Athelwold's successor. Some passages deserve quotation. "He built," says Wolstan, "all these dwelling places with strong walls. He covered them with roofs and clothed them with beauty. He repaired the courts of the old temple with lofty walls and new roofs and strengthened it at the north and south sides with solid aisles and various arches. He added also many chapels, with sacred altars which distract attention from the threshold of the church, so that the stranger walking in the courts is at a loss where to turn, seeing on all sides doors open to him, without a certain path. He stands with wondering eyes until some experienced guide conducts him to the portals of the farthest vestibule. Here marvelling he crosses himself and knows not how to quit, so dazzling is the construction and so brilliant the variety of the fabric that sustains this ancient church, which that devout father himself strengthened, roofed, endowed, and dedicated." Later Wolstan speaks of Athelwold's addition of "secret crypts," of "such organs that the like were never seen," of a sparkling tower reflecting from heaven the sun's first rays, "with at its top a rod with golden balls and a mighty golden cock which as it turns boldly sets its face to every wind that blows." More might be quoted, but it is sufficient here to refer those interested in the matter either to the chronicle itself or to Willis in the "Proceedings of the Architectural Institute" for 1845. Though Wolstan thus describes Athelwold's undertaking at great length, it does not appear that the bishop actually did more than commence the restoration of the original buildings, for his successor is exhorted in the letter to carry out Athelwold's design. The chronicler Rudborne makes mention only of the dedication of a minster in honour of the Apostles Peter and Paul, in the presence of King Aethelred, Archbishop Dunstan and eight other bishops, on October 20, 980 A.D. John of Exeter ascribes to Athelwold the entire rebuilding of the cathedral, but the Winchester annalist does not mention Athelwold's great works.

From Athelwold's death to the succession of Walkelin the history of the cathedral is little more than a record of its bishops; but with Walkelin we reach a very important epoch in its existence. In 1079, the Winchester Annals relate, this bishop began to rebuild the cathedral from its very foundations, as was commonly done by the Norman ecclesiastics of the time. According to this account, it was in 1086 that the king granted Walkelin, for the completion of his new building, as much wood from the forest of Hempage (three miles distant from the city on the Alresford road) as he could cut in four days and nights. Walkelin collected all the men he could, and within the given time removed the whole forest. The king, passing its site, cried: "Am I bewitched? or have I taken leave of my senses?" But the bishop, when he heard of his anger, pleaded to be allowed to resign the see if he might but keep the chaplaincy and the king's favour. At this William relented, saying: "I was as much too liberal in my grant as you were too greedy in availing yourself of it" (Willis). In 1093 the new church was formally consecrated, and on April 8, "in the presence of almost all the bishops and abbots of England, the monks came with the highest exultation and glory from the old minster to the new one: on the Feast of S. Swithun they went in procession from the new minster to the old one and brought thence S. Swithun's shrine and placed it with honour in the new buildings; and on the following day Bishop Walkelin's men first began to pull down the old minster, and before the end of the year they demolished the whole of it, with the exception of one apse and the high altar." When the old high altar was pulled down, we are told, "the relics of many saints were found." The cathedral, as Walkelin designed it, was for the most part so strong that its core and much of its actual work remains to this day; but the central tower lacked the stability of the rest, for on October 7, 1107, during the vacancy which occurred after Walkelin's death, it fell. The monkish chroniclers attributed the fall to the fact that William Rufus, "who all his life had been profane and sensual and had expired without the Christian viaticum" (Rudborne), was interred beneath it in 1100. William of Malmesbury, however, with a degree of incredulity rare in his days, says it may have been that it would have fallen in any case "through imperfect construction." He describes the burial thus:—"A few countrymen conveyed the body, placed on a cart, to the cathedral of Winchester, the blood dripping from it all the way. Here it was committed to the ground within the tower, attended by many of the nobility, but lamented by few. The next year the tower fell; though I forbear to mention the different opinions on this subject, lest I should seem to assent too readily to unsupported trifles."

After Walkelin's death the history of the building is lost sight of for some time, owing to the continual disturbances which all England was undergoing. With De Lucy's accession, however, in 1189, considerable additions were made to the cathedral, in the form of the Early English retro-choir, of which the details are given later in this volume. De Lucy's work, it has been pointed out, was carried out in such a way as to leave the Norman building undisturbed as long as it was practicable to do so, the circular apse being left in situ until the new external walls had been erected, while the presbytery itself was not touched until the Decorated Period set in. De Lucy would doubtless have made further alterations but for his death in 1204. As it was, two years before that event he instituted a confraternity to carry on his work for the space of five years, and to this body is due some of the work which is attributed loosely to him.

It was during De Lucy's tenure of Winchester that Richard was re-crowned by the Archbishop of Canterbury after his return from captivity. He passed the night before at S. Swithun's Priory, and was brought thence in the morning to the Cathedral "clothed in his royal robes, with the crown upon his head, holding in his right hand a royal sceptre which terminated in a cross, and in his left hand a golden wand with a figure of a dove at the top of it, ... being conducted on the right hand by his chancellor, the Bishop of Ely, and on the left by the Bishop of London" (Roger de Hoveden). The Bishop of Winchester himself does not seem to have been present, probably on account of a dispute with the king.

Another period of disturbance follows the comparatively quiet rule of Bishop De Lucy, and it is not until we reach 1346 that we come to a fresh outburst of architectural zeal on the part of the incumbents of Winchester. But Edingdon, and still more his successor Wykeham, left very lasting monuments of their occupancy at Winchester. It must not be forgotten that, while to Wykeham is due the credit of most of the actual transformation of the building, Edingdon must have first conceived, however vaguely, the design. Edingdon's attachment to Winchester is well illustrated by his quaint reason for refusing the offer of Canterbury: "if Canterbury is the higher rack, Winchester is the better manger." He is, indeed, charged with having left a considerable debt on the building, since his successor seems to have recovered a large sum from his executors, who had also to compensate Wykeham for large numbers of cattle which had "disappeared from the various farms of the bishopric." Yet it appears from Edingdon's own will that he began rebuilding the nave and left money for the continuation of the work.

Wykeham, as we shall see, had already a reputation for architectural skill when first introduced to Edward III., and this reputation stood him in good stead in the matter of preferment. When he was elected to