By the Rev. J. E. Jackson. 



45 



A.D. 



A crypt of recent work ("novi operis.") (p. 381.) 

 c. 1130. Roger, Bishop of Sarum; the all-powerful favourite, 

 temp. Henry I. Finding a precedent in certain 

 proceedings of his predecessors, Bishops of Sarum, 

 he seized the possessions of Malmesbury Abbey. 

 "His own Cathedral (at Old Sarum) he dignified to 

 the utmost with matchless ornaments and buildings 

 on which no expense was spared. " (¥m. of Malmes., 

 De Gestis Reg., Bohn's Antiq. Libr., p. 508.) He 

 built several castles, as at Sherborne and Devizes. 

 "At Malmesbury, even in the church-yard, and scarcely 

 a stone's throw from the principal church, he had 

 begun a castle." (Ditto, p. 498.) "He was a Prelate 

 of great mind, and spared no expense towards com- 

 pleting his designs, especially in buildings, which may 

 be seen at other places but more especially at (Old) 

 Sarum and Malmesbury. For there he erected exten- 

 sive edifices at vast cost and with surpassing beauty, the 

 courses of stone being so correct^ laid that the joint 

 deceives the eye and leads it to imagine that the whole 

 wall is composed of a single block." (Ditto, p. 442.) 

 See above p. 28. 



William of Malmesbury makes no mention of Bishop 

 Roger having rebuilt the church, but in another 

 passage of his works, he states that the principal 

 church standing in his (the Historian's) time was that 

 which had been built in the time of Abbot JElfric, 

 A.D. 977-982. Speaking of a gift made by King 

 Athelstan (924-941) to the monastic church of St. 

 Peter, (i.e. the church of "The Saviour, Peter and 

 Paul,") he says, "Moreover it may be necessary to 

 observe, that at that time the Church of St. Peter was 

 the chief of the monastery, which is now deemed 

 second only : the church of St. Mary, which the monks 

 now frequent, was built afterwards in the time cf 



