  Dedication: St. Mary. A Church served by Secular Canons. Special features: St. Hugh’s Choir; Angel Choir; East Window; Central Tower. Lincoln Cathedral possesses a commanding site and three splendid towers that form a beautiful picture. Distance lends enchantment to the view at all times of the day and seasons of the year. “Throughout a vast district around the city, the one great feature of the landscape is the mighty minster, which, almost like that of Laon, crowns the edge of the ridge, rising, with a steepness well-nigh unknown in the streets of English towns, above the lower city and the plain at its feet. Next in importance to the minster is the castle, which, marred as it is by modern changes, still crowns the height as no unworthy yoke-fellow of its ecclesiastical neighbour. The proud polygonal keep of the fortress still groups well with the soaring towers, the sharp-pointed gables, the long continuous line of roof, of the church of Remigius and Saint Hugh.”—(E. A. F.) Lincoln Cathedral is also a landmark in the history of architecture, for here was developed the first complete and pure form of the third great form of architecture—the architecture of the Pointed Arch. “The best informed French antiquaries acknowledge that they have nothing like it in France for thirty years afterwards; they thought it was copied from Notre-Dame at Dijon, to which there is a considerable resemblance, but that church was not consecrated till 1230, so that the Dijon architect might have copied from the Lincoln one, To the historian, as well as to the student of architecture, Lincoln makes a strong appeal for many visits. Those whose time is limited will be impatient to inspect St. Hugh’s Choir, and the more beautiful Angel Choir beyond it. We must, however, pause a moment to recapitulate its history before we begin our walk through the Cathedral. “The surface or exterior of Lincoln Cathedral presents at least four perfect specimens of the succeeding styles of the first four orders of Gothic architecture. The greater part of the front may be as old as the time of its founder, Bishop Remigius, at the end of the Eleventh Century; but even here may be traced invasions and intermixtures, up to the Fifteenth Century. The large indented windows are of this latter period, and exhibit a frightful heresy. The western towers carry you to the end of the Twelfth Century; then succeeds a wonderful extent of the Early English, or the pointed arch. The transepts begin with the Thirteenth, and come down to the middle of the Fourteenth Century; and the interior, especially the choir and the side aisles, abounds with the most exquisitely varied specimens of that period. Fruits, flowers, vegetables, insects, capriccios of every description, encircle the arches or shafts, and sparkle upon the capitals of pillars. Even down to the reign of Henry VIII. there are two private chapels, to the left of the smaller south porch, on entrance, which are perfect gems of art.”—(T. F. D.) In the Seventh Century, Paulinus, Bishop of York, made converts in the Roman hill-town of Lincoln, and several churches were founded. The “bishop’s stool” was at Sidnacester and Dorchester-on-Thames before it was fixed at Lincoln. “The king” (William the Conqueror) “had given Remigius, who had been a monk at Fescamp, the bishopric of Dorchester which is situated on the Thames. This Such is Henry of Huntingdon’s account of the transference of the See, which took place between 1072 and 1075. The church built by Remigius, on the site of an earlier church, was completed in twenty years. Remigius died three days before the date appointed for the consecration, May 9, 1092, and was buried before the Altar of the Holy Cross in front of the rood-screen. This first church was 300 feet long. It was severely plain; but so strong that Stephen used it as a fortress in 1141, when the castle opposite was held by his enemies. The next great builder was Alexander the Magnificent (1123-1148), nephew of Roger, Bishop of Salisbury. A fire destroying the roof in 1141 necessitated repairs. Alexander remodeled parts of the church. He added the elaborate doorways in the west front in 1146; the Norman arcade along the west front; and built the western towers. “Part of the west front of Lincoln was built by Bishop Remi, or Remigius, 1085-1092: the small portion which remains of this work is a very valuable specimen of early Norman, the more so that the insertion of later and richer Norman doorways by Bishop Alexander, about fifty years afterwards, enables us to compare early and late Norman In 1185 an earthquake injured the Cathedral; and so, when Hugh of Avalon became Bishop of Lincoln in 1186, he began to collect money for repairs and rebuilding. The eastern end of the original Cathedral was removed, and in 1192 Bishop Hugh laid the foundations of his very original Choir. The architect was Geoffrey de Noyers. J. H. Parker, who studied Lincoln Cathedral for thirty years, considers this work of St. Hugh (A.D. 1192-1200) pure Early English Gothic and the earliest building of that style in the world. “Canterbury was completed in 1184 and in 1185 St. Hugh of Grenoble, also called St. Hugh of Burgundy, was appointed Bishop of Lincoln, and immediately began to rebuild his cathedral. It is therefore plain that this portion of the building was completed before 1200, and a careful examination enables us to distinguish clearly the work completed in the time