The Lady Apollonia West Country Mysteries

Gloucester Cathedral in England was a monastic church in 1392 which plays a role in Memento Mori, the third novel in my Lady Apollonia West Country Mysteries.  In the 14^th century, the present cathedral was the Abbey of Saint Peter which was the most important monastic house in Gloucester.  Lady Apollonia visited the abbey in my story, but as a woman and someone outside the religious house, she was not able to visit the cloister and the chapter house which I will discuss in this posting.

The abbey was Benedictine and in the Norman period had a cloister for the monks on the south side of the church as was typical of monastic layout.  That was replaced with a new cloister to the north of the church, begun with construction of the east walk during the tenure of Abbot Thomas Horton from 1351 to 1377.  The other three sides of the new cloister were built under Abbot Walter Frocester from 1381 to 1412.  It is uncertain how much of this had been completed by 1392.  The west cloister walk is shown to the left.  Small-scale fan vaults had been attempted early on, but the first full-scale structural fan vaulting was developed in this cloister.

The east walk includes a Norman door giving access to the chapter house which is older than the cloister.  It also provided access to the dorter or dormitory and the east slype of the abbey.  The north walk includes a lavatorium where the monks washed but in medieval times provided access to the monks’ refectory.  The south walk, next to the church, provides twenty carrels or study booths for the monks use.

The chapter house was built in the Norman period as a place for the monks to meet with the abbot to receive instructions and transact business as well as gather to read each day a chapter of Saint Benedict’s Rule.  Originally the chapter house had an apsidal end where the abbot sat, but it was remodelled several times during the medieval period.  Any Norman windows on the east side were replaced with Gothic windows by the time of my story.

The cloister walks have been used in modern times for several films and TV series including parts of Hogwarts School in three Harry Potter movies.  They have also appeared in the Doctor Who, Hollow Crown, Wolf Hall, and Sherlock TV series.

Gloucester Cathedral in England was a monastic church in 1392 and played an important role in Memento Mori, the third novel in my Lady Apollonia West Country Mysteries.  In the 14^th century, the present cathedral was the Abbey of Saint Peter which was the most important monastic house in Gloucester.  Lady Apollonia visited the abbey in my story and was amazed to observe the great east window from the ambulatory around the quire.

The east window is extremely large, 72 feet high by 38 feet wide.  It is the size of a tennis court and was the largest stained glass window in 14^th century England.  The east window of York Minster is also the size of a tennis court, but it was not built until the 15^th century.  Neither those who did the glazing nor the exact date of Gloucester’s window are known.  Perhaps the glazers came from Bristol, the nearest large city.  The armour of one of the figures depicted in the window suggests the period of the 1350’s.  I am confident that the window was installed by the end of Abbot Horton’s tenure in 1377, well before Apollonia’s visit in 1392.

There are several registers of lights containing various figures.  The subject of the window seems to be the coronation of the Virgin with a theme of hierarchy with heaven above and earth below.  Bands of red and blue glass run upwards from behind the high altar to the vaulting high above which is filled with heavenly angels.  The stained-glass figures shown in the many tiers of niches look as though they represent stone sculptures, each niche has a canopy rising to become a pedestal for the figure it holds.

The lowest stained glass tier displays the shields and coats of arms of noble families who may have contributed to the window’s construction.  One of the niches in this tier has, below the coat of arms, the surprising image of what appears to be a golfer swinging a club.  We have no idea why he is there or what he is really doing.

The next tier upward is thought to contain abbots of Gloucester and bishops of the Diocese of Worcester as well as three kings.  One of the kings, Edward II, was surely there in Apollonia’s time.  The other two may have been inserted later.  Saints are in the tier above this, and some of them can be identified by their attributes such as Saint Lawrence who is holding his symbol, a gridiron.  Saint Thomas is shown in the picture at the top.

Christ and the Virgin are centred on the next tier surrounded by apostles while the uppermost tier is filled with quires of angels.  The very top niche at the apex of this Gothic window consists of a 15^th or 16^th century image of Saint Clement.  We don’t know what was there in the 14^th century.  More likely it was God himself.

Two medieval tombs at Gloucester Cathedral are of interest to modern visitors of the church and both appear in my novel, Memento Mori, set in 1392 when the cathedral was the church of the Abbey of Saint Peter.  These tombs were seen by my heroine, Lady Apollonia, when her party visited the abbey church, as well as by Stedmund Falford, the villain who plays a role in my second and third novels.  Though King Edward II was no saint, his tomb had been extremely important in bringing pilgrims’ money to the abbey to pay for the redecoration of the building which occurred in the years just preceding my story.

Another tomb in Gloucester celebrates the death of Robert, Duke of Normandy, in 1134 at Cardiff Castle.  Robert, nicknamed Curthose or short socks because of his stature, was the eldest son of William the Conqueror, inheriting the title of Duke of Normandy on his father’s death in 1087.  His brothers outmanoeuvred him for the English throne, and he was imprisoned for the last 28 years of his life.  Originally, he was buried in front of the high altar at Gloucester Abbey.  A wooden effigy, shown above, was carved in the 13^th century and replaced that burial.  It was in front of the high altar near the original burial when I first saw it but has now been in the south quire aisle for over two decades.  The effigy has been much restored over the centuries including work on it by my friend, Les Jewell, an ecclesiastical wood carver who was based in Exeter.

