The Interior Of A Gothic Minster.*

ment for a similar purpose . The new pavements were the cause of their disappearance ; but at Norwich , on the north side of the nave , is a series of rings , through which , on such occasions , ropes were passed , in order to keep off the pressure of the crowd . Another adjunct which was used at

these times was the tribune of Winchester , then occupied by musicians ; like the minstrel galleries of Exeter and Wells . From the former , on Christmas morning , still , at seven o'clock , the choir sings the Old Hundredth Psalm . - The superb series of stained-glass windows of

the early part of the fourteenth century at York will give some idea of the enrichment of a Medieval nave . It also contains a unique feature—the great beam carved like a dragon's head which supported the font cover , with the effigy of the Christian warrior appropriately facing it . The

Norman fonts of Winchester , Hereford , Lincoln , Rochester , Wells , Dorchester , Christchurch , Brecon , and Crowland , and the Perpendicular examples of Norwich , Ripon , and Binham , are well known ; it is only remarkable that there are no more , as the right of baptism specially pertained

to the cathedral , and in consequence the Pentecostals , St . Chad ' s pennies , ancl St . Richard ' s pence , were paid at Whitsuntide , because the cathedral formerly was the only baptistery , and at Easter and Pentecost it was administered ( Mayer , i . 49 ) . At Rochester , the country clergy paid their cathedraticum yearly , on Whitsun-Tuesday , in the cathedral .

At Canterbury , Erasmus mentions the books chained to the pillars for the use of the laity but there are still earlier instances at St . Alban's in the twelfth century , of a Bible placed in a painted aumbry , ancl the best commentators , for the " use of all lovers of Scripture ; " ancl at Hereford in

1369 , when Bishop Charlfon bequeathed a copy , with other devotional books , for public use in the church . At Lincoln , also , in the sixteenth century , a similar practice was observed . At St . Paul ' s , the standard measured foot was cut upon one of the pillars .

It appears , from several old statutes , that the pillars of the . nave formed convenient places for gossipping to the canons out of their choral habit during the time of divine service . At Durham and Worcester the lower portions of the nave was used as a thoroughfare between the north and south doors in the sixteenth and

seventeenth centuries ; but at an earlier period statutes in other cathedrals forbid the sale of candles in the cemetery . At St . Paul's the nave seems always to have been , from a still earlier period , desecrated ; whilst at York the gossipping of the vergers in the vestibule outside the rood-screen

was frequently prohibited . The dinnerless lounger was said to be Duke Humphrey's guest in the former church , as early as 1400 . Bishop Baldock excommunicated persons making- the nave a thoroughfare ; and in

1385 , Bishop Robert forbade buying , selling , and playing at ball ; but at the close of the sixteenth century the desecration was something horrible , and only worse than the filth of the floors and the decay of the fabric . Drunkards and vagabonds slept off their drunken orgies on the bench at the

choir door ; butchers and water-carriers conveyed their wares , and men wore their hats through the aisles ; mules and horses were driven across them ; tobacconists sold in the nave ; seamsters and booksellers plied their trades ; a carpenter worked in the crypt ; trunk makers in the crypt disturbed

the services ; chantries had become cellars , lumber-rooms , and glaziers' shops ; choristers , as at Lichfield and Westminster ( but less courteous than those of Ripon , who distributed apples to the congregation on Christmas morning ) , hunted booted gentlemen for spur-moneyonly less

vo-, ciferously than beggars pursued the other company ; the usurer touted in the south aisle ; simony presided on the north -. the horse-fair in the central alley ; and money was paid on the font . Masked women , rufflers , ballad-mongers ,

stallknights , captains out of service , aud quacks , haunted the place ; the servant waited to be hired at the serving-man ' s log ; the serjeant-at-law received his client at his special pillar ; whilst around were seen the merchants' change and the fashionable lounge .

In the ordinal of Lichfield , 1197 , this entry occurs : — " On Pentecost and the three days ensuing , whilst the Sequence is being sung , clouds are customarily scattered . " Architecture and tradition come in to enable us to explain this obscure intimation of an old ceremonial . A circular

opening still exists in the centre of the vault at Norwich , as formerly in St . Paul ' s ; and there are similar apertues at Exeter . At St . Paul ' s , Lambarde , when a child , saw at Pentecost , a white dove let to fly out of it , and a long censer reach ! ing almost to the floorand swung from the west

, door to the choir steps , " breathing out over the whole church and company a most pleasant perfume . " Bishop Pilkington , the Sacrist Rolls of Norwich , and the custom at Dunkirk narrated in Ellis's Letters in 1662 , allude to the ceremonial .

The Grossing . —In passing out of the nave into the choir , we must recall to the mind the wonderful buttressing arches of Wells , and the less obtrusive examples of Salisbury , 1395—1415 , and Canterbury , 1490—1517 , which present remarkable evidences of the skill with which the mediaeval

architect could convert times of difficulty into opportunities of adding at once beauty and support to a previous faulty construction , in marked contrast tothehideous contrivances devised at Hereford , Worcester , and Salisbury at a later period . Hood-loft . —When the choirs were extended

into the naves , the rood-screen was placed westward , of the crossing , in the second bay of the nave , at Norwich , Peterborough , and Worcester ; in the third bay at Melrose , Winchester , Binham ,