The Nun's Story - Part 2

“From the water we can see the former precinct of the Augustinians, next to the Guild Hall. The Augustinian prior made a great stance against the suppression of the monasteries and supported the Pilgrims - those whom the Crown has called rebels. Now there is talk of Sir George Lawson wanting to turn the priory to commercial use as a malthouse. And to think that they had the support of so many craft and religious guilds. My uncle, a city merchant, left money in his will towards the sumptuous stonework of the dormitory and cloister.

The Abbey dedicated to Our Lord's Mother still holds out: but I wonder for how long. Can you see how vast its precinct is? To our right are the roofs of the great hospital of St Leonard. Sisters there look after an orphanage and many patients and distribute loaves and herring on weekdays and meals to the poor on Sundays. The prisoners at the Castle receive loaves from them on the Sabbath. Edward Middleton, a chaplain of ours, described a feast day in the Abbey when the reliquary containing the bones of the head of St William was carried here in procession from the Minster. They have not shown the reliquary to the public for some years now, and it is rumoured that they may have it stripped and dismantled, its precious metals and jewels taken to London.

Let us alight from this boat by the precinct wall and the western entrance. We go down Footless Lane and then on to Blake Street. Our priory used to rent out properly here in Blake Street and in Stonegate until it was confiscated. There are about 36 Yorkshire houses of religion which own or owned property in the city. Look, down one of these alleys is the workshop of a master glass-painter. He is painting against the light, with an apprentice leading up the panes on a bench. Look at that scrap and wasted glass thrown out into a pit. To think that all the beautiful work in our monastic churches and refectories is being broken up and plundered for the sake of the dull lead that holds it together!

If we go down Stonegate now we can return to the path of the Mystery plays. I saw the Creed and Paternoster plays as a child when the Guild of St Anthony ran them. I shrank in terror behind my mother's skirts at the scenes of the Last Judgment. They were some of my earliest lessons in religion. Yet they are hardly under the jurisdiction or direction of the Church. There used to be complaints that the Corpus Christi plays were brazenly used by the guilds for advertising their wealth and products. They say that the Council put a ban on the display of heraldry other than that of the city on the wagons themselves. It sounds as if they like to keep overall control, does it not? I have been told by a nephew, a rebellious young man, that cynicism in one of my vocation is typical of an unworldly religion; that there is more good to be seen in the labour of a man who performs for his craft than in the veneration of the Blessed Virgin's Milk, as we performed at St Clement's.

Here at the junction of Petergate and Stonegate we could go back to see the recently rebuilt St Martin le Belfrey. The ironwork for the altars was completed two or three years ago. If you do not mind, I will take leave of you for a short while here at the Minster church, to pray at the shrine of St William behind the High Altar.

Hush, as we approach the prayer niches. This is a Holy day so they have raised the painted and gilded wooden shrine cover above the marble pedestal. People like my nephew would like to see such shrines destroyed. But people still come here on pilgrimage, see the wax votive offerings of their painful and diseased limbs which they have hung on the altar screen. The pilgrims will not be able to stay at the nunnery any more. And the worldly should bear in mind that pilgrims do bring income to the city, if one is concerned with such things.

We could go down Goodramgate leading to the college of the chantry priests, St William's. These priests serve the Minster. The citizens have been great supporters of chantries in the past, particularly in their parish churches. But I doubt there has been a new foundation for nearly twenty years. Latterly, we hardly received any bequests at St Clement's. Over there is the Bedern, the college of the Vicars Choral who stand in for the cathedral officials who usually hold two or three such prebends in other dioceses throughout the country and, therefore, cannot be in residence in York. Some would call this absenteeism a cynical neglect.

Let us hope that it does not rain. The streets are bad enough filled with mud without water running down them as well. We can retrace our steps to the church of the Holy Trinity, Coney Garth, and down Colliergate onto Fossgate. I am not used to all this walking. I have had two years since I left St Clement's in which to get to know the city again, with its narrow lanes and tenements, huddled houses and serrated skyline.

Far over to the left from Fossgate is the site of the former Carmelite Friary. The gateway chapel at the entrance to the precinct has an image to the Virgin popular with the pilgrims. People are already stripping the friary of plaster and stone. We have come down Walmgate because Fishergate is blocked up. A learned man, I think his name was Leland, was touring the country and came to York. He said that Fishergate had been 'stopped up since the commons burnt it in the time of King Henry Vll, and that some said that Walmgate was erected at the stopping of Fishergate' but that he doubted that was true. He said that in the wall by this gate is a stone with an inscription saying that sixty yards of murage had been paid for by William Todde, mayor of York, in 1445. I think it was perhaps forty years later.

At last we are in sight of St Andrew's Gilbertine Priory which we saw across the river from St Clement's. It was surrendered in November although it has been an impoverished house for as long as I can remember. It was built around a quadrangle, with a rectangular church like an old college chapel. They say that an important Court and ecclesiastical figure stayed here during the wars with the Scots, when Parliament sat in York. Look how they are robbing the stonework, and pulling down the painted roofs, once decked with gold-painted stars. And they are smashing the windows. All the shining figures, broken and swept into heaps whilst workmen pick out the lead. The sacrilegious even rifle coffins and graves. They have pulled the ancient cloister down and hauled the stones away. Where essential herbs and spices grew in the cloister garth they have built a limekiln to burn the stone.

I can no longer bear to look on this desecration, it reminds me too vividly of the fate of our own St Clement's whose walls contained all my memories; these Holy sites I have shown you defined my whole understanding of the world. I will take my leave of you now - I have devotions to attend at St Helen's parish church near here. I am saddened and I cannot know the future. These priories may disappear completely in my lifetime. If Lord Cromwell would now break down monasteries, can we trust that the parish churches, shrines and images will remain safe? Of what can people not conceive, having put their God to the flames?”

(This story originally appeared Interim, Winter 1991 and was written by Pam Graves.)