1

BALLIOL COLLEGE CHAPEL

NOTES ON THE HISTORY AND INTERPRETATION

OF THE STAINED GLASS

2019

2

Introduction

In 1856-7, William Butterfield demolished the College’s second Chapel, which

dated from 1521-1529, and built the third Chapel on its site. Whereas the

second Chapel had seven relatively squat windows of four lights and one of

six, the present third Chapel which replaced it has much taller windows, four

of two lights, four of three, one of five and a western rose window. The old

stained glass was brutally cut to fit into the new windows. Procrustes would

have applauded. Modern authorities would rightly have denied permission.

Worse, Butterfield was not satisfied with the resulting east window, and in

1859 the College was persuaded by him and a small group of old members to

have it replaced altogether by glass of his own design made by William Wailes.

Much of the ancient glass was lost or broken. The rest was put where there

was space, with no respect for original coherence. Some was put in Chapel side

windows, some in the western rose window and some in the Library.

Butterfield had his comeuppance only half a century later, when the College

commissioned Hugh Arnold to undertake a wholesale reorganisation of the

ancient Chapel glass. He ejected all Butterfield’s glass (see Appendix A), and

did the best he could to resurrect the sixteenth century east window, using all

the surviving panels and fragments he could locate. He had very little to guide

him, as he knew of no images, and had only a few words of description from

1674 and 1786 which still do not make complete sense. Furthermore, it is clear

that there had been movements, loss and clumsy repairs even before

Butterfield’s vandalism.

About 60% of the present Chapel glass is of 1529-1530; the rest is dated 1637

with the exception of one small panel of 1431 and another of 1857.

The present arrangement is exactly as Arnold left it in 1912, despite comings

and goings in the meantime. Much of the glass was removed to safety in 1939

and replaced in 1945 because of perceived vulnerability to bomb damage. And

in recent years several whole windows have been removed for studio

3

conservation work for six months or so before being replaced with state of the

art isothermal glazing protection.

It is not clear whether there is still any stained glass in the western rose

window, as it is now completely obscured by the organ.

In the brief notes which follow, the windows are described in the order visitors

are most likely to look at them (1-9 red on the plan).

The convenient notation of the International Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi

(CVMA) is used. In this system, the windows on the south and north sides are

numbered from the east window as I, so they are designated nII-nVI and sII-

sIV respectively, as shown on the plan above in blue. Within windows, panels

(or sometimes more vaguely levels) are numbered 1,2,3,4 from the bottom

upwards and the lights are designated a,b,c,d,e from the left. So the bottom

left panel of any window is 1a; the next panel to the right is 1b and the next

panel above 1a is 2a. And so on.

4

Antechapel Windows, nVI & sIV

5

Windows nVI & sIV show the story of Phillip and the Eunuch (Acts 8:26-40).

The artist was Abraham van Linge, who signed his work in the bottom right

hand corner of nVI:

At the apex of nVI are the arms of the donor, Richard Atkyns. This glass was all

originally in a single four light-window on the north side of the Chapel. It faced

another by the same artist showing the illness of King Hezekiah, which is now

in windows nII & nIII. But the arms of that window’s donor Peter Wentworth,

which should have gone with it, were misplaced by Butterfield at the apex of

sIV.

Richard Atkyns was a Fellow Commoner of the College who matriculated in

1629 aged 14. He belonged to a wealthy Gloucestershire gentry family, coming

into his inheritance in 1636. He raised a troop of horse and saw action for the

King in the Civil War, wrote on the history of printing, and died in a debtors’

prison in 1677. His writings included a colourful and frank autobiography, The

Vindication of Richard Atkyns ….. (1669). His donor inscription was recorded in

1674: RICHARDUS ATKINS ARMIGER E COMITATU GLOUCEST: ET HUIUS COLL. QUONDAM SOCIO:COM.

DD. Its remnants were misplaced in window nIV in 1912.

