St. John's Exile to Patmos

In 1405, glazier John Thornton was contracted by the Dean and Chapter of York Minster to design a massive, multi-tiered window to be installed at the east end of the cathedral. The theme was the Apocalypse, and Thornton was given three years to complete the project. The window was organized in a series of groups, each based on a different subject. The upper portion of the window is dedicated to God the Father in heaven followed below by scenes from the Old Testament, and populating the bottom row of the window are images of the project's primary donors. This panel is incorporated into the center of the window, a series of 81 panels featuring scenes of the Apocalypse commonly found not only in the Bible, but also in contemporary manuscripts focused on this topic.

The eleventh row of the Apocalypse series includes three scenes from the life of St. John the Evangelist, widely acknowledged in the medieval period to be the author of the Book of Revelation, described in the extremely popular Golden Legend, a widely-read collection of saints' lives. Here, St. John, after suffering torture at the hands of Emperor Domitian for preaching, is sent into exile on the Greek island of Patmos. There, according to the window's imagery, John embarked on a teaching project and received the divine inspiration to write the famous Biblical account.

The Great East Window has undergone multiple conservation projects, the most recent of which began in 2011. In 2016, the efforts of this campaign were finally unveiled, revealing much of the window in its original, magnificent splendor.

- Stephanie Skenyon