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Construction
Construction of St Patrick's Cathedral
cathedral in Dublin, Ireland
- 1191
- Europe
Construction
cathedral in Dublin, Ireland
Fetching the article from Wikipedia…
Saint Patrick's Cathedral (Irish: Ard-Eaglais Naomh Pádraig) in Dublin, Ireland is the national cathedral of the Church of Ireland. Christ Church Cathedral, also a Church of Ireland cathedral in Dublin, is designated as the local cathedral of the Diocese of Dublin and Glendalough.
Unusually, St Patrick's is not the seat of a bishop, as the Archbishop of Dublin has his seat in the nearby Christ Church Cathedral; the two cathedrals are about 400 metres apart. Since 1870, the Church of Ireland has designated St Patrick's as the national cathedral for the whole of Ireland, drawing chapter members from each of the 12 dioceses of the Church of Ireland. The dean is the ordinary for the cathedral; this office has existed since 1219. The most famous office holder was Jonathan Swift.
Some believe it was intended that St Patrick's, a secular (diocesan clergy who are not members of a religious order, i.e. under a rule and, therefore, "regular") cathedral, would replace Christ Church, a cathedral managed by an order.
A confrontational situation persisted, with considerable tension, over the decades after the establishment of St Patrick's, and was eventually settled, more or less, by the signing of a six-point agreement of 1300, Pacis Compositio. Still extant, and in force until 1870, it provided that:
Over the following centuries, the two cathedrals functioned together in the diocese, until in the period of disestablishment of the Church of Ireland, the current designation of one as the cathedral of Dublin and Glendalough, and one as the national cathedral, was developed.
In 1192, John Comyn, first Anglo-Norman archbishop of Dublin, elevated one of the four Dublin Celtic parish churches, this one dedicated to Saint Patrick, beside a holy well of the same name and on an island between two branches of the River Poddle, to the status of a collegiate church, i.e., a church with a body of clergy devoted to both worship and learning. The new collegiate church fell outside the city boundaries, and this move created two new civic territories, one under the archbishop's temporal jurisdiction. The church was dedicated to "God, our Blessed Lady Mary and St Patrick" on 17 March 1191.
Comyn's charter of 1191 or 1192, which allowed for a chapter of thirteen canons, of which three held special dignities (as chancellor, precentor and treasurer), was confirmed by a papal bull (of Pope Celestine III) within a year. The thirteen prebendaries attached to the church were provided with archepiscopal lands.
Over time, a whole complex of buildings arose in the vicinity of the cathedral, including the Palace of the St Sepulchre (seat of the archbishop), and legal jurisdiction was divided between a Liberty controlled by the dean, around the cathedral, and a larger one belonging to the archbishop, adjacent.
While it is not clear when precisely the church was further raised to the status of a cathedral, a unique move in a city with an existing cathedral, it was probably after 1192, and Comyn's successor as Archbishop, Henry de Loundres, was elected in 1212 by the chapters of both Christ Church and St Patrick's, this election being recognised by Pope Innocent III. See below for more on the question of status. Henry granted a number of further charters to the cathedral and chapter between 1218 and 1220, and one of these in 1220 created the office of dean to head the cathedral, the right of an election being allocated solely to the canons of the Chapter.
The basis of the present building, as noted, the largest church in Ireland, was built between 1191 and 1270, though little now remains of the earliest work beyond the baptistry. Much of the work was overseen by the previously mentioned Henry of London, a friend of the King of England and signatory of the Magna Carta, who was also involved in the construction of Dublin's city walls, and Dublin Castle.
An order from King Henry III in 1225 allowed the collection of donations from across the island for reconstruction for a period of four years, and the work, in the Early English Gothic style, lasted at least until rededication in 1254. The Lady Chapel was added around 1270.
In 1300, Archbishop Ferings of Dublin arranged an agreement between the two cathedrals, the Pacis Compositio, which acknowledged both as cathedrals and made some provisions to accommodate their shared status. For more, see Status below.
In 1311 the Medieval University of Dublin was founded here with William de Rodyard, Dean of St Patrick's, as its first Chancellor, and the Canons as its members. It never flourished and was suppressed at the Reformation.
From the mid-14th century, and for over 500 years, the north transept of the building was used as the parish church of St Nicholas Without (i.e. the part of the Parish of St Nicholas outside the city proper).
The tower (Minot's Tower) and west nave were rebuilt between 1362 and 1370, following a fire. The name commemorates Thomas Minot, Archbishop of Dublin 1363–75, who oversaw the rebuilding.
