THE EXTERIOR
York Minster consists of a nave of eight bays and a choir of nine. It
has a large central tower and two western towers. The main transepts
project three bays from the nave and choir. There are also two eastern
transepts four bays west of the east end, which do not project beyond
the aisles of the choir. The chapter-house lies to the east of the
northern transept, and is connected with it by a lofty passage
projecting three bays from the transept. The east end of the cathedral
is square, as in most English Gothic churches. The best views are to be
obtained from the north, especially from the walls, which will be most
conveniently ascended at Bootham Bar, or from the extreme northern
corner of the close. From the walls the whole of the vast bulk of the
minster may be seen, broken by the great central tower and the lofty cap
of the chapter-house. Other English cathedrals are more finely placed,
several are richer in ornament, one or two have a more delicately varied
outline. None are so stately and so magnificent; and there is hardly a
church in Europe that appears so vast as the minster viewed from the
north. Compared with it the great French cathedrals, with their stilted
roofs so often unbroken, except by a small flêche and with their
outlines concealed in a crowd of flying buttresses, are apt to look
short and huddled when seen from a distance.
The low-pitched roof of the minster, the absence of flying buttresses,
and the simple and tranquil front of the north transept, give the
building an air of masculine and stately repose, and of perfect finish
seldom to be found in foreign churches; while the apparent uniformity of
style, though the architecture is of three different periods, frees it
from the picturesque inconsequence of many English cathedrals. Yet
neither inside nor outside does the minster appear to be the expression
of the spiritual aspirations of a people. It represents rather the
secular magnificence, the temporal power of a Church, that has played a
great part in the history of the nation. The archbishops of York have
been forced by circumstances to be militant prelates, contending with
Canterbury for precedence, leading armies against the Scotch, sometimes
even heading rebellions against the king; and in their cathedral they
have expressed their ambition and their pride.
#The West Front.#--The west front of York Minster is free from the two
faults most common to the façades of most English cathedrals. It is not
a mere undistinguished ending to the church, like those at Norwich and
Winchester, and it is not a magnificent misrepresentation of the height
or width of the building itself, like the west fronts at Peterborough
and Lincoln. Most of the English cathedrals are not lofty or wide enough
to give opportunities for an impressive façade, unless they are fronted
with a mere screen of masonry; but this is not the case at York. No
other Gothic church in England is so wide, and only Westminster Abbey is
as lofty. The builder, therefore, was not tempted to any expedient to
conceal the dimensions of his church, and so the front consists of the
natural end of the nave, of which a great part is filled by the west
window, with a gable above it representing the space between the vault
and the roof, and with the porch below it. It is flanked by two towers
built in front of the aisles, with two smaller porches at the base of
each. The three divisions of the west front are marked by buttresses,
prominent and richly ornamented, one on each side of the west window and
two at the external corners of the towers. The buttresses, covered with
niches and panelling, grow narrower and less prominent as they rise,
until they are cut short with three cornered caps some feet below the
battlements of the towers. The central window and the principal entrance
are surrounded with niches, and there is an elaborate gable above each
of them. The west front exhibits three different styles; the lowest
part, containing the porches and the west windows of the aisle, being of
the geometrical Decorated style; the middle portion, including the great
west window, the gables above it, and the middle windows of the towers
of the later or curvilinear Decorated; and the towers above the roof,
Perpendicular of the fifteenth century. The central gable and the great
west window are almost flamboyant in their decoration. A battlement
immediately above the central window runs right across the front. The
niches on the buttresses are in four storeys, and those on the central
part of the front in six, of varying heights. There is also a row of
niches on the towers immediately above the ornamental gable of the aisle
windows, and the upper part of each tower is covered with niches. The
greater part of these niches above the two lowest rows do not appear to
have ever contained sculpture. The bases of the lowest row of niches are
richly ornamented with foliage. The main entrance, though small, is
extraordinarily beautiful. It consists of a single arch, divided into
two smaller cusped arches by a central pillar with a circular opening
above it, glazed and filled with six divisions of cusped tracery. Above
the main arch is a gable, in which are five niches, the central one
containing the figure of an archbishop. It is uncertain whether this is
Archbishop John Romeyn, who began the nave, or Archbishop Melton, who
finished the west front and glazed the central window. On either side of
the gable are statues of the Percy and Vavasour, who gave the wood and
stone necessary for the building of the nave. These statues, and the
greater, part of the porch, have been restored. But even after
restoration the fine proportions and delicate workmanship of the porch
are evident. The slender shafts supporting the arches are well grouped
and contrasted. The capitals, though characteristically small, are most
delicate, and the mouldings are admirably varied with foliage, figures,
canopies, and brackets for statues, formal decoration, and courses of
plain stone. These mouldings contain the history of Adam and Eve. Even
the porches at Sienna and Orvieto, though made of far more costly
materials, can hardly be more beautiful than was this porch at the time
of its completion. There is but little other statuary remaining on the
west front. A few figures of saints remain in the upper niches of the
buttresses, and there are fragments of sculpture on some of the lowest.
