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  • 6 months ago
Britain's Most Fragile Treasure
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00:00For six centuries before the advent of oil painting,
00:12medieval artists used light to describe the wonders of the Christian faith.
00:20The medium was glass,
00:24painted and cut into forms to create images.
00:30The stained glass in the great churches of medieval Britain
00:42could communicate stories to a population that was largely illiterate.
00:47The light pouring through the windows is the light of the Lord,
00:51the light of heaven.
00:53And so the medium and the images convey the same message.
00:58This is the truth.
01:05God the Father sits at the highest point of the east window in York Minster.
01:10At 78 feet in height, it's the single largest medieval stained glass window in the country.
01:22I look on this as England's Sistine Chapel, made a hundred years before Michelangelo's masterpiece,
01:34and it's just as ambitious in its scope.
01:36What these 311 stained glass panels represent, in fact, is the entire history of the world,
01:48from the first day to the last judgment.
01:54I want to unlock the secrets of these extraordinary images by looking inside them,
02:09to uncover how they were made and what they mean.
02:12And that's possible now, because the panels are being cleaned and restored,
02:20as part of a huge conservation project.
02:27I'm going to use these panels to travel back in time through the 600 years of history
02:32that are preserved within the individual pieces of glass,
02:35to discover details that would normally be impossible to see.
02:40So Henry Bewley new-leaded this light July 17th, 1825.
02:45Fantastic!
02:47And to reveal exactly how medieval artists made images of such delicacy and complexity,
02:55using the simplest of tools.
03:00Because it's through this process of restoration that we can begin to understand
03:05how these panels were made, who made them,
03:10and how they must have appeared to the people who first saw them.
03:17The East Window of York Minster is far more than a work of artistic genius.
03:28It's a window onto the medieval world and the medieval mind,
03:32telling us who we once were and who we still are,
03:36preserved in the most fragile medium of all, glass.
03:47The city of York is dominated by the presence of the Minster.
04:08It's the largest medieval Gothic cathedral in Northern Europe.
04:12And the fact that it was built here is a clue as to just how significant
04:22this most historic of cities has been in British history.
04:28And in my work as a medieval art historian,
04:31it's somewhere I've become very attached to as well.
04:37York is a hugely important place for me.
04:39The medieval past oozes out of the cobbled streets and the quirky buildings.
04:46I was so seduced by the city that I ended up studying, living and teaching here for many years.
04:52But York's always been an important place.
04:55Under the Romans, it was the major town of the north, known as Eber Arkham.
04:59And the Vikings founded their flourishing trading town of Jorvik on the banks of the River Ouse.
05:07Into the medieval period, it was the second city of England, a commercial hub.
05:12And for a time, the administrative capital of the country.
05:15And the building that was at the heart of this medieval power base is also, I think, one of our greatest art treasures.
05:30York has had its own archbishop since the 8th century, with authority over the whole of the north of England up to the Scottish border.
05:36And that authority was reflected in the city's cathedral, which was repeatedly rebuilt and expanded over a period of more than 700 years.
05:49Until the Gothic marvel we see today was finally completed in the 1470s.
05:56To enter a cathedral in medieval times must have been an overwhelming experience.
06:08The soaring architecture, the effect of light and space, combined with the smell of incense and the sound of singing,
06:16must have made for an intoxicating, almost transcendental experience.
06:20The medieval architecture of these spaces was designed to make the individual feel small and awe-inspired by the wonder of God's creation.
06:31But if it's the stonework that gives this building its grandeur,
06:50it's the stained glass, I think, that makes it beautiful.
06:54York Minster has the largest collection of medieval glass in the country,
07:01and the crowning glory is the spectacular East Window.
07:05Built in just three years between 1405 and 1408,
07:12it's a towering tribute to the creative heights that stained glass can soar to.
07:18And it's one of my favourite historic works of art.
07:22But when you come to the East End of York Minster today,
07:29the first thing you notice is that this magnificent work of medieval art isn't here.
07:42This enormous screen, which is a full-size photographic reproduction,
07:47gives you a very powerful sense of the scale of the window.
07:50But the glass itself has been removed.
07:54The window is being conserved by a team at York Glaciers Trust.
07:56Conservators are cleaning, and restoring, and re-leading the glass panels,
07:59just as diligently as possible.
08:00The glass itself has been removed.
