Lincoln Cathedral (Part Three)

Text and Pictures from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 

unless otherwise accredited

Lincoln Cathedral
(Photo taken from Wikimedia Commons. 

Picture taken December 2010.

Author: Paul Stainthorp)

The Lincoln Imp

One of the stone carvings within the Cathedral is the Lincoln Imp. There are several variations of the legend surrounding the figure. 

According to 14th-Century legend, two mischievous imps were sent by Satan to do evil work on Earth. After causing mayhem, elsewhere in Northern England, the two imps headed to Lincoln Cathedral, where they smashed tables and chairs and tripped up the Bishop. An angel appeared in the Angel Choir and ordered them to stop. One of the imps sat atop a stone pillar and started throwing rocks at the angel whilst the other cowered under the broken tables and chairs. The angel turned the first imp to stone, allowing the second imp to escape. The imp that turned to stone can still be found sitting atop his stone column in the Angel Choir.

Wren library 

The Wren Library houses a rare collection of over 277 manuscripts, including the text of the Venerable Bede.

The Lincoln Imp

Rose windows

Lincoln Cathedral features two major rose windows, which are a highly uncommon feature among mediaeval architecture in England. On the North side of the Cathedral, there is the “Dean’s Eye”, which survives from the original structure of the building, and on the South side there is the “Bishop’s Eye”, which was most likely rebuilt circa 1325-1350. 

This South window is one of the largest examples of curvilinear tracery seen in mediaeval architecture. Curvilinear tracery is a form of tracery where the patterns are continuous curves. This form was often done within pointed arches and squared windows because those are the easiest shapes, so the circular space of the window was a unique challenge to the designers. 

A solution was created that called for the circle to be divided down into smaller shapes that would make it simpler to design and create. Curves were drawn within the window which created four distinct areas of the circle. This made the spaces within the circle where the tracery would go much smaller, and easier to work with.

Lincoln Cathedral (view from the Central Tower)

(Picture taken from Wikimedia Commons. 

Author: LysNanna)

This window is also interesting and unique in that the focus of the tracery was shifted away from the centre of the circle and instead placed in other sections. The glazing of the window was equally as difficult as the tracery, for many of the same reasons; therefore, the designers made a decision to cut back on the amount of iconography within the window. Most Cathedral windows during this time displayed many colourful images of the bible; however, at Lincoln, there are very few images. Some of those images that can be seen within the window include Saints Paul, Andrew, and James.

Wooden trusses

Wooden trusses offer a solid and reliable source of support for building, because, through their joints, they are able to resist damage and remain strong. 

Triangles are the strongest shape, because, no matter where the force is being placed on them, they are able to use their three joints to their fullest extent in order to withstand it. Making trusses with triangles inside larger triangles adds even more strength, as seen in Lincoln’s choir. 

Lincoln Cathedral (South-East Door), known as The Judgement Porch. 

Engraving by E. Challis, after a picture by T Allom. Published 1837.

(Not the main door of Lincoln Cathedral, which is at the North Front)

(Picture taken from Wikimedia Commons.)

The design of all wooden trusses is a tedious task as there are many different things that need to be considered while building these supports. 

There are many different ways that the trusses can fail if they are not designed or built properly; it is therefore crucial to design trusses that suit a specific building with specific needs in mind. The simplest form of a truss is an A frame; however, the great amount of outward thrust generated here often causes the truss to fail. The addition of a tie beam creates a triangular shape, although this beam can sometimes sag if the overall truss is too large. 

Neither one of these examples would have been suitable for Lincoln, owing to the sheer size of the roof. They would have failed to support the building, so collar beams and queen posts were added to the design in order to help prevent sagging. 

To protect against wind damage, braces were added. Secondary rafters were also added to the design to ensure that the weight was equally distributed. Saint Hugh’s Choir has a total of thirty six trusses keeping the roof in place, and it is held up entirely by means of its own weight and forces.

