I. NORMAN.—The present cathedral was commenced in 1083 by Abbot Simeon, brother of Bishop Walkelin of Winchester, where Simeon himself had been a monk. Earlier still he had been a monk at St. Ouen, Rouen; so that he would be well acquainted with the contemporary architecture of Normandy. As was to be expected from the relationship of the founders of the two cathedrals, Ely and Winchester have many points of resemblance. Both are vast in scale, far surpassing the Abbaye-aux-hommes at Caen, or Lanfranc’s copy of it at Canterbury. Both indulge in the luxury of aisles to the west as well as to the east of their transepts. Both had return aisles in the transepts—a feature borrowed from the Abbaye-aux-hommes. Those of Winchester remain; those of Ely have been pushed back to the walls. The nave of Ely had no less than thirteen bays, its transepts three, its choir five. The choir-aisles had square ends; the choir ended in a semicircular apse. The stalls were placed in the crossing and in the two eastern bays of the nave up to 1770, when Essex removed them to the presbytery; Scott placed them in their present position in 1847. There was a central tower; and, instead of two western towers, there was one tower with four flanking turrets. From the lower stories of these turrets, of which only the southern one is left, apses projected eastward. Externally the western transept gave the church great breadth and dignity; and the plan of Bury and Ely was speedily copied at Peterborough, Lincoln, and Wells. Internally it is the most picturesque bit of Norman work in the country. The two towers “riding tandem” may be paralleled at Wymondham and Wimborne, and formerly at Bury and Hereford. Of Abbot Simeon’s eleventh-century work little is left now except the vaulting-shafts in front of his apse, to the east of the organ; the exterior of the west windows of the south transept, which alone have the nail-head moulding; and the lower part of the eastern walls of the transepts, which have the Ionic capital. “The masonry is rude and tooled with a large cross-stroke: the abaci and the soffits of the arches are square and unmoulded.” The choir and the lower part of the transepts are said to have been completed in 1106. [Illustration: EAST END.]