The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-16 00:00:00

GLOUCESTER CATHEDRA".

St. Peter's Abbey at Gloucester, now the Cath
Church (according to a very interesting account of it Lan
—1
as follows by one of the Saturday Reviewers), was a,''ry
early foundation, its beginning dating as far back as thee
year 681. But, like most of these early foundations, .ths
establisment went through many vicissitudes, and was de_
stroyed and refounded more than once with very diftet:ent
objects. Originally a house of nuns, it lost its Buenos sion
of Abbesses in 767. King Ecgbei ht is said to have r etoun ded
it as a college of secular priests, which lasted till 1022,
when the first Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester, chaz.ged
it into a Benedictine monastery. The account in the
history reads as if he did not, as was done in. so
many other places, turn out the Canons whom he f. and
there, but compelled them to take the Benedictine yowls :--
" Hic Wolstanns clericos, qui ecclesiam Sancti Petri mutes
rexerant [et] custodierant, sub protectione Dei et Apost
rum Petri et Pauli, et regula Beati Benedicti, in eadem
ecclesia regulariter collocavit, et Edricum quendam in a*.bba-
tem et custodem monasterii illius consecravir, qui maims-
rims Mud xxxvii. annis custodivit."
In estimating this change, we must always remember one
light in which it was likely to appear to a reformer of those
days. When a church was served by monks, any gen eral
nonresidence was impossible, and divine service could
lnysbe intermitted or grossly neglected. But the secular
Canine, before the institution of Vicars and Residen-
tiaries
constantly neglected their churches in the mostus
scandalous way,
Their non-residence. in fact, is one of the
great complaints
time. of ecclesiastical writers long after this

The first mention of the church is in 1058, when EaTared,
Bishop of Worcester, afterwards Archbishop of York—the
Harold
prelate who crownedand William within one year
rebuilt and consecrated it.
of the native English fabric—forßofdthe size seems really to
But, as usual, the small size
have been the main point 0
after
the
Ealdterr the Conquest. and a
Norman occupantpsloafcethwe
hhiolens
church was still
rebuilding took
gt,htossibly only the
almost new. .In 1089, the first atone a new
time. for a long
church was
said to
laid by Abbot Serlo, and the building,
choir, was consecrated in 1100. From
way on. our notices consist mainly of fires,
in the exaggerated language of the chroniclers, °f
which'
have destroyed church,monastery, town, everything.a'e
were fires in 1102, 1122, 1190, 1214, 1222, and 32 3Ther
most of these more or less damage was done to the ' In
build-
ings of the Abbey; and, in 1102, it is distinctly said that
church was burned—" ecclesia igne cremata est.". But,t
as usual, it is not necessary to construe these words very
rigidly, and it seems most natural to suppose t hat the Nor-
man work of the presbytery, which may still be semi under
the lacework of perpendicular panelling which has
been thrown over it, is part of the church of
Serlo. The nave, so like the contempororary
ions nave of
Tewkesbury, so unlike the common pport of a
Norman design, probably followed the fire, of 1102. It
is curious, however, that, though the church is constantly
spoken of incidentally as standing and in use—as, for in-
stance, at the burial of Robert Duke of Normandy, before
the high altar in 1134, and at the coronation of Henry
111., in 1216—still there is no direct mention of any
building till 1222, when the " great eastern tower"—
" magna turris Gloucestrensis ecclesive orientalis"—was
built. This no doubt means the central tower—in a church
of the old Norman ground plan, more truly eastern than
central—over the choir. The tower then built has, of
course, made way for the Perpendicular structure. In 1239
the church was consecrated, doubtless in pursuance of the
general orders then given by Papal authority for the con-
secration of all churches which remained unconsecrated,
i which one is surprised to learn was the case with several
cathedrals and great abbeys. Three years atter, in 1242,
the present vault of the nave w.as added—the Norman
church doubtless had only a timber roof—and we are dis-
tinctly told, in one of the most interesting notices on re-
ccrd, that it was actually built by the monks with their
own hands :
Et anno Domini millesimo ducentesimo qua seine
secundo complete est nova volts in navf ecclesiso, non
auxilio fabrorum ut promo, sed aniusosa virti Ito monacho-
rum item in ipso loco existentium.
In the same year the south-western tower wos began
archi-
by
Prior Walter St. John. This no longer exists.
\ The
tects of the great Perpendicular central tower see m to have
thought that their work would have greater digilitf
y iit
stood absolutely alone—so the western towers were sacri-
ficed, and the present west front utterly unworthy of
such a church, is the result. In 1300 we het x of
et
another fire, which burned the " parvtuo campanile,
magna camera et claustrum." lt is not, however, clear
; hitt it
whether they were absolutely destroyed, nor do we, know
It
exactly what is 'meant by " parvum campanile."
could not be the newly-built south-west tower,
which stands quite away from the cloister
may well have been the north-western tower, which doubtilq-
less deserved to have been called " parvum campan,
as
compared with either of the two latta ones.
to
John Thoky, who was Abbot from 1306 1329, vas
memorable man in the history of the convent. The 8 4
outh
aisle of the nava was built in his time ; this is well 1;:v murdered
Bristol, Kings-
as one of the most beautiful examples of decorated WourArvit
England, and which probably set the fashion f°
similar
In
in
rich windows at Ledbury, Leominster, and
elsewhere.r
I
his days, also, the deposed King
Edwarredeell2e
as
his body for
at Benceley. Three other monasteries, B
fearwo of
od,anndoggeramlmoerstbimursyr toarnedtuscledueen Isabella. The Abbot
iv
of Gloucester was of another mood, and braved all hazards
was the cause of
in what we may suppose he thought