The towers are 201 feet high, and are uniform in design. The front of
each contains three large windows; the highest, Perpendicular in style,
containing three lights; the middle, curvilinear Decorated, containing
four; and the lowest, the west windows of the aisle, being geometrical
Decorated, and containing three lights. The middle windows to the north
and south are of very curious half geometrical, half curvilinear
tracery. The highest and lowest windows of the towers have ornamented
gables above them, the lowest being triangular, the upper ogee-shaped.
The towers are topped with large battlements and pinnacles.
[Illustration: The West Front--Main Entrance.]
It will be seen, therefore, that this west front is planned on the most
regular lines and the most ambitious scale. True, some French façades
are loftier, as at Amiens for instance, but, as Professor Freeman has
pointed out, the effect aimed at at York is one of breadth rather than
of height, and it is an advantage that the front is not too high for the
towers to rise some way above it. It is also richly decorated and well
proportioned in the mass, and yet nearly every one, on first seeing it,
must be struck by its curious ineffectiveness when its height and
breadth, its regular outline, and profusion of ornament are considered.
To tell the truth, the English architects have here endeavoured to rival
the French on their own ground, and have not succeeded. The English
cathedral, as has been said, was not usually planned on such lines as to
make a sumptuous façade possible. Throughout the whole course of English
Gothic architecture, the treatment of the west end is curiously
hesitating and arbitrary. Sometimes it is altogether unambitious, as at
Winchester and Norwich; sometimes boldly illogical, as at Lincoln or
Peterborough; and at Salisbury, where everything else is beautiful, it
is altogether unsatisfactory. In all these cases circumstances were
against the architect, but at York there was every opportunity for a
great architectural triumph. Yet the designer was not able to throw off
his English timidity, to forget the small English features to which he
was used, and to conceive his front as a gigantic whole.
To begin with, he made his west window so large that every other
important feature of the central division of the front had to be
sacrificed to make room for it. In the great French façades the
customary circular window leaves ample space for vast porches below it.
These are pushed forward to a level with the great flanking buttresses,
so that the actual wall of the church above it appears to be recessed.
As the side porches fronting the aisles are on the same level with the
main porch, the bottom part of the front is bound together, and the
divisions of nave and aisle, emphasised above by the prominent
buttresses, are minimised below. This arrangement gives at once unity
and variety to the whole design. The towers do not appear to be external
additions rising from the ground, but an integral part, the very crown
and flower, in fact, of the whole design.
At York the central window is so large that it leaves but little room
below it for the porch. This porch, though exquisite in itself, is not
pushed forward, but flat with the wall, and appears a mere hole cut in
the surface. It has necessarily no connection with the entrances to the
aisles; and the finest feature of the great French façades is wanting.
But the size of the west window has other disastrous effects. It would
have been difficult, almost impossible, to assimilate an opening so
large, and of such an elaborate pattern, to the rest of the design, and
hardly an effort even has been made to do so. It appears, therefore,
like the porches, to have been cut bodily out of the front without
regard for the rest of the plan, and its acute arch harmonises badly
with the gable above it. No doubt the designer saw the fault; he placed
an acute ornamental gable above the window, rising to the top of the
front, and he covered the actual gable of the roof with flamboyant
tracery of the same character as that on the window; but, by so doing,
he merely weakened the contrast between tracery and bare spaces of
masonry so necessary to every great design.
