Next we see the Magi making their offerings to the infant Christ, on one side of which is the Queen of Sheba visiting Solomon and on the other Joseph in Egypt receiving his suppliant brethren.

And so the series goes on. The twelve windows when complete formed one of the most elaborate sets of types and antitypes known, and included not only the life of Christ but eight of His parables—for some reason a very rare subject in mediæval glass. Two panels of the Parable of the Sower—the seed falling among the thorns and the seed falling by the wayside—remain, and have been used to fill up the gaps at the bottom of this window. Above is a curious subject—the Church with the three sons of Noah, who hold between them the world, divided into three regions. From the MS. above mentioned we know that this was the type to the "leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till the whole was leavened"—an idea taken, I think, from St. Augustine.

The subject of Noah and the Ark from the other window was originally alongside the Baptism of Christ, the purging of the world by the flood of waters serving as the type for the purging of the soul by baptism.

Altogether as one studies these windows one is almost as much struck by the subtlety of thought and earnestness of the teaching they embody as by the glory of their colouring and grace of their design.

In one of the triforium windows is some glass which may perhaps be earlier even than this. It consists of three medallions, only one of which is at all perfect, which seem to be part of a life of St. Alphege, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was martyred by the Danes. In the one perfect panel which represents the storming of Canterbury by the Danes, the warriors wear the long coats of mail and kite-shaped shields of the Norman period as shown in the Bayeux tapestry, and a ship in one of the other medallions is exactly like those in which William the Conqueror and his knights are there shown crossing the sea. The obscure position of this glass in the triforium is not where one would expect to find a window devoted to St. Alphege, who before the death of Becket was the most important saint that Canterbury could boast; it may be therefore that the medallions have been moved from elsewhere, perhaps from Archbishop Lanfranc's nave, or it may, for all we can tell, be some of Prior Conrad's glass that has survived the fire.

Vendôme.

Of other twelfth century work there is not much in existence. There is a Virgin and Child at Vendôme which somewhat recalls Notre Dame de la Belle Verrière but has none of her grace, and I have already referred to the window at Poitiers illustrated in Plate II.

Poitiers.

This remarkable and impressive window, which is over 26 feet high and nearly 10 wide, is one of three, and occupies the central light of the Cathedral apse. The illustration does not show the whole of it, for it is surrounded by a rich border, which in its arrangement of alternate bunches of foliage and knots of interlaced work resembles that of the Jesse Tree at Chartres, and below the Crucifixion is a four-lobed medallion showing the Martyrdom of St. Peter, and the donor offering a model of the window.

The design, as I have said, seems to show that the Byzantine style had lingered on south of the Loire, where no doubt the influence of the Limoges school would be strong, and in view of this fact it is rash to take the age of the Le Mans "Ascension" altogether for granted.

V
EARLY THIRTEENTH CENTURY GLASS
IN ENGLAND

(CANTERBURY AND LINCOLN)

V
EARLY THIRTEENTH CENTURY GLASS
IN ENGLAND

(CANTERBURY AND LINCOLN)

In passing from the twelfth to the thirteenth century one notices a certain loss of the restraint and sense of proportion which gives such dignity and refinement to the earlier work, but on the other hand a certain gain in vivacity and facility of expression. The Greek influence is dying out, but the artists, though with less sense of design than their predecessors, were accomplished at story-telling, in which, however, they seem less serious and more gossiping. Their figures are less tall, and the lines of the drapery from being straight and severe become agitated and flowing.

The Trinity Chapel, Canter­bury.

East of the choir in Canterbury Cathedral is the Trinity Chapel, of which the building was finished in 1185 and to which the body of St. Thomas was translated with great pomp in the year 1220 and placed in a marvellous jewelled shrine, the position of which can still be traced on the pavement by the hollow worn round it by the knees of pilgrims. All around were gorgeous windows which, with the exception of those in the little circular chapel at the east end, known as "Becket's Crown," were filled with the stories of his posthumous miracles.

It is a little difficult to date these windows. They cannot of course be earlier than 1185, but I do not think that any of them are much later than 1220, though from the fact that one of the medallions, and one only, contains a representation of the famous shrine—everywhere else it is the martyr's tomb in the crypt that is shown—the particular window containing it cannot have been executed before the latter date, as the shrine would not have been in existence. It may, however, have been done in that year. This window and the one next it seem to me to be by an inferior hand, and contain certain features not found in the others, but common in later glass of the thirteenth century.

