documents, we learn that the furniture of this altar was of costly description; that the chapel was in charge of a special officer; and that as many as sixty lamps and tapers were lighted here, several of which burned incessantly.77 The tombs of abbots Bromesgrove and Wykewane were also situated here, as well as that of Walter de Gloucester, one of the benefactors of the monastery, for the repose of whose soul certain rents were assigned from the profits of the manor of Batlington, to provide two chaplains who should celebrate masses, and likewise perform hymns in honor of the blessed Virgin in the chapel dedicated to her, where the body of the said Walter lay buried, 78 In concluding our observations respecting this chapel, it is proper to correct an error which previous writers have maintained. The fabric is in the conventual registers termed Capella Sanctæ Mariæ in Cryptis, which has hitherto been rendered "in the crypts." Now although small chapels for solitary masses are occasionally to be traced even in those subterranean structures-yet the character of the individual to whose honor the Lady Chapel was specially devoted, precludes the supposition that the service of the Queen of Heaven-as the Romish church regarded her-the impersonation of purity, and brilliancy, and beauty-was to be presented in the low murky vaults of a charnel-like undercroft. In the manuscript record of De Marleberg's restoration of the presbytery it is expressly stated that he repaired the roofs of the aisles [cryptarum] adjoining.79 This employment of the term leaves it indubitable that aisles, or vaulted passages above ground, were intended; and therefore the chapel of the Virgin, connected with these aisles, was thus evidently level with the adjacent portions of the fabric. The fact of there having been-as we shall shortly prove-a second chapel dedicated to the Virgin, which was situated apart from the church, is sufficient to account for the distinction. The interior of the church from the western entrance of the nave 77 Cottonian MSS. Augustus II. and Vitellius E xvii. 78 Cottonian MS. Nero D iii. fol. 242. 79 Et ipsum presbyterium, cum tectis cryptarum presbyterio adjacentibus."— Cottonian MS. Vespasian B xxiv. to the extremity of the eastern aisle, as depicted in the plan, was 281 feet; of which the nave, continued beneath the area of the central tower, occupied 157 feet. The transept was 116 feet from north to south; the width of the nave and aisles 70 feet, and that of the transept 32. If we further estimate the length of the Lady Chapel at only 70 feet, the length of the church would then have been 350 feet in the whole. The number of altars, for celebration of private masses, erected in various parts throughout the church, exclusive of the high altar in the chancel, must have been considerable. The following are gleaned from the conventual registers, where they are incidentally mentioned. The altar of St. Mary, in her chapel; 80 St. John the Baptist's; that of St. Thomas the Martyr [Becket];82 of the Holy Trinity, St. Stephen's, St. Mary Magdalene; 83 St. Peter's, St. Anne's; St. Ecgwin's at the north of the nave, that of Holy Cross opposite; and the altar of Jesus, erected in the nave also.86 The following were situated either in the aisles or in the crypt [in cryptis], and were consecrated by the bishop of St. Asaph in the year 1295,-the altar of St. Jacob and the Apostles, that of St. Blase, St. Benedict's, and St. Andrew's.87 The sanctity of the fabric was presumed to be yet further augmented by its enclosing within its walls the relics of several reputed saints and martyrs. Among these were the bodies of St. Ecgwin the founder, of St. Wulsin bishop and confessor, and of Symon de Montfort earl of Leicester, who though not admitted to the calendar was for a long time venerated by the English as both saint and martyr, and at whose tomb in the choir numerous miraculous cures 80 Cottonian MS. Vitellius E xvii. fol. 239; in Dugdale's Monasticon, page 40. 81 Ib. fol. 228; copied in Dugdale's Monasticon, page 34. 8 Ib. fol. 10; copied in Tindal's History of Evesham, at foot of page 100. 83 Harleian MS. 3763, fol. 201; Section inscribed "Solutiones Sacristarii per Annum diversis Officiariis." 84 Cottonian MS. Vesp. B xxiv. De bonis operibus Prior. Thomæ. 85 Cottonian MS. Nero D iii. fol. 246; copied in Dugdale, page 12, note. 86 Mr. Abingdon's MS. Notice of the burial-place of abbot Norton. 87 Cottonian MS. Vitellius E fol. 228; in Dugdale, page 34. G are recorded as having been wrought.