Stained Glass

Stained Glass

By the Kent School District

Stained glass served three purposes in the Gothic Cathedral. It contributed to the beeauty of the building. It allowed more light to come into the worshipping space, (Remember: in the middle ages "light" was associated with God.) and finally, it served as a textbook for the illiterate congregation of the villages. The windows can be read just like a book and medieval villagers learned many biblical stories from the windows.

Stained-glass making was at its height during the 1300's-1400's. The glass was made from river sand, beechwood, and potash. Colors were made by adding metal oxides that were fused to the mixture. The pieces were assembled like a large puzzle and held together by lead.

The glass was held together by two methods: bar tracery or plate tracery.

Bar tracery is where thin stone bars were used to form a decorative pattern within the window opening and then the glass was inserted into the pattern.

Plate tracery did not use metal bars, but rather the masonry of the building to form the pattern into which the glass was placed. It is much like using a cookie cutter to make the patterns and openings.

The architecture allowed for the stained glass. Before buttressing was invented walls were thick and bulky with no space for glass. Once builders began using buttresses, thinner wall could be supported with the buttresses and the stained-glass windows could be included in the construction.

The two common types of window format used in gothic cathedrals were the rose window and the lancet window.

Rose windows are circular in design. They generally have a central figure and then the biblical story of that figure is told in the surrounding glass.

A lancet is a single window with a pointed arched head. Lancet windows were made possible by the invention of flying buttresses. The panels of the lancet windows always tell a biblical story. They are read from left to right and from bottom to top.

Two very famous themes found in lancet windows are the story of Mary and the family tree of Christ. At left is the famous Blue Virgin Window from Chartre which tells the story of the mother of Christ. The lancet window at the top of this page is entitled the Jesse Tree. It traces the ancestors of Christ.