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History of Kings Royal Chapel

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History of the Building: Founded by King Henry VI and built between 1448 and 1515, King’s College Chapel is considered as one of England’s greatest Medieval buildings.[i] Its reputation comes from the purity of its architecture: despite a long construction history, the chapel’s builders remained true to its initial plane creating a unified interior and robust exterior. King Henry VI was only 19 when he laid the first stone of the 'College roial of Oure Lady and Seynt Nicholas' in Cambridge on Passion Sunday, 1441. At the time this marsh town was still a port so, to make way for his college, Henry exercised a form of compulsory purchase in the centre of medieval Cambridge, levelling houses, shops, and lanes, and even a church between the river and the high street. It took three years to purchase and clear the land.[ii] In 1455 the Wars of the Roses began when Richard Duke of York challenged Henry's kingship. The subsequent story of the building of the Chapel and the Wars of the Roses are closely intermingled. For the first 11 years of the war, the construction continued under Henry's patronage, even though the annual grant of £1000 from the king's family estates, the Duchy of Lancaster, became irregular. Then, in 1461, Henry was taken prisoner and he was killed in 1471. The new king, Edward IV, passed on to the College a little of the money that Henry had intended for his Chapel, but very little building was done in the 22 years between Henry's imprisonment and the death of Edward IV in 1483 with some work completed under his successor Richard III. It was the Tudor Kings, Henry VII and Henry VIII who completed the chapel in 1515.ii In the early 18th century a new plan for a great court created but only the Fellows' building, designed by James Gibbs, was built. Another hundred years was to pass before the court was completed by the building of the William Wilkin's Gothic pinnacled gatehouse and stone screen, dining hall and library and what is now called the Old Lodge, in 1824-28. The fountain (1874-1879), with a statue of the College's founder, stands in the centre of the Front Court. In 1829 Old Court, the original buildings of King's College, were sold to an outside party and became part of the University's Old Schools.ii It should be mentioned that the college and its chapel had an openness and tolerance of ideas other than those of the status quo. This was demonstrated particularly in the way King's weathered religious upheavals. The rood, a crucifix upon the screen, and a high altar in the Choir, for example, were all removed under Edward VI, restored under Mary, modified under Elizabeth, elaborated under Archbishop Laud, and removed again under Oliver Cromwell.ii

Architectural Features: The chapel is one of the best examples of Perpendicular Architecture. The perpendicular Gothic period is the third period of English Gothic architecture, and is called perpendicular because it is characterised by an emphasis on vertical lines. A long, high, rectangular box, internally it has a grid of lines both across glass and wall. This continues unbroken from floor to ceiling, finally fanning out in the vaults. Structure is kept to a minimum, making available a large area for stained glass, and even lighting throughout.[iii] The Chapel has a total length of 289 feet (88 m), and the width of the main vault is 40 feet (12 m). The interior height is 80 feet (24 m) and the exterior height is 94 feet (29 m).[iv] The chapel features the world's largest fan vault, constructed between 1512 and 1515 by master mason John Wastell.[v] The Chapel also has fine medieval stained glass and, above the altar, there is the artwork of Peter Paul Rubens--The Adoration of the Magi-- originally painted in 1634 for the Convent of the White Nuns at Louvain in Belgium. The painting was installed in the Chapel in 1968 when the sanctuary floor leading up to the High Altar was restored to its original level. [vi] The interior consists of 12 bays establishing it as the largest building in the world covered with fan vaulting. The vaulting is decorated with carved bosses of wood and stone, featuring heraldic beasts, Tudor motifs, and coats of arms.[vii]

[pic] [pic][pic]
Source: Alison Stones, Images of Medieval Art and Architecture — Britain: England, Cambridge (King's College Chapel). http://www.medart.pitt.edu/, King’s College Chapel. Great Buildings. Website. http://www.greatbuildings.com

Setting: Located across from the River Cam in Cambridge, England, King’s College Chapel is located in a picturesque vast green landscape with manicured commons on either side of the chapel.vii

An example of a catalogue entry for the King’s college chapel is as follows:
|Architect |unknown | |
| | |Subscribers - login to skip ads |
|Location |Cambridge, England | |
|Date |1446 to 1515 timeline | |
|Building Type |church, chapel | |
| Construction System |masonry, cut stone | |
|Climate |temperate | |
|Context |campus setting | |
|Style |English Gothic | |
|Notes |lacy stone fan vaulting with soaring stained glass windows. linear plan. | |

Source: http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Kings_College_Chapel.html

Endnotes:

-----------------------
[i] Thomas John P. Carter, King's college chapel: notes on its history and present condition (London: Macmillan and Co, 1867), 10.

[ii] King’s College Cambridge. History of the Chapel. Website. http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/chapel/history.html

[iii]John Saltmarsh. King's College (in Victoria County History of Cambridgeshire, Volume III, ed. J.P.C. Roach, 1959. 51.

[iv] Saltmarsh, 55 v Alison Stones, Images of Medieval Art and Architecture — Britain: England, Cambridge (King's College Chapel). http://www.medart.pitt.edu/

viDavid Ross. King's College Chapel, Cambridge. Website. 10 Mar 2014. http://www.britainexpress.com/counties/cambridgeshire/az/cambridge/kings-college-chapel.htm

viiRoss. King's College Chapel, Cambridge. Website.

Bibliography:

Carter, Thomas John P., King's college chapel: notes on its history and present condition (Macmillan and Co, 1867), 10King's college chapel: notes on its history and present condition. London: Macmillan and Co, 1867.

King’s College Cambridge. History of the Chapel. Website. http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/chapel/history.html

King’s College Chapel. Great Buildings. Website. http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Kings_College_Chapel.html

Ross, David. King's College Chapel, Cambridge. Website. 10 Mar 2014. http://www.britainexpress.com/counties/cambridgeshire/az/cambridge/kings-college-chapel.htm

Saltmarsh, John: King's College (in Victoria County History of Cambridgeshire, Volume III, ed. J.P.C. Roach, 1959).

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