,” and of the other “Offices” of the 
 Church, the saints who are commemorated in the various special 
 services, and lastly, the Church’s calendar, the whole being divided 
 into eight books. His learned biographer, M. Le Clerc, in the 
 twentieth volume of the “Literary History of Prance ” (compiled under 
 the auspices of the Acaddmie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres), tells 
 us how this great work of Durandus, during the early days of printing 
 (fifteenth and sixteenth centuries), was printed and reprinted more 
 often than any other book (of course excepting the Holy Scriptures). 
 
 I 17 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 class of the cities, taking up this favourite sacred entertain- 
 ment, and gradually introducing more dramatic variety 
 and greater elaboration in the scenic side of these plays. 
 By the middle of the fourteenth century the miracle play 
 seemed to have reached its fullest development. 
 
 The cities of York, Wakefield, Chester, and Coventry 
 were especially famous for these entertainments, but we 
 read of them in many other important centres of popula- 
 tion. The repertoire of these religious dramas became 
 very considerable, and included in their themes most of 
 the principal events in Bible history, both of the Old and 
 New Testaments, from the story of Adam and Eve in 
 Eden down to scenes of the Passion story, and, indeed, 
 pictured representations of the awful Day of Judgment. 
 
 “ These plays, on the whole, were reverent and seemly 
 in tone, full of dramatic life and energy, and in some 
 instances, notably in the plays of the Passion and Cruci- 
 fixion, we find realism of a most impressive nature.” 
 
 It is computed that more than ninety printed editions, in different 
 languages, of the “Rationale” appeared between the second half of 
 the fifteenth century and the close of the seventeenth. 
 
 Then followed a lengthened period when the work of the great 
 liturgical writer of the Middle Ages was comparatively neglected, if 
 not forgotten. In the last half-century, however, the wealth of re- 
 search and the profound liturgical scholarship of Durandus, even if at 
 times his conclusions are somewhat fanciful, has been generally 
 acknowledged by scholars. For instance, Dom Gueranger, the learned 
 Abbot of Solesmes, estimates this work of the Bishop of Mende, 
 “comme le dernier mot du moyen age sur le mystique du culte divin.” 
 Montalembert speaks of the “Rationale” as “Le code le plus complet 
 de le liturgique.” Viollet-le-Duc remarks, in his “ Dictionnaire de 
 l’Architecture, s.v. Autel,” touching the “Rationale,” “que Ton ne 
 saurait trop lire et m^diter lorsque qu’on veut connaitre le moyen &ge 
 catholique.” The edition used in this book is the admirable French 
 version of M. Charles Barthelemy (Paris. 1854), which edition has the 
 advantage of being supplemented with many learned notes and 
 elucidations. 
 
The ‘ Mystery ’ Play 
 
 Many and various were the trading guilds who, with 
 great care and cost, produced these curious performances, 
 which, especially during the fourteenth and following 
 century, were a powerful factor in the education of the 
 
 Hell Mouth. 
 
 (A favourite scene in the Mystery Plays.) 
 
 people, such as the guilds of tanners, drapers, barbers, 
 vintners, smiths, butchers, skinners, fishmongers, and 
 many others . 1 
 
 1 “ The Miracle Play in England,” by Sidney W. Clarke, 1899. 
 
 I 19 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 But their adoption by these various lay agencies gra- 
 dually dealt a death-blow to the performances in churches 
 and abbeys. The greater licence permissible to these 
 public performances, the increased pains and cost be- 
 stowed upon their production, naturally injured the 
 original popularity of the monkish and ecclesiastical 
 plays in churches, and as they became more general in 
 the street and market-place, the practice of church per- 
 formances grew rarer and rarer. The disfavour, too, with 
 which, as time went on, they came not unnaturally to be 
 regarded by the stricter and more austere rulers in the 
 Church contributed to their gradual abandonment, save 
 in a few instances, in the sacred buildings. But in the 
 age when the Romanesque nave of Gloucester and other 
 similar mighty piles were erected, to the miracle play 
 belonged its early simplicity and earnestness, and this 
 pictorial method of teaching the people great truths was 
 regarded with approval by those who bore rule in the 
 monastic orders and in the Church generally ; and it may 
 fairly be said that one of the uses to which these vast 
 Romanesque, or, as they are popularly termed, Norman 
 naves — a notable instance of such naves being now the 
 subject of our little study — were put, was the assembling 
 of a great mass of the citizens dwelling beneath the shadow 
 of the mighty abbey to hear and to see the dramatic re- 
 presentation by the monks of portions of the Passion 
 Tragedy or the more remote mystic story of the Fall and 
 of the Last Judgment. 
 
 It is an interesting and by no means a baseless thought 
 which in these grey and time-worn naves, with their 
 mighty pillars, their vast round arches, their dim vistas 
 of gloomy aisles, sees the cradle of the English drama, 
 which in its higher and nobler development has become 
 
 120 
 
The c Mystery ’ Play 
 
 so powerful an agent in the education of the peoples of 
 the Europe of to-day. 
 
 Miracle 1 plays may be said to have ceased to be per- 
 formed finally at the end of the fifteenth century, a 
 brilliant company of playwrights, with Shakespeare as 
 their chief, having arisen in the golden age of Elizabethan 
 letters. The writings of these famous men inaugurated a 
 new departure altogether in dramatic representation. 
 
 Representation of the Prodigal Son. 
 
 1 The words “Mystery” and “Miracle” Play are commonly used 
 indiscriminately to denote a religious play. More accurately, the plot 
 of a Miracle play is based upon circumstances which occurred in the 
 lives of saints and martyrs, and a Mystery play is based alone on the 
 Scriptural narrative. Mr. Clarke, in his interesting little history of 
 the “ Miracle ” play in England (1S99), after giving the above definition 
 of the terms, curiously derives the word “mystery” as applied to a 
 play from “ minister (ecclesise),” because the clergy were the first actors. 
 The word “mystery” is, however, the Greek yvarripiov (from yvtw, to 
 initiate). A p-variipiov was the term probably used by the Greeks for a 
 show or scenic representation of some mythical legend. 
 
 121 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 DEVELOPMENT OF THE NAVE — ITS SYMBOLISM 
 
 It would seem here to be the place to notice how out of 
 these great abbatial churches, with their mighty naves, 
 built for the people and popular uses, grew up another 
 striking development in church building, especially notice- 
 able in that part of Northern and Central France under 
 the rule of the king (le domaine royal), which led to the 
 building of cathedrals on a scale vaster than had ever 
 been attempted before, and which has never been repeated. 
 We cite the cathedrals of Paris, Reims, Chartres, Amiens, 
 to take conspicuous and well-known examples of this 
 marvellous group. 
 
 In less than a century after the erection of such naves 
 as those of the abbeys of Gloucester, Durham, S. Albans, 
 and many others in England and on the continent of 
 Europe, something of a change passed over the Western 
 Church. In the eleventh and most of the twelfth century 
 the religious teaching and influence was largely in the 
 hands of monastics. Very frequently the monastery abbey 
 was of greater dimensions and of more importance than 
 the cathedral of the diocese. Various causes were at work, 
 however, which cannot be detailed here, such as the rapid 
 growth of city populations and the increase of the royal 
 authority, the formation of various more or less wealthy 
 guilds of traders in the rapidly growing cities, which 
 altering the balance of power, threw more influence and 
 
 122 
 
Symbolism of a Church 
 
 power into the bishops’ hands. No doubt a certain jealousy 
 on the part of the bishops of the great monastic founda- 
 tions which had so rapidly sprung up in the eleventh and 
 twelfth centuries was also at work. At all events, we 
 find towards the end of the twelfth century a great move- 
 ment, under the direction of the bishops, apparent through- 
 out Western Christendom, to build huge cathedrals. The 
 various popular uses to which the large naves of abbatial 
 and other churches had been adapted no doubt had at- 
 tracted universal attention, and the bishops undoubtedly 
 took advantage of this growing attachment of the people 
 to these religious buildings in the use of which they 
 shared so freely. 
 
 Up to the end of the twelfth century, the period 
 corresponding to the reigns of Kichard Coeur-de-Lion and 
 John in England, the cathedrals, save in rare and peculiar 
 instances had not attained to any vast proportions. Many 
 of the monastic churches had been built on a grander scale 
 than the cathedral. Such abbeys as Gloucester, Ely, S. 
 Albans, and Durham in England, more noticeably Cluny, 
 and the great daughter abbeys of Cluny in France, were 
 in fact statelier piles than the ordinary city cathedral 
 where the bishop had his seat. But in the closing years 
 of the twelfth century, and all through the thirteenth 
 century, cathedrals, in France especially, on a yet grander 
 scale arose. All the popular uses to which we have seen 
 the nave of Gloucester and of such like abbeys ever de- 
 voted, were, so to speak, exaggerated under the fostering care 
 of the bishop, anxious to win the people yet more to take 
 an interest in religion ; and the nave of the new cathedral 
 was built and even used for all kinds of popular assem- 
 blies, a religious aspect, however, of course being given to 
 these great gatherings. The interest of the people was 
 
 123 
 
Symbolism of a Church 
 
 keenly excited, and the great cities rapidly increasing at 
 this period in wealth and population, with their rich and 
 powerful growing “ guild ” organisations composed of the 
 various trades, vied with each other in providing means 
 for the building of these marvellous piles. We instance 
 Paris, Reims, Chartres, Bourges, Amiens, as well-known 
 examples. These stately homes of prayer and assembly 
 the citizen looked on as their own, as the centre of all 
 their civil and religious life. The whole of the enormous 
 interior of such a cathedral was in the first instance, in 
 fact, one vast nave. The choir was unenclosed. Few if 
 any chapels or altars interfered with the presence of the 
 crowds. In several cases even the transepts were dis- 
 pensed with. Thus, the mighty cathedral of the thir- 
 teenth century was especially “ the church of the people,” 
 the centre of the growing civic life, the meeting-place of 
 the growing guilds of traders. It was also the centre of 
 popular education ; for a long time some of the most 
 famous schools of Europe were attached to the house of 
 prayer. In these thirteenth-century cathedrals there 
 was for a time no separation at all of clergy and laity. 
 The east end was simply provided with movable seats for 
 the officiating ministers and the bishop. The ornaments 
 of the choir, Durandus, the great liturgical writer at the 
 close of that century, tells us, were simply hangings of 
 tapestry and embroidery and many coloured carpets, 
 which could be removed from the church and replaced 
 at pleasure, and brilliantly adorned banners, which did 
 not obstruct the view. 
 
 Alone, the high altar at or near the eastern end, with its 
 veils surrounding it, obstructed the general view. The 
 cathedral, with this solitary exception, was a huge open 
 space from west to east. So far from separating the 
 
 I2 5 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 clergy, or wishing to keep the people at a distance from 
 a full view of the mysteries of the faith, the bishop and 
 the hierarchy desired the presence of the crowds. The 
 most sacred rites of the greater festivals of the Church 
 were so arranged in these great people’s churches that all 
 could see and take an active part in them. It was a pro- 
 test against the old monastic spirit which shrouded the 
 more sacred ceremonies in mystery, and kept the people 
 at a distance. This state of things, this feeling on the 
 part of the bishop and hierarchy, only, it is true, lasted a 
 comparatively short time. It began towards the close of 
 the twelfth century. It continued all through the thir- 
 teenth century, but the earlier years of the fourteenth 
 century again witnessed a change in feeling on the part of 
 the hierarchy. Once more mystery surrounded its sacred 
 rites, and the choirs began to be enclosed, and the 
 officiating clergy were shut off from the people. The 
 popular zeal which had flamed up in the preceding century 
 (the thirteenth), and which had built the enormous 
 cathedrals we have been speaking of, grew cold, and soon 
 almost died down, and the fourteenth and following cen- 
 
 # O 
 
 turies witnessed the foundation of few if any great houses 
 of God, and even those which had been commenced and 
 scarcely finished when the popular fervour was at its 
 height, languished for want of funds, and were never 
 completed. 
 
 This wonderful movement so specially observable in 
 “ Royal France ” (le domaine royal), to popularise the 
 cathedral, to interest the people in religious matters, to 
 give a religious colour to all their business and even 
 pleasures, as we have said, soon gave place to the old 
 priestly and sacerdotal policy which more or less in all 
 
 126 
 
Symbolism of a Church 
 
 times has too often characterised the teaching and prac- 
 tice of the Christian Church. Abuses, even acts of dese- 
 cration, by the people of the great Church they had come 
 to love so well soon crept in, and no doubt contributed 
 largely to the return to the old state of things in the 
 fourteenth and following centuries. But what we have 
 dwelt upon had been an attempt, rude perhaps, wanting in 
 safeguards against irreverence and excesses, to associate 
 the people with the clergy, to interest the people more 
 keenly in religious services. It had been on the whole a 
 laudable effort to break down the icy barrier which has 
 in all times, more or less, kept the masses of the popu- 
 lation from feeling that Christianity belonged to them 
 equally with the ordained priests and vowed ministers 
 of the Faith ; nor did the people ever forget the lessons 
 of the thirteenth - century attempt. It was in France 
 especially, though by no means exclusively, that the 
 attempt was made. The memorials of the attempt are still 
 visible in those colossal and splendid though unfinished 
 cathedrals, such as Notre Dame of Paris, Beims, Chartres, 
 and Amiens, built by the people’s efforts, be it remembered. 
 
 It was in France that the most terrible of all wars on 
 Christianity was waged in a.d. 1792-3, and it is a remark- 
 able fact that whilst innumerable monastic abbeys were 
 destroyed, together with countless houses and castles of 
 the nobles and of the wealthier classes, not one of the 
 greater cathedrals of France perished in the terrible 
 catastrophe. They were, comparatively speaking, even 
 but little damaged in the wild tempest of fury. The 
 memory of the thirteenth century had never quite died 
 away; the old love of the people for those grand houses of 
 God built for them, and in great measure by them, was 
 deeply rooted in their hearts. 
 
 127 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 But abuses soon crept in. At an early period trading 
 began in the hallowed walls. At first probably confined to 
 religions objects pertaining to the services, such as lights, 
 candles, &c., the desecrating practice spread, and soon 
 pedlars and vendors of various objects plied their business 
 openly in the church. No doubt this was one of the rea- 
 sons alleged, and a just one, for limiting the general public 
 access to certain parts of the sacred building, and gradu- 
 ally of doing away with all civic rights which sanctioned 
 meetings, and of holding assemblies in the cathedral. 1 
 
 The remarkable picture we are about to reproduce of 
 the desecration of the nave of S. Paul’s, London, several 
 centuries later, is a reminiscence of the thirteenth-century 
 effort to popularise a great cathedral. It shows us too 
 clearly why the effort was naturally doomed to failure, 
 how inevitably the well-meant but sadly mistaken licence 
 quickly degenerated into what all serious minds could 
 not help viewing as the gravest sacrilege. 
 
 The writer quoted is discussing the restoration work 
 carried out by Inigo Jones under Laud, Bishop of London, 
 in a.d. 1633, when Charles I. was king. “ The restoration 
 of the external fabric drew attention to an abuse of long 
 standing. The nave and aisles had from times beyond 
 the memory of men then living been used as places of 
 public resort. Porters carried their burdens across the 
 church as in the open street. Paul’s Walk, as the long 
 central aisle (the nave) was called, was the rendezvous of 
 the men of business who had a bargain to drive, and of 
 the loungers whose highest wish was to while away an 
 idle hour in agreeable society. 
 
 “ To the men of the reigns of James I. and Charles I. it 
 
 1 For additional details on this curious attempt to popularise the 
 cathedral, see pp. 159, 160. 
 
 128 
 
- MH 
 
Symbolism of a Church 
 
 was all that the coffee-houses became to the men of the 
 reigns of James II. and Charles II., and all that the club- 
 houses are to the men of the reign of Victoria. There 
 were to be heard the latest rumours of the day. . . . 
 There, too, was to be heard the latest scandal. . . . When 
 the gay world had moved away, children took the place of 
 their elders, making the old arches ring with their merry 
 laughter. The clergy within the choir complained that 
 their voices were drowned by the uproar, and that neither 
 prayers nor sermon reached the ears of the congregation. 
 With this misuse of the cathedral church of the capital 
 Charles, not a moment too soon, resolved to interfere.” 1 
 We have thus traced roughly the history of the “ nave ” 2 
 from the period of the building of vast churches, after 
 the awakening of the Church in the course of the 
 eleventh century, and have shown the reasons for the 
 nave’s great dimensions. It was the religious home of 
 the people, and this was the design and the object held 
 in view by the monastic orders, to whom largely in the 
 eleventh and twelfth centuries belonged all religious in- 
 fluence and power. In the last section we have dwelt 
 upon a further development of the nave during the thir- 
 teenth century under influences non-monastic, drawing 
 our examples principally from France, from that portion 
 particularly in the north and centre comprising the sphere 
 
 1 S. R. Gardner, “Hist, of England,” vol. vii. chap, lxxiii. 
 
 2 More details respecting this curious development of the “nave ” by 
 the hierarchy, with the bishop of the diocese at their head, with the 
 view of more closely associating the people with the Church, will be f o und 
 in Viollcl-le- Due's interesting and suggestive work, “Histoire d’un 
 Hotel de Ville et d’une Cathedrale,” chaps, iv. v. vi., and in his great 
 “ Dictionnaire de l’Architecture Frangaise,” vols. i. ii. iii. s.v. Architec- 
 ture (“Religieuse,” “Monastique,”) “Cloture,” “Cathddrale,” “Autel”; 
 and Durandus, Bishop of Mcnde, “ Rationale, ’ Lib. i. chap, iii., &c. 
 
 129 I 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 of the influence of the kings of France, known as “le 
 domaine royal.” 
 
 This last development multiplied and exaggerated the 
 original popular uses of the nave, and seems to have 
 suggested the reasons which led to the building of those 
 enormous cathedrals such as Eeims, Chartres, and Amiens, 
 which have been the objects of wonder and admiration 
 to succeeding ages. But this last development of the 
 “ nave ” was of comparatively short duration, lasting 
 about ioo years, the abuses consequent upon the later 
 development being too glaring. 
 
 The term “ Nave ” is usually derived somewhat fanci- 
 fully from the Latin navis, a ship. The Nave from 
 the west porch to the Choir screen represents fairly 
 accurately the form of a ship with the keel uppermost 
 {navis inversa). The mediaeval writers loved to trace a 
 symbolical reference in every part of a church — in its 
 furniture, in its rites, in the dress of its ministers. The 
 symbolism is often beautiful and true ; not unfrequently, 
 however, somewhat strained and unnatural. This came 
 from the practice, commendable enough, of using the 
 sacred building as the Book of Stone out of which in- 
 numerable lessons were constantly being drawn for the 
 many worshippers in an age when books were rare and 
 the power even of reading was only possessed by few. 
 Durandus of Mende (thirteenth century) tells us that 
 the church (or abbey) represents a human form — the 
 Choir, where is placed the high altar, being the head ; 
 the Transepts are the arms and hands ; and the Nave is 
 the rest of the body. 
 
 This simple image was soon elaborated, and the Church 
 was thought to symbolise the dead Christ on the Cross — 
 the Transepts representing His outstretched arms ; His 
 
 130 
 
Symbolism of a Church 
 
 pierced hands the Transept porches and doors ; His 
 body and legs were the Have. The deviation (no un- 
 common feature) in the axis of the building at the east 
 end imitates, some writers think, the attitude of the 
 Redeemer on the Cross after death — the drooping position 
 of the head and neck after life was extinct . 1 
 
 A yet deeper and more spiritual symbolism is alluded 
 to here by Durandus of Mende in the general triple 
 division of a church. He quotes Richard of Saint Victor 
 as his authority for seeing in the Sanctuary, the Choir, 
 and Nave a symbol of the triple order of the saved — 
 the smallness of the Sanctuary, where the high altar is 
 erected, typifying the few in the first order or rank of the 
 Redeemed ; the far larger Choir representing those in the 
 second rank ; and the vast Nave the great multitude of 
 the “ saved.” 
 
 In other portions of the Nave — the people’s book of 
 stone — this same eminent mediaeval teacher sees many 
 and various symbols of great truths; among the more 
 striking of these, in the vista of columns which support 
 the massive building, he considers that the bishops and 
 doctors are portrayed, as they with their teaching of the 
 Catholic doctrines bear up the church of God. This 
 kind of picture-teaching Durandus of Mende delights in 
 enlarging upon. He compares, for instance, the solid 
 bases of the columns or piers also to the bishops and 
 the successors of the apostles who support the weight 
 of the Church. In the soaring height of the Nave of a 
 great abbey church he sees hope pictured — the hope of 
 the eternal future and of God’s reward to the faithful. 
 
 The very roof with its elaborate and coloured vaulting, 
 
 1 Viollet-le-Duc, however, questions if this last thought was ever in 
 the minds of the great mediaeval builders. 
 
 131 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 which with its many vaults and arches covers the whole 
 edifice, represents that broad and massive charity and 
 love which cover the multitude of sins. The pavement 
 is rich with hidden meaning in Durandus of Mende’s 
 eyes. It typifies the strong foundation of faith ; it is a 
 picture image too of Christ’s poor — the blessed poor in 
 spirit who are ever humbling themselves ; it is a symbol 
 also of the people who labour and toil. George Herbert, 
 a.d. 1593-1632, well caught the spirit of Durandus of 
 Mende when he sang of the church floor thus in his 
 once 1 well-known poem of the “Church.” 
 
 “ Mark you the floore ? that square and speckled stone 
 which looks so firm and strong 
 
 is Patience. 
 
 And the other black and grave, wherewith each one 
 is checker’d all along, 
 
 Humilitie. 
 
 The gentle rising, which on either hand 
 leads to the Quire above, 
 
 is Confidence. 
 
 But the sweet cement, which in one sure band 
 ties the whole frame, is Love 
 
 and Charitie. ” 
 
 Durandus through many closely printed pages, draws 
 out this curious and interesting, though perhaps in places 
 somewhat far-fetched symbolism and symbol-teaching, of 
 every part of the nave and choir of a mediaeval abbey, 
 telling us how the length of the nave figures the long- 
 suffering (longanimity) of the Church in adversity; its 
 breadth tells of charity, how the choir and sanctuary 
 picture heaven, while the nave is the emblem of the 
 earth. The two worlds are separated by a gulf which 
 
 1 In the seventeenth century it is said that George Herbert’s poetical 
 reputation was greater than Milton’s. 
 
 132 
 
Symbolism of a Church 
 
 can only be passed by the help of the cross which towers 
 over the great rood screen. The whole form and distribu- 
 tion of such a church was in fact a silent confession of 
 faith. It typified the creed. Everywhere was found the 
 mystic number. The Trinity was proclaimed by the nave 
 and its two aisles. The great rose window which flashed 
 in the westering sun was the unity ; the whole building 
 was the cross. The awful crypt below represented with 
 its dim, uncertain light, the dwelling-place of the soul 
 of man after death awaiting the bright light of the 
 resurrection morning. 
 
 *33 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE TRANSEPT 
 
 There were stone screens which in Gloucester Abbey once 
 crossed the entire building, closing up the two aisles as 
 well as the main central nave. The aisle screens and the 
 altars once in front of them have disappeared, though a 
 modern choir screen remains in the same position. 
 
 The aisles are now simply closed at the eastern ends 
 with a light ugly iron rail, each with a little plain gate. 
 Through this gate near the extremity of the south aisle, 
 some 30 feet farther to the east, opens out the south 
 transept. In some respects, as we shall see presently, 
 this particular portion of the pile architecturally is one 
 of the most interesting buildings in England. 
 
 Now the transept, as a portion of well-nigh all impor- 
 tant churches, such as abbeys and cathedrals, and of some, 
 though not all, of the larger parish churches, dates from the 
 earliest period at which these buildings began to be erected. 
 
 We have already noticed how directly after the year of 
 our Lord 313, when the terms of the famous edict of the 
 Emperor Constantine announced that Christianity was to 
 be henceforth the religion of the Empire, the Basilica, the 
 hall of justice of the Roman empire, was in some few cases 
 perhaps actually adopted, in very many others largely 
 imitated, as the most convenient form for the great 
 temples of that religion which Rome henceforth adopted 
 as the religion of the people owning allegiance to her. 
 
 134 
 
The Transept 
 
 It is in these basilicas, before they were adopted as 
 the model of the churches of Christianity, that we must 
 seek and find the germ whence has sprung this important 
 characteristic feature of a great 
 Christian church — the Transept. 
 
 The adjoining little plan of 
 the Ulpian Basilica at Rome, 
 built by the Emperor Trajan, 
 circa a.d. i 14, will show the 
 position of what we have termed 
 the “germ” of the transept in 
 a Pagan basilica, together with 
 the two chambers on either side 
 of the chalcidicum or transept. 
 
 The transept in a Pagan basi- 
 lica was an open space between 
 the tribunal of the judge placed 
 in the semi-circular apse and 
 the colonnades, afterwards re- 
 presented by the nave and aisles 
 of a Christian church ; these 
 colonnades occupied the large 
 portion of the great hall. 
 
 This open space was fenced 
 
 off from the colonnades by a Plan of the Ulpian Basilica 
 , ■> 1 , i o'" of the Emperor Trajan, 
 
 low wall or balustrade, borne- circa A D II4 
 
 times this little screen was of 
 
 costly material, such as marble, as was seen in the 
 “ Basilica Jovis,” and the open space within the balustrade 
 was used by advocates and by official persons connected 
 with the court, the low wall or balustrade serving to keep 
 these apart from the general public, who were admitted 
 into what may be termed the body of the basilica or hall. 
 
 *35 
 
 _£L___T T’ 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 It also helped to remove the tribunal and its business some- 
 what from the noise and movement going on in the body of 
 the building, without in any way abandoning that idea 
 of publicity which belongs rightly to a court of justice. 
 
 The ancient name for this transversal space immediately 
 in front of the tribunal in the semicircular apse in pagan 
 times was termed “ the chalcidicum.” Sometimes the 
 “ chalcidicum ” of a Roman basilica was closed at either 
 extremity by a chamber used for archives or documents 
 connected with the courts. These “ chambers ” are shown 
 in the little plan of the Ulpian basilica. 
 
 On the adaptation of the basilica model for a Christian 
 church, the chalcidicum was at once introduced, its con- 
 veniencebeing quickly recognised as a reserved enclosure for 
 priests, deacons, and others directly engaged in the various 
 ceremonies and duties of Christian worship, the altar occu- 
 pying a position in or immediately in front of the apse, 
 where the old Roman tribunal had been placed. The term 
 transsept (as it would be more correctly spelt) gradually 
 came into use, its meaning and derivation being obvious — 
 trans, across, and septum ( sepio ), a fence, barrier, or wall. 
 
 In some cases the “ transsept ” seems to have been slightly 
 prolonged beyond the aisles of the nave, thus giving the 
 building somewhat the appearance of a cross (a cross in 
 the old pagan days not always possessing the upper limb). 
 The full developed cruciform plan in which the “ transept ” 
 (to adopt the common form of spelling) plays so important a 
 part was not the original type of a Christian church, but 
 was only arrived at after some centuries of development. 
 In the tenth and eleventh centuries we find it in its com- 
 plete form. It was the needs of a monastic church which 
 no doubt produced the arrangement which we associate 
 with the perfected form of a great Christian church. 
 
 ! 3 6 
 
The Transept 
 
 eQ^ 
 
 i 
 
 * 
 
 * 
 
 r 
 
 The adjoining plan of the Eoman basilica of S. Paul 
 “ outside the walls,” on the road to Ostia, will give some 
 idea of an important early Chris- 
 tian basilica, built on the old 
 “ basilican ” model, with a tran- 
 sept slightly prolonged beyond 
 the aisles. 
 
 The basilica of S. Paul, built 
 on the original site of a little 
 church erected by the Emperor 
 Constantine, was commenced 
 in a.d. 386 under the direc- 
 tion of the Christian Emperor 
 Honorius, and ranks with S. 
 
 Peter’s as one of the chiefest 
 of the Eoman basilicas. The 
 importance of the “transept” 
 in this stately early Christian 
 temple will be at once seen 
 from the plan. The length of 
 this magnificent church, built 
 in the last quarter of the fourth 
 century, was roughly about 450 p LAN 0F 
 feet. The transepts extended 
 about 230 feet from end to end. 
 
 It will be noticed they very 
 slightly projected beyond the 
 aisles. 
 
 The basilica of “ S. Paul without the walls ” at Eome 
 
 t 
 
 ft 
 
 r » 
 
 <>-« M 
 
 Christian Basilica 
 (“ S. Paul - without - the- 
 walls,” Rome), showing the 
 
 POSITION OP THE TRANSEPT 
 and the Aisles, completed by 
 the Emperor Honorius, circa 
 a.d. 400. 1 
 
 1 This stately basilica, the unique specimen in Rome of a great 
 basilica existing still on the original lines, was almost completely de- 
 stroyed by fire in A.D. 1823. It has since been restored at enormous 
 cost according to the plan and dimensions of the original church. Cp. 
 illustration, p. 5. 
 
 l 3 7 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 was, until the Reformation in the sixteenth century, 
 under the titular supremacy of the sovereign of England. 
 
 Still the transept, as we commonly understand this 
 important feature in a church, giving it that cruciform 
 shape naturally dear to Christian sentiment, can scarcely 
 be said to have made its appearance before the marvellous 
 and striking revival of the eleventh century. A reference 
 to the well-known plan of the church of the abbey of S. 
 Gall, drawn, as was supposed, by Eginhard, circa a.d. 820, 
 will show that the old basilica form was closely followed 
 in this typical church of the ninth century, and the 
 whole of the building is largely filled with enclosed altars 
 and shrines. In the domed churches which began to be 
 built in the East in the earlier years of the sixth cen- 
 tury, a different form altogether from the basilica model 
 was usually adopted, but it was a form in no wise re- 
 sembling the cross - shaped church with which we are 
 familiar. 
 
 These churches, which from the time of the Emperor 
 Justinian, in the first years of the sixth century, were 
 erected in considerable numbers in the East and in those 
 parts of Italy ( e.g . Ravenna) where Eastern influences for a 
 time prevailed, are generally known as Byzantine, and 
 were usually, though not always, especially in the earlier 
 examples, built on the plan of a Greek cross (that is, with 
 the four arms of the cross of equal length), with a large 
 cupola or dome rising from the centre. The general plan 
 of these Byzantine churches usually gives the impression 
 of their being circular within, square, or oblong, now and 
 again circular or polygonal without. 
 
 In the great church-building age of the eleventh and 
 twelfth centuries, in which the monastic spirit to which 
 
The Transept 
 
 the Burgundian Abbey of Cluny and its many daughter 
 communities gave so marked an impulse, we find the 
 “ transepts ” are almost universal features in the abbatial 
 churches erected in such amazing numbers in Northern 
 and Central Europe, and the definite “ cross ” plan with 
 which we are so familiar, became visible in all these 
 ecclesiastical structures. This form supplied a want. 
 The abbey of the eleventh and twelfth centuries was 
 at once the private chapel of the “ religious ” who 
 dwelt in the monastery clustering under the shadow of 
 the abbey walls. It was also in the many centres of 
 population in the midst of which these abbatial churches 
 were often built, as for instance, Gloucester, and in other 
 innumerable instances, the church of the people. The 
 spacious transepts were needed for the large numbers of 
 monks and others dwelling and working in the monastery, 
 for whom the eastern end, sanctuary and choir, provided 
 insufficient space. The screen or screens, with separate 
 altars placed against them, divided usually the eastern end 
 — sanctuary, choir, and transepts — from the great nave 
 and its aisles, to which the people generally — pilgrims, 
 travellers, traders, and others — had free access, thus leaving 
 the eastern limb of the building and the transepts for the 
 use of the religious, and for their frequent services. 
 
 A much rarer feature was the presence of a smaller 
 secondary transept placed east of the principal transept. 
 The enormous Abbey of Cluny, rebuilt by Abbot S. Hugh, 
 a.d. 1089, and finished and consecrated a.d. 1131, pos- 
 sessed this double transept, the large numbers of “ reli- 
 gious ” who dwelt at Cluny when Cluny was at the height 
 of its power and influence, rendering this addition to the 
 monks’ portion of the abbey desirable. This double 
 transept never, however, became a general feature in 
 
 139 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 France. The abbatial Church of Cluny, and the Cathedrals 
 of Verdun and Besangon are quoted as the only known 
 examples of this peculiar double transept development in 
 France. It was, however, not unfrequent in the great 
 German churches in the Rhine country built at this 
 period. In England the double transept variety was more 
 common. It has even been termed a peculiarly English 
 feature. Well-known examples are the Cathedrals of 
 Lincoln, Salisbury, and York, and the splendid abbatial 
 Church of Beverley in Yorkshire. 
 
 A curious temporary reaction from the universal 
 adoption of transepts as a regular portion of all great 
 churches is noticeable, especially in France, in the popular 
 movement of the later years of the twelfth and during the 
 thirteenth century, when under episcopal influence the 
 mighty cathedrals, especially in the royal sphere of in- 
 fluence of the kings of France, were projected and to a 
 large extent completed. The enormous houses of prayer 
 of Reims, Bourges, Amiens, Chartres, and Paris, and others, 
 were originally designed without transepts, the whole 
 building being planned for popular services and gatherings. 
 A glance at the ground plans of these enormous cathedrals, 
 as originally designed, shown in Viollet-le-Duc’s “ Diction- 
 naire de 1 ’ Architecture,” vol. ii. s.v. “ Cathedrals,” notably 
 on pp. 294-5, 316, will show striking examples of this 
 temporary reaction against the transept idea in the 
 Cathedrals of Paris, Bourges, and Reims. The introduc- 
 tion of the transepts into these great buildings took 
 place some hundred years afterwards, in some cases later, 
 when the original purely popular conception, a dream 
 of the thirteenth century, faded away. We have already 
 dwelt at some length upon this. 
 
 140 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE TRANSEPT — THE PECULIAR ARCHITECTURAL IN- 
 TEREST OF THE SOUTH TRANSEPT IN GLOUCESTER 
 CATHEDRAL 
 
 To generalise on a great subject is always hard and often 
 precarious, and the deductions arrived at are usually open 
 to criticism ; still at times such a generalisation is useful, 
 and really helps the student to grasp the truth of a sub- 
 ject which mere facts and dates would scarcely enable 
 him to arrive at. This must be the apologia for the 
 following little rough conclusions 1 which though in the 
 main just and accurate, still, if examined in detail, would 
 naturally contain many exceptions. 
 
 In the year 1175, when Henry II. (Plantagenet) was 
 king, William de Sens, who had probably previously been 
 engaged on the recently completed cathedral in that city, 
 was employed by the monks of Canterbury to restore the 
 splendid Norman choir of the cathedral which, in 1174, 
 had been destroyed by fire. He carried on the works for 
 some five years when he met with a terrible accident in a 
 fall. Returning to France, he left the restoration in the 
 hands of his assistant, known under the name of William 
 the Englishman. The choir was completed under purely 
 
 1 Some of these conclusions and deductions on the invention and 
 adoption in England of “ Perpendicular Architecture ” as the national 
 style, will be found put out with great care and at considerable length 
 by Mr. G. G. Scott in his essay on “The History of English Church 
 Architecture,” chap. v. pp. 172-180 (4to, 1881). 
 
 I 4 I 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 French designs in a.d. 1185. It resembles closely the 
 design of Sens, only it is more elaborate. This was the 
 first great work in which pointed (Gothic) architecture 
 made its first appearance in England, and marks clearly 
 the transition between the Romanesque and Gothic 
 styles. 
 
 During the remainder of the twelfth, all through the 
 thirteenth, and well into the fourteenth century, Gothic 
 architecture continued to make extraordinary and brilliant 
 progress. “ In the keen race in which, so to speak, the two 
 countries, England and France, were engaged, France has 
 generally a small advantage. This was the case, especially 
 in ‘ the royal domain ’ extending over Northern, Eastern, 
 and parts of Central France, of which Paris was the 
 centre, and the lead then taken was only a lead, yet it 
 is one that cannot be questioned.” 
 
 But after the first quarter of the fourteenth century we 
 have to mark a singular and striking change. The English 
 artists adopted a course of their own, completely parting 
 company with their French brothers. We date this 
 “parting of the ways ” from about the year 1329. 
 
 The scene of the first “parting of the ways” was the 
 Benedictine abbey of S. Peter at Gloucester. But the 
 strange and, comparatively speaking, extraordinarily 
 rapid adoption of the Gloucester departure in architec- 
 ture in this island was owing to a strong English feeling 
 which had sprung up. 
 
 It was, in fact, a reaction. “ Men had become in the 
 course of time dissatisfied with the elegance which it had 
 been for a century [the period during which the so-called 
 ‘ Decorated ’ style had prevailed] the aim of the architects 
 to attain. Every refinement of curve, every subtlety of 
 line that ingenuity could devise or taste adorn, had been 
 
 142 
 
Perpendicular Architecture 
 
 adopted and perfected, until there seemed no possibility 
 of a further grace. 
 
 “ As a natural consequence, the very sweetness of the 
 style began at length to cloy, and a reaction in favour 
 of a return toward severity set in. . . . The logical pro- 
 gress of the flowing style was now complete, saving one 
 step. It was left to the French and German designers 
 to take that step, and to carry on the principle of con- 
 tinuity to its complete outcome, in the luxuriant exaggera- 
 tion of the flamboyant.” 
 
 The Gloucester Abbey change in style we are about to 
 dwell on, worked a revolution in architecture. The re- 
 turn to a severer ornamentation, the effect at once graceful 
 and impressive which the new style produced, was soon 
 recognised ; it pleased the English taste, and touched the 
 national imagination. Perpendicular, Third Gothic or 
 Pointed architecture, as it is sometimes termed, gradually 
 made its way throughout England. It completely, in the 
 end, superseded the former schools known as Early English 
 and as Decorated, and before many years “ Perpendicular,” 
 as it was subsequently termed, had become the national 
 ecclesiastical architecture. It was reproduced in time in 
 a thousand instances, alike in the humblest parish church 
 as in such lordly abbeys as those of Gloucester and 
 Winchester. 
 
 It had a long reign, enduring through the remaining 
 years of the fourteenth century, and all through the fif- 
 teenth, producing some of its greatest triumphs on the eve 
 of the Reformation in the sixteenth century, in such piles 
 as the exquisite Lady Chapel of Gloucester, the stately 
 chapel of King’s College, Cambridge, and the graceful Bell 
 tower of the now vanished abbey of Evesham, continuing 
 to be the church architecture par excellence of England till 
 
 H3 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 the great upheaval in the reign of Henry VIII. for a long 
 long period put an end to all the beautiful and touching 
 creations in stone which had been the glory of the middle 
 ages. 1 
 
 The story of the transformation of the Norman south 
 transept of Gloucester is indeed a twice-told tale, but the 
 conversion in the earlier years of the fourteenth century 
 of the stern Romanesque work of Serlo, the chaplain of 
 the Conqueror, into the graceful Perpendicular we now 
 gaze on, is an event of such paramount importance in the 
 history of English church architecture that it must in 
 this place be briefly repeated, for it is no baseless legend 
 which points to the south transept of Gloucester Cathe- 
 dral as the birthplace of the far-famed Perpendicular 
 style. 
 
 Some years before the south transept was touched, 
 somewhere about the year 1318, some structural defects 
 which threatened the gravest consequences to the build- 
 ing were detected in the south aisle. 2 An important work 
 was undertaken. The reigning abbot, John Thokey, was 
 not content with simply repairing or reconstructing the 
 
 1 “Of the perfected perpendicular manner,” writes Mr. G. G. Scott, 
 in the essay on “ The History of English Church Architecture,” from 
 which the two passages above quoted are taken, “the examples are 
 abundant and well known. If I had to name one as pre-eminent 
 where all are admirable, I should be tempted, perhaps, to select the 
 Quire and Lady Chapel of Gloucester. Yet the romantic beauty of 
 this noble work is matched, though it cannot be surpassed, by the 
 stately elegance of the eastern portion of York Minster.” 
 
 The traces of these structural defects are still plainly visible in the 
 south aisle. In the interior the wall in some parts falls outward as 
 much as eleven inches in its full height, while on the exterior the more 
 recent work of Abbot Thokey (a.d. 1318) inclines not more than four 
 inches. The addition of Thokey was placed on and against the old 
 Norman wall, with very massive buttresses, and deeply recessed 
 windows decorated with the “ball-flower.” 
 
 I44 
 
Perpendicular Architecture 
 
 damaged aisle, but he partially recased it in the style of 
 his day, especially the exterior portion, the recasing being 
 in the favourite and ornate fashion of the period, which 
 is known as “ Decorated.” Abbot Thokey’s beautiful work 
 endures to this day, and is known as one of the richest 
 examples of the “ decorated ” style of the fourteenth cen- 
 tury. Scarred and defaced as it is by the winter storms 
 which have blown up the Severn estuary for nigh six 
 hundred years, the old abbot’s work is still to those who 
 gaze on it from the quiet College Green a very dream of 
 beauty and tender grace, with its countless quaint “ ball- 
 flowers ” 1 carved on the elaborate window tracery. 
 
 We possess no confirmation as to the exact circum- 
 stances which led Abbot Thokey’s successor, John Wig- 
 more, to take in hand the great architectural work in the 
 south transept, a work which was fraught with such 
 momentous consequences not only as regards Gloucester 
 Abbey, but in connection with well-nigh all the architec- 
 
 1 Has this favourite and well-known ornament of this period, gene- 
 rally coinciding with the unhappy reign of Edward II., been rightly 
 described as a ball-flower? Mr. G. G. Scott suggests the following 
 emendation to the popular explanation : ‘ 1 This ornament is not in 
 reality a flower at all, but simply a common horse-bell, such as may be 
 seen hanging from the necks of country teams. The leather thong 
 which connects these little bells is commonly indicated clearly enough 
 in these sculptured representations. They have no doubt an heraldic 
 significance, and I think it possible that they may have been the badge 
 of those who, in the dissensions of this reign, adhered to the party of 
 the Queen” (Isabella). — Essay on “The History of Church Architec- 
 ture,” chap. iv. 
 
 Another interesting suggestion has been made respecting this beautiful 
 “ Decorated ” ornament — that it was perhaps a hawk's bell. Others sup- 
 pose it represented a pomegranate, to which it certainly bears some 
 resemblance, and that it was introduced into the English architecture 
 of the period out of compliment to Eleanor of Castile, the well-loved 
 wife of King Edward I., who died A.D. 1296. It is very rarely found 
 in France. 
 
 H5 
 
 K 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 tural work in England undertaken during the fourteenth 
 and fifteenth centuries. A desire to replace the old and 
 somewhat gloomy Romanesque with a lighter and more 
 ornamental style 1 no doubt influenced Wigmore and his 
 advisers — as well as a wish to insert great stained win- 
 dows in the place of the comparatively small Romanesque 
 windows, for it must be remembered what mighty advances 
 the craft of artists in coloured glass had made since the 
 Romanesque builders had finished their work. No doubt, 
 too, the charming effect of Thokey’s restoration of the 
 south aisle inspired Wigmore with a longing to recast in 
 a more ornate form the eastern limb of his great abbey. 
 
 All these motives received a decided impulse by a 
 sudden and vast increase in the resources of the com- 
 munity which fell to the Benedictine house of Gloucester 
 at this juncture. 
 
 Abbot Thokey, from the days of Edward I., had been 
 acquainted, had possibly been intimate with, Prince 
 Edward of Caernarvon, afterwards known as Edward II. 
 That the royal house of England, from the days of Athel- 
 
 1 We have already suggested that the desire to replace the stern, 
 plain, somewhat gloomy and heavy “ Romanesque ” with a more ornate 
 and lighter style, which was so usual a feature in the later half of the 
 twelfth and following centuries, probably received its first impulse 
 from the East. In the Crusades — those long drawn-out wars of the 
 twelfth and thirteenth centuries — it must be borne in mind, that 
 enormous numbers of all classes and orders took part. These varied 
 multitudes, in the course of their strange armed pilgrimages, visited 
 many oriental lands. The contrast between the gorgeous Arabian and 
 Saracenic architecture and the plain, severe Romanesque was very 
 striking, and no doubt influenced many minds, and induced a desire 
 to imitate in some degree the graceful and varied creations of the 
 East. The wonderful development of the art of painting upon glass 
 was another and most important factor in the yearning after a new 
 fashion in architecture, in which larger windows affording greater 
 scope to the craft of glass-painters might be introduced. 
 
Perpendicular Architecture 
 
 stan and the Anglo-Saxon dynasty, frequently made 
 Gloucester their abode, is well known — probably from 
 the time of Serlo and the rebuilding of much of the abbey 
 and its dependencies, the King, during his stay at Glou- 
 cester, would have resided in the abbot’s apartments in 
 the Gloucester abbey. 
 
