PLATE XXV
WINDOW WITH LIFE OF ST. GERVAIS,
FROM SOUTH CHOIR AISLE, ST. OUEN, ROUEN
Fourteenth Century
The effort towards grace of form.
The fact is that the twelfth and thirteenth century convention in figure drawing had served its turn well, but was now worn out. Deriving, originally, as we have seen, out of Greek art in its Byzantine form, it had formed a stock on which the artist of the Early Period had been able to graft his own observation and love of nature, but it had now ceased to satisfy and was therefore abandoned. The progress of drawing in other arts, or at all events in sculpture, had taught men to demand something different. The artist of the late thirteenth century, as the last influence of Greek art died out of his work, had undoubtedly neglected grace of form in his enthusiasm for vigorous and naturalistic movement; and, as so often happens when one quality in art is neglected, a reaction had come, in which people demanded that quality above all others. Consequently, the chief effort of the draughtsman of the fourteenth century, if I understand him rightly, was to bring his drawing of form up to the standard required of him, the S-like attitude, for instance, being merely a trick to get a willowy gracefulness into his figures, especially those of women.
The same tendency is observable in the drawing of drapery. The drapery of the thirteenth century was entirely conventional in the method in which it was drawn, but it was always in movement and helped the action of the figures. Fourteenth century drapery, on the other hand, is always at rest, or at most sweeping with the slow movement of a figure, but its folds are drawn in a much more advanced manner than before, and seem to bear evidence of a certain amount of direct study of actual drapery, either on the part of the artist or of those whom he was following. The ideal of gracefulness shows itself in a love for long and sweeping folds, as may be seen in Plates XXIV., XXX., XXXI.
At first the artist is content to use in his drawing the strong line work of the preceding period, but as the century proceeds this becomes rather more delicate, and he begins to feel his way towards modelling in half-tones. The drapery over the Virgin's knees in Plate XXI. shows this very clearly.
Neglect of movement.
With this preoccupation with the truer rendering of form, it is perhaps not surprising that the study of action was neglected. The artist had enough to do to draw his figures and drapery in repose without making them move about and do things, and a contributory cause was, no doubt, the weakening of interest already alluded to in the subjects he had to illustrate. This then is why, whereas in the thirteenth century we find a highly conventional rendering of form allied to naturalism in movement, in the fourteenth, conversely, we find conventional poses and movement allied to a more naturalistic rendering of form.
Comparative study of the illuminated manuscripts of the same period shows exactly the same changes in progress. So closely do the two arts keep pace with each other that I do not think it can be said that at any time either was leading the other. They must have been in very close touch even if they were not, which it is quite possible they often were, practised by the same artists. The lead, if there was a lead, must have come from sculpture.
Natural plant forms in ornament.
(6) The use of Natural Plant Forms in Ornament.—This is another manifestation of the same spirit, and divides the work of the fourteenth century most sharply from that both of the preceding and following periods. The Jesse Trees, and the leafy scrolls and borders of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries belong to no genus known to botanists, but in the fourteenth century it seems as if the artist, the inspiration of religion failing him, had sought it in a rather literal study of Nature. Accordingly in the grisaille and borders of this period we find patterns formed of oak leaves and acorns, ivy leaves, maple, vine, and so on. Plate XXVI. is rather an exception in that one cannot name the particular plant; but Plates XXVIII. and XXIX. contain characteristic examples, and Plate XXI. shows a good vine border from York, and some holly leaf grisaille.
