_Mediæval Glass and Mediæval Guilds_
‘I gaze round on the windows, pride of France!
Each the bright gift of some mechanic guild,
Who loved their city and thought gold well spent
To make her beautiful with piety.’
JAMES RUSSEL LOWELL.
‘Fine coloured windows of several works.’
FRANCIS BACON.
There are in the Cathedral one hundred and seventy-five stained-glass
lights, ‘storied windows richly dight,’ and of these almost all date
from the thirteenth century. Remembering the glass of the following
century in S. Père and the later windows of S. Aignan, we shall not care
to dispute the claim of Chartres to be the _locus classicus_ of mediæval
glass.
The three western windows of limpid blue belong, as we have said, to the
twelfth century. And we know that by the year 1220 all the great
legendary lights of the nave and all the windows of the choir, with the
exception of those given by S. Piedmont of Castile and Jeanne de
Dammartin, had been placed in the bays. Almost all the original glazing
remains. There is, of course, fine thirteenth-century glass in England,
at Canterbury for instance, and at Lincoln, whilst Salisbury and York
are scarcely to be surpassed for the pale beauty of their silvery
grisailles. But we have nothing in this country to compare in quantity,
and therefore in effect, with the gorgeous glass which illustrates the
great French churches. It is at Reims, Le Mans and Bourges, and most of
all at Chartres, that are to be found the largest and most complete and
therefore the most gorgeous galleries of the deep, rich mosaic glass of
that date. At Chartres, throughout the whole vast expanse of jewelled
lights, there is scarcely one that is not early, and there are very few
that are not of the thirteenth century.
Consider the list of them now as they have come down to us across the
ages, in spite of fires and sieges, artists and vandals, cleansing and
restoring, in spite of the winds that sweep across La Beauce and the
desire of the people to read: in spite even of the eighteenth-century
architects and their eagerness to throw daylight upon their abominable
deeds. This is the reckoning:--One hundred and twenty-four great
windows, three great roses, thirty-five lesser roses, and twelve small
ones! And in these are painted 3889 figures, including thirty-two
contemporary historical personages, a crowd of saints and prophets in
thirty-eight separate legends, and groups of tradesmen in the costumes
of their guilds. This is the national portrait gallery of mediæval
France! It is one of the most precious documents of mediæval archæology.
It is one of the most rich and poetical applications of symbolic art.
Amazing, unspeakable are the glories of this unrivalled treasure of
stained glass. ‘I gaze round on the windows, pride of France!’ Language
is futile in the presence of their rich, deep, gem-like colouring, and
the memory of them, faint though it must be, compared with the intense
impression conveyed by the immense reality, makes the tongue to falter,
the pen to fail.
‘I gaze round on the windows, pride of France!’
The building is Aladdin’s cave, and the glass a myriad jewels set in
lead lines and in tracery of stone! But metaphors are unavailing,
epithets are quite powerless to convey the beauty of the light which
pours through them. It is as marvellous, and it changes as unceasingly
as the ever-changing hues of a sunset on the western shores of Scotland,
or on the iridescent waters of the Venetian lagoons. And it is even more
brilliant than these. When the noonday sun is darting his angry rays
across the aisles, or soft rain-laden beams streak the spaces with
stripes of bloom; when the shades of evening have begun to fall, or when
the dawn is gathering strength, and is now lighting the dim distances of
the vast nave, you may sit and gaze round on those windows. You watch
the wine-red, the blood-red, the yellow and the brown of the Rose of
France and the lancet lights beneath, till the memory of all other
beauty upon earth fades in the intoxication of that stupendous
colouring. You turn at last, and, since no memory, however vivid, can
retain to the full the impression of the beauty of that glass, you are
startled into another ecstasy. For you have forgotten that there can be
other windows as beautiful. You cannot believe that there are other
colours as exquisite, until you see once more those blues and greens,
ultramarines and peacock blues and azures, and those fiery reds which
shine in upon the astonished sight from the windows of the south
transept and the aisles. And still there remain the lights of the choir
and the apse, and still the old glories, ever new, of the azure of the
western lancets, the sapphires and rubies of the western rose.
The reds, like those at Reims, are everywhere wonderful; the saffron
also and the citron yellows, the brown and the emerald green; but most
superbly beautiful of all are the blues, the lucid transparent azure of
the twelfth-century lancets, and the deep sapphire, the blue of
Poitiers, which fills the lower windows of the nave. The secret of its
manufacture is lost, but you can understand, when you behold it, how
easily that story was believed which said that in order to secure this
depth of blue the monkish glaziers used to grind sapphires to powder and
mix them with their glass. There is only one thing that can be compared
with the stained glass of the North, and that is the mosaics of the
South, of Ravenna, Palermo, San Sofia.
You ‘gaze round on those windows, the pride of France,’ and as you feast
your eyes upon the sparkling azure and the blood-red rays that stream
from the rose, you understand also how easily the lad who saw it for the
first time was led to say, when suddenly above him the organ burst forth
into music, that it seemed to him as if the window spoke!
The Cathedral offers to the student of glass a perfect model, not indeed
of detail, for upon the path which leads to the perfection of detail the
thirteenth-century glazier had still many steps to take, but of effects
in decorative colouring. In the rose you have a confused effect of
colour, in which there is not any too definite form to spoil the charm
of the broken bits of colour upon the senses. The meaning is there, too,
as we shall see, many meanings, simple and elaborate, direct and
mystical. But it is in the lancet windows of the nave that the row of
otherwise (let it be confessed) ungainly figures supplies us at once, by
means of the drapery, cloaks and borders, with that mixture of colour
and shade that makes colour beautiful, and with those broad masses of
stain combined with absolute simplicity and severity of design which
should be the ideal of the glazier. And they are not crowded with too
much story.
