Francis Bond

“ More Classical still in design—an entablature with architrave, frieze and cornice superseding the semicircular arches of the Cambridge stalls—is the superb woodwork at Cartmel, Lancashire. From the Dissolution up to 1620, the choir of Cartmel priory church was roofless; the canopies of the stalls must have perished; the stalls themselves remain, bearing the mark of long exposure to the weather. ”

“ In the latter years of the fourteenth century we come to a new form of stall design; one in which the English carvers won their greatest triumphs, and which became the standard and typical design for English stalls. It is seen in the magnificent tabernacled stalls of Lincoln, Chester, Nantwich, Carlisle, Windsor, St Asaph, Ripon, Manchester, Westminster, Beverley and Durham. To distinguish this group, we may term it "stallwork with tabernacled canopies," or, more shortly, "tabernacled stalls." Though new, it is, like all design, based on earlier models. ”

“ In the Cartmel stalls the one feature which is pre-eminently Jacobean is to be seen in the character of the busts in the frieze; if they are compared with those at Christchurch (77) , they are seen at once to be of seventeenth and not of sixteenth century design. Setting those aside, the design is purely that of the Early English Renaissance, as practised by Italian artists. It is one of the most remarkable examples of "survival" in design in the range of English art, and as beautiful as it is belated—a whole century behind the times. ”

“ Abroad, the great mass of stallwork has perished; sometimes at the hands of pious vandals, often through neglect, more often still through indifference to or active dislike of mediæval art. In the stallwork of Belgium not a single tabernacled canopy remains; in France and Italy the great majority of the Gothic stalls have been replaced by woodwork of the Classical design that was dear to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; only in Spain can the wealth and splendour of English stallwork be rivalled. In England a great amount of magnificent stallwork still remains ”

“ The canopies are hexagonal, supported on shafts, which have clustered niches above their proper capitals; the stalls of the Chancellor and Treasurer, which are at the extreme east on either side of the choir, have winged seraphs in their capitals. The niches have ogee canopies bowing forward in front of their true gables, with various small heads and faces on the hip-knobs. A second story of the canopy contains a niche, square in plan, but set lozenge wise, covered with a lofty pinnacle, and flanked by open screenwork with high flying buttresses, nearly all of which have lost their crockets. ”

“ Put these items together—the wages of choirmen and boys, and now and then of extra help, the making, mending and washing of surplices, the cost of music, the salaries of the organist and parish clerk and the cost of the choir school, and it will be seen that the services of a large town church must have been, musically, on quite a grand scale; it is equally plain that the love of church music and the willingness to pay for it were equally great in the villages. ”

“ The tracery of the ogee arch rests on an arch, usually an ogee arch, which is cusped in ogee, semicircular or segmental curves, tipped with charmingly diversified pendants of faces, fruits and foliage; the interval between the two arches is filled with a network of compound curves—a labyrinth of beautiful forms—enticing the eye to attempt to follow their ramifications by ever new routes; each little pattern is cusped, and each has the ogee curve at one end or both ends, or at one side (41) . Equally ingenious and diversified is the tracery which fills up the tall pediment. ”

“ Just as the Chester stalls were a criticism of those of Lincoln, and the Lincoln stalls of those of Ely, so the stalls of Ripon are a criticism of those of Nantwich and Carlisle. In the latter the upper story had been emphasised; at Ripon the bottom story is given the dominance; compared with the simplicity of the Carlisle design, the lower stage at Ripon, as at Nantwich, is surpassingly rich; gables and pinnacles and window tracery are loaded with beautiful detail, cusped arches are added below; finally figure sculpture is called in, and capitals and corbels are beset with tiny angels. ”

“ Till ignorant and incompetent "restorers" were let loose on them, the eastern limb of the cathedrals of the Secular Canons of Wells and Hereford, that of the Benedictine cathedral of Ely and others formed one vast sanctuary, the stalls being placed under the central tower and in the eastern part of the nave; at Wells the choir had a length of 47 feet, but the sanctuary of 67 feet. The reason why a sanctuary so long was required was no doubt that it was desired to place in it two altars; one, the "choir" or "matins" altar, for ordinary services ”

