The Cathedral Church of St. Alban.

FROM SOUTH-WEST.

Of all our cathedrals none is so composite and heterogeneous as the ancient church of the Benedictine abbey of St. Alban. It is mainly built—even the fourteenth-century Lady chapel—of Roman tiles. Saxon balusters appear in the triforium of the transepts. In the nave and transepts and tower is Early Norman work, unequalled in extent and grandeur; in the south transept are built up the fragmentsof a Late Norman doorway, to which period, or to the first days of the Transitional period (1145-1190), belongs the interlacing arcade now placed above it. In the west front and the western bays of the nave is Lancet work of two periods (1190-1245). In the sanctuary is seen Early Geometrical work (1245-1280); the ante-chapel, commenced in the Early, was finished in the Late Geometrical period (1280-1315). The Lady chapel (1291-1326) is a most interesting example of the transition from the Late Geometrical to the Curvilinear style. The latter is represented by the five eastern bays on the south side of the nave, by the remains of the cloisters, by the shrines of St. Alban and St. Amphibalus, and by the Holy Rood screen (1315-1360). Perpendicular work is represented by the alterations to the cloisters, by the abbey gatehouse, by the triforium windows on the north side of the nave and choir, inserted when the aisle roofs were lowered, by the watching-loft, by the chantries of the Duke of Gloucester and Abbot Wheathampstead, and by the reredos and painted ceiling. Tudor work appears in the chapel of the Transfiguration, and in the admirable chantry of Abbot Ramryge; while the “Gothic revival” is stamped on every feature of Lord Grimthorpe’s façades to the west, north and south. There is not a single hiatus in the series. St. Alban’s is a veritable architectural handbook, written in brick and stone. The student should remember, however, that at St. Alban’s there is a good deal of what is called assimilation. The Lancet bays and the Curvilinear bays in the nave are not typical and characteristic of their respective periods. The architects of these bays had not a free hand. They were not able to compose the design simply to suit the fashion of the day. Their bays were to be Lancet and Curvilinear only so far as might be without ruining the general design and proportions of the nave as a whole. With these reservations, the tyro in architecture is recommended to select St. Alban’s as his “Introduction to Mediæval Architecture.” If he comes from London, he should choose the longer route, bythe London & North-Western Railway: he will have less distance to walk on arriving, and will see the cathedral from the most picturesque point of view. If time permits, he should proceed direct from the railway station to Verulamium, and see the Roman walls and fosse, and the interesting church of St. Michael’s, with the famous monument of Lord Bacon, before visiting the cathedral.

NAVE, NORTH SIDE.

In Roman times the town was on the other side of the little river, the Ver, a tributary of the Colne, and hence was called Verulamium. In the revolt of Boadicea it was burnt, but was soon rebuilt. In the year 303, “there was gret persecution of Christen pepell by the tyrant Diocletian”; and Alban, a citizen of Verulamium, who had given shelter to a Welsh priest, Amphibalus, was scourged, and then dragged along the ancient British causeway, which still exists, across the Ver, and up the lane to the top of the hill afterwards called Holmhurst, and there put to death. Amphibalus suffered the same fate. On the west wall of the north transept of the cathedral, just under a round-headed window, is a small black cross cut in stone. “This marks the traditional site of the martyrdom of St. Alban, when there was neither town nor abbey in this place, but only a flowery slope planted with trees.” In the fifth century the English conquered the district. They abandoned Verulamium, andbuilt the present town on the hill of Holmhurst, calling it Watlingceaster, as Watling Street ran through it. In the year 793, Offa, king of Mercia, treacherously murdered Ethelbert, king of East Anglia (seeHereford). It was revealed to him in a vision that, by way of penance, he should seek out the body of St. Alban, and there erect a monastery. King, archbishop, bishops, priests, and a great multitude of common people, searched the hill of Holmhurst, and found the relics of the martyr. A church was built, and richly endowed, and was entrusted to Benedictine monks. It remained a Benedictine abbey-church till the Dissolution, in 1539. Then it became a parish church, and in 1875 a cathedral.

TRIFORIUM OF TRANSEPT.

The relics of St. Alban had an eventful history. First they were carried off by pirates to Denmark, but were afterwards restored. Then, in expectation of another Danish raid, they were sent for safety to Ely. When the Danes had gone, the monks of Ely, being desirous to keep the precious bones in their possession, palmed on the monks of St. Alban’s some suppositious relics. Whereupon the monks of St. Alban’s asserted that neither had they sent to Ely the genuine relics, but only sham ones, to draw attention away from the fact that they had hidden the authentic bones of the martyr in a hole in the wall of their own church! “Credat Judæus Apelles.”

Towards the end of the eleventh century Nicholas Breakspear was born at Abbots Langley, in Hertfordshire. He applied to the abbey of St. Alban to be admitted a monk, but was scornfully rejected, and rebuked for his impudence, being, as he was, son of one of the menials of the convent. This same man became Pope in 1154—the only Englishman who ever became Pope. And when he became Pope, under the title of Adrian IV., he forgot not the monks of St. Alban’s, but forgave them, and made their monastery free of episcopal jurisdiction for ever, and subject only to the see of Rome. And to the abbot he gave precedence over all other English abbots; which precedency, after much dispute with Westminster, St. Alban’s retained till the Dissolution.