The lesson of the army of saints and martyrs which they represent is
printed in large type, so that it may be easily read and understood
from the distant level of the nave. Each light exhibits one enormous
figure of a saint, with features strongly marked, clad in bright robes
of blazing colour, set off by a border that is more sober in tone and
opaque. The fire dies out of these broad patches of limpid blue and
emerald green, of flaming red and saffron yellow, as they approach the
deep, cool borders of brown and black, violet and grey, mingled with
lower tones of red and green. You see, then, the object and the
successful result of these bold designs of huge saints. The mediæval
glaziers had considered the position which their glass was to occupy in
the Cathedral. They did not merely design it with a view to its being
effective in the studio. There is another point to be noted. Working, as
they did, with small fragments of the precious glass as it came out of
the melting-pot, and binding each fragment in lines of lead till the
whole formed a pattern or drawing in a leaden framework, they were able
to watch and test their work in its progress. Thus, watching and
testing, they were able also to arrange for the proper mingling of the
rays diffused on all sides by each piece of the mosaic. They did not aim
so much at painting a good preliminary design upon paper as at producing
a fine effect of colour in glass. When in succeeding centuries painters
invaded the realms of glass they would appear to have ignored the
obvious requirements of the new medium in which they were to work.
Experimentally and intuitively the mediæval glazier, on the other hand,
must have studied the whole question of radiation as it affected his
task. And the result is, that for the most superb effects of stained
glass we have to go, not to the pictures burnt on the large sheets of
glass by famous painters, but to the designs of the thirteenth-century
anonymous monkish craftsmen. In the matter of stained glass the latter
had this advantage also in their favour. They had to work with a
material which, being less scientifically compounded, was artistically
immensely superior. In the manufacture of the old pot-metal something
was left to Nature, much, that is to say, to accident. The colour, in
other words, was not so evenly and exactly spread as by more modern
processes. Being more unevenly distributed, it would frequently tone off
at the edges, and the rays diffused from it would mingle in a softer
harmony with those of the neighbouring coloured fragments. And greater
variety was obtained, because a chemically imperfect process never gives
two batches of glass from the pot quite alike. In early work, again, the
fact that large pieces of glass could not be made was also on the side
of the craftsmen. Perfect colour is the product of varied colours; the
multiplicity of small pieces of glass set in deep black lines of lead
yielded a result of rich, deep colouring, which is in the nature of
things not to be obtained from one large sheet, however fine.
But though the palette of the early glazier was so rich in quality with
those splendid reds and ineffable blues, the secret of which has long
been lost, and other primary colours, it was poor in extent. To this
poverty must be ascribed the curious colouring of many details. Beards
are often painted blue, and faces usually brown. Some shade of a rich
purplish brown was in fact the ordinary flesh tint of the early glazier.
In the window of the north transept, where S. Anne is portrayed, we have
a very striking example of this. The brown face of S. Anne is there so
large (it must be at least 2 feet in length), that the craftsman has
been able to glaze it in several pieces. The eyes are of white, and so
strongly leaded that they seem to stare out of the picture.
The sunburnt effect of their brown visages only accentuates the Oriental
aspect of many of these glass figures. As at Bourges, so here, the
influence of the East is plainly visible, not only in the hieratic type
of the personages and their sumptuous apparel, but also and still more
undoubtedly in the mosaic borders by which they and the medallions
beneath are framed. The tones are rich and soft as those of a Persian
rug; the patterns and devices are clearly related to those in Byzantine
ivories and enamels. Nor will the simile I have used seem inept when it
is remembered that at this very time imitations of the Persian rugs
brought home by the Crusaders were being deliberately manufactured in
Paris.
The enjoyment of colour is one of the finest of pleasures, but it was
not merely to give pleasure that this glass was stained, and these
figures drawn in lead. There is a reasoned aim, a definite symbolic
purpose in all mediæval art, and not least in the art of stained glass.
We have seen how the huge figures of the guardian saints in the nave are
made to stand out from their borders and tell, in spite of the height at
which they are placed, their story, plain for every eye to see. If you
now look at the windows of the lower row, of the aisles that is, you
will notice that the breadth and importance of the borders which form
the framework of the circular and quatrefoil medallions are striking.
They are not, however, intended to make the medallions stand out--if
they were, they would fail in their object--but to give the effect of an
immense blaze of subdued, indeterminate colour.
That effect is reasoned: the light in the nave is subdued for a mystic
purpose. It is not the chance result of light playing upon a fortuitous
collection of coloured fragments of glass. It is a result knowingly and
scientifically produced by the artist. The dim religious light which
fills the threshold of the temple grows less dim as it approaches the
centre of the Cross; it borrows still more transparent colours from the
painter’s palette as it circles round the choir, and in the sanctuary
gives place to the most lively and brilliant tones, which pour in from
above. ‘What poetry is there,’ exclaims M. Ferdinand de Lasteyrie,[70]
‘in this immense gamut of tones, so cleverly arrayed. It is an admirable
symbol of the light of Christianity escaping in great floods from the
summit of the Cross, but throwing a lesser brillance upon those who
stand afar off.’
