Gothic Cathedral

Summary.  The standing cathedral was originally Gothic in architectural style. The stonework overawed, but there is a scant record of what it actually looked like before the Civil War destruction. The repaired cathedral has a Victorian Gothic Revival style, which is not the same as the original.

           The revolution in cathedral architecture, known as Gothic, is thought to have been first used in the building of the  Abbey of Saint-Denis, Paris, in 1144 and Notre-Dame, Paris, in 1163. Similar Gothic decoration had been used in the early mosques of the Middle East, so the western version was an adaptation and extension. This Gothic style, sometimes known as High Gothic, first came to England at Byland Abbey (1170) and then a rebuild of the east end of Canterbury Cathedral, 1174.[1]

French stonemasons in the Ile de France had worked out the stresses on the frame of a cathedral and began to change its appearance and functionality. At the time it was known as Opus Francigenum or French work.[2] Solid, monumental, Romanesque buildings with small lancet windows and timbered roofs became larger, lighter, more ornate, and with stone vaulted roofs. Many more pointed arches,[3] originally a Saxo-Norman feature, appeared. The heavy, thick walls were now pierced by large open windows and arcades. Pillars and columns held up pointed arches and together with flying buttresses (external, semi-arches often added later when weakened walls were noticed) enabled the walls to support elaborate vaulted, stone roofs. Large windows were now subdivided by closely spaced parallel mullions (narrow vertical bars of stone) often up to the level of the arch at the top of the pointed window. It gave the impression of a severe grid-like pattern which later became curvilinear and elaborate. Above there was stone tracery in elaborate, exuberant, geometrical patterns. There was usually at least one rose-window. The arrangement supported heavy, cut, coloured-glass windows. The triforium (middle layer) was reduced in size, but the clerestory above with larger windows increased in size. More vaulting ribs appeared including one central rib extending down the middle of the roof. Some side ribs were merely ornamental. The west front was generally monumental with twin towers and great doors. Wide towers supported narrow, tall spires, usually octagonal.[4] Pinnacles appeared on corners of the building. Statues and gargoyles were added. Walls were painted, usually red and green. In many cathedrals heraldic shields became a decorative device. There were abstract and animal images with bold colours symbolizing noble lineages. All these features are known from other Gothic cathedrals since there is no record or etching of the cathedral before its extensive destruction in the English Civil War, 1643-6.

 

Wenceslaus. Hollar’s (1607-77) etching, 16th-century. Note how all the niches are filled with statues. This is the earliest known image of the west front. Hollar's engravings were presented by Ashmole to Fuller's "Church History," published in 1655. Thanks to Univ. of Toronto Libraries.

 

               Wenceslaus. Hollar’s etching of the south side.  Has a reference to a bishop dated 1672

 

East end shrine chapel – French designed and constructed.

 

Vaulting at the crossing. Note the central ribs running down the middle of the cathedral. Some side ribs were purely ornamental. 

 

      Inside the central spire. Spires were tall, narrow and octagonal.

 

Narrow, comparatively small triforium.

 

          There are several reasons why this architectural style became the convention. Firstly, during the 13th-century there was a population growth with larger towns and an economy swollen with silver. There were new agricultural improvements, use of good quarries and better stonemasons. Communication improved and labour became more mobile. The wealth of cathedrals increased considerably.[5] The second reason for the new architecture was extra light was let into the cathedral and worship could now be seen in a way not possible before.[6] Liturgy was enriched. Some have linked this with the fourth Lateran Council, 1215, in which many theological changes were made to church organisation including infallibly defining transubstantiation as the centre of the Eucharist.[7] It enhanced the position of the chancel and many were now extended, squared off, had an ambulatory and given sedilia for more priests to sit close to the altar.  Piscina (for washing the sacred vessels) and a cupboard or aumbry (for storing the vessels) appeared. The third reason was it encouraged worshippers to look upwards to heaven. Height was not the greatest feature of early Gothic, but it became the defining feature of improved Gothic. The three spires reminded all of the Trinity. Bosses on the vaulting showed significant events. The polished stone subliminally stated a vision of heaven. The elevated gargoyles scared away evil and made the cathedral a safe space.[8] Statues had natural poses and gestures, full of tender feeling and strong emotion. Column capitals showed beautiful arrangements of leaves. A fourth explanation was it expressed the hierarchy of the church. The Angevin kings and bishops (often related) were frequently in tandem and all wanted to own a magnificent house of God, especially for their own glory or an ancestor’s memorial. The cathedral had a Consistory Court and a Chapter House to enforce rules and law. Somewhere in the edifice felons could be held for a short time. All behaviours were being determined by biblical explication. The spiritual majesty of a cathedral replaced the raw power of a castle.

