The outward and visible characteristics of this period as compared with the preceding one are as follows:—

PLATE XXIII
ST. BARNABAS,
FROM CLERESTORY OF NAVE OF ST. PIERRE, CHARTRES
Early Fourteenth Century

The iron-work.

(1) The Simplification of the Iron-Work.—The windows of the twelfth century had been huge single lights, but the thirteenth century had seen the gradual evolution of tracery, beginning with the grouping of lancets in pairs under a rose light above. Gradually each lancet was again subdivided into a pair of lights and a rose, the spandrils were pierced, till, at the close of the century, the glazier had to design his window to fit a row of narrow lancets divided by slender mullions, which above branched into an elaborate mass of tracery containing a multitude of roses, quatrefoils, trefoils and little openings of all shapes and sizes. With this division of the window into comparatively narrow lights the need for the elaborate iron lattice of the preceding age disappeared, its work being now largely taken up by the stone-work. Instead of lights from six to nine feet wide the glazier had now to deal with lights three and a half feet wide at most, and often much narrower, and in consequence all that was necessary was a series of horizontal bars connecting the mullions, which themselves take the place of the upright bars of former days. In windows of this time, then, and later, massive rebated bars are fixed horizontally in the stone-work at intervals of between three and four feet, and these with the mullions really form the framework into the square openings of which the panels of the glazing were inserted separately. Between, and parallel with, these massive bars, three or four light "saddle-bars" are fixed on the inside of the glass, which keep the panel in its place, the glass being attached to them by means of strips of lead (called bands) soldered to the lead-work of the glazing and twisted round the bar. In order to distinguish between the massive rebated bars which hold the top and bottom of each panel and these light bars between, I shall speak of the former as "frame-bars," the latter by the name they still hold, of "saddle-bars."

Tracery

The only change from this arrangement which has been made in modern times (except for the use of copper wire instead of lead for the "bands") is the omission of the stout frame-bar, the whole of the weight of the window being now borne by its edges and the saddle-bars. Not only is this arrangement less sound in construction but it is also far less decorative. The thick bars at intervals with thin bars between punctuate the length of the tall windows pleasantly, and are made use of in the design, which in this way is still based on the iron-work. In a recent disastrous "restoration" that was made of one of the windows in the nave of York, the glass was refixed with saddle-bars all of equal size and the thick frames omitted, and it is wonderful how the eye misses them.

This arrangement was, of course, only used in windows above a certain size, in quite small lights the saddle-bars alone being considered sufficient. It was not, I think, an uncommon arrangement for the uppermost bar at all events—that at the springing of the arch—to pass continuously through all the mullions and bind them together.