"On the Nativity of our Lord following, the King and his justice Hubert de Burgh came to Sarum on the day of the Holy Innocents, and there the King offered one gold ring with a precious stone called a ruby, one piece of silk, and one gold cup of the weight of ten marks; and when the mass was celebrated the King told the dean that he would have that stone which he had offered and the gold of the ring applied to adorn the text which the justice had before given; and then the justice caused the text which he had given to be brought and offered with great devotion on the altar."
On the 10th of January, 1226, William Longespée, Earl of Salisbury, returned from Gascoigne, where he had resided twelve months with Richard, the King's brother, for the defence of Bordeaux (after three months on the channel between the Isle of Rhè and the coast of Cornwall, owing to the tempestuous weather, that so long delayed his landing), "and the said Earl came that day after nine o'clock to Sarum, where he was received with great joy, with a procession for the new fabric." The scandalous account of his death (as given by Stow), which occurred at the castle of Old Sarum, on the 7th of March in the same year, and the part played in the transaction by Hubert de Burgh cannot be told here, beyond the fact that the justice was strongly suspected of poisoning him. On the 8th of March, at the same hour of the day on which he had been received with great joy, he was brought to New Sarum with many tears and lamentations, and honourably buried in the new church of the Blessed Virgin. Matthew Paris gravely records that at his funeral, despite gusts of wind and rain, the candles furnished a continual light the whole of the way. Of all secular figures connected with this cathedral his is perhaps the most prominent, nor is his fame merely local. He was active in public affairs during the reign of King John, and one of the noticeable heroes in an expedition to the Holy Land in 1220, when, at the battle of Damietta, Matthew Paris tells us, he resisted the shock of the infidels like a wall. He fought both in Flanders and in France, was at his King's side at Runnymede, and a witness to Magna Charta—a copy of which famous charter, made probably for his special use, is still preserved in the cathedral library.
In 1226, on the Feast of the Holy Trinity, which was then the 18th day of the calends of July, the bodies of the three bishops, Jocelin, Roger, and Osmund (the latter not yet canonized), were brought from Old Sarum. Whether their tombs were also brought, is not said, nor is any mention made of Herman, who by popular report is credited with a monument in the cathedral.
A Charter of Henry III., dated 30th of January, 1227, gives certain powers to make new roads and bridges, to inclose the city of New Saresbury, to institute a fair from the Vigil of the Assumption of the Blessed Mary to the octave of the same feast, etc., etc. This development of the city, more especially by its roads and bridges, is held to have been fatal to the prosperity of Wilton, which from that time ceased to progress, and was over-shadowed by the now rapidly increasing New Sarum.
Bishop Poore was ably supported in his great undertaking by a group of notable men, among whom were: William de Wanda, the Dean, who threw his whole soul into the work, and traversed the diocese of London to collect alms in its behalf, besides leaving us most elaborate accounts of the various ceremonies; and the Precentor, Roger de Sarum, a man of some weight, who soon after became Bishop of Bath and Wells; Henry de Bishopston, a learned man and a scholar, should also be remembered, and, if Leland could be credited, we should need to add another member to this group, and find in Robert Hilcot, of Sarum, the author of the "Philobiblon" so generally attributed to Richard de Bury.
After Bishop Poore was translated to Durham, his three successors, Bishops Robert Bingham (1229-1246), William of York (1247-1256), and Giles of Bridport (1257-1262), continued the works of the new building with great energy. In 1258 it was consecrated—some accounts say by Bishop Giles of Bridport, "who covered the roof throughout with lead," but more probably by Boniface of Savoy, Archbishop of Canterbury. Henry III. and his queen were present at the consecration; and as indulgences of a year and forty days were offered to all who should be present during the octave of the dedication, vast crowds visited it. It was not entirely completed according to a note in a Book of Statutes, until 1266, and it has been said that with all our modern appliances we could hardly shorten the forty-six years it occupied. The cost of the whole building, according to ancient authority, was about 40,000 marks, equal to £26,666 13s. 4d., of the money of that day, and probably equivalent roughly to half a million in our own time. Among many benefactors, one, Lady Alicia Bruere, who according to Leland contributed the marble and stone for twelve years, deserves to be mentioned. The cloisters and chapter house were not commenced until the episcopate of Bishop Walter de la Wyle (1263-1271) and possibly not completed until some ten years later. From the will of Robert de Careville, the treasurer in 1267, we find that there were seven altars in the church at this date; he bequeathed seven pounds to provide fourteen silver phials (each bearing a representation of three keys) in order that each altar might have two. The erection of the spire, evidently not included in the original plan, is often erroneously assigned to Wyville (1336-1375), who certainly completed the wall of the close, and enlarged the cloisters. The King granted him a charter for this purpose, and also gave him the stones of the old Cathedral, many of which, with the Norman work upon them, may be seen plainly at the present time. (See [p. 22.])
