, came to see him. The
erection of this fabric was begun from the foundations, in the renewal
of the Lincoln church, by the magnificent love of Hugh to the beauty of
God's house." The dying bishop thus spoke to him: "In that we have had
word that the lord king with the bishops and leading men of this whole
kingdom are shortly about to meet for a general assembly, hasten and
finish all that is needful for the beauty and adornment about the altar
of my lord and patron saint, John Baptist, for we wish this to be
dedicated by our brother, the Bishop of Rochester, when he arrives there
with the other bishops. Yea, and we ourselves, at the time of the
aforesaid assembly, shall be present there too. We used to desire
greatly to consecrate that by our ministry; but since God has disposed
otherwise, we wish that it be consecrated before we come thither on a
future occasion." This is all that Adam has to tell us. Giraldus
Cambrensis says, "Item, he restored the chevet of his own church with
Parian stones and marble columns in wonderful workmanship, and reared
the whole anew from the foundation with most costly work. Similarly,
too, he began to construct the remarkable bishop's houses, and, by God's
help, proposed, in certain hope, to finish them far larger and nobler
than the former ones." Then again he says, "Item, he took pains to erect
in choiceness, the Lincoln church of the blessed Virgin, which was built
remarkably by a holy man, the first bishop of the same place, to wit the
blessed Remigius, according to the style of that time. To make the
fabric conformed to the far finer workmanship and very much daintier and
cleverer polish of modern novelty, he erected it of Parian stones and
marble columns, grouped alternately and harmoniously, and which set off
one another with varying pictures of white and black, but yet with
natural colour change. The work, now to be seen, is unique." The Legenda
says that Hugh carried stones and cement in a box for the fabric of the
mother Church, which he reared nobly from the foundations. Other
chroniclers say just the same, and one adds that he "began a remarkable
episcopal hall" as well. But far the most important account we have is
that of the metrical life--written between 1220 and 1235. This gives us
some of the keys to the intense symbolism of all the designs. Since a
proper translation would require verse, it may be baldly Englished in
pedagogic _patois_, as follows: "The prudent religion