Transparent meanings?: Intended communicative functions of medieval stained-glass windows in the Low Countries

Abstract

This dissertation focusses on the intended functions – specifically the intended meanings – of stained-glass windows donated to churches and religious institutions. My main research question is therefore: “What did the windows mean?” While my research questions have been posed before in other publications, they had not yet been answered using the windows as the primary sources, or for such a relatively large research area and number of sources. This dissertation’s corpus includes 260 surviving pre-Reformation windows from the present-day Netherlands and Belgium. In this dissertation I have examined stained-glass windows using the paradigm of memoria, in combination with various theories concerning function research in general. Both are discussed in chapter one, where I also propose a model in which memoria and these theories are combined. This dissertation employs a methodological concept as well, called the research cycle. The research cycle is a research process that alternates between case studies and broad comparative research, which is reflected in the set-up of this dissertation (and of chapters two, three and four in particular). Chapter two discusses four case studies, namely the parish church of Saint John in Gouda, the chapter church of Saint Waldetrude in Mons, the cathedral of Saint Michael and Saint Gudula in Brussels, and the Jerusalem Chapel in Bruges, and all of their respective windows. Chapter three discusses the trends in iconography and composition, particularly of inscriptions, coats of arms, portraits, saints, and narrative scenes. This chapter confirms that over time the iconography used by donors and other parties to convey their messages greatly diversified, especially elements that served to identify someone. It also showed that there were conventions regarding the way certain iconographic elements were used, but that these were not absolute rules. A new observation in this chapter was the fact that there were also certain functions which the examined windows did not have. For example, none of the portraits in this corpus were made explicitly recognisable as a donor of the window. Similarly, very few portraits in this corpus are explicitly identifiable as belonging to deceased individuals, something that was considerably more common on other forms of memoria-related art. Chapter four consists of three parts. First it focuses on the donation process of stained-glass windows, and on the donors and other parties who were involved during that process. Due to their involvement, these parties also influenced the execution of the window. In the second part of chapter four I discussed the motivations for donors to finance their windows, which could be broadly described using three (sometimes overlapping) categories: obligation, religious motivations, and secular motivations. Finally the third part of this chapter covered practical limitations that affected windows beyond the influence of donors or other parties. Both chapter three and four, and the broad comparative research they were based on, have given us a better idea of which characteristics may be unusual, or conversely fairly representative for this corpus. This in turn makes it easier to identify any deliberate iconographic choices, which would have affected the window’s function. It also makes it easier to formulate new research questions, which is what this dissertation invites the reader to do.