earliest in which the design of the Second Period has taken a definite
and typical form. Antony à Wood, in his catalogue of Fellows, says
that the donor, Henry de Mamesfield or Mannesfield, whose portrait is
in the windows, caused them to be made in 1283, but in view of an
order in the Bursar's Rolls of 1292 for stone for building these
windows, this date must be rejected. Antony à Wood's statement
elsewhere that the _whole_ chapel was pulled down and rebuilt in 1424
shows he is not altogether to be relied on. The presence of the
fleur-de-lis with the castle of Castile in some of the borders makes
it probable[12] that they were done after Edward I.'s second marriage
with Margaret of France in 1299, while the arms of an Heir-Apparent as
well as of a King of England in the east window makes it certain that
they were executed while Edward I. and his son were both alive, _i.e._
before 1307. On the whole, and by comparison with the York glass, I
should think 1303-1305 a not improbable date for them.
[Sidenote: The east window.]
There are seven windows on each side and a great east window, and,
with the exception of the latter, they are still fairly perfect. Of
the east window it is only the beautiful "wheel" tracery which retains
its original glass, the lower lights, alas! having been destroyed in
1702 to make room for a monstrosity by one Pryce--a horrible blare of
yellow. What remains in the tracery has a more transitional character
than the other windows, and was probably executed first, and if only
the lower lights had remained they might have thrown an interesting
light on the development of the style.
The three trefoils in the centre of the wheel contain three coats of
arms--the short triangular shields of the thirteenth century, of which
the first is that of Edward I., the leopards of England; the second
the same with a label of five points azure for his son, afterwards
Edward II.; and the third that of Walter de Merton, the founder of the
college. For the most part the other lights contain ornament that is
wholly fourteenth century in character, but the quatrefoil on each
side has a feature which shows the early date of the window. In these
two small figures representing the Annunciation, though themselves in
the style and colouring of the early fourteenth century, are placed
directly on a background of red and blue mosaic diaper, such as one
finds again and again in thirteenth century work in France, and among
the fragments in the South Rose at Lincoln. I have often thought that
thirteenth century glaziers sometimes kept this mosaic filling in
stock, and perhaps the artist of Merton had some left on his hands and
used it up here. In any case it would seem to show that the style in
which he was working was fairly new to his workshop.
[Sidenote: The side windows.]
The fourteen side windows are designed on a plan which is typical of
fourteenth century work both in England and in France, especially
Normandy. The sections into which the glazing is divided by the heavy
iron frame-bars are taken as the units of the design. One in each
light is filled with a coloured panel--a figure under a canopy--and
the rest with grisaille having a coloured boss in the centre of each,
the whole being surrounded by a coloured border. The effect is that of
a range of greenish-white windows just dotted and edged with colour,
and with a single broad band of colour running horizontally through
them all. This plan is common in all early fourteenth century work,
especially in England and Normandy. Evreux is another example, York
nave another, but with two rows of coloured panels, and the window
from Rouen in Plate XXV. is only an elaboration of it forty years
later. At Merton College, however, the canopy has not yet run mad, but
is of modest proportions, figure and canopy together only occupying
one section of glazing.
The grisaille itself is for the most part of "bulged" quarries curving
round the central bosses, but two on each side have true quarries. All
have the trellis pattern formed by doubling the lead with a painted
line and a continuous flowing pattern of foliage--vine, oak, ivy, and
fig--spreading through it over the window from a central stem. Plate
XXVI. is a later example of the same thing, but with the addition of
silver stain, which is nowhere found in the Merton windows.
The borders, when not formed of castle and fleur-de-lis, are of a kind
found in the Chapter-House at York, and common in other fourteenth
century windows--leaves white or yellow, branching at intervals from a
straight or wavy stem on a coloured ground. There is not much variety
in the coloured bosses, which all consist either of a simple
four-leaved pattern or of a small head in white on a coloured disc.
There are, I think, only four different designs of these
heads--Christ, an old man, a king, and a queen continually repeated.
[Sidenote: Poverty of ideas.]
