CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL AND GEOFFREY CHAUCER: The Essence of England (20)

[This is the twentieth of a series of articles giving a brief description of each of the 26 ancient Anglican cathedrals coupled with a sketch of a person, activity or

institution connected to the area]

Canterbury Cathedral is the mother Church of the Anglican Communion and the senior bishop of the Church of England is Archbishop of Canterbury and Primate of All-England. The Cathedral’s origins stretch back to a church founded in 597 by St Augustine, (no connection with the earlier famed theologian St Augustine of Hippo) the Benedictine abbot of an abbey in Rome, who had been sent by Pope Gregory as a missionary to the Anglo-Saxons. The huge building we see now was started at 1070 and developed piecemeal over the following centuries, rather compromising its artistic unity. It remains however one of the great sights of England.

Canterbury Cathedral

 After several earlier structures, the Cathedral (at that time the church of a monastic abbey) was built in the Norman style by the first Norman archbishop Lanfranc. The east end was greatly extended, doubling the length of the cathedral by 1126, still in the Romanesque style. In 1174 a fire seriously damaged the choir and it was recreated partly in the early English Gothic manner. The murder in the Cathedral of the politically abrasive Thomas Becket in 1170, after he opposed Henry II, appalled Europe and the Cathedral became a major place of pilgrimage to St Thomas – enormously swelling the coffers of the Church. The Trinity Chapel in the East end and the Corona, to house Becket’s shrine and relics, followed in 1184. The Corona’s stained glass is the finest in England.

The Nave and transepts eventually fell into disrepair and were rebuilt from 1377 in spectacular Perpendicular style by the famous master-mason Henry Yevele, who also beautified Westminster Abbey. A lovely lierne vault was also raised at this time, and despite an earthquake in 1384, the cloister and chapter house were rebuilt; money was short and the south-west tower did not replace the Norman one until 1453. Astonishingly the north -west tower was not replaced until 1834 when a Perpendicular replica of the south-west one was erected, now known as the Arundel Tower. The fine main crossing tower with its fan-vaulted lantern was not completed until the early 1500s.

The Choir

The Nave at Canterbury

 It is not easy to do justice to this wonderful historic building with its many embellishments and its extensive precincts. It must be peacefully explored in person.

Canterbury as a place of pilgrimage evokes The Canterbury Tales, that wonderful sequence of poetic stories written by Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400). Chaucer was not only a great medieval poet but assuredly one of the pre-eminent poets in the Pantheon of the English language.

A 17th century image of Chaucer

Canterbury Pilgrims

 

                            

Many schoolboys will recall the Middle English opening lines of his Prologue:

Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;

Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
(That slepen al the nyght with open eye)
So priketh hem Nature in hir corages
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages

And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke
That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seeke.

The Prologue describes most felicitously each of the pilgrims in turn, with many a memorable thumbnail line. Thus the Knight is “a very perfect gentle Knight”, the Squire “fresh as is the month of May”, the lax Monk declares “let Austin have his swynk (work) to him reserved”, the persuasive Friar ”his eyes twinkled in his head alright”, the Clerk of Oxenford “gladly would he learn and gladly teach”, the Good Wife of Bath “She was a worthy woman all her life, husbands at church door she had five”. Of the Poor Parson he wrote admiringly “first he wrought and afterward he taught”, or the Ploughman “living in peace and perfect charity, God loved he best, with all his whole heart”, less admiringly of the Summoner “as hot he was, and lecherous as a sparrow” or the smooth shaven Pardoner “I trowe he were a gelding or a mare”. The Prologue is carried off with great geniality and wry observation.

The Tales themselves include some of surpassing quality – The Knight’s (Hazlitt thought “In depth of simple pathos, and intensity of conception, never swerving from his subject, I think no other writer comes near him, not even the Greek tragedians”) or The Wife of Bath’s, The Pardoner’s and The Nun’s Priest’s, with its delightful fable of the Cock and the Fox, not to mention the hilariously bawdy The Miller's Tale.

Chaucer had a busy career as a courtier and diplomat attached to the court of Edward III and Richard II and enjoying the patronage of the grandee John of Gaunt. He had travelled to France and Italy and it is likely he had met Froissart and possibly he had contact with Petrarch and Boccaccio, whose poetry had substantially influenced him. His other works include The Parliament of Fowls and The Legend of Good Women but in my view the finest thing he did was Troilus and Criseyde, an epic love story crowned by a beautifully compassionate Envoi in the last 12 stanzas, where Troilus philosophises on the absurdity of human existence: (I attach a modernised extract)

Such ending has Troilus, lo, through love:

Such ending has all his great worthiness,

Such ending has his royal estate above,

Such ending his desire, his nobleness

Such ending has false words’ fickleness

And thus began his loving of Cressid,

And in this way he died, as I have said

            O young fresh folks, he or she,

 in whom love grows when you age,

return home from worldly vanity,

and of your heart cast up the visage

to that same God who in His image

made you, and think it but a fair,

this world that passes soon as flowers fair.