To produce this striking effect the artist has availed himself of very
simple means. In the aisles the windows are cold in tone, and the
medallions,[71] as we have said, set in very broad borders. And these
borders themselves, filled with a variety of patterns and ornaments, are
composed of an infinite number of pieces of glass, mosaic work, the
leaden frames of which contribute to the desired gloom. It is a clever
application of the ‘legendary’ style, and the very choice of subjects
here is in keeping with the place they occupy. The same tones prevail in
the lofty windows of the nave, but there the figures are larger; huge
saints and tall apostles look down from their posts upon the Cross of
Christ and guard His church, S. Piat at their head; and the broad bands
of colour give more access to the light. Advancing to the centre of the
Cross, you perceive that the aisles are still plunged in a gloom, which
is rendered yet more obscure by the unlit spaces of the great transept
doors. But the roses set on high throw rainbow lights aslant the
transepts, which mingle at the entrance of the choir with the mysterious
tints of the nave, and the gallery of lights beneath these roses seem
intended to effect the needed transition between their transparent
loveliness and the opaque mass of stone beneath. In the apse, again,
with its unique double aisles and the series of chapels, which form, as
it were, the crown of thorns about the head of Christ upon the Cross,
symbolised by the Church, there reigns a luminous obscurity. Here we
have once more storied windows with medallion subjects and broad borders
of topaz, emerald and ruby, rich and deep, and warmer in tone than were
those of the nave. And in the centre of this sacred aureole of chapels
rises the sanctuary in a blaze of light, like Jesus in the midst of His
Apostles, and floods of warmly-coloured light pour down into the choir
through the huge figures which fill the windows. ‘It seems,’ says M.
Lasteyrie, ‘that the artist has borrowed a ray of light divine to
animate his work, a ray which is brilliant at first but dies away at the
entrance of the sanctuary, as if to indicate the spot in which the
Christian enters into communion with his God.’
The mediæval artist, however, was not content with a reasoned effect of
colour, however beautiful. His windows must be ‘storied’ as well as
‘richly dight.’ They must repeat in glass the lessons read to the people
by the statuary without. In those three superb twelfth-century azure
windows of the west the Tree of Jesse, the Childhood of the Saviour, and
the principal scenes of the Passion are represented. The rose above
them, with its rubies and sapphires in a deep setting of stone, tells
again the story of the Last Judgment. From the wounds of Jesus, who is
seated on a throne of clouds, flows the blood which saves or condemns
mankind. Angels, cherubim and apostles surround him. An aureole in
quatrefoil is about His head. Above shine the instruments of the
Passion, and four angels are blowing the last trump. The earth opens and
the sea gives up its dead. Emerging from their tombs, the dead look
towards the Supreme Judge. S. Michael (as on the south porch) is
weighing souls in the balance. Some are being led to Abraham’s bosom,
whilst others, dragged by demons, fall into the vivid flames of hell.
A panel under the centre circle was destroyed by a cannon ball in the
siege of 1591. It has been replaced by some fragments from another
window. The rose of the north transept is called the _Rose of France_,
because it was given to the Cathedral by S. Louis and Blanche of
Castile. The Fleurs-de-lys of France and the Castles of Castile recall
this fact when you see them repeated in their blue and gold in the
medallions and the spandrels of the window. The rose itself is not so
large as that of Notre-Dame-de-Paris, nor so delicately graceful as that
of Amiens, but, as in the case of the western rose, the boldness of the
masonry and the clear depths of the colouring lend to it a charm and
beauty all its own. It represents the _Glorification of Mary_, the
subject of the noble porch without.
In the centre, Mary seated on a throne, holds in her arms the Saviour of
the world, and receives the homage of the angels, the Kings of Judah and
the prophets, who are painted in these circles of twelve medallions. The
panels of the second circle are rectangular.
Beneath the rose are five tall pointed windows of unforgettable
splendour and extraordinary interest. King David with his harp of gold,
Solomon the monarch with the blue fleur-de-lys and Jeroboam worshipping
his calves of gold below, both stand forth from a background of purple,
prefiguring the Kingship of the Son; Aaron, the high priest, with the
rod that budded and the book of the law, wearing a curious red hat, and
beneath him Pharaoh engulfed in the Red Sea; Melchisedek, with chalice
and censer, and beneath him Nebuchadnezzar in front of the statue of
gold, silver, iron and clay, represent beforehand the Priesthood of
Christ. And all these rich Oriental figures support the enormous
brown-faced portrait of S. Anne, who sits in the central light and
carries the infant Mary.
The great white eyes of these figures seem to stare across at the rose
of the south transept opposite, which represents the fulfilment of all
that they had foreshadowed--the _Glorification of Christ_. The story is
repeated by the statuary of the south porch without. This window was
founded by Pierre Mauclerc, Count of Dreux and Duke of Bretagne, who
figures therefore with his wife and family and arms in the lower
portions of the windows below the rose.
The arms of Dreux and Bretagne also appear with fine effect in the
twelve quatrefoils of the rose, which correspond to the rectangular
panels of the windows opposite. In the centre of the rose Christ
enthroned blesses the world and holds in His left hand a large chalice.
The surrounding medallions contain eight angels censing the four beasts
and twenty-four elders before the throne, referred to in the Book of
Revelations.
As in the north transept, five large pointed windows beneath complete
the subject. The central figure is that of Christ presented to the
faithful in the Virgin’s arms, whilst on either side are the four
evangelists carried on the shoulders of the four great prophets; S.
Matthew seated on Isaiah, S. Luke on Jeremiah, S. John (beardless, as
always in mediæval portraiture, to typify his virginity) on Ezekiel, and
S. Mark on David. The strange position of these naïve evangelists is
intended to symbolise the fact that the new dispensation rests upon the
old, even as the Christian Gothic of the upper church is built upon the
Pagan Romanesque of the old basilica, the crypt beneath.
To the east, in the apse, seven great windows repeat the motive of the
Glorification of Mary, and the artists, who, throughout this Cathedral
of Notre-Dame, are never weary of portraying its patroness in every
guise and every form, at every age, and almost as of every clime,
represent her as receiving homage from the personages of the Old
Testament, and even of S. Peter.
