Lincoln

Lincoln By Junius F. Wells, Associate Editor of Millennial Star

The city of Lincoln is one of great antiquity and interest, and has many well-preserved specimens of the architecture of the various periods of its existence Ruins of the Norman castle, :

commenced in 1086 by William the Conqueror, and the New- port gate or Roman arch, of the earlier period. It was "a place with a name" when Julius Caesar landed in England nearly two thousand years ago. There are also the Exchequer and Stone-.

bow gateways; the latter supporting the Guildhall of Medieval construction, and the Jew House of the 13th century, associated with the legend of Little St. Hugh, and St. Mary's Guild, founded by the Greyfriars in 1597. The chief glory of Lincoln, how- ever, is its magnificent cathedral. Lincoln Cathedral is the finest specimen of Gothic archi- tecture in England. It is notable among the greatest in the world. It was founded at the end of the twelfth century upon the site of a Norman church, erected a hundred years earlier, by Remigius, one of the Norman prelates who came to England with William the Conqueror. This structure was burnt by light- ning and shattered by an earthquake. The foundation of the present Cathedral was laid in 1192 by Bishop Hugh, whose enterprise and liberality and saintly character secured for him the distinction, in the calendar of Anglican saints, as St. Hugh. Parts of the Norman building still remain, in the bays of the western doors, in the lower part of the western towers, and in the first bay of the nave. The plain massive Norman style is brought into vivid contrast with the stately beauty of the early English forms, which reached their perfection in the time of St. Hugh and his successors. Lincoln is without a peer among English cathedrals, in the beauty and grace and nobility of its exterior. The superlative grandeur of its central tower, 265 feet high, formerly surmounted by a sky-piercing spire, and the two western towers, the perfection of architectural proportion, are its chief features. Scarcely less striking is the west front, with its three great doorways and the Galilee porch. But most of all is the incomparable site, the top of a high hill standing above the town and commanding a view of the whole of the Lincolnshire fens, reaching to the sea. With a base measure- ment of 525 feet in length, and 250 feet across the transepts, crowned with the triple glory of its three great towers, it is in- for deed a magnificent, imposing visual object in the landscape, many miles around.

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Top —Lincoln Cathedral. Bottom— The Roman Gate. CATHEDRAL AND ROMAN GATE AT LINCOLN Lincoln, the capital of Lincolnshire, is situated on the River Witham, 42 miles south of Hull. In the matchless central tower of the Cathedral, which is the chief glory of Lincoln, and admittedly one of the finest in England, is the famous bell, "Great Tom of Lincoln," which weighs 5 tons and S cwt. The old Roman gate and the ruins of the Norman castle are other scares of special interest.

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The interior is eminently worthy. Standing under the roof of the central tower, between the nave and the choir, its beauty and grandeur are best revealed. In one direction is the high, majestic nave, in the other the choir, rivalling Ely in its archi- tectural beauty; to the right and left the solemn transepts, over- looked by the two eyes of wondrous loveliness. These are the large, round, stained-glass windows, known respectively as the — dean's and bishop's eyes one facing the deanery, and the other the bishop's palace. They are among the most beautiful fea- tures of the cathedral; the glass in both windows is of the rich- est and most ornate of any English cathedral. The choir is celebrated, in being the earliest example of the pure Gothic style in England; but it pales in glory in compari- son with its eastern extension between the reredos and the east window, known as the Angel choir; whose sculptural magnifi- cence is heightened by the beautiful figures of the angels giving it its name. The sweet gracefulness of these is increased by a contrast, afforded by the exuberant fancy of the medieval art- ist, introducing in the place of one of them, the grotesque little

specimen of ugliness called the "Lincoln Imp," with its broad •Tin, two cloven horns behind the ears, its short hoofs and hairy body. A chantry in the Angel choir contains the tomb of Bishop Richard Fleming. He was in the earlier part of his career a supporter of Wycliffe, but came to an unenviable fame later in carrying out the decree of the Council of Constance, which di- rected that the body of the Reformer should be taken from the churchyard at Lutterworth, burnt, and its ashes thrown into the river Swift. The principal monument in the Angel choir, is in memory of Queen Eleanor, devoted consort of Edward I. The queen's heart was buried in a London church, and part of her body was interred in Loncoln cathedral; the embalmed remains were carried to their last resting place in Westminister Abbey. Crosses were afterwards erected at twelve places where the body The of these is at Lincoln, rested overnight on the road. first Another the last is the celebrated Charing Cross, in London. Catherine Swynford, third wife of interesting tomb is that of John O'Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, from whose marriage the present royal family of England traces its descent. A modest slab in the pavement of the Angel choir marks Wells, 1207-35. He the burial place of Bishop Hugh, or Hugo most splendid minster was responsible for a large part of this his— the An-el Choir, the eves and The Chapter House was of noblest Gothic arches and beautiful clustered a -real part its

columns. This Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, was Lord Chancellor and was one of the sureties of the King, in King John's time,

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whose seals are attached to Magna Charta. The traditions of the Wells family ascribed the writing of the great charter of liberty to his pen, seven years before its execution by the King at Run- nymede, A. D. 1215. In the south aisle of the choir may be seen what remains of the shrine of "Little St. Hugh," the boy martyr, whose skele- ton was found, when the stone coffin was opened in 1791, and measured three feet three inches in length. The legend of Lit- tle St. Hugh has been told in story and verse for eight hundred years. There are twenty-one versions of it in ballad form. As told in the Annals of Waverly, under the year 1255, by a contemporary writer, the story is substantially as follows: "A boy in Lincoln, named Hugh, was crucified by the Jews in contempt of Christ, with various preliminary tortures. To conceal the act from Christians, the body, when taken from the cross, was thrown into a running stream; but the water would not endure the wrong done its Maker, and immediately ejected it upon dry land. The body was then buried in the earth, but was found above ground the next day. The guilty parties were now very much frightened and quite at their wits' end; as a last resort they threw the corpse into a well. Thereupon the whole place was filled with so brilliant a light and so sweet an odor that it was clear to everybody that there must be something holy and prodigious in the well. The body was seen floating on the water, and, upon its being drawn up, the hands and feet were found to be pierced, the head had, as it were, a crown of bloody points, and there were various other wounds: from all of which it was plain that this was the work of the Jews. A blind woman, touching the bier on which the blessed martyr's corpse was be- ing carried to the church, received her sight, and many other miracles followed. Eighteen Jews, convicted of the crime, and confessing it with their own mouths, were hanged." Liverpool, England

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