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lilSUOP SKIRLAW's WORK AT YORK. I97
The great tower, which is supported by these piers,
was carried on from 1405, and occupied several succeeding
years. Skirlaw, Bishop of Durham, is said
by his biographer, W. de Chambre, to have built great
part of the lantern of York Minster. He died in
1406, and his will shows a bequest of 100 marks to
the fabric. He had probably given large sums during
his life,
for his arms are placed on the spandril of the
lantern-tower, and also in the south-eastern transept
of the choir. Chambre speaks of his custom of thus
marking his works. The spandrils of the arches on
either side of the nave and choir contain carvings of
the coats armorial of most of the great houses of the
North. The introduction of these insignia into the
house of God, whether carved on the wall or gleaming
in the window, or graven on the sepulchral brass, has
frequently been severely criticised as a manifestation
of human pride in the place where, of all others, it is
the most incongruous. But the practice had probably
a different origin. We gather this from a few words
in the will of a York merchant, who orders his
executors to buy a cope of ruby velvet for St. Saviour's
church, and directs that a shield of his arms shall be
wrought upon the border of the cope, so that when
the people see it they may feel moved to offer up
special prayers for his soul.
Now the bearings of all
the great Yorkshire houses would be perfectly well
known to every citizen in York, and to all who
swelled the vast assemblage which filled the great
minster's nave and aisles on days of high festival.
The saltire of the Neville, the lion rampant of the
Mowbray, the bend of the Scrope, the fesse dancette