Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Rochester Part 7

[Ill.u.s.tration: TOMB OF BISHOP BRADFIELD (FROM A DRAWING BY R. J. BEALE).]

The flights of twelve and ten steps, which together take up the whole width of the aisle, lead respectively, up to the eastern part of the church and down to the crypt. The wooden enclosure over the crypt entrance is used as a vestry. Two doors open into the south choir transept, one from the vestry and one directly from the aisle itself.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CRYPT, LOOKING TO THE NORTH-EAST (FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY MESSRS. CARL NORMAN AND CO.).]

The ma.s.sive b.u.t.tress supporting the choir wall, at the head of the steps to the undercroft, is divided into stages by a flat niche or panel with side-shafts of Purbeck marble. This was found, in 1840, to contain a mural painting of the Crucifixion, with the Blessed Virgin and St. John at the foot of the cross. The princ.i.p.al face below had a gigantic representation of the Madonna and Child, more than 12 feet in height. At about the same time the elegant little doorway at the west end of the aisle was found. It could not be reopened, but its mouldings were uncovered. It is of the Early English period and has a dripstone ending in a bishop's and a female head.

In this aisle, on its north side, is the tomb thought to be that of Bishop John de Bradfield, who is stated by Edmund de Hadenham to have been buried on the south side of the church, "juxta ostium excubitorum,"

_i.e._, by the watchers' door. It has a very battered figure of a bishop in low relief.

The #Crypt#, or undercroft, is approached by the flight of steps in the south choir aisle, but its original entrance seems to have been on the other side of the church. Just inside the doorway, with its peculiar flatly-pointed head under a pointed arch, there is, to the right, a small square cell which may have been used as a place of confinement.

The crypt is one of the finest in England, and the later, main portion of it is the last great work of the kind carried out in this country.

The two western severies, consisting of the old Norman work, are now shut off to contain the organ bellows and their machinery, and the whole southernmost aisle has been part.i.tioned off into a series of new vestries, erected with the proceeds of Dean Hole's recent lecturing tour in America. The whole width is divided into seven aisles, three under the choir proper and two under each transept. Each seems to have had an altar at its east end; several piscinas still remain. The main walls above are carried by heavy ma.s.ses of masonry, which rather break the vistas, while other ma.s.ses help the usual columns to bear the steps on which the altar stands.

In the early Norman work extending for two bays from the west we see circular shafts, with rough, convex, cus.h.i.+on capitals, and the lower corners chamfered. The plain rubble cross-vaults here have no ribs but the groins are pinched down to make them more prominent. The rest of the crypt is Early English, with circular and octagonal columns both occurring and having quadripart.i.te vaulting. The clever way in which the architects overcame the difficulty caused by differences of span is worthy of attention. On the vaults, traces of painting, of floral diapers, etc., can still be seen, and in "The New British Traveller"

(1819) we have a description of a subject medallion then to be seen beneath St. William's Chapel. "In a circle is a representation of a vessel sailing, with a large fish in the water in front, and on one side the upper part of a monk, with his hands uplifted as in prayer,"

apparently an ill.u.s.tration of the story of Jonah.

In the crypt are preserved many interesting fragments, including the pieces of polychrome sculpture found with Bishop John de Sheppey's monument. The most important is a statue of Moses, who bears his name on the tablet of stone that he holds.

CHAPTER IV.

THE DIOCESE AND BISHOPS.

According to a curious legend,[15] widely circulated in the Middle Ages, the men of Rochester did not accord a patient hearing to St. Augustine when he first came thither to preach the Gospel. They, instead, used him rudely, and in mockery threw at him and hung on his dress a lot of fish-tails. In anger the saint prayed to G.o.d to avenge him on his persecutors and "the Lord smote them _in posteriora_ to their everlasting ignominy, so that not only on their own but on their successors' persons similar tails grew ever after." A way of escape was, however, according to the fourteenth century prose version of the "Brut," soon provided, for "whenne the kyng herde and wiste of this vengeance that was falle thurghe saynt Austines powere he lette make one howse in honour of G.o.d ... at the brugges end," children born in which would not be afflicted with the dreaded appendage. Other versions of the story give Dorchester as the place where the saint was thus ill-used and his a.s.sailants were thus punished, but both Kent and Dorset have been zealous to repudiate any concern with it, and Lambarde in his "Perambulation" has written an indignant diatribe in defence of the former county.

[15] This account of it is chiefly taken from a paper by G. Neilson, first published in "Transactions of the Glasgow Archaeological Society,"

1896.

Later, in the legends concerning St. Thomas a Becket, another form of the same fable appears. The men of Strood are said to have docked the tail of his horse and to have been punished in the same way as St.

Augustine's persecutors. In the story Rochester sometimes appears instead of Strood, and this is our excuse for alluding to the variation here. It seems to be due to a confusion of the old story with a new fact, as we have a contemporary statement that St. Thomas, on the Christmas Day before his death, excommunicated a certain Robert de Broc, because the latter had, to insult and shame him, cut off the tail of a mare in his service.

