Diocese of Salisbury

“ Bishop Osmund of Salisbury, the founder alike of the elder church and of the abiding ritual of his diocese, died early in December. [743] His temporalities passed, like those of Canterbury and Winchester, into the King’s hands. The Bishop of Durham had doubtless bade farewell to such duties; but the race of exactores, of clerical exactores, had not died out. There were still plenty of men in the Red King’s court who were ready to help in wringing the last penny out of the lands of bishops till they had wrung enough to buy bishoprics for themselves. ”

“ In October 1896 he was nominated by Lord Salisbury to the archbishopric of Canterbury. A meeting took place at the Guildhall on 18 Jan. 1897 to commemorate his London episcopate, when the lord mayor and corporation of the City of London attended in state and at least 1500 persons were present, and many presentations were made to the archbishop. The 'Morning Post' stated that 'the history of church work in London since Dr. Temple entered upon the diocese has scarcely a parallel in the history of church work during the century.' He was enthroned in Canterbury Cathedral in 1897. ”

“ He discouraged plurality of livings, and consequent non-residence, established a school of divinity as Salisbury, and spent much time himself in preparing candidates for confirmation, and in the examination of those who wished to enter the priesthood. Four discourses delivered to the clergy of his diocese were printed in 1694. During Queen Mary’s lifetime ecclesiastical patronage passed through her hands, but after her death William III. appointed an ecclesiastical commission on which Burnet was a prominent member, for the disposal of vacant benefices. ”

“ On this account I do so value the Bishop of Salisbury's letters, and it is so very kind of him to write to me in the midst of the overwhelming occupations of an English diocese.
'I don't think you have mentioned Dr. Vaughan. I read his books with much interest. He doesn't belong to the Keble theology; but he seems to me to be a thoughtful, useful, and eminently practical writer. He seems to know what men are thinking of, and to grapple with their difficulties. ”

“ It had not such an appearance of seriousness or piety as became the new modelling of a Church."—Own Times, i. 140.
[310] Evelyn's Diary.
[311] A letter by Henchman, Bishop of Salisbury, State Papers, Dom. Charles II., 1661, October 17th, gives a long account of the trouble and vexation he met with in striving to bring his diocese into order. He says, addressing Secretary Nicholas: "At Wallingford, one Pinckney, at Malmesbury, one Gowan (?) are busy turbulent men, I cannot with any skill or power that I have, form these places into good order. ”

“ In the extension and improvement of that material part of the spiritual training of the people, the holy rite of confirmation, the energy and devotion of the late Bishop were most conspicuous. Previously to the episcopate of Bishop Denison, Salisbury had been almost the only place to which the inhabitants of all South Wilts had been compelled to resort for confirmation; and those are yet living who remember the shocking and immoral results of conveying large numbers of both sexes considerable distances, who were often compelled to seek, not only refreshment, but a night's lodging on the road. ”

“ They are not indeed in a contemporary document, but written in a thirteenth-century hand in a new version of these statutes made on the removal of the cathedral from Old Sarum to the present Salisbury in 1220. There seems no reason to doubt their authenticity.
These are the dignities and customs of the church of Salisbury which I, Osmund, bishop of the same church, in the name of the Holy Trinity, in the year 1091, have instituted and granted to the persons and canons of the same, with the advice of the Archbishop and the assent of King William. ”

“ How delightfully-reviving the communion with the purity of Nature, after our thoughts have been saddened by a contemplation of the self-sought miseries of her children. We saunter quietly along under the fine trees that overhang our path, loiter awhile to survey an old moated house, and then pass on by a winding path through mead and lane to Salisbury. Before us is the bright, busy little city, and above it is upreared the remarkable feature that has made its reputation world-wide, the glorious spire of its Cathedral. ”

“ Adjoining the Jesuit St. Mary's College is their solid stone Church of the Gesu, its lofty nave bounded by rich columns, and with the long transepts adorned by fine frescoes, some giving representations of scenes in Jesuit history and martyrdom. The great Episcopal Cathedral of Christ Church, a Latin cross in Early English architecture, reproduces the Salisbury Cathedral of England, with a spire two hundred and twenty-four feet high. There are also many other fine Protestant churches ”

