Crypt

“ Doubtless some blind groping of the morning made its way down into the forgotten crypt so cold and earthy, where the Norman arches were half buried in the ground, and stirred the dull sap in the lazy vegetation hanging to the walls, and quickened the slow principle of life within the little world of wonderful and delicate creation which existed there, with some faint knowledge that the sun was up. ”

“ They looked over miles and miles of wooded country, and country with gleams of pasture.
The crypt underneath the manor was beautiful, and in perfect preservation. Paul made a drawing: Miriam stayed with him. She was thinking of Mary Queen of Scots looking with her strained, hopeless eyes, that could not understand misery, over the hills whence no help came, or sitting in this crypt, being told of a God as cold as the place she sat in. ”

“ Suddenly a vista of gigantic columns leaps out of black space, monstrous shadows retreat into a perspective of infinite extent, and—as though in some strange operatic scene—we find ourselves standing in a great vaulted crypt, Gothic in its indescribable richness of architectural detail, Egyptian in its gigantic proportions and massive grandeur. ”

“ I rubbed my eyes and pulled my peaked beard and stared about me, for the crypt was a grassy mound again, with one black gap framed by a few rugged stones jutting from the green, as though the slope above it had slipped down at that leveler Nature’s prompting, and piled up earth and rubbish against the rocks, had escaladed them and marched triumphant up the green glacis, planting her conquering pennons of bracken and bramble, mild daisy and nodding foxglove, on that very arch where, by all the gods! ”

“ All the time they were speaking they were removing the bars from the window, and in another minute they would all have entered the crypt, and discovered the liar. Quick as thought he wound his mantle round him and placed himself, standing stiff and erect, in a niche in the wall, so that in the dim light he looked just like an old stone statue. As soon as the robbers entered the crypt, they set about the work of dividing their treasure. Now, there were twelve robbers, but by mistake the chief of the band divided the gold into thirteen heaps. ”

“ They were my own missing pick and shovel, side by side, and leaning neatly against the blasphemously carved wall of that hellish crypt. God in heaven—and I had babbled to myself about daring jokers from Binger!
That was the last straw. After that the cursed hypnotism of the manuscript got at me, and I actually saw the half-transparent shapes of the things that were pushing and plucking; pushing and plucking—those leprous palaeogean things with something of humanity still clinging to them—the complete forms, and the forms that were morbidly and perversely incomplete ... ”

“ It communicated, in fact, with a sort of crypt, which had a vaulted ceiling and walls of rough masonry of unmortared stones.
All around, like shapeless statues, stood twelve small menhirs, each of which was surmounted by a horse's skull. Vorski touched one of these skulls; it crumbled into dust.
“No one has been to this crypt,” he said, “for twenty centuries. We are the first men to tread the floor of it, the first to behold the traces of the past which it contains.” ”

“ The entrance to this crypt is through bronze doors, behind the altar, and gained by passing under it. On either side stood a colossal figure in bronze; kings they seemed to be, giant kings, in long black robes and with crowns of black upon their heads. One held, upon the black cushion in his hands, a crown of gold and a golden sword; the other, a globe crowned with a cross and a golden sceptre. They were so grand, and dark, and still, they gazed upon us so fixedly from out their great, grave eyes, that I felt a chill in all my bones. They guard his tomb. ”

“ The basement of the Guildhall consists of two crypts, which extend beneath the full length of the hall above. The eastern crypt is entirely vaulted and divided into three aisles by two rows of clustered columns of Purbeck marble, the intersections of the vaulting being covered with a most curious series of carved bosses representing flowers, heads, and shields. This crypt, which, fortunately, escaped the Great Fire, is the finest and most extensive undercroft remaining in London, and for excellence of design and sound preservation may be considered a unique example of its kind. ”

“ Amongst these intricate compartments are alternated single bays, each divided transversely into three squares of ordinary groining; and the perplexity of the effect of the crypt arises not so much from the difficulty of any of the forms of vaulting, as from the constant change from one form to another, no two adjoining divisions being alike. The whole is carried out with excellent detail, and forms a most beautiful and interesting interior. ”

