Quarries._--The "bulged" quarries disappear by the middle of the
fourteenth century and the ordinary straight-sided, diamond-shaped
quarry is henceforth the rule. By the end of the century the
continuous flowing pattern running through them is abandoned also.
There had been a tendency towards the end, as may be seen in Plate
XXVI., for the pattern to be so disposed that a flower, or other
feature, was repeated in the middle of each quarry--in a transitional
window at York, which I have referred to elsewhere, there is a
continuous pattern with a bird in the centre of each quarry perching
upon a branch of it. In the fifteenth century the connecting pattern
was left out, and quarries are decorated solely by a little device in
the centre of each. Sometimes these are purely conventional, but often
they are the occasion for delightful exercise of fancy on the artist's
part and form an exception to the general rule of the disuse of
natural ornament. Birds, insects, flowers, and leaves are used, as
well as heraldic devices and monograms, all expressed very simply in
firm pure line work touched with the yellow stain.
[Sidenote: The change in material.]
[Sidenote: Flashed ruby.]
(6) _The Material used._--At the beginning of the fifteenth century
there is a very marked change in the material used. It becomes thinner
and flatter--sometimes very thin indeed--and the colour is more even.
Thirteenth century "ruby," seen edgeways, reveals itself as composed,
for nearly, if not quite, half its thickness, of alternate minute
layers of red and white, the rest of the thickness being white. It has
been thought that to this is due the wonderful luminous quality of
the early ruby. Gradually the number of these layers are reduced till
at the beginning of the fifteenth century the red is all concentrated
into one layer on the surface. This is the "flashed" glass referred to
at the beginning of the book, and one soon begins to find instances of
ornament chipped out of it. The lion on the red shield in Plate XXXVI.
has, I think, been got in this way, and a later instance may be seen
in Plate L. in the girdle of the prophet Hosea on the right.
[Illustration: PLATE XLII
HEAD, FROM ST. MICHAEL'S, SPURRIERGATE, YORK
Fifteenth Century]
The rich blues of earlier times are replaced by a more sober greyish
blue, which, however, is a very effective colour in glass. The colours
are not perfectly flat tints, for there are gradations in them, but
the streaky, crumbly quality of the early glass is gone. The craftsman
was beginning to rely for quality less on the glass itself than on
what he put on it.
XIV
FIFTEENTH CENTURY GLASS AT YORK
The very well-defined and distinctive style I have described, which
became universal in English fifteenth century work, and which, from
the architecture with which it is associated, we call Perpendicular,
was not, I think, evolved by the Winchester School, although no doubt
they influenced it. Where it began must always be something of a
mystery, but some work in the east window of Exeter Cathedral is very
suggestive in this connection.
[Sidenote: Lyen's work at Exeter.]
This window, glazed originally at the beginning of the fourteenth
century, was enlarged and rebuilt with Perpendicular tracery in
1390-91 through the munificence of one of the canons, Henry Blakeborn;
and in 1392 Robert Lyen, glazier, citizen of Exeter, and master
glazier to the Cathedral, was commissioned to adapt the old glass to
its new setting, adding what was necessary of his own work to fill
the space. Robert Lyen's work is easily to be distinguished from the
earlier work (which, besides that of 1302, includes four figures of
about 1340-50, which he may have brought from other windows to fill up
with). It consists of six figures, of which only three are under
canopies of Lyen's time, and of a row, across the bottom, of short
double-arched canopies enclosing coats of arms of past bishops of
Exeter. The drawing is about equal to that of the Winchester School,
but the canopies, with their multitude of crocketted pinnacles in
strong outline, are far nearer to the regular Perpendicular type, such
as we find at York, than anything that was being done by the
Winchester School at that date.
Was the work of Robert Lyen an example of a style which had become
general throughout the west, and of which the influence extended as
far as Coventry? For in 1405 John Thornton of Coventry was
commissioned to fill with stained glass the huge east windows of the
new choir of York Minster, and this is the earliest existing window,
of which the date is known, in which the Perpendicular style in glass
has taken definite form.
