He had originally been buried in the nave, where, exactly, is not known, but it is said that even before his canonisation his tomb was visited by pilgrims, and was the occasion of miracles. When he was canonised, the 8th of June, the day of his death, was appointed for his festival.
The visit of Edward I. to York in 1283-4 was chosen by Archbishop Wickwaine as the occasion for the translation of St. William's relics from his old tomb in the nave to his shrine in the choir. The ceremony was performed with great pomp in the presence of the King and of his wife Eleanor. William became one of the King's patron saints, and Edward gave various gifts of jewels to his shrine.
In the Acta Sanctorum for June 8th, St. William's day, it is recorded that "Corpus ab imo in altum, a communi loco in chorum Venerabiliter est translatum."
"His body was translated with all reverence from the lowest to the highest place, from a common position to the choir."
The shrine was probably placed behind the high altar, and afterwards between the reredos and the eastern screen, as at Durham and St. Albans. The bones themselves were deposited in a portable _feretrum_, so that they might be easily carried in procession.
As in the case of Thomas à Becket, the original place of William's burial still remained an object of veneration.
It was at the eastern end of the nave, and was covered with a great superstructure, so large that processions, it is said, were obliged to divide and march to each side of it.
The head appears to have been kept in a silver jewelled chest separate from the rest of the body. It was exhibited to worshippers who gave offerings to it. At the Reformation the head was seized by one Layton, afterwards Dean, and a follower of Thomas Cromwell; its seizure was one of the chief causes of the Pilgrimage of Grace.
At this time, also, the shrine was demolished, and also the superstructure over the saint's original place of burial in the nave. It is said that no remembrance was left of the spot except a tradition that the saint had lain under a long marble slab in the nave of the church.
In 1732, during the repairing of the nave of the minster, Drake, the historian of York, obtained leave to search under the said slab, and there found a coffin of stone, containing a leaden box, in which were bones wrapped in sarcenet. There was no inscription by which the remains could be identified, and they were again buried.