Highways and Byways in Cambridge and Ely Part 4

A full study of these wonderful windows, crowded as they are with marvellously elaborate detail, is a work demanding hours of close attention under the direction of a competent guide. Even for the cursory examination which will suffice most of us the use of a guide-book is essential; and it is fortunate that one has been brought out (purchasable at any Cambridge book-shop for the modest sum of sixpence) by Dr. M. R. James, the present Provost of King's, who is the supreme European authority on ancient stained gla.s.s.

The general scheme of decoration is the representation of the life of Our Lady (to whom the College is dedicated), beginning in the westernmost window of the north side, with her traditional birth, and going on round the Chapel, till it ends, in the westernmost window of the south side, with her a.s.sumption and Coronation. But as the traditions concerning her did not provide a sufficient number of scenes for the requirements of the designer, the series is eked out, not only by various incidents in her Son's life wherein she does not appear (such as His Baptism, Temptation, and Pa.s.sion), but by the three windows to the western side of the great screen on the south being filled with subjects drawn from the stories of St. Peter and St.

Paul; all being, however, within the traditional period of her life-time.

A first glance at the windows produces only the effect of a gorgeous maze of colouring, through which we marvel that any clue should have been found. Next to the general effect of the ineffably harmonious blending of hues, the audacious vividness of the hues themselves, red and green and blue and gold and purple, is what first impresses the eye. Then we notice how, down the central light of each window, stand, one above another, four great figures, human or angelic, each displaying an inscribed scroll.[19] These figures are known as the Messengers, and when not Angels they are Old Testament Prophets. Their scrolls, which are in Latin, refer, sometimes by direct description, oftener by a suggestive text, to the subjects depicted in the Lights on either hand of them. The inscriptions, however, are of very little practical use to the visitor. Age has rendered many of them wholly, and more partially, illegible; while the black-letter characters of their crowded Latin words are not easy to decipher at the best. They are, moreover, by no means free from actual blunders, and the connection between text and scene is sometimes far from obvious. Their interest, in fact, is for experts; and less-gifted visitors will do well to content themselves with the interpretation given in the guide-book.

[Footnote 19: These figures are somewhat larger than life-size.]

The same advice applies to the gla.s.s in general. It is not worth while to spend on a detailed study of the windows the time necessarily involved. Much of the work is excellent, and almost every window has its points of interest, but much, especially amongst the heads of the figures, is far from pleasing. This fact is largely owing to a considerable "restoration" undertaken in the Early Victorian era; when the art of gla.s.s-painting was at a sadly low ebb, and when the uncurbed restorer positively revelled in subst.i.tuting for ancient decay his spick-and-span modern conceptions. But, as has been said, almost every window has features deserving that time should be made for their notice, which we now proceed to point out.

Each window contains four scenes, the upper and lower, to left and right of the central "Messengers," being normally co-related as Type and Ant.i.type. This relation, however, is not universal, and does not occur in the first window of the series (that in the north-west corner of the Chapel), where the four scenes consecutively ill.u.s.trate the legend connected with the birth of Our Lady. The story runs that her parents, Joachim and Anna, were childless even unto old age, and that, in consequence, Joachim, on presenting his offering in the Temple, was insulted by the High Priest. As he sadly sought retirement in the country an Angel appeared to him with the message that he should return to Jerusalem, where his wife would meet him at the Temple gate, and a daughter would be born to them.

The upper left-hand of the window shows the mitred High-Priest waving away Joachim, who is sorrowfully departing. His face is beautifully rendered. In the upper right-hand corner we see him kneeling before a green and gold angel hovering downwards. The rural surroundings are suggested by a pastoral composition. Note the sheep-dog and the shepherd's bagpipes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _King's College Chapel._]

In the lower left-hand light Joachim and Anna are meeting before the Temple gate; and in the right-hand Anna is sitting up in a blue bed with red curtains, watching the infant Mary being washed. Mary has long golden curls, and her face is that of an adult; but Dr. James considers this head a later insertion. This window is known to have been repeatedly and promiscuously repaired (even as early as 1590), and was in utter confusion till the latest releading (1896). The repairs seem to have been executed with any old bits of gla.s.s the glazier might happen to have in stock. On one fragment (now removed) some coins of Charles the First were represented. Most of the windows have suffered, more or less, in this way, but none (except that over the south door) to the same extent as this first window, which though the first in order of subject, seems not to have been the first inserted, or at least completed; for at the top may be read the date 1527, whereas the window over the screen on the north side contains that of 1517.

