At the time the Great East Window was planned St William of York, canonised in 1227, was the only one of York’s saintly archbishops to be enshrined in the Minster. He is accompanied by the Pope who reaffirmed York’s authority over the see of Durham in the late 12th-century. One candidate for the left-hand episcopal figure could be Thomas of Bayeux (d.1100), who rebuilt the Minster after a fire in 1069. Alternatively, it may be the saintly Archbishop Thurstan (d.1140), who successfully resisted Canterbury’s claim to primacy over York.
