Highways and Byways in Cambridge and ElyConybeare, John William Edward
History
Highways and Byways in Cambridge and Ely
Conybeare, John William Edward
Cambridgeshire (England) -- Description and travel; Isle of Ely (England) -- Description and travel
Turning to the south-east window, we are confronted with an entirely
exceptional development. The whole of the upper half is occupied with
a single subject (the Brazen Serpent), and that in Early Victorian
glass inconceivably poor and crude. The lower half is ancient and
typical, the type and antitype being placed side by side:
TYPE | ANTITYPE
Naomi bewailing her husband. | The Holy Women bewailing Christ.
(_Ruth_ i. 20.) |
The history of this marked departure from the norm is that the
buildings of the Great Court were planned to abut upon the Chapel
here, so as to block the lower half of the window, for which,
accordingly, no glass was provided. That which is there now was
originally in the upper half and was moved down in 1841, the Brazen
Serpent being substituted for it. The remaining windows on this side
of the choir also underwent a sad amount of "restoration" at the same
period.
* * * * *
The next window (the fifteenth in the entire sequence) is of the
normal arrangement.
TYPE | TYPE
Joseph cast into the pit. | The overthrow of Pharaoh.
|
ANTITYPE | ANTITYPE
Christ laid in the Sepulchre. | The Harrying of Hell.
The last scene is a most forcible representation of Christ's
victorious "Harrying of Hell," as conceived by mediaeval imagination
and referred to by Dante in his Inferno. The Conqueror of Death has
forced His resistless way through the shattered gates of Hell, on
which He stands, treading under His feet the gigantic leaden-coloured
bulk of their demon warder. Before Him kneels Adam, at last rescued
from his age-long captivity, and other Holy Souls. In the back-ground
a blue devil gazes in dismay from the red mouth of Hell (represented
after the usual mediaeval fashion, as an actual mouth, with teeth,
etc.), while another, in livid green, is dancing with demoniac rage
above, and yet another, white and gold, is scudding away in terror as
fast as his wings will carry him.
* * * * *
The remaining windows of the choir on this side deal with the
Resurrection. In the first of these (the third from the east) the
subjects are:
TYPE | TYPE
Jonah escaping from the Fish. | Tobias appearing to his mother
| (who had thought him dead).
|
ANTITYPE | ANTITYPE
Christ arising from the Sepulchre. | Christ appearing to His Mother.
The Fish is represented as a long green sea-serpent with a black,
cavernous mouth, out of which Jonah is stepping. In the background is
a ship, and, beyond, Nineveh. The Sepulchre is in the frequent
unscriptural shape of a table monument.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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