A Window into the Medieval Mind

Walkelin, the norman bishop of Winchester, had a problem. He needed more wood for his new cathedral, which was being built on unpromisingly marshy ground a little way from the city’s two existing Saxon minsters. He went to the man who had appointed him, William the Conqueror. His king offered him as many trees from a nearby royal wood as Walkelin’s carpenters could cut in three days. Sometime later, William passed by the site. He found just one tree left. “Am I bewitched or have I taken leave of my senses?” he cried. “Had I not once a most delectable wood upon this spot?” Walkelin, it is said, had pressed every citizen of Winchester into service and stripped the woods bare.