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Cheapside, built in the reign of William the Conqueror , fesaid to have been the first church built with Arches of stone,and for that reason was named St. Mary de Arcubus, that is,St. Mary le Bow, and for the same reason, the first archedstone bridge erected at Stratford, near London , by Matilda,wife of Hen . I. , gave the name to that village of Stratford leBow. The foundation of St. Paul’s, built in 1187, was securedby Arches .

The first triumphal Arch is supposed to have been erectedin honour of Romulus. Under the emperors, they were con-structed of the finest marble, and were very rich and magnifi-cent, so that Pliny calls them a new invention. They wereunknown in ancient Greece.

ARCHBISHOP. The origin of this title is involved inconsiderable obscurity. According to Dugdale, it had its risein Alexandria, and St. Epiphanius styles Peter, the sixteenthin succession after St. Mark , Archbishop of Alexandria ; otherssuppose that this rank was not known in the east till aboutthe year 320, when Athanasius assumed the title of Archbishop.

It is equally uncertain when the title was first known inEngland, for it appears that long before the arrival of St.Augustin, Wales had an Archbishop of her own, who seemsto have been elected by the bishops, and that the bishop ofSt. David’s was styled Archbishop of Wales , from the year550 to the year 1100, when he submitted to the Archbishopof Canterbury, as his metropolitan. It is, indeed, doubtful,whether St. Augustin, commonly called St. Austin, who wassent by Gregory I. in 597, to convert the Anglo-Saxons , evermade use of the title of Archbishop , that of metropolitanbeing considered by the Roman church of equal, if not supe-rior authority. The Archbishop of Canterbury, till the year1152, had jurisdiction over Ireland : he was also consideredas legatus natus, and consequently possessed all the privi-leges of the Pope's ambassador; he even enjoyed some spe-