Not the least famous, not the least fascinating of these innumerable
Madonnas, though candles are no longer burnt to her as they were of
yore, is the window--the second in the south aisle of the choir after
leaving the transept--which is known as the Notre-Dame de la belle
Verrière. She is clad in bright vestments of azure, and, like the Virgin
who appeared to the peasant girl at Lourdes, she has about her head an
aureole of blue. Deep tones of red and brown form the background of the
window from which the figure of the Madonna stands out, so that you
might almost believe that she is about to step through into the dark
aisles of the Cathedral that is hers.
This window belongs to the thirteenth century, but it is probably
modelled on an earlier one of which there is mention. Like the three
twelfth-century windows of the west, and especially the southernmost of
these three, it is strikingly Byzantine in character. The Miracle at the
Marriage of Cana and the Temptations of Christ fill the lower part of
the light.
In the case of the remaining windows the evidence of design is less
obvious than in that of the groups with which we have dealt. Much was
evidently left to the caprice of the donors, who usually chose to
represent the lives, the struggles or the martyrdoms of their patron
saints. Thus the episodes of the life of a local priest, S. Laumer, are
recorded in a series of medallions, just as one of his miracles is
related in stone in the south porch. The storied window suggests at once
practically all that we know of him. Some time in the seventh century,
it is said, he kept his father’s sheep near Chartres, but afterwards,
having learned his letters, he was ordained priest and entered a
monastery. But he longed for a life of prayer and solitude, and fled to
the forest where he hoped none would follow him. It was vain; disciples,
hearing of his sanctity and the miracles he wrought, flocked to him.
Again he fled and settled in the woods near Dreux. But his cell of green
leaves and wattles soon became the centre of a colony of monks, so that
he was fain to recognise the call of God and to build a monastery there.
Of the miracles recorded as wrought by him there is one characteristic
of his gentle individuality. During the night some robbers stole a cow
belonging to the monks. The brethren were in despair. The robbers,
however, lost their way in the tangled forest. They wandered all night
and all next day, unable to discover the road. At last, as evening
settled in, they saw the darkness of the forest lighten, and, still
driving the cow, they came out upon the clearing of the monastery. S.
Laumer himself stood before them. They fell at his feet, asking his
pardon and imploring him to direct them aright. He raised them and said,
‘I thank you, kind friends, for finding and bringing back to me my
strayed cow. You must be very tired and hungry. Follow me.’ They
followed him into his hut and he set before them such food and drink as
he had, and they ate and drank and were refreshed. Then he set them on
their right road, and they departed--but without the cow.
Or take, as another example, the third window of the north aisle where
the lesson of the life of another saint, not local, is taught in another
series of medallions, because S. Eustace was the patron saint of the
founder. In the bottom panel, Placidius, a centurion of the guard in
Trajan’s day, appears hunting a stag. A miracle is wrought which brings
about the conversion of the Pagan hunter. For a cross of light shines
between the horns of the fugitive. Overwhelmed by the sight of this
prodigy, Placidius dismounts from his horse, kneels down and is
baptized. The change wrought within is described in the upper panels.
Great calamities befall him; his wife is taken from him; his children
are devoured by wild beasts. But Eustace, filled with a perfect trust in
God, bears all with Christian resignation. He retires to a distant land,
and there his virtue waxes daily until at last he is deemed worthy to
suffer martyrdom for his faith. Together with his wife he is roasted
alive in the belly of a brazen bull.
Thus in all simplicity the glaziers paint the legends which the people
have learned. They tell the story of a man’s life from his birth, and do
not even hesitate to represent his faults, because these windows were
intended to serve as an illustrated catechism for the poor and ignorant,
and the saintliness that has no touches of things human proves for
ordinary people discouraging. In the lower panels of the windows,
therefore, the early years of the saints are shown so that we may be
comforted and inspired by the knowledge that they too shared in the
weaknesses and the miseries of our nature. And above, when they have
risen superior to their trials, we see them in a halo of sanctity,
performing miracles by their faith. Frail man has shaken off this vile
earth and goes on from strength to strength, according to the simple
expression of a chronicler, until he arrives in the house of the Eternal
Father, whose glorious person dominates the whole window. As in the case
of the sculptured porches so here, when we study and admire the
conception and execution of these storied windows, the question arises,
Who was it who arranged, who was it who coloured this glorious glass?
And again the answer must be that we know not. The artists of the
twelfth century have not been careful in this matter: the object of
their fecund imagination and their exquisite workmanship has been this
only--the majestic expression of the burning faith within them.
One name only, that of Clement, the Chartrain glazier (_Clemens,
vitrearius Carnotensis_), found on a window in the Cathedral of Rouen,
has come down to us. And Clement, it is supposed, designed the window
which recounts the legend of S. Martin. That name alone survives out of
all the artists whose work has for over seven hundred years been the
admiration of all Europe!
The donors of the windows, on the other hand, shine there amid a blaze
of heraldic glory. You may still behold Louis de Poissy on his white
charger and at the head of his men, clad in full armour, setting forth
on the Crusade. Ferdinand III. of Castile also, S. Ferdinand, you may
see, wrapped in mail for the defence of the faith, and Blanche of
Castile, who so often brought her young son to Chartres and inspired him
with his so tender devotion to Notre-Dame. Pierre Mauclerc is here, that
turbulent spirit who expiated his offences against order by his immense
generosity to the Cathedral; Thibault VI., Count of Chartres, the very
valiant Crusader; Amaury de Montfort, Constable of France; Pierre de
Courtenay; Bouchard de Marly, of the noble house of Montmorency--these
and a whole gallery of other counts and barons and knights of chivalry
live on in the church which they endowed with their gold and for which
they fought with their swords.
