remains of an abbey or monastery of great magnificence, which was
dedicated to St. Augustine. The erection of this monastery was begun
in 1140, and was finished and dedicated in 1148, according to the
inscription on the tomb of the founder, Robert Fitzharding, the first
lord of Berkeley, who, together with others of that illustrious family,
are enshrined within these walls. It was also denominated the monastery
of the black regular canons of the order of Saint Victor, who are
mentioned by Leland as the black canons of St. Augustine within the city
walls. By some historians, Fitzharding is represented as an opulent
citizen of Bristol; but generally as a younger son or grandson of the
king of Denmark, and as the youthful companion of Henry II., who,
betaking himself from the sunshine of royal friendship, became a canon
of the monastery he himself had founded. In this congenial solitude he
died in 1170, aged 75. Such is the outline of the foundation of this
structure, and it is one of the most attractive episodes of the early
history of England; for the circumstance of a noble exchanging the
gilded finery of a court, and the gay companionship of his prince, for
the gloomy cloisters of an abbey, and the ascetic duties of monastic
life, bespeaks a degree of resolution and self-control which was more
probably the result of sincere conviction than of momentary caprice.

The present cathedral is represented to have been merely the church of
the monastery, which was entirely rebuilt in the commencement of the
fourteenth century. The style of architecture in the different parts of
this cathedral is accurately discriminated in the following account from
the pen of Bishop Littleton, F.S.A.:--"The lower parts of the chapter
house walls," says he, "together with the door-way and columns at the
entrance of the chapter-house, may be pronounced to be of the age of
Stephen, or rather prior to his reign, being fine Saxon architecture.
The inside walls of the chapter-house have round ornamental arches