The most woeful poverty of ideas is, however, found in the figures
under the canopies. There are fourteen windows of three lights each,
with a figure in each,--forty-two in all,--yet the designer could
think of nothing better to do than to put an apostle in the centre
light of each window, repeating two apostles to make them go round,
and in every window but two a kneeling figure of the donor--"Magister
Enricus de Mamesfield"--in the light on each side. Thus the proud and
happy Master Henry might see himself reproduced no less than
four-and-twenty times, in robes of red, white, brown or blue, wide
sleeved robes with a hood, doubtless the M.A.'s gown of the period.
Neither are the apostles very interestingly treated. They are almost
repetitions of each other, standing in the same conventional pose and
distinguished only by their attributes. The backgrounds of the figures
are diapered with enamel in the usual fourteenth century way.
In point of development these windows come between the Chapter-House
and the earliest nave windows at York, and correspond with the
earliest work at Evreux, being the earliest windows in which the style
of the Second Period has taken final and definite form. They are not
without their beauty, but in looking at them one wonders what has
become of the spirit that created the windows of Canterbury, Chartres,
and Bourges.
[Sidenote: Exeter east window.]
Of the same stage of development as the Merton windows are the
earliest of the figures remaining in the east window of Exeter
Cathedral. Although this window was rebuilt and enlarged in 1390, the
original glass was, it is known, used again and eked out with new.
There is an entry in the Fabric Rolls of 1301-1302 for 1271 feet of
glass at 5½d. per foot, "ad summas fenestras frontis novi
operis"--which seems to mean the east end of the choir, and two years
later a payment to Master Walter the glazier for fixing the glass
"summi gabuli," but no further light is thrown on its origin. Later
on, however, in the roll for 1317-1318, there is an entry for glass,
apparently for the Lady Chapel, "bought at Rouen" at the rate of 6d. a
foot for white (? grisaille) and 1s. 0d. for coloured, and from this
it has been argued that the whole of the glass up to that time was
bought from Rouen too. To me, however, the fact that Rouen is
specifically mentioned here, and nowhere else, militates against this
theory, while if the price of 5½d. a foot paid for the glass of the
east window was for finished figure work, it is far lower than that of
the Rouen glass. The figures themselves are much larger than those at
Merton College, and on the whole more interestingly treated. There are
nine of them remaining: three patriarchs; three apostles--St. Peter,
St. Paul, and St. Andrew; and three female saints--St. Margaret, St.
Catherine, and, I think, the Magdalen. The canopies are large in
proportion, being nearly twice the height of the figures,--an unusual
height for so early a date,--but they are not unlike the Merton
canopies in style. There is no trace of silver stain either in the
canopies or the figures.
Another fact which to some extent tells against the theory of their
Rouen origin, is that so far I have found no glass of that date at
Rouen which at all resembles them, whereas as late as 1290-1295
Clement of Chartres was, as we have seen, doing work there, which
shows little change from the style of the middle of the thirteenth
century.
[Sidenote: Grisaille at Exeter.]
There is some very interesting grisaille in two of the chapels at
Exeter, of an earlier type than that at Merton, being in fact
transitional between the style of the First and Second Periods. It has
the interlacing medallions of coloured strap work, with the painted
grisaille pattern passing behind them, but this latter, though chiefly
of the "Herba Benedicta," breaks here and there into natural leafage.
It is a slightly earlier point of development than even the
Chapter-House at York, and corresponds very closely with some at St.
Urbain at Troyes.
FOOTNOTE:
[12] This is not altogether conclusive. The fleur-de-lis and castle
had been a favourite ornament in French glass since their adoption by
St. Louis.
[Illustration: PLATE XXIX
DETAILS, FROM PLATE XXV]
X
FOURTEENTH CENTURY GLASS AT YORK
The best work of the Second Period that I know of anywhere is to be
found in York Minster. Here the new style seems to have become
engrafted on a strong local school which had preserved much of the
life and vigour of the previous age. It is true that even here one
finds a certain weakening of the religious motive, but its place seems
to be to some extent taken by a patriotic enthusiasm for a warrior
king and for the gallant nobles who followed him in the Scotch wars,
and whose arms are everywhere in the glass of the nave.
