The Anglo-Saxon Nuns (part 6 of 6)

eyes, full of the tears of paternal anguish. Who will not

pardon us for having, under the spell of that everlasting recollection, lengthened, perhaps unreasonably, this page of a long uncompleted work? How many others have also, like ourselves, gone through this anguish, and beheld with feelings unspeakable the last worldly apparition of a beloved sister or child?

One morning she rises, she comes to her father and mother — " Farewell! all is over," she says; " I am going to die —to die to you and to all. I shall never be either a wife or a

210 '>iio\vcver firm might be the resolution of Theresa to leave her father, the tender affection she bore him rendered the separation heartbreaking to her. ' I believe,' she says, ' that at the point of death I could not suffer more than I did then. It seemed as if my very bones were dislocated, because my love of God was not strong enough to triumph wholly over the natural tenderness I had for my parents. I was obliged to do myself extreme violence in leaving them, and if the Lord had not helped me, my good resolutions would never have enabled me to follow out my plans to the end but His goodness gave me courage against myself. x\t the moment when I took the habit, God made me conscious how he blesses those who deny themselves for His sake. This internal struggle was known to Him only; on the surface nothing appeared in my conduct but courage and firmness.' " — J/isioire de sa Vie, c. iii. ap. Le Boucher. mother; 1 am no more even your child — I am God's alone." Nothing can withhold her. '' They immediately left the ship and their father, and followed Him." ^n Lo! she comes already arrayed for the sacrifice, brilliant and lovely, with an angelic smile, fervent and serene, blooming and l3eaming, the crowning work of creation! Proud of her last beautiful attire, bright and brave, she ascends to the altar, or rather she rushes — she flies like a soldier to the breach, and, hardly able to kee23 down the impassioned ardor which consumes her, she bows her head under the veil which is to be a yoke •upon her for the rest of her life, but which will also be her eternal crown.

It is done. She has crossed the gulf with that impetuous bound, that soaring impulse, that magnanimous self-forgetfulness, which is the glory of youth, with that pure and unconquerable enthusiasm which nothing here below will ever equal or extinguish.

Who then is this invisible Lover, dead upon a cross eighteen hundred years ago, who thus attracts to Him youth, beauty, and love? who appears to their souls clothed with a glory and a charm which they cannot withstand? who darts upon them at a stroke and carries them captive? who seizes on the living flesh of our flesh, and drains the purest blood of our blood? Is it a man? No: it is God. There lies the great secret, there the key of this sublime and sad mystery. God alone could win such victories, and deserve such sacrifices. Jesus, whose godhead is amongst us daily insulted or denied, proves it dail}', with a thousand other proofs, by those miracles of self-denial and self-devotion which are called vocations. Young and innocent hearts give themselves to Him, to reward Him for the gift He has given us of Himself; and this sacrifice by which we are crucified is but the answer of human love to the love of that God who was crucified for us.

2" Matth. iv. 22.

APPENDIX.

I.

lONA

KOTES OP A VISIT MADE IN AUGUST 1862.

(See pages 29 and 120.)

" To each voya^r Some ragged child holds up for sale a store

Of wave-worn pebbles.. •.

How sad a welcome!

Where once came monk and nun with gentle stir Blessings to give, news ask, or suit prefer....

Think, proud philosopher '.

Fallen though she be, this Glory of the West,
Still on her sons the beams of mercy shine;
And hopes, perhaps, more heavenly bright than thine,
A CTace by thee unsought, and unpossesst,
A ftuth more fixed, a rapture more divine,
Shall gild their passage to eternal rest."

Wordsworth.

