Chartres, Notre-Dame, north transept
windows. Photograph courtesy of
Whitney S.Stoddard.
stained glass was firmly entrenched as a defining component of French Gothic art. The
placement of windows was carefully considered within the architectural complex. For
example, the axial choir bay glazed with the Crucifixion (ca. 1180) from the abbey
church of Saint-Remi in Reims and the Crucifixion-Ascension window (ca. 1165–70) in
the axial bay of the chevet at Poitiers are both painted in monumental scale commanding
the longitudinal vista from the nave. Placement could also be governed by the precious
regard for certain stained-glass windows, as witnessed by the retention and reinstallation
of early compositions into renovated or new architectural contexts. The “Notre-Dame de
la Belle Verrière” (ca. 1180) from Chartres was recovered after the fire of 1194 and reset
into the new 13th-century cathedral. Portions of the original nave glazing of Rouen, the
so-called “Belles Verrières” (ca. 1200), were salvaged in the late 13th century and
reinstalled into newly constructed nave-chapel windows. The admiration for stained glass
also prompted concern for its upkeep. Suger mentions that a master glazier was appointed
to maintain the windows at Saint-Denis (De administratione 34 A).
Stained-glass imagery was often conditioned by window placement. Historiated
subjects, predominantly located in nave-aisle windows, contrasted with large standing or
seated figures generally depicted in the upper reaches of the clerestory or with
eschatological and cosmological subjects portrayed in rose windows. Early historiated
windows in France generally focused on christological narrative, similar to those in the
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 1684