Stained Glass In France - Paperback

TO THAT REMORSELESS CRITIC MY WIFE THIS BOOK IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED CONTENTS INTRODUCTION . ... 18 THIRTEENTH CENTURY AND EARLIER . . 26 THIRTEENTH CENTURY TOURS . . 87 FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES .... 117 FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURY TOURS., 184-SIXTEENTH CENTURY . . 197 SIXTEENTH CENTURY TOURS 212 ITINERARIES 395 INDEX 297 FOKEWOED THE purpose of this book is a very simple one. It is to provide an answer to the question, Where does one find good stained glass in France, and how can it most conveniently be seen All the books upon this subject are more or less technical and are in tended rather for the student than the sightseer. Dur ing the six years that the writer has been studying glass, he has so often been asked the above question, as to finally conclude that an answer in the form of a simple touring handbook might be of service. To that end he has put together notes taken on simdiy vacation trips. The reader should be indulgent, for the writer is not an authority on glass just a lawyer on a holiday. In addition to the purpose al ready described, it is hoped that this little book may also serve to lure forth into the charming French country some who have hitherto neither heard nor cared much about glass, so that they may see the wonderful beauty that the stained-glass window can alone reveal, CHARLES HITCHCOCK SHERRILL. 20, East 65th Street, New York Christmas, 1907. 11 INTRODUCTION THE reason for the existence of a window is obvi ous. When the dwelling ceased to be a cave and be came a house, the need for a light aperture at once arose. Neither the house nor the window concern us until long after the house had been made thorough ly habitable, and its windows aftermuch evolution are finally filled with a sheet of translucent substance, which, while excluding the weather, would admit the light. Our interest does not begin until the wish to decorate the house naturally brought about a de sire to decorate the window. We will pass over the story of the discovery of glass and its gradual im provement nor will wo pause to consider the very earliest examples now extant, nor examine the steps through which it must have passed to reach so ad vanced a stage as we find in the twelfth century. This is a book to tell where to see windows, and therefore it imist not take up stained glass until a period is reached when examples are sufficiently numerous and beautiful to repay a visit to them. At what date then, shall we make our beginning There is prac-13 INTRODUCTION tically nothing until we come to the charming re mains of the twelfth century but because these lat ter are very few and those few in churches which also contain glass of the next century, we shall com mence with the heading of Thirteenth Century and Earlier. That explains why we have selected this particular epoch as the starting point of our investi gations. Our windows will themselves disclose to us that the Golden Age of French stained glass falls of itself into three subdivisions the first com prising the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the sec ond the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and the third the sixteenth century. Of the second subdivision we shall find but few examples, of the first more, and of the third most. No matter how far back we push our researches, s we are sure to be siirprised at the advanced state of the art represented by any window which attempts a picture. In fact, we shall happen upon no satis factory traces of the evolution which must have led up to even the crudest and oldest story-window. We are forced, therefore, to conclude that this evolution must have occurred in another art, and the renult there evolved transferred into this one. This conclusion is much strengthened when we read that St. Sophia, built by Justinian during the sixth century in Con stantinople, contained not only glass mosaics on the walls, but also in its windows. Here we have the key to the puzzle. The many artists who were then