In 1050 Archbishop Kinsius erected a tower at the west end of this church, and placed two great bells in it. Archbishop Aldred, the last Saxon prelate that occupied the episcopal throne of York, finished the hall and dormitory which had been commenced by his predecessor, and built a new choir, from its foundation, in 1061. This distinguished benefactor likewise decorated the whole church, from the choir to the tower, with painting representing the sky, and adorned the pulpit with elegant devices in gold, silver, and brass. Mr. Coltman supposed that at the time of the Norman Conquest this church "was an oblong stone building of two stories, having a low tower at the west end, probably without any transepts, divided into two parts by a nave and choir, each having side aisles, supported by massive columns of a moderate height, surmounted by circular arches, with thick walls, pierced by small circular topped windows, adorned with all the usual Saxon ornaments." We have seen that it was burnt down in 1188, and some years afterwards the erection of the present stupendous edifice was commenced.

At the latter end of the year 1664, on opening a grave in the body of the church, a vault of squared freestone was discovered, fifteen feet long and two in breadth, within which was a sheet of lead, four feet long, containing some ashes, and six beads, whereof three crumbled to dust on touching, and the remaining three were supposed cornelian, with three great brass pins, and four large iron nails. Across this lay a box of lead, about seven inches long, six broad, and five high, wherein were several pieces of bones mixed with a little dust, yielding a sweet smell, as also a knife, a pair of silver slippers, some beads, and a seal. That able antiquary Mr. Warburton, Somerset Herald, supposes, from the information of Mr. Michael, that this was the identical knife or dagger which Athelstan left as a pledge upon the altar of St. John, when he was proceeding against the Scots. On the leaden covering was the following inscription :

"Anno ab incarnatione Domini, MCLXXXVIII. combvsta fvit hæc Ecclesia in mense Septembri, in seqventi nocte post Festvm Sancti Matthæi Apostoli; et in Ann Mcxcvn. VI. Idvs Martii, facta fvit Inquisitio Reliqviarvm Beati Johannis in hoc loco; et inventa sunt hæc ossa in orientali parte Sepvlchri, et hic recondita; et pvlvis cemento mixtus ibidem et inventvs, et reconditus."*

All these relics were carefully re-interred in the middle aisle of the nave,

* "In the year from the Incarnation of our Lord, 1188, this church was burnt in the month of September, the night after the feast of St. Matthew the Apostle; and in the year 1197, the 6th of the Ides of March, there was an inquisition made for the relics of the blessed John in this place, and these bones were found in the east part of his sepulchre, and here deposited; and dust mixed with mortar was found likewise and re-interred."

where they had been taken up, except the seal, which came into the hands of Marmaduke Nelson.* When the present pavement was laid down, these remains were again taken up till an arched repository of bricks was made, in which they were replaced, with this new addition to the ancient inscription:--

"Reliqvæ eadem effosæ et ibidem recompositæ fornice lateritio dignabantvr xxv. die mensis Martij Anno Domini MDCCXXVI. quando et tessalatvm Ecclesiæ hujus pavimentvm primo fvit instratvm."+

There was formerly an inscription upon the roof to show where the relics were placed, and as the vault contains a document so important regarding the fate of the original edifice, and the date of the present building, it seems desirable that its situation should be marked in some durable way. For the information of the curious we may observe that the vault containing these relics, is in the middle aisle of the nave, at the east end, beneath the fifth centre diamond-shaped slab of black marble westward from the central tower, and immediately underneath the second rose in the groining of the roof.

