Cathedrals -- England; England -- Description and travel
Bishop Giso's opportunity came with the Conquest, when he was
reinstated. William, in his second year of reign, restored to the
Bishopric, with some small deduction, all Harold's estates. Giso
augmented the number of canons, and built a cloister, hall, and
dormitory, and enlarged and beautified the choir of the Cathedral. John
de Villula, his successor, swept away these buildings, and on their site
built a palace.
Villula's name in ecclesiastical history is closely associated with a
memorable event which caused considerable commotion and rivalry between
the inhabitants of Wells and Bath. He removed the See of the diocese to
Bath, and assumed the title of Bishop of Bath. Feeling ran high, and the
Archbishop of Canterbury was appealed to. His ingenuity proposed that
the prelates should be styled "Bishop of Bath and Wells," that an equal
number of delegates from both cities should elect him, and that their
installation should take place in both churches. Yet, later, the
determination of the diocese's headquarters became again a vexed
question, under Bishop Savaricus, who was closely allied to the Emperor
of Austria.
Richard I.'s liberty was granted him by the Emperor of Austria on one
condition besides the ransom, that the then vacant Abbey of Glastonbury
should be annexed to the See of Bath and Wells. Savaricus afterwards
changed the seat of his diocese to Glastonbury, and styled himself
Bishop of Glastonbury. The seat was finally settled in 1205, after his
death, by the monks under his successor, Joscelyne de Wells. Glastonbury
petitioned Rome, favourably, to be reinstated as an abbey, on condition
of relinquishing a handsome portion of its revenue to the See.
Joscelyne assumed the bishopric title of Bath and Wells, which has
remained to this day. The death of this prelate was the signal for
further dispute in another direction. The monks of Bath endeavoured to
exercise, in opposition to the Canon of Wells, the right of electing the
successor to the See. All dispute was settled by the Pope, who managed
to draw closer the union of the churches. At the Reformation the
monastery of Bath was suppressed, and though the name of the See was
retained, all ecclesiastical authority and the right of electing the
Bishop were vested in the Dean and Chapter of Wells, which then became
the sole chapter of the Diocese.
[Illustration: WELLS
THE RUINS OF THE BANQUETING HALL]
The Chapter House is a beautiful octagonal building, each side measuring
fifty feet. Its finely groined roof is held up by a central clustered
column of Purbeck marble. Beneath it there is a crypt displaying a very
good example of plain groining.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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