Yet the feeling for Nature in these patterns does not go very deep. The artist is, for instance, content to make the oak wreath and twine itself as freely as the vine, and I always feel that his practice is the result of theory rather than the spontaneous expression of love of Nature. The earlier worker was really, I believe, more in tune with Nature than his successor of the fourteenth century. He did not copy her forms in ornament but he followed her principles. He did not copy her forms, because she had taught him to design forms for himself. Nature, it may be observed, does not adorn one object with copies of another, hardly even when she gives her creatures protective colouring and markings, but gives to each the patterning which suits it best. In the same way the ornament of the twelfth and thirteenth century artist is always perfectly suited to its purpose without distracting one's attention; and when his subject requires him to represent a tree or a bush,—such as the fig tree under which Nathanael sits, or the thicket in which the ram is caught, at Canterbury,—though the foliage is that of the shamrock, he knows how to make it grow and live better than his fourteenth century successor. The waves, too, of the Flood in Plate IV., conventional though they are, give a real sense of tossing and stormy water.
Change in
material.
Fourteenth
century
colour
schemes.
(7) The Quality of Glass and the Colours Used.—At first these differ little from those used in the previous period, but as the fourteenth century proceeds, the rich intense reds and blues, with their "streakiness," their endless variety of tone and texture, which makes each piece of glass a jewel with an individuality of its own, and needing no enrichment, give way to glass of a thinner, flatter quality. In Plate III. Mr. Saint has managed to catch and the printer to reproduce something of the quality of these early blues. There is a change too in the proportions of the colours used. The colour schemes of the Early Period are almost always conceived on a basis of red and blue, but now green and yellow become equally important; Plates XXI., XXII., for example, contain very little blue at all. The canopies when not white are mainly yellow, and this alone is responsible for a very large amount of yellow in the colour scheme—too much, in fact, as a rule. The yellow used at first, till silver stain took its place, was, as I have said, a rather hot unpleasant pot-metal. The green of the First Period had been a rather sharp brilliant colour, used generally in small quantities, and striking a high shrill note among the deep reds and blues, like a clarionet in an orchestra. The typical green of the fourteenth century, on the other hand, which is often used as a background, is a greyer duller colour altogether. Plate XVI. and Plate XXI. give a fairly good idea of its quality.
White glass for flesh.
Another change, which was the natural result, both of the increased amount of white now used in windows and of the introduction of the silver stain, was the gradual substitution of white glass in the flesh of figures for the brownish pink formerly used. Its use afforded an opportunity for getting white in amongst the colour, and so helping to bind the design together, and the fact that the hair, crowns, and mitres of figures could now be stained yellow, rendered it on the whole the most suitable glass for the purpose, and we find it holding the field down to the late sixteenth century, when a pinkish enamel began to be used.
Painted diapers.
(8) The use of Painted Diaper Patterns on the Coloured Backgrounds.—The red and blue backgrounds to the figures in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries needed no further decoration. Their own depth and quality was enough in itself, but the thinner, flatter tones that succeeded them needed enriching and giving texture to, in order to throw the figures up into proper relief; or so the fourteenth century artist seems to have felt, for from the beginning we find his backgrounds usually covered with a diaper painted in enamel.
The method is always the same; the ground having been covered with an even coat of enamel, the pattern is scratched out clear with the point of a stick or a brush handle. Plates XVI., XX., XXI. are typical examples, and show in detail the kind of pattern that was used.
It is very rarely that we find anything of the kind in the previous period. There is, as we have seen, an isolated and early example of it at Canterbury, where a rather paler, poorer blue has been used than in the other windows, but there it is more delicate than in the fourteenth century, the pattern being scratched out of a very thin semi-transparent mat of enamel; and it is found too in some late thirteenth century windows in St. Urbain at Troyes, but in fourteenth century work it is frequently met with even at the beginning of the period, and by the end of the first quarter of the century it is the rule, and remains so throughout the succeeding century as well.
