The church was denominated St. Catherine Cree, the word Cree being an ancient method of spelling the name of Christ, as pronounced by the French, and was added as being an adjunct of the conventual or Christ Church. A bell tower was built 1504, Lord Mayor Sir John Perceval having left money for that purpose. The present church was built 1630, and escaped the fire of 1666. It was at its dedication that Laud indulged in Popish ceremonials, which aroused the indignation of the Puritans, and assisted in paving the way of the Archbishop to the block. The churchyard of St. Catherine was a popular place for the performance of moralities and miracle plays, which took place on Sundays. There is an entry in the parish books—"Received of Hugh Grymes, for licence given to certain players to play their interludes in the churchyard from the feast of Easter An. D'ni. 1565, until the feast of St. Michael the Archangel, next coming, every holyday, to the use of the parish, 27s. 8d." Hans Holbein is supposed to have been buried in the church. The Priory had not been built twenty ears when it ran a great risk of being destroyed by the fire of 1136, second only to the great conflagration of 1666, which broke out near London stone, and destroyed the City westward to Clement's Danes, and eastward to Aldgate, the flames sweeping up to the walls of the Priory, northward to St. Paul's Cathedral, which was partially, or, as Matthew Paris states, entirely, consumed, and by London Bridge, which was of wood, and entirely burnt, into Southwark. Ralph the Prior, _circa_ 1145, with the consent of the Canons, exchanged a plot of land near the river, in the outer-soken, and "all the mills there in the shambles," with Maud, Stephen's queen, for land in Hertfordshire, where she built and endowed the Hospital of St. Katherine, which was repaired and enlarged by Queen Eleanor in 1273. It was removed to Regent's Park in the present century to make way for St. Katherine's Docks. King Henry II. having debased the coin of the realm, Stephen, the Prior, 1180, demanded £25 12s. 6d. from the city of Exeter, as the then value of the £25 per annum granted out of the city revenues. The citizens refused to pay the additional 12s. 6d., but were compelled by a mandate from the King. In the year 1215, when King John was at feud with his Barons, Matthew Paris informs us that, after the siege of Northampton, the Barons came, by way of Bedford and Ware, to London, entering the City by Aldgate, and that "as they passed along, they spoiled the Fryars' Houses and searched their coffers," on which occasion, doubtless, the Brethren of Holy Trinity, lying so near the gate, would have black-mail levied on them. At the same time they repaired the ruined gate and put it in a state of defence, obtaining the materials from the houses of the Jews.