Lincoln Cathedral (Part Two)

Text and Pictures taken from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia,
unless otherwise accredited.

Lincoln Cathedral in Winter

After the additions of the Dean’s Eye and other major Gothic additions, it is believed some mistakes in the support of the tower occurred, for in 1237, the main tower collapsed. A new tower was soon started and in 1255 the Cathedral petitioned Henry III to allow them to take down part of the town wall to enlarge and expand the Cathedral, including the rebuilding of the central tower and spire. They replaced the small rounded chapels (built at the time of St Hugh) with a larger East End to the Cathedral. This was to handle the increasing number of pilgrims to the Cathedral, who came to worship at the shrine of Hugh of Lincoln.

In 1290, Eleanor of Castile died and King Edward I of England decided to honour her, his Queen Consort, with an elegant funeral procession. After her body had been embalmed, which in the 13th-Century involved evisceration, Eleanor's viscera were buried in Lincoln Cathedral, and Edward placed a duplicate of the Westminster Tomb there. The Lincoln Tomb's original stone chest survives; its effigy was destroyed in the 17th-Century and replaced with a 19th-Century copy. On the outside of Lincoln Cathedral are two prominent statues often identified as Edward and Eleanor, but these images were heavily restored in the 19th-Century and they were probably not originally intended to depict the couple.

Lincoln Cathedral (interior)

Between 1307 and 1311, the central tower was raised to its present height of 83 m (271 feet). The West Towers and front of the Cathedral were also improved and heightened. At this time, a tall lead-encased wooden spire topped the central tower but was blown down in a storm in 1548. With its spire, the tower reputedly reached a height of 525 feet (160 m) (which would have made it the world's tallest structure, surpassing the Great Pyramid of Giza, which held the record for almost 4,000 years). 

This height is agreed by most sources but has been doubted by others. Other additions to the Cathedral at this time included its elaborate carved screen and the 14th-Century misericords, as was the Angel Choir. For a large part of the length of the Cathedral, the walls have arches in relief with a second layer in front to give the illusion of a passageway along the wall. However the illusion does not work, as the stonemason, copying techniques from France, did not make the arches the correct length needed for the illusion to be effective.

In 1398, John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford founded a chantry in the Cathedral, to pray for the welfare of their souls, and in the 15th-Century the building of the cathedral turned to chantry or memorial chapels. The chapels, next to the Angel Choir, were built in the Perpendicular style, with an emphasis on strong vertical lines, which survive today in the window tracery and wall panelling.

Lincoln Cathedral (Central Tower).

(Photo taken from Wikimedia Commons. 

Picture taken February 2008.

Author: Allan Chapman)

Magna Carta

The Bishop of Lincoln, Hugh of Wells, was one of the signatories to the Magna Carta and for hundreds of years the Cathedral held one of the four remaining copies of the original, now securely displayed in Lincoln Castle. There are three other surviving copies; two at the British Library and one at Salisbury Cathedral.

In 2009, the Lincoln Magna Carta was loaned to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.

Little Saint Hugh

In August 1255, the body of an 8-year-old boy was found in a well in Lincoln. He had been missing for nearly a month. This incident became the source of a blood libel in the city, with Jewish residents being accused of his abduction, torture, and murder. Many Jews were arrested and eighteen were hanged. The boy became named as Little Saint Hugh to distinguish him from Saint Hugh of Lincoln, but he was never officially canonised (made a saint).

The Cathedral benefited from these events because Hugh was seen as a martyr, and many devotees came to the City and Cathedral to venerate him. Chaucer mentions the case in "The Prioress's Tale" and a ballad was written about it in 1783. 

In 1955, a plaque was put up near “the remains of the shrine of ‘Little St Hugh’” in the Cathedral, that decries the “Trumped up stories of ‘ritual murders’ of Christian boys by Jewish communities.”

PART THREE FOLLOWS