“ Moreover the law of residence must be interpreted with reasonableness, and such pleas as ill-health and the smallness of a prebend are not to be disregarded. As the archbishop writes as legate, the letter cannot be earlier than 1195. Richard Poore became dean of Salisbury in 1198, and the pressure upon absentee canons probably originated with his reforming zeal. The statutes of Bishop Osmund, which had made Salisbury the model of a reformed cathedral after the Norman Conquest, had expressly recognised the right of the archbishop to call away one canon at any time for his own purposes ”

“ The celebrated cathedral, which in some respects may be considered the earliest in England, is the chief object at Salisbury, and was founded by Bishop Poore in 1220. It was the first great church built in the Early English style, and its spire is among the most imposing Gothic constructions in existence. The city of Salisbury is unique in having nothing Roman, Saxon, or Norman in its origin, and in being even without the remains of a baronial fortress. ”

“ A more serious trouble arose between his diocesan and himself about 1683, when his only surviving son, Robert Pierce, was denied a prebendal stall in the cathedral. The dean much resented this refusal, and in revenge entangled the bishop in controversy, through 'black and dismal malice.' He asserted that the dignities connected with the cathedral church of Salisbury were in the gift of the crown, and communicated this view to the ecclesiastical commissioners. ”

“ The abbey was founded in 1232 by Ella, Countess of Salisbury, in pious remembrance of her husband William Longespee, brother of Richard Cœur de Lion. The Earl, who was in close attendance on King John, assisted in founding Salisbury Cathedral, and died by poisoning in 1226. A few years afterwards Ella, directed by visions, founded the monastery and became abbess of her own establishment. ”

“ He came under the influence of the Oxford movement, and continued a high churchman to the end of his life. In 1837 he was made examining chaplain to his friend the Bishop of Salisbury, and in 1841 left Oxford with some reluctance to become a canon in Salisbury Cathedral. At Salisbury he threw himself into the duties of his new position with characteristic energy. ”

“ It is hard to find a mediæval church of any importance in England that is not only upon the self-same site, but more often in part upon the actual foundation of an earlier edifice. Consistency is the especial character of Salisbury, and now, owing to Wyatt's iconoclastic destruction of the two later chapels at its east end, we have in Salisbury "the most typical English cathedral," which is also our most complete example of Early English. ”

“ Let us in God’s name descend into the plain.’
The removal decided upon, it remained to choose a site. Tradition tells us that the Virgin Mary appeared{170} to Bishop Poore in a vision, and told him to build the church on a spot called Merryfield; and has it that the site was chosen by the fall of an arrow shot from the ramparts of Old Sarum. If that was the case, there must have been something miraculous in that shot, for the place where Salisbury Cathedral is built is a mile and a half away from those ramparts. ”

“ If the evidence taken from the captive monks had anything to do with these attainders, it must have been very vague and meagre indeed, for it was found on trial that no sufficient charge could be established against any of the accused. The Countess of Salisbury, the mother of the cardinal, was a lady seventy years of age, but of a powerful and undaunted mind. She was first privately examined by the Earl of Southampton, and Goodrich, Bishop of Ely. But she conducted herself with so much spirit, that they wrote to Cromwell that she was more like a strong and determined man than a woman ”

“ His want of true statesmanship was shown with regard to the Protestant Nonconformists, towards whom his attitude was identical with that afterwards maintained by Laud, and the same ideal pursued, namely that of material and outward conformity, Salisbury employing almost the same words as the archbishop later, that “unity in belief cannot be preserved unless it is to be found in worship. ”

“ Herbert, a subsequent bishop of the see, attempted to remove the establishment, but its execution was reserved for his brother and successor, Richard Poor, whose monument is in the south chancel of the present cathedral at Salisbury. This was about the year 1217, from which time the inhabitants of Old Sarum removed their residence, and pulled down their dwellings, with the materials of which they constructed their new habitations: and as one city increased in population and extent, so the other almost as rapidly decayed. Hence the establishment of New Sarum, or Salisbury. ”

