Cathédrale de Chartres; Civilization, Medieval; Mont-Saint-Michel (Abbey : France)
Christ James Joseph Simon Jude James John
the Minor the the Major the Evangelist
Apostle Just St. Iago of Compostella
Simon and Jude were, therefore, nephews of Mary and cousins of
Christ, whose lives were evidence of the truth not merely of
Scripture, but specially of the private and family distinction of
their aunt, the Virgin Mother of Christ. They were selected, rather
than their brothers, or cousins James and John, for the conspicuous
honour of standing opposite Peter and Paul, doubtless by reason of
some merit of their own, but perhaps also because in art the two
counted as one, and therefore the one window offered two witnesses,
which allowed the artist to insert a grisaille in place of another
legendary window to complete the chapel on their right. According to
Viollet-le-Duc, the grisaille in this position regulates the light
and so completes the effect.
If custom prescribed a general rule for the central chapel, it seems
to have left great freedom in the windows near by. At Chartres the
curved projection that contains the next two windows was not a
chapel, but only a window-bay, for the sake of the windows, and, if
the artists aimed at pleasing the Virgin, they would put their best
work there. At Bourges in the same relative place are three of the
best windows in the building:--the Prodigal Son, the New Alliance
and the Good Samaritan; all of them full of life, story, and colour,
with little reference to a worship or a saint. At Chartres the
choice is still more striking, and the windows are also the best in
the building, after the twelfth-century glass of the west front. The
first, which comes next to Blanche's grisaille in the central
chapel, is given to another nephew of Mary and apostle of Christ,
Saint James the Major, whose life is recorded in the proper Bible
Dictionaries, with a terminal remark as follows:--
For legends respecting his death and his connections with Spain, see
the Roman Breviary, in which the healing of a paralytic and the
conversion of Hermogenes are attributed to him, and where it is
asserted that he preached the Gospel in Spain, and that his remains
were translated to Compostella ... As there is no shadow of
foundation for any of the legends here referred to, we pass them by
without further notice. Even Baronius shows himself ashamed of
them....
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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