IX
EARLY FOURTEENTH CENTURY GLASS
IN ENGLAND
(MERTON COLLEGE AND EXETER)
The windows in the chapel of Merton College, Oxford, are perhaps the earliest in which the design of the Second Period has taken a definite and typical form. Antony à Wood, in his catalogue of Fellows, says that the donor, Henry de Mamesfield or Mannesfield, whose portrait is in the windows, caused them to be made in 1283, but in view of an order in the Bursar's Rolls of 1292 for stone for building these windows, this date must be rejected. Antony à Wood's statement elsewhere that the whole chapel was pulled down and rebuilt in 1424 shows he is not altogether to be relied on. The presence of the fleur-de-lis with the castle of Castile in some of the borders makes it probable[12] that they were done after Edward I.'s second marriage with Margaret of France in 1299, while the arms of an Heir-Apparent as well as of a King of England in the east window makes it certain that they were executed while Edward I. and his son were both alive, i.e. before 1307. On the whole, and by comparison with the York glass, I should think 1303-1305 a not improbable date for them.
The east window.
There are seven windows on each side and a great east window, and, with the exception of the latter, they are still fairly perfect. Of the east window it is only the beautiful "wheel" tracery which retains its original glass, the lower lights, alas! having been destroyed in 1702 to make room for a monstrosity by one Pryce—a horrible blare of yellow. What remains in the tracery has a more transitional character than the other windows, and was probably executed first, and if only the lower lights had remained they might have thrown an interesting light on the development of the style.
The three trefoils in the centre of the wheel contain three coats of arms—the short triangular shields of the thirteenth century, of which the first is that of Edward I., the leopards of England; the second the same with a label of five points azure for his son, afterwards Edward II.; and the third that of Walter de Merton, the founder of the college. For the most part the other lights contain ornament that is wholly fourteenth century in character, but the quatrefoil on each side has a feature which shows the early date of the window. In these two small figures representing the Annunciation, though themselves in the style and colouring of the early fourteenth century, are placed directly on a background of red and blue mosaic diaper, such as one finds again and again in thirteenth century work in France, and among the fragments in the South Rose at Lincoln. I have often thought that thirteenth century glaziers sometimes kept this mosaic filling in stock, and perhaps the artist of Merton had some left on his hands and used it up here. In any case it would seem to show that the style in which he was working was fairly new to his workshop.
The side windows.
The fourteen side windows are designed on a plan which is typical of fourteenth century work both in England and in France, especially Normandy. The sections into which the glazing is divided by the heavy iron frame-bars are taken as the units of the design. One in each light is filled with a coloured panel—a figure under a canopy—and the rest with grisaille having a coloured boss in the centre of each, the whole being surrounded by a coloured border. The effect is that of a range of greenish-white windows just dotted and edged with colour, and with a single broad band of colour running horizontally through them all. This plan is common in all early fourteenth century work, especially in England and Normandy. Evreux is another example, York nave another, but with two rows of coloured panels, and the window from Rouen in Plate XXV. is only an elaboration of it forty years later. At Merton College, however, the canopy has not yet run mad, but is of modest proportions, figure and canopy together only occupying one section of glazing.
The grisaille itself is for the most part of "bulged" quarries curving round the central bosses, but two on each side have true quarries. All have the trellis pattern formed by doubling the lead with a painted line and a continuous flowing pattern of foliage—vine, oak, ivy, and fig—spreading through it over the window from a central stem. Plate XXVI. is a later example of the same thing, but with the addition of silver stain, which is nowhere found in the Merton windows.
The borders, when not formed of castle and fleur-de-lis, are of a kind found in the Chapter-House at York, and common in other fourteenth century windows—leaves white or yellow, branching at intervals from a straight or wavy stem on a coloured ground. There is not much variety in the coloured bosses, which all consist either of a simple four-leaved pattern or of a small head in white on a coloured disc. There are, I think, only four different designs of these heads—Christ, an old man, a king, and a queen continually repeated.
Poverty of ideas.
