Ancient_and_modern_York_a_guide
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MODERN YORK. 61<br />
tower. These vaults have been built since the fire of 1829,<br />
<strong>and</strong> have been constructed for the purpose of preserving,<br />
<strong>and</strong> admitting an examination of, the beautiful remains of<br />
the first Norman Minster, as well as the foundation of the<br />
Saxon church, built by King Edwin; the existence of which<br />
was not even suspected, till the excavations preliminary to<br />
the last restoration of the choir.<br />
The piers of Norman architecture are peculiarly beau<br />
tiful, being elegantly ornamented both at the capitals<br />
<strong>and</strong> bases. Portions of the old Saxon foundations, built<br />
in herring-bone style, are exposed ; <strong>and</strong> part of the<br />
external Norman wall is disclosed. A heap of earth,<br />
covered with a flag, is shown to strangers as a Roman or<br />
pagan altar, in which channels were made for the blood of<br />
victims to flow off!—but it is nothing more than a portion<br />
of a heap of earth that once formed a descent from<br />
the choir into the Norman crypt. If it did belong to the<br />
temple of Bellona, which Spartian states was in <strong>York</strong>,J that<br />
temple must have been different from every other Roman<br />
edifice that pretended to the dignity of a temple. The<br />
pagan high priest, Coifi, it is true, became a Christian at<br />
the time of King Edwin's conversion ; but the fact, that<br />
Edwin was baptized in a wooden oratory, constructed for the<br />
purpose, we apprehend negatives with sufficient force, the<br />
notion that the heap of earth, to which reference has been<br />
made as a<strong>modern</strong> marvel, was the altar of any pagan temple ,<br />
on the site of the Minster. We do not however agree with<br />
those, who would infer from the statement of the old chro<br />
nicles, that a wooden-oratory was constructed for Edwin's<br />
baptism, that there was no building in <strong>York</strong>, at the time,<br />
suitable for a public assembly. In those ages, baptism was,<br />
in the case of adults, without controversy, performed by<br />
immersion. It is therefore probable that the wooden-orato<br />
ry enclosed a well of water, which, perhaps, could not be<br />
found in any temple or edifice then in the city. Beside,<br />
t See Camden's Britannia.
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