are of the
revenues of the college was devoted to the same object, the vacancy not
being filled up by the appointment of any new canon.

[4] Sir Gilbert Scott, however, thought that the Norman nave of
the Cathedral Church at Durham was commenced before Flambard
became bishop, and that the new church at Christchurch was
begun after that date, so that the work at Christchurch was
copied by him from what he found already commenced at Durham
when he went there.

The length of Godric's tenure of office is uncertain. On his death Henry
I. appointed Gilbert de Dousgunels dean, having appropriated to himself
the accumulated fabric fund. Henry I. granted the patronage of the
church to Richard de Redvers, Earl of Devon, who appointed his chaplain,
Peter, a Norman of Caen, dean. This dean seems to have diverted the
funds from the work of completing the church, but his successor,
Randulphus, carried on the work again, so that in his time the church
and the conventual buildings were roofed in. In the time of Hilary, in
the year 1150, the secular college of canons was converted into a Priory
of Augustinian Canons. This change was made with the consent of Baldwin
de Redvers, in accordance with the wishes of Henry of Blois, brother of
King Stephen, and at that time Bishop of Winchester, who is well known
from the fact of his founding the Hospital of St Cross, near Winchester.
Hilary, two years before this change was made, had been consecrated
Bishop of Chichester, and subsequently became one of the episcopal
opponents of Thomas Becket. Henceforth, until the dissolution in the
reign of Henry VIII., the head of the religious community at
Christchurch was a prior, who was, according to a charter granted by
Richard de Redvers in 1160, elected by the canons. There were, in all,
twenty-six priors, and their names have come down to us, but with only
the most meagre notices of the architectural work which was carried on
by each of them. Extensive, however, it must have been; and from what we
see of the church itself, it would seem as if building operations must
have been almost constantly in progress.

In all probability there was, according to the usual plan of Norman
churches, a tower at the junction of the nave and transepts, and beyond
this an apsidal choir. But there is no documentary record of such a
tower ever having been built or fallen, although its existence is
rendered probable by a car