“ In the design of the Gothic throne there is no reminiscence whatever of the marble chairs of the Early Christian basilicas and the Pagan Thermæ. The Gothic thrones are but glorified versions of such stalls and spirelet-tabernacles as those of Lincoln; they are spacious stalls, sometimes, as at St David's, big enough to hold a bishop and two chaplains, and crowned with a spire of open woodwork. The earliest and grandest is that of Exeter cathedral; the Fabric Rolls shew that in 1312 during the episcopate of Bishop Stapledon there was paid "for timber for the bishop's seat £6. ”

“ Not every parish church could afford to have a set of stalls made, cathedral fashion, for its chancel. In many cases probably the seats were but benches or settles; and the naked, desolate look of many spacious chancels is no doubt due to the removal of these seats. Desks, or as they were Latinised "deski," there must have been, at least one at each side, on which to place the anthem book, processioner and other music. We hear of a double desk at St Mary at Hill; but only the richest parishes seem to have provided desks for the choir boys as well as for the men. ”

“ It is only original up to the level of the arms; the lions, the back and the canopy are modern.
In Hereford cathedral is an ancient wooden chair, once coloured in red and gold; it is composed of fifty-three pieces; not counting the seat of two boards and the two circular heads in front; it has been variously ascribed to the twelfth or fourteenth century; but no doubt is Jacobean, belonging to the same class of chairs as those enumerated in the following paragraph (114) . [2] At Stanford Bishop church, Hereford, is a rude chair or settle, of oak without nails. ”

“ Thus far the stallwork has been wholly of Gothic design, or nearly so. We now come to the great change of style, the reversion to the Classic art of ancient Rome, which goes by the name of the Renaissance. Of this the chief representatives left to us are the stalls of Christchurch, Hants; King's College, Cambridge; and Cartmel, Lancashire. The stalls and misericords of Christchurch, as we see them now, are a patchwork of portions of work of several periods framed together at some more or less recent epoch; there are at least two styles of Renaissance work, and three or more of Gothic. ”

“ When we come to Ely, we deal with ascertained dates; it is known that the stalls were commenced in 1338. They are on a noble scale, but have been "improved" by restorers, who among things have actually inserted Belgian carvings in the upper niches. These stalls have two distinct tiers of canopies, so that they rise to a considerable height. Each of the lower canopies has a pointed arch with compound ogee cusping; above each of these is a niche with three gabled canopies carrying a low spirelet which is flanked by ornate pinnacles; the whole forming a very beautiful composition. ”

“ These also are of masonry, and are so similar in design to the ancient marble thrones that one is tempted to speculate that the original usage of sanctuary was for the offender to fly to and occupy the actual throne of the bishop or archbishop.
As has been said, in the Early Christian churches both the altar and the seats of the bishop and his clergy were usually at the west end of the church to the west of the High altar, so that the clergy faced towards the east, while the congregation faced towards the west. But early examples occur of churches with the modern orientation. ”

“ Of the Lincoln work Mr A. W. Pugin said that "the stalls are executed in the most perfect manner, not only as regards variety and beauty of ornamental design, but in accuracy of workmanship, which is frequently deficient in ancient examples of woodwork.... They are certainly superior to any other choir fittings of that period remaining in England. The misericords also are all varied in design, and consist of foliage, animals, figures and even historical subjects, beautifully designed, and executed with surpassing skill and freedom." ”

“ We may take it therefore that seats in the chancel were required not only for the parish priest and the parish clerk, but in some cases for chantry priests as well.
But the above explanation does not cover the whole ground. There are often many more stalls than could be used as above. And in some churches there were no chantry priests at all, and yet there are stalls. Who else then occupied seats in the chancel? Some of the stalls probably, usually but a few, may have been occupied by laymen even so early as the thirteenth century. ”

“ The stalls of Sherborne abbey, Dorset, are somewhat of a puzzle (49) . The arch design, with the compound cusping, is in accordance with that of the lower story of the Ely stalls of 1338, except that the arches are semicircular or nearly so; but fourteenth century exuberance and versatility have faded away; the design is regular, symmetrical, prim. There was a great fire in Sherborne Minster in 1436; the piers of the choir are still reddened with the flames; the former stalls would certainly be consumed, and these no doubt are their successors. ”