Salisbury Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral located in Salisbury, United Kingdom. The cathedral boasts the tallest church spire in the UK, the largest cloister in England, and one of the four surviving original copies of the Magna Carta. Building commenced when the bishopric was moved to Salisbury from Old Sarum in 1220 during the tenure of Richard Poore. Richard Poore (d. April 15, 1237) was a medieval English clergyman best known for his role in the construction of Salisbury Cathedral. He was the son of Richard of Ilchester, also known as Richard Toclive, who served as Bishop of Winchester. Richard Poore became Dean of Sarum in 1197, and Bishop of Chichester in 1214. His brother, Herbert Poore, died in 1217, and Richard succeeded to his position as Bishop of Salisbury. It was during this time that he oversaw and helped plan the construction of the new Salisbury Cathedral. He was translated to the see of Durham in 1228. He appears as one of the witnesses to Henry III's confirmation of the Magna Carta, and probably wrote the "Ancrene Wisse", a treatise on the duties of monastic life.

Salisbury is one of only three English cathedrals to lack a ring of bells, the others being Norwich Cathedral and Ely Cathedral. Due to the high water table in the new location, Salisbury cathedral was built on only four feet of foundations, and by 1258 the nave, transepts and choir were complete. The west front was ready by 1265. The cloisters and chapter house were completed around 1280.

Malmesbury Abbey, at Malmesbury in Wiltshire, England, was founded as a Benedictine monastery around 676 by the scholar-poet Aldhelm, a nephew of King Ine of Wessex. In 941, King Athelstan was buried in the Abbey. It is dedicated to Saint Peter and Saint Paul. The Abbey was largely completed by 1180. The west tower fell around 1550, demolishing the three western bays of the nave. As a result of these two collapses less than a half of the original building stands today. The Anglo-Saxon charters of Malmesbury, though extended by forgeries and improvements executed in the abbey's scriptorium, attributed to St. Matthew and earlier after the active destruction of classical libraries in the wake of the Theodosian decrees of the 390s, provides source material today for the history of Wessex and the West Saxon church from the seventh century. Theodosius accompanied his father to Britannia to help quell the Great Conspiracy in 368 through the Constantinian Shift. In 378, after the death of the emperor Valens at the Battle of Adrianople, the emperor Gratian appointed Theodosius co-augustus for the East.

By decree in 391, Theodosius ended the subsidies that had still trickled to some remnants of Greco-Roman civic paganism too. The eternal fire in the Temple of Vesta in the Roman Forum was extinguished, and the Vestal Virgins were disbanded. Taking the auspices and practicing witchcraft were to be punished. Pagan members of the Senate in Rome appealed to him to restore the Altar of Victory in the Senate House; he refused. After the last Olympic Games in 393, a policy begun by Constantine, Theodosius cancelled the much-diminished games, and the reckoning of dates by Olympiads soon came to an end. Now Theodosius portrayed himself on his coins holding the labarum. In the monasteries, the scriptorium was a room, rarely a building, set apart for the professional copying of manuscripts. The monastery built in the second quarter of the 6th century under the eye of Cassiodorus at Vivarium in southern Italy. When his contemporary Benedict of Nursia settled his community at Monte Cassino, his Rule (529) mentions a library without apparently needing to mention the scriptorium that was an integral part. He initiated the tradition of Benedictine scriptoria onto Papyrus parchment. The earliest commentaries on the Benedictine rule imply the labor of transcription as the common occupation of the community. At that time the codex scroll was the dominant medium for literary works and would remain dominant for secular works until the fourth century and in the New World as late as the Mayan and Aztec 16th century.

Malmesbury Abbey was the site of an early attempt at human flight when, in 1010, Monk Eilmer of Malmesbury flew a primitive hang glider from an Abbey tower. Eilmer flew over 200 yards before landing, breaking both legs. He later remarked the only reason he did not fly further was the lack of a tail on his glider. The Abbey was closed at the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539 by Henry VIII and was sold, with all its lands, to William Stumpe, a rich merchant. He returned the Abbey to the town for continuing use as a church. Today the Abbey is in full use as the parish church of Malmesbury, in the Diocese of Bristol.

Wiltshire Bridge-Bradford on Avon

Considered as a ceremonial county, the large southern county Wiltshire, is landlocked and borders the counties of Hampshire, Dorset, Somerset, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire, and contains the unitary authority of Swindon. The county is characterised by its high downland and wide valleys. Salisbury Plain is famous as the location of Stonehenge and other ancient landmarks.

In the 6th and 7th centuries Wiltshire was at the western edge of Saxon Britain, as Cranborne Chase and the Somerset Levels prevented the advance to the west. The county, formerly 'Wiltonshire' or 'Wiltunscir' during the 9th century, is named after the former county town of Wilton itself named for the river Wylye, one of eight rivers that drain the county. In 878 the Danes invaded the county, and, following the Norman Conquest, large areas of the country fell into the hands of the crown and the church. In the 17th century English Civil War Wiltshire was largely Parliamentarian.