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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 January 2012
The chapel of S. John Baptist, the north-western of the four polygonal chapels which surround the apse of Westminster Abbey, differs from the remaining three in that it is now entered, not by a door in the middle of the screen separating it from the ambulatory, but by a kind of vestibule cut through the northern of the two great piers which fill up the spaces between the last of the rectangular and the first of the polygonal chapels. It is to this vestibule that I wish to call attention, and in doing so I shall first desrcibe it in its present condition, and then point out the various changes which it seems to have undergone, and endeavour to draw some conclusions as to its history and the uses to which it has been put.
page 94 note a The top rail of these doors is cased with thin sheet-iron.
page 94 note b The lower part of the niche is mutilated apparently by the pulling out of a capping of this bracket.
page 94 note c At this place the fourteenth century lining is seen to be seven inches thick.
page 95 note a This was first pointed out to me by my friend Mr. J. Langton Barnard, to whom I am indebted for the carefully measured plan (Plate II.) which accompanies this paper. I have since found it mentioned by Brayley. I cannot account for its being set here in the time of Henry VII. which seems to be the date of the painting.
page 96 note a In the year 1378, one Robert Haule or Hawley was murdered in the choir of Westminster during High Mass. The affair created a great sensation at the time, and the church was closed for several months. As part of their penance the murderers paid the then large sum of £200 to the Abbey. Is it possible that this money was expended upon a costly image, set up as an expiatory offering; and that the recess we are considering was prepared for the reception of the image ? The dates fit exactly.
page 97 note a The similarity of detail between this niche and the reredos of the high altar fixes the date of the latter also.
page 97 note b According to Nash's Worcestershire the Manors of Hagley and Cradley remained a very short time in the possession of the Abbey, they being, returned to the family from whom they had been confiscated. “But,” as Nash observes, “doubtless the religious had ample satisfaction made to them for this resumption.”