Transcriber's Note:

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation in the original document have been preserved.

The removal of blank pages in the original has resulted in gaps in the page numbering in the ebook.

Clicking on an image will display a larger version of the image.

STAINED GLASS

AGENTS

PLATE I
THE ASCENSION WINDOW, LE MANS
Possibly Eleventh Century

STAINED GLASS
OF THE MIDDLE AGES IN
ENGLAND AND FRANCE

PAINTED BY
LAWRENCE B. SAINT

DESCRIBED BY
HUGH ARNOLD

ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK
SOHO SQUARE·LONDON·MCMXIII

PREFACE

The Cathedral verger, conducting his flock of tourists round the building, while giving them plenty of really interesting and valuable information about it (for the verger of to-day is a different man from his predecessor, and is often very intelligent and well informed), remarks briefly, "The glass is of the thirteenth century"—or fourteenth or fifteenth, as the case may be; the procession gazes carelessly at it, and passes on. Yet from out of that dazzling and glowing labyrinth of coloured jewels a past age is speaking far more articulately, if one stops to unravel the message, than ever in stone or wood, and it is for those who can be induced to take that second look which will be followed by a third and a fourth and many more that I have written this book.

It is impossible in a book of this size to give an adequate review of all the important windows even within the limits of place and time which I have set myself. I have therefore chosen for study certain typical windows in each century, and have written about them some of the things which interest me and which, I hope, will interest others.

The work of the countries and period I have chosen is of course the most important of all. There is beauty, it is true, in much Renaissance work (only a prig could resist the gaiety and charm of the windows of St. Vincent at Rouen), but it is for the most part beauty achieved in spite of, and not through, the material. There is beautiful mediæval work in Germany and Italy, but the Germans, till the Renaissance, clung to a rather lifeless and archaic convention, and the Italians were hampered by their greater knowledge of painting. The art has found its noblest expression in the work of the great school which for nearly the whole of the Middle Ages was common to France and England.

There is especial reason why we English should study the work of our own mediæval glass painters. They are the chief representatives of our primitive school of painting. It is true that there are English manuscripts in the museums, and there are the painted rood screens of Norfolk, including the superb example at Ranworth, and there is the portrait of Richard II. at Westminster; but of the painting which must once have covered the walls of our churches, there is little left but patches of faded colour clinging here and there to the plaster, and the occasional dim outline of a figure. Of our glass, on the other hand, in spite of four hundred years of destruction, a considerable quantity remains, and is worth far closer study than it has ever had.

I must gratefully acknowledge the help I have had from my brother, Mr. T. K. Arnold, especially in writing of the Canterbury glass of which he has made a very close study. My thanks are also due to Mr. Noel Heaton for information on the chemical composition of glass.

The publishers are fortunate in having been able to reproduce, for the illustrations, the very beautiful coloured drawings of Mr. Lawrence B. Saint, which are now in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

H. A.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

I
THE MAKING OF A WINDOW

I
THE MAKING OF A WINDOW

The making of stained-glass windows is one of the arts which belong wholly to the Christian Era. Its traditions do not extend back beyond the great times of Gothic architecture, and it is to the work of those times that the student must turn, as the student of sculpture and architecture turns to that of the ancient world, to learn the basic principles of the art.

In the Middle Ages stained glass formed an important part, but still only a part, of that interior colour decoration without which no church was considered complete; but in spite of its fragile nature it has on the whole survived the attacks of time, the fury of the Puritan, the apathy and neglect of the eighteenth century, and the sinister energies of the nineteenth-century restorer better than the painting which once adorned the walls and woodwork, and for this reason has come to be considered in these days as peculiarly appropriate to churches. So much so, indeed, that whereas I have sometimes found in country parishes a certain amount of opposition to any attempt to revive wall-painting as savouring of popery, no such feeling seems to exist with regard to coloured windows.

The process.

Stained glass is not one of the arts in which the method of production reveals itself at the first glance. Indeed, so few people when looking at a stained-glass window, whether a gorgeous and solemn one of the thirteenth or fifteenth century, or a crude and vulgar one of the nineteenth, realize the long and laborious process by which the result, good or bad, has been obtained, that a short description of that process as finally perfected some five hundred years ago may not be out of place here.

One hears it so often spoken of as "painted glass"—Mr. Westlake calls his book A History of Design in Painted Glass—that it is not surprising that there should be a good deal of misconception on the point. It must be clearly understood then that the colour effects which are the glory of the art are not directly produced by painting at all, but by the window being built up of a multitude of small pieces of white and coloured glass—glass, that is, coloured in the making, and of which the artist must choose the exact shades he needs, cut them out to shape, and fit them together to form his design, using a separate piece for every colour or shade of colour.

In twelfth and thirteenth century windows many of these pieces are only half an inch wide and from one to two inches long, and few are bigger than the palm of one's hand; so the reader can amuse himself, if he wishes, in trying to calculate the number of pieces in one of the huge windows of this date in the Cathedral of Canterbury, York, or Chartres, and the labour involved in this, the initial stage of the process.

When the window is finished these pieces are put together like a puzzle and joined by grooved strips of lead soldered at the joints, just as any "lattice" window is put together (and until glass was made in large pieces this was the only way of filling a window); but before this is done the details of the design—features, folds of drapery, patterns, and so on—are painted on the glass in an opaque brownish enamel made of oxide of iron and other metals ground up with a "soft" glass (i.e. glass with a low melting-point). This is mixed with oil or gum and water in order to apply it, and then the glass is placed in a kiln and "fired" till the enamel is fused on and, if well fired, becomes part of the glass itself. This is the only "painting" involved in the production of a stained-glass window, and its effect, in the hand of an artist, besides enabling him to express more than could be done merely with glass and lead, is to decorate and enrich what would otherwise be somewhat crude and papery in effect.

The two parts of the process.

The process thus consists of two parts. The cutting and putting together of the glass is called glazing, and it is this that gives the window colour; while the enamel work is spoken of as painting, and gives detail, richness, and texture.

I shall presently show that the glazing and painting are really two separate crafts, having separate origins and development, and that stained glass as we know it, or as it should be called in strict accuracy "stained-and-painted" glass, is the product of their union.

There is another method, far inferior in the beauty of its results, by which pictures can be produced in glass, which is to paint on white glass with transparent coloured enamels. As, however, this method was not used till the seventeenth century, and is now once more almost wholly abandoned, it does not concern us here.

The softness of lead which makes it the only practicable metal for joining pieces of glass of complicated shapes, has the disadvantage that a stained-glass window when leaded up has a considerable degree of flexibility, and, if held by the edges alone, would be quite unable to resist the pressure of the wind, which on a big window is enormous,—think of the power even of a fresh breeze on a boat's sail.

The iron-work.

It would not even be able to support its own weight for long, and so it follows that it must be held up by a system of short metal bars fixed firmly into the stone-work. Naturally the design of the window must be so arranged that these bars either do not interfere with it or form an integral part of it. In early windows, especially those of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and even to some extent in those of the fourteenth, the bars are sufficiently important to form the governing factor in the design.

It must not be thought that stained glass loses in beauty by the presence of these black lines of lead and iron. On the contrary it gains enormously. Large pieces of unrelieved colour in windows are thin in effect and trying to the eye, which needs the continual contrast of the solid black of the lead all over the window to enable it to appreciate the colour and brilliance of the glass. The painting when rightly used is directed to the same end, for it may be said that the smaller and more divided the spaces of clear glass, the more brilliant and jewel-like is the effect.

Silver stain.

To the rule that a separate piece of glass must be used for every change of colour, there are, in later work, two exceptions. The most important, which was discovered early in the fourteenth century, is the use of silver stain. It was then found that if white glass is painted with a preparation of silver—either oxide or chloride of silver will do—and then "fired" in the kiln used for the enamel painting, it will be stained a clear and indelible yellow, varying from pale lemon to deep orange, according to the strength of the painting.

Abrasion.

The other exception was Abrasion, effected by the use of what is called "flashed" glass. Flashed glass is glass so made that instead of being coloured all through, it consists of a thin film or "flash" of colour on a backing of white. With this glass it is possible to chip with a burin, or grind away, the coloured film in places (we do it now with hydrofluoric acid) so as to get white and colour on the same piece of glass.