The weakness of the central division is not made up for by any
excellence in the towers. These, though fine on their lower storeys, are
strangely feeble above. They are, in fact, the worst part of the
minster, and have been condemned by all critics, from Mr Ruskin
downwards. In most towers of this kind there are two windows above and a
single one below. At York the three storeys of single windows give the
design an air of monotony and weakness. Further, the highest window is
not only far too large, but is placed too low. Like the great west
window, it appears to have been cut out of the wall. It is also
peculiarly unfortunate that the buttresses should die into the wall
below the pinnacles. Where a tower is buttressed, it is a natural and
logical device to make the pinnacles a continuation of the buttresses.
Here both pinnacles and buttresses, unusually prominent and elaborate,
do not seem to be an integral part of the design. They have been called
a kind of architectural confectionery, and the criticism is just. The
fact that the battlements and pinnacles project a few inches over the
walls of the towers, only adds to the air of weakness and instability of
the whole. Nowhere else surely has a Gothic architect approached so
closely to the ideals of his "churchwarden" imitators of the beginning
of this century.
But these faults, though serious enough, do not include everything that
can be said against the west front of the minster. Gothic churches have
often been noble and triumphant works of art in spite of errors almost
as grave. Unfortunately the west front suffers from a tendency first
beginning to show itself in the middle of the fourteenth century, which
afterwards became the most serious drawback of the whole Perpendicular
style. It is not only because the porches do not project that it appears
flat and thin. The west front of Notre Dame at Paris has no projecting
porches, yet the alternations of bare spaces of wall and of rich and
deep masses of carving, the strong horizontal lines, and the deep-set
windows, give it a boldness and strength altogether wanting at York.
Like all Norman and earlier Gothic work, it has this great merit, often
most strongly felt by people who are quite unable to explain it, that
the design seems to emphasise, and to be dictated by, the materials in
which it is carried out. The Norman architect never forgot for a
moment--he was not skilful enough to forget--that he was building with
stone. So he did not conceive of his west front as a flat space to be
ornamented, but as a wall to be built, and naturally his ornament
followed and emphasised the main lines of his building. His single
pillars, with their heavy capitals, bore witness that they were made of
great stones piled one on the top of the other; his simple windows were
merely openings in the wall to let in light.
[Illustration: The Exterior, from the South-East.]
But as masons grew more skilful, and designers more sophisticated, they
found it pleasant to play with their material; to turn their single
pillars into bundles of clustered shafts; to fill their windows with
tracery, structural at first, but afterwards as free and fantastic as
lacework. The result is often beautiful. The method gave the freest play
to the artist's invention, but it had its dangers, and they are
exemplified at York. There the designer has evidently regarded his west
front as a large space of wall to be played with, to be decorated much
as if it were a piece of embroidery, and, in his anxiety to decorate it
richly, he has lost his sense of unity and proportion. He has forgotten
to use his ornament merely to emphasise the main lines of the structure.
Where this is done, where the ornament is massed on the porches, on the
windows, and on the lines dividing the storeys, the rest of the façade
may be left alone. The bare spaces of masonry only serve to give relief
to the decoration. But at York the main lines are so neglected, they
offer so little opportunity for decoration, that the designer was afraid
to leave his walls plain, lest the whole should appear lean and cold. He
has, therefore, spun his tracery and panelling over the whole surface.
Nowhere can the eye rest on a plain piece of wall; everywhere it is
fidgeted by monotonous rows of niches and mouldings. In fact, it may be
compared to an etching so full of unnecessary details that composition,
balance of mass, and beauty of line are all smothered in them. And yet
there is much to be said on the other side. The mere size--the height
and width--go far to make the front impressive; and the detail, even now
when so much of it has been restored, is usually beautiful. If it is not
great architecture, it is at least living architecture, and as such
infinitely superior to the most scholarly works of the Gothic revival.
It is only when we compare it to the magnificent west fronts of France
that we are inclined to regret that it has not rivalled them.
