Part 1

# Stained glass of the middle ages in England and France ### By Arnold, Hugh

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Transcriber's Note:

Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by =equal signs=.

STAINED GLASS

AGENTS

AMERICA THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 64 & 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK

AUSTRALASIA THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 205 FLINDERS LANE, MELBOURNE

CANADA THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA, LTD. ST. MARTIN'S HOUSE, 70 BOND STREET, TORONTO

INDIA MACMILLAN & COMPANY, LTD. MACMILLAN BUILDING, BOMBAY 309 BOW BAZAAR STREET, CALCUTTA

[Illustration: PLATE I THE ASCENSION WINDOW, LE MANS Possibly Eleventh Century]

STAINED GLASS OF THE MIDDLE AGES IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE

PAINTED BY LAWRENCE B. SAINT

DESCRIBED BY HUGH ARNOLD

ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK SOHO SQUARE·LONDON·MCMXIII

PREFACE

The Cathedral verger, conducting his flock of tourists round the building, while giving them plenty of really interesting and valuable information about it (for the verger of to-day is a different man from his predecessor, and is often very intelligent and well informed), remarks briefly, "The glass is of the thirteenth century"--or fourteenth or fifteenth, as the case may be; the procession gazes carelessly at it, and passes on. Yet from out of that dazzling and glowing labyrinth of coloured jewels a past age is speaking far more articulately, if one stops to unravel the message, than ever in stone or wood, and it is for those who can be induced to take that second look which will be followed by a third and a fourth and many more that I have written this book.

It is impossible in a book of this size to give an adequate review of all the important windows even within the limits of place and time which I have set myself. I have therefore chosen for study certain typical windows in each century, and have written about them some of the things which interest me and which, I hope, will interest others.

The work of the countries and period I have chosen is of course the most important of all. There is beauty, it is true, in much Renaissance work (only a prig could resist the gaiety and charm of the windows of St. Vincent at Rouen), but it is for the most part beauty achieved in spite of, and not through, the material. There is beautiful mediæval work in Germany and Italy, but the Germans, till the Renaissance, clung to a rather lifeless and archaic convention, and the Italians were hampered by their greater knowledge of painting. The art has found its noblest expression in the work of the great school which for nearly the whole of the Middle Ages was common to France and England.

There is especial reason why we English should study the work of our own mediæval glass painters. They are the chief representatives of our primitive school of painting. It is true that there are English manuscripts in the museums, and there are the painted rood screens of Norfolk, including the superb example at Ranworth, and there is the portrait of Richard II. at Westminster; but of the painting which must once have covered the walls of our churches, there is little left but patches of faded colour clinging here and there to the plaster, and the occasional dim outline of a figure. Of our glass, on the other hand, in spite of four hundred years of destruction, a considerable quantity remains, and is worth far closer study than it has ever had.

I must gratefully acknowledge the help I have had from my brother, Mr. T. K. Arnold, especially in writing of the Canterbury glass of which he has made a very close study. My thanks are also due to Mr. Noel Heaton for information on the chemical composition of glass.

The publishers are fortunate in having been able to reproduce, for the illustrations, the very beautiful coloured drawings of Mr. Lawrence B. Saint, which are now in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

