The errand of a window seems always to have been that of beauty,
although it has more than one way of performing that service. Sometimes
it seems to have chosen the inspiring manner of recalling ancient wars,
as would appear from the "Dreme" of Chaucer:
"And sooth to sayn, my chamber was
Full well depainted, and with glass
Were all the windows well y-glazed
Full clear, and not an hole y-crazed,
That to behold it was great joy:
For wholly all the story of Troy
Was in the glazing y-wrought thus,
Of Hector, and of King Priamus;
Of Achilles, and of King Laomedon,
And eke of Medea, and of Jason;
Of Paris, Helen, and of Lavine."
Sometimes the errand is that of beauty alone, so "mystic, wonderful," as
to make it seem that magic was invoked to yield so fair a result. In
his "Earthly Paradise" Morris voices this feeling:
"Folk say, a wizard to a northern king
At Christmastide such wondrous things did show,
That through one window men beheld the spring,
And through another saw the summer glow,
And through a third the fruited vines a-row,
While still, unheard, but in its wonted way,
Piped the drear wind of that December day."
Again, the errand of the window may have been not so much that of a
story-teller, nor of a beautiful object to regale one's eyes withal, but
rather to tint and temper the illumination of some holy place like that
described in the "Lay of the Last Minstrel" (Canto XI.):
"The silver light, so pale and faint,
Show'd many a prophet and many a saint,
Whose image on the glass was dyed;
Full in the midst, his Cross of Red
Triumphant Michael brandished,
And trampled the Apostate's pride.
The moonbeam kissed the holy pane,
And threw on the pavement a bloody stain."
Beyond the enjoyment and artistic refreshment to be obtained from the
contemplation of stained glass, who shall say that we do not receive
other benefits, the nature of which are as yet undiscovered? It is only
recently that our learned brothers, the scientists, have acquainted us
with the helpful qualities of those rays of light which, in the
language of the spectrum, are "out beyond the violet." In this
connection, it may be edifying to quote from the "Anecdotes and
Traditions" of Aubrey: "The curious oriental reds, yellows, blews, and
greens in glasse-painting, especially when the sun shines, doe much
refresh the spirits. After this manner did Dr. R. revive the spirits of
a poor distracted gentleman, for whereas his former physitian shutt up
his windows and kept him in utter darknesse, he did open his window
lids, and let in the light, and filled his windows with glasses of
curious tinctures, which the distempered person would always be looking
on, and it did conduce to the quieting of his disturbed spirits."
(Aubrey in "Anecdotes and Traditions," edited for the Camden Society by
W. J. Thomas, p. 96.)
Nor is this the only _terra incognita_ still awaiting exploration.
During some recent French experiments wide differences have been
observed in the same kind of vegetable when grown under differently
coloured glass covers. However, these are matters that will not be
"dreamed of in our philosophy"--our investigations will be confined to a
geographical search for that with which to delight our eyes.
When one pauses to consider how fragile the beauty of a stained glass
window, it becomes amazing that even so much as we can now visit has
survived. Over every European country there has, at one time or
another, swept a wave of destruction engulfing things artistic. The
causes for, as well as the agents of, this iconoclasm, differ widely.
Sometimes it comes from within, and is the result of civil war or of
religious fanaticism--less often it is the result of foreign invasion.
English windows had the good fortune to escape the destruction by
foreigners which the French had to suffer during those dreadful
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries when the Hundred Years' War outlasted
its title, and when the hot-headed Plantagenet kings kept France
continually plagued with English soldiery. Although we must record this
particular immunity, other agencies equally baleful were at work. The
Puritans made a practice of smashing stained glass, either because they
regarded it as one of the hated insignia of popery (some of their
ministers even knocking out the glass in churches under their own
charge, like "Blue Dick" Culmer at Canterbury Cathedral), or for reasons
of revenge, as in the case of the troops infuriated by the death of
their leader in the assault upon Lichfield. Dwellers within the
precincts of Lincoln made a common practice of shooting with crossbows
at the windows! At Great Malvern the possible excuse of crossbow
practice is missing; the villagers quite simply amused themselves by
throwing stones at the great east window, just from the sheer joy of
destruction. In some instances, even the mitigating circumstances of
religious fanaticism, revenge, competitive sport, or even amusement are
entirely lacking. Aubrey tells us in his "History of Surrey," that "At a
later date, one Blesse was hired for half-a-crown a day to break the
painted glass windows of Croydon." Little wonder is it that the citizens
of York should have voted Fairfax, the leader of the Roundheads, a tun
of wine, &c., in reward for his protecting care of the cathedral after
he and his soldiers had captured that city.
