In Canterbury cathedral is a stone chair, which as at Norwich was originally at the back of the High altar; it was removed from that position by Archbishop Howley _c._ 1840, but has recently been replaced; it consists of three blocks of Purbeck marble (105). The chronicler Eadmer, writing of the Pre-Conquest cathedral burnt down in 1067, says that "the pontifical chair in it was constructed with handsome workmanship and of large stones and cement." The description would apply very well to the present chair: but the monk Gervase states that in Lanfranc's cathedral, finished in 1077, "the patriarchal seat, on which the archbishops were wont to sit during the solemnities of the Mass, until the consecration of the Sacrament, was of a single stone." It would seem therefore that the Anglo-Saxon chair perished in the fire of 1067, and that its successor experienced the same fate in 1174. The probability is therefore that the present chair was made between the fire of 1174 and the consecration of 1184. A decisive argument against a Pre-Conquest date is the fact that the throne is made of Purbeck marble--for this material seems not to have come into use till after the middle of the twelfth century in the Norman house at Christchurch on the Avon, in St Cross', Winchester, and in William of Sens' work at Canterbury. {105} [Illustration: Canterbury] The position of the pontifical throne at Canterbury has varied at different periods. Eadmer states that the cathedral burnt down in 1067 was orientated to the east, where was the presbytery containing the High altar. But at the west end of the church was the altar of Our Lady, and behind this altar was the throne adjoining the west wall. This unusual position is only explicable by the assumption that the first cathedral at Canterbury was orientated to the west, and that the site occupied in 1067 by the altar of Our Lady was originally that of the High altar. The western position so postulated for the High altar and the throne was originally that of most of the Early Christian basilicas at Rome, in particular the ancient basilica of St Peter. At a later period the orientation was often reversed, _e.g._, in St Paul _extra muros_, Rome; what happened in this latter church seems also to have happened in Anglo-Saxon times at Canterbury. A similar change has occurred in the French cathedral of Nevers; where, however, though in Gothic days a presbytery and High altar were constructed at the east end of the church, the early {106} Romanesque presbytery, crypt, and two bays of the nave have been allowed to remain to this day. [Illustration: Beverley Minster]