[Illustration: PLATE XLIII
HEAD, FROM ST. MICHAEL'S, SPURRIERGATE, YORK
Fifteenth Century]
[Sidenote: The east window of York Minster.]
This great window is the glory of English stained glass. It is 78
feet high from top to bottom, and below the great mass of
Perpendicular tracery, which fills the mighty pointed arch of it,
there are the three tiers of lower lights divided by horizontal
transoms, with nine lights in every tier. Each of these lights
measures 3 feet 6 inches across, and is divided again by the thick
iron frame-bars into roughly square panels, each of which contains a
subject from the Bible. The canopy work which, in the hands of a
fourteenth century artist, would have filled half the window space
with its towering spires, is here reduced to a small many-pinnacled
canopy just filling the head of each light (where it would have been
an awkward shape for a subject), a narrow shafting forming a border
down the side, and a very shallow flat arch dividing each subject from
the one above. There has been no question here of eking out a poverty
of ideas; on the contrary, the artist's aim seems rather to have been
to get as much space as possible for the expression of them.
There are one hundred and seventeen of these subject panels. Thornton
would seem to have begun at the top with the idea of telling the whole
story of the Old Testament, or perhaps that of the entire Bible, but
by the time he had finished the upper tier, which contains three rows
of panels, as compared with five in each tier below, and carried the
story as far as the death of Absalom, he, or more probably his
clients, seem to have changed their minds, for the rest of the window,
with the exception of the bottom row panels, is devoted to the
illustration of the Apocalypse, beginning with the torture of St. John
under Domitian and his banishment to Patmos.
John Thornton was a greater draughtsman than Thomas of Winchester, and
the portrayal of these scenes is far in advance, from the pictorial
point of view, of anything that had been done in glass up to that
time. Here again one feels, as in the best days of the Early Period,
that one can take pleasure in the actual technique of the painting,
but it is a different technique to that of the Early Period. The line
work is still wonderfully precise and expressive, but it is more
delicate than before, and is helped by delicate modelling in "matt
shading," while the drawing itself is in a much more modern
convention. It is, indeed, the first example in stained glass of a
style of drawing which was to hold the field in England till nearly
the end of the century, and to John Thornton is due, probably, the
credit of its introduction.
[Sidenote: Its colouring.]
As a colourist, however, John Thornton is even greater. This window
stands almost alone in England, if not in Europe, for the way in which
colour is made use of as a means of expression. Elsewhere in York the
successors of John Thornton seem to have been content with a merely
decorative distribution of red, blue, and silver stain in their
subjects, but here each scene has its appropriate colour scheme, the
creation of fishes, for instance, being a lovely harmony of blue and
silvery white, while the scenes in Eden are a glory of spring-like
greens and gold.
[Sidenote: Its construction.]
The necessary element of strength in the construction of this huge
window, which, at Gloucester was, as we have seen, obtained by
building the whole window on the plan of a bow, is here provided by
doubling the mullions below the second transom. An inner set has been
constructed between three and four feet on the inside of those which
sustain the glass, being connected with them by little flying arches
and so acting as buttresses to them. This double set of mullions
carries a gallery along its top at the level of the upper transom,
while another runs across the base of the window, and from these it is
possible to study the upper and lower tiers of lights at close
quarters. Unfortunately access to these galleries is nowadays only
granted as a great favour, but for those that can obtain it, it is
well worth the trouble, for it is only from this position that the
pages of this vast picture-book can be studied, and its story
unravelled. Indeed I think the only adverse criticism that can be made
of John Thornton's work is to question the artistic wisdom of putting
so much beautiful work, on such a small scale,--for the delicate
drawing and finish of the work is wonderful,--in a position in which
it was invisible to the ordinary observer below. Perhaps John Thornton
did not realize how small his panels would look,--panels three and a
half feet square seem a fair size when you are working at them,--and
no doubt access to the galleries was freer then than now; but a
thirteenth century artist would not have made the mistake.[16]
[Illustration: PLATE XLIV
HEAD OF AN ARCHBISHOP, CANTERBURY
Fifteenth Century]
Yet the architectural effect of the whole is little, if at all, the
worse for it. The smallness of the panels only increases one's sense
of the size of the window and gives the glass a jewel-like quality. It
is all a twinkle of beautiful colour. Neither have the repairs
effected by the eighteenth century glaziers hurt it much--pieces
of clear coloured glass put in to fill up holes, and on which the
glazier has usually scratched his name and the date with his diamond.
