That the Great East Window at York (Pl. xl) was designed by John Thornton of Coventry in 1405 is a matter of common knowledge, and much study has been expended by various writers in attempts to discover further particulars about the artist.
But the crux of these researches has always been the inability to account for the connexion which he undoubtedly had with the east window of Great Malvern Priory; for at the time at which, there is reason to believe, it was made, Thornton must have been, according to the expectation of life in the middle ages, an aged man.