The note Chaucer strikes here and in many of his other works is that serene medieval voice, self-contained and confident, yet full of sympathy. I find it very attractive and Chaucer surely deserves the highest possible poetic rating.

SMD

29.11.12

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2012

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LINCOLN CATHEDRAL AND MARGARET THATCHER: The Essence of England (19)

[This is the nineteenth of a series of articles giving a brief description of each of the 26 ancient Anglican cathedrals coupled with a sketch of a person, activity or institution connected to the area]

Certainly in the view of John Ruskin, who thought Lincoln worth any two other English cathedrals, Lincoln Cathedral is widely recognised as the finest cathedral in England. Perched on its limestone ridge, it has majesty, richness and beauty to a unique degree. The visitor’s first sight of Lincoln is heart-stopping, a moment remembered for a lifetime.

Lincoln Cathedral

 The cathedral we see is the third on the site, its predecessors succumbing to fire and earthquake.  The striking West front is mainly Norman, even richer than that at Peterborough, with a profusion of decorative stone carving. Work began on the Choir (now known as St Hugh’s) and transepts in 1192 and the Early English nave followed, later embellished by a lovely ribbed vault.

In the 13^th century the towers were raised, though the central tower collapsed in 1237, soon to be replaced by a larger one. In about 1310 a tall lead-encased wooden spire was added to this tower, making Lincoln, at a claimed 525 feet, the tallest building in the world until the spire was blown down in 1549. The much admired Angel Choir (comprising the presbytery and retro-choir) dates from 1256 to 1280; the charming decagonal Chapter House is also 13^th century while the fine window tracery and misericords were later medieval additions.

The Angel Choir at Lincoln

 It is the richness of Lincoln that delights; everywhere carved stone and wood, corbels and bosses: a tremendous Judgement Porch: an exquisitely carved Decorated pulpitum; two fine Rose windows: Cloisters supporting an important library by Wren of 1674.

The buttressed 10-sided Chapter House

 Lincoln Cathedral is simply unmissable and all should make the journey there.

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It is entirely appropriate that the finest cathedral in England should be linked to the finest Prime Minister of Britain of the post-war era, a native of Lincolnshire. Margaret Thatcher was born Margaret Roberts in 1925, the younger of two daughters of Alderman Albert Roberts, who ran two small grocer’s shops in the historic town of Grantham in Lincolnshire. Alderman Roberts was a pillar of the community, serving as Mayor in 1945-6 and becoming a Methodist lay preacher. He imbued into her his old-fashioned (laissez-faire) Liberal ideals and the virtues of self-help.

Margaret shone at her local school, Grantham Girls’, and won a place reading Chemistry at the then all-woman Somerville College, Oxford. She latterly specialised in X-ray crystallography graduating in 1947. She had been president of the University Conservative Association and was an admirer of the writings of economic liberal Friedrich Hayek. She worked as an industrial chemist and stood unsuccessfully in the Tory cause in the 1950 and 1951 elections. In 1951 she met and married Denis Thatcher (his second marriage) and they had two children in the 1950s, Mark and Carol. Margaret moved to the Anglican Church. Denis had become a wealthy businessman selling his paint company and being appointed a director of Castrol and then Burmah Oil. Margaret decided to read for the Bar and qualified as a barrister, specialising in taxation, in 1953. Denis was to prove an irreplaceable supporter throughout her career.

A young Margaret Thatcher

 Mrs Thatcher finally entered Parliament as member for Finchley in 1959. She joined the Conservative front bench in 1961 under MacMillan as a junior minister and held a succession of shadow ministerial posts in opposition from 1964 to 1970. She was not a particularly prominent figure but she joined Edward Heath’s cabinet as Secretary of Education from 1970 until the Tories lost office in 1974. She came to public notice when she ended free school milk for primary children being dubbed by Labour “Thatcher, Thatcher, Milk-Snatcher!”

But Thatcher was about to experience a political conversion. The Conservatives were totally disillusioned with Heath whose economic policies had utterly failed. Thatcher had heard a speech on monetarism from Enoch Powell, the brilliant maverick Tory intellectual and former Treasury minister. She began to see there was another way than the Keynesian demand management consensus and she expressed her views accordingly. Heath had to stand for re-election as Tory party leader in 1975 and Thatcher stood against him, more prominent Tories declining to do so. To general surprise, Thatcher first defeated Heath and then Whitelaw in a second ballot and became Leader of the Opposition facing Wilson and then Callaghan. In opposition Thatcher found inspiration in discussions with deep-thinking cabinet colleague Sir Keith Joseph and with Ralph Harris’ Institute of Economic Affairs; she also absorbed the proposals of the free-market apostle US’s Milton Friedman.

