The Cathedral Church of Peterborough | Page 6

necessary before a foundation stone could be laid; and Abbot John's Chronicle, wherein it is said that the foundation of the new church at Burgh was laid, on the 12th of March, 1117, may be speaking of the actual commencement of the operations; and Candidus, who gives the later date, and who was present, may refer to a ceremonial laying of a stone, after the ground had been cleared and new designs prepared. The church then begun is the minster we now see. The works commenced, as we find almost universally the case, at the east end. The choir is here terminated by an apse; and before the eastern addition was built in the fifteenth century, this apse, with the two lesser ones at the ends of the choir aisles, must have presented an appearance of much grandeur.
The Abbot who began the church did not live to see much progress made, as he died in 1125. He is said to have worked hard at it, but how much was finished we do not know. The next Abbot, after an interval of two years, was Henry of Anjou, a kinsman of King Henry I. He appears to have been a scandalous pluralist, restless and greedy, continually seeking and obtaining additional preferment, and as often being forced to resign. He was not the man to prosecute such a work as was to be done at Burgh; "he lived even as a drone in a hive; as the drone eateth and draggeth forward to himself all that is brought near, even so did he."[8] It is likely that for eight years after the death of John de Sais nothing was done to advance the building. But the Prior of S. Neots, Martin de Bee, who was appointed to succeed Henry, was continually employed in building about the monastery; and in particular he completed the presbytery of the church, and brought back the sacred relics, and the monks, on Saint Peter's day into the new church, with great joy. Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln, was present; but there was no service of consecration. According to the Saxon Chronicle this took place in 1140; Abbot John says in 1143.
Before proceeding further with the architectural history of the cathedral (as distinguished from the description of it, which will be given in due course), it may be well to say a few words upon the principles which have guided the writer in his treatment of the subject. These cannot be better expressed than in a very pithy sentence uttered by Professor Willis at the meeting of the Archaeological Institute at this very place in 1861. "In all investigations of this nature, I am of opinion that it is requisite to ascertain first whether there exist any contemporary documents which may throw light upon the history of the fabric, and then to let the stones tell their own tale." Now there is an abundance of documentary evidence for our purpose; but recent criticism has shewn that not all is to be relied upon as authentic. And the Latin expressions for different portions of the building can, in many instances, not be interpreted with certainty; while the absence of all reference to some works of importance (the West Front, for example), is very mysterious. Most of these documents had been studied in manuscript by Gunton and Patrick, and the result of their studies was published in 1686. The work is entitled "The History of the church of Peterburgh ... By Symon Gunton, late Prebendary of that church.... And set forth by Symon Patrick, D.D., now Dean of the same." Gunton was Prebendary from 1646 to his death in 1676; Patrick was Dean from 1679 till his consecration as Bishop of Chichester in 1689. Most of the documents in question have since been printed. Two writers in the last half century have published monographs on the cathedral, both of great value, both treating the subject after Professor Willis's method. These are G.A. Poole, formerly Vicar of Welford, whose paper on the Abbey Church of Peterborough was published among the Transactions of the Architectural Society of the Archdeaconry of Northampton in 1855, and the late Professor F.A. Paley, a second edition of whose pamphlet, "Remarks on the Architecture of Peterborough Cathedral," was issued in 1859. It by no means detracts from the value of the method employed that the results of the investigations of these two careful students of the fabric do not accord with one another. Much must always be left to inference or conjecture. Since they wrote many discoveries have been made which have shewn some of their conclusions to have been inaccurate. But the rule is a sound one, and indeed it is only by studying the documents and the fabric together that one can hope to learn the