Kirkwall Cathedral
If we journey to the remote Orkneys we shall see a noble Cathedral at Kirkwall, which is of peculiar interest. Until the year 1472 these islands belonged to Norway, and were under the episcopal supervision of the Archbishop of Drontheim in that kingdom. The Cathedral is therefore connected with the rule of Norwegian earls and bishops, and has many features differing from those types which are more familiar to us. It was founded by the Norwegian Earl Ronald in 1137, and was designed and constructed by the Norwegian Kol. Here were buried many Scandinavian jarls and bishops, but their tombs have disappeared. There is a fine nave of eight bays, which is of the Norman character, and a choir of six bays, screened off so as to form a parish church. The piers are all round and massive, and the arches round-headed, both in the main arcade and in the triforium and clerestory. There is some fine Norman arcading, with intersecting arches on the side walls. The church is dedicated to St. Magnus, and is 226 feet long by 56 feet wide. The original choir ended in an apse, but it was lengthened by Bishop Stewart in 1511, and the west end of the nave was finished by Bishop Reid in 1540. Different coloured stone is used extensively in the building, principally the red and yellow sandstone, and these varied hues add greatly to the architectural effect. The three west doors are particularly fine. The tower has fifteenth-century windows, and the bells were given by Bishop Maxwell at the end of the fifteenth century. Near the church are the ruins of the Bishop’s Palace, where King Haco died in 1263, and also the Earl’s Palace, which, after the incorporation of the islands with Scotland, was assigned to the bishops for a residence. The church has been much restored during the last century.
Footnotes
1 History of Gothic Art in England, by E.S. Prior.
2 There were some British Bishops of London. One of these, Restitutus, was present at the Council of Arles in A.D. 314, and Geoffrey mentions Theon, Bishop of London, amongst those who fled into Wales during the Saxon invasion.
3 A pilaster is a column attached to a wall.
4 When the queen was departing he apologised for his poor entertainment, but she replied “Satis” (“sufficient”), from which august reply Watts named his house.
5 Authorities differ as to whether the colouring is ancient or modern. Mr. Palmer, in his recent and valuable history of the Cathedral, pronounces in favour of the latter; but Mr. St. John Hope considers it to be ancient.
6 St. Swithun became bishop in 837; he was “a diligent builder of churches in places where there were none before, and a repairer of those that had been destroyed before.” In modern times his name is best known as a weather prophet; according to the tradition that if it is fine or wet on St. Swithun’s day (July 15th) the same weather will last for the next forty days. The legend arose from the moving of his body from the lowly grave in the churchyard to its golden shrine in the Cathedral being delayed on account of continued rain.
7 The modern Pevensey.
8 Mr. Micklethwaite considers these remains to have belonged to Ethelred’s church.
9 Mr. Micklethwaite believes these apses to have been part of Ethelred’s church.
10 Although Mr. Park Harrison’s theory is attractive, we are unable to accept all his conclusions as to the pre-Norman character of the details of the church.
11 Froude, Hist. Engl., vi. 468.
12 Prior’s Gothic Art.
[13] Murray’s Cathedrals.
14 Rot. Lit. Clans., 19, Henry III.; quoted by Britton and Murray.
15 Baine’s Lancashire, Vol. II., p. 365.
16 We must except Lord Grimthorpe’s modern innovations at St. Albans.
17 This swineherd is said to have given a peck of silver pennies to the building of the Cathedral.
18 Page 291.
19 Registrum Primum.
20 The restorers have been very busy here, and most of the windows are imitations of Norman work.
21 Scottish Cathedrals and Abbeys, by M.E. Leicester Addis.