Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 232, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 September 1920 — Salisbury Cathedral [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Salisbury Cathedral

APRIL 28, 1220, Richard Poore, bishop of Old Sarum, took off his shoes, and, attended by a procession of church and state dignitaries, all barefooted, and followed by a crowd of humbler people, walked from his cathedral church of Old Sarum to a pleasant meadow by the riverside, a little more than a mile distant There and then he founded the cathedral of New Sarum, -which, in but a few years, was to spring from the greensward in the simple beauty associated with its newer name of Salisbury cathedral; to endure as the finest existing example of early English architecture, says the London Telegraph. After consecrating the site of the future cathedral. Bishop Poore laid the first foundation stone in the name of Pope Honorius; a second for Stephen Archbishop of Canterbury, and a third for himself. William Longespee, first earl of Salisbury, whose altar tomb on the south side of the nave is a masterpiece of statuary art, laid the fourth stone; while the fifth was placed by his countess, Ela, Other stone laying followed, “amidst the acclamation,” and old chronicler tells us, “of multitudes of the people, weeping for joy, and contributing thereto their alms with a ready mind, according to the ability which God had given them.” So quickly did the work progress that three altars were consecrated in the n6w building within five years of the foundation ceremonies. 1 Why the Site Was Changed. The founders of the new cathedral gave several reasons for abandoning tho structure on the hill of Old Sarum. One reason mentioned in the bull obtained for the purpose from Pope Honorius, dated March 29. 1219, was that the hilly situation of Old Sarum placed the cathedral at the mercy of winds so stormy that not only was it often difficult to hear the words of the service, but the structure became in constant need of repair. Another trouble was the insufficiency of the water supply and a third was the most cogent of all, the military in the neighboring castle taking all possible pains to show that they, and not the ecclesiastics, were the lords of Old Sarum. “What has the House of the Lord to do with castles’” asked Peter of Blois in support of the proposal to remove the See from Old Sarum. “It is the Ark of the Covenant in a temple of Balaam. Let us, in the name of God, descend into the meads. There are rich meadows and fertile valleys .abounding in the fruits of the earth, profusely watered by living streams. There is a seat for the virgin patroness of our church to which the whole world cannot produce a parallel.” His conclusions as to the situation were to every sense correct, for among Hngiish cathedrals scarcely one—if »my—can vie with the exquisite setting of Salisbury’s aspiring loveliness of pinnacles and spire in the center of the greensward. The Tower and Spire. Without its spire the cathedral at Salisbury would still have been a marwl of architectural beauty; with Ito tower and spire it stands complete as the crowning triumph of English architecture throughout the ages. For over a century the building stood with « low, stunted central tower. Then, in 1830, came the daring conception of A- Ally Arve ,care. They knew that the nvendde

earth on which they had to build was too marshy to bear the solidity usually connected with tower structures, and they planned and worked with extreme caution. Giving to the tower walls the ightest possible construction, banding the parts Ingeniously, and even leaving within the building the wooden framework to serve as an additional support, the builders worked daringly on ; but when they approached the spire construction they had not tbe temerity to give It a thickness of more than two feet at the base, and of nine Inches from a little above the base to the topmost pinnacle. Within and without they added flying buttresses. Even then the spire began to lapse from the perpendicular, and tbe worst was feared when a deviation of two feet occurred; but since the careful examination made by Sir Christopher Wren no further signs of insecurity have appeared. What Salisbury Cathedral owes to the magic grace of its tower and spire it Is easier to realize than to express. The whole building was transformed by the architectural daring which had enough poetic Insight to picture what could be done by capping an already beautiful, but somewhat , featureless structure, by an exquisitely proportioned tower, surmounted by a slender and soaring spire, the highest in England. Though constructed half a century later than the body of the cathedral, the tower and spire—so refined was the artistic perception of these early builders —were in harmony with the whole, construction, in spite of their greater display of elaborate and decorative work.

With marvelous grace this triumph of early English art blends nave, choir, and transepts, tower and spire, in an architectural unity that has no compeer within our isles. Here we have a church of one period and of ode design, not, as in most cathedrals, an epitome in stone of English history from the Norman on through the early English and decorated periods to the perpendicular. Some Human Records. Seen with effect from the height of Salisbury tower is a pleasant pastoral country, vratered by several streams, broken by some low stretches of downs ■ and in places luxuriantly wooded; and' here and there are places sacred in the story of our literature. Within the cathedral is a bust with tablet in memory of Richard Jefferies, born at Coate, in Wiltshire. Less than two miles from Salisbury is Bemerton, a village containing the flint built parsonage where George Herbert wrote some of the poems in “The Temple.” Within the altar rails. of the little church is a modest tablet, with the simple Inscription, “G H, 1633,” the only memorial in Wiltshire to “the sweetest singer that ever sang God’s praise.” Within the cathedral, on the north side of the altar, lies the body of the sister whom Sir Philip Sidney loved to visit at Wilton, the ancestral estate of the Pembroke family, not much more than a mile to the west of Bemerton. It was at Wilton that Sidney wrote parts of his “Arcadia’’ to please, as he put it, “his dear lady and sister, the countess of Pembroke.** Interesting, too. are the cloisters, ndt only for the beauty of their window tracery, but tor the memories they enshrine, tor among those who Me at rest in this sanctuary Inclosed by the doisters are people whose names have a place of honor to toe modem records of toe Wiltshire minstor.

Salisbury Cathedral, From the Nearby Lake.