St Paul's Cathedral

“ After my very hearty commendations you cannot but take notice of his Majesty's most honest and pious intention for the repair of the decay of Saint Paul's Church here in London, being the mother church of this City and Diocese, and the great Cathedral of this Kingdom. A great dishonour it is, not only to this City, but to the whole state to see that ancient and goodly pile of building so decayed as it is, but it will be a far greater if care should not be taken to prevent the fall of it into ruin. ”

“ But it is the exterior of Bayeux Cathedral that will be remembered best, the beauty and simplicity of its design; its 'sky line,' that we pointed out at a distance, at the beginning of this chapter, which (like the curve of the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral in London, and many an english nineteenth-century church we could name) , leaves an impression of beauty on the mind that the more ornate work of the Renaissance fails to give us. ”

“ If the visitor enters by the great western doors, he cannot fail to be impressed by the grand view which presents itself, the fine Nave, the broad Transepts, the lofty Reredos, more than 400 feet distant; and, as he paces eastward, at every step some fresh beauty reveals itself. Most impressive of all it is to see, on the occasion of some great festival, the vast spaces of Choir, Transepts, Dome area, and Nave crowded with worshippers, every seat occupied, and hundreds of people filling such standing room as remains. ”

“ As regards the height of the dome, we are the gainers because he was compelled to do this. It is not, indeed, the whole of St. Paul's or its only important feature; for St. Paul's is not a Byzantine church in which the dome is practically not a part, but the whole. It is the most magnificent member of a magnificent building, and with its graceful equipoise and conscious evidence of stability stands alone and in a class by itself amongst the cathedral superstructures of the land. ”

“ Paul's Cathedral. The streets were lined with dense masses of people, while every shop-window, doorstep, portico and available roof were black with cheering throngs. Decorations there were of every sort and range—squalid or simple or splendid—but all representing pleasure and loyalty. Along Fleet Street and the Strand they took the form of an actual canopy of banners, standards, streamers and strings of flowers. Venetian masts, flying pennons, countless trophies and miniature shields, with varied mottoes and many kinds of loyal wishes, were seen all along the route. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ THE Green Box, as we have just seen, had arrived in London, and was now established in Southwark. Ursus had been tempted by the bowling-green, which had one great recommendation,—it was always fair-day there, even in winter.
The dome of St. Paul's was a delight to Ursus. London, take it all in all, has some good in it. It was a brave thing to dedicate a cathedral to Saint Paul. The real cathedral saint is Saint Peter. Saint Paul is suspected of imagination, and in matters ecclesiastical imagination means heresy. Saint Paul is a saint only by virtue of extenuating circumstances. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Darkness and silence dwell together. After spending a few seconds—or minutes—in their company, the curator lights his magnesium lamp, and the visitor finds himself in the precincts of "The Cathedral," in the centre of which is a large stalagmite. The roof rises to a height of about 300 feet, 70 feet loftier than Canterbury Cathedral or Notre Dame, and within 100 feet of the altitude of St. Paul's! The walls are composed of limestone, terraced with tier upon tier of stalagmites brought into bold relief by the gloom of innumerable [Pg 68] fantastically-shaped recesses. The preacher is Solitude ”

“ 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. ”

“ Much of the work produced in it perished in the fire; but there are some of its manuscripts still happily preserved, notably the Majora Statuta of the cathedral, in the Library there, and a magnificent folio of Diceto's History, now in Lambeth Library.
Incidental notice has been taken in the preceding pages of Chantries in St. Paul's, but we have to speak more fully of these, for they formed a very large source of income, especially to the Residentiary Canons. These Chantries were founded for saying masses for the souls of the departed, even to the end of the world. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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) . ”

“ Above the font we can see the only Mediæval glass in the Cathedral—fragments of Fourteenth Century work left from the wreckage of the Puritan soldiers. St. Peter, St. Paul and St. Andrew will easily be recognized. There is also a shield bearing the English arms in this window. In the south wall of the nave there is a fine Piscina dating from the Twelfth Century. At this point we shall have to interrupt our walk through the Cathedral to ex{254}amine St. Wilfrid’s Needle, the popular name for the Saxon Crypt. ”

“ Paul’s. In the middle of the fifteenth century the cathedral body consisted of the following officials: The Bishop, the Dean, four Archdeacons, a Treasurer, Precentor, and Chancellor. To these must be added a body of thirty greater canons, twelve lesser canons, a considerable number of chaplains, and thirty vicars.
St. Paul’s is one of the nine cathedrals of the old foundation; eight belong to the new foundation, five were founded by Henry VIII., and the remaining Sees in modern times. The churches of the old foundation were churches of secular canons ”

“ Paul's Cathedral, [Pg 235] escorted by troops representing the Territorials, the Guards, Infantry, Cavalry, and Artillery, a naval detachment, and a mountain battery; and Earl Kitchener, Sir Evelyn Wood, Lord Methuen, and Lord Charles Beresford, were among the pall-bearers, who attended the remains from the Embankment to the Cathedral. At the door the Cathedral choir and clergy met and preceded the coffin, which was followed by the pall-bearers, the Primate, and the King. Many hundreds of the public visited the grave in the afternoon. A memorial monument was to be erected at the public cost. ”

“ Strong (the Master-builder) , and other Free and Accepted Masons.
The dimensions of the Cathedral, as given in the Rev. Lewis Gilbertson’s excellent Official Guide, are as follows:—
The exterior length, exclusive of the projection of the steps, 515 feet; the interior, 479 feet; the width across the Transepts, from door to door, 250 feet; width across Nave and Aisles, 102 feet; and between the stone piers, 41 feet; the Western front, 180 feet; the diameter of the octagonal area at the crossing of Nave and Transept, 107 feet; the diameter of the drum beneath the Dome, 112 feet ”

“ When we pass from the stormy uproar of a fair into the still expanse of wide creation, entering into the dim aisles of nature’s hushed cathedral, the strange sudden calm, is to the soul as the caressing touch of some beloved hand. ”

“ Paul's Cathedral, and Europe in general owes to it the utter degradation or destruction of her schools of architecture, never since revived."...
"The Rationalist kept the arts and cast aside the religion. This rationalistic art is the art commonly called Renaissance, marked by a return to pagan systems, not to adopt them and hallow them for Christianity, but to rank itself under them as an imitator and pupil. In Painting it is headed by Giulio Romano and Nicolo Poussin ”