PLATE II
PART OF CRUCIFIXION WINDOW, POITIERS
Late Twelfth Century

In the Middle Ages only red and certain shades of blue were made in this way, so the use of the process was very much restricted. The invention of silver stain, on the other hand, by enabling the artist to decorate his white glass and make it interesting, led him at once to use a larger quantity of white in his window, and so, as will be seen later, had a considerable influence on design.

These, however, are the exceptions which prove the rule, and, broadly speaking, a stained-glass window must consist, to the eye, of flat patches of colour, large or small, worked on with dark monochromatic line work and shading. These patches of colour must each be separated from the next by a black line—the leading—varying from a quarter to half an inch in thickness, and crossed at intervals by still thicker black lines—the iron bars.

Limitations of the art.

It follows from this that anything like illusion is impossible in stained glass, and no artist with any sympathy for the medium would attempt it. Unwise persons in decadent times have wasted much ingenuity in the endeavour, but the result has always been disastrous and ridiculous. Apart from its higher mission,—the expression of ideas and emotions,—which it shares with every other branch of art, the mission of stained glass is to beautify buildings and nothing else. It is the handmaid of architecture, and can only justify itself by loyal service of its mistress. The ideal of the stained-glass artist must not be a picture made transparent, but a window made beautiful.

Let no one suppose, however, that the artist is hampered by these limitations on the higher side of his work. On the contrary, they set him free to tell his story his own way. Ruskin—poor Ruskin, out of date, ridiculed, forgotten—pointed out long ago, in writing of Giotto's frescoes, the advantage which the pure colourist has over the chiaroscurist in his power of telling a story. In our times the fact has been rediscovered with a flourish of trumpets by the Post-Impressionists. I have no great enthusiasm, I confess, for the way in which they have carried out their principles, but I do know two perfect tellings of the story of the Creation. One is in mosaic on the ceiling of the narthex of St. Mark's at Venice, and the other is in the upper part of the east window of York Minster; and in each case the language used consists of flat forms and colour only.

II
THE BEGINNINGS OF STAINED GLASS

II
THE BEGINNINGS OF STAINED GLASS

I have said that stained-glass work is the product of the union of two crafts, the glazier's and the enameller's. The glazier's work being the groundwork of a window, I will take it first.

Glass-making.

What, to begin with, is glass? It is sand melted and run together. The best sand for the purpose is that which is most largely composed of the substance called silica, such as sand formed of powdered quartz, or flint. For some reason, the silica when melted does not recrystallize on cooling as might have been expected, but forms an even transparent substance, plastic while still hot. Think of the tremendous effect this one natural fact has had on the architecture, dress, and, probably, the physique of the nations of northern Europe.

Given sufficient heat, glass can be made by this means alone, but the heat required is so great that it has only been done in recent years for special purposes by means of the electric furnace. Failing this, the sand must be induced to melt at a lower temperature by means of a flux, for which either potash or soda may be used, and to which lime or lead must be added, to enable the glass to resist moisture. (Theophilus, describing the process in his Treatise, certainly no later than the thirteenth century, recommends the use of beech twigs calcined in an earthen pot, whence the name "Pot-ash.")

Colouring.

Glass may be coloured or "stained" while in a molten condition by the admixture of various substances, mostly metals, gold, copper, manganese, and so on, the result depending on the temperature to which it is subjected and on the exact composition of the glass as well as on the colouring matter used.

Blowing.

Glass is made into vessels, as most people know, by "blowing." The workman takes a dab of molten glass on the end of a long metal pipe, and putting his mouth to the pipe blows the glass—soap-bubble fashion—into a hollow bulb. Then by a rapid and dexterous series of alternate and repeated heating, blowing, and spinning, and manipulation with tools, most fascinating to watch, he shapes it into the form required. If a flat sheet be required for window glass it may be run out flat when liquid, or blown as described above, and worked into a cylindrical form, split open, and unrolled. This is called "muff glass." But glass can also be formed, by rapidly spinning it while soft, into a large flat disc, called a "crown," and is then known as "crown glass." It was by these last two methods, the "muff" and the "crown," that all the material of the windows we have to consider in this book was made.

Cutting.

When cold, the sheet or disc of glass may be cut to the shape required, either, as in the old days, by running a hot iron slowly along the proposed line of fracture, in which case a crack will follow the iron, or by scratching it with a diamond and then bending it so as to break along the line of the scratch. The latter is a comparatively modern invention, and has in its turn been superseded by the use of a little steel wheel with a sharp edge.

Pliny's story.

Pliny gives a story of the invention of glass which, if false, is still so picturesque that I cannot resist quoting it here.

A certain merchant-ship touched on the coast of Syria, and the crew landed near the mouth of the river Belus, on a beach of fine white sand which, Pliny says, was still in his day of great repute for glass-making. The ship's cargo consisted of natron,—a natural alkaline crystal which was much used in ancient times for washing,[1]—and the crew having lighted a fire on the sand used lumps of it from the cargo to prop up their kettle. What was their surprise to find afterwards a stream of molten glass running down from their camp-fire. In this case the natron acted as a flux and enabled the sand to melt in the heat of the camp-fire, which, however, must have been a very large and hot one.

Egyptian glass.

Now, whether this story is true or not, it cannot have been the beginning of more than a local industry, for the art of glass-making was known in Egypt from very early times indeed.

Its earliest use seems to have been in the imitation of precious stones, and perhaps for this reason it seems from the first to have been made in colours as well as in white; but the art of blowing it into vessels was certainly known in the fourth dynasty, and in some of the paintings in the tombs the process is actually represented.

PLATE III
METHUSELAH,
CANTERBURY, ORIGINALLY IN CHOIR CLERESTORY
Twelfth Century

It was not, however, till the first century of the Christian Era that any one seems to have thought of using glass to fill windows. In Egypt naturally the climate made it unnecessary, and even in Italy, where it can be cold enough in winter, civilization had evolved a style of architecture independent of glass.

Roman windows.

Nevertheless it was introduced in Rome under the first emperors. Caligula had his palace windows glazed, and Seneca mentions it as one of the luxuries which had been introduced into life in his time, but which did not really add to a philosopher's happiness. Its introduction was, however, very gradual, and even two centuries later its use was still quoted as evidence of excessive luxuriousness.

Remains of these Roman windows have been found at Pompeii and elsewhere. At Pompeii they are in the form of small panes of glass held, in one case in a wooden, and in another in a bronze lattice.[2] It must be remembered that large panes were not available. Another method seems to have been to set panes of glass directly into small openings in stone-work.

When coloured glass was first used in windows we have no evidence to enable us to say. As, however, the manufacture of coloured glass was already a flourishing art it cannot have been long before the idea came of using it to decorate windows.

St. Sophia.

Whether the windows of St. Sophia at Constantinople originally had colour in them or not, is not quite certain. That they were glazed we know, from the description of the church by Paul the Silentiary, an officer of Justinian's court, but his language about them is tantalizingly vague. From his enthusiasm at the effect of the sunlight through them I am inclined to suspect that they were coloured, though he does not definitely say so. Of this glass, which seems to have been fixed in small rectangular openings in a slab of alabaster, nothing, I believe, remains; but similar work—coloured—is to be seen in other mosques, the only difference being that the openings in the slab are formed into patterns and kept very small. (I have already mentioned the necessity, when dealing with clear coloured glass, of keeping the pieces small and contrasting them with plenty of solid dark.)

Mahom­medan windows.

This was as far as stained glass in the East ever got. The Mahommedan conquerors seem to have taken the art as they found it, and continued it down without much change almost to modern times. Their religion debarred them from any attempt to represent living forms, so that the art as it stood sufficed for the needs of their architecture. Visitors to Leighton House may see some of these pierced and glazed lattices from Damascus, and very beautiful they are. In them the pieces are not much larger than a penny, and are set in holes cut in plaster slabs, bevelled on the inside, the glass being set at the outer edge of the hole. The glass is not really of very good quality, but treated in this way even thin poor glass looks rich and jewel-like.

Glass in the West.

What course the glazier's art first followed in the West it is impossible to say, for nothing of it remains earlier than the eleventh century, if as early. Nevertheless, in spite of repeated barbarian invasions, it seems never to have quite died out.

