ter, keeping essentially the same name under all
changes, stands distinguished as the one great city which has, in a more
marked way than any other, kept its unbroken being and its unbroken
position throughout all ages." But though Whitaker asserts that in the
middle of the fifth century it was the seat of a bishop, Professor
Freeman, with more authority, declares that the city did not become a
bishop's see till the latter half of the eleventh century, at which
period the bishopstools were removed from the small to the great towns.
Until 703 A.D. Devonshire formed part of the vast diocese of Wessex.
About the year 900 A.D. the diocese of Devon and Cornwall was divided
into two--the former with its bishop's seat at Crediton--only to be
reunited again a hundred and fifty years later when Leofric was
appointed bishop.

The first record of a church dedicated to SS. Mary and Peter in Exeter,
is that of an abbey church founded by Athelstan. But Sweyn destroyed it
seventy years later, and it seems frequently to have been attacked by
invaders previous to its destruction. But in 1019 Canute endowed a new
church and confirmed by charter their lands and privileges to the monks.
This building must have been of some pretensions, for it was given to
Leofric for his cathedral church in 1050. It occupied the site of the
present Lady Chapel. When Warelwast and Marshall built their Norman
church they placed it on the east of the old church, leaving an
intervening space. Their nave occupied the site of the present nave, the
transeptal towers were the same, but the choir was shorter and probably
terminated in an apse flanked by smaller apses at the ends of the choir
aisles. Traces of one of these have been found at the end of the third
bay of the north choir aisle. Bronscombe and Quivil (see p. 5) began
their reconstruction at this end, and by adding the ambulatory and Lady
Chapel linked together the sites of the old and new churches.

With the episcopate of Leofric, Exeter first assumes the rank of a
cathedral city. The sees of Devon and Cornwall had been held together by
Lyfing, the last bishop of Crediton. But Crediton, an unfortified
"vill," was an easy prey to the Irish, Danes, and other pirates, who
devastated the diocese from time to time. Leofric felt the urgent
necessity for a change, and fixed on the walled town of Exeter to be his
cathedral city. He sent a clerk to the pope asking him to write to the
king recommending the chang