08:05The window is being conserved by a team at York Glaciers Trust.
08:08Conservators are cleaning, and restoring, and re-leading the glass panels,
08:24just as diligently and methodically as the medieval craftsmen who first worked on them.
08:29And it's providing a unique insight into how the window was actually made.
08:41Sarah Brown is the director of the programme.
08:45Sarah, it's wonderful to be in the presence of these stained glass windows.
08:48In terms of approaching the panels as a conservator,
08:52you've obviously, they're out of the tracery now.
08:55Yes.
08:56What do you do then?
08:57Well, the very first thing we do is make a one-to-one rubbing of every single panel,
09:02so that we have a very detailed chart of where each individual piece of glass sits within the panel,
09:08and we know exactly where the lead lines are positioned.
09:13And, of course, all the panels are photographed as they come into the workshop.
09:18We know if there are any areas of particular fragility,
09:22and only then do we begin the process of dismantling very carefully.
09:26Because these are paintings, aren't they?
09:27They are paintings, they are indeed.
09:30So, if we look at the way that the paint is applied, what can you tell us about that?
09:34Well, first of all, extraordinarily expert in the quality of the painting.
09:40Layers of wash used to model the figures.
09:44Paint, of course, applied not just to one surface, but to both surfaces.
09:48So, the treatment of the horse here, we've got a lot of painting on the inside surface of the glass,
09:54but also to create this dappled effect, which now has also been slightly corroded,
09:59this dark horse decorated with the external application of glass paint.
10:04So, very, very complex layered effects of glass painting.
10:08Absolutely.
10:16The East Window was created during a golden age for stained glass in this country,
10:21around the beginning of the 15th century.
10:23But the tradition had been evolving over many hundreds of years to get to this point.
10:37This is the Victoria and Albert Museum in London,
10:40and I've come to meet Professor Richard Marks,
10:43who's an authority on the history of stained glass.
10:45These are two panels done in the 1240s for one of the most important Gothic buildings of the time,
10:55the Saint-Chapelle in Paris.
10:57And, as you can see, the predominant colours are red and blue here,
11:01and the tonality is dense.
11:06It's not about light so much.
11:08Think of a wall with glass, a wall made of glass.
11:10This might be a way of looking at this.
11:11And one which you can make perhaps more interesting than a wall, can't you?
11:14Because you can do things with it in colour in terms of design,
11:17which is what you've got here.
11:20And you can tell stories through it.
11:23So we're looking at something quite sophisticated here.
11:25Yes.
11:26But how do we get to this point?
11:28Well, there's a good question.
11:29The trouble is we've got enormous gaps.
11:33Most of the glass we know, we know from about 1140 onwards.
11:37What happens before then?
11:38Well, the fragments have been found at Jarrow and Monk Wearmouth,
11:42and there's other Saxon sites.
11:43They don't have any painting on them at all.
11:46They're just bits of coloured glass.
11:48And I think what we have to think about there is imagine mosaic windows,
11:55a kind of kaleidoscope of different colours, different shapes,
12:00ledded together in the window.
12:01But I don't think there's any evidence of figurative work before the ninth century in Europe.
12:13What's striking about the earliest painted windows we have,
12:17is that they still resemble a mosaic of bold colours,
12:21separated by dark bands of lead.
12:23But then, in the 14th century, there's a dramatic change.
12:38So, Richard, what's the significance of this panel then?
12:41It's a technical significance, which is a very fine example here,
12:46of a technique which was of fundamental importance in glass painting in the 14th century.
12:51It's the application of silver stain, which was the use of a solution applied to this glass.
12:58Now, what this enabled glass painters to do is to paint two colours, if you like, white and yellow,
13:04without the use of leading.
13:06And you can see that round the head of the angel down here.
13:09There's no lead at all.
13:11Now, of course, that had an enormous impact on translucency of glass.
13:16And this does enable this kind of much more use of white glass,
13:22and painted white glass, in the late 14th and early 15th centuries.
13:28So, we've seen this progression then in stained glass from these quite bejewelled blue and reds,
13:33and vibrant colours of the 12th and 13th century, through this technological development of the staining,
13:41the use of yellow stain, and then we reach panels like this.
13:46Well, what you're looking at here is not just a masterpiece of glass painting,
13:51but a masterpiece of painting on glass of the late 14th century.
