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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 November 2011
An attempt to justify the traditional dating of the lady chapel at York Minster by a study of the carved stone heraldic shields in the spandrels of the main arcades. The heads carved above the shields are accepted as being, for the main part, attempted portraits of the owners of the respective arms, and are identified where possible to see if their physiognomy fits the accepted date. A brief summary is given of the later stages in the completion of the lady chapel and its relationship to the construction of the western choir.
page 309 note 1 Cf. the remarks in Gardner, A. H., Outline of English Architecture (1945), pp. 47–8.Google Scholar By contrast Defoe in c. 1725 was highly impressed (A Tour through England and Wales, Everyman edition, ii(1928), pp. 228–30).Google Scholar
page 309 note 2 Historians of the Church of York (Rolls Series), ii, 420.
page 309 note 3 Browne, J., The History of the Metropolitan Church of St. Peter, York (1847)Google Scholar, passim.
page 310 note 1 e.g. Westminster Abbey, the nave aisles, 1280–90, and St. Albans Abbey, the nave, c. 1325.
page 310 note 2 Browne, J., A Description of the Representations and Arms on the Glass in the Windows of York Minster, also the Arms on Stone (compiled 1859)Google Scholar, ed. A. P. Purey-Cust (1917), nos. 406–7. Quoted hereafter as Arms in the Minster.
page 310 note 3 York Minster (1927), pp. 90–2.
page 310 note 4 Friends Annual Report (1933), pp. 25–8.
page 310 note 5 Ibid., (1934), pp. 31–3.
page 310 note 6 Purey-Cust, A. P., The Heraldry of York Minster, 2 vols. (1890 and 1896)Google Scholar, passim.
page 310 note 7 Historians of the Church of York, ii, 420Google Scholar.
page 311 note 1 The establishment of a chantry by the Percy family in 1364, later appropriated by Archbishop Thoresby for his own salvation, must have been a case of getting in on the ground floor, as it could not possibly have functioned at the east end of the lady chapel until at least the end of the decade.
page 311 note 2 Harrison, says that this shield ‘should not be where it is’ (Friends Annual Report (1933), p. 28).Google Scholar I am not clear as to what he meant by that. It was certainly there in Dugdale's time.
page 311 note 3 All the tinctures on the shields in the eastern arm are modern, and must not of themselves be allowed to influence the heraldic identifications. They were put on in 1933 with the authority of Clarenceux, King of Arms (Ibid. (1934), p. 24). Although Dugdale is said to have been the authority for Clarenceux's rulings, Dugdale gives tinctures for only six of the forty-eight shields—one on the north side and five in the south-eastern transept.
page 311 note 4 Illustrated in many modern books, but nearly always from Stothard, C. A., The Monumental Effigies of Great Britain (1817 and 1876).Google Scholar
page 311 note 5 Arms in the Minster, pp. 116, 249, and 250.
page 311 note 6 On the south side of the choir, in the western spandrel of Bay 7.
page 312 note 1 Kendrick, T. D., ‘The Horn of Ulph’, Antiquity, xi (1937), 278–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The wires must have got crossed between Kendrick and Harrison, and the last two sentences in note 5 on page 280 of Kendrick's article have become garbled. The facts are that over the west door one shield is of England before 1340 (i.e. three leopards in pale) and the other bears six lioncels. In the choir the shield of France Ancient naturally does not appear at all. It occurs in the nave, however, in both stone and stained glass.
page 312 note 2 Historians of the Church of York, iii, 386Google Scholar. John de Neweton was Treasurer from 1393 to 1414 (Jones, B., Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae, 1300–1541, vi, Northern Province (1963), 14).Google Scholar It is only fair to point out that in the nave the eastern bay, where the shield appears with a small horn, is also a narrow bay, but the two items together look very squashed, even though part of the horn has been broken off. The intrusion of a horn into the small eastern bay of the lady chapel may not have commended itself to the symmetrically minded Perpendicular masons.
page 312 note 3 Friends Annual Report (1934), pp. 31 and 33.
page 312 note 4 Ibid. (1933), p. 27. He gives no reason for this weird pronouncement.
page 313 note 1 de Gray Birch, W., Catalogue of Seals in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, ii (1892), 5554–8.Google Scholar The cuir bouilli shield over the tomb of the Black Prince in Canterbury Cathedral has no label, but this was probably a separate attachment, long since lost. The label is on his effigy (Stone, L., Sculpture in Britain, The Middle Ages (1955), pl. 143).Google Scholar
page 313 note 2 For Edward II see L. Stone, op. cit., pl. 119, and for Henry III, London (Westminster Abbey), R.C.H.M. (England) (1924), pl. 185.Google Scholar
page 313 note 3 L. Stone, op. cit., pl. 155. It may be relevant that the king is portrayed with short-cut hair.