H. A.

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

1. THE MAKING OF A WINDOW 1

2. THE BEGINNINGS OF STAINED GLASS 11

3. THE STYLE OF THE FIRST PERIOD 29

4. TWELFTH CENTURY GLASS 41

5. EARLY THIRTEENTH CENTURY GLASS IN ENGLAND: CANTERBURY AND LINCOLN 67

6. THIRTEENTH CENTURY GLASS IN FRANCE: SENS AND CHARTRES 85

7. OTHER THIRTEENTH CENTURY WINDOWS. EARLY GRISAILLE 109

8. THE STYLE OF THE SECOND PERIOD 123

9. EARLY FOURTEENTH CENTURY GLASS IN ENGLAND: MERTON COLLEGE AND EXETER 151

10. FOURTEENTH CENTURY GLASS AT YORK 161

11. FOURTEENTH CENTURY GLASS IN FRANCE 183

12. LATE FOURTEENTH CENTURY GLASS IN ENGLAND: TRANSITIONAL--GLOUCESTER AND THE WORK OF THE WINCHESTER SCHOOL 195

13. THE STYLE OF THE THIRD PERIOD 211

14. FIFTEENTH CENTURY GLASS AT YORK 225

15. FIFTEENTH CENTURY GLASS IN FRANCE 241

16. MALVERN AND FAIRFORD 251

INDEX 267

ILLUSTRATIONS

PLATE

1. The Ascension Window, Le Mans. Possibly eleventh century _Frontispiece_

FACING PAGE

2. Part of Crucifixion Window, Poitiers. Late twelfth century 8

3. Methuselah, Canterbury, originally in choir clerestory. Twelfth century 16

4. "Noë in Archa," from the north choir aisle, Canterbury. Twelfth century 24

5. The Entombment, from the east window, Canterbury. Twelfth or early thirteenth century 32

6. Scroll-work, from the east window, Canterbury. Twelfth or early thirteenth century 40

7. Border, from the Trinity Chapel, Canterbury. Twelfth or early thirteenth century 44

8. Border and Mosaic Diaper, from the Trinity Chapel, Canterbury. Thirteenth century 48

9. Western Lancets and Rose, Chartres Cathedral. Twelfth and thirteenth centuries 56

10. The Big Angel, from the clerestory of the apse, Chartres Cathedral. Thirteenth century 60

11. David, from the clerestory of the apse, Chartres Cathedral. Thirteenth century 64

12. Amaury de Montfort, from the choir clerestory, Chartres Cathedral. Thirteenth century 72

13. The Flight into Egypt, from the south aisle, Chartres Cathedral. Thirteenth century 76

14. Work of Clement of Chartres in Rouen Cathedral. Late thirteenth century 80

15. The Flight into Egypt, Poitiers. Late thirteenth century 88

16. Heraldic Panel, from the clerestory of the nave, York Minster. Early fourteenth century 92

17. Details from windows in the north aisle of nave, York Minster. Fourteenth century 96

18. Border and Shields, from Peter de Dene window, north aisle of nave, York Minster, with details from window in south aisle and sketch of clerestory window. Fourteenth century 104

19. St. Margaret, west window of north aisle of nave, York Minster. Fourteenth century 108

20. St. Stephen, from south aisle of nave, York Minster. Fourteenth century 112

21. The Nativity, upper part of east window of north aisle, All Saints', North Street, York. Fourteenth century 120

22. St. John, from east window of south aisle, St. Martin's, Micklegate, York. Fourteenth century 124

23. St. Barnabas, from clerestory of nave of St. Pierre, Chartres. Early fourteenth century 128

24. St. Luke, from choir clerestory of St. Ouen, Rouen. Fourteenth century 136

25. Window with Life of St. Gervais, from south choir aisle, St. Ouen, Rouen. Fourteenth century 140

26. Grisaille pattern and boss from Plate 25 144

27. Bosses, from Plate 25 148

28. Borders, from Plate 25 152

29. Details, from Plate 25 160

30. Angels in canopy work of Plate 25 164

31. The Annunciation, from St. Ouen, Rouen. Fourteenth century 168

32. Window in St. Bartholomew's Chapel, St. Ouen, Rouen. Fourteenth century 176

33. Details, from St. Ouen, Rouen. Fourteenth century 180

34. Canopy, from All Saints', North Street, York. Fifteenth century 184

35. Canopy, from All Saints', North Street, York. Fifteenth century 192

36. Nicholas Blackburn and his wife, from east window of All Saints', North Street, York. Fifteenth century 196

37. Priest, from "Acts of Mercy" window, All Saints', North Street, York. Fifteenth century 200

38. Kneeling Donors, from "Acts of Mercy" window, All Saints', North Street, York. Fifteenth century 208

39. Figure, from "Visiting the Prisoners," in "Acts of Mercy" window, All Saints', North Street, York. Fifteenth century 212