The Church, the refuge of the arts and civilization in the general debacle, sheltered it, and from being the luxury of the Roman millionaire it became the ornament of the house of God. From time to time we get allusions to glazed windows, but never a description that can throw much light on their construction or design. Enough is said, however, to show that coloured glass was sometimes used. For instance, we read that St. Gregory of Tours placed coloured windows in the Church of St. Martin in that city in the sixth century.

One or two facts, however, lead me to think that whereas, in the East, glass was set in stone or plaster, in the West it was usually set in metal. At Pompeii, as we have seen, panes of glass are set in a bronze lattice and fixed with nuts and screws. As colour was introduced it is probable that from the necessity, already spoken of, of keeping the pieces small, several bits would be joined together with lead to fill one opening of the rigid lattice, and so patterns could be formed. Leo of Ostia says his predecessor, the Abbot Desiderius, filled the windows of the Chapter-House at Monte Cassino in the eleventh century with coloured glass, "glazed with lead and fixed with iron"; and certain it is that the earliest existing windows consist of a large rigid lattice of massive rebated iron bars, in which leaded panels have been placed separately, and held there by light cross-bars passed through staples and keyed with wedges.

If this conjecture is correct, we may assume that the art of the glazier had for some time been perfected, and had progressed as far as was possible for it unaided, when its union, probably in the tenth century, with that of the enameller gave birth to the art of "stained-and-painted" glass—that is, stained glass as we know it.

The opaque enamel.

Without the use of enamel the glazier's craft must always have been strictly limited to patterns in glass and lead, or, as we now call it, "plain glazing." What was needed to convert it into the art as we know it was the addition of painting in the black or brown monochrome enamel described in the first chapter.

Only one who has worked in glass, and seen his work grow from a map-like combination of white and coloured glass to the finished glass painting, knows the power the enamel gives him of controlling, softening, and enriching his effects of colour. The power it gives of suggesting form is only one, and not the most important, of its functions, and it was as vital to the work of the twelfth and thirteenth as of the fifteenth century. With its introduction the glorious windows of the Middle Ages became possible.

Exactly when and where the application of the enameller's craft to glass windows first took place it is impossible to say with certainty; but there is some reason to suppose that it was in France, and not earlier than the tenth century.

Venetian enamellers.

Enamel—the art of painting on metal with an easily fusible glass ground to powder, which is then fused on to its groundwork in a furnace—was of ancient invention, and had been carried to a high state of perfection in Constantinople in the eighth and following centuries. Thence by way of Venice it had come to France, where a colony of Venetian craftsmen had established itself before the end of the tenth century.

Monk­wearmouth.

France was already famous for its glaziers: for instance, when in A.D. 680 the Abbot, Benedict Biscop, glazed the windows of the monastery at Monkwearmouth, we read in Bede that "he sent messengers to Gaul to fetch makers of glass (or rather artificers) till then unknown in Britain.... They came, and not only finished the work required, but taught the English nation their handicraft"; and it is probable that the French glaziers, chafing under the limitations of their art, called in the aid of the Venetian enamellers. It is noteworthy that no attempt seems to have been made to use transparent coloured enamel on glass. That mistake was reserved for the decadence of the art seven hundred years later. Perhaps experiment convinced them that enamel colour could never hope to rival the depth and richness of coloured glass, and the glazier would realize that what he wanted of the enameller was not colour but black, to modify and enrich the colour which his glass already gave him in full measure. In this book, therefore, the word "enamel," when used in connection with glass, must be understood to refer, unless coloured enamel is specifically mentioned, to this brown opaque enamel or "paint," as glass-workers call it.

Cloisonné.

But the enameller's art had another influence on that of stained glass. A form of enamelling developed at Constantinople and practised at Limoges was that known as "cloisonné." In this, narrow strips of metal are soldered edgeways to the groundwork and the spaces between are filled with differently coloured enamel, the different colours being thus separated by strips of metal.

When the enameller's attention was first turned to glasswork, in which different coloured pieces of glass were separated by strips of lead, he must have been struck with the similarity of the two arts, and have perceived that the style of design already developed in enamel could be applied with little change to glasswork.

This probably explains not only the apparently sudden birth of the art fully formed, but the strongly Byzantine character of the design in the earliest work, the enameller's art having been brought, as we have seen, from Constantinople by way of Venice.[3]

What, then, is the oldest "stained-and-painted" glass in existence? At Brabourne in Kent there is a small window, of which a coloured tracing may be seen in South Kensington Museum, which may belong to the eleventh century. It consists of a simple pattern of white glass and leading, with small pieces of colour inserted at intervals. Some of these latter, however, have been formed into rosettes of simple design by means of opaque enamel, which is the only painting in the window at all. Whatever the actual date of the window, I think it is not unlikely that it shows the manner in which enamel painting and glazing were first combined.

PLATE IV
"NOË IN ARCHA,"
FROM THE NORTH CHOIR AISLE, CANTERBURY
Twelfth Century

Early window at Le Mans.

Almost the earliest glass, however, to which any date can be approximately assigned are the panels in Le Mans Cathedral,[4] which are illustrated by a sketch of Mr. Saint's in [Plate I.]

In a thirteenth century manuscript preserved at Le Mans it is recorded that Bishop Hoel, who occupied the See from A.D. 1081 to 1097, glazed the windows of the Cathedral with stained glass, "sumptuosa artis varietate," and it is just possible that this glass, which was found in 1850 scattered and glazed up among fragments of a later date, may be part of the glass referred to.

It seems to have formed the lower part of a window representing the Ascension, and consists of figures of the Virgin and the Twelve Apostles "gazing up into Heaven."

The arrangement is very simple. There seems to have been little or no ornament in the window, and the figures in white and coloured draperies, standing on conventionalized hillocks which represent the top of the "high mountain," are relieved against a background of plain colour in alternate panels of red and blue. In this window and for long afterwards the background represents nothing in nature, but merely serves the purpose of throwing up and isolating the figures.

As the glass is not in its original position, one can only guess at its original construction and design. All early windows, as I have said, consisted of separate leaded panels inserted into the openings of a massive metal framework, an arrangement which of necessity governed the design. In this case one would expect the six panels, with their differently coloured backgrounds, each to have filled a separate opening in the framework.

If this is so, however, the panels must have been somewhat cut down, since as at present glazed the limbs and drapery of the figures occasionally overlap into the neighbouring panels. I think it very probable indeed that the glass has been so cut down, and that the window at Poitiers, illustrated in [Plate II.], though of later date, gives a true idea of the original relation of these panels to the iron-work. It is probable too that the upper part of the Le Mans window was filled with a figure of the ascending Christ on the same plan as that of Poitiers. It is, indeed, only fair to say that the Poitiers window, which is of the end of the twelfth century, throws some doubt on the greater antiquity of that at Le Mans.

There is little or no ornament in the latter, and perhaps there was never much, though it may have once had simple borders between the panels and a rich border like that at Poitiers (not shown in the drawing) surrounding the whole. The technique followed in the painting is precisely that which obtained for nearly three hundred years after. That is to say, as far as possible the effect is obtained by glazing, and the features and folds of drapery are put in with strong, dark, sweeping lines of enamel. The style of the drawing, however, both in the figures and the drapery, is perhaps more purely Byzantine than any later work. The sweeping lines of the drapery are graceful and decorative, but the action of the figures is absolutely conventional. There is none of that feeling for motion which, expressed in line, gives so much vigour and animation to the subject windows of the thirteenth century.

In colour, however, which after all is the most important thing in a window, this glass is splendid, and for the quality of the material and the way in which it has resisted the attacks of time it is superior to much glass of a later date.

III
THE STYLE OF THE FIRST PERIOD

III
THE STYLE OF THE FIRST PERIOD

The three periods.

Stained glass from its birth to the Renaissance has been divided by Winston into three main periods, each having broad characteristics peculiar to itself, and which he named after the corresponding architectural styles, Early English, Decorated, and Perpendicular. As, however, these terms only apply to English work, and as the architectural styles do not altogether correspond in date with those of the glass, I prefer to speak simply of the First, Second, and Third Period.

The First lasts from the earliest examples almost to the end of the thirteenth century, and might be subdivided again into twelfth and thirteenth century work, between which there is a distinct difference.

The Second covers nearly the whole of the fourteenth century.

The Third lasts down to the end of the fifteenth century, by which time the influence of the classic Renaissance began to be felt in glasswork, but lingers on in belated examples well into the sixteenth.

