Old Sarum

The earliest settlement in Salisbury was Old Sarum, and by "earliest" we mean starting at c.3000BCE. Around 400BCE a hill fort was constructed, and at the time of the Romans in the 1st century CE it was controlled by the British tribe, the Atrebates. The settlement became part of Wessex when the hill was captured by the Saxon King Cynric in 552CE.

King Alfred didn't do much with the place until the Vikings became a problem; he fortified it, making it therefore usable by others such as King Ecgberht of Wessex (ruled 802-839), and King Edgar (ruled 959-975). It was abandoned when Svein Forkbeard invaded in 1003.

Always treated as a potential defensive position more than an important municipal center, the hill was crowned with a motte-and-bailey three years after the Norman Conquest. Topographical limits kept the town small and cramped, although not so small that William the Conqueror couldn't gather all his nobles, prelates, and sheriffs to take the Oath of Salisbury, declaring loyalty to him and no other. It is likely that this occasion saw William presented with the completed survey called the Domesday Book.

Why was it called the Oath of Salisbury if the town was called Old Sarum? The Domesday Book calls it Sarisburie (from Old English Searesbyrig, "Seares fortress"). Sarisburie was often abbreviated to Sar̅, but the -r̅ was often used to abbreviate words ending in -um. Sometime in the 1200s the place started being called Sarum. Meanwhile, the Medieval Latin Sarisburie was corrupted to have an -l- in the middle. Sarum had the "Old" tacked on to distinguish it from the new town b being built near the new Salisbury Cathedral. Modern Salisbury can also be rightly called "New Sarum."

The aerial photo above shows the excavated motte-and-bailey structure at the center of the walled town. You can see the old Salisbury Cathedral foundation. For scale, the length of the Norman cathedral was 185 feet, smaller than most of its era.

Henry II had his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, kept at Old Sarum. Their son Richard the Lionhearted designated a plain near there for tournaments.

William of Malmesbury called Sarum "more like a castle than city, being environed with a high wall"; he certainly drew from firsthand experience, since he became a good friend of Roger, Bishop of Salisbury, who owned the land on which Malmesbury Abbey was situated, where William spent his entire adult life. William noted that the site did not have sufficient water to make it sustainable, and supposedly this was one reason why a new cathedral needed to be relocated. Peter of Blois, canon of the cathedral, described it as "barren, dry, and solitary, exposed to the rage of the wind"; a papal legate looking into the cathedral verified that the wind was so strong that divine office could sometimes barely be heard.

Once the "new" Salisbury was established, Old Sarum lost population and significance—and materials, as resources were dismantled to take to the new town. Edward II had the castle demolished in 1322. Old Sarum was one of the first sites named in the 1882 Ancient Monuments Protection Act.

Peter of Blois had very strong feelings about Old Sarum. He felt that the cathedral in Old Sarum was "as a captive on the hill where it was built, like the ark of God shut up in the profane house of Baal." Let's take a look at this colorful canon next time.

The Bishop of Salisbury

Although he presided over the founding of one of the grandest cathedrals in the United Kingdom, Bishop Richard Poore (in my opinion) should be noted for his attitude toward education.

He was from a "family of bishops." His brother Herbert preceded him as Bishop of Salisbury, and his father, also named Richard, became Bishop of Winchester. The younger Richard was Bishop of Chichester before taking on the position in Salisbury, and was later Bishop of Durham. He was elected to Durham earlier in his career, but Pope Innocent III would not allow it, knowing that King John wished for his own advisor John de Gray to have that position.

While he was at Salisbury, he moved the cathedral from Old Sarum to the town of Salisbury, founding Salisbury Cathedral in 1220. Legend tells that he shot an arrow that hit a deer, and where the deer fell was the new site. In preparation for the building project, he laid out the town of Salisbury as well.

While at Salisbury, he welcomed the new Franciscan friars (founded in 1209). He created a set of statutes to guide diocesan practices. Because they were re-issued after he moved to Durham, they are known as the Statutes of Durham. They were used by many other dioceses.

When King John died in 1216, leaving nine-year-old Henry III as king, Poore helped Hubert de Burgh take over running the kingdom, along with Archbishop of Canterbury Stephen Langton (under whom Richard had studied at Paris) and Bishop Jocelin of Wells. All four worked together to manage England until Henry reached the age of 14.

