Saint Paul's Cathedral

“ In 1240 the king and the Cardinal Legate Otho attended the consecration of so much of the new work as was then completed; and Bishop Roger was supported by the Primate, Edmund Rich, and other prelates.
East of the cathedral was St. Faith's, one of those parish churches in which cathedral cities are notoriously prolific—churches with parishes of the size of an average meadow, or less. ”

“ The difficulty in dealing with the lofty blank spaces of the dome will be not to go too high up, and not to come too far down. At the time of revising these lines (August, 1899) the decoration of this part of the cathedral has advanced no further than the quarter domes of those alternate arches which tested so severely the genius of the Surveyor. In the four, taken as a whole, the general subject illustrated will be St. Paul's Gospel of the Resurrection from the early verses of 1 Corinthians, XV.
North-East, the Crucifixion. ”

“ The tourist coming from the station by the Porte Saint-Paul, reaches the Cathedral by the Rues: Saint-Paul, Saint-Pierre and la Belle-Vierge.
The Cathedral.
The Cathedral.
The tourist, arriving at the Place de la Cathédrale, via the Rue de la Belle-Vierge, finds himself in front of the North Façade (photo opposite) .
In the middle is the entrance porch; on the right, the Western transept and the towers enclosing the remarkable, square-shaped old Choir, on the left, the Eastern transept and the polygonal apse of the Great Choir with the Roman basement and Gothic buttresses (photo p. 52) . ”

“ The first stone of the present edifice was laid June 21, 1675; the choir was opened for divine service in December, 1697; and the whole was completed in thirty-five years, the last stone on the summit of the lantern being laid by the architect’s son Christopher, in 1710. Taken altogether, St. Paul’s Cathedral is a truly glorious work, and its cupola is matchless in beauty. ”

“ There are throughout in reality three stages in the elevation—The Main Arcade, Triforium Belt, or "Attic," and Clerestory. The pedantic objection to the use of this simple and familiar terminology and system of classification seems to have arisen from the idea that St. Paul's must be treated as though it were a purely Classical building. Upon their fronts the piers have great Corinthian pilasters. These are continued above the capitals, and the great transverse arches of the vaulting spring from the continuations on a level with the top of the triforium. ”

“ His opportunities, from the consequences of the great fire, were greater than perhaps have fallen to the lot of any other modern; and, in the erection of the Metropolitan Cathedral, he proved the capabilities of his genius to be equal to his good fortune. He has reared the second, and barely second, edifice in the world. The art has nothing finer than the western front—so rich, so noble, and, notwithstanding the double arcade, so pure. On the whole, the exterior of St Paul's is to be preferred, both for effect and design, to St Peter's. ”

“ Few men who won distinction in civil life are entombed in St, Paul's, but among them is the gifted architect, Sir Christopher Wren, in whose brain the concept of St. Paul's Cathedral had a mental existence before it materialized in massive marble. His epitaph is plain, brief, truthful, impressive; it is one which each honorable man in all the world may humbly strive for and become the better for the striving ”

“ The public buildings are not very important, but substantial and good of their kind. Conspicuous among the new edifices is the Episcopal Cathedral now being erected. It is of stone, very imposing, with three towers, and in the Romanesque style of architecture. The Roman Catholic Cathedral, SS. Peter and Paul, also of dark limestone, having cut or hammered dressing, is a Gothic structure of considerable size, with a good tower at the centre of the front end, crowned with four turrets, and having a neat but small lawn, surrounded with an iron fence, about the cathedral's front. ”

“ Bishop Henry called on his people of Winchester to help in the rebuilding, putting forward the plea that though St. Paul was the great Apostle of the West, and had planted so many churches, this was the only cathedral dedicated to him. During these years Architecture was ever on the change, and, as was always the custom, the builders in any given case did not trouble themselves to follow the style in which a work had been begun, but went on with whatever was in use then. ”

“ On a black marble slab, part of which is seen in the picture, are the following words:—Here lieth Sir Christopher Wren, Kt., the builder of this Cathedral Church of S. Paul, &c., who dyed in the year of our Lord MDCCXXIII, and of his age XCI. A singularly modest epitaph for so great a man, and that, too, at a period when fulsome phrases abounded. A little westward of the tomb, on a tablet affixed to the wall, are the memorable words, admirable in their brevity and point:—Lector, si monumentum requiris, circumspice. ”

“ To take but a single example, it will be readily appreciated that the consideration of the guilds of builders of the Cathedrals as constituting a great technical school, is marvelously emphasized by certain recent observations with regard to architects' and builders' methods in the Cathedrals. There is a passage in Evelyn's Diary in which he describes certain corrections that were introduced into Old St. Paul's Cathedral, London (the Gothic edifice predecessor of the present classical structure) , in order to remove appearances of dissymmetry and certain seeming mistakes of construction. ”

“ Not being Peter's, the house is built for Paul.'
The thing itself, the central cathedral of Christendom, is so enormous that many who gaze on it for the first time do not even notice that hugely lettered papal name. The building is so far beyond any familiar proportions that at first sight all details are lost upon its broad front. The mind and judgment are dazed and staggered. The earth should not be able to bear such weight upon its crust without cracking and bending like an overloaded table. ”

“ Now let us go inside the Cathedral, and walk round it, although it is so full of monuments that it is impossible to tell you the story of each.
As we look at them we realize that St. Paul’s still keeps its character of the Citizens’ Church.
In Westminster Abbey, Kings, and poets, and writers lie buried, or have monuments put up to their memory, but here, in St. Paul’s, most of the monuments are those of national heroes, of men who have lived and died for the Empire. ”

