The reason is not far to seek for the unusual magnificence of Ethelred's plans. His brother-in-law was Richard II., Duke of Normandy, whose fame as an art-patron and church-builder was spread so far that, according to the Chronicles of Fontenelle, "bishops and clergy, abbots and monks," travelled from all parts, from Greece and Armenia, to visit him, and William of Jumièges speaks of him as producing a kind of renaissance in his country. It so happens that one bay remains in the abbey church of Fécamp of the original building commenced by Duke Richard in 1001, just before Ethelred began his operations; and the capitals in this bay are ornamented with the same curious twining foliage that is found in the choir at Oxford. It is more than likely, then, that the Saxon king sought assistance from the cultured court of Richard-le-bon; the Queen Emma may well have been anxious to have the church rebuilt on a scale that would accord with the monastic buildings of her own land; and so important was the work considered, that King Ethelred (as we learn from his charter) had contributions given him for carrying it on by his whole people. [Illustration: CHRIST CHURCH IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.] But more troubles were to follow, for Ethelred had yet to pay the penalty for the massacre of St. Brice's Day, and his "long reign of utter misgovernment" was interrupted in 1013, when the heathen Viking Sweyn drove him out of his kingdom to take refuge in Richard's court in Normandy. The exile of the king, and the triumph of the Danes, who besieged and took Oxford in the same year, must have interrupted the work there for a time; and a remarkable break of joint between the masonry of the choir and the south transept bears silent witness to the dislocation of the Anglo-Saxon rule (p. 61). When Sweyn died in 1014, Ethelred returned, and for three years, with the help of his noble son Edmund Ironside, held Canute in check. At this time the work at St. Frideswide's was probably resumed, the king being doubtless anxious to complete the fulfilment of his vow at a time when he sorely needed the divine assistance; and a certain difference in the character of the capitals and foliage in the transepts points to their having been built at this time, for they bear traces of oriental influence similar to that in the church at Bernay which Duke Richard was building in the year when Ethelred was with him in exile, and the eastern monks were flocking to his court in Normandy. But it is probable that, what with the strain of the terrible war, and the constant drain of the Danegelt, the work was never finished according to Ethelred's complete design, for he died in 1016, and his son Edmund Ironside only reigned for seven months.