Thk traveller who visits lona in the hope of finding imposing ruins or picturesque sites is singularly disappointed in his expectation. Nothing, as has been already stated, can be less attractive than this island, at first sight at least. At view of its flat and naked surface a sense of that painful desolation which is so well expressed by the word bleak^ untranslatable in French, strikes the traveller, and he involuntarily turns his eyes from that low and sandy shore to the lofty mountains of the neighboring isles and coasts. After a time, however, a sweet and salutary impression is evolved from the grave, calm, and lonely aspect of a ])lace so celebrated in spiritual history. The spirit is a little reassured, and the visitor takes his way through the poor hamlet, which is the only inhabited place on the island, towards the ruins, of which so many learned and sj)lendid descriptions have been written. Here again there is a fresh disappointment. These ruins have nothing about them that is imposing— nothing, above all, absolutely nothing, that recalls St. Columba, unless it be two or three inscriptions in the Irish tongue {Eirsch or Erse), which was his language. But they are not the less of great interest to the Catholic ai chaeologist,

62* 737

738 APPENDIX.

since they are all connected with the cloistral and ecclesiastical foundations which succeeded to the monastery of Columba. Turning to the north, after passing through the village, you come first to the remains of a convent of canonesses, the last foundation of the twelfth century, but which, for a little, survived the Reformation. Transformed into a stable, then into a quarry, the roofless church still exists; and in it is to be seen the tomb of the last prioress, Anna Macdonald, of the race of the Lords of tJie Isles, who died in 1543. Thence you pass to the famous cemetery, which was for so many centuries the last asylum of kings and princes, nobles and prelates, and of the chiefs of the clans and communities of all the neighboring districts, and— as a report made in 1594 says— "of the best people of all the isles, and consequently the holiest and most honorable place in Scotland." At that epoch were still to be seen three great mausoleums with the following inscriptions :—

TUMULUS EEGUM SCOTIA.
TUMULUS EEGUM HIBERNI^.
TUMULUS EEGUM NORWEGI^.

There was even the tomb of a king of France, whose name is not given, but who must have abdicated before his death.

Nothing is now shown of these mausoleums except the site. A tradition, more or less authentic, decides that eight Norwegian kings or princes were interred at lona, four kings of Ireland, and forty eight Scottish kings. But all historians agree in stating that, from the fabulous times of Fergus until Macbeth, Zona was the ordinary burying-place of the kings and nobles of the Scottish race, and even of some Saxon princes, such as Egfrid, king of the Northumbrians, who died in 685.^ Shakespeare, with his customary fidelity to national tradition, has not tailed to send the body of Macbeth's victim to be buried at lona.^

The burial-place of the kings was not transferred to the Abbey of Dunfermline until the time of Malcolm Canmore, the Conqueror and successor of Macbeth, and the husband of St. Margaret.

At present this cemetery contains eight or nine rows of flat tombs very close to each other. Most of these are of blue stone, and covered with figures sculptured in relief, with inscriptions and coats of arms. On many of them may be distinguished the galley which was the heraldic ensign of the Macdonalds, Lords of the Isles— the greatest house of^he north of Scotland. Among them is shown the tomb of the contemporary of the great king Robert

^ "Ejus corpus in Hii insula Columbae sepultum." — Simeon Ddnelm, ap. TwYDEN, Scripior., p. 3.

" See the passage quoted, p. ll-t, note.

APPENDIX. 739

Bruce and the hero of the poem of "Walter Scott, who died in 1387. And there are still to be seen tombs bearing the arms of the Macdougalls, Lords of Lorn, the Macleods, Mackinnons, Macquaries, and especially Macleans— that is to say, of all the chiefs of the clans of the adjacent districts, along viiih several tombs of bishops, priors, and other ecclesiastics of the fifteenth and sixteenth centmies.

In the centre of the burying-ground stands a ruined chapel, called St. Oran's, fi'om the name of the first of the Irish monks who died after their landing on the island. It is thirty feet long by fifteen broad, with a fine semicircular western door. It is the most interesting, and perhaps the oldest monument of the island, for it is held to have been built by the sainted Queen Margaret, wife of Malcolm Canmore (f 1093), mother of the king St. David, one of the most touching figures in the history of Scotland and of Christendom. She was the regeneratrix of faith and piety in Scotland, and was animated by a great devotion to St. Columba, by whose intervention she obtained her only son, after having long been without children.^

Before reaching the burying-ground, and on leaving it, two large stone crosses are seen, each of a single block, and from twelve to fourteen feet high— the one called Maclean's, and the other St. Martin's— the only two which remain of three hundred and sixty, which are said to have formerly existed on the island. Both, fixed on a pedestal of red granite, are long and slender in foi-m, covered over with sculptured ornaments, in a style at once graceful and quaint, partially hidden by the moss. One of them, Maclean's cross, is said to be that of which Adamnan speaks in his X^y<^ of Columba. It is difficult to understand how, with the scanty means at their disposal in an age so remote, it was possible to quarry, sculpture, transport, and erect blocks of granite of such a size.