But we have seen that this Cathedral was built not by the generosity of
the great alone. It was in every sense a popular, a national monument,
raised to the glory of God by the contributions and labour of all
classes. And if the humble donors have scarcely dared, like the great
lords, to represent themselves individually, they have fortunately not
shrunk from perpetuating, under the guise of the guilds through which
they subscribed, the record of their no less interesting personalities.
They all figure in the windows founded by their several trades; masons
and skinners, drapers and goldsmiths, bakers and armourers, butchers and
tanners, cobblers and water-carriers even, are all portrayed at work
with the simple realism of the Middle Ages.
A whole book, and a very interesting one, might be written as a
commentary on the thirty or forty trade corporations here depicted. It
would exhibit the commercial history of a mediæval shrine, the mart of
pilgrims and the _bazar_ of the devout.
All the trading corporations of the Middle Ages were close and exclusive
bodies. Admission to them was only possible by the long and narrow path
of apprenticeship. Economically, their general aim was to limit
competition by limiting the number of masters, by limiting the number of
embryo masters in the shape of apprentices whom each master in a guild
might receive. Their general result was to maintain a high standard in
the quality of the work produced, and by discouraging the modern ideal
of quantity to provide a certain and sufficient employment amongst all
those who were fortunate enough to be within the sacred circle of their
union.
An apprentice was an unmarried lad of from fifteen to twenty years of
age, bound to his master for a certain number of years by the payment of
a fixed fee and an oath. As elsewhere, so in France,[72] the master was
responsible not only for teaching the apprentice his trade, so that he
might in due course be approved a master-workman himself, but also for
his moral training. By the rules of the craft he was required to cherish
the boy ‘beneath his roof, at his board and at his hearth.’
If he did his duty, in fact, the master treated the apprentice as his
own sons and thrashed him as heartily. The apprentice frequently
returned the compliment by making him his father-in-law. Shortly before
the expiration of his apprenticeship the young craftsman was examined by
a board of _jurés_, and was called upon to give a practical exhibition
of his skill. If he succeeded in satisfying them that he could fashion a
proper doublet or bake a good loaf of bread, he was allowed to call
himself a workman, to practise his trade, and to take his share in the
management and the benefits of his guild. Those benefits often included
comprehensive schemes of charity and mutual aid. The widows and indigent
members of a corporation were provided for by funds to which all had
contributed their quota. The standard of efficiency was maintained not
only by the vigilance of the jurés, who examined each finished article
before it was offered for sale, not only by the fear of a fine which
might be inflicted for defective work, but also by the pride and sense
of honour fostered in each individual craftsman. It was lowered on the
other hand by the excessive conservatism of the guilds, who forbade any
underselling or departure from customary models, insisted on a minute
and absurd division of labour, condemned all inventions, and nipped all
developments in the bud.
Such, briefly, was the constitution of the famous mediæval guilds, such
were their faults and excellences. The record of these Cathedral windows
helps us to realise their importance in the history of Chartres, and
also enables us to imagine the state and the character of the old town’s
trade. In spite of the exactions and taxes levied by bishop and count,
chapter, monastery and viscount, the merchants of Chartres flourished
mightily in the thirteenth century, and the fairs of the town held
during the four feasts of Our Lady rivalled in importance even those of
Brie and Champagne. Chartres was one of the seventeen towns in France
where the trades were separate and distinct, and each trade had its
statutes regulated and enforced by jurés in the manner I have sketched.
She owed her commercial activity to the gatherings of pilgrims at the
shrine of Notre-Dame, and when these gatherings ceased her trade drooped
and dwindled away till once more, as in the Merovingian days, it was
confined to traffic in wool and corn.
Take first, for instance, the window which gives us the story of S.
Eustace, the third in the north aisle of the nave, and the third in the
north clerestory of the nave, with its medallions of apostles and S.
Thomas of Canterbury, that favourite saint of the Middle Ages. They were
given by the furriers and drapers, the _Bourgeois_, as they were called,
of the River, members of the renowned corporation known as the _Métier
de la Rivière_. This _métier_ included the professions of the
woollen-drapers, combers and cleaners, felt-makers and dyers.
Six jurés were elected annually by the masters of the guild, whose duty
it was to examine, and pass or reject every piece of cloth or wool-work
made at Chartres or anywhere within a radius of three leagues. Latterly
every piece approved was stamped with a leaden trademark. The trade
flourished and brought great reputation to the town from the twelfth to
the sixteenth century. But the wars with England, and plague and famine
greatly affected its prosperity. These and other causes led to its
gradual decay and final disappearance.
The tanners and cobblers who gave the third and fourth windows in the
south aisle of the nave formed one corporation, and the curriers were
for a long time included under the heading of tanners. The latter were
attracted to Chartres by the excellence and quantity of the skins to be
obtained there, and by the peculiar quality of the water of the Eure,
which, together with the bark supplied by the trees of the neighbouring
forests, was specially adapted for curing them. The tanners flourished
exceedingly, and were accustomed to celebrate with great magnificence at
the riverside Church of S. André the feast of their patron, S. Louis.
The difficulty of procuring skins and other accessories had considerably
injured them by the time of the Revolution, and their industry, like
that of the shoemakers, has to-day no more than a quite local
importance. But the river is still to some extent the scene of their
labours. For though agriculture is now the chief industry of the
department, and though the great fairs of May and September are great no
longer in comparison with their splendid past, the commerce of Chartres
is not altogether dead. There is a considerable traffic not only in corn
and wool but also in sheep and horses, and a walk along the river banks
between the Pont Neuf and the Porte Guillaume will
[Illustration:]
show you that the chief _ateliers_ of the district are the wash-houses
of the tanners and the wool-workers. Along the base of the mouldering
wall which skirts the diverted arm of the Eure lie the backs of old
houses with their adjoining tanyards. Many of them, too, are garnished
with little wooden galleries, lavatories of the town’s soiled linen.
