THE CATHEDRAL
In 1075 the Council of London decreed that seats
of bishops in villages should be transferred to cities,
and in pursuance thereof the united See of Sherborne and Ramsbury was removed to Old Salisbury.
William of Malmesbury, who records the transfer,
evidently thought it an odd way of complying with
the decree, for he adds that Salisbury is a castle
rather than a city, an unknown place, surrounded by
no small wall, where water was so scarce that it was
bought and sold there. (fn. 1) If he had written after a
century's experience by the canons of that hill-top
he might have had more to say about the chosen
'city'.
Bishop Herman, who transferred the see, began
(inchoata) to build his new church inside the castle, (fn. 2)
that is to say, inside the outer defences; but he died
before its dedication. (fn. 3) His successor Osmund
(1078) finished the church. In 1091 he executed his
foundation charter, declaring that he had built a
church at Sarisberiensem, and set canons therein,
granting to them (inter alia) the church of Salisbury,
with tithes and appurtenances there, and 2½ hides
in the said vill and 6½ hides in Stratford, and before
the castle gate land on each side of the road for the
needs of the canons' gardens and dwellings. (fn. 4)
In 1092, only five days after Osmund had consecrated the new church, a storm destroyed the roof
of the tower. (fn. 5) Bishop Osmund died in 1099, and a
stone, bearing that date, which is thought to have
been placed over his grave in his own cathedral, is
now in Salisbury cathedral.
A great rebuilding programme was undertaken by
Roger of Salisbury, the king's chancellor, who was
nominated bishop in 1102 and consecrated in 1107.
'He built anew the church of Salisbury, and beautified it in such a manner that it yields to none in
England, but surpasses many, so that he had just
cause to say "Lord, I have loved the glory of thy
house".' (fn. 6) Later he fell into disgrace with King
Stephen, and was compelled to surrender his castles
to him. He returned to Salisbury to die, and as he
was breathing his last sigh, the residue of his money
and utensils, which he had placed upon the altar for
the purpose of completing the church, was carried
off. (fn. 7) Osmund's remains were removed to the new
cathedral in 1226. (fn. 8)
The episcopates of Jocelin de Bohun (1142–84)
and Hubert Walter (1189–93) were not, it seems,
important in the history of the cathedral church of
Old Salisbury, but those of their successors were
memorable. Herbert Poore had been an administrator of the see in 1185–8, and he became bishop in
1194. His brother Richard became dean in 1199,
and was later to succeed him in the see. It was during
their joint tenure at Salisbury that the idea was
conceived of removing the church and see from the
castle to a more convenient site elsewhere. As the
bishop already held the meadow by the river and
had the settlements there that were collectively
known as veteres Sarisberias, (fn. 9) it was natural that
this was the site to which minds turned. The plans
for the church and the canons' houses were mapped
out, and the planners could hardly have been blind
to the commercial advantages of the site, enhanced
perhaps by a bridge at Harnham. According to the
writer of the Osmund Register, King Richard I gave
his sanction to the plan, and the scribe blames
Bishop Poore for failure to implement it: he likens
him to the children of Ephraim, who, 'being harnessed and carrying bows, turned themselves back
in the day of battle'. (fn. 10) But he acknowledges that
there were difficulties; and the troubles of Richard's
reign were followed by worse in that of rex
crudelissimus, King John.
King John died in 1216, and Bishop Herbert
Poore early in 1217. Probably before the bishop
died the dean and canons had appealed to the Pope,
hoping that a weak government during a royal
minority would not obstruct the great design. In
April 1217 the Pope issued a mandate to the papal
legate to inquire into the petition of the dean and
canons. Their complaint fell under two main heads.
In the first place the complainants alleged that they
were restricted and incommoded at every turn by
their proximity to the garrison; in the second, that
they suffered cruelly from the extremes of climate,
wind, and drought to which their hill-top site
exposed them. (fn. 11)
After due inquiry the bull authorizing the transfer
was issued on 29 March 1219, and a churchyard
was at once consecrated and a wooden chapel provided on the new site. (fn. 12) Peter of Blois, who had
previously likened the cathedral on its old site to
'the ark of God shut up in the temple of Baal', (fn. 13)
extolled the new site for its natural beauty and
resources and for providing freedom from oppression. (fn. 14)
The traditional account of the transfer, recorded
long afterwards, contains a number of palpable
errors. The material passage tells that at rogation
one year all the canons with their attendants went
in procession from the close of the church of Salisbury to the church of St. Martin, and when the
rogation office was completed they returned to the
castle, but the king's officers denied them admission.
The story of the bishop's intercession with the king,
who gave leave to go to the Pope to ask permission
to build the church, may be a memory of the permission for the removal given to Bishop Herbert
Poore by Richard I shortly before his death. (fn. 15)
The abandonment of the old church seems to
have had an effect something like escheat, and the
king dealt with the cathedral fabric and the ecclesiastical settlement as if it were his own. In 1230 it was
ordered that the hall that had belonged to the bishop
should be repaired. (fn. 16) Probably little was done, for
in 1237 the bishop's hall and domestic buildings
were ordered to be taken down and the materials
used or stored for repair of the king's buildings in
the castle, saving the chapel that belonged to the
bishop within the enclosure of his houses there. (fn. 17)
The walls of the cathedral itself were left standing
until 1276, when Edward I granted them to the dean
and chapter; (fn. 18) though in 1291 the sheriff was told
to deliver the stones of the cellar, which was the old
treasury of the great church in the old castle, to the
Friars Minor in Salisbury. (fn. 19) What was left of the
cathedral and of the canons' houses in 1317 was
asked for by the bishop, (fn. 20) and by 1331 had been
granted to the bishop and chapter to build a chapel
within the castle. (fn. 21) About this time (1328) Bishop
Wyville began to build the Close wall at Salisbury,
and the carved stone and builders' marks to be seen
there indicate that the stone came from Old Salisbury. (fn. 22) When Leland visited Old Salisbury no
tokens of the church and palace remained, (fn. 23) with
the possible exception of the Lady Chapel. (fn. 24)
Tokens, however, remained underground, and
the foundations of the church and adjoining buildings were brought to light in the excavations of
1909–14. They were found in the north-west quarter
of the defended enclosure, which was marked off
from the rest of it by cross banks to the east and
south. The plans of both the earlier church of St.
Osmund and the later of Bishop Roger have been
discovered. The earlier had an apsidal east end,
north and south transepts with eastern apses, and
aisles throughout the whole length. (fn. 25) The later had
a square east end with three eastern chapels extending beyond its predecessor, transepts with eastern
and western aisles, and it incorporated the aisles and
nave of Osmund's church with an additional length
to the west. To the north of the north aisle was a
crypt, with a cloister to the north of the choir;
beyond it was the bishop's house, which included a
large aisled hall. Sir Alfred Clapham concluded that
the earlier church had no central tower, but he
inferred from the unusual thickness of the walls
between the transepts and the body of the church
that the church was designed to have transeptal
towers. He points out that the only other Romanesque church in England which has transeptal
towers is Exeter Cathedral, which may have been
inspired by Old Salisbury, and he adds that the
scheme is so far unknown in Normandy, and must
have come from farther afield. (fn. 26)