Between each of these periods there is a very short transitional period lasting hardly a decade, and occupying the closing years of each century.

It must not be thought, however, that at any time design in stained glass stood still. Its history is rather one of periodic impulses, due no doubt to the work of individual genius, followed in each case by a long and gradual decline, towards the end of which artists began to grow restless and feel about for new modes of expression, and so prepare the way for the next impulse of genius.

The First Period.

The broad characteristics then which distinguish the First Period are—

• (1) Its rich colour.
• (2) Its mosaic character.
• (3) The importance of the iron-work and its influence on the design.
• (4) The method of painting.

PLATE V
THE ENTOMBMENT,
FROM THE EAST WINDOW, CANTERBURY
Twelfth or early Thirteenth Century

Its rich colour.

(1) Its Colour.—The colour of the glass in this First Period is of a barbaric richness, unequalled in the succeeding periods. A very deep and splendid blue is used, in contrast with the greyish-blue of later glass, and it is of an uneven tint, which greatly adds to its quality. The ruby,[5] too, is often of a streaky character and of great beauty. These two usually form the dominant colours in the window, the greens, yellows, and purples being used rather to relieve them.

So much is the artist in love with his deep reds and blues, which he nearly always uses for the backgrounds of his figures, that he seldom insults them by painting on them except in so far as is necessary to the drawing, reserving his enamel mainly for the decoration of his whites and paler colours, keeping them in their places by a delicate fret of line and pattern work.

It is only towards the latter part of the period, when the quality of the glass began to fail a little, that he ever covered the whole surface of a blue background with an enamelled diaper, to give it a depth and richness which was lacking in the glass itself.

Except in the grisaille windows to be described later, in which a definitely white effect is aimed at, the amount of colour used in proportion to the white glass is considerably greater than in succeeding periods. Nevertheless the white is always present, running everywhere among the colour like a silver thread, relieving and beautifying it. In fact it was not till modern times that any glass-worker ever thought he could do without it.

Its mosaic character.

(2) The Mosaic Character of the Glass.—The designer depends for his effect primarily upon glass and lead, and builds up his window out of tiny pieces. He had learned the jewel-like effect this gave to his work, and seemed to grudge no labour in it. Take, for example, the Ark at Canterbury in [Plate IV.] Where a fifteenth century painter would have been content to make the ark of perhaps only one piece of glass, probably of white, getting his detail in enamel and silver stain only, our thirteenth century craftsman has used over fifty pieces, purple, blue, red, yellow, green and white, and that in a space less than a foot square! He was a colourist par excellence, and his waves, too, are blue, greenish-blue and green, with caps of white foam—all a mosaic of glass and lead.

From this dependence for its effect on the actual material used, it follows that the work of no period is more easily damaged than this by so-called "restoration." The introduction of only half a dozen pieces of crudely coloured modern glass is often enough to upset the whole harmony of the colour and to make the window irritating instead of restful to the eye. In France, indeed, so few windows of this period have been left unrestored that the period does not always get justice done it. I doubt if many people honestly get much pleasure from the effect of the windows of the Sainte Chapelle at Paris taken as a whole; but if you notice how much of the original glass is in South Kensington Museum you will understand the reason.

The iron-work.

(3) The Influence of Iron-Work.—The windows of this period consisted from the first, as we have seen, of separate leaded panels inserted into the openings of an iron lattice. This lattice was formed of iron bars of a T-shaped section, the head of the T being outwards, and having staples at intervals on the inner rib, through which light iron bars were thrust and keyed with wedges, to hold the glass in its place.

In the absence of any tracery to assist in the support of the glass, this iron-work in large windows was of a massive character and could not be disregarded in the design. In figure work there were two possible ways of dealing with it: one was to make the figures so large as to be independent of it; and the other was to make the figures so small that a complete figure-subject could be included in one opening of the frame work.

Both these methods were used by the artists of the early period. Where the work is far from the eye, as in the clerestory windows, we usually find large single figures—far larger, often, than life—filling the whole window, like the big angel from Chartres on [Plate X.] and the smaller and older figure of Methuselah from Canterbury on [Plate III.] When, on the other hand, the work is near the eye, as in the aisle windows, they used the other method, filling each opening of the iron-work with a small subject-panel like that of Noah and the Dove in [Plate IV.], thus producing what is called the medallion window.

Medallion windows.

At first the lattice work consisted merely of upright and horizontal bars. These, it is true, sometimes, as in the twelfth century window at Poitiers in [Plate II.], were manipulated to fit the subject, but more usually the subject fitted the bars.

Bent iron-work.

In the earliest form of medallion window, such as those in west windows at Chartres and some of the earliest ones at Canterbury, the window is divided by the iron-work into a series of regular squares, each of which alternately is filled with a square and a circular figure-subject. Later, however, in the thirteenth century, the iron-work itself was bent into geometric patterns which the medallions were shaped to fit, producing the elaborate designs shown in the insets of the whole windows in Plates [IV.] and [VIII.] from Canterbury.

Even when in the latter part of the thirteenth century there was a return, prompted no doubt by motives of economy, to iron-work composed of straight bars, the influence of these elaborate lattices is still seen in the shapes of the medallions, though these are no longer outlined by the iron-work which now passes across or between them. An example of this is shown in [Plate XIV.] from Rouen Cathedral.

The method of painting.

(4) The Method of Painting.—This consists of vigorous line work in the brown enamel, laid on with a brush in beautiful, firm, expressive strokes on a ground of clear glass. Lettering and patterns are formed by being scratched out clear from a solid coat of enamel. There is no attempt at modelling in planes or at light and shade, and half-tone is only used, as I shall presently explain, to soften the edges of the line work.

Ir­radiation.

Now the optical law which most affects the technique of stained glass is that of which the effect is known as "irradiation." In an unscientific work it is enough to say that it is the law which causes the filament of an electric light, in reality thin as a hair, to appear when incandescent as thick as a piece of worsted. In the same way it makes the clear spaces of glass appear larger than they really are in proportion to the obscured parts, and also tends to make them look rounded.

From the fact that the glass between the line work was left nearly clear, the work of this period is more affected by irradiation than any other, and the artist had to make his line work very black and thick in order to tell at all, especially in work far from the eye. For instance, if he wished to distinguish the fingers of a hand he separated them with solid black spaces as thick as the fingers themselves.

The line work.

The glass between the line work is left nearly clear, but not quite; for if quite clear the intensity of the light would have bitten into the edge of the black line and made it appear what engravers call a "rotten" line, or even be invisible altogether at a little distance. Therefore the painter softened the edges of his line work by one of two methods. The first, described by Theophilus, though I cannot say for certain that it has been used in any glass I have examined, was to slightly smear the painting when wet with a soft brush. The other, which seems to have been more used, was to edge the dark line work, so to speak, with fainter strokes in semi-transparent half-tone. In work that was meant to be placed near the eye the line work is extraordinarily fine and delicate, while in work that has to be seen from a distance, such as the clerestory windows of a cathedral, we find the whole scale of the execution increased. Lines are there used from half an inch to an inch thick, but in every case the work is equally admirable for its precision and vigour.

The "Matt."

In the later periods the half-tone shading became developed into the "matt" or thin coat of enamel laid evenly all over the surface of the glass, from which, when dry, the lights were brushed out and the line work became more and more delicate. Still, as long as technique remained sound, the strength of shading was really obtained by line work, the matt or half-tone serving its true use in softening the light and making the line work visible.

Renaissance glass painters, in their efforts to produce the effects of oil painting in glass, tried to get rid of the effect of irradiation altogether by dulling the whole surface of the glass, with fatal results to the beauty of the material.

To sum up, although the work of this period may suffer in popular esteem from the drawing being conceived in an archaic convention,—a convention different to our own,—and from having suffered from restoration, the fact remains that at no time did the artist understand better the possibilities and limitations of his art and adopt a sounder technique in regard to them.

PLATE VI
SCROLL-WORK, FROM THE EAST WINDOW, CANTERBURY
Twelfth or early Thirteenth Century

IV
TWELFTH CENTURY GLASS

IV
TWELFTH CENTURY GLASS

The few examples I have mentioned are the only ones which can with any probability be dated from the eleventh century, but of twelfth century work much more remains.

Poitiers.

