Jesus College was founded by Bishop Alcock of Ely in 1497, who, among other things, was Comptroller of the Works of Henry VII, which proves a special interest in building. He obtained leave from the king to suppress the Benedictine nunnery of St Radegond outside Cambridge, appropriated its buildings and revenues and replaced it by Jesus College. The act sounds like anticipating Henry VIII’s dissolution, but the nunnery had at the time only two nuns, one of them being called infamis.
The following description takes the nunnery church, i.e. the present Chapel first, complete with its later collegiate storey, then briefly the remains of the nunnery as they appear in (mostly private) rooms of the College, and then the College proper including those rooms, as far as they need description.
The CHAPEL is much smaller than the CHURCH had been. It is shorn of part of its nave, both nave aisles and both chancel aisles. As it is now it consists of a short antechapel, the E part of the nunnery nave, the transepts, and the choir. The oldest part is the N TRANSEPT. This has, visible from inside, three completely unmoulded Norman windows, now blocked, whose sill is so high as to make it likely that a one-storeyed monastic room was N of the transept. Above these windows is one blocked smaller Norman window in the Norman gable. In the E wall are two arches, pointed and probably later. They are separated by a very short circular pier and filled with very heavy tracery (put in by Pugin, see below). The arches opened into two chapels. Above them is a Norman wall-passage with, towards the transept, small round-headed arches on slim double piers with transitional capitals. Originally there were windows behind them, as they still appear, blocked up and only partly revealed, on the outside of the W wall of the transept. The date of this transept is probably c. 1150-75.*
The NAVE and aisles followed. The aisle piers on the N side which were walled up in the N wall when the church was converted into a chapel have been uncovered. They are also of c. 1175 and alternately circular and octagonal. The nave was originally much longer. Part of the Master’s Lodge is built into its walls, and traces of the W door with detached shafts of the early C13 were found in the C19 but are not now visible. The church went as far W as the present porch of the Lodge.
Next in order of date comes the CHANCEL, the show-piece of the church, clearly mid C13 in date. The E is a reconstruction by Pugin but sufficiently helped by preserved original fragments to make it trustworthy. Bishop Alcock had replaced it by a wall with a large Perp window. The original arrangement was a group of five lancets, three pierced as windows the other two blank. (Is this confirmed by original evidence?) It is inside a group of five rising arches with manifold mouldings, on slim shafts with shaft-rings. There are three oculus windows in the gable above. To the N are five lancets of even height with groups of three shafts between. The central one rises from a seat along the wall, the others from the window sill. On the S side there are only four windows of the same type, and they have underneath a row of trefoil-headed blank arcades. The two E ones are a DOUBLE SEDILLA with stepped-up seats, and then follows a DOUBLE PISCINA of a type paralleled at St John’s College, Histon and Long Stanton in Carnbridgeshire, and Graveley in Hertfordshire. It has elaborately and ingeniously intersected round arches, forming two pointed ones, and a rectangular frame decorated with dog-tooth. The shafts have shaft-rings and rather schematic stiff-leaf foliage.
Dog-tooth also is the decoration of the big piers of the CROSSING. They differ in details but seem to belong to the same date. They consist of main piers semi-octagonal or semicircular and keeled diagonal shafts with rather later-looking moulded capitals. There is a difficulty here; for the arcading of the upper storey inside the crossing tower looks earlier than these capitals. On the other hand they are identical in style with the openings into the chancel aisles. From the S transept there is only a very wide blocked arch; on the N side, however, the aisle openings into the chancel are preserved, two with a pier of quatrefoil section between. This arcade is definitely later than the lancet windows; for another arch in their style is broken off where the chancel arch begins. The upper storey inside the crossing tower, however, has double openings on each side with pointed arches, simply moulded capitals and in some cases some elementary quatrefoil plate tracery above, of a kind most probably prior to c. 1280. Yet the capitals of the main piers below do not look earlier than the last quarter of the century. Building documents are not explicit. All we know is that in 1277 the church is called ruinous per campanilis sui subversionem et subitam ruinam.
