The Stained Glass of All Saints Church
All Saints is justly famed for its collection of medieval stained-glass windows, one of the finest in the country.
There are no fewer than 9 complete windows of the 14th and 15th centuries, and many other fragments. All of them are close enough to be easily seen from the ground. The merest glance is sufficient to show the superiority of the glass to virtually all post-medieval and modern glass.
They are very varied. Some show large dramatic subjects, such as St Anne teaching the Virgin Mary as a child to read, and St Christopher carrying the unknown Christ-child across a river teeming with fish (both in the East Window).
Similarly we see ‘Doubting Thomas’ finding his faith confirmed by seeing and touching the risen Christ (the St Thomas window, north Aisle
Others show small crowded scenes, such as the Lady Chapel east window’s series of scenes in the life of our Lady, from the visit of the angel Gabriel telling her she is to be the mother of Christ through to the climax where her Son places her on a throne beside him.
Several are unique or nearly so. The Pricke of Conscience window (also in the Lady Chapel) dramatically illustrates the fifteen ‘signs’ of the End of the World, a familiar belief in the Middle Ages. This is the only known medieval window anywhere devoted to these ‘signs’. And it is the only known window to illustrate its theme by quoting a poem line-by-line. The poem is ‘The Pricke of Conscience,’ a hugely popular anonymous English work of the 14th century. And it is vanishingly rare for a medieval window in England to feature words in English rather than the normal Latin, but this one does – thirty lines of them! Ironically the only Latin words in the window are in a much later band across the foot recording that the window was restored in 1861.
The windows witness to the turmoil of history. In the St Thomas window in the north Aisle the two figures of doubting Thomas and the risen Christ were originally complemented by a third, that of another St Thomas, Thomas Becket, the archbishop of Canterbury murdered in his cathedral in 1170 for defying king Henry II. A later king Henry, Henry VIII, was not at all keen on images of an archbishop defying his king, and in 1535 he ordered all depictions of Becket to be destroyed. In the 1960s his space in the window was filled by another murdered archbishop, St William of York, who until then was the only surviving panel from an otherwise lost window in All Saints.
Turmoil of a different nature is illustrated in a window in the south Aisle. The Nine Orders of Angels window, in the south Aisle, unusually devotes the whole of the glass to a depiction of the said Angels in their array, one of each Order surrounded by crowds of local people and surmounted by inscriptions (in Latin this time) describing the functions of each type of angel. The window seems to have suffered catastrophic damage in the 18th century, possibly weakened by centuries of inadequate maintenance and then destroyed in a severe storm. (In a stained-glass window the lead holding the multitude of small pieces of glass together has to be renewed at least every 100 years or it becomes degraded and fatally weakened.) The window was hastily reassembled as a collection of recovered fragments, and no sign remained of what the window was supposed to be depicting. Only in the 1960s did an unpublished sketch of 1670 emerge showing what the undamaged window looked like. In an amazing piece of skilful restoration the window was taken apart in 1966 and correctly reassembled like a giant jigsaw puzzle.
(The small picture shows the window as it was before 1966.)
Several of the windows give fascinating glimpses into everyday life in the 14th and 15th centuries. The Nine Orders of Angels window has among a crowd of onlookers a charming child and a man wearing spectacles.
The Corporal Acts of Mercy window (in the Lady Chapel) has scenes of people with various disabilities, including a lame beggar who in this pre-wheelchair age has to drag himself around on his hands which are supported on little 3-legged stools. Beside him is a blind man in a red hood who is being led by a friend by means of a leather thong like a horse’s rein. Prisoners are seated with their feet in the stocks and their hands and necks manacled in irons. A sick man is lying in bed under an elaborately embroidered bedspread.
The Pricke of Conscience window has panels showing a devastating tsunami and a destructive earthquake, both being terrors not unknown to the Middle Ages.
The East Window was the gift of the Blackburn family in around 1420. North Street traders in cloth, they were keen to show themselves as upwardly mobile – the window shows the Virgin Mary being taught to read by her mother St Anne, and it also shows two generations of Blackburns, Nicholas Sr and Jr (both at different times Lord Mayor of York) with their wives – and both wives are at prayer, kneeling and reading Books of Hours. Education for women was at that time more usually confined to the upper classes, but the sub-text of the window is a clear message that this working family could afford to educate their womenfolk: all four women in the window are depicted reading.
The St James window in the south Aisle is named for a large figure of the apostle in the garb of a pilgrim to his shrine at Compostella in Spain. Beside St James and a seated Virgin with Child is a scene with St Denys, the 3rd-century martyr archbishop of Paris. He is shown saying mass in prison on the eve of his martyrdom and receiving a vision of Christ surrounded by angels, depicted in the most beautiful blue and gold.
More information on all the windows can be found in our lavishly illustrated Guide Book