Church Archaeology 15

The centrally planned chapter house of York Minster, built from the late 1270s and completed by the mid-1290s, is part of a late 13th-century group of polygonal chapter houses. However, in addition to themes common to the whole group, York Minster Chapter House presented innovative design features and an innovative decorative programme. The iconography of the building structure can be traced from late Antiquity and related to contemporary groups of buildings in continental Europe. In this article the building’s iconography and its decorative programme will be interpreted arguing that, in addition to being a reference to the ‘classical tradition’ and thus the authority of Antiquity, it represented the sacred geography of Jerusalem. This will be discussed in the context of the late 13th- century preoccupation with Crusades at a time when Christendom was losing control over the Holy Land and of the role of the Church of York in promoting Edward I’s internal politics. Among the multiplicity of meanings connoted by this complex building, its visual impact on the landscape and part of its decorative programme may have been a cultural appropriation of a distant city, connected with preaching for a new crusade and the persecution of the Jews, culminating with their expulsion from England in 1290.

In 1707 ‘a small but convenient House of Brick’ (SPG, St Paul’s Vestry to SPG Secretary, January 20, 1715) was built and made ready for the newly arrived missionary of St Paul’s parish. In late July of 1715 it was burned during the Yamasee Indian War and never rebuilt. Other than that, very little was known from the historical records about this parsonage or others from this early Colonial period in the Carolinas. Early 18th-century structures in South Carolina are rare, and parsonages even more rare. This parsonage site is the only known early 18th-century Anglican parsonage location in the state. Therefore, the site offers insight into two aspects of early South Carolina history that have been under researched – early 18th-century architecture and the lives of the early Anglican missionaries. Here, using multiple lines of evidence, we will provide architectural interpretations, as well as present data supporting the hypothesis that the structure we have located archaeologically is indeed the St Paul’s parsonage.

Our past President Richard Morris is a polymath – he read English at Oxford, studied music at York, and then turned to archaeology. He served as the Churches Officer for the CBA, responsible for setting up archaeological advice networks for churches and cathedrals, and later became its Director. He was Director of the Institute for Medieval Studies at the University of Leeds, Visiting Professor at the University of York and is currently Professor of Conflict and Culture at the University of Huddersfield where he supervises research topics on church archaeology and ecclesiastical geography. He is also the Archaeological Consultant for Beverley Minster. From 1996 to 2005 he served as a Commissioner of English Heritage. He has chaired the Ancient Monuments Advisory Committee for England, the Expert Panel of the Heritage Lottery Fund, and is a former trustee of the National Coal Mining Museum for England. Today he is a trustee of the York Archaeological Trust, the Landscape Research Centre, the National Heritage Memorial Fund, a member of the North-East Committee of the Heritage Lottery Fund and chair of The Blackden Trust in Cheshire, a research centre based on Toad Hall and The Old Medicine House. He is a Frend Medallist of the Society of Antiquaries of London and in 2003 was appointed OBE for services to archaeology. Richard has written extensively on the archaeological study of churches and buildings, and on the historical geography of parish churches. In recent years he has collaborated with Glenn Foard on approaches to the archaeology of medieval and early modern battles. In parallel, he has worked as an historical biographer, and on themes relating to aviation and warfare. As composer and actor, he is one of the key figures in the Abbey Shakespeare Players who have performed each summer for the last 26 years in the ruins of St Dogmael’s Abbey near Cardigan in West Wales, where the west range is the stage and the audience sits in the cloister garth.