13:55What you have here, they're not just flat figures, but the faces are animated by very detailed shading.
14:09But look at the way the shading brings out the depth of the three-dimensional nature of them.
14:16These figures project out of their niches, so they're coming towards you.
14:20And this is something where, really, these feel like sculpture, don't they, in paint.
14:25So, the Great East Window at York, is it following on this tradition?
14:32I think it's another way of looking at it.
14:34Of course, in the East Window, each panel tells a story.
14:37But what makes that window so incredibly impressive is it's the East Wall, which is not masonry at Minster.
14:58It's all glass.
15:00It's a punctuation at the end.
15:03And it's not one done with stonework.
15:06It's done with colour.
15:09And vibrancy.
15:12And translucency.
15:16And that comes out of a tradition in England, which is, I think, peculiar to England,
15:20of cliff-like East Ends in English Gothic cathedrals.
15:24And it is monumental.
15:29Conserving the East Window will be an equally monumental task.
15:34It's expected to take eight years to complete.
15:38And this isn't the first time the window has been dismantled.
15:44All the glass in the Minster was taken down just before the outbreak of the Second World War, as a precaution,
15:51before being restored and reinstalled during the 1940s and 50s.
15:56But even that was only one of many conservation projects that have taken place over the centuries.
16:03And they've each left their mark in the most unexpected way.
16:08We know of three, possibly four, interventions.
16:13Two of them are documented with some degree of certainty.
16:18The 1824-27 re-leading of the window, and then, of course, the post-Second World War work.
16:24Wow.
16:25And the window has evidence, of course, of all of those different phases of repair.
16:30So, in this panel, which is the famous image of God the Father from the very, very apex of the window,
16:36the window, this very bright greeny glass is not medieval glass.
16:43We know that it dates from the 1820s.
16:46And in part, that's because it has a lot of graffiti listing the names of the people who were involved in that process of repair.
16:54Gosh.
16:55So, Henry Bewley, new-leaded this light, July the 17th, 1825.
17:00Fantastic.
17:01So, it's a document of that process.
17:02It's a document.
17:03So, there's other dates, aren't there?
17:04Exactly.
17:05We have here some names scratched in 1946, which was, of course, after the repair of this part of the window following the Second World War.
17:14And some of them, of course, now are rather more visible than we would like them to be.
17:19So, somebody, unfortunately, has scratched top right on across God's forehead.
17:24Oh, dear.
17:30And as is now becoming clear, the work of previous restorers has not always matched the skill of the original medieval craftsmen.
17:39The first thing we'll really do is take a very good look at the panel before any of the work is done,
17:48and just see the history that this panel has been through.
17:52And I think, in actual fact, this particular panel is a good survivor.
17:57It does have a large quantity of its original glass within it, more so than many.
18:03Yeah.
18:04But it's covered in this very, very dense ladding.
18:08You can see it's actually layered up.
18:10It's just this dense block of lead that's blocking all that light.
18:13That's right.
18:14And we know that, actually, as part of the previous restoration campaign in the 1940s and 50s,
18:19that they were re-leading all of the panels, and they were using this very heavy gauge of lead.
18:25So, this lead is not particularly of a great age, but we feel it's so disfiguring in its gauge, in its strength, in its weight,
18:35that so much is hidden beneath that lead.
18:40Not only have the images been obscured in this way, but broken pieces within the panels have been repaired with even more lead.
18:50So, which bits are additional repairs, then, do you think?
18:53Well, if we just take the angel's wing, clearly there there's impact damage.
18:57In the centre, yeah, you can see.
18:58And the extra leads radiating from that impact damage have been added in, causing you to obscure much of the detail to the wing.
19:05And the painted parts of the glass have been badly affected in other ways.
19:12In this particular panel, we have quite a bit of paint loss.
19:15Yes, yeah.
19:16If you can see, some of the facial features are very much disappearing.
19:21In part, this is due to corrosion of the surface of the glass.
19:25It could also be, in part, due to overzealous cleaning in the past.
19:30Right, so it's actually scrubbing the surface.
19:32Probably scrubbing a bit too hard.
19:34Wow.
19:40But once all that heavy 1940s lead has been removed,
19:44you can begin to see beyond the history of past damage
19:47and really appreciate how beautifully the window was made.
19:57So I can see two panels down here.
