The Cathedral Church of Christ, Oxford.
FROM THE FIELDS.
FROM THE FIELDS.
“About the year of our Lord 727, there lived in Oxford a Saxon prince named Didan, who had an only child, Frideswide (‘bond of peace’). Seeing that he had large possessions and inheritances, and that she was likely to enjoy most of them after his decease, Frideswide told her father that he could not do better than bestow them upon some religious fabric where she and her spiritual sisters might spend their days in prayers and in singing psalms and hymns to God. Wherefore the good old man built a church, and committed it wholly to the use of his daughter, purposely to exercise her devotion therein; and other edifices adjoining to the church, to serve as lodging-rooms for Frideswide and twelve virgins of noble extraction. There she became famous for her piety and for those excellent parts that nature had endowed her withal; and Algar, King of Leicester, becameher adorer by way of marriage. Finding that he could not prevail with her by all the entreaties and gifts imaginable, he departed home, but sent to her ambassadors with this special and sovereign caution, that if she did not concede, to watch their opportunity and carry her away by force. Frideswide was inexorable. Wherefore at the dawning of the day the ambassadors clambered the fences of the house, and by degrees approaching her private lodging, promised to themselves nothing but surety of their prize. But she, awakening suddenly and discovering them, and finding it vain to make an escape, being so closely besieged, fervently prayed to the Almighty that He would preserve her from the violence of those wicked persons, and that He would show some special token of revenge upon them for this their bold attempt. Wherefore the ambassadors were miraculously struck blind, and like madmen ran headlong yelling about the city. But Algar was filled with rage, and intended for Oxford, breathing out nothing but fire and sword. Which thing being told to Frideswide in a dream, with her sisters the nuns Katherine and Cicely, she fled to the riverside, where there awaited her a young man with a beautiful countenance and clothed in white, who, mitigating their fear with pleasant speech, rowed them up the river to a wood ten miles distant. There the nuns sheltered in a hut, which ivy and other sprouts quickly overgrew, hiding them from sight of man. Three years Frideswide lived in Benton wood, when she came back to Binsey and afterwards to Oxford, in which place this maiden, having gained the triumph of her virginity, worked many miracles; and when her days were over and her Spouse called her, she there died.” Such is the account of her which Anthony-a-Wood drew from William of Malmesbury and Prior Philip of Oxford, both of whom unfortunately lived long after the events which they narrate.
I. In the east walls of the north choir-aisle and the Lady chapel three small rude arches have recently been found,and outside, in the gardens, the foundations of the walls of three apses. Hence it has been concluded that we have here the eastern termination of Frideswide’s eighth-century church. It may be so, but the central arch seems very small for the chancel-arch of an aisled church. It is indeed a foot wider than the chancel-arch of the Saxon church at Bradford-on-Avon, but that tiny church has no aisles. Moreover, if the side-arches led into aisles, they would be likely to be of the same height, whereas the southern arch is considerably the higher of the two.
NAVE.
NAVE.
II. At some later period—perhaps in the eighth or ninth century—the foundation was converted into one of secular canons, married priests taking the place of the nuns (cf. Ely). The secular canons themselves in turn gave way to monks, and these in 1111 to regular canons—i.e., canons living in monastic fashion under the rule (regula) of St. Augustine, as at Bristol, Ripon, and Carlisle.
The first business, probably, of the secular canons was to house themselves—i.e., to build themselves the usual cloister, with its appanages of chapter-house, refectory, dormitory, etc. Of the chapter-house which they built,c.1125, the doorway still remains.
In 1004 King Ethelred had rebuilt the Saxon church; and probably it was found possible to put this church into suchrepair as would allow the services to be held in it for the time being. At any rate, it was not till 1158 that they commenced the present cathedral, which they finished in 1180, leaving not a stone standing of Ethelred’s cathedral. Of the theory that the present cathedral is in the main the one built in 1004, I would prefer to say nothing, had it not been adopted in a recent history of the cathedral; suffice to say that, like the sister theory that Waltham Abbey was built in 1060, it is an absolute impossibility. The hands of the archæological clock cannot be turned 160 years back in this preposterous fashion.
