when made of pot-metal glass. Once the painting was fired, pieces of glass were joined to
one another by flexible lead cames, H-shaped strips grooved with channels to
accommodate the edges. The panel was assembled by sequentially pinning each piece of
glass to the board. Lead joints were soldered and an encircling frame of iron provided to
give the panel stability. The completed panel was puttied for weatherproofing and fixed
within the armatures, the iron skeletal frame set within the masonry of the window.
Glazing windows with patterns of colored glass was an ancient Roman tradition that
continued into the early Middle Ages. Prior to the 9th century, numerous documents
speak of decorative compositions in windows installed as far afield as Constantinople,
Rome, Syria, and Northumberland. As early as the 5th century, the French bishop
Sidonius Apollinaris described such a decorative glazing in the church of the Maccabees
at Lyon. Yet the art of painting on glass, a distinctly medieval invention, survives in only
a handful of fragments dated prior to the cycle of prophets at Augsburg cathedral (ca.
1130). The extensive ambulatory glazing (1144) at Saint-Denis is the earliest surviving
stained-glass program in France. With this masterly ensemble and the nearly
contemporaneous windows of the west façade of Chartres cathedral (ca. 1150), painted
Chartres, Notre-Dame, Good
Samaritan and Genesis window.
Photograph courtesy of Whitney
S.Stoddard.
The Encyclopedia 1683