Window nVI was repaired by Chapel Studio Ltd in 1990, following a disaster

with a scaffolding pole near the signature corner during masonry works.

Window sIV was repaired by York Glaziers Trust in 2003, following damage

caused when creeper which had invaded the wire protection was removed

carelessly.

6

Window nV

7

The seven figures in nV are all, as in sIII, basically of 1530, with a little

repainting (probably in the seventeenth century) and some alien insertions.

They are from several windows given by different donors.

nV.1a. St Michael attacking a dragon. The dragon, now indistinct even after

conservation cleaning, was shown more clearly when the Compton window

(see Appendix B) to which it originally belonged was engraved in 1841.

Otherwise this beautifully executed figure is nearly pristine: see below.

nV.1b St John the Evangelist. Shown, as usual, as a beardless youth.

8

nV.1c. St Margaret of Antioch swathed in drapery emerging from the belly of

a dragon, who still has the end of her drapery in its jaws. See the wonderful

dragon’s head below.

nV.2a. St John the Baptist, with book and lamb, perhaps repainted in the

seventeenth century. See below.

9

nV.2b. St Anthony of Egypt, identified by the small tau cross badge on his

shoulder.

nV.2c. St John the Evangelist again, this time holding a chalice with a winged

serpent emerging. This alludes to the story that when he was offered a

poisoned chalice as a test of his faith, he blessed it, whereupon the serpent

flew away, taking the poison with it. See below.

10

nV.3b. Madonna and Child with grapes. This variation of the Madonna and

Child is common in art of the period. Newton and Kerr, studying the image

before conservation, thought the child was holding a rose, but it is clearly a

bunch of grapes. The Virgin Mary’s finely drawn face has unfortunately faded,

like so many of the faces, but this figure is one of the few which are intact with

no alien insertions, and most of the plain background is also probably original.

11

Window nIV

This window contains glass of three centuries from five previous windows.

The undated incomplete inscription under panel 1b refers to a gift of 1637.

Since the donor inscription fragments dated 1530 under panels 1a & 1c are in

12

exactly the same lettering style as 1b, this shows that the inscriptions dated

1530 are not original but were renewed in or after 1637. All the donor

inscriptions were still complete in 1674.

nIV.1a. John Higdon, sometime President of Magdalen, at prayer. He was a

window donor in 1530.

nIV.1b. Sir William Compton and his sons at prayer. They were originally

placed bottom left in the window credited to him in 1530, facing his wife and

daughter at prayer on the right, with their arms between them. This was still

the arrangement when the window was engraved in 1841, although there had

been loss and damage by then.

Their arms are now in panel nIV.3b; the heads of his wife and daughter have

found their way into panel nIV.2a.

Sir Wm Compton and sons His arms Her arms Lady Compton and daughter

William Compton (1482-1528) was an intimate friend of King Henry VIII. He

had no connection with the College, and died two years before his now lost

donor inscription was dated. The College no doubt owed the Compton window

to his executor Thomas Leson, who also gave a window on his own account.

Leson’s own donor inscription is also completely lost, but was recorded in

1674. In 1539 he left a hood and gown to each of two Fellows of Balliol and

£10 to the College itself towards the building of a vestry, so it seems probable

that he was an ex-Fellow.

13

nIV.1c. Thomas Knolles, Subdean of York, donor of a window in 1530, shown

below before and after conservation by York Glaziers Trust in 2018-2019.

nIV.2a. The Virgin adoring the Christchild, 1530.

nIV.2b. Thomas Chace and the Fellows,1431. Chace was Master of Balliol about

1410-1420, and was later Chancellor of the University. A major Benefactor, he

was credited with building the western part of the Library, which had a

window showing him leading the Fellows in prayer in front of St Catherine.