These two dates are respectively near the inception and the completion of the glazing, which was begun 1515, the year when Luther began the Reformation by the publication of his famous Theses, and finished 1531, the year in which that Reformation was first inaugurated in England by the King being declared Supreme Head of the Anglican Church. The windows, however, must have been designed at a date considerably earlier, for in the heraldic devices which fill the small top lights Henry the Seventh, not Henry the Eighth, is treated throughout as the reigning monarch; his s.h.i.+eld being blazoned in the central compartment, while the latter is only commemorated by the initials H. K.,--the last standing for his ill-fated wife Katharine of Aragon. These heraldic devices are the same in all the windows, and show the rival roses of York and Lancaster, the Tudor Portcullis and Hawthorn Bush, the Fleur-de-lys, and the initials H. E. (for Henry the Seventh and his Queen, Elizabeth of York). All the gla.s.s is of English manufacture, the work of four London firms, but it seems probable that the artists were to some extent under both Flemish and Italian influence.

Pa.s.sing on to the second window, we find it thus arranged:

TYPE | TYPE Presentation of a golden table in | The Marriage of Tobias and Sara.

the Temple at Delphi. | (_Tobit_ vii. 13.) | ANt.i.tYPE | ANt.i.tYPE Presentation of the Virgin in the | The Marriage of Mary and Joseph.

Temple at Jerusalem. |

The first scene here is the only instance in the Chapel of a non-Scriptural incident being made use of as a Type. It is the Cla.s.sical legend (found in Valerius Maximus, an obscure Latin writer used in the sixteenth century as a school book), which tells how a question as to the owners.h.i.+p of a golden table found in the nets of some Milesian fishermen was referred to the Delphic oracle of Apollo for solution. To whom should this table of pure gold be made over? The Oracle replied "To the Wisest." The prize was therefore given to Thales, the wisest Milesian of the day, who modestly pa.s.sed it on to another sage, and he to yet another. Finally, after thus going the round of the Seven Wise Men of Greece, it came into the hands of Solon the Athenian, who declared that "the Wisest" could be no other than Apollo himself, and accordingly presented the table to the G.o.d in the Temple of Delphi. By a strange application, this tale was considered, in mediaeval literature, as typical of the Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple at Jerusalem; her purity and that of the gold being, apparently, the connecting idea.

In the window we see the offering of the golden table; Apollo being represented by a golden image bearing a s.h.i.+eld emblazoned with the Sun, and a banner. Beneath is Mary, as a young girl dressed in blue, walking up the steps of the Temple; an incident much dwelt on in the legend. In the upper Marriage scene note the Angel Raphael, the comrade and guide of Tobias; and, in the lower, Joseph's rod, the sign from which (a dove appearing upon it) marked him out, amongst all her suitors, as Mary's destined husband. This scene suggests a reminiscence of Raphael's well-known cartoon on the subject, which had lately been painted.

In the third window the arrangement is:

TYPE | TYPE The Fall | The Burning Bush (Eve's disobedience). | (remaining unconsumed).

| ANt.i.tYPE | ANt.i.tYPE The Annunciation | The Nativity (Mary's obedience). | (Mary remaining a Virgin).

Note the human head and hands of the Serpent, and the brilliant ruddiness of the apple. Also the ruby flames of the bush, and the representation of G.o.d the Father at its summit. Moses is in the act of putting off his shoes from his feet. In the Nativity scene the Babe can only be discovered by following the gaze of the child Angels who are cl.u.s.tering round in adoration. Contrary to the usual convention, which shows Him sitting on His Mother's knee as if a couple of years old, He is here represented realistically as an actual new-born baby.