 It was in the abbot’s dining-hall 1 that the famous 
 conversation related in the History and Cartulary of the 
 abbey took place. The chamber was adorned with pic- 
 tures of the English kings. Prince Edward on one occa- 
 sion asked, half in jest, Abbot Thokey if the monks would 
 ever have his likeness among those of his ancestors. To 
 Edward s question Thokey replied (was it a prophecy ?) 
 that he trusted to have him in a nobler place than in his 
 dining-hall. The abbot’s wish was strangely fulfilled, for 
 only a few years afterwards the prince became king, and 
 after the cruel murder in Berkeley Castle his mutilated 
 body was reverently laid in the abbey church adjoining 
 the abbot’s lodgings, where the conversation above related 
 was probably held. 
 
 Near what was once the high altar of the Benedictine 
 abbey is a stately royal tomb, one of the fairest in England. 
 Beneath an elaborately carved canopy of stone rests a sleep- 
 
 1 Some of the abbot’s apartments are still in existence. They have 
 formed part of the present deanery since the suppression of the monas- 
 tery in A.D. 1540. Much of the old Romanesque work on which Edward 
 the Second must have gazed has been preserved, and generally the 
 divisions of the old Norman rooms in which Thokey and his predecessors 
 lived have been kept. — Some antiquarians of learning and ability have 
 suggested that the mass of “ Romanesque ” hdornment which still 
 beautifies this interesting and historical building indicates that the 
 apartments of the abbot of Gloucester were especially and elaborately 
 decorated with the view of their being used by the Norman and 
 Plantagenet sovereigns on the occasion of their frequent visits to 
 Gloucester. 
 
 H7 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 ing alabaster figure robed and crowned, with a winning and 
 attractive face in its setting of long wavy hair. This is 
 Edward II., the Plantagenet, the face not improbably 
 moulded from a mask taken after death. Thokey’s pro- 
 phecy was strangely verified. The King’s effigy hard by 
 the high altar of the immemorial abbey has found verily 
 a nobler resting-place than the dining-hall of the abbot. 
 The pictures of Edward’s royal ancestors on which he was 
 looking when he asked Thokey his curious question have 
 long disappeared, but after nigh six hundred years his 
 alabaster effigy still rests on his strangely honoured tomb. 
 
 Strangely honoured, indeed, for it was the source of the 
 abundant wealth which poured into the treasury of the 
 Gloucester Abbey. After the King’s murder at Berkeley 
 the monasteries of Malmesbury, Kingswood, and Bristol, 
 fearful of showing any honour or respect to the remains 
 of the poor uncrowned Edward II., declined the perilous 
 honour of receiving his remains. Thokey and the Bene- 
 dictine house of Gloucester, less timorous, gave him an 
 honoured grave. Thokey sent to Berkeley his own carriage, 
 and brought the royal corpse to his stately abbey with 
 every demonstration of respect. He received, indeed, for 
 his brave, loyal act of friendship for the unhappy dead a 
 right royal guerdon, for very soon the wheel of fortune 
 turned, and the enemies of Edward II. gave place to the 
 son of the murdered King. This son was the famous 
 Edward III., whose pious care raised the fair tomb of 
 which we have been speaking over his hapless father’s 
 place of sepulture. 
 
 But this was not all. Crowds of pilgrims, consisting of 
 all sorts and conditions of men and women, came year 
 after year to visit and pray over the Gloucester shrine 
 where the remains of the murdered Edward rested, a 
 
 148 
 
Tomb and Effigy of Edward II 
 
Perpendicular Architecture 
 
 curious and somewhat inexplicable cult indeed. It was 
 periiaps the expression of a national sorrow for a king 
 who had been shamefully done to death. Bich gifts were 
 off ered at the shrine, the donors thinking they would thus 
 avert the curse which the foul deed of blood perhaps had 
 brought upon their homes and hearths. The abbey grew 
 suddenly wealthy with the countless pilgrim offerings. 
 Out of this wealth 1 Wigmore determined to adorn and 
 to beautify the eastern portion reserved for the monks of 
 the great church where Edward lay. There is a tradition 
 that the offerings were soon sufficient to rebuild, if the 
 monks had so willed it, the entire abbey anew. But the 
 Eomanesque work was generally of too solid and enduring 
 a character to allow of such a design. How could he best 
 adorn the grey old abbey church without destroying or 
 pulling down any portion ? 
 
 The monk was often a great architect ; those glorious 
 sacred piles, many of which time and the more ruthless hand 
 of man have spared, which we still wonder at and admire, 
 mighty piles which grew up in so many centres of Europe 
 between the closing years of the eleventh and the opening 
 years of the sixteenth century, especially in the twelfth 
 and thirteenth centuries, were in great measure the fruit 
 of the monk’s hand and brain. The cloister life seems 
 to have been peculiarly adapted to the architect’s craft. 
 
 i Among the notable gifts given to the abbey at this time by dis- 
 tinguished persons, such as Edward III., Philippa his Queen, the 
 Black Prince, the Queen of Scotland, and others, were a ship of solid 
 gold, a costly gold cross, with a relic of the “ True Cross ” set in it, a 
 necklace with an exceedingly precious ruby, a golden heart, and a 
 number of valuable pieces of silver. Some of these gifts were re- 
 deemed by the donors, but some, with countless other treasures, dis- 
 appeared, it is supposed, when the monastery was dissolved and 
 confiscated by Henry VIII. in the year 1540. 
 
 I49 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 For instance, the magnificent abbey church of Cluny 
 was rebuilt on a far grander scale than the celebrated 
 earlier abbey of S. Odilo, abbot of Cluny, A.n. 1094-A.D. 
 1049. This second abbatial church, constructed under 
 the auspices of S. Hugh, abbot of the famous house, 
 a.d. 1049-A.D. 1109, was designed by one of the Cluny 
 monks, Gauzon, to whom, according to the Clunician 
 legend, S. Peter revealed the design in a dream. The 
 monk Gauzon’s church was the vastest and most mag- 
 nificent church in Western Christendom. 
 
 Abbot Wigmore, of Gloucester, was one of these great 
 monk builders, and in the Benedictine abbey of S. Peter, 
 Gloucester, the new architectural style was devised 1 be- 
 tween the years 1329 and 1335. Wigmore, with the 
 apparently exhaustless offerings at the shrine of Edward 
 II. in his hands, was resolved to transform and to recast 
 the east limb of the abbey, not to rebuild it. He began 
 the work in this south transept of which we are now 
 writing and completed it in less than six years. In the 
 south wall he replaced the original small Norman window 
 or windows by a gigantic window. He raised the roof and 
 covered the old Norman masonry in the interior of the 
 transept with ornamental panel-work — panel-work which 
 looks as though it were nailed on to the main body of the 
 building. The result in this south transept “ was work not 
 quite fully developed Perpendicular, but so far advanced 
 that it must be called Perpendicular, rather than any other 
 style. All the essential features of the style are there, 
 that especially English variety of the great Gothic family, 
 which, whether for good or evil, effectually distinguishes 
 
 1 Compare Professor Willis’s words in his well-known Lecture, and 
 Professor E. A. Freeman, Lecture ii. , “ Records of Gloucester Cathe- 
 dral, 1883.” 
 
Perpendicular Architecture 
 
 the architecture of our land from that of every other .” 1 
 The south transept of Gloucester emphatically may be 
 described as a nearly perfect example of Perpendicular, 
 and also as the first example which appeared in England. 
 
 The same critical scholar, whose words we have been 
 quoting, considers that in the device of Abbot Wigmore 
 to decorate his Romanesque abbey we have the key to 
 the origin of the Perpendicular style. The Gloucester 
 architect had made up his mind not to destroy or to dis- 
 turb the massive Romanesque walls and columns, save in 
 the case of the window openings, the enlargement of which 
 was part of his design. The new ornamental work was 
 to be thrown over the old work after the manner of a veil of 
 lace ; veneered work, nailed on work, applique work, as 
 some prefer more prosaically to term it . 2 And the series 
 of straight lines in panelling and tracery lay more easily 
 over the great round columns or heavy low-browed 
 arches than would the more elegant carved lines and 
 flowing tracery. What we find in the south transept of 
 Gloucester we continue to find in the choir and north 
 transept, where the work of transformation was proceeded 
 with directly after the completion of the first division of 
 the new work in the south transept, which we have termed 
 the birthplace of the new architectural style. In the 
 choir the long straight lines in the veil of stone tracery 
 tossed over the Romanesque masonry were yet more 
 necessary than in the smaller transept. The effect of 
 this new and sterner Gothic ornamentation for the 
 reasons above alluded to evidently pleased the English 
 taste, and was adopted as the favourite style, even in 
 
 1 E. A. Freeman. 
 
 2 The manner in which this veil of Perpendicular tracery was thrown 
 over the old Romanesque work is shown in a sketch which accompanies 
 the history of the choir, p. 172. 
 
 l S l 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 places where the straight lines were not necessary for 
 the overlaying work as at Gloucester, and so the new 
 Perpendicular architecture, as it is generally termed, 
 with slightly different varieties, became the universal use 
 throughout England. 
 
 The rough dates of the first known beginnings of “ Per- 
 pendicular ” are as follows: Gloucester — South Transept, 
 Abbot Wigmore, a.d. 1329-1336; Choir, Abbot de 
 Staunton, a.d. 1337- 1351. Winchester — Nave, Bishop 
 Edington, a.d. 1345-1366 (continued by Bishop William 
 of Wykeham, 1366-1404). Gloucester — North Transept, 
 Abbot Horton, 1 3 5 1— 1 377- 
 
 The North Transept, 1 corresponding nearly in size and 
 general appearance to the South Transept, was covered 
 in a similar manner by a veil of Perpendicular tracery 
 by Abbot Horton after the transformation of the Choir 
 had been completed, a.d. 1368-1373. The Perpen- 
 dicular panelling here, though closely resembling the 
 earlier work of Wigmore in the South Transept, is, as 
 might have been expected, much more fully developed, 
 the roof especially being richer. It contains traditionally 
 the tombs of Abbot Horton and of his successor Abbot 
 Boyfield. Two large and somewhat defaced stones mark 
 the tombs in question. The brass- work which once en- 
 riched these great tablets has long disappeared, and the 
 inscriptions have vanished likewise. The tablet to the 
 North was probably that of Horton, under whose direction 
 the Perpendicular casing or veil of this transept was 
 carried out. The tablet to the south of Horton’s probably 
 covers the remains of Boyfield, who was abbot when 
 Richard II. held his celebrated parliament at Gloucester. 
 
 1 This North Transept is eight feet lower than that on the south 
 side, two feet shorter and one foot less in width. 
 
 152 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE CHOIR 
 
 The “ Choir,” as we understand the term, belongs, com- 
 paratively speaking, to a late development of a Christian 
 church. “Le Chceur,” says Viollet-le-Duc, writing of 
 the Cathedral of Chartres, “ est l’objet principal, c’est 
 pour lui que l’dglise est faite.” “ The history of 
 mediaeval ecclesiology,” Mr. G. G. Scott is never weary 
 of repeating in his essay on English Church Architecture, 
 “may be almost summed up in one conception — the 
 constant increase in length and in architectural impor- 
 tance, of the Eastern limb of that cruciform plan which 
 all the larger churches exhibit. . . . The Choir, which 
 had been originally a very subordinate feature, often 
 even in large churches, as a distinct feature altogether 
 wanting, had now, in the middle ages, come to be of the 
 first importance, separated off in the most conspicuous 
 manner from the body of the Church, and but slightly 
 distinguished from the Sanctuary itself ... in fact the 
 ecclesiological history of the Middle Ages (roughly the 
 eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth 
 centuries) may almost be summed up in this one point, 
 the development of the Choir.” 
 
 The Christian Basilica, that adaptation of the old Pagan 
 Basilica we have already dwelt upon is perhaps the earliest 
 known type of a Christian Church, and dates from the 
 
 1 53 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 first quarter of the fourth century immediately after the 
 peace of the church and the adoption of the religion of 
 Jesus by the Roman Empire under the influence of the 
 Emperor Constantine, a.d. 313. The primitive plan of 
 a basilica included a simple nave with aisles, terminating 
 in an apse, the floor of which was raised somewhat above 
 the level of the pavement of the nave ; just in front of 
 the apse was placed the altar, in advance of the altar was 
 a space generally reserved for the inferior orders of the 
 clergy. This space was termed the “ Chorus ” ; here were 
 placed the singers, and others who made up the inferior 
 orders; a low balustrade usually separated these from 
 the ordinary worshippers who occupied the body of the 
 nave. Another division or balustrade farther down the 
 nave separated the catechumens and others who were 
 not admitted to a participation in the more solemn rites. 
 Close to the altar itself, in a small space known as the 
 altarium, were the deacons and subdeacons; beyond the 
 altar, in the apse, was a row of seats reserved for the 
 presbyters — the presbyterium ; in the centre of these, 
 a raised seat was occupied by the bishop, 1 or the presiding 
 presbyter. 
 
 Thus the “ chorus ” or choir in a primitive basilica was 
 not by any means a prominent feature, and was only 
 separated from the nave by a low balustrade. At a very 
 early period this was enlarged by the portioning off the 
 transepts at the end of the side aisles ; this gave additional 
 space to the singers and others more immediately engaged 
 in the service. But these early transepts differed from 
 the transepts of mediaeval times. They were simply a 
 
 1 This semicircular bench of Presbyters, at the head, so to speak, of 
 the Church, suggests the idea of a “ corona” (crown), from which some 
 rather fancifully have derived the term “choir.” 
 
 T 54 
 
The Choir 
 
 great cross-nave placed at right angles to the nave proper 
 and its aisles, beyond which they rarely projected . 1 This 
 arrangement is found in S. John’s Lateran, Santa Maria 
 Maggiore, and in S. Paul’s-without-the-Walls. 
 
 In the accompanying little drawing the existing Church 
 of S. Clement is a good illustration of one of these very 
 early plans for the purposes of the choir or chorus and 
 other ritual arrangements in a basilica; it shows the 
 choir enclosure — low walls of white marble having a 
 bench on their inner face, but the low walls in question do 
 not obstruct in any way the view of the altar or the 
 presbyterium in the apse. The present Church of S. 
 Clement dates from the ninth century, but the plan and 
 probably the fittings are of a much earlier date, probably 
 of the first half of the sixth century. They certainly 
 represent the tradition of a primitive Christian basilica. 
 A further development in the size of the choir appears in 
 certain of the singularly preserved churches in Syria, 
 deserted at the period of the Mahommedan invasion. 
 These churches were erected certainly before the end of 
 the sixth century, and some of these belong undoubtedly 
 to the latter end of the fourth and to the fifth century. 
 There are examples among these of a considerable pro- 
 longation of the original choir arrangements in basilicas, 
 a sanctuary of two bays being interposed between the 
 apse and the nave. 
 
 In some basilicas, at a comparatively early date, the use 
 of the apse was changed. It became no longer the recog- 
 nised situation for the presbyters or for the presbyters 
 and bishop, but was adapted as the sepulchre for the 
 patron saint or for some specially holy remains. Beneath 
 
 1 This is shown in the little plan accompanying the chapter on 
 the transept, p. 137. 
 
 l SS 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 the apse was dug a small crypt or vault (if it did not 
 previously exist) where the body was laid, and in the 
 apse was erected over the crypt a reliquary or monu- 
 ment. This, as we have noticed in a former chapter, 
 was one of the earliest forms of the crypt, which 
 subsequently became in certain important churches a 
 prominent feature. This change in the original use of 
 the apse was made in the primitive basilican Church of S. 
 Martin at Tours, sometime before A.D. 500. During the 
 time of the Carlovigian kings of France the practice 
 which changed the original “ presbyterium ” into the 
 “ Marty rium ” was not uncommon. 1 
 
 Consequent upon such a change the seats there of the 
 presbyters were moved into the “ chorus ” between the 
 altar and the nave. 
 
 We have already dwelt at some length on the long 
 period of disaster which fell on the countries of Chris- 
 tendom, in the East as in the West, during part of the 
 seventh, all through the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries. 
 A slumber resembling death paralysed all Church pro- 
 gress and work, save during the brief period of the great 
 Emperor Charlemagne’s reign. (He was crowned em- 
 peror a.d. 800.) We are speaking in detail of the West. 
 During this period, lasting over three hundred years, 
 comparatively few churches were erected. But in the 
 awakening of the eleventh century a new era dawned 
 upon the Church. This renaissance of the Church, 
 we must remember, was largely, indeed almost entirely, 
 monastic. It was mostly the work of the abbey of Cluny 
 and of its daughter houses. 
 
 1 See Quicherat, “Fragments d’un Cours Archeologique,” p. 409 ; and 
 “Restitution de la Basilique de S. Martin de Tours,” p. 40, in the 
 “ Melanges ” (Quicherat). 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 The “ white robe of churches,” to use the metaphor we 
 have adopted from the Cluny monk, Eaoul Glaber, with 
 w 7 hich in that age of awakening, Christendom vested 
 itself, were for the most part “ monastic ” churches, or at 
 least churches designed and built under monastic inspira- 
 tion. The Benedictines were without doubt the architects 
 of the great multitude of abbeys, cathedrals, and humble 
 parish churches which arose in such vast numbers at this 
 period in every country of Europe. Naturally their plans 
 and designs for their own churches were drawn to suit 
 the needs of their communities, and other churches, great 
 and small, more or less followed the new fashion brought 
 in by the all-powerful monks. At once the old basilican 
 arrangement was changed and modified to suit monastic 
 needs and requirements. The most important of these 
 eleventh-century changes was the new position of para- 
 mount importance given to the choir 1 in the Church, a 
 position that grew in importance as the period known in 
 history as the “ mediaeval ” advanced. 
 
 In dwelling upon this marked feature in all mediaeval 
 church building and church arrangements — the striking 
 development in the choir — it must be remembered that 
 there was one period during which the Church, especially 
 in Eoyal France, pursued a different policy to the one 
 which found its expression in the glorification of the 
 choir. In this especial study on the “choir,” it will 
 be well to add a few details to our former notice on pages 
 122-128 on this subject. 
 
 The great religious reaction of the eleventh and twelfth 
 centuries was the work of the religious orders. It was 
 the monastery which set itself to reform and to infuse fresh 
 
 1 Compare Be Caumont, “ AbecMaire d’Archdologie, Architecture Re- 
 ligieuse,” chap. ii. 
 
 158 
 
 
The Choir 
 
 life into the Church at a period when life was well-nigh 
 extinct. Well and thoroughly, after its light, the monas- 
 tery did its work. It sent a new vivifying breath through 
 every department of human effort. The soldier and the 
 merchant, the noble and the peasant alike, were influenced 
 more or less by the new spirit which Cluny and innumer- 
 able religious houses — a large number of which were 
 daughter houses of Cluny— had called into existence. The 
 new and nobler thoughts and aspirations suggested by 
 the “ monk ” of the eleventh century permeated all art, in- 
 cluding architecture, painting (especially on glass), sculp- 
 ture, and the scanty literature of the age. Agriculture, 
 commerce, even war, passed under and were coloured by 
 monastic influences. Nor can any fair critic decline to 
 acknowledge the enormous services rendered by the 
 “ monk to society in this stern iron age. Things were 
 indeed evil, more evil, perhaps, in the ninth and tenth 
 centuries than at any period of the world’s story that we 
 can accurately gauge. Under purely monastic influences 
 there was a marked and decisive change for the better in 
 the eleventh and twelfth centuries, but as the twelfth 
 century was drawing to a close, the “ monk’s ” great work 
 was virtually done. The conditions of the Western world, 
 in France, Italy, Germany, and England, were altered. 
 We have dwelt briefly already on some of these conditions, 
 such as on the growth of cities and of city life, the com- 
 parative security from foreign raids of barbarian peoples, 
 the consolidation of the monarchical authority, the in- 
 creasing discontent with the oppression and exactions of 
 the feudal system. 
 
 But although many of the conditions of life were 
 changing, the religious spirit, awakened some 150 or 200 
 years before by the splendid efforts of the monastics 
 
 J 59 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 still quickened and inspired all sorts and conditions of 
 men. The bishops, however, whose authority and power 
 were gravely impaired by the enormous influence of the 
 monastic orders, for a time directed the religious spirit 
 into a somewhat new channel. Under their prompting, the 
 zeal of the rising civic communities commenced the build- 
 ing of the mighty mediaeval cathedrals. France is especi- 
 ally alluded to here, and in France especially that portion 
 of that great country more immediately under the sphere 
 of royal influence, though the same work went on in a 
 somewhat lesser degree in other European countries. 
 
 Eoughly, in monarchical France, some twenty-two 
 or more of these stupendous cathedrals 1 were designed 
 and largely completed in this period. They were 
 generally in the first instance arranged as vast religious 
 halls or assembling places for the people. At first they 
 were designed and built with no transepts, or with very 
 small transepts, with few if any side chapels — at most 
 with only a few small chapels leading out of the apse — 
 and what in this place is especially to be noted, with no per- 
 manently enclosed choir , with nothing to intercept or block 
 the view save the high altar, with its curtains, the choir 
 being simply carpeted and provided with seats for the 
 clergy, enriched, apparently, with hangings at the back 
 or with curtains removable at pleasure. 
 
 But what is especially remarkable, this state of things 
 only lasted a comparatively speaking short time — less 
 
 1 The names of these magnificent and in many cases stupendous 
 cathedrals which are still with us, startling us with their amazing size 
 and often perfect beauty, after nigh six centuries, are Paris, Chartres, 
 Bourges, Noyon, Laon, Soissons, Meaux, Amiens, Arras, Cambrai, Rouen, 
 Sdez, Bayeux, Coutances, le Mans, Angers, Poitiers, Tours, Reims, 
 Sens, Chalons, Troyes. These, of course, vary somewhat in size, but 
 they are all important. 
 
The Choir 
 
 than a century. Not one of these cathedrals appears to 
 have been completely finished after the original design, 
 i he. mediaeval architect, the master of the works, and his 
 men worked slowly and with care, for they bestowed 
 immense pains on each separate detail. The enormous 
 
 Ground Plan of the Cathedral Ground Plan of the Cathedral 
 of Paris. of Bourges. 
 
 piles, too, required the expenditure of vast sums, and 
 even when the cities were rich and resources compara- 
 tively abundant, which was not by any means always the 
 case, the outlay had to be spread over a long period. 
 Before any of these splendid cathedrals of which we have 
 been speaking were out of the workmen and architect’s 
 
 I 6 I L 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 hands, a change had passed over the designs and plans of 
 the men who were the guides and leaders of the Church, 
 and the desire closely to identify the cathedral with the 
 people had passed away, and the old spirit of exclusive- 
 ness again took possession of the clergy. 
 
 In the last years of the thirteenth century the “ choir ” 
 began again to be enclosed. The transepts were gradually 
 enlarged, side chapels and apsidal chapels and enclosed 
 altars were multiplied, and the cathedrals were eventually 
 finished much in the form in which they have come down 
 to us. The great open buildings designed exclusively for 
 the use of the people, with the unenclosed “ choir,” must be 
 regarded as a curious parenthesis in the story of these 
 mighty medieval houses of prayer. Henceforth, roughly, 
 from the end of the thirteenth century downwards, there 
 was no marked difference in the general arrangements of 
 the interior of the monastic abbey and the cathedral. In 
 both we find the “ choir ” enclosed and reserved for the 
 monks, the canons, and the officiating clergy, and as time 
 advanced the enclosure of the “ choir,” usually the most 
 elaborately decorated and the most important portion of 
 the building, became more and more a pronounced and 
 conspicuous feature. 
 
 Nor is it difficult to see the reason for this marked 
 change, the great feature of all mediaeval abbeys and 
 churches. It took its rise naturally in the extraor- 
 dinary growth of the monastic system in the eleventh and 
 twelfth centuries. In the basilican church the choir was 
 simply a small enclosure designed for the use of the clerks, 
 the singers, and others engaged in the services, and was 
 scarcely separated from the nave where the faithful assem- 
 bled ; but a position so unimportant and arrangements so 
 simple did not at all correspond with the requirements 
 
 162 
 
The Choir 
 
 of a monastic community. The monks, bound as they 
 were to an elaborate round of daily and nightly round of 
 choral offices, required for these frequent services an altar 
 or altars of their own, and lofty screens round their choir 
 where they might sing and say their many offices uninter- 
 rupted. It even appeared as though they considered the 
 worship of the people as a matter of lesser importance. 
 Still provision was carefully made for the worship of the 
 people by the erection of separate altars in the nave, where 
 regular and special services were said and sung. All this 
 explains the expansion of the corresponding small basilican 
 apse, and the simple basilican arrangements for the singers 
 and others engaged in the services, into the vast choir 
 and elongated sanctuary end which we have dwelt upon 
 as the striking feature in all church architecture of the 
 Middle Ages. 
 
 As might be expected, the smaller parish churches, of 
 course in a lesser degree, followed the prevailing fashion, 
 and a choir, completely separated from the nave, com- 
 monly by a rood screen, became the usual plan of a parish 
 church. 
 
 The following brief sketch of a great mediaeval choir in 
 the early part of the fourteenth century will serve as a 
 general picture of most of abbatial and, indeed, cathedral 
 choirs of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It repre- 
 sents the enclosed and reserved portion of an important 
 church during most of the mediasval period. 
 
 To the west, separating the choir from the nave, was 
 erected the screen (Eood screen, Jub4) already described, 
 with its door in the centre, with its two “ people’s ” altars, 
 one at either side, surmounted with a lofty crucifix, and 
 often with accompanying statues near the foot of the 
 
 163 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 cross ; a broad platform above contained generally an 
 altar and two reading-desks, one on either side, whence 
 on certain occasions the priest read to the people in the 
 nave. The screen was, as a rule, of stone richly carved, 
 coloured, and gilt. Stone walls about 1 5 feet in height, also 
 adorned with sculptured figures in gold and colour, served 
 as a back to the stalls, often some sixty or more in number. 
 The stalls were usually elaborately carved and decorated, 
 and were in some cases adorned with rich hangings behind. 
 Above the stalls eastward, in the midst of the choir in an 
 abbatial church, the custom was to place an altar termed 
 the matutinal altar. At the matutinal altar the ordinary 
 morning office was said in monastic churches. In the abbey 
 Church of S. Denis, near Paris, one of the most sumptuous 
 churches in France, this matutinal altar was dedicated to 
 the blessed Trinity. At S. Denis, immediately behind 
 this “ Trinity ” altar, was the magnificent shrine of S. 
 Louis. Still farther eastward in the same church which 
 we have taken as an example, raised yet higher, was the 
 principal altar; behind it towered a yet more gorgeous 
 shrine containing the sacred relics of the apostles of 
 .France, SS. Denis the Areopagite, Eusticus, and Eleutherus. 
 In very many of the great churches and abbeys the 
 enclosure round the choir, in part or in whole, was formed 
 by the tombs of abbots, priors, bishops, or royal person- 
 ages, whose remains had been laid to rest in the choir 
 with which in life they had been connected by official or 
 other special ties. 
 
 The choir arrangement of the cathedrals of the four- 
 teenth and fifteenth centuries closely resemble those 
 above detailed in a great abbey, save that the matutinal 
 altar seems especially to have been a favourite feature in a 
 monastic abbey. In the case of the parish churches the 
 
 164 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 same plan, though on a smaller and less pretentious scale, 
 was usually followed. 
 
 In modern times, especially in the cathedrals of France 
 and in other continental countries, the taste of the seven- 
 teenth and two following centuries has often removed 
 these choir enclosures in whole or in part, and replaced 
 the beautiful and interesting mediteval work by what 
 Viollet-le-Duc does not hesitate to call “ des boiseries sans 
 valeur avec des grilles d’un aspect miserable.” The well- 
 known choir of the stately cathedral of Keims, partly 
 wrecked in this sad fashion, is a familiar example. In 
 England another strange attempt has been made to improve 
 upon the original design of the great mediaeval artists. 
 While as a rule the original plan of the choir, as far as 
 was possible with the changed conditions of worship in 
 the Anglican communion, has been reverently and skilfully 
 preserved, in some great cathedrals and abbey churches 
 the screen separating the choir from the nave has been 
 taken away. The effect, as may be conceived, is not 
 happy, while in a congregational point of view the change 
 is well-nigh useless, if not positively harmful : well-known 
 examples of this singular attempt to improve upon the 
 masterpieces of the great medievalists are the cathedrals 
 of Worcester and Hereford . 1 Westminster Abbey and 
 Gloucester, on the other hand, are good instances of a 
 rigid conservation of the ancient design. 
 
 From the general history of the peculiar medieval 
 
 1 In Hereford, where the choir screen has been cleared away, an 
 open-worked iron grille has been substituted, in its way a fine work 
 of art. But the old division of choir and nave has been completely 
 destroyed. As might have been expected, for all congregational pur- 
 poses, save as affording seats for the singing men and the canons, who 
 are thus separated from the ordinary worshippers, the choir, which is 
 of considerable size, is virtually useless. 
 
 166 
 
The Choir 
 
 development of the choir — a marked feature in medi- 
 aeval church architecture — we turn to the choir of the 
 cathedral church of Gloucester, which is our typical 
 example of a great abbey built in the period of the 
 awakening of the Church of the West in the later years 
 of the eleventh century. 
 
 The choir of Gloucester, of vast dimensions, is an 
 admirable instance of a completely enclosed choir of a 
 great abbey church, and in its general features fortunately 
 has remained unchanged since its curious architectural 
 transformation by the abbots in the first half of the 
 fourteenth century. The enclosure of the “choir” of 
 Gloucester comprehended : — 
 
 (1) The Sanctuary, in which stood the High Altar, 
 placed in the apse with its raised platform and flight 
 of steps. 
 
 (2) The space termed the Presbytery, at the West end 
 of which probably stood the matutinal altar, with its 
 flight of three steps ; of these two spaces the high-altar 
 platform and the presbytery, both elevated, are raised over 
 the crypt beneath. The highest portion, the platform 
 on which stands the high altar, covers what answers to 
 the martyrium or tomb of the patron saint of the 
 church. There is, however, in Gloucester no tradition 
 of any such tomb, but the fashion is carefully preserved. 
 The presbytery is raised also, but is on a lower level 
 than the high-altar platform, and is immediately over the 
 large crypt beneath. 
 
 (3) Below the presbytery at the bottom of the three 
 steps above mentioned comes the ritual choir, the “ choir ” 
 proper, with its sixty stalls, twenty-five ou either side, 
 and ten at the lower end, five on either side the door- 
 way of the screen separating the choir from the nave. 
 
 167 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 These ten are termed Return stalls. The present screen, 
 with its broad platform on the top, on which stand the 
 two organs (the choir and nave organs) with their vast 
 forest of pipes, corresponds to the mediaeval platform, 
 gallery or loft, and occupies the same position as did the 
 old rood-screen 1 which contained an altar, a pair of 
 small organs, and two desks from which on certain days 
 the Epistle and Gospel were read to the congregation 
 assembled in the nave . 2 
 
 The “choir” above described, including the sacrarium 
 or high-altar platform, the presbytery platform, the 
 ritual choir, and the loft or gallery over the screen 
 dividing the choir from the nave, is thrust forward past 
 the transept into the nave, in which it occupies a con- 
 siderable space, its entire length being nearly the length 
 of the nave itself. 
 
 The wall or screen-work of this vast choir enclosure 
 is composed on the western end by the stone screen, 
 with the ten Return stalls looking up the choir, above 
 described, which part it from the nave. On the north 
 side, it is composed of twenty-five stalls with their 
 canopies surmounted by an elaborately carved cornice, 
 these stalls being partly backed up with the stone- work 
 
 1 In continuation of the line of this rood-screen, which was of stone, 
 were stone screens in both aisles ; in front of both of which were prob- 
 ably altars enclosed by screens to form a chapel. All this would have 
 formed a grand architectural fa$ade, a very imposing division between 
 the nave and choir. 
 
 2 Some antiquarian scholars believe that a second screen, all traces of 
 which, however, have disappeared, stood farther down the nave 
 between the second pair of the great nave piers, and that on this was 
 the gallery called the rood-loft from its containing the great rood and 
 its attendant images. They consider that the rood itself in Gloucester 
 stood on a rood beam at some height above the loft, as traces seem 
 still to exist of this rood beam in the pillars or shafts. 
 
 1 6 8 
 
The Choir 
 
 of the great shafts supporting the Tower. Farther to 
 the eastward, on the north side, the enclosure is com- 
 posed mainly of three great monumental tombs ; two of 
 these tombs contain the remains of kings, and the third 
 of them the remains of the last abbot of the old Bene- 
 dictine house. 
 
 On the south side the enclosure is composed of twenty- 
 five stalls, backed in a similar way to those on the north ; 
 and farther to the eastward, by stone-work partly of 
 panelled and partly of open tracery, and at the eastern- 
 most portion by a group of solid stone sedilia with 
 canopies. At the east end the enclosure is formed by the 
 holy table or altar, the reredos, and the stone chamber 
 termed in Gloucester the Feretory. 
 
 All this choir-enclosure remains practically undis- 
 turbed, save that the rood-loft itself contains now only 
 the immense organ of later days. The rood, the images, 
 and the altars, &c., have long disappeared. 
 
 It would be difficult to find a more perfect instance 
 than “ Gloucester ” of a great medimval choir completely 
 enclosed, and arranged for the use of an important Bene- 
 dictine house. A striking contrast indeed does this vast 
 choir, the special outcome of church life in the middle 
 ages, shut in by lofty stone walls and tall canopied stalls 
 and stately tombs, present to the comparatively small 
 choir of a lordly basilica of the earlier centuries. The 
 basilica, for instance, would show us a choir of compara- 
 tively small dimensions, marked out with a low wall of 
 balustrades, but scarcely distinguishable from the basilican 
 nave, which virtually occupied the whole of the ground floor 
 of the building. And the choir of the Gloucester abbey of 
 Benedictines, above described with some detail, is a typical 
 instance of the choir arrangements of a great medkeval 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 abbey, an arrangement closely followed in the fourteenth 
 and fifteenth centuries in most cathedral 1 and abbatial 
 churches, and imitated more or les 3 in the larger parish 
 churches. Truly we are accurate in describing the en- 
 larged and developed “ choir ” as the principal mediaeval 
 feature in church architecture. 
 
 Before quitting the subject of the mediaeval choir, we 
 will add a few details on the special architectural features 
 of the choir of Gloucester, which we have selected as the 
 groundwork of this little study of a great mediaeval church. 
 A peculiar importance besides belongs to Gloucester, as it 
 is in this famous abbey that was first introduced that form 
 of Gothic architecture “ the Perpendicular,” which the 
 English people, from the middle of the fourteenth century 
 onwards, adopted as their own, and continued to use for 
 nearly two hundred years. 
 
 We have already, in our chapter on the “transept,” 
 described the first introduction of Perpendicular archi- 
 tecture in the south transept of the abbey of Gloucester 
 in the years 1327-1335. 
 
 The successful work in the south transept of the abbey 
 determined the abbot of the Benedictine house to proceed 
 with the work of the transformation of the eastern limb 
 
 1 Various differences in detail are, of course, noticeable. Some- 
 times, in the case of churches having a double transept, the existence 
 of the upper transept obviated the necessity of shutting off the lower 
 transept from the nave or people’s part of the church. Sometimes 
 the great length of the upper arm of the cross provided ample space 
 for the canons and for the various members of collegiate bodies in 
 cathedrals, and for monks and religious of varied degrees in abbatial 
 churches. A glance, however, at the ground-plans of the great majority 
 of the cathedrals, abbeys, and more important churches built in the 
 twelfth and thirteenth centuries will show that, as a rule, “the choir” 
 enclosure in the various divisions of sanctuary, presbytery, ritual choir, 
 occupies as a rule at least the half of the entire building. 
 
 170 
 

The Choir 
 
 of his great church. The flow of contributions from the 
 pilgrims to the shrine of Edward II. continued for many 
 years without abatement, thus providing an ample source 
 of means to defray the expense of the costly work. Abbot 
 Wygmore, under whom the curious “overlaying” and 
 other changes in the south transept were carried out, 
 was succeeded by Abbot Stanton, who also may be fairly 
 described as another great building abbot, one of that 
 school of architects for which Gloucester in this age was 
 especially famous. He resolved to undertake at once a 
 bolder and more daring work, much on the same lines, 
 and chose the choir as its scene. 
 
 The transformation work by Abbot Stanton in the choir 
 is one of the most singular ever undertaken even by the 
 daring and deviceful mediaeval monk-architects. Stand- 
 ing in either of the transepts of Gloucester, at the eastern 
 ends of these cross arms, and looking eastwards, a vista 
 of mighty round Romanesque shafts of enormous thick- 
 ness and bulk, with vast low-browed arches, meet the 
 view — shafts and arches, be it remembered, quite different 
 from the shafts and arches of Serlo which we have described 
 in our picture of the nave, we think that these belong 
 to a somewhat earlier date than Serlo’s. These massive, 
 somewhat dumpy shafts and low-browed, heavy arches 
 form the distinguishing features of the wide ambulatory 
 which encircles the whole of the eastern or upper portion 
 of the enclosure of the choir, including the sanctuary and 
 presbytery, and a small part of the ritual choir. It is in 
 style purely Romanesque, and decidedly very early Ro- 
 manesque. Some of us believe that this part of the great 
 church belongs to the building work carried on by the 
 men of Edward the Confessor’s time, and which was in- 
 terrupted for some years by the troubles consequent upon 
 
 1 7 1 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 the Norman Conquest, until Serlo in 1087 took up the 
 work again, and completed the abbey by building the 
 nave and remaining part of the pile before described. 
 
 Ascending the steps which lead from the transept into 
 this impressive though somewhat gloomy and heavy Ro- 
 manesque ambulatory, and passing through the stone arch- 
 way-entrance which, at the top of the flight of steps leads 
 from the ambulatory into the choir, we find ourselves at once 
 in another world of thought. Over the great and massive 
 Romanesque columns of which we have just been speak- 
 ing, over another tier of similar shafts and arches built 
 above the ambulatory, appears to have been dropped a 
 mighty veil of curious tracery in stone. It has been well 
 described by a great master of architecture thus : “ As 
 we enter the choir of Gloucester we feel there is some- 
 thing singular about it. The effect is like that of a 
 single-bodied building, a gigantic college chapel, a church 
 like the cathedral of Alby, in the south of France, without 
 aisles. It is not till we look a little more narrowly that 
 we find that the greater part of the ‘ Romanesque ’ build- 
 ing is still there, not rebuilt, not even disguised, but 
 simply hidden behind a veil of perpendicular lacework. 
 ... At Gloucester the later work, without destroying the 
 elder, altogether obscures it, and decides the general 
 effect of the building.” 1 Another famous architectural 
 critic, commenting upon this peculiar and magnificent 
 choir at Gloucester, tells us how in all cathedrals he 
 observes a screen, about the height of the present altar 
 screen (some 1 5 feet high), which separates the choir from 
 the ambulatory (or side aisles), but in this cathedral the 
 screen is carried to the soaring roof, and the result 
 was a beautiful, if not a unique, choir. The screen of 
 
 1 E. A. Freeman. 
 
 172 
 
The Choir 
 
 tracery which formed the sides was plastered — so to 
 speak — on the Norman walls 1 from floor or pavement to 
 the roof.” 
 
 Between a.d. 1335 and 1350, Abbot Stanton carried on 
 his strange beautiful work of transforming the Roman- 
 esque choir into a Perpendicular building. The old 
 vaulted roof was raised higher than any choir roof in 
 England, save in the case of Westminster and York. A 
 mighty window — men say the largest window in the 
 world — filled up the place where the old Romanesque 
 gloomy apse once closed the sombre vista of vast Ro- 
 manesque columns and low-browed arches. The glass of 
 this enormous window was exquisitely coloured, and a 
 flood of jewelled light passed in, and lit up, with a new 
 and beautiful light, 2 the glorious transformed choir and 
 its veil of sculptured stone. 
 
 This mighty window, or rather vast wall of glass, was 
 a curious change from the small Romanesque windows 
 which lit up the old apse and choir. Something of the 
 kind had been already carried out on a smaller scale in 
 the transformation of the south transept, where a great 
 new window had been inserted in the south wall, but 
 Abbot Stanton in his remodelled choir exaggerated the 
 south transept window. As it has been well said, “ He 
 would have a window beyond all windows,” and was not 
 content with simply filling up the whole of the new east 
 end with gorgeously stained glass, but he determined it 
 should be so great that he constructed something exactly 
 opposite to an apse at the east end with slanting sides, 
 
 1 Professor Willis. 
 
 2 A row of large windows on the north and south, contrived in the 
 upper storey, all richly coloured, were also inserted in the upper portion 
 of the new veil of stone tracery. The choir was thus brilliantly and 
 effectively lit with jewelled light in every part. 
 
 I 73 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 but sides that slant outwards instead of inwards, and thus 
 his window was larger than the choir of which it was the 
 finish. This taste for enormous windows became a pecu- 
 liarly English feature. The Gloucester window, with its 
 startling dimensions, was often reproduced in the new 
 Perpendicular style, notably at York and Carlisle. In- 
 deed, in the first named of these, the choir window is 
 only very slightly smaller than the famous Gloucester 
 original. 
 
 The vaulting of this transformed choir is a work of 
 extraordinary magnificence . 1 It is covered with a vast 
 network of liernes , 2 cutting it into an infinity of panels, 
 whose angles are marked by a perfect army of carved 
 bosses. Over the sanctuary the vaulting is specially 
 enriched with carvings representing our Lord in glory, 
 surrounded by angels adoring. 
 
 This elaborate and beautiful style of ceiling, at no 
 distant period from the one of which we are writing (the 
 middle of the fourteenth century), was developed into the 
 still richer and more fanciful variety of vaulting which 
 became an especial characteristic of later Perpendicular 
 architecture, and which was termed Pan-vaulting. This 
 development of the fan-vault, too, was an invention of 
 the great Gloucester school of masons, as the earliest 
 specimen of fan-vaulting is found in the stately cloisters 
 of this abbey presently to be described. 
 
 It is interesting to note that the fashion which adopted 
 
 1 So Sir Gilbert Scott, Rogal Academy Lectures , xv., who describes 
 this marvel of elaborate work with some detail. 
 
 2 Liernes are small ribs which cross from one boss or intersection of 
 the principal ribs to another. The term was originally used by Philibert 
 de l’Orme. The word signifies in carpentry a short joist or rail serving 
 as a tie to steady other timbers, which fits in with its use real or appa- 
 rent in vaulting. 
 
 174 
 
The Choir 
 
 the extraordinary magnificence of the roof of the Gothic 
 church was parallel to the change by which the elaborate 
 flowing tracery was converted into the severe and com- 
 paratively plain Perpendicular. Both the severe and 
 less ornate Perpendicular and the beautiful fan- vaulting 
 seem to have been due to the school of monk-architects 
 of the famous Benedictine house of Gloucester. It would 
 seem that the new rich vaulting was intended by these 
 great and skilful artists as in some manner a correc- 
 tion to the perhaps over-plain and simple perpendicular 
 straight lines, the characteristic feature of this style of 
 architecture. Curiously enough they appeared together, 
 and both in the Gloucester abbey. The vaulting of the 
 south transept of the abbey, the birthplace of the Per- 
 pendicular style, is a beautiful and admirably constructed 
 piece of work. The roof of the choir, the next piece of 
 Perpendicular work, shows a great and striking advance 
 upon the roof of the south transept, and is, as it has been 
 described, “a work of extraordinary magnificence.” The 
 fan-vaulting of the cloister, undertaken only a few years 
 after the completion of the choir, is another step in 
 advance, and has never been surpassed. These successive 
 developments in vaulting quickly succeeded each other, 
 and all are dated between the years 1327 and the last 
 years of the century, the fourteenth. 
 
 The transformation of the north transept was proceeded 
 with shortly after the completion of the transformation 
 of the choir. The work, with some differences in detail 
 from the work in the south transept, was carried out by 
 Abbot Horton between a.d. 1368 and a.d. 1373. 
 
 Among the more interesting of these differences, is the 
 introduction of bosses in the vaulting where the ribs 
 intersect one another. 
 
 J 7 5 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 In the south transept there are no bosses ; in the north 
 transept they have been introduced. It required no little 
 skill to complete a vault such as that of the south tran- 
 sept without the covering protection of bosses, which 
 were introduced for this purpose. 
 
