s of auburn hair forming a plait about eighteen inches long. It was
in perfect condition and looked as if the skull had only recently been
removed from it. Why the hair and the block on which it lay should alone
have been preserved is sufficiently mysterious; but there are other
problems difficult of solution connected with this relic; it was found
beneath a mass of concrete and rubbish; moreover the coffin lay partly
beneath one of the piers of the main arcading of the nave, and was not
placed in the usual direction, east and west, but the head was turned
towards the north-west. This leads one to suppose that this coffin was
originally buried in one of the earlier churches, and may have been
somewhat disturbed from its original position at the time when the Norman
church was built. Anyhow, it is strange that we should be able to look on
that tress of golden hair probably belonging to some young damsel of high
degree, one akin, it may be, to the royal house of Wessex, who was being
educated at this Saxon nunnery so many centuries ago.

This relic was at one time left exposed, but as it was thought that the
hair was shrinking and losing its colour, it was covered with glass and
kept in a locked wooden case.

Here, too, may be seen several coins, including a "long cross" silver
penny, not earlier than the second half of the thirteenth century, which
was dug up in the churchyard; a ball probably discharged from a
Parliamentary culverin which was found embedded in the north face of the
tower; a clumsy pair of forceps which were used for extracting the teeth
of nuns suffering from toothache; a mason's punch found under the floor of
the destroyed Lady Chapel, and a Roman spearhead found at Greatbridge, a
short distance to the north of the town.

But among many precious relics, one recently recovered for the church is
of the greatest interest, namely, the Romsey Psalter.

This is a small octavo manuscript containing thirty pages of vellum
measuring 6.9 by 4.7 inches, each page containing as a rule twenty-two
lines. The approximate date is probably about the middle of the fifteenth
century. This is arrived at partly from the character of the writing, and
partly from the fact that the Kalendar in it contains no mention of the
Feast of the Visitation of the Virgin on 2nd July, a feast which was
ordered to be used by the convocation of the province of Canterbury in
1480. Hence it would seem that this Psalter with its Kalendar mu