Part 1

E-text prepared by Brownfox and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org)

Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 36552-h.htm or 36552-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/36552/pg36552-images.html) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/36552/36552-h.zip)

Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See http://www.archive.org/details/yorkminster00cust

YORK MINSTER

by

The Very Rev. A. P. PUREY-CUST, D.D. Dean of York

Illustrated by Alexander Ansted

London: Isbister & Co. Ltd. 15 & 16 Tavistock Street Covent Garden MDCCCXCVII

York Minster

"Ut rosa flos florum sic est domus ista domorum" are the words which some unknown hand has inscribed upon the walls of our Minster; and we who love the habitation of His house and the place where God's honour dwelleth venture to think that these are "words of truth and soberness" even now, though we remember that when they were written there were many features of art and taste adorning the great fabric which have long since passed away. Still York Minster is "a thing of beauty" in spite of ruthless improvements and fanatical zeal and Puritan Philistinism and indiscriminating utilitarianism and ignorant restorations.

In spite of these, and in consequence of these perhaps, York Minster is what it is; and if we cannot recall all that tradition tells us once adorned its courts and enriched its sanctuaries, we can admire and appreciate what has come into our hands, and thank God that it is our privilege to worship in a house so worthy of His holy name. Yes, and it is a pleasure and interest to recall the gradual development thereof through so many generations of men; how it has come up like a flower, from a very small and insignificant beginning, putting forth gradually, as time went on, larger developments, like the seed, first the blade then the ear; extending like the vine of old her branches unto the sea and her boughs unto the river--each with some fresh and characteristic novelty, as affected by the different schools of architectural taste, which, like the different seasons of the year, have shed their influence over it. And we love to idealise the scenes which have taken place therein, and the persons, many not unknown to history, who have had their share in the good work or whose lives and actions are associated therewith, or to recall how, sometimes in accordance with, sometimes in opposition to, what they most earnestly desired, it, at length, far eclipsed the most sanguine anticipations of its founders, and in its sober dignity and chastened ornamentation acquired a reputation second to none of "the Houses of God in the land."

It is, of course, a mere speculation, but fancy will sometimes be busy with vain surmises as to whether the present Minster is a development of the original British church, a mere grain of mustard seed, no doubt, as compared with its aftergrowth. But some primitive building did exist, for, as far back as the year 180, Beda tells us, missionaries were sent from Rome by Eleutherius at the request of the British chieftain Lucius, not for the conversion of the people, but to settle controverted points of differences as to Eastern and Western ceremonials which were disturbing the Church, and tradition speaks of twenty-eight British bishops, one for each of the greater British cities, over whom presided the Archbishops of London, York and Caerleon-on-Usk. So that the Romans probably found a Christian Church already established when Agricola took possession of Eburacum, towards the close of the first century after Christ's birth, and probably tolerated it with proud indifference for many generations until the great persecution of Diocletian in 294, when Constantius Chlorus, one of his associates in the empire, was in command, who, Eusebius says, was nevertheless most liberal and tolerant; though Beda tells us of numbers of martyrs and confessors, and how churches were thrown down, while trembling believers fled for refuge to the wilderness and the mountains. But certainly Constantius professed himself favourable to Christianity in 305, when he divided the empire with Galerius, and, after reigning for a few months, died, and his body was probably burnt and buried here. Here, at York, his son, Constantine, if not born, was saluted as Imperator by the army on his father's death, and eventually deliberately adopted the Christian faith.

This would lead us to expect that favour would be shown to the Christian Church, and tradition has handed down the names of several prelates of York about this date: Eborius, who was present with two others at the Councils of Arles, 314, and Nicaea and Sardica and Ariminium; Sampson, who was driven out of the city by the incursion of Pagans and fled to St David's; Pyramus, Chaplain of King Arthur, that last tower of British strength, and charged by him to restore the desolated and ruined churches; and finally Tadiocus, who, when he saw the armies of Saxons pouring in, joined Theonus, Bishop of London, and fled to Wales, whither, as the Saxons did not tolerate Christianity, they were followed by all those who desired to keep the faith in peace. However, in 597, Augustine landed at Ebbsfleet in Kent, and eventually converted and baptized Ethelbert, King of Kent, who had married Bertha, daughter of the Frankish king, Charibert, and in 601, Pope Gregory, with a desire to assist Augustine in his work amongst the Anglo-Saxons, sent over Paulinus, as a likely person, should occasion offer, to resuscitate the desolated Church of Northumbria, and restore the Metropolitan See of York. It is said that "Paulinus" was the Latin title assumed by Rum, the son of Urien, a British chief, who having opposed the Saxons in the north had, on their supremacy, fled with his family from the country and sought safety at Rome, and that, therefore, Augustine having endeavoured in vain to persuade the British clergy in Kent to co-operate with him, Gregory selected Paulinus as likely to be a useful coadjutor to him in the evangelisation of Kent.