of Bishop Hugh, which comprises his choir and the eastern transepts with its chapels. The present vaults of St. Hugh’s Choir, and of both the transepts, were introduced subsequent to the fall of the tower, which occurred in 1240. “The architecture in the north of Lincolnshire and the “Nothing can well exceed the freedom, delicacy and beauty of this work; the original arcade of the time of St. Hugh is of the same free and beautiful style as the additions of his successors. The crockets, arranged vertically one over the other behind the detached marble shafts of the pillars, are a remarkable and not a common feature, which seems to have been in use for a few years only; it occurs also in the west front of Wells Cathedral, the work of Bishop Jocelin, a few years after this at Lincoln; or perhaps under him, of Hugh de Wells.”—(J. H. P.) The eight years during which Hugh carried on the work “were busy ones at Lincoln. Contemporary records enable us to picture him encouraging the workmen by his presence and example, even shewing his zeal by carrying the stones on his own shoulders. He did not live to see his work completed, as Remigius had done. But he had set the example and given the pattern, and the work was continued by his successors until the building was again entire. Hugh had already finished the apse, the eastern transept, the choir, and part of the western transept (i.e., the whole eastern portion of the church) when he fell ill. Finding his death approaching, he sent for his architect Geoffrey de Noyers, and enjoined him to hasten the completion of the altar of St. John the Baptist, his patron. He then gave directions for his funeral, and instructions that he was to be buried in the mother-church of his diocese dedicated to the Mother of God, near the altar of St. John the Baptist. The personality of the great bishop comes vividly before us when we read that he also wished his tomb to be placed near the wall, in a convenient place, lest it should be a stumbling-block to those approaching. On the 16th of November, 1200, Hugh breathed his last, lying, as he had wished, on the bare ground, on a cross of consecrated ashes. His instructions regarding the funeral were carried out; but such a light as Hugh’s could not be hid, and within a century we find his remains enclosed in a costly golden shrine, borne on the shoulders of kings and bishops, and placed at last in a structure erected specially for their reception, ‘one of the loveliest of human works,’ the celebrated Angel Choir. The original place of Hugh’s burial has been somewhat disputed. The Magna Vita tells us that he was buried near the altar he had named, a boreali ipsius aedis regione. On the east side of the eastern transept, Hugh had placed four apsidal chapels, two north and two south of the central apse. From the words above quoted, it has been considered that the northern-most of these chapels was the site of his tomb.”—(A. F. K.) The western transept and the nave were next finished (Thirteenth Century), and a central tower was built to replace the one that fell in 1237-1239. To this period belongs Bishop Hugh de Wells, brother of Jocelin (see page 108), who contributed largely to the funds for building and roofing. He was succeeded by Roger Bacon’s friend, Robert Grosseteste (1235-1253). In his time the new nave was completed. The large screen of the west front, the central gable and the octagonal turrets at the corners, belong to this period; also the lower part of the central tower, the Canon’s Vestry at the eastern transept, and the Galilee Porch at To the treasurer, John de Welburne (died 1380), the Cathedral is indebted for its splendid choir-stalls. The Russell and Longland chantries, the upper parts of the tower, and many windows date from the Perpendicular period. John Evelyn, visiting Lincoln in 1654, gives us an idea how the Cathedral suffered in the Civil Wars: “Lincoln is an old confused town, very long, uneven, steep and ragged, formerly full of good houses, especially churches and abbeys. The minster almost comparable to that of York itself, abounding with marble pillars, and having a fair front (here was interred Queen Eleanora, the loyal and loving wife who sucked the poison out of her husband’s wound); the abbot founder, with rare carving in the stone; the great bell, or Tom, as they call it. I went up the steeple, from whence is a goodly prospect all over the country. The soldiers had lately knocked off most of the brasses from the gravestones, so as few inscriptions were left; they told us that these men went in with axes and hammers, and shut themselves in, till they had rent and torn off some bargeloads of metal, not sparing even the monuments of the dead; so hellish an avarice possessed them: besides which, they exceedingly ruined the city.” We are now able to analyze the West Front, knowing the periods of the great screen wall, with its Gothic arcading and the octagonal stair turrets capped by tall pyramids that terminate the ends; the two tall square towers, Norman below, Perpendicular above; the three great recesses pierced with windows and doors; the gable above the recess with seven arches (two pierced with windows and We must note that upon the southern turret stands a statue of St. Hugh; and The Swineherd of Stow, who contributed a peck of silver pennies towards building the Cathedral, ornaments the northern one. It is a copy of the original, now in the Cloisters. The