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Page 11
Each of the bishop's colleges took about six years in building, and that
at Oxford was the first to be finished. It must have been a proud day
for Winchester when, on March 28, 1393, the "seventy faithful boys",
headed by their master, came in procession from St. Giles's Hill, where
they had been temporarily housed, and, all chanting psalms, entered into
possession of their fair college.
The buildings have been but little altered since their founder's day,
and extend now, as then, on the south side of the Close, and along the
bank of the Itchen. They consist mainly of two quadrangles, in the first
of which, entered from College Street by a gateway, are the Warden's
house and other offices. Here is the brewhouse, quite unaltered; but the
Warden's house has absorbed the old bakehouse, slaughterhouse, and
butcher's room. Over the second archway are figures of the Virgin, with
Gabriel on her right, and Wykeham kneeling on her left. Here was a room
for the Warden, from which he could see all who entered or left the
college; and here also is the site of the old penthouse under which the
scholars used to perform their ablutions, and which they called "Moab".
The old Society comprised the Warden, ten Fellows, three Chaplains,
sixteen Queristers, and seventy scholars. The boys, the chaplains, and
the choristers lived within the inner quadrangle, the northern side of
which is formed by the chapel and the refectory. The original chapel,
with the exception of the beautiful fan-groining of its roof, was much
defaced in the seventeenth century, but was restored in the nineteenth,
when a new reredos was added. The refectory remains practically
untouched, and has a roof enriched with some beautiful carved woodwork,
the painted heads of kings and bishops, and some great mullioned
windows. Over the buttery is the audit-room, hung with ancient and rare
tapestries, and containing a large chest known as Wykeham's money box.
The original schoolroom was in the basement, and has long been put to
other uses. The chantry, the beautiful cloisters, and the chapel tower
were all built after the founder's death, but he provided a wooden bell
tower, which stood away from the chapel, so that the main building
should not be injured by the vibration of the bells. The remaining
portions are mostly modern, and the foundation has naturally been much
enlarged since Wykeham's day, the last addition being the gateway in
Kingsgate Street, erected as a memorial to the many Wykehamists who
fell in the South African War.
On the wall of a passage adjoining the kitchen is a singular painting,
supposed to be emblematical of a "trusty servant", compounded of a man,
a hog, a deer, and an ass. The explanatory words beneath it are
attributed to Dr. Christopher Jonson, headmaster from 1560 to 1571.
With the completion of Winchester College, Wykeham turned his attention
to the Cathedral, although he was then seventy years of age. He lived to
see his munificence bearing good fruit, and his foundations flourishing
in reputation and usefulness; so that when he lay down to die, on
September 27, 1404, in his palace of Bishops' Waltham, he could look
back to a long life spent in the service of his Maker. The funeral
procession moved slowly along the ten miles that separated palace from
Cathedral through crowds of people mourning his loss. At the Cathedral
door the prior met the procession, and the great bishop-builder was laid
to rest in the beautiful chantry he had himself prepared. Four days
before his death he made and signed his will, in which he bestowed gifts
and legacies with the liberality that was so marked a characteristic of
his life. That crowds of poor would attend his obsequies he was probably
aware, for to each poor person seeking a bounty he bequeathed fourpence,
"for the love of God and his soul's health". To the Cathedral, on
which he had expended so much of his genius, he left money for its
completion; and bequeathed to it many precious things, including a cross
of gold in which was a piece of the "Tree of the Lord". Henry IV was
forgiven a debt of five hundred pounds, and was to have a pair of
silver-gilt basins, ornamented with double roses, which were probably
given to Wykeham by Edward III, as a special mark of his favour. So we
take leave of this master builder and munificent bishop, whose motto
"Manners makyth man" is known the world over. The inscription on his
tomb tells us of his works, but Wykeham needs no inscription so long as
the stones of the Cathedral hold together, and his two fair colleges
raise their buttressed walls beside the waters of the Isis and the
Itchen.
[Illustration: THE CLOISTERS, WINCHESTER COLLEGE]
Returning to the Butter Cross, the Piazza adjoining reminds one of the
Butter Walk at Dartmouth, and the famous "Rows" of Chester. It was used
for many years as a market where the country folk brought their produce,
being then known as the "Penthouse". The mints established on the site
by Athelstan were noted for the excellence of the coinage made there. In
the Westgate Museum an old leaden box is shown which was discovered at
Beauworth by a shepherd. It was found to contain some six thousand
silver pennies of the coinage of William I and Rufus. In addition to its
famous mints Winchester was the chief trading centre of this part of
England during mediaeval days. A great woollen trade was carried on with
Flanders when the city became one of the "staple" towns, still
commemorated by "Staple Gardens", a narrow lane leading out of the north
side of High Street, where the great warehouse for the storage of wool
once stood. A little below the Queen Anne Guildhall, but on the opposite
side of the street, is St. John's Hospital; while another old lane
leading off from the main thoroughfare is Royal Oak Passage, at the
junction of which with the street is the ancient house known as
God-begot House, with some good timberwork and a fine gable. "Jewry"
Street recalls to our memory the early settlement of the Jews in
Winchester, for the citizens seem to have been more kindly disposed
towards this persecuted race than those of the majority of English
cities at an early period in their history. Richard of Devizes, in 1189,
called Winchester the "Jerusalem of the Jews", and, writing of the
massacre and plunder of the Jews in London and other cities, said:
"Winchester alone, the people being prudent and circumspect and the city
always acting mildly, spared its vermin". The Jews settled in Winchester
between the years 1090 and 1290, landing at Southampton and making
their way up the Itchen until they came in sight of the old capital of
the kingdom. Crossing the river, they entered the city by the East Gate,
and finally chose as their abiding-place a site near the north walls, in
a thoroughfare then known as "Scowrtenstrete", Shoemakers' Row. The
community soon could boast of a synagogue, and were the possessors of
several schools. At the bottom of the High Street are the Abbey Gardens,
so called from their being on the site of an abbey founded by Ealhswith,
King Alfred's queen, in which to spend the years of her widowhood. The
general plan of the gardens has probably been but little altered since
the days when the nuns paced their shady paths in pious meditation. An
ancient manuscript of prayers, used by the abbess in the ninth century,
is preserved in the British Museum. Ealhswith's son, Edward the Elder,
levied a toll from all merchandise passing under the City Bridge by
water, and beneath the East Gate by land, for the better support of the
abbey founded by his mother. Before the bridge stood the East Gate, and
crossing we are in that part of the city known as the "Soke". In the
"Liberty of the Soke" the bishop of the diocese had his court, presided
over by the bailiff as his deputy. Thus the bishop's jurisdiction was
entirely independent of that of the civic authorities. Wolvesey was his
palace, and within its walls, now ivy-clad and crumbling to decay, he
held his court, with three tithing men and a constable to assist him.
Here also was his exchequer, and here he imprisoned those who offended
against his laws. All that now remains of the once celebrated episcopal
palace of Wolvesey--said, with no authority, to have been so named from
the tribute of wolves' heads levied upon the Welsh by King Edgar--are a
few ruined walls, of sufficient extent to give one an idea of the
strength of the castle in its original state. At Wolvesey King Alfred
brought together the scholars who were to aid him in writing the
"Chronicles of the Time"; and on the outer walls he hung the bodies of
Danish pirates as a warning to those who made periodical raids up the
valley of the Itchen.
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