Page:Once a Week, Series 1, Volume II Dec 1859 to June 1860.pdf/606

16, 1860.] square transverse ribs: and the southern portion has a waggon vault of tufa laid in rubble work still retaining in the plaster the traces of the centering-boards. One rude loop window yet remains. The Norman monks were sorely grieved with the simplicity of the capitals, and pared down the homely axe-hewn block, ornamenting the edges with quaint masks, and the opposite sides, where no partition intervened, with patterns of foliage of graceful design.

The Chapel of the Pyx is entered only by the representatives of the Exchequer, Treasury, and Goldsmiths’ Company, who are armed with six mighty keys, when they come to assay new coin with the standards of the realm, which are here preserved. No other “Sesame” can open this mysterious door, or admit to the secrets that lie behind. And a gloomy, murky, low-browed den it is, after all, with presses against the wall, once containing records of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, and retaining drawers labelled in the handwriting of “painful Master Agarde,” and on the floor empty chests and cases of the XIIIth century, one of leather, powdered with fleur-de-lys, and strapped with iron, another with thick plates of the same material; and a third, of richer work in metal, with the dies of medieval coins. In the eastern bay stands a stone altar, with the round hollow for the “mensa;” and a water-drain of the XIIIth century placed conveniently on one side. A detached column fills the centre of the building. The small windows are doubly grated, to prevent mischance from itching palms; they were probably added, according to the proverb, on the principle of shutting the door after the steed has been stolen, subsequent to the loss of 100,000l., laid up prudently by Edward I. for his Scottish wars: a precedent worthy of imitation by modern Chancellors of Exchequer in these evil days of double and anticipated income-tax. The abbat and forty monks fell under bare suspicion, and were sent without benefit of clergy, or of judge and jury, to taste the cold comfort of the Tower.

On the east side of the chapel is the staircase to the Library; under which is a modern wine-cellar. On the door, once, probably, the entrance of the Pyx-chamber, are some dry, hard strips—fragments of white leather which once covered the entire surface—they are human skin! probably, flayed from some wretched thief caught in the act of peering too curiously into the dim darkness on the other side, and set up here as a warning to all bold robbers. A very narrow strip—a mere passage—lies between the cellar and the chamber beyond; when the present excellent architect of the abbey first entered it, he found the floor heaped up with rubbish, which had a springy motion beneath his feet. He searched this mass, which lay feet deep, and found a number of little poplar-wood boxes, with parchment deeds and seals of the XIIIth century, and a deposit of vellum packets, writs of the courts of justice, from the reign of Edward III. to Henry VII., and encaustic tiles with the glaze as fresh as when they left the kiln.

The undermost part of the heap was in a state of hopeless decay, the salvage lies on the floor of the Library. This room is part of the grand old dormitory, and retains its timber roof. Most of the old chartularies or MSS. of the abbey are in the keeping of that “helluo librorum,” the British Museum. But still there are some curious books: old copies of the English Bible, 1540—1706; a Welsh Bible of 1588; a Suetonius, 1490; Suidas and Avicenna, 1498; Littleburius in Threnos, printed at Oxford, 1482; the Complutensian Polyglott, 1515; the first printed Greek edition of the Holy Scriptures, by Aldi at Venice, 1518; Day’s Service Book, with the musical notation; Barnard’s Cathedral Music (the only other known copy is at Berlin); Abbat Litlington’s Missal, dated 1362, and the first edition of Aristotle, and Lucian, Florence, 1517; and an Editio-princeps of Plato on vellum. There is also a Μέγα ὄργανον, but not of Aristotle: curious fragments of iron-work spurs, rowels, &c., lie on a table, and in a book-case hard by are copies of Coronation Services; that of James II. is radiant with crimson and gold, a style of binding decreasing in splendour as it grows more modern, till, under the Reformed Parliament it dwindles into a thin ill-printed 4to. “done up” in glazed black covers. We took it at first for a form of Burial, or the Sermon preached before the Lords.

Let us now descend the stairs, and following the line of the Dark Cloisters and the very work of the Confessor, but deformed by modern whitewash, turn sharply to the eastward through the cross passage to the Little Cloisters. On the right is an oak-door and a small tower; the one was the entrance of the gloomy Star-chamber, that English Inquisition through which many a bold heart has passed fluttering and apprehensive of fine and mutilation. The other was the belfry of the Infirmary Chapel of St. Katharine. It is impossible now to decide whether the infirmary-hall lay east or west across the little garth, or may be traced in an apartment now converted into servants’ rooms by floors and partitions in a canon’s house, which boasts a fine Tudor-roof with carved bosses and beams, carefully whitewashed! In the south-west angle of the Little Cloister a door admits into the hall of the Infirmarer’s house, built by Abbat Litlington, which has been recently restored; a gallery on the north side, once extended over the south aisle of the chapel beyond; the fire-place is still visible. The early perpendicular door of the Infirmary Chapel occupies the centre of the east alley of the Cloister, and the southern arcade of its nave of late Norman work, which remains, bears a great resemblance to that of a similar building at Ely.

Ruins of infirmary chapels are found about Canterbury and Peterborough. They were so designed that the sick monks could hear the service as they lay on their pallets. This chapel was the scene of the battle ecclesiastical between à Becket and Roger of York, when the northern primate plumped down in the lap of “Canterbury” on failing to dispossess himself of the presidential chair, and monks and retainers fought lustily, northern and southern, only ceasing when with bloody crowns and broken limbs, they at length took breath, and York, with a torn rochet and crimson face, betook himself to Windsor to complain lustily before the king. The College Garden was the Paradise of the infirmary, where Queen Mary kept tryst with Duke Maximilian,—the one