Whether this represents a gap in the execution of the windows it is, however, impossible to say without the evidence of the windows which have been destroyed. Seeing that from 1208 to 1213 the country was under an interdict, the existence of such a gap would not be surprising.

None of the windows are entirely filled with their original glass, but four of them are nearly so. The gaps have been filled up with most ingenious imitations of the old glass, executed from 1853 onwards by Mr. Caldwell, under the direction of Mr. G. Austin, and so cleverly are they done that they are very difficult to detect by the eye alone. I do not think that "restoration" of old glass, by which is usually meant filling up or replacing it by imitation of the old work, is ever justifiable, but I am obliged to admit that, if it ever could be so, it has been justified here at Canterbury. I think there is not much doubt that in these four windows, at least, one can see the old glass better for the gaps being filled up with colour than if they had been left white. The principle, however, is a bad one, and I have seen little "restoration" elsewhere that did not disfigure the window.

Fortunately a most indefatigable lover of stained glass, the Rev. J. G. Joyce, has left a series of coloured drawings of the glass as it was in 1841 before restoration. These and his manuscript notes are now in South Kensington Museum, together with some coloured tracings by a Mr. Hudson, and enable us to trace what has been done. From these we learn that in his time the place of the Crucifixion in the east window was occupied by a figure of the Virgin from a Jesse window, proving that there was once a Jesse window at Canterbury as well as elsewhere. Judging from the tracing, the scroll work of the "tree" follows closely the lines of those at Chartres and St. Denis, but is a little more elaborate and very beautiful. It seems to me more in keeping with the earlier than the later work at Canterbury. Unfortunately no one seems to know what has become of it; but Winston who saw it, quotes it in a lecture as "some of the oldest glass in the country." If the Cathedral authorities have got it stowed away anywhere I hope they will some day place it in one of the empty windows where it can be seen.

The east window.

This east window, which is in "Becket's Crown," is one of the best preserved, only four or five of its four-and-twenty medallions being new. It is an example of an arrangement of subjects which occurs also at Bourges and at Chartres, and to which PP. Cahier and Martin in their work on Bourges give the name of "La Nouvelle Alliance." It represents, in fact, the foundation of the Church of Christ, as embodied in His Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension, in the coming of the Holy Ghost, and in the reign of the Son of Man on high, each subject being accompanied and illustrated by "types" from the Old Testament. Here, at Canterbury, on one side of the Crucifixion—which, though new, is doubtless a correct restoration as far as the subject goes—is the sacrifice of the Passover, and on the other is Moses striking the rock in the desert, from whence, as from the side of Christ, gushes the life-giving stream. Above is the sacrifice of Isaac; and below, the spies returning from Eshcol carrying the great cluster of grapes—a type of the wine of the Sacrament.

Above this group come the Entombment (which is reproduced in Plate V.), the Resurrection, the Ascension, the Descent of the Holy Ghost, and Christ in Glory, each with its four types surrounding it. The Resurrection is modern, and so is the Escape of the Spies and the "Majesty." Noah and his Ark is a modern copy of the one in the north choir aisle, but the rest of the panels are original.

The work seems to me fairly early in character, but it is not so well drawn as that in the north choir aisle, and there is not, to me, the same feeling for line in it. It is, however, very beautiful, and the whole window is a shimmer of iridescent colour. Plate VI. shows some of the scroll work that fills the spaces between the medallions.

The Becket windows.

The windows in the Trinity Chapel itself are all devoted to the tale of the posthumous miracles of the Blessed St. Thomas as related in the Chronicle of Prior Benedict, which affords a key to the pictures. The Chronicle is fascinating reading for the homely light it throws upon everyday life in England at the end of the twelfth century. By its means we can trace in the glass the story of the little boy who fell in the Medway while throwing stones at frogs, three of which, very large and green, are shown in the glass; of the workman William, who was overwhelmed by a fall of earth while digging a conduit near Gloucester; of the physician of Perigord and many others, who were one and all restored to life and health through prayer to the Blessed Martyr. There, too, is the tale of Eilward, whose eyes were put out by the magistrate for having, when drunk, broken into the house of Fulk (with whom he had quarrelled over a debt) and taken a pair of hedger's gloves and a whetstone; to whom St. Thomas, who seems to have thought the sentence excessive, appeared in a vision, and with a touch restored his eyesight. Here, too, we see the awful vengeance of the saint on the knight, Jordan Fitzeisulf, who, when his son was restored to life, meanly neglected to make the offering he had vowed at the Martyr's tomb.