In the Middle Ages the matter was of national concern, for the disgrace said to have befallen the inhabitants of one or other of the small towns mentioned became "a scandal to their unoffending country." When the story spread, as it did, nearly all over Europe, foreigners did not particularize, but offensively alluded to all Englishmen as _caudati_, or tailed. Such allusions often occur in narratives of the Crusades, and the French and Scotch were especially keen to hurl the epithet at their hereditary foes. Even in the sixteenth century John Bale says, "that an Englyshman now can not travayle in an other land by waye of merchandyce or any other honest occupyenge, but yt ys most contumelyouslye throwne in his tethe that all Englishmen have tayles." The name "Kentish Longtails" seems to have been early current, and in Drayton's "Polyolbion" we find "Longtails and Liberty" given almost as a motto for the county.

We are not told whether it was due to this miracle of the "tails," but it is certain that the conversion of the townspeople of Rochester must have been rapid, for we know that a see was founded here as early as 604. The diocese placed under its bishop's care was a small one, including no more than the western part of the ancient kingdom of Kent, the dividing line being roughly the course of the Medway, or, more precisely, that of its tributary, the Teise. The whole diocese formed only a single archdeaconry, which was divided into four deaneries, and of this small number one was subject, as a peculiar, to the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Canterbury, "who holdeth his prerogative wheresoever his lands do lye."

Not only "hath the See at Rochester well holden her owne: for during the whole succession of ... Bishops, which in right line have followed Justus, she hath continually mainteined her Chaire at this one place, whereas in most partes of the Realme besides, the Sees of the Bishops have suffred sundry translations," but it was long also before the ancient limits of the diocese were changed. In 1845 it was enlarged so as to include Ess.e.x and Hertfords.h.i.+re, and was then divided into the four archdeaconries of Rochester, Colchester, Ess.e.x and St. Alban's. The old palace at Bromley, which had been since Cardinal Fisher's time the chief home of the bishops, was at the same time quitted for Danbury in Ess.e.x. In 1863 the archdeaconries of Rochester and St. Albans were joined into one, and in 1867 the total number of archdeaconries was reduced to two: Rochester and St. Albans forming one, and Ess.e.x the other. The extent and composition of the diocese was again entirely changed in 1877, when the new diocese of St. Albans was formed. Since that time the diocese of Rochester has included West Kent and part of Surrey, and has comprised three archdeaconries: Rochester, Kingston, and Southwark. In 1877 Danbury Palace had to be given up and Selsdon in Surrey became for a time the episcopal home. Quite recently a new palace has been completed at Kennington, in the most populous and needy part of the diocese.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE GUILDHALL VANE (FROM A DRAWING BY R. J. BEALE).]

In mediaeval times the bishops of Rochester had a town house at Southwark. This was afterwards changed for the one at Lambeth Marsh, where the attempt to poison Bishop Fisher occurred. They had also other country homes at Halling and Trottescliffe. Our s.p.a.ce will not, however, allow us to deal at length with these palaces outside the cathedral precincts.

The poverty of the Church at the time of the Conquest has been already mentioned, and even later we find that the episcopal revenue continued to be very small. One diocese only, we are told, paid a lower "Rome-scot," and only two English bishoprics appear as inferior in value in the King's books. Some old sources of episcopal and monastic income seem to us curious. The bulk was, of course, derived from manors or estates, but we find also that the bishop was ent.i.tled to a share of the whales killed on the sh.o.r.es of his diocese and that the monks of the priory of St. Andrew owned oyster fisheries. Out of the estates a.s.signed to them the monks had to make an annual contribution, in kind, called the Xenium, to the bishop's income, and this, due on St. Andrew's Day, was on several occasions a subject of dispute. In Henry VIII.'s time we find the bishopric valued at 358 4_s._ 9_d._, and later, in 1595, it is stated that the clear annual profits did not exceed 220. To supplement this paltry revenue the bishops often held other appointments _in commendam_. During the latter part of the seventeenth century and the greater part of the eighteenth, the deanery of Westminster was, in this way, almost continuously attached to the bishopric of Rochester.

Such pluralities are, of course, no longer allowed, the estates of this, as of other sees, being administered by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, through whom the bishop receives the regular and more adequate income that he now enjoys. Poor though the see has been, we find many distinguished men among those who have held it. A great number of such pa.s.sed on soon to richer bishoprics, and some even attained the archiepiscopal dignity, but one or two of the greatest consistently refused to be thus advanced.

For the sake of convenient reference, we now give a list of the bishops, in chronological order.

#St. Justus#, sent to reinforce the English mission in 601, became the first bishop in 604; fled to Gaul in 617, on the great relapse into idolatry after Ethelbert's death; summoned back after a year by the new king Eadbald; succeeded Mellitus as Archbishop of Canterbury in 624; died in 627.

