XX GLOUCESTER CATHEDRAL GLOUCESTER is in Gloucestershire, in the west of England, near the Bristol Channel. The word means a bright fortress. is from Brig stow, a bridge place. Bristol A nunnery was founded in 681, succeeded by a college of secular priests, and later by Benedictine monks. The foundations of the monastery were laid by Abbot Serlo in 1100. The abbey was dedicated to St. Peter. It was raised to a see by Henry VIII., and rededicated to the Holy and Undivided Trinity. It is a cathedral of the New Foundation. It is 400 feet long, 144 feet wide at transept, and has a central tower 225 feet high. The great tower, topped by four graceful pinnacles, at once attracts attention to itself. There is nothing like the enormous round pillars to be seen in England or elsewhere, and the walls of the crypt are ten feet thick. The east window- a memorial to the battle of Cressy is the largest pointed window in England, probably in Europe. It is seventy-two feet high by thirty-eight feet wide. The churches of Southern Europe never have immense eastern windows like Gloucester, Carlisle, and York, because there such a flood of light would be painful to the eyes, but under the cloudy skies of England the jewelled glass is lovely as a dream, and the shafts of light adorn all they touch. The beautiful cloister walk was devised by the monk architects of Gloucester, and the monks vaulted the nave with their own unaided hands. It is the earliest known example of fan-tracery vaulting. The lady-chapel ranks high among the Mary-chapels of England. The whispering gallery carries the slightest sound, so that it may be distinctly heard at a distance of seventy-five feet. This is an accidental effect. SOME NOTED BISHOPS Bishop Hooper (b. 1495, i. 1550, d. 1555) was so strict a Protestant that he long refused to take the oath or wear the episcopal vestments. After the accession of Queen Mary, he was summoned to London, imprisoned in the Fleet, deprived of his see, and condemned |