442 KOGElî OK WENDOVEH. [Λ.Ι. Ì-::S general, which destroyed churches and chtireh-towcrs, houses and other buildings, walls and ramparts of castles. Jo a town called Pilardeston, in the county of Warwick, the storm destroyed the house of a certain knight, burying hi* wife, and eight persons of both sexes, to the great awe of numbers wdio saw the calamity. After this, the storm gaining power in its rage, in the same town fell on a turf-pit surrounded by a lake of deep water, and in an instant dried it up so that it left neither grass nor earth in it, and only the dry stones remained. Again, on the eve of St. Lucy* the virgin, a strong and sudden storm of wind arose, which raged more fiercely than the before-mentioned tempest, for throughout Kngland in general it threw down buildings, as it' they were shaken by the breath of the devil, levelled churches and their towers to the ground, tore up by the roots the trees of the forest and fruit trees, so that scarcely a .single person escaped without suffering loss.t * December 13th. t l'ari* here adds : '· Jn the same year, master Stephen de Langton bold a general council at Oxford, when a number of statutes were made fur the reformation of the church ami monastic orders in England, as is elsewhere more fully mentioned in the said council. On the twentieth of May in the same year, William de llumcto abbat of Westminster died ; be was succeeded by Richard Hcrking, prior of that church, who, on the eighteenth of September in the same year received the benediction front I'cter lord bishop of Winchester, in the church of Westminster. In this year, too, Italph bishop of Chichester, formerly an official and afterwards prior of Norwich, went the way of all llesh, and waa succeeded by Italph Neville, who had before this been the keeper and in-arcr of the rovai seal ; he was a faithful chancellor of the king, and he accepted of this see by the assent of the whole kingdom, on the condition that he should not be deposed from bis oflice unless with the wish and consent of the whole kingdom, so he still continued chancellor alter he became a bishop, lie was elected about the least of All Saints, hut was not confirmed till the following year. In the same year, died William of lily, treasurer of Kngland. In this year too the controversy between Eustace bishop of I»ndon and the chapter of St. I'aul'x "f the one part, and abbai William and the monks of Westminster ol the otlu r part, was settled by Stephen archbishop of Canterbury ; the bishops, 1*. ni Winchester and It. of Salisbury, ami the priors, Thomas of Merton and Kichurd of lluustabh , whom both parties had agreed on as arbiters and Ό arrange the terms oi agreement, and these umpires declared tie nn.n.isten of Westminster to be entirely exempt from ad subjection to. nod nirxietioti of, the bishop of London, and they decrttd tint the ehuii'. "I s: cues with it appurte nances should be converted to tin' pro|icr i.ses .,1 the church of West