THE CATHEDRAL IN YORK (GREAT BRITAIN)

The St. Peter Cathedral in York or York Minster – is a rival of the Canterbury Cathedral with a long history. And even though the York Cathedral has had for a long time status of the second main temple in Great Britain, it still keeps the title of the biggest medieval cathedral in England.

In the old Roman epoch, present York was named Eborakum, and the Cathedral of York today stands on the site of former Roman military bastions. The statue of Constantine the Great (Roman Emperor, AD 306-337) reminds us of the fact that this emperor was the first to adopt Christianity and to found the city of Constantinople, and of the fact that it was in York (Eborakum) where Constantine the Great was proclaimed Emperor of the Roman Empire. They say that there was a small Christian community in York by that time. At any rate, according to some records, already in 314 York had its own Bishop. Throughout the next centuries, York remained as the main missionary center in the north of England.

The fall of the Roman Empire and invasion of barbarians in V-VI centuries halted the process of Britain’s evangelization for a while. Christianity came back to York in 625 with Bishop Paulinus, the founder of the Christian community in Lincoln. He arrived here in the court of Princess of Kent Ethelburga. Being a Christian, she was chosen as a wife of King of Northumbria Edwin. Not long before that, in 601, Saint Augustine, the Baptizer of Britain, who settled down in Canterbury, bestowed upon Paulinus the right to ordain priests into Bishops. Thus, the seeds of future strife between York and Canterbury were sown, which gave blossoming fruit. But it would happen later, and then Christian missionaries were successfully laboring and reaping the harvest.

In 627, by efforts of his wife Ethelburga and bishop Paulinus, King Edwin was converted into Christianity. The baptism took place in a small wooden church built for that very occasion. This is how the cathedral of York came into being.

In 632, on the site of the wooden church a construction of a stone church started. King Edwin died before it was completed. The dedication of the temple occurred under his successor Oswald. The church, where from now on the cathedra of the bishops of York — and later on archbishops — was located, was dedicated to St. Peter.

By 1066, when the ships of William the Conqueror approached Britain, the history of York’s cathedral extended back already over four hundred years. There was a lot within this history: royal strife, devastating raids of Norwegians and Danes and fires. Several times the cathedral was subject to destruction; and yet every time it was restored anew. Many famous Anglican Church pioneers’ deeds had to do with York Minster. St. Wilfred, who headed up York’s episcopate during forty years (665-705) and Egbert, the first Archbishop of York (732-766), turned the cathedral into the most important center of Christian life and Enlightenment in the North of England, which was a real rival of Canterbury. The school and library opened at the cathedral could not be rivaled not only in Britain but also in all the lands of Europe north of the Alps; their fame spread throughout the entire Christian world. The cathedral itself back in those times was nearly the biggest cathedral of England. The contemporaries described it as a high monumental construction supported by rows of columns with semi-secular arcades. There were thirty chancels set up in it. The cathedral was surrounded by many side chapels.

On December 25, 1066, on Christmas Day, York’s bishop Ealdred, in the presence of Norman knights and clergymen, who gathered in the Westminster Abbey, anointed William the Conqueror, who dethroned legal King Harold and conquered the Anglo-Saxons, to reign with a British crown. By this act Ealdred, who began to cooperate with the Norman invaders gained a special favor in the eyes of the new masters of England, but deserved absolute scorn of his compatriots. Soon the entire Northern England rebelled against its Norman enslavers. York – the main city of the north, for a short time turned out to be in the hands of the rebels. But the Normans were lucky to win it back, after which a decision was made to turn York into a stronghold base of Norman dominion in the north of England.

Ealdred died in 1069 and was buried within the walls of York Mister. In 1070, William the Conqueror appointed a new archbishop from among Norman clergymen to York – Thomas of Bayeux. Five years later, a new period of troublesome times in England began. The raids of the Danes, uprisings of the Saxons and almost unceasing military operations led to the fact that by 1080 the cathedral in York was almost completely destroyed. And in 1080s, when the position of the Normans got strengthened, Thomas of Bayeux began to build a new cathedral in York.

