ven before the
accession of Henry I there had been a market on the spot, known as "the
King's Market" when the ground was allotted to Rahere. (_Vide_ "Vetusta
Monumenta," vol. ii.)

I grant also my firm peace to all persons coming to and
returning from the fair which is wont to be celebrated in that
place at the Feast of St. Bartholomew; and I forbid any one of
the royal officials to send to implead any one, or without the
consent of the Canons on those three days--to wit, the eve of
the feast, the feast itself, and the day following--to demand
customary dues from them.

The observance was afterwards extended to a double octave of fourteen
days, and included all kinds of shows and entertainments, theatrical,
conjuring, and acrobatic performances, in addition to the traffic in
cloth-stuffs, horses and cattle, which gave the fair its commercial
importance. The stalls, or booths, in which the portable goods were
exposed for sale, were held within the monastery walls, the gates of
which were locked at night, and a watch kept over the enclosure.[8]

Rahere died on 20th September, 1144, and was buried in the church, where
his tomb occupies the usual place for Founders on the north side of the
sanctuary, surrounded by his magnificent Norman work in the choir, with
the ambulatory beyond it, and extending upwards to the arcading of the
triforium. The eastern part of the clerestory is a modern reproduction
of that which superseded Rahere's; but, with this exception, the
interior of the choir was probably much the same originally as it is
(restored) to-day.

There was, however, a central tower, and, if the design on the
twelfth-century Priory seal is to be trusted, a high circular turret at
each end of the exterior.[9]

Thomas of St. Osyth, the second Prior (d. 1174), erected the transepts
and the easternmost bays of the nave, all of which bear signs of the
architectural transition. The nave was probably completed during the
next half-century, in the Early-English (then superseding the heavier
Norman) style, as may be inferred from the surviving western gateway,
and the mutilated columns which remain within the building at the
western end.

[Illustration: THE NORTH SIDE OF THE CHOIR FROM THE TRIFORIUM
_E. Scamell. Photo._]

Perpendicular work was introduced early in the fifteenth century, when
Roger de Walden, Bishop of London (1405-1406), built a chantry-chapel to
the north-eas