Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

tached to the roof, which is now in very good order, and a characteristic specimen1.

The stalls and organ gallery appear to be those which were fitted up at the first [though a College Order of April 10, 1666 complains that "our College-chapell is not yet provided of an Organ, nor of more money than £25 towards ye Purchase of one." It was decided soon after that £35 should be spent in buying one. It was expected to have been ready by Michaelmas in that year, but “by reason of ye Plague in ye Town" was somewhat delayed, and I have not been able to discover when it arrived, but it was probably in working order in 1669—70]3.

These fittings contain a mixture of genuine mediæval panelling, which was possibly brought from the parochial chancel, or the disused chantries. This may be seen at the back of the stalls, and in front of the organ gallery. The stalls and subsellia, however, belong in style to the period of their construction. The stalls have no misereres. The entrance door of the Chapel is also a mediæval door removed from elsewhere, perhaps to replace that which was defaced by Dowsing. [It has been ornamented with Jacobean shields and enrichments.]

In the interior, the east end was of course utterly defiled and demolished by Dowsing, and the altar had no rails when Blomefield wrote, for he tells us that

"The East Window containing the History of Christ's Passion is very fine and whole, being hid in the late troublesome Times, in the very

[We find in the Chapel Accounts for 1631:

"Imprimis for 8 Angells and woode to make the winges of the Angells 43"."]

2 [College Orders, April 28 and October 25, 1666. In contradiction to these pleas of poverty the following special subscriptions to the organ are recorded in Blomefield, 154:

"Joh. et D. Alicia Peyton rogatu Magistri dederunt organum Pneumaticum, quod valebat £40.

Ad instaurandum Organum Pneumaticum Pentecost Hoper (cum filium haberet) ex hoc Coll' Soc'. £20."]

3 [There had apparently been some legal difficulty about obtaining the organ, for the accounts of 1661-2 record "Expensa circa litem pro organo, 19. 8. 8." In 1665-6 we find "Pro expensis in tempore pestis £43.3.6." In 1666—7 “Pro organo-poeo ex donatione per Magistrum Ashburnham 20. Organum inflanti 10"." In 1667-8 "Expensae circa organum £44.0.0." 1669-70. “Organum inflanti £2.0.0." This charge is continued yearly from this time, and probably marks the period when the organ was ready for daily use.]

Boxes which now stand round the Altar instead of Rails; the Chapel is paved with black and white Marble, beautified with Sentences, is stalled round, hath an Organ, and two large Brass Branches."

Moreover, that Doctor Beaumont (Master 1663—69)

"drew with Chalk and Charcoal, those two Pieces by the Altar, that on the North side of the Wisemens Offering, being exceeding fine: the Star is admirable'."

In 1731-2 about £70 was paid to joiners ("scriniarii") for work in the Chapel, perhaps the panelling at the east end. Also in 17352 the roof was ordered "to be examined in order to have it taken down or repaired:" but the latter alternative was evidently adopted, and nearly £300 was spent upon the Chapel, of which £105 was paid to the painter.

[The view of the interior of the Chapel drawn by Pugin for Ackermann's work shews large tablets, apparently of stone, on each side of the east window, and between the windows on the north and south sides. They extended from the cornice of the stalls to the corbels of the roof. The Creed and some texts were painted on them. They were removed in the course of a thorough repair of the Chapel carried out in 1821-23.]

The present altar is railed round, and has a handsome modern altar-piece of wainscot behind it, but at what period constructed does not appear.

Six of the lateral windows were, between the years 1855 and 1858, enriched with painted glass by Professor Ainmüller of

1 Collectanea, 157. [Uffenbach, who visited this College Aug. 7, 1710, says: "On either side of the altar hung two scenes of the Passion, well designed in black on blue cloth in golden frames." Translation by Rev. J. E. B. Mayor, 170.] College Order, March 27.

