Lanfranc also built the monastic buildings. The saintly Archbishop Anselm, who succeeded Lanfranc, took down the east end and rebuilt it with great magnificence. His chief architect was Ernulf, the prior, afterwards Bishop of Rochester. Prior Conrad succeeded, who finished the choir, which was hereafter known as "the glorious choir of Conrad." Gervase, a monk of Canterbury, describes this church, which had a central tower, a nave supported on each side by eight pillars, two western towers with gilt pinnacles, a rood-screen, surmounted by a great cross with figures of SS. Mary and John. He concludes that the dedication of this church was "the most famous that had ever been heard of on the earth since that of the Temple of Solomon."
This church was the scene of the murder of Thomas à Becket, which convulsed the land, and here Henry II. did penance before the tomb of the archbishop slain at his instigation. In 1174 a fierce conflagration raged and destroyed the beautiful choir, and at the sight of the ruins, Gervase tells us, the people were mad with grief, and beat the walls and tore their hair, blaspheming the Lord and His saints. The task of rebuilding was at once commenced, and William of Sens was appointed architect. He laboured for four years, and then falling from a scaffold was so much injured that he was obliged to return to France. An English William then took over the superintendence of the work. It is not stated that he was a pupil of William of Sens, or was in any way influenced by French models. In 1184 the choir was finished, and soon new cloisters were added. In 1304 the choir was beautified and a new pulpit erected by Prior d'Estria, who added the great bell called Thomas. In 1376 Archbishop Sudbury took down the western transepts and the nave, and began the rebuilding of the former in the Perpendicular style, the work being continued by Prior Chillenden during the rule of Archbishop Courtenay, the oppressor of Lollardism. The cloisters and chapter-house were finished at this time. Archbishop Arundel (1396-1414), who was addicted to burning heretics, also added greatly to the beauty of the church, and his successor, Chichele, spent vast sums on the church, founded a library, and began the spire on the west tower. In 1449 Prior Goldstone built the beautiful chapel of the Virgin called the Dean's Chapel, and another prior of the same name in 1495 began the great central tower, or Angel Steeple, when Archbishop Morton ruled, whose rebus is inscribed upon it. The same prior also built the Christ Church Gate in 1517. The troublous times of the Reformation followed, and we find Cranmer occupying the archiepiscopal throne, who was ultimately doomed to the stake at Oxford. Fanatical reformers wrought terrible havoc in the Cathedral. The magnificent shrine of Becket, to which millions had flocked to pay their devotions, was entirely destroyed, and numerous other costly shrines shared its fate. Archbishop Laud attempted to restore the beauty of the sanctuary, and erected a fine altar with reredos; but soon the pikes of the Puritans and their wild savagery reduced the interior of the Cathedral to a ruinous desolation. The usual scenes of mad iconoclasm were enacted, windows broken, altars thrown down, lead stripped off the roof, brasses and effigies defaced and broken. A creature nicknamed "Blue Dick" was the wild leader of this savage crew of spoliators, who left little but the bare walls and a mass of broken fragments strewing the pavement.
