sful, there seemed no reason to doubt but
that in the natural course of events it would remain for many
centuries a landmark to its neighbourhood and one of the greatest
triumphs of English mediaeval workmanship.[5] Richard de Farley, a
Wiltshire man, is supposed to have been the architect of the spire;
that his artistic instinct was right is evident to-day, but his
engineering foresight seems less certain, as in all probability the
settlement began almost immediately after the erection. Indeed it is
said that the efforts to obtain the canonization of Osmund were
started in 1387 to increase the popularity of the cathedral as a place
of pilgrimage, and thereby to augment its revenue, so that funds might
be forthcoming for the additional work needed to support the tower.
Frequent references to miracles at his shrine show that the saint was
popularly adored long before his canonization in 1456. A local
superstition says the tower was builded on woolpacks. According to
Pliny's account, the temple of Diana of Ephesus was made firm with
coats or fleeces of wool; but it is inconceivable that bags of wool
were employed in either case for the foundation. At Rouen in Normandy
a similar legend refers to butter as the foundation of one of the
western towers, which tradition, absurd though it be, supplies the
idea of a butter tax, which in turn suggests a wool tax, that in such
a district as this would have been naturally a profitable source of
revenue.

Probably because of the early trouble with the foundation of the great
tower, there was from the first no intention of making it a belfry.
Even before the spire was decided upon, the oscillation of a mass of
swaying bells was obviously too dangerous to be seriously considered.
A special campanile, as at Chichester, was therefore built at the
north-west corner of the close. Its style was evidently similar to
that of the cloisters and the chapter house. Multangular in form, an
early historian calls it, but the engravings still existing show it to
have been a somewhat ordinary specimen of Early English design. Its
special feature was a single central pillar of Purbeck marble that
supported the weight of the bells and belfry. The spire was doubtless
of wood, and, apparently, the upper lantern-like tower also.[6]
Although its destruction is not ordered in the official document
wherein the Chapter gave Wyatt authority to do so much mischief, on
some pretext, probably his craze for what h