Part 1 (1/2)
The Cathedral Church of Peterborough.
by W.D. Sweeting.
PREFACE.
The chief authorities consulted in the preparation of this book are named in the text. Besides the well-known works of reference on the English Cathedrals, and the ”Monastic Chronicles,” there are several that deal with Peterborough alone, of which the most important and valuable are ”Gunton's History” with Dean Patrick's Supplement, ”Craddock's History,” the monographs by Professor Paley and Mr Poole, and the Guide of Canon Davys. If I have ventured to differ from some of these writers on various points, I must appeal, in justification, to a careful and painstaking study of the Cathedral and its history, during a residence at Peterborough of more than twenty years.
My best thanks are due to Mr Caster of Peterborough, for permission to incorporate with this account the substance of a Guide, which I prepared for him, published in 1893; and to Mr Robert Davison of London, for his description of the Mosaic Pavement, executed by him for the Choir. I desire also to express my thanks for the drawings supplied by Mr W.H.
Lord, Mr H.P. Clifford, and Mr O.R. Allbrow; and to acknowledge my indebtedness to the Photochrom Company, Ld., and to Messrs S.B. Bolas & Co., for their excellent photographs.
W.D. SWEETING.
PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL.
CHAPTER I.
HISTORY OF THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF S. PETER.
Until the middle of the nineteenth century, Peterborough remained one of the most unchanged examples in the kingdom of the monastic borough. The place was called into existence by the monastery and was entirely dependent on it. The Abbot was supreme lord, and had his own gaol. He possessed great power over the whole hundred. And even after the See of Peterborough was const.i.tuted, and the Abbey Church became a cathedral, many of the ancient privileges were retained by the newly formed Dean and Chapter. They still retained the proclamation and control of the fairs; their officer, the high bailiff, was the returning officer at elections for parliament; they regulated the markets; they appointed the coroner. Professor Freeman contrasts an Abbot's town with a Bishop's town, when speaking about the city of Wells.[1] ”An Abbot's borough might arise anywhere; no better instance can be found than the borough of S. Peter itself, that Golden Borough which often came to be called distinctively the Borough without further epithet.” And again, ”the settlement which arose around the great fenland monastery of S. Peter, the holy house of Medeshampstead, grew by degrees into a borough, and by later ecclesiastical arrangements, into a city, a city and borough to which the changes of our own day have given a growth such as it never knew before.”
Situated on the edge of the Fens, some miles to the east of the great north road, without any special trade, and without any neighbouring territorial magnates, it is hardly surprising that the place seemed incapable of progress, and remained long eminently respectable and stagnant. In one of his caustic epigrams Dean Duport does indeed speak of the wool-combers as if there were a recognised calling that employed some numbers of men; but he is not complimentary to those employed, for he says that the men that comb the wool, and the sheep that bear it, are on a par as regards intelligence:
”At vos simplicitate pares et moribus estis, Lanificique homines, lanigerique greges.”
In another epigram he derides the city itself, calling it contemptuously ”Urbicula”; and he suggests, with a humour that to modern ideas savours of irreverence, that this little city of S. Peter's, ”Petropolis,”
unless S. Peter had the keys, would run away through its own gates.
The great development of the last half of the nineteenth century is due to the railway works at New England, and to the Great Northern Line making Peterborough an important railway centre. In 1807 the entire population of the city and hamlets was under 3,500. In 1843 it was just over 5,500, and when the railway was laid it was not much more than 6,000. It has since gone up by leaps and bounds. In 1861 the population exceeded 11,000. By 1911 it had grown by steady increments to 33,578.
The private diary of a resident of about 1850 would read like an old world record. The watchman in the Minster Precincts still went his rounds at night and called out the time and the weather; sedan-chairs were in use; the corn-market of the neighbourhood was held in the open street; turnpikes took toll at every road out of the town; a weekly paper had only just been started on a humble scale, being at first little more than a railway time-table with a few items of local news at the back; a couple of rooms more than sufficed for the business of the post office.
In 1874 a charter of incorporation was granted, not without some opposition; it had been, up to that time, the only city in England without a mayor, except Ely and Westminster.
An account of the church which is now the cathedral church of a diocese that was only const.i.tuted in 1541, must of necessity trace its history for some centuries before it attained its present dignity, and when it was simply the church of an abbey. Three centuries and a half of cathedral dignity have not made its old name of Minster obsolete; it is indeed the term usually employed.[2]
The village was first known by the name of Medeshamstede, the homestead in the meadows. There is no evidence that any houses were built at all before the foundation of the monastery. There was probably not a single habitation on the spot before the rising walls of the religious house made dwelling-places for the workmen a necessity. As time went on the requirements of the inmates brought together a population, which for centuries had no interests unconnected with the abbey. The establishment of the monastery is due to the conversion of the royal family to Christianity. It was in the middle of the seventh century when Penda was King of the Mercians, and his children, three sons, Peada, Wulfere, and Ethelred, and two daughters, Kyneburga, and Kyneswitha, became converted to the Christian faith. On succeeding to the throne, Peada the eldest son, founded this monastery of Medeshamstede. The first Abbot, Saxulf, had been in a high position at court; he is described as an earl (_comes_); and most likely had the practical duty of building and organising the monastery, as he is called by Bede the builder of the place as well as first Abbot (_Constructor et abbas_). This was in the year 654 or 655 (for the date is given differently by different authorities), and Peada only lived two or three years afterwards. His brothers in turn came to the throne, and both helped to enrich the rising foundation. The elder of the two, however, had lapsed from Christianity, and killed his own two sons in his rage at finding they had become Christians; but afterwards stung with remorse he confessed his offence to S. Chad, who had brought the princes to the knowledge of Christ, and offered to expiate it in any way he was directed. He was bidden to restore the Christian Religion, to repair the ruined churches, and to found new ones. The whole story is told with great particularity by the chronicler, and it was represented in stained gla.s.s in the cloisters of the abbey, as described hereafter.