19:59I mean, this really illustrates it, doesn't it?
20:01It does.
20:02The difference between having the leads in situ.
20:04Exactly.
20:05And then what it reveals.
20:06Revealed, exactly.
20:08I mean, it's so exciting to see some of the lost detail that's sort of coming to light.
20:13Exactly.
20:14I mean, it is one of the great masterpieces of the Middle Ages.
20:16Mmm.
20:17The quality of the painting.
20:19I mean, the lively characterisation of the faces, for example.
20:24The way in which paint is rubbed out gently to give highlights across the top of the nose.
20:30The treatment of the hair and the beard.
20:32You know, the hair picked out with yellow stain, the beard left without.
20:36And it's an astonishing piece of glass painting virtuosity, really.
20:41No, it really does come to life here.
20:43And when you look at a panel like this, you can see just how tightly fitting, how intricately cut the glass is.
20:51How these pieces were designed to be sitting very closely together, almost like a very elaborate and extremely skillfully cut jigsaw.
20:59And the complexity of the shapes cut is all the more remarkable because we know that the kind of tools being used to the modern eye look rather cumbersome.
21:10For example, the grosing eye and this notched tool, which sits over the edge of the glass and nibbles away at the edge and leaves a very, very distinctive telltale cut edge to the pieces,
21:23which we can see very clearly in a number of the pieces of glass.
21:26Can you show me that?
21:27Yeah.
21:28It creates a very typical nibbled edge, which is chamfered inwards and that's from the movement of the grosing eye.
21:37Absolutely.
21:38Wow.
21:42Most medieval stained glass was made by artists and craftsmen whose names are lost to history.
21:49But of all the remarkable things about the East Window, perhaps the most surprising is that we actually know who made it.
21:58His name was John Thornton.
22:01And from the evidence that survives, we can piece together some of the story of his life and career, and in particular, his work on the East Window.
22:10We know he came from Coventry and he was invited to come here either by Archbishop Scroope or perhaps by Walter Scurlow, the Bishop of Durham, who gave the window.
22:25Both of those bishops had for a time lived and worked in Litchfield and Coventry Diocese, so they might well have known him there.
22:33He was painting in a style which would have been recognised by the great masters throughout early 15th century Europe.
22:42He was painting in this wonderfully painterly soft style that we tend to call the international Gothic.
22:49It's a style which has comparators all over North West Europe, and it's a style which is associated with the highest quality and most prestigious projects throughout Europe.
23:04So he was really brought in as a kind of an exceptional figure, as a sort of superstar artist, you know, to be entrusted with this great window, the biggest window in the Minster.
23:15And there is this mysterious panel from the top of the window, which is believed to be a monogram.
23:24We have the letters I, which of course in the Middle Ages would stand in for a J, so J for John, Johannes.
23:33An M, which could be for master, magister, and then a T at the bottom.
23:38So this might be a monogram representing John Thornton.
23:45The conclusive evidence that this is the work of John Thornton is not to be found in the window itself, however, but in the contract for the making of it, which was drawn up by the Dean of York and the chapter, the clerics who advised him.
24:03The Dean and chapter have unwittingly left us a fascinating insight into how a medieval star artist was expected to go about producing a landmark work of art.
24:18Historian Tim Ayres has studied the contract for the East Window in detail.
24:22So we've got these documents here, Tim. What do they tell us about John Thornton?
24:29Well, Nina, this is a 17th century transcript of the Latin contract for the glazing of the Great East Window.
24:38There is also a shorter translation.
24:43In terms of Thornton's own work, it makes a highly interesting distinction.
24:50It obliges himself with his own hands to portraiture the said window with historical images and other painted work in the best manner and form that he possibly could.
25:02And likewise, to paint the same when need required, according to the ordination of the Dean and chapter.
25:09There seems to be a distinction between the portraiture and the painting, that the design would, in the first instance, have been drawn up probably on a small scale by the glazier.
25:22And it seems likely that the portraiture described here is this initial design phase.
25:28The painting, he apparently is only required to do so much as the Dean and chapter should require him.
25:35This fits in well with what we know about the collaborative nature of the medieval glaziers workshop.
25:43Many people would be involved in cutting the glass, laying it on the table, painting it, firing it, letting it up and so on.
25:51What we have here is an insight into what the man responsible for the glazing workshop was expected to do himself.