The most woeful poverty of ideas is, however, found in the figures under the canopies. There are fourteen windows of three lights each, with a figure in each,—forty-two in all,—yet the designer could think of nothing better to do than to put an apostle in the centre light of each window, repeating two apostles to make them go round, and in every window but two a kneeling figure of the donor—"Magister Enricus de Mamesfield"—in the light on each side. Thus the proud and happy Master Henry might see himself reproduced no less than four-and-twenty times, in robes of red, white, brown or blue, wide sleeved robes with a hood, doubtless the M.A.'s gown of the period.
Neither are the apostles very interestingly treated. They are almost repetitions of each other, standing in the same conventional pose and distinguished only by their attributes. The backgrounds of the figures are diapered with enamel in the usual fourteenth century way.
In point of development these windows come between the Chapter-House and the earliest nave windows at York, and correspond with the earliest work at Evreux, being the earliest windows in which the style of the Second Period has taken final and definite form. They are not without their beauty, but in looking at them one wonders what has become of the spirit that created the windows of Canterbury, Chartres, and Bourges.
Exeter east window.
Of the same stage of development as the Merton windows are the earliest of the figures remaining in the east window of Exeter Cathedral. Although this window was rebuilt and enlarged in 1390, the original glass was, it is known, used again and eked out with new. There is an entry in the Fabric Rolls of 1301-1302 for 1271 feet of glass at 5½d. per foot, "ad summas fenestras frontis novi operis"—which seems to mean the east end of the choir, and two years later a payment to Master Walter the glazier for fixing the glass "summi gabuli," but no further light is thrown on its origin. Later on, however, in the roll for 1317-1318, there is an entry for glass, apparently for the Lady Chapel, "bought at Rouen" at the rate of 6d. a foot for white (? grisaille) and 1s. 0d. for coloured, and from this it has been argued that the whole of the glass up to that time was bought from Rouen too. To me, however, the fact that Rouen is specifically mentioned here, and nowhere else, militates against this theory, while if the price of 5½d. a foot paid for the glass of the east window was for finished figure work, it is far lower than that of the Rouen glass. The figures themselves are much larger than those at Merton College, and on the whole more interestingly treated. There are nine of them remaining: three patriarchs; three apostles—St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. Andrew; and three female saints—St. Margaret, St. Catherine, and, I think, the Magdalen. The canopies are large in proportion, being nearly twice the height of the figures,—an unusual height for so early a date,—but they are not unlike the Merton canopies in style. There is no trace of silver stain either in the canopies or the figures.
Another fact which to some extent tells against the theory of their Rouen origin, is that so far I have found no glass of that date at Rouen which at all resembles them, whereas as late as 1290-1295 Clement of Chartres was, as we have seen, doing work there, which shows little change from the style of the middle of the thirteenth century.
Grisaille at Exeter.
There is some very interesting grisaille in two of the chapels at Exeter, of an earlier type than that at Merton, being in fact transitional between the style of the First and Second Periods. It has the interlacing medallions of coloured strap work, with the painted grisaille pattern passing behind them, but this latter, though chiefly of the "Herba Benedicta," breaks here and there into natural leafage. It is a slightly earlier point of development than even the Chapter-House at York, and corresponds very closely with some at St. Urbain at Troyes.
X
FOURTEENTH CENTURY GLASS
AT YORK
The best work of the Second Period that I know of anywhere is to be found in York Minster. Here the new style seems to have become engrafted on a strong local school which had preserved much of the life and vigour of the previous age. It is true that even here one finds a certain weakening of the religious motive, but its place seems to be to some extent taken by a patriotic enthusiasm for a warrior king and for the gallant nobles who followed him in the Scotch wars, and whose arms are everywhere in the glass of the nave.
The windows themselves show a steady and almost unbroken progression in style from the late thirteenth to the early part of the fifteenth century, which makes them most useful for study. Leaving out the fragments of very early glass I have mentioned before, the order of their execution seems to be—
Chronological order of the windows.
Whatever difference of opinion there may be about the date of these windows, I do not think this order can be disputed.
The Chapter-House.
