four lights, with graceful tracery of
an advanced geometrical type. These windows, which are among the
finest examples of the period, have no shafts, but their arch
mouldings are enriched with a continuous series of the ball-flower
ornament. Most of the old glass, in which ruby and white are the
predominant colours, remains in the upper lights.

[Illustration: Chapter-House--Interior.]

Under the windows runs an arcade which forms fifty-one stalls,
separated into groups of seven by the blue lias vaulting-shafts at the
angles, but in the side which is occupied by the doorway there are
only two stalls, one on either side of the entrance. Two rows of stone
benches are under the stalls, and there is a bench of Purbeck round
the base of the central pier. The arcade strikes one as too shallow:
its canopies, which rest on blue lias shafts, are ornamented with
feathering, crockets, finials, and an interesting series of small
heads. Some of the heads wear crowns, mitres, hoods, and square caps;
others are grotesque, though I cannot detect the "jesters" to which
some writers refer. Some of the heads have the same formal twist in
the hair as those of the large corbels in the nave (p. 81). The heads
on the side opposite the door are all (with the exception of one
modern head in plaster) covered with the early form of papal tiara, a
conical hat with a crown round its rim. On this side, in the middle
stall, is the bishop's seat, and here are traces of colour; the little
heads are still pretty with pink cheeks and painted eyes and hair, and
above the canopy the saltire of St. Andrew is discernible.

Thus the bishop still retained, at least in theory, the head-ship of
the chapter. The dean sat on one side of him, the precentor on the
other, and the rest in due order from the archdeacons and officers
down to those in minor orders. Even the boys of the school were
admitted to part of the meetings, and they stood on the floor round a
desk which was in front of the chief pastor. "There every morning,"
says Canon Church (_Chapters in Hist, of Wells_, p. 333), "after the
prayers of the third hour and the morning mass, the chapter of the
whole body was held for the daily lection and commemoration of
brethren departed, for maintaining discipline, hearing complaints,
passing judgment, inflicting punishment; for ordering the services of
the day and of the week--for sitting in council and drawing up
statutes."

Beautiful as is the general ef