IX. In the two sieges the clerestory and aisle windows and the vault of the choir suffered greatly, and the central spire was destroyed. The latter was rebuilt under the direction of Sir Christopher Wren; and Perpendicular windows replaced those which had been injured here and in the Lady chapel. So that the choir now is a curious hybrid: the most eastern bay is Curvilinear from top to bottom; the next bays are Curvilinear with Perpendicular tracery in the clerestory windows; the three westernmost bays are Transitional or early Lancet below, Curvilinear above, but with Perpendicular tracery in the windows. The present vault of the choir is chiefly of lath and plaster, by Wyatt. The Cathedral Church of St. Mary, Lincoln. “Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth.” [Illustration: FROM NORTH-EAST.] The cathedrals of Lincoln, York, and Southwell were ever served by secular canons and not by monks; but each cathedral has been styled a minster from time immemorial, as if it were or had been a monastic church (_monasterium_). I. The history of the cathedral only commences in 1074, when the first Norman bishop, Remi or Remigius, made Lincoln the seat of the see instead of Dorchester on the Thames. As Canon Venables puts it: “He refused the tabernacle of Birinus, and chose not the tribe of the South Angles; but chose the tribe of Lindsey, even the hill of Lindum which he loved; and there he built his temple on high, and laid the foundation of it like the ground which hath been established for ever.” The blank wall which forms the centre of the west front is Remi’s work. So are the Ionic capitals, square-edged arches, and wide-jointed masonry in the ground story of the south-west tower, _c._ 1075. The curious apsidal recesses in the west front may be paralleled in the façades of many of the early Romanesque churches of Lombardy. [Illustration: WESTERN DOORWAY.] II. LATE NORMAN.—This archaic façade was improved _c._ 1140 by the insertion of a more ornamental central doorway, and by the arcade, high up, of intersecting semicircular arches. Also curious plaques, in rather high relief, were stuck along the wall, as at St. Michael, Pavia. They are not in chronological sequence, and so may have been transferred from some other church. Moreover, two low western towers were carried up, with rich and beautiful gables; of which those to the north and south survive. The south-western tower should be ascended to see Remi’s eleventh-century work, the twelfth-century gables, the “elastic beam,” and especially the superb view of the interior of nave, choir, and presbytery. The font, too, like that of Winchester, probably belongs to this period. III. TRANSITIONAL.—The north and south doorways of the west front, clumsily restored, were probably inserted _c._ 1150. Their capitals are reminiscences of Byzantine design. They may be compared with the large capitals of St. Hugh’s choir and Canterbury choir. [Illustration: ST. HUGH’S CHOIR.]