All Things Medieval discussion

Question - when did glass in windows come into use and in what forms, i.e. stained glass. Was it more common to find in churches or was it commonly used by the wealthy as well. We got to wondering about this with a book I had that said Edward I had a stained glass window in one of the rooms in his London castle. Although it was a crappy romance I'm still curious and so is Chrissie.

Thanks Misfit for actrually posting a thread on this subject. Other readers have also been surprised by the use of glass windows in churches and castles at very early dates. My book was set in the 400s! Did they really have glass in castle windows then?!

According to Richard Marks in Stained Glass in England (read through Google Books), there's a reference to craftsmen glazing monastery windows in 675.

C. M. Woolgar in The Great Household in Medieval England writes that glass was used in royal houses late in the 12th century, but that it wasn't until late in Henry III's reign that most windows in the principal rooms of royal houses were glazed. He notes that glass, though more widespread, was still a luxury item in the 14th century. In the 1430's, he writes, the Earl of Oxford had a room called the "Glaschambre," but in 1420, Dame Alice de Byrene was using linen in some of her kitchen windows.

Thanks Susan. I knew someone would have the answer :)

The Romans used window glass, so in the AD 400s in an ex-Roman province like Britannia it's quite likely there could be some high-status Roman buildings with glass windows that were still in use. Particularly in the early 400s, say before 450 or so, as buildings tend to deteriorate without maintenance so the number still intact would decline over time.

Chrissie, could the book be referring to something like this? 'Castle' is from the Latin 'castellum' (the -caster or -chester element in a lot of English place names comes from the same root) so it wouldn't be incredible for a flashy Roman building - perhaps something like a legionary headquarters (principia) or the governor's palace - to be called a 'castle'.

The next reference I know of to glass making in Britain is in Bede's Lives of the Abbots of Jarrow, where he says that Bishop Benedict built a monastery at Monkwearmouth in about 675 with a church in the Roman style which had glass windows. Bede says that glassmaking was at that time unknown in Britain, and so Benedict sent to France for craftsmen who knew how to make glass and glaze windows. Bede was writing only about 50 years after the event, and Bede himself had been educated by Benedict as a young boy, so his account is likely to be accurate.

Is this any help?

But olde gaffer Pigswill wouldn't have any in his dung strewn hovel...if he was lucky enough to have a hovel.

Carla, this makes perfect sense b/c this was about the Roman style castle Camelot built by King Arthur. I know this is a legend, and they really don't have a clear date, but King Arthur followed the Roman building traditions when he fashioned Camelot. In this way it makes perfect sense that the author Joan Wolf puts glass in some of the castle's windows! Thank you, I was really disturbed b/c if you start questioning one fact, you sort of loose all faith in the author and question ALL the facts in the book. I feel much better now.

Chrissie wrote: "Carla, this makes perfect sense b/c this was about the Roman style castle Camelot built by King Arthur. I know this is a legend, and they really don't have a clear date, but King Arthur followed th..."

If it was a new build it's assuming that the skill of glassmaking and window glazing hadn't been lost following the end of Roman government in Britain, but if her King Arthur was consciously following Roman building methods he could have sent to Byzantium for the relevant craftsmen even if he didn't have any in Britain. Luxury goods from Byzantium in the 5th and 6th centuries turn up at archaeological sites up and down Western Britain (one class of pottery, a type of amphora I think, is called Tintagel Ware because of this), so there was certainly trade and contact with the Eastern Roman Empire at the relevant period. If Benedict Biscop could hire glaziers in 675, King Arthur (or his equivalent) could presumably have done the same in 400-something.

Out of interest, what does Joan Wolf's Roman style castle Camelot look like?

What Joan Wolf does is follow the Roman style of the center court room and other rooms entering into this central hall. She did describe the layout with more details, but to be honest they haven't stuck in my head. I was busy worrying about the window glass.....

Chrissie - many thanks, don't worry about more details! That sounds something like a Roman headquarters building, with the big aisled cross-hall and a range of rooms behind.

