- 1. The "Five Sisters."
- 2. Chapter-House.
- 3. The vestibule of the Chapter-House.
- 4. The clerestory of the nave.
- 5. The first five[13] in the north aisle of the nave (dated by Winston 1306).
- 6. The first five[13] in the south aisle of the nave.
- 7. The sixth in the north aisle of the nave.
- {The three west windows of the nave (contract 1338).
- 8. {The sixth in the south aisle of the nave.
- {One (probably from the nave) in the south aisle of the choir.
- 9. The third from the east in the south side of the Lady Chapel.
- 10. The fifteenth century windows in the choir and Lady Chapel, which we shall come to later.
Whatever difference of opinion there may be about the date of these windows, I do not think this order can be disputed.
PLATE XXX
ANGELS IN CANOPY WORK OF PLATE XXV
The Chapter-House.
The "Five Sisters" have already been dealt with in their place in the First Period. Those of the Chapter-House, whether of earlier or later date than those of the Merton College Chapel, are distinctly earlier in style and are one of the few examples of work that is really transitional between the First and Second Periods, belonging almost as much to one as to the other. Unfortunately there is no record of the building of the Chapter-House, and its date is a matter of dispute, Drake putting it as early as the time of Archbishop Walter Grey, who died in 1256, and Browne holding it was not finished till nearly 1340—an impossible date for the glass. As in Merton Chapel the presence of the fleur-de-lis as well as the castle of Castile in the windows may mean that they are not earlier than 1299, but I do not think they are much later. The only French work I know of which at all corresponds to it is in St. Urbain at Troyes, which Viollet-le-Duc dates at about 1295, and the windows from Poitiers in [Plate XV.]
The grisaille in the Chapter-House.
The windows are divided by the tracery into narrow lights in which a series of coloured medallions of typical thirteenth century shape are placed one above the other on a ground of grisaille, much as in the window from Poitiers. It is in the grisaille itself that the beginnings of the new style are shown, for whereas in the "Five Sisters," which are certainly later than 1260, the pattern on the grisaille is the conventional trefoil of the First Period—the Herba Benedicta—and conforms to the shapes of the lead-work and of the hollow medallions outlined in coloured bands, in the Chapter-House, although the medallions in coloured outline are still there, the painted pattern, as at Exeter and Troyes, runs through them independently of them (giving them a rather meaningless appearance of being hung in front of it), but is wholly formed of natural foliage, oak, fig, ivy, and so on; the borders, too, are of the character of the Second Period. Similar grisaille is found at Chartham in Kent. At Poitiers, as may be seen in the illustration, the grisaille pattern is still of the Herba Benedicta, with a cross-hatched ground, and the border is of an earlier type; at St. Urbain at Troyes, as at Exeter, both the conventional and the natural foliage are found, but on the whole I am somewhat inclined to think that wherever the other features of the style originated these patterns of natural foliage were first used in England.
These windows, by the way, are in a sad state and want releading, instead of which the authorities have contented themselves with placing quarry glazing on the outside of them, which now that it is dirty so darkens the old windows as to kill all light and colour in them. When I say releading, I mean that and nothing more—not "restoration," which is murder.