Chapter And Verse

The Chapter House is inexplicably my favourite room within the medieval abbey. Its name derived from its use – the room in which a chapter from the Rule of St Benedict was read each day to the whole monastic community. It was also the room in which daily business was completed, whether it be disciplinary or involving the monastic estates.

The Chapter House is always an intriguing mixture of functionality and superfluous decoration. It was a room that played an important role in the day-to-day running of an abbey, and so was required to have a practical arrangement of seating around the perimeter. Yet it was also, after the church, the most important symbol of the monastic life and thus was often expensively and lavishly decorated with architectural features.

York Minster Chapter House exterior

The octagonal-shaped Chapter House at York Minster was completed by 1286. It is lit by huge stained glass windows and the tiled floor is a mid nineteenth-century installation. There is unusually no central column for the vaulted ceiling; instead the weight is suspended from the exterior dome.

York Minster Chapter House interior

There are forty-four seats surrounding the room where elected canons sat. It was also used by Edward I and Edward II as their parliament during the campaigns against Scotland in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.

Tiled Pavement

For me, however, it is the extensive carvings amongst the canopies of these seats which give this room its character. From wild pigs seated on the heads of kings, to green men, and eagles gouging out the eyes of a gossiping woman, there is something wonderful to be found in every corner of this very special Chapter House.

Wild Pig

Eye-gouging

Face-puller