York

York. York was the military headquarters of the Romans in northern Britain. A Bp. of York is recorded in 314. The Christian community was destroyed in the Saxon invasions. St Paulinus, who was consecrated Bp. of York in 625, baptized the Northumbrian King Edwin in 627 and received the pallium in 631. After another pagan invasion in 633, Paulinus fled to Rochester, and York came under the care of the bishops of Lindisfarne. The see was restored in 664 with the consecration of St Wilfrid; in 735, under Egbert, it was raised to archiepiscopal dignity and its archbishops became primates of the Northern episcopal Province. Under the first Norman Archbishop, Thomas of Bayeux (1070–1100), the struggle for precedence between Canterbury and York began. It was finally settled by Pope Innocent VI (1352–62), who decided that the Abp. of Canterbury was to have precedence and the title ‘Primate of All England’, and that the Abp. of York should be styled ‘Primate of England’.

Medieval York was important as a regional capital, and in the Middle Ages and later the Abp. of York took part in governing the North of England. At the height of its prosperity there were over 40 parish churches and nine religious houses in the city. No church can be traced back to Roman times, though Roman materials were reused in several. The Saxon cathedral, which may have been on the site of St Michael-le-Belfrey, was destroyed during the rebellion of 1069. A Norman church preceded the present York Minster, built on the same site between c.1227 and 1472. There were four restorations in the 19th cent. The foundations of the Central Tower and West Front, which rest on Roman rubbish, were strengthened between 1967 and 1972. Serious damage caused by a fire in 1984 has been repaired.