3 [Ibid., Aug. 7, 1821. Agreed that the Joiners' work in the Chapel, and the Screen in front of the organ gallery be repaired.” June 29, 1822. "Agreed that the ornaments and wainscotting in the interior of the Chapel be cleaned and repaired......' July 6, 1822. "Agreed that all the Tablets in the Chapel shall be taken down, and that the Lead Work on the south side of the Roof and the Wainscotting of the cieling be substantially repaired.”]

4 [The offer "to supply the two windows adjoining the East End of the College Chapel with stained glass" was accepted Nov. 28, 1851. These are criticised as “a new and important decoration" in The Ecclesiologist for August, 1855; and the last four in the same journal for April, 1858.]

[ocr errors]

Munich, the total cost of which, including the carriage and setting up, has amounted to £1467'. Each window contains about 67 feet 6 inches superficial in glass. [The work was undertaken as a memorial to William Smyth, M.A., Professor of Modern History (1807-49), chiefly through the exertions of the Rev. William Nind, M.A., Fellow.] The subjects are,

North side.

South side.

The Sacrifice of Isaac.

The Preaching of S. John the Baptist.
The Nativity.

The Resurrection.

The Healing of a cripple by SS. Peter and John.
S. Paul before Agrippa and Festus.

The south gallery was at first a passage from the Master's Lodge to the Chapel, and led to the Master's pew in the organ gallery, which still exists. It was built in 1633, and the north gallery probably soon after. They both apparently became ruinous about 1709, for on April 15 of that year the following College order was made:

"Yt ye Cloyster on ye North side of ye Chapel should be taken down to ye ground and rebuilt according to a Pap deliver'd into ye Society at a meeting ys day by Mr grumbold... also... that forty five pounds, the price of ye Trees cutt down behind ye new Gardens be given towards this work."

Two years afterwards the south cloister was taken down and rebuilt in the same style, as the following order shews:

.

October 4, 1711. "Agreed.... that the Cloyster on the south side of the Chappell should be taken down to the ground and rebuilt of the same dimensions it is at present and according to the Model of ye Cloyster now erected on the north side thereof. And that ye sum of eighty pounds in the Treasury of the Gift of ye Bp. of Durham be applied towards the Charge of ye said Building. . . .'

[ocr errors]

These new galleries are in the Italian style, and totally

[There were a few fragments of old glass in these windows before the Munich glass was put in, consisting of heads and portions of figures with arabesques and other ornaments, drawn in a style similar to that of the east window, and probably at the same period. We have seen that Bishop Cosin proposed to fill the north and south windows with painted glass, and these fragments may perhaps indicate that his design was carried out, but that the windows were not so fortunate as to escape destruction in the same way as the east window did. The fragments have been carefully preserved.]

2

["May 4, 1633. About ye gallery from ye chapell to the lodging, £21. 15. 10."] VOL. I.

4

different from those which they superseded, which were precisely like the arcade that still remains against the lower part of the west front of the Chapel, with four-centered arcades and a single Jacobean Gothic window in the centre of each above. [The differences between the two are shewn in figures 14, 15. The former is an exact reproduction of part of Loggan's print. It was ordered that the south gallery should be fitted up as a chamber on April 2, 1757-]

CHAPTER VII.

HISTORY OF THE OLD CHAPEL; OR, CHURCH OF S. MARY THE LESS.

[WE must now examine the history of the Church which had so long been used as the Chapel of the College.]

The episcopal founder appropriated to the use of his scholars the church of S. Peter outside Trumpington Gates, which accordingly was employed by them as a college chapel until the beginning of the seventeenth century; and the parish duties were performed by a parochial chaplain appointed by the College'. The Church fell to the ground about 1350, as Fuller states, without mentioning his authority.

The Registers of the Bishops of Ely furnish the following dates:

"1349. 17. Kal. Nov. (Oct. 16). License is granted to Nicolas de Wisebech to celebrate Divine service within the College until the Church of S. Peter is dedicated.

