The internal north doorway should be examined, especially the beautiful foliage-work. In the lozenges and mouldings there are some strange creatures represented--a centaur shooting with bow and arrow, a boy being whipped, a man riding a lion, and other curious subjects.
Before proceeding eastward we will see the Galilee Chapel, which was the Lady Chapel, a beautiful specimen of Late Norman work, erected by Bishop Pudsey in 1175. Lady chapels usually stand at the east end, but no women were allowed to enter churches dedicated to St. Cuthbert, who has been accused of misogyny. We notice in the nave a boundary stone, beyond which no female foot might go in the direction of the high altar. We mark a change in the style of architecture from that used in the nave. The arches and columns are lighter, with graceful capitals, on which the volute appears. The style is approaching that of the graceful period of Early English. Cardinal Langley (1406-1437) made extensive alterations in this chapel, heightening the walls, erecting a new roof, inserting Perpendicular windows, closing the west door of the church, and making two other entrances. All visitors will approach with reverence and interest the tomb of the Venerable Bede, the great Anglo-Saxon scholar, and the father of English history. His bones were once covered with a splendid shrine, which the iniquitous commissioners of Henry VIII. destroyed. Now a plain marble slab, with the inscription:
"_Hac sunt in fossa Bædæ Venerabilis ossa,_"
alone marks the grave of this illustrious man. The altar of the Virgin stood in the great western doorway, which was then walled up, of which the stone slab carved with the five crosses, the aumbrey and some colouring alone remain. The builder of this chapel, Cardinal Langley, lies buried here, and his monument remains. Some much-damaged mural paintings mark the site of the Altar of Our Lady of Pity. The paintings are supposed to represent St. Oswald and St. Cuthbert. There is some uncertainty about the origin of the name "Galilee." Most probably it arose from the custom of the monks to go in procession at certain times around the church, and to halt at certain stations in memory of our Lord's appearance after His Resurrection. His last appearance was on a mountain in Galilee; it is therefore not improbable that the place where the procession made its final halt should receive that name. Here in ancient times the consistory court held its sittings, and here the commissioners of Henry VIII. met and destroyed, or appropriated, the rich store of treasures, the vestments, plate and ornaments which had been given to the Cathedral by countless generations of pious benefactors. Again entering the nave in the south aisle, we see the Neville monuments, which have been much mutilated by the Scottish prisoners, or during the Reformation period. Between the fifth and sixth pillars is an altar tomb to the memory of Lord John Neville and his wife Matilda (1386), daughter of Hotspur. The matrix of the brass of Bishop Robert Neville (1438-1457) is in front of this. In the next bay is the altar tomb of Lord Ralph Neville and his wife, Lady Alice (1374), who founded the Neville Chapel. Holes in the pillar show where the iron grating stood which divided the chapel from the rest of the church, and in this enclosure there was "an altar with a fair alabaster table above it, where Mass was daily celebrated." Traces of the colouring which once adorned this beautiful chapel can still be seen.