York Minster is a cathedral in York, England and is one of the largest of its kind inNorthern Europe. The minster is the seat of the Archbishop of York, the second-highest office of the Church of England and is the cathedral for the Diocese of York; it is run by a dean and chapter under the Dean of York. The formal title of York Minster is "The Cathedral and Metropolitical Church of St Peter in York". The title "minster" is attributed to churches established in the Anglo-Saxon period as missionary teaching churches, and serves now as an honorific title. Services in the minster are sometimes regarded as on the High Church or Anglo-Catholic end of the Anglican continuum.
The minster has a very wide Decorated Gothic nave and chapter house, aPerpendicular Gothic choir and east end and Early English north and south transepts. The nave contains the West Window, constructed in 1338, and over the Lady Chapel in the east end is the Great East Window, (finished in 1408), the largest expanse of medieval stained glass in the world. In the north transept is the Five Sisters Window, each lancet being over 16 metres (52 ft) high. The south transept contains a famousrose window.
York Minster is the second largest Gothic cathedral of Northern Europe and clearly charts the development of English Gothic architecture from Early English through to thePerpendicular Period. The present building was begun in about 1230 and completed in 1472. It has a cruciform plan with an octagonal chapter house attached to the north transept, a central tower and two towers at the west front. The stone used for the building is magnesian limestone, a creamy-white coloured rock that was quarried in nearby Tadcaster. The Minster is 158 metres (518 ft) long and each of its three towers are 60 metres (200 ft) high. The choir has an interior height of 31 metres (102 ft).
