Gloria
in Excelsis from the gallery on Christmas Eve.

The Gothic arches of the nave, large and beautiful, rest upon massive
clustered piers of Purbeck marble. The development of these piers as the
building progressed westwards is clearly seen. Between the Lady Chapel
and the choir is a pier of four shafts, then one of eight, which
eventually develops into one of sixteen shafts, repeated throughout the
length of the nave. Although the tracery of the aisle windows is very
varied in design, each window on the north side has its counterpart on
the south side, and some of the tracery of these windows has a marked
tendency to the flamboyant, thus showing the lateness of much of the
work at Exeter, for what is called the flamboyant style is contemporary
in France with our Perpendicular work, which is a purely English style
unknown on the Continent.

The choir screen was put up by Bishop Stapledon (1465), but its height
and effectiveness are sadly marred by the great organ placed upon it.
Until comparatively recent years an altar stood on each side of this
screen. The great west window of the nave, the beautiful tracery of
which has already been alluded to, was due to Bishop Grandisson
(1327-69). The font at the western end of the south nave aisle was made
specially for the baptism of Princess Henrietta, while the nave pulpit,
erected in 1877, to the memory of Bishop Patteson of Melanesia, "is",
says the Rev. Baring-Gould, "much of a piece with the stuff turned out
by clerical tailors and church decorators who furnish us with vulgar
designs in illustrated catalogues".

The transepts, as we have seen, were bored by Quivil through the two
Norman towers built by Warelwast, and in consequence are of small
dimensions. In the north tower is the great bell called "Peter", which
was brought from Llandaff by Bishop Courtenay towards the end of the
fifteenth century, and which weighs 12,500 lb., the only heavier bell in
this country being great "Tom of Oxford", the weight of which is 17,000
lb. "Peter" was rung formerly by the united exertions of twenty-four men
using two ropes and double wheels, but it was cracked on 5 November,
1611, from a "too violent ringing in commemoration of the Gunpowder
Plot".

In 1752 the bell was placed in the lower part of the tower, and so fixed
in a massive framework of timber that it cannot now be rung; it is,
however, used as a clock bell, and the sound of its deep notes can be
heard at a great dis