York Minster
[We publish this article by the Precentor of York on the occasion of the beginning of the celebrations marking the 1300th anniversary of the Cathedral.--En. Spectator.] GREGORY THE GREAT, when he saw the fair children of Northumbria displayed for sale in the slave market of Rome, indulged in some word-play on the names of their nation, their country and their king--Angli, Deira, Aella. Not Angli but Angeli, they must be rescued de ira Del, and in the kingdom of Aella, Alleluia must be sung. But when Gregory's mission at last reached these shores, it was not in the kingdom of Aella that the Gospel was first preached, but in the southern kingdom of Ethelbert of Kent.
In Aella's lifetime no Alleluia was destined to break the pagan silence of Nortliumbria. And Edwin his son, asking for the hand of the King of Kent's sister in marriage, was summarily rejected by Eadbald on the ground that " it is not meet to give a Christian maid to a heathen man in marriage." But Edwin pressed his suit, and eventually the King yielded, persuaded no doubt by Justus, Archbishop of Canterbury, and gave his consent on condition that his sister should take with her to Northumbria her chaplain, and that Edwin should seriously consider becoming a Christian. A chaplain was chosen and, with characteristic faith and foresight, was consecrated to the Episcopate. His name was Paulinus.
Edwin was a hardy and somewhat resolute pagan, and the task of weaning him from the gods of his fathers to Faith in Christ taxed the zeal and ability of Paulinus to the utmost, and the loving patience of his saintly queen. But at last he surrendered, and, having con- sulted with his Witan at Godmundinghame (Goodman- ham), ordered a wooden church to be set up in the Roman Camp of Eboracum, and therein received Baptism at the hands of Paulinus on Easter Eve in the year of Our Lord 627. That little wooden edifice dedicated, as Bede assures us, to the Blessed Apostle St. Peter, was the first York Minster, and over that spot, sanctified by the Baptism of the first Christian king of the north, grew up, century by century, the greatest of our English cathedrals.
The King at once set about the work of replacing the wooden structure with a church of stone. This was but half- way towards completion when Edwin was killed in battle at Hatfield, and the Queen fled south, accompanied by Paulinus, and once more the darkness of heathenism closed over Northumbria. But three years later Oswald, the son of Aethelfrith, regained Bernicia and Deira and completed the church which Edwin had begun.
Looking back upon that mission from the South, we realize that rude as the circumstances of life must have been, and hazardous and unstable as the political conditions undoubtedly were, Paulinus and his com- panions worked wonders not only in evangelization but also in the foundation of a settled church life and institu- tions which have survived to the present day. From the outset education was promoted and the beauty and dignity of worship were cultivated. The Minster became a centre of sound learning. The Scholae de cantu or Song-school was founded in 627 under the mastership of James the Deacon, who gathered a band of scholars whom he instructed in the Church-song of Kent and presumably in the Latin tongue in which the services of the Church were performed. Side by side with this school, Paulinus almost certainly founded the Scholae Episcopi or School of the Bishop, a kind of domestic seminary for boys who lived with the Bishop and, like the boys of St. John of Beverley, accompanied him on his missionary journeys. The ultimate purpose of this school was to train men for the ministry of the Church. Both these schools have survived. The existing Song-school of York Minster can boast an unbroken continuity from the days of James the Deacon. St. Peter's School has developed, age by age, out of the School of the Bishop into a Public School. In the reign of Egbert it was reconstituted under the head-mastership of the illustrious Alcuin. Until 1898 it was under the control of the Dean and Chapter and is still, in the bidding prayer, styled " the Grammar School attached to this Cathedral Church." Now it is administered by a body of Governors of which the Dean of_York is ex-officio 'chairman.
For the eye of the artist and archaeologist the Minster to-day affords a rich harvest of truth and beauty from the ages of the past. In the Norman crypt of Archbishop Roger (A.D. 1175), in the peerless Early English Transepts of Walter de Grey (1250), in the Decorated Nave, massive yet ethereal, in the Perpendicular Choir, Ladye Chapel, and the Towers, which are unrivalled in their majesty and immensity, history and art combine to inform and delight. For the ear of the musician there is music in the Minster which has behind it a long record of fame and the service of great masters of music.
The church is, of course, unspeakably dear to the hearts of Yorkshiremen. But, beyond any local sentiments, it has a place in the life and heart of England. West- minster Abbey, St. Paul's Cathedral, York Minster are part and parcel of the corporate soul of our race. C. C. BELL.
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