Enoch Powell

                

                                                  

Sir Keith Joseph

 When Callaghan lost a vote of confidence in Parliament in 1979 and the subsequent election, the Conservatives were thus well prepared intellectually for office. Mrs Thatcher was the first woman Prime Minister in British history and her 11 continuous years in this position made her the longest-serving Premier of the 20^th century.

Margaret Thatcher enters Downing Street with Denis 4 May 1979

 The Thatcher era went off with a bang. The Chancellor Sir Geoffrey Howe’s first act was to abolish exchange controls – a strong signal that regulation was to be reduced – and floating sterling held up perfectly well. A savage squeeze of the money supply, intending to tame inflation, followed. Interest rates rose, vulnerable companies failed and unemployment rose sharply. There was party pressure for a policy U-turn but Mrs Thatcher’s response to the 1980 Tory party conference was uncompromising “You turn if you like. The Lady’s not for turning” Her government went through a tough spell but by 1982 the UK economy was performing much better, though unemployment stayed at 3 million.

Then in April 1982 Argentina seized the Falklands, not expecting much British resistance. It reckoned without Mrs Thatcher. Despite hostility from Spain, Italy and Belgium, silence from Germany and duplicity from France, the inevitable innate enmity of the United Nations and pussy-footing from Haig’s US State department, Mrs Thatcher decided to fight and sent a naval task force. She had earned the friendship of US President Ronald Reagan and he and his Defence Secretary Casper Weinberger gave vital material and intelligence assistance. After a hard campaign, and much to the credit of the UK forces, the Argentines surrendered in June 1982 and the islands were liberated. This was a defining moment for Mrs Thatcher. She was hailed as cool under pressure and the patriotic “Falklands factor” helped her easily to win the 1983 election against shambolic, loony-leftist Labour leader Michael Foot.

Mrs Thatcher re-elected in June 1983

 Mrs Thatcher inherited a group of senior Tories many of whom were by no means in tune with her aspirations and policies. They came to be called “The Wets” and after many a reshuffle, they all fell away. Prominent among them were Ian Gilmour, Norman St.John-Stevas, Francis Pym, Jim Prior and the combative Michael Heseltine, all intelligent and capable men but not keepers of the Thatcherite flame.

“Thatcherism” in the words of Nigel Lawson meant “Free markets, financial discipline, firm control over public expenditure, tax cuts, nationalism, 'Victorian values' (of the Samuel Smiles self-help variety), privatisation and a dash of populism”

Her programme was very ambitious but Thatcher was a conviction politician who did not brook much obstruction. Her ethos revolved round work and she lectured a glowering Edinburgh General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1988 with her Sermon on the Mound quoting St Paul “If a man will not work, he shall not eat”. She was not heartless, as her enemies claimed but she deplored welfare dependency. She viewed poverty as a misfortune, which government should do what it could to alleviate, not as a badge of honour deserving special rights or privileges. She did not believe government should bail-out failing enterprises and watched several such go to the wall. When people in the North complained, she briskly dismissed them as “Moaning Minnies”.

She saw that Britain had suffered grievously from irresponsible trades union power. The laws on the closed shop and secondary picketing were strengthened and financial penalties for breaches of the law increased. She prepared carefully for a clash with the miners which duly came with a bitter 12 month strike in 1984. The strike failed, the NUM was effectively destroyed and the union movement weakened. Britain’s strike record hugely improved thereafter. It was the most significant event of Mrs Thatcher’s second ministry.

William Whitelaw

Norman Tebbitt

Mrs Thatcher liked to work in a small team of close colleagues. She leant heavily on patrician Willie Whitelaw, a former Home Secretary, a man of sound judgement and able to dispense moderating advice to her. He chaired many cabinet committees and exercised his charm to keep recalcitrant backbenchers on tune. Ill health forced his resignation in 1988, a major blow to her government. “Everyone needs a Willie” she quipped.

More committed and a Thatcher loyalist to the very end was Norman Tebbitt, of working class origin and epitomising “Essex Man”. Tebbitt held various portfolios including Secretary for Employment. After town centre riots in 1981, Tebbitt mused:"I grew up in the '30s with an unemployed father. He didn't riot. He got on his bike and looked for work, and he kept looking 'til he found it." This very reasonable remark was twisted by the media to mean that Tebbitt had told the unemployed to get “on yer bike” but he had not. However the Thatcherite value of Self-Help was invoked. Tebbitt was a tough political street-fighter, close to Mrs Thatcher, and a good man to have on your side. He reduced his workload to look after his wife, permanently disabled by the IRA Brighton bomb.