It was laid on the site of an old archbishop’s church founded by King Edwin in VII century. Construction took a long time. First, the central nave and transept were laid. In 1154-1181, the choir was also built. In 1220s, the northern and southern ends of the transept were rebuilt; in 1265, a middle crossing in Early Gothic style was erected; reconstruction of the nave occurred in 1291.

Although by the end of XIII century the York Cathedral was already among the biggest cathedrals of Europe, works continued in it almost unceasingly until 1472. Such a long construction influenced in its own way the appearance of the building, which incorporated in it styles and artistic techniques of different epochs (even though the so-called Flamboyant Gothic style predominates in it). Its blossoming in England occurred in XIII-XIV centuries.

As York’s archbishops erected their construction, they were jealously watching their archrival — Canterbury: would York be able to exceed the Canterbury cathedral in size, grandeur and richness? As a result, York Minster would eventually end up being not worse than its “older brother,” even though it looks grimmer, weightier and more archaic then the cathedral in Canterbury. Anyhow, the cathedral in York is a wonderful monument to the faith of the people who lived in the epoch of the Early Renaissance.

The York Minster is gigantic even compared to the famous cathedrals of France. Today it is impossible to see it in its full splendor: houses crowding in the labyrinth of the streets around it almost completely obstruct the view of the temple. Above the roofs of the houses three magnificent towers of the cathedral rise up into the sky: the central one – the widest but at the same time the lowest of all – was elevated in 1407-1432 by master William of Colchester; the other two were built in 1432-1474.

The cathedral strikes you the most from the side of its western façade, in the center of which there is a stained glass window (1338-1339), one of the most beautiful in its kind. It was made by a master named Robert under the headship of Bishop William Melton (1316-1340). The central portal of the three is decorated by a statue of Saint Peter – the heavenly patron of York Minster.

In its layout the cathedral has the shape of a Latin cross. The central nave is 80 meters long, and 67 meters wide – it is the widest nave in England, and in its height – the second after the Westminster Abbey Cathedral. The eastern part of the cathedral, including the choir and the Holy Virgin chapel is longer than the nave and was built in 1361-1472. Built in the so-called perpendicular Gothic style, it is square-shaped and not semi-circled as it is typical on the continent. A magnificent stained glass window filling up almost the entire wall is the composition center of the York Minster.

By its structure of the vault the York Cathedral differs from all the cathedrals on the continents. Its vault has both transverse and diagonal arch ribs just like most of the continental vaults as well as a ridge rib as in most of the English ones. Short auxiliary arch ribs serve as isthmuses in between the main ones. They create an absolutely special and unique pattern. Wooden isthmuses in the choir and the central nave are made based upon the type of the stone vault.

Nobody will explain to you what the head of the dragon protruding out of the wall almost underneath the very vault of the main nave signifies. There is a suggestion that originally it served as a part of mechanism lifting up stone blocks – for that purpose there is a hole made in the dragon’s neck, through which, at it seems, ropes went.

The northern and southern parts of the transept were built at the same time – 1220-1230 – in the fashion of Early English Gothic style. An octagonal hole of the chapter adjoins the northern part; it was built in 1260-1286. The underground floors – crypts – are left from Old Saxon constructions that once used to stand on the cathedral’s site. In the underground facilities one can see the massive foundation of an ancient Anglo-Saxon church, upon which today’s cathedral rests.

The York Minster is famous for a gallery of statues of English kings made in real life size and especially for its excellent stained glass windows created throughout three centuries, which absorbed in themselves a vast variety of styles of stained glass art of medieval England. Five arrow-pointed windows of the northern transept are of the greatest interest. They are ornamented with the biggest medieval stained glass windows in the world. Created around 1250, and reaching a height of 16.2 meters, their width being 1.5 meters, these windows were given the name “Five Sisters;” ornamentation of their stained glasses consists of leaves and flowers. Each stained glass pane consists of more than one hundred thousand fragments of colored glass.

