Page:The Saxon Cathedral at Canterbury and The Saxon Saints Buried Therein.djvu/50

THE SAXON CATHEDRAL AT CANTERBURY or when it was brought; Edmer merely says that it was contained in the altar of the confessio chapel "as of old time was averred." That it was looked upon as a most precious relic may be discovered from the way in which the monks of Christ Church preserved it through the ages. During the fire of 1067, which destroyed the Saxon Church, the relics and remains of the Archbishops and others which had been buried therein, had been removed in safety. The head of St. Furseus was apparently no longer deposited in an altar, and we do not hear of it till the fourteenth century, when according to the "Inventory of Texts and Relics" belonging to Christ Church, Canterbury, made on February 2, 1315-16, and preserved in the British Museum Library under the press-mark "Galba E. iv.," it was set in a silver-gilt and enamelled case, and kept in the Great Reliquary Cupboard which was next the High Altar on the north, which cupboard occupied the site between the columns now filled by Archbishop Howley's cenotaph. There was also a relic of some dust of the head of the saint kept in a small square ivory casket secured by a copper lock, or bolt; and amongst the "Texts," i.e. Gospels, is noted a Lectional of St. Furseus, i.e. a book of lessons.

We will now leave the crypt and its passageway which, probably on account of its small size and the fact that intramural burial was forbidden, does not appear to have been used as the polyandrium of St. Peter's at Rome as a burial-place; and ascend to the presbytery which, as stated by Edmer, was built over the crypt and confessio. Its floor must have projected some feet into the eastern transept to allow of the wall of steps being built to ascend thereto, and also in imitation of that at St. Peter's at Rome, which had a similar projection. The front boundary wall, formed by the two lateral flights of steps, was divided by the descending flight of steps to the crypt, through a short tunnel as far as to the passageway. At the extreme east end of the Presbytery was placed the High Altar, "built of rough stone and mortar" close to the wall. I suggest that this altar was dedicated to the "." Edmer and subsequent writers give no dedication, possibly taking it for granted that it was common knowledge. It is a fact that the easternmost altar of the Cathedral, since the time of St. Anselm, has always been so dedicated, and the same position had always been in use at St. Austin's Abbey. Also, during the Middle Ages, the Cathedral establishment was 20