Mrs Thatcher faced physical dangers too. An Irish terrorist bomb nearly killed her (5 others died) at her Brighton hotel in 1984. Her close aide and Colditz escaper Airey Neave was murdered by the INLA in 1979 and her loyal and talented PPS Ian Gow was killed by an Irish terrorist car bomb in 1990. She did not deviate from her firm but conciliatory policy on Ulster, winning national support.

Above all, Mrs Thatcher was a liberator. To give many working people a first step on the property ladder she had a highly popular policy of selling council houses. Many key public corporations were successfully privatised: water, British Telecom, gas, BP, the airports. The arcane City system of jobbers and brokers was swept away by “Big Bang” in 1986. The nonsense of Labour’s 83% (98% on “unearned” income) marginal tax rate was drastically reduced to a top rate of 40% by Thatcher’s most capable Chancellor, Nigel Lawson. After 35 years of feeble economic performance, Mrs Thatcher ushered in a period of sustained UK prosperity.The marked improvement in living standards for those in work earned Mrs Thatcher a 3^rd election victory in 1987, only losing 21 seats and retaining a comfortable majority.

Enoch Powell once said that “All political lives end in failure” and Mrs Thatcher’s was entering its final phase.

Europe became a central concern. She had long been a doughty opponent of Brussels’ interference and extravagance: its fat-cat bureaucrats offended every fibre in her body and she regularly worked over Helmut Kohl and Francois Mitterrand at EU gatherings. But the UK was often isolated and the Tory party was split between the euro-sceptic and euro-enthusiast factions. In a prescient speech in Bruges in 1988 she argued against federalism and centralisation in Europe: “We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them re-imposed at a European level, with a European super-state exercising a new dominance from Brussels”. She was a voice crying in the wilderness and Brussels charged on to its disastrous Eurozone project.

She made mistakes; her reform of local government finance via the Community Charge (aka “poll-tax) galvanised the opposition and riots ensued. Many Scots, highly dependent on state spending and welfare, long hated her and deserted the Tories for the absurd nationalist fantasies of the SNP.  Her implacable self-belief alienated first Nigel Lawson and then fatally Geoffrey Howe. Her leadership was challenged by Michael Heseltine in 1990 and she did not achieve the required margin of victory in the first ballot .Tearfully she resigned; it was time for her to go. She accepted a life peerage and Denis was created a hereditary baronet.

But what a legacy she left! Her economic reforms changed the landscape of British politics and no attempt was made to reverse them. The Thatcher prosperity continued throughout the Major and Blair eras. Blair said “We are all Thatcherites now”. Her influence remains in the US and Europe fears her still.

Lady Thatcher is now 87 and sadly beset by Alzheimer’s. It has been ordained that at her passing, she will be honoured with a State Funeral at St Pauls (not, alas, Lincoln). It is hugely deserved and I hope some latter-day Tiepolo paints The Apotheosis of Blessed Margaret, trailing blue clouds of glory and escorted by smiling cherubs. We can be sure that she will brook no delay at the Pearly Gates and if necessary firmly put St Peter’s hat straight.

Lady Thatcher

SMD

26.11.12

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2012

WELLS CATHEDRAL AND CHEDDAR CHEESE: The Essence of England (18)

[This is the eighteenth of a series of articles giving a brief description of each of England's 26 ancient Anglican cathedrals together with a sketch of a person, activity or institution connected to the area]

One of the finest cathedrals in England is Wells Cathedral in the modest city of Wells (England’s smallest), Somerset, built between 1175 and 1490. It has a wealth of features architecturally, wonderful stone carving and fine medieval stained glass.

Wells Cathedral

 One of its most striking aspects is its early English West Front with some 300 surviving carved figures, making a splendid ensemble.

Detail of carvings on the West Front

 Another famous sight is the 1338 “ scissors arch” supporting the Nave, an ingenious  medieval solution to the problem of subsidence following an earthquake; the piers needed to be shored up and the arch was inserted – rather intrusive but beautifully executed.

Scissors arch at Wells

                                   

 The Cathedral also boasts a delightfully delicate Chapter House, a pleasant Cloister, fine stiff-leaf carved foliage on many capitals, excellent misericords and some of England’s best medieval stained glass windows in the East End and Lady Chapel.

The cathedral was damaged during Monmouth’s Rebellion in 1685 – the soldiers stripped lead off the roof to make bullets. In 1703 the bishop was killed in his bed when a pillar fell on him during The Great Storm and the cathedral was neglected thereafter. The Victorian architect Anthony Salvin undertook a vigorous restoration programme known as “The Great Scrape”, but Wells remains very beautiful and should be on every tourist’s itinerary.