25:57The contract seems to suggest, then, that he's both a painter and a manager of quite high standing.
26:05And that seems to be reflected in the paid, isn't it? He's paid a lot for this work.
26:10The contract is very specific about what he will be paid and it reveals that there are a series of staged payments which clearly provide him with incentives.
26:19He should be paid four shillings sterling a week. He will also be paid 100 shillings every year.
26:29And at the end of the contract, the Dean and chapter reserve the right to pay him a bonus of £10 in silver.
26:36Wow, and that's a lot, isn't it?
26:38This is a great deal of money. The King's Glazier at this period was paid one shilling a day.
26:44Here, John Thornton is being paid four shillings a week, but with these extra payments and with a commitment for work over a period of three years.
26:55What else do we know about him? Is there any other evidence for him?
26:59There is evidence for him in the Freeman's Register of York.
27:04This was a privilege that would have allowed John Thornton, as a Freeman, to operate within the city.
27:12But that's not all. In 1411, just a year after registering in York, Thornton is back in Coventry, where he takes out a 60-year lease on a house, only to reappear again in York some years later.
27:29So, although no other contract survived for Thornton besides the East Window, it seems he was dividing his time between two cities more than 100 miles apart.
27:41And that offers a tantalising possibility that many more windows could be attributed to this seemingly very successful artist.
27:50Is there art historical evidence, then, for him being in both these cities?
27:57Well, those who have been fascinated by the contract and intrigued by the artistic personality of John Thornton have tried to identify an erve for him, if you like, a body of work.
28:10And one way of doing that has been to look at stylistic similarities between the East Window, the documented window, and other windows.
28:19In York Minster, close similarities have been observed in the St. William window, for example, there's a giant window on the north side of the high altar.
28:29But also in the city's parish churches at All Saints North Street, that show some similarities to the style of John Thornton.
28:43In the rather wide-eyed expressions, use of long noses with bulbous tips.
28:49The use of certain kinds of architectural canopies over figures, and also in the technical sophistication of his work.
29:07So this has been tracked in the north of England, but it has also been found in the West Midlands.
29:12Right.
29:13And a key monument for that is Great Malvern Priory in Worcestershire, and especially the East Window there.
29:25Which shows many of the same characteristics as those in the East Window and in the St. William window at York.
29:32So there's something of a detective search going on, isn't there, in both the art, trying to search for a style that can be ascribed to John Thornton,
29:40and in the documents, hunting him out in references in Coventry and in York.
29:49But he remains somewhat an elusive figure, doesn't he?
29:52He remains quite elusive, but it does appear that Thornton was operating workshops both in York and in Coventry.
29:59We have a sense of a business, if you like, a great business operating across the north of England and well down into the Midlands.
30:10This is quite a remarkable thing for the 15th century.
30:14If it were to be proved that these windows are the work of John Thornton, it would complete a picture that currently exists only on paper.
30:28Here was a medieval superstar artist with the savvy to market his talents across a great swathe of the country.
30:36Whoever did create these windows was clearly a master of his craft.
30:45And they become even more impressive when you discover what was involved in actually making them.
30:52Because in John Thornton's time, producing even a single sheet of glass was a skilled and labour-intensive process.
30:59At This Works in Birmingham, they still use the same basic techniques as glassmakers in the 15th century.
31:17To produce a flat sheet of glass, you first have to make a cylinder.
31:21Walter Pinches has been a glassmaker for more than 40 years.
31:30What I'm doing now is a first-time gatherer.
31:34This is to build up the amount of glass as I want.
31:39Right, OK. So this is just clear glass at the moment?
31:41This is just clear glass at the moment.
31:42Right, right.
31:43When Walter has gathered enough molten glass from the furnace, he adds the colour, which nowadays is ready-made.
31:59Medieval glassmakers would have added minerals to get the same result.
32:13Once the colour has been evenly absorbed, Walter can begin to shape the glass.
32:24There's something of magic or alchemy about this whole process.
32:29Just seeing the liquid glass come out of the furnace and then solidify,
32:34and then as the air is being introduced as well, it's just such an incredible process.
32:38I can only imagine what it must have seemed like to the medieval viewer.
32:48Wow, it's just ballooning in there, isn't it?
32:59Then, as Walter begins to swing the balloon of molten glass, the shape of the cylinder forms.