 After the Reformation for a long period the exceeding 
 beauty of the choir of Gloucester was comparatively ignored. 
 In the days when Laud (afterwards archbishop) was Dean 
 of Gloucester, the abbey, then a cathedral, was, it is stated, 
 in a more ruinous condition than almost any church of the 
 same class in England; this was in the year 1 6 1 6. As 
 time advanced, it seems, in common with other marvels 
 of mediaeval Gothic architecture, to have passed more and 
 more into popular disfavour. Sir Christopher Wren, the 
 first really eminent English church architect who had 
 arisen since the Reformation, was curiously hostile to all 
 mediaeval schools of Gothic architecture, and the builder 
 of S. Paul’s, London, even ventured to term the magnifi- 
 cent Gothic cathedrals of the Middle Ages “ vast and 
 gigantic buildings indeed, but not worthy the name of 
 architecture.” And popular opinion seems to have 
 endorsed to the full the estimate of Charles II.’s 
 famous architect, for we find Evelyn, whose well-known 
 diary with fair accuracy reflects public opinion at this 
 period, speaks of these mediaeval buildings as “conges- 
 tions of heavy, dark, melancholy, and monkish piles, 
 without any proportion, use, or beauty.” Sir Henry 
 Wotton, to whose “ Parallels of Ancient and Modern 
 Architecture ” Evelyn penned a dedicatory epistle, writes 
 of “the natural imbecility and very uncomeliness of 
 pointed arches.” They ought, he thinks, “ to be banished 
 from judicious eyes among the reliques of a barbarous age.” 
 
 176 
 
The Choir 
 
 Milton, with his well-known solemn and beautiful lines on 
 a Gothic minster-church in “ II Penseroso,” was some two 
 hundred years in advance of the modern revival of 
 admiration for Gothic architecture. 
 
 But in the last forty years of the nineteenth century, 
 men, scholarly and devout, have come to see that no school 
 of church building was so adapted for public Christian 
 worship when carried out with dignity and reverence as the 
 Gothic. With the reawakened love for the architecture 
 of the beautiful pre-Reformation churches and abbeys, 
 have arisen a group of distinguished men , 1 the like of 
 which had not appeared among us for nigh three hundred 
 years, whose costly and careful work in these churches 
 has for the most part been confined mainly to a strictly 
 conservative restoration of what they found, but which, 
 alas, was gradually perishing owing to the ravages of time 
 and neglect. Among these splendid remains of the crea- 
 tions of mediteval genius the choir of Gloucester, on which 
 we have been dwelling, in the opinion of many of our most 
 accurate critics, holds a high and commanding place. 
 And the careful and scholarly judgment of the men of 
 the last decades of the nineteenth century, which places 
 the wonderful choir of Gloucester as one of, some think, 
 the first of all the stately and imposing “ interiors ” of 
 English cathedrals, was no doubt the opinion of the men 
 of the middle and later years of the fourteenth century. 
 The impression of the Perpendicular choir of Gloucester 
 upon the minds and hearts of those who in the middle 
 of the fourteenth century gazed upon it in the first 
 freshness of its beauty, lit up with the soft jewelled 
 
 1 I would instance such names as Pugin and Street, Sir Gilbert Scott 
 and Pearson, for these distinguished scholarly architects have already 
 passed away. 
 
 I?7 
 
 M 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 light of the new great windows, no doubt contributed 
 in no small degree to the popularity of the new de- 
 parture in Gothic architecture which so rapidly, after 
 its first appearance, was adopted in all parts of England 
 as the popular style. For it is no exaggeration which 
 speaks of “ Perpendicular ” as being, in the later part of 
 the fourteenth and all through the fifteenth centuries, 
 the national architecture of our people. 
 
 One of the chief characteristics and principal beauties 
 of the marvellous choir we have been describing is the 
 great east window, inserted as we have said by the Per- 
 pendicular builders under Abbot Stanton in the trans- 
 formation of the choir, a.d. i 337-1 351. We will now tell 
 the story of the introduction and the invention of stained 
 glass, the principal and most conspicuous of the enrich- 
 ments of a mediaeval church, especially dwelling on the 
 glass of the great east window of Gloucester, one of the 
 noblest specimens in England which has been preserved 
 to us of this beautiful and exquisite art so dear to our 
 fathers. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 STAINED GLASS 
 
 The Cathedral of Gloucester, which we have taken as 
 our typical instance of a great Romanesque abbey of 
 the eleventh century, and which as the centuries passed 
 assumed in its eastern portions the beautiful aspect of a 
 noble Gothic minster, although, among its many treasures, 
 it possesses no great hoard of mediaeval glass like Chartres, 
 or Notre Dame of Paris, or the cathedrals of Reims and 
 Bourges, to take familiar French examples, nor can it 
 for an instant compare with English York or Canterbury 
 in their wealth of ancient windows, still Gloucester boasts, 
 among many precious fragments of stained glass , 1 two 
 magnificent windows entirely of ancient date, one of 
 which is the largest window in England, possibly in the 
 world, and as an example of its school is simply un- 
 rivalled. Before describing it, we will glance through the 
 story of stained and painted glass, which in the great 
 mediaeval building ages was emphatically the chiefest and 
 most effective of the decorations with which our fore- 
 
 1 Notably in the two upper east windows of the south transept, 
 where the beautiful decorated glass of about 1330 is almost perfect! 
 In the third and fifth windows of the north aisle are many ancient 
 pieces of glass. Fragments are also found in the clerestory windows 
 of the choir, north side, and in the west window of the choir. Most 
 of the Lady Chapel windows contain the old canopies of glass. The 
 east window of the Lady Chapel contains much of the original glass, but 
 mingled with it are many ancient fragments of other stained windows 
 
 179 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 fathers loved to adorn their glorious and matchless homes 
 of prayer and praise. 
 
 The exquisite art, as we shall see, was in its infancy 
 when, in the eleventh century, the Church of the West 
 awoke from its long slumber. At first the comparatively 
 little windows of the Eomanesque builders gave little 
 scope to the artists of the new craft. Before the twelfth 
 century had quite run its course, a new school of builders 
 were devising new and more ornate architectural forms, 
 which gradually superseded the more austere taste of the 
 Eomanesque architects of the eleventh and twelfth cen- 
 turies. Among these new forms, the window and its 
 tracery, more or less elaborate, assumed larger and ever 
 larger proportions, and the new “ Gothic ” fashion of 
 admitting more and ever more light into the churches 
 provided a wider field for the skill and ingenuity of the 
 craft of painters on glass. Through the thirteenth and 
 fourteenth centuries the windows, ever increasing in size 
 and beauty, gradually became perhaps the most promi- 
 nent feature of “ Gothic ” church ornamentation. 
 
 The mediaeval worshippers loved colour with a strange 
 but not an unreasonable passion. Men marvel somewhat 
 whence this passion came to them, till they remember 
 how probable it was that the returning bands of 
 Crusaders brought this taste, in the first instance, back 
 from Eastern lands. The churches became literally 
 a blaze of colours. The flat wooden ceilings which 
 preceded the general adoption of the groined stone 
 vault were more or less elaborately painted. The floors 
 were largely tiled with tawny reds. The pillars were 
 enriched with strange fantastic patterns. The many altars 
 were literally ablaze with colour and with gold, and the 
 comparatively new art of jewelled translucent glass was 
 
 180 
 
Stained Glass 
 
 eagerly adopted, and generally introduced to fill in the 
 windows, which were constructed as time went on on 
 a larger and ever larger scale. The only light which 
 penetrated these shrines of devotion came in through 
 panels of transparent sapphire and gleaming ruby, while 
 more rarely it filtrated through a glass mosaic of pale 
 green, white, or yellow. 
 
 The abbey, in the early mediaeval ages, was somewhat 
 dark and sombre, for “ the first coloured windows were 
 intense in colour, rich, and even heavy. The note they 
 struck was deep, solemn, suited to the church and the 
 times. Neither priest nor parishioner was afraid to sacri- 
 fice a certain amount of light. It was the business of an 
 early window to shut in those that worshipped from the 
 outer world, and to wrap them in mysterious, beautiful 
 gloom. With other days, however, came other ideals. 
 As time went on, the problem of the artist was how 
 more and more to lighten the glass, until at last white 
 glass predominated, and the question was how to intro- 
 duce colour into it .” 1 Thus a great change gradually 
 passed over the fashion of glass-painting, for during the 
 early period, everything in these fair jewelled windows 
 had been sacrificed to colour; the glass artist strove, 
 and often with rare success, after colour harmony, and in 
 early glass the most fantastic combinations of tints appear 
 in the gorgeous Jesse-trees, in the stately rows of prophets 
 and kings, of saints and martyrs, who look down on the 
 long dark aisles and solemn naves and choirs of the great 
 churches of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. 
 
 1 Lewis Day, “Windows,” 1898. English students of lore relating 
 to the beautiful craft of glass-stainers owe a great debt to this 
 scholarly book, where the story of the art they love is traced with 
 considerable detail from its beginning. 
 
 l8l 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 We have styled it a new craft , this art of filling windows 
 with translucent pictured glass stained with all the colours 
 of the rainbow, and rightly, for no age as yet had dreamed 
 of the novel beautiful adornment. There was nothing of 
 the kind in the more stately buildings of Egypt, Greece, 
 or Home. 
 
 In Southern lands there was comparatively little need 
 of windows. The people in those favoured climates lived 
 largely out of doors. In ordinary dwellings the windows 
 were small and few. In great public buildings, such as 
 the temples and the baths, the openings which admitted 
 light and air were for the most part at a great height, and 
 were certainly never glazed. No vestiges of coloured glass 
 have ever been discovered in those great piles erected in 
 “classical” times. Not that glass was unknown, for 
 scarabs of glass, and beads of glass coloured to imitate 
 the ruby, the emerald, and the sapphire are found in the 
 oldest Egyptian tombs, dating from a period long anterior 
 to the Christian era. 
 
 Gradually, as we search through the early records of 
 the Christian centuries, we come upon allusions which 
 tell us how men were, as it were, feeling their way slowly 
 towards the new art. As early as the second half of the 
 sixth century of our era, Gregory of Tours speaks of the 
 coloured-glass windows in Christian basilicas — glass most 
 probably tinted with various hues. Our own Benedict Biscop , 
 the great artist-monk in the later years of the seventh 
 century, brought skilful craftsmen in glass, in the year 
 680, to work at his monastery of Wearmouth, and Wilfrid 
 of York we know put up tinted windows in his cathedral 
 in a. D. 709. Hincmar, Archbishop of Eeims, in a.d. 845, 
 enriched his new cathedral with similar coloured windows. 
 These instances might possibly be multiplied. 
 
 182 
 
Stained Glass 
 
 We have called these early windows tinted, for glass 
 enriched with coloured figures only appears in the age 
 which followed the death of the Emperor Charlemagne, 
 a.d. 814. There is an anonymous writer of the age of 
 the famous Western emperor who has left us a treatise 
 specially dwelling upon colouring and even gilding glass, 
 but he makes no allusion whatever to painting figures or 
 subjects. It was evidently as yet an unknown art. 
 
 But after that date it made its appearance. We find 
 mentions, rare it is true, but still unmistakable allusions 
 to pictures upon glass, as, for instance, in the year 969 
 in the great cathedral at Reims. Late in the ninth or 
 early in the tenth century, we place the real beginning 
 of the art. 
 
 The earliest windows of painted “ figure ” glass of 
 which we have any knowledge, appear to have been 
 placed in the abbatial church of S. Benignus at Dijon. 
 But such windows in the ninth century were very small 
 and narrow. 
 
 Not a fragment, however, of such early glass, dating 
 from the middle years of the ninth century, or even of 
 the tenth, remains. Nor have we any of the eleventh 
 century save certain doubtful pieces of great antiquity 
 at Hildesheim in Hanover, and at Tegernsee in Bavaria, 
 a.d. 1029-1091 (?). 
 
 The earliest scientific treatise that has come down to 
 us on the subject of stained glass is the work of the monk 
 Theophilus, written in the second half of the twelfth 
 century. 1 The careful details set forth in this work 
 show us that the craft of painting on glass was, at the 
 period of Theophilus’s treatise, an acknowledged one, and 
 
 1 “Diversarnm Artium Schedula” by the Monk Theophilus, twelfth 
 century (late ?). 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 that the art had already made no little progress. The 
 positive directions issued by the general chapter of the 
 recently founded austere Cistercian community in a.b. 
 i 1 34, which ordered that the windows of the abbeys of 
 the Cistercians should be of simple white glass without 
 colour, is a plain indication that the fashion among the 
 Cluniac and other Benedictine houses of adorning their 
 churches with rich stained glass had become already very 
 general, and that the practice in question was to he avoided 
 in the rigidly simple Cistercian abbeys. 
 
 The earliest certainly dated glass of any importance is 
 probably that in some of the beautiful west windows of 
 the cathedral of Chartres, a.d. 1145. Fragments, it is 
 true, but only fragments, remain of the windows put up 
 by the Abbot Suger at S. Denis in a.d. 1140-1144. 
 “This glass at S. Denis,” says a contemporary writer, 
 “ was of an extremely costly nature, the artists making 
 use of sapphires for the colouring used in their manu- 
 facture.” Other very ancient fragments exist at Le Mans, 
 in S. Remi (Reims), in the cathedrals of Poitiers, Angers, 
 Strasburg, &c. In England possibly the oldest glass we 
 possess is in the nave of York Minster, but it consists 
 only of a few fragments. The windows of Canterbury, 
 Salisbury, and Lincoln, which are commonly cited as most 
 ancient, belong to the following (the thirteenth) century. 
 
 The earliest stained glass, which perhaps may roughly 
 be ascribed to the middle of the twelfth century, was 
 generally what is termed pure mosaic — that is to say, was in 
 most part made up of pieces of solid glass of different hues, 
 largely reds and blues, termed technically “pot-metal” 
 and “ flashed glass.” Pot-metal means glass of the same 
 colour throughout its whole thickness, the pigment such 
 
 1 84 
 
Stained Glass 
 
 as carbonate of copper being stirred up with the melted 
 glass in the “ pot ” or crucible before the glass was formed 
 into sheets. The various lovely blues which form one of 
 the glories of the “Chartres” and other famous windows 
 are of pot-metal. The gorgeous ruby, so prominent 
 a feature in medheval windows, is always what is called 
 “ flashed ” — that is, the ruby colour is only a thin coating 
 overlaid on the surface of a colourless sheet of glass. 
 This was done by first blowing a bubble of uncoloured 
 glass ; the bubble was then dipped in a pot of melted 
 ruby glass, so that it was coated all over with red. The 
 composite bubble was blown into an enlarged disc, and 
 then cut up when cool into the required sizes. 
 
 The reason for this process of “flashing,” as it is 
 termed, was that the ruby was so strong a pigment that 
 it would have made the glass much too dark and opaque 
 if its whole thickness had been coloured with the red. 
 The pigment which produced this magnificent ruby 
 colour was an oxide of copper. The various pieces of 
 pot and flashed glass were bound together by pieces of 
 lead. 
 
 The “silver stain,” a bright yellow, largely used by 
 the glass-painters from the beginning of the fourteenth 
 century, was produced by applying chloride of silver in 
 the form of a white salt on to the surface of the colour- 
 less glass. The glass was then heated red-hot in a 
 furnace, the salt decomposed, and gave a surface stain 
 to the glass on which it was laid. 
 
 This is the only true stain winch was used by glass- 
 painters. By repeating the process more than once, deeper 
 shades of orange were produced. The great beauty of the 
 “ silver stain ” is that it by no means diminishes the 
 transparency of the glass to which it is applied. 
 
 185 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 The “silver stain” was much used by the glass artists 
 in the decorative parts of those canopies which were 
 so largely introduced into Decorated and Perpendicular 
 glass. 
 
 “ Enamel paint ” is another surface application. It 
 was a true vitreous enamel of a deep brown or black, 
 formed with oxide of iron ground to a fine powder, and 
 then applied with a brush to the surface of the glass. 
 After the drawing was complete, the glass was again 
 heated red-hot, and the enamel lines fused into their 
 place on the surface of the glass. Separate firings at 
 different temperatures were required for the “ silver 
 stain ” and the “ enamel ” lines. This “ enamel ” paint 
 was used for the drawing of the faces, for the drapery of 
 the figures, &c. The use of “ enamel ” paint and of the 
 “ silver stain,” as shown in the great east window at 
 Gloucester, which we are about to describe, gives lightness 
 and brightness to the work, and obscures but little light . 1 
 The stained windows of the fourteenth and fifteenth cen- 
 turies, owing to the use of that and comparatively speaking 
 later inventions admitted light to a much greater degree 
 than did the earlier windows, and thus the heavy richness 
 of the earlier work, which is missed in much of the glass 
 of the fourteenth and fifteenth century, is largely com- 
 pensated for. 
 
 Thus as time went on the windows gradually became 
 larger and more numerous, and generally lighter in colour. 
 This change in windows is admirably exemplified in the 
 great Gloucester Cathedral we have taken as an example in 
 
 1 The above description of the various processes used in glass- 
 painting are generally taken from an MS. given to the writer by the 
 late Professor Middleton of Cambridge, and of the South Kensington 
 Museum. 
 
 1 86 
 
Stained Glass 
 
 our study. Roughly the Gloucester pile consists of three 
 important and well-marked divisions : (i) The nave, which 
 remains almost purely Romanesque as it left the builders’ 
 hands at the close of the eleventh century. The windows 
 which here light the aisles, comparatively small, round- 
 arched as when the Norman builders designed them, are 
 filled with Perpendicular tracery, mullions, and transoms. 
 It is in consequence somewhat gloomy and sombre. (2) 
 The choir and transepts, here the original Romanesque 
 work is effectually masked by the fourteenth-century 
 Gothic veil, the windows are huge in size as well as more 
 numerous, the east window of the choir notably being a 
 grand wall of translucent glass, the north and south 
 transept windows being also of prodigious size. (3) The 
 Lady Chapel (late sixteenth century) beyond the choir is 
 a magnificent and stately building, and may be called 
 literally a hall of glass, the masonry in it occupying but 
 little space, the prominent and principal feature being 
 the mighty windows. 
 
 In later mediaeval glass the drawing of the figures 
 and the adjuncts to the figures was improved, the gro- 
 tesqueness of much of the earlier work was corrected, but 
 the splendid and glorious, though somewhat sombre, 
 colouring which characterised the efforts of the early 
 mediaeval artists was, as has been remarked, generally 
 absent in the great windows of the fourteenth and 
 fifteenth centuries. 
 
 Although no specimens of this peculiar and very early 
 method of glazing are found in Gloucester Cathedral, a 
 few words on what is termed “ grisaille ” glass seem 
 to be required in this little study. “ Grisaille ” may be 
 defined as pattern windows glazed in white glass. 
 
 187 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 The lead makes the pattern. Viollet-le-Duc points out 
 that in some cases the designer ingeniously, though 
 not truthfully, economised la.bour by carrying across the 
 face of the glass lines of lead, not inclosing separate pieces 
 of glass, but mere strips making a pattern. 
 
 *< 
 
 Grisaille and Border (Bourges, Thirteenth Century). 
 
 Some of the designs carried out in “ grisaille ” windows 
 are elaborate ; they are, however, in the opinion of the 
 writer rarely, if ever, effective. No doubt “grisaille,” to 
 a large extent, is owing to the Cistercian direction to the 
 churches connected with their widespread order strictly 
 to avoid all rich-coloured glass. In some instances, no 
 
 1 88 
 
Stained Glass 
 
 doubt outside the Cistercian order, this form of glazing 
 was adopted for economy when the means requisite for 
 the beautiful jewelled coloured glass were wanting. At 
 an early date the “ want of colour,” as might have been 
 expected, was felt by the mediaeval builders in those 
 windows they had filled with this white patterned glass, 
 and an attempt was made in not a few cases partly to 
 supply this lack by introducing discs or bosses of colour, 
 and borders of colour into grisaille windows. 
 
 There are some admirable specimens of early grisaille 
 work in Salisbury Cathedral, but the most charming 
 example in England, perhaps in Europe, of “ grisaille ” 
 is found at York in the famous window known popu- 
 larly as the “Eive Sisters.” The “Five Sisters” close 
 the north transept of the famous minster with a trans- 
 parent veil of the palest silver grey — beautiful as a 
 dream. The York example almost compels even the 
 most ardent lover of jewelled glass to admire colourless 
 “ grisaille.” But the pale silver grey “grisaille” of the 
 “ Five Sisters” is very rare. 
 
 In the foregoing little study on stained and painted 
 glass we have in general terms spoken of the mediaeval 
 period, including thereby, roughly, the period between 
 the later years of the eleventh and the early years of the 
 sixteenth centuries. These 450 years may fairly be con- 
 sidered as u the age of stained glass.” Before the twelfth 
 century the art was in its infancy. We possess nothing 
 of its productions, the windows it filled were evidently 
 few in number, and those few small and narrow. Again, 
 after the later years of the sixteenth century, the art 
 rapidly declined, and what it produced was sadly inferior 
 to the work of the medkeval craftsmen, and it is only in 
 
 I 89 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 quite recent times, in the last quarter of the nineteenth 
 century, that it has shown any real signs of recovery. 
 What has been termed “ the Gothic revival ” has awakened 
 a longing to recover and to practise anew a beautiful art 
 which for nigh three and a half centuries had been 
 lost. 
 
 But during the four centuries or more when glass- 
 
 “ Signature” Window at Chartres, Thirteenth Century. 
 (Gift of Butchers’ Guild.) 
 
 staining was in its glory, it must not be supposed that the 
 art was stationary. During that long period it went 
 through many changes. In the later years of the fifteenth 
 and earlier years of the sixteenth centuries a perfectly 
 new and striking, though but a short-lived, school of 
 glass-painters, generally known under the well-known 
 name of the “ Renaissance,” was introduced. 
 
 Winston gives generally the following dates for the 
 190 
 
Stained Glass 
 
 several styles. “There is no style in painted glass coeval 
 with the Norman in architecture, the glass found in 
 Norman buildings really belonging to the “ early English ” 
 style of glass -painting, which was succeeded by the 
 “ Decorated ’ in about a.d. 1280, and that by the Per- 
 pendicular in about a.d. 1380.” The “Renaissance” 
 style in glass-painting, which was concurrent for a while 
 with the Perpendicular in architecture, commenced about 
 a.d. 1500, or a little earlier, and may be said to have 
 ended in a.d. 1550.” 
 
 To this fairly accurate generalisation we may add a few 
 rough notes on the styles in the different centuries. 
 
 Twelfth Century. 
 
 Of the painted glass belonging to this century we have 
 on the Continent a few good examples, notably at S. 
 Remi (Reims), in the cathedral at Poitiers, at Chalons, 
 at Angers, at Le Mans, and especially at Chartres at 
 the west end of the cathedral, a very little at S. Denis. 
 It is doubtful whether any undoubted specimens of the 
 glass of this century remain in England. 
 
 Indeed, our country possesses but little of what may 
 fairly be termed very early glass. The object mainly aimed 
 at by the artists of this date was deep, rich, jewelled 
 colour, to which everything may be said to be sacrificed — 
 light, drawing, &c. Medallion windows are perhaps the 
 most characteristic feature of this early period. These 
 medallions contain figure-subjects on a very small scale. 
 A border, broad and rich in colour, is another usual 
 feature. A striking and well-known instance of these 
 medallions, dating, however, from the first half of the 
 following century (the thirteenth), is the magnificent 
 
 191 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 glazing of the Sainte Chapelle (Paris), completed under 
 Saint Louis, a.d. 1248. In this comparatively small 
 building the windows contain about eleven hundred sepa- 
 rate medallions. The lower lights were destroyed in the 
 revolutionary period at the end of the eighteenth century, 
 
 The Abbe Sugek Kneeling before the Virgin. 
 (“Signature’’ Window in S. Denis, Twelfth Century.) 
 
 these have been on the whole admirably restored. The 
 groundwork of this superb glass is mostly a deep rich 
 blue. 
 
 Thirteenth Century. 
 
 Again in France must the noblest examples of the glass 
 of this century be sought. Germany also possesses some 
 few examples, as at Eatisbon, Freiburg, Nuremberg, &c. 
 There are some fine medallion windows (thirteenth cen- 
 tury) in the choir of Canterbury Cathedral. Salisbury 
 possesses some fine grisaille glass of this century. The 
 
 192 
 
Stained Glass 
 
 famous Five Sisters window of the same age at York, is 
 certainly the finest specimen of early “Grisaille” in the 
 world. 
 
 Many of the more important French churches are 
 extraordinarily rich in the solemn, gorgeous glass of the 
 thirteenth century. We would instance Reims, Bourges, 
 and Le Mans. But the cathedral of Chartres is after all 
 the home of early glass, which largely dates from the 
 thirteenth century . 1 
 
 A stranger visiting Chartres thus wrote down his 
 first impressions of the glazing of this stately house 
 of God : 
 
 “ It was a dazzling hot summer’s day I entered the 
 vast dark church, and coming as I did from the glare 
 outside, at first could see nothing, so I sat down and 
 closed my eyes for a brief space. Then I looked round, 
 and in the dim light became conscious of the dizzy 
 height of the great church, with its forest of graceful 
 clustered columns bearing up the mighty arches on which 
 rested the soaring vaulting of a fretted roof, scarcely 
 visible above, so high it seemed. 
 
 “ But though the columns, the arches, and vaulting 
 high over all, presented a perfect picture of strength 
 crowned with beauty, it was not the daring and exquisite 
 conception of the building, perfect though it was, which 
 principally attracted the eye. It was the light, neither 
 clear nor dark, streaming from the countless windows of 
 all sizes, which filled the heart and mind with bewdldering 
 admiration. Every window in this marvellous temple 
 was filled with more or less rich and gorgeous glass, and 
 the light entered as though through countless gems of 
 
 1 The medallion glass of the Sainte Chapelle (Paris) has been already 
 noticed under Century Twelve. 
 
 I 93 n 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 ruby, sapphire, and emerald. These many-coloured gems 
 flamed alike in the many lancet windows of the great 
 church, as in the blazing wheels of the great £ Hoses ’ in 
 the transepts and west end. 
 
 “ It was the most lovely thing I had ever seen on 
 earth, indeed it did not seem as though it belonged to 
 earth. It was a living picture out of S. John’s Apocalypse. 
 I gazed and gazed at the perfect beauty — and was satis- 
 fied ! ” 
 
 To realise the glory of a mediaeval cathedral, to under- 
 stand what our fathers meant by their love for colour, 
 the cathedral of Chartres must be studied. We shall 
 partly understand — then. 
 
 The great “ rose ” windows belong especially to this cen- 
 tury ; they are found principally in France. Among 
 grandest examples, perhaps, are the “ Hoses ” of Heims, 
 Amiens, and Notre Dame of Paris, and most beautiful 
 perhaps of all at Chartres. In England they never found 
 favour with the craft of glass-painters. The Lincoln rose 
 window, for instance, bears no comparison with the mag- 
 nificent “ roses ” of France. There is little picture glass 
 in these great wheels of splendid colouring; they are 
 little else than marvellous mosaics of colour. When the 
 western sun falls on the west front of Heims Cathedral, 
 and lights up the great “ Rose of the West,” the effect is 
 dazzling. As the rays flash through the ruby and the 
 blue, flooding the pile with shafts of coloured flames, which 
 play round the forest of columns and the soaring arches 
 overhead, it is for a brief while a scene of awe-ful beauty 
 as the colours fall with curious changes on the massive 
 carven stone-work. England possesses nothing of this 
 kind. 
 
 In many respects the glass of this century is the most 
 194 
 
Stained Glass 
 
 striking of all. De Caumont in his “ Abdcedaire ” 
 (• Architecture Rdigieuse) styles it on the whole “le bel 
 
 age de vi trail.” The amount of glass manufactured in the 
 thirteenth century, especially in France, was very large. 
 It was a great church-building age, and many of the vast 
 
 l 9S 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 French cathedrals were erected or enlarged at this time, 
 and the craft of glass-painters attracted a number of 
 artists into their ranks. The cost of these splendid deco- 
 rations of the greater churches was borne not only by 
 royal and noble personages, but by guilds of various 
 trades — butchers, tanners, &c. — who vied with the wealthy 
 princes and barons in their generosity towards the great 
 prayer houses of the age. 
 
 Fourteenth Century. 
 
 In France, the great home of glass-painting, we have 
 fewer examples of the art of this century. More are 
 found in England. As the century advanced, what is 
 termed “ Decorated ” by slow degrees gave place to “ Per- 
 pendicular.” We have already roughly given a.d. 1280 
 to 1 380 as the Decorated period, although the glass of the 
 Perpendicular school had begun to make its appearance 
 before the latter date. Glass gradually became less 
 brilliant and less jewel-like in colour, while more care- 
 ful in drawing. The windows were constructed on a larger 
 scale, the taste for additional light grew pronounced, 
 and a far larger amount of white or faintly-stained glass 
 was used, while less of solid “pot-glass” and “flashed 
 glass,” and more enamel painting appears. The medallion 
 of various shapes and sizes, from the comparatively large 
 medallion of Chartres to the tiny medallion of the Sainte 
 Chapelle, after the thirteenth century had passed out of 
 fashion, and it appears no more. The single figure takes 
 its place very generally. 
 
 In England we have some fine examples of these Deco- 
 rated and very many of the Perpendicular windows. The 
 great east window of Gloucester is a magnificent specimen 
 
 196 
 
Stained Glass 
 
 of the transition of Decorated into Perpendicular, which 
 will presently be described at length. One especial feature 
 of this period must be spoken of — the “ Canopy,” which 
 from about a.d. 1280 became a singularly prominent 
 object in most stained windows, and under various de- 
 velopments remained a conspicuous feature all through 
 the age of glass-painting. 
 
 The “ Canopy ” was not an absolutely new feature in 
 the earlier period in the rarer single-figure treatment. 
 The figures had been enclosed in an architectural frame- 
 work, but the framework was inconspicuous. But in 
 “Decorated” glass, roughly from 1280 onwards, the 
 Canopy became of great size, and often strong in colour ; 
 the colour being mostly some shade of yellow, and not un- 
 frequently quite out of proportion to the figure it framed. 
 As the fourteenth century advanced, the Canopy was 
 generally modified, and appeared more silvery in tone, 
 generally more pleasing in effect than in Decorated 
 windows ; but it remained unfortunately a most striking 
 and, generally speaking, an uninteresting part of the 
 window all through the long Perpendicular period. 
 
 Many reasons conduced to the general use of this canopy 
 work in stained-glass windows. It afforded opportunity 
 to introduce more white or faintly-stained glass, and thus 
 enormously lightened the window. The artist in glass was 
 induced to copy or to introduce into his window the elabo- 
 rate crotchets and finials, and the many favourite and ela- 
 borate architectural ornaments which were perpetually 
 being devised by the Gothic artists. These canopies, too, 
 were less costly to produce than rich figure-work, and as 
 in very many cases expense was a serious question, this 
 consideration no doubt assisted the multiplication and 
 development of canopy work. 
 
 197 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 The Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries. 
 
 Stained glass, of what may be styled Perpendicular 
 style, became generally the fashion in this period ; more 
 and more white glass was used. The canopy continued 
 generally a very conspicuous feature. The colour- 
 ing grew less deep, less pronounced, the drawing being 
 ever more carefully attended to, but the general effect 
 was less rich, less jewelled. As the century advanced, 
 a new style was visible in stained and painted win- 
 dows ; a new departure in the beautiful art was mani- 
 fest. The “ Eenaissance ” idea which took possession of 
 literature, architecture, art of all kinds, towards the close 
 of the fifteenth century, was strikingly visible in painted 
 windows. The Renaissance era produced some magnifi- 
 cent examples here, but its glory was of comparatively 
 short duration. Before the sixteenth century was closed, 
 the beautiful art of glass-painting was already in its 
 decadence. The quality par excellence of Renaissance 
 glass has been well summarised as consisting in its 
 careful painting, in its accurate drawing. It produced 
 some unmistakably magnificent windows, such as for in- 
 stance the well-known glorious conceptions of Van Orley, 
 in S. Gudule at Brussels. The “ Canopy ” was still the 
 conspicuous feature, but the canopy was changed from the 
 well-known Perpendicular forms with its Gothic features. 
 It often assumed the appearance of a great triumphal 
 arch, and now and again a landscape acted as a back- 
 ground. In the Low Countries especially we find grand 
 “ Renaissance ” glass, notably at Brussels, in S. Gudule, 
 and at Gouda and Litige. In England we have com- 
 paratively few examples. In King’s College chapel, 
 
 198 
 
Stained Glass 
 
 Cambridge, are the most remarkable English windows 
 
 
 of this school. There is some beautiful Renaissance 
 glass at Lichfield, but it was brought from Herkenrode, 
 
 199 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 in Flanders. The well-known Renaissance windows at 
 the east end of S. George’s, Hanover Square, though 
 somewhat fragmentary, are beautiful in colouring. They 
 are not, however, English work. 
 
 It is too common a practice among some writers to 
 condemn the “Renaissance” spirit with an unsparing, 
 sweeping condemnation. In their eyes, nothing in that 
 wonderful age is worthy even of toleration, much less of 
 admiration. Letters and art are alike degraded in the 
 eyes of these critics. Now, it is undisputed that, after 
 the “Renaissance” period, architecture and its faithful 
 handmaid art of glass-painting, perished from among us. 
 But during that short brilliant period, roughly coinciding 
 with the sixteenth century , 1 not a few exquisite works, 
 alike in architecture and in glass-painting, were produced. 
 It is true they were quite unlike all mediseval Gothic 
 work ; they were inspired, we know, with a different 
 spirit. But even the most devoted admirers of the 
 glorious Gothic creations of the middle ages must ac- 
 knowledge the beauty, and feel the charm, of the work of 
 the architect and glass-painter of that too brief period 
 when “ Renaissance ” was at its best. It is true that this 
 short period was the sunset time of the long day of art in 
 its highest sense ; but it was a radiant, golden sunset, not 
 unworthy the long bright day of which it was the striking 
 close. 
 
 In glass-painting the “Renaissance” period has been 
 charged with irreligiousness, accused of pandering to 
 human pride, as forgetting to teach the old divine 
 lessons of devotion to God and sacrifice of self, not 
 
 1 It was not really quite so long as a hundred years. The glory of 
 Renaissance glass-painting really dates from some years after the six- 
 teenth century began, and was over some years before it closed. 
 
 200 
 
Stained Glass 
 
 the least among the glories of medieeval glass, and the 
 charge is made with some reason. The great mediaeval 
 artists filled their translucent panels for the most part 
 with representations of saints and angels, with simple 
 scenes of divine history, with quaint symbols, all leading 
 up to the heavenly mysteries of the Incarnation and 
 Redemption. The donors of the sumptuous windows of 
 the middle ages were content at most with a little pictured 
 quaint signature in a remote corner of their beautiful 
 gifts of glass . 1 In the “ Renaissance ” window too often 
 portraits of the donor and his house fill the centre of the 
 fair glassy picture, as in the famous window of Van Orley 
 in the stately cathedral of S. Gudule of Brussels, one of 
 the noblest and most striking productions of the age. In 
 many a brilliant work of this hour of human pride a 
 gorgeous display of heraldry takes the place of the Virgin, 
 the saint, or the martyr of an earlier and more devout 
 age. But we have too a vast number of Renaissance 
 windows devoted to noble subjects. We would instance 
 the beautiful work of the school at Beauvais, at Auxerre 
 and Conches, at Ecouen and Montmorenci, at S. Gervais 
 in Paris, at Troyes, and above all at Rouen in such 
 churches as S. Patrice, S. Vincent, and S. Maclou. We 
 have only named a few great French examples of this 
 remarkable and brilliant school of glass-painting. 
 
 But, alas ! it soon came to an end. It was but the 
 swiftly passing glory of a sunset. Before the last years 
 of the sixteenth century the art of glass-painting was 
 already a dying art, and little that was worth preserving 
 was produced in the following seventeenth century. The 
 
 1 See the little pictures of mediaeval signatures of donors of stained 
 windows on pp. 190, 192. 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 story of the eighteenth is even sadder. The historian of 
 the craft of glass-painting is silent when he has dwelt 
 upon the short-lived glories of the Renaissance. 
 
 A well-known example of an eighteenth -century 
 window is the famous “ Sir Joshua Reynolds ” glass in 
 the chapel of New College, Oxford. Although the draw- 
 ing of the figures is by the great master, the effect is 
 melancholy, poor, colourless. 
 
 In the same chapel are some old Gothic stained 
 windows, not particularly meritorious of their kind, but 
 they form a striking contrast to the unhappy eighteenth- 
 century effort. The Gothic (Perpendicular) canopies, as 
 is but too often the case, are out of proportion, but the 
 colouring on the whole is generally admirable, and the 
 general effect delightful, and the eye quickly travels from 
 the unpleasing “ Reynolds ” glass to the mediaeval work, 
 — and rests there. The secret of the old masters of the 
 craft of glass-painters, alas ! was lost when Sir Joshua 
 designed his beautiful figures for the New College 
 Chapel. 
 
 In Gloucester we have examples for the same dreary 
 comparison in the nineteenth century. The great west 
 window of the nave is filled with glass of about a.d. 
 i860. The colours are crude and staring, utterly devoid 
 of harmony, the white glass is muddy, and the drawing 
 weak and unsuggestive. No effect of crushed gems is 
 produced. It is simply an ugly meaningless picture. 
 It is a fair specimen of what the art of glass-painting 
 had sunk to in the middle of the nineteenth century. 
 Opposite to it, it would seem for comparison’s sake, 
 partly veiled by the heavy choir screen surmounted 
 by the huge organ, rises the glorious wall of glass 
 of the middle years of the fourteenth century — 
 
 202 
 
Stained Glass 
 
 throwing its soft jewelled rays in waves of light 
 across the soaring choir in the distance. The two great 
 windows closing the west and east ends of the mighty 
 pile of Gloucester well illustrate what has been said of 
 a “ forgotten art .” 1 
 
 From the slumber — a slumber too closely resembling 
 the sleep of death — which for some three centuries has 
 paralysed this the noblest of church decorative arts, the 
 last quarter of the nineteenth century has witnessed a 
 sudden awakening. In the great cathedral, as in many 
 a less conspicuous parish church, have appeared, in the 
 closing years of the century, windows which challenge 
 comparison with much of the striking and beautiful work- 
 manship of the art-loving middle ages. When the histori- 
 cal sentiment, ever an important factor in our estimation 
 of ancient glass, and possibly some beautifying influences 
 owing to lapse of time, have been taken into account, not 
 
 1 The above little historical sketch of glass-painting is but a sketch,'’ 
 but the outlines of a study of a great and important subject. Much, 
 very much, the writer feels, has been left unsaid. The examples have 
 been well-nigh all drawn from England and France, the other Con- 
 tinental great schools finding little place in this brief study. Among 
 Continental countries France, the great home of glass-painters, has 
 been principally drawn upon for instances. The reader, if he be 
 really interested in the “art,” after all the greatest ornament of the 
 churches of our fathers, is referred for further information to the 
 following works, which are easily procured, where details and deduc- 
 tions, which are omitted in this necessarily short essay or sketch 
 which we have woven into the tapestry of our little “White Robe of 
 Churches,” are given at greater or less length : Viollet le Due’s striking, 
 though perhaps too technical article, “Vitrail,” in the great “Diction- 
 naire de ^Architecture Frangaise De Caumont, “Abec^daire ” (“ Archi- 
 tecture Religieuse ”), too brief, but always suggestive ; Olivier Mcrson, 
 “Les Vitraux,” an admirable treatise (crowned by the Academie des 
 Beaux Arts); Lewis Day’s exhaustive book on “Windows,” 1898; 
 and the little essay of De Guilhermy on the “Sainte Chapelle, and its 
 Medallion Windows” (tenth edition, 1895). 
 
 203 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 a little of the glass executed by the craft of glass-painters 
 at the close of the nineteenth century approaches in 
 beauty and effect near to the glory and splendour of some 
 of the noblest mediaeval work, and every year marks 
 progress. When cost of production is disregarded, the 
 living artists in glass-painting, we dare to think, will 
 soon be able fearlessly to invite a comparison of some 
 of their efforts with those of the period which has 
 been justly regarded as the age par excellence of stained 
 windows. 
 
 As a fitting conclusion to our little historic survey of 
 stained glass, we proceed to a somewhat detailed account 
 of the great east window of the cathedral we are 
 especially dwelling upon. 
 
 It is not only one of the chief glories of Gloucester, 
 and as such naturally finds a place in the scheme of our 
 work, but it is, too, one of the world-famed examples of 
 the beautiful art which our fathers loved so well and 
 brought to so high a pitch of perfection — an art too 
 long lost, but which our own generation is striving so 
 faithfully and earnestly to recover. 
 
 The vast window which closes the east end of the 
 choir of Gloucester is a mighty transparent wall glowing 
 with rich colour and silvery glass. It is a striking 
 example of the beauties and also of the defects of the 
 stained glass of the middle of the fourteenth century, 
 which some critics consider the best period of mediaeval 
 art. The defect, which at once strikes the lover of 
 ancient glass, is the want of that deep rich colouring 
 which the artist of the preceding century, the thirteenth, 
 aimed at before all other considerations. At Tewkesbury, 
 another great mediaeval abbey of the Severn lands, only 
 some dozen miles north of Gloucester, where the choir 
 
 204 
 
Stained Glass 
 
 windows are of about the same date, the splendid deep 
 hues of the thirteenth century are aimed at, with the 
 result of a magnificent and gorgeous series of windows 
 crowning the Tewkesbury Abbey apse. But the light 
 is wanting at Tewkesbury which at Gloucester floods the 
 exquisite stone veil of lace-like tracery which so to speak 
 hangs from the fretted roof of the lofty choir, reaching 
 down to the marble floor. Nothing can be conceived 
 happier than the effect of the great east window here. 
 For a moment one longs for the deep dark gemmed 
 windows of Beims or Chartres, but only for a moment, 
 for it is quickly seen how such a sombre wall of gemmed 
 glass, beautiful though it could have been, could not 
 have lit up the glorious choir of Abbot Wygmore as does 
 so perfectly the present pale silvery window, with the 
 rarer but exquisite tints of sapphire and of ruby, with 
 here and there a gleam of gold. 
 
 All critics are agreed that it is one of the most im- 
 portant and beautiful windows in England, as it is the 
 largest. 1 The east window of York comes next to it in 
 size, with its splendid glazing, of a little more than fifty 
 years later. The Gloucester window was finished before 
 a.d. 1350. 
 
 Its history is of national interest. The great archi- 
 tectural transformation of the Benedictine abbey of 
 Gloucester was in active progress from the year of the 
 death of Edward II. at Berkeley, a.d. 1327. 
 
 Some time in the fourth decade of the century (the 
 fourteenth), Lord Bradestone, an important vassal of the 
 House of Berkeley, was governor of the castle fortress 
 
 1 The Gloucester window is 72 feet high and 38 feet wide. The 
 York window, 78 feet high and ’33 feet wide. The lower lights at 
 Gloucester which open directly into the Lady Chapel are not glazed. 
 
 205 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 of Gloucester, and reading from the story told by the 
 heraldry in its lower lights, the famous east window 
 of the abbey, which still after some 550 years of the 
 abbey’s changing fortunes is the object of wondering 
 admiration alike of the skilled critic and of the unlearned 
 observer, was the offering of this Lord Bradestone to 
 the abbey monks. It was his contribution to the mar- 
 vellous transformation work which, regardless of cost, 
 was being carried on in the east limb of the grand old 
 Bomanesque abbey, The heraldry in question consists 
 of some ten coats-of-arms : there were originally fourteen, 
 but four are now missing. In these ten we find the arms 
 of the Black Prince and a group of certain of his brave 
 companions-in-arms, who were distinguished for military 
 talent and conspicuous valour in the wars in France under 
 King Edward III. during the campaign of a.d. i 346-47, 
 famous for the battle of Cressy and the successful siege 
 of Calais. The knightly barons, whose shields are 
 blazoned on the lower lights of one window, were all 
 more or less connected with Gloucestershire and its 
 neighbourhood. They include, besides the shield of the 
 Black Prince, the arms of the Earl of Arundel, Lord 
 Berkeley, the Earls of Warwick, Northampton, Lancaster, 
 and Pembroke, Lord Talbot, Sir Maurice de Berkeley, 
 and Lord Bradestone. Lord Bradestone’s coat, as donor, 
 occupies the least honourable place ; the coat of Sir 
 Maurice de Berkeley, Bradestone’s dear friend and brother- 
 in-arms, slain at the siege of Calais, although his inferior 
 in rank, being placed before his own. Our window may 
 fairly be styled the “ Cressy ” window. This great 
 historical glass-painting may be attributed to a.d. 
 1347-49, and was no doubt completed not later than 
 1350. It was therefore being put up in its place the 
 
 206 
 

Stained Glass 
 
 year that the Black Death was raging in England. 
 This awful scourge ravaged Gloucester with extreme 
 severity in 1349. It is estimated by some authorities 
 that nearly one half of the entire population of England 
 and Wales were swept away, but the proportion of deaths 
 in Gloucester was even greater than this ! 
 
