O magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt His name together. (Ps. xxxiv. 3.)
Holiness becometh Thine house for ever. (Ps. xciii. 5.)
The great East Window is the crowning ornament and special glory of the cathedral. It is unsurpassed by any other in the kingdom; perhaps there is not a window equal to it in the whole world.
Rickman says: "It is one of the finest if not the finest Decorated window in the kingdom. Its elegance of composition and the easy flow of its lines rank it even higher than the celebrated west window of York, which it also excels in the number of divisions. The window is by far the most free and brilliant example of Decorated tracery in the kingdom."
Fergusson, in his "History of Architecture," also praises it: "Its upper part exhibits the most beautiful and perfect design for window tracery in the world. All the parts are in such just harmony the one to the other—the whole is so constructively appropriate and at the same time so artistically elegant—that it stands quite alone, even among windows of its own age."
"The stone-work of all this part (the east window) is entirely new, although it reproduces most minutely the original design" (King, 202-3).
"The whole of the mouldings, both of the mullions and tracery, externally are nearly destroyed, owing to the perishable nature of the stone with which it is constructed" (Billing, p. 60 (1840)).
This great window almost entirely fills the east end of the choir, being 51 feet high from the sill to the top of the tracery and about 26 feet wide in the clear.
Immediately after the fire in 1292, the work was started, and the jambs with their slender shafts and foliated capitals were erected. Nothing more was done till about the middle of the fourteenth century, when the arch mullions were added; and the tracery dates from about the end of the same century. The mouldings were left unfinished until the restoration of the cathedral, 1856. The tracery (Decorated) is composed of eighty-six pieces struck from 263 centres. Some of the pieces forming the chief divisions are nearly five feet in length. Although the stone-work is modern, the design has been most faithfully copied from the original. In the lower part there are nine lights, no other Decorated window in existence having so many. The west window of Durham Cathedral (partly copied from, but inferior to, the west window of York) and the Rose window in the south transept at Lincoln are of the same character; but that of York ranks next in importance, and is the only window able to compete with the east window of Carlisle.
The design consists of two complete compositions united under one head by interposing a third. The York window, on the contrary, is altogether one complete design, from which no part can be separated without breaking the integrity of the composition.