In the earlier part of the century at all events, there is never an architectural base to the panel as well as a canopy, but both subject and the shafts of the canopy end off below with a straight line at one of the frame-bars. The earliest examples of anything in the nature of a base that I know of are at Wells and in the great east window of Gloucester Cathedral, where the topmost pinnacle of each canopy spreads out into a sort of bracket supporting the next figure above, while the shafts at the side are prolonged upwards into the canopy of that figure, an arrangement suggestive of Perpendicular work. But indeed in its general arrangement, though not in its details, the Gloucester east window, though executed in 1350-1360, contains many hints of the style that was to follow, the stone tracery, in fact, being pure Perpendicular, perhaps the earliest example known. The canopy work itself is always in the main yellow or white, relieved against a coloured background, and with windows, capitals and other details put in with another colour. In the aisle windows of the nave of York Cathedral, the coloured background, and, at first, the pinnacles of the canopy too, end off square at the top, at one of the frame-bars, just as the panel does at the bottom. As the series proceeds, however, the central pinnacles, as in the "Peter de Dene" window, of which details are given in Plate XVIII., are prolonged above the bar, a tendency which became more and more developed as time went on. In the big window from St. Ouen's at Rouen, shown in Plate XXV., the coloured background, by a rather inept arrangement, is also brought up behind the pinnacles, and has to end in a somewhat meaningless outline. At first the yellow of the canopies was obtained by the use of a yellow glass, a "pot-metal" (_i.e._ a glass coloured all through in the making) of a not very pleasant colour, but gradually this was superseded by the use of silver stain, by means of which a much lighter and more delicate effect could be obtained. Its introduction was gradual, however, the artist having to feel his way towards the best use of it. As its use increased, coloured glass was less and less used for details of the canopy, the character of which gradually approached more and more to that which it was to have in the following period. In some of the very earliest windows of the period, such as those in Merton College Chapel and in the chapels of the choir in Evreux Cathedral, small coloured panels, with canopies of quite modest and reasonable proportions, are used to decorate large spaces of grisaille. The growth of the canopy began very soon, however, and where these small canopies are found together with geometric glazing of the grisaille and a complete absence of silver stain, it is fairly safe to assign a date to the window not much later than 1305. [Sidenote: Figures on quarries.]