CHICHESTER. both of which are mentioned by William of Malmsbury. Such being the state of the religious edifices in the city at that time, it is probable that Stigand, who was a great favourite of William the Conqueror's, began either to enlarge the church attached to the monastery of St. Peter, or to erect a new one: his undertaking was finished by bishop Ralph. This church has been supposed to have been of wood, but it seems rather improbable that so long a time should have been occupied in erecting an edifice of such perishable materials. There are indeed many instances of wooden churches in use at this period, but they generally appear to have been only temporary erections, until some part of the great church was finished far enough to admit of the celebration of service in it. Whatever this church might have been, it was destroyed by fire in May 1114, upon which that munificent prelate Ralph, above named, immediately commenced the re-edification, in which he was assisted by Henry I. who was greatly attached to him; however, as bishop Ralph died in 1123, only nine years after the fire, some have imagined the second church also to have been of wood, and attributed the erection of the present edifice from its foundations to Seffrid II. A conflagration happened during his episcopacy in the year 1185, or in the year 1187; but from Novenden and other chroniclers of those times, it may be inferred, that that fire only destroyed the roof of the cathedral, and damaged the inside walls. It requires no great share of penetration to perceive that those walls CHICHESTER. have been cased with a thin coat of stone, supported at the intercolumniations by Petworth marble pillars, which are in the style of the thirteenth century; of the same materials and age are the pillars which support the upper triforium, although the external arches of the win dows are coeval with the lower part of the church, and are ornamented with the billet moulding. The fire therefore, appears only to have injured the inside of the church, and its ravages have been afterwards concealed by the thin casing of stone above-mentioned. The vaulting of the nave, choir, transcept, and the side aisles, is of the same date: it is most probable, that the church was not vaulted with stone at the time of the fire, but only ceiled with rafter-work, in the same manner as the transcepts of Winchester cathedral. These repairs, or the greater part of them, were probably made by bishop Seffrid II. of whom it is said, in the Chronicle of Winchester, "Dedicata est ecclesia Cicestriæ a Seffrido ejusdem loci episcopo, A. D. 1199, 2d idus Septembris:" and again, “Obiit Seffridus episcopus Cicestria, A. D. 1204;" but no mention is made of his buildings; and we can scarcely suppose that had he re-erected from its foundation so large an edifice as the present cathedral, a circumstance so much to his honour would have been omitted, particularly as churchmen were the authors of those annals. In an ancient MS, catalogue of the bishops of this church, which is still preserved in the archives of the dean and chapter, he is thus mentioned : "Seffridus re-ædificavit Cicestriam et domos suas in pa CHICHESTER? latio:" but nothing is said about the church, which would most probably have been mentioned had it been entirely burnt down; nor indeed is it probable that such massy pillars and arches could have been destroyed by fire. From these circumstances it appears, that the structure of the present church was at the latest begun by bishop Ralph; although from the circumstance of his death so soon after the fire in 1114, he might not have lived to finish it entirely, or to dedicate it. The plain round arches and the pouchheaded pillars cannot certainly have been in use much later than his time. Sefrid II. only made the repairs above mentioned, with the exception of the vaulting and the space between the altar screen, and the entrance into the lady chapel, by which space it is easy to perceive the cathedral has been lengthened with work, the style of which goes farther into the thirteenth century: in this part the arches of the lower triforium are gorgeously ornamented with different devices, and the upper windows, which, as before mentioned, are circular throughout the rest of the church, are here pointed. These repairs and the additional buildings we may therefore infer, were carried on by bishop Aquila (a prelate of great private possessions, and of a noble family in this county), and completed by bishop Poore, who was the greatest builder of his age, and whose munificence is conspicuous in his having laid the foundation of the magnificent church of Salisbury, which he was only prevented from completing by his speedy translation to Durham, a circumstance which took place in the year 1218. He CHICHESTER. had procured the pope's bull to remove the cathedral from Old Sarum to the Vale, at which time he erected a wooden chapel, and consecrated three altars for the performance of divine service, until the completion of the church. The dedication of the church by Seffrid, taken notice of in the Annals of Winchester, does not militate against the assertion, that the repairs were not finished by him; for if bishop Ralph died without dedicating the church, which as above mentioned he probably did, it may be supposed that Seffrid dedicated it as soon as some part of it was sufficiently finished to admit of the performance of service in it. No subsequent alterations have taken place in the church, excepting the insertion of the large west window and those in the north and south transcepts; the latter of these, which is certainly for elegance of tracery and justness of proportion equal to any window in England, was erected by bishop Langton, early in the fourteenth century; it is justly styled in the table of the bishops, erected by bishop Shurborne, "Magnam, et sumptuosam fenestram, australem, ecclesiæ Cicestrensis; and indeed bishop Langton expended the sum of £310 in erecting and glazing this window with painted glass, which remained unhurt till destroyed by the fanatics in the great rebellion. The same venerable prelate built the bishop's chapter-house, and gave £100 towards the repairs of the church, part of which it is probable was employed in the erection of the opposite window in the north transcept, which is of the CHICHESTER. same dimensions, but more simple in its tracery. This bishop was archdeacon of Canterbury, treasurer of Wells, canon of York and Lincoln, prebendary of this church, with other preferments. In the year 1293 he was made lord chancellor of England by Edward I. and in the year 1305 consecrated bishop of this see; being a person of extraordinary prudence, in the year 1310 he was appointed to be one of those whose business was to be near the person of Edward II. to advise him concerning the government of his kingdom and of himself He died 19th of July 1377, having sat here thirty-three years; he lies buried beneath the great window which he built in the south transcept; his tomb was richly ornamented, and though much defaced, still retains some traces of its former elegance and beauty. It is remarkable that his figure has a horse at its feet; a lion or a dog is more generally placed in that situation. Bishop Gilbert de Saneto Leofardo built and endowed the lady chapel at the east end of the cathedral; it is a beautiful building, but much injured by the filling up of its east window, which greatly disfigures the view of the cathedral at that end. This chapel is now elegantly and appropriately fitted up with bookcases, which contain a great number of valuable and useful books. Beneath it is the vault of the Richmond family, whose banners are suspended over the entrance, on the north side of which is a black marble tomb, with a mitre and crosier carved on the top, and the words RADVLPHUS |