At last we reach the Cathedral, or rather the Abbey Church, a large, oblong edifice, in red and gray granite, one hmidred and sixty-six feet in length, seventy in breadth at the transept, ruined and roofless, like all the others, but still retaining all its walls, and also several large cylindrical columns, rudely sculptured, with the tombs of an abbot of the clan Mackinnon, date 1500, and different chiefs of the Macleans. Over the cross of the transcjit rises a square tower, which is seen far ofi" at sea, and is lighted by windows pierced in the stone, in unglazed lozenges and circles, such as are still found at Villers, in Brabant, and at St. Vincent and Anastasius, near Rome.* The end of the choir is square, and can-

' FoRDUN, Scoti-chronicon, v. 37. Reeve's Adamnan, pp. xxx., cdx. ^* See upon these stone windows the curious works of M. Albert Lenoir, in his Architecture Monastique, 1st part, pp. 133, 301, and of M. Ed. Didron, Annales Archeologiques, vol. xxiii. pp. 45, 201.

740 APPENDIX.

not be older than the fourteenth century; but other portions of the church are of the twelfth and thhteenth. It has, like the beautiful Abbey Church of Kelso, in the south of Scotland, this peculiarity, that the choir is twice as long as the nave.

The sombre and sad aspect of all these ruins is owing in part to the absence of all verdure, and of that ivy which, especially in the British Isles, adorns elsewhere the ruins of the past.

This church became, in the fourteenth century, the cathedral of the bishopric of the Isles, the titular bishop of which afterwards resided at Man, one of the Sudereys— that is, the isles lying south of the point of Ardnamurchan, and distinct from the NordenieySy to the north of that cape, a division which dates from the times of the Norwegians. Hence the title of E2nsco2yus Sodorensis, Bishop of Sodor and Man. lona became the cathedral of the bishopric of the Scottish Isles after the union of Man to England under Edward I.

After the Reformation, and the suppression of all the bishoprics and monasteries, decreed in 1561 by the Convention of Estates, the Calvinistic Synod of Argyll gave over all the sacred edifices of lona to a horde of pillagers, who reduced them to the condition in which they are now seen. During the whole of the eighteenth century the ruins and the cemetery lay desert: thecathedral was made into a stable; and thus was accomplished the prophecy in Irish verse ascribed to Columba, according to which a time was to come when the chants of the monks should give place to the lowing of oxen. The three hundred and sixty crosses which covered the soil of the holy island disappeared during this period, most of them being thrown into the sea. Some were conveyed to Mull and to the adjacent islands, and one is shown at Campbelton— a monolith of blue granite, incrusted with sculptures. In this same island of Mull is to be observed a line of isolated columns leading to the point of embarkation for lona, and destined, according to local tradition, to guide the pilgrims of old to the sacred isle. (Note of the Rev. T. Maclauchlan, read before the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, February, 1863.)

Since 1693 the island has belonged to the Dukes o^ Argyll, chiefs of the great clan Campbell, who watch over the preservation of the riUns. It brings them an annual revenue of about £300. It contains a population of three hundred and fifty souls, all Presbyterians. This small population— which lives on the produce of the fisheries and of a few wretched fields manured with seaweed, where potatoes, barley, and rye are grown, but where even oats refused to thrive— ofliers, notwithstanding, the curious spectacle which is found in many of even the prettiest villages in Scotland: it has two churches, and forms two congregations; the one connected with the official or Established worship, whose ministers are nominated by the lay patrons, and supported by the

APPENDIX. 741

ancient property of the Church; and the other attached to the " Free Kirh "— that is, a body whose ministers are elected by the people and maintained by their voluntary offerings.

The most interesting works to be consulted upon this celebrated island are, first of all, the Report of Archdeacon Munro in 1594; then Johnson's Journey to the Hebrides; Pennant's Tour in the Hebrides; N. D. Graham's 'Antiquities of lona^ London, 1850, in quarto, with plates; and finally, a good article in the GentlemarCs 3fagazine, for November, 1861.

We cannot quit lona without adding a word on the neighboring isle of Stafta, which contains the famous grotto of Fingal. It was not really known to the world till the visit of Sir Joseph Banks in August, 1772. There is no previous mention of it, not even in the journey of the great Johnson, although it lies within sight of lona, which closes the horizon on the south, as seen from the cave— a juxtaposition which has inspired Walter Scott with these beautiful lines :—

" Where, as to shame the temples decked

By skill of earthly architect,

Nature herself, it seems, would raise A Minster to her Maker's praise....

Nor doth its entrance front in vain To old lona's holy fane.

That nature's voice might seem to say,
'Well hast thou done, frail child of clay
Thy humble powers that stately shrine
Tasked high and hard — but witness mine ! ' "

The English, and travellers in general, profess a great enthusiasm for this cave, which, as every one knows, forms an immense vault, into which the sea penetrates, and which rests on rows of polygonal basaltic columns, ranged like the cells of a beehive. Sir Robert Peel, in a speech in 1837, compared the pulsations of the Atlantic which roll into this sanctuary to the majestic tones of the organ; but he adds, " The solemn harmony of the waves chants the praises of the Lord in a note far more sublime than that of any human instrument." This sound is, in fact, the grandest thing about this famous cave. The rest is a wonder of nature far inferior, it seems to us, to the wonders of art, and especially of Christian art. The grotto of Fingal is but sixty-six feet high by forty-two broad, and two hundred and twenty-seven long. What is that beside our grand cathedrals and monastic churches, such as Cluny or Vezelay?

742 APPENDIX.

II.

CONCLUSIONS OF THE TWO PAPERS OF M. VARIN

ON THE CAUSES OF THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE BRITISH CHURCH AND

THE CHURCH OF ROME.

{Recueil des Memoires presentcs par divers Savants' a VAcadimie

des Inscriptions. — 1st series, 1858.)

(See page 174.)

FIRST ARTICLE.

The struggle maintained by the three Celtic nations (Britons, Picts, and Scots) against the Roman apostles of the Saxon colony resulted, according to the opinion of the learned Anglicans of the last three centuries, from the fact that Britain had received the faith from Asia, and would thus have communicated anti-Roman doctrines to the Picts and Scots. The three populations, instructed by Asiatics, would naturally reject the religious yoke which Rome tried to lay on them (under the pretext of evangelizing the Anglo-Saxons) no less than the political yoke of the new conquerors. But,

1. There never was anything in common in the usages of Asia and those in which the three insular nations differed from the Roman Church.

2. The origin of these secondary differences, in as far as the Picts and Scots are concerned, is found in the subsequent substitution of British usages for those which, in the beginning, these same people received direct from Rome.

3. These usages, even among the Britons, did not extend back to the origin of Christianity in the British Isles. They had their sources in circumstances purely accidental, and completely opposed to any sentiment hostile to the Roman Church.

4. The Picts and Scots received the light of the gospel originally from Rome, and not from Britain. They already occupied at that period the ground which a school of learned men believe them only to have attained at a later date.

SECOND ARTICLE.

1. The differences between Rome and Britain were less numerous, less important, and, above all, of later date than the recent writers represent.

2. They indicate no relation between Britain and Asia.

APPENDIX. 743

3. They prove nothing against Rome: of the three nations which composed the British Church, two had from the first adopted the Roman usages.

4. As to the six controverted customs, Three had their origin in a national, and not at all in an Asiatic feeling— to wit,

A. The tonsure— a national and even Druidic way of dressing the hair— that of the wise men, who are discussed in the lives of the Irish saints as opposing great obstacles to any modifications of the faith

£. The national liturgy for the mass, such as existed in all the Churches evangelized by Rome, Gaul, Spain, &c.

