“The famous window of the north transept, the Five Sisters, consists of five lights, each measuring fifty-three feet six inches by five feet one inch, and is entirely of old glass. There are six windows in the north and six in the south aisles of the nave, with only a little modern glass in the tracery. The superb Flamboyant window at the west end of the centre aisle measures fifty-six feet three inches by twenty-five feet four inches, and consists, I believe, entirely of old glass, except the faces of the figures. The clerestory windows are studded with ancient shields, but a great part of the glass is, I fancy, modern; those of the vestibule, eight in number, measuring thirty-two feet by eighteen, are of old glass, including the tracery lights. The east window has been clumsily restored by Willement. In the side windows of the transept there is some old glass, and the great rose window over the south entrance still retains much of the old glass; while far overhead in the tower there are some really fine bold designs of late, but genuine, design and execution. Altogether, according to actual measurements, there are 25,531 superficial feet of Mediæval glass in the Minster, i.e., more than half an acre--a possession, we should think, unequalled by any church in England, if not in Christendom.”--(P.-C.) York, or, to use its older name, Eboracum, had been an important British settlement long before the Romans made it the principal seat of their power in the north between the years 70 and 80 A.D. It continued to be a Roman court until the Emperor Honorius left Britain in 409. Hadrian lived here; Severus and Constantine Chlorus died here; and here Constantine the Great was proclaimed Emperor. Many churches in the vicinity were dedicated to the latter’s mother, St. Helena, the legendary discoverer of the True Cross. York was therefore the great military post and the great ecclesiastical seat in the north of England.