 The leading subject of “the picture” was the enthrone- 
 ment of the Blessed Virgin. The two central lights are 
 treated as one by the glass-painter here, both lights having 
 a ruby background, while the rest of the lights are alter- 
 nately ruby-red and blue. With the exception of this 
 main central group, which consists of Christ and His 
 Mother, both, singularly enough, placed on an equal level, 
 all the other subjects are single figures, the top row con- 
 sisting of angels, and above the angels is a grand series of 
 shrine-work, very richly coloured. The second row contains 
 the leading subject, the enthronisation of Mary, with the 
 twelve apostles, six on either side of the Virgin and Christ. 
 Immediately below are a row of saints. Beneath them 
 are figures of ecclesiastics intermingled with one or two 
 kings, and in the lowest light are the coats-of-arms above 
 alluded to, belonging to heroes of the French campaign. 
 
 The general scheme of colour in this superb and fragile 
 relic of the days of the great Plantagenet king is ex- 
 tremely delicate and beautiful. “ Pot-metal ” (blue) and 
 ruby, “ flashed,” for the reasons above given, are only 
 used as backgrounds. The ruby is charmingly varied, 
 and even in the deepest hues is luminous, and the tone 
 of the blue can hardly be surpassed, the whole of the 
 figures and their canopies being in pearly-white glass, 
 with the drawing of the faces and other details in brown 
 
 207 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 enamel paint, and some enrichments in silver stain, vary- 
 ing from a lemon yellow to a deep orange. This soft and 
 delicate treatment gives an exceptional appearance of 
 lightness and brilliance to the whole work, and the mighty 
 transparent wall which closes the east end of the soaring 
 choir reveals rather than obscures the filmy lace-like work 
 which seems to hang from the gorgeous gold-encrusted 
 vault above. The luminous pearly look of the white glass 
 is owing to the body of the glass being full of minute air- 
 bubbles. Each of these tiny bubbles catches the light, and 
 then reflects it out from the interior of the glass, so that 
 the glass is not merely translucent, but is itself actually 
 luminous, each air-bubble being a centre of radiated light. 
 
 In the apex of the window, in the topmost light of all, 
 is a figure which has evidently been placed there in some 
 far-back restoration of the window. It has nothing to 
 do with the original scheme of the artist, and its date is 
 nearly a century later than the rest of the figures. It is 
 the portrait of a pope. Its lofty position is the reason of 
 its generally escaping the notice it deserves, for it is en- 
 riched with small jewels of glass in blue and red, which 
 are fixed on to the surface of the glass, so that they stand 
 out in actual relief, giving an effect of rare richness. It 
 was evidently executed for some position much nearer 
 the eye. This process of jewelling was very costly, and 
 very rarely practised . 1 
 
 1 The above description of the great east window of Gloucester is 
 partly based on Mr. Winston’s paper in the “ Archamlogical Journal,” 
 vol. xx., but mostly is taken from a MS. study by Mr. J. Henry 
 Middleton, late Slade Professor in the University of Cambridge, given 
 to the author of this work. Mr. Middleton (differing from Mr. Winston) 
 considers the drawing of the faces and draperies as specially vigorous 
 and effective. The work reminded that great scholar and critic, of 
 the drawing on the best painted vases of the Greeks. The details 
 respecting the manufacture of stained glass are Mr. Middleton’s. 
 
 208 
 
Stained Glass 
 
 It is a puzzling window exactly to classify when the 
 custodian is asked to say if it be a Perpendicular window 
 in harmony with the “new” work of Abbot Wygmore, 
 in the days when Edward III. was king, a.d. 1346-1350. 
 Emphatically the general impression left by this mighty 
 wall of jewelled silvery glass on the eye of one fairly 
 trained in styles is that of an example of purely Perpen- 
 dicular work. This at once impresses the student, it 
 being in perfect harmony with the striking veil of Per- 
 pendicular lace-work, hung over, so to speak, the old 
 Norman work. The masonry of the window, to begin 
 with, is distinctly Perpendicular. The general arrange- 
 ment of the colours is also purely Perpendicular. Deep 
 lines of ruby and of blue are carried straight up through 
 the long lengths of each alternate light. The masses of 
 white in the figures, only slightly treated with yellow stain, 
 scarcely would be seen in what is known as “ Decorated ” 1 
 glass. 
 
 On the other hand, the details of the Canopies, a very 
 prominent feature in the window, emphatically are not 
 Perpendicular, but belong to the older style of “ Decorated.” 
 It is a strange transition window, and the great artist who 
 designed this faery creation was scarcely aware of the 
 great change which was passing over architecture, and, 
 somewhat more slowly, over its handmaid art of glass- 
 painting. 
 
 1 Winston is certainly inaccurate when he describes the painted 
 glass of the window as a pure example of “Decorated.” 
 
 209 
 
 O 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THE HOLY TABLE OR ALTAR 
 
 (i) In the Church of the Catacombs. 
 
 At the eastern end of the choir of Gloucester Cathedral 
 is placed, in accordance with the unvarying use of the 
 Anglican Communion, the Holy Table or Altar. The Holy 
 Table, to give it its more accurate name — although the 
 alternative designation “ Altar,” which is more commonly 
 used, belongs also to an immemorial antiquity — occupies 
 the place of the High or principal Altar of the old 
 Mediaeval Abbey. In the Middle Ages, as we have had 
 occasion to notice several times, there were in such an 
 Abbey as the one we are specially describing, many 
 smaller altars in different parts of the Great Church. 
 But the Holy Table or Altar par excellence, the High 
 Altar to use its customary designation, was as a rule 
 placed at or near the eastern extremity of the choir. 
 The Anglican “ Use ” here closely follows the Mediseval 
 arrangement. 
 
 The history of the Holy Table or Altar in a Christian 
 Church is of the greatest importance, and stretches back 
 to the earliest days of Christianity. 
 
 In the smallest chapel of the Catacombs in the first, 
 second, and third centuries, in the magnificent basilicas 
 which arose after the “ Peace ” of the Church in the 
 fourth century, in the stately cathedrals and abbeys of 
 
 210 
 
The Holy Table or Altar 
 
 the Middle Ages, in the grandest Christian temples of 
 the nineteenth century, as well as in the humblest village 
 churches, alike in the Greek, Latin, and Anglican com- 
 munions, the central, the most prominent, the most 
 revered object is the “ Holy Table,” the “Altar,” on which 
 are celebrated the sacred mysteries of the Faith, the 
 Eucharist, the Mass of the mediaeval and later Koman 
 Catholic Church, called indifferently the Lord’s Supper 
 and the Holy Communion. 
 
 In the earliest times, no doubt, a simple wooden table 
 was all that was used by the Apostles and their first con- 
 verts, but very soon a peculiar and striking change was 
 made. The Table very generally became a Tomb, and with 
 scarcely any exception the tomb, with various modifica- 
 tions and many forms of decoration, has been the more 
 common, though not the universal, form or appearance of 
 the “Holy Table” in all the Christian churches in every 
 part of the world. 
 
 It was the central object, so Eusebius, writing early 
 in the fourth century directly after the Peace of the 
 Church, to Paulinus, Bishop of Tyre, thus speaks of it 
 as the “Holy Altar” placed in the midst of the 
 church’s sanctuary, where sat the Bishop and Presbyters. 
 Durandus, the mediaeval liturgiologist (thirteenth century) 
 thus emphasises and sums up its symbolism: “As the 
 heart is the centre of the human body, so the altar is 
 the centre of a church.” 
 
 We will briefly sketch the story of its principal changes 
 and developments through the Christian ages. 
 
 It is in the Catacombs of Rome that we have the 
 earliest known examples of a Christian church. The 
 Catacombs of Rome consist of a vast labyrinth of narrow 
 
 21 1 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 subterranean galleries excavated in the strata of volcanic 
 earth that underlie the city of Rome, or, to speak more 
 accurately, its immediate neighbourhood. They consist of 
 well-nigh endless galleries excavated at different levels one 
 beneath the other, sometimes to the number of five or even 
 seven stories, communicating by narrow flights of steps 
 cut in the native rock. 
 
 They were the work of the congregations of the 
 Roman Christians during the later part of the first 
 century; during the second and third centuries, and 
 during the early years of the fourth century. They are 
 of enormous extent, as far as they have been as yet 
 explored. The united lengths of these wonderful under- 
 ground galleries, passages, or corridors have been variously 
 calculated as amounting to 800 or 900 miles (Marchi) ; by 
 Martigny, however (in the “ Dictionnaire des Antiquites 
 Chretiennes), as not more than 500 to 600 miles. 
 
 The number of graves in these strange Christian 
 galleries Marchi puts at six to seven millions. Later 
 “ guesses ” suggest a much smaller number. But the 
 data we possess are after all not sufficient to warrant 
 any certain conclusions either as to their real extent, 
 or to the number of bodies buried in these interminable 
 corridors, and chambers leading out of the corridors. 
 
 There is no doubt that these catacombs were the 
 work entirely of the Roman Christian community during 
 those two centuries and a half when the religion of J esus 
 was more or less a persecuted and proscribed religion. 
 Although primarily designed for the interment of the 
 Christian Brotherhood of Rome, it is in these subter- 
 ranean passages, corridors, and chambers (cubicula as 
 they were termed, of which we shall presently speak), 
 leading directly out of the corridors, that much of the 
 
 212 
 
 
The Holy Table or Altar 
 
 religious life of the Roman Christian, especially in times 
 of danger, during the first two and a half centuries un- 
 doubtedly was spent. The dead were mostly laid in the 
 corridors which constituted by far the larger portion of 
 these vast cemeteries, some of the chambers (cubicula) 
 leading out of the corridors being largely used for worship. 
 
 The walls of the corridors were vertical and were 
 pierced on each side 
 with long low hori- 
 zontal recesses, com- 
 mencing just above 
 the level of the floor 
 and rising tier above 
 tier like the berths in 
 a ship’s cabin, to the 
 number of six, seven, 
 or even more ranges. 
 
 In these recesses the 
 dead were carefully 
 and reverently laid. 
 
 Each locus (loculus as 
 it has been termed in 
 more modern times) 
 was, after the intro- 
 duction of a body, 
 sealed with great care with slabs of marble or with 
 large tiles cemented together. The bodies of the faith- 
 ful were not buried naked, but were carefully wrapt, 
 some of them in more or less costly linen cloths. On 
 many, but by no means on all, of the marble or tile 
 “closures” inscriptions are painted or carved, often very 
 roughly. 
 
 On these corridors or passages, stretching as they do 
 213 
 
 Gallery with Loculi. 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 tier below tier for miles and miles, we need not dwell, for 
 they have nothing specially to do with the subject of 
 the present little study on the Altar or Holy Table con- 
 nected with the Eucharistic rite, but we have given this 
 description of them in order to make clear what we are 
 about to state. For out of these corridors and passages, 
 where the dead lay so thickly in their little excavated 
 recesses, led an immense number of small sepulchral 
 chambers known as “cubicula,” for the greater part 
 family or official burying- places. These cubicula were 
 mostly insignificant in size and of various shapes — 
 circular, semi-circular, triangular, pentagonal, &c. But 
 besides these innumerable comparatively small chambers 
 in different catacombs are found, also leading out of 
 the corridors of the dead, chambers of a considerably 
 greater area. These rarer chambers were probably 
 specially designed and used for the purpose of religious 
 assemblies. 
 
 In very many of the little separate chambers or cubicula, 
 at the extremity of the room or sepulchral vault, is a tomb, 
 
 of stone, marble, or long tiles, and closed by a slab of 
 stone or marble lying horizontally on the top, thus form- 
 ing a table. 
 
 The other form, more usual, though scarcely so old, pos- 
 sesses an arched semicircular opening above the grave 
 hollowed out for the dead, the grave being dug from 
 
 Table Tomb. 
 
 perhaps of one who suffered 
 martyrdom, perhaps of the 
 original builder of the cham- 
 ber. Two forms of tomb are 
 common, the one a table tomb 
 either hewn out of the living 
 rock, or constructed of slabs 
 
 214 
 
Arcosolium. 
 
 The Holy Table or Altar 
 
 above downwards. This form of tomb, so general in the 
 “ cubicula,” is known as an “ arcosolium ” (from arcus , 
 an arch). Here, too, the space which contained the 
 dead is covered by a slab of marble and stone. 
 
 Upon these slabs, covering the tombs both in the form 
 of the “ table tomb ” above described, and in the form 
 known as an “arcosolium,” it is an accepted fact that 
 the Holy Eucharist was celebrated, and that these tombs 
 were the first stone altars ; 
 there is, indeed, no doubt 
 that this was the case, and 
 that some of the tombs in 
 question were used in the 
 Eucharist celebrations, and 
 that the later general practice 
 of constructing altars more or less in the shape of 
 tombs springs from their early use in the Catacombs 
 by the small congregations who gathered together in 
 these cubicula — not always and not necessarily only 
 in times of persecution. It is a mistake to suppose 
 that the second and third centuries were a period 
 of bitter persecution at Eome. For a very long period, 
 viz. from a.d. 65, the date of the persecution of Hero, 
 down to a.d. 249-251, the date of the persecution of 
 Decius, there is no certain record of any general persecu- 
 tion of the Christians in Borne, although in the course of 
 these two hundred years there were doubtless many 
 periods of uneasiness, anxiety, and even grave danger 
 for the professors of the faith of Jesus — not a few out- 
 breaks of popular violence directed against the Christians, 
 and isolated acts of cruelty and severity towards the more 
 prominent professors of what was always an unpopular 
 religion. Under Decius, a.d. 249, and under Diocletian and 
 
 2I 5 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 Galerius, a.d. 303, we know, however, there were general 
 and merciless persecutions. 
 
 Now, there is little doubt that in the earliest days 
 of the faith the holy table or altar was simply a wooden 
 table like that upon which traditionally our Lord in- 
 stituted the sacred communion rite. There is an 
 immemorial tradition which relates how portions of the 
 wood of the table on which S. Peter celebrated the 
 Lord’s Supper are enclosed in the altar of the basilica of 
 S. John Lateran, and that the altar of that church, owing 
 to the possession of such a sacred treasure, alone among 
 Roman Catholic altars contains no other relics. 
 
 In the larger oratories of the Catacombs which are 
 supposed to have been constructed for the purpose of 
 religious assemblies there are a few rare traces of speci- 
 ally constructed altars, some of them occupying the 
 position, subsequently so common, viz. the centre of the 
 apse. Although the tomb form was so general in the 
 Church of the Catacombs, it was not universal, for in 
 the cemetery of S. Calixtus, for instance, there are traces 
 left by four pillars which had supported an altar in that 
 position. In the immediate neighbourhood of what is 
 known as the Papal crypt of the same cemetery of S. 
 Calixtus, in the so-called chambers of the sacraments, 
 there are some very ancient fresco paintings, executed 
 probably towards the close of the second century, on 
 one of which the altar is represented as a tripod. All 
 this points to the fact that in the earliest period there 
 was no definite form — no special material for the holy 
 table. 
 
 Much that has been in modern times said and quoted 
 as authoritative in the question of ritual arrangements 
 as bearing on very early practices in the church of the 
 
 216 
 
The Holy Table or Altar 
 
 Catacombs must be received with great caution. For it 
 must be borne in mind that these wonderful remains of 
 early Christian life have been sadly tampered with. We 
 know not what extent of damage and destruction they 
 suffered in the undoubted persecution period of a.d. 249- 
 251 when Decius was Emperor, and again in a.d. 303 in 
 the reigns of Diocletian and Galerius, and later when 
 the Goths sacked Rome under Yitiges in a.d. 537 (the 
 ravages of these Gothic hordes we know extended to the 
 Catacombs), and later still we are conscious that havoc 
 and destruction were wrought in the eighth century by the 
 Lombards under Astolphus. Other instances of far-reach- 
 ing barbaric mischief and deplorable destruction could be 
 adduced. But perhaps the primitive arrangements of the 
 Catacombs have suffered more by religious restoration 
 than even from the sacrilegious devastations of Goths 
 and Lombards. Several of the Popes, notably John III., 
 a.d. 568, Paul I., a.d. 761, Paschal I., a.d. 817, were busy in 
 works of change and of restoration, and even of wholesale 
 spoliation, in the ancient and venerable places so dear to 
 all serious Christians, so precious to the historian and 
 archaeologist. 
 
 Still, after making all due allowance for the changes 
 wrought by successive barbarian pillagers, by well- 
 meaning but destructive restorers, by centuries of neg- 
 lect, in the vast and still only partly explored Catacombs, 
 which, with their galleries extending several hundred 
 miles, their numberless cubicula, their rarer crypts or 
 oratories, exist to this day beneath the suburbs of modern 
 Rome, — there remains amply sufficient evidence for us to 
 trace in these marvellous reliques of the great Roman 
 Church of the first three centuries the gradual evolution 
 of the form of the altar or holy table which has so gener- 
 
 217 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 ally been adopted and preserved in the Christian Church 
 since the epoch of the “ Peace ” proclaimed by the 
 Emperor Constantine in the course of the first quarter of 
 the fourth century. 
 
 Nor need it be a matter of any surprise that this primi- 
 tive pattern of the Holy Table or Altar was derived from 
 the Roman Catacomb “ use,” when it is remembered how 
 enormous and widespread was the influence of Rome 
 between the years a . d . 70-3 1 3 ; how everything centred 
 in the great capital of the world, how, of course, 
 Christian Rome like Pagan Rome would naturally be 
 looked on as the centre and fountain-head of influence and 
 of fashion in things religious as in things civil. 
 
 To Rome would of course flow a perpetual stream of 
 Christians from every part of the civilised world, on 
 errands of business, pleasure, devotion ; those returning 
 from the Mighty City to their own often distant homes, 
 would naturally reproduce in their own loved sanctuaries 
 what they had seen at Rome, where the famous Apostles 
 Peter and Paul had sealed their faith with the red seal 
 of their life blood, and where their honoured remains 
 rested. 
 
 It is certainly a strange story, that of the evolution of 
 the tomb-shaped holy table or altar. Most probably in 
 the earliest instance the making use of the tomb was a 
 simple matter of convenience, little groups of harassed 
 Christians meeting together for safety in the rough-hewn 
 chambers of the dead, with whom they had been specially 
 connected in life by ties of blood or friendship. In 
 these rude cubicula or chambers there was no furniture, 
 scarcely perhaps a chair or a stool : naturally the slab of 
 stone and marble in a recess of the wall at the end of the 
 
 218 
 
The Holy Table or Altar 
 
 cubiculum or chamber would be used as a table for the 
 holy bread and wine. The knowledge, too, that beneath 
 that stone lay not unfrequently the hallowed remains of 
 some brave confessor of the faith, would deepen the feelings 
 of awe and reverence with which the little company would 
 share together the memorials of their adorable Master’s 
 dying love, and so the use of the “ tomb,” with its sacred 
 memories, at the end of the little sepulchral chamber, 
 continued in the church of the Catacombs even when it 
 was not necessary, the “ faithful ” discerning in it at once 
 a memory and a symbol. Curiously too, but not un- 
 naturally, the mystical words 1 of the Revelation of 
 S. John fitted in with the practice with strange realistic 
 accuracy, thus giving the “ use ” almost a sacred scriptural 
 sanction. 
 
 More convincing to some scholars even than the testi- 
 mony of the arrangement of the Catacomb cubicula, 
 which have undergone so many changes in the long ages 
 which have passed since they were used as places of 
 assembly for religious worship, are the undoubted re- 
 ferences of Prudentius, the well-known Christian poet, 
 who wrote in the second half of the fourth century, very 
 few years, indeed, after the date of the “Peace” of the 
 Church. 
 
 When Prudentius wrote, the “ use ” of the altar-tomb 
 was a very general one, and had evidently been a com- 
 mon “use” in the Church for an indefinitely lengthened 
 period. He writes of the “ table ” from which is dis- 
 
 1 “ I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of 
 God, and for the testimony which they held, and they cried with a loud 
 voice saying, How long, Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and 
 avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth ? and white robes 
 were given unto every one of them, and it was said unto them that 
 they should rest for a little season.” — Rev. vi. 9-1 1. 
 
 219 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 pensed the Eucharistic food “ being at the same time the 
 faithful guardian of the Martyrs. It holds, does the table, 
 in its sepulchre, the remains waiting the Eternal Judge, 
 and at the same time it feeds the dwellers on the banks 
 of the Tiber with its sacred feast.” 1 
 
 After the period of the adoption of Christianity as the 
 religion of the empire, early in the fourth century, the 
 “ tomb ” form became more and more general. There 
 were no doubt exceptions. We find, for instance, notices 
 in writers which seem to indicate that in Africa the old 
 table form was still common in the early part of the fifth 
 century ; and a Ravenna mosaic of the sixth century re- 
 presents such an altar, but the “ tomb ” was adopted as the 
 usual model. The material of which the altar was made 
 followed the same sepulchral type, stone being preferred 
 to wood. In a.d. 517 a canon of the Provincial Council 
 of Epaona (Pamiers, in France) positively forbade the 
 consecration of any other than stone altars. “Altaria 
 nisi lapidea non sacrentur ” ran the words of the Epaonic 
 canon. This direction was repeated in the Capitularies of 
 Charlemagne, a.d. 769. In the Western Church, in the 
 case of the high altar, 2 this custom grew, till it became of 
 
 1 Prudentius, “ Peristephanon,” Hymn XI. v. 171 — 
 
 “Ilia sacramenti donatrix Mensa, eademque 
 Custos fida sui martyris adposita. 
 
 Servat ad asterni spem judicis ossa sepulchro 
 Pascit item sanctis Tibricolas dapibus.” 
 
 And compare too Prudentius, Hymn V. v. 515, and also Hymn III. v. 
 21 1. The “Peristephanon” is a well-known and striking work which 
 contains fourteen hymns in honour of saints who had received the 
 martyr’s crown. 
 
 2 Durandus of Mende (thirteenth century) expressly tells us that 
 the side altar might be constructed of wood. The same writer, in his 
 “ Symbolism of the Altar,” says the altar was of stone, because it repre- 
 sents Christ, the corner-stone, &c (“Rationale,” Book I., chap. vii. 
 pp. 27, 28). 
 
The Holy Table or Altar 
 
 universal observance. In the Eastern Church less atten- 
 tion has ever been paid to the material used. 
 
 A yet more marked trace of the original Catacomb 
 tradition has been handed down in the remarkable rule 
 which prevailed all through the Western Mediaeval Church, 
 that every altar must contain a relic or relics, thus preserv- 
 ing the original idea that the altar was the actual tomb, 
 was the covering, so to speak, built over the remains of 
 some saintly person ; hence the crypt or confession of the 
 early mediaeval churches, situated immediately beneath 
 the altar. 
 
 In the consecration of all mediaeval altars this singular 
 traditional memory of the Catacombs was rigidly observed, 
 the Second Council of Nice, a.d. 787, expressly forbidding 
 the consecration of any altar unless relics were placed 
 under it. We find the same direction recorded in the 
 famous Anglo-Saxon Council at Cealchythe under Bishop 
 Wilfrid. The Cealchythe decree, however, provides 
 an alternative in the event of no “Relic” being pro- 
 curable. The consecrated Eucharist might in such a 
 case be substituted, “ If the Bishop,” so runs the decree, 
 “cannot buy other relics, at least he can do this chief 
 thing.” Durandus of Mende, in the thirteenth century, 
 in his elaborate directions for the consecration of an 
 altar, lays great stress on the necessity of thus putting 
 a relic or relics in or beneath the altar, and repeats 
 the alternative which allowed the consecrated Eucharist 
 being substituted in cases where no relics could be pro- 
 cured. The Bishop of Mende curiously enough sees in 
 the golden pot of manna placed in the Ark of Covenant 
 an anticipation of this custom in the Jewish Church of 
 the Wilderness. 
 
 221 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 THE HOLY TABLE OR ALTAR 
 
 ( 2 ) -After the “Peace” of the Church (a.d. 313) 
 
 One of the earliest acts of the Christian Emperor 
 Constantine, after his accession to supreme power, was 
 the famous edict of Milan, a.d. 313. The sovereign will 
 of the lord of the fairest portion of the world not only 
 assured to the harassed communities of Christians peace 
 and security, but it virtually imposed upon Roman 
 society a worship hitherto despised, a religion ever 
 growing, and which for three hundred years at times was 
 contemptuously tolerated, at times was remorselessly per- 
 secuted. After A.D. 313, Christianity became the official 
 religion of the world-wide empire. At once the dark 
 and semi-hidden chapels, or the chambers and under- 
 ground corridors of the Catacombs of Rome and a few other 
 centres, such as private oratories and the comparatively 
 few and small churches that existed above ground, were 
 found utterly insufficient, totally unfit, to accommodate 
 the crowds of worshippers who soon began to frequent 
 them. Then under the all-pervading sunshine of imperial 
 favour arose with strange rapidity a crowd of architects 
 and builders, artists in painting and sculpture, and in 
 cunning mosaic-work, eager to devote their talents to the 
 erection and decoration of buildings which were to be 
 devoted to the religious worship professed no longer only 
 
 222 
 
The Holy Table or Altar 
 
 by a community of so-called fanatics, but by the mighty 
 Emperor himself and the great bulk of the composite 
 Roman society. 
 
 The century which followed the Edict of Milan (a.d. 
 313), securing the peace of the Church, witnessed the 
 erection in all parts of the world of Rome of a number 
 of Christian churches, some of vast size and noble propor- 
 tions. Among these, distinguished for their vastness and 
 grandeur, were the three Roman basilicas, which among all 
 the changing fortunes of the Empire, have ever preserved 
 the first rank among Christian churches — the Basilica of 
 S. John Lateran, the Basilica of S. Paul on the Ostian 
 Way, covering the remains of the apostle of the Gentiles, 
 and chief est of all, the Vatican Basilica of S. Peter, 
 erected over the tomb of the foremost of the Apostolic 
 College. The lowly altar of the Catacombs, the small 
 tripod, the more common slab of stone or marble covering 
 the martyr’s or confessor’s lowly grave, and on which in 
 fear and trembling the holy mysteries of the faith had 
 been so often celebrated with hushed voice and hurried 
 ceremony, became under the new state of things the 
 sacred centre of the new and lordly home of Christian 
 prayer and praise. 
 
 Changed, too, was the general symbolism which 
 decorated the surroundings of the now stately churches. 
 Before the edict which secured the peace of the Church, 
 the symbolism with which loving Christian hands had 
 somewhat roughly adorned the more sacred parts of their 
 humble chapels and oratories was largely coloured with 
 thoughts of death. This was natural in a society so 
 surrounded with suspicion and hatred, peril, and other 
 deadly persecutions. The grave, its welcome sleep, the 
 rest after toil, the quiet joys of Paradise, the loving 
 
 223 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 welcome of the soul into the other world by the “ Good 
 Shepherd after the fret and fever of this life were past 
 — pictures of these things were what the Christians of 
 the first three centuries loved to paint and carve on 
 wall and ceiling of their gloomy oratory or chapel. But 
 when the great change under Constantine passed over 
 the Christian community, the dominant thought in the 
 Christian heart was the surpassing glory of Jesus and 
 the victory of His Church. The kingdoms of the world 
 
 Altar of S. Alessandro. 
 
 had become the kingdoms of God and His Christ. The 
 one prevailing idea of the blessedness of death, the death 
 which to the harassed believer meant life, receded some- 
 what into the background under the joyousness of the 
 splendour of earthly life under its new conditions. The 
 noble and solemn figure of the Christ blessing men and 
 leaving them His peace, took the place of the Good 
 Shepherd tending the harassed sheep of His little flock, 
 or of the Christ receiving the souls of the wearied and 
 heavy-laden after death. The symbolism painted and 
 carved on the Church of the Catacombs illustrated the 
 
 224 
 
The Holy Table or Altar 
 
 hymns of death, death the friend and the deliverer, or 
 the hymn of the redeemed soul freed from the body. 
 The symbolism of the basilica which after the “ Peace ” 
 of the Church arose above the catacomb tombs, illus- 
 trated the hymn of the Christian victory — pictured the 
 victorious rather than the comforting Christ — the King 
 rather than the Shepherd. But the new symbolism of 
 the basilica, although represented in the highest art, with 
 all the glory and magnificence that Rome in her splendour 
 could bring to the w T ork, lacked the tender grace and the 
 undying hope which often the rough artist and devoted 
 fossores brought into the chapels of the catacombs. And the 
 basilican altar shared in the mighty change which passed 
 over the Church of the Christian after the “ Peace ” of a.d. 
 313. We possess but a dim conception of the appearance 
 of the altar of the Church of the first three centuries. 
 
 The altar arrangements of a typical basilica were not 
 of course the result of any suddenly devised plan, but 
 gradually were introduced and developed as time wore 
 on. We find the altar under the shadow of a lofty 
 baldachino or canopy of stone or marble, richly adorned 
 with gold and colour. The altar itself, a slab of marble 
 supported rarely by one, oftener by four short columns, 
 was placed in the middle of the apse, directly above the 
 “ confessionary crypt,” which contained the tomb of the 
 martyr who gave his name to the church. Just beneath 
 the altar there was frequently a little opening or grating 
 ( fenestella confessionis), allowing the faithful to catch a 
 glimpse of the sacred sepulchre beneath. 
 
 In the basilica the altar or holy table of the divine 
 mysteries was apparently provided with curtains. The 
 custom seems to have been of a venerable antiquity. 
 Some, probably with reason, deduce the idea of the 
 
 225 P 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 curtain shrouding the holy table from a realistic inter- 
 pretation of Paul’s words in his first Corinthian letter 
 (ii. 9), “Eye hath not seen, nor car heard . . . the 
 things which God hath prepared for them that love 
 Him.” Some see in the veil a memory of the veil in 
 the Jerusalem temple which hung before the awful 
 sanctuary. Be this as it may, the curtain shrouding 
 the altar from the gaze of the worshippers belongs to a 
 very remote antiquity in the Christian liturgical story. 
 
 Now there appears to have been two distinct methods 
 of arranging these veils in the early churches. The first 
 was a veil stretched transversely across the church in 
 front of the sanctuary. The second was an arrangement 
 of veils surrounding the altar itself upon all sides. 
 
 The first was the simpler arrangement. The old 
 Lenten veil ( velum quadragesimale), which in mediaeval 
 times in every English church, from the evening of Ash- 
 Wednesday until the Wednesday before Easter, was sus- 
 pended in front of the sanctuary, is a faithful memory of 
 their early use. The “ Iconostasis,” or solid wall, with 
 its gold-enriched paintings of the modern Greek Church 
 is a similar memory of this primitive veil. 
 
 The second use — the arrangement of veils surrounding 
 the altar on all sides — was the one more usually adopted in 
 the basilican church, and which developed into the well- 
 known baldachino. 1 The baldachino is also termed the 
 
 1 “ The term baldachino is derived from Baldacco, the Italian equi- 
 valent for Bagdad, and Baldachino appears to have been the name 
 used to designate a rich silken fabric manufactured at this place (so 
 ‘damask’ is derived from the silken fabrics of Damascus). The 
 curtains of ‘Bagdad’ manufacture gave their name to the erection 
 which was designed to support them. In early wall paintings and 
 mosaics, these curtains are frequently shown knotted round the pillars 
 of the baldachino.”— 0. G. Scott, “History of Church Architecture.” 
 
 226 
 
The Holy Table or Altar 
 
 “ ciborium which generally signifies the canopy over the 
 altar, supported upon four pillars. The very general 
 application of the term “ ciborium ” to the pix or vessel 
 which usually contained the reserved sacrament, belonged 
 to a much later date, and has led to some confusion and 
 misapprehension . 1 
 
 These “ curtains ” became, in the course of the fourth 
 century, very general. They are mentioned in this age 
 by various writers, notably by Athanasius and Chrysos- 
 tom. They seem to have been used largely, if not 
 universally, in the churches of the West all through the 
 
 Altar op S. Ambkogio, Milan (Ninth Century). 
 
 gloomy depression of the sixth, eighth, ninth, tenth, 
 eleventh, and twelfth centuries. We find mention of 
 them in papal records ; we see them in pictures, in 
 ivory carvings, and in illuminated MSS., &c. In France, 
 and in countries under French influences, in the course 
 of the thirteenth century, veils in front of the altar grew 
 rarer and rarer, and became confined to the sides of the 
 
 1 This well-known term (French, ciboire), which came in later times 
 to be used for the pix, originally is an Egyptian name for the husk 
 of a bean, and was used by the Greeks (KifiApiov) to signify a cup or 
 bowl, broad at the bottom and narrow at the top, and from that re- 
 semblance possibly it came to be adopted for the tall dome-like canopy 
 erected above the altar. — (So Suicer, quoted by Bingham, “Antiqui- 
 ties,” viii. vi. 19). 
 
 227 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 altar, in which position they were very general, while the 
 lofty covering or canopy of the ciborium disappeared 
 altogether, save in parts of Italy, especially in Eome, 
 where we still find it, and in some notable Italian 
 churches, as, for instance, in S. Mark at Venice. In the 
 Eastern Church the “ iconostasis,” a solid wall covered with 
 pictures, separates the sanctuary from the nave and the 
 ordinary worshippers. The “ iconostasis ” is pierced by 
 openings termed the holy doors or gates. This takes in 
 the more modern Greek Church the place of the ancient 
 veil. 
 
 We have already noticed how, during the first five 
 centuries, altars were indifferently made of wood, marble, 
 or stone. In the Catacomb cubicula the stone or marble 
 slab covering a specially honoured place of sepulture was, as 
 we have seen, often used as an altar. After the peace of 
 the Church, when the altar became the centre of a large 
 and often magnificent building, the material used was some- 
 times wood, more or less adorned with gold and carved 
 work, but as time advanced, more often of stone. 
 Durandus of Mende mentions only one case where the 
 altar was of earth, the “ holy table ” in question being 
 (traditionally) erected by the three Maries and Martha in 
 a village of Provence. At the Council of Epaonia, a.d. 
 517, in the pontificate of Hormisdas, it was decreed that 
 no altars should be consecrated except such as were made 
 of stone, and although for a considerable time this decree 
 was only partially complied with, from this date onward 
 stone altars became the rule, and exceptions became rarer 
 and rarer. In England, in a.d. 1549-50, among the more 
 violent reactionary measures, stone altars were universally 
 removed, and wooden tables were substituted in their place. 
 
 228 
 
The Holy Table or Altar 
 
 The order in council directing this substitution is dated 
 November 19, 1550. 
 
 In primitive times there appears to have been only one 
 altar in the church. Ignatius (a.d. 107), on more than 
 one occasion in his Epistles, writes of “ one bishop and 
 one altar in the church.” The practice has not been de- 
 parted from in the Eastern Church. In the churches 
 of the West, however, a multiplicity of altars became, 
 after the first five centuries, very common. As early as 
 the sixth century, Pope Gregory the Great speaks of a 
 church in which there were as many as thirteen altars, 
 and in the middle ages this number was often largely 
 exceeded. In S. Peter’s at Rome, for instance, there are 
 some twenty-six, and in all great churches of the West 
 of the eleventh century and later, the number of altars 
 was very large. 
 
 Gradually, after the great revival of the eleventh cen- 
 tury, the altars in the West assumed new forms. The 
 canopy and baldachino, so noticeable a feature in the 
 great basilicas of Rome, Constantinople, Ravenna, and 
 other important centres of population, completely dis- 
 appeared. The only relics of the older type that re- 
 mained were the curtains arranged on either side. The 
 great change observable in the altars of the West in the 
 churches of the middle ages was the retable. The old 
 position of the bishop and presbyters was behind the 
 altar, which in the basilica stood free and unencumbered 
 in the centre of the sanctuary. This position of the 
 bishop and the clergy present was altered, and the bishop 
 and clergy had their seats arranged in the choir in front 
 of the altar. At first the retable was small and unim- 
 
 229 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 portant, consisting of little panels usually of wood, carved 
 and painted, occasionally covered with plates of the pre- 
 cious metal, and even encrusted with gems. The fashion 
 of the retable and its subsequent development into the 
 reredos grew rapidly in popularity, probably because it 
 afforded so vast a scope for various kinds of decorative 
 and artistic work. 
 
 This permanent addition to the altar made its appear- 
 ance in some churches in the beginning of the twelfth 
 century, or even at an earlier date. Sometimes the 
 retable assumed the form of a painted triptych, but this 
 was a somewhat later development. As the fourteenth 
 century drew on, the retable was not unfrequently en- 
 larged into a lofty wall of stone enriched with niches and 
 statuary. This was the last development, and the fashion, 
 curiously enough, has been generally revived in our own 
 days, especially in the Anglican communion. It is gene- 
 rally known as the reredos. 
 
 In Italy, however, and particularly in Borne, the custom 
 of the early ages still lives. No reredos or even retable 
 adorns or disfigures the High altar of the Vatican basilica 
 of S. Peter’s. 
 
 We have already alluded to the practice, which was not 
 uncommon in the twelfth century, of erecting immediately 
 behind the principal altar of an important abbey or church 
 a raised and elaborately ornamented platform, on which 
 was placed a coffin, chest, or reliquary, often covered with 
 plates of silver, of gold, or otherwise richly adorned. In 
 this reliquary were deposited the remains of the saint 
 especially honoured in the church in question, and which 
 in earlier times had rested in the crypt below, thus ex- 
 hibiting to the worshippers what before had been invisible, 
 or at most only dimly seen through the narrow grating 
 
 230 
 
The Holy Table or Altar 
 
 which sometimes existed just below the altar, a window, 
 so to speak, of the crypt. Such an erection rising 
 immediately behind gave a great prominence to the 
 principal altar of the church, and enhanced its dignity 
 and importance. 
 
 On the whole, dating roughly from the period of the 
 great awakening of the Church in the eleventh century, 
 the altar, generally speaking, in size, form, and decoration, 
 made a marked and striking advance, and this was espe- 
 cially noticeable as the middle ages wore on. 
 
 The altar in the basilica was a very different thing 
 from the comparatively simple and plain holy table of the 
 primitive Church ; but the magnificent altar of the twelfth 
 and following centuries, with its gorgeous reredos, or with 
 its elaborate shrine glittering with gold and colour, tower- 
 ing immediately behind it, was a great and singular de- 
 velopment of the canopied holy table of the basilica of 
 the fifth and following centuries. The basilican altar 
 would scarcely have been recognised in its gorgeous and 
 striking mediaeval successor. 
 
 And as in the altar itself, so gradually in the sacred 
 ornaments placed upon it a curious change in “ use ” has 
 to be chronicled. Certainly, for the first nine or ten cen- 
 turies of the Christian era, nothing was suffered upon the 
 sacred table save the book containing the Gospels — no 
 cross or crucifix, no candelabra, no flowers. A curious 
 legend bearing on this is preserved to us from the records 
 of that wonderful abbey of Cluny, whence, as we have 
 related, sprang the marvellous revivifying influence which 
 awoke the Church from its long deatli-like lethargy. Berno, 
 abbot of Clany (tenth century), when the great abbey was 
 in its infancy, relates how, on the altar of S. Gauburge, 
 
 231 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 a church in the neighbourhood of his abbey, the relics of 
 S. Gauburge were placed upon the altar, and how the saint 
 appeared in a dream to a sick person who had in vain 
 prayed for assistance in sickness. The reason, said the 
 saint, that no answer was vouchsafed to prayer was owing 
 to the desecration of the altar through the relics of de- 
 caying mortality being laid on so sacred a place. This 
 curious legend by no means stands alone, and shows us 
 what was the reverential spirit in which our fathers 
 originally guarded the simplicity of the table of the 
 Lord. 
 
 In the thirteenth century, however, this old, almost 
 austere simplicity had given place to a different state of 
 things. Durandus of Mende, in his “ Rationale,” dwells 
 at some length upon the sacred ornaments placed on the 
 altar in his time, and explains in his customary ingenious, 
 but somewhat far-fetched way, their symbolism. His 
 chapter on the “ Mediaeval Altar,” tells us what was the 
 general use in churches in his time — the second half of 
 the thirteenth century. 
 
 These ornaments or sacred furniture placed on the 
 altar, according to the learned bishop of Mende, though 
 marking an increase on the earlier use, were few in 
 number, and evidently simple in character. After de- 
 tailing the sorrounding ornaments, such as hangings, 
 curtains, golden fringes, crosses, books, &c., Durandus 
 proceeds to speak of the things which were absolutely 
 placed upon the altar itself. These include the “ Capsa,” 
 a chest or coffer in which was kept the consecrated 
 “ Host.” This sacred chest was made indifferently of 
 wood, of white ivory, of crystal, sometimes of gold (some- 
 times it served as the case for the unconsecrated wafer). 
 In addition to the “ capsa,” Durandus speaks of the custom 
 
 232 
 
The Holy Table or Altar 
 
 of placing a little reliquary, made of some precious mate- 
 rial, in which was enshrined the ashes or relics of some 
 departed saint ; 'but in his passage treating of the special 
 symbolic reference of the “reliquaries,” he hints at the 
 “ doubtfulness ” of the propriety of their presence in this 
 holy place. At the corners of the altar were placed two 
 candlesticks (with the candles lit), and in the middle, 
 between the candles, stood the Cross. In addition to 
 these few objects, the Book of the Gospels was always 
 found on the holy table. 
 
 Among the more curious and interesting symbolic 
 references suggested here by our famous mediaeval theo- 
 logian is the one put forth on the subject of the “ capsa ” 
 or coffer holding the consecrated Host, which Durandus 
 tells us signifies the body of the glorious Virgin. The 
 two lighted candles, he considered, typified the gladness 
 of the two peoples (the Jews and the Gentiles) who rejoiced 
 at the Nativity of Christ. He dwells in several passages 
 on the symbolism of these “ lights,” but this is evidently 
 his central thought here. 
 
 Although Durandus of Mende expressly makes mention 
 of the coffer containing the consecrated Host having its 
 place upon the altar, eminent liturgical scholars , 1 con- 
 sider that during the earlier Middle Ages the more com- 
 mon custom was to place the reserved Eucharist in a box 
 hung over the altar, this box being sometimes in the form 
 of a tower, or a cup, but even more frequently represent- 
 ing a dove hovering over the altar. This latter, “ the 
 dove,” was, for instance, the use of the great abbatial 
 
 1 Notably J. B. Thiers, in his learned treatise “On the Principal 
 Altars of Churches” (Thiers wrote in A.D. 1688). With the conclu- 
 sions of Thiers, Viollet le Due, in his exhaustive article “ Autel,” vol. ii. 
 (“ Dictionnaire ”), generally concurs. 
 
 233 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 church of Cluny. The term “ ciborium ” 1 (ciboire) began 
 gradually to be generally applied to this box, tower, or 
 dove. No doubt this term was used for the dove, or 
 tower, as the old basilican ciborium or lofty canopy over 
 the altar entirely passed out of use in the mediaeval 
 churches of the West. 
 
 The dove hovering over the altar appears to have been 
 a very ancient ornament. We read, even as early as 
 a.d. 536, how Severus, Bishop of Antioch, was accused at 
 the Council of Constantinople of diverting to his own 
 profit certain treasures of the church, notably the silver 
 and gold doves that hung over the altar. 
 
 The custom of keeping the reserved sacrament in a vessel 
 suspended over the altar is referred to in the “ Kites of 
 Durham,” which present to us in modern phraseology, a 
 photograph, so to speak, of a great mediaeval church just 
 before the Reformation. In the “Rites” this vessel is 
 called the pix. The passage runs thus : “ A marvellous 
 faire pix that the blessed sacrament did hange in, which 
 was of most pure fine gold, most curiously wrought of 
 goldsmith work . . . the crooke that the pix did hang on 
 was of gold, and the cords that did draw it upp and 
 downe were made of fine white strong silke.” 
 
 Time went on, and gradually the altar lost altogether 
 its original simple appearance. Flowers, real and even 
 artificial, made their appearance, and were piled often 
 
 1 Another curious use of “ ciborium ” is found in architectural ter- 
 minology, where it is sometimes used to designate a bay or compart- 
 ment of a vaulted ceiling. It is there commonly spelt “ Severey,” or 
 “Civery,” or “Cibory,” each compartment of a vaulted ceiling resem- 
 bling somewhat the old basilican canopy or ciborium. Ducange tells 
 us that in Auvergne “ cibory ” is used for a vaulted tomb. (Cf. Parker’s 
 “Glossary of Architecture,” s.v. “Severy.”) 
 
 234 
 
The Holy Table or Altar 
 
 tastelessly upon the sacred table. Certainly, for the 
 first twelve centuries, said the last learned editor of 
 Durandus’s “Rationale,” writing in a.d. 1854, no flowers 
 were ever placed on the altar. This strange and now 
 general custom in the West appears to have been derived 
 from an ancient practice of placing flowers on certain 
 martyrs’ tombs, and of carrying these thence to the sick, 
 in the hope that some miraculous virtue was attached 
 to these flowers thus hallowed by their contact with a 
 sacred tomb. 
 