C. Aversion for the Roman clergy, repelled by patriotic sentiment, as apostles of the Saxon race

And three in mistaken adhesion to the very doctrines of Rome D. The ceremonies supplementary to baptism^ of which Bede speaks, ii. 2; but which the islanders would not recognize because their first apostles, who had come from Rome, had told them nothing about them

E. The pascal computation (Easter), which the Britons maintained as they had received it at first from Rome without wishing to adopt the reform subsequently introduced by the Popes

F. The celibacy of the clergy, as severely observed by the Britons as by the Roman clergy— only they accepted the double monasteries known in the East: and this is the only way in which any of the traditions of the East got a footing in the extreme West.

On the three principal points— 1, The supremacy of Rome; 2, The celebration of Easter; 3, The marriage of the priests— the British Church in no way differs from other Western Churches, at least, during the first five centuries. On the three secondary points — 1, The tonsure; 2, The administration of baptism; 3, The liturgy— there were differences; but they were as great between Britain and the East as between Britain and Italy.

744 APPENDIX

III.

LINDISFARNE.

(See page 235.)

LiNDisFARisrE at present bears the name of Holy Island, which was given it in 1093 by the monks, then transferred to Durham, in memory of the number of monks who were massacred at the Danish invasion, and venerated as martyrs.

Except the dark and scarcely visible island, situated on the southwest, fifty fathoms from the shore, which is still called St. Cuthbert's Isle, and where it is said some remains of his cell are to be seen, the Holy Island of Lindisfarne retains no material trace either of the dwelling-place of the great and popular saint, or of the ancient monastic cathedral of Northumberland. But it possesses the important and very picturesque ruins of the church, rebuilt in 1098 by Bishop Carilef This bishop immortalized himself by the construction of the magnificent Cathedral of Durham, of which the church of Lindisfarne, built of fine red stone like the churches on the Rhine, is a dependence. It is in the Roman or purest Norman style, except the choir and its rectangular heading, which were added in the thirteenth century. Its architect was the monk Eadward, so much praised by Reginald in his Libellus de Miracxdis Cuthberti, and who brought from the neighboring city, with the eager aid of the inhabitants, the good stone which was wanting at Lindisfarne, that of the island being too friable, and apt to be destroyed by the sea-spray. A double diagonal arch, ornamented with rich toothed mouldings, is the only remaining relic of the central vault of the transept, between the nave and choir. This arch, thrown from the north-western to the south-eastern corner, with the appearance of being suspended in the air, traces its outline upon the sky with boldness and majesty. It is four'-and-twenty English feet in diameter, and xises to a height of forty-four feet above the ground, which is itself heightened by ruins. The lower side of the north is still entire, as well as two bays of the same side of the nave, which was composed of six. The ancient choir ended in a circular aj^se; the half of it remains, disfigured and mutilated by a square heading in materials different from the rest. The transept has two circular apses, in the same style as the choir. The reverse of the western front, in the interior of the church, has a fine effect. The entire ruin is very well rendered in the Architectural Antiquities of Durham, by Billings.

Some remains of the ancient monastery are still to be seen round the church. A fine fortress of the sixteenth century, built

APPENDIX. 745

under Queen Elizabeth, occupies a conical mole at the southern extremity of the island.

A very minute descrii:)tion of Lindisfarne is to be found in the work of the learned James Raine, entitled The History and Antiquities of North Durham^ or the shires of Norham, Island, and Bedlington, now united in the county of Northumberland: London, 1852, The article Ilohj Island is very long: it goes into minute details of the priory founded there in 1095, and is accompanied by an engraving made in 1728 by Buck, and which shows the state of the ruins at that period: they do not seem to have been more considerable then than at present.

Bamborough, the ancient residence of the kings of Northumbria, situated on the shore in sight of Lindisfarne, is placed on an immense rock, which commands the sea and all the suiTOunding country; the castle, much modernized, has been made by Lord Crewe into a charitable school and various establishments devoted to the work of salvage, which is so necessary and so energetically directed upon that dangerous coast.

I cannot resist the temptation of quoting here Walter Scott's fine lines, which will console the reader for the dryness of the preceding details, and which exactly depict the site of Lindisfarne except in respect to the grandeur of the ruins: the English are disposed to exaggerate the effect of the size of their historical monuments, which are almost always less than our own.

" And now the vessel skirts the strand

Of mountainous Northumberland.