tracery of the windows in the three recesses is supposed to date from the end of the Fourteenth Century. The big west window and the cinquefoil window above were placed there in Grosseteste’s rule (1235-1253). The central door and those on either side of it, date from the Twelfth Century, and give the best possible idea of the Romanesque period just before it merged into Gothic. Above the central door are eleven kings, from William the Conqueror to Edward III. These statues date from 1350 and were originally coloured and gilt. The two western towers (Norman) were built in the Twelfth Century. The arcading (which is not the same in both) shows where they ended and where the Perpendicular stories were added, carrying them two hundred feet higher. Like the central tower, they were originally crowned with tall wooden spires, covered with lead. These spires became unsafe and were removed in 1807. In the northern, or St. Mary’s, hung “Great Tom of Lincoln” and its successor until 1834. The southern tower, called St. Hugh’s, has a ring of eight bells. Under St. Hugh’s the Ringers’ Chapel is naturally situated; and there is a corresponding chapel under St. Mary’s Tower. Beneath St. Mary’s Tower we find the Northwest Chapel; under St. Hugh’s, the Ringers’ Chapel. Both chapels are vaulted with stone and date from the first half of the Thirteenth Century. The Nave, a very characteristic example of the first half of the Thirteenth Century, “exhibits an Early English style in its highest stage of development: massive without heaviness, rich in detail without exuberance, its parts symmetrically proportioned and carefully studied throughout, the foliated carving bold and effective, there seems no deficiency in any way to deteriorate from its merits.”—(G. G. S.) There are seven bays. The first bay was converted into a sort of vestibule by arches constructed in the Eighteenth Century to add strength to the western towers. The big arch, separating the vestibule from the nave, dates from about 1730. The vaulting under the western towers dates from the Fourteenth Century; also the tracery covering the walls of these compartments. “Each pier is surrounded by round shafts of Purbeck marble. The arch mouldings, like those of St. Hugh’s choir, were considered ‘beautiful specimens’ by Rickman. They are deeply cut, and throw good, bold shadows. In the triforium each bay contains two arches, supported by clustered columns with foliaged capitals. The spandrels are decorated with sunk trefoils or quatrefoils. In most cases the arches are each divided into three sub-arches with clustered shafts, the tympanum being pierced with quatrefoils. A difference is noticeable, however, in the easternmost arch and the two westernmost bays (five arches altogether) on both sides. Here the sub-arches are only two in number. The narrowness of the two western bays accounts for the variation at that end. The clerestory is the same throughout its length, having three tall narrow windows in each bay, with slender banded shafts. In the nave we have, according to Fergusson, ‘a type of the first perfected form of English vaulting.’ He “In the aisles, each bay has two lancet windows, except the easternmost bay on the south side, which has only one. In the jambs are slender Purbeck shafts, twice banded. Just beneath these windows, an arcade of trefoiled arches runs along the whole length of the nave, being continued on the screen walls to the western chapels. The arches are deep, with bold mouldings, and are supported by clustered columns. There are five arches in each bay, but they are not placed in the same manner on both sides of the nave. On the south, the arches are arranged in groups of five, with blank spaces of wall between, in front of which pass the vaulting-shafts. On the north, the arcade is continuous, and is so arranged that each cluster of shafts supporting the vault passes in front of an arch. The work on the south side is more elaborate; tooth ornament is used, a string-course runs along at the height of the capitals, and foliaged bosses are found in the lower corners of the spandrels. In addition to the clustered vaulting-shafts already mentioned, there is a single vaulting-shaft in the centre of each bay, between the windows, rising from a corbel above the wall-arcade. On the north side these corbels merely have plain mouldings, but on the south side they are foliated. The arrangement of the vaulting-ribs is different in the north and south aisles; and in the latter it will be noticed that some of the bosses have figure-subjects, besides the foliage met with on the north side. The Agnus Dei carved on the boss in the fourth bay from the west should be noticed. To such minor differences, continually found in the corresponding parts of a Gothic edifice, the style undoubtedly owes a peculiar charm.”