From the very earliest years, there were problems with seepage of water, with a number of floods, especially in the later years of the 18th century, caused by the surrounding branches of the River Poddle – even in the 20th century, it is reported that the water table was within 2.3 metres (7.5 feet) of the floor. This situation ensured there would never be a crypt or basement area.
After the English Reformation (an uneven process between 1536 and 1564 but at St Patrick's effective from about 1537), St Patrick's became an Anglican (Church of Ireland) church. In the 1530s some images within the cathedral were defaced by soldiers under Thomas Cromwell, and neglect led to the collapse of the nave in 1544. The conventionally flexible style of the Archbishop of Dublin Hugh Curwen is instructive; he was a follower firstly of Henry's non-reformed church in the 1530s, then of Edward VI's full-blown Protestantism c. 1550, then accepting his appointment as archbishop during Queen Mary's reversion of the church to Roman Catholicism in 1555, and continued to serve as the archbishop, using the Anglican rite from 1559, under Queen Elizabeth until 1567.
Under Edward VI, St Patrick's Cathedral was formally suppressed and the building was demoted back to the status of a parish church. On 25 April 1547, a pension of 200 marks sterling was assigned to "Sir Edward Basnet", the dean, followed, some months later, by pensions of £60 each to Chancellor Alien and Precentor Humphrey, and £40 to Archdeacon Power. The silver, jewels, and ornaments were transferred to the dean and chapter of Christ Church. The King designated part of the building for use as a courthouse, the cathedral grammar school was established in the vicar's hall and the deanery was given to the archbishop, following the transfer of the Archbishop's Palace to the Lord Deputy of Ireland. In 1549, it was further ordered that the walls be repainted and inscribed with passages from the scriptures.
In 1555 a charter of the joint monarchs Philip and Mary I restored the cathedral's privileges and initiated restoration and a late document of Queen Mary's reign, a deed dated 27 April 1558, comprises a release or receipt by Thomas Leverous, the new dean, and the chapter of St Patrick's, of the "goods, chattels, musical instruments, etc.", belonging to the cathedral, and which had been in the possession of the dean and chapter of Christ Church. It was during this reign that the patronal festival of the Blessed Virgin Mary was last celebrated (in 1558).
Following the ejection of the Catholic chapter of canons in 1559, the Catholic community continued in the 1560s–1570s at least to go on nominating canons and the principal dignitaries to St Patrick's.
In 1560, one of Dublin's first public clocks was erected in "St Patrick's Steeple".
By the early 17th century, the Lady Chapel was said to have been in ruins, and the arch at the east end of the choir was closed off by a lath and plaster partition wall. There was also routine flooding and a series of galleries was added to accommodate large congregations. In 1620 the English-born judge Luke Gernon referred to the cathedral's poor state of repair.
During the stay of Oliver Cromwell in Dublin, during his conquest of Ireland the Commonwealth's Lord Protector stabled his horses in the nave of the cathedral. This was intended to demonstrate Cromwell's disrespect for the Anglican religion, which he associated with Roman Catholicism and political Royalism.
After the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, repairs to the building were begun.
In 1666, the cathedral chapter offered the Lady Chapel for the use of French-speaking Huguenots who had fled to Ireland, and after some repair and preparation works, it became known as L'Eglise Française de St Patrick. A lease was signed on 23 December 1665 and was renewed from time to time until the special services ceased in 1816, by which time the Huguenots had been fully assimilated into the city population.
In 1668 the roof, in danger of collapsing, was taken down, and a new roof was completed by 1671. Buttresses were erected and the west window was replaced with a perpendicular window. Then, in the 1680s, the choir was reformed. In 1688–90, during the Williamite War in Ireland, James II and his fellow Catholics briefly repossessed St Patrick's. However, the victory of the Protestant Williamites in this war meant that the cathedral was restored to Anglican ownership in 1690 when James abandoned Dublin after his defeat at the Battle of the Boyne.
Throughout its long history, the cathedral has contributed much to Irish life, and one key aspect of this relates to the writer and satirist Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels, who was dean of the cathedral from 1713 to 1745. Many of his famous sermons and "Irish tracts" (such as the Drapier's Letters) were given during his stay as Dean.
His grave and epitaph can be seen in the cathedral, along with those of his friend Stella. Swift took a great interest in the building, its services and music and in what would now be called social welfare, funding an almshouse for poor women and Saint Patrick's Hospital.
The Choir School, which had been founded in 1432, supplied many of its members to take part in the very first performance of Handel's Messiah in 1742.
In 1749, the cathedral spire was added by George Semple; it remains one of Dublin's landmarks.
In 1792, divine service was temporarily suspended due to the poor condition of the south wall, then 60 centimetres (2 feet) out of perpendicular, and of parts of the roof.
Text from the Wikipedia article “St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.