[106] The words of the Historiola, p. 24, are, "Porro non est oblivioni tradendum quod ecclesia Welliæ suo consilio fabricata est et auxilio." The Canon (561) says only, "Multas ruinas ejusdem ecclesiæ destructiones ejus in locis pluribus comminantes egregie reparavit."
[107] "Ecclesiam sedis meæ perspiciens esse mediocrem," he says in the Historiola, p. 16.
[108] The consecration and the presence of the three Bishops is mentioned both in the Historiola and by the Canon.
[109] William of Malmesbury, writing not very long before Robert's time, says of the church of Eadward at Westminster (ii. 228), "Quam ipse illo compositionis genere primus in Angliâ ædificaverat quod nunc pene cuncti sumptuosis æmulantur expensis." Matthew Paris (2), evidently copying this, alters the tense, because in his day another style of architecture had come in. His words are, "Quam ipse novo compositionis genere construxerat, a quâ post multi ecclesias construentes, exemplum adepti, opus illud expensis æmulabantur sumptuosis."
[110] The Canon of Wells (Angl. Sacr. i. 562) says of him, "Multas præbendas in ecclesiâ Wellensi fundavit de novo, multaque alia bona fecit tam Bathoniensi quam Wellensi ecclesiis." He mentions also his gift of the manor of North Curry and other lands to the Chapter, and speaks of him as granting the first municipal rights to the citizens of Wells, a point which I must leave to Mr. Serel.
[111] See Mr. Stubbs' account of Savaric in the Gentleman's Magazine for November 1863, p. 621, and Mr. Green's notice in the Transactions of the Somersetshire Archæological and Natural History Society for 1863, p. 39.
[112] The whole history is given at length by Adam of Domersham, a monk of Glastonbury, in Anglia Sacra, i. 578.
[113] See Anglia Sacra, i. 579. The Dean was Alexander, the third Dean.
[114] See the disputes about the "advocatio" or "patronatus" of the Abbey in Anglia Sacra, i. 584, and the correspondence between Bishop Beckington and Abbot Frome, translated by Mr. George Williams in the Somersetshire Proceedings, 1863, p. 17. On the terms of the composition see pp. 564, 585.