[Sidenote: Chronological order of the windows.]
The windows themselves show a steady and almost unbroken progression
in style from the late thirteenth to the early part of the fifteenth
century, which makes them most useful for study. Leaving out the
fragments of very early glass I have mentioned before, the order of
their execution seems to be--
1. The "Five Sisters."
2. Chapter-House.
3. The vestibule of the Chapter-House.
4. The clerestory of the nave.
5. The first five[1] in the north aisle of the nave (dated by
Winston 1306).
6. The first five[13] in the south aisle of the nave.
7. The sixth in the north aisle of the nave.
{The three west windows of the nave (contract 1338).
8. {The sixth in the south aisle of the nave.
{One (probably from the nave) in the south aisle of the choir.
9. The third from the east in the south side of the Lady Chapel.
10. The fifteenth century windows in the choir and Lady Chapel,
which we shall come to later.
Whatever difference of opinion there may be about the date of these
windows, I do not think this order can be disputed.
[Illustration: PLATE XXX
ANGELS IN CANOPY WORK OF PLATE XXV]
[Sidenote: The Chapter-House.]
The "Five Sisters" have already been dealt with in their place in the
First Period. Those of the Chapter-House, whether of earlier or later
date than those of the Merton College Chapel, are distinctly earlier
in style and are one of the few examples of work that is really
transitional between the First and Second Periods, belonging
almost as much to one as to the other. Unfortunately there is no
record of the building of the Chapter-House, and its date is a matter
of dispute, Drake putting it as early as the time of Archbishop Walter
Grey, who died in 1256, and Browne holding it was not finished till
nearly 1340--an impossible date for the glass. As in Merton Chapel the
presence of the fleur-de-lis as well as the castle of Castile in the
windows may mean that they are not earlier than 1299, but I do not
think they are much later. The only French work I know of which at all
corresponds to it is in St. Urbain at Troyes, which Viollet-le-Duc
dates at about 1295, and the windows from Poitiers in Plate XV.
[Sidenote: The grisaille in the Chapter-House.]
The windows are divided by the tracery into narrow lights in which a
series of coloured medallions of typical thirteenth century shape are
placed one above the other on a ground of grisaille, much as in the
window from Poitiers. It is in the grisaille itself that the
beginnings of the new style are shown, for whereas in the "Five
Sisters," which are certainly later than 1260, the pattern on the
grisaille is the conventional trefoil of the First Period--the Herba
Benedicta--and conforms to the shapes of the lead-work and of the
hollow medallions outlined in coloured bands, in the Chapter-House,
although the medallions in coloured outline are still there, the
painted pattern, as at Exeter and Troyes, runs through them
independently of them (giving them a rather meaningless appearance of
being hung in front of it), but is wholly formed of natural foliage,
oak, fig, ivy, and so on; the borders, too, are of the character of
the Second Period. Similar grisaille is found at Chartham in Kent. At
Poitiers, as may be seen in the illustration, the grisaille pattern is
still of the Herba Benedicta, with a cross-hatched ground, and the
border is of an earlier type; at St. Urbain at Troyes, as at Exeter,
both the conventional and the natural foliage are found, but on the
whole I am somewhat inclined to think that wherever the other features
of the style originated these patterns of natural foliage were first
used in England.
These windows, by the way, are in a sad state and want releading,
instead of which the authorities have contented themselves with
placing quarry glazing on the outside of them, which now that it is
dirty so darkens the old windows as to kill all light and colour in
them. When I say releading, I mean that and nothing more--_not_
"restoration," which is murder.
[Sidenote: The Chapter-House vestibule.]
The windows in the =L=-shaped vestibule, or passage, which leads to the
Chapter-House show a slight further development. Here the grisaille is
of the same character as in the Chapter-House itself, but the coloured
panels are each surmounted by a little crocketted canopy, which here
appears for the first time in York. It is found in some glass at
Selling, in Kent (which from the heraldry seems to commemorate Edward
I.'s marriage to Margaret of France in 1299), in conjunction with
grisaille in which the foliage is of the earlier conventional type,
and which therefore may, perhaps, be a little earlier than these
windows.
