A more doubtful point is raised by Alcuin’s description of the building of a new and marvellous basilica, begun, completed, and consecrated, by Albert. Two of his pupils, Eanbald and Alcuin, were his ministers in the building, which was consecrated only ten days before his death. It was very lofty, supported on solid columns, with curved arches; the roofs and windows were fine; it was surrounded by many porches, porticoes, which were in fact side chapels; it contained many chambers under various roofs, in which were thirty altars with sundry kinds of ornament. Alcuin describes this immediately after describing the construction of the altar of St. Paul in what must have been the old Cathedral Church; but he does not say that the new church was on the old site, or that it replaced the Cathedral Church. Still, a church of that magnitude can only have been the chief church of the city. Simeon of Durham throws light upon the point by stating as the reason for building this new basilica, that the monasterium of York—that is, the Minster, as it has always been called[93]—was burned[94] on Monday, May 23, 741; and the Saxon Chronicle has the entry[95], “This year York was burned.” The balance of argument on this disputed point is that Albert did really build a new Cathedral Church in place of one that was burned while Alcuin was a boy. The investigations which have taken place show that in Anglo-Saxon times a basilica of really important dimensions was in existence, much larger than Edwin’s little oratory or Oswald’s stone building, and all points to its being the “marvellous basilica” which Eanbald and Alcuin built by order of Albert.