A. Clutton-Brock

“ But there can be no doubt that a central pillar or cluster of shafts such as is found at Wells, would be more beautiful. And as the architect at York was afraid to vault his chapter-house with stone, his mechanical ingenuity was not put to so severe a test after all. And yet, though we may regret the beautiful central pillar as we find it at Wells or Lincoln, there are other respects in which this chapter-house surpasses all its rivals. In size, in richness of decoration, in boldness of outline, and in aerial lightness it is unequalled. ”

“ Everywhere there is a lack of emphasis, not only in structure but in detail. The windows are not recessed, the capitals are small, the mouldings are delicate rather than forcible. The main piers are thin, their shafts are rather monotonously and tamely divided, the mouldings of the arches are narrow and shallow, the mullions of the clerestory and the shafts on each side of them are unusually slender; and this is peculiarly unfortunate in a nave, the width of which is greater both actually and proportionately, than that of any other English Gothic cathedral. ”

“ They are enormous, and they appear enormous. They have an effect of gigantic and aspiring simplicity and vigour both inside and outside. They fill a given space in so obvious and efficient a manner, that it might seem that no other way of filling it could have occurred to the architect: that he was forced by a lucky chance to place them there. That, of course, is the greatest triumph of genius. It is a piece of luck however that they still retain their ancient glass—Early English glass of the simplest design, and of a beautiful silvery greyish green tint. ”

“ Decoration supplied in earlier work by carved foliage, deep and various mouldings, and elaborate tracery, gives way to a system of lines emphasising construction as completely as possible. The contrasts between masses of ornament and blank walls, which play so great a part in earlier Gothic, disappear; and the only contrast is between the orderly lines of the stone and the kaleidoscopic decoration of the windows. Architecture loses much of its fancy and its delicacy, but becomes more logical, more reasonable, and more organic. ”

“ It is a significant fact that the builders were afraid to place a stone vault on their nave, and thus it is a Gothic building without that feature which gives its whole significance to the Gothic style, and by reason of which the design of this nave came to be what it was. It is a curious paradox, that the builders of York should have abandoned one of the most attractive features of earlier art in pursuit of a more logical design, and should then have been forced to abandon that very vault which gave their design all its logic. ”

“ When this phase of development was reached, the building became as organic in all its parts as the human body. Structure was ornament, and ornament structure, and the two were fused as they have never been in any other style of architecture. Decoration and variety of outline were supplied by the mere disposition of the supporting masses, the arrangement of structural lines; to the exterior, by the flying buttresses, the pinnacles, and the window tracery; to the interior, by the banded shafts, the capitals, the groined ribs of the vaults, and the openings of the triforium. ”

“ But it must not be supposed that this nave is altogether to be condemned, as some critics have condemned it. Each bay, looked at by itself, is not only perfectly logical and coherent in design, but is filled with delicate and appropriate detail. The capitals, if small, are finely carved; the mouldings well contrasted and subordinated; and the window tracery is the finest possible. It is a work of the best age of architecture with all the characteristics in detail of that age ”

“ The fact that the battlements and pinnacles project a few inches over the walls of the towers, only adds to the air of weakness and instability of the whole. Nowhere else surely has a Gothic architect approached so closely to the ideals of his "churchwarden" imitators of the beginning of this century.
But these faults, though serious enough, do not include everything that can be said against the west front of the minster. Gothic churches have often been noble and triumphant works of art in spite of errors almost as grave. ”

“ The low-pitched roof of the minster, the absence of flying buttresses, and 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 ”

“ But at York, when the minster is entered by the south transept, the east end is not seen at all, and the lantern, with all its height and vastness, is seen at once. Even as viewed from the west end, the choir is shut off from the rest of the church by a heavy screen, and the view eastward is broken and ineffective. But those very qualities of the interior which lessen the beauties of the nave increase the grandeur of the transept view. The great width of the church has enabled the lantern to be so large as almost to give it the effect of a dome. ”

“ The fact that the vaulting is not of stone deprives the mouldings and bosses of all sharpness and delicacy. From the capital of the vaulting shafts and for about 91⁄2 feet above them these ribs are of stone: the division between wood and stone is marked by a curious and heavy moulding. The aisles of the nave are bolder in design and altogether more satisfactory than the nave itself. Like the nave they are unusually wide and lofty. In the two farthest bays to the west, above which are the western towers, the rough wooden roof, which has never been covered with a vault, may be seen. ”