 Thiers, the well-known liturgical writer (a.d. 1688), 
 above quoted, writes with extraordinary bitterness on the 
 later innovations connected with the altar and its furni- 
 ture, which he speaks of as the work of feeble-minded 
 men of bad taste, whose zeal was far greater than their 
 light, and who were utterly destitute of all reverence for 
 Christian antiquity. Viollet le Due takes up the same 
 strain, and sadly comments on the melancholy progress 
 of this deterioration, on the gradual falling away from the 
 venerable and awe-ful simplicity which once characterised 
 the altars of Catholic churches, their ornaments, furni- 
 ture, and fittings. This regrettable change, due to various 
 reasons, slowly gathered strength as the Middle Ages 
 wore on. What would the learned Thiers have said, 
 wrote Viollet le Due in the last quarter of the nine- 
 teenth century, Thiers who mourned in 1688 over the 
 lamentable falling away from primitive simplicity so 
 manifest in his day, could he have seen what we see now, 
 and lament over in the noblest Roman Catholic cathe- 
 drals; instancing the tawdry and irreverent spectacles 
 presented by the altars of such venerable and well-known 
 houses of prayer as the mighty cathedrals of Chartres, 
 Amiens, and Notre Dame of Paris ! 
 
 235 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 In this little study on the story of the altar and its 
 changes all through the Christian ages, it will be 
 observed that while the term “ altar ” has been generally 
 
 Altar of St. Denis (after a painting by Van Eyck). 
 
 used it has been alternated with another appellation, 
 “table.” This generally represents Christian usage in 
 the matter of terminology here. Both terms have been, 
 and will always continue to he used, hut it is indisputable 
 
 236 
 
The Holy Table or Altar 
 
 that the general language of Christians in all times has 
 been favourable to the use of the term altar. The 
 following may be taken as a summary of the practice 
 of our fathers here. In the New Testament we find both 
 words in the writings of S. Paul. In i Cor. x. 21, the 
 apostle speaks of “The table of the Lord.” In Heb. 
 
 xiii. io, he writes as follows : “We have an altar 
 
 whereof they have no right to eat which serve the 
 
 tabernacle.” In the sub-apostolic age the fathers in 
 the East and West invariably wrote of “the altar”; so 
 Ignatius in several passages. A little later, we find 
 the same term “ altar ” in the treatises of Irenseus, 
 Tertullian, and Origen. Cyprian, in the third cen- 
 tury, uses both words “ altar ” and “ table,” more 
 usually, however, preferring the first appellation. Chry- 
 sostom, a representative writer of the Eastern Church, 
 on the contrary (end of the fourth century), most 
 
 commonly prefers the word “ table,” which he terms the 
 mystical, the tremendous, the spiritual, the heavenly 
 table. S. Augustine, a representative writer of the 
 Western Church (end of the fourth century), also 
 usually prefers the term table. “ The table of the Lord ” 
 is a favourite expression with the great Latin father. 
 Indeed this was the common use among the writers and 
 Church leaders of the latter end of the fourth and fifth 
 century. 
 
 The significant omission of the term “ altar ” from the 
 Anglican Book of Common Prayer tells us that the 
 Reformers desired to give up the word “ altar ” for fear 
 of appearing to sanction the mediaeval teaching on the 
 matter of the sacrifice of the mass. But the language 
 of Christians in the East and West while admitting, as 
 we have seen in the language of her greatest teachers, 
 
 2 37 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 that the words “altar” and “table” were certainly 
 interchangeable, has on the whole in early and later 
 times been generally favourable to the alternative use of 
 the term altar. 
 
 Very nobly and lucidly Bishop Andrewes, whose memory 
 is justly revered in the Anglican communion as a great his- 
 toric theologian, thus handles the question of the nomen- 
 clature of the place where the holy rite is celebrated. In a 
 sermon preached a.d. 1612, he is speaking of the Eucharist 
 that answereth to the sacrifice of the Passover, and 
 argues that neither in the case of the Jew nor the 
 Christian could the Passover or the Eucharist be termed 
 “ in rigour of speech a sacrifice ” (which would be required 
 properly to justify the term “altar”), there being only 
 one sacrifice veri nominis, properly so called, that is 
 Christ’s death. Before this offering, the hope of it was 
 kept alive by the prefiguration of it by the Jewish 
 Church ; after it is past, the memory of it is kept alive 
 by the commemoration of it by the Christian Church. 
 
 . . . Hence what name their Church carried, our Church 
 does the like, and the Fathers make no scruple of it ; 
 no more need we. Andrewes then quotes S. Paul’s 
 words, “ We have an altar.” 
 
 In the English cathedral and abbey church, the hands 
 of the reformers of the sixteenth century have indeed left 
 us but scanty remains of the elaborate and often splendid 
 altars of the Middle Ages, and their destructive work was 
 thoroughly completed by the Puritan and Independent 
 in the days of Oliver Cromwell and his rough lieutenants. 
 With the doctrines associated, not unnaturally, in the 
 minds of these earnest men with the altars of the 
 mediaeval church, it does not enter into the scheme of 
 this little study to concern itself. The loyal member 
 
 238 
 
The Holy Table or Altar 
 
 of the Anglican communion, while deeply thankful to 
 Bishop Ridley and his coadjutors for their noble and 
 faithful work in restoring a truer and more scriptural 
 Eucharistic teaching, may be forgiven, however, for 
 deploring the spirit of these learned and devoted men 
 which led them to destroy so much that was venerable 
 and historical in the sanctuary arrangements of the 
 English churches. The excuse which at once suggests 
 itself for this regrettable policy on the part of these 
 earnest men amounts to this : they were carried away 
 in the stress and passion of the troublous times in which 
 they lived and worked, when instead of purifying, they too 
 often destroyed. Their policy in the matter of doctrine 
 and church government was very different. In these all- 
 important points they were most conservative, preserving 
 all that was possible to be preserved, maintaining, 
 in all essential points, with extreme carefulness the 
 “ continuity ” of the Church of England. In the fabric 
 portion of the sanctuary of the church, alas, they too often 
 destroyed and swept away. There were many things 
 done in that age of passion and distress which viewed 
 in the calm light of reason are deeply regrettable ; among 
 them the wanton destruction of the mediaeval altars 
 must be surely classed. 
 
 Hence it comes to pass that the holy table or the 
 altar in such a church as the cathedral of Gloucester 
 — and the case of Gloucester is repeated in all the 
 cathedrals and abbey churches of England — is new, 
 possessing no charm of antiquity, no associations historical 
 or ecclesiastical which connect it with a remote past. 
 It is simply a massive wooden table. But the “ table ” 
 aspect disappears under the costly covering, and it 
 presents, in common with the great majority of altars 
 
 239 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 or holy tables in churches of the Anglican communion, 
 the appearance of a veiled “tomb.” The favourite late 
 mediaeval fashion of a lofty stone reredos, carved and 
 gilded, is followed in most important churches. The 
 two candlesticks, the cross in the centre, are the only 
 ornaments. On the whole the sanctuary of an Anglican 
 cathedral, such as Gloucester, now presents a reverent 
 and decorous spectacle, and is a striking contrast to the 
 gawdy and meretricious appearance of the later Roman 
 Catholic altars, and is a fair representation of what an 
 altar was in the thirteenth and following centuries, pro- 
 bably even of a somewhat older type. 
 
 Such a return to the decorous “ use ” hallowed by the 
 practice of an almost immemorial antiquity, is a joy not 
 only to the antiquary and historian ; but what is of 
 deeper moment far to all thoughtful serious persons who 
 love and revere the Anglican communion, and rejoice in 
 her beautiful liturgy, is her comprehensive Catholic 
 teaching, is her ritual at once solemnly impressive yet 
 studiedly simple, is her continuity with the pre-reforma- 
 tion Catholic church of the West, in all things save in 
 her mediaeval additions and curious errors. But when 
 all this is granted, a feeling of deep regret still lingers in 
 many devout hearts, for the old altar, the old holy table, 
 with its solemn touching memories of centuries of prayer 
 and praise, is gone ? Very sad thoughts cluster round 
 the irrevocable loss; we might have kept it unharmed, 
 well-nigh untouched. Purged from the grave errors 
 which disfigured the mediaeval practices, and later 
 teachings, the old altar would have still been the most 
 revered object in our venerable churches, abbeys, and 
 cathedrals. 
 
 240 
 
The Piscina 
 
 PISCINA 
 
 In mediaeval churches the “ piscina,” as a rule placed 
 on the “ epistle ” or south side of the altar, is a general 
 and conspicuous feature. It does not, however, appear to 
 have belonged to primitive Christian antiquity. The 
 earliest notice that we possess of a piscina is found in an 
 instruction of Pope Leo IY. in the ninth century addressed 
 to bishops, circa a.d. 847, in which the pontiff directs that 
 a place be arranged near the altar into which the water, 
 which has been used to rinse the sacred vessels used in 
 the celebration of the Eucharist, may be poured away. 1 
 
 The credence, with the piscina, De Caumont, in his 
 “ Abecedaire ” (vol. i. “ Architecture Rdligieuse), considers, 
 replaced the recesses or cupboards (almeries) which pre- 
 viously as a rule were arranged on either side of the 
 altar. These piscinae were, however, rare even as late as 
 the twelfth century, but in the thirteenth century they 
 appear to have become general. In this century (the 
 thirteenth), they are for the most part double, that is to 
 say, there are two basins and drains within the niche, 
 with very often a wooden or stone shelf above, which 
 served the purpose of a “ credence ” table to receive certain 
 of the sacred vessels used in the service of the mass, pre- 
 vious to their being required at the holy table or altar. 
 
 About the middle of the fourteenth century, the double 
 piscina very usually gave place to a single piscina, con- 
 
 1 The words of the Instruction of Pope Leo IV. in question are as 
 follows : “ Locus in secretario, aut juxta altare sit praeparatus, ubi aqua 
 effundi possit, quando vasa sacra abluunter, et ibi linteum nididum 
 cum aqua dependeat, ut ibi sacerdos manus lavet, post commu- 
 nionem.” 
 
 24I 
 
 Q 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 taining one basin instead of two. In the fifteenth century, 
 the piscina became rarer and rarer. Most of the beautiful 
 piscinae that remain to us in mediaeval churches thus date 
 from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. They are 
 very varied in shape and ornamentation. In many cases 
 they display the most elaborate fancies of the Gothic 
 artists of the best period of the middle ages. 
 
 The reasons for their introduction, multiplication, de- 
 velopment, and subsequent gradual disappearance, appear 
 to be as follows : — 
 
 It seems clear that for many centuries no special 
 arrangements of a structural nature for the cleansing 
 of the sacred vessels used in the Eucharistic service 
 existed in churches, and even after the “ instruction ” 
 of Leo IV., they do not seem to have been introduced, 
 at all events generally, for no very early examples can be 
 cited, nor does it appear to have been anywhere the prac- 
 tice for the priest in early times to consume the rinsings 
 even of the cup. The “ double piscina ” clearly shows 
 this. A very early testimony to the exact use of this 
 double basin exists in the ancient customs of Cluny 
 (eleventh century), where one piscina was used, we read, 
 for cleansing the chalice ; the other was used by the 
 celebrant for washing his hands after the mass. 
 
 The use of Citeaux (Cistercian, twelfth century), how- 
 ever, required the celebrant to drink the rinsings of the 
 chalice, which was apparently cleansed with wine, not 
 with water. The customs, however, in the matter of 
 cleansing the sacred vessels used in the Eucharist — no 
 one “ use ” prevailing — were clearly different in the 
 various centres, until the time of Pope Innocent III. 
 at the beginning of the thirteenth century. Pope 
 Innocent III. directed that the rinsings should be con- 
 
 242 
 
The Piscina 
 
 sumed by the celebrant, and this direction clearly was 
 first issued in the age which taught, or at all events 
 stereotyped, a somewhat novel doctrine respecting the 
 Eucharistic elements. 
 
 But the consumption of the rinsings of the sacred 
 vessels by the priest, even after the direction of Pope 
 Innocent III., for a long time was evidently not by 
 any means universally adopted, for a number of 
 double piscinae continued to be constructed all through 
 the thirteenth, and even in the fourteenth, century. 
 But gradually the practice of consuming the rinsings 
 of the Eucharistic vessels grew, until it became 
 general, so general that, in the fifteenth century, the 
 double piscina ceased to be constructed, and even the 
 piscina containing a single basin, now no longer of any 
 use, was rarely arranged for in any new church-building 
 work commenced in that period. 
 
 The influence of the doctrine of transubstantiation, to use 
 the term subsequently adopted, a doctrine first taught in 
 the course of the ninth century, very generally received 
 in the eleventh, put out as an article of faith in the 
 Western Church early in the thirteenth century, is thus 
 apparent in these structural additions in the sanctuary of 
 a church, additions which were rendered necessary by the 
 introduction of a more elaborate Eucharistic ritual. 
 
 The final disuse of the piscina in the last of the 
 mediaeval ages marks the general introduction of a 
 practice, that of carefully consuming the rinsings, which 
 apparently was unknown for many centuries after the 
 establishment of the peace of the church, a.d. 313.1 
 
 1 Compare, for further details, De Caumont, “Abdc^daire, Architec- 
 ture Religieuse,” pp. 363, 532, 619, 691 ; Viollet le Due, “Dictionaire de 
 1 ’ Architecture,” vol. vii. s.v. ; and Parker, “Glossary,” vol. i. s.v. 
 
 24 3 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 THE LADY CHAPEL 
 
 The great cathedral of Gloucester, which has gene- 
 rally throughout our study supplied us with good ex- 
 amples of most of those different portions of a mediaeval 
 abbey, whose history, use, and origin we have been trac- 
 ing, at its eastern end does not terminate with the 
 semicircular un-English apse which is formed by the 
 broad ambulatory or aisles which run round the choir, 
 and the pile which forms the altar and its adjacent 
 chamber or feretory. At the extreme east end, imme- 
 diately behind the great altar, the mighty wall of 
 glass, the east window, which soars over the altar, and 
 floods the choir with its tender silvery light, is pierced 
 with a broad arched entrance which opens into a vestibule, 
 the principal decorative feature of which is a beautiful 
 roof with fan-tracery vaulting. Beyond this vestibule, 
 the stranger visiting the cathedral for the first time is 
 astonished to see before him another church, as it seems, 
 of considerable size, how large 1 is at first uncertain, so 
 exquisite are its proportions. This church or chapel was 
 erected in the last years of the mediaeval period to the 
 honour, we might almost say for the worship, certainly 
 for the veneration, of the Blessed Virgin Mary. 
 
 1 Some idea can be gathered of the vast size of this Lady Chapel from 
 the rough computation that a congregation of some four or five hundred 
 persons can be accommodated on the ground floor of this striking and 
 exquisite addition to the east limb of the cathedral. 
 
 244 
 
The Lady Chapel 
 
 Of all the strange medimval errors, emphatically this 
 cult of the Blessed Virgin was the saddest, perhaps the 
 most inexplicable. We will endeavour very briefly to 
 trace its genesis and its curious development. Nothing 
 that was accomplished in the work of the Reformation 
 was so important, so far-reaching in its character and 
 influence, as was the restoration of the position which 
 the Virgin Mother of our Lord occupied in the teaching 
 of the primitive Church. Blessed indeed among women 
 was Mary, but emphatically nothing more. 
 
 The date of the first appearance in the Church of this 
 mistaken and exaggerated estimate of the Virgin Mother 
 is uncertain. All signs of it are absent in the New 
 Testament. It was certainly unknown in Apostolic and 
 sub-Apostolic times. And when a new feeling as to the 
 position of the Virgin appeared in the liturgies of the 
 Church, it was of a nature widely different from the medi- 
 aeval estimate of Mary. To take a well-known example. 
 In the very ancient Liturgy of S. John Chrysostom, still in 
 use in the Eastern Church, the Virgin Mary is prayed for. 
 In this venerable liturgy we read : “ We offer unto Thee 
 (God the Father) this reasonable service for the faithful 
 dead, our forefathers, patriarchs, prophets, apostles 
 martyrs, confessors ... but especially for our most holy^ 
 immaculate, ever blessed Lady the Mother of God, and 
 ever Virgin Mary.” This most ancient liturgy, in the form 
 we now find it, has no doubt been altered and somewhat 
 added to since the days of Chrysostom, in the later years 
 of the fourth century ; but certainly not in the direction 
 of lowering the position of the Virgin, a position which 
 in the teaching of the Eastern Church grew more and 
 more exalted as the ages passed, till such a place of emi- 
 nence was ascribed to her, that no loftier one, outside the 
 
 245 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 Blessed Trinity, is conceivable. Similar testimony is given 
 in the ancient liturgies of SS. Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, 
 and Cyril. 
 
 Very exalted indeed was the estimation in which the 
 Virgin was held in the Eastern Church in the first half of 
 the sixth century, when in the great building age of the 
 Emperor Justinian many noble churches arose, dedicated 
 to the “Mother of God.” But though in the West the 
 development of Mariolatry was slower, it gradually be- 
 came even more accentuated than in the East, Irotii the 
 time of Gregory the Great, early in the seventh century , 
 the honour paid to the Virgin Mother in Christian wor- 
 ship became more definite. But it was not until tbe ex a 
 of the wonderful awakening of the eleventh century that 
 the grave doctrinal error which was so sternly and justly 
 reprobated by all the teachers of the Reformation came 
 into marked prominence. 
 
 In the last half of that eleventh century we find Peter 
 Damiani, bishop and cardinal, a teacher of vast influence, 
 positively writing of Mary as exalted to the throne of God 
 the Father, and placed in the very seat of the Trinity. 
 
 But still this utterly unauthorised 1 addition to Christian 
 dogma needed some great popular movement to introduce 
 it Into what may be termed the every-day religious life 
 of the people. Curiously enough, this impetus, which, so 
 
 1 The words of Dr. Pusey are very remarkable, and, coming from 
 such a source, peculiarly interesting : “ There are very serious things 
 in the Roman communion, which ought to keep us where we are. I 
 would instance chiefly the system as to the Blessed Virgin as the 
 mediatrix and dispenser of all present blessings to mankind. (/ think 
 not, king short of a fresh Revelation could justify this .)"— Canon Liddon’s 
 “Life of Dr. Pusey,” vol. ii. chap, xxxiv. p. 505. And again Pusey 
 writes, p. 506: “I cannot think all this, so different from what one 
 finds in the early centuries, can be right.” 
 
 246 
 
The Lady Chapel 
 
 to speak, popularised the strange cult, seems to have been 
 given by the Crusades, those marvellous religious wars 
 which took so mighty a hold of the popular imagination 
 during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. 
 
 One result of the crusading fever, that curious fusion 
 of religion and war, was the production of a new 
 character on the stage of the world of the West. “ The 
 ideal knight of the Crusades and of chivalry, uniting all 
 the force and fire of the ancient warrior with all the 
 tenderness and humility of the Christian saint. This 
 new character sprang from the conjunction of the two 
 streams of religious and military feeling ; and although 
 this ideal was a creature of the imagination, although it 
 was rarely or never perfectly realised in life, yet it 
 remained the type and model of warlike excellence to 
 which many generations aspired .” 1 
 
 Chivalry, at least the religious aspect which chivalry 
 assumed in all its acts, language, and ceremonies, may be 
 said fairly to have been the result of the Crusades, for 
 before the Crusades, chivalry, if it may be considered to 
 have existed at all, appears to have had no special reference 
 to religion. But war was now sanctified by religion, 
 and men were taught that the noblest end to which 
 they could dedicate their lives, was the rescue of the 
 Redeemer s sepulchre at Jerusalem from the power of 
 the infidel conqueror, the disciple of the false prophet 
 Mahommed. 
 
 The inescapable duty of a Christian knight was self- 
 devotion for others, especially for the defenceless and 
 weak ; thus courtesy towards, and the protection of, the 
 weaker sex became the imperative duty, as well as the 
 
 1 See Leclcy, “ History of European Morals,” chap, iv., and MUman, 
 “ Latin Christianity,” Book xiv. chap. xi. 
 
 247 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 privilege of knighthood. Second then only to religious 
 devotion, ranked gallantry among the principles of 
 knighthood. The love of God and the ladies was en- 
 joined as the paramount duties in the teachings of 
 chivalry. In this strange confusion of ideas, this almost 
 passionate devotion to the female sex took a religious 
 tone. There was one lady of whom, high above and 
 beyond all, every knight was the vowed servant, the 
 Virgin Mother of the Saviour, the rescue of whose 
 hallowed sepulchre was the primary object of the 
 Crusades. Thus the adoration of the Virgin, long taught 
 by theologians, became strangely popularised among the 
 Crusaders of all ranks and orders, and through them 
 among all western peoples who made up, during the 
 twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the vast armies of the 
 Cross, and their popular devotion to the Virgin con- 
 tinued to grow through the Middle Ages, till it influenced 
 and coloured Christian worship in all parts of Western 
 Christendom. 
 
 Eeligious chivalry, that outcome of the Crusades, 
 seemed “to array the Christian world as the church 
 militant of the Virgin, and it was to her the knight 
 looked especially for success in battle.” From the 
 soldier to the people was but a little step, and very soon 
 this sentiment of adoration became universal. The 
 Eedeemer passed gradually into a more remote and awful 
 Godhead ; the Virgin seemed a nearer and more familar 
 object of adoration. And art, which in the twelfth and 
 thirteenth centuries, in the splendid glass-painting as 
 well as in sculpture which in these centuries had made 
 vast progress, contributed in no small degree to the 
 popularisation of the strange cult. With a saddening 
 rapidity the worship of “ Our Lady,” as she was commonly 
 
 248 
 
The Lady Chapel 
 
 termed, became the worship of Western Christendom. 
 Soon every cathedral and abbey, every spacious church, 
 had its “ Mary ” Chapel. Hymns were written and every- 
 where sung in her honour. Liturgies in which her name 
 was the principal feature were introduced. Manuals of 
 private and of public devotion, in which the name of “ Mary 
 the Mother ” was conspicuous above every name, were 
 copied and re-copied a thousand times in every monastic 
 scriptorium or cloister. A new and startling theological 
 addition was thus generally added to popular Christian 
 teaching. “ The incommunicable attributes of the God- 
 head were assigned to Mary. She was represented as 
 sitting between the cherubim and seraphim, as command- 
 ing by her maternal influence, if not by authority, her 
 Eternal Son .” 1 The idea of “ Queen of Heaven ” became 
 a familiar one in popular theology, and before the 
 fifteenth century had run its course, the new devotion, 
 largely called into being by the Crusades, showed 
 the mighty hold it had obtained over the popular 
 mind by the erection and lavish adornment of such 
 splendid and costly shrines as the great Lady Chapel 
 of Gloucester. 
 
 Among the changes which passed over the Church of 
 England at the period of the Reformation in the first 
 half of the sixteenth century, none, perhaps, was so 
 needful, none to which the true theologian must give 
 such unstinting praise, as that which swept out of the 
 formularies and liturgies of the Church every trace of 
 that strange, unnatural, untrue cult of one who, exalted 
 and supremely blessed though she be, yet possesses no 
 title whatever to worship, no claim to the adoration of 
 Christian people. 
 
 ’ See Milman, “ Latin Christianity,” Book xiv. chap. xi. 
 
 2 49 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 In the early Middle Ages, after the rehabilitation of the 
 monastic orders, and the consequent great awakening of 
 the Western Church in the eleventh century, perhaps the 
 most interesting chapter in the Church’s history is filled 
 with the wonderful recital of the coming of the mendicant 
 orders early in the thirteenth century, among whom the 
 Dominicans and Franciscans were by far the most 
 numerous and influential. Now the cult of the Virgin 
 
 . O 
 
 received an enormous impulse through the teaching of 
 these great orders. Wide-spread, indeed, in the thirteenth, 
 fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries was the influence 
 exercised by these mendicant friars over the masses of 
 the people. And in the theology of both the two great 
 communities of mendicants, the Virgin Mary occupied a 
 peculiar and lofty position. The Franciscan teaching 
 loved ever to give greater prominence to the childhood 
 than to the manhood of Christ, and, alas, too often 
 to exalt the mother at the expense of the Son, and 
 this teaching sank deep into the hearts of the people, 
 among whom the Franciscan friars, for the three cen- 
 turies preceding the Reformation, exercised an enormous 
 influence. 
 
 If it were possible, the other great mendicant order, the 
 Dominican, which rose to influence simultaneously with 
 the Franciscan, professed a yet greater devotion to Mary 
 than did their brother order. Dominic, their almost 
 adored founder, was proudly styled the adopted son of 
 the Blessed Virgin, who was ever regarded as the special 
 protectress of the Dominicans. 
 
 It was to Dominic, according to the cherished tradi- 
 tions of the order, that Mary revealed herself, command- 
 ing her devoted servant “ to make known to the world 
 that form of prayer (the Rosary) which thenceforth [that 
 
 250 
 
The Lady Chapel 
 
 is from the years 1212— 1215] was in future to become, 
 alike among rich and poor, the badge of Catholic devo- 
 tion.” 1 The Rosary — that curious form of prayer with 
 the refrain, “ Ave Maria” (hail, Mary), repeated again 
 and again, “ a prayer which has maintained in Roman 
 Catholic countries its wonderful popularity to our own 
 days and times, and which has done more to perpetuate 
 the cult of the so-called ‘ Queen of Heaven ’ among the 
 people than all the rhapsodies of mystics, or learned 
 treatises of doctors, or authoritative pronouncements of 
 the Roman See.” 
 
 Still this sad heresy, it is clear, with its ever-multi- 
 plying exaggerations and developments — for by this grave 
 epithet of heresy the writer of the present little study 
 does not hesitate to brand this awful and soul-destroying 
 innovation on primitive teaching — excited, even in the 
 minds of some of the more famous devotees of the new 
 cult, now and again, qualms and hesitations. Bernard 
 of Clairvaux (twelfth century), the glory of the mighty 
 Cistercian order, perhaps the greatest and truest monk 
 that ever lived, while professing the deepest tenderness, 
 affection, and admiration for the mother of his Lord, wrote 
 in a spirit of indignant remonstrance against the doctrine 
 of the “ Immaculate Conception of the Virgin,” 2 a doc- 
 trine defined and clothed with Papal authority in a.d. 
 
 1854. 
 
 Again, in a.d. 1520, the great liturgical (Roman) 
 reformer, Quignon, Cardinal of Santa Croce, under the 
 
 1 “Life of S. Dominic,” by A. T. Drane, a work sanctioned by the 
 authority of the Roman Catholic Church in 1891. 
 
 2 “ Are we more instructed,” wrote Bernard of Clairvaux (born a.d. 
 1091), “or more devout than the fathers. ... It is perilous presump- 
 tion in us, when their prudence in such things is exceeded. The royal 
 Virgin needs no fictitious honours 
 
 25I 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 warrant of Pope Clement VII., produced a reformed 
 breviary in which the offices of the Vivgin weve omitted. 
 This breviary of Quignon was at first accepted in many 
 Roman Catholic dioceses in various countries, but was 
 suppressed by the Council of Trent. 
 
 We have already touched upon the testimony which 
 “art” bears to the growth of this new dogma. Its 
 silent witness is painted on the glorious glass windows 
 of the twelfth and following centuries. It is graved 
 on the beautiful statues which adorn the many noble 
 mediaeval churches which remain to us, eloquent in their 
 inimitable beauty and grace. And “ art,” be it remem- 
 bered, is ever the faithful expression of the popular belief. 
 It is noticeable, in the first place, how very many of the 
 great religious buildings, which arose in the twelfth and 
 following century, were placed under the protection of 
 Mary and solemnly dedicated to her. Now we possess 
 a vast number of Christian sarcophagi, more or less 
 elaborately adorned, belonging to the fifth, sixth, seventh, 
 and eighth centuries. Scarcely before the ninth century 
 in these adornments do we find any presentment of the 
 Virgin. If she appears at all on the carved ornamenta- 
 tion of these sarcophagi, it is in a position positively of 
 less importance than that occupied by the apostles. Not 
 until the twelfth century do we find in “ art ” the 
 crowned and royally apparelled Mary so familiar to us 
 in mediaeval glass and sculpture. This novel present- 
 ment of the Virgin was brought from the Eastern 
 Church by the Crusaders. But in the earlier examples 
 that of the infant Saviour in the Virgin’s arms still is the 
 important figure. Gradually a change in these sacred 
 figures is noticeable, and the infant Jesus becomes 
 gradually of less importance. The Virgin is the centre 
 
 252 
 
The Lady Chapel 
 
 of the group. It is on her, not the divine infant, that 
 the eyes of the beholder rest. Crowned with a royal 
 crown, with the lily sceptre in her hand, in the 
 thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, she ap- 
 pears in unnumbered instances, alike in jewelled window 
 as on the pale grey carven porch of the house of God — 
 unmistakably as the liturgies and hymns were everywhere 
 teaching — “ the Queen of Heaven.” 1 
 
 The “ Lady Chapel ” of Gloucester is a notable instance 
 of the hold which the cult of the Virgin Mary had 
 obtained over men’s hearts before the close of the Middle 
 Ages. 
 
 This ornate and magnificent addition to the Benedictine 
 
 1 “ The mediaeval Church held seven festivals in honour of the Virgin 
 Mary. The two oldest of these are founded on the Gospel history, 
 and are pure expressions of reverence for her who is ‘ blessed among 
 women,’ if indeed they may not also be regarded as festivals of our 
 Lord Himself. The reformers of our offices accordingly retained these 
 two commemorations, viz. (i) The Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin 
 Mary (March 25), commonly known as ‘ Lady Day.’ This festival dates 
 probably from the fifth century; (2) The Purification of S. Mary the 
 Virgin (February 2), which dates back certainly to the sixth century. 
 This second feast of our Church has, however, an alternative name, 
 which places it in another category of Church festivals, viz., ‘The 
 Presentation of Christ in the Temple,’ by which appellation the feast 
 is known in the Eastern Church.” 
 
 The other five festivals held in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary by 
 the mediaeval Church, which were expunged from our Prayer Book by 
 the reformers of the sixteenth century, were (1) Th e Assumption (August 
 15), founded upon a legend of the fifth century, but not adopted by the 
 Western Church until the ninth century. The Visitation (July 2), in- 
 troduced in the fourteenth century. The Virgin’s Nativity, observed 
 by the Eastern Church at the close of the seventh century, but not 
 introduced into the West till long afterwards. The Presentation of 
 Mary (November 21), apparently brought into the Western Church 
 about the fourteenth century. The Immaculate Conception (December 
 8), which was only sanctioned by the Council of Basle in the fifteenth 
 century. — (Compare Proctor, “History of the Book of Common Prayer,” 
 chap. ii. pp. 278-79). 
 
 253 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 abbey of S. Peter’s, Gloucester, was commenced in a.d. 
 1470, and completed, as far as the masonry is concerned, 
 and probably the elaborate tracery of the interior walls, 
 in a.d. 1499. Most of the statuary with which it was 
 intended the countless niches should be filled, and the 
 complete colouring of its walls and roof, were works appa- 
 rently never fully carried out. The troublous times which 
 culminated in the suppression of the Benedictine house of 
 Gloucester, and all the other monasteries and religious 
 communities in England, roughly dating from a.d. 1530- 
 1540, no doubt put an effectual stop to any further 
 elaborate designs of the kind. The windows, however, 
 large and small, to the number of twenty-five, were 
 completed, and from the remains we yet possess, we see 
 that the monk - artists had filled them entirely with 
 exquisite stained glass. Many traces of colour, still 
 plainly visible, tell us that at least the lower walls of 
 the chapel had received their rich colouring ornamen- 
 tation before the threatenings of the coming dissolution 
 of the monasteries paralysed all the monks’ designs 
 further to beautify this latest addition to their proud 
 abbey church. 
 
 As far as we can trace, only a portion of the statues 
 with which the designer proposed to fill the countless 
 niches which, panel-like, fill the whole surface of the 
 walls, were ever completed. 
 
 And the remains of the beautiful tender colouring 
 which the great unknown master planned as the decora- 
 tion of the many canopies which crown the panelled 
 niches in this superb Mary Chapel, can only be certainly 
 traced as far as the lower lights of the great windows. 
 It may be that the artist stayed his hand for a season, 
 wishful first to mark the effect of the vast windows when 
 
 254 
 
GLOUCESTER CATHEDRAL 
 The Lady Chapel 
 
The Lady Chapel 
 
 filled with jewelled glass. It is possible that he dreamed of 
 a new effect, somewhat different from the usual mediaeval 
 setting of coloured and gilded stone — of pure white walls 
 richly carved — as a setting to great windows ablaze with 
 colour; a silver setting to countless sparkling gems — 
 ruby, sapphire, and amethyst. The east window of our 
 Mary Chapel, broken and defaced though it be, with 
 the design utterly lost, with its rich and matchless 
 tints, gives us some hint as to the splendour of the 
 staiined glass which once filled the Mary windows. 
 Such a design which largely omitted the usual lavish 
 expenditure of colour on the panelled walls was pos- 
 sible, for it must be remembered that the Gloucester 
 Lady Chapel, with its huge windows, is a very palace 
 of glass, and the monk-artist may have planned the 
 whole design with a view to an effective and some- 
 what novel setting to what was after all the feature of 
 this almost last effort of the great Benedictine order in 
 England. 
 
 Still, it is on the whole an open question, the design of 
 the wall decoration here immediately round the great 
 windows ; not so the groined ceiling. The ceiling of this 
 no»ble Mary Chapel has been justly described as “ one of 
 the grandest Perpendicular roofs that has ever been 
 made.” Each boss — and these bosses are seemingly 
 countless — in the elaborate lierne vaulting is worthy of 
 minute inspection. With three exceptions, they are all 
 charming representations of foliage, delicately and ex- 
 quisitely carved out of solid stone. There is no doubt 
 here that, had time been given, this pale white ceiling 
 would, like the almost similar choir roof, have been 
 clothed with gold enrichments, and with delicate lines of 
 colour. 
 
 2 55 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 As might have been expected, in the reaction of the 
 Reformation in the sixteenth century, and in the yet 
 more passionate and thoughtless zeal of the Puritan 
 soldiers in the seventeenth century, the Mary Chapel 
 suffered more than the nave and choir of the famous 
 Gloucester abbey. 
 
 Very real was the sorrowful indignation of the Re- 
 formers of Edward VI., and later of the Puritans, when 
 the terrible error of the “Mary” cult burst upon the 
 minds of men to whom the New Testament and its 
 teaching had become familiar and exceedingly precious ; 
 and alas, these earnest but often misguided men wreaked 
 their wild fury upon shrines which in their eyes appeared 
 at least to sanction a form of worship they felt was false ; 
 but oh, the pity of it, they destroyed instead of simply 
 purifying. Under Edward YI. and his counsellors the 
 statuary was torn down, and the glorious windows of our 
 Lady Chapel were heedlessly broken ; while about a cen- 
 tury later the soldiers of the Commonwealth completed 
 the sad task of destruction. The fatal work was too 
 thoroughly carried out. The reredos behind the vanished 
 altar, once a marvel of grace and beauty, once exquisitely 
 carved and painted, once a very dream of beauty and 
 charm, now stands a sorrowful and disfigured wreck. 
 The canopies and the exquisite tracery on the walls, too, 
 are hacked and disfigured just as high up as the pikes 
 and swords of the stern soldiers of the Parliament could 
 reach, and no higher. The work of destruction was evi- 
 dently in its last scenes a hurried one, and was probably 
 stayed by the interposition of wiser and more thoughtful 
 minds. But the fair building was wrecked, and for more 
 than two centuries and a half, dating from the second 
 period of destruction in the days of the Commonwealth, 
 
The Lady Chapel 
 
 has remained desolate and sadly neglected in its scarred 
 and pathetic beauty . 1 
 
 If at the east end of the choir of Aldred’s or of Serlo, 
 the friend of Lanfranc, there was a chapel dedicated to 
 the Virgin Mary, which is however doubtful, that chapel 
 could only have been a very small one, exactly corre- 
 sponding 2 to the old Romanesque east apsidal chapel 
 which still forms one of the chevet or group of east apsidal 
 chapels of the crypt. 
 
 The first definite mention of a Lady Chapel in the abbey 
 appears early in the thirteenth century, about the year 
 1222, when the lord of the neighbouring manor of Sand- 
 
 1 As the nineteenth century is closing, the custodians of Gloucester 
 Cathedral, conscious of their great trust, among other works of 
 careful conservative restoration, are not neglecting the exquisite 
 Lady Chapel. The ruined windows, with their shattered mullions 
 and decayed stone-work, through which wind and water alike had 
 long found an entrance, have been carefully restored ; the decayed 
 masonry and broken parapets outside have been replaced ; the 
 accumulation of dust and dirt has been carefully removed from the 
 roofs and walls ; the faulty timbers of the roof have been removed ; 
 and the most conspicuous and costliest work of all, the coarse, un- 
 sightly glazing which took the place of the splendid glass of the 
 Benedictine builders, is being taken away, and stained glass, the most 
 exquisite and beautiful that the newly-awakened taste of modern art 
 can furnish, is once more replacing those mighty walls of translucent 
 colour, which were the chief glory of this once lovely chapel. The work 
 is being carefully carried on by loving hands, under the advice of 
 scholarly experts, among whom the Society of Antiquaries holds an 
 honoured place. 
 
 2 There is a singular, perhaps a unique, arrangement on the part of 
 the old Romanesque builders of Gloucester Abbey, in the chapels built 
 “ out of” the east or choir end. There are in each case three storeys 
 of these chapels, one over the other, exactly corresponding in size, and 
 probably originally in internal arrangements. The first is in the crypt 
 the second on the ground-floor, so to speak, of the abbey, and the third 
 on the level of and leading out from the vast triforium of the choir. 
 Most of these are still almost as the Romanesque builders left them, 
 one over the other. 
 
 257 R* 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 hurst (a village about three miles from the city of Glou- 
 cester), one Ralph de Wylington, and his wife Olympias, 
 gave to God and the monks of the abbey of S. Peter the 
 money for building a chapel in honour of the Mother of 
 our Lord. There is some doubt whether this Lady Chapel 
 of the De Wylingtons was an entirely new edifice, or 
 whether it was not simply an adaptation and reornamen- 
 tation of the central Norman chapel in the chevet of the 
 choir apse, a little chapel which may have been already 
 dedicated to the Blessed Virgin; the latter supposition 
 being on the whole the more probable. Ralph and 
 Olympias Wylington, in addition to building the chapel, 
 settled a yearly sum on the monastery of S. Peter to provide 
 lights to burn before the altar of S. Petronilla. (Petronilla, 
 according to church tradition, was the virgin daughter of 
 S. Peter. An immemorial tradition connects the abbey 
 with this comparatively unknown early saint, who in far- 
 back days possessed in or adjacent to the church a chapel 
 dedicated to her.) 
 
 This “Wylington” chapel, from the year 1222, con- 
 tinued to be the Lady Chapel of the abbey until the year 
 1457-1499, when the present magnificent chapel we have 
 been dwelling upon was designed and built. Although 
 it represents the work of the last period of Perpen- 
 dicular architecture, apologists for the monastic system 
 point to it as a striking example of the vigour and power 
 of the monk-artist at the moment of the great confisca- 
 tion. Surely, they argue, when the arbitrary decree of 
 King Henry VIII. swept monk and friar out of his 
 English realm, the brain which could plan, and the hand 
 which could carry out, the fair creation of the Lady Chapel 
 of Gloucester, had surely not lost its cunning and its skill. 
 At all events, in the department of architecture the 
 
The Lady Chapel 
 
 monk-artist has had no successor , 1 although three cen- 
 turies and a half have elapsed since he passed away 
 from among us. 
 
 The foregoing little sketch of the gradual rise of the 
 gravest error in Catholic teaching, popularly, though 
 scarcely accurately, termed Mariolatry, was required in 
 our study of the story of an abbey or cathedral church 
 and its principal divisions, to account for the presence 
 of that remarkable feature so prominent in the great 
 mediaeval churches — the Lady Chapel. 
 
 In this famous “ Mary ” Chapel of Gloucester there is 
 a peculiar feature which has hitherto escaped attention. 
 The stranger standing on the grass lawn which forms so 
 beautiful and striking a pavement for the cathedral of 
 Gloucester, at the extreme east of the pile, notices that 
 the east end of the great Lady Chapel is square (rectan- 
 gular), and looking down the building perceives two small 
 transepts in the Mary Chapel; then, as the eye travels 
 down the vast pile of the church, it is again arrested by 
 two more transepts of far greater magnitude. 
 
 1 This may seem a somewhat sweeping assertion for one who has long 
 dwelt hard by thatnarrowchurchyard where Wren’s masterpiece proudly 
 dominates the greatest city of the world. But it must be remembered 
 that Sir Christopher Wren stood absolutely alone. He raised up no 
 school worth commemorating. He had neither predecessor nor suc- 
 cessor. S. Paul s, magnificent though it be, can scarcely be termed an 
 original building. For though in many of its very noble features it 
 stands alone, it owes its inspiration unmistakably to the conceptions of 
 Brunelleschi, Bramante, and Michael Angelo in the glorious piles of S. 
 Mary of the Flowers at Florence and S. Peter’s at Rome. Renaissance 
 architecture besides, beautiful though it be, will never become the 
 architecture of England. It belongs to another race, another clime. 
 The “ masters ” of the craft of the last thirty or forty years of the 
 nineteenth century number in their ranks, it is true, some really emi- 
 nent men, but in their works they have scarcely ventured beyond some 
 beautiful imitations of what the monk-artists of the great mediaeval 
 building age designed and carried out. 
 
 2j 9 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 There is a special interest in these peculiar features. 
 They have a story of their own. 
 
 The majority of English churches, it is well known, are 
 not apsidal at the east end, but square, and it would 
 appear that some very ancient tradition is at the root 
 of that striking English feature. Now we have very 
 good reason to believe that the majority of ancient 
 British churches were so constructed. In Ireland a 
 number of early little churches or oratories still exist. 
 These undoubtedly date from early in the fifth century — 
 i.e. from the days when Ireland was Christianised from 
 Britain — they therefore undoubtedly represent the type 
 of church architecture common in Britain before the 
 coming and the subsequent devastation of Norse-folk 
 invaders, the Saxon, the Engle, and the Jute. With- 
 out exception these very early little Irish churches or 
 oratories are square-ended, not apsidal. They represent 
 evidently an independent Christian tradition, something 
 quite different from the basilican tradition of an apsidal 
 or semicircular end. The conclusion then is forced upon 
 us that Christianity came originally to this island from 
 another source, from another centre than Koine or 
 Italy. 
 
 This “ square - ended ” form for churches impressed 
 upon our island by unknown missionaries is of an 
 immemorial antiquity. The teaching has never been 
 forgotten, but has through all the changing fortunes of 
 the Church in our island remained the English favourite 
 form. We will rapidly trace its story. 
 
 The first period of the existence of the Church in 
 Britain may be dated roughly from some time in the 
 second century (the exact date of the first preaching of 
 
 260 
 
The Lady Chapel 
 
 Christianity in Britain is unknown), until the coming of 
 the Northmen in the middle of the fifth century. Ireland 
 received the faith from Britain about A.D. 397, and 
 judging from the invariable square east - end form of 
 the early Irish churches, oratories, or sanctuaries, we 
 may assume that the British churches, like their daughter 
 Irish churches, were also, as a rule, square-ended. But 
 it is also certain that there were exceptions. When 
 Christianity after a.d. 313 became the recognised reli- 
 gion of the empire, in probably not a few centres, the 
 churches of the Boman colonists and officials were built 
 on the basilican mode of the capital of the world, with 
 apsidal or semicircular sanctuaries. 
 
 The Boman city of Silchester (near Beading), where 
 the foundation of such a church, built in the fourth 
 century for the Boman provincials, has recently been 
 discovered, possesses an instance of this. The Silchester 
 church had an apsidal or semicircular east end. 
 
 The second period of the Church in Britain may be dated, 
 for our present argument, from the coming of Augustine 
 from Italy, a.d. 597, and may be reckoned as enduring 
 until the coming of the Normans in a.d. 1066. Augustine 
 and his fellow-missionaries, as may have been expected, 
 introduced the Italian or basilican type, but gradually 
 we find the “ square end,” as the Saxon period wore on, 
 again forcing its way into general use, the old traditional 
 type of church somehow being deeply rooted in the hearts 
 of the dwellers in our island. 
 