Thy tower, proud Bamborough, marked they there,

King Ida's castle, huge and square,
From its tall rock look grimly down,
And on the swelling ocean frown
Then from the coast they bore away,
And reached the Holy Island's bay.

The tide did now its flood-mark gain,

And girdled in the Saint's domain :
For, with the flow and ebb, its style
Varies from continent to isle

Drj'-shod, o'er sands, twice every day,

The pilgrims to the shrine find way:

Twice every day the waves ert'ace

Of staves and sandalled feet the trace.

As to the port the galley flew.
Higher and higher rose to view
The castle with its battled walls,
The ancient monastery's halls,
A solemn, huge, and dark-red pile,
Placed on the margin of the isle.

In Saxon strength that Abbey frowned, With massive arches broad and round,

VOL. n. 63

746 APPENDIX.

That rose alternate, row and row, On ponderous columns, short and low,

Built ere the art was known.

By pointed aisle, and shafted stalk, The arcades of an alley walk

To emulate in stone.

On the deep walls, the heathen Dane Had poured his impious rage in vain And needful was such strength to these, Exposed to the tempestuous seas.

Scourged by the winds' eternal sway, Open to rovers fierce as they, Which could twelve hundred years withstand Wind, waves, and northern pirates' hand. Not but that portions of the pile, Rebuilded in a later style.

Showed where the spoiler's hand had been; Not but the wasting sea-breeze keen Had worn the pillar's carving quaint, And mouldered in his niche the saint, And rounded, with consuming power. The pointed angles of each tower Yet still entire the Abbey stood.

Like veteran, worn but unsubdued."

— Marmion, cant. ii.

APPENDIX. 747

IV.

PETERBOROUGH.

(See page 333.)

This celebrated monastery has been the origin of an important town in Northamptonshire, which sends two members to the House of Commons, and was made into a bishopric of the Anglican Church by Henry VIII. The last abbot became bishop in 1541, and the abbey church was transformed into the cathedral of the new bishopric— an arrangement which still continues.

Peterborough was built on an isle in the marshy district which, at the time of the Saxon occupation, included a considerable portion of the existing counties of Northampton, Cambridge, Lincoln, and Norfolk, and which is still known as the Fens. There existed in these marshes some spots more solid, which could even be made into pasturage, and the industry of the monks soon brought them under cultivation. From this is derived the primitive name of Peterborough, Medehamstede^ or, in modern English, the Home in the Meadows. Such was also the origin of the still celebrated abbeys of Ely and Croyland, and of several others, Ramsey, Thorney, Kirkstead, &c. This district is now one of the most fertile parts of England.

There are no remains existing of the church of the monastery built in the seventh century by the kings of the Mercians. The Danes destroyed it at their great invasion in 870, after having slaughtered all the monks. It was rebuilt a century later, and again dedicated to St. Peter by the famous Ethelwold, Bishop of Winchester, but afterwards destroyed by accidental fires in 1067 and in 1116. It was in 1118, after the last of these fires, that the present building was commenced by the abbot John of Seez: the choir was consecrated in 1143, and the chapels, to the east of the transept, from 1133 to 1145, under a very distinguished abbot, Martin du Bee. The existing nave, begun in 1155, Avas not finished till towards 1190. The aisles of the nave date from 1117 and 1143.

Like all English cathedrals, Peterborough has preserved its vast dependencies, and stands in the midst of gardens, flowery lawns, and groves, which heighten its grandeur and beauty. The tranquil majesty of the close which surrounds it naturally recalls to mind its monastic origin; the silence and serenity which reign there are scarcely disturbed, except by the flight or the song of birds, whose nests are built in the towers and buttresses of the imTnense church. The great and numerous buildings which shut in this close seem to reproduce, in part at least, the clois- 748 APPENDIX.

