tentative attempts to induce the Abbess of
Wilton to permit him to build his church in a meadow of her domain. An
old sewing-woman (_quaedam vetula filatrix_) is said to have
attributed his frequent visits to quite another motive; she inferred
that the Bishop had a papal dispensation to marry, and was a suitor
for the hand of the Abbess. The negotiations failed: "Hath not the
Bishop land of his own that he must needs spoil the Abbess? Verily he
hath many more sites on which he may build his church than this at
Wilton," was the reply of the Abbess to his demand. During his period
of indecision the Virgin appeared to him in a vision, and commanded
him to build his new church in a place called Myr-field, or, as some
accounts have it, Maer-field. He searched vainly for a piece of ground
by that name, that he might obey the supernatural edict, until by
chance he overheard a labourer (or a soldier, the legends vary,)
talking of the Maer-field, and then having, as he thought, identified
the place, which appears to have been within his own demesne, he
commenced to plan the present building. Another tradition ignores the
dream, and says the site of the cathedral was determined by an arrow
shot from the ramparts of Old Sarum.

Misled by the similarity of sound, the name Maer-field has been,
naturally enough, interpreted to mean Mary-field. The apparently
obvious form "Miry-field,"--as, according to Leland, it appears on an
old inscription,--in spite of the marshy nature of the site, is
probably a mere coincidence. Nor is Thomas Fuller's "Merry-field, for
the pleasant situation thereof," better worth attention. The generally
accepted theory at present is that _maer_, the Anglo-Saxon word for a
boundary, supplies the clue. A hamlet, Marton, near Bedwin, another of
the same name now corrupted to Martin, near Damerham, might each be
truly described as boundary-towns. In Wiltshire to-day 'mere-stone' is
the local idiom for a boundary-stone. Mere is alike the name of a
hundred and of a parish in Wilts, both near its borders. The site of
the present cathedral is at the junction of three ancient
hundreds--Underditch, Alderbury, and Cawdon--the south-east wall of
the close being the boundary line which divides the cathedral
precincts from Cawdon.

Not only from the fact that the site was given by the bishop may we
infer that the Poores were a wealthy family; but his brother Herbert,
who was his immediate predecessor in the see, is descr