Poitiers, was shut in by woods and vines; and upon the vaulting we see much foliage, of the vine and the oak. Two of the bosses, also, shew a lion overpowering a winged wolflike monster. In the southern half of the transept one of the latter bosses appears; another bears the arms of King Edward III; upon another is seen a pelican in her piety; the large boss over the southern chantry altar has foliage, simply. At present the southern apse is enclosed, by wooden partitions, as the vestry of the French pastor. Two doorways, pierced in the south wall of the transept, give direct access from the Cathedral precinct to the Black Prince's Chantries, through which the congregation of French Protestants now pass, to their chapel in the south aisle of the crypt. Thus, Divine service is never now performed in the Prince's Chantries. This fact is very striking, in its contrast with the explicit directions of the Prince in his deed of foundation. He directed that his two chantry priests should, both together, daily say matins, and the canonical hours, vespers, and compline, placebo, and dirige, in the principal chantry of the Holy Trinity; which I believe to have been that in the northern apse. Each, however, was also, by himself, to say mass at the altar of his own chantry; but not both at the same hour. The peculiar form of mass to be said, on each day of the week, was duly specified in the deed of foundation. In it, likewise, he named as the chaplains who 1363, Aug. 4, Archbishop Islip's confirmation of the Chapter's assent to the Black Prince's Ordinance for founding two chantries in the crypt Registers of Christchurch Priory, B. 2, fol. 46, and F. 8, fol. 83, quoted in Stanley's Memorials of Canterbury, pp. 127-131, from Original Charter, N 145, in the Treasury of the Cathedral. Nos ad honorem Sce' Trinitatis, quam peculiari devocione semper colimus, et beatissime Marie, et beati Thome Martyris, intra muros ecelése Christi Cantuariensis ad quam a cunabilis nostris devocionem men'à ereximus, in quodam loco ex parte australi ejusdem ecclesie constituto, quez ad hoc .... designavimus, duas capellas quarum una Sancte Trinitatis intitula bitur, et altera beate et gloriose Virginis Marie, sub duabus cantariis duxima construendas. ... In nostris vero Cantariis ex nunc volumus et statuimus quod sint duo sacer dotes idonei.... Primum vero et principaliorem dominum Johannem Curtes de Weldone, et dominum Willelmum Bateman, de Giddingg', secundarium. eisdem nominamus et constituimus sacerdotes, quorum principalis in alts Sancte Trinitatis, et alter in altari beate Marie ... pro statu salubri nostry prosperitate matrimonii nostri.... cotidie celebrabunt. Dicent vero dicti sacerdotes insimul matutinas et ceteras horas canonicas ir should first officiate in his chantries, John Curteys, of Weldone (who may have been identical with John Curteys, Vicar of Minster in Thanet), and William Bateman of Gidding. By some curious misapprehension or rapid vacancy, it happens that the first incumbents named in an Official Return were John Steward and Nicholas de Lodyngton.* When Steward the principal chaplain died, he was succeeded by John Crisp; who was admitted to his office by Archbishop Sudbury on the 3rd of the Ides of November, 1376. When the secondary post, of Chaplain at St. Mary's altar, fell vacant shortly after, John Crisp was admitted to that office likewise on the 5th of December 1376. Thenceforward, only one Chantry Priest was nominated; and he was always instituted to the Incumbency of St. Mary's Chantry, not to that of the Holy Trinity.§ Why the directions of the Black capella, videlicet sancte Trinitatis, necnon et septem psalmos penitenciales et quindecim graduales et commendacionem ante prandium, captata ad hoc una hora vel pluribus, prout viderint expedire. Et post prandium vesperas et completorium necnon placebo et dirige pro defunctis. Celebrabit insuper uterque ipsorum singulis diebus prout sequitur.. 1. Unus eorum videlicet singulis diebus dominicis de die, si voluerit, vel aliter de Trinitate, et alter eorum de officio mortuorum, vel aliter de beata Virgine Maria. 2. Feria secunda unus de festo novem leccionum si acciderit vel aliter de Angelis, et alius de officio mortuorum, vel de Virgine gloriosa. 3. Feria tercia alter eorum de beato Thoma, et alius de beata Virgine vel officio mortuorum, nisi aliquod festum novem leccionum advenerit, tunc enim missa de beato Thoma poterit pretermitti. 4. Feria quarta, si a festo novem leccionum vacaverit, unus de Trinitate et alter de beata Maria Virgine vel officio mortuorum. 5. Feria quinta unus de festo Corporis Christi, et alius de beata Virgine vel officio mortuorum, si a festo novem leccionum vacaverit. 6. Feria sexta, si a festo novem leccionum vacaverit, unus de beata Cruce et alter de beata Virgine vel officio mortuorum. 7. Singulis diebus sabbati, si a festo novem leccionum vacaverit, unus de beata Virgine et alter de officio mortuorum. .... et non celebrabunt simul et eadem hora, sed unus post alium successive. Sudbury's Register, folio, 120b. * Battely's edition of Somner's Antiquities of Canterbury, part i., 97. 1383, June 1400, Aug. 1405, Oct. 1419, July 1424, Nov. 1431-2, Feb. 1435, June VOL. XIII, Wm Benyngton de Claypole, who resigned in 1383. William Dekyn, who died in 1400. Thos Broun, who exchanged in 1405 (Arundel's Reg., i. 270). Thos Pityngton (Chichele's Reg. i. 117) who exchanged in 1424. Hy Saltwode, Rector of Sulbury, Lincoln (Ibid., 250). Wm. Henrison (Ibid., i. 207). N N Prince were thus departed from we cannot tell. He endowed the chantries with the manor of Vauxhall in Surrey; and a residence was provided for the Chantry Priests, in St. Alphage parish, a few hundred yards north-west of the Precincts. The land, on which it stood, is still called The Black Prince's Chantry: and is accounted extra-parochial. Burials subsequently took place in this Chantry. Robert Weef alias Walpole, by his will made in 1473, desired to be buried within "le Pryncis chapel" situated near the chapel of Our Lady in the crypt.