Archaeological evidence indicates the principia was located partly beneath the post-1080 Minister site, but excavations undertaken in 1967–73 found no remains of the pre-1080 churches.

It can therefore be inferred that Edwin's church, and its immediate successors, was near the current Minster (possibly to the north, underneath the modern Dean's Park)[13] but not directly on the same site.

According to Bede, Edwin set about building a larger church made of stone, intended to enclose the wooden chapel in which he had been baptised.

There were a series of Benedictine archbishops, including Saint Oswald of Worcester, Wulfstan and Ealdred, who travelled to Westminster to crown William the Conqueror in 1066.

Later in the year, Danish invaders supporting the Ætheling sailed up the Humber and Ouse; they attacked the city, in the course of which a fire broke out, burning the cathedral.

The first Norman archbishop, Thomas of Bayeux, arriving in 1070, apparently organised repairs, but in 1075, another Danish force sailed up the river, "travelled to York and broke into St Peter’s Minster, and there took much property, and so went away.

The north and south transepts were the first new structures; completed in the 1250s, both were built in the Early English Gothic style but had markedly different wall elevations.

Construction then moved on to the eastern arm and chapels; the Norman choir was demolished in the 1390s with the exception of its undercroft of c. 1160, which was reconstructed to provide a platform for the new high altar.

In the English Civil War the city was besieged and fell to the forces of Cromwell in 1644, but Thomas Fairfax prevented any further damage to the cathedral.

This area, as well as remains of the Norman cathedral, re-opened to the public in spring 2013 as part of the new exhibition exploring the history of the building of York Minster.

[30] Firefighters made a decision to deliberately collapse the roof of the south transept by pouring tens of thousands of gallons of water onto it, in order to save the rest of the building from destruction.

[31] A total of 114 firefighters from across North Yorkshire responded to the fire and contained it,[30] while York Minster's staff and clergy rushed to preserve historical objects in the building.

[30] Some traditionalist Anglicans suggested the fire was a sign of divine displeasure at the recent consecration as Bishop of Durham of David Jenkins, whose views they considered heterodox.

[33] A repair and restoration project was completed in 1988 at a cost of £2.25 million,[30] and included new roof bosses to designs which had won a competition put on by BBC Television's Blue Peter programme for children.

which had become severely weathered, were replaced with new sculptures carved by Minster masons to designs by the sculptor Rory Young, telling the Genesis story.

These are five lancets, each 16.3 metres (53 ft) tall and five feet wide[41] and glazed with grey (grisaille) glass,[42] rather than narrative scenes or symbolic motifs that are usually seen in medieval stained-glass windows.

The chapter house exhibits the influence of Saint-Urbain, Troyes in the tracery in the vestibule, while the stalls are enlarged versions of the archivolt niches in the portal of Notre-Dame de Paris.

Behind the high altar is the Great East Window, the largest expanse of medieval stained glass in the country, which underwent a decade-long restoration and conservation project, completed in 2018.

It contains sculptures of the kings of England from William the Conqueror to Henry VI with stone and gilded canopies set against a red background.

The Dean and Chapter of York commissioned John Thornton in 1405 to design the 77-foot (23 m) tall and 32-foot (9.8 m) wide[50] Great East Window;[51] he was paid £66 for the work.

[56] While the window was in storage in the minster's stonemasons' yard, a fire broke out in some adjoining offices, due to an electrical fault, on 30 December 2009.

In total, the work on the Great East Window had taken 92,400 hours of labour, including the time required to add protective UV coating on the glass.

The change ringing bells fell silent in October 2016, following the controversial termination of the ringers' volunteer agreements by the dean and chapter.

Before Evensong each evening, hymn tunes are played on a baton keyboard connected with the bells, but occasionally anything from Beethoven to the Beatles may be heard.

On 18 March 1226, Pope Honorius issued a letter to the effect that the name of William (Fitzherbert), formerly Archbishop of York, was "inscribed in the catalogue of the Saints of the Church Militant."

His remains were interred on "the vigil of Pentecost, 1255"[69] under his effigy "in full canonicals" carved in Purbeck marble under a canopy resting on ten light pillars.

On 9 November 2022 King Charles III unveiled a statue of his mother Queen Elizabeth II in a niche on the west facade of York Minster.

In 1960, J. W. Walker & Sons restored the actions, lowered wind pressures and introduced mutations and higher chorus work in the spirit of the neo-classical movement.

The clock is a memorial to the airmen operating from bases in Yorkshire, County Durham and Northumberland who were killed in action during the Second World War.

York Minster was also artistically illuminated on 5 November 2005, celebrating the 400th anniversary of the foiling of York-born Guy Fawkes' gunpowder plot.