Richard Poore, 1217—1229. 



231 



Myrfeld, Whereupon the Bishop enquired of the people standing- 

 around more particularly concerning that place, and having* certified 

 himself respecting it, founded there the venerable church of the 

 Blessed Mary at Sarum ; in the year of grace, 1220; to wit, on the 

 day of St. Vitalis the Martyr, in the month of April." 



Of course some allowance must be made for the legendary form 

 of the above narrative. There are chronological difficulties in 

 a literal acceptation of its statements, inasmuch as Richard Poore 

 did not become Bishop of Sarum till after the accession of 

 Henry III. to the throne. Still there are certain facts which it 

 seems fairly enough to establish, as to the various efforts made from 

 time to time to remove the cathedral and the see from Old Sarum, 

 and also as to a site having been at last found on land belonging to 

 Bishop Richard Poore himself, in fact, on his private property, for 

 the expression in the original "in dominio suo proprio" can mean no 

 less than this. The reverence of the age for the Blessed Virgin may 

 well account too for the idea which at all events was at one time 

 prevalent — perhaps there are some that cling to it even to this 

 day — that the name " Myr-field " was, after all, but a form of 

 (< Mary -field A far simpler explanation however is to be found 

 in the fact, that the site chosen was at the very point of junction of 

 the three ancient hundreds of Underditch, Alderbury, and Cawdon, 

 and was therefore naturally enough called mcer-felde, i.e., boundary- 

 field. To this day the wall or boundary of the Close at Sarum, 

 which itself is in the hundred of Underditch, is the division between 

 the cathedral precincts and the parish of Britford which is in the 

 hundred of Cawdon. 



It will be well to trace, as they are placed before us in formal 

 documents, the various steps that were taken for carrying out the 

 great work of Richard Poore's episcopate — the building a Cathedral 

 at New Sarum. 



Very shortly after his return to Sarum active efforts were com- 

 menced. In 1218 he summoned his Chapter — all his Canons that 

 is, the only sense in which " Chapter " is used in olden days 1 — and 



1 So it is expressly stated in the Statutes of Lincoln Cathedral : — " Quinquaginta 

 et sex canon ici cum capite suo corpus et capitulum constituunt ; negotia Ecclesiaa 

 et secreta tractant." Novum Registrum, p. 28. 



R 2 



