A special architectural interest attaches to the life of this prelate, for the tradition in Burgos has always been that he was an Englishman, who came over in the train of the English Princess Alienor, Queen of Alfonso VIII., and, having been Archdeacon of Toledo, became in A.D. 1213 Bishop of Burgos. Florez,[10] however, doubts the tradition, and observes that his parents’ names, Rodrigo and Oro Sabia, were those of Spaniards. Two years before the cathedral was commenced he went on an embassy through France to Germany, to bring Beatrice, daughter of the Duke of Suabia, to marry King Ferdinand; so that, even if he were not of English birth, he was at any rate well travelled, and had seen some of the noble works in progress and completed in France and Germany at this date. In A.D. 1221 he laid the first stone of his new cathedral:--“Primus lapis ponitur in fundamento novi operis ecclesiæ Burgens: xx. die mensis Julii _era_ millesima quinquagesima nona die Sancte Margarite.”[11] Florez gives two other similar statements, one from the Martyrology of Burgos, and the other from the Chronicle of Cardeña. The King and the Bishop are said to have laid the first stone in the grand column on the epistle side of the choir; and the work went on so rapidly that in November, A.D. 1230, when he drew up directions as to the precedence of the various members of the chapter, their order of serving at the altars, and of walking in processions, the Bishop was able to write, “_Tempore nostræ translationis ad novam fabricam_.”[12] Bishop Maurice was buried in the church, and his monument was afterwards moved to the front of the Trascoro (or screen at the west end of the choir) by Bishop Ampudia, before his death, in A.D. 1512. It has never been moved from the spot in which it was then placed, and yet, owing to the rearrangement of the stalls, it is now in the very midst of the Coro,[13] and affords an invaluable piece of evidence of the fact already stated, that of old the stalls did not occupy their present place in the nave.[14] There is nothing else worthy of note in the Coro. Its floor is boarded, and a long passage about six feet wide, between rails, leads from its door through the choir to a screen in front of the high altar. The people occupy the choir, hemmed in between these rails and the parclose screens under the side arches. The altar has a late and uninteresting Retablo, in Pagan style, carved with large subjects and covered with gold.[15] The steps to the altar are of white, black, and red marble, counterchanged; and at the entrance to the choir under the lantern are two brass pulpits or ambons, for the Epistoler and Gospeller, an admirable and primitive arrangement almost always preserved in Spanish churches.