Rather, I think, these tiny touches of pure colour (for they used
quite a good blue) add to it and give it a quality.
What does detract from its beauty is the dirty quarry glazing which
has been put outside it to protect it. Beautiful as the window still
is, quite a third of its beauty of light and colour has been
sacrificed by this means.
[Sidenote: A transitional window.]
There is some glass in the Lady Chapel which seems older than the east
window. I have already alluded to the third window from the east in
the south aisle which represents a stage of development corresponding
to the earlier work of the Winchester School in the west window of
Winchester Cathedral and the east windows of New College antechapel.
The three lights contain three figures, St. Edward the Confessor
between St. James and St. John the Evangelist, unless the former
figure is also St. John appearing to the king as a pilgrim, as in the
well-known story. Below are small scenes of the Massacre of the
Innocents, Christ among the Doctors, and the Baptism in Jordan. The
figures still have something of the S-like curve of the fourteenth
century, but the canopies are white and of the transitional type.
Perhaps the most interesting things in the window are the quarry
panels at the bottom, which have a continuous flowing pattern of oak
foliage running through the quarries, but with birds perching on it,
so arranged that a bird comes in the centre of each quarry.
[Sidenote: Thornton's successors.]
There is some similar glass to this in the clerestory, but, with this
exception and that of a fourteenth century window in the south aisle
which has evidently been moved from the nave, the rest of the glass in
the choir and Lady Chapel is the work of the school which was either
founded by John Thornton at York, or at least profoundly influenced by
him. It seems probable to me that it was in their work, which is found
not only in the Cathedral but also in most of the parish churches of
York, that the Perpendicular style in glass finally crystallized into
the form which, with minor local differences, became universal
throughout England.
Details from their work may be seen in Plates XXXIV.-XLIII. In one
respect, namely in colour, they did not, as I have said, follow John
Thornton, limiting themselves, for some reason unknown, very much to
ruby, blue, and yellow stain. Plate XXXVIII. is a good instance of
their method (the background of Plate XXXVI., it must be remembered,
is modern). The blue is of a greyish quality, quite different from
that of early times, but pleasant, and with a good deal of variety in
it; a blue-black was sometimes used, as in Plate XXXVII., for monks'
dresses.
[Sidenote: A Jesse Tree.]
The only exception to this rule is a window in the south aisle of the
Cathedral choir, which contains parts of a Jesse Tree, in which the
blue is combined with some very beautiful rich dark greens and a
strong orange stain. Mr. Westlake thinks the glass is not York work at
all. To me it seems not quite impossible that it is the work of John
Thornton himself, the use of the deep orange stain in the east window
being very similar. There is, however, no certainty of his authorship
of any existing window but the east window. The glass in the Guildhall
of Coventry is sometimes claimed for him, but I do not know of any
evidence for it, and as it contains a portrait of Henry VI. as a grown
man it can hardly be much earlier than 1440, thirty-five years later
than the east window at York.
[Sidenote: The St. William and St. Cuthbert windows.]
Next to the great east window, the most important windows in the choir
are those which fill the two choir-transepts, and which tell the
histories respectively of St. William of York and St. Cuthbert. They
are only five lights wide, but extend upwards to the full height of
the church, and have double tracery and galleries like the east
window. Except for their prevailing red and blue colouring, their
general design resembles that of the east window, the whole window
being divided, in the same way, into a series of small square subject
panels with a short many-pinnacled canopy just filling the head of
each light. The St. Cuthbert window, however, has, in addition, a
life-size figure of the saint, which occupies two panels in the middle
of the window. The two windows are evidently by the same hand, but the
northern or St. William window is a good deal the older, having been
presented, as it would seem from the portraits it contains, by Baron
Ros of Hamlake about 1420, while the St. Cuthbert window cannot have
been given till after 1426, and probably not till 1430 or later. No
doubt, however, the execution of the first window would occupy a large
part of the intervening time. Of the two, I rather prefer the effect
of the St. William window, to which the larger amount of dark blue in
the monks' dresses gives greater depth and richness, but the St.