Subsequent events, perhaps unexpectedly, favoured this plan, for Edwin, the legitimate heir to the throne of Northumbria, being driven away by his brother-in-law, Ethelfrith, who had usurped the crown, sought for security and protection in other kingdoms, and, in his wanderings, came to the court of Ethelbert, where he became fascinated by Ethelburga, his daughter, and sought her for his wife. Assent was given on condition that she, being a Christian, should be allowed Christian worship, and that he would consider the faith. This he promised to do, and Redwald, King of East Anglia, having slain Ethelfrith in a battle near the sluggish waters of the river Idle, Edwin was restored to his inheritance, and proceeded to take possession of his kingdom accompanied not only by his wife but by Paulinus as her chaplain, who had been consecrated Bishop of the Northumbrians by Justus on July 21st, 625. For two years Edwin remained uninfluenced alike by the entreaties of his wife and the arguments of the bishop, but at length gave way, and on Easter day, April 12th, 627, he was baptized in a little church or chapel of wood, hastily constructed at his bidding, and dedicated to St. Peter, right in front of the great heathen temple in the centre of his capital, Eburacum.

Nothing is left of this primitive structure, but the well is still pointed out from which the water used at the ceremony was drawn, and a little beyond is a flight of stone stairs ending in a square stone slab which tradition says were the steps and altar of the temple.

There are still traces, however, of the stone church which Archbishop Albert built in its place (741), when it had been greatly injured by fire. Part of the herring-bone walls is still to be seen, and after the great fire in 1829, Brown, the antiquary, successfully traced out the foundations, which, however, are now concealed. However, it remained uninjured, in spite of incursions of Picts and Scots, until the Conquest, when it shared in the universal destruction meted out by the Conqueror to York and the surrounding country; and Thomas, the first Norman archbishop, found little left but a few tottering roofless walls which had survived the flames. He re-roofed and restored the church as well as he could, rebuilt the refectory and dormitory, and in other respects set in order the affairs of the establishment. And so it remained until Roger de Pont l'Eveque succeeded to the archiepiscopate in 1154.

Langfranc, on his accession to the See of Canterbury in 1073, had found the cathedral of Christ Church, of which Eadmer has left a curious record, almost consumed by fire; but in seven years he succeeded in rebuilding the whole church from the foundation on the plan and dimensions of St. Stephen's at Caen, the abbacy of which he had quitted to become archbishop. A detailed and singularly precise account by Gervase, the monk, is still extant. On the death of Lanfranc, 1089, the see was bestowed on Anselm, who as soon as possible took down the short choir and replaced it with one extending magnificently eastward, provided with a crypt, an apsidal aisle, a processional path with flanking towers, called St. Anselm's and St. Andrew's towers, and radiating chapels, as well as with eastern transepts, all which was, in fact, an imitation of the great Abbey of Cluny, entrusting the superintendence of the work to the priors Ernulph and Conrad, eventually his successor, who, in 1114, completed the choir with so much magnificence that it was denominated "the glorious choir of Conrad." All this, however, was destroyed by fire in 1174, which Gervase himself witnessed, but in four years was restored and even improved by the great French architect William of Sens.

In 1154, when Archbishop Fitzherbert died at York, this fair building must have been in the zenith of its beauty, and we can well imagine the anxiety of Robert the Dean and Osbert the Archdeacon to secure the election by the Chapter of Roger, who had been Archdeacon of Canterbury from 1148, and who had no doubt already given promise of that architectural ability and liberality of character which eventually made him the most munificent ruler that ever presided over the See of York. Becket succeeded him in the archdeaconry until 1162, when, elevated to the See of Canterbury, the two quondam archdeacons of Canterbury were at the very helm of the Church of England.

Roger seems at once to have commenced the reproduction at York of this great work, by substituting for the short simple chancel of the Minster a complex eastern building which, making due allowance for its want of equal dimensions with Canterbury choir, was yet evidently planned on the same system, with the aisles square ended instead of apsidal, and the flanking towers made to perform the part of eastern transepts. Of this choir, portions only of the crypt still survive. The base of the beautiful western entrance doorway to the north aisle can still be seen by adventurous explorers. The ordinary visitor can still admire the substantial and elaborately incised columns, which once supported the floor of the choir above, and see the arches, with the bold zigzag mouldings, which once rested on them, but which were removed in the days of Edward I. to support a stone platform behind the high altar, on which was erected the shrine of William Fitzherbert, then canonised as "St. William of York," to provide for the northern province a counter-attraction to St. Thomas of Canterbury. If the arches were replaced on the piers the pavement of the choir would be 15-1/2 feet above the pavement of the crypt, within 6 inches of that of Canterbury, and if the present nave floor were reduced 4 feet to its original level, the respective levels of the nave, crypt, and choir at York and Canterbury would be the same. No doubt the arrangement of the different flights of steps from the nave to the choir and to the crypt, broken in the centre aisle with a broad landing which still remains at Canterbury, was followed at York. But all this has passed away, and the feature of the "glorious choir" of Roger can now only be realised from the conjectures of the archaeologist or the dreams of the antiquary.

