“The low-pitched roof of the Minster, the solidity of the central tower, 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 a 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.”—(A. C.-B.)
The visitor who has a short time to visit York Minster will study the west front, the choir, the Chapter-House, and the windows.
“If the beauty in the form of our flos florum is due to its architecture, very much of its beauty in colour depends on the glowing and mellowed tints with which its windows are filled. But it is a large subject to enter upon, for as regards quantity there are no less than one hundred and three windows in the Minster, most of them entirely, and the remainder, only excepting the tracery, filled with real old Mediæval glass. Some of the windows, too, are of great size. The east window, which is entirely filled with old glass, consists of nine lights and measures seventy-eight feet in height, thirty-one feet two inches in width. The two choir transept windows, that in the north transept to St. William, and the south to St. Cuthbert, measure seventy-three feet by sixteen feet. They have both been restored, the latter very recently, but by far the greater part of them is old glass. On each side of the choir, the aisles contain nine windows measuring fourteen feet nine inches by twelve feet, only the tracery lights of which are modern; the same number of windows fill the clerestory above, the greater portions of which are ancient.
“The famous window of the north transept, the Five Sisters, consists of five lights, each measuring fifty-three feet six inches by five feet one inch, and is entirely of old glass. There are six windows in the north and six in the south aisles of the nave, with only a little modern glass in the tracery. The superb Flamboyant window at the west end of the centre aisle measures fifty-six feet three inches by twenty-five feet four inches, and consists, I believe, entirely of old glass, except the faces of the figures. The clerestory windows are studded with ancient shields, but a great part of the glass is, I fancy, modern; those of the vestibule, eight in number, measuring thirty-two feet by eighteen, are of old glass, including the tracery lights. The east window has been clumsily restored by Willement. In the side windows of the transept there is some old glass, and the great rose window over the south entrance still retains much of the old glass; while far overhead in the tower there are some really fine bold designs of late, but genuine, design and execution. Altogether, according to actual measurements, there are 25,531 superficial feet of Mediæval glass in the Minster, i.e., more than half an acre—a possession, we should think, unequalled by any church in England, if not in Christendom.”—(P.-C.)
York, or, to use its older name, Eboracum, had been an important British settlement long before the Romans made it the principal seat of their power in the north between the years 70 and 80 A.D. It continued to be a Roman court until the Emperor Honorius left Britain in 409. Hadrian lived here; Severus and Constantine Chlorus died here; and here Constantine the Great was proclaimed Emperor. Many churches in the vicinity were dedicated to the latter’s mother, St. Helena, the legendary discoverer of the True Cross.
York was therefore the great military post and the great ecclesiastical seat in the north of England.
The question of precedence between York and Canterbury arose as early as the days of St. Augustine. Gregory the Great instructed the latter to appoint twelve bishops, one of whom was to be the Bishop of York, who was to ordain other bishops in the north of England. He was to be subordinate to Augustine; but subsequently precedence should be determined by priority of consecration. This occasioned dissensions for centuries, culminating in the murder of Thomas à Becket ([see page 2]), which Roger de Pont l’Évêque is said to have instigated. It was this Archbishop of York who, refusing to take a lower seat at the Council of Westminster in 1176, sat himself in the lap of Becket’s successor only to be pulled off and soundly beaten. The question was not finally settled until the time of John of Thorsby (1352-1373), when Innocent VI. determined that the Archbishop of Canterbury should be styled Primate of All England and the Archbishop of York, Primate of England.
The first archbishop was Paulinus, Bishop of Rochester ([see page 33]), who accompanied Ethelburga, daughter of the King of Kent, when she went to Northumbria to marry King Edwin. Edwin embraced Christianity and was baptised in 627, by Paulinus, in a temporary wooden church on the site of the present glorious York Minster. Immediately afterwards Edwin began to build a stone church in this same place, which he dedicated to St. Peter. This church was repaired by the next archbishop—the great Wilfrid—about 669.
When Thomas of Bayeux, the first Norman archbishop, arrived in 1070, he found the Cathedral in ruins, owing to the Danish invasion and to the wars of the Conqueror; and, if William of Malmsbury may be believed, Thomas began the church from its foundations and also finished it.