came more and more immersed in politics, and found no time
to preside, while the Chapter would naturally raise no objection to
greater independence. What our French neighbours now call a _doyen_, a
senior from among the canons, took the bishop's vacant place, and
became dean.

John de Appleby, so late as 1364, dean by virtue of papal proviso, was
only allowed to summon the Chapter, and could not preside until he had
obtained a prebend by exchange. A hundred and fifty years later Colet
was a prebendary. I find no traces of archdeacons--London, Essex,
Middlesex, or Colchester--prior to the Conquest, but these eyes of the
bishop soon appear afterwards; and the Chanter becomes Precentor; the
Sacrist, or keeper of the plate, vestments, and other valuables,
becomes Treasurer; and the Master of the Schools, Chancellor. For the
sake of convenience looking forward a little, these changes, begun in
Norman times, were completed not long after.

=The Plantagenets.=--As in the tenth century and as in the eleventh,
that evil demon Fire for a third time, "three days before the
Christmas of 1136," partially destroyed, or at least seriously
injured, St. Paul's, during a conflagration which reached from London
Bridge to beyond the Fleet. In rebuilding, the then method was to
throw a coating of the more refined Romanesque of the day over the
older work;[8] and this is how I explain an obscure passage in
Pepys--"It is pretty here to see how the late church was but a case
wrought over the old church; for you may see the very old pillars
standing whole within the wall of this."[9] The old pillars of the
nave were restored, and furnished with graceful engaged columns, and
vaulting shafts rising from the ground. As the choir was afterwards
superseded by another, we cannot tell what was done to it.

We have now come to a time when it is impossible even to catalogue the
numerous stirring events which the cathedral witnessed. William
Fitzosbert the Longbeard, for thundering forth at PAUL'S
CROSS--where the citizens' folk-mote was wont to be held--against
tyranny and corruption in high quarters, suffered the extreme penalty.
But people in a higher position were soon to do the same. When John
and Innocent formed their strange alliance against the national
liberties, it was at St. Paul's that Stephen Langton produced the
Charter of Henry I. Here John publicly handed over his kingdom to the
Pope, and received it back as a vassal. Here came the cou