—(A. F. K.) The great West Window was inserted, as we have seen, in Bishop Grosseteste’s time (1235-1253). Under the last arch on the north side of the nave we come to a slab supposed to mark the original burial-place of Remigius. This slab was discovered in the cloisters and is supposed to date from the time of that worthy prelate. The neighbouring Pulpit is probably of the Eighteenth Century. On the other side of the nave stands the black basalt Norman Font, reminding us of the font in Winchester. Around the sides of the square basin a row of grotesque monsters is carved in low relief. Now we come to the Central Tower. Four massive piers carry the four arches from which it rises. Foliage decorates the top of each arch. The spandrels are ornamented by two rows of arcading with slender-clustered shafts. The vaulting is of the Fourteenth Century. The iron rings on the piers were placed there for the purpose of fastening the bell-ropes of the “Lady Bells” that once hung in this tower. A beautiful stone Rood-Screen, Decorated in style and dating from the end of the Thirteenth Century, fills the eastern tower arch, and marks the boundary of St. Hugh’s Choir. Traces of colour and gilding reveal themselves to an earnest scrutiny. “On either side of the central doorway are four deep arches supported by detached pillars, decorated with grotesque heads and small figures of bishops. The wall behind is richly carved with diaper designs, shewing much freedom and variety. This screen was once decorated with colours and gilding, traces of which are still visible. It appears to have suffered a good deal at the hands of iconoclasts; many statues have doubtless been removed, and one must be very cautious with regard to the decoration which remains, as it was considerably restored by a mason named James Pink during the second half of last century. The screen now carries the organ erected in 1826. “The two side doorways leading into the north and south aisles of the choir are somewhat earlier than the screen between them. They are beautiful examples of carving, dating from the end of the Early English period. The exquisite openwork foliage which runs round the arch is executed with the utmost skill and care, and is without the laboured effect of so much of our later stone-work. The injured parts were carefully restored about 1770 by James Pink, who was also employed by Essex on the canopy of the reredos. The doorways have modern iron gates.”—(A. F. K.) The Choir now includes St. Hugh’s Choir and two bays of the Angel Choir beyond. St. Hugh’s Choir is the earliest example of pure Gothic in the world. People are frequently disappointed in it because of its low vault and squat arches; but it must be remembered that the fall of the central tower in 1237-1239 greatly damaged this part of the building. In order to strengthen the choir some heavy columns without capitals replaced the original slender shafts. The arches were also partly reconstructed. Arcaded screens between the piers divide the choir from the aisles north and south, and aid in the support. “The foliage of the capitals is exquisitely beautiful, and though distinguished technically by the name of stiff-leaf Viollet-le-Duc, who fixes the date of St. Hugh’s Choir at 1220 or 1210 at the earliest, says: “We have in Normandy, especially in the cathedral of Rouen and the church of Eu, architecture of the date of 1190; it is purely French, that is to say, it corresponds exactly with the architecture of the ‘Isle de France’ except in certain details. At Eu, at the cathedral of Le Mans, at Seez, we have architecture which resembles that of the choir of Lincoln, but that architecture is from 1210 to 1220, it is the Norman school of the Thirteenth Century. There is, indeed, at Lincoln, an effort at, a tendency to originality, a style of ornament which attempts to emancipate itself; nevertheless the character is purely Anglo-Norman. “The construction is English, the profiles of the mouldings are English, the ornaments are English, the execution of the work belongs to the English school of workmen of the beginning of the Thirteenth Century. “On the exterior the choir of the Cathedral of Lincoln is thoroughly English or Norman, if you will; one can perceive all the Norman influence; arches acutely pointed, blank windows in the clerestory, reminding one of the basilica covered with a wooden roof; a low triforium; each bay of the aisles divided into two by a small buttress; shafts banded. In the interior vaults which have not at all the same construction as the French vaults of the end of the Twelfth Century; arch-mouldings, slender and deeply undercut; the abacus round; the tooth-ornament; which do not at all resemble the ornaments which we find at Paris, Sens, St. Denis, etc.” The Choir-Stalls, dating from the Fourteenth Century, are among the finest in England. Pugin considered them quite the best. “The stalls are in two rows, the upper of 62 seats, and the lower of 46; the former number has now been increased by six and the latter by two. The upper stalls have elaborate trefoiled canopies, surmounted by an intricate maze of buttresses and pinnacles, rising to a height of 24 feet 6 inches above the choir floor. The niches above the canopies have recently been filled with statues of saints in the Anglican Calendar. The stalls in both rows are provided with hinged seats or misereres, intended to serve as supports in the long services during which the occupants of the stalls were required to stand. These seats, as well as the elbow-rests and finials, are richly carved with those grotesque subjects in which the MediÆval artist so greatly delighted. The carver has given full scope to a most fertile imagination. Scriptural subjects do certainly occur on some of the misereres in the upper row, but others are of a playful character. The fox is seen preaching to birds and beasts, and then running riot among them; monkeys are at play, or occupied in the more serious business of hanging one of their number and burying him afterwards; we also find men fighting with wild animals; the labours of husbandry; kings, knights, ladies, dragons, griffins, lions, hogs, and wyverns. Whether there is a hidden meaning in any of these quaint subjects, it is perhaps difficult now to say, but the preaching fox is certainly suggestive.”