It is interesting to note that not only is Salisbury the most complete example of its period in this country, but is also the first important building carried out entirely in the style we now know as early English. Henry III. is believed to have been so enthusiastic in his admiration of Bishop Poore's new Cathedral that he set about the rebuilding of Westminster Abbey, which was commenced in 1245 and completed in 1269, as far as the east end of the choir. The early English work at Salisbury has a certain poverty of detail when compared with Westminster, and the "Angel Choir" of Lincoln undoubtedly surpasses both; yet the effect of Salisbury has a character of its own and a purity in its ornament that is in itself a distinction. The Cathedral of Amiens, of exactly the same date, covers 71,000 square feet, Salisbury but 55,000; the vault of Amiens is 152 feet high, Salisbury only 85; but, as Fergusson observes in his "Handbook of Architecture," the fair mode of comparison is to ask whether the Cathedral of Amiens is finer than Salisbury would be if the latter were at least twice as large as it is.
There has long been a tradition that Elias de Dereham was the architect of this stately pile, and the information gathered together by the Rev. J.A. Bennet, in a paper read before the British Archæological Association at Salisbury on August 5th, 1887, certainly does much to strengthen the belief. From this account, and other sources, we find that Elias de Derham is first mentioned in the Rot. Chartarum, Ap. 6 (6 John, 1208)? where he is described as one of the King's clerks and Rector of Meauton. In 1206 he appears to have been a royal official. In 1209 he is reported to have been the architect for the repairs of King John's palace at Westminster. In 1212 he attached himself to the opposite party, but was taken again into the King's favour in the following year. We have specially interesting notice of his work in 1220, when he was engaged upon the shrine of St. Thomas at Canterbury. Matthew Paris, in his account of the translation of St. Thomas, distinctly states that the shrine was the work of that incomparable officer, Walter de Colchester, Sacrist of St. Albans, assisted by Elias de Dereham, Canon of Salisbury. Leland mentions, in an extract from an old "Martyrologie" of Salisbury, that he was rector—or director—of the new church for twenty-five years from the beginning, whether he means architect or clerk of the works is not so clear. His name, as one of the Canons of the Cathedral, occurs eleven times in the "Osmund Register" at Salisbury. There are also references to him in the "Book of Evidences" (Liber Evidentiarum) among the bishop's muniments, as the builder of the original Aula Plumbea—Leden-hall—a famous old house in the close. The document is entitled "Scriptura de domibus de Leden-hall per Eliam de Dereham sumptuose constructis," "a deed concerning the house called Leden-hall, built at great expense by Elias de Dereham." This residence house remained six centuries after in the gift of the Bishop of Sarum.
During the year in which he accompanied Bishop Poore in his translation to Durham, and from 1230 to 1238, he was employed upon some architectural work connected with Durham Cathedral, which, when Bishop Poore accepted it was a stately Norman fane with an apsidal choir; he removed this east end, and remodelled it in the early English manner. The chapel of the Nine Altars, as this portion is called, is remarkably similar in its details to much of the work at Salisbury. It is curious that two southern churches so near as Salisbury and Christchurch Priory should be found influencing or influenced by the great northern cathedral, but the likeness between Flambard's Norman work at Christchurch and the same bishop's work at Durham is as strongly marked as the Early English of Bishop Poore at both the churches in which he was enthroned. That Elias de Dereham is responsible for much of the work of both cathedrals is also a fair assumption. Curiously enough his name, hitherto hastily assumed to be equivalent to Elias of Durham, has probably no connection with that city; whether, however, his patronym should be traced to the Norfolk Dereham, or the Gloucester Dyrham, it is impossible to say with any certainty. On somewhat insufficient grounds it has been hazarded that his portrait may be found in a figure on the east side of the staircase buttress of what was formerly the great entrance to Wells Cathedral.
Owing to the fact that the original design of the building was fully carried out, with the addition of a tower and spire, its architectural history ceases just where most others begin their chequered career. At the time of the Reformation it suffered but little, except in the wholesale destruction of its stained glass. Dr. Pope, in his "Life of Bishop Ward," says that even during the Civil War, when it was abandoned, workmen were engaged to keep it in repair, who when questioned as to the authority by which they worked, said, "Those who employ'd us will pay us; trouble not your selves to inquire who they are. Whoever they are, they do not desire to have their names known." We find as evidence of the secret influence exerted in its behalf that when one of Waller's officers sent up to the Parliament certain plate and a pulpit cloth from Salisbury Cathedral, he was ordered to restore them, as it was considered that he had overstepped his commission; all that was retained being certain copes, hangings, and a picture of the Virgin.