The St Martin window in Coney Street York

Today is the feast of St Martin of Tours. 

The fourth century bishop became the first non-martyr to be honoured with specific prayers and office hymn, and became the patron of many churches across not only Gaul and the Frankish lands but also the British Isles and elsewhere in Europe. One theory is that at least some churches under his patronage were founded by missionaries inspired by his example and that they originated soon after his death in 397.

In York, which still has two medieval churches dedicated to St Martin, his enduring appeal into the fifteenth century can be clearly seen in the church of St Martin in Coney Street.

The semi-restored church of St Martin on Coney Street in York

Image:tripadvisor.com

One of oldest foundations amongst the city churches, in the Anglo-Danish era it stood on what was already one of the principal thoroughfares. Coney Street is a corruption of King’s Street. It was apparently rebuilt in stone about 1080 and then altered over succeeding centuries. However it was completely rebuilt in the first half of the fifteenth century. 

The inspiration for this was the vicar Robert Semer, who held the living from 1425 to 1443. I suspect from his name that he came from Seamer near Scarborough, where the parish church is also dedicated to St Martin. Robert may well have already had a devotion to St Martin before he arrived in Coney Street. He gave the west window in honour of St Martin in 1437, and is depicted in a donor panel at the base of the central light. In his will in 1443 he left his money to complete the rebuilding on condition that it was completed within seven years.

The church was where the future St Margaret Clitherow was baptised in 1553, in the still surviving font.

On April 29th 1942 the church was wrecked by a bomb. Fortunately the St Martin window had been removed to ensure its survival, and some other figures in other windows, including a fine St George, survived. In 1968 the ruins were semi-restored in a scheme that has all that post-war British half-heartedness when it came to restoring historic buildings that had suffered in the war. However the glass can be seen at eye level in the chapel created out of the old south aisle, and even in its mutilated state the glass, the south aisle and the elegant tower with their buttresses sprouting pinnacles and the pierced parapet bear abundant witness to the skills of York masons and glaziers in the first half of the fifteenth century.

The St Martin window

Image: Wikimedia 

The St Martin window shows St Martin at the centre, surrounded by scenes, in no particular order, from his life as recorded by Sulpicius Severus.

St Martin drives out a devil and saves a hare from hounds

Image:visitstainedglass.uk - Chris Parkinson

Robert Semer, vicar and benefactor 

His breviary is open at Ps.51

He is not wearing a blue cope but blue is used to indicate his black cappa nigra worn over his almuce

Image:britainexpress.com

May St Martin pray for us all