[Sidenote: The clerestory of the nave.]
The windows in the clerestory of the nave of York Minster are little,
I think, if at all, later than those in the Chapter-House, but it is a
little difficult to compare them as they are designed to be seen at
such a very different distance from the eye, the white parts of the
clerestory windows consisting only of interlacing bands of lead-work
without any painted pattern at all. A small inset in Plate XVIII.
shows the general arrangement of all these windows; the great wheel of
the tracery, it will be seen, is filled with colour, while the lower
lights are white with two bands of coloured panels running
horizontally through them all. Of these panels the lower row consists
of coats of arms of the great families of the North, contained in
medallions of which Plate XVI. is an example. The upper row consists
for the most part of subjects contained in somewhat similar
medallions, but many of the panels are filled with earlier glass of
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, which were doubtless preserved
from the older nave. Thus, if you let your eye run along the northern
side it will be arrested at the extreme west end of the line by a
piece of blue that is different from all the others. It is the twelfth
century blue that we have seen at St. Denis and in the west windows at
Chartres, and the panel is the portion of a Jesse Tree of the same
pattern as that which is found at both those places, and which I
mentioned when speaking of them. Portions of the foliage of the tree
are in the tracery above. I think I recognize this blue too in a panel
on the south side representing a man with a horse and cart, and
remains of early thirteenth century glass are plentiful.
[Illustration: PLATE XXXI
THE ANNUNCIATION, FROM ST. OUEN, ROUEN
Fourteenth Century]
[Sidenote: The aisles of the nave.]
Next after the clerestory, the oldest windows in the nave are the
first five from the east in each aisle. In these the style of the
Second Period is fully developed and is in no sense transitional.
They are rather more advanced in style than the Merton College windows
and are by a far finer artist, being, in fact, the finest work of the
period that I know. They seem to me all to have been executed within a
few years of each other, probably in continuous succession, and to
show the gradual development which might be expected during the
progress of the work.
Those on the north are the oldest and in the best condition, those on
the south being much broken and confused, and one, alas! "restored."
The general design is the same in all and is a typical fourteenth
century one, two horizontal bands of coloured panels surmounted by
canopies running horizontally through all the lights, separated by
panels of grisaille which have a coloured spot in the centre of each
panel. It is characteristic of the fourteenth century that the whole
of the lower panels are in nearly every window devoted to the donor,
who is thus given as much space as the subject. The grisaille is of
the same type as at Merton. As in all early fourteenth century work,
the sections divided by the heavy frame-bars are taken as the units of
the design, the coloured panels with their canopies each occupying two
sections and the grisaille panels one each. Nos. 2, 3, and 4 on the
north were probably the first executed, as they contain no trace of
yellow stain (Plate XVII.b). No. 5, from which the border of monks in
their stalls in Plate XVII.a is taken, has a single touch of it in one
place, but in No. 1 it is used, though still sparingly and
tentatively, on the beaks and claws of the eagles in the borders of
the outer lights (Plate XVII.c) and on the mail of the knights in the
border of the centre light (Plate XVIII.), and here and there in the
canopy. Another fresh development is the prolonging of the pinnacles
of the canopy into the grisaille panel above.
[Sidenote: The Peter de Dene window.]
