Beverley No. 3 / Beureli / Bevreli

There is a multiple-place entry that includes Beverley [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [https://opendomesday.org/place/TA0339/beverley/] [accessed 11 October 2019] but it mentiones neither cleric nor church in it. Noted in Gough (1792): "a large basin of agate stone [...] on pillasters". Poulsen (1829), who quotes Gough, adds: "perhaps one [font] of the earliest antiquity [...] Its shape is the frustum, scooped out of an agate stone of dark colour, profusely loaded with a complicated mass of shells and petrified substances. The inside is defended with a covering of lead; diameter 44 inches, basin 13 inches deep [i.e., height of the bowl], height of pedestal 13 inches, base 13 inches: it is placed in the south aisle of the nave. The cover suspended over it is a remaining specimen of the absurd taste which characterized the period when it was placed there." Poulsen (ibid.) adds in a footnote: "It is to be hoped, that this piece of carved work, so ill according with the surrounding objects, will be removed. "Font and cover are illustrated in a 1898 print by Minna Bolingbroke now at the British Museum [ref.: 1939,0620.202 -- PPA293783]. Listed in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a baptismal font of the Early English period. The entry for the collegiate church here in the Victoria County History (York, vol. 3, 1974) notes: "In the preface to the Provost's Book, written about 1417, the earliest foundation of the church is said to have been in the time of King Lucius, towards the middle of the 2nd century. The writer goes on to say that it was destroyed by Horsa and Hengist, refounded as a monastery of black monks and nuns arid seven secular priests by St. John of Beverley, destroyed by the Danes under Hubba and Hingwar, and reconstituted and augmented as a college of seven canons regular by King Athelstan. [...] Nothing is known of the constitution of the monastery founded by St. John of Beverley in the later part of the 7th century. Nor can it be actually proved that St. John's Monastery, which Bede, his contemporary, calls Inderawuda (in silva Deirorum), where he was buried in 721, was at Beverley. [...] The destruction of -St. John's foundation by the Danes is vouched for by history as little as the destruction of the mythical Romano-British church by the Saxons. [...] Athelstan was regarded throughout the Middle Ages as the real founder of the college, who, by the charter whose grants are summed up in the phrase 'Swa mikel fredom giue I the, Swo hert may think or eghe see,' conferred on the church its privilege of sanctuary, its due of four thraves from each plough in the East Riding, and other wellknown features of its franchise. [...] The story of Athelstan's visit rests, however, on no contemporary record; [...] while his charter is found in no form earlier than the 13th century, and summarizes privileges which were granted by later sovereigns. [...] After the suppression of the college one of the vicars choral was appointed vicar of the parish, with three assistant curates chosen from among the inferior clergy of the church." A small body of secular clergy may have been gathered together, many years before the Norman Conquest, in the church of St. John the Evangelist, which contained the tomb of St. John of Beverley Described and illustrated in Beverley Minster (1990): "Fine example of late Norman carving […] the ponderous mass of Frosterley marble is relieved by an elegant arcading motif inscribed round the bowl, a stem of clustered shafts and clawed feet, the whole being suitably raised on a stepped podium […] a legacy of the original Norman church which in turn succeeded the Saxon one." On-site notes: The bowl is lined with lead; the stone is very porous with many fossils in it; beautiful wooden lid with cherubs faces around it and a golden dove at the very top, described in Beverley Minster (ibid.): "The Norman font c. 1170, has an elaborately carved 18th-century cover". Jenkins (1999) describes it as "a later cover of scrolls, carved in 1726 by the Thornton family of York [...] probably to designs by Hawksmoor." [We are grateful to Colin Hinson, of the GENUKI site, for the additional photographs of this font]