The death of King Edward II played a minor role in my first novel, Effigy of the Cloven Hoof. My character, the Abbot of Kingswood Abbey, was influenced in his actions by not wanting to repeat the squandered opportunity committed by one of his predecessors in the 13^th century who refused to accept the body of King Edward after his death.  Kingswood at that time had refused to receive the body of Edward II out of fear of his enemies so he was taken to Gloucester.  The abbey not only received the king’s body, after his royal burial, Gloucester’s abbey benefited from the financial gifts of King Edward III, allowing it to make the improvements I mentioned earlier.

The generosity of Edward’s son, King Edward III, helped transform the east of the nave with a new Perpendicular Gothic skin covering the Norman building as I described earlier.  One of the deliveries of these royal funds plays a role in the plot of Memento Mori.  The tomb of Edward II was carved in the English Decorated Gothic style and the effigy was carved out of alabaster, a new medium for carvers at the time.  The royal tombs drew many pilgrims to Gloucester

For more on Robert Curthose, click on
http://professor-moriarty.com/info/section/church-monument-art/13th-century-church-monuments-robert-curthose-duke-normandy-gloucester-c  or
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Curthose

For more on King Edward II, click on
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_II_of_England

Gloucester Cathedral in England in 1392 was a monastic church and played an important role in Memento Mori, the third novel in my Lady Apollonia West Country Mysteries.  It was the Abbey of Saint Peter in the 14^th century and was the most important monastic house in Gloucester.  My last posting discussed the Norman architecture of the cathedral.  I would now like to focus on the Gothic architecture of the church.

Some parts of the church, especially in the transepts and the quire have the newer, Gothic style of architecture, built as a skin over the original, massive Norman constructions.  The vault in the nave of 1242 is Early English Gothic, replacing the wood vault of the Norman church with stone.  Then, after the burial of King Edward II following his assassination in nearby Berkeley Castle in 1327, Gloucester became the place where the newer English Perpendicular style was developed.

Edward II’s young son, King Edward III, was willing to invest royal funds in the improvement of much of the abbey church to honour his father when he became king. He allowed royal masons to experiment between 1335 and 1355 with the French “Rayonnant” style to create perpendicular tracery which covered the existing Norman structure in the transepts, the quire, and the presbytery as shown in the drawing above.  The walls were extended upward leading to a new magnificent stone vault design over the quire and presbytery.  Finally, an enormous stained glass east window was installed which I will discuss in a posting later this month.

The earliest known fan vaulting in England was developed for the Gloucester cloisters around 1352 when they were rebuilt on the north side of the church.  A few other changes to the church came in the 15^th century after the time of Memento Mori.  These are a Gothic extension to the west end of the nave, a new central tower, and a new Lady Chapel.  Otherwise, the architecture you see today is much the same as in Lady Apollonia’s time.

For more on the architecture of Gloucester cathedral, click on
http://www.gloucestercathedral.org.uk/history-heritage/architecture/

Gloucester Cathedral in England was a monastic church in 1392 and played an important role in Memento Mori, the third novel in my Lady Apollonia West Country Mysteries.  It was the Abbey Church of Saint Peter in the 14^th century and was the most important monastic house in Gloucester.  My last posting discussed the history of the cathedral.  Here I will focus on the surviving Norman architecture still to be seen in the church.

Norman architecture in England is the Romanesque style brought from the Continent by William the Conqueror and his followers.  Its rounded arches were used by the ancient Romans and became popular throughout Europe by the 11^th century.  Massive columns and thick walls with small window openings were characteristic of these buildings.  This was the style of the church begun by Abbot Serlo in 1089.  The quire and transepts had been completed when the church was dedicated in 1100, just four years before Abbot Serlo’s death in 1104.  The nave was not finished until some years after his passing.

The footprint of today’s church and chapter house is essentially that of Serlo’s Norman abbey.  Today’s crypt is also from the Norman period.  The present building has two additional 15^th century Lady bays at the west end of the nave and a 15^th century Lady Chapel that replaced an earlier one at the east end.  The drawing above shows how much of the Norman church and chapter house remains today even though the interior walls of the quire and transepts were covered by a Gothic skin in the 14^th century as I will describe in my next posting.

The chapter house will be described more fully in a posting later this month, however I would like to discuss the ambulatory around the quire and the crypt, as areas where the Norman architecture is very much in evidence.  The horseshoe-shaped ground level ambulatory around the quire, as well as the gallery in the storey above it, remain to this day in the heavy Norman style.  The ambulatory passageway provides access to side chapels on the southeast and northeast sides of the horseshoe while on the east side, there is access to a Lady Chapel.

The crypt, one of the first things built in the Norman style, is similar in layout to the Norman quire which was built above it, except that five chapels are attached to the horseshoe-shaped ambulatory around its central chamber.  Later, when the Gothic revisions were made in the space above, stone support was added to the pillars and arches to strengthen the crypt.

Just north of the church were Norman passageways, called slypes, which served as parlours where monks could meet to socialise with each other or with visitors.

For more on the architecture of Gloucester cathedral, click on
http://www.gloucestercathedral.org.uk/history-heritage/architecture/

For the last three months, I have been posting articles on this blog related to Plague of a Green Man, the second novel written in my Lady Apollonia West Country Mysteries.  This novel is set in Exeter, England, in 1380.  If you have enjoyed reading the posts about medieval Exeter and Devon and have not yet read my story, this might be a good time to order it.

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Happy reading!