Above both lower lights in this window is a renaissance arcading.

In the fourth window we have:

TYPE | TYPE The Circ.u.mcision of Isaac. | The visit of the Queen of Sheba | to Solomon.

| ANt.i.tYPE | ANt.i.tYPE The Circ.u.mcision of Christ. | The visit of the Wise Men to | Christ.

The face of Abraham and that of the officiating priest below are both good, and so is that of the Queen. The Epiphany Star is a fine object, and the effect of its light irradiating the thatch of the manger-shed is most powerfully rendered.

The fifth window gives us

TYPE | TYPE The Legal Purification of a woman. | Jacob's flight from the | vengeance of Esau.

| ANt.i.tYPE | ANt.i.tYPE The Purification of Mary. | The Flight into Egypt.

In the Purification scene the faces of Simeon, who is the main figure, Mary, and Joseph (carrying the dove-cage), are all worth looking at.

So is Joseph in the Flight episode; which, however, is chiefly remarkable for introducing in the back-ground a legend from a late carol, which tells how Herod's soldiers pursued the Holy Family, and how the pursuit was miraculously checked. The fugitives met a husbandman, and instructed him to answer any inquiry for them by saying, "They pa.s.sed whilst I was sowing this corn"; which was actually the case. But, lo! when the pursuers shortly came up the corn had sprung up, and was ripe already to harvest. It takes some little trouble to decipher this scene. The Purification is seen through an arcade of the Temple, on the frieze of which is a group of cla.s.sical hors.e.m.e.n like those of the Parthenon.

The next window is that over the great organ screen dividing the ante-chapel from the choir. It is arranged thus:

TYPE | TYPE The Golden Calf | The Ma.s.sacre of the Seed Royal by (the introduction of Idolatry). | Queen Athaliah.

| ANt.i.tYPE | ANt.i.tYPE The idols of Egypt falling before | The Ma.s.sacre of the Innocents by the Holy Child | King Herod.

(the overthrow of Idolatry). |

The Golden Calf is set high on a magnificent ruby pillar. Before it Moses is breaking the Tables of the Law; one fragment of which shows a Flemish inscription. Below, an idol is falling headlong from a precisely similar pillar. The kneeling figure in this scene is the Governor Aphrodisius, who was converted by the miracle; as is recorded in the apocryphal "Gospel of the Infancy." In the Ma.s.sacre scene Queen Athaliah is represented by a conventional figure of the _Virgo Coronata_ (with her Babe in her arms). The artist evidently had this figure in stock, and used it rather than take the trouble of producing something less incorrect. Near her there is a minutely depicted mediaeval thatched house worthy of notice. So is the business-like callousness in the expression on the leading soldier's countenance.

This window bears, as has been said, the date 1517, written 15017.

We are now in the choir, where our first window gives:

TYPE | TYPE Naaman was.h.i.+ng in Jordan. | Esau tempted by Jacob to sell | his birthright.

| ANt.i.tYPE | ANt.i.tYPE Christ baptised in Jordan. | Christ tempted by the Devil.

All three Temptations are given, the first being in the foreground.

The countenance of the Devil (as a respectable old man) is a marvellous study.

The second window in the choir is:

TYPE | TYPE The raising of the Shunamite's son.| The Triumph of David | (I _Sam._ xvii).

| ANt.i.tYPE | ANt.i.tYPE The raising of Lazarus. | The Triumphal Entry.

The Shunamite's house is another bit of minute detail. Note the dishes on the shelf in front. Note also the magnificently gigantic head of Goliath borne by David on the point of the Philistine's own huge sword.

The third window:

TYPE | TYPE The Manna. | The Fall of the Angels.

| ANt.i.tYPE | ANt.i.tYPE The Last Supper. | The Agony in Gethsemane.

The manna is shown as falling in the shape of Communion Breads. Below, Christ gives the sop to the red-haired Judas, while Peter, who thus becomes aware of the traitor's ident.i.ty, clenches his fist with a gesture of menace extraordinarily forcible.