In 1455 was fought the first battle of St. Albans, when Henry VI. was wounded in the neck by an arrow, and made prisoner by the Yorkists under the Earl of Warwick. The forces met in Holywell Street (where we entered the town), between the Key and the Chequer. In the second battle, 1461, the Earl of Warwick was defeated by Queen Margaret.

St. Alban’s was an exceedingly wealthy abbey; it had estates in almost every county in England, and at the present value of money its income would amount to at least a million. Its conventual buildings must have been immense. One of the guest-halls, in addition to parlours and bedrooms, had stables for three hundred horses. Of all these vast structures nothing remains but one of the gatehouses, built in 1380. In it were detained the French prisoners in the Napoleonic wars; afterwards it became a common gaol, now it houses the Grammar School.

NAVE, NORTH SIDE.

Internally, the church is divided from west to east, in ancient monastic fashion, into (1) nave, (2) choir, (3) sanctuary, (4) Saints’ chapel, (5) retro-choir or ante-chapel, (6) Lady chapel. (1) The ritual nave occupies the ten western bays only of the architectural nave, and terminates at the Holy Rood screen. (2) The ritual choir is not placed in the eastern limb; but, following a far more ancient precedent, in thethree eastern bays of the architectural nave, and in the crossing (that part of the transept which is beneath the central tower). This was the place of the choir in the primitive basilicas, and in the early monastic churches. The “Coro” of the Spanish cathedrals is still placed in the nave. The same arrangement survives in this country in Westminster Abbey and Norwich, and has lately been restored at Peterborough. (3) The sanctuary extends from the tower to the great reredos, and provided a free and unencumbered space in front of the high altar, which “dwelt apart.” (4) The Saint’s chapel was occupied, like the feretory at Winchester, by magnificent shrines which towered behind and above the high altar, visible far down the nave, at least before the great reredos was erected. (5) The retro-choir or ante-chapel provided a processional path, or ambulatory, or eastern choir aisle at the back of the shrines. Romsey and Hereford possess the earliest of these processional paths, Winchester the largest. (6) The Lady chapel occupies its normal position, to the extreme east. But where there was no room for farther eastward extension of the cathedral, the Lady chapel may be found on the north or south side of the choir, as at Bristol and Oxford. Here, as at Salisbury and Winchester, the high roofs do not extend over retro-choir and Lady chapel, which are only one story high; at Yorkand Lincoln and Ely, the church retains its full height uninterruptedly to the extreme east end; the ritualistic divisions of the church being marked by screens only.

LADY-CHAPEL LOOKING EAST.

In Norman times the church did not extend so far eastward. The sanctuary ended in three semicircular apses, of which those of the aisles were semicircular inside but square outside, as at Romsey. And, in lieu of eastern aisles, the transepts had each a pair of little semicircular chapels, the arches leading into which may still be seen in their eastern walls.

“In 1077, Paul, a monk of St. Stephen’s, Caen (the Abbaye-aux-hommes), was elected Abbot, through the influence of Archbishop Lanfranc, whose kinsman he was.” In these words we have the origin of St. Alban’s Cathedral; and not of St. Alban’s only, but of all the mediæval architecture of our land, whether Romanesque or Gothic. Before the Norman conquest we had a native style of our own; a kind of primitive Romanesque, of which remains survive at Jarrow, Wing, Worth, Deerhurst, and elsewhere, as well as in the crypts of Ripon, Hexham, and Repton. But the invasion of the Normans changed all this. The primitive indigenous Romanesque of England was thrown aside in favour of the far more advanced Romanesque of Normandy. From the great monastery of St. Stephen, Caen, came Lanfranc, the first, and Anselm, the second Norman Archbishop of Canterbury.When Lanfranc set to work to rebuild Canterbury Cathedral, he made it in length and breadth and height an exact copy of the church of St. Stephen, Caen. What Lanfranc did at Canterbury, the Walkelins did at Winchester and Ely, and Abbot Paul at St. Alban’s. They set to work to rebuild their churches on the vast scale, and with all the improvements, of the Romanesque architecture of Caen and Normandy. St. Stephen’s, Caen, is therefore the link between the architecture of Normandy and that of England; it is the mother-church of all the cathedrals of our land. More than this: Lanfranc and Anselm were by birth, not Normans, but Italians; Lanfranc was born at Pavia, Anselm at Aosta. Paul was a kinsman of Lanfranc. All three, then, came from the great plain of Lombardy; and it was through such scholars and theologians as these that the architecture of Lombardy found its way into Normandy. For the architecture of Normandy is in character mainly Lombardic. Therefore, just as Canterbury and Winchester and St. Alban’s are the offspring of St. Stephen’s, Caen; so St. Stephen’s itself is the child of S. Ambrogio and S. Eustorgio, Milan; S. Stephen, Verona; S. Sophia, Padua; and other ninth- and tenth-century churches of Lombardy and the neighbourhood.

RAMRYGE’S CHANTRY.

