CATHEDRAL

The chief church in every diocese is called the Cathedral, from the word cathedra , a chair, because in it the bishop has his seat or throne. The cathedral church is the parish church of the whole diocese (which diocese was therefore commonly called parochia in ancient times, till the application of this name to the le er branches into which it was divided, caused it for distinction’ sake to be called only by the name of diocese): and it has been affirmed, with great probability, that if one resort to the cathedral church to hear Divine service, it is a resorting to the parish church within the natural sense and meaning of the statute. By the 5th canon of the 5th Council of Carthage it is ordained, that every bishop shall have his residence at his principal or cathedral church, which he shall not leave, to betake himself to any other church in his diocese; nor continue upon his private concerns, to the neglect of his cure, and hinderance of his frequenting the cathedral church.— Bingham. By the constitutions of Archbishop Langton, 1222, it is enjoined, bishops shall be at their cathedrals on some of the greater feasts, and at least in some part of Lent. By the constitutions of Otho, 1237, bishops shall reside at their cathedral churches, and officiate there on the chief festivals, on the Lord’s days, and in Lent, and in Advent. By the constitutions of Othobon, in 1268, bishops shall be personally resident to take care of their flock, and for the comfort of the churches espoused to them, especially on solemn days, in Lent and Advent, unle their absence is required by their superiors, or for other just cause. Canon 24. “In all cathedral and collegiate churches, the holy communion shall be administered upon principal feast days, sometimes by the bishop, (if he be present,) and sometimes by the dean, and sometimes by a canon or prebendary; the principal minister using a decent cope, and being a isted with the gospeller and epistler agreeably, according to the advertisements published in the seventh year of Queen Elizabeth (hereafter following). The said communion to be administered at such times, and with such limitation, as is specified in the Book of Common Prayer. Provided that no such limitation by any construction shall be allowed of, but that all deans, wardens, masters, or heads of cathedral and collegiate churches, prebendaries, canons, vicars, petty canons, singing men, and all others of the foundation, shall receive the communion four times yearly at the least.” Canon 42. “Every dean, master, or warden, or chief governor of any cathedral or collegiate church, shall be resident there fourscore and ten days, conjunctim or divisim , in every year at the least, and then shall continue there in preaching the word of God , and keeping good hospitality; except he shall be otherwise let with weighty and urgent causes, to be approved by the bishop, or in any other lawful sort dispensed with.” Canon 43. “The dean, master, warden, or chief governor, prebendaries and canons, in every cathedral and collegiate church, shall preach there, in their own persons, so often as they are bound by law, statute, ordinance, or custom.” Canon 44. “Prebendaries at large shall not be absent from their cures above a month in the year; and residentiaries shall divide the year among them; and, when their residence is over, shall repair to their benefices.” And by Canon 51, “the deans, presidents, and residentiaries of any cathedral or collegiate church, shall suffer no stranger to preach unto the people in their churches, except they be allowed by the archbishop of the province, or by the bishop of the same diocese, or by either of the universities. And if any in his sermon shall publish any doctrine either strange, or disagreeing from the word of God , or from any of the Thirty-nine Articles, or from the Book of Common Prayer, the dean or the residents shall by their letters, subscribed with some of their hands that heard him, so soon as may be, give notice of the same to the bishop of the diocese, that he may determine the matter, and take such order therein as he shall think convenient.” The pa age of the advertisements published in the seventh year of Queen Elizabeth, referred to in Canon 24, is as follows: “Item, in the ministration of the holy communion in cathedral and collegiate churches, the principal minister shall use a cope with gospeller and epistoler agreeably; and at all other prayers to be said at the communion table, to use no copes but surplices. Item, that the dean and prebendaries wear a surplice, with a silk hood, in the choir; and when they preach in the cathedral or collegiate church, to wear a hood.” And at the end of the service book in the second year of Edward VI., it is ordered that “in all cathedral churches, the archdeacons, deans, and prebendaries, being graduates, may use in the choir, beside their surplices, such hoods as pertain eth to their several degrees, which they have taken in any university within this realm.” Churches collegiate and conventual were always visitable by the bishop of the diocese, if no special exemption was made by the founder thereof. And the visitation of cathedral churches belongs unto the metropolitan of the province, and to the king when the archbishopric is vacant.— Burn. All cathedrals throughout the world had a body of clergy and ministers belonging to them; which were divided into various orders and degrees; they were gradually incorporated in Western Christen dom, but not in the East. (See Chapter .) In England no diocese has more than one cathedral. There are many instances of a plurality of cathedrals even in the same city, as at Rome, Milan, ., and formerly in France. These churches were called con cathedrals . One instance exists in Ireland, viz. in Dublin, where Christ Church and St. Patrick’s enjoy all the rights of cathedrals; and while the congé d’ élire existed, conjointly elected the archbishop; and their united consent must still be given to all acts which require the sanction of a chapter. This plurality of cathedrals in one see is not to be confounded with a plurality of cathedrals under the same bishop, when, as generally in Ireland, he has under his charge two or more dioceses. One Irish diocese (Meath) has no cathedral; and two others (Kilmore and Ardagh) have no cathedral chapters. These anomalies are not, as some have supposed, remnants of a primitive order of things; for it can be proved that they did not originally exist in the respective dioceses now mentioned; but were the consequences of poverty, barbarism, and other unhappy causes which mutilated the external framework of the Irish church.— Jebb. With reference to the architecture of a cathedral: the normal plan of an English cathedral is in the form of a Latin cro ; a cro , that is, whose transverse arms are le than the lower longitudinal limb; and, in a general architectural description, its parts are sufficiently distinguished as nave, choir, and transept, with their aisles, western towers, and central tower; but in more minute description, especially where ritual arrangements are concerned, these terms are not always sufficiently precise, and we shall hardly arrive at the more exact nomenclature, without tracing the changes in a cathedral church from the Norman period to our own. In a Norman cathedral, the east end, or architectural choir, usually terminated in an apse, (see Apse ,) surrounded by the continuation of the choir aisles. The aisles formed a path for proce ions at the back of the altar, and were called the proce ionary . The bishop’s throne was placed behind the altar, and the altar itself in the chord of the apse; and westward of this was a considerable space, unoccupied in ordinary cases, which was called the presbytery . The choir , or place in which the daily service was performed, was under the central tower, with perhaps one or two bays of the nave in addition; so that the ritual and the architectural choir did not coincide, but the ritual choir occupied the tower and a considerable portion of the architectural nave. This arrangement seems unnatural, and even inconvenient; but it was perhaps required by the connexion of the cathedral with the monastic or other offices of the establishment; for these were arranged around a quadrangle, of which the architectural nave, or western limb of the church, formed one side, and length was gained to the quadrangle, without disproportionate enlargement of the church, by making the western limb sufficiently large to receive part, at least, of the ritual choir. (See Monastery .) The transept was not originally symbolical in its form; but was derived from the transverse hall or gallery in the ancient basilicas at the upper end of the nave, its length equal to the breadth of the nave and aisles. The accidental approximating to the form of the cro was doubtle perceived by later Christian architects, who accordingly in many instances lengthened the transept so as to make the ground-plan of the church completely cuneiform.— Jebb. In the transepts and aisles , and also in the crypt , which generally extended beneath the whole eastern limb of the church, were numerous altars, and little chapels were often thrown out, of an apsidal form, for their altars. One chapel, especially, was dedicated to the Ble ed Virgin, and called the Lady chapel , but its place does not seem to have been constant. Subsequent churches were of course subject to many variations, but they generally followed much this course. First, the apse was taken down, and the eastern arm of the cro was extended considerably, so as to enlarge the presbytery, or part in which the altar stood, and to add a retrochoir in place of the old proce ionary behind it; and this change was probably connected always in prospect, and often at once, with the carrying up of the choir eastward of the great tower, or in other words, reconciling the ritual with the architectural arrangement. After this yet another addition was made to the east end, which was often nearly equal to the nave in length; and the Lady chapel was built beyond the presbytery and retrochoir. In the course of these arrangements the several screens, the rood screen and the altar screen, had to be removed. The rood screen was placed within the eastern arch of the tower, which may now be called its proper place, wherever the church has received its usual additions. This screen is now almost universally used as an organ loft; and it is obvious to remark, that though the organ intercepts the view from the west end of the church, it certainly does not do so more than the rood and its accompaniments formerly did. The altar screen first became nece ary at the enlarging of the space behind the altar: it formed the separation of the presbytery from the retrochoir. In some instances this arrangement has been disturbed of late years, but always with bad effect. The modifications of these plans and arrangements are various, but oftener on the side of exce than of defect. The Lady chapel is not always at the extreme east. At Ely, for instance, and once at Peter borough, it was at the north. The great transept is never omitted (Manchester can hardly be called an exception, since it has only lately been made a cathedral); but a second transept to the east of the tower was often added, as at Canterbury, Lincoln, and Salisbury. Sometimes, as at Durham, the second transept is carried to the extreme east end of the church, which it cro es in the form of a T. Sometimes there was a western transept, treated in the same way as at Ely and Peter borough; and at Durham, Ely, and Lincoln was another considerable addition, called the Galilee porch . At Canterbury, the whole arrangement of the east end is very remarkable, the crown of Archbishop Becket taking the usual place of the Lady chapel. The shrines of reputed saints, and chantry monuments inserted in different portions of the fabric, with too little respect for its general effect, are constant additions to the plan; but it would be usele to attempt to reduce these to a general rule, and endle to enumerate particular cases. The cathedrals in Ireland and Scotland were originally very small. That of Armagh, the largest, it is supposed, of ancient date, and originally built by St. Patrick, was without transepts, which were added many ages after. The most interesting relics of very ancient cathedrals in Ireland are at Tuam and Clonfert. Many of them in Scotland, as Elgin, were modelled on the plan of Lincoln cathedral.— Poole.