hly decorative effect was given to glass-painting, and the designs upon
many windows were very much like those used in the miniatures of the same
time. The stained glass in the Cathedral of St. Denis, near Paris, is very
important. It dates from about 1140-1151, and was executed under the care
of the famous Abbot Suger. He employed both French and German workmen, and
decorated the entire length of the walls with painted windows. St. Denis
was the first French cathedral in the full Gothic style of architecture.
The present windows in St. Denis can scarcely be said to be the original
ones, as the cathedral has suffered much from revolutions; but some of
them have been restored as nearly as possible, and our illustration (Fig.
22) will give you a good idea of what its windows were.

The stripes which run across the ground in this window are red and blue,
and the leaf border is in a light tone of color. There are nine
medallions; the three upper ones have simply ornamental designs upon them,
and the six lower ones have pictures of sacred subjects. The one given
here is an Annunciation, in which the Abbot Suger kneels at the feet of
the Virgin Mary. His figure interferes with the border of the medallion in
a very unusual manner.

Perhaps the most important ancient glass-painting remaining in France is
that of the west front of the Cathedral of Chartres. It dates from about
1125, when this front was begun; there are three windows, and their color
is far superior to the glass of a later period, which is in the same
cathedral. The earliest painted glass in England dates from about 1180.
Some of the windows in Canterbury Cathedral correspond to those in the
Cathedral of St. Denis.

In the Strasbourg Cathedral there are some splendid remains of painted
glass of the Romanesque period, although they were much injured by the
bombardment of 1870. Fig. 23 is from one of the west windows, and
represents King Henry I.

This is an unusually fine example of the style of the period before the
more elaborate Gothic manner had arisen; the quiet regularity of the
drapery and the dignified air of the whole figure is very impressive.

An entirely different sort of colored windows was used in the churches and
edifices which belonged to the Cistercian order of monks. The rule of this
order was severe, and while they wished to soften the light within their
churches, they believed it to be wrong to use anything which denoted pomp
or splendor in