so much wealth to this spot that the Cathedral in its
present form is due to little else. To wipe out Becket's name
completely Henry VIII. would have needed to demolish the whole church.
[Illustration: THE DOORWAY INTO THE TRANSEPT OF MARTYRDOM FROM THE
CLOISTERS.
It was through this doorway that Becket was followed by his murderers
on that fatal afternoon in 1170 when the winter twilight was
deepening.]
The smooth turf along the south side of the Cathedral was used by the
monks as a lay cemetery, and the fairly extensive space to the
south-east shaded by old elms was their own burial-ground. All the
monastic buildings were, contrary to the usual custom, on the north,
for having only a narrow space between the south side of their church
and the wall which Lanfranc built to secure the whole monastery, they
naturally built on their extensive piece of ground running right up to
the city wall to the north. Rounding the east end of the Cathedral,
therefore, one finds under its ample shadow the remains of many of the
domestic offices of the great priory. The great hall, with its kitchen
and offices, is now part of the house of one of the prebendaries, and
is not accessible to the public, but to the west are the interesting
ruins of the infirmary. This was a long building with aisles, having
a chapel opening out of it to the east, so that the sick brethren
while lying in their beds could listen to the services. The south
arcade of this chapel, consisting of four Norman arches with an
ivy-grown clerestory, is still standing, and there are also some
arches of the south side of the hall still showing the orange-pink
colour produced on the stone by the disastrous fire in 1174, when
Conrad's choir was reduced to a ruin. Adjoining the western end of the
infirmary hall, and now a part of the Cathedral, is the beautiful
Transitional-Norman treasury built on to St. Andrew's Chapel. Going to
the right through a passage called the Dark Entry, one has the site of
the prior's lodging on the right and on the left the infirmary
cloister, and north of it the smaller dormitories of the monks. This
passage-way leads through the vaulted Prior's Gate to the Green Court,
a wide grassy space shaded by great limes and other trees. Framed
between the spreading branches appears one of the most perfect
groupings of the Angel Steeple with the piled-up roofs of the library,
chapter house, and north-west transept as steps leading up to
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