The twelfth-century church was very remarkable in plan. Not only had it an aisled nave and an aisled choir, but it had the architectural luxury, unparalleled in our Norman architecture except in the vast churches of Winchester and Ely, of eastern and western aisles to its transepts. The site, however, was cramped to the south, and so the southern transept was shorter than the northern one; moreover, this short transept later on lost its west aisle, which was lopped off to allow the cloister to be extended. For the same reason—lack of room—the slype, or vaulted passage, which in all monastic institutions connected the cloister with the cemetery, instead of being built between the transept and the cloister, was built inside the church, as at Hexham, curtailing still further the floor area of the north transept. It was therefore because the church was so cramped to the south, that the other transept was given aisles on both sides. Instead of an eastern aisle, the south transept had merely a square chapel projecting eastward.
But the canons wanted also a Lady chapel, for the church seems to have been dedicated originally to the Holy Trinity, St. Mary and St. Frideswide. The normal position of a Lady chapel was to the east of the sanctuary. But here also the canons were cramped; for quite close to the east end of the church ran the city wall. To get in a Lady chapel, therefore, they had to build an additional aisle north of the north aisleof the choir. This was three bays long. It was probably walled off from the transept, but opened into the north choir-aisle by three Norman arches, reconstructed later on. The same arrangement is found at Ripon. There was also a short chapel projecting eastward from the northernmost bay of the east aisle of the north transept.
The east end, as at Rochester and Ripon, was square. The present east end is a fine composition by Scott, more or less conjectural. The work commenced, as usual, at the east, as is shown by the gradual improvement westward in the design of the capitals. The evidence of the vaulting, too, points in the same direction. In the choir-aisle the ribs are massive and heavy; in the western aisle of the north transept they are lighter; in the south aisle of the nave they are pointed and filleted.
The transepts are narrower than the nave and choir; the tower, therefore, is oblong, and, as at Bolton Priory, its narrow sides have pointed arches: semicircular arches would have been too low. The faces of the piers of the towers are flat, because the stalls of the canons were placed against them and in the eastern bays of the nave, leaving the whole eastern limb as sanctuary.
The clerestory walls are only 41½ feet high; therefore, to have adopted the usual Norman design—viz., triforium on the top of pier-arcade—would have made the interior look very squat: so, instead of building the triforium above the pier-arcade, it was built beneath it. The lofty pier-arches, thus gained, add greatly to the apparent height and dignity of the interior. The lower arches, however, which carry the vault of the aisle behind, are corbelled into the piers in very clumsy fashion. The design is not original; it was worked out at Romsey in a single bay of the nave, but, being thought ugly, was promptly abandoned. It is worked out more successfully in Dunstable Priory church and Jedburgh Abbey. The clerestory windows of the nave would be built not much before 1180; naturally, therefore, they are pointed. The capitals of all thetwelfth-century work are full of interest. Indeed, Transitional capitals—each an experiment, and all differing—partly conventional, partly naturalistic, with a dash of Classic—are to me much more interesting than any of the Gothic capitals, except perhaps the naturalistic capitals of the later Geometrical period. There is a great sameness about the foliated capitals of the Early English, Curvilinear, and Perpendicular periods. I need hardly say that no one of these capitals came from Ethelred’s church.
The whole church is exceedingly interesting. It fills a niche in the history of English architecture all by itself. It is not the plain and austere Transitional work of the Cistercians. On the other hand, it has not yet the lightness and grace of Ripon; still less the charm of Canterbury choir, Chichester presbytery, Wells and Abbey Dore—Gothic in all but name. In spite of its foliated capitals, in spite of a pointed arch here and there, it is a Romanesque design; yet not so Romanesque as Fountains, Kirkstall, Furness.
III. In theLancetperiod (1190-1245) the works went on apace. An upper stage was added to the tower, and on that the spire was built—the first large stone spire in England. It is a Broach spire:i.e., the cardinal sides of the spire are built right out to the eaves, so that there is no parapet. On the other hand, instead of having broaches at the angle, it has pinnacles. Moreover, to bring down the thrusts more vertically, heavy dormer-windows are inserted at the foot of each of the cardinal sides of the spire: altogether a very logical and scientific piece of engineering, much more common in the early spires of Northern France than in England.