In an earlier book ("Stained Glass Tours in France") we observed that
French windows divided themselves into periods which were practically
coterminous with the centuries, thus enabling us to designate the styles
by their century number. In England the development of this craft
brought about the style-changes at irregular dates; but here also the
steps of this development are so marked as to separate it into distinct
epochs. English glass follows its architecture so closely that one
cannot do better than to accept the period-designation of the latter,
and especially is this true during the so-called Decorated and
Perpendicular epochs. For our purpose we will therefore use the
following sub-divisions: Early English, which will include all the glass
prior to 1280; Decorated, 1280 to 1380; Perpendicular, 1380 to 1500;
Renaissance (sometimes styled sixteenth century or Cinque Cento), 1500
to 1550. There are extremely few examples of the first and of the last
schools, in marked contrast to the great wealth in France of windows
contemporary thereto. Edward I. came to the throne in 1272, and it was
during his reign that the Decorated period began, running through the
reigns of Edward II. (1307), Edward III. (1327), and Richard II.
(1377)--all of them Plantagenets. This and the succeeding period
produced very little glass anywhere in France, because of the Hundred
Years' War, begun 1337, lasting until 1447, and waged throughout the
length and breadth of the land. The exact opposite is true in England,
where during the Decorated and Perpendicular epochs it reached its
greatest importance and beauty. The Perpendicular period begins in 1380,
shortly before Richard II., the last of the Plantagenets, was succeeded
by the representatives of the rival Houses of Lancaster and York, three
Lancastrians, Henry IV., V., and VI. (1399), (1413), (1422), being
succeeded by three Yorkists, Edward IV. (1461), Edward V. (1483), and
Richard III. (1483). This Perpendicular period came to an end at just
about the same time as that tremendous civil struggle, the War of the
Roses, was concluded by the accession of the House of Tudor, in the
person of Henry VII. (1485). Our Renaissance glass period begins under
him and lasts on through practically all the reigns of the House of
Tudor--Henry VIII. (1509), Edward VI. (1547), Mary (1553), Elizabeth
(1558). At the time that the Tudors were succeeded by the Stuarts (James
I., 1603), there was hardly any English glass being manufactured, save a
little for domestic use, although many Dutch glaziers were then active
in this country, as we shall regretfully observe when we visit Oxford
and Cambridge.
It is clear from many an entry in ancient English church archives that
French glaziers were often in the early days summoned across the
Channel, and that it is to them that we owe the beginning of English
glass; but we shall see that although it owes its origin to this foreign
assistance, it developed along distinctly original lines, and that
therefore the English glaziers deserve full credit for the charming
traits peculiar to them.
Although the period styled Early English has left comparatively few
examples north of the Channel, and cannot hope to vie with the many and
rich displays of mosaic glass to be seen in France, we shall be greatly
consoled by the splendid grisaille (or uncoloured glazing) that fills
the "Five Sisters" at York, and by the remains of the great series at
Salisbury. We have just referred to the scarcity of French stained glass
during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, those sorry days during
which the English occupation of a large part of the country, repeated
plagues, and uprisings of the lower classes against the nobles (like the
Jacquerie), vied with each other in the work of devastation. Indeed, it
is not strange that any art so dependent upon the fostering care of a
luxury-loving class should have been entirely superseded by the sterner
requirements of self-defence, to say nothing of the repairs necessitated
by the ravages of war, pestilence, and famine. Those two centuries, so
dreadful to France and so discouraging to French glaziers, produced in
England the greatest flowers of this craft. It is, therefore, clear that
if one wishes to obtain a comprehensively consecutive knowledge of
stained glass on both sides of the Channel, he must leave France and
cross over to England when the thread of his studies has obtained so far
as the Decorated and the Perpendicular. When, however, he reaches the
sixteenth century he must return to France, to revel in the wealth of
Renaissance glass so wofully lacking in England.
After one has observed a sufficient number of windows to provide a basis
for comparisons, it becomes easy to tell not only the epoch to which
they belong, but also, in most instances, whether they are early or late
in that epoch. In England one is assisted by an unusual amount of
reliable information from two sources, viz., old records and heraldic
indications from the coats of arms which are so often displayed. There
is so little sixteenth century glass in this country as to give but
small opportunity to observe the characteristic Renaissance custom of
placing the dates on the picture itself, which was then common in
France. Of earlier windows, however, English records and a knowledge of
heraldry give us the dates of many more than are obtainable for their
contemporaries in France. By way of example, the original contracts date
the glass at Beauchamp Chapel, Warwick, 1447; at King's College,
Cambridge, 1527; at York, in the nave, 1338, and in the choir, 1405, &c.
A comparative and historical study of their heraldic blazons gives us a
date for many of the windows at Bristol and at Wells, and of more still
in private houses.