The Library was extended eastwards in 1478, and by 1674 the Chace-St

Catherine glass was, still complete, in a window at the east end of the Library,

14

looking directly into the Chapel. But around 1800, the Library was provided

with new shelving and the window space was needed: St Catherine was broken

and lost when the glass was taken out.

nIV.2c. This panel shows King Hezekiah receiving a messenger, beautifully

painted by Abraham van Linge in 1637. See below.

The scale of the figures is much smaller than those in the main Hezekiah

window, and this panel was probably part of an otherwise lost predella-like

narrative sequence which ran along the base of the van Linge glass which is

now in nII & nIII.

15

Windows nII & nIII

These windows, shown above side by side, were cleaned conserved and

protected by York Glaziers Trust around 2000. They show the story of the

illness of King Hezekiah (2 Kings 20:1, 2 Chronicles 32:24 and Isaiah 38:1).

16

Painted by Abraham van Linge in 1637, the donor was Peter Wentworth, a

Fellow 1624-1637 who became Dean of Armagh in 1637. This glass was

originally all in a single four-light window on the south side of the Chapel,

facing the story of Philip and the Eunuch which is now in the Antechapel. The

full donor inscription was recorded in 1674: PETRUS WENTWORTH SACRAE THEOLOG.

PROFESSOR ET HUJUS COLLEGII SOCIUS, D.D. Some of these words survive divided

between nII & nIII.

Abraham van Linge’s signature appears at nII.1b. Wentworth’s arms were with

his window originally but were alienated by Butterfield and misplaced at the

apex of Antechapel window sIV.

The detail below is from the crowd scene at nIII.3a.

17

The East Window

Laurence Stubbs gave glass for the east window of the second Chapel in 1529.

According to an account of 1674 it “represented in lively colours the Passion,

Resurrection and Ascension of Christ”. Most of it survives in the present east

window, although some panels have so many alien fragments inserted that

18

the original scene is not always instantly obvious. The 1912 ordering of the

panels was partly determined by their size, and so does not present the

narrative logically.

But the phrase “lively colours” certainly applies once more following the

recent (2018-2019) cleaning, conservation and protection by York Glaziers

Trust.

Laurence Stubbs was Cardinal Wolsey’s almoner, and it is probable that the

glass which ended up in Balliol’s east window was commissioned for Wolsey

by him, but became available when Wolsey fell out of royal favour in 1529. It

is confidently attributed to James Nicholson, with extensive influence from

Albrecht Dürer.

East window 1a. Angel with the Stubbs arms. East window 1b. Laurence

Stubbs.The date 1529 appears over his head and his initials hang over the

prayer desk. East window 1c. Angel with a chalice collecting drops of blood.

East window 1d. Richard Stubbs, below. He was Master of Balliol 1518-1525.

Laurence Stubbs was his brother.

East window 1e. Angel with the Balliol arms.

19

East window 2a. St Laurence with the gridiron of his martyrdom and the

Stubbs arms. The head was probably redone in the seventeenth century.

East window 2b. The flagellation. East window 2c. Pilate washing his hands.

Pilate’s appearance and dress is close to a representation of Pilate at King’s

College Cambridge which is attributed to James Nicholson. East window 2d.

The Virgin Mary mourning Christ (the pietà).

20

East window 2e. St Richard, Bishop of Chichester, Richard Stubbs’s name-

saint. He is identified by the tree stump (stubb) pierced by an arrow at his feet.

This is a punning device taken from the Stubbs arms.

A doll-sized child with an amputated left arm is sitting in the palm of the Saint’s

hand, and an angel holding an amputated right arm is looking over his

shoulder. This might have something to do with the authenticated relic from

the Abbey of La Lucerne in Normandy, probably an arm bone, which was

interred in Chichester Cathedral in 1991. The child misled Newton and Kerr

into thinking this figure was St Augustine of Hippo because of the tale in which

that Saint met a boy on a beach trying to ladle the sea into a pool: when he

21

told the boy that he was attempting the impossible, the boy said it was no

more impossible than him understanding the Trinity, and vanished.

East window 3a. The agony in the garden. East window 3b. The crowning with

thorns.

