The Priory and Church of St. Bartholomew

The Priory and Church of St. Bartholomew

The Priory and Church of St. Bartholomew* traces the history of one of London's oldest and most consequential religious foundations, centering its narrative on Rahere, the priory's remarkable twelfth-century founder, while providing architectural description of what survives into the modern era. The work opens by contrasting Smithfield's contemporary appearance with its medieval significance. Passersby glancing at the narrow gateway and modest brick tower of St. Bartholomew's could not reasonably suspect they were looking at the remnant of a vast monastic complex — a church with spacious transepts, a soaring tower, extensive cloisters, and elaborate gardens — all built on land that had previously been a marshy, fetid waste occupied by little more than a gallows. The transformation of that site is attributed entirely to one man: Rahere. Rahere's biography is reconstructed primarily from a manuscript in the British Museum, written shortly after his death by a monk of the establishment and praised for its literary quality. Born of low origins, Rahere rose through wit and social agility to become a fixture at the court of Henry I, entertaining nobles and royalty with japes and flatteries, earning the title of the king's minstrel. Then came a sudden religious conversion. Seeking penance, he undertook a pilgrimage to Rome, where he fell gravely ill and vowed, should he recover, to build a hospital for the poor upon his return to England. He recovered. On the homeward journey he received a vision: a winged beast carried him aloft to a high place, where a figure of regal majesty identified himself as the Apostle Bartholomew and commanded Rahere to found a church in his name at Smithfield, in the suburbs of London. Rahere executed the vision with striking practical success. The church was founded in March 1113, consecrated under William, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Richard, Bishop of London, who also hallowed part of the adjoining field as a cemetery. Regular canons were gathered to live under rule, and Rahere was appointed the first Prior. The work was supported not by fixed rents but by the free offerings of the faithful — a circumstance that struck contemporaries with wonder approaching awe. The Priory was substantially rebuilt in 1410 and by that time contained every amenity of a major monastic house: dormitory, frater, cloisters, galleries, hall, kitchen, buttery, pantry, woodhouse, granary, Prior's stable, Prior's house, a mulberry garden, and the Chapel of St. Bartholomew the Less. Its enclosing walls have been precisely traced, running from Smithfield along the south side of Long Lane to the north, down through what is now Duke Street to the south gate, and parallel to Aldersgate Street on the east, with a ditch between the wall and the large houses fronting that street. Henry II granted the Priory the right to hold Bartholomew Fair for three days each year at Bartholomew-tide; clothiers of England and drapers of London filled the churchyard with booths, the area was locked and watched each night, and a Court of Pie-Powders adjudicated commercial disputes daily during the fair. Of the original church, only the choir survives as the present St. Bartholomew's. The gateway from Smithfield, of finely pointed and richly moulded Norman work decorated with roses and zigzag ornament, almost certainly formed the original entrance into the south aisle of the nave; that nave has been entirely lost, its foundations lying several feet below the churchyard soil. The existing church presents a brick tower of 1628 beside the truncated eastern end. Inside, the architecture commands deep respect: enormous Norman piers of apparently inexhaustible strength support a long encircling aisle of pure vaulted Norman work about twelve feet wide, with slightly pointed windows. At the north-eastern corner, a low postern doorway surmounted by an elongated horseshoe arch creates a striking juxtaposition of Norman grandeur and something approaching Moorish delicacy. The choir itself is dominated by four arches of magnificent span — two round, two slightly pointed — which once carried the great tower; the pointed pair are noted as early instances of pointed-arch usage by Norman builders before the style became systematic. Lozenge-shaped panels in the spandrels carry ornament resembling the Grecian honeysuckle. Prior Bolton's oriel window, built into the second story, served as a private elevated pew from which the Prior could observe the canons unseen. The dimensions, as variously reported, give the present church a length of approximately 132 to 138 feet, a breadth near 57 to 60 feet, and a height around 40 to 47 feet; the vanished nave would have added some 87 more feet to the total length. The work concludes with Rahere's monument, positioned in the north-eastern corner of the choir almost directly beneath Bolton's oriel — a placement suggesting that Bolton deliberately sat where the founder's tomb would always be before him. The monument is a finely wrought stone screen enclosing an effigy of Rahere at full length atop a tomb, with an exquisitely groined chamber ceiling. It is richly painted, showing Rahere in black robes flanked by kneeling monks, each with a Bible opened to Isaiah 51; the tomb face below bears heraldic coats of arms. The monument dates from after Rahere's death and was carefully restored by Bolton. Time has treated it gently. The work closes with a passage from Isaiah 51:3 — the Lord comforting Zion's waste places and making her wilderness like Eden — presenting it as the scriptural prophecy that animated Rahere's improbable transformation of a marsh and gallows-ground into one of medieval London's grandest religious establishments.

By Esther Singleton · First published 1903 · Genre: History, Architectural History, Biography · 4,475 words

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CHARLES KNIGHT

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church · priory · architecture · religious · medieval · historical · London · England · heritage · ecclesiastical · monuments · monasteries

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