—(A. F. K.) At the east end of the stalls on the south side rises the Bishop’s Throne with tall Gothic canopy. It was designed by James Essex in 1778, and carved by Lumby. Opposite is Sir Gilbert Scott’s Pulpit of carved oak (1863-1864). The brass chandelier of sixteen lights, suspended from the vault, is dated 1698; and the brass eagle lectern, 1667. The stone Reredos is a mixture of work of the Thirteenth Century and that of James Essex in the Eighteenth Century. James Pink carved the central canopy in 1769 after designs by Essex. The Eastern Transept was also the work of St. St. Hugh died in London in 1200. When his body arrived in Lincoln it was met by King John and carried on the shoulders of archbishops and bishops to the Choir that he had erected. He was buried on November 24; and, according to an old ballad: “A’ the bells o’ merrie Lincoln Without men’s hands were rung, And a’ the books o’ merrie Lincoln Were read without man’s tongue; And ne’er was such a burial Sin’ Adam’s days begun.” Pilgrims came in such numbers to his shrine that it was deemed necessary to make his tomb more important, and the apse was removed for the famous Angel Choir, which, like the Choir of St. Hugh, marks a new period in the history of architecture. “Thus the Angel Choir of Lincoln was erected to contain the shrine of one of Lincoln’s noblest bishops and one of England’s greatest saints, whose lowly tomb, placed in a corner at his own desire for fear of its being in the way, had become the resort of such a vast concourse of pilgrims as to require the transformation of the eastern arm of the minster. In 1255, license was obtained from Henry III. for the removal of part of the eastern city wall, which stood in the way, and in the next year the Angel Choir was probably begun. The work was carried on so rapidly that within a quarter of a century the translation took place. The choir was not, however, fully completed till the Fourteenth Century was well on its way. “The 6th October, 1280, was the proudest day in the history of the city. Perhaps never, before or since, has such an august assembly gathered within her walls. The body of the Saint of Lincoln was to be translated to the costly shrine in the centre of the Angel Choir. The ceremony was magnificent. Edward himself was present, and supported on his own shoulder the saint’s remains as they were carried to their new resting-place; with him was his beloved queen Eleanor, whose effigy was so soon to be placed beneath the same roof. The king and queen were accompanied by Edmund, Earl of Kent, brother of Edward, and his wife; the Earls of Gloucester and Warwick; the Archbishop of Canterbury; the bishops of Lincoln, Bath, Ely, Norwich, Worcester, Llandaff, Bangor, and St. Asaph; the bishop-elect of Exeter; and two hundred and fifty knights. The shrine, ornamented with gold and silver and precious stones, was raised on a lofty stone pedestal, and about thirty years after was protected by an iron grille, wrought by Simon the Smith. It is recorded that the fastenings of the grille were still to be seen in the pavement at the middle of the last century, but all traces have now entirely disappeared. It must have been soon after the translation that the head was removed from the body, and enclosed in a metal case, enriched with gold and silver and precious stones. A keeper was appointed to guard the precious relic during the day, and two had this charge at night. Yet, in spite of all such precautions, it was stolen from the church in the year 1364; the head was thrown into a field, and the case sold in London for twenty marks. The thieves were robbed of their ill-gotten gains on their way back, and were afterwards convicted of the crime, and hanged at Lincoln. The head was found and restored to the cathedral. The treasurer, John de Welburne (d. 1380), either restored the old shrine or made a new one of the same materials.”—(A. F. K.) Fergusson called the Angel Choir “the most beautiful presbytery in England.” It dates from 1256 to 1280, when the Early English was merging into the Decorated. The sculptural angels that ornament the spandrels of the triforium account for the name. “It is in five bays carried eastward at a uniform height and breadth with the choir of St. Hugh. Lincoln stone is used throughout, relieved with shafts and capitals of Purbeck marble. The spandrels of the great arches, which are plain in other parts of the building are here decorated with sunk geometrical forms. Each bay of the triforium is divided, as elsewhere, into two arches, both of which enclose two sub-arches; but the details are richer than in the earlier parts of the minster. The clerestory has one window of four lights in each bay, with an eight-foil and two trefoils in the head. The compartments of the vault were originally coated with plaster, which has been scraped away so as to shew the stone surface underneath. It is a question whether it does not now look better than with the old plaster, and the gaudy colouring which once, most probably, decorated it. The springers of the vaulting are supported by slender shafts, which rest on elaborately foliaged corbels in the spandrels of the great arches. The beautiful foliaged bosses along the ridge rib are best seen from the triforium or the clerestory.”