& Here were also shrines of elaborate workmanship enclosing the relics or entire remains of St. Wistan king and martyr, of St. Odulph, and of St. Credan, together with the shrines of St. Wulsin 89 and St. Ecgwin. The splendour of these receptacles may be judged from that which is recorded of St. Ecgwin's shrine. This was constructed by abbot Mannie in the eleventh century-who is noticed in the chronicle as the best goldsmith of his time—and was formed of gold adorned with precious stones, so that when surrounded by the accompaniment of burning tapers the light of its jewels was visible through great part of the church.90 South of the church, as indicated in the plan, slight traces of the cloisters were observed. These-being appropriated to the study and recreation of the monks and forming likewise a covered and glazed communication between the church and monastery—appeared in the usual situation, at the junction of the transept with the nave; and must have formed, when entire, an open quadrangle of about 130 feet diameter. Two sides of the cloisters were glazed, as well as paved, by abbot Ombresley.91 Near the eastern walk of the cloisters the foundations of the Chapter-room, built by abbot Brokehampton, occurred; of which enough remained to prove that the apartment was decagonal, as shewn in the plan, with a groined ceiling sustained by a central column, as may still be seen at Salisbury and at Wells. Here, as in the latter instances, the apartment was ample, about fifty feet across; the chapter-room of our larger monasteries being daily used by the fraternity, who met here after matins to hear occasional sermons, to commemorate deceased brethren, and to receive breves communicating intelligence of the death of other monks. Here also offenders Miracula Symonis de Montfort, in Cottonian MS. Vespasian A vi. "Wulsin or Wilsius was appointed abbot of Westminster by St. Dunstan about the year 958, and was after his death reverenced as a saint."-Stevens' Additions to Dugdale's Monasticon, vol. i. page 281. 90"In quo erant tres lapides magnam partem ecclesiæ illuminantes."-Harleian MS. 3763, De Gestis Abbatum. 91 "Et ædificavit unam panam claustri contiguam ecclesiæ cum vitris et pavimentis pro dicto pano et uno alio."-Harl. MS. 3763; De Gestis Abbatum. were accused, and chastisement was administered. The last offices also were performed here over the bodies of deceased members, prior to their interment in the area of the cloisters or in the adjacent burial-ground.92 Having thus completed a general survey of the destroyed church, let us anxiously search after its few and obscure vestiges, which a minute examination will present to us as still retaining-though shattered and degraded-their original and once proud position. Where are they to be found? In the low wall that separates the parish burial-ground at its south-eastern part from the adjoining gardens. Here portions of the wall of the north aisle of the nave may be discovered, and in the same wall-half-buried in a dust-pit formed in the churchyard, within what is regarded as consecrated ground-the jambs of the great entrance to the church may be discerned, which stood within the northern porch, looking toward the town. A rough and ruined mass of masonry within the gardens, opposite the chantry of St. Lawrence church, serves barely to indi 92 Decretals of Lanfranc, in Fosbroke's British Monachism, 8vo. vol. ii. p. 157.The Illustration inserted in the text, is copied from the title-page of the exquisitely illuminated MS. Valerius Maximus, in Harleian Collection, No. 4374. cate the situation of the western front, and thus sums up the brief memorials that point out to us the actual situation of the abbeychurch. Yes! here "bells tolled to prayers; and men of many humours, various thoughts, chanted vespers, matins, and round the little islet of their life rolled for ever the illimitable ocean, tinting all things with its eternal hues and reflexes. How silent now; all departed, clean gone. The devouring time-demons have made away with it all." 93 Toward the buildings so immediately adjacent to the church as well as so intimately connected with it, as almost to form a portion of that solemn pile, it will be well in the next place to direct attention. Of the remains of these-and few they are in number— the arch of entrance to the chapter-room has been remarkably preserved amid the protracted, because repeated, devastation which has removed every sculptured relic of the once adjacent church. It stands embedded in a portion of the outer wall of the eastern cloister, whence it conducted through a spacious vestibule to the interior of the chapter-house. The arch is gradually embowed, and includes in its receding architrave a double row of niches, with ornamental canopies, wherein were formerly enshrined the effigies of saints and martyrs, twenty in all; most of which, though now decapitated, yet maintain their seats, exhibiting, even in their present mutilated condition, a pleasing specimen of the sculpture of the time. The figures are said to have been decollated so recently as the middle of the last century, till which period they had been preserved by a Mr. Rogers who held the property upon lease; but he having a wayward son, the youth is said to have thus wilfully mutilated them, to annoy his father on account of a denial which he had received to some request. The back of the archway is disfigured by modern plaistering, and even the sculptured architrave is made to prop a despicable hovel, which is actually reared against its tabernacled canopies. It is additionally painful to remark that all the projections are fast crumbling away beneath an exposure which the builder could not anticipate, and that no later hand attempts to screen from dissolution this last relic connected with the extirpated church. The new edition of Dugdale's Monasticon has perpetuated 98 Carlyle's Past and Present, book ii. chapter 2. |