1108. He seems to have been too fond of his money. His successor,
Richard Belmeis, exerted himself very heartily at the beginning of his
episcopate, spent large sums on the cathedral, and cleared away an
area of mean buildings in the churchyard, around which his predecessor
had built a wall. In this work King Henry I. assisted him generously;
gave him stone, and commanded that all material brought up the River
Fleet for the cathedral should be free from toll; gave him moreover
all the fish caught within the cathedral neighbourhood, and a tithe
of all the venison taken in the County of Essex. These last boons may
have arisen from the economical and abstemious life which the bishop
lived, in order to devote his income to the cathedral building.

Belmeis also gave a site for St. Paul's School; but though he, like
his predecessor, occupied the see for twenty years, he did not see the
completion of the cathedral. He seems to have been embittered because
he failed in attaining what his soul longed for--the removal of the
Primatial chair from Canterbury to London. Anselm, not unreasonably,
pronounced the attempt an audacious act of usurpation. Belmeis's
health broke down. He was attacked with creeping paralysis, and sadly
withdrew himself from active work, devoting himself to the foundation
of the monastery of St. Osyth, in Essex. There, after lingering four
years, he died, and there he lies buried.

King Henry I. died nearly at the same time, and as there was a contest
for the throne ensuing on his death, so was there for the bishopric
of London. In the interval, Henry de Blois, the famous Bishop of
Winchester, was appointed to administer the affairs of St. Paul's, and
almost immediately he had to deal with a calamity. Another great fire
broke out at London Bridge in 1135, and did damage more or less all
the way to St. Clement Danes. Matthew Paris speaks of St. Paul's as