Three of the windows on the north side are fairly perfect, and two on the south side contain many of their original medallions. Of those on the north, one, the sixth from the west, is the best, and might be by the same hand as the east window. An interesting point about it is the border, of which the design is identical with that of a window at Sens which also deals with the history of St. Thomas à Becket. As this window contains the story of Jordan Fitzeisulf, I shall refer to it, if I have to do so again, as the Jordan Fitzeisulf window.

The other two, the fourth and fifth from the west, are, I think, by an inferior hand, and contain, as I have said, certain features not found in the other windows, but common in later glass of the thirteenth century. One of them, the fifth from the west, is divided by the iron-work into four great circles, each of which contains four pear-shaped medallions, their points meeting in the middle. The spandrils between them are filled with scroll work on a ruby ground, not quite so good as those in the east window; but outside the large circles—and this is the important point—the ground is filled in with a regular mosaic of little pieces forming a repeat pattern as shown in Plate VIII. This is the only instance at Canterbury of this "mosaic diaper," as it is called, which is so common in glass a little later, and which from the fact that it could be done "by the yard," and if necessary by an apprentice, was a much cheaper method of filling in a background than by scroll work, which it soon completely superseded.

It is noticeable that it is this window which in its uppermost medallion contains the representation already mentioned of the famous shrine, from which the saint is issuing and addressing a sleeping monk, who is thought to be the Prior Benedict, the chronicler of the miracles.

In all the other medallions of the series it is the tomb of St. Thomas in the crypt, easily recognizable from the descriptions that remain, at which the sufferers pay their vows, so that it seems probable that the window was executed in, or soon after, the year 1220, in which the saint's body was removed to the shrine, but while the memory of the tomb in the crypt was still fresh.

The other, the fourth from the west, has a very remarkable peculiarity, very seldom met with in glass of the Early Period at all. The blue background to the figures in the medallions, which is of a paler and poorer quality than in the other windows, is covered all over with a thin "matt" of enamel, from which a delicate diaper pattern has been scratched out. Presumably the artist had for some reason been unable to get any more of the splendid deep blue glass, and used this means to give richness and texture to his background. The only other thirteenth century glass I know of in which at all the same thing has been done is at St. Urbain at Troyes, but that belongs, I believe, to quite the latter part of the century. It was a common device in the fourteenth century, but the patterns used then were of quite a different character.

Lincoln.

Except for the grisaille windows at York and Salisbury, the only other extensive remains of thirteenth century work in England are those in Lincoln Cathedral, which, however, are little more than wreckage, and consequently very difficult to date with any attempt at precision. The only window in which any of the glass is in its original position is the great rose window in the north transept, and even this, though the original design can still be made out, is much mutilated.

The lancets under the rose in the south transept and the east windows of the choir aisles contain a miscellaneous collection of medallions, separated from their surrounding ornament and glazed in with remains of thirteenth century grisaille. Other medallions, too, have been used to fill gaps in the north rose, and the south rose is filled, with the exception of one light which retains its original fourteenth century foliage pattern, with scraps of thirteenth century ornament of which the effect, with the sunlight twinkling through, is wonderfully beautiful.

The medallions are not, I think, all of one date, which is not surprising, for the filling of the windows of a big cathedral must always have taken many years. The difficulty of dating them is increased by the fact that much of the painting does not seem to have been so well "fired" as at Canterbury, and in many cases has perished altogether. This seems to have happened in recent years, for Mr. Westlake shows many details in his drawings of the glass which I cannot now distinguish. Where the painting remains we find that in a few of the medallions the drapery is drawn in the stiff manner of the twelfth and very early thirteenth century, but in most of them the later more flowing treatment prevails. In some, too, the blue of the backgrounds resembles that used at Canterbury, but in many, and notably in the north rose, it is of a purplish colour and much less agreeable. In a few it is of quite a grey blue.

