The best work of the Second Period that I know of anywhere is to be found in York Minster. Here the new style seems to have become engrafted on a strong local school which had preserved much of the life and vigour of the previous age. It is true that even here one finds a certain weakening of the religious motive, but its place seems to be to some extent taken by a patriotic enthusiasm for a warrior king and for the gallant nobles who followed him in the Scotch wars, and whose arms are everywhere in the glass of the nave. [Sidenote: Chronological order of the windows.] The windows themselves show a steady and almost unbroken progression in style from the late thirteenth to the early part of the fifteenth century, which makes them most useful for study. Leaving out the fragments of very early glass I have mentioned before, the order of their execution seems to be-- 1. The "Five Sisters." 2. Chapter-House. 3. The vestibule of the Chapter-House. 4. The clerestory of the nave. 5. The first five[1] in the north aisle of the nave (dated by Winston 1306). 6. The first five[13] in the south aisle of the nave. 7. The sixth in the north aisle of the nave. {The three west windows of the nave (contract 1338). 8. {The sixth in the south aisle of the nave. {One (probably from the nave) in the south aisle of the choir. 9. The third from the east in the south side of the Lady Chapel. 10. The fifteenth century windows in the choir and Lady Chapel, which we shall come to later. Whatever difference of opinion there may be about the date of these windows, I do not think this order can be disputed. [Illustration: PLATE XXX ANGELS IN CANOPY WORK OF PLATE XXV] [Sidenote: The Chapter-House.] The "Five Sisters" have already been dealt with in their place in the First Period. Those of the Chapter-House, whether of earlier or later date than those of the Merton College Chapel, are distinctly earlier in style and are one of the few examples of work that is really transitional between the First and Second Periods, belonging almost as much to one as to the other. Unfortunately there is no record of the building of the Chapter-House, and its date is a matter of dispute, Drake putting it as early as the time of Archbishop Walter Grey, who died in 1256, and Browne holding it was not finished till nearly 1340--an impossible date for the glass. As in Merton Chapel the presence of the fleur-de-lis as well as the castle of Castile in the windows may mean that they are not earlier than 1299, but I do not think they are much later. The only French work I know of which at all corresponds to it is in St. Urbain at Troyes, which Viollet-le-Duc dates at about 1295, and the windows from Poitiers in Plate XV. [Sidenote: The grisaille in the Chapter-House.]