Cuthbert window shows perhaps more accomplishment in drawing. It is a
fascinating occupation on a bright day to trace, with the aid of a
strong field-glass, the stories unfolded in these rows upon rows of
pictures in glass, to which a key may be found in monographs on the
two windows, by the Rev. J. T. Fowler and his brother, published in
the _Yorkshire Archæological Journal_, vols, iii.-iv.
[Illustration: PLATE XLV
HEAD OF PATRIARCH, FROM WINDOW IN SOUTH AISLE OF NAVE, ST. PATRICE,
ROUEN
Fifteenth Century]
[Sidenote: St. Martin's, Coney Street.]
[Sidenote: All Saints', North Street.]
More easily studied, because nearer to the eye, are the windows, again
by the same hand, in the churches of St. Martin's, Coney Street, and
All Saints', North Street. The former has a large west window
containing a life-size figure of St. Martin, surrounded by small
scenes from his life, the gift of a former vicar, Robert Semer, who
has most obligingly recorded the date--1437--in an inscription. This
would probably make it just a little later than the St. Cuthbert
window, which its arrangement resembles. The glass at All Saints' is
particularly interesting. The east window has three lights with large
figures under canopies of the type shown in Plates XXXIV. and XXXV.,
which, though elaborate enough, have none of the unwieldiness of the
fourteenth century type and are properly subordinate to the figures.
These are St. Peter and St. Christopher (always a favourite subject
in England), and, between them, St. Anne, teaching the Virgin to read.
This last is a very beautiful group; the Virgin, a graceful girlish
figure in white and yellow stain, with a wreath of white flowers round
her head, is pointing with a short stick to the letters in a book held
by her mother, who wears a deep ruby mantle over a blue dress, and a
most curious red turban-like headdress[17] with ermine stripes, which
is one of the most striking things in the window.
Below are the donors, Nicholas Blackburn, twice Mayor of York, and his
wife Margaret (Plate XXXVI.), facing his son, also named Nicholas, and
his wife, also named Margaret. The window has unfortunately been a
good deal restored, and the background to the Blackburns is modern and
was, I should think, originally blue. Modern, too, is the vivid green
of the younger Nicholas's cloak. Margaret Blackburn, the elder,
carries a book with the words, "Domine, labia mea aperies et os meum."
The same verse occurs also, if I remember right, in a lady's hand at
Selby Abbey. Were Yorkshire women, one wonders, so very silent?
Some of those in the north aisle are designed on the same plan as the
St. William and St. Cuthbert windows, small subject panels arranged in
rows. One shows the Six Corporal Acts of Mercy--Feeding the Hungry,
Giving Drink to the Thirsty, Receiving Strangers, Clothing the Naked,
Visiting the Sick, and Visiting the Prisoners. The little scenes are
full of verve and "go," the fifteenth century artist having regained
much of the life and vigour which makes the medallions of the Early
Period so delightful, with an even greater power of expression. Plate
XXXIX. represents the Merciful Man visiting the prisoners in the
stocks. I wish Mr. Saint could have found time to have copied the
whole of the scene, of which the humour is, I feel sure, not
unconscious. Plates XXXVII. and XXXVIII. are from the bottom of this
window, and show the donor and his wife with the priest saying mass
for them.
Another window illustrates in a number of scenes the Last Fifteen Days
of the World, as described in Richard Rolle's _Pricke of Conscience_,
and is well calculated to make the evil-doer take thought and mend his
ways.
