nts which have come down to us are as varied as might be
expected, the chroniclers of the one party, of course, blaming the other
side; it seems, however, to have been proved "that, after all, the
church was burnt by that accursed prior"; but many of the citizens were
hung, drawn and quartered, and the city had to pay in all 3000 marks
towards repairing the church and monastical buildings, and to provide a
gold pyx, weighing ten pounds, of gold; the monks in their turn had to
make new gates and entrances into the precincts. The St. Ethelbert's
Gate-house was part of the work imposed on the monks; it is of early
Decorated character and was erected probably early in the fourteenth
century.

Bishop Roger de Skerning had died in retirement on the 22nd of January
1277, and in the meantime the work of reparation had proceeded with such
vigour that on Advent Sunday 1278 his successor, Bishop Middleton, was
inaugurated with great state; Edward I. and his Queen with the Bishops
of London, Hereford, and Waterford being present. He does not seem to
have done much in the way of building, though the work of reparation was
carried on; he died in 1287, and it was left to his successor, Bishop
Ralph de Walpole, to begin the work of rebuilding the cloisters. The
original Norman cloisters, which had endured until the time of the great
fire in 1272, were probably of wood. It was determined to rebuild them
in stone in the prevailing style. The cloisters are described in more
detail in the notes on the interior of the cathedral, so that it will be
sufficient to state here that their building spread over a period of one
hundred and thirty-three years, and that they were finished during the
episcopate of Bishop Alnwick.

[Illustration: West Front of the Cathedral in 1816.]

Bishop Walpole built the eastern walk of the cloisters, together with
the chapter-house; he was translated to Ely about 1299, and the work
carried on by his successor, Bishop Salmon, who built the south walk,
also a chapel and hall attached to the bishop's palace. Of this nothing
remains in the garden of the palace except a grand ruin, which is
supposed to have formed the entrance or porch to the hall.

He founded also the chapel dedicated to St. John the Evangelist,
converted by Edward VI. into, and now used as, a grammar school; below
it was a charnel-house.

Continuing the history of the fabric, we can pass on to the episcopate
of Bishop Percy, during which, about