The pride of York, this largest Gothic church north of the Alps (540 feet long, 200 feet tall) brilliantly shows that the High Middle Ages were far from dark. The word “minster” means an important church chartered with a mission to evangelize. As it’s the seat of a bishop, York Minster is also a cathedral.
While Henry VIII destroyed England’s great abbeys, this was not part of a monastery (and Henry needed an ecclesiastical center for his Anglican Church in the north), so it was left standing. It seats 2000 comfortably; on Christmas and Easter, at least 4,000 worshippers pack the place. Today, more than 250 employees and 500 volunteers work to preserve its heritage and welcome more than a million visitor each year.
I attempted to make a video of our tour on the inside of the cathedral. At 15 Minutes, it is one of the longest I’ve made… and the sound quality at the beginning was virtually impossible due to the bells being rung (all of them!) due to celebrating the Queen’s Jubilee. So bear with the bells (and me!) – and I’ll put some notes and a few pictures beneath for more clarity.
Before entering the church, look up at the great west portal (under the twin towers). Notice that the facade has lots of empty niches. These were potential “advertising” spaces, built to entice rich donors, but never filled. An exception is in the center, where a bishop stands flanked by two wealthy dukes – one who gave stone (on the left, holding a stone) and another who gave timber (on the right, holding a beam).
Once inside the church, we turn around to see the Great West Doors. These are only used on special occasions. Flanking the doors is a list of archbishops (and other church officials) that goes unbroken back to the 600s. The statue of Peter with the key and Bible (between the doors) is a reminder that the church is dedicated to St. Peter, and the key to heaven is found through the word of God. While the Minster sits on the remains of a Romanesque church (c.1100), today’s church was begun in 1220 and took 250 years to complete. Above the door, look for the female, headless “semaphore saints (from 2004), using semaphore flag code to spell out a message with golden discs: “Christ is here.”
Your first impression might be of its spaciousness and brightness. One of the widest Gothic Naves in Europe, it was built between 1280 and 1360 – the middle period of the Gothic style, called “Decorated Gothic.” Rather than risk a stone roof, builders spanned the space with wood. Colorful shields on the arcades are the coats of arms of nobles who helped tall and formidable Edward I, known as “Longshanks,” fight the Scots in the 13th century.
The coat of arms in the clerestory (upper-level) glass represents the nobles who helped Edward I’s son, Edward II, in the same fight. There’s more medieval glass in this building than in the rest of England combined. This precious glass (including the Great East Window) survived World War II – hidden in stately homes throughout Yorkshire.
While originally a Roman Catholic Church, it has been a Protestant church for 500 years – ever since the Reformation. Thankfully, rather than destroying the church, the practical Anglicans just purged it of its Roman iconography. You’ll find no hint of the original pope-celebrating elements that ornamented it before the days of Henry VIII.
Before we leave the main area of the church – there is a little gem and a little mystery. If you look up about two-thirds of the way on the right wall of the nave, you’ll see a strange post sticking out. With a good telephoto you can see it is a dragon. While no one is sure of its purpose, it pivots and has a hole through its neck – so it was likely a mechanism designed to raise a lid of a saint’s coffin. Carved out of a piece of Scandinavian oak, it’s considered part of the earlier church built during Viking times. The statue, directly across the nave, is likely of St. George – the slayer of dragons and protector against pagan religious malpractice.
If we go to the right of the altar, we enter the South Transept. Take a look at the ceiling. The new “bosses” (carved medallions decorating the point where the ribs meet on the ceiling) are a reminder that the roof of this wing of the church was destroyed by fire in 1984, caused when lightening hit an electricity box. Some believe the lighting was God’s angry response to a new bishop, David Jenkins, who questioned the literal truth of Jesus’ miracles. Jenkins had been interviewed at a nearby TV studio the night before, leading locals to joke that the lightening occurred “12 hours too late, and 17 miles off-target.” Regardless, the entire country came to York’s aid. Blue Peter (England’s top kids’ show at the time) conducted a competition among its young viewers to design new bosses. Out of 30,000 entries, there were six winners. These are the blue ones we can see – examples are man on the moon, feed the children, save the whales.
Stepping back into the middle of the Nave, we look at the Choir Screen – an ornate wall of carvings separating the nave from the choir. It’s lined with all the English kings from William I (the conqueror) to Henry VI (during whose reign it was carved, in 1461). Numbers indicate the years each reigned. It is literally covered in gold leaf, which sounds impressive, but the gold is very thin… a nugget the size of a sugar cube can be pounded into a foil-like sheet the size of a driveway.
Thru this walkway we step into the choir, where a service is held daily.