Bishop Alcock altered some side windows, shortened the church, added to the crossing tower the bell-stage with Perp windows, and left it at that. But he furnished his chapel lavishly. Little of that survives. The ceilings of the transepts are his and very fine, and so are some fragments built into the SCREEN AND STALLs which Pugin put up, when he restored the Chapel in 1849-53. They are chiefly figures carved about 1500 and forming the heads of stall-ends. Some are on the front benches of the antechapel, two more in the stalls. They can easily be distinguished from those by Pugin’s carvers. Pugin designed the Screen completely (preliminary sketch in the Old Library) with solid, not pierced, side panels. The stalls were designed apparently in collaboration with the Dean of the College. Pugin also put down the encaustic TILES in the crossing and the choir, put up the Altar and designed the STAINED GLASS. Thus the 12 parts of Jesus Chapel are a monument to Pugin as much as to the C13. The glass was made by Hardman. The compositions are derived from Chartres, scenes in roundels and in the later windows more complex panels and simpler smaller panels above and below. The S windows were made after Pugin’s death and are noticeably harder in the colours. The scale of Pugin’s work goes well with that of the architecture, and there are none yet of the excesses of pictorial instead of linear technique which came later in the C19. - The LECTERN was copied by Pugin from that at St Mark’s in Venice; he did not know that this is in fact English and not Italian.
In 1864 Bodley was called in for some necessary repairs, and between 1864 and 1867 he did these and also had new CEILINGS put into nave, crossing tower and chancel. All these were designed and carried out by Morris in his most delicate and sensitive style. In 1873-7, moreover, Morris & Co. Re-glazed most of the windows. The new STAINED GLASS was designed entirely by Burne-Jones, except the lower storey scenes in the W window on the S side of the nave and the S window on the E side of the S transept. These are by Ford Madox Brown and markedly different in colour (with clearer red, white, and yellow, and no blue and green). The difference between Morris and Pugin, or 1875 at its best and 1850 at its best, is most instructive. The aesthetic quality of Morris’s work is no doubt higher, and besides it is very much more original. Pugin was satisfied, as he once said himself, to follow the best precedent. Morris looked on the Middle Ages rather for guidance than for actual paradigms. But Pugin is more naive, and there is in Burne-Jones’s figures a touch of self-display which may get tiresome after a while.
PAINTINGS; In choir Last Supper, Venetian late C16 (ought to be cleaned). - In nave: Presentation in the Temple, Venetian C18, a little like Bazzani. - Some Burne-Jones cartoons for the windows. - ORGAN CASES. N side of chancel by Pugin 1849, W end by Bodley c. 1890 to match the Pugin case. - MONUMENTS. Fragments of C13 lids and fragment of effigy of the later C13 under canopy; both in the S transept. - Tobias Rustat d. 1695, excellent monument against W wall, with portrait in oval medallion, two asymmetrically placed putti holding up draperies and garlands below the inscription. It might well be by Catterns (see Chapel Christ’s College). - E. D. Clarke d, 1825, by Flaxman, with profile in roundel (nave N wall).
* One small Norman window appears in the crossing tower just above the angle between S transept and chancel. So the lowest part of the tower must be Norman in some of its masonry also.
It is secluded from the highway, but from the common by the lower river and the boathouses its red brick buildings, old and new, are plainly seen. Its foundation as a college was in 1496, but the coming of the college for masters and scholars was the end of the Nunnery of St Radegund, which had existed since the 12th century. It was Bishop Alcock who rescued it from decay and adapted the buildings and the beautiful church to the needs of a college, though leaving it in form a monastery, the only one in the University, with a cloister quadrangle entered from an outer court.
