The Mentor · Stained Glass · Page 5

Thirteenth-century craftsmen invented the iron frame bent to enclose medallions of a great variety of shapes. These gave greater strength to the window, as well as more variety of form to the frame enclosing the scenes picturing life adventures, historic events, or even the occupations of the donors of the windows, which were frequently shown in the lower sections of medallion windows. When the donors were titled folk they were not infrequently pictured kneeling below very large images of saints in great windows.
The earliest workers in stained glass inherited from Greek and Byzantine sources a clear conception of the correct use of their material. Cutting the glass in small pieces so that the lead line holding them together should, as far as possible, follow the drawing laid out for them, the glass filling there spaces was selected according to clearly defined principles of varied color. Choosing tones for any large mass of one tint and balancing these by their complementary colors in the surrounding mass, the workers in glass required no color sketch from the artists who supplied them the cartoons.

HEADS FROM ENGLISH FOURTEENTH-
CENTURY WINDOWS
Showing three examples of varying styles
and periods: earliest period (center);
middle period (at the left); last
development of 14th-century English
glass painting (right)

Of the workers in glass of that far-off period we have no definite records as to names of origin. It is supposed the designs were given to them by artist monks, since it was always the monasteries that furnished the art and learning of that period. It is not impossible that the workers, as well, were lay brothers associated with the monastic orders, who had ample time for the necessary training in all the delicate details of making the glass, cutting it and putting it together in the lead. Existing manuscripts show that the monasteries carefully preserved in their libraries all the recipes for making the glass. The manuscript of Monk Theophilus, supposed to have been written in the eleventh century, copies of which circulated in many countries during the Middle ages, gives the most