Bichard Poore, 1217—1229. 235 



Cardinal of the Roman Church; a third for himself ; a fourth for 

 William de Longespee, Earl of Salisbury ; the fifth for Ela, his wife, 

 " a woman worthy of all honour because full of the fear ot God/' 

 After these, a few others, [qjiidam magnates, pauci tamen) each laid 

 a stone; then Adam the Dean, William de Wanda the Precentor, 

 Hugh the Chancellor, and then the Archdeacons and Canons who 

 were present did the same, amid the acclamations of the people, 

 many weeping for joy, and all contributing their alms with a ready 

 mind, according to the ability which God had given them. Within 

 a short time the nobles returning from Wales, several of them came 

 hither, and laying each their stone, bound themselves to some special 

 contribution for the seven years next following. 



And now the work was commenced in earnest. There is a tra- 

 dition that the good Bishop watched its progress from time to time, 

 and that for awhile, at all events, he built for himself a kind of 

 " prophet's chamber," in which he might lodge, so as to be on the 

 spot, and able personally to urge on the great work which he had 

 undertaken. And tradition further marks out the site of the Bishop's 

 lodging as having been at what is now called Mitre-corner, but which 

 in olden times, if I mistake not, was an hostel designated by the sign 

 of " The Lamb." To this day a Bishop, on the occasion of his 

 enthronization, starts in procession from the spot I have indicated, 

 and a very old custom it is ; for I have seen a document by which 

 certain officials of the cathedral are declared to be entitled to the 

 carpet on which the Bishop walked — some to that strewn from the 

 " Lamb Hostelry " {ab ostio Jiospic'd agni) to the west-door — others 

 to that from the west door to the high altar — or from the high altar 

 to the Bishop's throne — or from the throne to the altar in the 

 Treasury.! How far the tradition I have referred to has much 

 truth in it I venture not to say, still it is one of those testimonies — 

 the force of which we cannot gainsay — to the real earnestness with 

 which the Bishop threw his whole soul into the great work o£ 

 building- a new cathedral. 



' See a " Processional" of the date of the fifteenth century in the Cathedral 

 Ubrary. MS. 145, fol. 45. 



