window (1220–25) in the ambulatory of Chartres departed from this model by returning
to an orthogonal arrangement of its armatures with its scenes arranged in horizontal
registers. By the mid-13th century, window designs varied. Molded armatures were still
employed at the Sainte-Chapelle (1244–48), while the orthogonal arrangement was
contemporaneously used for the Lady Chapel glazing at the abbey of Saint-Germain-des-
Prés (ca. 1247). The Sainte-Chapelle, built by Louis IX to house the sacred relic of the
Crown of Thorns, represents the culminating effect of deeply saturated light created by
13th-century windows. Virtually a reliquary “turned outside in,” the Sainte-Chapelle
interior is lit by walls of glass windows whose narrative both glorifies the relics acquired
by Louis and chronicles the course of human history recounted in the Bible. In the second
half of the 13th century, orthogonal armatures and simplified compositions were favored,
as windows became increasingly elongated and subdivided. Similarly, the painting style
became open and summary, with a few salient lines sufficing to delineate gesture,
drapery folds, and fa-cial expressions. Bold color backgrounds again distinguished these
compositions, replacing mosaic grounds popular in the earlier part of the century.
Ornamentation was also simplified, with thinner borders composed of abstracted foliate
motifs. Blue and red continued to dominate the color palette, with light pinks, purples,
blues, and yellows used for contrast.
Grisaille windows, compositions of cut glass in its natural green, pink, or white state
arranged into intricate patterns and painted, were also integral components of glazings at
this time. Distinct from ornamental windows created with colored glass, grisaille
windows are characterized by interlocking floral or geometric designs often set against
dense cross-hatching. Favored by Cistercian foundations, such as Obazine (ca. 1150),
grisaille windows were also adopted by other ecclesiastical foundations, as at Saint-Jean-
aux-Bois (ca. 1230s). Colored bosses and borders were incorporated into grisaille
windows toward the middle of the 13th century. Ensembles of grisaille and saturated
glass were also combined at this time, as at Saint-Germain-des-Prés, where the colored
hemicycle windows of the Lady Chapel contrasted with grisaille in the straight bays of
the nave. By the third quarter of the 13th century, a new attitude was evident. In tandem
with increasing ornamentation of interior church surfaces and window tracery, glazings
contained greater amounts of grisaille glass, juxtaposing uncolored and colored figural
panels in the same window. At the abbey church of Saint-Père at Chartres (second half of
the 13th c.), grisaille and colored lights were installed vertically side by side, while at
Tours (ca. 1260) figural panels were placed as a horizontal register between the grisaille
(called band windows). The great masterpiece of this style is the collegiate church of
Saint-Urbain (ca. 1270) in Troyes. Built by Pope Urban IV on the site of his birthplace,
the church and its glazing are a resplendent ensemble of luminosity, pattern, and color—
far different from the mysterious ambience that so moved Abbot Suger.
As so many of France’s 14th- and 15th-century windows have been destroyed, it is
difficult to study them in any kind of comprehensive fashion. In general, stained glass of
the later Middle Ages in France became increasingly pictorial and painterly in style. To a
large degree, this approach was facilitated by the advent of silver stain around the
beginning of the 14th century. With the thin window lancets of the Late Gothic period,
mixed glazings of grisaille and colored glass became the norm. Historiated scenes were
simplified to only one episode or figure per lancet. Architectural canopies became
increasingly important as an organizing compositional device. The mixed glazing of the
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 1688