whose pity twenty-seven years and one hundred and fifty days of
indulgence, at any time of the year, are granted to those who assist
in completing the fabric of the aforesaid church."

[Illustration: A BISHOP PLACING RELICS IN AN ALTAR.
_From a Pontifical of the Fourteenth Century. British Museum, Lans._
451.]

[Illustration: A PAPAL LEGATE.
_From the Decretals of Boniface VIII. British Museum_, 23923.]


In the Bodleian Library there is an inventory of these relics, amongst
them part of the wood of the cross, a stone of the Holy Sepulchre, a
stone from the spot of the Ascension, and some bones of the eleven
thousand virgins of Cologne.

The high altar was renewed in 1309 under an indented covenant between
Bishop Baldock and a citizen named Richard Pickerill. "A beautiful
tablet was set thereon, variously adorned with many precious stones
and enamelled work; as also with divers images of metal; which tablet
stood betwixt two columns, within a frame of wood to cover it, richly
set out with curious pictures, the charge whereof amounted to two
hundred marks."

Dugdale also tells of "a picture of St. Paul, richly painted, and
placed in a beautiful tabernacle of wood on the right hand of the high
altar _in anno_ 1398, the price of its workmanship amounting to 12_l._
16_s._"