#Roma.n.u.s#, consecrated in 624; drowned while on a mission to Rome (_absorptus fluctibus Italici Maris_) probably in 627, but certainly before November, 630.

#St. Paulinus# came over with Justus; ordained Bishop of York, in 625, to accompany Ethelburga, princess of Kent, when she went to marry Edwin of Northumbria; baptised Edwin himself in April, 627, and earned well his t.i.tle of the Apostle of Northumbria; preached also, we are told, in Lancas.h.i.+re, in c.u.mbria, on the Trent, and at Lincoln; fled with the widowed queen on Edwin's overthrow in 633, as he owed attendance to her; gladly received in Kent and persuaded to accept the see of Rochester, where, probably, he received the pallium sent him in 634; died in 644; buried in the _secretarium_ of the church, whence his remains were afterwards transferred to the Norman cathedral.

#St. Ythamar#, the first bishop who was an Englishman by birth; died in 655; like Paulinus, buried in the church, and much revered, though the Normans seem to have been less eager to translate his remains.

#Damian# succeeded in 656, died in 664.

#Putta# succeeded five years later in 669; translated to Hereford in 676; died in 688.

#Cuichelm# resigned the see, through poverty, after only two years.

#Gebmund#, appointed in 678, died in 693.

#Tobias#, appointed in 693; famous for his great learning, which included a knowledge of both Greek and Latin; died in 726; buried in the _Porticus_ of St. Paul, which he had himself built on to the cathedral.

Then came #Alduulf#, 726--d. 739 or 741; #Duina#, 741-747; #Earduulf#, 747 (or 757)-765; #Diora#, 778--d. 781; #Wermund#, 788-802; #Beornmod#, 803 (or 811)-814; #Tathnoth#, 841 (or 844)- ; #G.o.dwin I.#; #Cutherwulf#, 868- ; #Swithulf#, 880- ; #Ruhric#; #Cheolmund#; #Chinefurth#; #Burrhic#; #Alfstan# (#Athelstan#), 955- ; #G.o.dwin II.# (#G.o.dric#) and #G.o.dwin III.#, c. 995--c. 1012. This is as complete a list as can be given until we come to Bishop Siward.

#Siward# was appointed in 1058; under him the establishment reached the greatest extreme of poverty, but, though it is suspected that the services of the church were also neglected, he was allowed to retain the see after the Conquest until his death in 1075.

#Ernost#, a monk, appointed by Lanfranc in 1076, died in the same year.

#Gundulf#, consecrated in 1077; came over with Lanfranc; also a great friend of Anselm; a skilful architect, rebuilt much of the cathedral, built the White Tower in London, St. Leonard's Tower and the nunnery at Malling, part of Dartford Church, and a tower at Rochester earlier than the present keep; subst.i.tuted Benedictines for the old secular establishment of the cathedral; famous for piety and holiness, and in favour with the Conqueror and the two sons who succeeded him; died in 1108, aged 84; buried by Anselm in the cathedral, where a plain tomb is still called by his name.

#Ralph d'Escures#, an abbot of Sees who had been forced to flee by Robert of Belleme; a friend of Gundulf; some architectural work at Rochester carried out under his sway; Archbishop of Canterbury in 1114; died in 1122.

#Ernulf# came next in 1115; had been successively Prior of Canterbury and Abbot of Peterborough; built at both those places as well as at Rochester; famous for saintliness, and a great authority on canon law; perhaps best known generally by Sterne's comments in "Tristram Shandy"

on the terrible excommunication curse contained in his "Textus Roffensis"; died in 1124.

#John#, formerly Archdeacon of Canterbury; Bishop of Rochester in 1125; cathedral consecrated in his time; died in 1137.

#John#, formerly Abbot of Sees; appointed in 1137; died in 1142.

#Ascelin#, succeeded in 1142; active bishop, even visited Rome for the monks of his cathedral; died in 1148.

#Walter#, chosen in 1148; the first bishop elected by the monks of the Priory of St. Andrew, the right being granted them by his brother Archbishop Theobald; formerly Archdeacon of Canterbury; died in 1182.

#Gualeran#, appointed in 1182; formerly Archdeacon of Bayeux; died in 1184.

#Gilbert de Glanvill#, consecrated in 1185; employed earlier by Becket on a mission to the Pope; quarrelled with his monks and helped Archbishops Baldwin and Hubert Walter (a friend of his own) against those of Canterbury; died 1214, before the Interdict was removed; buried at Rochester, where a tomb is shown as his.

#Benedict de Sansetun#, succeeded in 1215; saw cathedral plundered, and great works in new choir; died in 1226.

#Henry Sandford#; new choir entered in his first year, 1227; in a sermon at Sittingbourne said that the release from Purgatory, in one day, of Richard I., Stephen Langton, and a chaplain of the latter, had been revealed to him; died in 1235.