Norwich Cathedral is one of the finest Romanesque, or Norman, cathedral in England. Its full formal name is the Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity. The cathedral is 461 feet (140 m) in length and has the longest nave in England. It has the second tallest spire in the land. The 315 foot spire which was completed in 1465 is only exceeded in height by the 404 feet spire at Salisbury. The cathedral and its spire can best be seen from St James’s Hill on Mousehold Heath.
The best way to approach the cathedral from the town is through one of two gates. The Ethelbert gate was built in 1316 by the townsfolk to make amends for riots in the previous century. The Erpinghan gate is more ornate. These lead into the Cathederal Close which contains buildings dating from the 15th through to the nineteenth centuries. The green is a good place from which to admire the many flying buttresses which carry the weight of the cathedral.
The story of the cathedral starts in 1095. In this year the see of Thetford moved to Norwich. This was part of a Norman policy to place cathedrals in their largest towns. Medieval Norwich was the one of the largest cities in the land. A Norman castle had already been built and Bishop Herbert de Losina was appointed to build a cathedral.
The circumstances were peculiar. King William II was short of money. Herbert de Losinga lent him £1,000 in exchange for the see of Thetford. Anselm, the archbishop of Canterbury considered this to a be a sin and sent Herbert de Losinga to Rome to seek the absolution of Pope Urban II. The Pope was prepared to absolve the sin provided that de Losinga built a great new Cathedral for his diocese.
Bishop de Losinga’s began his project in 1096. While it was largely finished by 1145 the cathedral was not consecrated until 1278. The site was within the grounds of a former monastery close to the market place and the River Wensum. This was convenient because local quays could be used to import of Caen limestone from Normandy. These face flint and mortar walls. The quays can be seen today close to the picturesque fifteenth century water gate which often stars in paintings of Norwich scenes.
The first thing to look for in the nave is the unique two story cloister. This was built between 1300 and 1430. Looking up, the roof is magnificent. It contains over 800 roof bosses and is said to be without parallel in the Christian world. The roof is even more spectacular in the taller clerestory which was added in 1360. One of the unusual features of Norwich is that while the walls are characteristically Romanesque the roof involves fan vaulting from the Perpendicular period. Until the fourteenth century the cathedral had a wooden roof.
The bosses are very much a part of Norwich cathedral. Those in the nave tell the story of Old and New Testaments and are designed to be read from East to West. Those in the cloisters which are easier to view because the roof is not so high tell the story of Christ and the Apocalypse.
When De Losinga built the cathedral he was very conscious that the site had no real religious history to draw upon. He had wrested the site from the town market and did not have a very honorable reputation. He had bought the see after all. His solution was to aggrandize the bishop. He built a keep like bishops palace (which is now Norwich school) and created a spectacular ceremonial entrance from the palace to the church. In the east end of the cathedral he used the area, which in other religious sites might revere the local saint, to promote the rank of bishop. Using the apse behind the altar in this way is unique in England. His cult of the bishop is extra-ordinary. De Losinga arranged for a new bishop’s seat to be built which incorporated fragments from the thrones of earlier East Anglian bishops. This throne can still be seen. As parts are over 1,000 years old it is considered to be the oldest bishop’s throne in England.
After the twelfth century relatively little rebuilding was done at Norwich compared with that at other English cathedrals and for this reason we can see a Romanesque gem. The lack of new work at Norwich can variously be attributed to a series of absentee bishops and a lack of funds. Norwich had neither a great shrine to bring in donations nor a great patron.
This cathedral is very much a product of the Norman age. Unfortunately in the 17th century it fell upon hard times. In 1643 a Puritan mob destroyed the Catholic imagery, which means that for us today the cathedral contains no medieval statuary or stained glass, and for several following decades it was abandoned. The cathedral was restored at the Restoration of Charles II in 1660.
In 2004 a new visitors center was opened so that we can enjoy and interpret one of England’s great cathedrals of England. Remember: twelfth century architecture, fifteenth century vaults.