Salem Chapel

“ There ain’t much true godliness, take my word, where there’s a shrinking from disclosin’ the state of your soul; but for keeping up a congregation there’s nothing I know on like a coorse—and a clever young man as has studied his subjects, and knows the manners of them old times, and can give a bit of a description as takes the interest, that’s what I’d set my heart on for Salem. ”

“ It has been recently restored and re-built in an uninteresting style,—the exterior is bare to ugliness, the interior so painted that the six old Roman columns which support the choir are overwhelmed by the banality of their surroundings. The plateau on which the chapel is built is now almost bare; olive-trees grow to its edges and there is no trace of the Seminary that was once so full of active life. ”

“ Ascending one of the lateral staircases—no foot must touch the Santa Scala—we reach the outside of the Sancta Sanctorum, a chapel held so intensely sacred that none but the pope can officiate at its altar, and that it is never open to others, except on the morning before Palm Sunday, when the canons of the Lateran come hither to worship, in solemn procession, with torches and a veiled crucifix, and, even then, none but the clergy are allowed to pass its threshold. ”

“ Her husband, Mr. Hutchinson, showed me all the relics, the remains of the shrine of S. John of Howden, bearing a statue of the Virgin with the dove whispering into her ear, as S. Gregory is so often represented at Rome: the Saltmarshe Chapel, with its old tombs and its stone altar with five crosses: and the lovely ruined choir, with exquisite chantry chapels opening from it. Then, in the vicarage garden, are remains of an old palace of the Bishops of Durham, with a beautiful old gateway. ”

“ We wonder why this chapel alone in the empty Cathedral, is so crowded with worshippers. They surely are not turned towards that splendid Pietà of Scalza—a work in which the marble seems to live a cold, dead, shivering life. They do not heed Angelico’s and Signorelli’s frescoes on the roof and walls. The interchange of light and gloom upon the stalls and carved work of the canopies can scarcely rivet so intense a gaze. All eyes seem fixed upon a curtain of red silk above the altar. ”

“ We embarked at Westminster Bridge and landed close by the church in Southwark, and we were so fortunate as to get permission to enter it without a guide. The oldest part of it is the Lady chapel—which, in English cathedrals, is almost invariably placed behind the choir. Through this we strolled, alone and in silence. Every footstep there falls upon a grave. The pavement is one mass of gravestones; and through the tall, stained windows of the chapel a solemn light pours in upon the sculptured names of men and women who have long been dust. ”

“ I received far more pleasure, however, from a visit to the celebrated round church, which has been lately restored, and whose name, St. Sepulchre, refers it to the era of the Crusades. But how shall I speak of King’s College Chapel? I was not so fortunate as to see it filled with its white-robed scholars, but its own self was sight enough. “Such awful perspective”—indeed! Such tints from such windows—such carvings—such a roof! It springs and spreads above you, light as the spider’s web, and yet it is all massive stone, and its construction is an architectural miracle. ”

“ The west front is yet sound and good. Nothing particular strikes you on the entrance, but there are some interesting specimens of rich old stained glass in the windows of the transept. The choir is completely and cruelly modernised. In the side chapels are apparently several good modern paintings; and over an altar of twisted columns, round which ivy leaves apparently composed of ivory are creeping, is a picture of three figures in the flames of purgatory. This side chapel is consecrated to the offering up of orisons 'for the souls in purgatory.' It is gloomy and repulsive. ”

“ Practically, then, it will be seen that this Lady Chapel, with the exception of its walls and the windows with the statuettes on them, is a modern church, surpassing, indeed, most nineteenth-century work in beauty, and much the same may be said of the retro-choir or chapter-house.
The Saint's Chapel.—We must now return westward, through the south aisle of the ambulatory, past the back of Duke Humphrey's grave, and enter the Chapel of the Martyr by the door which opens into it from the aisle. The centre of the chapel is occupied by the reconstructed pedestal of the martyr's shrine. ”

“ In the first place, the chantry chapel is not confined to any definite part of the plan. In our cathedrals it is frequently an excrescence from an outer wall of the church, like the bishops’ tomb chapels at Lincoln or Hereford, or it is a rectangular structure of stone, with elaborately traceried windows, cresting, and canopy work, like prince Arthur’s chapel at Worcester, or the episcopal tombs at Winchester, set up within an arch of the nave or quire. Of these types we have examples in our parish churches: the first is illustrated, on a large scale, by Hall’s chapel at Grantham ”

“ Rollo and Carlos had not gone far before they came to a place where two children had set up what they called a chapel, under the archway which led to the interior of the house where they lived. A real chapel, in Catholic countries, is any consecrated place, large or small, containing an altar, and a crucifix, and other sacred emblems, where masses are said and other religious services are performed. Real chapels are made in the alcoves of churches, in monuments over tombs, and in other similar places, and children have toy chapels to play with. ”

“ Throughout the Middle Ages it was the custom for the lord of the manor to reserve some portion of the church 124 for his own use, or to add to the building a chantry or chapel where his own chantry priest might pray daily for the salvation of his soul. These chapels are generally at the eastern ends of the aisles. You will know them by the handsome monuments which were raised over the graves of the founders, for these chapels were used as the burial-place of the founders and their families. ”

“ This leads him to a reverence for the service, and whatever contributes to the dignity and ornament of churches under his immediate patronage. There is a chapel in the Cathedral of Salisbury belonging to his lordship by right of ancestry, which I am informed is converted into an Oratory for his own use, and beautified with a profusion of elegance. ”

“ That which brought most profit to the convent, was the chapel of Our Lady in this church, called Scala Celi, to which people were continually coming in pilgrimage, and offering at the altar there; most folks desiring to have masses sung for them here, or to be buried in the cloister of Scala Celi, that they might be partakers of the many pardons and indulgences granted by the Popes to this place ”