“ Paul’s? Much can be written of his handling of the Orders, of his structure of the dome, of the details of the plan, and so forth; but there are broader issues involved. St. Paul’s gave the first opportunity since the Middle Ages for the creation of a Cathedral in England, and Wren’s task was a Protestant Cathedral. Hitherto the Cathedral builder had made two churches under one roof, a choir for Canons, whether secular or regular, or for monks, and a nave for the laity, the two divided by a solid screen which prevented nave worshippers from seeing the high altar. ”

“ The Cathedral is one of the oldest and most interesting temples of Catholic America. Nearly three hundred years ago the decree was issued for its construction, by Pope Paul IV., though it was not until the time of his successor, Pope Paul V., that the work was begun, during the reign of King Philip III, in 1612. The temple was built in accordance with the custom of those days, the decorations of its arches and columns being elaborate and of costly workmanship. ”

“ To his memory a golden shrine was erected which was much frequented by pilgrims. Saxon kings gave of their wealth to the endowment of the Cathedral, and many rich lands were granted to it, as the ancient charters bear witness.
Fire has always been a great foe to St. Paul's. A very destructive conflagration raged in 961 A.D., and again in 1086 the Cathedral was wholly destroyed. We have no means of knowing what kind of architecture characterised this earliest fane, but probably it possessed round arches of stone, massive piers, and the usual characteristics of the Saxon style. ”

“ The ninety-three windows of stained glass fill the interior with a soft and richlytinted light, mellower and more gentle than the sombre twilight of the Gothic Cathedrals of Europe. The wealth lavished on the smaller chapels and shrines is prodigious, and the high altar, inclosed within a gilded railing fifty feet high, is probably the most enormous mass of wood-carving in existence. The Cathedral, in fact, is encumbered with its riches. While they bewilder you as monuments of human labor and patience, they detract from the grand simplicity of the building. ”

“ No dates of that period [Pg 106] are sufficiently accurate to rely upon; but its interest lies not so much in chronology as in its portrayal of the general type. The interior is the usual little hall church of the XI century, with its aisle-less nave of five bays, and plain piers supporting a tunnelled roof, with double vault arches. Beyond the last bay, over the choir, is the Cathedral's octagonal dome, and from the rounded windows of its lantern comes much of the light of the interior, which is sombre and without other windows of importance. ”

“ The Mediævalism of the old writers seems an endless pageant, in which indefinitely gorgeous armies “march up the hill and then march down again;” in newer histories this has disappeared in the long struggle of one class with another; and in neither do we reach the individual, nor see the daily life of the people who are the backbone of a nation. Yet these are the people we must know if we are to have a right conception of the Cathedral's place in the living interest of the Middle Ages. For the Bishop's church was in every sense a popular church. ”

“ Restoration following restoration, chapels of the XVIII century, new vaultings, debased and conglomerate Gothic, and spectacular decorations of gilded wood have destroyed the architectural value and real beauty of the Cathedral's interior. Yet in the dim light, which is the light of its every-day life, the great height of the church and its sombre massiveness are not without impressiveness.
The exterior dominates the city, but it is so hopelessly confused and commonplace that its natural dignity is lost. ”

“ A few stones still exist of the XI century structure, void of form or architectural significance, and the ancient name of Sainte-Marie-Majeure now protects a Cathedral built in the most depressing style of the industrious Philistines of the XVII and XVIII centuries. It is not a Provençal nor a truly “maritime” church, it is not a fortress nor a defence, nor a work of any architectural beauty. It has blatancy, size, pretension,—a profusion of rich incongruities; and although religiously interesting from its chapels and shrines, it is architecturally obtrusive and monstrous. ”

“ It stands in the midst of the cold, white town, and has a high-shouldered look to a spectator accustomed to the minsters of England, which cover a great space of ground in proportion to their height. The impression the latter give is of magnitude and mass; this French Cathedral strikes one as lofty. The exterior is venerable, tho but little time-worn by the action of the atmosphere; and statues still keep their places in numerous niches, almost as perfect as when first placed there in the thirteenth century. The principal doors are deep, elaborately wrought, pointed arches ”

“ Penrose discovered its foundations, six feet below the pavement, and this site is now marked by an inscription. It is all now laid out as a pleasant garden, and a goodly number of people may be seen there daily feeding the tame pigeons.
I have shown already (see Mediæval London, p. 8) that the Folkmote was held on a large green, east of the cathedral. There were three such meetings yearly, to which the citizens were summoned by the ringing of the great cathedral bell. When the first Cross was erected on the ground there is no record to show. ”

“ There was a great resort of pilgrims to this shrine in mediæval times. The pavement of the choir is worthy of attention. It is modern; around the lectern are the heads of the twelve Apostles, and of the four doctors of the Church—SS. Ambrose, Augustine, Athanasius and Chrysostom. On the east end are representations of the Passover, and some fragments of tesselated pavement are inserted here which came from the Temple at Jerusalem. The stained glass is all modern. The Cathedral has a rare treasure of the seventeenth century, a carved narwhal tusk, beautifully carved by a Flemish artist. ”

“ The piers are heavy and severe; and between them are alcoves, used as chapels. The choir, narrower than the nave, is preceded by the usual dome, and beyond it is a little unused apse, concealed from the rest of the interior by a wall. Unimportant windows built with distinctly utilitarian purpose successfully light this small, simple room, and no kindly shadow hides its bareness or diminishes the unhappy effect of the paintings which disfigure [Pg 180] the walls. The Cathedral's exterior is so surrounded by irregular old houses that the traveller had discovered it with some difficulty. ”

“ Paul's was a chapel of rich ornament, built by "Gilbert Becket, portgrave and principal magistrate in this City in the reign of King Stephen." He was the great Archbishop's father. The monuments in it and the surrounding churchyard are said to have rivalled in beauty those inside the cathedral. How this cloister and chapel fared, we shall see presently. ”