40. Small Figures in White and Stain, from All Saints', North Street, York. Fifteenth century 216

41. Heads, from All Saints', North Street, York. Fifteenth century 220

42. Head, from St. Michael's, Spurriergate, York. Fifteenth century 224

43. Head, from St. Michael's, Spurriergate, York. Fifteenth century 228

44. Head of an Archbishop, Canterbury. Fifteenth century 232

45. Head of Patriarch, from window in south aisle of nave, St. Patrice, Rouen. Fifteenth century 236

46. Head of St. Catherine, from window above altar in north-west corner of St. Vincent's, Rouen. Fifteenth century 240

47. Drapery from sleeve of Virgin, from west end of St. Vincent's, Rouen. Fifteenth century 244

48. Angel's Head, from Great Rose Window in north transept of St. Ouen's, Rouen. Fifteenth century 248

49. Angel's Head, from Great Rose Window in north transept of St. Ouen's, Rouen. Fifteenth century 256

50. The Prophets Joel, Zephaniah, Amos, and Hosea, from the north aisle of the nave, Fairford. Late fifteenth century 260

I

THE MAKING OF A WINDOW

The making of stained-glass windows is one of the arts which belong wholly to the Christian Era. Its traditions do not extend back beyond the great times of Gothic architecture, and it is to the work of those times that the student must turn, as the student of sculpture and architecture turns to that of the ancient world, to learn the basic principles of the art.

In the Middle Ages stained glass formed an important part, but still only a part, of that interior colour decoration without which no church was considered complete; but in spite of its fragile nature it has on the whole survived the attacks of time, the fury of the Puritan, the apathy and neglect of the eighteenth century, and the sinister energies of the nineteenth-century restorer better than the painting which once adorned the walls and woodwork, and for this reason has come to be considered in these days as peculiarly appropriate to churches. So much so, indeed, that whereas I have sometimes found in country parishes a certain amount of opposition to any attempt to revive wall-painting as savouring of popery, no such feeling seems to exist with regard to coloured windows.

[Sidenote: The process.]

Stained glass is not one of the arts in which the method of production reveals itself at the first glance. Indeed, so few people when looking at a stained-glass window, whether a gorgeous and solemn one of the thirteenth or fifteenth century, or a crude and vulgar one of the nineteenth, realize the long and laborious process by which the result, good or bad, has been obtained, that a short description of that process as finally perfected some five hundred years ago may not be out of place here.

One hears it so often spoken of as "painted glass"--Mr. Westlake calls his book _A History of Design in Painted Glass_--that it is not surprising that there should be a good deal of misconception on the point. It must be clearly understood then that the colour effects which are the glory of the art are not directly produced by painting at all, but by the window being built up of a multitude of small pieces of white and coloured glass--glass, that is, coloured in the making, and of which the artist must choose the exact shades he needs, cut them out to shape, and fit them together to form his design, using a separate piece for every colour or shade of colour.

In twelfth and thirteenth century windows many of these pieces are only half an inch wide and from one to two inches long, and few are bigger than the palm of one's hand; so the reader can amuse himself, if he wishes, in trying to calculate the number of pieces in one of the huge windows of this date in the Cathedral of Canterbury, York, or Chartres, and the labour involved in this, the initial stage of the process.

When the window is finished these pieces are put together like a puzzle and joined by grooved strips of lead soldered at the joints, just as any "lattice" window is put together (and until glass was made in large pieces this was the only way of filling a window); but before this is done the details of the design--features, folds of drapery, patterns, and so on--are painted on the glass in an opaque brownish enamel made of oxide of iron and other metals ground up with a "soft" glass (_i.e._ glass with a low melting-point). This is mixed with oil or gum and water in order to apply it, and then the glass is placed in a kiln and "fired" till the enamel is fused on and, if well fired, becomes part of the glass itself. This is the only "painting" involved in the production of a stained-glass window, and its effect, in the hand of an artist, besides enabling him to express more than could be done merely with glass and lead, is to decorate and enrich what would otherwise be somewhat crude and papery in effect.