Nowhere can I trace the same hand as at Canterbury, and the borders and ornament are quite different; but that the artist had access to some at least of the same designs is shown by a medallion in the south choir aisle which represents Noah receiving the Dove, and is practically a replica of the Canterbury one in Plate IV., with a boat-like hull added to the Ark. It is not, however, nearly so good. According to Mr. Westlake the work at Lincoln strongly resembles that at Bourges, and to me it has something in common with that in the Sainte Chapelle at Paris.

Lincoln Cathedral was not finished till after St Hugh's death in 1199, so none of the glass can be older than that. On the whole, I think the bulk of the glass is a little later than any but the very last of the work at Canterbury, that it is by a different hand, and shows less taste both in colour and design. Probably it was done between 1220 and 1240.

The south rose.

I am confirmed in this view by the examination of the fragments which fill the great south rose, which consist entirely of thirteenth century ornament and most probably once formed the setting of these same medallions. A little of it is scroll work, but the greater part is "mosaic diaper" of the kind shown in Plate VIII., and which is so characteristic of French work after 1220, whereas we only find it beginning at Canterbury.

Some of the medallions are, however, very interesting, the best being those in which the drapery shows the earlier treatment. In the north choir aisle is a good one of the Israelites crossing a Red Sea of a fine streaky ruby, and in the south choir aisle is one of St. Thomas à Becket being conducted to Heaven by angels and carrying the damaged top of his head in his hands. By a touch of realism both parts of his head have been made of glass that has slight ruby streaks in it, giving it a gory appearance. This is the earliest example I know of the deliberate use of an accident of colouring in the glass to produce a realistic effect.

Among the medallions which have been glazed into the north rose is one representing the funeral of St. Hugh of Lincoln in 1199, the coffin being carried by three archbishops and three kings. One of the kings was William of Scotland, and the other King John of England (the only occasion on which I know of that monarch appearing in a pleasant light), but the artist must have put the third king in for the sake of symmetry as there is no record of his presence.

A curious medallion in the south transept shows Salome dancing before Herod, not in the languorous Oriental fashion one would have expected of her, but turning a somersault worthy of the music-hall stage, with a lavish display of red stockings. A similar treatment of the subject occurs at Bourges, and also in sculpture over one of the west doors at Rouen Cathedral.

The north rose.

The north rose still retains about three-quarters of its original glazing, and enables one to make out the design. In the centre is Christ, and in the four petal-like lights which surround Him are, or were, figures of the Blessed seated, not in circles but in horizontal rows. Filling the spandrils between these lights are four trefoils, of which two still each contain an angel swinging a censer, in an attitude ingeniously fitted to the shape of the light. Outside these, sixteen circular lights form a ring round the whole, and once represented the Second Coming of Christ. At the top is Christ seated on the rainbow, and in two lights on either side of Him are angels carrying instruments of the Passion. Next come St. Peter and the other Apostles, six in one light on each side, and below them, in the lights level with the centre, are the four archangels sounding trumpets. The lower half of the circle was probably devoted to the resurrection of the dead and perhaps their judgment, but of these only one light remains, showing the dead rising from their graves, the rest being filled with single figures from elsewhere.

The spandrils between these circles are filled with little triangular lights forming an inner and an outer ring of sixteen each. Of these the inner ring is filled with white wavy pointed stars on a red ground and the outer with similar red stars on a dark blue ground, thus suggesting the idea—in colour alone, without use of light or shade, of light and warmth radiating from the centre.[8]

According to Mr. Westlake the central Christ has no stigmata, while the one in the outer circle has them; but the painting has now perished too much for me to see this even at close quarters. His theory is that the centre represents Christ as "The Word,—the uncreated Wisdom, as Creator, resting,"—and the outer circle shows His last coming as Judge.

VI
THIRTEENTH CENTURY GLASS
IN FRANCE

(SENS AND CHARTRES)

VI
THIRTEENTH CENTURY GLASS
IN FRANCE

(SENS AND CHARTRES)

Sens.

It was at Sens that Thomas à Becket took refuge during his exile. His mitre and chasuble are still preserved there, and the connection between the two places seems to have remained very intimate.

It will be remembered that William of Sens was the first architect of the choir of Canterbury, and it is not surprising to find the resemblance between the cathedrals at the two places very marked indeed. Not only does one at once perceive the same hand in the architecture, but what remains of the early glass at Sens is quite incontestably the work of the same artist who gave us the east window and the Jordan Fitzeisulf window at Canterbury.

