York Minster has announced a year-long programme of events – to mark the 800th anniversary of the declaration of Archbishop William fitzHerbert as York’s patron saint.
Crafting a Legacy: 800 Years of York’s Patron Saint is a new programme featuring landmark exhibitions, major new partnerships and an array of events in a year that sees the Minster conserving iconic stained glass improving accessibility into the heart of the historic building.
The programme is designed to allow hundreds of thousands of visitors to the Minster to explore St William’s life and the artistry he inspired in the centuries following his untimely death.
This unresolved mystery, believed to have been caused by poison slipped into a chalice during Mass, has inspired a collaboration with local brewery Brew York, who will produce a limited edition ‘Poisoned Chalice’ ale.
A new partnership with Viridian FX, a leading York-based virtual effects studio, will return one of St William’s shrines to the Minster through a new cinematic experience, unimaginable to the medieval crafts people who first created it.
The surviving shrine fragments have been laser scanned by the Minster’s Digital Surveyor, placed into a 3D model based on research by Stuart Harrison, Cathedral Archaeologist, and brought to life in Unreal Engine, which is used in many high-end computer games.
This collaboration explores the groundbreaking technology now in use in the heritage sector and celebrates York’s designation as a UNESCO City of Media Arts.
The programme will also include a major new exhibition in the Minster’s Undercroft Museum, a new film produced by York-based Hewitt and Walker, and a book celebrating the St William Window, co-written by Prof Sarah Brown and Prof Christopher Norton.
The Minster will hold Lego workshops to explore how the shrine would have been constructed, walking tours with Rob Andrews of Churchcrawling, and workshops with artist Ric Liptrot.
A new stone ramp is also set to be installed to ease access into the Quire, representing the largest change to the building in over 150 years.
The Very Reverend Dominic Barrington, Dean of York, said: “Archbishop William fitzHerbert was canonised 800 years ago. Rather forgotten in our own time, he would have loomed large in medieval York – a fact one cannot ignore when the true size and scale of his magnificent medieval shrines are revealed.
“Our commitment not just to conserving this building, but to continuing to meet the needs of the hundreds of thousands who journey through our doors each year, means that today our craftspeople are using incredible technology and traditional skills to reveal lost shrines, and to create the first permanent stone ramp into the heart of the Minster – the Quire – where acts of worship take place 365 days a year.
“It is very much my hope that visitors to the Minster learn something of our often-overlooked saint, and leave knowing that they are helping us to continue a legacy of craft stretching beyond St William’s time to our founding in 627AD.”
See the full Crafting a Legacy: 800 Years of York’s Patron Saint programme at the York Minster website.