The window at Poitiers in [Plate II.] shows little if any change in style from the Le Mans window in [Plate I.] It is still almost pure Byzantine, and if I were to judge by style alone I should place this window very early indeed. A fragment of an inscription has, however, been found on it—DITHANC ... BLAS,—which has been thought to mean that the window was the gift of one Maurice de Blason, who became Bishop of Poitiers in 1198. If so, and if we are right in identifying the Le Mans window with Bishop Hoel's glazing, a whole century separates the two.

The probable explanation is that the Byzantine style had lingered on in the south-east of France, as it may well have done, whereas north of the Loire a school had by this time arisen, and had been flourishing for many years, which was producing work both in France and England of a very different and far more advanced character.

The school of Chartres, St. Denis, and Canter­bury.

The twelfth and early thirteenth century windows at Chartres, St. Denis, Canterbury and Sens show such resemblance to each other that there can be little doubt of their common origin. As, however, their execution covers a period of at least seventy years, one man cannot have been responsible for them all.

Probably they represent the work of a group of men working together—perhaps never more than half a dozen at one time—under a master who was trained by his predecessor, and who in turn would be succeeded in the leadership by the best of his pupils. Several of these masters in succession must have been men of genius, and thus between them they evolved a style which, carried on by a succession of lesser men, governed design in stained glass for a century to come.

PLATE VII
BORDER, FROM THE TRINITY CHAPEL, CANTERBURY
Twelfth or early Thirteenth Century

The rise of this school is the first of the periodic impulses to which I have referred, and the work they produced was, for its dignity and grandeur, unequalled for two hundred years—if it has ever been equalled at all.

The figure of Methuselah or "Matusale" in [Plate III.], which is one of the few remaining of the original figures once in the choir clerestory at Canterbury (it is now in the S. Transept), is a good example of their work, and a comparison of it with the Poitiers window (which is actually later in date but in the older style) shows the greatness of the change they effected. The change is, in fact, that from ancient to modern art: from Byzantine, the last lingering survival of the great classic tradition of Greece, to Gothic, the first expression of the art of the modern world.

Who were these men and where did they come from? Some would have it that there was a great central school at Chartres, but there is little evidence for it. When Abbot Suger built the great abbey of St. Denis, which was dedicated in 1142, he filled it with glass, "painted," says his secretary, Monk William, "with exquisite art by many masters of divers nations" ("de diversis nationibus"). Does this mean that some of them were English or Germans, or only men from other provinces than the Ile de France? No one can say; but they must have been working together to produce the results they did. One statement of the Monk William's leads me to think that the work was done on the spot. He says the work was very costly, because they "used sapphires to colour their glass." Now this is an obvious misunderstanding, due to the practice, in those days, of describing coloured glass by the name of the precious stone it resembled, and such a mistake is most likely to have been made in conversation with the artists themselves.

It is, of course, always possible that they had no permanent headquarters but took up their abode in whatever city their chief work was for the time being, there erected their furnaces, which the description of Theophilus shows to have been simple affairs, and remained there till their work was completed—which must have taken some years in every case—and then moved on to the next work.

Much has been made of the fact that a window in Rouen bears the signature of one Clement of Chartres,—"Clemens vitrearius Carnutensis me fecit,"—but that window is a hundred and forty years later than St. Denis. By that time the whole Cathedral at Chartres had been filled with glass, a task which extended over thirty years; and Clement may well have learned his trade and passed from apprentice to master there. No other artist of the school has signed his name anywhere, nor has Clement anywhere else.

One can tell pretty well the order in which the most important of their work which remains was done. First Chartres and St. Denis,—so near together that one cannot say which came first,—then Canterbury, Sens, and then back to Chartres again, where a fire had destroyed all but the west windows. This, however, probably represents only a small portion of their labours, of which the rest has disappeared. For instance, a few fragments set among later work in York Minster have all the characteristics of this school; and we know that Prior Conrad's choir at Canterbury, which was completed in 1130 and destroyed in 1175, was renowned for the splendour of its glass, which may have been their work too.

A window at Le Mans, rather later than the one illustrated, and which Mr. Westlake thinks may be dated about 1120, shows signs of the new movement. It consists of a series of subjects from the stories of SS. Gervasius and Protasius, and already shows the arrangement of small medallions of simple shape, surrounded by ornament filling the rectangular openings of the iron-work, though from the fact that some of the medallions seem to have been cut down, they are probably not in their original position. In the drawing of the subjects the artist is breaking away from the Byzantine tradition. The new wine is bursting the old bottles. He is a man in love with life, and when he depicts a group of men stoning a saint he likes to make them really throwing, and to show in their faces, as well as he knows how, that they are thorough ruffians.

Next in antiquity to this window, and some twenty or thirty years later (1142-1150), come the earliest of the windows at Chartres and at St. Denis.

Chartres.

In the year A.D. 1134 a terrible fire destroyed the town of Chartres and so damaged the west end of the Cathedral that it had to be pulled down and rebuilt—a work which took some fifteen years to accomplish, while the towers were not finished till twenty years later still. The three windows over the west door were filled with glass some time between 1145 and 1150.

PLATE VIII
BORDER AND MOSAIC DIAPER, FROM THE TRINITY CHAPEL,
CANTERBURY
Thirteenth Century

The west windows.

In early times churches seem to have been peculiarly liable to destruction by fire, owing perhaps to the number of wooden buildings by which they were surrounded. The early history of every great cathedral is one of successive disastrous conflagrations, after each of which the building rises once more, larger and more splendid. Thus, in 1194, another fire completely destroyed the whole of the Cathedral with the exception of the newly built west end, which included the three windows in question. These escaped damage, protected perhaps by the immense depth of their embrasures, and still remain almost unimpaired to this day, the largest and most perfect windows of their time that have come down to us. In them one feels that the new movement has found itself and produced a great man.

Two of them, the central one, which is the largest, being some 30 feet high and 10 wide, and that on the south, are medallion windows, containing scenes from the life of Christ. The bars of the iron-work, which are about 3 feet apart, divide them into a series of regular squares, which are filled with square and circular medallions; in the central window the figures in the medallions are relieved against alternate backgrounds of ruby and blue. The ruby of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries is a wonderful colour. It is never of a perfectly even tint, each piece having, as it were, its own character, and the colour seems to have a slightly granulated or "crumbly" texture, which gives it a quality unknown in later glass. So beautiful was it evidently considered that the artist seldom or never attempted to enrich it with painting.

The Jesse tree.

The third window, that on the north, is filled with a "Tree of Jesse."

The subjects of stained-glass windows in this First Period were chosen with one object—the exposition of the Christian Doctrine, and of this the human descent of Christ was an essential part. Accordingly, at all periods in the history of mediæval stained glass we find windows devoted to the representation of "the Tree of Jesse."

The arrangement is always the same as in this window at Chartres. The figure of Jesse lies recumbent at the foot of the window, and from his loins rises the "Tree"—a mass of branching scroll work with conventional foliage, spreading over the whole window, carrying on its branches David and other human ancestors of Christ, and culminating in the Virgin and Christ Himself at the top of the window. On either side are ranged the Prophets who foretold His coming, and the whole, surrounded by a rich border, forms, at Chartres, a mass of jewelled colour some 9 feet wide and 25 feet high.

This window and the one of which a part, identical in design, remains at St. Denis, are the oldest examples I know of a Jesse tree in stained glass, and whether or not they were the first to be made, their design formed a model for others for long after.

La Belle Verrière.

The remainder of the windows in the Cathedral, including the western rose, are of the thirteenth century with one exception—the one in the south choir aisle, which contains the great figure of the Virgin known as "Notre Dame de la Belle Verrière": the only window, as far as I know, to which in former times people knelt by hundreds in adoration, and before which they still occasionally burn a candle.

The Virgin with the Child on her knee sits enthroned in the upper part of the window, and surrounded by angels, on a much smaller scale, incensing and holding candles, while below are medallions illustrating the Marriage at Cana and the Temptation. The angels and the medallions are of the thirteenth century, but the figures of the Virgin and Child with their background are almost certainly of the twelfth. Probably the veneration in which they were held caused them to be rescued from the fire,—hurriedly broken out, perhaps, from the surrounding glass,—and then reset in thirteenth century work after the Cathedral was rebuilt.[6] The Virgin is dressed in a robe of pale greyish-blue, of a colour one seldom sees in later work, relieved against a background of deep ruby, set with jewels of a darker blue. The precision of the colour harmony is wonderful, and no drawing I have seen of the window gives, even in outline, the beautiful poise of the head, bent in gracious benediction.