The Good Samaritan.

There are four of these windows at Sens, all in the north choir aisle. They have suffered a little from restoration but not very much. Their subjects respectively from left to right are, the Life and Death of St. Thomas à Becket, the Story of St. Eustace, the Parable of the Prodigal Son, and the Parable of the Good Samaritan. This last is another "type and antitype" window, and corresponds exactly in the arrangement of its subjects with one of the lost windows in the choir of Canterbury as described in the manuscript catalogue before mentioned. The verses, however, which were in the Canterbury window are omitted at Sens. To the mediæval mind the parable of the Good Samaritan was much more than a mere illustration of "neighbourliness." To them the "man who went down from Jerusalem"—the City of God—"to Jericho," was Adam leaving Paradise, the thieves were the seven deadly sins, the Priest and the Levite were the law of Moses, and the Good Samaritan was Christ Himself. It is this reading of the subject which is here illustrated. From the fact that at Sens it is isolated, while at Canterbury it was, as we have seen, one of a series, I think we may conclude that Sens is the later of the two. The drawing of the medallions resembles that of the older work at Canterbury, whereas the setting of them is a little later in character, showing the beginnings of "mosaic diaper." It seems to me probable, therefore, that for the subjects the actual drawings from Canterbury were used in a fresh setting. We know from the Treatise of Theophilus that designs for windows at this time were drawn out in full size on whitened boards, which also served apparently as the bench on which the window was put together. Not much would be left of the drawing when the window was finished, and the bench would be re-whitewashed for the next window; but from the fact that similar treatments of the same subject repeatedly occur, it seems to me not unlikely that drawings of figure subjects for medallions were kept on separate sheets of parchment, or in a book, and used again.

To the scene of the Good Samaritan rescuing the traveller there are four scenes showing as a "type" the Passion of Christ. Of these the Crucifixion is treated in the most striking and original way, which I rather think occurs also at Bourges. On one side of the cross stands a female figure wearing a crown and with a nimbus, and receiving in a chalice the blood which flows from the side of Christ; on the other, a six-winged seraph is sheathing a sword. The latter is, no doubt, a symbol of the peace made between God and man by the atonement on the Cross,—I think PP. Cahier and Martin identify him with the angel that guarded the gates of Paradise,—while the crowned female figure is, of course, the Church.

The Prodigal Son.

The next window, containing the Parable of the Prodigal Son, differs from the others in having straight iron-work and a more formal arrangement of the medallions. I do not think, however, that it is older. One charming panel in it is a good illustration of the attitude of the artists of that day on the question of colour. The Prodigal Son is feeding pigs, of which one is white, two blue, one green, and one red! The next scene shows him making his way homeward, undeterred by the efforts to hamper him of several devils as gaily and variously coloured as the pigs. There is considerable dramatic power shown in this figure of the Prodigal. Let no one call the drawing of this period bad drawing. It would be as true to call Japanese drawing "bad." It is drawing in a convention—a convention different from our own, but which, once mastered, set the artist free to express action and emotion without being further hampered by technical difficulties.

The Becket window.

Of the other two, the one dealing with the story of St. Thomas à Becket is the one which most reminds me of Canterbury. Here there is no doubt that we have the same hand that gave us the Jordan Fitzeisulf window there. The border is identical,—an unusual thing at that time even in the same church,—and the representation of Becket's tomb in the crypt is precisely the same.

The story of St. Eustace.

I am less certain about the St. Eustace window. Its general effect is very different from the others, being flatter and less sparkling; but this may be due to the work of a restorer. The figures, however, do not fit and decorate the medallions as well as in the other windows or in those at Canterbury; in many cases part of a figure has to project into the border.[9] The medallions themselves, too, are of rather awkward shapes, and the design of the iron-work not very restful. The scroll work, however, is very like that in the east window at Canterbury—so like that one can hardly doubt their common origin. It may be that here, too, the artist has used some one else's figure designs, less successfully than in the Good Samaritan window.

There is a Life of St. Eustace at Chartres in which the scenes bear a general resemblance to those at Sens, but decorate their spaces much better.