33:08It's just a little bit in there.
33:09I have to make this happen.
33:10I can also change the response as a
33:13the first one, I'm going to turn it over to theー.
33:17Open the torch.
33:18Open it to the torch.
33:19Open the torch.
33:21Open the torch.
33:24Open the torch to the torch.
33:26Open the torch.
33:28Open the torch.
33:30Open the torch.
33:31Open the torch.
33:32Open it and open it.
33:33Open the torch.
33:34Open the torch.
33:35Over to the table.
33:46This is the finished cylinder.
33:48OK.
33:49All we have to do now is crack it off and put it in the oven.
33:54That's incredible.
33:56Finally, each cylinder is cut open and flattened
33:59to make a square-edged pane.
34:05Wow, so many stages, it's incredible.
34:14That's what makes it so expensive.
34:16Right, yeah.
34:35A tremendous amount of work was involved in making a material we nowadays take for granted.
34:45And even that was only the first step to crafting windows like these.
34:55The skills that produced such finely detailed images have not been lost.
35:07A few miles outside the city of York is the studio of a contemporary stained glass artist,
35:25Helen Whittaker.
35:30Helen creates her own original window designs by the same process that John Thornton and his studio made the East Window.
35:38So, Helen, tell me what you're working on at the moment.
35:46Where did you begin?
35:47This is a design for a church in Northamptonshire.
35:54This was a lovely brief in that it was set by the flower guild, the church's flower guild.
35:59So, I've got an arrangement of flowers associated with the seasons and then this kind of strong kind of cross,
36:05which is hopefully going to be quite striking, you know, against this kind of dark purple background.
36:10So, this is the first stage.
36:12This is called the vidimus.
36:14So, it starts with initial pencil sketches and then you develop it up to colour.
36:18Ooh, wow.
36:19And then from that, you scale them up to full size.
36:22Gosh, right.
36:23And this is what's called a cartoon.
36:25And I've also indicated the actual leads on there as well by these black lines.
36:30Right.
36:31So, the cartoon really remains your point of reference for the painting and for preparing the glass.
36:35Yeah, very much so.
36:36It's key to the whole, you know, to the whole design.
36:40So, it's by tracing with paint that the design on paper is transferred onto the individual pieces of glass.
37:00piano plays softly
37:02piano plays softly
37:06So, Helen, what part of the process?
37:12So, Helen, what part of the process was that you can do?
37:36are we at now then? So this is how I go about glass painting. Right. I do the trace lines and
37:42then I'll do what's called the shading which is the matting afterwards and this glass it's quite
37:47an unusual glass in this it's called a flashed glass. You can see it's red but it's actually
37:53two layers it's actually predominantly yellow with a flash of red on the top and what I've
37:59done here is actually taken away the red layer to reveal the yellow underneath. Right right. Is
38:04this something that would have happened in the medieval period? It would have done but this would
38:08have been done probably by a pumice stone by some poor chap you know rubbing away for many hours.
38:14Today we're using acids which just you know eat away at the surface to reveal the yellow beneath.
38:19It gives a lovely effect isn't it the two types of glass. Yeah. So depending on how you apply the paint
38:26you can get these different effects and textures. Yeah I mean it's all about modulating the light at
38:31the end of the day. And then once you've completed building up the paint. There's the firing of the
38:38glass and the pigment has a glass powder mixed with it. What this does is when you come to firing the
38:45glass the glass is slightly tacky at that stage the pigment with the glass powder and it just adheres
38:51to the surface so they bond together making it permanent. Finally the pieces of painted glass have
39:02to be assembled and held in place with strips of lead.
39:05So we had the leading process and it was soldered and here we have it. The finished piece red,
39:34the finished piece ready hopefully to be fitted into the church.
39:37It's absolutely beautiful. I'm absolutely stunned by the finished product and seeing the way that
39:53it's got to this stage this collaborative artistic process has just made me appreciate stained glass all
39:59the more. For the medieval church having these technical and artistic skills to hand allowed for
40:15the creation of enormous narrative works of art to instruct and inspire worshippers.
40:21For us today these are windows onto the medieval mind revealing how people thought about the christian faith at the time.
40:43And most revealing of all are the 81 panels of the east window depicting scenes from the book of
40:49revelation the biblical prophecy of the end of the world that became a popular obsession in the middle ages.