ters of the great abbey before its secularization. The entrance from the town into the sacred enclosure is by a gateway, in the form of a square tower, pierced by an arched passage, and surmounted by a chapel dedicated to St. Nicholas, but used at l^resent as a music school. To the left is another chapel, dedicated to St. Thomas-a-Becket, which serves for the use of the choristers. Beyond this gateway is the spacious enclosure surrounding the church; to the right and to the south is the old abbatial palace — now the bishop's — built in 1319, its grand entrance flanked by two statues, larger than life, of an abbot and a monk. To the left and north is the deanery, a line building of the date of 1518. But the eyes of visitors are at once attracted and enchanted by the magnificent western facade of the abbey church. This facade, built between 1200 and 1227, in the early ogival style, called in England Early English^ is equally original and splendid; it is said, not without reason, to have no equal among the specimens of Christian architecture. It is composed of three porches or ogival doorways, equal in height, which occupy the whole elevation of the facade; they are surrounded by three triangular gables or frontals, and flanked north and south by two square towers of great elegance, with spires. The depth of these doorways is as astonishing as their height; the sides of the inner walls and the whole of the fafade are lavishly enriched with sculpture, and decorated wherever it is possible with bays and roses in the finest style. The whole effect is truly wonderful, thanks to the immense dimensions of this triple porch and the masses of light and shade caused by the depths of the arches.

The two facades of the grand transept, to the north and south, flanked by polygonal turrets, and of Roman or Norman architecture, are also extremely beautiful. Nothing can be finer than the north fii^ade with its seven tiers of arches and vadted bays. This facade is, externally, the best preserved and most interesting part of the ancient Norman church, which is there seen without the disfigurement of those additions in the perpendicular or flamboyant style which have been made to the aisles of the nave, the mullions of the triforium, the circumference of the choir, and even in certain parts of the great western facade.

The circular apse of the primitive church may also be seen rising above the quadrilateral oblong Mhich was added in the sixteenth century, and in spite of the disparity caused by the flamboyant architecture of the great windows of this apse, its effect is still remarkable. Besides the great transept, situated between the choir and the nave, there is another of smaller dimensions, situated between the nave and the western fa9ade, and flanked by four turrets, two with battlemented terraces, and two with spires, already mentioned in reference to the principal fa^ad^'. It has also a central tower, which is low and ungraceful, and which,

APPENDIX. 749

moreover, is decorated at the four corners with those hideous bell towers which disfigure a large proportion of English steeples.

Peterborough Cathedral thus possesses a great number of towers and turrets, but their want of height diminishes their effect; and this is the case also with the whole of the roof, which, as in most English cathedrals, is so low as to wound the eye by the absence of that perfect proportion between the height and length of the building to which we are accustomed in those of France and Germany.

But whatever may be wanting to the exterior of Peterborough is fully compensated by the majestic and solemn beauty of the in-' terior. I remember no church in the world whose whole aspect is, at the first glance, more striking. Every detail appears to be of the pui-est Roman or Nonuan art. And it is so especially in the central nave, which is of extraordinary length,* with eleven bays (Notre Dame in Paris has only seven) divided by huge columns alteraately round and octangular. The roof, instead of being vaulted, has a ceiling of wood, believed to be of the same date as the edifice, and covered with old paintings, recalling those lately restored with such success in the Church of St. Godehard at Hildesheim. The triforium, of which each bay is composed only of a pointed arch, is of a grand simplicity, and neutralizes the unfortunate effect of the flamboyant windows of the clerestory, the pointed bays of which are besides even lower than those of the triforium.

The aisles of the nave are in the same style, but with vaulted roofs in stone; their inner walls are entirely covered with vaulted and interlaced arches: unfortunately the windows of these aisles have been modernized in the sixteenth or seventeenth century.

The grand transept is also in the finest Norman style, and rivals the nave in size and magnificence; it has four bays in each aiTB, and six of these bays open on six chapels arranged parallel to the choir, in the manner of the Cistercian churches. The two fagades of this transept, to the north and south, are pierced with three rows of vaulted bays, with mullions and trefoils.

The choir has four bays, and ends in an apse in four parts. But this apse itself is imbedded in a vast oblong construction much lower than the rest of the church. Here we find again the unpleasing fashion of finishing the finest churches with a parallelogi'am, to which English architects have always had a leaning, and which gives to their buildings a character so inferi<ir to ours. This addition, called the Lady Chaj)el, was built in 14!>0. It has a richly sculptured vault of the special form of the English build

* It is 2GG English feet in length, ³⁵ wiile, and ⁸⁵ high. The total length of the church is 479 feet; the western facade is 15G. The lantern of the central tower is only 135 feet high.