To sum up, I think that these windows at Sens, with the possible exception of the Life of St. Eustace, are the work of the same artist as the Jordan Fitzeisulf window and the east window in "Becket's Crown" at Canterbury; that in the Good Samaritan window he was using the cartoons of his master, who designed the windows in Canterbury choir, of which two, as we have seen, remain. He may have come from Canterbury at the time of the interdict in King John's reign (1208-1213), when all work there must have been suspended, and not returned, leaving another to finish the work after the interdict was removed. It would be a very probable date for the Sens work, but in the absence of the destroyed windows at Canterbury it is pure conjecture.

Chartres.

Meanwhile, ever since the fire in 1194, the people of Chartres, careless of their personal losses, had been working in a flame of enthusiasm and devotion at the rebuilding of their Cathedral. Every one, nobles, merchants, craftsmen, and peasants, gave what they could. Some gave money, some materials, some provisions for the workmen. Those who had nothing else gave their labour, even harnessing themselves to carts to drag stone for the building. Heaven itself seemed to lend its aid, for it is said that Our Lady worked many miracles of healing at her shrine at Chartres, which soon became a thirteenth century Lourdes, to which pilgrims came from all countries, leaving offerings of money or jewels.

Finally, in 1210 the main part of the building seems to have been finished. "Entirely rebuilt in hewn stone," says William le Breton some years later, "the Cathedral of Chartres has nothing to fear from temporal fire from now till the day of judgment, and will save from eternal fire the many Christians who by their alms have contributed to its reconstruction."

The great church was now ready to receive its decoration: The altars, the painting, the sculpture were still to be done, and above all the one hundred and twenty-five great windows, with the three great roses, and forty-seven lesser ones had to be filled with the glass which still makes Chartres Cathedral one of the wonders of the world. In the year 1226 Saint Louis came to the throne. Eight years later he acquired the Comté of Chartres, and lent his powerful aid to the work, giving the great rose window in the north transept and the five lancets below it, as well as other windows. The King of Castile gave a window too, and following these royal donors a crowd of princes, seigneurs, and churchmen added their gifts, while forty-seven windows were given by the Guilds of Chartres alone. Yet even so it was thirty years more before the bulk of the work was completed, and the actual consecration did not take place, for some reason, till October 17, 1260, when it was performed with great pomp and rejoicing before Saint Louis and his family and an immense concourse of prelates, nobles, and common people.

There is nothing in the world quite like the Cathedral of Chartres. In the quality of its work Canterbury is as good or even better, but for the proper appreciation of the glass of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries it is necessary to have every window of the building filled with it in order that the eye may get used to the gloom and attuned to the pitch of the colour; and it is only at Chartres that this is even approximately the case. I know nothing like the effect on one of several hours spent in the building, the awe and wonder, mingled with a strange sort of exaltation, which it produces.

Even when its windows were complete, Canterbury can hardly have had quite the same effect, for its clerestory is much smaller, and it has not the splendid width of nave and choir which enables one to see the great clerestory windows of Chartres so well. In the thirteenth century the nave at Canterbury was still the old Norman nave of Lanfranc, of which the windows were, as an old drawing shows, comparatively small; nor indeed do we know for certain if they had coloured glass in them.

York is almost as complete as Chartres, but the glass there is nearly all of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and though it is in a sense quite as beautiful, with all its great windows twinkling with lovely colour, yet the subjects are too small to be seen from below, and there is nothing like the awe-inspiring majesty of the ranks of colossal saints which fill the clerestory of Chartres.

That the master or masters of Canterbury and Sens came to Chartres is, I think, certain; the Canterbury tradition is traceable in so much of the work. Here I imagine he or they ended their life's work, leaving their pupils and their pupils' successors to carry it on in the later style which they developed as they went along. One of these, no doubt, was that Clement of Chartres who signed his name in the window at Rouen which Mr. Saint has sketched in Plate XIV. I think I can trace his hand in some of the windows on the south side of the nave at Chartres, in the treatment of the mosaic diaper in which various shades of blue have been so skilfully blended as to produce, as at Rouen, a lovely play and ripple of colour over the whole surface of the window.

Perhaps the most notable development of the style at Chartres is the increase in the use of mosaic diaper, of the kind illustrated in Plate VIII., as a setting for the medallions, instead of the leafy scroll work formerly used.

