The chantries number seven,
and were built as chapels by bishops for their last resting-places.
Within these chantries are the tombs of Edington, Wykeham, Waynflete,
Beaufort, Gardiner, Langton, and Fox, all of whom were bishops of the
diocese. Fox's chantry was carefully restored by Corpus Christi College,
Oxford; and that of Waynflete by Magdalen College, as a mark of
reverence and esteem for the memory of their respective founders.
The first to be seen on entering the nave from the west is that of
Wykeham, whose faith in the solidity of Norman building was so great
that he did not hesitate to cut away more than a third of the two nave
pillars between which it is placed. Within the chapel, said to have been
built on the site of an altar to the Virgin, is the effigy of the
bishop-builder, with flesh and robes coloured "proper", as the heralds
say; and at his feet are the figures of his three favourite monks, to
whom he left an endowment for the celebration of three masses daily in
his chantry, while each was to receive one penny a day from the prior.
The effigy lies on an altar tomb, in episcopal attire, the head-pillow
supported by two angels.
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