But there were munificent laymen as well as ecclesiastics in those days, for Lord William de Percy gave the church of Topcliffe, with all things pertaining, to the church of St. Peter at York, as a perpetual alms for the repairing and building thereof, a gift which still remains in the possession of the Dean and Chapter; and he and his successors continued to assist the development of the Cathedral with munificent contributions of wood until the completion of the nave, when his statue was placed, to commemorate his liberality, above the west door, on the right hand of Archbishop Melton, the Metropolitan at that time. On his left stands another figure commemorating equally liberal benefactors: Mauger le Vavasour, who gave a grant of free way for the stone required for the foundation of the Minster by Archbishop Thomas; his son, Robert le Vavasour, also gave 10 acres and half a rood of his quarry in Thievesdale in free, pure and perpetual alms; and their descendants, in like manner, presented almost all the material required for the present buildings, even as late as the great fire in 1829, when Sir Edward Vavasour, although a Roman Catholic, at once placed his quarries at the service of the Dean and Chapter for the restoration of the choir.

Fancy would fain idealise the choir of Roger, which has passed away, for the superstructure to such substantial and dignified masonry as still remains must have been solemn and imposing. Professor Willis suggests a choir the floor of which was raised 15 feet above the floor of the nave, and transepts with eastern towers approached by flights of steps such as still exist at Canterbury, but the learned professor had few reliable data for his conjectures, and it must remain a conjecture _usque ad finem_. Geoffrey Plantagenet, who succeeded Roger, had not the opportunity, even if he had the will and capacity, to extend the buildings of the Minster. The youngest child of fair Rosamond, the lawful wife, historians now tell us, of Henry II., he was at least a loving son. On his breast his father died, to him the King gave his royal ring, and on his head with his last dying breath he invoked the blessing of heaven. But if his dutiful conduct caused the warm-hearted members of the Chapter to elect their Treasurer Archbishop, it did not conciliate either of his half-brothers, Richard and John. Sixteen years of incessant discord ensued, and then he gave place to one more capable of his position, Walter de Gray. But the Chapter did not at first think so. He was not one of themselves; they knew little of the Bishop of Worcester, and what they knew they disliked. He was, in their eyes, an illiterate person. Simon de Langton was more to their mind. But Walter de Gray was King John's friend, and John was not a man to be thwarted. He meant him to be Archbishop, and his representatives persuaded Pope Innocent III. to overrule the election of the Chapter. At least, he was a man of pure life, they said. "Per sanctum Petrum," replied the Pope, "virginitas magna est virtus, et nos eum damus vobis."

And certainly posterity has had no reason to regret his decision. The glorious early English transepts and tower are believed to have been his conception, vast beyond anything which had been erected in those days, and, as the late Mr. Street has often told me, after all his experiences on the Continent, unsurpassed in Christendom. Walter de Gray, at least, completed the south transept, "in boldness of arrangement and design, and in richness of decoration without a peer." And there his body rests in the grave which received all that was mortal of him on the vigil of Pentecost, 1255, still surmounted with the effigy of the great man in full canonicals carved in Purbeck marble, under a comely canopy resting on ten light and graceful pillars, hidden, alas! by a crude and modern screen of iron, the well-intentioned addition of Archbishop Markham some eighty years ago.

