The walls were rebuilt with solid masonry, held together by Portland cement, and strengthened by wrought-iron bars; the Purbeck marble shafts were in places renewed; the groining of the vault was stripped of the whitewash which concealed its material; the lath and plaster work of the vault between the groins was removed, and replaced by oak boarding; the bosses were gilded, and picked out with vermilion paint.
The cost in all of this restoration was about £20,000. In the course of it it was discovered that there were many remains of tombs and coffins under the pavement, but they have not yet been thoroughly explored.
The reredos, made of terra-cotta and wood, was designed by Street, the figures by Tinworth.
Modern stained glass windows have from time to time been placed in the minster. In the last century a certain Pickett patched and rearranged much of the older glass.
CHAPTER III
THE EXTERIOR
York Minster consists of a nave of eight bays and a choir of nine. It has a large central tower and two western towers. The main transepts project three bays from the nave and choir. There are also two eastern transepts four bays west of the east end, which do not project beyond the aisles of the choir. The chapter-house lies to the east of the northern transept, and is connected with it by a lofty passage projecting three bays from the transept. The east end of the cathedral is square, as in most English Gothic churches. The best views are to be obtained from the north, especially from the walls, which will be most conveniently ascended at Bootham Bar, or from the extreme northern corner of the close. From the walls the whole of the vast bulk of the minster may be seen, broken by the great central tower and the lofty cap of the chapter-house. Other English cathedrals are more finely placed, several are richer in ornament, one or two have a more delicately varied outline. None are so stately and so magnificent; and there is hardly a church in Europe that appears so vast as the minster viewed from the north. Compared with it the great French cathedrals, with their stilted roofs so often unbroken, except by a small flêche and with their outlines concealed in a crowd of flying buttresses, are apt to look short and huddled when seen from a distance.
The low-pitched roof of the minster, the absence of flying buttresses, and the simple and tranquil front of the north transept, give the building an air of masculine and stately repose, and of perfect finish seldom to be found in foreign churches; while the apparent uniformity of style, though the architecture is of three different periods, frees it from the picturesque inconsequence of many English cathedrals. Yet neither inside nor outside does the minster appear to be the expression of the spiritual aspirations of a people. It represents rather the secular magnificence, the temporal power of a Church, that has played a great part in the history of the nation. The archbishops of York have been forced by circumstances to be militant prelates, contending with Canterbury for precedence, leading armies against the Scotch, sometimes even heading rebellions against the king; and in their cathedral they have expressed their ambition and their pride.
The West Front.—The west front of York Minster is free from the two faults most common to the façades of most English cathedrals. It is not a mere undistinguished ending to the church, like those at Norwich and Winchester, and it is not a magnificent misrepresentation of the height or width of the building itself, like the west fronts at Peterborough and Lincoln. Most of the English cathedrals are not lofty or wide enough to give opportunities for an impressive façade, unless they are fronted with a mere screen of masonry; but this is not the case at York. No other Gothic church in England is so wide, and only Westminster Abbey is as lofty. The builder, therefore, was not tempted to any expedient to conceal the dimensions of his church, and so the front consists of the natural end of the nave, of which a great part is filled by the west window, with a gable above it representing the space between the vault and the roof, and with the porch below it. It is flanked by two towers built in front of the aisles, with two smaller porches at the base of each. The three divisions of the west front are marked by buttresses, prominent and richly ornamented, one on each side of the west window and two at the external corners of the towers. The buttresses, covered with niches and panelling, grow narrower and less prominent as they rise, until they are cut short with three cornered caps some feet below the battlements of the towers. The central window and the principal entrance are surrounded with niches, and there is an elaborate gable above each of them. The west front exhibits three different styles; the lowest part, containing the porches and the west windows of the aisle, being of the geometrical Decorated style; the middle portion, including the great west window, the gables above it, and the middle windows of the towers of the later or curvilinear Decorated; and the towers above the roof, Perpendicular of the fifteenth century. The central gable and the great west window are almost flamboyant in their decoration. A battlement immediately above the central window runs right across the front. The niches on the buttresses are in four storeys, and those on the central part of the front in six, of varying heights. There is also a row of niches on the towers immediately above the ornamental gable of the aisle windows, and the upper part of each tower is covered with niches. The greater part of these niches above the two lowest rows do not appear to have ever contained sculpture. The bases of the lowest row of niches are richly ornamented with foliage. The main entrance, though small, is extraordinarily beautiful. It consists of a single arch, divided into two smaller cusped arches by a central pillar with a circular opening above it, glazed and filled with six divisions of cusped tracery. Above the main arch is a gable, in which are five niches, the central one containing the figure of an archbishop. It is uncertain whether this is Archbishop John Romeyn, who began the nave, or Archbishop Melton, who finished the west front and glazed the central window. On either side of the gable are statues of the Percy and Vavasour, who gave the wood and stone necessary for the building of the nave. These statues, and the greater, part of the porch, have been restored. But even after restoration the fine proportions and delicate workmanship of the porch are evident. The slender shafts supporting the arches are well grouped and contrasted. The capitals, though characteristically small, are most delicate, and the mouldings are admirably varied with foliage, figures, canopies, and brackets for statues, formal decoration, and courses of plain stone. These mouldings contain the history of Adam and Eve. Even the porches at Sienna and Orvieto, though made of far more costly materials, can hardly be more beautiful than was this porch at the time of its completion. There is but little other statuary remaining on the west front. A few figures of saints remain in the upper niches of the buttresses, and there are fragments of sculpture on some of the lowest. The towers are 201 feet high, and are uniform in design. The front of each contains three large windows; the highest, Perpendicular in style, containing three lights; the middle, curvilinear Decorated, containing four; and the lowest, the west windows of the aisle, being geometrical Decorated, and containing three lights. The middle windows to the north and south are of very curious half geometrical, half curvilinear tracery. The highest and lowest windows of the towers have ornamented gables above them, the lowest being triangular, the upper ogee-shaped. The towers are topped with large battlements and pinnacles.