“ It is only when it is regarded as a whole, and judged as an avenue of stone, that its faults are evident.
But the choir is not to be judged as an avenue of stone at all.
It is cut in half by the altar. Its lower storey is concealed by the stalls, and its continuity broken by the eastern transepts.
In the nave, the lowest storey is the weakest. The thin pillars and the broad arches make too little division between the nave and the aisle. The whole is seen at a glance, and there is little of the mystery and shadow generally to be found in a large Gothic interior. ”

“ The windows of the aisle are delicately moulded with capitals to their shafts, and are ornamented with a crocketed gable, ogee-shaped and topped with a prominent finial rising just above the battlements of the aisle. These battlements are pierced with cusped circles, below them is a cornice ornamented with foliage. The buttresses of the aisles are decorated with gargoyles and crowned with pinnacles of a considerable size with crocketed spires and finials. ”

“ At York the three storeys of single windows give the design an air of monotony and weakness. Further, the highest window is not only far too large, but is placed too low. Like the great west window, it appears to have been cut out of the wall. It is also peculiarly unfortunate that the buttresses should die into the wall below the pinnacles. Where a tower is buttressed, it is a natural and logical device to make the pinnacles a continuation of the buttresses. Here both pinnacles and buttresses, unusually prominent and elaborate, do not seem to be an integral part of the design. ”

“ It cannot be said that this mass of niches and arcading at the west end is either ingenious or successful. Arcading is a very beautiful decoration where it is employed, as in a triforium, in single storeys, to cover a definite even space. ”

“ The decoration, with its monotonous rows of panelling and niches, shows the poverty of invention often characteristic of Perpendicular architects, and is sometimes positively ugly. The whole east front must surprise most people by its apparent smallness. It seems merely the end of an overgrown parish church, and not of a great cathedral, and though that apparent smallness is partly owing to the enormous size of the windows, which prevent any structural division of parts, it is increased by the monotony and shallowness of the decoration. ”

“ The most casual observer, on first entering the nave of York Minster, must have a vague feeling of disappointment, a consciousness that something is wanting; he will see that his feeling is justified, when he learns that it is the first building in [Pg 74] England of which the design is entirely dominated by the necessities of a stone vault, and yet that it is crowned by a wooden roof. ”

“ The transepts, therefore, are unusually prominent, even for an English cathedral, and they have many other unusual features. Taken in conjunction with the lantern, they produce an effect to be found in no other Gothic church in the world. In England there are none so wide and so lofty. In France there are interiors even loftier, but in France the transepts are seldom a prominent feature of the design. Often they [Pg 82] do not project beyond the outer wall of the aisles of the nave, and oftener still there is no central tower large enough to allow of a lantern at all. ”

“ The West Front.—The west front of York Minster is free from the two faults most common to the façades of most English cathedrals. It is not a mere undistinguished ending to the church, like those at Norwich and Winchester, and it is not a magnificent misrepresentation of the height or width of the building itself, like the west fronts at Peterborough and Lincoln. Most of the English cathedrals are not lofty or wide enough to give opportunities for an impressive façade, unless they are fronted with a mere screen of masonry ”

“ In earlier examples, even where the triforium was decisively divided into bays and had ceased to be a continuous arcading, it was absolutely independent of the clerestory, as in the transepts of the minster. There can be no doubt that the plan adopted in the nave was a convenient and logical one. It is impossible to have every advantage; and where the designer has set his heart on a wall of glass, he cannot combine it with a rich and prominent triforium. ”

“ The square ends of both choir and aisles are decorated with arches with crocketed gables above them. Those of the south aisle differ from those of the north, being fewer in number and wider. All the niches on the east front except those mentioned have lost their statues.
There was certainly not very much opportunity for a fine architectural design in this east end with its great wall of glass, but, allowing for all disadvantages, it cannot be considered successful. There is no justification for the square ends concealing the roof. They are misrepresentations, and they are not beautiful. ”

“ If it is not great architecture, it is at least living architecture, and as such infinitely superior to the most scholarly works of the Gothic revival. It is only when we compare it to the magnificent west fronts of France [Pg 56] that we are inclined to regret that it has not rivalled them.
The north side of the exterior of the nave differs from the south in several particulars. Thus, on the south the aisle buttresses are crowned by lofty pinnacles having at their bases niches, in some of which statues still remain. ”

