OLD SARUM 169 



stauding) were discovered in the summer of 1834. 

 That portion of the vanished city had been laid down 

 as pasture, and the drought of that year revealed the 

 plan of the cathedral, in a distinct brown outline 

 upon the grass. This building, completed in 1092 

 by Bishop Osmund, furnished the stone in later years 

 for the spire of Salisbury Cathedral and for the walls 

 of the Close, in which, by St. Anne's Gate, many 

 sculjDtured fragments of these relics from Old Sarum 

 may yet be seen. 



A varietv of circumstances brous;ht about the 

 removal of the cathedral from Old Sarum. Water 

 w\is lackino- on that heio-ht, and wands raoed so 

 furiously around it that the monks could not hear the 

 priests say Mass ; and, worse than all, during the 

 Papal Interdict, the King, in revenge for many 

 ecclesiastical annoyances, transferred the custody of 

 the Castle of Old Sarum from the bishops to his own 

 creatures, who locked the monks out of their 

 monastery and church on one occasion when they 

 had gone on some religious procession. AVhen the 

 monks returned, they found entrance denied them, 

 and were forced to remain in the open air during the 

 whole of a frostv winter nio-ht. There was no end to 

 the hardships which those Men of Wrath brought 

 upon the Church. No wonder that Peter of Blois 

 cried out, ' What has the House of the Lord to do 

 with castles ? It is the Ark of the Covenant in the 

 Temple of Baalim. Let us in God's name descend 

 into the plain.' 



The removal decided upon, it remained to choose a 

 site. Tradition tells us that the Virgin Mary appeared 



