ST.BARTHOLOMEW THE GREAT, PAGE 2.

It's western front (the Great Western Facade) which faced on to Smithfield, had a wall built in front of it with a chain across to stop cattle entering the Church on market days. This wall was called the Cheyne.

The only part of the Great Facade to survive the Dissolution of the Monasteries, is the right hand archway which is now surmounted by a half timbered Tudor building.

This gateway leads into the present day St.Bartholomew the Great churchyard which now fills the space previously occupied by the magnificent nave of the church, so callously destroyed by the unscrupulous Richard Rich in 1543.

An incident involving the Archbishop of Canterbuty which resulted in the Bishop of London and the clergy of St.Bartholomew the Great being excommunicated occurred in 1250.

When St.Edmund, the Archbishop of Canterbury died in 1240 (He was cannonized six years after his death) Boniface of Savoy, the uncle of Eleanor, the Queen Consort of King Henry III was elected, his promotion to the Primacy having been secured through his relationship with Eleanor.

However, due to the death of Pope Gregory IX and the unexpected demise, soon after his election, of his successor Pope Celestine IV, the election of Boniface to the Primacy of England had as a result, to also be postponed until the end of 1243, when the new Pope Innocent IV could confirm his election.

He was eventually enthroned at Canterbury amid great pomp and ceremony on All Saints Day in 1249, having already obtained from the Pope the right to levy a contribution from the whole province to help clear the debt of the Metropolitan See of Canterbury, which he had inherited.

He immediately set forth on a tour of his diocese, levying fines where he found abuses to have occurred. However, when he decided to extend his tour to encompass the diocesses of his suffragen or subordinate Bishops, he met with a lot of resistance.

A suffragen bishop is a bishop who is the head of an individual diocese. This diocese is part of a larger ecclesiastical province, led by a metropolitan archbishop.

The archbishop and bishop are both diocesan bishops, each having jurisdiction over their own sees. The metropolitan does not have much responsibility over the subordinate/suffragen bishops in his province and has no direct authority over the faithful flock outside of his own diocese.

Contemporary chroniclers have described Boniface as possessing many faults, not least among those faults were pride, illiteracy and a tendancy to bully. A wrathful and a turbulent man.

The whole of the English people who knew of him, let alone the clergy, did not like him or trust him. First of all he was a foreigner who had been thrust on the English church, which had not been given any say in the matter whatsoever and secondly he had not received Holy Orders when he was appointed to the Primacy of England.

When Boniface arrived at the Cathedral of St.Paul's in London, the Dean and Canons protested vehemenently that he had no jurisdiction whatsoever over them and that the Bishop of London was their sole visitor. He without further ado, excommunicated the whole lot of them, lock, stock and barrel.

On the following day he visited St.Bartholomew the Great, where he was greeted in time honoured fashion, by the elderly sub-prior (the prior being away) and the brethren, all of them dressed in richly coloured vestments and carrying lighted tapers.

His response to the friars was to rebuke them and informed them that, "he passed not for honour; he was there to visit them." To this the friars protested that having a learned bishop of their own, they were in no need of a visit by any other bishop and would not submit to him without their own bishop's permission come hell or high water, or words to that effect.

Being highly offended by that remark, Boniface proceeded to smite the elderly sub-prior of St.Bartholomew the Great on the face, which dropped him to the ground, retorting as he floored him, "Indeed, Indeed, does it become you English traitors to answer me in such a way?"

Ranting, raving and filling the air with all kinds of oaths, he grabbed the sub-prior's cope, ripped it to pieces and having satisfied himself by jumping all over it, proceeded to grab the old sub-prior himself, banging him up against a pillar in the chancel with such force, that he all but killed him.

The canons of the priory, seeing their sub-prior being so wickedly treated almost bringing him to the point of death, for he was by now in a very bad way, decided they could take no more from this foreigner.

Archbishop and Primate of the whole of England or not, they in turn promptly set about him in order to exact their revenge.

In the melee that followed, the archbishop's vestments were torn from him, revealing both the coat of chain mail he was wearing underneath and also his readiness to put up a fight if he was called on to do so.

The archbishop's attendants, all of them his fellow countrymen and armed to the teeth, on seeing their Master thrown down, set about the canons, severely beating them up.

The brawl ended when both sides made the most of the first opportunity that presented itself for a rapid retreat. The archbishop and his bodyguards made their way to Lambeth, whilst the canons of St.Bartholomew the Great, managed to make their way, bloodied, tattered and injured to the Bishop of London to complain.

The bishop told them to present themselves to the king at Westminster, in their bloodied state, as proof of the wicked struggle they'd had to endure, but the king would not even grant them the courtesy of an audience. He was, don't forget, the nephew of the Archbishop by his marriage to Eleanor, after all.

The City of London was now angry, having witnessed the terrible state of the canons as they made their way to Westminster to see the king. It was no place for an archbishop of Canterbury to be at that precise moment, for he literally, would have been torn to pieces in no time.

