s chain-bridge had not yet been dreamt of. Still, the church, alike
in its fabric and its constitution, may be looked on as having by this
time been brought to perfection ... The nave, recast in forms of art
such as Ina and Eadward, such as Gisa and Robert, had never dreamed
of, with the long range of its arcades and the soaring sweep of its
newly-vaulted roof, stood, perfect from western door to rood-loft,
ever ready, ever open, to welcome worshippers from city and village,
from hill and combe and moor, in every corner of the land which looked
to Saint Andrew's as its mother church. The choir, the stalls of the
canons, the throne of the Bishop, were still confined within the
narrow space of the crossing; but that narrow space itself gave them a
dignity which they lost in later arrangements. For the central
lantern, not yet driven to lean on ungainly props, with the rich
arcades of its upper stages still open to view, still rose, in all the
simple majesty of its four mighty arches, as the noblest of canopies
over the choir below."

"The eastern ending of the presbytery was," Mr Freeman proceeds, "rich
with the best detail of the thirteenth century, as can be learnt from
the fragments built up in the chapel of the Vicars' Close, and lying
about in the undercroft of the chapter-house, which are in the full
Early English style of the west front. The existing choir aisle walls
prove that a procession-path ran behind the high altar, with most
likely a chapel beyond it."

"The thirteenth century," he concludes, "had done its great creative
work, and had left to future ages only to improve and develop
according to the principles which the thirteenth century had laid
down. That is to say, the thirteenth century had done for the local
church of Wells what it did for England, what it did for Europe, and
for the world."

The choir, however, was not so cramped as Mr Freeman thought, for it
included one bay of the nave, as we now know from a notice of the
making of Haselshaw's tomb, which was dug at the entrance to the
choir; and, indeed, the marks where the screen was fixed are still
visible on the piers at this point. From the top of the screen the
great rood looked down the nave, and on each side of the doorway stood
an altar, that on the north dedicated to Our Lady, that on the south
to St. Andrew. The aisles of the choir were also screened off from the
nave, and outside their gates were two more altars--St. Saviour's on
the