Discovery of a hitherto unrecorded statue of a mediaeval taborer

Discovery of a hitherto unrecorded statue of a mediaeval taborer

This story begins not with a pipe and tabor, but with a hurdy-gurdy. My husband, Rob who is the treasurer of TTS, plays not the pipe and tabor, but the hurdy-gurdy. One of our hobbies is that whenever we travel in the country we find out if there is a pipe and tabor or hurdy-gurdy statue in a church that is not too far off our route, and we go and see it if possible. The main reference we have used is Minstrels and Angels by Jeremy and Gwen Montagu. This is a fairly comprehensive inventory and it has allowed us to see such charming carvings as the taboring rabbit at Cogges near Witney in Oxfordshire.

Rob also has another book The Hurdy-Gurdy by Susann Palmer and this book mentions a hurdy-gurdy carving which is not in Montagu – a carving of a hurdy-gurdy on a fragment of St William’s shrine in St Olave’s church in York. We returned to York determined to look for this statue as well as 2 other images mentioned in Montagu.

All went well – we saw the fine symphonie on the screen in the Minster, and the second in a stained glass window in St Denis’ church. Then we went to St Olave’s. (For St Olave, think Olaf. He was a marauding Viking king of Norway who converted to Christianity on one of his raids. He founded the Christian church of Norway and is also known as the man who caused London Bridge to fall down. St Olave’s church in York was founded in 1055.)

We searched high and low but not a shadow of St William’s shrine could we find, let alone any carvings. We were with a good friend of ours, Jim Spriggs, who until his recent retirement was an archaeologist with the York Archaeological Trust, and he said that the Yorkshire Museum had some of St William’s shrine on display, so we all went along there to see. They certainly had substantial parts of the shrine, a very architectural structure with very fine carving, but no musicians.

Who was St William? He was William Fitzherbert, Archbishop of York from 1141 – 1147 and again 1153 – 1154. He had been the Minster Treasurer before his election, but his election was disputed by some Canons and he was not officially consecrated until two years later, in 1143. In 1147 the Pope deposed William and appointed the Abbot of Fountains Abbey, Henry Murdac, in his stead. Fountains Abbey at this time had a reputation for austere and holy living, and this appointment was not popular with the citizens of York, who refused him entry to the city when he arrived in 1148. William, however, accepted the Pope’s decision and went to live in Sicily.

In 1153 both the Pope and Henry Murdac died, and William was asked back to York. The good citizens of York were overjoyed at his reinstatement, and such a multitude crowded onto Ouse Bridge to welcome William back that the bridge collapsed. William stopped and called on God to save those in danger, and miraculously no-one was hurt. A stained glass window in the Minster records this miracle.

William did not live to enjoy his recovered position for very long, as he died in June the following year, 1154, possibly poisoned, and he was buried in the west end of the Minster. The miracle on Ouse Bridge and other miracles attributed to him after his death led to him being canonised 70 years after his death, in 1224.

In 1320, about a hundred years after the canonisation, the then Archbishop of York, Thomas Melton, gave the sum of £20 for a shrine to be built over William’s grave. It was constructed from pale magnesian limestone, probably sourced from Tadcaster.

Over the years the shrine was enlarged and embellished, each new shrine incorporating elements of the earlier ones. In 1472 the final, principal shrine was built using blue-grey fossil limestone from Teesdale. This is a much harder stone than the earlier stone used, and skilled craftsmen from London were employed to work it. It was designed by master mason Robert Spillesby and displayed elaborate architectural carving of the highest quality. The shrine was now placed in the east end of the Minster in the sanctum sanctorum – the holy of holies. It is part of this shrine that we saw in the Yorkshire Museum, with the hard fossil limestone having the smoothness and shininess of a dark marble.

St William’s shrine was one of the largest in England, rivalling that of St Thomas à Beckett in Canterbury. All this was of course because it was a destination for pilgrimages. Pilgrims came from all over the country to make offerings and pray at the shrine which had four niches on each side where a pilgrim could kneel. St William’s window shows the shrine and pilgrims praying there. Some who prayed for healing have left wax images of the ailing body part. Pilgrimage in mediaeval Europe was a common religious act and was economically important for the destination site. That indefatigable pilgrim, Margery Kempe, came on pilgrimage to York and offered at St William’s shrine.

Less than a hundred years after the construction of the principal shrine, the Reformation was in progress, and on 22^nd September 1541 the Privy Council, sitting in York, ordered the Archbishop to have all the shrines in his province broken up. St William’s shrine was no exception and it was destroyed.

In 1835 some parts were rediscovered buried within the Precentor’s Court which is close to the west end of the Minster. Whether they had been buried for safe-keeping as some people like to say, or whether the material of the shrine was felt to be so sacred that it ought not to be reused for another purpose is open to debate. Subsequently other parts have been unearthed and there may be other parts still buried but now under buildings.

In the 19^th century another stone was found buried in the Deanery garden. It bore a 14^th century inscription that this was the very stone that had fallen from the Minster during a service, missing the tonsured head of a canon by inches – a miracle attributed to St William. St William himself was buried in a reused Roman sarcophagus which is still in the Minster crypt.

Getting back to our tracking down of the hurdy-gurdy, Jim Spriggs suspected that the Yorkshire Museum had some other fragments of the shrine in store, so we put in an official request to the conservator that they be tracked down for us. This took many more weeks than you might imagine, partly because the fragment we were interested in is only on loan from St Olave’s so has no museum number or catalogue entry. Eventually an e-mail arrived to say it had been located. We could not dash up to York at that time, so asked Jim to visit the museum store for us.

He reported that the fragment was quite large, with not one, but six musicians. As well as the hurdy-gurdy there was a viol, a pair of nakers, two wind instruments AND a pipe and tabor. Jim considered that this fragment relates to the base, (and possibly a corner) of the first shrine erected in the 1320s. This is based on the fact that it is of the pale magnesian limestone rather than the blue-grey fossil limestone of the 15^th Century.

The angel musicians are each framed within a quatrefoil shape.

Reconstructions of the earliest and latest shrines and the depictions in the stained glass window show a base with quatrefoil shapes. Calculating the numbers of these would suggest anything from a minimum of 20 up to 40 or more of these shapes, so if each contained an angel minstrel and we only have six of them, we are indeed fortunate to be able to see the taborer – and sitting right next to the hurdy-gurdy player! This could possibly count as another miracle – so thank you St William!

The tabor is held over the left arm, but the pipe is damaged so that its length cannot be ascertained. There is no suggestion of a snare on the tabor. 1320 makes this among the earliest representations of a taborer, later than those in Exeter or Lincoln, but roughly 20 or 30 years earlier than those in Gloucester and Tewkesbury.