page 313 note 4 See p. 311.
page 314 note 1 Browne identified the shield as being for the earl of Lancaster. This would make it pre-1351, bringing unsurmountable difficulties in its train.
page 314 note 2 Wagner, A. R., Historic Heraldry of Britain (1948), pp. 54–5.Google Scholar
page 314 note 3 A case could perhaps be argued that the shield represents the Mowbrays through their descent from Joan, daughter of Henry earl of Lancaster, but I can find no instance of such a usage before 1396–7 (Birch, op. cit., iii, 286, 288–9), and even then there are no fleur-de-lys on the label. The shield as carved here is assigned to the Mowbrays in 1442 (Hope, W. St. J., Heraldry for Craftsmen and Designers (1913), pl.VIGoogle Scholarb).
page 315 note 1 As already pointed out by Harvey, J. H., Friends Annual Report (1968), p. 11.Google Scholar
page 315 note 2 Ibid.
page 315 note 3 This possibility was first suggested to me in conversation by Mr. J. H. Harvey, F.S.A.
page 315 note 4 Historians of the Church of York, ii, 423–4Google Scholar.
page 315 note 5 Ibid., 426.
page 315 note 6 Ibid.. For a most valuable discussion of this gift see Harvey, J. H., ‘Richard II and York’, in The Reign of Richard II, Essays in Honour of May McKisack (1971), pp. 202–17.Google Scholar
page 316 note 1 Historians of the Church of York, ii, 426Google Scholar.
page 316 note 2 Surtees Society, xlv, 32Google Scholar.
page 316 note 3 Ibid., 37. It was not, however, until 1449 that the Scropes founded a chantry in the chapel (Surtees Society, XXXV, 301Google Scholar).
page 316 note 4 Associated Architectural Societies Reports and Papers, vi (1861), 46–51.Google Scholar The first new chantry recorded in the lady chapel—as opposed to refoundations and additions to older ones resited—is that of Archbishop Bowet in 1413 (Surtees Society, XXXV, 274Google Scholar).
page 316 note 5 e.g. Webb, G. F., The Middle Ages, 2nd ed. (1965), p. 148.Google Scholar
page 316 note 6 J. H. Harvey, op. cit., pp. 207–8.
page 316 note 7 Harvey, John, English Mediaeval Architects (1954), p. 71.Google Scholar
page 316 note 8 Antiq. Journ. li (1971), 86–93Google Scholar.
page 316 note 9 Friends Annual Report (1958), p. 33.
page 316 note 10 Robert Waldby's archiepiscopate only lasted from October 1396 to December 1397, so it is unlikely that he initiated any work in the Minster.
page 316 note 11 Friends Annual Report (1958), pp. 33–4.
page 317 note 1 Surtees Society, XXXV, 18. See also Knowles, J. A., Essays in the History of the York School of Glass Painting (1936), p. 212.Google Scholar
page 317 note 2 J. A. Knowles, op. cit., pp. 219–20.
page 317 note 3 There is no mention of it in his will, dated 7th March 1403/4. Knowles (op. cit., p. 220) suggested that he gave the money between Scrope's death on 8th June 1405 and his own on 24th March 1406, but this seems less likely. It is even possible that the gift goes back to 1396 when Skirlaw was associated with the heraldic redecoration of the Vestibule to the Chapter House in honour of Richard II. See J. H. Harvey, Richard II and York, pp. 212–13.
page 317 note 4 By Milner-White, in Friends Annual Report (1958), pp. 31–2.Google Scholar He judged thequality of the painting and of the glass itself to be poor, the latter due to the ‘difficulty of securing glass of better quality from the continent during the French Wars’. It is not clear why the glass should have been of any better quality three years later, and the argument is of doubtful validity.
page 317 note 5 The original contract for the glazing is now lost, but there survive copies by James Torre (York Minster Library, L.I.2.) and Matthew Hutton (B.M. Harleian MS. 6971, f. 141v).
page 317 note 6 J. A. Knowles, op. cit., p. 210.
page 317 note 7 Ibid., p. 214.
page 317 note 8 By Dr. P. A. Newton in a lecture at York University.
page 318 note 1 Surtees Society, iv, 386Google Scholar.
page 318 note 2 Bodleian MS. Dodsworth 137.
page 318 note 3 Birch, op. cit., iii (1894)Google Scholar, 10773 and 10774.
page 318 note 4 Arms in the Minster, no. 420.
page 318 note 5 Friends Annual Report (1934), p. 31. This begs all the questions.