heraldryofyorkmi01custuoft

THE VAVASOURS. 321
from the lesson appointed in the York breviary to be read at the commemoration
of St. William, during the primacy of Geoffry Plantagenet,
there appears to have been another fire after the death of Archbishop
William. The origin of the fire is thus recorded "It :
happened that
"on a certain dark night the flame from the torch of a careless watchman
" set fire to the city. From this conflagration proceeded a globe of fire
"which ran along the middle of the street consuming everything in its
"way, encompassed the house of prayer in which the holy body rested"
(i.e. of the archbishop), "and by its fiery assault laid it waste, not only
" unroofing it, but reducing to ashes or desolate charcoal the furthest
" building of the temple."
On the death of William, Roger of Pont 1'Eveque was appointed
archbishop, 1171, and he at once commenced to rebuild the choir; and
Walter de Percy, Lord of Rougemont, descended from a younger son of
Alan de Percy, placed his forest at Bolton Percy at the entire disposal of
the archbishop, for the supply of whatever timber might be required, as
long as he lived.* I conclude that the grant of stone, previously granted
by the head of the house of Percy, was continued at ;
any rate his vavasour
was determined not to be lacking in seasonable generosity, for in Dugdale's
Monasticon Angltcanum there is a grant from Robert le Vavasour, giving,
granting, and confirming, for a pure and perpetual alms to God and the
blessed Peter, and to the church of York, for the health of his soul and
the souls of his wife Julian and his ancestors, " a full and free passage
" through the ancient and customary paths and ways, without any
"impediment and contradiction in going and returning along Thievesdale,
"which is my own free tenure, for what shall be sufficient for the fabric
"of the said church, as often as they shall have occasion to rebuild or
" enlarge the said church."f I suppose that, at that time, the quarry did
not belong to him, or that, being only vavasour, he had no right to
give the substance of the soil, but that he had the right to certain tolls for
passage which he generously waived on behalf of the church. Those
ancient and customary paths and ways would scarcely include any portion of
the great Roman road from Calcaria to Eboracum, though it was probably
paved, and there would be a tolerable level transport of about eleven
miles, for the waggons of those days were rude and cumbersome,
and, at the end, the stone would have to be ferried over the river. At
that time York had only a very narrow, rickety, wooden bridge, which,
when Archbishop William entered York in 1154, broke down under the
weight of the crowd which followed. The stone bridge, for the erection of
which Archbishop Walter Gray granted a brief in 1235, would, like
its
predecessor, be only a narrow pack-horse bridge for horses and pedes-
* Annals of the House of Percy. t Brown's York Minster.