on the choir proves that it
could not have been very massive. It fell in Grossetestes' time and its
details with it.

The first requisite for building is money: and money, as we have seen,
was very hard to obtain in England just at this juncture. Three means by
which Hugh raised it are known to us. The austere ideals of the
Carthusian bishop, his plain vestments, his cheap ring, his simple
clothes set free a good deal of the money of the see for this purpose.
Then he issued a pastoral summons to the multitude of her sons to appear
at least once a year at the mother church of Lincoln with proper
offerings according to their power; especially rural deans, parsons, and
priests through the diocese were to gather together at Pentecost and
give alms for the remission of their sins and in token of obedience and
recollection of their Lincoln mother. This, combined with a notice of
detention of prebend for all non-resident and non-represented canons,
must have brought the faithful up in goodly numbers to their
ecclesiastical centre. If they were once there, the cracked and
shored-up building and the bishop's zeal and personal influence might be
entrusted to loose their purse strings, especially as he led the way,
both by donation and personal work, for he carried the hod and did not
disdain to bring mortar and stones up the ladder like any mason's
'prentice. Then, thirdly, he established or used a Guild of St. Mary, a
confraternity which paid for, and probably worked at, the glorious task.
Its local habitation was possibly that now called John of Gaunt's
stables,{20} but anyhow it stood good for a thousand marks a year. A
mark is thirteen and fourpence; and six hundred and sixty six pounds
odd, in days when an ox cost three shillings and a sheep fourpence was a
handsome sum. It could not have been far short of L10,000 of our money.

It is evident from records and architecture alike that the building had
to be begun from the very roots and foundations. In examining it we had
better begin with the chroniclers. The Great Life is curiously silent
about this work, and if we had no other records we should almost
consider that the work was done under, rather than by, the bishop. He
went to Lincoln "about to build on this mountain, like a magnificent and
peaceful Solomon, a most glorious temple," says his laconic friend Adam.
"Also fifteen days before he died Geoffrey de Noiers (or Nowers) the
constructor or builder of the noble fabric