* CHURCH OF THE WALLOONS AND FRENCH PROTESTANTS. The south transept, called the Black Prince's Chantry, together with the adjacent and parallel two bays of the south aisle, of Ernulf's crypt, form an ante-chapel or vestbule to the French Church. Passing through that ante chapel, we enter the area now used for Divine Service, every Sunday afternoon, by the French Protestants. It consists of the four western bays of the south aisle of Ernulf's crypt They were enclosed, when the Hon. Hugh Percy was Dean Canterbury (1825-7), by erecting brick walls in each of th vaulting arches that opened from this aisle into the centra body of the crypt. There is a poor window, with wood frame, in each of these blocking walls; but on the south si of the French Church there are three handsome windows each of three lights, which were inserted during the reign Richard II, or of Henry IV. Through the southern entrance to the crypt, from th Cathedral, the sound of the large organ in the choir wa heard too distinctly, during Divine Service, in the Fren church. The small organ of the French was likewise occ sionally heard in the choir. To remedy this, a thin wall ·· brick has been built, at the west end of the French chur covering and blocking the southern entrance from the Cath * Hasted, Hist. Kent, xi. 361 note a. dral to the crypt. Two or three feet from this wall stands the long Communion Table, which until recently stood across the western end of the church, north and south, surrounded by fixed seats, railed in. The Table has lately been somewhat shortened, and placed lengthwise, with the fixed seats around it. The members of the French congregation communicate in a sitting posture. South of the Communion Table, we notice the singular recessing of the mural masonry. This recessing is the neat expedient, adopted by Ernulf, for making a sightly junction, between the south wall of his own wider crypt and the corresponding wall of Lanfranc's narrower building. On the north side of the French Church, the capitals of three of Ernulf's pier shafts are decorated with simple carving. This should be observed; as the corresponding piercaps, in Ernulf's north aisle, are totally devoid of ornament. At the east end of the French Church, we see the large additional half-pier, which was inserted by William of Sens, in 1177. When we compare the carving upon it with that upon the pier-cap immediately westward of it we are led to believe that the latter was carved about the same time. It seems therefore to be probable that the other pier-caps, in this south aisle of Ernulf's crypt, were not ornamented with carving until circa 1177-80. The capitals of shafts in the north-west doorway of Ernulf's crypt resemble some of these, and were evidently inserted after Ernulf's wall-diaper had been carved. That doorway may have been inserted, and these caps in the south aisle may have been carved, at the time when the Norman Lavatory tower and the Treasury were erected, circa 1160; or they may be of twenty years later date. The fact that these caps in the south aisle were carved, while those in the north aisle were left unadorned, may indicate that the southern entrance was the principal approach to the Lady Chapel in the crypt. This idea is supported by the rich and graceful nature of the elaborate ornament, inserted around the south-west doorway of the crypt, early in the Perpendicular period. As now seen, from the steps leading to the south aisle of the choir, that doorway is still very beautiful. The position of the scene of Becket's martyrdom, in the north-west transept, seems to have caused the northern aisle of the crypt to be generally used as the approach to Becket's tomb. We must bear in mind that, from the time of Queen Elizabeth, to the beginning of the nineteenth century, the entire width of the western portion of Ernulf's crypt was devoted to the Walloon congregation of French Protestants. The rough plan of the crypt, engraved in Battely's Antiquities of Canterbury, shews the exact area which they occupied, when their numbers were very considerable. Somner, whose book was printed in A.D. 1640, speaks of the congregation as having "grown so great, and yet daily multiplying, that the place in short time is likely to prove a hive too little to contain such a swarm." They had originally consisted of eighteen families. It would seem that, in this crypt, not only was Divine Service performed, in French, by their first Pastor, Hector Hamon; but their children were also daily instructed here, in their own tongue, by Vincent Primont, "institutor juven‐ tutis." The French text, which first meets our eyes on the north-western pier arch of the crypt, seems to have been chosen with especial reference to the children.* Tradition says that the looms of these French or Walloon strangers were, likewise, set up, and worked, in Ernulf's crypt. If so, silks, bombazines, serges, baize, and the products of mocquard looms, were manufactured within these vaulted aisles. The tradition receives some confirmation from the title by which Giles Cousin, superintendent of all the weaving, is described, in the original Petition (presented in 1564, says Mr. Smiles), to the Municipal body. praying for admission, protection, and privileges, within the city of Canterbury. He is denominated "Magister operum. et conductor totius congregationis in opere."+ As time passed on, and the congregation increased, both in numbers and in wealth, they became divided in opinion: and at several different periods separate bodies, or offshoots. were formed, who set up distinct services for worship else *It is 1 Peter v. 5.-Vous jeunes gens assujettissez vous aux anciens, etc. + Somner's Antiquities of Canterbury, Appendix, p. 31. |