126 A CITY OP MANY WATERS 



be collected was put promiscuously into a common 

 repository. 



The hand of the Norman government had lain heavily 

 from the first on the monks of the New Minster, because 

 of the part they played at the battle of Hastings. In- 

 deed, what between the millers in the Soke and the king's 

 engineers making moats for the castle, the ecclesiastics 

 had been nearly drowned out of their quarters, and, as 

 mentioned above, they sought out a fresh site for their 

 monastery in 1110. William Giffard was then bishop, 

 and, as behoved any one who held that office in the royal 

 capital, was a discreet courtier. But the necessities of 

 Henry i. were frequent and exorbitant : to keep pace with 

 his exactions, Bishop William had to tax his episcopal 

 tenants so sorely that at last even the docile monks of 

 the Old Minster rebelled. For years they continued on 

 the worst of terms with their spiritual head ; but in 1124, 

 the king having exerted himself to bring it about, a re- 

 conciliation was effected in a scene worthy of the brush 

 of the late Mr. Calderon. The bishops sat enthroned in the 

 chapter-house; two by two the monks, stripped to the 

 waist as if for scourging, filed before him and besought 

 his forgiveness. 



Bishop Giffard came to find his Court duties irksome 

 with increasing years, so he turned monk in 1128, and 

 was succeeded in the see by Henry of Blois, brother of 

 Stephen of Boulogne, who was afterwards King of 

 England. An astute, worldly prelate, he headed the 

 party of Stephen against that of Empress Maud, and 

 in the civil war which ensued most of Winchester, 

 including twenty-two churches, was reduced to ashes. 

 The luckless monks of the New Minster, having again 



