125
Effigy of Archbishop de Grey 128
Monument of William of Hatfield 129
Monument of Archbishop Bowet 132
The East Window 138
Effigy of Archbishop Savage 151
Tomb of Archbishop Savage 152

PLAN OF MINSTER 157

* * * * *

[Illustration: The Minster and Bootham Bar, from Exhibition Square]

CHAPTER I

HISTORY OF THE SEE AND CITY

At York the city did not grow up round the cathedral as at Ely or
Lincoln, for York, like Rome or Athens, is an immemorial--a
prehistoric--city; though like them it has legends of its foundation.
Geoffrey of Monmouth, whose knowledge of Britain before the Roman
occupation is not shared by our modern historians, gives the following
account of its beginning:--"Ebraucus, son of Mempricius, the third king
from Brute, did build a city north of Humber, which from his own name,
he called Kaer Ebrauc--that is, the City of Ebraucus--about the time
that David ruled in Judea." Thus, by tradition, as both Romulus and
Ebraucus were descended from Priam, Rome and York are sister cities; and
York is the older of the two. One can understand the eagerness of Drake,
the historian of York, to believe the story. According to him the verity
of Geoffrey's history has been excellently well vindicated, but in
Drake's time romance was preferred to evidence almost as easily as in
Geoffrey's, and he gives us no facts to support his belief, for the very
good reason that he has none to give.

Abandoning, therefore, the account of Geoffrey of Monmouth, we are
reduced to these facts and surmises. Before the Roman invasion the
valley of the Ouse was in the hands of a tribe called the Brigantes, who
probably had a settlement on or near the site of the present city of
York. Tools of flint and bronze and vessels of clay have been found in
the neighbourhood. The Brigantes, no doubt, waged intermittent war upon
the neighbouring tribes, and on the wolds surrounding the city are to be
found barrows and traces of fortifications to which they retired from
time to time for safety. The position of York would make it a favourable
one for a settlement. It stands at the head of a fertile and pleasant
valley and on the banks of a tidal rive