The chapter-house also was rebuilt (c.1240); rectangular, to fit the cloister. Also, the canons rebuilt both the Lady chapel and the adjoining transeptal chapel. Lancet work will be seen in all the piers on the south side of the Lady chapel, and in the second and third piers from the west, on its north side. The cult of the Virgin, much fostered by the Pope, Innocent III., was at its height in the thirteenth century.The Lady chapels of Bristol, Hereford, Salisbury, Winchester and Norwich were contemporaries of that of Oxford.
IV. To the latter half of theGeometricalperiod belong the fragments of the pedestal of St. Frideswide’s shrine, which has beautiful naturalistic foliage like that of the contemporary pedestal of St. Thomas of Hereford,A.D.1289. Some twenty years later is the fine canopied tomb of Prior Sutton.
CHOIR.
CHOIR.
V. In theCurvilinearperiod (1315-1360) the eastern chapel of the north transept was pulled down, and in its place was built a chapel of four bays, with four side windows of singularly beautiful tracery, and all different. They contain fourteenth-century glass, which should be compared with that in St. Lucy’s chapel and in Merton College chapel. The bosses are very beautiful: one of them has a representation of the water-lilies of the adjacent Cherwell. Hard by is the tomb of Lady Montacute, who gave the canons about half the Christ Church meadows to found a chantry. The chapel goes by various names: St. Katharine’s chapel, the Latin chapel, and the Divinity chapel. It contains good poppy-heads of Cardinal Wolsey’s time.
About the same time the eastern chapel of the south transept—St. Lucy’s chapel—was enlarged. The tracery of its east window starts in an unusual fashion below the spring of the arch.
Also the Norman windows were replaced here and there by large windows with flowing tracery, to improve the lighting of the church.
VI. There is little to show for the long Perpendicular period (1360-1485), except the insertion of a few large Perpendicular windows, and the so-called “Watching-chamber,” the lower part of which is the tomb of a merchant and his wife, the upper part probably, the chantry belonging to it,c.1480.
VII. In the Tudor period, however, the canons were exceedingly busy. They set to work to make the whole church fireproof by covering choir, transepts, and nave with stone vaults. The choir vault is rather overdone with prettinesses. It is a copy—and an inferior one—of the massive vault of the Divinity School, which was completedc.1478. Canon Zouch, who died in 1503, left money to proceed with the vault of the north transept, beneath which is his tomb. Only a small portion of this was completed. In the clerestory of the nave also corbels were inserted to support a stone vault; but the resources of the canons seem to have failed, and the rest of the church received roofs of wood. Another considerable work was the rebuilding of the cloisters.
VIII. Finally, the whole establishment was granted in 1524 to Cardinal Wolsey, who pulled down the three western bays of the nave, as obstructing his new quadrangle: one bay has been recently rebuilt.
IX. In 1542 Henry VIII. founded the new diocese of Oxford. Till 1546 the seat of the bishopric was at Osney Abbey. On the suppression of the abbey it was transferred to Wolsey’s confiscated foundation; and the ancient Priory church became a cathedral, while at the same time it is the chapel of the college of Christ Church. There is an interesting contemporary window in the south choir aisle, showing the first bishop of Oxford, King, with Osney Abbey on one side. The “merry Christ Church bells” came from the tower shown in this window.
X. At the entrance to the Great Hall is the last bit of good Gothic done in England, a sort of chapter-house in fan-tracery.
XI. The cathedral possesses a charming Jacobean pulpit,and a large amount of fine Flemish glass of the seventeenth century—all of it taken out and stowed away in some lumber-room at a recent restoration, except one window at the west end of the north aisle of the nave, in order to insert some sham mediæval windows.
XII. There are also five windows from designs by Sir Edward Burne-Jones—three of them of great beauty; good windows by Clayton and Bell in the end walls of the transepts; and a charming reredos by Mr. Bodley, who also has the credit of the bell tower.