“ At the most remote end of the crypt there appeared another less spacious. Its walls had been lined with human remains, piled to the vault overhead, in the fashion of the great catacombs of Paris. Three sides of this interior crypt were still ornamented in this manner. From the fourth side the bones had been thrown down, and lay promiscuously upon the earth, forming at one point a mound of some size. Within the wall thus exposed by the displacing of the bones, we perceived a still interior recess, in depth about four feet, in width three, in height six or seven. ”

“ We came into an enormous crypt that evidently underlay a temple. Great pillars of natural rock, practically square and twenty feet thick, supported the roof, which was partly of natural rock and partly of jointed masonry. There was nothing in the crypt itself, except one old gray-beard, who sat on a mat by a candle, reading a roll of manuscript ”

“ The darkness was like the depth of midnight, and the first false step might fling them like broken birds upon the wall that towered on either side, or down the sheer descent of the granite stairs that ever and again at intervals led into the unknown horrors of the underground crypt and vaults. ”

“ The crypt, beneath the choir, is perhaps of yet greater interest and beauty than the choir itself. Within an old, very old, stone coffin--at the further circular end--are the pulverized remains of one of the earliest Abbesses.119 I gazed around with mixed sensations of veneration and awe, and threw myself back into centuries past, fancying that the shrouded figure of MATILDA herself glided by, with a look as if to approve of my antiquarian enthusiasm! ”

“ Burst me this stony crypt, and, if it prove such a coffer as I have right to hope, before the day is an hour older, you shall down to yonder town and there get drunk past expectation and your happiest imaginings.”
So, my friends, I mused, ’tis not pure neighborliness that brings you thus early to my rescue! Never mind; many a good deed has been done in search of a sordid object, and whether you come for me or gold, it shall vantage me alike. ”

“ In the north wall of the crypt, near the apse, a passage 2 feet210 broad leads into a vaulted cell, 8 feet by 10 feet, formed in the wall, and quite dark. In the south wall three round-headed recesses, 6 feet broad and 13 feet high, terminated in loops, as did one at the east end. This crypt was fitted up as an armoury, but has been cleared out, and the injured vaulting restored in good taste. ”

“ East again of this vault a wall, 13 feet thick, divides it from the crypt. The western part of the crypt, the cross limb of the T, is rectangular, 14 feet by 28 feet, vaulted and groined, and entered from the eastern compartment; it has a loop in its south wall. The stem of the T is the crypt proper, 31 feet long by 14 feet broad and 14 feet high to the crown of its barrel vault. Its east end is semicircular and semi-domed. A loop in the centre of the apse has been converted into a window. ”

“ Enough light came through some of those square holes to suffuse the whole crypt dimly.
"None but an aspirant has ever entered here," said the Gray Mahatma. "Even when India was conquered, no enemy penetrated this place. You stand on forbidden ground." ”

“ But the cathedral is especially famous for its crypt. This is more than one hundred and twenty feet long and is about one-fourth as wide. Twenty three heavy pillars support the round arches, which in turn bear up the ceiling. This great space is dimly lighted by ten small windows. In the right arm of the crypt is an old well with a circular stone curbing, upon which, long centuries ago, some humorist cut quaint, satirical figures and inscriptions. Down in the crypt, long before the Reformation, Roman Catholic monks said their prayers and kept their fasts. Their cells are still in the walls. ”

“ I went back to the library and planned a cathedral in seven styles of architecture, all unrelated and impossible, and when this began to bore me I designed a crypt in which the wicked should be buried standing on their heads and only the very good might lie and sleep in peace. These diversions and several black cigars won me to a more amiable mood. I felt better, on the whole, for having announced myself to the delectable Bates, who gave me for luncheon a brace of quails, done in a manner that stripped criticism of all weapons. ”

