the arcades are supported by clustered
pillars of Purbeck marble, showing various tints of blue and grey. There
are sixteen shafts in each pier corresponding with the eight subordinate
mouldings in each pair of arches, and the diagonal position of each
cluster adds much to its graceful appearance. In the retro-choir there
are earlier examples of this kind of pier, showing how the builders
experimented with the grouping of the shafts before they attained the
perfect proportions of the pillars in the nave and choir. It seems that
they utilized the Norman pillars as the central core round which to
group the Purbeck shafts. The triforium, in groups of four arches, is
unusually low, and rests on small clustered columns, broken in one place
only on the north side to make way for the Minstrels' Gallery.

#The Minstrels' Gallery.#--This is the most beautiful gallery of its
kind to be found in England, its twelve decorated niches containing
figures of musicians. The musical instruments represented include the
cittern, bagpipe, hautboy, crowth, harp, trumpet, organ, guitar,
tambour, and cymbals, with two others which are uncertain. The tinted
figures of the angels, standing out against an orange-coloured
background--each in a separate niche with an elaborately carved
canopy--playing upon the various instruments, are admirably carved and
most graceful in form and arrangement. The two niches on either side of
the gallery contained figures of St. Mary and St. Peter; the niches are
supported by corbelled heads of Edward III and Queen Philippa. Edward
III created the Black Prince Duke of Cornwall in 1337, and made the city
of Exeter part of the duchy. "The city," according to Izacke, "being
held of the said duke, as parcel of the dutchy, by the fee farm rent of
twenty pounds per ann." To this connexion has been traced the erection
of the gallery, for such duchies "were territorial realities," and the
prince would be received by minstrels chaunting in the gallery whenever
he paid a visit to his feudal dependency. It is asserted that it was
first used after the battle of Poictiers, when the Black Prince brought
with him to England, visiting Exeter _en route_ for London, the captured
French King. But Professor Freeman thinks the Duke did not pay a visit
to Exeter at that time, and that local tradition refers really to a
later date when "he came home as a sick man" not long before his death.

The lofty character of the clerestory above th