—(A. F. K.) In olden times the Angel Choir contained the Shrine of St. Hugh and a monument to Queen Eleanor, of which the one now standing in Westminster Abbey is probably a copy. It was an altar-monument of marble with the Queen’s effigy in gilded brass, and was destroyed during the Civil Wars in the Seventeenth Century. Eleanor died not far from Lincoln, from which city the funeral procession started to London. A modern stone monument, with a brass effigy of Queen Eleanor, was placed under the East Window in 1891. Just behind the reredos there is a row of four table-tombs. The north one was placed there by Bishop Fuller, to mark the resting place of St. Hugh; next comes Bishop Fuller himself (died 1675); next, Bishop Gardiner (died 1705); and next, Subdean Gardiner and his daughter, Susanna (died 1731 and 1732). Near the latter stands the Leland, writing in the time of Henry VIII., mentions two mutilated tombs: Catherine Swynford, the third wife of John of Gaunt, made Earl of Lincoln in 1362, and that of her daughter, Joan Beaufort, who married the Earl of Westmoreland. On the north side of the choir is the Easter Sepulchre, a fine piece of Thirteenth Century carving, in the Decorated style. It consists of four canopies with trefoiled arches. Three sleeping soldiers ornament three of the panels. On a spandrel on the north side, under a corbel above the most easterly pier, sits the Lincoln Imp—one of those grotesques that the MediÆval carvers delighted in creating; and here he has been sitting with crossed leg and grinning grimly for centuries. He is of the same family as The Devil Looking over Lincoln (see page 309). In the South Aisle of the choir we pause again before another spot, sacred in MediÆval days. Here stood until the Seventeenth Century the Shrine of The canons of Lincoln obtained the body and buried it in the Cathedral. Hugh became a local saint; and the Jews of Lincoln were promptly persecuted. When the stone coffin was opened in 1791, the skeleton of a child three feet long, encased in lead, was found. Henry of Huntingdon (died about 1155), the chronicler of Lincoln, was also buried in this aisle. On the north and south of the Angel Choir is a small chantry. That on the north is the Fleming Chantry, built by Richard Fleming, Bishop of Lincoln in 1419-1431, and the corresponding one the Russell Chantry, built by John Russell, who held the See from 1480 to 1494. This is similar to the Fleming Chantry, Perpendicular in style. Very similar is the Longland Chantry, on the other side of the south door, or Bishop’s Porch. This chantry was built by John Longland, Bishop of Lincoln, in 1521-1547. There is no Lady-Chapel. The great East Window is the finest specimen of its kind in England. It is formed of eight lights; and the great wheel of the head is composed of a six-foil, surrounded by six quatrefoils. “Bar-tracery being fully developed, the general appearance of ‘the window is rather Decorated than Early English, but the mouldings still belong to the earlier style.’ ‘This window ... together with the whole of that part of the choir is singularly and beautifully accommodated to the style of the rest of the building.’”—(R.) The glass is modern and deals with scenes from the life of Christ, and the Old Testament. “The aisle windows are each of three lights, with three circles in the head, two filled with cinquefoils and one with a quatrefoil. The two east windows of the aisles are similar to the others. The wall below the windows is decorated all round with arcading of a richer design than that in the nave. Two trefoiled arches are included in a larger arch, with a quatrefoil within a circle filling the head. The spandrels have sunk trefoils. The bosses of the stone vaults to the aisles are carved with sacred subjects, foliage, and grotesque figures. “The east windows of the north and south aisles are filled with beautiful stained glass of the Early English period. The subjects are arranged within medallions, and, though somewhat difficult to decipher, appear to represent scenes in the lives of two saints whose story has many points of resemblance—St. Thomas of Canterbury and St. Hugh of Lincoln. The glass is said to have been moved about the end of the last century from the windows of the nave aisles. The date of the medallions may be placed towards the middle of the Thirteenth Century, about the time of the erection of the nave, and, of course, earlier than the windows which they now occupy. The grisaille into which they are now reglazed, is considered by Westlake to be the earliest in England.”