and disturbed the people at
their devotions. Strong measures were necessary, and the bishop
ordered the market to be held at some distance from the church, while
at the same time, as an act of grace, he remitted the tolls that were
due to him as lord of the manor. Thus did he lay the foundation of the
liberties of Wells city while securing the sanctity of Wells
Cathedral.

According to Bishop Godwin (1616), and the anonymous fifteenth century
MSS., called in Wharton's _Anglia Sacra_ the "Canon of Wells," there
was a blank in the history of the church between Bishop Robert, who
consecrated the Norman building in 1148, and Bishop Jocelin, whose
episcopate lasted from 1206 to 1242. Godwin, who exaggerated a passage
from the "Canon of Wells" (which that writer had produced by
exaggerating a single sentence of a preamble of Jocelin, p. 7),
declared that Jocelin found the church "as ready to fall," and "pulled
down the greatest part of it, to witte, the west ende, and built it
anew from the very foundation." This became the accepted view. But the
documents recently brought to light through the labours of those who
unearthed and deciphered the MSS. in possession of the chapter, have
proved that the energetic Bishop Reginald, so far from letting the
church go into ruin during his episcopate (1174-1191), did in reality
rebuild it himself. Much travelled, conversant with all kinds of
churches and cities in an age of great building operations, he was not
the sort of man to neglect his cathedral. And, as a matter of fact, he
is proved to have begun the present church by a charter recently
found, which is of a date prior to 1180, and therefore belongs to the
early years of his episcopate. In this important document, recognising
his duty to provide "that the honour due to God should not be
tarnished by the squalor of His house," he arranges in full chapter
for a munificent grant in support of the fabric, until the work be
finished[1]. Another charter of Reginald's time, which conveys a
private gift to the church, alludes to "the admirable structure of the
rising church," thus testifying to the successful progress of the
bishop's plan during his own lifetime. The part which he built, there
can be little doubt, included the three western bays of the choir
(which then formed the presbytery), the transepts, north porch, and
the eastern bays of the nave. That is to say, on entering the church
one is looking upon Reginald's work, and not