The highest offices in York Minster had been, since the commencement of the fourteenth century, in the hands of the Roman Cardinals, who were, of course, non-resident.
He had drawn up, in the form of a catechism, a brief statement of what he deemed to be necessary for salvation, comprising the articles of belief, the Ten Commandments, the Seven Sacraments, the Seven Deeds of Bodily and Ghostly Mercy, the Seven Virtues and the Seven Deadly Sins.
The great differences between the sees of York and Canterbury were settled during John's time as archbishop.
It was arranged that each primate should carry his cross erect in the province of the other; but, as an acknowledgement of this concession, Thoresby, within the space of two months, and each of his successors within the same period after his election, was to send a knight or a doctor of laws to offer in his name, at the shrine of St. Thomas of Canterbury, an image of gold to the value of £40, in the fashion of an archbishop holding a cross or some other jewel.
During Thoresby's archiepiscopate, Walter Skirlaugh, afterwards Bishop of Durham, was his private chaplain and William of Wykeham was a prebendary of York.
It is possible that both Skirlaugh and Wykeham, widely seen as two of the greatest builders of the age, may have been greatly influenced by the works undertaken in the Minster by Archbishop Thoresby.