PART FOUR FOLLOWS

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

Lincoln Cathedral (Part One)

Text and Pictures taken from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 

unless otherwise accredited.

Lincoln Cathedral at night

Lincoln Cathedral (in full, The Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Lincoln, or sometimes St. Mary's Cathedral) is a historic cathedral located in Lincoln in England and seat of the Bishop of Lincoln in the Church of England. 

It was reputedly the tallest building in the world for 249 years (1300–1549). The central spire collapsed in 1549 and was not rebuilt. It is highly regarded by architectural scholars; the eminent Victorian writer John Ruskin declared: "I have always held... that the Cathedral of Lincoln is out and out the most precious piece of architecture in the British Isles and roughly speaking worth any two other cathedrals we have."

Remigius de Fécamp, the first Bishop of Lincoln, moved the Episcopal seat there "some time between 1072 and 1092". About this, "Remigius ... laid the foundations of his Cathedral in 1088", and "it is probable that he, being a Norman, employed Norman masons to superintend the building ... though he could not complete the whole before his death."

Lincoln Cathedral (photo taken from Castle Hill)

Before that, writes B. Winkles, "It is well known that Remigius appropriated the parish church of St Mary Magdalene in Lincoln, although it is not known what use he made of it." Up until then, St. Mary's Church in Stow was considered to be the "mother church" of Lincolnshire (although it was not a cathedral, because the seat of the diocese was at Dorchester Abbey in Dorchester-on-Thames, Oxfordshire). However, Lincoln was more central to a diocese that stretched from the Thames to the Humber.

Bishop Remigius built the first Lincoln Cathedral on the present site, finishing it in 1092 and then dying on May 9 of that year, two days before it was consecrated. In 1141, the timber roofing was destroyed in a fire. Bishop Alexander rebuilt and expanded the Cathedral, but it was mostly destroyed by an earthquake about forty years later, in 1185.

After the earthquake, a new Bishop was appointed. He was Hugh de Burgundy of Avalon, France, who became known as St Hugh of Lincoln. He began a massive rebuilding and expansion programme. Rebuilding began with the choir (St. Hugh's Choir) and the eastern transepts between 1192 and 1210. The central nave was then built in the Early English Gothic style. 

The Norman West Front of Lincoln Cathedral

Lincoln Cathedral soon followed other architectural advances of the time — pointed arches, flying buttresses and ribbed vaulting were added to the Cathedral. This allowed the creation and support of larger windows.

The Cathedral is the third largest Cathedral in Britain (in floor space) after St Paul's, London, and York Minster, being 484 feet (148 m) by 271 feet (83 m). It is Lincolnshire's largest building, and, until 1549, the spire was reputedly the tallest mediaeval tower in Europe, though the exact height has been a matter of debate. Accompanying the Cathedral's large bell, "Great Tom of Lincoln", is a quarter-hour striking clock. The clock was installed in the early 19th century.

There are thirteen bells in the South-West Tower, two bells in the North-West Tower, and five bells in the Central Tower (including "Great Tom of Lincoln"). The two large stained-glass rose windows, (the matching Dean's Eye and Bishop’s Eye), were added to the Cathedral during the Late Middle Ages. The former, the Dean's Eye, in the North Transept, dates from the 1192 rebuild begun by St Hugh; it was finally completed in 1235. The latter, the Bishop’s Eye, in the South Transept, was reconstructed 100 years later in 1330. A contemporary record, “The Metrical Life of St Hugh”, refers to the meaning of these two windows (one on the dark, North, side and the other on the light, South, side of the building): "For North represents the devil, and South the Holy Spirit, and it is in these directions that the two eyes look. The Bishop faces the South, in order to invite in, and the Dean faces the North, in order to shun; the one takes care to be saved, the other takes care not to perish. With these Eyes, the Cathedral’s face is on watch for the candelabra of Heaven and the darkness of Lethe (oblivion)."

PART TWO FOLLOWS