Wells Cathedral, on the whole, is distinguished for a dignified but rich simplicity, arising from its plain large surfaces, mingled and edged here and there with fine-cut and elegant ornamentation.  The court and buildings of the Wells Theological College have a thoroughly quaint, old-fashioned look, quiet, rigid, and medieval; as if the students reared there could not but be Churchmen of the “Brother Ignatius” stamp, gentlemen, scholars, and—­priests.  I can not leave Wells without speaking of the two splendid “cedars of Lebanon” standing in the environs of the church.  They are not very tall, but they sweep the ground majestically, and grow in a series of broad, heavy masses of foliage, gracefully undulating in their outline.

Bury st. Edmunds [Footnote:  From “The Abbeys of Great Britain.”]

BY H. CLAIBORNE DIXON

The history of the Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds, altho veiled in much legendary and mythical lore, tells, nevertheless, in its actual history of the progress of civilization and of the enlightenment of the human mind.  Sigberet, King of the East Angles, is said to have founded the first monastery at Beodericsworth (a town known to the Romans, ancient Britains, Saxons, and Danes), and to have subsequently laid aside his royal dignity by joining the brotherhood which he had established.  Following his example of religious devotion, Edmund, last King of the Angles, sacrificed not only his crown but his life in defense of the Christian faith, for he was beheaded by the Danes at Eglesdene in 870....

His head was cast into a forest, and, as the story goes, was miraculously discovered and found to be guarded by a wolf.  It was then buried with the body at the village of Hoxne, where it remained until 903.  In this year, “the precious, undefiled, uncorrupted body of the glorious king and martyr” was translated to the care of the secular priests at Beodericsworth, since when the town has been called St. Edmundsbury, in memory of the sainted monarch.  Other wonderful traditions are associated with the shrine of St. Edmund.  Sweyn, the violent Danish king, coming in hot pursuit of a woman who had claimed sanctuary, was miraculously killed by an imaginary spear which came out of the shrine when he was about to seize the woman who was clinging to its side.  Bishop Herfastus, too, was struck blind, when on a visit to the abbot, in the attempt to establish his new see in the monastical demesne, and afterward miraculously healed.  For centuries the highest in the land brought gifts and laid them before the venerated shrine.

Canute was the actual founder of the monastery proper, for in the eleventh century he brought over Benedictine monks from Hulm, granting them a charter and many benefactions.  The monastery yearly became more prosperous, and, with the exception of Glastonbury, exceeded in magnificence and privileges all other ecclestiastical establishments in the country.  In the height of its glory it must have been a most beautiful and dignified structure.  Leland writes: