il 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 L26,666 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