According to Bede, St. John of Beverley died in his own monastery and was buried in the porch (porticus) of St. Peter. The word porticus, which often occurs in the ancient Saxon writers, is considered by some to be synonimous with atrium or vestibulum, denoting a building without side the church, or at the entrance to it. Britton tells us that the ancient portico bore no resemblance to our modern porch, which was seldom, if ever, found in Saxon or Norman churches, but was in fact a constituent part of the building, occupying the whole area of the west end.§ The Rev. James Bentham, author of the History of Ely Cathedral, supposes that a more considerable part of the church was intended by porticus, than is now commonly understood by the church porch; and he adds, "it was frequently distinguished by the name of some saint; for we read of porticus Sti. Martini in St. Augustine's Church, at Canterbury; porticus Sti. Gregorii in St. Peter's, at York; porticus Sti. Pauli in St. Andrew's, at Rochester; porticus Sti. Petri, at Beverley; and other distinctions of that kind in many of our ancient churches. The reason of which appears to be that they were dedicated to the honour of those saints. From all these instances where the word porticus occurs, it appears that the writers meant by it, either what

*

*

* Gent has given an engraving of this seal in his History of Ripon, p. 77.

+ "The same relics having been taken up and replaced in the same situation, were honoured with an arched brick vault, the 25th day of the month of March, 1726, when the chequered pavement of this church was first laid."

† Hist. Eccl. lib. 5, cap. 6. § Arch. Ant., vol. v., pp. 118, 119.

is more commonly called the side aisle of the church, or sometimes it may be a particular division of it, consisting of one arch, with its recess." In the Church of Beverley itself, St. John founded in the choir a convent of monks, dedicated to St. John the Baptist; in the nave a college of canons and clerks, in honour of St. John the Evangelist; and the porticus, or side aisle, it may be presumed, was dedicated to St. Peter. Gough, in his edition of Camden's Britannia, observes, "Godwin and others say the Archbishop was buried in the church porch, so that it is not easy to account for his removal hither (to the middle aisle) on the first discovery of the body. They probably mean that he was buried at the lower end of the nave, near the west door."*

After the canonization of St. John, the bones of the Saint were translated, and placed under a costly shrine; this translation therefore could be nothing more than removing them into the nave or choir, as a more sacred spot. Dugdale and Stevens testify that they were afterwards re-interred in the central alley of the same church; and Alban Butler assigns a reason for the relics being discovered in the middle aisle of the present church. "These sacred bones," he says, "were honourably translated into the church by Alfric, Archbishop of York, in honour of which translation, a feast was kept at York, in 1037, on the 25th October. On the 13th of September (not the 24th, as Mr. Stevens says), in 1664, the sexton digging a grave in the Church of Beverley, discovered a vault of free stone, in which was a box of lead, containing several pieces of bones, with some dust, yielding a sweet smell, with inscriptions, by which it appeared that they were the mortal remains of St. John of Beverley. These relics had been hid in the beginning of the reign of King Edward VI."+

The Arms of Beverley Abbey were Ar. a crosier in pale sa., enfiled with a crown proper, all within a bordure sa bezantèè.

BEVERLEY MINSTER. This "gorgeous fane," as Drayton, in his PolyOlbion, calls it, is dedicated to God in honour of St. John of Beverley. It stands on or near the site of the Collegiate Church, and towers in native majesty above the surrounding buildings. When this noble edifice was erected, its site, though not particularly elevated, was yet distinguishable; for the hill would overtop the general level of the district much more prominently than is perceptible now, after the adjacent ground has been advanced by the accumulations of so many centuries. The venerable structure is spacious and cruciform, and in the Early, Decorated, and later styles of English architecture, with two lofty towers at the west end; and though combining these several styles, it exhibits in each of them such purity of composition and correctness of detail, as to raise it to an architectural equality with the finest of the Cathedral Churches, to which it is inferior only in magnitude. Approaching it, the visitor is struck with equal awe and veneration; the elegant and unrivalled towers; the judicious proportions observed throughout the edifice; the excellence of its materials, now shining out in all their pristine beauty, and the general symmetry and fine taste exhibited, afford to every beholder a series of gratifying objects, seldom so happily combined. Mr. Thomas Rickman, the eminent architect, while speaking of its detached parts, says that some of them are unequalled;* and Mr. Britton, a competent judge, pronounces the church "a most stately and complete structure, worthy to be a Cathedral, and ranking amongst the finest of that class."t "A middle station," says Mr. Oliver, "has not unaptly been assigned to it, between the chaste proportions and feminine splendour of Lincoln Cathedral, and the massive grandeur and masculine firmness and dignity of that of York."