The way to it is by a high-walled passage called the Chimney, leading from the pillared gateway with fine iron gates (in Jesus Lane) to Bishop Alcock’s gateway-tower, its stepped battlements rising above the old front, which was altered in the 18th century and is dominated by the tower of the nuns’ church at the east end. In a beautiful niche on the front of his gateway the bishop stands with his hand upraised, and over the archway are coloured coats-of-arms. The panelled oak roof of the archway, with shields in floral bosses, is modern, but the fine linenfold door is old, opening to a spacious west court where brick buildings with rows of stone windows look on to lawn and cobbles. The north range of the court is 17th century. Through a narrow opening in the east side of this court we come to the cloister court. The old refectory of the nuns became the college hall; the Prioress’s lodging and the guest house became the Master’s Lodge and the library; and the old dormitories were made into chambers for the scholars. The entrance to the destroyed chapter house below them was blocked up, its great beauty lost to the world till it was found in 1893. Coming from the close of the 12th century, it has three bays with richly moulded arches on clusters of detached shafts - the middle one the doorway, the others each containing a window. The tracery of one of the windows and some of the capitals are richly carved.
In its conversion to the college chapel the nunnery church lost its south aisle and more than half its nave, and the north aisle was destroyed to make the court bigger. Some new windows were inserted, and the tower was given its top storey; rising from the middle of a cross, it has a fine lantern and rests on four lofty and impressive arches. The north transept, where the earliest work remains, has three round-headed arches blocked in the north wall which once led to the dormitories, and an arch above them which led to the infirmary. High in the east wall is a gallery with round-arched arcading, approached by a spiral stair; and below the gallery are two pointed old arches which were filled with tracery last century to give support to the tower, having once led to an older chapel. There are two windows under a blocked arch in the south transept, and four pillars seen in the outside wall, facing the cloister, tell of the vanished north aisle.
The windows of the long chancel have richly moulded arches on clustered shafts, the east filled with a bright mosaic of colour. At the east end of the trefoiled arcading on the south wall is a charming 12th century piscina with interlacing arches. By the nave doorway is a stoup under a canopy of rich tracery. In the spacious south transept are fragments of old coffin lids, part of a battered figure with a canopy over the head, and a coped stone with a cross and inscription to one of the nuns. An alabaster wall-monument has the head of Archbishop Cranmer, who was a Fellow here, and a tribute to Samuel Taylor Coleridge (a scholar of Jesus), has lines from the Ancient Mariner.
The windows of nave and transepts have William Morris’s rich glass (designed chiefly by Burne-Jones and partly by Ford Madox Brown) showing the Virtues, prophets and saints, and Old Testament figures. One has a company of angels and archangels, saints, and a portrait of John Alcock. Hanging in the nave are sketches by Burne-Jones and a sketch by Morris for the angels painted in the borders of the nave’s panelled roof.
Some of Bishop Alcock’s beautiful stall-work is still here, adorned with tracery and poppyheads of angels, fleurs-de-lys, a pelican, eagles, seated and standing figures. There are four bench-ends in the nave, and a double Litany desk long lost in a lumber room.
The hall is a stately place with a fine oak roof of stout timbers and arched beams. The beautiful bay window by the high table has glass shining with heraldry, and in the window facing are fragments of old glass including shields and the head of a priest. Fluted pilasters adorn the panelling by the high table, and over it is a great coloured coat-of-arms. Here is the portrait of the bishop, a man with a refined scholarly face and a firm mouth. At one side of him is Henry the Eighth, on the other is Archbishop Cranmer. Other portraits are of Tobias Rustat (by Peter Lely) and Richard Sterne, Master in 1634 and Archbishop of York thirty years later; Laurence Sterne was his great-grandson. On a windowsill is a huge bronze cock which was brought from West Africa by George William Neville and presented to his college as a fit emblem of the founder. Over the screen is a fine little oriel window with a bishop’s mitre carved under it.
Pleached limes border one of the greens of the great Chapel Court, of which the fine eastern range of brick and stone is 19th century.