‘These galleries are filled with washerwomen, who crane over and dip
their many-coloured rags into the yellow stream. The old patched and
interrupted wall, the ditch with its weedy edges, the spots of colour,
the white-capped laundresses in their little wooden cages--one lingers
to look at it all.’[73]
Wine was another commodity for which Chartres was once famous. The
author of the _Book of Miracles_ tells us of a troubadour who left his
companion to pursue his pilgrimage alone whilst he himself paid a
prolonged visit to a _cabaret_.
‘Car la parole et le renon
Des bons vins avoit entendu
Qui a Chartres erent vendu
Clers seins nes et delicieux.’
The monks, it seems, had not planted their vines in vain. But, alas! the
modern vintage of La Beauce cannot claim any of the epithets assigned to
it above. The _grands clos de très bon vin_ of which Souchet speaks
(1640), which cardinals had found excellent in 1506, and which were sold
with pride and profit at the _Étape-au-vin_ or the various taverns, is
but a thin and dreary liquor to-day. Either the soil has been exhausted
and the grape lost its virtue, or the taste of the former connoisseurs
was faulty. No doubt their standard of taste in wine was lower than
ours. A cup of sack, I doubt, would not prove so pleasant to the modern
palate as it is to the modern ear. But even so the vintage of La Beauce
must have suffered a sore deterioration. The flourishing condition of
the old tavern-keepers and vintners is indicated by their generous
donation of the magnificent window which records the chief events of the
life of S. Lubin (second in the north aisle of the nave).
It remains to close this chapter with a bald list of the subjects of the
windows, taken in order, starting from the western front and moving
round the Cathedral from the Clocher Neuf along the north or left-hand
side.
1. Rose Window. Last Judgment. Described above.
2, 3, 4. Below it the three twelfth-century windows, of which the one on
the south side contains twelve circular panels representing the later
events from the life of Christ (Transfiguration to Supper with Disciples
at Emmaus). The arrangement of the windows should be compared with that
of the Notre-Dame de la Belle Verrière, which, though made of
thirteenth-century glass, was copied in design from an earlier one of
which mention is made. The centre window of the three (32 feet 10
inches) contains the Virgin and Child in the head, and in twelve panels
the chief events of the Gospel story from the Annunciation to the Entry
into Jerusalem. The northern one is a Jesse window, on which the
genealogical tree of our Saviour is shown. Among the branches are the
first four Kings, then the Virgin, and Christ surrounded by the seven
gifts of the Holy Ghost. On either side of the tree are seven prophets.
_North Aisle of the Nave._
5. Story of Noah. Given by the Carpenters, Wheelwrights and Coopers.
6. Story of S. Lubin (_see_ p. 36). Given by the Tavern-keepers and
Vintners.
7. Story of S. Eustace (_see_ p. 163). Given by the Furriers and
Drapers.
8. Story of Joseph. Given by the Moneychangers and Minters.
9. Story of S. Nicholas. Given by the Grocers and Druggists.
10. _La Nouvelle Alliance._ Given by the Farriers and Blacksmiths.
(Seven panels were removed in 1816).
_Clerestory of the Nave_ (North).
11. Lancets (_a_) Temptations of Christ.
(_b_) Jonah, Daniel, Habbakkuk.
Rose (_c_) Bishop (S. Etherius?) with two suppliants at his feet.
12. Lancets (_a_) S. Laurence, as a deacon, with the
Evangelists, and below, on his gridiron.
(_b_) S. Stephen, and, below, his
Martyrdom. Also a group of Weavers.
Rose (_c_) S. Lubin, in pontifical robes on a
throne. Two Innkeepers offer him wine.
13. Lancets (_a_) Six medallions in which appear
two pairs of Apostles, and, below,
Furriers and Drapers.
(_b_) S. Nicholas, and below, Curriers and Leather-dressers.
Rose (_c_) S. Thomas of Canterbury and two
Knights invoking him.
14. Lancets (_a_) Six Apostles seated in quatrefoiled panels.
(_b_) An Apostle, and below, the Moneychangers.
Rose (_c_) The Virgin Mary holding in her
lap the seven gifts of the Holy
Ghost: Wisdom is represented
by Christ, the other gifts by
white doves with a simple
nimbus, bound to the aureole of
Christ by red rays.
15. Lancets (_a_) S. Giles in the act of blessing,
and below, celebrating Mass
before the King.
(_b_) S. George of Cappadocia in
thirteenth-century armour, and
below, nude on a wheel of swords.
Rose (_c_) S. George on horseback slaying a dragon.
16. Lancets (_a_) Christ, and below, Abraham about to sacrifice Isaac.
(_b_) The sacrifice of Isaac repeated,
and above, a bust of Christ with
the letters Alpha and Omega,
‘the beginning and the end.’
Rose (_c_) Scenes of tilling.
17. Lancets (_a_) A Martyr and S. Martin of Tours.
(_b_) S. Martin cutting his cloak and
beholding Christ in a vision.
Rose (_c_) The donors, with an inscription,
‘The men of Tours have given
these three windows.’
_North Transept_ (below the Clerestory).
18. A free version of the story of the Prodigal Son.
19. The story of S. Laurence was portrayed in this
window, but the central portion of it was removed in
1791, when the Chapel of the Transfiguration was made.
20. Removed 1791.
_North Transept, Clerestory_ (West Side).
21. Lancets (_a_) The Death, Assumption and Crowning of the Virgin.
(_b_) Angels announcing the Birth of Christ to the Shepherds, and below,
the Presentation in the Temple. Below again, and in the
Rose (_c_) Philip of France, Count of Boulogne, uncle of S. Louis, on
his knees before an altar, and on horseback.