G3*

750 APPENDIX.

ings of that ijeriod, such as may be seen at King's College, Cambridge, and at Henry VII.'s Chapel at Westminster.

Within the choir is the oldest monument in the church, that of Abbot Hedda, massacred by the Danes in 870. It is in the form of a shrine, with statues of our Lord and the twelve apostles in bas-relief. It is attributed to Goodric, who was abbot from 1099 to 1103.

A little further on may be seen the gravestone, scarcely visible, of Catherine of Arragon, the first wife of Henry VIII., and opposite the place where the body of Mary Stuart was buried after her execution at the neighboring Castle of Fotheringay, and where it remained until her son James I. removed it to Westminster. These two great victims to the Reformation thus slept together in the old abbatial church of Peterborough, while the wicked and sanguinary Elizabeth finished her triumphal reign in peace.

This beautiful church cannot give us an idea of the buildings of Anglo-Saxon times; but it represents in all their majesty the great constructions of one of the greatest epochs of monastic history, that of the twelfth century, the era of St. Bernard and Peter the Venerable.*

I reserve for another volume my notes on the present state of two other monasteries, Croyland and Ely, which, from their commencement, were reckoned among the most celebrated in England, but the great splendor of which was later than the epoch of which I have hitherto spoken.

July, 18G2.

® An abridged history of this great monastery may be found in the biographical notes on its abbots, published by Stevens, Continuation of Dugdale; London, 1722, vol. i. p. 496. I take this occasion of recommending to all lovers of Christian antiquities this excellent work, full of curious information and of zeal against the sacrilegious profaners of the Catholic monuments and institutions of England.

APPENDIX. 751

V.

HEXHAM.

(See page 365.)

DESCRIPTION OF THE CHURCH BUILT AT THE MONASTERY OF HEXHAM BY

ST. WILFRID FR03I 674 TO 680.

" Igitur profunditatem ipsius ecclesise criptis et oratoriis sul> terraneis, et viarum anfractibus inferius cum magna industria fundavit.

" Parietes autem quadratis et bene politis columpnis suffultos et tribus tabulatis distinctos, immensae longitudiuis et altitudinis, erexit. Ipsos etiam et capitella columpnarum quibus sustentantur et arcum sanctuarii, historiis et ymaginibus et variis coelaturarum figuris ex lapide prominentibus et picturarum et colorum gi'ata varietate mirabilique decore decoravit. Ipsum quoque corpus ecclesise appentitiis et porticibus nardique circuradixit qua?, miro atque inexplicabili artificio, per parietes et cocleas inferius et siiperius distinxit. In ipsis vero cocleis,' et super ipsas, ascensoria ex lapide, et deambulatoria, et varies viarum amfractus, modo sursum, modo deorsura, artiticiosissime ita machinari fecit, et innumera hominum multitudo ibi existere et ipsum corpus ecclesiae circumdare possit, cum a nemine tamen infra in eo existentiura videri queat. Oratoriaque quam plurima, superius et inferius, secretissima et pulcherrima, in ipsis porticibus cum maxima diligentia et cautela constituit, in quibus altaria in honore Beataa Dei genetricis semperque Virginis Marije, et sancti Michaelis Archangeli, sanctique Johanis Baptistce et sanctorum Apostolorum, Martyrum, Confessorum, atque Virginum, cum eorum apparatibus, honestissime praeparari fecit. Unde etiam, usque hodie, qutedam illorura ut turres et propugnacula, supercminent. Atrium quoque templi magnaB spissitudinis et fortitudinis muro circumvallavit. Prajter quem in alveo lapideo aquaeductus, ad usus officinorum, per mediain villam decurrebat." "*

fl ' Ducange, at the word Cochlea, says: " Cochleae sunt alta) et rotundae turres, et dictaj cochleaj quasi cycleaj, quod in eis, tanquam per circulum orbenique, conscendatur."

" RicHARDi Prioris IHstoria Ilagulsiadensis Ecclesiee, c. iii., ap. Twys- DEN, Ilistorice Anglicanee Scriptores Decern., and Raine's Priory of Hexham, p. 11.

752 APPENDIX.

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