1384 The Ancient Roof Painting in* Salisbury Cathedral. 
7. December. A man kills pigs with an axe, while a second figure 
diverts their attention with grain.! 
It is perhaps fairly open to question whether these tracings are 
rightly assigned to the several months. They are so assigned by a 
pencil mark at the corner, which is subsequent to the tracing. 
The press which occurs in the restored October is not found in the 
original tracing. Hence the cup may not contain cyder, but what 
passed for ale at that period, before the introduction of hops. 
One point of great moment in any series of months is to notice 
with what month it begins. In England the series began with 
March. The calendar which makes January the first month did 
not come into use here till the last century. Spenser, in Faerie 
Queen, (canto vii. on Mutabilitie) gives a description of the months, 
very much like some of those which are painted at Salisbury. But 
he puts March first. I need hardly observe that this explains the 
“seventh,” “eighth,” “ ninth,’ and “tenth,” which are expressed 
in September, October, November and December. 
Continental people, on the contrary, did what we do now; they 
put January first. Durandus for example (Rationale Div. Off., Bk. 
8, Rubric 3) does so; and he was a French writer of the same date 
as the foundation of Salisbury Cathedral. 
Now assuming that the restored pictures are in the same order as 
the old ones, the series began with January. And this points to 
the conclusion that it was done under foreign influence. Viollet le 
Duce finds the same indication in the architecture of the Cathedral. 
Speaking of “le mode normand” he says “C’est celui que nous 
retrouvons....a& Salisbury....en Angleterre. (Dictionnaire rais- 
onné de |’ architecture francaise p. 360, vol. 2.) The French in- 
fluence which undoubtedly prevailed at Old Sarum continued perhaps 
to a later date than is commonly imagined. It will be obvious from 
what has been said that in my opinion the principal altar of the 
Cathedral did not originally stand where, in our restoration, Sir G. 
Scott has placed it, viz., in a state of divorce from the rich and 
1 Mr. Waller questions if this is not November. 
