Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 8.djvu/214

 172 NOTES AND QUERIES. [i2s.viii.FEB.2o,i92i. imported from the Continent, hence the | chief centres for glass-painting were situated on navigable rivers having an outlet on the east coast. This explains why fat orders from Durham, which did not possess a navigable river, and from Cumberland and Lancashire, to reach which entailed a voyage all round England, came to line the pockets of the York glass-painters on the banks of the Ouse. (Vide 'Durham Acct. Rolls,' ed. by Rev. Canon Fowler, Surtees Soc. ; and ' Will of Sir John Petty, glass- painter of York, Test. Ebor.,' Surtees Soc.) Nottingham had its ships sailing direct to the Continent, whence came not only glass, but new ideas ; and in dealing with Thornton it must not be overlooked that he was regarded by his contemporaries not only as n artist of outstanding merit, but also as an innovator, for he evidently displaced John Burgh, the glass-painter. The latter was doing work for the Minster in 13C9, and he was still being employed by the Dean and Chapter for repairs in 1419. ('York Min- ster Fabric Rolls,' Surtees Soc.). But he must have been quite out of dato in 1405 when Thornton was brought to York, for at that moment what was wanted was not only glass of "new colour-: such as is mentioned in the ' Durham Account Rolls ' of 1404, but new ideas also. Lastly, Nottingham seems to have been a centre for church furnishers. One of these, Nicholas Hill, did a thriving trade as a carver of statues and sent his wares as far as London. One consignment consisted of 110 fewer than fifty-eight heads of St. John the Baptist, some of them with canopies ('Nottingham Records,' iii. 18, 20, &c.). In 1367 the altar table or reredos of St. George's Chapel, Windsor, was made there, evidently because it was carved in alabaster. It was not, however, taken to Windsor by water but by road, requiring eighty horses and ten carts to move it.* 2. Through hasty writing I have un- fortunately misquoted rather than (as MB. LE COURTEUR courteously and kindly puts it) "mistaken the purport of " a query on p. 20 of his 'Ancient Glass in Winchester,' which is inexcusable and which I regret. As MR. LE COUTEUR shows, John Coventre Cathedral) and the base of the shrine of St. Cuth- bert were done by a London carver and sent by water to Newcastle ; the prior of the abbey under- took the cartage thence to Durham. " Durham Account Rolls," ed. by the Rev. Canon Fowler. Surtees Soc. iii., p. xxix. working at Westminster in 1352-3, ancl- John Thornton of Coventry who was stil! alive in 1433 cannot have been one and the same person. 3. The reasons for assuming that the windows of St. Stephen's Chapel and of the Chapter House and St. George's Chapel at Windsor were rushed through are as follow : Until the -year 1344 Edward III. ftadbeen building the Round Tower at Windsor which was (according to W. J. Loftie.,- ' Windsor Castle,' p. 58) "built in haste," though never finished, the work being, evidently interrupted by the departure of the King and his army for the renewal of the French war in 1345 which culminated in the battle of Crecy. On his return work was not resumed on the Round Tower ; the king whilst away had evidently changed hi& mind, and in the middle of the year 1348 founded the Order of the Garter. In August of that year the Black Death appeared in England and rapidly spread and was at it& worst in the second half of 1349. "Seeing that " (as stated in a proclamation issued the same year), "a great part of the people and principally of labourers and servants is dead of the plague " (Warburton, ' Edw. III.' p. 142) all building was at a standstill. The newly formed order had therefore no place in which to meet. The king "seeing the necessity of masters and the scarcity of servants who will not work unless they receive exorbitant wages " (ibid.) had therefore not only to obtain labour by force but to pay wages in excess of his own 2nd Statute of Labourers (February, 1350-51).. By these mean/? (again to quote W. J. Loftie) "the original chapel of St. George,, like the Round Tower, was very rapidly and hastily erected " ('Windsor Castle,' p. 155) r and, as MR. LE COUTEUR shows, in less than fifty years more men were impressed to repair it, so that it must quickly have fallen into a very dilapidated condition. For the decoration of the Chapel glass- painters and decorators likewise had to be impressed, and the power to do this required a writ empowering the holder to force whom he wished, which document generally con- tained a clause entitling him " to commit to prison all rebellious subjects therein to stay until they find security to serve faith- fully," or some similar clause. Moreover^ the word "impress " (as a reference to the 'N.E.D.' shows) always has the sense of compulsion and frequently of force ren- dered necessary through haste. Thus,. Hamlet, "Such impresse of Ship-wright&
 * The Neville screen (still to be seen in Durham