22. Lancets (_a_) The Annunciation and the Visitation. Below, Mahaut,
Countess of Boulogne.
(_b_) S. Joachim and S. Anne visited by Angels. Their meeting at the
Golden Gate of the Temple. Below, Countess Jeanne, the donor.
Rose (_c_) The Virgin Mary.
23. Thirteenth-century grisailles, with border of the Lilies of France,
and the Castles of Castile.
24. The Rose of France, and beneath,
25, 26, 27, 28, 29. The five pointed windows described above (p. 159).
_North Transept, Clerestory_ (East Side).
30. Lancets (_a_) S. Thomas and S. Barnabas.
(_b_) S. Thomas and S. Jude, and below,
the Canon who gave the window.
(_c_) Christ seated between the sun
and the moon, and holding a
globe blazoned with the arms of Castile.
31. The Lancets of this window contain four more
Apostles, like the last, and
The Rose, a portrait of the same munificent Canon.
32. Lancets (_a_) S. Eustace and the Stag, his
Baptism, before the Idols.
Below, an Armed Knight on horseback.
(_b_) The Annunciation, Birth of Christ,
and the Adoration of the Magi.
Below, the wife of the aforesaid knight.
Rose (_c_) Christ seated.
33. The seven large windows (46 feet high) of the
choir apse repeat the story of the north rose--the
Glorification of the Virgin. In the first (north) is
34. Aaron, and an Incense-bearing Angel, with the
donor (Gaufridus) and his family. Below,
35. Ezekiel, David, and a Seraph. Below, the
Butchers.
36. Events from the Life of S. Peter. Below,
the Moneychangers.
37. The Annunciation, Visitation, Motherhood of
the Virgin. Below, the Bakers bringing bread.
38. Moses, Isaiah and Incense-bearing Angel.
Below, the Bakers.
39. Daniel, Jeremiah, a Seraph. Below, the
Drapers.
40. Scenes from the Life of S. John the Baptist.
Below, the Moneychangers.
_The Clerestory of the Choir_ (North).
41. Lancets (_a_) The Virgin enthroned, and the
escutcheon of Regnault de
Mouçon, the bishop.
(_b_) Two groups of Pilgrims, and,
below, the donor, kneeling,
Robert de Bérou, sub-deacon
and chancellor of the Cathedral.
The plain glass border was inserted 1757.
Rose (_c_) Christ seated between two three-branched
candlesticks.
42. This window was founded by S. Ferdinand,
King of Castile, who appears on horseback in the
rose. The other two lights were removed in 1788 at
the request of Bridan, in order to set off his marble
Assumption below.
43. The same fate attended the next but one,
founded by S. Louis, whose figure was allowed to
remain in the rose.
44. Lancets (_a_) S. Martin working miracles.
(_b_) S. Martin giving away his cloak,
and beholding Christ in a vision.
Below, and in the
Rose (_c_) Jean de Châtillon, the founder, on
horseback, and kneeling.
_Clerestory of the Choir_ (South).
45. The lancets were destroyed in 1773. The
founder, Amaury, Count of Montfort, remains in the
rose. He appears again in the rose of the next
window.
46. Lancets (_a_) S. Vincent, with millstone about
his neck, on the land and on
the sea. Below, the donor,
Petrus Bai....
(_b_) S. Paul. Below, the Curriers.
47. Destroyed 1788.
48. Lancets (_a_) S. John, S. James the Great, the
Adoration of the Magi. Below,
the arms of Montmorency.
(_b_) The Birth of Jesus, the Flight
into Egypt, and below, the
donors, Colin and his wife,
before a chess-board.
Rose (_c_) Robert de Beaumont on horseback.
_South Transept_ (now being restored).
49. Destroyed 1791.
50. Destroyed 1792. A border alone remains.
51. S. Apollinaris of Ravenna and Hierarchy of
Angels (1328).
_South Transept, Clerestory_ (East Side).
52. Lancets (_a_) S. Christopher, S. Nicaise and
the donor, Geoffroi Chardonnel,
Canon of Chartres.
(_b_) S. Denis presenting the oriflamme
to Henry Clément.
Rose (_c_) S. John the Baptist.
53. Lancets (_a_) S. Protais and S. Gervais.
(_b_) S. Cosmas and S. Damien. The
same donor as above, kneeling.
Rose (_c_) The Virgin Mary.
54. Lancets (_a_) (_b_) Two Prophets, and donor,
Jean de Bretagne.
Rose (_c_) The Virgin Mary.
55. The rose of the south transept and the
56, 57, 58, 59, 60. Five large pointed windows, as
described above (p. 160).
_South Transept, Clerestory_ (West Side).
61. Lancets (_a_) (_b_) Malachi and Micah, and
below, the arms of Mauclerc.
Rose (_c_) Pierre Mauclerc, the donor, on
horseback, and in full armour.
62. Lancets (_a_) Destroyed 1786. Border remains.
(_b_) S. Paul, the first hermit, and S.
Antony. Below, a Deacon
serving at an altar.
Rose (_c_) S. Ambrosius, the Archbishop (?).
63. Lancets (_a_) (_b_) S. Paul and S. Peter.
Rose (_c_) The donor, a Canon of Chartres.
_South Aisle of the Nave_ (starting from South Transept).
64. This window formerly recorded the miracles of the Virgin, wrought in
the thirteenth century. But only one out of sixteen medallions remains
complete.
_Vendôme Chapel._
(Founded 1413 by Louis de Bourbon. Two chests
contain remains of S. Piat and S. Taurin.)