East window 3d. Ecce Homo.The composition and detail of much of this panel

is clearly taken from Albrecht Dürer’s engraving of 1512.

East window 3e. The resurrection. East window 4a. The betrayal. East window

4b. The procession to Calvary.

22

East window 4c & 3c . The crucifixion.

23

Panel 4c was made by Michael O’Connor for Butterfield in 1857, and the head

of St John the Evangelist in panel 3c is also O’Connor’s work. The original

crucifixion scene had been taken out in the 1580s. This was mentioned by

George Abbot, who was admitted to Balliol in 1581. “I remember in that

Colledge where I first lived, a young man was taken praying and beating his

brest before a Crucifix in a window, which caused the Master and Fellows to

pull it down, and set up other glasse.” (Cheap-side Crosse censured …., 1641).

East window 4d. The arrest. A confusion of fragments including a large piece

of van Linge drapery, but Christ’s words “Quem quaeritis?… Ego sum …” can

be made out on the paling behind his head.

East window 4e.The ascension. This is one of the most complete and easily

recognised scenes: note Christ’s feet disappearing into the clouds at the top.

Like several others, the composition of this panel follows a Dürer engraving.

24

The St Catherine Window, sII

25

This window was given in 1529 for the rebuilt second Chapel by Laurence

Stubbs in memory of, or as executor of, his late brother Richard Stubbs. The

donor inscription, which was recorded in 1674, is lost. The glass was originally

located roughly where it is now, but in a four-light window, with the panels

which are now in the east window showing the two brothers at prayer, their

name-saints, arms and heraldic devices.

Richard Stubbs was Master of Balliol 1518- 1525, and a Fellow before that. He

presided over the decision to build the second Chapel and the initial stages of

the operation.

The Latin inscription which now runs along the bottom of the window in

pseudo-ancient script looks old, but is not. It obviously refers at least to the

window above it, but may also cover the whole of Arnold’s 1912

reorganisation. It records that the scattered glass had been reinstated in its

original place at the expense of Lord Loreburn (Lord Chancellor 1909-1912) in

memory of his wife.

It was cleaned, repaired, and somewhat restored by Dennis King of G King &

Sons Norwich in 1978-9. What he did included remedying the worst of ancient

clumsy repairs.

The window shows scenes from the legend of St Catherine of Alexandria,

which has been variously and richly embroidered. In the legend she is a well-

born educated young virgin who protested to the Emperor Maxentius about

the persecution of Christians around 310 AD. She enraged him by refuting and

converting the team of philosophers he lined up in justification, and refused

to marry him, declaring she was a Bride of Christ. He had her scourged and

cast in prison, where she was visited by his Empress, whom she converted.

When she was threatened with breaking on the wheel (an ancient form of

torture unto death), her prayers caused it to disintegrate, so she was

beheaded. Angels transported her body to Sinai, where it was conveniently

discovered by monks five hundred years later, and seeded a cult which

continues to the present, despite Rome downgrading her.

26

sII.1a. St Catherine in prison, being visited by the Empress. sII.1b. St Catherine

enthroned in glory, with the crown and sword of martrydom.

sII.1c. St Catherine being laid to rest by angels, one of them gently replacing

her head.

27

sII.2a. St Catherine praying before the wheel, which has begun to disintegrate;

the soldier behind her is looking up in astonishment at this divine intervention.

28

The execution machine is shown as two wheels edged with knives, mounted

on a central stand. The fact that the lower part of the image of the machine is

yellow, in stark contrast with the dark brown upper and lower parts, catches

the eye. Newton and Kerr, who studied the pre-reformation glass in the 1970s,

suggest that this contrast resulted from a manufacturing (firing) problem.

The two photographs of this window which are reproduced illustrate very well

how visually intrusive the external wire protection is, an irritation elsewhere

in the Chapel. It is desirable to eliminate it when the south side windows

receive the protective glazing which they need.

sII.2b. St Catherine scourged.

sII.2c. St Catherine beheaded.