#The North Side# of the exterior of the nave differs from the south in
several particulars. Thus, on the south the aisle buttresses are crowned
by lofty pinnacles having at their bases niches, in some of which
statues still remain. These pinnacles appear to have been originally
connected with the wall of the nave by flying buttresses, traces of
which still exist, both on the walls and the pinnacles. In Hollar's
engraving, in a later print in Dugdale's "Monasticon" (1817), and in
Willis's "Cathedrals" (1742), these buttresses are represented as
existing, but the accuracy of the pictures in these books cannot be
trusted. It is possible that a beginning only was made of these flying
buttresses, and that when it was decided to place a wooden vault on the
cathedral, they were discontinued as being unnecessary. At any rate,
there are no pinnacles to the aisle buttresses on the north side, and,
consequently, no flying buttresses. The plainer style of the north side
was perhaps owing to the fact that a great part of it was concealed by
the archbishop's palace, yet at the present day it is certainly more
beautiful than the south. It closely resembles the exterior of the
beautiful nave of Beverley Minster, and for simplicity and delicacy of
design could hardly be surpassed. The bays are marked by plain aisle
buttresses, terminating in three-cornered caps, with a battlement of
cusped stonework ornamented with finials behind them. The buttresses of
the nave are plain narrow bands of stone topped with small pinnacles.
The roof is low pitched; the only other decoration is given by the
uniform tracery of the windows and by a crocketed gable above each of
the windows of the aisle.
#North Transept.#--The walls of the north transept are lower than those
of the nave, and its roof, covered with a particularly ugly coating of
zinc, is much more highly pitched. Thus the ridges of the two roofs are
practically level, while the battlement of the transept is only on a
level with the point at which the arches of the clerestory in the nave
spring. The union of the two and the contrast between the low-pitched
roof of the nave and the stilted roofs of the transept are rather
awkward. It should be said that the zinc roof of the north transept was
a necessity, as the old roof of stone tiles proved to be too heavy. But
for these inevitable differences the exterior of the north transept
blends most successfully with that of the nave, though, of course, its
details are altogether different. As an example of the great effect to
be attained by the lancet windows, delicate proportions, and restrained
ornament of the Early English style, it has never been surpassed. It
extends three bays from the nave. The aisle buttresses end some little
way below the battlements of the aisle. There are no buttresses against
the main wall of the transept; but it is ornamented with a row of
arches, some blank, and some pierced with the clerestory windows. These
windows are in groups of three separated by two blank arches. The blank
arches are wider than the windows. All the arches are decorated with
dog-tooth mouldings. The absence of buttresses and the continuous row of
arches cause a remarkable freedom from vertical lines in the exterior of
the transepts, which is also characteristic of the interior. The
battlements, both of the aisles and of the transept itself, are quite
plain. The most admirable portion of this transept is its north front,
which contains the famous group of lancet windows known as the "five
sisters." These are five very narrow and long windows separated only by
slender shafts. Below them is a blind arcade almost entirely without
ornament, and above them another group of five lancet windows of
different sizes, gradually diminishing from the central window to follow
the outline of the gable. The details of these upper windows closely
resemble those of the "five sisters," and they are flanked by two blind
arches. The buttresses are also ornamented with blind arches, and appear
never to have been finished, as they are truncated in an unusual way
where one would expect pinnacles. The exterior of the western aisle of
this transept is very curious in arrangement. There is an almost
complete absence of division into bays. There are two lancet windows to
each bay, and buttresses rise between them as well as between the bays.
Thus there is nothing to mark the interior division of the main arches,
clerestory, and triforium. All of these buttresses are cut short by caps
a little way below the tops of the windows. Between the groups of aisle
windows are blind arches narrower than the windows themselves. There is
a blind arch of the same width at the southern extremity, and a wider
one at the northern. The aisles, like the rest of the transept, are
almost perfectly plain.
[Illustration: The Exterior, from the North.]
The #Chapter-house# is connected with the eastern aisle of the transept
by a vestibule projecting three bays beyond the north front. This
vestibule then turns eastward for two bays, at which point it joins the
chapter-house. Both vestibule and chapter-house are magnificent examples
of Decorated work. Their date is doubtful, and is discussed in the
history of the building. They are certainly among the finest works of
Gothic architecture in Europe. The chapter-house is octagonal in shape,
and is crowned by a lofty pyramidal roof. Its chief, almost its only
decoration, is provided by the buttresses and the beautiful tracery of
the acutely-pointed windows. The buttresses are of very curious design.
