Page:Walks in the Black Country and its green border-land.pdf/384

370 ago, on soil watered by the blood of Christian martyrs under Diocletian. The city takes its name from this tradition, which signifies, Aceldama, or Field of Corses. It would have been a good and thoughtful act on the part of past generations if they had preserved for us at least one completely Saxon cathedral of the earliest structure in England; for instance, one like that built here by King Oswy in the middle of the seventh century. Doubtless it was as large as a modern one-story chapel, with wattle walls and thatched roof. That was the germ of this magnificent fabric. It grew slowly in the ice-storms and wild tempests of those Saxon centuries. The village planted around it was very small and grew slowly and feebly. Even as late as towards the close of the eleventh century, the little church was so small and mean in structure and accommodation that the bishop transferred the see to Chester, and his successor carried it to Coventry. But Bishop Clinton, about fifty years later, brought it back to Lichfield, and began, on the site of the old Saxon building, the present edifice. He seems to have been the first architectural Solomon that put hand to the work with some of Solomon's eye to beauty and grandeur. For ten times the length of time occupied in erecting the famous Jewish Temple has this of Christian worship been in building. And, on studying all the features of its exterior