The College’s principal founder, Dervorguilla of Galloway, Lady of Balliol, was

especially devoted to St Catherine. In 1284 when the Bishop of Lincoln gave

his formal approval (Balliol Archives D.4.3) as the then diocesan authority, he

acknowledged, in translation, that she had set the College up “ to the honour

and glory of the whole and undivided Trinity, the most glorious Virgin Mary,

mother of the only Son of God, the Blessed Virgin and Martyr Katherine, and

the whole company of heaven”.

St Catherine naturally became the College’s Patron Saint. The first Chapel was

frequently called, in translation, the Chapel of St Catherine. From the 1630s

until 1856, the second Chapel had a statue in wood complete with all St

Catherine’s attributes (the spiked wheel, a sword, the crown of martyrdom,

and an open book). It is now in the Library, having lost its wheel and all but the

hilt of the sword. The seal the College used from around 1580 until living

memory shows St Catherine as a buxom Britannia-like figure, identifiable by

the wheel etc. Catherine wheel symbols are to be seen on many Balliol

buildings: above the exit from the Front Quad, high on Staircase III , on the

ceiling of the Old Common Room, in the apex of the Hall east window. And St

Catherine’s day, 25 November, has been the College’s feast day, recorded

since the 16th century, and probably for three centuries before that.

29

Window sIII

The glass in this window is mostly of 1530, from several windows given by

different donors at that time. Chapel Studio Ltd of Kings Langley worked on it

30

in the 1980s. Support bars at regular intervals were added then which give a

very unfortunate ladder effect.

sIII.1b. St Edward the King and Confessor holding a ring, which alludes to the

legend that, having no cash on him, he gave his ring to a beggar who turned

out later to be St John the Evangelist.

sIII.2a. An unidentified figure with arms piously crossed; the

disproportionately small alien head may be from an image of the Virgin Mary.

sIII.2c. St Frideswide, the Patron Saint of Oxford City. Arnold suggested that

the figure is that other sainted royal abbess, St Hilda of Whitby, but St

Frideswide seems much more likely.

31

sIII.3b. St Laurence with the gridiron of his martyrdom; the alien head is

probably by Abraham van Linge,1637.

sIII.4a. St Hugh of Lincoln with his pet swan feeding from a trough at his feet.

Hopefully this exquisite detail can be brought out of the gloom when this

window next receives expert attention.

sIII.4c. A female saint’s head with a jumble of ancient fragments, including a

hand holding an ointment jar and other remains of a figure of St Mary

Magdalen. See below left.

sIII.5b. A completely artificial assembly of fragments topped by an expertly

worked head which is probably by Abraham van Linge ,1637. See above right.

32

Appendix A

The Butterfield-Wailes East window

No clear image of the east window made by William Wailes for Butterfield in

1859 is known, and Arnold made no record of its contents when it was

removed in 1912. But Butterfield outlined his design in a letter (Balliol

Archives D.10.17) to the Master, Robert Scott.

There were two rows of “busts” of “old testament personages”, he wrote,

continuing “Jesse is in the centre at the bottom with Solomon and David on

each side. It is in some degree what may be called a Jesse Window, but I do

not wish it to be that only”. He also included “the 4 greater prophets in full

length figures and the 12 apostles in the long lights”. At the apex of the tracery

was Christ, with the four Evangelists seated immediately beneath him, two in

each of in the six-point tracery openings; in the two trefoils of the tracery

beneath them were John Balliol and Dervorguilla facing each other, and in the

bottom corners were their respective shields .

RHC Davis noted in 1954 that ”Butterfield’s window survived in the college

cellars until 1938 at least”. Oral tradition that there was discarded stained

glass there continued, but it was totally inaccessible behind accumulated

heavy junk.

When the cellar was finally cleared in 2015, I was asked to examine the glass,

because someone had suggested that some might be mediaeval.

