44 
SELBY ABBEY AND ITS BUILDERS. 
Lawrence de Selby, i486—1504. He was buried in front of the 
High Altar, where his slab now remains. 
Robert Deeping, 1504—1518, from Croyland. 
He appears to have added to the Monastery, as the arch of 
one of the rooms in the Minister’s House bore the arms of the 
Abbey of Croyland. This house stood at the west end of the 
Abbey and near the Abbey Gateway. Another room was 
pointed out as being the birthplace of Henry II. 
The next two Abbots only held office four years each. 
Thomas Rawlinson, 1518—1522. 
John Barwic, 1522—1526. 
v The latter was buried in front of the High Altar, and his slab 
remains. 
Robert Selby, 1526—1540. 
The arrival at the Abbey of Norroy King at Arms, on his 
heraldic visitation of the Northern Counties in 1530, must have 
raised some feelings of mistrust in the minds of his brethren. The 
ceremony of recording the armorial bearings of an institution on 
the point of annihilation must have appeared as the very mockery 
of woe. 
Turning back to the period of Abbot Heslyngton's rule as a 
particularly interesting one in the history of the building of the 
Abbey, it may be well for one moment to consider the cycle 
through which our greater churches passed. The Choir was the 
first portion required for divine service, and it was the first to be 
erected, and so long as it continued of the original fabric, was 
successively beautified and enriched until it was found too small 
or mean for the tastes of the more luxurious times. Mean¬ 
while the Transepts and Nave were often rebuilt in the style 
prevailing at the time. When these had been completed, the 
Choir and Norman work, probably very massive and crude, with 
its apses, would look altogether out of harmony with the rest of the 
fabric which was of a higher order of architecture, and so it had 
to be rebuilt. Doubtless the old Choir was far inferior to the rest 
of the Church, and it is fortunate that the decision to rebuild the 
Choir at this period was arrived at. 
The beautiful Decorated style was just at its perfection. The 
Nave of York Minster and part of the West Front had just been 
*MorrelFs History of Selby. “List of Abbots.” 