Although I have said that the workers of this school were breaking away from the Byzantine tradition and looking at life with their own eyes, yet it is never possible for men suddenly to produce work wholly independent of tradition, even when they are foolish enough to try; so we find in this case Greek art, through Byzantine, retains enough influence with these men to give to their work a dignity and restraint which is lacking in that of the thirteenth century. This is very noticeable wherever one gets the two in close juxtaposition, as at Chartres and also at Canterbury. There is an impressive severity of design and a feeling for proportion in the figure of the Virgin in La Belle Verrière which one misses in the surrounding work, which, though very beautiful, is by comparison small and fussy in treatment.

St. Denis.

In the meantime, in 1142, while the west front of Chartres Cathedral was still in progress, the great Abbot Suger had finished the construction of his abbey of St. Denis, near Paris. He was a great patron of the arts, as well as a good man and the first statesman of his age, and he seems to have spared no pains in the decoration of the church and especially in the filling of the windows with stained glass. Of this glass, alas! only the merest remnant is left, consisting of several medallions and part of a "Tree of Jesse." They have been collected and placed in the chapels of the apse of the church, embedded in garishly coloured ornament—the work of M. Gérente, acting under the orders of the great and terrible Viollet-le-Duc—which effectually prevents one taking any pleasure in their beauty. They are, however, very interesting to study. Whether or not they were done before or after the three windows at Chartres it is, I think, impossible to say for certain. The history of the two buildings shows that they must have been done within a few years of each other (two of those at St. Denis contain figures of Suger as donor, and he died in 1152), and they are certainly the work of the same school. The Jesse tree in particular is either a copy, or the original, on a smaller scale, of the one at Chartres, being almost identical in design.

Many of the medallions are interesting from their deeply symbolical character. In one, for instance, is Christ, with the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, represented, as in the Jesse tree, by doves, each contained in a circle and connected with His breast by rays. With His left hand He unveils a figure labelled "Synagoga," and with His right He crowns another figure labelled "Ecclesia."

Another very curious medallion represents the fœderis arca, "ark of the covenant." A figure of the Almighty supports a crucifix which rises from the ark,—a square box on four wheels,—while round about are the four symbols of the Evangelists. The cross is thus shown as the symbol of God's new covenant with man as the ark was that of the old. A quaint feature is that the artist, while feeling that all four wheels had got to be shown somehow, has been in some difficulty as to how to show the farther pair, and has therefore placed them above the ark, as if resting on it, as an ancient Egyptian artist might have done in his place.

In most of the medallions the teaching of the subject is emphasized and the application pointed out by rhyming Latin hexameters, doggerel in style and innocent of prosody, such as:

Quod Moyses velat, Christi doctrina revelat.

The same feature is found in the glass at Canterbury. None of the verses are identical, but the literary style is the same.

Angers and Chalons.

At Angers there are some remains of twelfth century windows which are thought to be about the same date as those of Chartres and St. Denis, or even a little earlier, and there are some at Chalons, but they cannot be dated with any exactitude, and I have had no opportunity of examining them. Next after these in point of date should, I think, come the earliest of the windows at Canterbury, though nearly thirty years must separate the two.

Fragments at York.

A few fragments in York Minster, however, show where the artists may have been occupied meantime. There are some scraps in the clerestory—scraps of a Jesse window of which the details are almost identical with the St. Denis work—and a medallion representing Daniel in the Lion's Den, which is glazed into the foot of the centre light of the great thirteenth century grisaille windows in the north transept, known as "the Five Sisters." It is a circular medallion filled out to a square form with ornament, no doubt to fit a square of the iron-work, and strongly resembles the St. Denis work.

Canter­bury choir.

Of the stained glass of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, which was once the glory of Canterbury Cathedral, only a remnant has escaped the zeal of the Puritans. The minister placed in charge of the Cathedral under the Commonwealth, one Richard Culmer, known to his enemies as "Blue Dick," though I do not know why, relates with glee how he stood on a ladder sixty steps high with a whole pike in his hand and "rattled down proud Beckett's glassie bones."

I own I feel less resentment against "Blue Dick," who at least thought the windows important enough to smash, than against that later vandal Wyatt, who in the eighteenth century sold the glass at Salisbury for the price of the lead in it, or those who even now in many places are letting old glass perish for want of proper care.

PLATE IX
WESTERN LANCETS AND ROSE, CHARTRES CATHEDRAL
Twelfth and Thirteenth Century

Even "Blue Dick" seems to have tired of his pious labours before they were quite finished, for, of the early windows, he has left us two in the north choir aisle, and four in the Trinity Chapel east of the choir, in which most of the old glass remains. Besides these there are many medallions and numerous fragments scattered about in other windows and embedded in the work of the modern restorer, and several large figures from the clerestory, of which the Methuselah in [Plate III.], now in the south transept, is one.

In the year 1174, four years after Becket's death, the splendid choir built by Prior Conrad in 1130 was completely destroyed by fire, and the monks immediately set about building a new one. Gervase the monk has left a detailed account of the progress of the great work, year by year and pillar by pillar, for the space of ten years, first under the French master-builder, William of Sens, and then under his successor, William the Englishman ("little in body but in workmanship of many kinds acute and honest"), so that we know just when each part of the work was finished. Now in the spring of 1180, he relates, the monks had a great desire to celebrate Easter in the new choir, and to gratify them the master, by a special effort, succeeded in getting the building finished and roofed in almost to the east end of the choir, where he placed a hoarding to keep out the weather.

Since we are told that in this hoarding there were three glass windows, it seems reasonable to suppose that the other windows were glazed too. Now since both the windows in the north choir aisle and, when in its original position, the Methuselah on [Plate III.] were well to the westward of the point at which the hoarding was erected, I have no doubt that they were in position by this date, in which opinion I am confirmed by the character of the glass itself. That in the Trinity Chapel to the east of the hoarding would naturally be later.

The same arrangement seems to have been followed at Canterbury as elsewhere of having large figures in the clerestory and small medallions in the lower windows.

The Methuselah, which seems to have formed one of a series of Patriarchs,—of which three others remain, which filled the windows in the clerestory of the choir,—is a particularly dignified figure, and it is noticeable that the throne he is seated on is of somewhat the same type as that of Notre Dame de la Belle Verrière at Chartres. As in all windows of this date, the flesh is executed in glass of a brownish-pink colour instead of white, which later on became the rule.

This illustration shows very well the early method of painting. Where possible, as in the rich blue of the background, the glass is left quite clear. The folds of the drapery and the features are drawn in sure and vigorous line work. Diaper is used very sparingly, only when it is necessary to "keep back" and subdue a piece of glass, as in the case of the green cushion to the throne and the border of the tunic. If you can imagine the glass with these pieces left clear or with any other piece diapered, you will see how unerring has been the artist's judgment.[7]

The letters of the inscription are scratched out of a dark ground of enamel. This is the invariable method used in early glass, which indeed is always (except in grisaille, of which more later) conceived as a light design on a dark ground. In the fifteenth century the reverse was the case, and then we get inscriptions in dark lettering on a light ground.

The arched form of the top of the background shows how it once fitted a clerestory light, though doubtless with a border, and the space above has been filled with scroll work of, I think, the same date, which may have come from some of the medallion windows in the choir aisles.

The two medallion windows in the north choir aisle formed part, as we know from an old MS. still in existence, of a series of twelve dealing with the life and parables of our Lord.

In style they very closely resemble the St. Denis work, perhaps a little further developed. Some of the medallions, indeed, are almost identical with those at St. Denis, notably that of the Magi on horseback following the star. The figures are tall and dignified, and both for drawing and decorative placing are far better than much work of the succeeding century. The Calling of Nathaniel is a particularly good panel.

The westernmost of the two windows still retains the early arrangement found at Chartres, the iron-work consisting simply of straight bars dividing it into a series of regular squares, which are filled alternately with circular and square medallions.

