THE CHOIR 203 



of the church with their heads and hands, blaspheminsf 

 the Lord and His saints, the patrons of the church." 



This fury of racre and perplexity overpast, however, 

 the strenuous folk of those times began the work of 

 rebuildino- the church almost before the blackened 

 stones and charred timbers of the ruined building 

 were cold. They employed a French architect, 

 William of Sens, and for four years he laboured in 

 designing and superintending the construction of 

 choir, retro-choir, and the easternmost chapels, 

 incorporating with his work the old Norman towers 

 and chapels which had, in part, survived the great fire. 

 William of Sens did not live to see his task completed ; 

 for, one day, as he was on the lofty scaffolding, 

 directing the work of turning the choir vault, he 

 fell and was disabled for life. His successor, who 

 brought the rebuilding to a close, was " William the 

 Englishman," identified by some with that William de 

 Hoo, the architect-Bishop of Rochester. 



The present choir, then, shows the work of these 

 two Williams ; nearly all, in fact, to the eastward of 

 the crossing, from choir-screen to Becket's Crown, is 

 their handiwork. Meanwhile, Lanfranc's heavy Norman 

 nave was left uninjured by fire and untouched by 

 those mighty builders, and it was not until the fourteenth 

 century that it was reconstructed in the Perpendicular 

 style by Prior Chillenden. " It had grown ruinous," 

 so say the records, but the greater probability is that it 

 Avas not so crazy but that effectual renovation without 

 rebuilding would have been possible. But the spirit 

 of the age was altogether opposed to the ponderous 

 character of Norman architecture. Men began to build 

 so lightly and loftily that walls soon assumed the 

 appearance of mere framings to the huge windows that 

 characterize this ultimate phase of Gothic architecture. 



The constructional aspect was gone altogether, and 

 most of the artistic interest too. Vulgar ostentation 

 of skill — engineering knowledge that led architects to 

 pile up slender alleys of stone to the last point of 