Bishop’s chair between two stalls in the Consistory Court. Offenders were subject to the bishop and there was no way to appeal. 

Lichfield Cathedral did not begin until early-13th century (see the post ‘Third cathedral dates’), but epitomises in every way this revolution in style (alongside rebuilt Canterbury, Wells, Salisbury and rebuilt Lincoln). Even the Close became a fortified residence with a battlemented curtain wall and external ditch and moat. The new Jerusalem was given a city wall.[9] The cathedral felt spacious, could be full of light and everywhere stonework made the onlooker peer upwards; all pointing to heaven. By 1220, a new national style had been formed and Lichfield fully exemplified this. It has been written the 130 years 1220-1350 stand out as amongst the most energetic, inventive and extravagant period of building in English history.[10] It was a performance of majesty, new liturgy, craftsmanship and increased wealth.

             All this new architectural invention appears to be deterministic and relatable to the times. The wealth of kings and gifted money from nobles wanting recognition funded the revolution.[11] However, building took decades and lives were short. The cathedral took 110–140 years to build and that could have been 4 to 5 generations of wealth-givers. At Lichfield names of several master-masons are known and each in turn would have had their own ideas of building in stone. 

Supposed face of Walter de Ramessey, a mason engaged in 1337 to join the extension of the choir with the old choir so that the continuation was masked. Walter was a ‘King’s Mason’ and this face Is on the east side of the capital of the pillar by the north gate of the choir. From H. E. Savage, The fourteenth century builders, Unpub. article in Cathedral Library, (1916), 22.

 

 Several kings and bishops would have added their own particular preferences. Consequently, the cathedral was a bewildering mix of different styles. Even sizes varied, see the two front towers on the west end and the side aisles of the nave. A comprehensive account of the early Gothic transepts[12] highlights differences between the two transepts, between the bays of the transepts and between the levels of the transepts. It is a surprise to many how there is little symmetry in the building. Gothic was an evolving fashion, never a fixed design and went through several phases.

Today, it is inaccurate to describe Lichfield Cathedral as Medieval Gothic. Victorian rebuild, repair and replacement, 1854‑98, means the cathedral is now a neo-Gothic revised building. The Gothic Revival started in Napoleon III’s France by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, 1814-79. Around 1830 and within a decade it became the architectural fashion in England, Germany, France and in missionary churches abroad. The revival included many variations, much of it was contrived and some was detrimental. At Lichfield George Gilbert Scott gave the cathedral a measured Gothic appearance relative to other cathedrals. However, there is precious little original Gothic in the visible fabric of the cathedral. It is a Victorian Gothic Revival edifice. Gothic is now a concept and not a defined architecture.

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[1] Strangely, not in Scotland or Wales. Perhaps, the greatest example was the royal chapel of Sainte-Chapelle in Paris. There were rivals in other parts of Europe; the cathedrals of Burgos and Toledo in Spain, the cathedral of Strasbourg near the French border with Germany and the cathedral of Cologne when it was finally completed.

[2] The term Gothic was first coined by Italian writers in the later Renaissance period (late 15th to early 17th–century). It was meant to be derogatory meaning barbaric. Between 1180 and 1270, eighty cathedrals, five hundred abbeys and tens of thousands of churches were built in France.

[3] Early pointed arches can be found in Syria and Mesopotamia, and Western builders probably took the idea from Islamic architecture that would have been seen in Spain at this time.

[4] Only 9 spires were built on French cathedrals before 1300.

[5] By the end of the thirteenth century twelve out of Europe's forty richest dioceses were in England.

[6] God was the light of the world, so it was liturgically important to show that light.

[7] This was a driver of change given in a Gresham online talk by Simon Thurley in 2010 entitled ‘A New Jerusalem: Reaching for heaven 1130–1300’. See https://vimeo.com/22404136.

[8] As well as draining off rainwater away from the wall.

[9] It resonates with the Book of Revelation.

[10] See S. Thurley, 2010. He added, boom leads to bust and the series of busts that hit English Society after 1300 came thick and fast: economic stagnation, climate change, famine, and disease. All led to changes in the way that the English built.

[11] W. C. Jordan, Europe in the High Middle Ages, (London: 2002), 141. ‘The greatest patrons continued to be the aristocracy and the Crown’.

[12] M. Thurlby, ‘The Early Gothic Transepts of Lichfield Cathedral’, In Medieval Archaeology and Architecture at Lichfield, J. Maddison (ed.) (1993), 50–64.