Ancient_and_modern_York_a_guide

M.0DEBN YORK. 75
THE PAEISH CHURCHES.
This is one of the most ancient, if not the most ancient,
of the parish churches of York. It is recorded in the
Saxon Chronicle—the earliest and not the least valuable
of the historical records of England—that Earl Siward, in
the year a.d. 1055, was buried within this edifice* "which
he had ordered to be built and consecrated in the name of
God and St. Olave to the honour of God and all his
saints." Consequently, it was founded twenty-five or
thirty years before the ascent of William the Conqueror
to the throne. " This church of St. Olave," we are in
formed by Archbishop Sharp's MS., " was in the time of
William Rufus, an ancient rectory, in the possession of
Earl Alan, the son of Eudo, duke of Bretagne; and this
church, with four acres of land, on which Saint Mary's
Abbey afterwards stood, he gave to Stephen and his
monks, then retreated from Whitby in order to the settling
of them here. So that till their abbey was built, this
church of St. Olave' s was their convental church, and
afterwards it was reckoned as a chapel dependent on
them ; they having got into their hands all the lands and
tenements of which that parish did consist." During the
siege of York by the parliamentarian army, in 1644, a
battery of guns was placed on the roof of the church, and,
as some of the hottest firing took place in this quarter,
the building was much injured. A brief, however, was
afterwards obtained, and the church was nearly rebuilt
from the ruins of St. Mary's Abbey, which it adjoins.
In 1730, Gent described it as a "handsome church, but
with little or no marks of antiquity." It is at present a
* It is called a Minster in the Saxon Chronicle.