[Illustration: PLATE XLVI
HEAD OF ST. CATHERINE, FROM WINDOW ABOVE ALTAR IN NORTH-WEST CORNER
OF ST. VINCENT'S, ROUEN
Fifteenth Century]
Through the energy of the present rector, a full and careful catalogue
and description of all the old glass in the church has been prepared
and published. I only wish this were done for the Cathedral and other
churches in York, which is richer, perhaps, in the quantity of its old
stained glass than any other city in the world.
FOOTNOTES:
[16] Perhaps it is unfair to blame Thornton, for in the contract he
undertakes to work "secundum ordinationem Decani et Capituli."
[17] This is thought by some to be a piece of something else inserted
here, but its effect on the design is very happy.
XV
FIFTEENTH CENTURY GLASS IN FRANCE
[Sidenote: The influence of pictorial art.]
The French school, when it revived in the second half of the fifteenth
century, came, as I have said, almost at once, and far earlier than
the English school, under the influence of the schools of painting
which had been developed in the Netherlands (where the Van Eycks were
working as early as 1420), and also, to an extent which has only been
realized comparatively recently, in France itself.
There was both advantage and disadvantage in this. The drawing of the
French is generally a little better than our own, and there is more
variety and enterprise in their colour schemes than in our later
Perpendicular work. On the other hand, it seems to me that almost from
the beginning they were hampered, if ever so little at first, by the
desire to apply to glasswork the standards of a different medium.
The difficulty had not arisen before. The illumination or wall
painting of the thirteenth and early fourteenth century in England and
the north of France could be translated into glass with little change,
but, in the fifteenth century, the painters of illuminations and panel
pictures had learnt all sorts of things about light and shade and
landscape and flesh painting that did not come at all easily to the
worker in glass and lead, and were of no help to him in his task of
beautifying windows. It was inevitable that he should make some
attempt to follow in the cry, and the extent to which he succeeded is
amazing; but from henceforth, even where he most succeeds, it is to
some extent by a _tour de force_, by a compromise between
incompatibilities.
[Illustration: PLATE XLVII
DRAPERY FROM SLEEVE OF VIRGIN, FROM WEST END OF ST. VINCENT'S, ROUEN
Fifteenth Century]
[Sidenote: Early fifteenth century work.]
For the first part of the century, as I have said, the number of
windows produced in France seems to have been few. Such events as the
disaster of Agincourt, the conquest of France by Henry V., and its
deliverance by Joan of Arc can have left little money or thought for
stained-glass windows. The names of the _maîtres verriers_ of the
cathedrals show that all through the time there were men who
carried on the tradition, but their output seems to have been small.
What windows they have left us do not show the same complete change
from the work of the previous century that we find in England; the
style did not as in England crystallize into a definite form, but
remained as a transitional style between that of the fourteenth and
late fifteenth centuries. In its general outlines the design did not
at first differ greatly from that of the fourteenth century, but, as
in England, the white canopy touched with stain took the place of all
others, and there was a general increase in the amount of white in
windows. In detail, however, the canopy altered slowly, and it was
never as in England reduced to an almost flat pattern by the use of
strong line work, but persisted in the attempt to imitate solid
stone-work.
It is not till the second half of the century, when the wars were
over, and France had settled down to quiet reconstruction under Louis
XI., that we find any great revival of the art, and then it is very
different to contemporary work in England.
[Sidenote: Evreux.]
There is a good deal of fifteenth century work still remaining at
Rouen, though there seems to be a gap in the list of _maîtres
verriers_ to the Cathedral from 1386 to 1426. It was during this gap,
however, in the year 1400, that a window, which still remains, was
placed in the clerestory of the Cathedral at Evreux. The general plan
of this window is that of those later fourteenth century windows in
which the whole light was filled with towering canopy work. The canopy
differs only slightly in detail from the late fourteenth century type,
though there is a more decided attempt at perspective in it, but, like
the English work of the time, it is all white, touched with stain, and
the general effect of the window is much whiter than that of earlier
work. The drawing of the figures, which represent the donor, Bishop
Guillaume de Cantier, presented to the Virgin by St. Catherine, does
not show any very great change from late fourteenth century work.
[Sidenote: St. Ouen at Rouen.]