PLATE X
THE BIG ANGEL,
FROM THE CLERESTORY OF THE APSE,
CHARTRES CATHEDRAL
Thirteenth Century

The other one of the two has bent iron-work of a very simple design, consisting simply of four circles connected by straight bars, thus marking the transition from one form to another; which is another reason for dating these windows between the west windows of Chartres, where the iron-work is all straight, and those at Sens, where it is nearly all bent. The small scale-sketch in the corner of [Plate IV.] shows the arrangement of the iron-work and the medallions. The panel of Noah in the Ark is from one of the semicircles on the left side of the window. The spaces between the medallions are filled up with beautiful foliated scroll work, on a ruby ground of the same character as that round the head of Methuselah.

The arrangement of their subjects is so interesting, forming one of the first and most complete examples of a "type and antitype" window, that I shall describe it in some detail.

In each of these two windows the upper two-thirds, or thereabouts, of the glass is in its original position, while the lower panels, smashed by the pike of "Blue Dick," who seems at this point to have got tired of going up his ladder, have been filled with subjects from other windows of the series.

Down the centre run the subjects from the life of Christ, while on each side are the "types" or subjects from the Old Testament which illustrate it. Thus the westernmost of the two, once the second of the series, begins at the top with the Magi following the star, while on one side is Balaam, with the words of his prophecy, "There shall come a star out of Jacob, etc.," and on the other Isaiah, with the words, "The Gentiles shall come to Thy light, and kings to the brightness of Thy rising."

Next below we see in the centre the arrival of the Magi before Herod, illustrated on the left by the Israelites coming out of Egypt, led by Moses, and on the right by the Gentiles leaving a heathen temple containing an idol—a naked blue figure (blue merely because the artist wanted some blue there), and following Christ, by way of a font, towards a Christian altar, while a demon above their heads urges them to return to the idol. As at St. Denis, each of the medallions has a Latin rhyme attached, explaining and enforcing the lesson. Here, for instance, it runs:

Stella Magos duxit et eos ab Herode reduxit,

Sic Satanam gentes fugiunt te Christe sequentes.

Next we see the Magi making their offerings to the infant Christ, on one side of which is the Queen of Sheba visiting Solomon and on the other Joseph in Egypt receiving his suppliant brethren.

And so the series goes on. The twelve windows when complete formed one of the most elaborate sets of types and antitypes known, and included not only the life of Christ but eight of His parables—for some reason a very rare subject in mediæval glass. Two panels of the Parable of the Sower—the seed falling among the thorns and the seed falling by the wayside—remain, and have been used to fill up the gaps at the bottom of this window. Above is a curious subject—the Church with the three sons of Noah, who hold between them the world, divided into three regions. From the MS. above mentioned we know that this was the type to the "leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till the whole was leavened"—an idea taken, I think, from St. Augustine.

The subject of Noah and the Ark from the other window was originally alongside the Baptism of Christ, the purging of the world by the flood of waters serving as the type for the purging of the soul by baptism.

Altogether as one studies these windows one is almost as much struck by the subtlety of thought and earnestness of the teaching they embody as by the glory of their colouring and grace of their design.

In one of the triforium windows is some glass which may perhaps be earlier even than this. It consists of three medallions, only one of which is at all perfect, which seem to be part of a life of St. Alphege, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was martyred by the Danes. In the one perfect panel which represents the storming of Canterbury by the Danes, the warriors wear the long coats of mail and kite-shaped shields of the Norman period as shown in the Bayeux tapestry, and a ship in one of the other medallions is exactly like those in which William the Conqueror and his knights are there shown crossing the sea. The obscure position of this glass in the triforium is not where one would expect to find a window devoted to St. Alphege, who before the death of Becket was the most important saint that Canterbury could boast; it may be therefore that the medallions have been moved from elsewhere, perhaps from Archbishop Lanfranc's nave, or it may, for all we can tell, be some of Prior Conrad's glass that has survived the fire.

Vendôme.

Of other twelfth century work there is not much in existence. There is a Virgin and Child at Vendôme which somewhat recalls Notre Dame de la Belle Verrière but has none of her grace, and I have already referred to the window at Poitiers illustrated in [Plate II.]

PLATE XI
DAVID,
FROM THE CLERESTORY OF THE APSE,
CHARTRES CATHEDRAL

Thirteenth Century

Poitiers.

This remarkable and impressive window, which is over 26 feet high and nearly 10 wide, is one of three, and occupies the central light of the Cathedral apse. The illustration does not show the whole of it, for it is surrounded by a rich border, which in its arrangement of alternate bunches of foliage and knots of interlaced work resembles that of the Jesse Tree at Chartres, and below the Crucifixion is a four-lobed medallion showing the Martyrdom of St. Peter, and the donor offering a model of the window.

The design, as I have said, seems to show that the Byzantine style had lingered on south of the Loire, where no doubt the influence of the Limoges school would be strong, and in view of this fact it is rash to take the age of the Le Mans "Ascension" altogether for granted.

V
EARLY THIRTEENTH CENTURY GLASS
IN ENGLAND
(CANTERBURY AND LINCOLN)

V
EARLY THIRTEENTH CENTURY GLASS
IN ENGLAND
(CANTERBURY AND LINCOLN)

In passing from the twelfth to the thirteenth century one notices a certain loss of the restraint and sense of proportion which gives such dignity and refinement to the earlier work, but on the other hand a certain gain in vivacity and facility of expression. The Greek influence is dying out, but the artists, though with less sense of design than their predecessors, were accomplished at story-telling, in which, however, they seem less serious and more gossiping. Their figures are less tall, and the lines of the drapery from being straight and severe become agitated and flowing.

The Trinity Chapel, Canter­bury.

East of the choir in Canterbury Cathedral is the Trinity Chapel, of which the building was finished in 1185 and to which the body of St. Thomas was translated with great pomp in the year 1220 and placed in a marvellous jewelled shrine, the position of which can still be traced on the pavement by the hollow worn round it by the knees of pilgrims. All around were gorgeous windows which, with the exception of those in the little circular chapel at the east end, known as "Becket's Crown," were filled with the stories of his posthumous miracles.

It is a little difficult to date these windows. They cannot of course be earlier than 1185, but I do not think that any of them are much later than 1220, though from the fact that one of the medallions, and one only, contains a representation of the famous shrine—everywhere else it is the martyr's tomb in the crypt that is shown—the particular window containing it cannot have been executed before the latter date, as the shrine would not have been in existence. It may, however, have been done in that year. This window and the one next it seem to me to be by an inferior hand, and contain certain features not found in the others, but common in later glass of the thirteenth century.

Whether this represents a gap in the execution of the windows it is, however, impossible to say without the evidence of the windows which have been destroyed. Seeing that from 1208 to 1213 the country was under an interdict, the existence of such a gap would not be surprising.

None of the windows are entirely filled with their original glass, but four of them are nearly so. The gaps have been filled up with most ingenious imitations of the old glass, executed from 1853 onwards by Mr. Caldwell, under the direction of Mr. G. Austin, and so cleverly are they done that they are very difficult to detect by the eye alone. I do not think that "restoration" of old glass, by which is usually meant filling up or replacing it by imitation of the old work, is ever justifiable, but I am obliged to admit that, if it ever could be so, it has been justified here at Canterbury. I think there is not much doubt that in these four windows, at least, one can see the old glass better for the gaps being filled up with colour than if they had been left white. The principle, however, is a bad one, and I have seen little "restoration" elsewhere that did not disfigure the window.

Fortunately a most indefatigable lover of stained glass, the Rev. J. G. Joyce, has left a series of coloured drawings of the glass as it was in 1841 before restoration. These and his manuscript notes are now in South Kensington Museum, together with some coloured tracings by a Mr. Hudson, and enable us to trace what has been done. From these we learn that in his time the place of the Crucifixion in the east window was occupied by a figure of the Virgin from a Jesse window, proving that there was once a Jesse window at Canterbury as well as elsewhere. Judging from the tracing, the scroll work of the "tree" follows closely the lines of those at Chartres and St. Denis, but is a little more elaborate and very beautiful. It seems to me more in keeping with the earlier than the later work at Canterbury. Unfortunately no one seems to know what has become of it; but Winston who saw it, quotes it in a lecture as "some of the oldest glass in the country." If the Cathedral authorities have got it stowed away anywhere I hope they will some day place it in one of the empty windows where it can be seen.

PLATE XII
AMAURY DE MONTFORT,
FROM THE CHOIR CLERESTORY, CHARTRES CATHEDRAL
Thirteenth Century

The east window.