The way to it is by a high-walled passage called the Chimney, leading from the pillared gateway with fine iron gates (in Jesus Lane) to Bishop Alcock’s gateway-tower, its stepped battlements rising above the old front, which was altered in the 18th century and is dominated by the tower of the nuns’ church at the east end. In a beautiful niche on the front of his gateway the bishop stands with his hand upraised, and over the archway are coloured coats-of-arms. The panelled oak roof of the archway, with shields in floral bosses, is modern, but the fine linenfold door is old, opening to a spacious west court where brick buildings with rows of stone windows look on to lawn and cobbles. The north range of the court is 17th century. Through a narrow opening in the east side of this court we come to the cloister court. The old refectory of the nuns became the college hall; the Prioress’s lodging and the guest house became the Master’s Lodge and the library; and the old dormitories were made into chambers for the scholars. The entrance to the destroyed chapter house below them was blocked up, its great beauty lost to the world till it was found in 1893. Coming from the close of the 12th century, it has three bays with richly moulded arches on clusters of detached shafts - the middle one the doorway, the others each containing a window. The tracery of one of the windows and some of the capitals are richly carved.
In its conversion to the college chapel the nunnery church lost its south aisle and more than half its nave, and the north aisle was destroyed to make the court bigger. Some new windows were inserted, and the tower was given its top storey; rising from the middle of a cross, it has a fine lantern and rests on four lofty and impressive arches. The north transept, where the earliest work remains, has three round-headed arches blocked in the north wall which once led to the dormitories, and an arch above them which led to the infirmary. High in the east wall is a gallery with round-arched arcading, approached by a spiral stair; and below the gallery are two pointed old arches which were filled with tracery last century to give support to the tower, having once led to an older chapel. There are two windows under a blocked arch in the south transept, and four pillars seen in the outside wall, facing the cloister, tell of the vanished north aisle.
The windows of the long chancel have richly moulded arches on clustered shafts, the east filled with a bright mosaic of colour. At the east end of the trefoiled arcading on the south wall is a charming 12th century piscina with interlacing arches. By the nave doorway is a stoup under a canopy of rich tracery. In the spacious south transept are fragments of old coffin lids, part of a battered figure with a canopy over the head, and a coped stone with a cross and inscription to one of the nuns. An alabaster wall-monument has the head of Archbishop Cranmer, who was a Fellow here, and a tribute to Samuel Taylor Coleridge (a scholar of Jesus), has lines from the Ancient Mariner.
The windows of nave and transepts have William Morris’s rich glass (designed chiefly by Burne-Jones and partly by Ford Madox Brown) showing the Virtues, prophets and saints, and Old Testament figures. One has a company of angels and archangels, saints, and a portrait of John Alcock. Hanging in the nave are sketches by Burne-Jones and a sketch by Morris for the angels painted in the borders of the nave’s panelled roof.
Some of Bishop Alcock’s beautiful stall-work is still here, adorned with tracery and poppyheads of angels, fleurs-de-lys, a pelican, eagles, seated and standing figures. There are four bench-ends in the nave, and a double Litany desk long lost in a lumber room.
The hall is a stately place with a fine oak roof of stout timbers and arched beams. The beautiful bay window by the high table has glass shining with heraldry, and in the window facing are fragments of old glass including shields and the head of a priest. Fluted pilasters adorn the panelling by the high table, and over it is a great coloured coat-of-arms. Here is the portrait of the bishop, a man with a refined scholarly face and a firm mouth. At one side of him is Henry the Eighth, on the other is Archbishop Cranmer. Other portraits are of Tobias Rustat (by Peter Lely) and Richard Sterne, Master in 1634 and Archbishop of York thirty years later; Laurence Sterne was his great-grandson. On a windowsill is a huge bronze cock which was brought from West Africa by George William Neville and presented to his college as a fit emblem of the founder. Over the screen is a fine little oriel window with a bishop’s mitre carved under it.
Pleached limes border one of the greens of the great Chapel Court, of which the fine eastern range of brick and stone is 19th century.
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