The "Five Sisters" have already been dealt with in their place in the First Period. Those of the Chapter-House, whether of earlier or later date than those of the Merton College Chapel, are distinctly earlier in style and are one of the few examples of work that is really transitional between the First and Second Periods, belonging almost as much to one as to the other. Unfortunately there is no record of the building of the Chapter-House, and its date is a matter of dispute, Drake putting it as early as the time of Archbishop Walter Grey, who died in 1256, and Browne holding it was not finished till nearly 1340—an impossible date for the glass. As in Merton Chapel the presence of the fleur-de-lis as well as the castle of Castile in the windows may mean that they are not earlier than 1299, but I do not think they are much later. The only French work I know of which at all corresponds to it is in St. Urbain at Troyes, which Viollet-le-Duc dates at about 1295, and the windows from Poitiers in Plate XV.
The grisaille in the Chapter-House.
The windows are divided by the tracery into narrow lights in which a series of coloured medallions of typical thirteenth century shape are placed one above the other on a ground of grisaille, much as in the window from Poitiers. It is in the grisaille itself that the beginnings of the new style are shown, for whereas in the "Five Sisters," which are certainly later than 1260, the pattern on the grisaille is the conventional trefoil of the First Period—the Herba Benedicta—and conforms to the shapes of the lead-work and of the hollow medallions outlined in coloured bands, in the Chapter-House, although the medallions in coloured outline are still there, the painted pattern, as at Exeter and Troyes, runs through them independently of them (giving them a rather meaningless appearance of being hung in front of it), but is wholly formed of natural foliage, oak, fig, ivy, and so on; the borders, too, are of the character of the Second Period. Similar grisaille is found at Chartham in Kent. At Poitiers, as may be seen in the illustration, the grisaille pattern is still of the Herba Benedicta, with a cross-hatched ground, and the border is of an earlier type; at St. Urbain at Troyes, as at Exeter, both the conventional and the natural foliage are found, but on the whole I am somewhat inclined to think that wherever the other features of the style originated these patterns of natural foliage were first used in England.
These windows, by the way, are in a sad state and want releading, instead of which the authorities have contented themselves with placing quarry glazing on the outside of them, which now that it is dirty so darkens the old windows as to kill all light and colour in them. When I say releading, I mean that and nothing more—not "restoration," which is murder.
The Chapter-House vestibule.
The windows in the L-shaped vestibule, or passage, which leads to the Chapter-House show a slight further development. Here the grisaille is of the same character as in the Chapter-House itself, but the coloured panels are each surmounted by a little crocketted canopy, which here appears for the first time in York. It is found in some glass at Selling, in Kent (which from the heraldry seems to commemorate Edward I.'s marriage to Margaret of France in 1299), in conjunction with grisaille in which the foliage is of the earlier conventional type, and which therefore may, perhaps, be a little earlier than these windows.
The clerestory of the nave.
The windows in the clerestory of the nave of York Minster are little, I think, if at all, later than those in the Chapter-House, but it is a little difficult to compare them as they are designed to be seen at such a very different distance from the eye, the white parts of the clerestory windows consisting only of interlacing bands of lead-work without any painted pattern at all. A small inset in Plate XVIII. shows the general arrangement of all these windows; the great wheel of the tracery, it will be seen, is filled with colour, while the lower lights are white with two bands of coloured panels running horizontally through them all. Of these panels the lower row consists of coats of arms of the great families of the North, contained in medallions of which Plate XVI. is an example. The upper row consists for the most part of subjects contained in somewhat similar medallions, but many of the panels are filled with earlier glass of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, which were doubtless preserved from the older nave. Thus, if you let your eye run along the northern side it will be arrested at the extreme west end of the line by a piece of blue that is different from all the others. It is the twelfth century blue that we have seen at St. Denis and in the west windows at Chartres, and the panel is the portion of a Jesse Tree of the same pattern as that which is found at both those places, and which I mentioned when speaking of them. Portions of the foliage of the tree are in the tracery above. I think I recognize this blue too in a panel on the south side representing a man with a horse and cart, and remains of early thirteenth century glass are plentiful.
