Single figures of saints, distinguished by their peculiar
symbols, are common; figures of crowned heads, prelates, and warriors also
frequently occur; and on some windows are depicted the arms and sometimes
even the portraits of different benefactors to the church, with scrolls
bearing inscriptions. We have, perhaps, few remains of ancient stained
glass in our churches of a period antecedent to the thirteenth century: of
this era, probably, are those curious circular designs which fill the
greater portion of the lights at the back of the sedilia in Dorchester
Church, Oxfordshire: one representing St. Augustine and St. Birinus, the
first bishop of that ancient see; another, a priest and deacon, the former
with the host, the latter bearing the ampullae. Of this period also is some
ancient stained glass in Chetwood Church, Bucks, the ground of which is
covered with a kind of mosaic pattern, a usual feature in the more ancient
stained glass, and the borders partake of a tendril foliage; whilst in
pointed oval-shaped compartments, forming the well-known symbol _vesica
piscis_, are single figures of saints and crowned heads, each clad in a
vest and mantle of two different colours. In the fourteenth century single
figures under rich canopies are common, but we begin to lose sight of the
mosaic pattern as a back-ground.
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