Stained Glass Windows

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STAINED GLASS in FRANCE

Nobody knows the names of the men who made it.
To make something as exquisite as this
without wanting to smash your ... name all over it.
All you hear about nowadays is people making names, not things.

Albert Finney's Character
Commenting on the Cathedral at Chartres
Two for the Road

Even the name of the architect who designed the great cathedral at Chartres (which contains some of Europe’s most priceless stained-glass windows) is lost to history. The oldest part of the church is its crypt (c.1024) and the next-oldest is the west facade (built about 1155). Those sections survived a devastating fire (after lightening struck the North Tower in 1194), as did these four windows:

The Blue Virgin (1170), also known as the Virgin in Majesty (La Belle Verriere); and
Three West Lancet windows (1140-1150) depicting the life and genealogy of Christ: Passion and Resurrection Window (left), Incarnation Window (center) and a Jesse Tree Window (right).

The present church, properly known as Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Chartres, has 176 stained-glass windows totaling 26,900 square feet. Featured here are examples of brilliantly colored story windows:

Top frame of the Becket Window (depicting the murder of Saint Thomas Becket);
Third section of the Joseph Window (showing his brothers in Egypt, requesting food);
Story of The Good Samaritan (demonstrating the kindness of a passing stranger); and
Story of Saint James (featuring the window’s donors - the guild of furriers and drapers).

France boasts many more cathedrals with gorgeous windows, such as Notre Dame and Sainte-Chapelle in Paris and the church of Notre Dame in Reims. Our next stop, though, is Britain where we’ll first investigate the windows at Canterbury Cathedral.