in it during the Danish invasions, before it was carried to Bury St. Edmunds by Cnut for burial.  It shared the decay of the cathedral, and in the last days it was repaired, as was the west end, by Inigo Jones in his own style, as will be seen by the illustrations.  Of the tombs and chantries which had by this time been set up, it will be more convenient to speak hereafter, as also of the deanery, which Dean Ralph de Diceto (d. 1283) built on its present site.

Before the end of the thirteenth century Old St. Paul’s was complete.  In the first quarter of the fourteenth century, a handsome marble pavement, “which cost 5d. a foot,” was laid down over “the New Work,” eastward, and the spire, which, being of lead over timber, was in a dangerous condition, was taken down and a very fine one set in its place, surmounted by a cross and a gilt pommel[3] large enough to contain ten bushels of corn.  Bishop Gilbert Segrave (who had previously been precentor of the cathedral, and was bishop from 1313 to 1317) came to the dedication.  “There was a great and solemn procession and relics of saints were placed within” (Dugdale).  But the following extract from a chronicle in the Lambeth library is worth quoting:  “On the tenth of the calends of June, 1314, Gilbert, Bishop of London, dedicated altars, namely, those of the Blessed Virgin Mary, of St. Thomas the Martyr, and of the Blessed Dunstan, in the new buildings of the Church of St. Paul, London.  In the same year the cross and the ball, with great part of the campanile, of the Church of St. Paul were taken down because they were decayed and dangerous, and a new cross, with a ball well gilt, was erected; and many relics of divers saints were for the protection of the aforesaid campanile and of the whole structure beneath, placed within the cross, with a great procession, and with due solemnity, by Gilbert the bishop, on the fourth of the nones of October; in order that the Omnipotent God and the glorious merits of His saints, whose relics are contained within the cross, might deign to protect it from all danger of storms.  Of whose pity twenty-seven years and one hundred and fifty days of indulgence, at any time of the year, are granted to those who assist in completing the fabric of the aforesaid church.”

[Illustration:  A BISHOP PLACING RELICS IN AN ALTAR. From a Pontifical of the Fourteenth Century.  British Museum, Lans. 451.]

[Illustration:  A PAPAL LEGATE. From the Decretals of Boniface VIII.  British Museum, 23923.]

In the Bodleian Library there is an inventory of these relics, amongst them part of the wood of the cross, a stone of the Holy Sepulchre, a stone from the spot of the Ascension, and some bones of the eleven thousand virgins of Cologne.

The high altar was renewed in 1309 under an indented covenant between Bishop Baldock and a citizen named Richard Pickerill.  “A beautiful tablet was set thereon, variously adorned with many precious stones and enamelled work; as also with divers images of metal; which tablet stood betwixt two columns, within a frame of wood to cover it, richly set out with curious pictures, the charge whereof amounted to two hundred marks.”