 The Norman Conquest once more, after a.d. 1066, gave 
 an artificial and temporary victory to the Italian (basili- 
 can) or apsidal-ended churches, and Westminster Abbey, 
 which was a purely Norman church, Gloucester, and cer- 
 tain other well-known Norman abbeys, were erected with 
 
 261 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 apsidal or semicircular east ends. Very singularly, how- 
 ever, nothing could uproot the old, old taste for the 
 primitive British type of church, and when once the con- 
 querors and the conquered began to be welded into one 
 people, the square east end gradually superseded its 
 Roman apsidal rival. By the thirteenth century the victory 
 of the square-ended type was pretty well complete ; and it 
 became the special English form. The well-known case 
 of Westminster Abbey, with its apse and striking ehevet 
 of chapels at the east end, which might have been justly 
 cited as a contrary instance, is exceptional, the great 
 abbey owing its Roman and continental form to the special 
 circumstances under which it was restored and rebuilt. 
 The foreign influences to which King Henry III., who 
 mainly carried out the work, was subjected are well 
 known, and enormously coloured the political history of 
 that long and somewhat disastrous reign. Durham, on 
 the other hand, where purely English influences were at 
 work, under the rule of Bishop Poore, saw its Norman 
 apse destroyed a.d. 1235-1241, and the beautiful work 
 known as the Chapel of the Nine Altars commenced. 
 This Chapel of the Nine Altars, at the east end of Durham, 
 is not unjustly cited as perhaps the noblest instance 
 existing of a square-ended termination of a great English 
 abbey. A somewhat similar transformation was effected 
 in the famous priory church of Lindisfarne with its un- 
 dying memories, hard by Durham. 
 
 Among the great churches of England, either through 
 original construction, through partial transformation, or 
 subsequent addition, the following will be found to have 
 the square or rectangular east end, that peculiar form 
 derived from the ancient British form adopted in the 
 island before the coming of the Norsemen in the fifth 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 century : York, Exeter, Worcester, Salisbury, Christ 
 Church (Oxford), Winchester, Hereford, Eochester, Lin- 
 coln, Ely, Chichester, Peterborough, Chester, Carlisle, 
 Bangor, &c. 
 
 Comparatively few traces of this peculiarly English 
 (British) form, with its striking and interesting traditions 
 handed down from an immemorial antiquity, and bearing 
 a testimony to some original centre of Christianity other 
 than Eome and Italy, are found in the great continental 
 churches. 
 
 In the vast and populous province of the empire known 
 as Gaul, and including modern France, the Low Countries, 
 &c., among its numerous and splendid cathedrals and 
 abbatial churches, only one can be cited with a square- 
 ended east end — the cathedral of Laon. To Laon may be 
 added the important church of Dol. “ Square-ended ” 
 churches, comparatively small, however, and unimportant, 
 are, however, not unfrequent in the villages and in the 
 little country towns, especially in the northern districts 
 of France and in the Burgundian country. These often 
 date from the thirteenth century. 
 
 But the magnificent and stately cathedrals and abbeys 
 on the continent of Europe, different from their sister cathe- 
 drals in England, are, however, as a rule, characterised by 
 the feature of a great apse, semicircular or polygonal, 
 with its beautiful chevet of chapels. As instances we 
 would put, among many well-known examples, Notre 
 Dame of Paris, the cathedrals of Eeims, Chartres, Amiens, 
 Bourges, Beauvais, Seez, Narbonne, Toulouse, Alby, Aux- 
 erre, the important churches of Saint Sernin (Toulouse), 
 Saint Ouen (Eouen), &c. 
 
 The great Benedictine abbey of S. Peter, Gloucester, 
 264 
 
The Lady Chapel 
 
 since the days of Henry VIII. known as Gloucester Cathe- 
 dral, all through the Middle Ages, that is from the days 
 of the Conqueror, at the end of the eleventh century, 
 until the second half of the fifteenth century, roughly a 
 period of a little more than 350 years, in all its changes 
 and developments preserved its eastern apse, almost semi- 
 circular, originally designed by the Norman builders of 
 the second half of the eleventh century, with its chevet 
 of chapels (three distinct blocks, containing nine distinct 
 chapels). Gloucester Abbey thus was one of the few 
 notable exceptions, in this striking particular, to the 
 general English type of square-ended churches. In the 
 year 1457, when Abbot Hanley was ruling, the monks 
 of the famous Benedictine house, in accordance with 
 the comparatively novel doctrinal development of Mario- 
 latry, determined to build a new and magnificent Lady 
 Chapel as an “ annexe ” to their stately abbey — a chapel 
 which should rank among the first, if not the first, of 
 the Mary Chapels of the land. 
 
 To carry out this design, the monk-architect completely 
 changed the appearance of the east end of the great 
 church. With rare skill he did away with the apsidal 
 termination without materially disturbing the vast east 
 window, which still preserves its curved form, and with 
 its mighty wall of glass strangely soars over the roof of 
 the Lady Chapel. 
 
 But in his beautiful design, while honouring “ Our 
 Lady ” with the new and exquisite shrine, which deser- 
 vedly holds a very high place among the charming con- 
 ceptions of the last period of Gothic architecture, the 
 Benedictine artist determined to give his loved, historic 
 abbey that singular and peculiar English feature which it 
 had hitherto lacked, viz., a square, rectangular termina- 
 
 265 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 tion. Hence it came about that, in its last architectural 
 transformation, Gloucester, too, became square-ended, thus 
 preserving in the mighty abbey of the Severn Lands the 
 immemorial tradition handed down from the third century, 
 the tradition of the square end, brought originally to this 
 island by early Christian teachers from the East, not from 
 Italy and Home. 
 
 Nor was this master-architect who designed the Lady 
 Chapel of Gloucester content with only impressing this 
 immemorial British type of church architecture upon 
 his abbey. Hitherto S. Peter’s Abbey had possessed 
 but one transept ; now the secondary or eastern transept 
 was another feature peculiarly English. It is found in 
 the great piles of Lincoln, Salisbury, Canterbury, Beverley, 
 and York, but not in the mighty homes of prayer of 
 France. One solitary instance 1 occurred in the vast 
 abbey of Cluny (Burgundy), now, alas, razed to the 
 ground, which contained two eastern transepts. 
 
 The architect of the new chapel of “ Our Lady ” at 
 Gloucester determined that his abbey should henceforth 
 boast, too, of this peculiar English feature, and wove into 
 his beautiful design those two singular and beautiful 
 projections, usually pointed out as chauntry chapels, sur- 
 mounted by minstrel galleries, but which are really two 
 small transepts. A glance at the ground plan of Glou- 
 cester Cathedral, as it now stands, will show the accuracy 
 
 1 This peculiar feature of the double transept we have before noticed 
 in the chapter dealing with the “ Transept.” In the east of France 
 originally the cathedral of Besangon, at Verdun, possessed two tran- 
 septs, one at the east, the other at the west of the building, thus, how- 
 ever, differing from the English use of two transepts, both at the east 
 end. This double transept, one at each end of the pile, i§ al§Q found in 
 some of the great German cathedrals in the Rhineland, notably at 
 Strasburg, Mayence, and Spires. 
 
 266 
 
The Lady Chapel 
 
 of this apparently novel, and perhaps to some, startling 
 deduction. So Gloucester, in its last and final transfor- 
 mation, in the fifteenth century, became possessed of both 
 the special English architectural features — the square-end 
 and the double eastern transept. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 THE TOWER — SPIRE — BELFRY — BELLS — ORGAN 
 
 The tower, the spire, the belfry, so magnificent and 
 conspicuous a feature in the mediaeval cathedral or abbey, 
 as well as in the innumerable churches dotted over 
 Western Christendom, is, comparatively speaking, a late 
 development in the Christian Church. During the first 
 three centuries of our era, naturally the buildings and 
 the places of meeting of the persecuted, or at best 
 scornfully tolerated, believers in the Crucified, possessed 
 no tower, or steeple, or any distinguishing mark of their 
 presence in the city or the village. They shunned rather 
 than courted observation. For this reason even the com- 
 paratively small bells in use in Pagan Rome were, of 
 course, never heard in a Christian meeting-house. 
 
 After the peace of the Church was established early 
 in the fourth century, the basilican model was largely 
 adopted among the Christians as the type for their 
 churches, but the basilica possessed no tower. Thus it 
 happened that this adjunct to the sacred building with 
 which we are so familiar, as far as we know, seems rarely 
 to have been thought of for several centuries after the 
 Edict of Constantine, a.d. 313. One of the earliest 
 mentions of a tower that we come across occurs in 
 the year a.d. 770, when we read of Pope Stephen III. 
 erecting a tower as an adjunct to S. Peter’s (Rome), in 
 which he hung three bells to call the faithful to divine 
 
 268 
 
The Tower or Spire 
 
 service. If the prominent Eoman basilica of S. Peter’s 
 up to this time possessed no tower, we may reasonably 
 conclude that such an addition to a Christian church was 
 at that period uncommon. Nor, indeed, for a long time 
 after this date was a tower an ordinary feature in a 
 church. In the accounts we possess of the abbeys of the 
 ninth and, indeed, of the tenth centuries, we find rare 
 mention of such an addition, although we have circum- 
 stantial details of the various parts of not a few of the 
 sacred edifices of that age . 1 
 
 It was at this period of the great revival at the begin- 
 ning of the eleventh century, when the Western world 
 put on the “ white robe of churches,” that the bell 
 tower began to appear as a usual 2 addition to the abbey. 
 At first there appears to have been doubt and hesitation 
 on the question how best to connect this comparatively 
 novel feature with the rest of the edifice. In earlier 
 instances it was often built separate from the church 
 — now near the western entrance, now near one of the 
 transepts. This separate tower, distinct from the main 
 building, has ever continued to be a favourite use in Italy. 
 
 These ancient towers seem to have been usually round, 
 
 1 See, too, for farther details on early towers, Appendix A at end of 
 volume. 
 
 2 Viollet le Due (s.v. “Clocher”) considers that among the earliest 
 church towers certainly in the north of Europe, must be reckoned 
 fortified towers built in the north and centre of France, at the west 
 end of churches during the tenth century, as a defence against the 
 perpetually recurring invasions and raids of the Northmen. If bells 
 were hung in them, it was not their principal use. None of these 
 fortified towers, however, remain intact. The Irish round towers 
 were probably built for the same purpose of defence. A reference 
 to such a use in time of war occurs in the “ Roman de Rou,” as 
 late as A.D. 1105, when Robert Fitz-Hamon was besieged in the tower 
 at Bayeux by the troops of the Duke of Normandy. 
 
 269 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 but very soon the circular form was exchanged for the 
 square shape to which we are accustomed. Gradually 
 they assumed greater importance, and the bells hung in 
 them became larger and were more used. The twelfth 
 century witnessed a great development in these par- 
 ticulars, and especially wherever Norman influence pre- 
 vailed, we find the tower an important feature often 
 raised in the centre of the building, where the transept 
 crossed the nave. The tower, or towers, now at the west 
 end, now at the centre, became in this century a common 
 and conspicuous feature certainly in all the more im- 
 portant churches. 
 
 In the following century (the thirteenth) towers erected 
 were often of portentous dimensions. They became, in 
 many instances, the most conspicuous exterior feature of 
 the great church. In the original designs of some of the 
 grander cathedrals as many as five or even seven towers 
 were arranged for, but it seems that rarely, if ever, were 
 these grandiose designs fully carried out. As the Middle 
 Ages advanced, they became more and more fantastic, 
 and frequently higher. The cathedrals of Strasburg and 
 Antwerp are good instances of these enormous and daring 
 conceptions. 
 
 Such is a brief outline of the genesis and progress of 
 this new and striking addition to the architecture of 
 churches. 
 
 We will, however, add a few details to this brief 
 sketch. It must be remembered the tower was not built 
 primarily for bells. The bell for a long period was small 
 and of no great importance. It was late in the fourteenth 
 century that the bell became of any great size, and it was 
 not until the fifteenth century that we can definitely say 
 that large and important peals were cast. At first, and 
 
 270 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 largely in certain districts peculiarly harassed by northern 
 raiders, we find towers belonging to churches, and these 
 often separate from the main building. Late in the 
 eleventh century this necessity for a place of defence 
 existed no longer, and the tower was introduced as a 
 regular part of the building of an abbey or cathedral, 
 partly as a conspicuous ornament, partly possibly as a 
 sign of the power of the abbot or bishop. As the donjon 
 or central pile of a castle was the outward sign of the 
 strength of a castle and its lord, so the tower of a church 
 became the sign or symbol of the strength and power of 
 the abbatial church or cathedral, and of its lord the 
 abbot or bishop. The tower of the church of the twelfth 
 century has been happily termed “a religious donjon.” 
 That bells were hung in these towers of an abbey is true, 
 but as the bells were, comparatively speaking, small, the 
 size of the twelfth and even thirteenth century church 
 towers was out of all proportion to the size of the bell 
 or bells hung in them. Such towers could not with any 
 propriety be termed bell-towers or belfries, and although 
 symbolical of authority and power, and highly orna- 
 mental, conferring unmistakably great dignity and im- 
 portance, and often rare beauty upon the building to 
 which they were attached, they were not in any way 
 necessary adjuncts even to a great church. 
 
 S. Bernard of Clairvaux, the founder of the Cistercian 
 Order (a.d. 1119), whose vast and widespread communi- 
 ties claimed to be Benedictines, but reformed Bene- 
 dictines, in his austere rule renounced for the houses of 
 his new order all the stateliness and magnificence which 
 was characterising the monastery of Cluny and its count- 
 less daughter monasteries. He sternly forbade in the 
 
 272 
 
The Tower or Spire 
 
 architecture of a Cistercian house everything that was 
 not absolutely necessary and useful. All art received a 
 
 Main Facade of Laon Cathedral. 
 
 severe check through the spirit which breathed through 
 
 273 s 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 the regulations which proceeded from the saintly and 
 austere abbot of Citeaux. 
 
 Sculpture, for instance, was forbidden in that stern, 
 grave rule. We have seen already how painted glass, 
 also, was among the things not allowed in a Cistercian 
 house. Rigorously, too, did Bernard of Clairvaux refuse 
 to allow a tower to be built in the monastic churches of 
 his order. He regarded it as practically useless, as a 
 sign of spiritual pride, as a mere luxury in a Cistercian 
 abbey church. 
 
 But save in the earlier abbeys of the Cistercians, the 
 veto of Bernard had little effect, and the twelfth and follow- 
 ing centuries witnessed the erection of innumerable church 
 towers. In the case of the greater monasteries and richer 
 cathedrals this addition was often of incomparable splen- 
 dour and richness. As has been said, foremost in this 
 special development in church building, the Normans in 
 their ancestral duchy, and in all the countries subject to 
 their influence, were pre-eminent. England, after the 
 Conquest, was conspicuous in such works, and the 
 beautiful fancies of Gothic architecture which speedily 
 superseded the sterner and plainer Romanesque, found 
 an almost limitless field in the decorations and adorn- 
 ments of the soaring tower or steeple. 
 
 The gradual introduction of great bells lent a practical 
 value to these splendid additions to churches, and as the 
 Middle Ages advanced, the tower more or less was con- 
 structed as the fitting receptacle for these bells, which 
 became, as time went on, a necessary and popular adjunct 
 to every house of prayer, from the humble village church 
 with its solitary bell, to the lordly Benedictine abbey, or 
 the vast and stately cathedral of a city with its peal com- 
 posed of many bells, some of them of great size. 
 
 274 
 
The Tower or Spire 
 
 The result of this new 
 the tower in church archi- 
 tecture has been to pro- 
 vide in the large majority 
 of medieval churches, 
 abbeys, and cathedrals 
 their most striking ex- 
 ternal featxxre, in the 
 tower, infinitely varied in 
 the different countries, 
 and even in the different 
 provinces or districts of 
 the same country, under 
 the influence of diversi- 
 fied schools of architec- 
 ture belonging to the 
 great Gothic family. 
 
 Well known and widely 
 admired are the grand 
 towers, steeples, and bel- 
 fries, which still cast 
 in innumerable instances 
 their broad shadows over 
 the great mediaeval houses 
 of prayer still with us, 
 the pride and glory of so 
 many of the great cities 
 of Europe, as, for in- 
 stance, the west towers 
 of Xotre Dame of Paris, 
 of Pteims, of Abbeville, 
 and S. Gudule at Brus- 
 sels, the steeple-crowned 
 
 and common development of 
 
 Tower of the Church of S. Pierre 
 at Caen. 
 
 275 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 towers of Chartres, to take a few known examples. The 
 
 Tower op the Cathedrae op 
 Freiborg-in-Breisgau. 
 
 exquisite open work of Frei- 
 burg, the dizzy height of 
 Strasburg and Antwerp, tell 
 of different schools. In Eng- 
 land many and various, of 
 strange and even awful 
 beauty, are the towers of 
 the churches and cathedrals 
 of the Middle Ages. On the 
 hill of Lincoln, on the mid- 
 land plain of York, beneath 
 the green rolling downs of 
 Canterbury, in the green 
 Severn Lands, on the cliff of 
 Durham, at Salisbury in the 
 south, in Norwich and Boston 
 on the east of our storied 
 island, are matchless ex- 
 amples of mediaeval towers 
 and steeples. But beautiful 
 and striking as are these, as 
 are countless other examples 
 which might be cited, the 
 tower conception of the 
 mediaeval architect, as we 
 now gaze on it, is very dif- 
 ferent from that dreamed of 
 and planned out in the first 
 instance by the abbey masters 
 of the works in the great 
 building age of Christendom. 
 
 In some cases the steeple 
 
 7 6 
 
The Tower or Spire 
 
 on the upper storey which crowned the mighty tower 
 disappeared, through 
 accident or the care- 
 less neglect of its 
 guardians. But, as a 
 general rule, the origi- 
 nal grandiose concep- 
 tion was seldom car- 
 ried out. Money was 
 in the end wanting, for 
 the erection of these 
 stupendous piles called 
 for vast outlay. The 
 zeal which burned 
 when the work was 
 planned grew cold 
 before the work was 
 carried out. Not un- 
 frequently, when the 
 great central tower 
 was commenced, the 
 substructures were 
 suspected to be too 
 slight for the enor- 
 mous weight designed 
 to be placed upon 
 them, and through 
 timidity, or possibly 
 wise caution, the origi- 
 nal design was never 
 proceeded with. For 
 some such reason, 
 probably, the twin Tower of Antwerp Cathedral. 
 
 2 77 
 
 has 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 towers of Notre Dame, the spires of Chartres, adorn 
 with their singular beauty the western ends of these 
 magnificent minsters. But the place is empty where 
 the great central tower was originally designed to 
 complete the great conception of these lordly build- 
 ings. At home Westminster Abbey seems ever to be 
 waiting the advent of a great architect daring enough to 
 raise its mighty central tower over the vacant lantern 
 space. Again, to take a familiar example, the solitary 
 and superb tower of Antwerp still waits its “ twin ” 
 planned by its great though long - forgotten architect. 
 Viollet le Due, in one of his charming drawings, half 
 reality half fancy, gives us a bird’s-eye view of the 
 mighty pile of Beims, with its splendid cluster of soaring, 
 traceried spires with which the great master who designed 
 this queen among cathedrals, hoped to crown his great 
 and almost perfect conception. But Beims, alas, will 
 never now boast this glory. 
 
 The tower of Gloucester, one of the wonders of the 
 English school of Perpendicular architects, was com- 
 menced and in great part completed a.d. 1450-7. It was 
 the second, some think the third, central tower of the 
 abbey. Originally a Norman tower, no doubt much like 
 that of Tewkesbury Abbey, was erected by Serlo, the 
 first Norman abbot, late in the eleventh century. It was 
 apparently a plain, massive, Bomanesque structure of no 
 great height, and was probably injured by one of the 
 repeated fires which ravaged the abbey, and seems 1 to 
 
 1 The “ Historia ” of the monastery “ seems ” to record this rebuilding 
 of the central tower in A.D. 1222. But there is no trace whatever now 
 apparent of this work, “ not even,” as Professor Freeman reminds us, “ a 
 range of stones.” The old Norman work belonging to the first tower 
 goes up to a certain height, then the Perpendicular work of the present 
 gigantic tower comes at once upon it. There is no intermediate stage. 
 
 278 
 
Gloucester. 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 have been partially rebuilt or restored in the first quarter 
 of the thirteenth century. The present magnificent 
 tower was erected in the middle of the fifteenth century 
 by Abbot Seabroke, partly, no doubt, to accommodate the 
 new bells, partly from a wish to adorn the great abbey 
 with a tower which was to be the noblest in the West 
 country. Seabroke’s work was eminently successful, and 
 his master of the works produced one of the stateliest 
 and most effective towers in Western Christendom. 
 
 It is one of the three famous square towers of England, 
 the other two being at Canterbury and Lincoln. It is 
 not its great height which makes it conspicuous among 
 the towers of Western Christendom, it being only 225 
 feet from its base to the top of its pinnacles, but it is its 
 magnificent and well-proportioned outline, its apparent 
 massiveness, that attracts attention, the leads, nearly 
 flat, just below the graceful pinnacles, measuring 41 
 feet 1 inch by 40 feet 4 inches. It is a very marvel of 
 strength crowned with beauty, and, with the exception 
 of the great towers above alluded to, at Canterbury 
 and Lincoln, it stands absolutely unrivalled among the 
 square towers of the churches of the West. In the 
 portion which rises above the lofty choir roof, it is 
 entirely taken up with two vast and lofty bell-chambers, 
 the lower storey being the home of “ Great Peter,” a bell 
 which weighs nearly three tons, the upper containing a 
 noble peal of eight smaller though considerable bells. Its 
 exceeding beauty and charm has been lately well painted 
 by a writer 1 on Gloucester. “It is the grandest and 
 most impressive feature of the outside of the cathedral. 
 No matter from whence one looks at it, the charm is 
 
 1 “ The Cathedral Church of Gloucester,” by H. S. L. S. Massey, M.A., 
 1898, in Bell’s Cathedral Series. 
 
 280 
 
The Tower or Spire 
 
 there. Seen from the gardens in the side streets close 
 by, when the pear-trees are in bloom, or in the full blaze 
 of a hot summer’s day, or again, later in the autumn, 
 when the leaves are beginning to turn, or, better still, in 
 snow-time, it is always full of beauty. 
 
 “ On a bright hot day the pinnacles seem so far off in 
 the haze, as to suggest a dream of fairy-land. On a wet 
 day, after a shower, the tower has the appearance of being 
 so close at hand that it almost seems to speak. Viewed 
 by moonlight, the tower has an unearthly look which 
 cannot well be described.” 
 
 Beautiful though it be, a very glory among towers, it 
 would not come under the austere criticism of S. Bernard 
 of Clairvaux, the Cistercian founder, as a mere thing of 
 loveliness, an object of simple luxury, a monument of 
 haughty ecclesiastical pride, for it was really built as a 
 home for the famous Gloucester bells. It is emphatically 
 a bell-tower, whence by day and night the music of one 
 of the most pathetic peals in England goes forth in 
 sweet waves of the softest music over the waking and 
 sleeping city, a perpetual reminder of the mighty abbey 
 whence now for eight hundred eventful years the incense 
 of prayer and praise perpetually has gone up from our sad 
 earth to the Throne of God in Heaven. 
 
 THE BELLS 
 
 A little account of “ bells ” seems a necessary adjunct 
 to our story of the tower, their home. The bell was not 
 unknown to the Greek and Boman, but it seems in those 
 far-back times to have been, comparatively speaking, 
 but of small dimensions. Durandus of Mende, in his 
 “ Rationale,” tells us how the “ bell ” was first invented 
 
 281 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 at Kola, a city of Campania, whence came the terms 
 Campanas ” for the larger bells, and “Nolm” for the 
 smaller. Various writers have adopted this curious de- 
 rivation, among others, S. Anselm ; but Durandus’ quaint 
 suggestion must be classed as fanciful. 
 
 During the first three centuries, naturally the bells 
 would be unused in Christian churches, quiet and privacy 
 of worship being, in the ages of persecution, or at most of 
 toleration, an indispensable condition for all the earlier 
 religious assemblies, large and small, of the believers in 
 the Crucified. 
 
 It is doubtful when they were first formally used in 
 the Church, certainly, however, before the seventh century. 
 There is a tradition that Pope Sabinianus, a.d. 604, directed 
 that a bell should be rung to give notice of the hours of 
 the “offices.” They are mentioned too in the Rules of 
 S. Benedict. Bede alludes to them in England in the 
 eighth century. It was not, however, until the period of 
 the great revival of religion in the eleventh century, that 
 the bell began to assume the position of importance in 
 the equipment of a church which we find it occupying 
 in the Middle Ages. The size of the bell gradually in- 
 creased, and the care bestowed upon its manufacture 
 became greater as the twelfth century advanced. In the 
 eleventh century we read, for instance, of a bell then 
 remarkable for its size being presented by King Robert 
 of France to the church of S. Agnan at Orleans, and this 
 bell, probably one of the largest known, weighed as much as 
 2600 pounds. As the Middle Ages advanced, the passion 
 for bells in churches rapidly grew. There were few 
 parish churches but possessed one, or two, or even more, 
 while the abbeys and cathedrals continued to erect more 
 towers to hang bells of various sizes and power. In the 
 
 282 
 
The Bells 
 
 thirteenth century we find bells of very considerable 
 size and importance. Durandus of Mende at the close 
 of this century (the thirteenth) devotes a section to the 
 consideration of their symbolism. It was not, however, 
 until the fifteenth century that the bell attained to the 
 vast dimensions we are accustomed to associate with the 
 more important of these popular and well-loved instru- 
 ments of music. Gloucester Cathedral is singularly 
 fortunate in the possession of some very ancient bells of 
 rare sweetness and power, one of these being of great 
 size and importance. Its retention of these precious 
 mediaeval relics came about in this wise : — 
 
 In the middle of the fourteenth century, when Edward 
 III. was king, there was a bell-foundry in Gloucester 
 which had a widely-extended reputation. The head of 
 the foundry was even employed by distant Ely to cast 
 four bells for the famous house of S. Etheldreda. 
 
 The pre-Reformation bells of the abbey of S. Peter’s, 
 Gloucester, were without doubt the work of this foundry, 
 which was most probably carried on by dependants of 
 the abbey, or at least under its protection. 
 
 At the epoch of the dissolution, in the bell-chambers 
 of the central tower were hanging “ one grete bell where- 
 uppon the cloke strykithe, and eight other grete bells 
 whereuppon the chyme goithe .” 1 In the general 
 plundering of the suppression, it was very seldom that the 
 bells of the suppressed house escaped the spoiler, the metal 
 of which they were composed being a valuable bit of 
 plunder. Probably the citizens of Gloucester interceded 
 for the bells and chimes they loved, and they were 
 
 1 From an indenture made between Bishop Hooper, the Dean of 
 Gloucester, the Mayor, and the Royal Commissioners, bearing date 
 27th May 1553. 
 
 283 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 suffered to remain in their place untouched. Some years 
 later, the question of the fate of the Gloucester bells 
 seems to have been further considered, and we read how 
 they were formally permitted to remain until the king’s 
 pleasure in the matter should be further known. Within 
 three months after this official respite Edward YI. was 
 dead. The danger hour for the Gloucester bells was thus 
 finally tided over, and the nine “ grete bells,” or their sur- 
 vivors, hang still in their old home. Of the nine, five of 
 the original bells occupy their old places in the Tower, and 
 one of the five is the famous Great Peter which, hung on 
 a very fine oak framing, is the solitary occupant of the 
 lower chamber of the massive tower. Great Peter weighs 
 nearly three tons. 
 
 Various ornaments, usually of a sacred character, were 
 engraved on the mediaeval bells — the Crucifixion of our 
 Saviour; the dead Christ in the arms of the Blessed Virgin; 
 figures of the Virgin herself, are favourite subjects. Some- 
 times the seal of the cathedral chapter or the arms of the 
 abbey are engraved. More interesting, however, are the 
 inscriptions which not unfrequently run round the bell. 
 A beautiful bell belonging to the abbey church of Moissac, 
 bearing the very early date of 1273, only broken up and 
 re-founded about half a century ago, bore the inscription 
 “ Salve Regina Misericordize.” The second of the Gloucester 
 bells is inscribed with “ Sancte Petre, ora pro nobis,” with 
 the ornament of the fleur-de-lis. The date of this bell is 
 1350. The fifth bell bears the words, “In multis annis 
 resonet campana Johannis.” On the sixth, the curious 
 words, “ Sum Rosa pulsata Mundi Maria vocata ” appear. 
 Great Peter is inscribed with the legend, “ Me fecit fieri 
 Conventus nomine Petri.” The arms of the Benedictine 
 
 284 
 
The Organ 
 
 monastery are also engraved on this great mediaeval bell, 
 whose deep, sweet music has now bidden the citizens of 
 Gloucester to prayers for several hundred years. 
 
 The chimes of the cathedral are now heard at i a.m., 
 5 a.m., 8 A.M., i P.M., 5 P.M., and 8 p.m. The four tunes 
 played are the successors of the pre-Eeformation carillon. 
 
 Durandus of Mende in his “Eationale” has several 
 pages devoted to the symbolism of bells. He considers 
 them as symbols of preachers who, after the manner of 
 bells, are appointed to remind the faithful of the 
 “ Faith.” The clapper represents the preacher’s tongue ; 
 the wooden beam to which the bell is hung typifies the 
 Cross of our Lord. Much of his symbolism here, as 
 usual, is curious and interesting, though, as usual, not a 
 little fanciful. 
 
 THE OKGAN 
 
 The bells as we now possess them were a mediaeval 
 invention; the musical apparatus of a great church has 
 however received a yet later addition in the organ of vast 
 dimensions, which now occupies so conspicuous a position, 
 not only in the case of cathedrals, but in the services of all 
 the churches of Western Christendom; such an organ 
 was unknown in the Middle Ages. There were doubt- 
 less organs at an early date in many important churches, 
 including, of course, the cathedrals and abbeys, but, com- 
 pared to the enormous and powerful instruments now so 
 common, these were small and inconspicuous. 
 
 In the picture of a great mediaeval church of the 
 fifteenth century, presented to us in the “ Eites of 
 Durham,” only a few lines are devoted to the organ or 
 organs of Durham. The reference is as follows : “ There 
 
 285 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 was three paire 1 of organs belonging to the said Quire, 
 for maintenance of God’s service and the better cele- 
 bratinge thereof. One of the fairest paire of the three 
 did stand over the Quire dore, only opened and played 
 uppon at principall Feasts, the pipes being all of most 
 fine wood and workmanshipp, very faire, partly gilded 
 uppon the inside, and the outside of the leaves and 
 covers up to the topp, with branches and flowers finely 
 gilted, with the name of Jesus gilted with gold. . . . The 
 second paire stood on the north side of the Quire, being 
 never played uppon but when the four Doctors of the 
 Church was read, viz., Augustine, Ambrose, Gregorye, and 
 Jerome, being a faire paire of large organs, called the 
 cryers. The third paire was daily used at ordinary 
 service.” 
 
 Organs first appeared in France under Pepin, a.d. 759, 
 one being sent him by the Emperor of the East from 
 Constantinople. Shortly afterwards the Bishop of Augs- 
 burg had one built for his cathedral. 2 But these early 
 instruments were evidently very small. We have, how- 
 ever, one account of a very large organ, built under the 
 direction of Elphege, Abbot of Winchester, which required 
 seventy men to manage it ! But as the record of this vast 
 organ stands alone in mediaeval annals, we cannot help 
 questioning the accuracy of the statement. A large organ 
 is mentioned as having existed in Westminster Abbey 3 
 at a very early date. Although it is clear that organs of 
 a small size were not uncommon in the fourteenth century, 
 the two most ancient of existing organs in France only 
 
 1 The expression was a well-known one at the time described in the 
 “Rites of Durham.” 
 
 2 Montcdembert, “Monks of the West,” Book xviii. chapter v. 
 
 3 Parker, “Glossary,” s.v. “Organ.” 
 
 286 
 
The Organ 
 
 date from the last years of the fifteenth and earlier years 
 of the sixteenth century, one being at Solies-Ville (Var), 
 and the other in the cathedral of Perpignan. In the six- 
 teenth century they increased in size and in importance, 
 but it was only in the seventeenth century that they 
 assumed anything like the dimensions of the instrument 
 to which we are accustomed. 
 
 No doubt the increase in the dimensions of the organ 
 and its general adoption was due to the great develop- 
 ment in music as a science, especially in church music, 
 during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 
 
 The organ of Gloucester Cathedral, now in use, is a 
 notable and splendid example of a great organ of the 
 seventeenth century, possessing most of the additions 
 suggested by modern science. It is justly famous as one 
 of the most beautiful instruments in England. Originally 
 constructed between a.d. 1663-1669, by the renowned 
 organ-builders of the Eestoration, Thomas and Eenatus 
 Harris, it was completed in the present century, in suc- 
 cessive stages, by Messrs Willis, in 1847-87-99. The 
 organ of Thomas and Eenatus Harris replaced a still 
 earlier Jacobin organ, which was in use in the cathe- 
 dral before the Civil Wars. The beautiful case of the 
 small choir organ is a relique of the earlier arrange- 
 ment. The case and pipes (buffet d’orgues) of this great 
 organ, especially when viewed from the west or nave, is 
 an unattractive object, but is historically interesting from 
 the heraldic shields 1 emblazoned on the pipes, the coats- 
 
 1 These, unfortunately, are scarcely visible either from the choir or 
 the nave, the bright colour and gilding being dimmed, nearly two hun- 
 dred and fifty years having elapsed since the work was done, the 
 present effect being little more than a blurred mass of greys and 
 
 287 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 of-arms including the Stuart sovereigns from James I. 
 Prominent among these heraldic adornments are the 
 coats-of-arms of the Duke of York, afterwards James 
 II. ; of his first duchess, Anne Hyde, and of her father, 
 the great Earl of Clarendon — the Duchess Anne being 
 the principal donor to the new Restoration organ. She 
 was probably specially interested in Gloucester through 
 the influence of one of the prebendaries (Dr. Blandford), 
 her chaplain. 
 
 browns. Although there are certain notable organ cases (buffets 
 d’orgues) in England, it is in Holland where the organ case is shown 
 in the full magnificence which properly belongs to this great instru- 
 ment — one of the most striking developments in religious worship of 
 the last three hundred years. Haarlem is conspicuous in its posses- 
 sion of a superb organ case, but Bois-le-Duc (Herzogenbuchsee) boasts 
 the grandest organ case in the world. 
 
 288 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 
 THE CLOISTER 
 
 In a monastery, after the abbey church itself, the most 
 important and interesting portion of the surrounding 
 buildings belonging to the religious community is un- 
 doubtedly the cloister. In many cathedrals, too, of the 
 great mediaeval building age, the cloister attached to the 
 house of God possesses also, though in a less degree than 
 in the case of a monastic establishment, a peculiar and 
 special significance. 
 
 Now the genesis of the cloister is interesting. In 
 the fourth and fifth centuries, after the establishment of 
 the peace of the Church under the Emperor Constantine, 
 in the more important churches erected after the basilican 
 model, as a rule a court or open space was arranged in 
 front of the principal entrance, which was, at first in- 
 differently placed, as convenience dictated, at the eastern 
 or western extremity of the building. 
 
 This open court, which corresponded to the classic 
 atrium, was usually surrounded with a portico or covered 
 walk or gallery, termed triporticus or quadriporticus, 
 according as the portico or covered walk consisted of 
 three or four sides. In some instances extraordinary 
 pains were taken to decorate and adorn the portico sur- 
 rounding the outer court. The court in question, or 
 atrium, at first was put to various uses. In it were 
 gathered frequently the catechumens, or those who were 
 
 289 T 
 
The Cloister 
 
 not yet formally received into the congregation of the 
 faithful who worshipped within the sacred building. There 
 also were wont to assemble penitents or sinners who for 
 a time had been excluded from the society of the faithful 
 believers. It was also used occasionally in very early times 
 as a place of interment for the more distinguished Christian 
 worshippers in the neighbouring basilica — hence came the 
 name by which this outer court was sometimes known, 
 “ Paradisus,” whence came the medneval term of “ Parvis,” 
 w T hich was often in later times attached to the square or 
 “ P la ce ” immediately lying under the shadow of the chief 
 entrance to the holy building, as, for instance, in Paris, 
 “ the Parvis Notre Dame.” 
 
 In the middle of the “ court ” or atrium, generally was 
 a well or cistern. There the worshippers, before entering 
 the church, performed certain ablutions. The holy-water 
 stoup always found in Ptoman Catholic churches is a 
 “ memory ” of this “atrium” well. In the cloister-garth, 
 with rare exceptions, such a well will be always found, 
 another “memory,” no doubt, of the atrium well. There 
 is such a well in the garden of the Gloucester cloister. 
 
 But as time went on, the original purposes for which 
 this “ atrium ” or outer court — the portico — in front of the 
 entrance, was in tended, existed no longer. The conditions of 
 the Christian society became largely modified, the catechu- 
 men class disappeared, church discipline became relaxed, the 
 number of penitents excluded from the Church grew very 
 small, and only sinners who were specially notorious for 
 their great crimes were ever shut out from public worship. 
 The portico, too, was gradually disused altogether as a place 
 for interment. On the other hand new arrangements 
 became imperatively necessary for the monastic life, and 
 in a lesser degree for the accommodation of canons and 
 
 291 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 other persons connected with the service of cathedrals 
 and important churches. 
 
 To meet those new requirements the outer court, the 
 atrium, or the portico, was removed from the original posi- 
 tion which it occupied to a quieter and more secluded place 
 at the side of the abbey and the cathedral, and under the 
 well-known name of cloister, “ the claustrum,” or enclosed 
 secluded space, the old portico, the triporticus or quadri- 
 porticus (the three-sided or four-sided portico) reappeared, 
 and assumed an important, even an indispensable, place 
 among the mediaeval abbatial or cathedral buildings. 
 
 The “ Cathedral ” cloister will need, comparatively 
 speaking, but little descriptive detail. It was in fact 
 little more than a cluster or block of dwellings built round 
 a reserved and enclosed spot immediately under the 
 shadow of the great house of prayer, designed for the 
 habitation of the canons and minor officials engaged in 
 the service of the church. These were often very 
 numerous, and were not by any means always in resi- 
 dence. The more modern term, “ close,” is immediately 
 connected with, and is derived directly from this usage. 
 In very early times an important school, where various 
 kinds of learning found a home, frequently existed in 
 close connection with the cathedral, and was allotted a 
 dwelling-place in this cluster of dwellings which arose 
 beneath the shadow of the church. We might instance 
 in England, York in the seventh and eighth centuries, 
 Canterbury in the days of Theodore and Hadrian in the 
 seventh century, Winchester in the days of Ethelwold 
 in the later years of the tenth century. 
 
 But it was in the monasteries, which after the great 
 revival inaugurated by Cluny became so conspicuous a 
 feature in the religious and educational life of the West, 
 
 292 
 
The Cloister 
 
 that the cloister of the Middle Ages obtained its supr-eme 
 importance. The cloister was the heart of the com- 
 munity. It served many purposes. It was the place 
 in which the “religious” spent many hours of their 
 quiet life in meditation, in literary work, in teaching. 
 There the novices were often instructed. There the 
 copyists of manuscripts plied their various crafts, some 
 simply copying in their beautiful and careful handwriting, 
 thus providing the Western world with its scanty supply 
 of literature, and, until the printing-press was invented, 
 preserving accurate copies of what the world already pos- 
 sessed of books ; some busied in illuminating the manu- 
 scripts, some in binding, some in copying music for the 
 many mediaeval services. A few were occupied in original 
 research and in composing and arranging monastic and 
 historical records. One portion of the cloister was usually 
 set apart specially for the instruction of the novices and of 
 other youths entrusted to the care of the monks. 
 
 In the cloister were doors leading to the great chambers 
 connected with the every-day life of a monastic com- 
 munity, such as the refectory, where the monks dined ; 
 the dormitory, where they slept during those few hours 
 allotted to rest ; the chapter-house, where they met 
 daily and consulted together on the business, public and 
 private, of their house. Other doors in the cloister led to 
 the infirmary, where the sick and aged monks received 
 the tenderest care and attention ; to the abbot's or prior's 
 special lodgings ; to the parlour, where they received friends 
 and strangers ; to smaller cloisters or slypes leading to the 
 outer courts and separate buildings, such as the guest- 
 chambers, kitchens, and store-rooms of the religious house ; 
 to the cemetery ; to the large garden, &c. Two great doors 
 usually opened from the cloister into the abbey church. 
 
 293 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 In the centre of the cloister invariably lay a garden 
 usually turfed, sometimes bright with flowers, and often 
 shaded with trees, containing the well above referred to. 
 The windows of the cloister walls were in many cases, 
 especially in the later Middle Ages, wholly or in part 
 glazed, frequently with rich stained glass. 
 
 We shall return presently to the every-day life of a 
 monk, so much of which was spent in these cloisters and 
 in the apartments immediately leading out of them. 
 
 This portico or four-sided gallery we are describing was 
 built sometimes on the south, at other times on the north 
 side of the church. One general plan, with occasional 
 modifications seems, however, generally to have been 
 adopted in the more important monasteries, built after 
 the great church revival of the eleventh century. Various 
 reasons determined the choice of situation ; the proximity 
 of water no doubt being ever a most important considera- 
 tion. The position of the city, in cases where the 
 monastic house was built in the immediate vicinity, or 
 even in the enceinte of the city boundaries, of course 
 largely entered into the choice of the north or south sides 
 of the abbey church for the site of the conventual build- 
 ings, as a very considerable space was necessary. It has 
 been suggested that as in northern countries the south 
 of the church was the preferable situation, this more 
 favoured position in the case of cathedrals was often 
 selected by the bishop for his dwelling, garden, offices, 
 &c., leaving the colder and more shaded side for the 
 “ close ” containing the dwellings for the canons and other 
 officials. 
 
 In Gloucester, and in other simply monastic founda- 
 tions, where the cloister and all the conventual buildings 
 lie to the north, some have supposed that the choice was 
 
 294 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 made by Italian monks , 1 who, forgetting the climate of 
 the north, curiously imagined that the side shaded from 
 the sun was preferable. The more probable reason, how- 
 ever, for the selection of the north side of the abbey for 
 the conventual buildings of Gloucester was that the south 
 side was already occupied by the city houses. 
 
 Frequently, in certain of the more wealthy monastic 
 foundations and also in the case of some cathedrals, the 
 cloister was richly adorned with sculpture and even orna- 
 mented with colour. Sometimes costly marbles were used 
 for the pillars and their capitals. No portion of the 
 sacred building itself received greater attention than did 
 these curious and beautiful mediaeval cloisters. Among a 
 number of these elaborately ornamented galleries we w’ill 
 cite as examples of exquisite and costly cloister work — In 
 Italy, the cloisters of S. Paul outside the Walls (Home), 
 and S. John Lateran. In Sicily, that of Monreale. In 
 France, among many, we would cite S. Trophinus of Arles, 
 the Abbey of Moissac (Tarn et Garonne) ; the Abbey of 
 Montmajeure (near Arles); the Abbey of Mont S. Michel 
 (Normandy). Among cathedrals Rouen boasted an exceed- 
 ingly magnificent cloister, as did the cathedrals of Toul, 
 Soissons, Noyon, and many others. In England, the 
 beautiful cloisters of Westminster Abbey are well known. 
 Norwich possesses, too, a notable example, but the most 
 famous by far in England are the cloisters of Gloucester, 
 in some respects among the most beautiful in Europe, 
 none possessing a roof comparable in richness and general 
 
 1 Serlo, the Norman builder of much of the Gloucester Abbey, 
 was the pupil of Lanfranc of Pavia. Possibly Serlo was himself an 
 Italian. For nearly four months of the year the cloister-garth 
 receives no sunshine, the sun’s rays being intercepted by the tall 
 nave roof which overshadows the garden of the cloister. 
 
 296 
 
The Cloister 
 
 effect. The glory of the Gloucester roof gives a special 
 character to the whole cloister. 
 
 Indeed, so costly and elaborate were the decorations 
 lavished on this important portion of the monastic build- 
 ings of Middle Ages, that the wonderful display of art in 
 the adornment of the monastic cloister seems, even in com- 
 paratively speaking early times, when the church was 
 still at the height of its power and influence, long before 
 the first mutterings of the discontent which culminated 
 in the Reformation of the sixteenth century were heard, 
 to have excited hostile criticism in some quarters. 
 
 The severest critics found no fault with the rich adorn- 
 ments and costly work bestowed upon the abbey or the 
 cathedral. Nothing in those devout ages seemed too 
 precious and magnificent for the house of God. But to 
 some minds the contrast between the stern ascetic profes- 
 sion of the “ religious ” and the gorgeously ornate cloister 
 where their “ religious ” worked and walked and meditated 
 was too glaring. A poet of the thirteenth century of the 
 Court of S. Louis of Trance gave utterance to those feelings 
 which this splendourof many of the cloisters excited. It has 
 been remarked that a Huguenot of the sixteenth century 
 would hardly have expressed himself in severer language 
 than we find is used in a passage of this thirteenth-century 
 writer in his rythmical life of “ Sainte Elysabel,” where 
 he speaks with marked disapprobation of the splendour 
 and magnificence of the costly works so frequently visible 
 in the “cloisters” of the monks of his day — men vowed 
 to an austere life, and who, he writes : “ Fors l’aumosne 
 n’avoient riens,” and who yet adorned their home with 
 
 “ Ymages li monstrent, bien fetes 
 Lien entaillies et portretes 
 mult orent couste, ce li samble.” 
 
 297 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 And yet in spite of the reproaches of the grave and 
 austere poet of the Court of S. Louis, the precursor of 
 English Wyclif, and of the Puritans of a yet later age, few 
 would be found now among the serious and devout critics 
 of mediaeval religion who would find fault with the tender 
 and graceful fancies with which the monastic orders 
 adorned the scenes of their life-work, which, according to 
 their light, was wholly dedicated to God. The art-world 
 and its mighty teaching power would indeed be poorer if 
 the men who built and adorned these fair homes of prayer 
 and study, had not, among the many crafts they culti- 
 vated with such untiring industry and conspicuous success, 
 devoted themselves especially to architecture and its 
 many exquisite and suggestive developments, outside as 
 well as inside the walls of their church — architecture in 
 their skilful hands becoming one of the most powerful 
 instruments of popular education. 
 
 In this little descriptive story of the mediaeval cloister, 
 however, its principal uses must not be lost sight of. It 
 was largely in the cloister that the great and never-to-be- 
 forgotten work which resulted in the preservation of 
 literature during the so-called Dark Ages was carried on. 
 Besides labours exclusively connected with the preserva- 
 tion of literature, other works scarcely less important, of 
 a cognate description, connected with art, the teaching of 
 the young, &c., for several centuries found, too, their 
 central home in the little porticoes or covered galleries 
 running round the small green spot in the heart of the 
 monastic buildings, the “ Viridum Olaustri,” as the Glou- 
 cester chronicling monk quaintly styles it. 
 
 “ In the matter of books, the Benedictines and the 
 298 
 
The Cloister 
 
 other monastic orders were both producers and con- 
 sumers. Books were written and illuminated in the 
 “ Scriptoria ” in the cloisters, and preserved in their libra- 
 ries, partly to be used by the more studious brethren of 
 the house, partly to be consulted by those who came with 
 proper credentials, or even to be lent on the deposit of a 
 sufficient security.” 
 
 There is little doubt that in every religious house, 
 without exception, a library, great or small, existed. 
 “ When these monasteries were first founded, the few 
 books which the community possessed were probably 
 kept in the church, and subsequently, as the number 
 of volumes increased, in presses in the cloisters, where 
 the brethren passed many hours of each day in study. 
 As time went on, some protection against cold and damp 
 was provided in England and Northern Europe by glazing 
 or partly glazing the cloister arcades, and by allowing 
 the older monks at least, to occupy small enclosures called 
 “ carrels ” or “ carols,” just large enough to hold a reader, 
 his book, and a writing-desk.” ... It seems as though 
 “ the presses in the cloister were found sufficiently large 
 to contain most monastic libraries until the end of the 
 fourteenth or beginning of the fifteenth century. Then, 
 however, it became necessary, in many monasteries, to 
 build a special room for those books which were not 
 required for immediate use in the cloisters. The old 
 system was not abandoned, the cloister being still used 
 as the habitual place for study, but as it appears from the 
 “Rites of Durham,” brethren “might read in the library 
 as well if they thought proper to do so.” 1 
 
 1 Compare a paper by Mr. J. W. Clark, in the Cambridge Anti- 
 quarian Society’s Proceedings , on “ Libraries at Christ Church, 
 Canterbury, Citeaux, Clairvaux, &c., May 1894. 
 
 299 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 All these varied progressive arrangements are still 
 existing in the monastic remains at Gloucester. It still 
 retains the little “carrels,” the ruined book-closets in 
 the cloisters, and the subsequently erected library room. 
 The library was probably built in the fifteenth century. 
 
 We read in the quaint old-world language of the 
 “Rites of Durham” how these “carrels” were used by 
 the elder members of the fraternity. “ In the north syde 
 of the cloister, from the corner over against the church 
 dour to the corner over against the Dorter (dormitory) dour, 
 was all fynely glased . . . and in every wyndowe iii 
 Pewes or Carrells, where every one of the old Monks had his 
 Carrell . . . that when they had dyned, they did resort 
 to that place of (the) cloister ; and there studied upon 
 their books, every one in his Carrell, all the afternoune. 
 until evensong time. This was there exercise every daie 
 . . . And in every carrell was a desk to lye there bookes 
 on. . . . And over against the Carrells against the Church 
 wall did stand sertaine great Almeries (armories or cup- 
 boards) all full of Bookes (with great store of ancient 
 manuscripts to help them in their study,) wherein dyd 
 lye the old auncyent written Doctors of the Church and 
 other profane authors, with dy verse other holie mens 
 wourks, so that every one dyd studye what Doctor 
 pleased them best, havinge the Librairie at all tymes 
 to goe studie in besydes these Carrells .” 1 
 
 1 The “Book of the Rites of Durham,” containing a description of 
 monuments, rites, and customs of the monastical church of Durham 
 before the suppression, written traditionally in A.D. 1593, was printed 
 in A.D. 1842 from trustworthy MSS. by the Surtees Society. Dr. Gasquet, 
 the Roman Catholic historian, accurately describes the “Rites” as a 
 document which stands alone as a connected account of the life in a 
 great English monastic community at the very moment of its dissolu- 
 tion. It is the acknowledged work of one who had personal informa- 
 tion, and had actually seen what he describes. 
 
 300 
 
The Cloisters, South Walk with Carrels 
 
The Cloister 
 
 The number of books contained in these monastic 
 collections were of course varied. There were, however, 
 more in the great majority of cases than is generally 
 supposed. In the Benedictine house of Christ Church 
 (Canterbury), the catalogue made by Henry de Estria, 
 prior (a.d. 1285-1331) records, for instance, the titles of 
 nearly three thousand works, bound in six hundred and 
 ninety-eight volumes. At Citeaux (France) the mother- 
 house of the Cistercian order, the library catalogue drawn 
 up by John de Cisey, abbot, at the end of the fifteenth 
 century, records the titles of twelve hundred MSS. and a 
 few printed books (the great invention was still of quite 
 recent date). 
 
 A portion of these books at Citeaux were divided into 
 separate divisions. The following classification in the 
 catalogue throws considerable light upon the use made 
 of their library by the monks of Citeaux. They were 
 divided as follows : Books of the choir, church, and 
 
 cloister ; books in daily use ; books chained on desks in 
 the chapter-house ; books placed in the cloister to be 
 divided among the brothers of the order; books on the 
 small desks in the cloister. 1 
 
 The books used in the many hours spent by the monks 
 in their still cloister included famous writings of many 
 lands and of many ages. Theology, although naturally 
 holding the prominent place, by no means constituted 
 the exclusive study of the scholar-monk. No knowledge, 
 it has been well said, was strange to them — philosophy, 
 grammar, versification, botany, mechanics, astronomy, 
 geometry, and medicine all being included. In his con- 
 
 1 Montalembert (“ Monks of the West,” vol. vi., book xviii., chap, iv.) 
 gives a good many interesting details on the subject of the numbers of 
 the books in these mediaeval monkish libraries. 
 
 3 01 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 nection with medicine, the monk or friar was the chief, 
 well-nigh the only mediaeval physician. All these subjects 
 were more or less the objects of their studies. But in the 
 varied range of letters, the great masterpieces of classic 
 literature were to many a monk the great pleasure of his 
 somewhat monotonous existence. These were guarded 
 with extreme care, and scrupulously and carefully copied 
 in their exquisite handwriting. 
 
 hew indeed would have been the remains of the ever- 
 fresh writers of Greece and Rome, had it not been for 
 the patient industry and well-directed taste of the monk 
 during those long centuries of war and tumult and general 
 disorder which followed the break-up of the Roman power. 
 S. Peter Damian, the friend of the Pope, Gregory VII. 
 (Hildebrand), thus curiously apologises for the monkish 
 devotion to classic writers : “ To study poets and philo- 
 sophers for the purpose of rendering the wit more keen, 
 and fitter to penetrate the mysteries of the Divine Word, 
 is to spoil the Egyptians of their treasures in order to 
 build a tabernacle for God .” 1 
 S. Anselm, Abbot of Bee (Normandy), afterwards 
 Archbishop of Canterbury at the end of the eleventh 
 century, specially recommends to his pupils the study 
 of Virgil and other classical writers, with, however, this 
 note of warning, “ Exceptis his in quibus ciliqua turpitudo 
 sonat.” - Indeed at times so sedulous had become the 
 study of the great pagan writers in this cloister life, that 
 we find grave warnings addressed to the monks by 
 eminent monastic teachers, fearful lest this passion for 
 classics should too completely absorb their thoughts. 
 
 A curious reminder to the studious monk of the 
 inferiority of pagan to Christian writers and commen- 
 1 B. Peter Damiani, Opusc. xxxii. c. 9. 2 S. Anselm, Epist. i. 55. 
 
 3° 2 
 
The Cloister 
 
 tators on the Holy Scripture, is found in a direction of 
 the “ Customs of Cluny.” When in the cloister, where 
 absolute silence during many hours was rigidly enforced, 
 a brother wished to attract the librarian’s attention, the 
 rule was, if a Christian work were required, to extend 
 the hand, making the motion as if turning over the leaves 
 of a book ; but if a pagan writing were desired, the monk 
 was directed to scratch the ear as a dog does, because, 
 so the regulation explained, “unbelievers may well be 
 compared to dogs.” 1 
 
 But, after all, the work done in these cloisters which 
 has been the most useful as well as the most enduring 
 was the constant transcription of manuscripts. We have 
 already dwelt on the priceless boon conferred on later 
 ages by these unwearied scribes. For centuries there was 
 no printing-press, no scribes save these monks to hand 
 down the literary treasures of the great ages of Greece and 
 Borne. Their unremitting diligence alone kept burning 
 the light of the past in those cold, silent, solitary cloister 
 cells called now scriptoria, now carrels. Their patient 
 industry alone preserved to us the Holy Scriptures of the 
 New Testament, the precious words of men, some of 
 whom had talked with Apostles and the pupils of the 
 Apostles, of teachers such as Irenmus, Clement, and Ter- 
 tullian, Origen, Cyprian, Augustine, and Jerome. The 
 writings of that long line of illustrious fathers and doctors 
 of the Catholic Church of the first four or five centuries 
 would have been lost irretrievably had not generation 
 after generation of monkish scholar-scribes toiled un- 
 weariedly in their still cloister chambers. 
 
 Well may we, who live in the sunlit evening of the 
 
 1 Martene “De Antiq. Monach. Ritibus,” l.v. c. 18. Quoted by 
 Montalembert, book xviii. chap. iv. 
 
 3°3 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 world's long eventful course, gaze with pathetic interest 
 on the comparatively few undisturbed remains of these 
 famous homes of learning where such enduring work was 
 done. In our cloister at Gloucester we possess one of 
 these precious relics of the great and industrious past, 
 one of the most perfect that exists in England, perhaps 
 in the whole of Northern Europe. 
 
 In these cloister “carrels” were executed, too, those 
 tender and delicate examples of mediaeval colouring 
 which adorn the more precious monkish manuscripts. 
 Miniatures of eminent persons, representations of saints, 
 and of holy men, graceful and fantastic borders to the 
 pages, more rarely, though not unfrequently, little land- 
 scapes, churches, and an infinite number of initial letters. 
 Many of these exquisite illuminations of the Gospels, 
 of “ Books of Hours,” missals, and of the more prized 
 and frequently used volumes, are still existing ; the 
 colour and the gold of the unknown artist as fresh and 
 beautiful as in those far-back days when the great army 
 of monk-artists toiled without hope of earthly recom- 
 pense or recognition in their silent chilly workshops which 
 fringed the cloister walks. Ornate and elaborately de- 
 signed bindings of manuscripts formed the special craft 
 of a few of these “ religious.” Cassiodorus, who in his day 
 had been one of the foremost statesmen of the West, and 
 who spent his later years (first half of the sixth century) 
 in one of the famous monasteries of his own foundation (in 
 Calabria), thus commends this beautiful art of binding, 
 quaintly urging the monk-scribes to cultivate this special 
 craft, so that the beauty of the Holy Writings might 
 be set in the splendour of a rich cover, and so prac- 
 tically exemplify the words of the Lord Jesus who, when 
 
 3°4 
 
The Cloister 
 
 he bade His elect to the heavenly banquet, desired that 
 they should be robed in wedding garments. 
 
 And all this useful and often beautiful work was 
 carried on, it must be remembered, often, well-nigh 
 always, amidst the circumstances of an austere self- 
 denying life. The cloister might be, not unfrequently 
 was, a marvel of grace and beauty, but it was utterly 
 devoid of what in modern phraseology is termed 
 “comfort.” The cold, especially in England and in the 
 northern countries of Europe, so rich in monastic estab- 
 lishments of the first rank, was very severely felt in these 
 fireless cloister cells of the monk-scribe and the monk- 
 artist, although in the late mediaeval period glazing was 
 largely introduced with the view of rendering somewhat 
 more tolerable the condition of these unwearied toilers for 
 God. In the books they wrote and adorned with such 
 care and skill we occasionally light upon silent pathetic 
 testimonies to the hardships endured by the monk-scribe, 
 such as Louis of Wissobrunn wrote at the end of the copy 
 he had made of St. Jerome’s commentary on Daniel — 
 
 “ Sedibus extends hie librum quem modo cernis 
 Dum scripsit, friguif, et quod cum lumine solis 
 Scribere non potuit, perfecit lumine nodis : 
 
 Sis Deus istorum merces condigna laborum.” 
 
 Such, too, as we find at the bottom of a Gospel book of 
 the eleventh century — 
 
 “ Nauta rudis pelagi ut ssevis ereptus ab undis, 
 
 In portum veniens, pectora beta tenet ; 
 
 Sic scriptor fessus, calamum sub calce laboris 
 Deponens, habeat pectora lseta quidem.” 1 
 
 1 Quoted by Montalembert, “Monks of the West,” book xviii. chap, 
 iv., where other similar quotations and many valuable references for 
 those curious in this forgotten page of monastic life, will be found. 
 
 3°5 U 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 The great variety of studies pursued in the cloister 
 upon which we have been dwelling, and particularly the 
 study of art, including architecture, painting, sculpture, 
 music, was no late development in the monastic life. S. 
 Benedict, the great founder of Western monasticism, in 
 his “ Rule ” had assigned to every monk four hours daily 
 for reading, and in the case of the studious this limit was 
 doubtless often greatly exceeded. There were, of course, 
 among the great army of “ religious” many whose tastes 
 lay in other directions, and whose time and talents were 
 occupied in other ways. The work and life of a monastic 
 community would supply many kinds of employment 
 at once practical and active, both within the house itself 
 and abroad in the farms and estates belonging to the 
 monastery, but as a general rule study in its many 
 divisions, including artistic work in its varied forms, was 
 well loved by a very large number of the brothers of a 
 mediaeval house. “We have all” wrote the monk 
 William of S. Remy, who became abbot of that famous 
 house in a.d. 1071, “an incredible fondness for reading, 
 but there is not one of us who would dare prefer the 
 pleasure of reading to the duty of obeying.” From the 
 beginning of western monasticism S. Benedict in his rule 
 had foreseen that lovers of art would surely arise in the 
 cloister, and he provided with his usual wisdom for the 
 encouragement of such, only attaching to the life-work 
 of an artist-monk one condition — humility } 
 
 There was another and important use made of these 
 cloisters. In them were held the schools of the novices 
 and of other children and youths entrusted to the monks 
 
 1 “Artifices si sunt in monasterio, cum omni liumilitateet reverentia 
 faciant ipsas artes, si permisserit Abbas.” — Rule, c. 57. 
 
 3°6 
 
Little Cloisters 
 

 
The Cloister 
 
 for education. Such a school was to be found certainly 
 in every religious house of any importance. It was the 
 common custom that all monasteries should receive 
 scholars who came to them from all sides. Some 
 houses became especially famous for their schools, and 
 in such cases the cloister would not suffice for the 
 numbers of the young attracted by any special notoriety 
 of the house as a centre of education. But, as a rule, a 
 portion of the cloister proper was set aside for such a 
 school. The north side, or at least a considerable portion 
 of it, was devoted for this purpose at Gloucester. 
 Traces of the novices’ games still can be seen plainly 
 carved on the stone bench which still runs alongside the 
 wall of this part of the Gloucester cloister. 
 
 We read the following description of such a cloister 
 school in the “ Bites of Durham ” already quoted : “ Over 
 against the Treasury door was a fair stall of wainscot 
 where the Novices were taught. And the Master of the 
 Novices had a pretty seat of wainscott, adjoining to the 
 south side of the Treasury door, over against the stall 
 where the Novices were taught. And there he taught 
 the said Novices both forenoon and afternoon. 
 
 “No strangers or other persons were suffered to molest 
 or trouble the said Novices or Monks in their Carrels, 
 while they were at their books in the cloister. Bor to 
 that purpose there was a porter appointed to keep the 
 cloister door.” The “ Bites ” went on to say that “ the 
 Novices had theire chambers severall by himselfe in 
 the south end of the Dorter (Dormitory).” 
 
 Durandus, Bishop of Mende, the famous thirteenth-cen- 
 tury liturgiologist, whose views, as representing Catholic 
 mediaeval thought on matters connected with ritual, 
 
 307 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 symbolism, &c., we have many times referred to, sees 
 in the cloister the type of the heavenly Paradise — when 
 the dwellers will be of one heart and one mind, when all 
 thought will be centred in the will and the love of God, 
 when all will dwell together, and will have all things 
 common. In the cloister, says the Bishop of Mende, 
 there are four walls, which represent (i) the low estima- 
 tion in which every man should conceive of himself ; (2) 
 the low estimation in which he should hold the world; 
 (3) the love of one’s neighbour ; (4) the love for God. 
 One very singular comparison of Durandus calls for 
 especial notice. The diversity of dwellings and of offices 
 in the cloister prefigures the diversity of dwellings and of 
 rewards in the heavenly kingdom. “ For in my Father’s 
 house are many mansions, as the Lord said.” 1 
 
 The extraordinary magnificence often displayed in many 
 of the more considerable mediaeval cloisters has been 
 alluded to. We have in Gloucester a celebrated example 
 of one of them. The present cloisters were built by 
 Abbot Horton, a.d. 135 1— 1 377, and completed by Abbot 
 Froucester, a.d. 1381-1412. They replaced other and less 
 ornate buildings dating from Norman times, the outer 
 walls of the old cloister still remaining. Although the 
 monastic furniture — the seats and desks of the carrels, 
 the various curtains dividing the several parts, are gone, 
 although the beautiful stone panelling of the fourteenth 
 and fifteenth century walls is sorely defaced and scarred, 
 in spite of the look of general desolation which a long 
 unused building naturally presents, these cloisters, now 
 so silent and deserted, are still one of the architectural 
 gems of Northern Europe, and every portion of them, 
 happily, is sufficiently preserved to enable us to trace 
 
 1 Durandus of Mende, “ Rationale,” book i. chap. i. xlii.-xliii. 
 
 308 
 
The Cloister 
 
 fairly accurately the old sites once occupied by monk and 
 novice, when these cloisters were the heart and centre of 
 the busy life of the great Benedictine community dwell- 
 ing and working here until the day when King Henry 
 VIII. dissolved and broke up the famous house of 
 Gloucester (a.d. i 540). 
 
 Their chief glory is the roof — which perhaps replaced 
 an older wooden covering with which the former cloister 
 was originally roofed. Traces of the destruction of the 
 original wooden (Norman) roof are still plainly visible 
 in the chapter-house, where, in the western wall which 
 abuts the cloister, the stone-work is reddened by ihe 
 flames which at some time prior to 1351 destroyed the 
 old wooden roof of the cloister. The cloisters now are 
 entirely covered with a massive stone vaulting of the 
 kind known as fan-tracery. No vaulting has ever been de- 
 vised by any school of builders which presents so splendid 
 an appearance as this peculiar form. It is especially 
 an English “ use,” and belongs to the later development 
 of the “ Perpendicular ” artists, and seems, as we have 
 already hinted above, as though this special development 
 were due to a reaction against the excessive severity and 
 austerity of the Perpendicular style. Probably from its 
 costliness it never became common. With some modifi- 
 cations we find noble instances of this perfect form of a 
 Gothic roof in Henry VII. ’s chapel at Westminster, and in 
 the gorgeous chapels of King’s College, Cambridge, and of 
 S. George’s, Windsor. There are a few other fine examples 
 in England, but these are perhaps the most notable. As far 
 as can be ascertained from contemporary records the fan- 
 vaulting of the beautiful cloisters we are describing is the 
 earliest known instance of this rich vaulting. It seems 
 as though to the traditional architectural school of the 
 
 309 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 Gloucester Benedictines was owing the invention of this, 
 the noblest style of Gothic roofing. It adds no little 
 interest to the memories of the great Benedictine house 
 whose story and traditions we have taken as the basis 
 of our little study, when we think how in its quiet cloister 
 walks monk architects once lived and thought and toiled, 
 who gave England its peculiar style of architecture, the 
 Perpendicular, and who supplemented their first work by 
 the subsequent “invention” of the matchless fan-tracery 
 vaulting. At the same period, viz., in the later half of 
 the fourteenth century, the cloister walls were richly 
 panelled in stone, somewhat after the fashion of the new 
 work of the Perpendicular artists of Edward III. in the 
 choir and transepts, and the windows, as we see them 
 now, with their fine tracery, were inserted, the upper half 
 being entirely glazed throughout ; the lower part on the 
 south side, where the monk’s carrels were placed, and on 
 the north side, where the novices were taught, were also 
 glazed. On the west an arrangement of wooden shutters 
 appears to have been provided ; on the east it is uncer- 
 tain, as later restoration work has obliterated the original 
 marks of glazing or shutters in the lower lights, and no 
 record remains to tell us of the original arrangement. 
 
 Although some of the great monastic buildings opening 
 directly out of the cloister were destroyed by Henry VIII. 
 as “ superfluous buildings” at the time of the suppression 
 (a.d. 1540), notably the great piles of the “dorter” 
 (dormitory) and of the “ frater ” (refectory), enough still 
 remains for us to trace out clearly the way of life led by 
 the monks of this renowned Benedictine community. We 
 will briefly describe each of the four sides of the cloister 
 as they exist now. 
 
 310 
 
The Cloister 
 
 THE SOUTH CLOISTER. 
 
 The south cloister — that abutting on the cathedral, the 
 abbey as it was termed before the suppression — we have 
 already spoken of. The twenty little “ carrels,” or study 
 chambers, are perfect, with this exception, the wooden 
 fittings for writing or reading have disappeared, but the 
 remains of the book closets (two in number) can be clearly 
 traced in the garth or garden round which the cloister 
 runs. Two little doors out of the east cloister, communi- 
 cating with these closets, exist. These book closets were 
 arranged at the south end of the east cloister, so as not to 
 interfere with the twenty “carrels.” The library, the 
 subsequent addition, constructed, as we have already ex- 
 plained, when the number of books was multiplied, towards 
 the end of the fourteenth century, is still used as the 
 cathedral library, and is approached, as in the old times, 
 by a winding staircase out of the east cloister. 
 
 THE EAST CLOISTER. 
 
 In the east cloister, close to the door of the staircase 
 leading to the library, is a wide vaulted passage or small 
 cloister of some length, leading to the outer garden. It 
 was originally entered from the east cloister by a wide 
 arch, and is ornamented with a wall-arcade on both sides ; 
 it is roofed with a plain barrel vault without ribs. This 
 little cloister is of most ancient date (the eleventh cen- 
 tury). A passage in the “ Bites of Durham ” guides us to 
 its original purpose in the daily monastic life. “ The 
 monnkes were accostomed every daie, aftere thei dyned, 
 to goe thorough the cloister . . . and streight into the 
 scentorie (cemetery) garth, where all the monnkes were 
 
 31 1 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 buried ” [The monks 1 cemetery at Gloucester was in the 
 garden south of the abbey, and this little cloister would 
 be their easiest way of reaching it from the great cloister] ; 
 “ and thei did stand all bair-headed, a certain longe space, 
 praieing amongs the toumbes for there brethren’ soules 
 being buryed there, and when they had done there prayers 
 thei did returne to the cloyster, and there did studie with 
 there bookes until iij of the clocke that they went to 
 evensong. This was there dalie exercise and studie, every 
 day after they had dyned.” 
 
 For some unknown reason this little side-cloister leading 
 to the “ garden of death ” seems to have been disused, and 
 the arch or door of entrance closed, apparently towards 
 the end of the fourteenth century. (It is now reopened.) 
 Close to the door of this little cloister, in the same east 
 cloister, is the entrance to the chapter-house ( capitulum ). 
 The chapter-house was ever a prominent feature in the 
 scenes of the daily life of a Benedictine community. In 
 it all the members of the society assembled every morn- 
 ing, generally speaking about eleven o’clock, the abbot, 
 or in his absence the first prior, presiding. Portions of the 
 Kule of the “ Order ” were sometimes read, together with 
 an address or a short instruction by the presiding monk. 
 “ Discipline ” was inflicted, often in the form of scourging, 
 upon any who had formally offended against the “ Iiule,” 
 and any necessary public business belonging to “ the 
 House ” was brought before the community then assem- 
 bled. The chapter-house of Gloucester is a very large, 
 plain, vaulted hall, and, with the exception of the east 
 end, which was rebuilt in the fifteenth century, it remains 
 in its general aspect much as it left the Norman builder’s 
 hands in the eleventh century. Certain distinguished 
 persons, in some way connected with the abbey as donors 
 
 312 
 
buried 
 

The Cloister 
 
 and patrons, have been buried beneath the pavement of 
 the floor. In Leland’s time (Leland was a secretary of 
 Henry VIII.) the names of some of the buried great ones, 
 written in black letter on the walls, were legible. They 
 can still be read. They were Norman nobles of very high 
 degree; two of them, at least, seem to have been con- 
 temporaries of the Conqueror. Walter de Lacy was laid 
 to rest here as early as 1085. Amongst other notables 
 the name of Richard Strongbow appears. It was in this 
 ancient chamber, presumably, that King William held 
 that “ deep speech” which led to the making of “Domes- 
 day.” It was, too, in this great and venerable chapter- 
 house that the famous Gloucester Parliament, under 
 Kichard II., assembled in a.d. 1378. 
 
 Lower down in the east cloister the door of the dorter 
 (the dormitory) speaks of another phase of monastic 
 life. The vast building to which this door led is gone. 
 Only a solitary fragment of a window-shaft remains 
 outside to tell of the great pile erected in the early 
 years of the fourteenth century, where the monks passed 
 the few hours of the night allowed for sleep. The 
 “ Rites of Durham ” give us some idea of the interior of 
 a great Benedictine dormitory in the fourteenth or 
 fifteenth century. “A faire large house called the 
 ‘ dorter,’ where all the monnks and the novices did 
 lye, every monnke having a little chamber of wainscott 
 by themselves, and their wyndowes towardes the cloister, 
 every window serving for one chambre.” (There seems to 
 have been a partition between each chamber. It is doubt- 
 ful if this was generally the case in early mediaeval times.) 
 In every one of these “ wyndowes a deske to support there 
 bookes for there studdie.” Connected with the dorter, at 
 its farther end, was a considerable building known, as the 
 
 313 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 reredorter (necessaries). This last was generally so built 
 as to be traversed by the great drain of the abbey, into 
 which a running stream was turned, and kept it always 
 clean. The site of this building at Gloucester, as far as 
 can be now ascertained, was east or north-east of the 
 dorter. The running stream is still there, though hidden. 
 
 The same cloister door of which we have been speak- 
 ing, which led to the stair by which the ‘dorter' was 
 approached, opened also into a large chamber situated 
 on the ground floor. This chamber, of course, has dis- 
 appeared with the “ dorter ” building. This great room 
 was known as “the common house.” It is described in 
 the “ Rites of Durham ” as having “ a fyre kept in yt all 
 wynter, for the monnkes to cume and warme them at, 
 being allowed no fyre but that onely, except the masters 
 and officers of the house, who had there severall fyres.” 
 
 THE NORTH CLOISTER. 
 
 At the east end of the north cloister is another doorway, 
 leading into a vaulted passage or small cloister, mostly 
 composed of Early English work of the thirteenth century. 
 This little early English cloister connects the main 
 cloister with the infirmary or “farmary” cloister. The 
 “ farmary ” cloister is a beautiful and picturesque piece 
 of Perpendicular work, with five traceried openings on 
 each side admirably preserved, surrounding a little 
 “garth” or garden about 54 feet square. This garden 
 was attached to the infirmary, and probably served 
 originally as a herb-garden or “herbarium.” The infir- 
 mary itself, with its chapel and house of the Monk In- 
 firmarer and other dependencies, was mostly destroyed by 
 Henry VIII. at the time of the suppression. It was 
 
 3H 
 
The Cloister 
 
 evidently an important and stately building, and origi- 
 nally consisted of a great hall, built like the nave of a 
 church, with aisles and clerestory windows above. This 
 was the dormitory of the “ farmary,” with its little 
 cubicles like the great “ dorter.” It was erected in the 
 thirteenth century. Six arches of the original pile still 
 remain, a picturesque and pathetic ruin. Part of the 
 lodgings of the infirmary, which escaped the original 
 destruction, have been incorporated into one of the present 
 canonical houses. 
 
 Those who are not acquainted with the customs of the 
 great Benedictine order wonder at the evident size and 
 importance of the infirmary buildings, which were ever 
 attached to such a monastery as that of Gloucester. But 
 men forget that the infirmary was something more than a 
 hospital for the sick of the community : besides being a 
 hospital, it was also the dwelling of the old and infirm 
 brethren of the house/and also of those monks who had 
 been professed fifty years, and were then no longer bound 
 to adhere strictly to the “ Buie ” of the Order. 
 
 Nowhere, perhaps, wrote Bishop Westcott of Durham, 
 is the thoughtful tenderness of Benedict’s rule so con- 
 spicuous as in the directions as to the sick. “ Before all 
 things, and above all things,” said the holy founder of the 
 famous order, which has endured for so many centuries, 
 and has wrought such a mighty work for the Church, 
 “ must care be given to the sick ; they must be served, 
 and Christ in them.” In accordance with these direc- 
 tions of the revered and sainted Benedict, the sick, the 
 aged, and the infirm were ever tenderly watched and 
 cared for. They had their own separate buildings, often, 
 as at Gloucester, of great magnificence, including their 
 special hall and chapel, their own officers and attendants. 
 
 315 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 At Peterborough, to take another well-known example, 
 the infirmary contains some of the most exquisite work 
 which remains. 
 
 This loving tenderness was continued to the last, 
 extreme care being taken to soothe the last hours 
 of the dying. “ No pages of the monastic records pre- 
 served to us are more full of human interest than those 
 which describe with careful detail the parting gifts and 
 words and devotions of some lost master.” In some 
 cases, at the request of the dying, ashes were strewed on 
 the floor in the form of a cross, and upon this strange 
 couch, his old friends and companions praying round him, 
 the monk “passed” into the joy of his Lord. “Besides 
 the happy death, the death of the saints ( mors felix ), 
 there was the joyous death (mors hilaris ) of the simple 
 monk, glad to die as he had been glad to live. Monastic 
 annals are full of details of the end of these servants of 
 God. They tell us, for example, how the monk Gerold 
 of S. Gall gave up his soul, glorifying God, smiling at his 
 brethren, and saluting the saints whom he saw gather 
 round him. They tell us also how, at Monte Cassino, the 
 monk Eandicius, on his deathbed stopped the chanting 
 of the monks by saying, “ Hush, hush ! do you not hear 
 the Laudes sounding in heaven ? Do you not see the 
 angels who are singing, with their garments and their 
 faces shining like snow ? I conjure you, in God’s name, 
 be silent, and let me enjoy the sweetness of their song!” 
 And as he said these words he died . 1 
 
 When a monk died, a messenger was despatched to 
 many religious communities associated together for this 
 
 1 Quoted by Montalembert, “ Monks of the West,” book xviii. chap, vi., 
 from Ekkehard, Lib. Benedict MS., S. Gall, p. 154, and from Chron. 
 Casin. lib. iii. c. 51, ap. Muratori. 
 
 316 
 
The Cloister 
 
 purpose, with a mortuary roll, having at the head an 
 announcement of the death, and a short account of the 
 deceased. 
 
 Each community to whom the message was sent ac- 
 knowledged receiving the roll, by writing upon it a 
 promise of prayer for the soul of the departed, “ and thus 
 the death of a brother became an occasion for renewing 
 the ties and bonds of a larger fellowship.” 1 
 
 At the western end of this north cloister is a second 
 early English doorway, now filled with poor stained glass. 
 This was the entrance to the “ Erater (Refectoiy, the 
 word “frater” being the English equivalent of the Latin 
 “ refectorium,” the prefix being dropped. This usual 
 English abbreviated form “ freytour is used by Ghaucei 
 and other early writers). 
 
 This “ Erater” or Refectory at Gloucester was a great 
 hall over 1 30 feet long, and about 90 broad, and reached 
 the entire length of the north cloister. It was raised 
 above a large undercroft used for cellarage and for stores, 
 and was reached by a broad flight of steps through the 
 cloister door just mentioned. It was entirely destroyed 
 at the time of the suppression, being reckoned among 
 “the superfluous buildings.” In this north cloister there 
 is a curious opening in the wall on the side of the garth, 
 which apparently was the place where the bell which 
 summoned the brethren to meals in the neighbouring 
 “ frater ” was hung. Opposite to the “ I rater door, but 
 a little more to the east, is a large and very beautiful 
 lavatory, one of the most perfect that has been preserved 
 to us among our English monastic remains. In its present 
 
 1 Compare Bishop Westcott (Durham), “ A Benedictine Monk, 
 “Gloucester Cathedral Records,” Part I. p. 59. 
 
 317 
 
I he White Robe of Churches 
 
 condition, it dates from some time early in the fifteenth 
 century. 
 
 This lavatory projects some eight feet into the garth, 
 and is roofed with exquisite fan-tracery stone vaulting, a 
 miniature copy of the elaborate and costly vaulting for 
 which the G-loucester cloister is justly famous. The 
 lavatory is entered from the cloister by eight tall arches 
 with glazed traceried openings above. The loveliness of 
 this annexe of the cloister, devoted to such a homely pur- 
 pose, tells us of the extreme care and attention which the 
 monk-architect devoted to every part of the monastic 
 buildings, regardless altogether of time and cost. 
 
 Facing the lavatory is a highly decorated closet or 
 almery, where the towels were hung. A somewhat 
 similar “towel almery” in the Durham monastery is 
 thus described in the “ Rites ” : “ All the forepart of the 
 almeries was carved work [this is exactly repeated in the 
 Gloucester almery], for to give ayre to the towels ; and 
 iii dors in the forepart of each almery, and a lock on 
 every doure, and every monnke had a key for the said 
 almeryes, wherein did hinge in every almerie, cleane 
 towels for the monnkes to dry their hands on when they 
 washed and went to dinner.” 
 
 But the chief interest connected with this north cloister 
 is that it was partly assigned to the novices. Probably a 
 ‘heavy leathern curtain hung at the end of the lavatory, 
 and another at the east end of the cloister, thus “ sepa- 
 rating off” the school. 
 
 We have already given a sketch of the “novices’” 
 studying arrangements from the “Rites.” Of course 
 all traces of the wooden desks, partitions, and seats 
 which served the teachers and students in their work 
 hours have long disappeared, only, curiously enough the 
 
 318 
 
The Cloisters, North Walk with Recess for Lavatorium 
 
• The Cloister 
 
 pupils of the long-vanished Benedictines have left us 
 records of their games. On the stone bench which 
 runs along the wall are scratched, some with almost 
 artistic care, others carelessly enough, little game-boards, 
 on which the boys brought up at Gloucester when 
 Ilichard II. and Henry YI. were reigning used to play, 
 with little pebbles and bones, old-world games, such as 
 nine men’s morris, fox and geese, &c. There are a few 
 other similar specimens of these game-boards to be found 
 scratched on the stones here and there in other parts of 
 the cloister, and in one instance on the cathedral stair, 
 but naturally it is in the “ novices’ ” apartments in the 
 cloister that these game-boards are chiefly found, and 
 in spite of the wear and tear of perhaps five hundred 
 years, and the often mischievous zeal for restoration of 
 what seems to the eye worn, scarred, and discoloured, 
 are still plainly discernible . 1 
 
 THE WEST CLOISTER. 
 
 In the west cloister, a door with somewhat elaborate 
 tracery led into the court of the house formerly appro- 
 priated to the abbot, and later, after the abbey became 
 exceedingly wealthy through the offerings made by 
 pilgrims to the shrine of Edward II., about the middle of 
 the fourteenth century, when the abbot built for himself 
 a larger dwelling, assigned to the lord prior. This house, 
 since the Keformation, has been the dwelling of the dean, 
 
 1 Compare an interesting paper by Mr. Micklethwaite, architect of 
 Westminster Abbey, on “The Indoor Games of School-boys in the 
 Middle Ages.” Similar game-boards have been found in the cloisters 
 of Westminster, Canterbury, Norwich, Chichester, Salisbury, &c.— 
 “Archaeological Journal,” vol. xlix. p. 3 * 9 > December 1892. 
 
 319 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 and in its eastern portion is perhaps the oldest dwelling- 
 house in England. At the south end of this cloister a 
 doorway, or more probably a heavy curtain, opened into 
 a largish vaulted Norman chamber, little altered since 
 the closing years of the eleventh century, which led 
 directly from the cloister into the outer court of the 
 monastery (now called College Green). This ancient 
 chamber was used as the monks’ parlour. It was there 
 they talked, when occasion arose, with strangers, visitors, 
 and friends. There too, no doubt, as in a similar 
 chamber at Durham, used to assemble itinerant mer- 
 chants desirous of showing to the officials and monks of 
 the abbey their various wares for purchase . 1 
 
 i Compare generally for many of the details lightly sketched in this 
 chapter of “ The Cloister,” Mr. St. John Hope’s scholarly paper in the 
 “Records of Gloucester Cathedral,” iii., Part I., 1897, where the 
 various archaeological questions connected with the striking cloister 
 of Gloucester are dealt with at considerable length. 
 
 3 2 ° 
 
CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 ON THE LIFE LED BY THE MONK 
 
 After speaking at length of the different parts of a great 
 mediaeval abbey, we have dealt with some detail on the 
 immediate surroundings of such a church, on the dwelling- 
 place of one of those monastic communities by whose 
 loving hands those great homes of prayer, the abbeys and 
 magnificent churches of the Middle Ages, were mostly 
 designed and erected. We had, it will be remembered, 
 shown before in the early pages of our work, how the great 
 revival of religion in the eleventh century was also mainly 
 owing to the spirit of monasticism which was revived and 
 developed in the Burgundian community of Cluny and 
 its daughter houses. A picture, then, of a great typical 
 monastery seemed a fitting sequel to the little study in 
 which we have been engaged. Before we close it, it will 
 be well to give a brief account of the daily life led by 
 such a community in the cloister and in its surrounding 
 chambers. It was, as will be seen, no slothful or self- 
 indulgent existence, as is too often imagined. It was 
 indeed a high and lofty ideal which the true monk aimed 
 at, and we may consider in many instances he fairly 
 reached it. The ideal had, it is true, certain grave faults 
 which we shall notice before we close this concluding 
 chapter of the work. 
 
 Prayer or praise in the abbey or the church, worship 
 
 3 2 1 x 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 of Almighty God, was the central thought of the monastic 
 life; but handicraft of various kinds, and study, be it 
 remembered, were strictly enjoined as the complement of 
 religious exercises. 
 
 Seven times in the twenty-four hours the brethren 
 assembled in the common prayer house — the -abbey. But 
 the prayers and readings in the Holy Scriptures, the 
 addresses when given, and the musical part of the services 
 were, as a rule, short and varied, in order to secure, as far 
 as possible, concentrated attention during the necessarily 
 protracted period occupied in their many services. Beaders 
 and singers, too, were chosen out of the community likely 
 to attract by their skill. 
 
 The general scheme of the monastic day was based 
 originally by the great Benedictine founder upon two 
 well-known verses of Psalm cxix. 62, 164, “At midnight 
 I will rise to give thanks unto Thee,” and “ Seven times a 
 day do I praise Thee.” 
 
 The life-aim of a monastic community was the ideal 
 typified by the lights which, on the altar of their church, 
 never were suffered to go out. This life-aim was beauti- 
 fully expressed in words by the scribe of the “ Durham 
 Bites ” thus : “ The house was always watchinge to God.” 
 
 The ordinary daily rule of a .Benedictine house like that 
 of Gloucester was as follows : — 
 
 At midnight (having retired to the dormitory generally 
 between 7 and 8 p.m.), the brethren were aroused and went 
 into the abbey, and went through the service termed vigils. 
 At the close of the night vigils, if there remained a con- 
 siderable interval before daybreak, the monks usually 
 returned to rest. Matins , according to the rule of 
 
 Benedict, were held “ at the beginning of light, and 
 
 3 22 
 
On the Life Led by the Monk 
 
 the service of the first hour (prime) followed directly 
 after. 1 
 
 Then followed a space of time spent in work of some 
 kind. Manual labour on the part of some, study on the 
 part of others, until about 8 o clock a.m., when the monks 
 washed and then went to the service of the third hour 
 (tierce), which service was immediately followed by the 
 first mass said in great abbeys at the matutinal altar. 
 Some accounts of the “ monastic day ” speak of a light 
 informal refreshment partaken of about 8 o’clock. 
 
 The formal meeting of “the house” in the Chapter- 
 house took place about 1 1 a.m., when public business be- 
 longing to the community was transacted, punishment 
 was inflicted, and sometimes apparently a short address 
 was delivered by the abbot or presiding prior. 
 
 The service of sext, followed by the second mass, was 
 held in the church after the Chapter-room meeting. 
 
 Then came the principal meal of the day — dinner. 
 Following dinner was that solemn visit above alluded to 
 of the brethren to the cemetery, when for a time they 
 tarried bareheaded in prayer among the tombs of the 
 departed in the quiet garden of the dead. 
 
 When the night, as in summer, had been very short, 
 a short siesta was allowed, but the general custom 
 seems to have been that work or study was enjoined after 
 the dinner hour until about 3 p.m., when the services of 
 nones and vespers were held in the church. 
 
 At 5 p.m., or somewhat later, according to the time of 
 year, a second meal was served. At 7 p.m. came the last 
 
 1 The above general scheme of ‘-Hours,” &c„ is, on the whole, the 
 usual mediaeval one. But it was slightly modified by the different 
 seasons of the year, and by the special customs of the particular 
 religious “house.” Changes also were made on the occasion of the 
 more important festivals, &c. 
 
 3 2 3 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 service of the day, compline, and then the monks retired 
 to the dormitory for rest. Probably before 8 o’clock all 
 was silent in the house for the brief right’s repose. 
 
 We have no definite statements as to any exemptions 
 from this perpetual round of services which must have 
 taken up so very large a portion of each day. Of course 
 those monks whose duties took them away from the 
 abbey, on the farms and esates belonging to the com- 
 munity situated at some distance, were exempted from 
 regular attendance, as were also, of course, those who 
 were told off for preaching, or for other duties connected 
 with serving churches dependent on the “house.” It 
 is also probable that those engaged in important manual 
 offices, such as carving, gilding, painting, were also partly 
 relieved, as were too, possibly, those engaged in important 
 literary work. But we have no certain information 
 here. 
 
 That literary work of various kinds, besides the mere 
 mechanical occupation as copyists of MSS., and ordinary 
 illuminators of MSS., was encouraged is quite clear. The 
 elaborate arrangements for study in the cloister ; the pro- 
 vision for books in the library and book-closets ; the 
 notice in the “Rites of Durham,” already quoted, of 
 desks provided for books even in the dormitory, all point 
 to this. 
 
 The question of artificial light in these monasteries is 
 left, however, somewhat doubtful, when it is remembered 
 for how many months artificial light would be needed for 
 those who studied and wrote in the long early hours of 
 the morning as well as of the evening, in the cloister as 
 well as in the dormitory. We possess little information 
 generally here, but two references in the “ Rites ” espe- 
 cially speak of artificial light : 
 
 3 2 4 
 
On the Life Led by the Monk 
 
 i st, in the Church, we read how “there was standinge 
 in the south pillar of the Quire door of the lanthorne 
 ... a foure-squared stoun which hath been finely wrought, 
 in every square a large fine image, whereon did stand a 
 foure-squared stone above that, which had twelve cressetts 
 wrought in that stone which was filled with tallow, and 
 every night one of them was lighted when the day was 
 gone, and did burne to give light to the monks at mid- 
 night, when they came to mattins.” 
 