The aisles of the nave.
Next after the clerestory, the oldest windows in the nave are the first five from the east in each aisle. In these the style of the Second Period is fully developed and is in no sense transitional. They are rather more advanced in style than the Merton College windows and are by a far finer artist, being, in fact, the finest work of the period that I know. They seem to me all to have been executed within a few years of each other, probably in continuous succession, and to show the gradual development which might be expected during the progress of the work.
Those on the north are the oldest and in the best condition, those on the south being much broken and confused, and one, alas! "restored." The general design is the same in all and is a typical fourteenth century one, two horizontal bands of coloured panels surmounted by canopies running horizontally through all the lights, separated by panels of grisaille which have a coloured spot in the centre of each panel. It is characteristic of the fourteenth century that the whole of the lower panels are in nearly every window devoted to the donor, who is thus given as much space as the subject. The grisaille is of the same type as at Merton. As in all early fourteenth century work, the sections divided by the heavy frame-bars are taken as the units of the design, the coloured panels with their canopies each occupying two sections and the grisaille panels one each. Nos. 2, 3, and 4 on the north were probably the first executed, as they contain no trace of yellow stain (Plate XVII.b). No. 5, from which the border of monks in their stalls in Plate XVII.a is taken, has a single touch of it in one place, but in No. 1 it is used, though still sparingly and tentatively, on the beaks and claws of the eagles in the borders of the outer lights (Plate XVII.c) and on the mail of the knights in the border of the centre light (Plate XVIII.), and here and there in the canopy. Another fresh development is the prolonging of the pinnacles of the canopy into the grisaille panel above.
The Peter de Dene window.
This window, which is sometimes called the Heraldic Window, from the number of coats of arms it contains, is the only one of them that has hitherto been the subject of any very close study, Mr. Winston having devoted a whole article to an extremely close and careful analysis of its heraldry, and to an account of the life of its donor, one Peter de Dene, whose portrait is in the central light and who was a churchman-politician under the first two Edwards. There is no space here to repeat his arguments, and I will only say that, after reading them and rereading them, I find it very difficult not to accept his conclusion that the most probable date for the window is 1306. The subject panels represent the story of St. Catherine, but are the least interesting part of the window, of which the most charming feature is, perhaps, the border of the central light, which consists of miniature portraits of kings, queens, and nobles whom the donor wished to compliment (Plate XVIII.). The two uppermost figures are those of a Templar and a Hospitaller; below them are the kings and queens of England and France, in allusion to Edward I.'s second marriage, and the recent peace concluded by it; below the Queen of France is the Heir-Apparent of England, and the remaining figures bear the arms of de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, Warrenne (both connected with the Royal Family), Beauchamp, Ros, Mowbray, Clifford, and Percy. The coats of arms which form the bosses in the white panels are those of foreign monarchs with whom the King of England was connected. The white eagles in the outer border are thought by Winston to refer to Piers Gaveston, who, though somewhat under a cloud in 1306, yet, as the friend of the heir to the throne, was a good person to keep in favour with. It is true the Gaveston eagles were golden, but heraldry was more free and easy then than later. There is a portrait of Prince Edward in the Chapter-House with a white falcon on his wrist, and white falcons are plentiful in the windows of the nave, yet I have never heard of his using it as a badge, though the last Plantagenet, Richard II., did so.
The Bell-founder's window.
The next window to this is the famous "Bell-founder's Window," given by Richard Tunnoc, bell-founder of York. In the lower panel of the centre light is his portrait kneeling and presenting a model of the window to an Archbishop, perhaps St. William. The panels on either side represent one, the casting, the other the turning of a bell in a lathe. Bells are everywhere in the window, the canopies are hung with them in rows, the borders are formed of them, but Mr. Westlake's careless remark that all six panels represent the process of bell-making is not true. The upper three are much perished, but one can just see that they tell the story of St. William's return to York, when the welcoming crowds broke down Ouse Bridge, but when, through his intercession, not a life was lost.
The de la Warde window.
The third window contains some interesting portraits in its lower panels. The central one is that of an Archbishop of York, as shown by the key in his left hand, holding in his right a model of the nave[14]. On the left is a knight dismounted, holding his horse by the bridle, and behind him the hand of some one out of the picture holds his banner, which the painting, though almost obliterated, still shows to be "vairé" argent and sable. In the opposite panel is a lady standing and behind her, half out of the picture, a man on horseback, doubtless his wife and son. Now the arms on the banner are those of the Barons de la Warde, of whom there were only two, Robert and his son Simon. Robert, who was in the Scotch wars, and in 1306 was steward of the household to Edward I., must have passed the greater part of that year in York with the King, who was there preparing for his last expedition against Robert Bruce. He, Robert de la Warde, died next year. His son Simon was Governor of York in 1321, and helped with his forces to defeat Thomas of Lancaster at Boroughbridge. It will thus be seen that the window might either have been given by the father in 1306 or the son about 1320, but since two figures are represented, and since we know that Simon died childless (the barony becoming extinct), it seems probable that it was executed in the father's lifetime. Again, though 1320 would fit the Bell-founder's window, since Tunnoc was Sheriff of York that year, it cannot be made to fit the facts in Peter de Dene's window, which is certainly not earlier but later. The presence of the Templar is against it, as it is unthinkable that the Order which was suppressed in 1312 (and its grandmaster burnt) should thus have been complimented in 1320. But for this fact I am bound to say I should have thought 1320 the more probable.
If then we accept 1306 as the approximate date for these windows, it will be seen that in little more than seven years a complete change had come over the design of English stained glass, and it will presently be seen that much the same thing was happening in France at the same time. Indeed, one of the surprising things about mediæval art is the rapidity with which new ideas seem to flash across Europe from Yorkshire to Dalmatia.
The outer lights of the de la Warde window have a fascinating border of monkeys bearing pitchers, and across the bottom of the window is a busy scene of monkeys hunting and feasting, with a man and woman among them.
The fifth window in the north aisle.
The three lower panels of the fifth window illustrate a story which I have never yet found any one to give me a clue to. It has nothing to do with the upper subjects, two of which are the martyrdoms of SS. Peter and Paul, the third being merely fragments. From its position, and from the fact that the costume is contemporary with the painting, I should rather imagine that it refers to some local story, perhaps connected in some way with the gift of the window. On the right, a figure in a red cope with a red skull-cap but no nimbus, holding a scourge or "disciplina" in his hand, is pointing apparently in denunciation at what appears to be a cringing figure in brown, much broken, among a crowd of others, some of whom are women. In the next panel, which is also much broken and jumbled, the same figures seem to be there, but the one in red seems to be exhorting rather than denouncing. The third or left-hand panel is in much better condition, and here we see the figures plainly. The one in brown, which turns out to be that of a layman, without armour, but with a dagger at his side and a spiked mace slung over his left arm, is kneeling at the feet of the figure in red, who is seated, and with one hand laid on the penitent's head is with the other firmly administering the "disciplina" to his back! The border is of monks (or canons) in their stalls, and the only heraldry in the window is contained in the painted diaper on the blue background, and consists of spread eagles and rampant lions, like the border of the Peter de Dene window. The remains of the donor's name—W ... MN ... CTON—gives me no clue.
The south aisle.
The de Mauley window.