This window, which is sometimes called the Heraldic Window, from the
number of coats of arms it contains, is the only one of them that has
hitherto been the subject of any very close study, Mr. Winston having
devoted a whole article to an extremely close and careful analysis of
its heraldry, and to an account of the life of its donor, one Peter de
Dene, whose portrait is in the central light and who was a
churchman-politician under the first two Edwards. There is no space
here to repeat his arguments, and I will only say that, after reading
them and rereading them, I find it very difficult not to accept his
conclusion that the most probable date for the window is 1306. The
subject panels represent the story of St. Catherine, but are the least
interesting part of the window, of which the most charming feature is,
perhaps, the border of the central light, which consists of miniature
portraits of kings, queens, and nobles whom the donor wished to
compliment (Plate XVIII.). The two uppermost figures are those of a
Templar and a Hospitaller; below them are the kings and queens of
England and France, in allusion to Edward I.'s second marriage, and
the recent peace concluded by it; below the Queen of France is the
Heir-Apparent of England, and the remaining figures bear the arms of
de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, Warrenne (both connected with the Royal
Family), Beauchamp, Ros, Mowbray, Clifford, and Percy. The coats of
arms which form the bosses in the white panels are those of foreign
monarchs with whom the King of England was connected. The white eagles
in the outer border are thought by Winston to refer to Piers Gaveston,
who, though somewhat under a cloud in 1306, yet, as the friend of the
heir to the throne, was a good person to keep in favour with. It is
true the Gaveston eagles were golden, but heraldry was more free and
easy then than later. There is a portrait of Prince Edward in the
Chapter-House with a white falcon on his wrist, and white falcons are
plentiful in the windows of the nave, yet I have never heard of his
using it as a badge, though the last Plantagenet, Richard II., did so.
[Sidenote: The Bell-founder's window.]
The next window to this is the famous "Bell-founder's Window," given
by Richard Tunnoc, bell-founder of York. In the lower panel of the
centre light is his portrait kneeling and presenting a model of the
window to an Archbishop, perhaps St. William. The panels on either
side represent one, the casting, the other the turning of a bell in a
lathe. Bells are everywhere in the window, the canopies are hung with
them in rows, the borders are formed of them, but Mr. Westlake's
careless remark that all six panels represent the process of
bell-making is not true. The upper three are much perished, but one
can just see that they tell the story of St. William's return to York,
when the welcoming crowds broke down Ouse Bridge, but when, through
his intercession, not a life was lost.
[Sidenote: The de la Warde window.]
The third window contains some interesting portraits in its lower
panels. The central one is that of an Archbishop of York, as shown by
the key in his left hand, holding in his right a model of the
nave[14]. On the left is a knight dismounted, holding his horse by the
bridle, and behind him the hand of some one out of the picture holds
his banner, which the painting, though almost obliterated, still shows
to be "vairé" argent and sable. In the opposite panel is a lady
standing and behind her, half out of the picture, a man on horseback,
doubtless his wife and son. Now the arms on the banner are those of
the Barons de la Warde, of whom there were only two, Robert and his
son Simon. Robert, who was in the Scotch wars, and in 1306 was steward
of the household to Edward I., must have passed the greater part of
that year in York with the King, who was there preparing for his last
expedition against Robert Bruce. He, Robert de la Warde, died next
year. His son Simon was Governor of York in 1321, and helped with his
forces to defeat Thomas of Lancaster at Boroughbridge. It will thus be
seen that the window might either have been given by the father in
1306 or the son about 1320, but since two figures are represented, and
since we know that Simon died childless (the barony becoming extinct),
it seems probable that it was executed in the father's lifetime.
Again, though 1320 would fit the Bell-founder's window, since Tunnoc
was Sheriff of York that year, it cannot be made to fit the facts in
Peter de Dene's window, which is certainly not earlier but later. The
presence of the Templar is against it, as it is unthinkable that the
Order which was suppressed in 1312 (and its grandmaster burnt) should
thus have been complimented in 1320. But for this fact I am bound to
say I should have thought 1320 the more probable.
If then we accept 1306 as the approximate date for these windows, it
will be seen that in little more than seven years a complete change
had come over the design of English stained glass, and it will
presently be seen that much the same thing was happening in France at
the same time. Indeed, one of the surprising things about mediæval art
is the rapidity with which new ideas seem to flash across Europe from
Yorkshire to Dalmatia.
The outer lights of the de la Warde window have a fascinating border
of monkeys bearing pitchers, and across the bottom of the window is a
busy scene of monkeys hunting and feasting, with a man and woman among
them.
[Sidenote: The fifth window in the north aisle.]