St. Cuthbert is said to have had a more than usual monastic dislike to women--though some of his most intimate friends were women--and therefore to have built the Lady Chapel at the east end of the choir, the ordinary position, which was close to his shrine, would have been most distasteful to him. No woman, indeed, was allowed to approach farther eastward in the church than as far as a line of dark-coloured Frosterley marble, forming a cross with two short limbs at the centre, which stretches across the nave between the piers, just west of the north and south doors. The Chapel of the Blessed Virgin,[9] commonly called the Galilee, was therefore placed where we now see it. It rises almost directly from the edge of the river-bank, and is built against the west front of the church. It is of an oblong form, of five aisles divided by four arcades, each of four bays, the aisles being all of the same width. The middle aisle is higher than those adjoining, and these again are higher than the extreme north and south ones. The arches, richly decorated with zigzag, are supported upon columns, originally composed of two slender shafts of Purbeck marble, but now of four shafts, alternately of marble and sandstone, the latter, added by Cardinal Langley when he repaired the Galilee in which he placed his tomb in front of the altar, having capitals of plain volutes, which are very characteristic of the Transitional period. The chapel was entered from without through a doorway on the north side, which has been restored, the old one, however, having been exactly copied to the minutest parts. The doorway is deeply recessed, the wall being increased in thickness on both sides in the manner usual at that time, and is a fine example of the style in use when it was erected. Access to the church from the Galilee was also obtained through the great west door, which was probably not blocked up until Bishop Langley placed the altar of the Blessed Virgin there, and made two doors, one at the north and the other at the south end of the west wall. The chapel was at first lighted by eight round-headed windows, placed high in the wall above the arches of the outer arcade on the north and south sides, and no doubt had other windows at the west end. The three windows in the north wall and the four in the south, originally inserted about the close of the thirteenth century, when the walls were raised in height, have all been renewed, so far as the mullions and tracery are concerned. It is probable that at the same time five similar windows were placed in the west wall, of which only two are now left, the others having given place to three fifteenth-century windows. At the time when these important alterations were made, the original windows in the wall above the arches were probably blocked up. Their outline, however, is still to be traced quite distinctly.