Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of York. A. (Arthur) Clutton-Brock
other cities, as a quarry for later erections.
York is historically connected with several of the emperors. Two of them, Severus and Constantius Chlorus, died there, and Constantine the Great, the son of the latter, was hailed emperor at York, if it was not the scene of his birth. At York also were the headquarters of two of the legions, the 9th and the 6th; and there is little doubt that in course of time it came to be regarded as the capital of the island. In fact, according to Professor Freeman (Macmillan's Magazine, Sept. 1876), "Eburacum holds a place which is unique in the history of Britain, which is shared by only one other city in the lands north of the Alps (Trier, Augusta Trevirorum)." We learn little of the history of York from Roman historians, and next to nothing of the early Christian Church. There is mention of York at rare intervals, when it became connected with the general history of the empire. For instance, in 208, Severus was in York, and it became for a time the headquarters of the court.
The Emperor Constantius died at York in 306, and there is a tradition that hundreds of years afterwards his body was found under the Church of St. Helen-on-the-Walls, with a lamp still burning over it. Many churches in the neighbourhood of Eburacum were dedicated to his wife Helena, the legendary finder of the True Cross. It has been supposed thatConstantine the Great was born at York, but this is probably untrue, though he was proclaimed emperor there. In the middle of the fourth century the Picts and Scots began to make inroads, and it is probable that they captured York about 367 A.D. They were shortly afterwards driven northwards by Theodosius the Elder. At the beginning of the fifth century there were further invasions repelled by Stilicho, but in 409 the Emperor Honorius withdrew the Roman troops from Britain, and the Roman period in the history of York came to an end.
Of the early ecclesiastical history of York less even is known than of the civil. There are few relics of Roman Christianity in the city.
A stone coffin, with an apparently Christian inscription, and several Roman ornaments bearing crosses have been found and placed in the York Museum, but this is all. There is no evidence, documentary or other, of the manner in which Christianity reached York. The Christian historians give us only the most meagre references to the history of the faith in Britain. Tertullian, for example, mentions that parts of the island as yet unvisited by the Romans had been evangelised by British missionaries, and, if this were so, it would seem to prove that the Church in Britain was early active and flourishing. It is not until 314 A.D. that we come upon a definite historical fact. This was the date of the Council of Arles, convened by Constantine, to consider the Donatist Heresy, and among the bishops there assembled were three from Britain—"Eborus, Episcopus de Civitate Eboracensi; Restitutus, Episcopus de Civitate Londinensi; Adelfius, Episcopus de Civitate Col. Londinensium" (perhaps Lincoln). These bishops are mentioned in the order of precedence, and it would appear that the See of York at that time was the most important, or perhaps the oldest, in Britain. Bishops of York were also present at the Councils of Nicaea, Sardica, and Arminium. With these facts our knowledge of the Roman see of Eburacum begins and ends. The Episcopal succession probably continued for some time after the Roman evacuation, and the legendary names of Sampson, Pyramus or Pyrannus, and Theodicus have been handed down as bishops of York during the struggle with the Anglo-Saxon invaders. For a long time after the Roman evacuation jewels and plate were discovered in the neighbourhood; and in the Pontificate of Egbert, an archbishop in the eighth century, there is a special form of prayer for hallowing vessels discovered on the sites of heathen temples and houses. The great Wilfrid also, in the seventh century, speaks of recovering the sacred places from which the British clergy had been forced to flee. It is unknown when or how York was finally captured, but in the seventh century it was certainly in the hands of the English; though there still remained an independent British kingdom of Elmete, only a few miles to the west of the city. Close to York has been discovered a large burying-place of heathen Angles, in which the ashes were deposited in urns; the date of this is probably the beginning of the sixth century, and at that time the invaders must have been settled in the country, and perhaps in the city itself. The conquest marks a change in the position of York. Under the Roman occupation it had been an important city for military purposes, and for that reason it was the seat of an important bishopric. After the second conversion of England it becomes important more and more for ecclesiastical reasons, and when it plays a part in the history of England it is because of the action of its bishops; from this time, therefore, it becomes necessary to say less about the city itself and more about the see.
After the Anglo-Saxon conquest of the North of England the country between the Tweed and the Humber was divided into two kingdoms, Bernicia to the north of the Tees, and Deira to the south. In the reign of Ethelfrith these two kingdoms were united, under the name of Northumbria. Edwin, his successor, was the most powerful king in England, and every state except Kent acknowledged his supremacy.
In the troubles after the Roman evacuation, it is probable that York lost some of its importance, which it regained under Edwin, and became again the capital of England. It is at this period that the authentic ecclesiastical history of the see, and indeed of England, really begins. In 601 Gregory the Great, in a letter to Augustine, gave him authority to appoint twelve bishops in England, and among them a bishop of York, who, if his mission was prosperous, was to ordain further bishops in the North of England, remaining himself the chief of them, and being invested with the pall, the mark of a metropolitan bishop. Provision was made that the first bishop of York should be subordinate to Augustine, but that subsequently the question of seniority was to be decided by priority of consecration. Thus early did the question of precedence between York and Canterbury arise.
We may take it that the early Christian church had entirely died out in Northumbria, and that prior to the mission sent by Gregory there had been no effort in the southern part of the kingdom, at least, to reclaim the inhabitants from heathendom. York was chosen as the seat of the metropolitan bishop in the north, entirely because of its importance as a city. It is after this event that it becomes chiefly remarkable for its ecclesiastical importance. Augustine died before he had followed Gregory's instructions, and they were not carried out till 625. In that year, Justus, the fourth bishop of Canterbury, was led by unusually favourable circumstances to consecrate a bishop of York and to send him to Northumbria. Edwin the king was over-lord of England, and he wished to be allied with Kent, the only other independent kingdom in the country. He therefore proposed to marry Ethelburga, the daughter of the King of Kent. She and her father were Christians, and Edwin, though still a heathen, agreed that she should be allowed to take with her a Christian chaplain to Northumberland. Paulinus, perhaps a Briton by birth, was chosen for this office, and was consecrated Bishop of York before he set out. He has been identified with a certain Rum the son of Urien. This enterprise met with great and immediate success, in which political reasons probably played a considerable part; and on Easterday 627, the most important date in the ecclesiastical history of York, the king Edwin, his family, and many of his court were baptised there in a wooden chapel temporarily erected on the site of the present minster. Immediately afterwards Edwin begun to build a church of stone, dedicated to St. Peter, on the same site. The baptism of the king was followed by a wholesale conversion of thousands of his subjects, and it is stated that Paulinus was forced to stay over a month in one place to baptise the crowds who flocked to him. Paulinus was confirmed in his appointment to the see by the king, and immediately after received the pall, together with Honorius of Canterbury, which authorised him to assemble councils and to consecrate bishops. The pall was not given to any of his successors until Egbert (732 A.D.). In view of the subsequent struggles for precedence between the sees of Canterbury and York, the following passage in a letter from the Pope to Edwin is of interest:—"We have ordered," the Pope says, "two palls, one for each of the metropolitans, that is for Honorius and Paulinus, that in case one of them is called from this life, the other may, in virtue of this our authority, appoint a bishop in his place." (Bede, "Eccl. Hist.," Smith edit., book ii., cap. 17, p. 98.)
This early prosperity of the northern Church did not last long. In 633 Edwin was defeated and killed at a battle near Hatfield, and a period of anarchy and persecution followed. Thereupon Paulinus, with Ethelburga, the queen, fled to Kent, leaving behind him only one evangelist, by name James the Deacon. It is probable that the greater part