This east window, which is in "Becket's Crown," is one of the best preserved, only four or five of its four-and-twenty medallions being new. It is an example of an arrangement of subjects which occurs also at Bourges and at Chartres, and to which PP. Cahier and Martin in their work on Bourges give the name of "La Nouvelle Alliance." It represents, in fact, the foundation of the Church of Christ, as embodied in His Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension, in the coming of the Holy Ghost, and in the reign of the Son of Man on high, each subject being accompanied and illustrated by "types" from the Old Testament. Here, at Canterbury, on one side of the Crucifixion—which, though new, is doubtless a correct restoration as far as the subject goes—is the sacrifice of the Passover, and on the other is Moses striking the rock in the desert, from whence, as from the side of Christ, gushes the life-giving stream. Above is the sacrifice of Isaac; and below, the spies returning from Eshcol carrying the great cluster of grapes—a type of the wine of the Sacrament.

Above this group come the Entombment (which is reproduced in [Plate V.]), the Resurrection, the Ascension, the Descent of the Holy Ghost, and Christ in Glory, each with its four types surrounding it. The Resurrection is modern, and so is the Escape of the Spies and the "Majesty." Noah and his Ark is a modern copy of the one in the north choir aisle, but the rest of the panels are original.

The work seems to me fairly early in character, but it is not so well drawn as that in the north choir aisle, and there is not, to me, the same feeling for line in it. It is, however, very beautiful, and the whole window is a shimmer of iridescent colour. [Plate VI.] shows some of the scroll work that fills the spaces between the medallions.

The Becket windows.

The windows in the Trinity Chapel itself are all devoted to the tale of the posthumous miracles of the Blessed St. Thomas as related in the Chronicle of Prior Benedict, which affords a key to the pictures. The Chronicle is fascinating reading for the homely light it throws upon everyday life in England at the end of the twelfth century. By its means we can trace in the glass the story of the little boy who fell in the Medway while throwing stones at frogs, three of which, very large and green, are shown in the glass; of the workman William, who was overwhelmed by a fall of earth while digging a conduit near Gloucester; of the physician of Perigord and many others, who were one and all restored to life and health through prayer to the Blessed Martyr. There, too, is the tale of Eilward, whose eyes were put out by the magistrate for having, when drunk, broken into the house of Fulk (with whom he had quarrelled over a debt) and taken a pair of hedger's gloves and a whetstone; to whom St. Thomas, who seems to have thought the sentence excessive, appeared in a vision, and with a touch restored his eyesight. Here, too, we see the awful vengeance of the saint on the knight, Jordan Fitzeisulf, who, when his son was restored to life, meanly neglected to make the offering he had vowed at the Martyr's tomb.

Three of the windows on the north side are fairly perfect, and two on the south side contain many of their original medallions. Of those on the north, one, the sixth from the west, is the best, and might be by the same hand as the east window. An interesting point about it is the border, of which the design is identical with that of a window at Sens which also deals with the history of St. Thomas à Becket. As this window contains the story of Jordan Fitzeisulf, I shall refer to it, if I have to do so again, as the Jordan Fitzeisulf window.

The other two, the fourth and fifth from the west, are, I think, by an inferior hand, and contain, as I have said, certain features not found in the other windows, but common in later glass of the thirteenth century. One of them, the fifth from the west, is divided by the iron-work into four great circles, each of which contains four pear-shaped medallions, their points meeting in the middle. The spandrils between them are filled with scroll work on a ruby ground, not quite so good as those in the east window; but outside the large circles—and this is the important point—the ground is filled in with a regular mosaic of little pieces forming a repeat pattern as shown in [Plate VIII]. This is the only instance at Canterbury of this "mosaic diaper," as it is called, which is so common in glass a little later, and which from the fact that it could be done "by the yard," and if necessary by an apprentice, was a much cheaper method of filling in a background than by scroll work, which it soon completely superseded.

It is noticeable that it is this window which in its uppermost medallion contains the representation already mentioned of the famous shrine, from which the saint is issuing and addressing a sleeping monk, who is thought to be the Prior Benedict, the chronicler of the miracles.

In all the other medallions of the series it is the tomb of St. Thomas in the crypt, easily recognizable from the descriptions that remain, at which the sufferers pay their vows, so that it seems probable that the window was executed in, or soon after, the year 1220, in which the saint's body was removed to the shrine, but while the memory of the tomb in the crypt was still fresh.

PLATE XIII
THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT,
FROM THE SOUTH AISLE, CHARTRES CATHEDRAL
Thirteenth Century

The other, the fourth from the west, has a very remarkable peculiarity, very seldom met with in glass of the Early Period at all. The blue background to the figures in the medallions, which is of a paler and poorer quality than in the other windows, is covered all over with a thin "matt" of enamel, from which a delicate diaper pattern has been scratched out. Presumably the artist had for some reason been unable to get any more of the splendid deep blue glass, and used this means to give richness and texture to his background. The only other thirteenth century glass I know of in which at all the same thing has been done is at St. Urbain at Troyes, but that belongs, I believe, to quite the latter part of the century. It was a common device in the fourteenth century, but the patterns used then were of quite a different character.

Lincoln.

Except for the grisaille windows at York and Salisbury, the only other extensive remains of thirteenth century work in England are those in Lincoln Cathedral, which, however, are little more than wreckage, and consequently very difficult to date with any attempt at precision. The only window in which any of the glass is in its original position is the great rose window in the north transept, and even this, though the original design can still be made out, is much mutilated.

The lancets under the rose in the south transept and the east windows of the choir aisles contain a miscellaneous collection of medallions, separated from their surrounding ornament and glazed in with remains of thirteenth century grisaille. Other medallions, too, have been used to fill gaps in the north rose, and the south rose is filled, with the exception of one light which retains its original fourteenth century foliage pattern, with scraps of thirteenth century ornament of which the effect, with the sunlight twinkling through, is wonderfully beautiful.

The medallions are not, I think, all of one date, which is not surprising, for the filling of the windows of a big cathedral must always have taken many years. The difficulty of dating them is increased by the fact that much of the painting does not seem to have been so well "fired" as at Canterbury, and in many cases has perished altogether. This seems to have happened in recent years, for Mr. Westlake shows many details in his drawings of the glass which I cannot now distinguish. Where the painting remains we find that in a few of the medallions the drapery is drawn in the stiff manner of the twelfth and very early thirteenth century, but in most of them the later more flowing treatment prevails. In some, too, the blue of the backgrounds resembles that used at Canterbury, but in many, and notably in the north rose, it is of a purplish colour and much less agreeable. In a few it is of quite a grey blue.

Nowhere can I trace the same hand as at Canterbury, and the borders and ornament are quite different; but that the artist had access to some at least of the same designs is shown by a medallion in the south choir aisle which represents Noah receiving the Dove, and is practically a replica of the Canterbury one in [Plate IV.], with a boat-like hull added to the Ark. It is not, however, nearly so good. According to Mr. Westlake the work at Lincoln strongly resembles that at Bourges, and to me it has something in common with that in the Sainte Chapelle at Paris.

Lincoln Cathedral was not finished till after St Hugh's death in 1199, so none of the glass can be older than that. On the whole, I think the bulk of the glass is a little later than any but the very last of the work at Canterbury, that it is by a different hand, and shows less taste both in colour and design. Probably it was done between 1220 and 1240.

The south rose.

I am confirmed in this view by the examination of the fragments which fill the great south rose, which consist entirely of thirteenth century ornament and most probably once formed the setting of these same medallions. A little of it is scroll work, but the greater part is "mosaic diaper" of the kind shown in [Plate VIII.], and which is so characteristic of French work after 1220, whereas we only find it beginning at Canterbury.

Some of the medallions are, however, very interesting, the best being those in which the drapery shows the earlier treatment. In the north choir aisle is a good one of the Israelites crossing a Red Sea of a fine streaky ruby, and in the south choir aisle is one of St. Thomas à Becket being conducted to Heaven by angels and carrying the damaged top of his head in his hands. By a touch of realism both parts of his head have been made of glass that has slight ruby streaks in it, giving it a gory appearance. This is the earliest example I know of the deliberate use of an accident of colouring in the glass to produce a realistic effect.

PLATE XIV
WORK OF CLEMENT OF CHARTRES IN ROUEN CATHEDRAL
Late Thirteenth Century