Yorkshire Almanac Archbishop Gerald of York dies reading Roman astrology

21 May 1108: Archbishop Gerald of York dies reading Roman astrology

Ranulf Higden and John Trevisa. 1865. Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden monachi Cestrensis, Vol. 7. Ed. Joseph Rawson Lumby. London: Longman. Get it:

Unedited excerpt

If an excerpt is used in the book, it will be shorter, edited and, where applicable, translated.

Mortuo hoc anno Thoma Eboracensi episcopo, successit Gyraldus, vir quidem, ut fert rumor, licentiae, libidini et malificiis obnoxius. Sub ejus nempe pulvillo cum in viridario quodam decederet inventus est codex curiosarum artium videlicet, Julius Firmicus, quem secreto et meridianis horis lectitabat; quamobrem clerici ecclesiae suae eum sub coeli cespite extra ecclesiam vix sepeliri permiserunt.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Comment

John Trevisa’s “a lecherous man, a witch, an evil doer” strikes me as deliberate mistranslation. My “grass of heaven” can’t be quite right, or else the Spanish would have coined “césped del cielo.” Wikipedia says that he died at Southwell, and that

His canons refused to allow his burial within his cathedral, but their hostility probably owed more to Gerard’s attempts to reform their lifestyle than to his alleged interest in sorcery. Gerard was at first buried beside the porch at York Minster, but his successor, Thomas, moved the remains inside the cathedral church.

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Comment

His canons refused to allow his burial within his cathedral, but their hostility probably owed more to Gerard’s attempts to reform their lifestyle than to his alleged interest in sorcery. Gerard was at first buried beside the porch at York Minster, but his successor, Thomas, moved the remains inside the cathedral church.

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22 September 1465: A menu for the enthronement at Cawood Castle of George Neville as Archbishop of York

28 July 1348: Archbishop Zouche writes from Cawood Palace to York ordering action against a great pestilence threatening England – the Black Death

27 December 1132: The foundation of Fountains Abbey by dissidents from St Mary’s, York, retold by a Victorian antiquary using Cistercian chronicles

20 September 1319: During the Anglo-Scottish wars, seasoned raiders encounter an improvised Yorkshire home guard of clergy, peasants and officials at Myton-on-Swale

26 December 1570: Edmund Grindal, Puritan archbishop of York, orders the removal of rood-lofts (and their superstitious images), and the erection of pulpits

12 April 0627: In a triumph for his Kentish wife, Edwin of Northumbria is baptised on Easter Sunday by Paulinus, in the latter’s wooden oratory on the site of York Minster

30 May 1836: Albinia Chaloner becomes the last person to be interred in York Minster

12 June 1635: A prominent Puritan finds poor buildings but good beer for Archbishop Richard Neile at Bishopthorpe Palace (York)

18 September 1858: The Spectator is bowled over by the new Leeds Festival chorus’s singing of the Messiah – “the music text-book of the West Riding”

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Comment

Comparison with the piece from The Spectator on the same day suggests to me that their critic is referred to above:

The Leeds Musical Festival terminated with The Messiah on the morning of Saturday last. In the performance of the solo parts there was nothing remarkable, the principal singers being the usual metropolitan celebrities, Madame Clara Novello, Miss Dolby, Mr. Sims Reeves, and Mr. Weiss; but the choruses were sung in a manner which the metropolis certainly has never been able to equal. We have already had occasion to notice the superiority of the choristers of Birmingham to those of Exeter Hall, notwithstanding their inferiority in numerical strength: at Leeds the same observation held good in a still more remarkable degree. At Exeter Hall the choral and instrumental band numbers above 700; at Birmingham it numbered about 500; at Leeds under 350: while the real power of these tuneful hosts was in the inverse ratio of their numbers. The Birmingham 500 excelled the London 700, while the Leeds 350 excelled both the one and the other. The Yorkshire choristers are the best in England, if not the best in the world; and all the Leeds choristers were Yorkshire people belonging to the working classes, drawn from the towns and villages of that musical land. Among them there was not one useless individual: they all had sound, mellow, English voices; they all thoroughly knew their parts, and consequently sang without hesitation or wavering, and their united voices formed a volume of pure musical sound which we have never heard equalled elsewhere by twice their number. Of all the districts of England the great county of York is the best able to furnish the materials for a great music-meeting; and in former times it was in the city of York that the greatest of the English Festivals was held, though it has been long since crushed by the interference of clerical bigotry. We are glad that a new Yorkshire Festival has been established. Like that of Birmingham, it is independent of the abused power of ecclesiastical dignitaries: and as the people of Leeds have emulated those of Birmingham in spirit and energy, their Festival has a fair prospect of rivalling the other in durability and magnitude. And this prospect is all the greater for the design, (which we understand, is contemplated) of rendering the Leeds Festival, like that of Birmingham, a permanent establishment, with triennial meetings for one charitable object, the benefit of the General Infirmary, a charity of great and extensive usefulness.

The financial result of this first Music Meeting at Leeds has been highly favorable. The audiences at the seven morning and evening performances amounted on an average to 2000 persons at each; the whole amount received has been about 75001, while the expenditure is estimated at 6000l: so that the charity will be benefited to the extent of about 1500l.

The appointment of Professor Sterndale Bennett (who, in addition to his high talents and reputation, is a Yorkshireman born) to the office of conductor, gave general satisfaction from the outset, and the vigour and ability with which he performed his duties, enhanced greatly the excellence of the performances and the success of the Festival.
(Spectator 1858/09/18)

George Bernard Shaw, however:

Down to 1877 the majority of the committee never got beyond the primitive notion that a great musical event was one at which Tietjens sang and Costa conducted. It was not until she died and he repudiated the committee that Leeds at last found out that familiarity with The Messiah, Elijah and the overture to William Tell, was not the climax of nineteenth-century musical culture.

Can someone point me to something about the York festival?

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