It is to be regretted that nothing can be adduced from documentary evidence to shew by whom, or at what period, the several parts of the fabric were erected; like most of the Cathedral Churches in the kingdom, it has been built at different periods, and, as we have already observed, exhibits the several styles of Gothic architecture in its progressive stages.

"The earliest

But the architectural antiquary has in a great measure supplied the deficiency, by giving, with much precision, a detail of those distinctions which mark the age and style of the different portions of the edifice. parts of the building," writes Britton, "may be dated shortly after the year 1188. The architecture of these parts resembles that of Salisbury Cathedral, exhibiting a plain and simple style; the plan is also similar, having a double transept, the roofs are also vaulted with stone; and the columns, like those in that Cathedral, the standard example of the earliest variety of the pointed style, are neatly wrought with clustered shafts and capitals, composed of plain mouldings, without foliage. The nave is more modern than the choir and transepts; and the western front, which was the work of the fifteenth century, appears to have been scarcely completed, when the change in religion put a period to ecclesiastical magnificence. The great baronial family of Percy, who had a Castle near Beverley, were liberal benefactors to this church, which contains some beautiful tombs for persons of that house, and to them may be ascribed many of its enrichments."

• Rickman's Eng. Archit., p. 106. + Archit. Antiq., vol. v., p. 288.

Except the fragment of the ancient crypt, at the corner of the south-west tower, there appears to be no part of the building earlier than the reign of Henry III.; and it is evident that the works were carried on gradually, as there is almost an insensible gradation from one period to another, while the plan and general style of the original architect was continued. The works appear to be continued from the reign of the third Henry until perhaps the middle of the reign of Edward III., when there seems to have been a cessation till about the reign of Henry V., at which time, or early in the next reign, it is probable the whole of the building was finished.

At the commencement of the last century the church had become so ruinous as scarcely to be fit for use. John Moyser, Esq., an inhabitant of the town, and a former representative of the borough in Parliament, procured a brief for the purpose of raising money towards repairing it. King George I. granted materials from the dissolved Abbey of St. Mary at York, which were brought from thence by water to Beverley, (See vol. i., p. 482.) Sir Michael Warton, M.P. for the town, gave £500., and donations and bequests were made by several of the neighbouring gentlemen. So ruinous was the state of the church, when these efforts commenced, that the north front of the great transept had so far declined from its perpendicular, as to overhang its base nearly four feet, and stood in a most dangerous manner. But with the assistance of a very ingenious but simple piece of huge frame work of wood, invented by a Mr. Thornton, a carpenter of York, the whole gable end of the overhanging transept was screwed up at once, and replaced in its former situation. The entire edifice then underwent a complete repair, but unfortunately the conductors of the work had imbibed a predilection for the Grecian style of architecture; and in attempting to combine it with the Early English, the prevailing error of that age, the church was much disfigured. At that time a low square tower was erected at the junction of the nave and transept, and on its summit was placed a large leaden dome, crowned with a gilded ball. The nave was fitted up with pews, and new galleries were erected, supported by Grecian pillars of the Doric order, and adorned with triglyphs. A Grecian organ screen, and an altar screen of the same school, were constructed at a prodigious expense, the latter consisting of a triumphal arch, supported by four pair of Corinthian pillars, and surmounted by a gilded eagle, the emblem of St. John. The pulpit and reading desk were of the same taste. This jumble of Gothic and Grecian work was, to use the words of the historian of Batalha Abbey, "disgusting to every admirer of antiquity, or indeed to any man of the least taste." The effect of the dome, when seen amidst pointed windows, buttresses, pinnacles, &c., was