Having managed to escape, the archbishop took a boat to Lambeth were he wasted no time in meting out the same punishment on the sub-prior and cannons of St.Bartholomew the Great as he had meted out to the clergy of St.Paul's Cathedral.

However, this time he did not stop at excommunicating just the sub-prior and cannons of St.Bartholomew the Great, for included in this latest excommunication was the Bishop of London himself, who had taken no active part whatsoever in the unseemly brawl in Church.

The Early English Chapel of Lambeth Palace dates from work carried out while Boniface was archbishop. He left England in November 1268, and never returned, dying in Savoy on 18 July 1270.

After his death, his tomb became the centre of a cult, and when the tomb was opened in 1580, his body was found to be perfectly preserved. The tomb and effigy were destroyed during the French Revolution, but his remains were reburied and a new tomb built in 1839.

Pope Gregory XVI beatified him in 1839, and his feast day is celebrated on 14 July. So he couldn't have been too bad a fellow after all, could he?

He is seen as having been a responsible archbishop by modern historians. The historian D. A. Carpenter says that Boniface "became a respected and reforming archbishop".

General Chapters of the Augustinian Order were held at St.Bartholomew the Great from time to time, with ordinations of men to the priesthood occurring almost every year, this indicates the important status the priory held within the Order.

A new, much larger Lady Chapel was built at the east end of St.Bartholomew the Great round about the year 1335 and the small, old and dark Norman chapel demolished. This happened when John de Pekesden was the prior.

The Book of Foundation of St.Bartholomew the Great, clearly shows that the original dedication of this chapel was in honour of Our Lady, for it mentions it in the first sentance of an account it gives, in describing an apparition apparently made by Our Lady, to one of the canons.

'In the east part of the same church is an oratory and in it an altar hallowed to the honour of the most blessed and perpetual Virgin Mary. Moreover, there was in the congregation of the brethren one Hubert by name of distinguished birth, versed in liberal knowledge, of advanced years and of wonderful gentleness, who, in his old age, had left all for Christ, and escaping naked from the wreckage of this world, had assumed the habit of holy religion, which by his pious character he adorned conspicuously. Being admitted to that order of brethren, he had directed all his zeal to loving God, and assiduously spent his time in prayer and reading, and excelled in justice and truth many to whom he was inferior in rank. This man used often to prostrate himself in the said oratory a living sacrifice for a sweet savour to God and His most sweet Mother. As he once prayed in this same place there appeared to him the Mother of Mercy and with honeyed lips spoke as follows: "The canons of this church," said she, "thy brethren, my loved ones, used formerly in this place, hallowed to my name, to pay me the service of a mass and rendered the devoted obedience of pious reverence. As carelessness has now crept over them, charity has cooled, so neither is the holy mystery of my Son observed here, nor are the wonted celebrations of praise offered to me by them. Wherefore from the high portal of the heavens (summo celorum cardine) by the consent of my Son I have hither descended to render thanks for the service of honour which has been paid, (but) to charge and require for neglect and to admonish my dear ones for their profit (salubriter). For here will I receive their prayers and vows and will grant them mercy and blessing for ever." So spake she and, as he beheld her, she vanished from his sight. He repeated openly what he had heard, and thereby rendered them more ready and fervent in serving the Mother of the Lord.

'Oh! of what reverence is that most hallowed place worthy; with what pious and sweet affection is it to be worshipped, where the noble Queen of Heaven, the Lady of the world, the Mother and Bride of the everlasting King, deigned to show her presence and mercifully to arouse, with gentle exhortations, the slackness of her servants to a readier praise of her name.'

The Lady chapel of St.Bartholomew the Great, is still basically fourteenth century although it has suffered very badly over the centuries. The sedilia still remain where the priest and his assistants sat down during the offering of the Sacrifice of the Mass.

The central tower, which had already been weakened when struck by lightning a century earlier, was probably further weakened and damaged by an earthquake that shook the whole area in 1382. It was demolished shortly after 1400.

When John Watford became the prior of St.Bartholomew the Great in about 1405, the demolition of the two eastern-most piers took place and walls were built across the church behind the new high altar which converted the apse into a square east end. Inserted in these walls were two great stained glass windows and the space between the walls later became known as purgatory and contained human bones.

Rahere's tomb, which had been the focal point of great pilgrimages since his death in 1143, was rebuilt and richly decorated at the same time as these alterations were taking place. Therefore the present effigy which was placed on top of the tomb round about 1405 cannot be relied on as being a true likeness of Rahere.

There was a priests' door in the bays to the east of Rahere's Tomb but it was removed when the apse was restored again in 1867. The third bay is a blank panel.

Almost a century passed before any other significant works were undertaken at St.Bartholomew the Great. It was in the year 1505 when William Bolton (or Prior Bolton as he is more famously known) became prior that the new prior's lodging at the east end of the church was begun.

The Story of St.Bartholomew the Great Will Continue Soon.

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