When the Norsemen plundered the coast of France in 881 they sent a great fleet up the River Somme. Amiens, taken by surprise, fell before the attack of those reckless and powerful old Vikings, and the cathedral, then a flimsy wooden structure, was burned to the ground. A new building which the people of Amiens put up in the same place when they had sufficiently recovered from the losses of the invasion, was destroyed by lightning in 1019. The next structure was burned in 1107, and the one that replaced it was struck by lightning in 1218 and completely ruined. Then in 1220 the present cathedral was begun. Even that has not escaped entirely from the lightning and conflagration that had wrecked so many structures on the same spot. In 1258, before the work was completed, the woodwork caught fire, and was so badly charred that part of it had to be taken down and rebuilt. Traces of fire may still be seen on some of the arches. Later the slim central spire, which is one of the striking features of Amiens Cathedral, was so badly damaged by lightning that it had to be made over. The chief treasure of Amiens is part of the head of John the Baptist, naturally a religious relic of extraordinary interest. It is kept in the chapel of Saint John Baptist, and shown only at the most important ceremonies. All that remains is the front part of the skull, including the face, and this is inclosed in a hood of silver-gilt. The relic is said to have been kept for a long time in one of the churches in Asia, from which it was removed to Constantinople, and later taken from that city to Amiens, where it has rested ever since. [Illustration: SALISBURY CATHEDRAL] _Salisbury Cathedral_ FOUR The Cathedral of Saint Mary at Salisbury is not filled with gilding and warm color as the churches of southern Europe are. Its builders aimed rather at simplicity such as their forefathers used--plain gray walls, unornamented columns and arches, and few paintings. The edifice seems to reflect the antique dignity of those upright pillars of the Druids at Stonehenge, which is not far from Salisbury. Here we have the outcome of British race feeling in splendidly finished architecture placed almost side by side with that early crude expression of it. The cathedral was begun in 1220 by Richard Poore, the bishop at Old Sarum, who was so much annoyed by the officers of the king that he decided to move the church to a site on his own land which has since been named Salisbury. Old Sarum Cathedral, built on a bleak hill, had suffered for lack of water. In his choice of a foundation Bishop Poore went to the other extreme; for the swampy fields by the Avon, on which this new cathedral was erected, were so often flooded that services sometimes had to be suspended for days.