They are joined to the wall of the chapter-house for nearly half their
height, and up to this point are quite plain. They are then narrowed
into lofty pinnacles, and these pinnacles are connected with the wall by
two small flying buttresses, the lower one plainly moulded and sloping
upwards to the wall, the upper one being horizontal and richly decorated
with arcading, two arcades to each side of every buttress. At the point
at which the buttress narrows into the pinnacle there are cusped gables
with gargoyles on the outer side of the buttresses. The pinnacles are
decorated with slender shafts and richly ornamented gables. The windows
of the chapter-house contain five lights. They will be further described
in the account of the interior of the building. Above them is a plain
battlement, with two rows of ornament below it, and three figures in
each bay above it. There is a very curious buttress at the point of
junction of the vestibule and the chapter-house. It is joined to the
wall of the chapter-house up to the battlement, and consists of an
irregular mass of masonry ornamented as far as possible in the same
manner as the other buttresses with gables and panelling. The two bays
of the vestibule nearest to the chapter-house have nothing unusual about
them except their buttresses. One of these is set close to the wall up
to the spire of the pinnacle. All the other buttresses of the vestibule,
except the one built against the buttress of the transept end, have
pinnacles joined to the wall by a pierced arch of curious and ingenious
design. The vestibule is crowned by plain battlements like that of the
chapter-house, with small square-headed windows of two lights each. The
windows of the two bays nearest the transept end are of most unusual
design, which will be explained in the account of the interior; these
bays are narrower than the others, that nearest to the transept being
the narrowest of all.
#The Choir.#--The exterior of the north side of the choir is almost
identical with that of the south; but there are some points of
difference between the four earlier bays east of the transept and the
four later ones west of it. In particular, in the four eastern bays the
triforium passage runs outside instead of inside the building. The
clerestory windows are recessed, and in front of them, running flush
with the buttresses, is a screen of three divisions to each bay (see
illustration, p. 62). The triforium passage, hidden by the roof of the
aisle, runs below the screen and the windows, and between the two. The
mullions dividing the screen run straight up to the battlement. The tops
of the divisions are ornamented with cusped arches of open stonework.
There is a transom crossing the mullions of the screen about one-third
of the way up. It is difficult to say what was the object of this
screen. It must have been included in the original design, and so cannot
have been added afterwards to strengthen the walls. Whether it was a
merely decorative experiment or an architectural device for the purpose
of allowing the walls to be pierced with very large windows for the
display of glass cannot now be decided. The effect from the outside is
not good. The mullions break the surface into too many vertical lines,
and, with the transom, take away from the dignity and purity of outline
of the exterior. Inside, whether by a lucky chance or not, this screen,
by darkening the clerestory windows, has greatly added to the effect of
the wall of glass at the east end. There are also slight points of
difference in the clerestory windows, showing the transitional character
of those in the four eastern bays. The windows of the aisle are
delicately moulded with capitals to their shafts, and are ornamented
with a crocketed gable, ogee-shaped and topped with a prominent finial
rising just above the battlements of the aisle. These battlements are
pierced with cusped circles, below them is a cornice ornamented with
foliage. The buttresses of the aisles are decorated with gargoyles and
crowned with pinnacles of a considerable size with crocketed spires and
finials. The front of these pinnacles is ornamented with characteristic
Perpendicular panelling. The buttresses of the main wall are thin and
plain, and, with the pinnacles, much resemble those of the nave. The
battlements are of pierced stonework of a common Perpendicular pattern.
The eastern transepts do not project beyond the aisles. Their fronts
contain very long windows of five lights, each with three transoms. The
southern one has strong buttresses ornamented with panelling, and
gargoyles at the corners. The northern is much plainer. Their side
windows are like those of the clerestory. Britton conjectures that the
unfinished state of the stonework on the north side of the choir beneath
the window shows that a cloister or other low building was intended in
this part, which was never executed. The cornice, he says, under the
battlements is more perfect towards the western part and shows beautiful
foliage. The spouts are sculptured with bold projecting figures through
which the water is conveyed from the roofs.
