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[Bayes <imp...@mm...>]

 accuracy of the explanation generally given of the site of the
lady-chapel here--namely, that the place of honour, east of the high
altar, was already appropriated to the shrine of S. Etheldreda. On the
night of February 12, 1322, the eve of S. Ermenilda's day, the central
tower fell. Its insecurity had long been known. The monks had just left
their matin service in S. Catharine's Chapel. Some persons conclude from
this fact that the choir had already been disused as being unsafe; but
unless there is other evidence of this, the mere fact of the monastic
matins being held in the chapel nearest to the domestic buildings seems
hardly sufficient to justify the conclusion. The chapel here named was
not (according to Dean Stubbs) the one now dedicated to S. Catharine at
the west end of the cathedral, but one that adjoined the chapter-house.
The fall of the tower destroyed three bays of the choir. Different
opinions are held as to the character of the architecture of the bays
thus destroyed. Some hold that Bishop Northwold built the choir and
presbytery, from the central tower to the east end, in the Early English
style, and that three of his bays were thrown down by the fall of the
tower[9]; others think that the bays now ruined were part of the Norman
work.[10] It is