Author: Kristine Hughes

Approaching the Salisbury Cathedral, the magnificent spire seems to pierce the blue canopy above, reaching for the heavens.  It is Britain’s highest at 404 feet,  and certainly the most graceful.  The Cathedral’s website is here.
 
Officially named the Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, it is more than 750 years old, completed in 1258, after just 38 years of construction, almost a miracle in the day. The rapidity of completion also ensured that Salisbury Cathedral is basically one style, the Early English Gothic; many cathedrals had several generations of builders involved, bringing evolving styles to their construction.

The tower and spire were added somewhat after the main structure was finish.  Visitors may climb the 330-plus steps into the tower to the base of the spire, which gives an excellent view of the interior construction of medieval days.

Though art and religious historians have tried to explain to the contemporary visitor just what a cathedral was, its symbolic role and its functions as a religious and community center, it is difficult for us to grasp just what these amazing buildings meant in medieval society.

The novel Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett provides a fictional account of the building of a great cathedral, roughly based on Salisbury.  It was presented as a television miniseries in 2010, and it is well worth watching.

In addition to the book and tv versions, an expanded and amplified interactive editions is available for download to your iPad or other mobile device. For a preview, click here.

Novelist Susan Howatch also set a series of novels in the cathedral community of Starbridge, also modeled on Salisbury, though in the 20th century.  There are six novels in the series, beginning with Glittering Images.

Salisbury Cathedral, with the largest cathedral close (precinct) in England and also the largest cloister, is a major tourist attraction in Wiltshire, competing with the nearby stone circles at Stonehenge and Avebury, Old Sarum, stately homes such as Wilton House and Bowood, the Safari Park at Longleat, and extensive gardens such as at Stourhead.  In addition to the building and its art, one of four existing copies of the Magna Carta is on exhibit in the Cathedral’s Chapter House.

The Magna Carta was signed in 1215 by King John; it provides a foundation for democratic values in removing absolute power from kings and providing for liberty under the law.

John Constable, brilliant painter — particularly of landscapes — painted Salisbury Cathedral many times.  Versions exist in many of Britain’s major museums as well as in several in the U.S.

Like many writers who dote on the late Georgian period, I have a selection of publications called Annual Registers, which are something like almanacks.  They contain a wide variety of articles, from serious accounts of international diplomacy to gossip and on-dits about unusual incidents.  Here are three items from The Annual Register, or A View of the History, Politics, and Literature for the Year 1801, from the Chronicle for  August p.47-48:

“1st  As the Marquis of Abercorn was driving the Marchioness and Lady Catharine Hamilton in a curricle, near Stanmore, the horses took fright, and set off at full speed;

… in the attempt to pull them up, the reins snapped. The Marquis, embarrassed by the shrieks of the ladies, and unsteady in his seat, jumped into the road and broke his right thigh and left leg.

The ladies kept their seats until the coachman, who was outrider, saw a convenient place, when, by forcing the horses towards the ditch, he contrived to have them thrown out upon the bank without injury. The horses again set off.

The curate of Edgware coming along the road, made an attempt to stop them, but unfortunately lost the cap of his knee by a blow of the pole. A surgeon set the Marquis’s limb upon the spot.”

“At the Maidstone Assizes, on Thursday last, James and John Austin, brothers, were put to the bar on a charge of robbing the mail…from both of which they obtained a large booty, notes to a great amount having been paid previous to the discovery of those by whom the robbery had been perpetrated….It was proved that this bundle of notes consisted of the paper of different country banks, which had been stolen from the mails, and thus there was no doubt of the connection of this prisoner with the robbery….After all the various proofs of these facts had been minutely gone through, the jury brought in a verdict, acquitting the prisoner John, but finding James guilty. 
 
 

 
 
The judge immediately pronounced sentence of death on the prisoner, adjudging him to be hanged in chains near the place where the robbery was committed….he confessed he was concerned in the robbery…at the same time confessed having stolen many letters and parcels while he was post-boy at Lamberhurst in Kent….”
 
 
 

 
 
“August 5th  As a party of ladies and gentlemen were amusing themselves in a wherry on the Thames near Shepperton, a salmon leaped from the river and fell into the boat.  In the struggle to seize the fish, the wherry was precipitated down the stream, and was at length overturned; but, the place was fortunately so shallow, that none of the parties were drowned, though they were immersed head over ears in the water.  Mr. Smith, who saw the accident, induced the party to accompany him to his hospitable mansion where a change of clothes was procured for the unfortunate party,  but the lady of Mr. Maintone, who was far advance in pregnancy, was seized with violent convulsions, in consequence of the fright, and expired before morning.”