At Canterbury the mosaic diaper setting is the exception, only occurring in one window; at Sens it is introduced tentatively, but at Chartres it is the rule. The scroll-work filling only occurs, I think, in three windows of the lower tier. One of these is the St. Eustace window already mentioned, which to me is strongly reminiscent of Canterbury work—more so, indeed, as far as the medallions go, than the similar one at Sens.

The four ex­tremities.

It is only at the four extremities of the Cathedral at Chartres that we find any connected idea governing the choice of subjects. The three twelfth century windows were already, as I have said, devoted to the ancestry and life of Christ, and the thirteenth century rose window above them shows His second coming. The seven great lancets of the apse are given up to the glorification of the Virgin, the especial patroness of Chartres. The north rose and the lights below it seem to show the human ancestry of Christ culminating in Saint Anne and the Virgin, while opposite in the south transept is the Christ of the Apocalypse.

In other parts of the church the choice of theme seems to have been left to the taste of the donors, subject only to the general arrangement of medallion windows in the lower tier and huge single figures in the clerestory lights. Thus in the lower windows we find the story of Noah next to that of St. Lubin, Bishop of Chartres; the story of St. Eustace next that of Joseph.

One or two of the clerestory windows are medallion windows, the medallions being on a very large scale, but most of them are filled, as I say, with single figures of saints, nearly twice life-size. So large are they that their faces have had to be composed of several pieces of glass. A brownish pink is used for the flesh, and the eyes are separate pieces of white with the pupil painted in. As the flesh colour has in many cases darkened considerably from the effects of time and weather, the effect of the brilliant whites of the eyes is somewhat weird and startling.

Here again there seems to be no special idea governing the order of subjects, which were probably left to the donors, who would choose their patron saints.

The Guild windows.

It is at Chartres that for the first time, as I believe, the donors of the windows are made much account of in the glass. It is true that at St. Denis there are two very tiny figures of Abbot Suger,—in one case, prostrate, in simple monk's dress, at the feet of the Virgin in the Annunciation, and in the other, holding up a model of the Jesse window,—and there is a donor at Poitiers, but at Canterbury and Sens there is nothing to show by whom the windows were given. At Chartres, however, it is far otherwise. Partly, perhaps, because of the emulation that had been shown in presenting windows, nearly every one contains some record of its donor. In the case of those given by the Guilds this takes the form of a little panel introduced into the bottom of the window, showing members of the Guild at work—bakers, butchers, tanners, furriers, money-changers and so on—charming and valuable little pictures of the everyday life of the time. More noble donors are represented by their portraits, either kneeling at the foot of the window or, as in the clerestory of the choir, where the rose-lights of the tracery are filled with a splendid series of princes and nobles armed and on horseback, each recognizable by his shield and banner.

Amaury de Montfort.

The one illustrated in Mr. Saint's sketch in Plate XII. is Amaury de Montfort, brother of our own Simon de Montfort who led the rebellion of the barons against Henry III., and son of that Simon de Montfort who led the crusade against the Albigenses and was made Lord of Languedoc for his pains. Amaury, who succeeded him in 1218, finding himself not strong enough to hold the country, had ceded his rights six years later to the King of France, and was made in return Constable of France.

Pierre Mauclerc.

The great rose window of the south transept and the lancets below it are the gift of Pierre Mauclerc, Count of Dreux and Duke of Brittany. His arms are in the trefoils of the rose and in the central lancet. At the foot of the lancets on either side are portraits of himself, his wife, Alix de Thouars, and his son and daughter, all kneeling. From the fact that his wife died in 1226 it has been argued that the window must have been executed, or at least designed, before that date. I do not know that the argument is absolutely conclusive, but the fact seems probable. The window, however, cannot be many years older than this date. The choir would almost certainly be the first part of the church to be glazed, and the windows in the clerestory there were certainly not finished till after 1220. One, indeed, has the figure of a king of France on horseback as donor, who has always been called St. Louis. It is, however, quite possible, as far as I can see, that the figure is his father, Louis VIII., or even Philip Augustus, who died in 1223, for he bears the lilies of France only, without the castle of Castile.

St. Louis.