“ Bishop Roger of Salisbury was not only a powerful ecclesiastic but the royal justiciar, the head of all the courts and the treasurer of all the money of the king. Under him was a set of clerks who would set the fashion for one school of the clergy, secular in mind and aim and manners; often married men, so far as their right to marry can be accounted valid, canons of cathedrals where they provided for their children and made estates for themselves ”

“ If we think it feeble, it will be because we cannot see strength where it has been brought to perfect poise and ease. If our verdict is 'banal,' it will be because we cannot tell the commonplace from the simply and exactly right, or we do not know how rare the latter is—because we long for eccentricity as a proof of personality, and need what the French call emphase to impress us; there is no over-emphasis about Salisbury, neither in its effect as a whole, nor in any of its parts, neither in its design, nor in its treatment. ”

“ When the archbishop of Canterbury celebrated the liturgy in the presence of the bishops of his province, the bishop of Salisbury (probably in consequence of the general adoption of the “Use” of Sarum) acted as precentor of the college of bishops, a title which he still retains. The churches of Lincoln and Bangor also had peculiar “Uses;” but we are not aware that any of their books have been printed. A MS. pontifical, containing the rites and ceremonies performed by the bishop, still (we believe) remains in the church of Bangor ”

“ The great point to which the attention of the stranger is at once drawn is, of course, the grand peculiarity of Salisbury, the ‘silent finger’ of its spire. This is the loftiest in England, rising 400 feet above the pavement (Chichester said, but very doubtfully, to have been built in imitation of it, is 271 feet in height; Norwich 313 feet) and its summit is 30 feet above the top of St. Paul’s.”— (R. J. K.)
Dean Stanley said that Westminster is all-glorious within and Salisbury, all-glorious without. ”

“ The next step was to secure the goodwill and co-operation of the clergy; and in this respect his brother, the bishop, again rendered aid. Roger, Bishop of Salisbury, chief functionary of the kingdom, was secured by bribes and promises, and these two [169] ecclesiastics endeavoured to prevail upon William, Archbishop of Canterbury, to administer the royal unction to the usurper. The primate, who was a conscientious man, refused consent, and a dishonourable expedient was then resorted to to overcome his opposition. ”

“ This excellent example of late Perpendicular work was built by the bishop himself in 1520. Its style is not unlike the chantry of Bishop Fox at Winchester with octagonal shafts, (similar to those of the Salisbury Chapel at Christchurch,) which impart a semi-Oriental touch that is so characteristic of this final development of Gothic art. The images it once enshrined are lost, but the original rich colouring is still distinguishable on the fan tracery of the roof. The arms and initials of its founder are borne on the shields of the cornice. ”

“ It is interesting to note that not only is Salisbury the most complete example of its period in this country, but is also the first important building carried out entirely in the style we now know as early English. Henry III. is believed to have been so enthusiastic in his admiration of Bishop Poore's new Cathedral that he set about the rebuilding of Westminster Abbey, which was commenced in 1245 and completed in 1269, as far as the east end of the choir. ”

“ A bill to disestablish the Irish Church was then sent up to the lords. Prior to the general election (speech in House of Lords, 26 June 1868) Salisbury had laid down, in words often quoted since, what he conceived to be the function of the peers in the modern state. They must secure for the country, he said, an opportunity of expressing its 'firm, deliberate, and sustained conviction,' whenever that opportunity was denied to it by the lower house. ”

“ On 2 March, when a new archbishop was elected [see Richard,d.1184] , and a dispute arose between the bishops and the Canterbury monks for the right of proclaiming the election, the matter was compromised by both parties deputing the archdeacon of Poitiers to make the proclamation in their stead (R. Diceto, i. 354) . When, on 1 May, Richard was chosen bishop of Winchester (Ann. Mon. ii. 61) , John of Salisbury pleaded warmly for the pope's confirmation of the appointment, praising the bishop-elect as a devout lover and imitator of St. ”