The site of old Sarum--Searobyrig, the dry city, as the Saxons called it--is about a mile to the north of the present New Sarum, or Salisbury, to use the more familiar name. It was probably a fortified place from very early times, long before it became the Roman station of Sorbiodunum. William of Malmesbury says that "the town was more like a castle than a city, being environed with a high wall, and notwithstanding that it was very well accommodated with other conveniences, yet such was the want of water that it sold at a great rate." This latter statement, although repeated by every chronicler, is not supported by investigations of recent explorers, who found an ample supply in divers wells. Francis Price concludes that "it was frequented by Roman Emperors from the coins of Constantine, Constans Magnentius, Crispus, and Claudius, being found frequently among its ruins." This statement also lacks probability. A legend of the visit of a single emperor might have been barely credible; but the lavish variety the otherwise trustworthy historian offers is fatal to one's belief. Its early history, more or less legendary, need not be chronicled here. Probably Kenric the Saxon, who captured it in 553, lived there, and it seems to have been kept in his line until Egbert united the whole Heptarchy. King Alfred ordered Leofric, Earl of Wiltunscire, to add to its fortifications, which appear to have fallen into decay after the Romans held it. In 1003 Svein, King of Denmark, pillaged and burnt it, but the religious establishments if not spared were soon re-established, for we find that Editha, Queen of AEdward the Confessor, conveyed the lands of Shorstan to the nuns of St. Mary, Sarum. At this time it appears to have possessed a mint, as a coin of AEdward the Confessor bears an inscription showing that it was struck by Godred at Sarum. From the time of St. Aldhelm, in 705, to that of Herman, in 1058, there are no other facts of its secular history sufficiently pertinent to our purpose to warrant their quotation here, as the record of the place is so woven into the lives of its bishops, that the brief summary of the ecclesiastics who held the see includes all we need of the history of the city. In this kingdom within a kingdom, a cathedral surrounded by a fortress, its inhabitants were naturally split into factions; the soldiers and the clergy failed to agree, and in spite of the document quoted below, there is little doubt that political rather than climatic reasons led to the removal of the cathedral. Whether, as some writers think, it was but an insignificant structure, it is certainly recorded that the church erected by Osmund took fifteen years to build. Five days after its consecration, on April 5th, 1092, it was partially destroyed by a thunderstorm. We find in Robert of Gloucester's "Chronicle" (Hearnes ed., p. 416) this allusion to the disaster: