Ecclesiastical Curiosities

g of the Engl

. Geo. S.

incere, patient, and therefore capable of great deeds; original, not in extravagance or eccentricity, but in the realization of the natural development of style, advancing from grace to grace, from the perfection of solidity to the perfection of adornment, by an unforced growth; sincere, in its confidence of its own capacity for fulfilling its appointed end, in its grasp of the possibilities in its materials, in its ch

ch have recently required the rebuilding of the central tower, and the supposed necessity of reconstructing the west front, all that the case will prove is that our great monastic architects' work was not always absolutely eternal. "So there was jerry-building in those days too!" someone exclaims, with a n

1112, exhibits an outburst of popular enthusiasm which irresistibly recalls the free gifts of the Hebrew people for the building of the first temple. "The prayers having been said and the antiphons sung," says Peter Blesensis, vice-chancellor under Henry II., "the abbot himself laid the first corner-stone on the east side. After him every man according to his degree laid his stone; some laid money, others writings by

uotiens." Sometimes, by way of penance itself, a fine was imposed, which was devoted to a local building fund. Gilbert, bishop of Chichester, in certain constitutions promulgated in 1289 rules that every priest in the diocese who shall be convicted of certain scandalous sins shall "forfeit forty shillings, to be applied to the structure of Chichester Cathedral." In modern money this fine would amount to something like ￡40. Walter, Bishop of Worcester, also ordained in 1240 that beneficed priests who dressed unclerically should be fined t

t. William Heyworth, bishop of Coventry, (a see now owning Chester as its mother city), decreed in 1428 that "every canon on commencing his

be devoted to "the completion of a certain stone tower, 51 which had remained for a long time unfinished." The same canons bitterly complained because the Pope had ordained that all vacant prebends throughout the country shou

he offerings of pilgrims. The eastern part of Rochester Cathedral was paid for by the moneys deposited at the tomb of S. William of Per

f a few wealthy men, sometimes the countless small gifts of the multitude, have become transmuted into tapering spire, or ponderous tower, "long-drawn aisle and fretted

ir sites. Some humble building, often reared by one of the pioneers of the faith, was in t

erected at Verulam; S. Deiniol built a little stave-kirk, or timber church, at Bangor about 550; and Kentigern, some ten years later, raised the first religious establishment at Llanelwy, or S. Asaph

rs' simple fanes; in a surprising number of instances the lightning-flash or the raging fire destroyed the buildings wholly or in part. The cathedrals of the north felt more than once the shock of the Border wars; and civil strife, or religious fanaticism, wrought misch

apel for the interment of the occupants of the see; and Odo, in the tenth century, enlarged and re-roofed it. But in the days of saintly Alphege, in 1005, the Danish invaders fell upon the city, 54 making of the church a ruin, and of its bishop a martyr. A similar fate befell the metropolitan church of the north. On the site where Paulinus baptized King Edwin

building here was begun by Peada, King of Mercia, in the seventh century. In the year 870 the Danes, on one of their forays, burnt church and monastery to the ground, and massacred the abbot and all his monks. In 971 King Edgar raised the place once more from its desolation, 55 but again it was seriously damaged, though not absolutely destroyed, by the s

and city. In the reign of Hardicanute (1039–1041) the citizens of Worcester, having risen against the payment of the ship-tax, were severely punished, a military force being sent to occupy their city. So thoroughly did it carry out the work of inflicting discipline on the malcontents, that the church, amongst other buildings, was left in ruins. The original church at Gloucester was built in 681, as part of a conventual establishment; this was destroyed, and, after an interval, rebuilt by Beornulph, King of Mercia, sometime previous to 825. This church was looted by the Danes, but restored by S. Edward the Confessor. In the year after the Conquest, Gloucester was occupied by the Normans, whose entrance was not, however, accep

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by Albert F

H CATH

cattered over the land must have seemed very rude structures in the eyes of the prelates who came in the victor's train. S. Edward the Confessor, with his Norman predilections, had no doubt accustomed his courtiers to some aspe

trymen, placed in the abbeys and sees of England, began to rebui

clean sweep of that, and beginning from the foundations. S. Anselm, and the prior of the monastery, Ernulph, took up the work and enlarged upon Lanfranc's design, pulling down and re-building the choir. Early in