Roman window glass was quite thick and not really opaque, it is usually textured on one side and smooth on the other. It is also quite small, pane -wise. There is an article about the process of making it here:
http://www.romanglassmakers.co.uk/art... (see #6, no pane no gain)

It was used in buildings like the officer's house within a fort.

Coloured glass does appear on post Roman sites, but it tends to be the remains of vessel glass. Some of it may have come in as broken glass (cullet) and it was re-used in enamelling and in making glass bangles.

Trade unquestionably continued with the what was the Roman world. There is a type of pottery called 'E' ware that comes from France (Gaul) that turns up on post Roman sites (a good bit of the imports seem to be related to wine drinking..make of that what you will!). Tintagel is interesting because there are a lot of 5-7 century imports from the Mediterranean and Byzantium.

'Castellum' roughly translates to 'fortlet' and placenames with 'chester' 'cester' or 'caer' in Wales refer to forts once having been there.

Sometimes Roman villas were re-used, but not so much military buildings - most were carefully dismantled when the troops were withdrawn, presumably to keep the natives from making use of them. There is, instead, some evidence for Iron Age sites (like Cadbury hill fort) coming back into use.

Duntay - thank you this is simply fascinating! Again Misfit, so nice of you to post this question! In relation to the same book and "glass", it was mentioned that someone had spectacles! So you guys, what do you think about the possibility of this? I have such knowledgeable people here, so I must take the opportunity to ask this too! I do not remember the position of the man who had the glasses - but it certainly wasn't a man of the lower classes!

Chrissie wrote: "Duntay - thank you this is simply fascinating! Again Misfit, so nice of you to post this question! In relation to the same book and "glass", it was mentioned that someone had spectacles! So you gu..."

In 1326, an English bishop, Walter Stapledon, was murdered by a mob. Spectacles were found in an inventory of his possessions. I think at that point they would have been strictly an import, however.

"Roger Bacon who was based in Paris and outlined the scientific principles behind the use of corrective lenses in his Opus Majus (c.1266)." See: http://www.college-optometrists.org/i...

Mention in the book sounds a bit early to me. But if it's set in a fantasy(ish) Arthurian Britain, why not?

OK, the spectacles do seem totally wrong. At least the windows were OK. Thanks !

A paper in the British Journal of Ophthalmology cites some Indian sources that mention spectacles in around the 1400s-1500s (Br J Ophthalmol 1971 55: 128-129).

The College of Optometrists website has a page on the invention of spectacles here: http://www.college-optometrists.org/i.... They don't cite anything further back than the late 13th C, which strongly suggests to me that there isn't any evidence prior to then. So it does look as if the spectacles in Arthurian Britain are a flight of fancy.

Carla, thanks! It annoys me when the hisorical bits are wrong. I like reading books that have history or the culture of a country embedded in the book. Then if I don't like the author, how he/she has written or the story, well then at least I have learned something. I am addicted to learning! If the history or facts are wrong, well then I feel cheated. I have wasted both my time and money. English book libraries are almost non-existant in Belgium.

Chrissie wrote: "Carla, thanks! It annoys me when the hisorical bits are wrong. I like reading books that have history or the culture of a country embedded in the book. Then if I don't like the author, how he/she h..."

I know what you mean. I hate it when I read and enjoy a novel, and then go to look up something that interested me and find out that it's known to be wrong. E.g. Conn Iggulden making Octavian (future Emperor Augustus) one of Caesar's cavalry commanders in Gaul when in reality Octavian would have been aged 11 at the time. I do try and distinguish between stuff that's known to be wrong and stuff that's not known, if that makes any sense. So if, say, an author invents a Gaulish mistress for Caesar on his campaign in Gaul, that doesn't bother me, because (as far as I know, at least) there's no evidence to say it didn't happen. But if the book brings this fictional Gaulish mistress back to Rome as Caesar's wife, I lose patience very quickly, because we know who Caesar's wives were.