All the carving was redone after an 1829 fire, but its tradition of glorious evensong services (sung by choristers from the Minster School) goes all the way back to the eighth century.
To the left of the choir is the North Transept, where we’ll find the grisaille windows called the “five sisters”. This window is dedicated to British servicewomen who died in war. They were made in 1260, before colored glass was produced in England. The design has no figures, perhaps inspired by Islamic art seen by Christian Crusaders in the 13th century. The windows were originally much lighter but became darker after countless cracked pains were fixed over the centuries by added leading.
The 18th-century astronomical clock is worth a look. A nice sign helps one make sense of how to read it. It’s dedicated to the heroic Allied aircrews from bases here in northern England who died in World War II. The Book of Remembrance below the clock contains 18,000 names…
Down a corridor past the clock one comes to the Octagonal Chapter House. This was the traditional meeting place of the governing body (or chapter) of the Minster. On the pillar in the middle of the doorway, the Virgin holds Baby Jesus while standing on the devilish serpent. The Chapter House, without an interior support, is remarkable (almost frightening) for its breadth. A model of the wooden construction (in the hallway just outside the door) illustrates the impressive 1285 engineering: with a wooden from which the ceiling actually hangs.
The fanciful carvings decorating the canopies above the stalls date from 1280 (80% are originals) and are some of the Minster’s finest. As one strolls around the entire room – one can imagine that the tiny sculpted heads are a 14th-century parade – a fun glimpse of medieval society. Grates still send hot air up robes of attendees on cold winter mornings.
The Chapter House was the site of an important moment in England’s parliamentary history. In the late 1200s, the Scots under William Wallace and Robert the Bruce were threatening London. Fighting the Scots in 1295, Edward I (the “Longshanks” we met earlier) convened his parliament (a war cabinet) here, rather than down south in London. The government met here through the 20-year reign of Edward II, before moving to London during Edward III’s rule in the 14th century – as then foreign policy was focused on fighting the French – in the Hundred Years’ War – rather than the Scots.
Be sure to watch the video for the scenes from inside this incredible room.
This Great East Window (above), the size of a tennis court, is one of the great treasures of medieval art in Europe. It’s all original, recently cleaned and restored with its stone tracery, leadings, and painted glass (not stained) looking today as it did when finished in 1408.
Imagine being a worshipper here the day it was unveiled – mesmerized by the sweeping story told in more than 300 panels of painted glass climaxing with the Apocalypse. It’s a medieval disaster movie – a blockbuster back in 1408 – showing the end of the world in fore and flood and pestilence… vivid scenes from the book of Revelation. Angels trumpet disaster against blood-red skies. And there it is, the fifth panel up on the far left side… the devil giving power to the Beast of the Apocalypse, a seven-headed, ten-crowned lion, just as it is written in the Bible.
This must have terrified worshippers. A hundred years before Michelangelo frescoed the story of the beginning and end of time at the Sistine Chapel in Rome, this was unprecedented in its epic scale, and done by one man: John Thornton of Coventry.
Because of the Great East Window’s immense size, the east end has an extra layer of supportive stonework, parts of it wide enough to walk along. In fact, for special occasions, the church choir has been known to actually sing from the walkway halfway up the window.
Next we climbed down into the Crypt. Here you view the boundary of the much smaller, but still huge, Norman church from 1100 that stood on this spot. You can also see some old columns and additional remains from the Roman fortress that once stood here, the tomb of St. William of York (actually A Roman sarcophagus that was reused), and the modern concrete save-the-church foundations (much of this church history is covered in the undercroft museum)… which we’ll visit next.
The Undercroft Museum – the well-described exhibits follow the history of the site from its origins as a Roman fortress to the founding of an Anglo-Saxon/Viking Church, the shift to a Norman Place of worship, and finally to the Gothic structure that stands today. The museum fills a space that was excavated following the near collapse of the central tower in 1967.
There is much to ogle in this undercroft. To pick out a few highlights:
The actual remains of the Roman Fort’s basilica (its hall of justice), which are viewable through a see-through floor including patches of Roman frescoes from what was the basilica’s anteroom.
The Horn of Ulf, the finest Viking treasure in York. This intricately carved elephant’s tusk was presented to the Minster in 1030 by Ulf, a Viking nobleman, as a symbol that he was dedicating his land to God and the Church. Consider the horn’s travels: From Indian elephant, to Islamic carvers in southern Italy, to a Viking lord, to his church.
The York Gospels manuscript, a thousand-year-old text containing the four gospels. Made by Anglo-Saxon monks at Canterbury, it’s the only book in the Minster’s collection that dates prior to the Norman Conquest. It is still used to this day to swear in archbishops.
We strongly suggest you make time to tour the Minster on your next visit to York.