Assuming therefore that the date of the south rose is shortly before 1226, then Pierre Mauclerc, at the time he gave this and the other windows in the church which bear his arms, was practically an independent sovereign. When St. Louis ascended the throne as a boy in 1226, under the Regency of his mother, the wise and beautiful, if somewhat imperious, Blanche of Castile, Pierre Mauclerc, in company with Thibault of Champagne, who was Count of Chartres, and many other barons of France, took up arms against his sovereign, scorning to acknowledge the overlordship of a boy and a woman. Eight years later the boy and the woman, aided by the devoted support of the Commons, had brought them all to submission, and Thibault had yielded up Chartres to the Crown. It seems to me not unlikely that this latter event is marked by the gift of the north rose and the lancets below, which contain St. Louis's own arms and those of his mother. If so, the glass of Chartres may be considered as a landmark in the history of the growth of France into a nation. Whether this is so or not, the north rose cannot in any case be earlier than 1226, the year of St. Louis's accession.

The north rose and lancets.

This north rose, or Rose of France as it is called, has in its centre light the Virgin with the Child, in a purple tunic with a blue robe and nimbus against a ground of rich ruby. In the twelve radiating lights round her are: above her head, four doves; on her right and left, four angels,—two on either side,—two incensing and two holding candles; and below, four six-winged seraphs. Outside these are twelve kings of Judah, the Virgin's ancestors, and outside these again is a ring of the Prophets who foretold Christ's coming. Below, in the five great lancets, is a huge figure of Saint Anne carrying the infant Virgin, having on her right King David and on her left Solomon, and beyond these Melchizedek and Aaron, types of Christ as King and High Priest. Below St. Anne is a great shield with the arms of St. Louis, but under each of the four other figures is a kind of "predella," in which are shown, as a contrast: below David, Saul falling on his sword; below Solomon, Jeroboam worshipping the golden calves; below Melchizedek, Nebuchadnezzar; and below Aaron, Pharaoh being whirled away, horse and man, in the Red Sea. In this last scene the artist has been in a dilemma. The backgrounds of these lancets are alternately red and blue, and Pharaoh's should have been blue, but it represents the Red Sea, and the artist has had to get out of the difficulty by making it a kind of maroon purple.

The south rose and lancets.

The idea of the window is the same as that of Jesse Tree: Humanity preparing, through the ages, for the coming of Christ, and culminating in His Mother. The rose and lancets opposite show the fulfilment. Here Christ is seen enthroned in the centre of the rose, as St. John beheld Him, surrounded by angels and by the four great beasts, and by the four-and-twenty elders seated on their thrones, in a double ring round the whole.

In the five lancets below are, in the centre, the Virgin and Child, and on either side the four Evangelists, borne, by a quaint conceit, like children on the strong shoulders of the major Prophets. The general arrangement of the windows is the same, but the detail seems to me to bear out the supposition that the southern rose is by some years the earlier of the two. In both windows the outer and the inner ring of figures are contained in circular medallions, but where in the south rose the "filling in" is done by means of scroll work, in the north transept "mosaic diaper" is everywhere used. The borders of the lancets, too, are of an older type, and more beautiful in the south transept than in the north.

Both, however, are very lovely, and the more I look at them the more I admire the nameless workers who could so use red and blue—such difficult colours to combine well. For red and blue are everywhere the groundwork of the colour scheme—green, purple, brown, and yellow being only used in small quantities to relieve them. It must be remembered, too, that the artist could never see the effect of his work till it was finished. Nowadays the stained-glass painter can put his work together temporarily by fastening it with beeswax to a large sheet of white glass, and can work on it so; but the artist of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, as we know from Theophilus, and as was probably the case for long after, did all his work "on the bench." The most he could do would be to hold a few pieces together in his hands up to the light, but for the rest he had to trust to his experience and training.

Not quite always did he succeed. Much depended upon his getting just the right quality of blue, and sometimes this seems to have failed him. I have already noticed the rather purplish blue which is found in some of the windows at Lincoln, and this occurs again at Chartres in the central lancet of the apse, and the one next it on the north containing the big angel illustrated in Plate X. This purplish blue when interspersed with red produces at a distance the effect of a rather unpleasant mauve, making these two windows less attractive in colour than the others. This purplish blue occurs again in the north rose of Notre Dame at Paris, but there the artist has countered it by the use of a good deal of a rather sharp pale green, which completely balances it and turns the window into perhaps the most glorious of all the great rose windows of France.