[Sidenote: The two parts of the process.]

The process thus consists of two parts. The cutting and putting together of the glass is called _glazing_, and it is this that gives the window colour; while the enamel work is spoken of as _painting_, and gives detail, richness, and texture.

I shall presently show that the glazing and painting are really two separate crafts, having separate origins and development, and that stained glass as we know it, or as it should be called in strict accuracy "stained-and-painted" glass, is the product of their union.

There is another method, far inferior in the beauty of its results, by which pictures can be produced in glass, which is to paint on white glass with transparent coloured enamels. As, however, this method was not used till the seventeenth century, and is now once more almost wholly abandoned, it does not concern us here.

The softness of lead which makes it the only practicable metal for joining pieces of glass of complicated shapes, has the disadvantage that a stained-glass window when leaded up has a considerable degree of flexibility, and, if held by the edges alone, would be quite unable to resist the pressure of the wind, which on a big window is enormous,--think of the power even of a fresh breeze on a boat's sail.

[Sidenote: The iron-work.]

It would not even be able to support its own weight for long, and so it follows that it must be held up by a system of short metal bars fixed firmly into the stone-work. Naturally the design of the window must be so arranged that these bars either do not interfere with it or form an integral part of it. In early windows, especially those of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and even to some extent in those of the fourteenth, the bars are sufficiently important to form the governing factor in the design.

It must not be thought that stained glass loses in beauty by the presence of these black lines of lead and iron. On the contrary it gains enormously. Large pieces of unrelieved colour in windows are thin in effect and trying to the eye, which needs the continual contrast of the solid black of the lead all over the window to enable it to appreciate the colour and brilliance of the glass. The painting when rightly used is directed to the same end, for it may be said that the smaller and more divided the spaces of clear glass, the more brilliant and jewel-like is the effect.

[Sidenote: Silver stain.]

To the rule that a separate piece of glass must be used for every change of colour, there are, in later work, two exceptions. The most important, which was discovered early in the fourteenth century, is the use of silver stain. It was then found that if white glass is painted with a preparation of silver--either oxide or chloride of silver will do--and then "fired" in the kiln used for the enamel painting, it will be stained a clear and indelible yellow, varying from pale lemon to deep orange, according to the strength of the painting.

[Sidenote: Abrasion.]

The other exception was Abrasion, effected by the use of what is called "flashed" glass. Flashed glass is glass so made that instead of being coloured all through, it consists of a thin film or "flash" of colour on a backing of white. With this glass it is possible to chip with a burin, or grind away, the coloured film in places (we do it now with hydrofluoric acid) so as to get white and colour on the same piece of glass.

[Illustration: PLATE II PART OF CRUCIFIXION WINDOW, POITIERS Late Twelfth Century]

In the Middle Ages only red and certain shades of blue were made in this way, so the use of the process was very much restricted. The invention of silver stain, on the other hand, by enabling the artist to decorate his white glass and make it interesting, led him at once to use a larger quantity of white in his window, and so, as will be seen later, had a considerable influence on design.

These, however, are the exceptions which prove the rule, and, broadly speaking, a stained-glass window must consist, to the eye, of flat patches of colour, large or small, worked on with dark monochromatic line work and shading. These patches of colour must each be separated from the next by a black line--the leading--varying from a quarter to half an inch in thickness, and crossed at intervals by still thicker black lines--the iron bars.

[Sidenote: Limitations of the art.]

It follows from this that anything like illusion is impossible in stained glass, and no artist with any sympathy for the medium would attempt it. Unwise persons in decadent times have wasted much ingenuity in the endeavour, but the result has always been disastrous and ridiculous. Apart from its higher mission,--the expression of ideas and emotions,--which it shares with every other branch of art, the mission of stained glass is to beautify buildings and nothing else. It is the handmaid of architecture, and can only justify itself by loyal service of its mistress. The ideal of the stained-glass artist must not be a picture made transparent, but a window made beautiful.