Medieval stained glass at Wells

 The Cathedral Close is interesting too. Its Vicars’ Close is the only surviving 14^th century complete street in England, while the Bishop’s Palace, moated and fortified, is testimony to the occasionally uneasy relations between clergy and townspeople in medieval times.

The Bishop's Palace, Wells

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Cheddar Cheese originated in the village of Cheddar about 9 miles North-West of Wells. For many years, Cheddar was only allowed to be so named if it were produced within 30 miles of Wells Cathedral. The name is no longer protected and Cheddar is produced on an industrial scale (50% of all British cheese output) and globally in Australia, Canada and the United States.

Somerset Cheddar Cheese

 The original Cheddar was hard, white and rather sharp-tasting. It is still hard but cheese makers now produce a variety of strengths and it is often artificially coloured orange. Its reputation suffered during and 9 years after WW2 when food rationing forced the almost exclusive production of inferior “Government Cheddar” irreverently known as “mousetrap cheese”. However good Cheddar is now made in the West Country: some of the best is matured in Wookey Hole, the deep cave system nearby.

I am fond of the traditional Ploughman’s Lunch, a staple in British pubs, comprising a pint of ale, a hunk of bread, a good slice of Cheddar and a spoonful of pickle or chutney.

Cheddar maturing in Wookey Hole

I have to confess however that my favourite English cheese is blue Stilton rather than Cheddar. While Cheddar has a tendency to be bland, Stilton is always sharp and pungent, while still being creamy, a miraculous combination first exploited in the 1730s. I enjoy it most when a round Stilton is served wrapped in a linen napkin and a spoon is provided to dig out this crumbly ambrosial delicacy. Best of all the Stilton can be wondrously accompanied by a generous glass of Port. Heaven!

Heavenly Stilton

SMD

21.11.12

Text copyright © Sidney Donald 2012

RIPON CATHEDRAL AND FOUNTAINS ABBEY: The Essence of England (17)

[This is the seventeenth of a series of articles giving a brief description of each of the 26 ancient Anglican cathedrals coupled with a sketch of a person, activity or

institution connected to the area]

Ripon Cathedral in the North Yorkshire Dales is an ancient place. A Saxon church was built by St Wilfrid, a famously argumentative priest who successfully championed the Roman rites over those of the Celtic Church at the Synod of Whitby in 664. His Saxon Crypt of 672 survives below the cathedral.

Ripon Cathedral

 The cathedral we now see was started in the 12^th century by Bishop Roger de Pont L’Eveque. The transepts are in the transitional Norman style while the West Front is Early English. The rather squat West towers were designed to carry wooden spires but the originals were never replaced. After the central tower collapsed in 1450, the Nave and new tower were rebuilt in the Perpendicular style in the 15^th and 16^th centuries.

The nave at Ripon

 The choir stalls include some fine misericords, one of which is said to have inspired Lewis Carroll to write his Alice in Wonderland. The cathedral is a pleasing surprise in a rather remote location.

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About three miles from Ripon stands the extensive ruins of Fountains Abbey, a Cistercian abbey which flourished from 1132 until its Dissolution in 1539. The ruins are very impressive and evocative; much remains of the extensive monks’ cells and church buildings, workshops, fishponds and grain stores. The monks submitted to the rule of St Bernard of Clairvaux and its mother church was Citeaux in Burgundy, then at its peak.

Fountains Abbey

Fountains Abbey, preceded in Yorkshire by Rievaulx, is an example of those centres of monastic life and religious commitment in Britain and throughout Christendom which are so alien to the modern mind. .

The title of the Father of Monasticism is conferred inaccurately on St Anthony the Great (251-356), long preceeded by many hermits dwelling in Christian Egypt. St Anthony won fame by living a solitary life of piety and prayer in the Libyan Desert, with legends of his resistance to Temptation inspiring many later artists.

St Anthony fights off the demons

 Early manifestations of the monastic spirit were mainly of the reclusive sort: persons who sought to isolate themselves from the world and devote themselves to religious practices and contemplation. This life-style was often combined with spectacular examples of mortification of the flesh. One such was Simeon Stylites (390-459) who was shunned by some for his violent fasting and masochistic self-torments. For the last 37 years of his life he lived on the top of a narrow 15 metre-high pillar near Aleppo in Syria. Large crowds came to revere him and to seek his arbitration on disputes. His verdicts were surprisingly sensible and free from fanaticism.

Simeon Stylites

 The other type of monasticism was the living together of like-minded monks in a community (“cenobitic” monasticism). One of the earliest was the Orthodox St Catherine’s in Sinai, Egypt, which housed unique manuscripts and escaped the iconoclastic destruction of the 8^th and 9^th centuries. It still functions as a monastery.

St Catherine's, Sinai

 In the West, these monasteries soon felt the need for a governing code and over the years the Rule of Benedict, of Basil or of Bernard were enunciated. All monks accepted the life of poverty, chastity and obedience and their monasteries received gifts from kings and the faithful allowing them to become powerful institutions. Many monks did indeed live an exemplary life but also quite often discipline was lax or broke down to the scandal of the poor peasantry. Good works, the distribution of alms and the tending of the sick and the old added to their popularity. We get a glimpse of this world in Umberto Eco’s 1980 mystery The Name of the Rose and in Helen Waddell’s notable 1933 historical novel Peter Abelard. Women played a full part in the religious life and the mystical writings of 14^th century anchoress Julian of Norwich are still much admired.

In 1534 after a long dispute over the annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII declared himself Head of the English Church and broke with the Pope. By this time the monasteries held a quarter of England’s landed wealth and received half of all ecclesiastical revenues. It was too tempting a target for cash-strapped Henry and under Thomas Cromwell he dissolved the monasteries, seized their land and pensioned off their clergy. Most monasteries surrendered under pressure. Resistance like Yorkshire’s Pilgrimage of Grace was brutally suppressed.

The English monasteries were no more. In Victorian times Anglican religious houses were revived under the influence of the Oxford Movement. Some thrived but in our times they are in decline as novices are hard to find. In the Catholic world monasteries have flourished for much longer, though they too in due course lost much of their wealth and have recruitment problems. Orthodox monasticism is also stumbling although impregnable Meteora still hosts its monks and Mount Athos has had an injection of vocations from the Balkan and Russian faithful.

A Monastery at Meteora, Greece

 A walk around the green precincts of Fountains Abbey conjures up many ghosts: images of dedication and sacrifice; of a life almost inexplicable amidst the worldly and unspiritual obsessions of 21st century England.

SMD

20.11.12

Text copyright © Sidney Donald 2012

OXFORD CATHEDRAL AND THE UNIVERSITY: The Essence of England (16)

[This is the sixteenth of a series of articles giving a brief description of each of the 26 ancient Anglican cathedrals coupled with a sketch of a person, activity or

institution connected to the area]

Oxford Cathedral is the cathedral of the diocese of Oxford covering 3 counties. It is also, uniquely, the chapel of Christ Church, one of the largest and most distinguished colleges of the University of Oxford of which the cathedral is an essential part.

Entrance to Cathedral from Tom Quad, Christ Church

 While Oxford is the smallest ancient English cathedral, it is very fine. Originally a priory, the choir, tower and transepts were built in the Norman manner with Perpendicular features added later. A lovely pendant vault was raised over the Norman chancel in the late 15^th century. Cardinal Wolsey acquired the priory in 1524 intending to integrate it into his planned College, demolishing part of the Nave. Henry VIII seized it from Wolsey and refounded the Cathedral and College in 1546.

Oxford Cathedral interior and pendant vault

Christ Church has been the College of many famous Englishmen, politicians like Gladstone, philosophers like Locke and writers like Ruskin including a total of 13 Prime Ministers. The Cathedral has many memorials to such men and reflects the power and intellect of the aristocracy and the privileged in past English society.

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The University of Oxford is a federation of 38 self governing and independent colleges and 8 permanent Halls (mainly religious training colleges). Departmental facilities, teaching staff and syllabuses are organised by a central administration under the Vice-Chancellor. The first record of teaching at Oxford dates from 1096 and the University is the oldest in the English-speaking world and the second oldest surviving university in the world, after Paris. The University receives large sums of public money but is “private” in the sense that it could continue on its own were it to decide to forego government funding.

While there are several University buildings, the loyalties of all undergraduates (first degree students) are focussed on their own College. The Colleges have been founded and endowed since medieval times by a succession of benefactors and often bear their names (Balliol, Merton, Pembroke, Hertford etc) or have religious connotations (Christ Church, Trinity, Magdalen, All Souls, St John’s etc). Historically Oxford was a stronghold of the Anglican Church and was known for its Tory, not to say reactionary views. It still has an Establishment air about it, although it is now very diverse and the wider admission of ladies has leavened the unyielding male lump.

The Radcliffe Camera, now a History Library

Each College has its own distinctive ethos and culture and it is a mistake to generalise too much about Oxford University life. I had the good fortune to be “up at Oxford” fifty years ago from 1961 to 1964 and I can only share my own experiences.

My own college was St Edmund Hall (known as “Teddy Hall” or “The Hall”), an oddity in Oxford in that it was the only surviving medieval teaching Hall (“Aula”) dating from 1278, if not earlier: it became for centuries a dependency of The Queens College, becoming independent in 1937 and a fully-fledged College in 1958. Its earliest surviving buildings date from the 17^th century and its atmosphere is cosily domestic.

