[93] “Monasterium” is used in the middle ages for a parish church in the country. “Minster” has always been a special Yorkshire word, “York Minster,” “Ripon Minster,” “Beverley Minster.” The unique inscription at the side of the sun-dial at Kirkdale Church, dated as in the days of Tostig the Earl, sets forth that “Orm Gamal-suna bohte Sanctus Gregorius minster”.
[94] The writer of this cannot refrain from mentioning a curious coincidence of dates and experience between himself and his schoolfellow and head master Alcuin. York Minster was burned on May 23, 741, when Alcuin was six years old. The cathedral school being within the precincts, Alcuin would have to be removed to a place of safety. York Minster was burned on May 20, 1840, curiously near to being the eleven-hundredth anniversary of the burning on May 23, 741, and the present writer, then aged six, was carried from his bed in the minster precincts to a place of safety in Castlegate.
[95] An. DCC.XLI. Her forbarn Eoferwic. This entry is found in the two MSS. of the Chronicle known as Cotton. Tib. B. 1 and Bodl. Laud. 636. These two MSS. have special information about Northumbrian affairs. They differ in the spelling of proper names, but in this case they take the same spelling of the Anglian name of York, which appears in five different forms in the Chronicle.
[96] Before Froben this was read Alcuinus, clearly an impossible reading in a list drawn up by Alcuin himself, and at a time when his chief effort of versification could not be in the library.
[97] See [Appendix B, p. 310].
[98] Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 440.
[99] A.D. 790-805.
[100] “Sacerdos.” It appears clear that Alcuin is using the word as equivalent to “episcopus”, as it frequently was.
[101] Mal. ii. 7.
[102] “Speculator.”