 2nd, in the Dorter. We read again, “ In either end of 
 the said dorter was a four (fair) stone, wherein was a 
 dozen cressets wrought in either stone, being ever filled 
 as they were needed, to give light to the monks and 
 novices, when they rose to their mattins at midnight, and 
 for their other necessarye uses.” But more than this 
 would be required for study purposes. It is well known 
 to those who have attended the night services at the 
 Grande Chartreuse, how each monk brings with him a 
 small lighted lamp to the service, a relic probably of far- 
 back usage. 
 
 The frequent fires which (especially in the early Middle 
 Ages) so often seem to have raged in these communities, 
 with singularly destructive results, were no doubt often 
 occasioned by the somewhat careless arrangements in 
 this matter of artificial lighting. The Gloucester Abbey 
 “ records ” mention several of these terrible conflagrations, 
 and the marks of these great fires are still visible on the 
 masonry of the church, of the cloister, and of the chapter- 
 house. 
 
 The responsibity of governing and administering such 
 a house as that of Gloucester was divided over a great 
 number of office-bearers. Indeed the petty offices and 
 posts distributed among the community were so numerous 
 
 325 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 that it has been computed that nearly half the whole 
 body were more or less engaged in this manner. It was 
 a wise provision in the Benedictine order, faithfully 
 carried out in the days of its power and influence, 
 which interested so large a number of its members in 
 the responsibility either of maintaining discipline, or in 
 the duties belonging to some of the various departments 
 of its business. 
 
 But the real government was virtually in the hands 
 of a few leading obedientiaries. These were — in the 
 front rank — the abbot, or prior, as the chief of some 
 houses was termed, and with him were associated, accord- 
 ing to the size and importance of the community, a 
 second, and even a third prior. In the case of the very 
 important houses the abbot wore a mitre, and sat among 
 the peers of Parliament. In Gloucester this dignity was 
 only conferred in a.d. 1381, Abbot Froucester being the 
 first mitred abbot of the “house.” The prior in an 
 abbatial house was ever a person of high dignity. He 
 had his separate dwelling, his attendants, often his 
 private chapel. In the absence of the abbot he was 
 supreme in the monastery. 
 
 After these high officials of the first class ranked a 
 few other chiefs of important departments, who had 
 separate lodgings of their own. The sacrist had usually 
 the charge of the many services, ordinary and extra- 
 ordinary ; the library was often under his care ; he 
 frequently acted as chancellor or secretary of the com- 
 munity. The precentor arranged the music and the 
 singing which formed a considerable part of the many 
 services, and which served to break the monotony which 
 must have accompanied a life so many hours of which 
 were spent in worship in the sanctuary. This high 
 
On the Life Led by the Monk 
 
 official also arranged the frequent processions to the 
 church through the cloister, and after the abbot or prior 
 he exercised the chief authority in the church. The circa 
 was an official charged with watching over the discipline 
 of the services. It was his duty to note who was absent, 
 a,nd to report the same to the chapter when formally 
 assembled in their daily meeting. The same officer 
 would, too, when all were met together in the choir, 
 in the long night or early morning services, go his 
 quiet round in the dimly lighted church, watching care- 
 fully to see if any weary brother had fallen asleep, in 
 which case he would at once arouse him to take his share 
 in the perpetual round of praise and prayer. 
 
 The custos operum., or master of the works, ranked high 
 among these prominent “ obedientiaries ” of a large com- 
 munity. No easy duties were his to watch over and to keep 
 in repair the abbey church and the vast hive of buildings 1 
 which clustered round the house of God. The monk was 
 ever busy in planning and designing new features in 
 his church, and in the conventual buildings beneath its 
 shadow. For some five hundred years the great cathedral, 
 its cloisters, and the adjacent piles of the Infirmary, 
 guest-house, refectory, &c., which we have chosen as our 
 special example, was being constantly altered, added to, 
 more richly adorned, and in the course of these operations 
 new styles of architecture were ever and anon introduced. 
 The custos operum (master of the works), in all these 
 works so loved of the monk, was naturally supreme — was 
 the principal adviser of the abbot in any of the more 
 
 o 
 
 1 We have only mentioned in our foregoing sketch a few of the 
 more important and interesting of these buildings. The Guest- 
 House, the Kitchen, the Storehouses, and many others, have not been 
 alluded to. 
 
 3 2 7 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 important changes. We who, after long ages, are content 
 simply to admire and to copy as best we can what the 
 vanished monk has done in those abbeys, cathedrals, and 
 cloisters, which even in their defaced and scarred condi- 
 tion are still among the glories of England, owe a great 
 debt to many a nameless “ master of the works ” whose 
 name is unknown, and whose story is unrecorded even 
 in the chronicles of the “ house ” for which he worked 
 so well. 
 
 The treasurer, or receiver, whose name still survives as 
 one of the office-bearers among the residentiary canons of 
 our cathedrals, had the duty of receiving and accounting 
 for the rents, &c., of the abbey farms. It was this official 
 who had to meet, as best he could, the often exorbitant 
 claims of the crown on the occasion of a foreign war or 
 other state contingency. 
 
 The hordarian was associated with the cellarer and 
 refectioner in arranging for the bodily needs of the laige 
 company who made up the community. The somewhat 
 barbarous title was derived from the old term, “hoard 
 (treasure), which came to signify the supplies of food 
 required for the refectory and the infirmary, and the 
 separate tables of the abbot, the prior, and the chief 
 obedientiaries. 
 
 The guest-master in a large monastery had many and 
 important duties. Generous hospitality to all comers 
 was a common feature in mediaeval monastic life. The 
 magnificent ruins of the guest-house or halls in some of 
 our monastic remains serve as a reminder how carefully 
 the work of providing for the wandering stranger was 
 carried out. The monastery was the home of the mer- 
 chant, the pilgrim to the many shrines ; the poor traveller 
 as well as the noble and the wealthy, ever met with kind 
 
 3 28 
 
On the Life Led by the Monk 
 
 and even lavish hospitality in these houses. In the 
 “ Bites of Durham ” we read of the “ Geste Haule pro- 
 viding intertaynment to all staits both noble and gentle, 
 and what degree soever that came thither as strangers,” 
 . . . as furnishing generally “all things necessarie for 
 traveillers, and with all this interteynment contynewying, 
 not willing or commanding any man to departe, upon his 
 honest and good behavyour.” 
 
 The infirmarian was the obedientiary who was over that 
 large establishment of which we have spoken, where dwelt 
 the sick, the aged, and infirm “ religious.” Great care was 
 taken in the selection of this responsible official. In many 
 cases he possessed a wide knowledge of medicine and sur- 
 gery. In some great “ houses ” a physician was attached to 
 the community. We readin the Eegistry of AbbotBraunche 
 of Gloucester of special allowances being set aside for 
 such an official “ for his good service in the art of medi- 
 cine and laudable counsel.” This physician of Gloucester 
 was bound to be faithful to the abbot and convent, and to 
 keep their secrets. Save on certain carefully specified 
 holy days he was ever to be resident in the monastery, 
 and at hand. 
 
 The titles of these chief obedientiaries varied somewhat 
 in the different monasteries. But the foregoing little 
 sketch fairly represents the names of the officers and the 
 duties of the men who occupied the chief and most re- 
 sponsible positions in a great Benedictine house. 
 
 The rough caricatures of the monk, drawn almost 
 entirely after the undoubted period of deterioration had 
 set, towards the close of the fifteenth century — a period 
 when men were too excited by the many grave and agi- 
 tating Eeformation questions to be fair and just — give a 
 
 329 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 very false idea of the existence of the monk in such a 
 house as that of Gloucester. The life led in most of the 
 great communities was a hard and austere one. In all 
 times there were, of course, bad monks and ill-regulated 
 communities, but quiet, scholarly research goes far to 
 disprove the assertion that this class of monastics made 
 up the majority of the “ religious," even at the era 
 of the general dissolution in England in the sixteenth 
 century. 
 
 Very weighty indeed are the words contained in the 
 preamble to the famous Act of Parliament of a . d . 1536, 
 suppressing the three hundred and seventy-six smaller 
 monasteries. They are words which, before they were 
 embodied in the preamble of so important an Act 
 of Parliament, had been evidently well weighed by 
 the great enemy of the monastic system, and must 
 be pondered over before any loose and general expres- 
 sions concerning the laxity, the idleness, and the vices 
 of the monk of the first years of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury are acquiesced in. The preamble runs as follows : 
 “ The King’s most royal majesty . . . considering also 
 that divers great and solemn monasteries of this realm, 
 wherein (thanks be to God !) religion is right well kept and 
 observed.” These remarkable words, applied to the greater 
 and more important monastic houses, promulgated by 
 King Henry VIII. at the moment when the great sup- 
 pression was formally entered upon, must ever be borne 
 in mind by the just, fair-minded historian. 
 
 We lay emphasis, then, upon our assertion that the 
 life of a monk was a hard and austere one at best. That 
 daily life we have sketched. It was, indeed, sweetened 
 and beautified with few of those luxuries men are ever 
 accustomed to associate with modest comfort and happi- 
 
 330 
 
On the Life Led by the Monk 
 
 ness. The diet, even on the non-fasting days, was, as 
 a rule, coarse and monotonous. An examination of the 
 diet-rolls of the religious communities, some of which 
 have come down to us, curiously show us how freely 
 condiments such as mustard were used in the refectories, 
 so tasteless and often repugnant were the dishes, largely 
 composed of fish, set before the community. 
 
 In the climate of Northern Europe, especially in the 
 damp and chilly atmosphere of England, during much of 
 the year the monk must have suffered acutely from cold. 
 The abbey itself was unwarmed, and there were but few 
 fires kept up in any monastery. 
 
 Any one who has had practical experience of the study- 
 carrels of the famous Gloucester cloister, so often cold 
 and damp, cannot help wondering how study, or writing, 
 or illuminating the exquisitely written books, could have 
 been carried on under such adverse circumstances. 
 
 Again, few and monotonous were the recreations of the 
 monks. The chief of those was the pacing up and down 
 the little walks of the garth of the cloister, or of the 
 somewhat larger garden or orchard, or of the quiet God’s 
 acre where they were all one day to lie. In some “ houses ” 
 the monk was suffered by his superiors to possess and 
 amuse himself with strange pet animals, such as apes, 
 peacocks, falcons, and even tame bears, and the Consuetu- 
 dinary of S. Swithun’s at Winchester tells us that the 
 cellarer had the special care of these strange pets 1 of the 
 brotherhood. The only approach to ease and comfort was 
 to be found in the tender provisions of the great founder 
 of the order for the sick and dying, and for those monks 
 who were literally worn out by long and patient service. 
 We have seen how faithfully the loving thought of 
 
 1 Animalia a diversis fratribus per multa tempora acquisita. 
 
 331 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 Benedict found expression in the elaborate and beautiful 
 infirmary buildings. 
 
 The pre-eminent services which monasticism, of which 
 the great Benedictine order was the chief exponent, has 
 rendered to mankind, all fair historians, all serious, un- 
 biassed critics, would unite in acknowledging. Not to 
 travel further back than the eleventh century, we find 
 the monk the principal agent in the marked revival 
 of religion for which that remarkable age was so notorious 
 He was, too, the principal agriculturist in that period when 
 the western world began to recover from the long and 
 weary series of invasions, raids, and barbarian devastations. 
 As time went on, the monk of the twelfth and following 
 centuries was the great artist alike in architecture as in 
 painting and sculpture. Equally distinguished was he 
 also in all the subsidiary arts of the goldsmith and the 
 engraver, bookbinder, &c. 
 
 The monk, too, was the only scholar. To him, as we 
 have said already, we owe the preservation of all the 
 treasures of ancient literature that we possess. 
 
 Like all human institutions and systems, monasticism, 
 from various causes, some of which lay outside itself, 
 gradually deteriorated from its original earnestness and 
 vigour, although even in its last stage of existence — we 
 are speaking here of English monasticism particularly — 
 it was still a mighty living power. The words of the 
 writer of the dry “.Durham Rites” — no rhetorician, no 
 fervid apologist of the system — deserve to be quoted as 
 a friendly contemporary’s cold and measured estimate of 
 monastic life at the close of the fifteenth century. He 
 speaks of the doings of a great religious house as just and 
 true. “ It was alwaies most virtuouslie occupied, never 
 
 33 2 
 
On the Life Led by the Monk 
 
 idle, but either writing of good and godly wourkes, or 
 studying the Holie Scriptures, to the setting furthe of the 
 honour and glorie of God, and for the edifienge of the 
 people, as well in example of good life and conversacion as 
 by preaching the worde of God. Thus you may se and per- 
 ceave how the monnks and religious men were occupied in 
 most godly writing, and other exercissis in auncient time.” 
 Monasticism has indeed a splendid record of service done 
 to religion, to art, to letters, indeed to well-nigh every- 
 thing that made life beautiful and desirable in a nation. 
 
 But when all their beneficent work, and the widespread 
 influence of their stern, grave, austere life is acknow- 
 ledged, the serious historian of the past, as he reviews 
 the great monastic movements which emphatically stirred 
 and influenced, and in many respects blessed mankind, 
 is compelled to recognise one cardinal error which un- 
 doubtedly coloured all monasticism, and which, too, is 
 inseparable from the monastic ideal. The teaching of 
 great monks like Lanfranc and Anselm, at the close of 
 the eleventh and beginning of the twelfth centuries, has 
 been well summarised by an eminent teacher of our day : 
 “The hard, stern sceculum (the age) was unmanageable 
 and uncontrollable. Those who believed in Christ’s 
 teaching might be honest in leaving the wild tumult 
 without , and by adopting the monastic profession, secure 
 ports of refuge and shelter, where men might find the 
 religion which the conditions of active society seem to 
 exclude. ... A man who wanted to serve God with all 
 his heart had little choice but to be a monk. . . . Monas- 
 teries were to be places where the search after peace and 
 light and purity, and the conquest of evil, were made the 
 objects of human life.” 1 But this teaching ignored to 
 1 Dean Church of S. Paul’s, “ Life of Anselm.” 
 
 333 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 some extent, if it did not contradict, the solemn prayer 
 of the Founder of Christianity : “ I pray not that Thou 
 shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou 
 shouldest keep them from the evil.” 1 The result of this 
 central idea of the monastic life was to beget a spirit of 
 stern exclusiveness among the “ religious.” Their own 
 salvation, their own safety, with little reference to that 
 of the world outside, was indeed what the true monk aimed 
 at. “ Self-centred, having few interests outside those 
 cloister walls where they proposed to pass their lives, 
 under the shadow of which they hoped to die, they 
 regarded themselves as a chosen band, they believed 
 themselves to be moving heavenwards as a company, 
 and all together. The whole notion underlying their 
 existence was that of each helping the other within the 
 narrow limits of the community. On the other hand, 
 their religion had hardly any outward tendency. They 
 had no vocation to save the outer world. The monks 
 hardly realised that those outside were their brethren, 
 hungry and naked, full of needs and sufferings. The 
 provision for their stately church, their community, their 
 administration, made them hard and unfeeling towards 
 others, and this was fostered and aggravated by their 
 own firm belief that they were, in a sense, especially 
 God’s elect, the heirs of safety here and of salvation 
 hereafter .” 2 
 
 Not that charity, alms-giving, relief to the poor and 
 suffering, was by any means ignored in the monastic life, 
 but these poor and suffering had rather to seek out the 
 monastery. The monastery, as a rule, scarcely thought 
 
 1 S. John xvii. 15. 
 
 2 Dean Kitchen (of Durham), notes on the Obedientiary Roll of 
 S. Swithun of Winchester. 
 
 334 
 
On the Life Led by the Monk 
 
 it its duty to seek for the poor, the wretched, the ignorant. 
 No one, however destitute and helpless, it is true, ever 
 knocked in vain at the door of a monastic house ; but 
 these sad-eyed ones had to knock first. The monk sought 
 not for them. There were, of course, many splendid 
 exceptions to this monkish selfishness, for this it was. 
 An abbot of Epternach, who died in a.d. 1106, for in- 
 stance, wrote the following remarkable words — words 
 which no doubt found an echo in the heart, if not in 
 the speech, of many of his brother-abbots : “ It matters 
 not that our churches rise to heaven, that the capitals of 
 their pillars are carved and gilded, that our parchment is 
 tinted purple, that gold is melted to form the letters of 
 our MSS., and that the bindings of these precious MSS. 
 are studded often with gems, if we have no care for the 
 members of Christ, and if Christ Himself lies naked and 
 dying before our doors.” 1 
 
 Another distinguished contemporary of S. Hugh of 
 Cluny in the eleventh century, Abbot William of Ilir- 
 schau, laboured, we read, in good earnest for the insane 
 poor. The great Benedictine abbey on the Loire, one 
 of the daughter-houses of Cluny, received its famous 
 name of “ La Charite-sur-Loire ” as a general recogni- 
 tion of its conspicuous deeds of love. But in spite of 
 these and many other noble exceptions, the monk as a rule 
 was, as we have stated, sadly self-centred, “ sublimely ” 
 selfish. 
 
 Monastic Christianity, it has been well and truly said, 
 finds its most complete expression in that little manual 
 of devotion put out by an unknown writer of great power 
 
 1 Quoted by Montalembert, “Monks of the West,” book xviii 
 chap, vi., from “ Flores Epitaphii Sanctorum,” ap. Mabillon, Ann. 
 1. lxxi. 23. 
 
 335 
 
The White Robe of Churches 
 
 in the fifteenth century, known to all men as “ The Imita- 
 tion of Christ.” The book is beautiful beyond expression, 
 breathing throughout, thoughts at once noble and saintly, 
 but the name is strangely misleading. Emphatically it is 
 not the imitation of Christ. “Its boundless popularity 
 reminds us,” said Dean Milman of S. Paul’s, “that it 
 supplies some imperious want in the Christianity of man- 
 kind, but, like monasticism, of which it is the perfect 
 exponent, it is absolutely and entirely selfish in its aims, 
 as in its acts. Its sole, single, exclusive object is the 
 purification, the elevation, of the individual soul, of the 
 man absolutely isolated from his kind, with no fears, no 
 hopes, no sympathies of our common nature ; he has 
 absolutely withdrawn himself, not only from the cares, 
 the sins, the trials, but from the duties, the moral and 
 religious fate of the world.” 1 
 
 It was the consciousness of this grave error, of this 
 fatal lack in the ordinary conception of monasticism, 
 which suggested to Francis of Assisi, and in a somewhat 
 modified form to Dominic, in the early years of the thir- 
 teenth century, the idea of founding the Mendicant orders. 
 The Benedictines, including, of course, the Benedictine 
 offshoots, the Cluniacs and Cistercians, and numerous 
 orders more or less their imitators, were rarely mission- 
 aries. They seldom touched, and made few real efforts 
 to touch, the masses of uncared-for souls living, dying 
 at their gates. The acknowledged aim, on the other- 
 hand, of the Mendicant friars, including the Franciscans 
 and Dominicans, and other less known orders, was not 
 the salvation of the individual monk, but the salvation 
 of others, through their agency. The marvellous and 
 
 1 Dean Milman, “Latin Christianity,” vol. vi., Bk. xiv., chap. iii. 
 
 336 
 
GLOUCESTER CATHEDRAL 
 
 Carrel in South Cloister 
 
On the Life Led by the Monk 
 
 undreamed-of growth of the mediaeval friars, and their 
 wonderful popularity, tells us, with a voice none can 
 mistake, that these men had found the true key to the 
 people’s hearts. In England the “ coming of the friars ” 
 put off the downfall of monasticism for some two hundred 
 years . 1 
 
 1 Compare the author’s “Church of England, a History for the 
 People,” vol. ii. chap, xxxvi. 
 
 337 
 
 Y 
 
Appendix 
 
 APPENDIX A 
 
 THE TOWER OR BELFRY 
 
 Somewhat earlier than the date, a.d. 770, of Pope Stephen III.’s 
 Bell Tower at S. Peter’s at Rome, referred to in the text, Eddi, 
 the friend and biographer of Wilfrid the great English bishop, 
 writes of a Bell Tower erected at Hexham Abbey, of great 
 height. Hexham Abbey was built about a.d. 674. Eddi, 
 however, is not very accurate in his details. There appear 
 to have been some important towers attached to, or in the 
 immediate vicinity of some of the churches built by the 
 Comacine Guild of Architects and Builders, under the Lombard 
 rule of North Italy. The most perfect specimen of such a 
 tower is the one belonging to S. Frediano at Lucca, erected at 
 the close of the seventh or in the early years of the eighth 
 century. Perhaps the oldest examples of very early Latin 
 towers are the round towers of S. Apollinare in Classe, and of 
 S. Apollinare Nuova at Ravenna, but both these are separated 
 from the main building of the basilicas in question. 
 
 APPENDIX B 
 
 An interesting and by no means baseless theory has very 
 recently been ably advanced, which ascribes to the somewhat 
 
 33 8 
 
Appendix 
 
 obscure Guild of Cotnacine Masters, or to their influence, “ all 
 that was architecturally good in Italy during the dark centuries 
 between a.d. 500 and a.d. 1200. To them can be traced the 
 building of those fine Lombard basilicas, S. Ambrogio at Milan, 
 &c. . . . Tiieir hand was in the grand basilicas of S. Agnese, 
 S. Lorenzo, S. Clemente, &c., in Rome, and in the wondrous 
 cloisters and aisles of Monreale and Palermo. Through them, 
 architecture and sculpture were carried into foreign lands — 
 France, Spain, Germany, and England — and there developed 
 into new and varied styles, according to the exigencies of the 
 climate and the tone of the people.” 1 
 
 The Guild of Comacine Masters, though perhaps the fore- 
 going list of their architectural triumphs is somewhat over- 
 stated, unquestionably carried out considerable and admirable 
 architectural work during the period of the Lombard supremacy 
 in North and Central Italy, between a.d. 578 and a.d. 774. 
 The scholarly writer above quoted considers that these Coma- 
 cines were the direct successors of an old Roman “ Collegium ” 
 or Guild of Architects and Builders, some of whom were in 
 the first instance driven from Rome in the persecution of 
 Diocletian, a.d. 302, and who were recruited by others of the 
 same Guild who fled from Rome after the desolation brought 
 upon the capital of the world by the repeated terrible incursions 
 and raids of the Goths and Yandals in the fifth century. 
 
 Como, and the Comacine island in the lake where this 
 famous Guild established itself, was a Romano-Greek colony ; 
 it possessed the rights of a Roman municipium, and was a 
 district which might be termed a privileged territory — some 
 even style it a republic. In the troubles of the fifth and sixth 
 centuries it preserved its semi-independence, and when eventu- 
 ally it fell under the domination of the Lombards, its Guild 
 of Architects and Artists was protected and patronised by the 
 Lombard kings, and under their powerful shadow flourished 
 
 1 “The Cathedral Builders : the Story of a groat Masonic Guild.” 
 By Leader Scott. London, 1899. 
 
 339 
 
Appendix 
 
 and worked through the period of the darkest days of the 
 barbarian raids. 
 
 Among the conquests of Charlemagne in the later years of 
 the eight century, the Lombardic kingdom, which had endured 
 for some two centuries, was included. The Comacine Guild, 
 however, did not suffer from the change of masters, and the 
 Lombard architects (the Comacine Guild) were probably largely 
 employed by the great Emperor in various parts of his vast 
 dominions in the church-building work which was a distin- 
 guishing feature of his reign. 
 
 After the death of Charlemagne, a.d. 814, troublous times 
 again soon set in, and the long period of confusion, trouble, and 
 anarchy which endured for a century and a half to two cen- 
 turies effectually put a stop to all great architectural work 
 throughout the West. 
 
 During the darkest age the Comacine Guild of Freemasons 
 “hybernated” — to use the term of the above-quoted writer — 
 but they lived on, preserving the secrets and traditions of 
 the craft. What works of art were carried out in this 
 dreary age between a. d. 814 and a.d. 1000, were due 
 to this brotherhood of artists, builders, and masons — 
 Freemasons as they styled themselves — apparently, as we have 
 stated, the direct successors of an ancient Roman “ Collegium ” 
 or Guild of Masons. 
 
 Our author traces the existence and work of the famous 
 Comacine Guild in Italy all through the Middle Ages, when 
 Romanesque work had gradually given place to what is termed 
 Italian-Gothic, and still later, through the Renaissance period 
 of the last years of the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries. 
 
 Now, without accepting the very broad assumptions and 
 far-reaching deductions of the interesting and suggestive study 
 to which we are referring, the following points seem to have 
 been fairly established : — 
 
 ( 1 ) A strikingly able guild of architects and masons existed 
 at Comacina (Como), and carried out some very remarkable 
 
 340 
 
Appendix 
 
 works in North and Central Italy during the period of Lombard 
 supremacy, a.d. 568-774. Nor does there seem any reason to 
 question the employment of this “ Comacine ” guild by Charle- 
 magne in his very considerable church work in different parts 
 of his vast empire. 
 
 (2) Considering that the more famous early church-builders 
 in foreign lands — such as Benedict Biscop and Wilfrid in Eng- 
 land (end of the seventh and eighth centuries), Boniface in 
 Germany (in the eighth century), and S. Guillaume of Dijon in 
 France, and especially in Normandy (early in the eleventh 
 century) — seem to have drawn their architects and masons 
 largely from Italy, it is at least probable that the Italian 
 portion of the architects and masons employed by these church- 
 builders belonged to this Comacine Guild. 
 
 (3) Their existence and work in Italy all through the 
 mediaeval period, after the eleventh century until the fifteenth 
 and sixteenth centuries, is undoubted. 
 
 More than this, it would seem hazardous, in the present 
 state of knowledge on this subject, to concede to the Comacine 
 Builders. 
 
 341 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abbeys rivalled by cathedrals, 
 122 ff. 
 
 Africa, form of ahar in, 220 
 Aldred, Bishop of Worcester, 71 /., 
 86, 88 
 
 Alfred the Great, 42/. 
 
 Altar : “Jesus ” Altar, or Altar of 
 the Holy Cross, 106 ; place, 210 ; 
 original form, 21 1 ; in the Cata- 
 combs, 21 1 ff.; High Altar in 
 E. and W. Church, 220 /., 229, 
 243 ; after the Peace of the 
 Church, 222 /. ; appearance, 
 225 ; curtains, 222, 226 ff. ; 
 material, 228 ; number, 229/.; 
 magnificence, 231 ; ornaments, 
 231 ff.; loss of original appear- 
 ance, 234 ; innovations, 235 ; 
 mentioned in New Testament, 
 
 237 ; not mentioned in Prayer 
 Book, 237 ; Puritan destruction, 
 
 238 /. ; present use, 240 
 Andrewes, Bishop, on the Euch- 
 arist, 238 
 
 Anselm, 33, 79 ; quoted, 302 
 Apse, 154/. 
 
 Art and the Virgin, 252 
 Assisi, Francis of, 336 
 Augustine, 237 
 Augustinian canons, 30 
 
 Ball-flowers, 145 
 Baronius, Cardinal, 19 
 
 Basilica, 2 /., 134 ff., of S. Paul- 
 without-the-walls, 137, 153, 223; 
 of S. Peter’s, 223; symbolism of, 
 225 
 
 Belfry, 268. See Appendix A, 
 
 338 
 
 Bells, use, 270 ff. ; introduction, 
 274 ; history, 281 ff.; ornaments 
 engraved on, 284 
 Bells of Gloucester Cathedral, 
 
 283/. 
 
 Benedict Biscop, 182 
 Benedictines, 23, 25, 30, 48 /., 70, 
 336 
 
 Beornwulf of Mercia, 70, 88 
 Bernard of Clairvaux, 41, 103, 251, 
 272 
 
 Berno, Abbot, 231 f. 
 
 Bishoprics transferred to popular 
 centres, 50 
 
 Books, writing of, 299 ; illumin- 
 ation of, 299 
 
 Bradestone, Lord, and the east 
 window of Gloucester, 206 
 Bruno of Toul : see Leo IX. 
 Byzantine churches, 138 
 
 Calixtus, S., cemetery of, 216 
 crypt of, 216 
 Canopies, 197/., 209 
 Canute, 28, 42, 47, 50, 61, 70, 
 88 
 
 Carilef, William, 53, 57, 92 
 
 342 
 
Index 
 
 Catacombs, 2, 21 1 ff. ; oratories in, 
 216 ; restoration of, 217 
 Ceawlin, 69 
 
 Celibacy in Roman Church, 50 
 Chalcidicum, 136 
 Chapter-house, 312 
 Charlemagne, 9, 11, 13, 46, 61, 
 183 
 
 capitularies of, 220 
 
 Charles Martel, 8 
 
 Chartres, 102, 184, 191, 1 93 /•’ 2 35 
 
 Chivalry, origin of, 247 
 
 Choir: a mediaeval feature, 153, 
 
 1 58 ; early specimens, 1 54 /. ; 
 enclosure of choirs, 162 /. ; 
 description of a fourteenth- 
 century choir, 163 /.; subse- 
 quent changes in plan, 166 ; 
 choir of Gloucester, 167 ff.; 
 veil of perpendicular tracery, 
 172 ff.; vaulting, 174 /.; neg- 
 lected in seventeenth century, 
 176 
 
 Chrysostom, S., 237 
 Church building in the East, 4 /. ; 
 in the West, 4, 34 ff., 47 /•, 5 1 /• 
 (England), chap, ix., 122 ff., 
 260 ff. 
 
 Church, Dean, quoted, 233/. 
 Cistercians, 30, 48, 184 
 Clement, Bishop, 1 7 
 Cloisters : genesis of, 289 ff. ; 
 
 cathedral, 292 ; use, 293, 298/.; 
 place, 294 ; adornment, 296 ff; 
 examples, 296 ; libraries, 299 ff- ; 
 writing and copying in, 303 ; 
 at Gloucester, 291, 294, 296 /., 
 300, 304 ; scene of art work, 
 304 ff; schools in, 306 ff. ; 
 roof, 309 ; walls, 310 ; south, 
 3x1 ; east, 31 1 ; north, 314 ff. ; 
 west, 319 
 
 Cluny, Abbey of, 23, chap, v., 
 32/., 38. 59, 139, 231, 242, 321 
 
 Colouring in mediaeval churches 
 and abbeys, 97 ff. ; its oriental 
 origin and western application, 
 102 /., 180 ; traces in Gloucester 
 Cathedral, 96/. 
 
 Comacine masters : Appendix B, 
 338/ 
 
 Confessionary, 77 ff. 
 
 Constantine, 2 /., 61, 154, 218, 
 225 ; acts of, 222 
 Council: of Reims, 19 /.; of Mentz 
 20 ; of Epaona, 220, 228 ; 
 
 second of Nice, 221 ; Anglo- 
 Saxon, 221 
 
 Crusades, 48, 102 f, 247 
 Crypt: origin, 77 f; a Latin 
 feature, 78 f. ; not built after 
 twelfth century, 81 ; notable 
 examples, 82 / ; a service in the 
 crypt at Chartres, 84 the 
 crypt of Gloucester, 86 ff. ; story 
 of the crypt, 89 /. 
 
 Cubicula, 214, 228 
 Cyprian, S., 237 
 
 Dates, tables of, xix. /., 45, 71 
 De Caumont, quoted, 64, 195 
 Decius : see Persecution 
 Decorated architecture, 142 /., 
 145, 197 
 Decretals, 17 
 
 Degradation of the Church in the 
 tenth century : continental, 
 
 15/.; English, 42/. 
 
 Deorham, battle of, 69 
 Diocletian : see Persecution 
 Dome in architecture, 64 /. 
 Dominic, S., 336 
 Dugdale’s Munasticon, 69 
 Dunstan, 45, 47, 81 
 
 343 
 
Index 
 
 Durandus of Mende (author of 
 the Rationale Divinorum Offici- 
 oruvi), 1 17, 125, 130/., 221, 228, 
 232/., 235, 281, 285, 308 
 Durham, Rites of, 106, 113, 234, 
 285/., 299/., 307, 311/., 313/., 
 332 /. 
 
 Eadmer, 79 
 
 Edward the Confessor, 28, 42, 47, 
 50, 71 
 
 Edward II. and Abbot Thokey, 
 147 ; tomb, 148 ; pilgrimages 
 to his shrine, 148/. 
 
 Eginhard, 138 
 Ely Cathedral, 58 
 Enamel paint, 186 
 End of the world expected, 20/. 
 England in the ninth and tenth 
 centuries, 43 ff. 
 
 Ethelred of Mercia, 69 f 
 Eucharist, 21 1, 221, 215, 242 ff.; 
 
 Bishop Andrewes on, 238 
 Eusebius, 2, 21 1 
 Eva, Abbess of Gloucester, 70 
 Evelyn quoted, 176 
 
 Feretory, 169 
 Flambard, Ralph, 57, 92 
 Flashed glass, 184 
 Franks, 8/. 
 
 Freeman, E. A., quoted, 150 /., 
 172 
 
 Fulchered, Abbot, 109 
 Fulgence, Abbot, 33 
 Fursseus, 81. 
 
 Galerius : see Persecution 
 Gardiner, S. R., quoted, 129 
 Gauburge, S., altar, 231 ; relics, 
 232 
 
 Gaul, 6/., 12 ff. 
 
 Gauzon, 38, 150 
 Genseric the Vandal, 4 
 Gloucester : in the Roman era, 
 68 ; under the West Saxons, 69 ; 
 foundation of the Abbey by 
 Osric, 69 ; a royal city, 72, 146/. 
 Gloucester Cathedral : originally 
 a Benedictine monastery, 70 /., 
 73 ' 264, 325 ff. ; Romanesque 
 architecture, 62 f; date of 
 earlier portions, 74 /. ; nave, 58, 
 93/-; crypt, 86 ff. ; south tran- 
 sept, 144 f, 150 ff.; north tran- 
 sept, 152, 175 ; the choir, 167 ff. ; 
 the east window, 173, 204 ; 
 
 windows, 186/.; Lady Chapel, 
 244 ff. ; tower, 278 ff. ; bells, 
 283/. ; organ, 287 ff. ; cloisters, 
 291 ff. ; library, 300; monks’ 
 cemetery, 312 ; chapter-house, 
 312/.; refectory, 317/. 
 Godefroy, Bishop of Amiens, 33 
 Gothic architecture, 64, 66 ; 
 
 French and English schools, 
 142 /.; decay in seventeenth 
 century, 176; revival in nine- 
 teenth century, 177, 190 
 Goths sack Rome, 217 
 Green, J. R., quoted, 43 
 Gregory VII. (Pope), 26, 29, 48/., 
 65, 76, 229 
 
 Gregory of Tours, 182 
 Grisaille, 188 f., 193 
 Guilds of traders, 117 ff., 125, 
 196 ; cf. Comacine masters 
 
 Henry the Fowler, 14 
 Herbert, George, quoted, 132 
 Herbert of Losinga, Bishopof Nor- 
 wich, 58, 92 
 Hilda of Whitby, 69 /. 
 
 Hincmar of Reims, 182 
 
 344 
 
Index 
 
 Horton, Abbot, 152, 175 
 Hugh, Abbot of Cluny, 23 /., 33, 
 38, 76, 139, 150 
 Hugh Capet, 13 
 Hungarians : see Magyars 
 Huysinan, quoted, 85, 103 
 
 Ignatius, quoted, 229 ; cf. 237 
 *• Imitation of Christ,” 336 
 Irenseus, 227 
 
 John, S., Revelation quoted, 219 
 John, S., Lateran, basilica of, 
 223 
 
 John XII. (Pope), 18 
 Jones, Inigo, 12 
 Justinian, ^ff., 64, 138 
 
 Kyneburga, Abbess of Glouces- 
 ter, 70 
 
 Lady Chapel, 244 ff. ; of Glou- 
 cester, 99 f, 143, 253/. 
 Lanfranc, 28, 49, 52 ff., 65, 73, 
 76 
 
 Leo IX. (Pope), 20 
 Liernes, 174 
 
 Lights in medieval churches) 
 
 107 f 
 
 Liturgies, ancient, 246 
 Lombards, supremacy of, 6 ; de- 
 struction wrought by, 217 
 
 Mabillon, 18 
 Magyars, 13 /., 22 
 Mahommedan invasions, 6, 8, 12 
 Martyrium, 156 
 
 Mary, The Virgin : veneration of, 
 244 ff. ; in art, 252 ; chapel at 
 Gloucester, 253/. 
 
 Mayeul of Cluny, 23 
 Medallion windows, 191 /., 196 
 
 Melchiades, 17 
 Michelet quoted, 12/. 
 
 Milan, Edict of, 2, 4, 9, 61, 222 
 Milman, Dean, quoted, 16, 111 /. 
 Monasteries : artificial lights, 324 
 ff. ; administration, 325 ; offi- 
 cials, 326 ff., 332 ; Act of Sup- 
 pression, 330 
 Monastic churches, 60 
 Monasticism in England, 49 ; in- 
 fluence on social and religious 
 life, 159 
 
 Monk : life in the cloister, 321 ff. ; 
 daily rule, 322 /. ; literary work 
 324 ; caricatures, 329 ; recrea- 
 tions, 331 ff. ; services to the 
 world, 332 
 
 Morwent, Abbot of Gloucester, 93 
 Mystery plays in churches : origin, 
 
 1 10 /. ; in Latin and English, 
 hi ; description of the ‘Resur- 
 rection’ performance, 113 /. ; 
 place in festal services, 1 1 5 ; 
 performed by trade guilds, 117 
 ff. ; at York, Coventry, &c., 1 18 ; 
 discontinued in churches and 
 abbeys, 120; distinguished from 
 miracle plays, 121 n. 
 
 Nave of Gloucester : built by 
 Serlo, 93 ; originally decorated, 
 94 ff. ; screen and altars, 106/. ; 
 crowds, 108/., 125/.; scene of 
 mystery plays, chap. xv. ; de- 
 veloped in thirteenth century, 
 125 ; desecration, 128 f. ; sym- 
 bolism, 130/. 
 
 Nave of Norwich, 58 ; of Peter- 
 borough, 58/. 
 
 Nero : see Persecution 
 Nicholas I. (Pope), 17 
 Norman Conquest, 55 
 
Index 
 
 Norman churches and abbeys, 
 55 / 
 
 Notre Dame, 194, 235 
 
 Odilo of Cluny, 23 
 Odo, Archbishop, 23, 79 
 Odoacer the Herule, 4 
 Oratories, earliest Christian, 2 
 Orders, religious, 30, 250 ; cf 
 Benedictines, Cistercians 
 Organ, 285 /. ; of Gloucester 
 Cathedral, 168, 287/. 
 
 Origen, 237 
 Osmund, 91 
 Osric, 69/. 
 
 Otho the Great, 13^ 
 
 Papacy: in the tenth century, 18 
 /•; under Gregory VII., 26 
 Papal legates, 49 
 Paschal II. (Pope), 29 
 Paul, S., quoted, 237 
 Paul, S., without-the- walls : see 
 Basilica 
 
 Paul’s Walk, 128/. 
 
 Peace of the Church, 61, 78 
 Perpendicular or pointed archi- 
 tecture, 143/., 150/., 170, 175, 
 i 77 /.> 196, 198, 255 
 Persecution of Christians : by 
 
 Nero, 215 ; Decius, 215, 217 ; 
 Diocletian, 2,215,217; Galerius, 
 216 f. 
 
 Peter’s, S. : altars, 229; reredos, 
 230 ; cf. Basilica 
 Pisa, Cathedral, of 41 
 Piscina, 241 ; use, 242/. 
 
 Popular Christianity in thirteenth 
 century, 127/.; 140 
 Pot-metal glass, 184/. 
 
 Prayer, Common : Anglican Book 
 of, 237 
 
 Presbyterium, 154, 156, 167 
 Prudentius quoted, 219/. 
 
 Pusey quoted, 246 
 
 Quicherat quoted, 64, 78 
 Quignon, Cardinal, 251 
 
 Raoul Glaber, i, 20 f., 34, 51, 54, 
 
 158 
 
 Refectory in Gloucester Cathedral, 
 317 / 
 
 Reformation, work of the, 245, 
 249, 256 
 
 Reims, Cathedral of, 194 
 Reliquaries, 81 
 Renaissance glass, 198/. 
 Renaissance of the Church in 
 eleventh century, 11, 21/., 34 
 /., 65, 158/. 
 
 Reredos or retable, 229 /. 
 ‘Reynolds’ window in New College 
 Chapel, 202 
 
 Richard of St. Victor, 13 1 
 Ridley, work of Bishop, 239 
 Robert the Magnificent, 28 
 Robert the Pious, 12 
 Rollo, 28 
 
 Romanesque : origin of the term 
 and of the style, symbolism, 
 etc., 62 ff.; influence on Glou- 
 cester Cathedral, 74 ff. ; transi- 
 tion to Gothic, 142 /.; gloomy 
 effect, 146 
 Rood-screens, 106 
 Roofs, perpendicular, 255 
 
 S. Apollinaris (church), 6 
 S. Clement (church), 155 
 S. Denys (church), 81, 164, 1S4, 
 191 
 
 S. Gall (abbey), 107, 138 
 
 346 
 
Index 
 
 S. Gudule (cathedral), window in, 
 198 
 
 S. Mark (church), 39 /., 65 
 S. Sophia (mosque), 4 
 S. Vitale (church), 6 
 Sacerdotalism in fourteenth cen- 
 tury, 126 f. 
 
 Sainte Chapelle (Paris), windows 
 in, 192 
 
 Saracens, 12 ; of. Mohammedan 
 Invasions 
 
 Scott, Sir G. G., quoted, 98 /., 106, 
 142/., i53 
 
 Screen, 105 /., 163 /., 166 
 Sculpture forbidden, 274 
 Septimania, 8 
 Sergius III. (Pope), 18 
 Sergius IV. (Pope), 18 
 Serlo, Abbot of Gloucester, 53 /., 
 72 /., 86, 88 /., 91 ff., 98, 108, 
 144, I 7 I /■ 
 
 Severus, Bishop, 234 
 Silver stain glass, 185/. 
 
 Simony in the Church, 19, 29 
 Size of Saxon and Norman 
 churches, 63 
 Spire : see Tower 
 
 Stained glass : in Gloucester 
 
 Cathedral, 179; a post-Roman- 
 esque feature, 180; beginnings, 
 181 ff. ; development as illus- 
 trated by windows of Glouces- 
 ter Cathedral, 186 /. ; epochs 
 in the history of, 191#.; in 
 twelfth century, 191 ; in thir- 
 teenth century, 192 /. ; in four- 
 teenth century, 196/.; in fif- 
 teenth and sixteenth centuries, 
 198 ff - ; in seventeenth and 
 eighteenth centuries, 202 ; re- 
 cent revival of the craft, 203 
 Stanton, Abbot, 152, 17 1, 173, 178 
 
 Suger, Abbot, 81 
 Sylvester II. (Pope), 19 
 
 Table, the Holy : sec Altar 
 Tertullian, 237 
 Teuton invasions, 8 
 Tewkesbury Abbey, 58, 76, 93, 
 205 
 
 Theodora, 18 
 
 Theodoric the Ostrogoth, 5 
 Theophilus’ Diversarum Artium 
 Schedula, 183 
 Thokey, Abbot, 98, 144#. 
 
 Tower : 268 ; history, 268 ff. ; 
 
 notable examples, 275 ff. ; Glou- 
 cester, 278 ff. ; cf. Appendix A, 
 338 
 
 Transept : basilican origin, 135 ; 
 use of the term, 136 ; developed 
 in eleventh century, 138 ff. ; 
 double transept, 139 /. ; south 
 transept of Gloucester, 1 50 ff. ; 
 north ditto, 152, 175 
 Truce of God, 32 
 
 Urban II. (Pope), 29, 48, 67 
 
 Vault in architecture, 66/. 
 
 Veil of altar, 125, 226 ff. 
 
 Veil of perpendicular tracery in 
 Gloucester Cathedral, 172 ff. 
 Vikings, 9, 11 /., 14 /., 22, 28, 
 42/- 
 
 Viollet le Due quoted, 99/., 118, 
 I3U 153 23S 
 Visigoths, 8 
 
 Waller, F. S., quoted, 87, 94/. 
 Waltham Abbey, 47 
 Westminster Abbey, 47 
 
Index 
 
 “White Robe of Churches” ex- 
 plained, chap. vi. 
 
 Wilfrid of York, 182 
 William the Conqueror, 28, 43, 49, 
 52 /. 
 
 William the Pious, 23 
 Willis, Professor, quoted, 172/ 
 Windows : see Stained glass 
 Wotton, Sir Henry, quoted, 176 
 
 Wren, Sir Christopher, quoted, 
 176 
 
 Wulstan, Bishop of Worcester, 
 9i 
 
 Wygmore, Abbot, 98, 106, 145 /., 
 150/, 209 
 
 York Minster: stained glass, 184, 
 189, 193 
 
 THE END 
 
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