The stained glass windows of XIV century including the famous composition the Bell Founder’s Window by Richard Tunnoc decorate the windows of the aisle naves and parts of the central nave. The windows of the eastern part were completed in 1405. Their stained glasses done by master John Thornton from Coventry include depictions of 117 Bible scenes.

The stained glasses in the hall of the chapter have a brighter coloring and were created at a later time. The stained glasses of the central nave speak about the Passions of Christ, his death and resurrection, while the stained glasses of other windows narrate the earthly living of Virgin Mary, St Peter, St Paul and St Catherine as well as depict episodes from the living of other Christian Honorables.

Regardless of the fact that the York Cathedral was in the center of all stormy events of English history, it did not suffer that much from Reformation and fanatic Puritans – iconoclasts – and war actions, although reconstructions of later years changed its original appearance a lot. In 1730-1736, based upon drawings of architect Burlington the now-existing marble floor of the cathedral was created. At the same time, many ancient burials in the nave and transepts were removed. In 1820s, the western façade was restored; at the same time the chapel of the torn down archbishop’s palace adjoining the cathedral was remodeled into a library.

In 1829, a mental patient Jonathan Martin started a fire in the cathedral. As a result, the eastern part of the temple’s roof crushed down; carved pews of the choir of XV century got burned; the organ suffered seriously. In 1840, a new fire burned the roof of the central nave to the ground; damage was caused to the south-western tower. All these destructions each time led to new reconstructions works.

The two greatest tragedies of XX century – WWI and WWII – left their trace in the history of the York Minster. In its northern transept today there is a memorial in honor of the women who died in both wars. Decorative astronomic clocks made by masters of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich is to commemorate 18 000 of pilots of the allied forces, who did not return from war missions and whose bases were located in Yorkshire and in the north-east of England.

In 1965-1967, architect Bernard Filderom conducted a research of the York Minster and discovered a serious menace: it turned out that the huge temple was on the brink of collapse. It took five years of restoration works and two million pounds to eliminate the threat. On the eve of celebration of 500-year anniversary of the completion of the building of the York Minster, that is in 1972 restoration was finished. The York Minster even today does not cease to adore tourists with its splendor and beauty.

Nave¹ – (French “nef,” from Latin “navis” – ship) is the main facility of a Christian temple of cross-dome or basilica type. In a narrower sense – a lateral facility stretched in its layout. In the eastern part it ends with an altar projection – apse with a semi-dome; in the western – with a narthex or a vestibule. A transverse facility that forms a cross-shaped lay-out is called transept². The nave is often divided into three parts by rows of columns with arches – arcades – into the main one and two side ones. The main nave is wider (usually twice as much) and higher than the side naves. Each one of the three naves has its own semi-dome. In the upper part of the walls of the central nave and above the roofs of the lower side naves there are windows. This scheme is typical to West European Romanesque and Gothic churches. The crossing of the nave and transept is called middle crossing⁴. The literal meaning of the word “nave” originates from an elongated layout of the church; in Christianity it is interpreted symbolically: the Church is a ship sailing on the waves of life to salvation. That is why moving along the nave to the altar is a symbolic act.

Choir³ (from Greek “choros”) in architecture is an upper (level of second floor) gallery in a Christian church building or a dais. Usually it is located in the western side or encircles the nave from the southern, western and northern sides. Originally (in early medieval time) the choir was designated for representatives of higher strata of society; later on, singers, musicians and organ usually occupied the choir.

Cappella⁵ (from Italian “cappella” – to hold, to place; from Italian “capello” – hat) is a small construction or facility, a church vestibule designated for a private altar and keeping of relics. Cappella is usually located along the aisle naves.

Nervure⁶ (from French “nervure” – a rib, folding; from Latin “nervus” – a sinew, bowstring, strength) in architecture is a protruding rib of the vault, an element of framework construction that allows to lighten stonework and to delegate the weight of the ceiling to corner supports. Nervure, despite the literal reading of the term, is not a rib or a facet of the lunette of the vault, but is a self sufficient constructive element, a carcass, because of which it can withhold the huge weight of the ceiling.