“ But Perpendicular artists were not altogether retrogressive. In some respects they adapted their design more completely to their material than the older men. Their woodwork, for instance, completely shook off the forms of stone. Their glass, in spite of all that has been said, is better decoration of a given space than the patterns of the Decorated period. This is particularly evident in the nave and choir of the minster, for the original glass remains on many of the windows practically undisturbed. The earlier glass is more delicate, and purer in colour. ”

“ The east end of the cathedral is square, as in most English Gothic churches. The best views are to be obtained from the north, especially from the walls, which will be most conveniently ascended at Bootham Bar, or from the extreme northern corner of the close. From the walls the whole of the vast bulk of the minster may be seen, broken by the great central tower and the lofty cap of the chapter-house. Other English cathedrals are more finely placed, several are richer in ornament, one or two have a more delicately varied outline. None are so stately and so magnificent ”

“ During all this period there is no doubt that the Bishops of York were subordinate to those of Canterbury. The constant disorders to which the kingdom of Northumbria was subjected for a century, and the quarrels between bishop and king, lessened the power, both civil and ecclesiastical, of the kingdom. It was not till 734 that a bishop of York, Egbert, received the pall, which had been granted only to Paulinus, and from that time the northern archbishops seem to have been independent of Canterbury, especially after York fell into the hands of the Danes in 867. ”

“ The tomb of Archbishop Sterne, at the east end of the aisle (1683) , is an example of almost everything that a monument should not be. West of this is the tomb of the unfortunate Scrope, beheaded by Henry IV. It is of little interest in itself, and was restored after the fire of 1829; but in the Middle Ages thousands of pilgrims flocked to it, and it was for a time more popular than the shrine of St. William himself. Henry IV. forbade offerings to be made to it, and gave these orders to the clerk of the cathedral. ”

“ It is his great merit that he has never allowed his representation of actual things to interfere with his decorative purpose.
To sum up, then, this choir has not the delicate and spiritual beauty of the choirs of Lincoln or Ely. That is never found even in the finest work of Perpendicular architects; but for stateliness and magnificence it has not a rival in England. These qualities may be best appreciated standing midway between the two transepts and in front of the altar. From that point glittering screens of glass and soaring shafts of stone are to be seen on all sides ”

“ The artistic merits of the real vault are evident. It is logical, capable of much structural decoration, and it determines and explains the whole plan of the bays both inside and out. The merits of the barrel roof are also evident. It also is logical, though in a less degree than the vault. It does not determine or explain the plan of the building below it, but it is easily adaptable, and it has a simplicity and a marked grandeur of its own. The roof at York has none of this simplicity. ”

“ As has been said, the choir of the minster remained unusually small for so important a church. The eleventh and twelfth centuries were periods of great activity in church building, and many of the Norman architects planned their works on a vast scale. With the examples of Durham, Winchester, and St. Albans before them, it was natural that the archbishops of the Metropolitan Church of York should be dissatisfied with the size of their own choir. It fell to the lot of Roger, the rival of Thomas à Becket, to rebuild it. The date of his nave is approximately 1154-1181. ”

“ It is, therefore, not to be conceived as a flat roof supported by brackets, but as an almost circular roof ornamented and divided by structurally unnecessary ribs. Indeed, it would be altogether impossible to combine a vault with such a clerestory as is found in these transepts, for a vault is a roof designed to fit a pointed arch. Its spreading supports make it impossible to adapt it to any other than an arched clerestory; and the clerestory of these transepts, consisting as it does of a row of five lancet windows, is flat at the top. ”

“ As the side porches fronting the aisles are on the same level with the main porch, the bottom part of the front is bound together, and the divisions of nave and aisle, emphasised above by the prominent buttresses, are minimised below. This arrangement gives at once unity and variety to the whole design. The towers do not appear to be external additions rising from the ground, but an integral part, the very crown and flower, in fact, of the whole design.
At York the central window is so large that it leaves but little room below it for the porch. ”

“ But, as Professor Freeman points out, it is most improbable that two writers, the chronicler and Flaccus Albinus, should allude to a church other than the minster without giving its name. It is, of course, just possible that Albert set up his altars before rebuilding the cathedral, in which case Professor Willis' contention would lose its force. It is curious that no other chronicler mentions either the fire or the rebuilding of the church, but this omission would be almost equally strange whether the building in question were the minster or some important church in the diocese. ”