class="tdl">Brass of Bishop Wyville

114 The High Street Gate, North and South Fronts Face     116 The Church House 117 The Poultry Cross 118 Old Plan of Salisbury 119 Plan of the Cathedral 121

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HISTORY OF THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF S. MARY.[1]ToC

here is probably no cathedral church in Europe, certainly no other English one, that has such a clear record of its history as Salisbury. Whereas in almost every other instance we have only vague legendary accounts of the original foundation of the building, in this case there is a trustworthy chronicle of its first inception and each successive stage of its progress extant.

Owing to reasons noted in another chapter, the former cathedral at Old Sarum was condemned to be abandoned, and a new site chosen for its successor; Bishop Richard Poore, through whose efforts the change of locality was effected, is said to have hesitated long before he could find one suitable. Wilton, then a place of some importance, attracted him first. There is a more or less accurate MS. extant which professes to give an account of his tentative attempts to induce the Abbess of Wilton to permit him to build his church in a meadow of her domain. An old sewing-woman (quaedam vetula filatrix) is said to have attributed his frequent visits to quite another motive; she inferred that the Bishop had a papal dispensation to marry, and was a suitor for the hand of the Abbess. The negotiations failed: "Hath not the Bishop land of his own that he must needs spoil the Abbess? Verily he hath many more sites on which he may build his church than this at Wilton," was the reply of the Abbess to his demand. During his period of indecision the Virgin appeared to him in a vision, and commanded him to build his new church in a place called Myr-field, or, as some accounts have it, Maer-field. He searched vainly for a piece of ground by that name, that he might obey the supernatural edict, until by chance he overheard a labourer (or a soldier, the legends vary,) talking of the Maer-field, and then having, as he thought, identified the place, which appears to have been within his own demesne, he commenced to plan the present building. Another tradition ignores the dream, and says the site of the cathedral was determined by an arrow shot from the ramparts of Old Sarum.

Misled by the similarity of sound, the name Maer-field has been, naturally enough, interpreted to mean Mary-field. The apparently obvious form "Miry-field,"—as, according to Leland, it appears on an old inscription,—in spite of the marshy nature of the site, is probably a mere coincidence. Nor is Thomas Fuller's "Merry-field, for the pleasant situation thereof," better worth attention. The generally accepted theory at present is that maer, the Anglo-Saxon word for a boundary, supplies the clue. A hamlet, Marton, near Bedwin, another of the same name now corrupted to Martin, near Damerham, might each be truly described as boundary-towns. In Wiltshire to-day 'mere-stone' is the local idiom for a boundary-stone. Mere is alike the name of a hundred and of a parish in Wilts, both near its borders. The site of the present cathedral is at the junction of three ancient hundreds—Underditch, Alderbury, and Cawdon—the south-east wall of the close being the boundary line which divides the cathedral precincts from Cawdon.

Not only from the fact that the site was given by the bishop may we infer that the Poores were a wealthy family; but his brother Herbert, who was his immediate predecessor in the see, is described in the Osmund Register, as dives et assiduus (rich and painstaking), and Richard Poore before his enthronement was a benefactor to the monastery of Tarrant, in Dorsetshire, his native village. Later we find he gave a large estate at Laverstock to his new cathedral. Hence the old theory that his name was derived from Poor or Pauper, as it appears in several old chronicles, is untenable. Possibly like the Irish Poer or Power, it may be traced to the word puer, used in a restricted sense to denote the sons of royal or noble families not yet in possession of their heritage. A Prince of Wales in past times has been known as Puer Anglicanus, the Spanish "Infanta," the prefix "Childe," have all been cited in support of this theory. It is said indeed that the Childes trace their descent from the Le Poers, and Childe-Okeford and Poorstock, two villages in Dorset are quoted in evidence[2].