e fire of 741 and the
rebuilding of 767-780 mentioned by historians refer to the minster at
all. The fact that a wooden chapel was erected for the baptism of Edwin
in 627 seems to show that no Christian church had remained at York from
Roman days, as at Canterbury; this chapel, therefore, is the first
Christian building in York of which we have any definite record. The
church of stone with which it was immediately replaced was finished by
Oswald, after the death of Edwin in battle; whose head was carried
thither and placed in the Chapel of St. Gregory. It has been supposed
that there are remains of this original stone church in the crypt.

In sixty years Edwin's church had fallen into great disrepair. It was
restored by Archbishop Wilfrid about 669. The following account of the
dilapidated condition of the building as he found it is taken from a
versified life of Wilfrid, ascribed to Frithegode, a monk of the tenth
century:--

Ecclesiae vero fundamina cassa vetustae,
Culmina dissuto violabant trabe palambes,
Humida contrito stillabant assere tecta;
Livida nudato suggrundia pariete passa
Imbricibus nullis, pluriae quacunque vagantur,
Pendula discissis fluitant laquearia tignis,
Fornice marcebant cataractae dilapidato.

Wilfrid glazed the windows, repaired the holes, painted and decorated,
and, strange to say, whitewashed the building.

We now come to the first disputed point in the history of the minster.
In the chronicle of Richard Hovenden it is stated that _Monasterium in
Eboraca Civitate Succensum est nono Kalendas Maii Feria prima_--that is
to say, that a church was burnt down in the city of York on Sunday the
23rd of April 741 A.D. It has been contended that the word _monasterium_
need not of necessity mean the minster, that the word _civitas_ may
perhaps mean the diocese, the ecclesiastical state, and not the city of
York, and that, therefore, the church mentioned may be not the minster,
but some other large church in the city or diocese of York. Professor
Willis is of opinion that this is probably the case.

In the poem of Alcuin or Flaccus Albinus, there is a passage speaking of
a church built by Albert (767-780), in the following terms:--

Ast nova Basilicae mirae structura diebus
Praesulis hujus erat jam caepta, peracta, sacrata,
Haec nimis alta domus solidis suffulta columnis
Suppositae quae slant curvatis arcubus, intus
Emicat egregiis laquearibus atqu