1. Medallion Windows are the most characteristic of the period ([Chapter XII.]). These contain figure subjects, on a quite small scale, within medallion shapes set in ornament (Canterbury, Chartres, etc.).
In the very earliest medallion windows (Angers, Poitiers) the ordered scheme of the medallioned window is sometimes interrupted by subjects not strictly enclosed in medallions. Or else, perhaps (Chartres), the subjects take the form of panels one above the other—they can scarcely be called medallions—with little or no ornament between.
After the first few years of the thirteenth century, however, the figure medallions (circles, quatrefoils, etc.) occur, as a rule, one above the other throughout the length of the light, with perhaps a boss of ornament between; the interstices being filled, in English glass with ornamental scrollwork, in French with geometric diaper ([opposite]).
216. Detail of Medallion Window, Chartres.
In the broad windows of Norman churches ([pages 123], [124]) the medallions are proportionately large, and are subdivided into four or five divisions, each of which is devoted to a separate picture. In our narrower lancet lights there is no occasion for that.
The figures in medallion subjects are few and far apart, standing comparatively clear-cut against a plain background ([page 325]); compacter groups indicate a later period. Landscape is symbolised rather than represented by a conventional tree or so; a town by an arch or two, a battlemented wall, or the like.
Medallions are framed by lines of colour and beaded bands of white, but they do not, as a rule, separate themselves very markedly from their ornamental surroundings. The effect is one rather indeterminate glory of intense colour.
Except in quite the earliest medallion windows, the strong iron bars supporting the glass are, as a rule, bent ([above]), to follow the outline of the medallions. That was done in no other period.