he window itself is set back a little way from the wall, and on each
side of it are mouldings with occasional niches. The outside mouldings
of the window run straight up through the outside mouldings of the arch,
and are cut short by the ribs of the vault. This inter-penetration of
mouldings is found also on the aisle side of the main piers of the
choir, and is more characteristic of later German Gothic than of
English. The wall between the outer mouldings of the window and the
boundaries of the choir is filled with shallow niches, two rows to each
side and four niches to each row. These perhaps were never meant to
contain figures, and are more like panelling than niches. The upper
outside niches on each side are cut into by the ribs of the vault. Below
the east window is a row of quatrefoils, and below them nine divisions
of panelling, in unequal portions, and of the same simple character as
that in the aisles. The upper halves of the three central panels are
filled with niches with rich canopies, each canopy being divided into
three parts. The east end below the windows is now chiefly filled with
uninteresting monuments of the later archbishops. There is no doubt that
the aisles of the choir and the whole of the retro-choir could be better
without the greater part of the monuments in them. The magnificent tomb
of Archbishop Bowet is almost the only fine one to be found in the
retro-choir.

[Illustration: The Virgin and Child (a Carving behind the Altar).]

There has been a considerable controversy about the position of the Lady
Chapel founded by Archbishop Thoresby. This controversy, in which Mr
Browne has endeavoured to prove that Thoresby's Lady Chapel was placed
on the north side of the nave, is far too long and intricate a business
to find a place in this book. It is enough to say that the other
authorities seem unanimously to be of the opinion that the altar of the
Lady Chapel was under the great east window, where an altar, used for
Holy Communion, is now placed. Thither, it is said, Thoresby removed the
bodies of certain of his predecessors. And the tombs of six of these
were existing in the seventeenth century, when drawings were made of
them by Torre, the antiquary.

Brasses were placed over the burial-places of these archbishops, and
were mostly destroyed in the Civil War.

The great east window, like the windows of the transepts, has a double
plane of tracery reaching to about half the height of the whol