York Minster

The past few weeks I have attended my parents ward, and guess who is home? The Seely's and the Tate's! Yup, they are back from my wonderful London Town, which of course made me begin to reminisce once more, so here is some more from my days abroad!

So, here is York Minster, a minster as well as a Cathedral--and yes, there is a difference. A minster is a place of learning--a school type deal--while a cathedral is the seat of a bishop--so a minster can be a cathedral, a cathedral can be a minster, but a minster doesn't have to be a cathedral, and a cathedral doesn't have to be a minster. Thus, this particular building is pretty cool and unique.

I LOVE this organ--so BEAUTIFUL!

And the windows--you can never get enough of these stain-glass windows.

This is possibly my absolute favorite window of all time. Check out the bottom.

It's a monkey funeral! and yes, I am dead serious--that is a funeral procession for a monkey. Awesome.

Even the flooring is absolutely gorgeous!

And the ceilings!

Yes, even the religious folk have a sense of humor--this is one of my favorite sculptures. :)

This room was awesome--completely filled from top to bottom with these animal sculptures and gargoyles, all with their own stories behind each. Pretty cool.

Even another Green Man!

And you know what else is totally amazing? These mirrors on wheelys to help poor souls like me to see the ceiling without killing your neck--best invention ever, seriously. Saves a lot of headaches. :)

This is the Five Sisters Window.

The Five Sisters Window contains the largest amount of Early English grisaille glass in a single window anywhere in the world--it contains more than 100,000 pieces of glass and is fifty feet high! Yup, that's pretty cool.

Much of this glass was removed before World War I, then pieced back together when it finally ended. The windows then were dedicated to the women of the Great War--it is one of the only memorials to the women of the war.

These panels contain names of those women--they are completely plastered with names, front and back. It's amazing and quite inspiring--makes you really stop and ponder life.

Next to the Five Sisters Window is an astronomical clack--it is a memorial to the airmen operating from bases in Yorkshire, Durham, and Northumberland who were killed during WWII.

This is a memorial to the choir boys who served during the war--tender. <3

This is pretty cool as well--it's NASA! This part of the ceiling depicts an astronaut and the moon, commemorating America's Space Program.

This amazing work of art is the Great East Window, the largest expanse of medieval stained glass in the entire world! Okay, so technically what you see below is a life-size large print of said window, hanging over the empty window frame and scaffolding... haha, it was being restored, so I didn't get to witness it in its total grandeur.

However, instead we had the totally AWESOME! opportunity to see the restoration process and the glass up close--again. so beautiful!!!

Isn't that amazing? I never realized how detailed these pictures are!

Haha, this is pretty cool--a mistranslation of the bible. Apparently the word for halo and horn are pretty similar? Yeah, so the saints in these windows got horns instead of halos... haha.

This baby is the famous Rose Window--the glass here dates from about 1500! It commemorates the union of the royal houses of York and Lancaster, so yeah, it's a pretty big deal.