The first Cathedral was injured by the Danes in 1011 and it was burned down during the Norman Conquest in 1067. Lanfranc, the first Archbishop after the Conquest (1070-1089), reconstructed both church and monastery from their foundations. Anselm (1093-1109), took down the eastern part of the church and reërected it with far greater magnificence. Ernulf, Prior of the monastery, was responsible for the architecture; but the chancel being finished by his successor, Prior Conrad, and beautifully decorated, became known as the “glorious Choir of Conrad.” Canterbury Cathedral was dedicated by Archbishop William in 1130. Henry I., King of England, David, King of Scotland, and all the Bishops of England were present at what Gervase calls “the most famous dedication that had ever been heard of on the earth since that of the temple of Solomon.” In 1170, Thomas à Becket was murdered here, having fled for protection to the church after a violent scene in his chamber with Henry’s knights. Becket was buried at the east end of the Crypt and remained there forty-six years. “Most men were persuaded that a new burst of miraculous powers, such as had been suspended for many generations, had broken out at the tomb; and the contemporary monk, Benedict, fills a volume with extraordinary cures, wrought within a very few years after the ‘Martyrdom.’ Far and wide the fame of ‘St. Thomas of Canterbury’ spread. The very name of Christ Church, or of the Holy Trinity, by which the Cathedral was properly designated, was in popular usage merged in that of The Church of St. Thomas. For the few years immediately succeeding his death there was no regular shrine. The popular enthusiasm still clung to the two spots immediately connected with the murder. The Transept in which he died, within five years from that time acquired the name by which it has ever since been known, ‘The Martyrdom.’ The flagstone on which his skull was fractured and the solid corner of the masonry in front of which he fell, are probably the only parts which remain unchanged. But against that corner may still be seen the marks of the space occupied by a wooden altar, which continued in its original simplicity through all the subsequent magnificence of the church till the time of the Reformation. It was probably the identical memorial erected in the first haste of enthusiasm after the reopening of the Cathedral for worship in 1172. It was called the Altar of the Martyrdom or more commonly the Altar of the Sword’s Point (_Altare ad Punctum Ensis_) from the circumstance that in a wooden shed placed upon it was preserved the fragment of Le Bret’s sword, which had been left on the pavement after accomplishing its bloody work. Under a piece of rock crystal surmounting the chest, was kept a portion of the brains. To this altar a regular keeper