—(A. F. K.) One of St. Hugh’s characteristics was the peculiar double arcading on his walls. We find it in the choir and transepts. The Western Transept was begun by St. Hugh; and his work is thought to end at the walls of the six chapels that run along the eastern side. These are dedicated to St. Nicholas, St. Denis, St. James, St. Edward the Martyr, St. John the Evangelist and St. Giles, and are separated from the transept by screens placed between the piers. Four of these screens are of carved oak and date from the Fifteenth Century; but the one of carved stone is of The Dean’s Eye, in the north end, dates from about 1220. Here we have not only exquisite tracery, but splendid glass of the Thirteenth Century. “It represents the Church on Earth and the Church in Heaven. In the centre is our Saviour seated in the midst of the Blessed in Heaven. Around are four large compartments, containing portions of different subjects, which do not appear to have all originally belonged to their present positions. The most interesting is that shewing the translation of the relics of St. Hugh, represented as borne on the shoulders of crowned and mitred personages. Of the sixteen outer circles, the topmost represents our Saviour seated on a rainbow; on either side are angels with the instruments of the Passion; in the next circles St. Peter and other saints are conducting holy persons to heaven; below these is the general Resurrection; the lowest five circles each contain the figure of an archbishop or bishop. The subjects can be best seen from the neighbouring triforium or from the passage which runs just beneath the window; it will be noticed that the glass in some of the compartments is much mutilated, as might naturally be expected, considering its antiquity. From below, the subjects are confused and not easy to distinguish, but the rich and harmonious blending of the colours can be seen to the fullest advantage, and the general effect is much finer. Rickman believes the form of the tracery to be quite unique in England, but states that there is a window exactly similar at Laon.”—(A. F. K.) An arcade of seven lancet arches runs beneath the window. The wall behind is pierced with win The Bishop’s Eye, at the south and opposite end, is about a hundred years later than its companion. It is Fourteenth Century and Decorated. “It is filled with delicate and beautiful flowing tracery, which has been compared to the fibres of a leaf. Rickman considers it to be the richest remaining example of its period. It is enclosed within a kind of arch formed by two rows of openwork quatrefoils; an open frame-work of a similar nature is often to be seen round circular windows in French cathedrals. The glass consists of fragments from other windows, chiefly of the Early English period. Although the pieces are placed quite at random, forming no subject whatever, yet the effect of the colouring is good, especially when seen from the opposite end of the transept. Of all the modern windows in the minster, with their elaborate subjects, it may safely be said that not one can be compared in effect with this mass of glowing colour.”—(A. F. K.) The four lancet windows below contain Early English glass, collected from various parts of the Cathedral. Near the Bishop’s Eye John de Dalderby’s shrine was situated. This was of “massey silver” incrusted with diamonds and rubies. John de Dalderby, Bishop of Lincoln from 1300 to 1320, was reverenced as a local saint. Henry VIII. removed his altar-tomb, fragments of which may be seen near the Galilee Porch, situated at the corner of the south arm of the western transept, different in Retracing our steps—no great hardship in a place of such beauty and interest—we walk up the south-choir-aisle to the Eastern Transept, where we have two semicircular chapels on the right hand, and on the left the Dean’s Chapel. We are now at St. Hugh’s earliest work; and his double arcading is again seen in the north wall leading to the cloisters. Here also we find on two of the columns crockets that were novelties at this period. They occur at Wells, the work of Jocelin. The name of Dean’s Chapel is a misnomer—no one knows what it was used for originally. It has been suggested that it was the original burial-place of St. Hugh. Two semicircular chapels also border the eastern side of the south end of this transept, and the Choristers’ Vestry occupies the corresponding corner to the Dean’s Chapel. A stone screen (Decorated) separates it from the south aisle of St. Hugh’s Choir. The double arcading and sculptured angels are constantly seen. Two other vestries lie beyond, towards the south wall. By means of an oak doorway, leading from the north wall of the eastern transept, we enter a long, narrow passageway, with stone vaulting and windows filled with tracery and glass. This takes us into the Cloisters, for at Lincoln these secluded walks lie on the north instead of the usual south side of the Cathedral. Only three walks remain of the original constructions dating from the end of the Thirteenth Century. The fourth walk (north) was replaced by a colonnade, designed by Sir Christopher Wren, in 1674, whose uncle was Bishop of Lincoln at that time. From the east walk of the Cloister we enter the Chapter-House, which dates from the early Thirteenth Century. It is a decagon, with two lancet windows in each bay. First, on entering, we note the massive central column with its ten Purbeck marble shafts banded together in the middle. The Chapter-House has been restored, but it has not suffered. The glass in the windows is modern. The arcade running below the windows is ornamented with shafts of Purbeck marble, foliaged capitals, and a great display of the dog-tooth. The stone vault is later than the rest of the room and is very graceful. Many fine views can be had of the East Front. The splendid Decorated window is always the most conspicuous object. The window above it is also Decorated and nearly fills the gable. In the trefoil over the top circle is a figure of the Virgin. The richly crocketed pyramids of the turrets on either side make a beautiful effect. The aisle windows are separated from the big window by bold