; and (5) the very excellent
series of Handbooks to the Cathedrals originated by the late Mr John
Murray; to which the reader may in most cases be referred for fuller
detail, especially in reference to the histories of the respective
sees.

GLEESON WHITE,
E.F. STRANGE,
_Editors of the Series_

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

The writer about cathedrals nowadays is one who, reaping where he has
not sown, and gathering where he has not strawed, is indebted for most
that he says to the patient labours of other and wiser men. Nowhere
does one feel this more than at Wells. The admirable Somerset
Archaeological Society has gone on accumulating information about the
cathedral for more years than the present writer has lived. Professor
Freeman produced twenty-eight years ago, in his "History of the
Cathedral Church of Wells," a little book which has since been a model
for all works of the kind, and of which one can still say that no one
can understand all that is contained in the word "cathedral" unless he
has read it. Yet since that book was written much fresh material has
been discovered, and the theories then held as to the building of the
cathedral have been in great measure disproved. To Canon C.M. Church,
in his "Chapters in the Early History of Wells," and his papers read
before the Somerset Society, we are indebted for most valuable
statements of the new historical discoveries, and to his untiring
kindness I am myself beholden to a greater extent than I can express.

Wells so abounds in interesting detail, that the exigencies of space
have made it necessary to curtail the last chapter, which contains the
history of the diocese; a good deal of interesting matter has thus
been cut from my original MS. of this chapter, and many bishops have
been dismissed more summarily than they deserve. The need of dealing
properly with the cathedral itself must be my apology for the baldness
of this last chapter as it now stands. Those who desire a further
acquaintance with the history of the diocese cannot do better than
consult Mr Hunt's "Bath and Wells," in the excellent Diocesan
Histories series of the Society for the Promotion of Christian
Knowledge.

To many other writers on the Cathedral Church of Wells,
acknowledgments and references will be found scattered throughout the
present volume. I must also express my thanks to Mr Philips, an