The latter, and also Bishop Savaricus
(1192-1205), carried out the work, but the whole design and a
considerable part of the building are due to Bishop Reginald
Fitz-Jocelyn. His successors, until the middle of the fifteenth
century, went on perfecting the wondrous shrine, and in the time of
Bishop Beckington Wells was in its full glory. The church, the
outbuildings, the episcopal palace, the deanery, all combined to form
a wonderful architectural triumph, a group of buildings which
represented the highest achievement of English Gothic art.
Since then many things have happened. The cathedral, like all other
ecclesiastical buildings, has passed through three great periods of
iconoclastic violence. It was shorn of some of its glory at the
Reformation, when it was plundered of the treasures which the piety of
many generations had heaped together. Then the beautiful Lady Chapel
in the cloisters was pulled down, and the infamous Duke of Somerset
robbed it of its wealth and meditated further sacrilege. Amongst these
desecrators and despoilers there was a mighty hunger for lead. "I
would that they had found it scalding," exclaimed an old chaplain of
Wells; and to get hold of the lead that covered the roofs--a valuable
commodity--Somerset and his kind did much mischief to many of our
cathedrals and churches.
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