“ As another article will be written upon the founders and instructors of the Seminary, we shall in this speak only of the buildings. At the north end of the long, elm-shaded avenue stands the chapel. It is built in the Gothic style, of Andover stone, trimmed with sandstone from Connecticut and Ohio. It was dedicated in 1876, and is by far the most beautiful, ecclesiastical structure in the town. The audience worshipping in it is composed of professors and their families, the students of the institutions, and a few families living near. ”

“ In the minutes of the chapter for August 26th, 1789, we find instruction given to Wyatt "to make new Canopies to the Stalls, to build a new Pulpit and Bishop's Throne, to put new Iron Rails to the Communion, with coping thereon, and set new blue stone steps to receive the same, to put two Wainscot Screens across the Aisles, to lay blue stone paving in the Lady Chapel, in squares to be cut out of the old gravestones, and enrich the side walls according to the drawings, to clean and colour the church from the East end of the Transept, and make the Screen to the Western Side of the organ." ”

“ The wealthier members of the community constructed small chapels in the catacombs for the reception of the bodies of their relations and friends. These chapels are for the most part situated at the crossing of passages or at the end of them, in which latter case the chapel forms the termination of one particular passage. They are most important as indices to the development of art. Besides the curious character and beauty of the architecture, they afford specimens of the most ancient grave paintings that we know of. ”

“ The church was plundered of the treasures which the piety of many generations had heaped together; the beautiful Lady Chapel in the cloisters was pulled down, and the infamous Duke of Somerset robbed it of its wealth and meditated further sacrilege. ”

“ The other day we crossed a brook and entered a lemon-field, rich with blossoms and carpeted with red anemones. Everything basked in sunlight and glittered with exceeding brilliancy of hue. A tiny white chapel stood in a corner of the enclosure. Two iron-grated windows let me see inside: it was a bare place, containing nothing but a wooden praying-desk, black and worm-eaten, an altar with its candles and no flowers, and above the altar a square picture brown with age. ”

“ Exquisite ornament is seen in the triforium arcade, and between some of the arches in the transept are figures, especially finely carved, though much mutilated, known as the censing angels. Henry VII.’s Chapel replaces an earlier Lady Chapel, and is the most remarkable building of its period. It coniprises a nave with aisles, and an apsidal eastward end formed of five small radiating chapels. ”

“ To fully appreciate the beauty of the cathedral, it must be studied under different aspects and at different times. Much will depend upon the mood of the visitor, much, too, upon the time of day. The Lady Chapel at 7 A.M. is quite a different thing from the Lady Chapel at 10:30 or 12 noon, though always beautiful. The same holds good with the choir and the nave. A slanting light through the south clerestory playing fitfully upon the lace-work of the north side of the choir, or the sturdy pillars of the ever-impressive nave, gives a charm that cannot be described. ”

“ The Lady Chapel is a late and poor addition of a very inferior kind, and completely modernized—as indeed is the greater part of the church—on the exterior. On the south side of the cathedral there are old sacristies and a large cloister, of which more presently. The west end seemed to me to have been intended for two steeples, but one only has been completed, and this is on the north side of the north aisle. ”

“ Shields, the well-known engineer. The west front was restored, and more than sixty statues placed in its vacant niches. In the interior the Lady Chapel was restored, and its floor laid with encaustic tiles from the designs of ancient examples in various parts of the cathedral. The walls were cleaned, and the paintings of the roof reproduced by Messrs. Clayton and Bell. The choir was restored in memory of Bishop Hamilton, and the old choir stalls cleared. The organ-screen built by Wyatt out of fragments of the Hungerford and Beauchamp chapels was removed. ”

“ The sedilia rises in steps, as at Temple Bruer. A raised tomb carries the effigy of Sir Thomas Haslerton, brought from St. Leonard’s nunnery; he is in chain armour with helmet. A chapel in the north aisle has a squint looking to the high altar. This chapel is entered by a beautiful double arch from the transept, with Early capital to the mid pillar. The proportions of the whole church are pleasing, and its size is very striking. ”

“ In 1265 Simon de Whitchurch became Abbot, and has left his mark behind him in the eastern bays of the nave and in the beautiful and elegant Lady Chapel, which is such an excellent specimen of Early English architecture. Here is to be seen some early vaulting on the roof, a feature not common in the building generally, as though provision was made by graceful shafts in the choir and elsewhere, it was only completed in the Lady Chapel and in the aisles of the choir, either from lack of funds or for some other reason. ”

“ Over all the jumble of old and new, modern and ancient, the setting sun floods the medley of colour and language and dress and Christian and pagan. And in the stillness that waits the coming of the twenty-four priests out of the kivas, the town crier walks out on the corner of a house top and cries aloud an announcement of a service to be held that night in the little mission chapel out there on the edge of the rock. ”

“ Each of the apartments is extremely small; for the principal Chapel, in length, exceeds not 18 feet - and the breadth and height not more than 7 feet and a half. It is, however, very beautifully designed, and executed in the solid rock, and has all the decorations of a complete Gothic Cathedral in miniature.
But what principally distinguishes the Chapel, is a small tomb or monument on the south side of the altar; on the top of which lies a female figure, extended in the manner that effigies are usually exhibited praying on ancient tombs. ”

“ It is a low, semicircular chamber, with irregular walls, in which a row of arched graves (_arcosolia_) has been formed, which once were occupied, probably, by bodies of saints or martyrs. Near the middle of the chapel is the well, about seven feet square, within which are the two graves, lined with marble, where the bodies of the apostles are said to have lain hid. Fragments of painting still remain on the walls of this pit, and three faint and shadowy figures may be traced, which seem to represent the Saviour between St. Peter and St. Paul. Over the mouth of the well stands an ancient altar. ”