And Providence had associated with Walter de Gray one worthy of such a fellowship, John le Romain, the treasurer of the church, an Italian ecclesiastic who, tradition says, smitten with the charms of some dark-eyed beauty of the South gladly associated himself with the clergy of the Church where celibacy, at that day at least, was not _de rigueur_. He it was who completed the great work his superior had commenced, raised, at his own expense, the great tower, built the north transept, designed "the Five Sisters," and filled it with the exquisite grisaille geometrical glass, which has been the admiration of successive generations for six hundred years. How much Walter de Grey laid out in the erection of the transepts I cannot say: I only know that the South Transept cost L23,000 to restore fifteen years ago. In addition to his work on the material fabric of the Minster, Archbishop Walter de Grey achieved that which had a substantial influence on its progress to its completion. Archbishop Roger had initiated the great work, but had died in his bed, and his influence had died with him. Thomas a Becket, his successor as Archdeacon of Canterbury, had also advanced to the dignity of the archiepiscopate, but he had fallen a victim to his zeal for the Church spiritual, and his martyrdom and canonisation had entailed a shrine in the Cathedral which was eliciting from innumerable pilgrims munificent offerings for the fabric of the church. If York were to compete with Canterbury it was necessary that here, too, a shrine of some popular saint should attract the presence of the devout, and appeal to their munificence and liberality. This also Walter de Grey, supported as he was by the king, was able to accomplish, and in compliance with a petition from the Archbishop and Dean and Chapter, Pope Honorius, on March 18th, 1226, issued a letter, "tied with thread of silk and a Bull," to the effect that the name of William (Fitzherbert) of holy memory, formerly Archbishop of York, nominated by them for this honour, the predecessor of Archbishop Roger, was "inscribed in the catalogue of the Saints of the Church Militant."

Little, however, seems to have been done during the archiepiscopates of Sewell de Bovell, Geoffry de Ludham and Walter Gifford.

However, in 1279, William de Wykewayne, Chancellor of the Church, was elected to the see, and he at once took action by translating the remains of the canonised William, on December 29th, to a becoming shrine prepared for them behind the high altar on a platform raised upon the arches of the crypt removed to this, their present, position, for that purpose. It was a grand day in the Minster. Edward I. himself, together with the bishops who were present, carried on their shoulders the chest or feretory containing the precious relics to their new resting-place, and Anthony Beck, consecrated the same day Bishop of Durham, paid all the expenses.

In 1286, Archbishop Wykewayne died, and was succeeded by another, John Romanus, the worthy son of the munificent treasurer, who had doubtless inherited the taste and munificence of his father. Perhaps for that very reason the Chapter selected him, when only Prebendary of Warthill in the church, to be his successor, and his ten years of office, if too short to do much, was sufficient to initiate the great work of building a nave consistent with the transepts. Another style of architecture was setting in, the Decorated, and where could it be better inaugurated than in such a church as this? For one hundred and fifty years the good work went on. Four prelates in succession, Henry de Newark, Thomas de Corbridge, William de Greenfield, William de Melton, each, during his tenure of office, strove to promote the completion of the grand design his predecessor had indicated, in that full perfection of ecclesiastical architecture. No effort was spared, no personal self-denial evaded; clergy and laity alike shared in the enthusiasm of the moment, the Plantagenet kings, for the most part resident in York, by offerings and by influence, encouraging and stimulating the good work. Archbishop Melton contributed many thousands of pounds from his own purse, and had the privilege of seeing the grand conception completed; and there he sits above the central doorway graven in stone in his archiepiscopal attire, with his hand still raised in the attitude of benediction; over his head one of the finest flamboyant windows in the world, and on either side the representatives of the houses of Vavasour and Percy, bearing in their arms emblems of the wood and stone which they had offered.

And concurrently with the great work, another, in perfect harmony therewith, was proceeding, viz. the Chapter House, with its great circumference occupied with stalls, surmounted by elaborate and delicate canopies, enriched with innumerable quaint and suggestive carvings of heads and features, some as warnings, some as encouragements, to those who have eyes to see, and of graceful foliage of trefoil and other plants, specially the _planta benedicta_, which illustrated the doctrine of the Holy Trinity and the love of God, girdled with a simple yet emblematical wreath of the vine; while the varied foliage rises again in the glass, bordering the noble windows, rich with heraldry and sacred subjects, until lost in the stately roof, which, spanning the whole area without any central column, and once glowing with emblematical figures and stars, is centred with a majestic boss of the Lamb of God. Alas that Willement ever essayed to restore it, scraped the paintings from the walls, plastered the ceiling, repaired the floor, and ruined the east window which he had taken to pieces and found himself incompetent to put together again! Still, though but the survival of its ancient glories, it is "the flower of our flowers," the focus of all the beauties which in their wanton profusion extend on all sides around us.

Who built it? Who conceived this stately hall, with this elegant vestibule unique in the cloisters of Europe? Who furnished the funds by which it was founded and completed? Well, if conjecture may supply what faith or modesty may have left unexpressed, Bogo de Clare, for the shields in the tracery point to that family. He, an ecclesiastical courtier nearly related to the royal family, and a not altogether worthy scion of the House of Clare, but wealthy beyond all conception with the plurality of his benefices, which the late Chancellor Raine estimated at about L20,000 per annum, was treasurer of the Minster from 1274 to 1285. A man probably not likely to do much to promote the devotion of the Minster, though ready to devote the vast accumulation of money which he had acquired to exalt the glories of the house of which he was a member, and, for the time at least, the reputation of his name.