in King Edward's time had constituted as the place of the
inauguration of the kings of England. It is true that William was later
crowned again in Winchester, as were Stephen and Coeur de Lion, but the
fact remains that from the time of William the Conqueror down to our
own day, as the Papal Bull had ordered, Westminster and not Winchester
has been the coronation church of our kings. This Bull marks, as it
were, the beginning of the decline of Winchester. Little by little, in
the following centuries, it was to cease to be the capital of England.
Little by little London was to take its place, a thing finally achieved
by Edward I., when he removed the royal residence from Winchester.
Norman Winchester was, however, by no means less splendid than had been
the old capital of the Saxon kings. There Domesday Book was compiled,
and there it was kept in the Treasury of the Norman kings, and the only
name which it gives itself is that of the "Book of Winchester." There
the great Fair of St Giles was established by the Conqueror, which
attracted merchants from every part of Europe, and there in 1079 Bishop
Walkelin began, from the foundations, a new cathedral church completed
in 1093, of which the mighty transepts still remain.
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