Not a scrap of before 1857 was found or expected, but there was a great deal

of Victorian stained glass there. Most of it was on literary themes from the

Library (installed by Jowett, removed to improve lighting in the 1950s). That

was in fair condition, having been protectively crated before consignment to

the cellar. The rest was what remained (5-10% at most) of the Butterfield-

Wailes east window. It was loose, filthy, twisted and broken.

Some idea of the state of what survives and the character of the whole may

be gleaned from the following.

33

On the left: all that remains of what was in the south side tracery trefoil,

untangled and flattened on a white sheet.

On the right: John Balliol’s head from it, photographed on a light box.

The only surviving complete panel. Photographed in the garden with

diffused sunlight behind it.

34

Sections from one of the six point tracery openings showing two Evangelists,

photographed on a light box.

Part of the annunciation panel, and an Apostle, photographed on a light box.

35

Appendix B

The Compton Window

Sir William Compton’s window no longer exists as such, but was engraved,

already incomplete, by Orlando Jewitt in 1841. The inscription, the pedestals

and half of the group shown bottom right are lost, but the rest survives, now

distributed between windows sIII, nIV & nV, qv.

The full inscription was recorded in 1674: WILLEMUS COMPTON MILES CUM PIA

CONSORTE SUA HANC FENESTRAM VITRARI FECIT AO DNI 1530.

36

Sources

The best concise and accessible account of Balliol Chapel architecture and glass is by RHC Davis in the

Victoria County History, Oxfordshire, volume III (1954). It has leading literature and archive references.

It is available online at

https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/oxon/vol3/pp82-95

Hugh Arnold left an account of his work and reasoning which was printed (The Glass in Balliol College

Chapel, Oxford, nd, c. 1913). It repeats details recorded by Anthony à Wood in 1674 (as edited by John

Gutch, History and Antiquities …, 1786). But what Arnold did and wrote is occasionally puzzling. He did

not know that O’Connor was responsible for the main crucifixion panel, or that a detailed 1841 image of

the Compton window had been published.

The late John Prest’s detailed essay on the themes and details of the van Linge windows is of particular

interest: Balliol College Annual Record, 2004, 11-17.

A brilliant set of 82 photographs taken by the Reverend Gordon Plumb in 2011, who kindly made them

available at high resolution, is at

https://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/collections/72157627155395835/

From about 1995 there is copious relevant material in the College Archives including correspondence,

illustrated York Glaziers Trust (YGT) Survey Reports and photographs, and YGT’s high resolution digital

photographs. See especially MISC 258, 313a, and 343. As well as technical and descriptive information,

the YGT Reports contain much unpublished historical and explanatory material.

In the 1970s Peter Newton and Jill Kerr made a very detailed study of the Balliol medieval glass, including

the Library armorial glass. Their work was pretty well complete and exhaustive, but movement towards

publication by the CVMA stalled following Dr Newton’s death. In 1997 Jill Kerr deposited their

unpublished typescript (several hundred pages in extent) with freedom to use it. It is rich with expert

analysis, especially of the techniques employed. It is now in the Archives at MISC 343.

The multi-light photographs are by Ian Taylor (I, nIV & nV, 2019), an unrecorded photographer (nII &

nIII, about 2000), and the Reverend Gordon Plumb (the other windows, 2011).The photographs of details

are by YGT (details from I, nIV & nV, 2019) and the Reverend Gordon Plumb (details from all the other

windows, 2011).They all retain their relative copyrights. I took the photographs in Appendix A, 2015.

I am grateful to many people for stimulating conversations and comment at various times over a very

long period, especially Sarah Brown and Nick Teed and other YGT team members, Canon Bruce Kinsey,

the late John Prest, Alan Jones, Anna Sander, and the Reverend Gordon Plumb. But the errors of fact and

judgement which I expect exposure of are all mine.

JHJ

© Photographs as credited above: text John Jones 2019