I found him interesting because of policies he instituted at Salisbury geared toward children. He instructed his clergy to choose a few children to be educated in church doctrine and prayers so that they could instruct other children. He was willing to provide some teachers with benefices for their financial support provided that they would then teach for free. He also had his clergy preach every Sunday on the dangers of children being left alone in the house with a fire going. Bishop Wordsworth's School in modern day Salisbury has a dormitory named Poore House after Richard Poore's dedication to education; it is regularly declared one of the top-performing schools in England.

Poore felt that no one should hold two benefices at a time, and a person who complained at this rule should lose both. He also did not want his clergy involving themselves in "worldly business." He was not completely harsh toward his clergy: he established a retirement house for Durham clergy.

Although claimed by Salisbury and Durham at his death on 15 April 1237, he had retired to Tarrant Keyneston in Dorset and was buried there.

So what was it about Old Sarum that made its cathedral unsuitable? Why did Poore feel the need for a new town as well as cathedral? Let's visit Old Sarum next time and see what it was like.

Salisbury Cathedral

The Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, also known as Salisbury Cathedral, is noted for having the tallest church spire in England, but it has other notable qualities: the largest cloister, one of the oldest working clocks in the world, and one of four original copies of the Magna Carta.

There was already a gothic cathedral in Salisbury at Old Sarum, but a decision was made to construct a new church and move the cathedra, or bishop's seat, to Salisbury town. The bishop at the time was Richard Poore (died 15 April 1237), who lived almost to see the new building finished. Fees for construction came from canons and vicars of the diocese annually until the building was completed. (Legend that Bishop Poore shot an arrow that hit a deer, and where the deer died was chosen as the new site, cannot be substantiated.)

The first of its 70,000 tons of stone were laid down on 28 April 1220 by the 3rd Earl of Salisbury William Longespée, an  illegitimate son of King Henry II, and his wife. Remarkably for a structure of it size, it was completed in 38 years, which led to a consistency of design sometimes lacking in cathedrals that took generations and had multiple architects over time. It also took 3000 tons of timber and 450 tons of lead. The spire (a later addition, in 1320) and tower alone used 6400 tons of stone and would have collapsed like many other spires if not for the addition of buttresses and anchor plates (iron braces holding stones together). Sir Christopher Wren in 1668 added tie beams above the crossing (where the nave and apse intersect, above which stood the tower), which also helped.

The copy of the Magna Carta—incidentally the best preserved of the four surviving originals—came to Salisbury because one of the men given the task of distributing copies of the document, Elias of Dereham, was also a stonemason who oversaw the cathedral's construction and became a canon of Salisbury.

The famous clock, thought to be the oldest working clock in the world, has no face. Early clocks did not have hands; rather they noted the hour by ringing a bell. It was used regularly until 1884, when it was placed in storage and forgotten. Found again in 1928, it was restored in 1956 and works to this day.

I mentioned Bishop Richard Poore who oversaw most of the building of the cathedral. There is a statue of him in one of the many niches in the cathedral. He did arguably much more important work at Salisbury than building a new cathedral, which I'll tell you about tomorrow.

The Medieval Grotesque

The word grotesque does not appear in that form until the 1560s, though now it is used to refer to illustrations and carvings from much earlier eras. It is from Italian grottesca ("of a cave") from Italian grotto ("cave") because it was first used to refer to paintings found in basements in the ruins of Classical Era Rome, specifically the palace complex begun by Nero in 64CE that had been abandoned and buried long ago.

We see grottesca used in Italy in a 1502 contract in which Raphael Sanzio da Urbino (better known to the Modern Era simply by his first name) agrees to decorate the Piccolomini Library attached to Siena Cathedral.

Not everyone appreciated the fanciful designs. One artist complained about

this insatiable desire of man sometimes prefers to an ordinary building, with its pillars and doors, one falsely constructed in grotesque style, with pillars formed of children growing out of stalks of flowers, with architraves and cornices of branches of myrtle and doorways of reeds and other things, all seeming impossible and contrary to reason... [link]

We use the word to describe three-dimensional art such as gargoyles. If you wanted to categorize types of grotesques in two-dimensional art, you will often see hybrids such as the illustration to the left. Another type is a strange juxtaposition or anthropomorphism such as a rabbit jousting with lance and sword, using a hybrid snail for a horse.

Sculptural grotesques originally were used for waterspouts in medieval architecture, but became their own genre of architectural decoration. Despite the complaint noted above, folk like the monk who designed Salisbury Cathedral did not hesitate to add grotesque figures that had no function other than to provide decoration. Salisbury, in fact, shows a more consistent architectural style than most other cathedrals, owing to its swift completion: 38 years, as opposed to generations for most gothic structures. In fact, Salisbury Cathedral is a good subject for the next post. See you soon.