It can be especially tricky in an era that isn't very well documented, like early medieval/ post-Roman/ Arthurian Britain. So much isn't known - like whether there really was a King Arthur or not - that the author has to use a lot of their imagination to fill in the gaps. Archaeology can help by showing something of the world King Arthur would have lived in if he existed (if that makes any sense), but even then only a tiny fraction of the evidence actually survives. E.g., we can excavate the foundations of a building and get a reasonable idea of the ground plan, but the superstructure has usually vanished and has to be worked out by a mixture of deduction and guesswork. It's particularly tricky with timber architecture where a simple ground plan can actually carry a sophisticated superstructure we'd never guess at just from the plan (e.g. stave churches: http://carlanayland.blogspot.com/2009...), but even with stone buildings there's uncertainty. E.g. some of the columns of the Roman headquarters building in York were identified in the excavations in the foundations of York Minster, so we know the spacing and we know their size and what they were made of, but we don't know whether they supported flat lintels or arches. I write in early medieval Britain (AD 605), so I can sympathise with an author trying to recreate Arthur's Britain in the 400s! What I try to do is to stick to the known facts where there are any and fill in the gaps with inferences that seem to me reasonably plausible where there aren't. I make sure to put the historical note up on my website so it's available to anyone who wants to know the historical basis, and there's more detail in the articles section for anyone who's interested. Everybody has their own view on historical accuracy (or otherwise) in historical fiction, and I think it's only fair that readers can get some information about it in advance if they want to.

Carla, I follow you commpletely. When very, very little is known a resonable guess is fine. Also author's notes in the book concerning historical accuracy help make me feel more confortable. Thank you for taking the time to give such a thorough explanation!

Yes, I am far more forgiving of historical fiction set in the ancient era, or any other where the historians themselves are often trying to piece together the jigsaw pieces. (With many missing as well as the box cover!)

I'm less forgiving where the history is well-known, or ought to be by any author willing to do a little research.

And I'll forgive a lot for a good author's note!

"And I'll forgive a lot for a good author's note!"

Agreed, I mean if they'd just come out and fess up they made it all up to titillate the audience. That said, I author's notes or not I will not forgive Erickson for the crap she made up in Memoirs of Mary Q of Scots.

Misfit wrote: ""Agreed, I mean if they'd just come out and fess up they made it all up to titillate the audience. That said, I author's notes or not I will not..."

Yes, I haven't read the Carolly Ericson Mary Queen of Scots (nor am I likely to, given the comments!), but from your review and others it seems she makes Iggulden's inaccuracies in the Emperor series look tame. I can never see the point of historical fiction if it doesn't even try to be historical.

Or, as in the case of one of Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome books, where she doesn't use the standard chronology vis-a-vis Cataline. She does, however, spend a good part of her author's note explaining why.

Another thing I love about those books: most of them have a dictionary of Roman terms used in the books at the back, and the first one, I think, also has a guide to pronouncing Latin names.

Susanna, Did you see that thread (listed under "other discussions") which I started about free on-line dictionnaries where one can hear the pronunciation? !I often read books where foreign terms are thrown in. When there is no key explaining how to pronounce these words I go bonkers! Same thing with city names. Why can't they add this to Wikepedia's dictionary? Pls see my thread if you know of a good site.

No, I don't think I did. It sounds a neat site.

Love this thread! Those are the things that drive me batty when reading historicals. In Julie Garwood's medieval Highlander books, she talks about ... now I can't think of the word she uses but it's like animal hides, leathers, etc., instead of glass for windows. Her books take place in the 1000-1200 period.

York Minster's 600-year-old Great East Window has been rescued from a fire as it was undergoing restoration.

Fire crews and minster security staff spent the night moving more than 300 panels of stained glass as fire broke out at the minster stonemasons' yard.

Good grief - I'm glad they rescued it!

absolutely beautiful! It would be tragic to lose such history. thank you for sharing!