buttresses. Around the base runs the arcade that we constantly find at Lincoln. The Chapter-House with its sharply-pointed pyramidal roof groups beautifully with the rest of the Cathedral. Next we look at the Angel Choir, with its crocketed gables and pinnacles, its elaborate tracery, Next we reach the beautiful South Doorway with the Russell and Longland chantries (Perpendicular) on either side. “It was probably constructed, like the Galilee doorway, as a state entrance for the bishop. The porch fills the third bay, and projects as far as the buttresses; its sides recede inwards to the pair of doors giving access to the Angel Choir. Although the doorways of our cathedrals, as a rule, cannot in any way be compared with the magnificent portals to be seen in France, yet this single example of Lincoln would be quite enough to prove that English architects were capable of designing a really magnificent doorway. In the tympanum is the subject of the Last Judgment in relief. The archivolt is richly decorated with sculpture. In the inner band is a row of niches with twelve seated figures, apparently kings and queens: next a double band of delicate open-work foliage; outside this a row of sixteen slender standing figures enclosed by interlacing stems, richly decorated with foliage. The doorway is formed of two cinquefoiled arches, separated by a central pillar having the canopy and base for a figure of the Virgin, which has been removed. On either side of the doorway is a triple canopy for statues, and behind this a row of slender columns with foliated capitals.”—(A. F. K.) Next come St. Hugh’s two semicircular chapels, and then St. Hugh’s transept, slender and filled with so many windows that the wall space is nearly taken up by them. On top of each of the two turrets, surmounted by pyramidal roofs, stands an angel. Next comes the Canon’s Vestry and then the western transept with the conspicuous Bishop’s Eye. We pause to admire this beautiful window Next comes the Nave, the seven bays of which are separated by buttresses. Over the roof of the aisle flying buttresses are thrown. A slender buttress also separates the windows of the aisle. The clerestory windows are in groups of three. Over the clerestory is a wavy parapet of the Fourteenth Century, where stand canopied niches for statues. Grotesque figures project from their bases. Grotesque figures also project from the crocketed roofs of the pinnacles of the great transept. The chapel, used as the Consistory Court, follows with two windows facing south and two east. On the east end of the latter, in front of the windows, our eyes are arrested by the grotesque Devil Looking over Lincoln. The sculptured figures near by are pilgrims. Next comes St. Hugh’s Chapel, or the Ringers’ Chapel, with one window facing the south. From the road at the north-east corner we get a good general view of the Cathedral and the Chapter-House. St. Hugh’s transept is hidden, but we can see the end of the western transept with the Dean’s Eye—the large quatrefoil encircled by sixteen small circles. The lancet window of five lights in the gable above it is also visible. The second bay on the north side of the Angel Choir contains the Fleming Chantry, on which the two chapels on the south side were modelled. Then we come to the north doorway of the Angel We have now completed our survey of the Cathedral and have not yet noticed the Central Tower, considered by many critics the finest tower in England. It rises to a height of 271 feet. Two lofty windows adorn each side of the upper story with their crocketed pillars and canopied heads. Octagonal panelled turrets, surmounted by pinnacles, ornament the four corners. Grosseteste’s lattice-work pattern covers the lower part within and without. The tower in its present state dates from 1775, when James Essex built the parapet and advised battlements and pinnacles instead of a spire. The tall spire of timber, coated with lead, that completed the tower of 1311, was blown down in 1547, carrying the parapet with it; and again in 1715 three of the pinnacles were blown down and replaced in 1728. In 1883 the western side was damaged by a storm, but was repaired. Here “Great Tom of Lincoln,” the fourth largest bell in England (5 tons, 8 cwt.), seven feet in diameter, hangs. Too large to ring, the hours are struck on it with a hammer. The original Great Tom hung in the north-west tower. “It is not known how it was acquired; some say it was a gift, others say it was stolen from the Abbey of Beauchief, Derbyshire, or from Peterborough. The origin of its name, too, has been a subject of dispute. Stukeley considered it possible that it had been consecrated to St. Thomas of Canterbury. Others think it took its name from that of the old bell of Christ Church, Oxford, which bore the curious inscription, In Thomae laude, resono Bim Bom sine fraude. It should be remembered that Oxford was in the diocese of Lincoln in olden days, and that several Bishops of Lincoln were chancellors of Oxford. Wherever The six “Lady Bells,” referred to above, hung in this central tower (see page 294). When they were removed in 1834 it was seen that four were dated 1593; one, 1633; and one, 1737. In the Thirteenth Century the Minster Yard, as many still call the Cathedral Close, was enclosed by a wall. Several massive gates formed the entrances. Of these the Exchequer, a large arch |
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