“ If I had been a desert castaway, lying down to die beside some parched human skeleton, I could not better have testified to my sense of the sorrow that makes us kin than I did now in my changed emotions.
Yet, indeed, the scene was a very awful one. Near the whole of the further side of the crypt had collapsed, making of the place a huge cave-like mouth stuck with blackened splinters of teeth, and gorged to the throttle with a litter of human remains. They lay scattered all over the vast jaw of it—chewed, dismembered, scarce one to be identified in its entirety. ”

“ A. There are some subterranean vaults, not easily accessible, the presumed remains of Bishop Wilfrid’s work, at Ripon and Hexham, of the latter part of the seventh century; but the crypt beneath the chancel of Repton Church, Derbyshire, the walls of which are constructed of hewn stone, is perhaps the most perfect specimen exist [47] ing of a crypt in the Anglo-Saxon style, and of a stone vaulted roof sustained by piers, which are of singular character; the vaulting is without diagonal groins, and bears a greater similarity to Roman than to Norman vaulting. ”

“ She spoke of the Baltimore emeralds, but I know nothing of them."
"They're mentioned here; see:
"'The Balto. emeralds will make a wonderful necklace for I. when she gets older. I hope I may live long enough to see the child decked out in them. I believe I'll tell her the jewels are all in the crypt.'"
"In the crypt! Oh, Win, you know Mr. Browne said he thought they were buried! Isn't a crypt a burial place in a church?" [Pg 95]
"Yes; but a crypt may be anywhere. Any vault is a crypt, really." ”

“ Besides the wonderful Gothic halls with their vaulted roofs and perfect simplicity of design, there are the endless series of crypts and dungeons, which leave a very strong impression on the minds of all those whose knowledge of architecture is lean. There is the shadowy crypt of Les Gros Pilliers down below the chancel of the church; there is the Charnier where the holy men were buried in the early days of the abbey; and there is the great dark space filled by the enormous wheel which was worked by the prisoners when Mont St Michel was nothing more than a great jail. ”

“ The pavement of this circular crypt is a huge crown of laurels in green marble in a tessellated floor of white and black marble; within the laurels are inscribed Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena, Rivoli, Wagram, and other great victories, the whole pavement being a most exquisite piece of mosaic work; around the circle stand twelve colossal statues, facing the tomb, representing victories. We descended to this crypt by passing to the rear, and beneath the high altar, where we found the entrance guarded by two huge caryatides bearing imperial emblems ”

“ Before the steps leading to the crypt is the tomb of Bishop Alfred of Hildesheim. The crypt is all that a crypt should be,—a dim-lighted, solemn chamber of five aisles, the pavement of the church above being supported on stubby square pillars. It is used also for devotional purposes, the altar at the easterly end of the central aisle bearing the inscription, "Heilige Maria, Trösterin der Betrubten, bitt fur uns." ”

“ On the wall of the Romanesque crypt, which was restored in 1896, is a rose-bush, alleged to be a thousand years old; this sends its branches to a height of 24 ft. and a breadth of 30 ft., and they are trained to interlace one of the windows. ”

“ Arriving at the bottom of the steps I found myself in a sort of crypt supported on pillars and surrounded on all sides by tiers of niches, or shelves, cut, after the fashion of the Roman catacombs, in the solid rock. This dismal place was lighted by three torches, and by their aid I was able to discern in each niche what looked like a human figure swaddled up in many wrappings. ”

“ With much unlocking of iron grilles and doors, we descended into the crypt, the storied place that has seen so much during centuries past, where kings and popes have bent the knee, and before [82] which so many princes and nobles have put off their arms.
It is almost square—a vaulted chamber about fourteen feet wide and a little longer, with an apse containing the altar, behind which is the reliquary enclosing the skull. ”

“ The Main Crypt.—Returning through the passage under the steps that lead up to the choir, we turn to the right into the crypt which originally supported Conrad’s “glorious choir.” On the wall as we enter we may notice some diaper-work ornamentation, interesting from the fact that a similar decoration may be traced on the wall of the chapter house at Rochester [Pg 97] for Ernulf who built the westward crypt, was afterwards made Bishop of Rochester. ”