»82 Cathedral Life and Work at Sarum in Olden Times. 



care taken by the authorities that all covenanted duties should be 

 faithfully performed. 



Such then, as we have endeavoured to set them forth, were the 

 original designs of a cathedral of secular canons, like that of Sarum. 

 It was a grand ideal that Osmund set before him when he founded 

 it as the mother church of all, drawing to itself as a centre all those 

 spiritual influences, which, growing intense by this union, should 

 re-act, in other forms and in successive radiations from it, to every 

 portion of the diocese. Whether it ever, at any time, reached the 

 grand ideal before the mind of its founder may perhaps be questioned. 

 As in all things human, imperfections soon were made manifest. 

 Abuses from various sources too speedily grew up, and marred the 

 fair beauty of the plan. What these were it is hardly within the 

 scope of this essay to explain — the task which was undertaken was 

 to shew the original intention of Osmund, and the various ways in 

 which it was carried out in olden times. 



It was indeed a heavy blow that fell on our cathedral when all 

 the non-resident canons were disendowed, and their separate estates 

 transferred to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. We owe it to the 

 earnest zeal of Bishop Denison, it is said, that the prebendal stalls 

 were not altogether abolished also. It is something to feel that the 

 whole frame-work of the cathedral system at Sarum remains, in all 

 essential matters, just as it was in the eleventh century; and further, 

 that the endowments have not been disposed of without some care 

 for the parishes whence they arose. And more than this, we may 

 be thankful that the experience and knowledge of the last forty 

 years has brought to the renewed enquiry concerning our cathedrals 

 a more reverent care for the past, a desire to build up rather than 

 to pull down, — in a word, a wish to see them once more fulfilling 

 the great object for which they were founded. It is with a sincere 

 hope that such intentions may be realised, that the writer of this 

 paper concludes a sketch of what once they were, or at all events 

 were intended to be. May the cathedral of the future fulfil, at least 

 in spirit, the great designs of the cathedral of the past. 

 Bradford-on-Avon, W. H. Jones. 



June, 1881. 



