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,
Saint George's Day in England of England (the Saint George's Cross), which in the 1980s had mostly been reserved for political English nationalism, started to be displayed as representing England by football fans since the mid-1990s, and the flag is now frequently flown throughout the country both privately and by local authorities. In parallel, a revival of St George's Day as an English national holiday has been encouraged by organisations such as English Heritage and the Royal Society of Saint George, partly in reaction to calls to replace St George as patron saint of England. including a 2003 BBC Radio 4 poll on the subject.