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In the first bay of the north side of the Angel Choir is a remarkable monument, part of which once served for an Easter sepulchre. This, like those of Navenby and Heckington of the same date, is richly carved with oak and vine and fig-tree foliage, and shows the Roman soldiers sleeping. Opposite, on the south side, are the tombs of Katharine Swynford of Ketilthorpe, Duchess of Lancaster, Chaucer’s sister-in-law, whose marriage to John of Gaunt took place in the minster in 1396. Like so many of the monuments, these are sadly mutilated, and are not now quite in their original position.

It is on one of the pillars of the east bay, the second from the east end, that the curious grotesque, familiar to all as the “Lincoln Imp,” is perched.

THE NAVE

If we now turn westwards we shall come to the fine stone organ screen, and pass through to the tower, whose predecessor fell through faultiness of construction, and was rebuilt by Grosteste as far as the nave roof, and we shall look down the nave, which is forty-two feet wide, each aisle being another twenty feet in width. The planning and execution of the nave we owe to the two Bishops Hugh. Its great length (524 feet with the choir and presbytery) makes the whole building, when viewed from the west, look lower than it is, for it is really eighty-two feet high. Looking west this is not felt so much, and there is a feeling of great dignity which the best Early English work always gives. The piers may seem lacking in massive strength, but they vary in pattern, those to the east being the most elaborate, and so gain in interest. One curious thing about the nave, though not discernible to the uninitiated, is that the axis, which is continuous from the east end for the first five of the seven bays, here diverges somewhat to the north, and so runs into the centre of the Norman west front. The two western bays are five and a quarter feet less in span than the others. Probably the architect, as he brought the nave down westwards with that light-hearted disregard of a previous style of architecture which characterised the medieval builder and his predecessors of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, intended to sweep away all the old Norman work at the west end and carry the line straight on with equal-sized arches, but funds failed and he had to join up the new with the old as best he could; and we have cause to be thankful for this, since it has preserved for us the original and most interesting work of Remigius.