York is a riverside city with layers of history. In AD 71 the Romans created a fortress with grand stone walls. The city grew, and Constantine (the emperor that allowed Judaism and Christianity to be practiced freely) was crowed Emperor here in the city in 341.
When the Romans vacated to defend the homeland, the Saxons took over, and ended up building a few things, like the original York Minster in 735. About a hundred years later the Vikings sailed over and took over the city.
Fast forward 300 years or so, and you find the Normans (That would be the French to you and me) setting up shop. They rebuilt the old Roman walls and York became a prosperous medieval town.
In the Victorian age it became the railway capital of the North, and the old city walls were fixed up as a tourist draw and a place for the Victorian socialites to promanade.
Suffice to say, there is enough English history here to make your head spin.
Turn a corner and you see Roman coffins, dug up from the grounds of the York Railway Station (apparently a Roman graveyard ...
and there are many more buried underneath it still. Somehow I don't think those enterprising Romans would mind having the efficient British railway trains running over their resting place).
Turn another corner,
and you are in a medieval street called "The Shambles". We learned today that the name"shambles" comes from the word "shelves" as the original street was a open air slaughterhouse for butchers and eventually the meat would be displayed on the big shelves in the windows.
Today it is a charming tourist street full of higgledy-piggly medieval buildings.
However even not long ago (the 1940s) it was a butcher's street. In medieval times one can only imagine the nasty smells as the carcasses were cut up and the resulting waste was left to drain in the street. Bleaugh!
And then wander over to the romantic looking St. Mary's Abbey's remains,
and remember good ol' King Henry the VIII who decided, because he didn't get a firm answer from the Pope about his divorce, to completely toss out the Catholic church which meant all the abbeys were toast. All the monks were sent packing and the result was that their money and lands went to guess who....the King!
That all happened in 1539.
Oh and don't forget about York Minster, the huge, amazing, breathtaking Gothic cathedral...
that completely dominates the skyline of the city. It was built in the 14th century.
And then there is intriguing, passionately religious Oliver Cromwell.
In 1644, with his Puritan army (and with the help of a little gunpowder and a few cannons) Oliver got through the walls of York, which up until then had been completely impenetrable. Cromwell and his gang were intent to destroy every religious looking thing in sight.
Yet, pray tell, why did all the beautiful stain glass windows of the city's churches get spared while in the rest of England they were getting all smashed to pieces?
It just so happened that the main commander at the time, Thomas Fairfax, happened to be from York. Since he and all his family lived here, he ordered the churches to be spared. As a result, a quarter of all English medieval stained glass can be found in the city.
Good on you, Fairfax. I raise my glass with a toast of English Strongbow cider to you!
We learned all these things on a 2 and a half hour (free) city walking tour. What a great way to really get a sense of the town we plan to call home for the next four weeks.
