Durham Cathedral

No. 211 - THE PENNY MAGAZINE - July 18, 1835

A GENERAL account of Durham Cathedral having been already furnished in No. 73 of the 'Penny Magazine,' we are now enabled to give a more detailed attention to that part of it called the "Galilee," and to the tomb of the Venerable Bede, whose remains are deposited there. As an account of that great ornament of the eighth century has lately appeared in the 'Penny Cyclopaedia,' the present article will be particularly satisfactory to such of our readers as are subscribers to that publication, while nothing that relates to a man whose name is so familiar can be at any time uninteresting.

There is some difference of opinion as to the cause of the application of the name of Galilee to the western porch, raised directly under the west window of a cathedral or other great church, and which is still retained for the western porches of Durham and Ely cathedrals. Gervase, as quoted by Dr. Milner, if he does not enable us to trace the origin of the name, at least shows one of its common uses in this application. It seems that the western porch was the place in which females were allowed to see the monks who were their relatives. A woman applying to see a monk, her relation, was answered in the language of Scripture: "He goeth before you into Galilee, there you shall see him." The curious account of the origin of the Durham Galilee applies this information with peculiar point to that erection. St. Cuthbert, to whom the cathedral of Durham was dedicated, conceived a mortal aversion to women, in consequence of having unjustly been accused of an illicit intercourse with a daughter of the King of the Picts. The lady herself accused him with the view of averting suspicion from the real offender; but the innocence of the saint is said to have been manifested by a miracle, and he granted his pardon tot he culprit on condition that no woman should ever after be allowed to come near him. In consequence of this no woman was, in after time, allowed to enter a church dedicated to St. Cuthbert. That this regulation was rigidly enforced at Durham appears from the following anecdotes:-

In the year 1333, on Thursday in Easter week, Edward III. came to Durham and lodged in the Priory. On the Wednesday following Queen Philippa came from Knaresborough in one day to meet him, and, being unacquainted with the customs of the church, went through the Abbey-gates to the Priory; and, after supping with the king, retired to rest. The monks were very much alarmed at this, and one of them went to the king and informed him that St. Cuthbert could not endure the presence of a woman. Unwilling to give offence to the church, Edward immediately ordered the queen to get out of bed; and she--in her under garments only, her mantle, &c. being buried--then returned by the gate through which she had entered, and went to the castle, devoutly praying that St. Cuthbert would not avenge an offence which she had committed through ignorance.

Again, in the year 1477, two women of Newcastle being determined to approach the shrine of the saint nearer than was legally permitted, disguised themselves in men's apparel, but were discovered in the attempt to complete their purpose, and taken into custody. By way of punishment for their intended profanation, they were adjudged to walk on three festival days before the procession in St. Nicholas's church, Newcastle, and on three other holidays at the church of All Saints, in the same town, habited in the dresses in which they committed the offence, proclamation being first made as to the cause of this penance. The master and mistress of these curious females were at the same time ordered to attend the spiritual court of Durham, to answer the charge of being counsellors and abettors in this misdemeanour.

The following is described as the origin of the Galilee of Durham Cathedral. When Bishop Hugh Pudsey was promoted to the see of Durham, in 1154, he was inclined to think that his predecessors had paid too exclusive an attention to the honour of St. Cuthbert in the erection of the cathedral which had only recently been finished. He therefore proposed to erect, at the east end of the cathedral, a chapel in honour of the Virgin Mary, into which it should be lawful for women to enter, there being then, as we are informed, "no holy place where they might have admittance for their comfort and consolation." To carry this benevolent purpose into effect, the bishop procured several pillars of marble to be brought from beyond sea, and the work was commenced; but they had not been advanced far before great clefts appeared in them, and some parts began to fall down. This was considered a manifest indication that the patron saint disapproved of having a chapel for women erected in such proximity to his shrine, and therefore the bishop discontinued his works in that quarter and re-commenced them on the opposite or western side of the cathedral, where he was allowed to complete the Galilee without further disturbance. It was originally built in the Saxon style, but, about the year 1406, was repaired in the pointed-arch manner by Bishop Langley. The blending together of these two species of architecture has, in this instance, a very happy and picturesque effect. This effect, however, does not merely result from this combination, but is partly a consequence of the plan of this interesting chapel. It is divided into five aisles by four rows of light clustered columns. Each of these columns is composed of four shafts. The eastern and western shafts are built of several courses of stone, but the northern and southern are each of a single piece of a sort of coarse marble. The arches which they support are semicircular, and adorned with zigzag moulding. "The light and shade in this chapel," says Sir Henry Englefield, "particularly when illuminated by a low western sun, is exquisitely beautiful, as there are no windows in any upper story to disturb the effect. The four ranges of columns give a richness and intricacy to this building which is to be found in no other in this country." The original entrance was on the north, from a small yard adjoining the churchyard; but it is now entered from the side-aisles of the cathedral.

At the east ends of the three centre isles there were formerly three altars; that most to the north was Our Lady of Pity's altar; the next, being the central one, was Our Lady's altar, immediately before the steps of which is the tomb of Cardinal Langley, by whom the Galilee was repaired, as already mentioned. The other altar was that of St. Bede, before which is the tomb, as seen in our wood-cut, on which the shrine of that venerable person stood previously to the Reformation.

It seems that Bede died in the monastery at Jarrow, and was buried there; but afterwards his remains were removed to the church of Durham, and rested there, in a gold coffin, on the right side of St. Cuthbert's body, according to some accounts, but in the same coffin with the latter saint according to others. After the completion of the Galilee, the remains were transferred thither, and honoured with a separate shrine. This removal, however, did not immediately take place, as appears from one of the Latin inscriptions, of which the following is the English:--"In the year of our Lord 1370, Richard of Barnard Castle did with eagerness procure that the bones of St. Bede, lying nigh to St. Cuthbert's shrine, should be translated into this Galilee, there to remain. This Richard, deceased, for the love he had for St. Bede, ordered his own bones to be laid near him." From another inscription, however, it appears that the shrine was prepared by the founder of the chapel, although the body was not removed to it until a much later date. The following account of the shrine as it stood previously to the Reformation is from a book published in 1672, under the title of 'The Ancient Rites and Monuments of the Monastical and Cathedral-church of Durham, collected out of Ancient Manuscripts, about the time of the Suppressions.' This book, which has several times been republished under various titles, says:--"There was on the south side, between two pillars, a beautiful monument of blue marble, a yard high, support by five pillars, one at every corner, and the fifth under the middle; and above the said marble-stone and pillars stood a shrine, second to St. Cuthbert's, wherein the bones of that holy man, St. Bede, were enshrined. It used to be taken down every festival-day, when there was any solemn procession, and carried by four monks in time of procession and divine service; which being ended, they conveyed it again into the Galilee and set it upon the said tomb, which had a cover of wainscot, curiously gilt, and made to draw up and down over the shrine, when they pleased to show the sumptuousness thereof."

The same account says, in another place, that "there were two stones that belonged to St. bede's shrine in the Galilee. The uppermost stone had three holes in each corner, for irons to be fastened in to guide the covering when it was drawn up or let down. The other was a plain marble-stone, which was lowest, and laid above a little marble-tomb, whereon the bottoms of the five small pillars stood to support the uppermost stone." At the suppression of monasteries, the shrine was defaced, the bones of Bede were taken down and interred "under the same place where before his body was exalted;" the larger marbles were removed into the body of the church, and only the "little marble-tomb," which served as the basis of the shrine, was left remaining in the Galilee.