Stones of the Temple Part 8

_CHAPTER XIII_

THE WINDOWS

"I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones."

Isa. liv. 12.

" ... Sometimes thoughts proud and wild Have risen, till I saw the sunbeams steal Through painted gla.s.s at evensong, and weave Their threefold tints upon the marble near, Faith, Prayer, and Love, the spirit of a child!"

FABER.

Ill.u.s.tration: Church of St. John, Brandenburg

Ill.u.s.tration: Doorway, St. Stephen's Church, Tangermunde

THE WINDOWS

Mr. Acres and his family had now learnt, from their many conversations with the Vicar on the subject, to take a deep interest in church architecture, and were ever seeking and finding some new beauties either in the solid building or the ornaments of their own ancient church, which now they looked upon with quite a new feeling of pride and admiration. When, therefore, Mr. Ambrose was a visitor at the Hall, he was not unfrequently called upon to deliver a short drawing-room lecture on some portion of the church or its furniture. "Now, Mr. Ambrose," said the Squire, on one of these occasions, "as we are only a family party this evening, will you kindly give us some more information on our favourite topic of conversation lately? I see the same request is on the lips of all these little people, but they are not so impudent, I suppose, as I am. You will, I hope, find us more profitable pupils than Mr. Dole, to whom you specially addressed your lecture in the church the other day."

"I am not so sure of that; for what I said to him, if it did no more, at least set him _thinking_; and that is a great point, you know. You see, those kind of people, as a rule, never read and never hear any thing really worth reading or hearing about matters of this sort. They are simply taught to believe that all outward form and ceremony in the Services, and all outward _meaning_ and _beauty_ in the fabric of the church, are idolatrous and superst.i.tious, and they care to inquire no further than that. Their prejudice is fostered by ignorance, and to lead them to _inquire_ is the first step to wards inducing conviction. Then, how very little our own people generally know about these things, and how seldom comparatively they are prepared with a ready answer with which to meet the objections of persons who are even more ignorant than themselves! This surely ought not to be. If we place beautiful and costly ornaments and furniture in our churches, the poorest person in the parish should be taught the meaning of them; and if the Stones of the Temple have each a lesson to teach, the poorest person in the parish ought to know what they say. But I am wandering from my point: our last subject was the _walls_ of the church; what shall we talk about to-day, Constance?"

"Oh, I think the _windows_ should come next, Mr. Ambrose; but there are so many different kinds of windows, that, of course, you cannot tell us all that might be said about them."

"No, indeed, my dear; I can only tell you a very small part of their history, but still enough, perhaps, to increase the interest you already feel on the subject. First, then, I shall say something about the _stone-work_ of the windows; and what I say about windows applies very much also to the _doors_ of a church, only the doors are generally much more richly ornamented. Now there are some very simple rules by which we may commonly know from the windows pretty nearly at what period that particular part of the church was built. You cannot, of course, always tell from any thing still existing at what time the church was _first_ built, because often no part whatever of the first church is remaining.

The font, from its sheltered position, is the most frequently preserved relic of the original church; sometimes one doorway alone remains, and sometimes but a single window to mark the earliest date of the church.

"As I must not puzzle your brains with the hard words employed by persons learned in church building, I do not profess to give you the nice distinctions by which they arrive almost at exact dates. Ours must be a very rapid glance at the whole subject. The two great distinct characters, then, in church windows, as also in other parts of the building, are the _semi-circular arch_ and the _pointed arch_. The former is to be found in churches erected before the year 1150, and the latter since that year; but of course there are exceptions. The earliest round-headed windows (that the few buildings in which they are found were originally intended as Christian temples, I do not of course affirm) are the _Roman_, and these are easily known, for they are nearly always partly composed of red bricks[61]. Then come the _Saxon_; these are built of stone, but are quite plain, and generally as rude and rough as the Roman. You know the Romans held possession of our country from the year 50 before Christ till A.D. 450; and then the Saxons held the country till A.D. 1066; but it is impossible accurately to fix the dates of most of the churches they built. Next follow the _Norman_; these are more ornamental, and not so roughly executed; and after the Norman Conquest, when many clever builders and masons came over from Normandy, they were often most beautifully decorated. The figures of persons and animals, indeed, that are sometimes to be found (but more especially above the doorways) at this time seem very quaint and curious to us now, and often quite unintelligible, but no doubt they once all had an useful meaning and were specimens of the highest art of the time; very many of them are Scripture subjects. Sometimes triangular windows are to be met with of the Saxon and Norman periods, but very rarely. As I said before, some of their stone carvings appear to us to be very quaint and grotesque, and so too the arrangement of their windows was sometimes fanciful; they seem to have attempted occasionally[62], to represent the features of the face, the doorway representing the mouth, and the windows the eyes and nose.

Ill.u.s.tration: Crowmarsh Church

"The reason why the windows were in some instances so small, we may imagine was because they were sometimes not glazed, and it was desirable that, to keep out the wind and rain and the winter's cold, they should be only just large enough to admit the necessary light. I have lately seen an old Norman window which had been long bricked up, in which there had evidently never been any gla.s.s[63]. We need not be surprised at this, for even so lately as in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, it was no uncommon thing for the windows in private houses to have no gla.s.s in them.

Ill.u.s.tration: Diagram of arches

"Now we come to the pointed-headed arches. From about A.D. 1150 to A.D.

1200, which is called the _Transition_ period the two styles were a good deal mixed. People have different, opinions as to the origin of these pointed arches. A learned friend of mine has an idea of his own about it, which he calls _the finger theory_. He supposes that all church arches and tracery may be derived from different positions in which the fingers may be placed when the hands are clasped as in prayer, and that from these, first the round, and then the pointed arch was suggested as a fit design to be adopted for a House of Prayer. It is at least an ingenious and a pleasing conception. Some have imagined that the meeting of branches in a grove of trees first gave the idea of the pointed arch.

Often, as I have looked down the avenue by old Wood's cottage, has the opening at the opposite end reminded me of the eastern window of some splendid cathedral, whilst the long intervening rows of trees, with their branches uniting overhead, has suggested to my mind the pillars and groined roof of the building. Our old heathen forefathers knew well the grand effect of these magnificent temples of nature's building, when they selected them as the places best adapted for their awful sacrifices, and the wors.h.i.+p of their 'Unknown G.o.d[64].' But it seems most probable that one style of architecture naturally introduced another, and that the pointed followed naturally from the semi-circular arch. When the builders saw what a beautiful arch was produced by a number of their old semi-circular arches intersecting each other, they gradually introduced the newly-discovered pointed arch, and at length, finding that it admitted of such a far greater variety of beautiful tracery in the window, they abandoned the old style altogether.

"The first pure style of pointed windows is called the _Early English_[65], which prevailed from about A.D. 1200 to A.D. 1300. It is often very simple, the plain lancet-shaped window being the most common; it frequently has the same ornaments as the Norman, but its peculiar ornament is a flower, almost round, called the _ball-flower_. This was followed, up to about A.D. 1400, by a more graceful flowing style, called the _Decorated_ or _Florid_, and it is chiefly to be distinguished by the waving flame-like character of the stone-work in the upper part of the window. Then next we have quite a different style, which is called the _Perpendicular_, so named from its upright or perpendicular lines, some of which run up uninterruptedly from the bottom to the top of the window. This style is peculiar to England, and windows of this character are very rarely to be found elsewhere. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the arch of the window gradually becomes depressed, first sinking to the _Tudor_ arch, and then losing its pointed character altogether and becoming quite flat; and this introduced what, from its comparative want of beauty, is called the _Debased_ style. The windows of this period were usually square-headed, and possessed, like the other parts of the building, little ornament. It prevailed till the middle of the seventeenth century, and may be considered the second childhood of Church Architecture; and it was certainly far inferior to the first. Succeeding to this period came all those hideous semi-cla.s.sical erections, most of which, I believe, were built in the reign of Queen Anne, though some were before and some after; and those still more unsightly parodies on Gothic architecture which were erected at the close of the last and commencement of the present century. In our own day we have far _advanced_ by a complete _retrogression_, and churches are mostly copies of one or other of the styles I have mentioned. If, however, our present age may boast of a church architecture of its own, it will undoubtedly be that of those most beautiful _brick_ churches which have been but lately erected, such as All Saints' and St. Alban's, London, and St. James', Oxford."

"You have not told us any thing about the _round_ windows, Mr. Ambrose,"

said Constance; "you know we have a very pretty one in our church."

"Yes, I ought to have told you that these circular windows are to be found in all styles of architecture, usually at the west end of the church. They are called rose windows and marigold windows, from their supposed likeness to those flowers; and St. Catherine's windows, from their resemblance to the wheel on which she suffered martyrdom. It is likely that this window was placed in our church because it is dedicated to St. Catherine."

"That leads me to ask," said Mr. Acres, "what _symbolism_ there may be in the windows of a church; for in your sermon last Sunday you said that there was a lesson to be learnt from all the speechless stones of the sanctuary."

"Yes; and every window in the church should remind us of certain Christian truths. The _light_ which they admit should make us think of Him who is the 'Light of the world,' 'a Light to lighten the Gentiles,'

'the Day-spring from on high,' 'the Sun of Righteousness,' 'that lighteth every man that cometh into the world.' The window with its double compartments reminds us of the two natures of Christ; the triple window, and the many triple forms in it, of the Trinity[66]. But it is of course most chiefly in its storied panes that the church window becomes our teacher."

"Certainly; I see that: and, by-the-by, as I am as ignorant as my children about the history of stained gla.s.s, please tell us something about that before we part."

"I will, gladly. As far as we know, stained gla.s.s was never used before about the year 850; but when it once came into general use, it would appear that no church was considered complete unless every window was furnished with it. At first, it probably consisted of rude imitations of old mosaic patterns[67]. Then figures were introduced, which depended for their general effect upon broad black lines either produced by lead or colour. The old stained gla.s.s may always be known by the deep richness of its colours, especially of the blue and ruby. Probably Canterbury Cathedral possesses the earliest and best specimens remaining, the date of some of which is about A.D. 1120[68]. In the gla.s.s of this time you find small medallions containing several figures, the surrounding parts being filled with tracery. Next come small single figures, or groups of figures, with or without canopies, with border tracery and foliage; sometimes there are the s.h.i.+elds of founders and benefactors. About A.D. 1350 larger figures of saints were painted, each occupying a whole compartment of the window, with larger and more elaborate canopies. Now, too, windows began to be _mortuary_, and contained figures of deceased persons, with their s.h.i.+elds and banners.

In the following century single subjects often extended over several compartments, or even the whole of the window. Sentences in old English letters were frequently painted, issuing from the mouths of figures (just as we find them on monumental bra.s.ses of the same date), and also in various other parts of the window. One colour only, commonly yellow, with black lines to mark the features and dresses, was now, and also before this time, frequently used.

"At this period gla.s.s painters fell into a great error by studying more to paint pictures, correct in all the lesser and unimportant parts of the drawing, than to produce a pleasing and solemn distant effect; they often lost the effect of a grand accessory to the beauty and harmony of a Gothic temple, in order to gain that of a piece of painted calico.

From about A.D.1600 this art gradually declined, and, with some exceptions, the gla.s.s painting and architecture of our churches fell together, the inferior artist of the former being often employed in depicting the debased style of the latter. Immense quant.i.ties of stained gla.s.s were destroyed by the sacrilegious hands of the Puritans in the seventeenth century[69], and of course much, from its brittle nature, has otherwise perished; enough, however, remains to show how splendidly our churches were formerly decorated with it, and to afford invaluable aid to those who are now engaged in promoting the happy revival of this n.o.ble art.

Ill.u.s.tration: Stained Gla.s.s Window in Great Malvern Church

Ill.u.s.tration: Stained Gla.s.s Window in Great Malvern Church

Ill.u.s.tration: Stained Gla.s.s Window in Great Malvern Church

"There is just one other point to which I must briefly allude--the value of stained gla.s.s windows as _historical records_. There can be no objection to windows in some parts of the church (specially those placed over the arches of the nave which are called _clerestory_ windows) being thus employed, though the presence of these subjects in some parts would be most objectionable. There are some most interesting windows of this character still remaining. I have only time to notice some of those in Great Malvern Church. I have brought you some drawings of these windows; they represent some events in the life of St. Werstan, who was martyred in a small chapel near to the spot where these windows are. This gla.s.s preserves the only ancient record we have of this saint. In the first pane you see there is a representation of Werstan himself; the hills at the back, with the flowers and ferns upon them, probably represent the Malvern hills; and the painting above, the plot of ground on which his church was built. The key has reference either to the material fabric or the spiritual efficacy of its sacred services, and the four corner-stones, held by four angels, each with three fingers raised in the att.i.tude of blessing in the name of the Trinity, are doubtless intended to indicate the favour of Heaven on his pious work. In the next pane the figure and hills are repeated, and above is a representation of the different ceremonies attending the consecration of the completed church. In the third pane you see the hills, with their flowers and ferns, covering the whole background; in the lower part, the now regular services of St. Werstan's little church appear to be represented by three choristers; and standing near them are two persons who are probably their instructors. The upper part represents the martyrdom of the saint in his own chapel. The stained gla.s.s in Great Malvern Church contains other historical records, but we have not time to notice them."

Ill.u.s.tration: Rose Window, Cremona Cathedral

_CHAPTER XIV_

A LOOSE STONE IN THE BUILDING

A DIGRESSION

"Let the priests repair the breaches of the house, wheresoever any breach shall be found."

2 Kings xii. 5.

"Men, who have ceased to reverence, soon defy Their forefathers; lo! sects are form'd, and split With morbid restlessness;--the ecstatic fit Spreads wide; though special mysteries multiply, _The saints must govern_, is their common cry; And so they labour, deeming Holy Writ Disgraced by aught that seems content to sit Beneath the roof of settled modesty."

WORDSWORTH.