omary
before filling windows with stained glass to cover them with linen cloth
which admitted a sufficient amount of light, or to glaze them with plain
glass; and it was only natural that a long time should elapse before
stained glass could be supplied to the largest window in the world.
Burying was begun at the east end soon after 1400, and Scrope was buried
there in 1405. Bowet's monument also was erected there in 1415, while he
was still alive.

A new high altar was projected in 1418, and the new crypt was fitted
with iron work and paved in the same year. The building of the choir had
caused a subsidence in the crypt, so the work of Roger and others was
broken into fragments and patched together, older capitals being placed
on Roger's pillars, in the condition in which we now see it. Nothing is
known of the history of the vaults of the choir and eastern transepts.
Like those of the nave and transepts, they are of wood, though of the
same shape and design as a stone vault.

The great central tower was erected between 1400 and 1423. Hitherto
there had been the Early English tower of the elder John Romeyn,
supported by Norman piers which, perhaps, had received a partial casing
of Early English stonework. These piers were afterwards recased, not
simultaneously, but as the arches between them were erected, in the
following manner:--

Taking the south-western pier for an example: when the present nave was
begun, the western face of the pier was cased with masonry, so that
three parts still remained Norman; when the Decorated arch[1] in the
transept was erected south of it, it received a further Decorated casing
on its south side; when the central tower was built, its northern and
eastern faces were cased with Perpendicular masonry: so, in the case of
the north and south-eastern piers, their eastern faces were completely
cased when the choir was built, their western only when the tower was in
course of erection. To this day it may be seen that there is no bond
between the different periods of masonry, and that the courses are at
different levels.

[1] For the explanation of the erection of this Decorated arch,
see the architectural account of the transepts.

The piers were probably completely recased by 1409.

[Illustration: THE EAST END. From Britton.]

Nothing is known of the elder Romeyn's tower, or the manner in which the
present one replaced it. A great part of the new work has been
attributed to Wal