loyalty—
late tamen abbas suo cottahonorifice ornato cum twirls
cum to to convents sohlenniter revcaste.llo de Berkeley ad 4
ejusclem ecclesiss depictis, eu
duxit, et ad monasterium GI 41 a
011CeStrige eat delatne, abbate
ibidem in parte boreali
totius civitatis eat en, ./. mum, cum procestione
Strange to say, junta magnum altare Creditor team-
the Tee susceptus, et in ecclesia
'endue.
dered, became a local despicablo King, when once mur-
dered, b
rave grave, no l saint. Multitudes of pilgrims flocked
or of Sirnon at z leas than to those of Waltheof at Crowland,
ful that, durino. tvhesham. Their offerings were oo
of Wig-
ph (1329-2 the reign of the next, Abbot, John
-7), the Sancti Andrcal,'a
phrase which Mr.
Hart
th transept--``
atio have understood—
Whaisl,ll,ebuilt• This has been hardly
confounded with the
/,-,"'ng of the south aisle of the nave, but the dates in the
Chronicle are quite distinct and perfectly clear. This tran-
sept, as Professor Willis showed in 1860, is distinctly per-
pendicular work. It is early, indeed, and has much of
earlier detail hanging about it, but it still bears the un-
mistakeable impress of the perpendicular style, and it may
fairly count as the first instalment of the great perpendicu-
lar recasting of the whole east part of the m
facts inster. No
in architec w
this date is one of the most important -
tural history. We thus have the perpendicular style, in.
all its most distinctive features, a good halt century earlier
than anybody had thought. The claim, therefore, of Win-
chester to be the first example, and of either Edington. or
Wykeham to be the inventor, of that style at once falls to
the ground.
This is the last entry strictly belonging to the church.
The central tower, the present Lady chapel, and the re-
casting of the presbytery, all of which may be looked on as
carrying on the work bcgun by Thoky in the south tran-
sept, belong to a later date than the present chronicle
takes in. But in the time of Abbot Froceater, who suc-
ceeded in 1381, and who was living when
the chronicle
w c
ends, we get the completion of the splendid l •
ater, cer-
tainly the gem of work of its kind and style.