65. Below, six Angels bearing the arms of Bourbon-Vendôme, and a piece
of another window representing the Death of the Virgin. Above, on left,
Jacques de Bourbon kneeling; S. Louis of France, S. Louis of Toulouse,
Louis and Jacques de Bourbon; on right, S. James, in similar company.
Above, again, the Virgin and Child, next to a lady, crowned by two
angels; S. John blessing a chalice, S. John the Baptist, with the Lamb.
In the head of the window, the Crucifixion, and, on the right, the Holy
Women; on the left, the Jewish Priests and the Centurion. Above, Christ
judging the world, between Mary and John praying, and the angels
summoning the dead, who rise from their tombs.
66. The Death, Funeral, Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin. Below,
the donors, Cobblers.
67. The Story of the Good Samaritan. Below, the Cobblers, _Sutores_.
68. The Life of S. Mary Magdalene. Below, the Water-carriers.
69. The Life of S. John the Evangelist. Below, the Armourers.
_The Nave, South Side, Clerestory._
70. Lancets (_a_) S. Symphorian and his Martyrdom.
(_b_) Mostly hidden by the organ.
Rose (_c_) S. Hilary.
71. Lancets (_a_) (_b_) Destroyed 1648.
Rose (_c_) S. Gregory the Great.
72. Lancets (_a_) S. Bartholomew and Moses.
(_b_) S. Caletric and the donors, the
Turners.
(_c_) S. Augustin.
This window also is partly hidden by the organ.
73. Lancets (_a_) S. Philip and Jeremiah.
(_b_) S. James the Less and the donor,
Gaufridus.
Rose (_c_) S. Jerome.
74. Lancets (_a_) S. Faith, and below, her Martyrdom.
(_b_) The Virgin, and below, the scene
of Christ saying, Noli me tangere
(Touch me not).
Rose (_c_) S. Solemnis, Bishop of Chartres.
75. Lancets (_a_) S. Peter, and below, the donors,
the Pastry Cooks.
(_b_) S. James.
Rose (_c_) Christ with the signs Alpha and Omega.
76. Lancets (_a_) S. Laumer, and below, his
death-bed scene.
(_b_) Meeting between S. Mary of
Egypt with Zozimus, and below,
her burial.
Rose (_c_) S. Laumer.
_The Chapels of the Ambulatory and Apse._
77. Subject unknown. Given by Geoffroi Chardonnel.
78. Life of S. Nicholas. Given by Etienne Chardonnel.
Rose, Jesus and the four beasts.
79, 80, 81, 82. Four interesting grisailles with coloured borders.
_Sacristy._
83. Grisaille, fourteenth century.
_Chapel of S. Joseph._
84. Story of S. Thomas.
85. S. Julian. Given by the Carpenters, Wheelwrights and Coopers.
86. Grisaille, picked out with colour.
_Chapel of the Sacred Heart of Mary._
87. Story of S. Savinian, S. Potentian, S. Modesta (_see_ p. 18). Given
by the Weavers.
88. Story of S. Chéron. Given by the Sculptors, Masons and
Stone-dressers.
89. Story of S. Stephen. Given by the Shoemakers.
90. Story of S. Quentin. Given by Nicolas Lescine, Canon of the
Cathedral.
91. Story of S. Theodore and S. Vincent of Saragossa. Given by the
Weavers.
_Windows between the Chapels._
92. The legend of S. Charlemagne and S. Roland, told in great detail and
with remarkable clearness, after the versions of Turpin and Vincent de
Beauvais.
93. S. James, the Apostle. Given by the Drapers and Furriers.
_Chapel of the Communion._
94. Grisaille, ornamented with arms of House of Castile.
95. Lives of S. Simon and S. Jude. Donor, Henri Noblet.
96, 97, 98. Scenes from the life of Christ, given by the Bakers. Nine of
the panels were removed in 1791, and like those of the two next windows,
which depict the incidents of the lives of S. Peter and S. Paul, they
have been very skilfully restored.
_Entrance to Chapel of S. Piat_ (_see_ p. 44).
99. Grisaille, fourteenth century. S. Piat in ecclesiastical robes.
_Chapel of the Sacred Heart of Jesus._
100. Grisaille. S. Nicholas restoring three children to life (fifteenth
century).
101. Life of S. Rémy. The donor below kneeling.
102. S. Nicholas.
103. Story of S. Marguerite and S. Catherine of Alexandria. Donors,
Marguerite de Lèves, and her husband, Guérin de Friaise, with her
brother Hugues de Meslay.
104. Life of S. Thomas of Canterbury. Given about thirty years after his
murder by the Tanners and Curriers. John of Salisbury, Bishop of
Chartres, had been the secretary of Thomas à Becket, and an eye-witness
of his murder.
_Chapel of All Saints._
105. The story of S. Martin (by Clement, the glass painter of Chartres,
whose name is recorded in a similar thirteenth-century window in Rouen
Cathedral?). Given by the Shoemakers.
106, 107. White eighteenth-century glass.
108. Fourteenth-century grisailles. The Annunciation. Two coats of arms.
Rose, Christ blessing.
109. Signs of the Zodiac and Months of the year. The life of the Virgin.
Rose, Christ crucified. Given by Thibaut VI., Count of Chartres, for
Thomas, Count of Perche, killed in the Battle of Lincoln, 1217.
110. Notre-dame de la Belle Verrière (_see_ p. 161). Above, the Virgin
(whose mouth has been skilfully restored), enthroned and crowned, with
Christ between her knees, surrounded by angels bearing candlesticks and
censers. Below, the Marriage at Cana, and the Temptation of our Saviour
in the Wilderness, on the Temple and the Mountain.
111. Scenes from the lives of S. Antony and S. Paul, the first hermit.
Given by the Basketmakers.
Rose, Virgin and Child.