St Edmund Hall, Oxford

In my time the college had a sporty reputation, with many famous rugby players and oarsmen as alumni and also a thespian flowering – Python Terry Jones and US drama director Mike Rudman were exact contemporaries. The Hall spirit was embodied in its long-serving Principal Canon John Kelly, a Scot by origin, who devoted 62 years of his life to the Hall.

Principal John Kelly

A distinguished Patristic scholar, Kelly was a vivid Oxford character, a mean squash player and confirmed bachelor, who would warn his charges, with his typical Oxford lisp, “English women, my boy, are the unpaid prothtitutes of Europe”, an opinion which mercifully predated the admission of women to his beloved Hall.

Although my first love was History, I entered the Hall to read Law. My enthusiasm for Law did not last long; I recall attending my first lecture on criminal law by the don Peter Glazebrook who pronounced “The criminal Law of England is a scandal and disgrace”. I quickly enough moved to reading Politics, Philosophy and Economics. The tutors were much more congenial; gentle, soft-spoken but acute John Dunbabin steered me through the swamps of politics: I staggered from brilliant Justin Gosling’s weekly philosophy tutorials, my feeble brain addled, moaning at the profundity of the discussion (Gosling became Principal in due course): I loved the economic history tutorials with rumbustuous Australian Max Hartwell at Nuffield College.

Do not suppose that the academic life wholly engrossed me. A callow Scots youth, I soon learned how to play darts (“arrows”) and sink numerous pints of beer at the convivial Oxford pubs, like the Eastgate, Bear or Golf, with my lively friends. We happily patronised the cinema (“the scopes”) enhancing the pleasure with witty catcalls and cheers at the moment critique. A hitherto cloistered public schoolboy, I discovered the amazing and baffling world of women, soon to become a life’s study.

The Pleasures of Punting at Oxford

 We would lazily watch cricket at the Parks, marvelling at the elegance of the University captain the Indian Nawab of Pataudi as he effortlessly stroked the ball to the boundary. We would sit reading in the scented Botanical Garden. We would stroll through Christ Church Meadow to get to the River Cherwell, perhaps like me to participate incompetently at some junior college rowing, but certainly to cheer on the often triumphant Hall boat at Torpids or at Eights Week.

The other river pleasure was punting, by no means an easy skill, but a delightful summer pastime. The May Morning gathering below Magdalen Bridge with a choir singing at daybreak always seemed a chilly occasion to me, but in high summer few events can rival the pleasures of punting with a modest bottle of wine and a picnic.

All good things come to an end and, after three years and valedictory college balls, I had to turn my back on the delightful sights of the High, the Turl and St Giles. I took my Finals, earned a deservedly rather pedestrian degree, collected it in due course at Wren’s Sheldonian Theatre and entered the real world.

The Sheldonian Theatre

 It was a nasty shock, but in time I made my way in the City. My friends and contemporaries distinguished themselves in a variety of callings – economist Andrew Graham became Master of Balliol, Sir Nick Lloyd a busy Fleet Street editor and Sir Stanley Brunton became a Lord Justice of Appeal. Dozens of others enriched the life of their communities. Many are firm friends 50 years on.

Oxford University is a tremendous institution and one of England’s glories. Those who had the opportunity to make contact with superior minds there and who had the privilege to live amid its lovely buildings will always treasure the place. A flame is lit in the intellect which can never be extinguished.

SMD

16.11.12

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2012

ROCHESTER CATHEDRAL AND CHARLES DICKENS: The Essence of England (15)

[This is the fifteenth of a series of articles giving a brief description of each of the 26 ancient Anglican cathedrals coupled with a sketch of a person, activity or

institution connected to the area]

Rochester Cathedral has its origins in a Saxon foundation of 604, so is over 1,400 years old, and after Canterbury is the second oldest bishopric in England. The mainly Norman building we see today dates from 1080 and presents an agreeable surprise in the otherwise now rather neglected Medway town of Rochester in Kent about 30 miles South-East of London.

Rochester Cathedral

                                                      

Rochester was significant in Roman times as it was on the Roman road of Watling Street, sited at the lowest crossing of the River Medway and was thus of strategic importance. When St Augustine came as a missionary to Canterbury he charged his colleague Justus with the task of founding another Christian centre, which he did at Rochester in 604. Many years were to elapse before Christianity was established and Rochester, squeezed between Canterbury and London, was always an inconsiderable See.

West Front Doorway

Chapter House Door

                       

The building history of the Cathedral is very complex, but basically a Norman Benedictine priory, first led by Gundulf from 1082, survived fires, sieges and assaults in King John’s and Simon de Montfort’s time in the 13^th century, allowing the Lady Chapel and other parts to be built in the Decorated and Perpendicular Gothic fashion.