Let no one suppose, however, that the artist is hampered by these limitations on the higher side of his work. On the contrary, they set him free to tell his story his own way. Ruskin--poor Ruskin, out of date, ridiculed, forgotten--pointed out long ago, in writing of Giotto's frescoes, the advantage which the pure colourist has over the chiaroscurist in his power of telling a story. In our times the fact has been rediscovered with a flourish of trumpets by the Post-Impressionists. I have no great enthusiasm, I confess, for the way in which they have carried out their principles, but I do know two perfect tellings of the story of the Creation. One is in mosaic on the ceiling of the narthex of St. Mark's at Venice, and the other is in the upper part of the east window of York Minster; and in each case the language used consists of flat forms and colour only.

II

THE BEGINNINGS OF STAINED GLASS

I have said that stained-glass work is the product of the union of two crafts, the glazier's and the enameller's. The glazier's work being the groundwork of a window, I will take it first.

[Sidenote: Glass-making.]

What, to begin with, is glass? It is sand melted and run together. The best sand for the purpose is that which is most largely composed of the substance called silica, such as sand formed of powdered quartz, or flint. For some reason, the silica when melted does not recrystallize on cooling as might have been expected, but forms an even transparent substance, plastic while still hot. Think of the tremendous effect this one natural fact has had on the architecture, dress, and, probably, the physique of the nations of northern Europe.

Given sufficient heat, glass can be made by this means alone, but the heat required is so great that it has only been done in recent years for special purposes by means of the electric furnace. Failing this, the sand must be induced to melt at a lower temperature by means of a flux, for which either potash or soda may be used, and to which lime or lead must be added, to enable the glass to resist moisture. (Theophilus, describing the process in his Treatise, certainly no later than the thirteenth century, recommends the use of beech twigs calcined in an earthen pot, whence the name "Pot-ash.")

[Sidenote: Colouring.]

Glass may be coloured or "stained" while in a molten condition by the admixture of various substances, mostly metals, gold, copper, manganese, and so on, the result depending on the temperature to which it is subjected and on the exact composition of the glass as well as on the colouring matter used.

[Sidenote: Blowing.]

Glass is made into vessels, as most people know, by "blowing." The workman takes a dab of molten glass on the end of a long metal pipe, and putting his mouth to the pipe blows the glass--soap-bubble fashion--into a hollow bulb. Then by a rapid and dexterous series of alternate and repeated heating, blowing, and spinning, and manipulation with tools, most fascinating to watch, he shapes it into the form required. If a flat sheet be required for window glass it may be run out flat when liquid, or blown as described above, and worked into a cylindrical form, split open, and unrolled. This is called "muff glass." But glass can also be formed, by rapidly spinning it while soft, into a large flat disc, called a "crown," and is then known as "crown glass." It was by these last two methods, the "muff" and the "crown," that all the material of the windows we have to consider in this book was made.

[Sidenote: Cutting.]

When cold, the sheet or disc of glass may be cut to the shape required, either, as in the old days, by running a hot iron slowly along the proposed line of fracture, in which case a crack will follow the iron, or by scratching it with a diamond and then bending it so as to break along the line of the scratch. The latter is a comparatively modern invention, and has in its turn been superseded by the use of a little steel wheel with a sharp edge.

[Sidenote: Pliny's story.]

Pliny gives a story of the invention of glass which, if false, is still so picturesque that I cannot resist quoting it here.

A certain merchant-ship touched on the coast of Syria, and the crew landed near the mouth of the river Belus, on a beach of fine white sand which, Pliny says, was still in his day of great repute for glass-making. The ship's cargo consisted of natron,--a natural alkaline crystal which was much used in ancient times for washing,[1]--and the crew having lighted a fire on the sand used lumps of it from the cargo to prop up their kettle. What was their surprise to find afterwards a stream of molten glass running down from their camp-fire. In this case the natron acted as a flux and enabled the sand to melt in the heat of the camp-fire, which, however, must have been a very large and hot one.

[Sidenote: Egyptian glass.]

Now, whether this story is true or not, it cannot have been the beginning of more than a local industry, for the art of glass-making was known in Egypt from very early times indeed.