Overview

Nearly all major studies of contemporary documentation for medieval art in England fail to take into account the vast body of testamentary evidence. This study brings together for the first time a large corpus of wills relating to windows and their glazing, using a wide range of published and unpublished wills and benefitting from fieldwork undertaken to relate bequests to existing fabric and glazing. Most of the wills relate to parish churches, but there is also much evidence concerning cathedrals and religious houses; the last category is particularly important, as so little glazing has survived from such foundations. Testators span almost the entire social spectrum: monarchs and magnates, prelates and parish priests, gentry, lawyers, merchants, and (especially from the late 15th century) the more prosperous husbandmen and yeomen. The wills of a score or so of glass-painters also feature. Women are represented, not only as testators, but as executors and heiresses. Dates range from the late 13th century to the Reformation. The result is a treasure trove of information concerning patronage, iconography, commemorative strategies, costs, techniques, processes, and dating, which will be of value to historians of art, religion, culture, society at a local level, as well as to architectural scholars.

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9781805966548

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Richard Marks has had an illustrious career in museums and in the field of stained glass. His publications and teaching have influenced a whole generation of scholars internationally. He was successively Assistant Keeper, Department of Mediaeval & Later Antiquities, at British Museum; Keeper of the Burrell Collection, Glasgow; Assistant Director of Glasgow Museums & Art Galleries; Director of the Royal Pavilion; Professor of Medieval Stained Glass in the Department of History of Art, University of York; and Emeritus Professor of the History of Art, at the universities of York and Cambridge. Christian Steer is an Honorary Visiting Fellow in the Department of History, University of York. His primarily research interest is the commemoration of the dead in the late Middle Ages, with a particular focus on tomb monuments. He is a Fellow of both the Society of Antiquaries of London and the Royal Historical Society.

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