The church thus built must have been of considerable substance, if, as recorded, Peada in the foundation of it ”laid such stones as that eight yoke of oxen could scarce draw one of them.”[1] It has nevertheless, utterly perished. We read of the continued support bestowed by a succession of princes and n.o.bles, of the increasing dignity of the house, and of the privileges it acquired; but there is nowhere a single line descriptive of the buildings themselves. Gunton does indeed speak of a goodly house for the Abbot constructed by King Peada; but he must have been capable of strange credulity if he imagined, as his words seem to imply, that this very house was in existence in the time of Henry VIII. He writes thus:[3] ”The Royal Founder ... built also an house for the Abbot, which upon the dissolution by Henry the Eighth, became the Bishop's Palace. A building very large and stately, as the present age can testifie; all the rooms of common habitation being built above stairs, and underneath are very fair vaults and goodly cellars for several uses. The great Hall, a magnificent room, had, at the upper end, in the Wall, very high above the ground, three stately Thrones, wherein were placed sitting, the three Royal Founders carved curiously of Wood, painted and guilt, which in the year 1644 were pulled down and broken to pieces.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: The Cathedral; from the North, c. 1730]
There is no doubt that this first monastery was utterly destroyed by the Danes about the year 870. The very circ.u.mstantial account given in the chronicle of Abbot John, derived from Ingulf, is well known; but as it is entirely without corroboration in any of the historians who mention the destruction of the monastery, recent criticism has not hesitated to p.r.o.nounce the whole account a mere invention. It is unnecessary, therefore, to give it here. The account ”may have some foundation in fact,” Professor Freeman admits, ”but if so, it is strange to find no mention of it in Orderic.”[4] But the discredit thrown upon the minutely graphic story of Ingulf, does not of course apply to the actual fact, of which there is ample evidence, that the monastery was burnt by the Danes. Matthew of Westminster says:[5]--”And so the wicked leaders, pa.s.sing through the district of York, burned the churches, cities, and villages ... and thence advancing they destroyed all the monasteries (_coen.o.bia_) of monks and nuns situated in the fens, and slew the inmates. The names of these monasteries are, Crowland, Thorney, Ramsey, Hamstede, now called Burgh S. Peter, with the Isle of Ely, and that once very famous house of nuns, wherein the holy Virgin and Queen Etheldreda laudably discharged the office of abbess for many years.”
The re-edification of the monastery, henceforth known as Burgh, is due to Bishop Ethelwold, of Winchester, with the approval and support of King Edgar. This was accomplished in 972. We have now reached a point where all can take a practical interest in the subject, because portions of this church are to be seen to this day. The exact site of the Saxon church had always been a matter of conjecture until the excavations made in the course of the works incidental to the rebuilding of the lantern tower (1883-1893) finally settled the question. Many students of the fabric supposed that the existing church practically followed the main outlines of the former one, possibly with increased length and breadth, but at any rate on the old site. It is now ascertained that the east end of the Saxon church was nearly under the east wall of the present south transept and the south walls of the south transepts of both buildings were but a very few feet apart. The dimensions of the former church both its length and breadth, were as nearly as possible half of those of the existing one. A description of the present appearance of the remains will be found in a later chapter (see page 80).
The Church of Bishop Ethelwold was not without its vicissitudes. Nothing was more promising than its origin, and the circ.u.mstances of its building. King Edgar and Dunstan, whom he had made Archbishop of Canterbury, were very enthusiastic in extending the growth of monastic influence in the country. No less than forty Benedictine convents are said to have been either founded or restored by Edgar. Bishop Ethelwold was entirely of one mind with the King and Archbishop, in the ecclesiastical reforms of the day. Mr Poole well describes the commencement of the work. ”At Medeshamstede the ruins were made to their hands, and they at once commenced the grateful task of their restoration and appropriation. As usual, we find certain supernatural interferences a.s.signed as indications of the divine approval of the work. It is related how Ethelwold was directed by G.o.d, in a dream, to go to the monastery of S. Peter, among the Mid-English; how he halted first at Oundle, supposing that to be the monastery intended; but being warned in a dream to continue his eastward course, at length discovered the ashes of the desolated Medeshamstede. It needs but little ingenuity to collect from this that Ethelwold, having received some vague intelligence of the present condition both of Oundle and Medeshamstede, started from Winchester, determined on reaching either or both; and that being less pleased with what he saw at Oundle than he expected, he extended his progress to Medeshamstede.”[6] The Queen is said to have overheard the Bishop's fervent prayers for the success of his object, and to have used her influence with the King; but he probably required very little persuasion to undertake what was so much to his taste. It may be mentioned that if we accept the date 972 for the completion of the re-building (the Chronicle gives 970 for its commencement), the very same year witnessed that well-known scene on the River Dee, when King Edgar held the helm of a royal barge as it was being rowed by eight va.s.sal kings.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Remains of Saxon Church]
The King came to visit the monastery thus rebuilt under his direction.
The Archbishops, Dunstan and Oswald, with a large company of the n.o.bility and clergy attended at the same time. The King is said to have inspected some old deeds which had been saved from the general destruction a century before, and to have wept for joy at reading the privileges belonging to the place. He therefore granted a new charter, confirming all the old privileges and possessions. Since in this charter no allusion is made to the triple dedication of the church, but S. Peter alone seems named as the Patron Saint, it is not unreasonable to conclude that the first church of Burgh monastery was dedicated to S.
Peter only, and that the dedication of the original minster to SS.