But though in origin Winchester, Ely, and St. Alban’s hail from Caen, they all far surpass their model in vastness of scale. Winchester and Ely even committed the magnificent extravagance of having a western as well as an eastern aisle to the transepts; and though St. Alban’s, like Canterbury, had an aisleless transept, yet it surpassed them all in the stupendous length of its nave. Still moredoes it surpass the Caen church and Lanfranc’s Canterbury. Caen and Canterbury had nine bays in the nave, two in the choir, and two in each transept; St. Alban’s had thirteen in the nave, five in the choir, and three in each transept. Caen and Canterbury had naves 193 feet long, transepts 145 feet long, and a total length of 290 feet; St. Alban’s a nave 292 feet long (as long as the whole churches at Caen and Canterbury), transepts 177 feet long, and a total length of about 430 feet. In the fourteenth century, owing to the eastward extensions, St. Alban’s became longer still—520 feet inside, 550 feet outside. Winchester is even longer still: 2 yards longer than St. Alban’s; 3 yards longer than Ely; 4 yards longer than Canterbury.

WEST FRONT.

I.Early Norman.—Of the work of Paul of Caen (1077-1093), we have the central tower and transept practically complete, and large portions of the nave and sanctuary. The design is strictly conditioned by the material, Roman brick; in consequence of the employment of which the architect was driven to rely for his effects, not on ornament or detail, but on what is nobler far, vastness of scale. It is worth while to compare the brick transept of St. Alban’s with the contemporarytransept of Winchester, where the design is conditioned by the use of stone.

II.Late Norman.—A fine arcade and doorway have been removed from the slype to the south wall of the south transept by Lord Grimthorpe. He is good enough to tell us that the new work which he has interpolated is so artful that no archæologist in future shall be able to ascertain which portions are old and which are new.

III.Lancet.—The vast and imposing church completed in the twelfth century found little favour in Gothic eyes. It was apparently regarded not only as ugly, but as incapable of being improved into something better. The only thing was to pull it down. In the end the monks did pull down and rebuild a large part of it, occupying at least a hundred years in the work. Fortunately for us, they wearied of their self-imposed task.

They began at the west end of the nave, so as not to interfere with the monastic services. First, John de Celia (1195-1214) proceeded to rebuild the west front on a lovely design, and with a wealth of costly marble and carving. Of this work there remain portions in the north-west and central porches of the façade.

His successor, William de Trumpington, was more economical, and produced more work. He completed the porches, and built in the western end of the nave four bays on the north and five bays on the south side. It can still be seen how he economised, not only on John de Celia’s design, in the arch that was to have led into a south-western tower, but on the design of his own bases, piers and vaulting-shafts; he even renounced the idea of vaulting his work at all—a very ungothic procedure.

IV.Geometrical.—His successors went further still; they abandoned all hope of rebuilding the rest of the nave, and turned their attention to the eastern limb. Retaining their stalls, as at present, in the crossing and the three western bays of the nave, they were able to go on withworks to the east without any interruption to the services. The works dragged on very slowly. For some reason or other this wealthy abbey—with estates in almost every county of England—never had money to spend on its church.

THE REREDOS.

First, the Norman sanctuary and apses were demolished, except that a length of Norman wall was retained on either side of the sanctuary. If this had been removed the tower might have collapsed. The chief feature of the new sanctuary is the clerestory windows, with tracery of early type,c.1250.

Soon after, the lower parts of the Saint’s chapel and the ante-chapel were built; these were not completely finished tillc.1315. There, too, “vaulting ambition had o’erleapt itself”: the monks made preparations for vaults both within and without the ante-chapel, but in the end put up an unworthy flat ceiling.

About 1295 they commenced a new Lady chapel. This was not finished till about 1326. Thus it was built in the last years of the Geometrical and the early years of the Curvilinear style, and, like Selby choir, illustrates charmingly the transition from the one to the other.

V.Curvilinear.—The monks had now done all they meant to do. The eastern limb was rebuilt. They meant to do no more in the nave. But their hands were forced. FiveNorman bays collapsed on the south side of the nave in 1323, and the monks had perforce to rebuild them. The design is closely assimilated to that of the Lancet bays to the west; the clerestory actually having lancet windows without tracery. To this period belong the shrines of St. Alban and St. Amphibalus, the Rood-screen, the doorway and arcade of the cloister.

THE SHRINE.

VI.Perpendicular.—The great gateway was builtc.1380. The nave and choir were better lighted on the north side by the insertion of windows in the triforium. The watching-loft was constructedc.1420; the choir was ceiled, and the great reredos was erectedc.1480. To the same period belong the brass of Abbot de la Mare,c.1390; and the grand chantries of Abbot Wheathampstead and Duke Humphrey of Gloucester,c.1440.

VII.Tudor.—The grandest chantry of all is that of Abbot Ramryge,c.1520.

VIII. In recent times vast sums have been spent in underpinning and securing the walls and tower: and we have had the amazing west front and transept-ends designed by Lord Grimthorpe.

The “Annals of an Abbey,” in Froude’s “Short Studies,” should be read.

Back to Index Next