The first five windows in the south aisle seem to me to follow these immediately in order of execution. The style is just a little more advanced; stain is used more freely, and the canopies begin to grow up into the white panel above them until their pinnacles reach its centre and do away with the coloured boss there altogether; they spread into the borders in many cases in order to give more room to the figures under them, thus giving rise to the three-gabled form of canopy. In colour they are still very beautiful, but have suffered much more damage than those in the north aisle. Several of them have been repaired and restored by Peckitt, of York, as the inscriptions show, at the end of the eighteenth century, but Peckitt's restoration was merciful compared to that which the fourth one has undergone at the hands of a modern firm of stained-glass manufacturers. Whole quantities of the old glass have been replaced by new, and the whole has been smeared with some brownish mess to make it look old again. As a result, all life and beauty have gone out of the window which is merely a sort of embalmed corpse, and this is the more to be regretted that it seems to have been a particularly interesting window. The lower panels each contain a pair of kneeling figures, five knights, and one churchman who hold aloft shields which show them to be various members of the Yorkshire family of de Mauley of Mulgrave. The founder of the family was the Poitevin ruffian, Piers de Mauley who, at King John's orders, murdered Prince Arthur and was rewarded for this service with the hand and estates of an unfortunate Yorkshire heiress. The descendants of this miscreant seem, however, to have been gallant soldiers who distinguished themselves in Scotland and Gascony and were made barons by Edward I. A peculiarity of the family was that the eldest son was always called Peter, and they distinguished themselves by numbers, like kings. One of the portraits must be the particular Peter who afterwards, in 1346, commanded the forces which Queen Philippa raised in her husband's absence against the invading Scots, whom he routed at Neville's Cross, taking their king, David Bruce, prisoner, and partly avenging Bannockburn. An interesting point of heraldry is the way in which the arms of the different sons are distinguished, not by the marks of cadency used later, but by the addition of different charges to the original shield which is or, a bend sable.
The fifth window was once a Tree of Jesse but is now a mere wreck. It is, however, the earliest Jesse Tree I know of in which the stem and foliage of the tree are green.
These windows show a progressive increase in the use of white for flesh colour instead of the brownish pink formerly used. At first, white is used only for women's faces, and then for those of saints of both sexes, brown-pink continuing to be used for other people till quite the middle of the century or later. Stain is not used on the hair at first, but sometimes a thin brown matt of enamel is laid all over the hair which at a distance has almost the effect of stain.
The sixth window in the north aisle.
The sixth window on the north side is, I think, a good many years later in date than these ten windows we have been considering, and is much less beautiful. A canopy and border from it are shown in Plate XVIII.a on the right. Although the same general arrangement is adhered to as in the other windows, the treatment is much coarser; the crockets of the canopies are big, heavy, and ugly, of a brownish-yellow pot-metal, but at the same time stain is freely, indeed lavishly, used, not only in the canopies and borders but, for the first time in the Cathedral, in the quarries of the grisaille as well. The borders of heraldry or little figures have given way to running patterns of natural foliage of the more common fourteenth century type. There are four different patterns of these borders in the window, so that some probably came from another window of the same date, perhaps in the now empty seventh window.
The west windows.
Later still are the three west windows and the sixth in the south aisle which mark a further stage in development. Here we have at last a definite date to help us, for the contract with the glazier, one Robert, is still in existence and is dated 1338, so we may assume the windows were finished about 1340. It is difficult to judge these windows fairly, for they were subjected to a most drastic restoration in the eighteenth century, and the great central one is further disfigured by protective quarry glazing on the outside, which reduces it to a dirty brown. I do not think, however, that they can ever have been, comparatively speaking, very good, and I am inclined to look upon them as perhaps the poorest work of the Middle Ages. Plate XIX. shows one light of the northernmost of the three, that at the west end of the north aisle. It will be seen that the canopy has now grown to an absurd height and fills the whole light, and neither in its proportions nor in its details is it very graceful. The border is now growing narrower and narrower, and is eventually doomed to disappear altogether. The crockets of the gable are the only yellow pot-metal used, silver stain being used everywhere else, and not very artistically, though how far this is due to the restorer it is difficult to say.