The Twenty-Six Mediæval Cathedrals Of England (Part Four).

The Nave of Winchester Cathedral gives an impression of height as well as length, but, at twenty-four metres high (seventy-eight feet), is half the height of Beauvais Cathedral.

Photo: 7 February 2006.

Source: Own work.

Author: Ricki (Ingo Rickmann)

(Wikimedia Commons)

Text from Wikipedia - the free encyclopædia,

unless stated otherwise.

All these Saints brought pilgrims to their Churches, but among them the most renowned was Thomas Becket, the Late Archbishop of Canterbury, assassinated by henchmen of King Henry II in 1170. As a place of pilgrimage, Canterbury was, in the 13th-Century, second only to Santiago de Compostela.

In the 1170s, French Gothic architecture was introduced at Canterbury and Westminster Abbey. Over the next 400 years, it developed in England, sometimes in parallel with, and influenced by, Continental forms, but generally with great local diversity and originality.[4][6]

In the 16th-Century, The Reformation brought about changes in the governance of the Cathedrals, as discussed below. Some existent buildings became Cathedrals at this time. Several of the buildings were structurally damaged or left incomplete because of the Dissolution of the Monasteries, 1537–1540. 

English: Exeter Cathedral.

Deutsch: Kathedrale von Exeter.

Español: Catedral de Exeter.

Suomi: Exeterin tuomiokirkko.

Date: 8 July 2008.

Source: Cathedral_of_exeter.jpg

Author: Derivative work from Cathedral_of_exeter.jpg 

by Markus Koljonen (Dilaudid).

Original photograph: Torsten Schneider 13 November 2005.

(Wikimedia Commons)

Many of the large Abbey Churches, particularly those outside the Towns, were robbed, burnt out and abandoned. The Late-16th-Century and Early-17th-Century saw repairs to the fabric of many Cathedrals and some new building and Stained-Glass, as well as many new fittings.[4][7]

During the period of the Commonwealth, 1649–1660, wholesale iconoclasm was wrought on all the pictorial elements of Christian buildings. 

Most of England’s Mediæval Stained-Glass was smashed. The majority of England’s Mediæval statues were smashed or defaced, leaving only a few isolated examples intact. 

English: Wells Cathedral, England.

Български: Катедралата във Велс (Wells), Южна Англия.

Photo: 23 November 2007.

Source: Transferred from bg.wikipedia

Author: Original uploader was Vammpi at bg.wikipedia

(Wikimedia Commons)

Mediæval paintings almost disappeared. Vestments embroidered in the famous style known as Opus Anglicanum were burnt. Those Mediæval Communion vessels that had escaped The Dissolution were melted down so that only about fifty items of pre-Reformation Church Plate remain.[4][8]

The Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660, also brought about some restoration of Churches and Cathedrals, such as that at Lichfield by Sir William Wilson,[2] and their enrichment with new fittings, new Church Plate and many elaborate memorials.

The loss of the ancient Saint Paul’s Cathedral in the Great Fire of London in 1666 meant that an entirely new Cathedral, the present Saint Paul’s, was built on its site to a design in the Baroque Style by Sir Christopher Wren.[4]

PART FIVE FOLLOWS.