t ball, both within and
without the church, a practice which led to the breaking of many
beautiful and costly painted windows.

But here we stop awhile in our history of St. Paul's, on the eve of the
sanguinary wars of the Roses, to describe mediaeval St. Paul's, its
structure, and internal government. Foremost among the relics were two
arms of St. Mellitus (miraculously enough, of quite different sizes).
Behind the high altar--what Dean Milman justly calls "the pride, glory,
and fountain of wealth" to St. Paul's--was the body of St. Erkenwald,
covered with a shrine which three London goldsmiths had spent a whole
year in chiselling; and this shrine was covered with a grate of tinned
iron. The very dust of the chapel floor, mingled with water, was said to
work instantaneous cures. On the anniversary of St. Erkenwald the whole
clergy of the diocese attended in procession in their copes. When King
John of France was made captive at Poictiers, and paid his orisons at
St. Paul's, he presented four golden basins to the high altar, and
twenty-two nobles at the shrine of St. Erkenwald. Milman calculates that
in 1344 the oblation-box alone at St. Paul's produced an annual sum to
the dean and chapter of L9,000. Among other relics that were milch cows
to the monks were a knife of our Lord, some hair of Mary Magdalen, blood
of St. Paul, milk of the Virgin, the hand of St. John, pieces of the
mischievous skull of Thomas a Becket, and the head and jaw of King
Ethelbert. These were all preserved in jewelled cases. One hundred and
eleven anniversary masses were celebrated. The chantry chapels in the
Cathedral were very numerous, and they were served by an army of idle
and often dissolute mass priests. There was one chantry in Pardon
Churchyard, on the north side of St. Paul's, east of the bishop's
chapel, where St. Thomas Becket's ancestors were buried. The grandest
was one near the nave, built by Bishop Kemp, to pray for himself and his
royal master, Edward IV. Another was founded by Henry IV. for the souls
of his father, John of Gaunt, and his mother, Blanche of Castile. A
third was built by Lord Mayor Pulteney, who was buried in St. Lawrence
Pulteney, so called from him. The revenues of these chantries were vast.

But to return to our historical sequence. During the ruthless Wars of
the Roses St. Paul's became the scene of many curious ceremonials, on
which Shakespeare himself has touched, in his early historical plays. It
was on a