[Illustration: Bay of Choir--Exterior.]
The east end of the cathedral is square. The great east window of nine
lights fills almost the whole of the central division. The buttresses
separating it from the aisle are decorated with six storeys of niches,
two to each storey, except the lowest, which contains only one. The east
window has an ogee gable above it, topped by a curious pierced pinnacle
at present in process of restoration. The ends, both of the aisles and
of the choir itself, are square, and do not reveal the roof behind them.
The arch of the great east window is surrounded with panelling, each
panel curiously broken at different heights by cusped arches. The aisle
windows have ogee gables above them with finials, and immediately above
them a band of panelling running right across the exterior buttresses.
These buttresses are large, and capped with lofty spires. The niches on
them contained statues of Vavasour and Percy. Below the east window are
the remains of sculpture representing Christ and His Apostles, Edward
III. (on the north), and Archbishop Thoresby (on the south). These have
suffered much in the frosts of recent winters. The square ends of both
choir and aisles are decorated with arches with crocketed gables above
them. Those of the south aisle differ from those of the north, being
fewer in number and wider. All the niches on the east front except those
mentioned have lost their statues.
There was certainly not very much opportunity for a fine architectural
design in this east end with its great wall of glass, but, allowing for
all disadvantages, it cannot be considered successful. There is no
justification for the square ends concealing the roof. They are
misrepresentations, and they are not beautiful. The decoration, with its
monotonous rows of panelling and niches, shows the poverty of invention
often characteristic of Perpendicular architects, and is sometimes
positively ugly. The whole east front must surprise most people by its
apparent smallness. It seems merely the end of an overgrown parish
church, and not of a great cathedral, and though that apparent smallness
is partly owing to the enormous size of the windows, which prevent any
structural division of parts, it is increased by the monotony and
shallowness of the decoration. It is almost impossible, in fact, to
believe that this is the east end of the loftiest and widest choir in
England. The buildings on the south side of the choir are the vestry,
the treasury, and the record room.
#The South Transept# has a front entirely different from that of the
north, though the sides are much the same. This front has three storeys
of windows. Below, on each side of the porch, are two lancet windows.
Above these are three more lancet windows, the central one of which,
wider than the others, is divided by a mullion, probably a later
insertion. These windows alternate with blind arches. On each side of
the windows are slender shafts with capitals, and dog-tooth moulding
runs round them and round the blank arches. Above these windows is a
large rose window of "plate tracery"--tracery, that is to say, in its
earlier form, in which the openings for the glass appear to have been
cut out of the stone rather than the stone to have been added as a frame
for the glass. This window is of a very elaborate design, and consists
of three circles, the outer being the circumference of the window; the
middle about equi-distant from the circumference and the centre, and
connected with the circumference by pillars, twenty-four in all, and
cusped arches; and the inner connected with the centre in the same way
and ornamented with cusps. The spaces between the arches of the middle
circle are pierced with trefoil holes, those between the outer arches
are pierced and filled with glass. The outer circle is ornamented with
three rows of dog-tooth moulding. Above this window, in the crown of the
gable, is a small three-cornered window ornamented also with dog-tooth
moulding. On either side of the rose window are small lancet windows
with smaller blind arches on each side of them. Both windows and arches
are surrounded also with dog-tooth moulding. An arcading with shafts and
cusped arches runs along the base of the front, not quite reaching the
exterior buttresses. In the centre is the porch by which entrance to the
minster is generally obtained. It is reached by an ascent of two flights
of steps. The porch is rather small, and not particularly remarkable
architecturally. It consists of a single arch supported by an outer and
inner group of clustered shafts. On each side of it is a small blind
arch. All three of these arches are decorated with dog-tooth moulding.
The interior of the porch is vaulted and decorated with blind arches.
Above this porch are three blind arches surrounded with heavy gables,
the middle and largest of which runs up to the lancet windows above it.
