Note 228 — from the Origins To the Renaissance (continued 3)

They built a good many. Alexander, bishop of Lincoln, after having been a parish priest at Caen, first tried his hand as a builder, in erecting castles; he built some at Newark, Sleaford, and Banbury. He then busied himself with holier work and endowed Lincoln Cathedral with its stone vault. This splendid church had been begun on a spot easy to defend by another French bishop, Remi, formerly monk at Fécamp: "Mercatis igitur prædiis, in ipso vertice urbis juxta castellum turribus fortissimis eminens, in loco forti fortem, pulchro pulchrum, virgini virgineam construxit ecclesiam; quæ et grata esset Deo servientibus et, ut pro tempore oportebat, invincibilis hostibus." Henry of Huntingdon, "Historia Anglorum," Rolls, p. 212.