The Dissolution swept away the monastic buildings and impoverished the cathedral which sank into decrepitude.  The Civil War in the 17^th century brought the usual spoliations. Stuart and Hanoverian authorities contributed repairing funds but it was never enough. It was not until the 19^th century that the cathedral was remodelled and effectively rebuilt by three highly competent architects, LN Cottingham, Sir George Gilbert Scott and JL Pearson. So extensive was their work that it is now difficult to separate the original from the Victorian reconstruction.

Two doorways are treasured. The West Door, though much damaged, with its Christ in Glory within a fine early Norman tympanum is rare in Britain (if less so in France). The Chapter House Door is a magnificent example of Decorated art with the two flanking Old and New Covenants standing below figures of the four great Doctors of the Church. The Cathedral is certainly a very worthwhile place to see even if its medieval antecedents have largely yielded to the confident constructions of Victorian England.

Rochester Cathedral Interior

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Charles Dickens (1812-70) was Britain’s greatest novelist of the 19^th century. His father worked as a clerk in the naval dockyards at Portsmouth and at Chatham, near Rochester. When young, Dickens would walk past the fine houses in Higham and particularly admired Gads Hill Place. He made his fortune and in 1857 bought Gads Hill Place which remained his country retreat until his death. He wrote much of A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, Our Mutual Friend and the unfinished Mystery of Edwin Drood at this house.

Charles Dickens

 Dickens had a nomadic childhood with family poverty threatening when his spendthrift father was briefly jailed for debt. Charles famously had a spell at a blacking factory which he resentfully detested. Largely self-taught, he became a legal and then a parliamentary reporter before embarking on his first novel Pickwick Papers published in serialised form in 1836. It was an instant success and subsequently 15 novels flowed from his fertile pen, many acknowledged as English classics. Dickens married Catherine Hogarth in 1836 and they had 10 children. They separated in 1858 when Dickens fell in love with Ellen Ternan, an actress 27 years his junior, who stayed with him until his death. Dickens was a great celebrity in his lifetime giving public declamatory readings from his novels and touring Britain and the United States.

Sam Weller with his Father (Pickwick Papers)

Dickens’ novels are so engrossing and his characters so vivid that his works cry out to be illustrated, as they were on publication with etchings by Phiz and others. In our time, every new generation has had its own favourite movie or TV serial to complement the books, bringing Dickens’ delightful imagination to a fresh audience. 

And what an imagination! I first became acquainted with Dickens through the 1948 David Lean film of Oliver Twist starring Alec Guinness as deceitful Fagin, rolling-eyed Robert Newton as villainous Bill Sikes, a youthful Anthony Newley as The Artful  Dodger and florid Francis L Sullivan as Mr Bumble, the beadle – a great introduction.

Guinness as Fagin

Francis L Sullivan as Mr Bumble

    

Like so many others I graduated to reading life-enhancing A Christmas Carol with the unforgettable film performance of Alastair Sim as Scrooge and later read wonderful David Copperfield, teeming with characters like Peggotty (“Barkis is willing”), Steerforth, Betsy Trotwood and clammy-handed, “ever-so-‘umble” Uriah Heep.

Alastair Sim as Scrooge

Ron Moody as Uriah Heep

As the years passed, one caught up with the other great characters, ignorant schoolmaster Wackford Squeers (Nicholas Nickleby), tragic Little Nell (The Old Curiosity Shop), crooked lawyer Jaggers (Great Expectations) and grasping midwife Sarah Gamp (Martin Chuzzlewitt) with her bibulous fondness for liquor and her notorious umbrella, and a host of others.

Dickens has his critics and it is true that among his gallery of great characters there is an element of the caricature and the grotesque. He was unable to delineate a convincing female character or a plausible love interest. He had a Victorian tendency towards the maudlin and the sentimental. But Dickens’ audience was not the port-soaked Oxbridge don nor the precious Bloomsbury intellectual, but the common people of London and beyond.  He crusaded for the alleviation of poverty and for the rights of the ordinary man. They loved him.

Let us leave with the quintessential Dickensian comic character, Wilkins Micawber, the genial, improvident  and grandiloquent landlord of boy-lodger David Copperfield always battling with his “difficulties” and “waiting for something to turn up”.  He was most memorably depicted by W C Fields in a famous 1935 movie. His solid financial principles were neatly expressed:

"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery."

WC Fields as Micawber and Freddie Batholemew as Copperfield

Charles Dickens had wished to be buried modestly at Rochester Cathedral. A grateful nation insisted that he be laid to rest at Poets’ Corner at Westminster Abbey. Surely this honour was most decidedly well-earned.

SMD

14.11.12

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2012