The duty of the glazier was to adorn the window embrasures constructed
for him by the architect, and thus assist in the decoration of the
church. It is obvious that the size and shape of these apertures must
necessarily have had considerable, if not controlling, effect upon the
styles and methods of the glazier. A glance at the conformation of these
openings often tells the sub-divisions in which its glass belongs.
During Norman times the window arch was round and the opening wide. In
the Early English style the arch at the top becomes pointed and the
embrasures narrower. When the Decorated time arrives several narrow
lights are grouped together, separated only by slender stone mullions,
and culminating under the pointed arch at the top in a group of
gracefully adjusted small apertures called tracery lights. The
Perpendicular architect did little but straighten out the lines of his
predecessors, especially in the traceries, so that they, as well as the
mullions, should produce the effect of upright parallels which gave this
type its name. In the sixteenth century the Renaissance architect
provided large windows, and the glazier filled them with great pictures
of splendid colour.
In our investigation of English glass of the Early English (or mosaic)
period, we shall often find ourselves regretting the almost entire
absence of rose windows, so frequent and splendid across the Channel,
where those great blossoms of Gothic architecture provided such glorious
opportunities for the decorating hand of the glazier. For this lack we
shall later on find ample compensation (especially during Decorated and
Perpendicular times) in the huge sheet of glass filling the great east
window of many English churches. While the southern architect decided in
favour of the rounded apse for the east end of his cathedrals, his
northern neighbour preferred a square ended one, thus permitting a fine
broad embrasure, broken only by narrow mullions, and providing a golden
chance for the glazier, which he lost no time in seizing. Therefore, if
we miss the innumerable rose windows of France, it is but fair to state
that it possesses nothing that can vie with the great expanse of glowing
colour found at the east end of York or Gloucester or Malvern.
It is clear that the glass artist, whatever his nationality, had at
all times to take heed of the architecture which provided the setting
for his glass, and which his work was to help decorate. It is but
natural, therefore, that his designs should have been influenced by
the prevailing architectural style, and this was particularly true
in England during the prevalence of both the Decorated and the
Perpendicular schools. When the time arrived to change from the mosaic
method of constructing stained glass, the whole effort of the Englishman
seemed to have been devoted to making his new product conform to the new
Decorated style of building. Not so his neighbour across the Channel,
for there everything was then being sacrificed to the demand for better
lighted interiors, even to the extent of filling much of his embrasures
with grisaille, and using deep colour only in the borders or in bands of
canopy-framed figures across parts of the windows (Sees, Evreux). The
need for more illumination did not exist in England, for in that land of
cloudy skies and infrequent sunshine they had already realised how
greatly mosaic medallion glass obscured the light, and, therefore, had
early struck out for themselves, and developed an admirable use of
grisaille, as one may see at York and Salisbury. They had already solved
the problem of better illumination, and were that much ahead of their
French neighbours. In France, because of light-admitting grisaille then
demanded (either alone or in conjunction with the early canopies), the
fourteenth century window gives a lighter effect than when later on, in
the fifteenth century, the artist dispensed with the grisaille, enlarged
his canopy completely to fill its lancet, and, thanks to the development
of coated glass--_i.e._, several layers of different colours permitting,
in combination, a wide range of hues--introduced more varied and richer
colouring in both figures and costumes. In England, however, where
light-admitting grisaille had already been freely used during the mosaic
period, and the glazier began the fourteenth century untrammelled by any
sudden demand for brilliant illumination, we shall easily observe a
tendency directly contrary to that just remarked in France. The English
Decorated windows are much deeper in tone than the Perpendicular ones
which followed them. These latter seemed to have proved a satisfactory
solution of the lighting problem for the English climate. Indeed, we
shall see some at St. Neot, manufactured as late as 1530, that are
copied after others of the preceding century, and yet the later ones
are obviously from the hand of an artist so skilful as to have readily
worked in the contemporary Renaissance manner, had he not deliberately
preferred the earlier one.
Those who desire to study this subject seriously should read Lewis F.
Day's excellent "Windows of Stained Glass" (1897).
EARLY ENGLISH BEFORE 1280
--------------------------------------------------------------
PLANTAGENET { Edward I. 1272 1280-1380
{ Edward II. 1307 DECORATED
{ Edward III. 1327
{ (Crecy, 1346)
{ (Poitiers, 1356)
------------{-------------------------------------------------
{ Richard II. 1377 1380-1500
PERPENDICULAR
LANCASTER { Henry IV. 1399
{ Henry V. 1413
{ (Agincourt, 1415)
{ Henry VI. 1422
YORK { Edward IV. 1461
{ Edward V. 1483
{ Richard III. 1483
TUDOR { Henry VII. 1485
------------{-------------------------------------------------
{ Henry VIII. 1509 1500-1550
{ Edward VI. 1547 RENAISSANCE
{ Mary, 1553
{ Elizabeth, 1558