Stained Glass of the Middle Ages in England and France Part 4

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 gla.s.s at Canterbury. None of the verses are identical, but the literary style is the same.

[Sidenote: 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 exact.i.tude, 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.

[Sidenote: Fragments at York.]

A few fragments in York Minster, however, show where the artists may have been occupied meantime. There are some sc.r.a.ps in the clerestory--sc.r.a.ps 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.

[Sidenote: Canterbury choir.]

Of the stained gla.s.s 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 d.i.c.k," 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 gla.s.sie bones."

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

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE IX WESTERN LANCETS AND ROSE, CHARTRES CATHEDRAL Twelfth and Thirteenth Century]

Even "Blue d.i.c.k" 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 gla.s.s 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 s.p.a.ce 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 h.o.a.rding to keep out the weather.

Since we are told that in this h.o.a.rding there were three gla.s.s 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 h.o.a.rding 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 gla.s.s itself. That in the Trinity Chapel to the east of the h.o.a.rding 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 Verriere at Chartres. As in all windows of this date, the flesh is executed in gla.s.s of a brownish-pink colour instead of white, which later on became the rule.

This ill.u.s.tration shows very well the early method of painting. Where possible, as in the rich blue of the background, the gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s, as in the case of the green cushion to the throne and the border of the tunic.

If you can imagine the gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s, 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 s.p.a.ce 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 s.p.a.ces 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 ant.i.type" window, that I shall describe it in some detail.

In each of these two windows the upper two-thirds, or thereabouts, of the gla.s.s is in its original position, while the lower panels, smashed by the pike of "Blue d.i.c.k," 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 ill.u.s.trate 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, ill.u.s.trated 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 ant.i.types known, and included not only the life of Christ but eight of His parables--for some reason a very rare subject in mediaeval gla.s.s. 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 gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s that has survived the fire.

[Sidenote: Vendome.]

Of other twelfth century work there is not much in existence. There is a Virgin and Child at Vendome which somewhat recalls Notre Dame de la Belle Verriere but has none of her grace, and I have already referred to the window at Poitiers ill.u.s.trated in Plate II.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE XI DAVID, FROM THE CLERESTORY OF THE APSE, CHARTRES CATHEDRAL Thirteenth Century]

[Sidenote: 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 ill.u.s.tration 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[6] Some critics have thought the figure merely a copy from an earlier design, but I cannot agree with them.

[7] The little piece of white with yellow stain under the right toe is, of course, a fifteenth century sc.r.a.p.

V

EARLY THIRTEENTH CENTURY GLa.s.s IN ENGLAND

(CANTERBURY AND LINCOLN)

In pa.s.sing 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.