ently dedicated in 1130, by the Archbishop
William de Corbeuil assisted by thirteen bishops, but one authority
gives 1133 as the date. In "The history and antiquities of Rochester"[3]
we read: "The city was honoured with a royal visit in the year 1130,
when Henry I., the Archbishop of Canterbury, and many of the nobility
were present at the consecration of St. Andrew's Church, then just
finished: but their mirth was turned into sorrow, by their being
mournful spectators of a dreadful conflagration which broke out on the
7th of May, and, without any regard to the majesty of the king, grandeur
of the church, or solemnity of the occasion, laid the city in ashes and
much damaged the new church." The Chronicle says, as to the extent of
the damage done by this fire, "Civitas pene tota conflagravit."

[3] Anonymous, but probably by the Rev. S. Denne and W. Shrubsole.
Published in 1772; second edition, 1817.

The Rochester chronicler, Edmund de Hadenham, records two great fires
under the years 1138 and 1177; Gervase also mentions these, but gives
their dates as 1137 and 1179. The exact extent of the damage and
consequent repairs is not known in the case of either. It would seem
from Edmund de Hadenham's account of the earlier, that, in it, the
offices suffered most; and he speaks of their restoration under Bishop
Ascelin. We read that the monks had to find other quarters, for a time,
for many of their number whom it had rendered homeless. Gervase says of
the same fire, "combusta est Ecclesia S. Andreae Roffensis et tota
civitas cum officinis Episcopi et monachorum," and of the later one that
in it the church, with the offices, was burnt and reduced to a cinder.

Lambarde, staunch Protestant as he was, saw in these fires a token of
God's disapproval of such monastic institutions. After telling of the
foundation by Gundulf, he continues, "but God (who moderating all things
by his divine providence, shewed himselfe alwaies a severe visitour of
these irreligious Synagogues) God (I say) set fire on this building
twise within the compasse of one hundreth yeeres after the erection of
the same." He then goes on to attribute the quarrels between Bishop
Gilbert de Glanvill and the monks, and the church's losses through
these, and its spoliation by King John's troops, to the same divine
judgment. His book contains a great amount of accurate information, but
often, as here, and in his account, quoted above, of Gundulf's really
good a