1349. License for the dedication of the Church of S. Peter outside Trumpington gate".

1352. 7. Kal. April: (Mar. 26). License to the Scholars of the

1 In the list of Patrons of Churches, etc. in the Diocese of Ely, inserted in Bishop Gray's Register and others, we find "Ecclesia Sancte Marie extra Trumpiton Gates Cant: appropriata Magistro et Scolaribus Domus Sci Petri regitur per Capellanum.” This list is undated, but as it states that the Rectory of S. Botolph is in the gift of Corpus Christi College it must have been drawn up between 1353 and 1460. [Cole says "about 1340 or 1350."] MSS. Baker, xxx. MSS. Cole, xxiii. 197.

2 Fuller, 76. [It had been given to the Hospital of S. John by Henry son of Sigar of Cambridge, in the reign of King John. Peterhouse Treasury, "Ecclesia Cantabrigie," A. 1. Selden, Hist. of Tithes, 386.]

3 MSS. Cole, xxxv. 118.

House of S. Peter to celebrate on a portable Altar in the chancel of S. Peter's Church, on account of the work of the new chancel'.

1352. Nov. 3. The Church outside Trumpington gate was dedicated in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary"."

The actual Church is a lofty body without aisles or any structural division between nave and chancel. It is 27 feet wide and ICO feet long, divided into six severies, each of which except the westernmost is a double square in plan. It is lighted by lofty windows, and has deep buttresses. The tracery of the windows on the north side has wholly disappeared except from the one at the east end. On the south side and at the eastern gable are rich flowing Decorated windows, the tracery of which is designed in the same style, and in many respects with the same patterns, as those of the Lady Chapel at Ely, and of the Presbytery of the Cathedral, the former of which was begun in 1321 and finished about 1349, and the latter finished before 1336. The division between nave and chancel is marked by the

1 MSS. Cole, xxiii. 130. "On the back of an original Bull, which Serves as a Sort of Binding to this Volume [The Registers of Bishops Montacute and L'Isle] is the following Entry or two, wrote in the same Hand with the Register, but a Peice is torn off at the Corner, so that the Sence is imperfect." The entries are records of licenses which the Bishop granted in 1352 for celebration in particular places, of which the one referring to Peterhouse is: "Item 7 Kal. Apr: ibidem [at Downham] 1352, similem licenciam Scolaribus suis Domus Sancti Petri super Altare portabile in Cancello Ecclesie Sancti Petri predicti pro eo quod inceptum et finitum novi Cancelli........” 2 "Die Sabbati proximo post festum omnium Sanctorum [Dominus Episcopus] dedicavit Ecclesiam extra Trumpeton Gates Cantebrig' in Honorem beate Marie semper Virginis." Register of Bishop L'Isle, MSS. Cole, xxiii. 105. [On Nov. 28 in this year the Bishop gave to the College service-books and "quasdam tabulas depictas ad ornatum summi altaris;" and in 1357 vestments, altar furniture, and plate. Register of Peterhouse, p. 82.]

In 1385, Bishop Arundell, at the petition of the parishioners, changed the dedication feast from the morrow of the Commemoration of All Souls (Nov. 3) to the 11th of July, on account of the number of feast days immediately preceding the old dedication day, which prevented the parishioners from rendering due honour thereto. MSS. Baker, xl. 233. [The Bishop's statute is printed in The Ecclesiologist, xv. (1857), 286.

3 [Professor Willis wrote this description just before the extensive repairs executed under the direction of Mr G. G. Scott in 1857 and it is therefore extremely valuable as shewing what the state of the Church was before they were undertaken. Discoveries were made during the work which render a few alterations necessary. I have also added an account of the changes in arrangement introduced at that time.]

4

* [Hence, probably, the tradition that Alan de Walsingham (Prior of Ely 1341–— 1364), who is known to have designed the Lady Chapel and other buildings there, was also the architect of this church. It is worth remarking that a vaulted passage

« ПредишнаНапред »