It is difficult to believe that these arches and gables are not an
addition later in date than the transept itself; they are so ugly and so
meaningless, but they appear in the old prints of the minster, and the
ancient clock, with two wooden statues in armour of the date of Henry
VII., seems to have stood there from time immemorial. This clock was
removed, with the statues, to make room for another at the beginning of
this century, and it appears that the arches and gables were also
altered, which may perhaps account for their present ugly appearance.
The clock is now in the north transept. It should be stated that the
whole of this front has been rather badly restored, and nearly all of
its beauty of detail is gone. The aisle fronts have upper storeys
ornamented with blind arches and an upper row of small lancet windows.
These upper storeys do not correspond with the roof of the aisle behind
them. The aisle windows are lancet, two to each aisle. The external
buttresses are large, ornamented with gables and blind arches, and the
other buttresses are of the same character.
[Illustration: South Transept--Porch.]
On the whole, the front of the north transept, though very rich in
ornament, is distinctly inferior to the front of the south. The rose
window is too large for its lofty position, and its elaborate tracery
and rich mouldings make it seem heavy. The lancet windows below it,
being too long and badly spaced, have rather a bald look, increased by
the richness of the rose window above them, and the porch is altogether
too insignificant and plain for its prominent position. But, as has been
stated, the front has suffered much from restoration and later
additions, and must not be too severely judged. When it was restored by
Mr Street, pinnacles, which were late additions, were removed, and the
present ones, more in keeping with the rest of the front, were put in
their place.
#The South Side Of The Nave# resembles the north in most respects, but
the buttresses and pinnacles of the aisles are altogether different. The
buttresses rise some way above the battlements of the aisles. They are
plain to the level of these battlements, and above them are ornamented
with niches containing figures, with blind arches above the niches. They
are cut short by three gables, on the top of which are set lofty
pinnacles. The niches vary in detail, some of them having more elaborate
canopies than others. On these buttresses and on the wall of the nave
are the marks of flying buttresses which have been removed, as has been
stated in the account of the north side of the nave.
Three gargoyles spring from each buttress at the level of the battlement
of the aisle. This side of the nave is only less beautiful than the
other. The pinnacles, if they add to the richness of its decoration,
break the simplicity of outline so admirable in the northern exterior of
the nave. The stonework of the pinnacles and buttresses is much decayed,
and constantly requires renewal.
#The Central Tower# rises a single storey above the ridge of the roof
and is open inside to the top. But for small gables on the buttresses,
it is quite plain up to the level of the roof ridge. Above this it
contains two long and narrow Perpendicular windows on each side, of
three lights each, with a transom. These windows are ornamented with
ogee gables, and between them are three niches, one above the other,
with canopies. The external buttresses are split up with vertical
mouldings and ornamented with niches and panelling. The tower is crowned
with a battlement. Horizontal string courses with gargoyles divide the
buttresses at intervals. There are no pinnacles on these buttresses, and
they appear never to have been finished. It is possible that it was
intended to set another storey on the top of the present one, but this
is merely conjecture.
This tower, or rather its Perpendicular casing, for it was originally an
Early English tower, is, with the western the latest part of the
minster, but it is by no means the least beautiful. The English
architects of the sixteenth century, if they were inferior to earlier
builders in invention and vigour, were at any rate supreme in the
management of towers. Their wonderful sense of proportion, their
habitual use of vertical lines, and the character of their windows
helped them to build what are perhaps the finest towers in Europe, and
the central tower of York Minster is one of the finest of all. Even the
absence of pinnacles, if it is an accident, seems to be a lucky
accident, and gives this tower an unrivalled dignity and air of
restraint suitable to the character of the whole cathedral. For whatever
may be said against certain parts of the exterior, as a whole it is one
of the most magnificent in the world. It shows best from certain points
of view--from the north, for instance, or from the network of narrow
streets to the south. It may be contended that the central tower is not
quite lofty enough compared with the two western towers for perfect
symmetry of outline; that, seen from certain aspects, it is rather
square and box-like in appearance; that from no point of view are the
western towers satisfactory. But the minster produces its great effect
by its enormous bulk and dignity, its vast length, the variety and yet
unity of its outlines, the severity and restraint of its form.
[Illustration: Seal of St Mary's Abbey.]