Stavanger Cathedral is said to have started construction of the cathedral around 1100. It was finished around 1150: the city of Stavanger counts 1125 as its year of foundation. The cathedral was dedicated to Saint Swithun, an early Bishop of Winchester and subsequently patron saint of Winchester Cathedral. The church was initially the seat of the Diocese of Stavanger within the Roman Catholic Church until the Protestant Reformation. Stavanger was ravaged by fire in 1272, and the cathedral suffered heavy damage. It was rebuilt under Bishop Arne (1276–1303) at which time the Romanesque cathedral was enlarged in the Gothic style. In 1682,
Diocese of Winchester licensed as an honorary assistant bishop for ministry in the diocese. The Diocese of Winchester is one of the oldest and most important in England. Originally it was the see of the kingdom of Wessex (as such it is sometimes called the "Diocese of Wessex"), with the "cathedra" at Dorchester Cathedral under Saints Birinus (a Roman missionary and the Abbey's founder) and Agilbert. This Wessex diocese covered most of Hampshire, Berkshire, parts of Oxfordshire and Wiltshire. It was transferred to Winchester in AD 660: the episcopal cathedral see was, at some point, at Old Minster, Winchester. Around 704, the diocese