41:05Revelation was written by saint john of patmos a first century christian who was persecuted for his
41:12faith and exiled from rome john foresees christ's second coming at the end of time when the earth will be destroyed
41:28good will triumph over evil
41:30and the dead will rise for the last judgment
41:44and when you hear them read today john's descriptions of these apocalyptic events are still some of the most
41:51most contemporaries of the church and mesmerizing passages in all of the new testament
42:04now the seven angels who have the seven trumpets made ready to blow them
42:08the first angel blew his trumpet and there followed hail and fire mixed with blood which
42:19fell on the earth and a third of the earth was burnt up and a third of the trees were burnt up
42:26and all green grass was burnt up the second angel blew his trumpet and something like a great
42:35mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea and a third of the sea became blood a third of
42:44the living creatures in the sea died and a third of the ships were destroyed
42:50the third angel blew his trumpet and a great star fell from heaven blazing like a torch
42:58and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the fountain of water the name of the star is wormwood
43:11a third of the waters became wormwood and many men died of the water because it was made bitter
43:22although revelation is a book of prophecy it gives no clues as to exactly when the end of the world
43:40the great dread of course was that it might be imminent
43:53so christians needed to be ready to have their souls judged by god
44:02the apocalypse became a hugely popular theme in medieval art and not only in the great cathedrals
44:15if you were sufficiently wealthy you might own an illuminated manuscript
44:20if you are not so well off you wouldn't have to look far to find the same story on a church window or a wall
44:29i'm standing in the parish church of all saints north street just a stone's throw from york minster
44:46people grew up in these buildings they were baptized married and buried with these stained glass images
44:54accompanying them through their lives
44:56and what do we find another version of the apocalypse
45:02the prick of conscience window is one of those thought to have been made by john thornton's workshop
45:09shortly after the east window in the minster
45:12what makes it unique is the apocalypse story it depicts
45:19which comes not from the bible but from a 14th century poem written in middle english
45:25probably in yorkshire
45:27here we see the last 15 days of the world
45:33when the seas will burn
45:37the land will be leveled by earthquakes
45:40and finally all living things will die
45:45it was another terrible reminder to the medieval onlooker
45:54that the destruction of the earth and everything on it
45:57was part of god's plan to save the faithful
46:00and only the faithful
46:03what the prick of conscience window shows me
46:09is that stained glass could communicate the same message
46:13in the same medium about penitence salvation the end of the world
46:17but to different audiences
46:19here you see dramatic images
46:22alongside vernacular inscriptions
46:24in a verbal and visual language
46:27that everyone could understand
46:29because the apocalypse
46:30is the single most important event
46:33for all christians
46:35so the east window at york minster
46:49was part of a great medieval tradition of apocalypse narratives
46:53but the window presents the story in purely visual terms
46:59which is why it's so important
47:01to preserve as many of the pictorial details as possible
47:04the conservation team at york glaziers trust
47:13are hoping to have completed their work
47:15on the 81 panels that tell this story of the apocalypse
47:18within the next five years
47:20so what are the main differences then
47:25that people will notice
47:26once the panels are all restored
47:28well i think people will notice
47:30more glass
47:32they'll see more glass
47:33and the reason for that
47:34is that the gauge of lead that we're using
47:37is a much finer gauge
47:38it's more akin to the medieval original lead
47:41and then we can move on from that
47:44to use more modern techniques
47:46for example adhesives
47:47so where a piece of glass was broken
47:51into a number of fragments
47:52we can then edge bond those pieces back together again
47:56and you can see the piece as it was intended to be seen
47:59the most sensitive part of the process though
48:06involves the recreation of pieces of painted glass
48:10that have been lost over the centuries
48:12we have an example here
48:20of the book
48:22and you can see here
48:23the seals on the book
48:25but
48:27so far
48:29that piece has been repaired and bonded
48:31but we have this much missing
48:33you can't really tell what's happening here
48:36and so in rare cases like this
48:39we can actually paint in
48:40the missing piece
48:42so this is a new piece of glass
48:43that's right
48:44gosh it's painted so beautifully
48:46wow
48:46the new bit which fits
48:48into there
48:50like
48:51gosh
48:52you see
48:54exactly what's intended to be seen
48:57yes
48:58and the book is now very clear
49:00once the pieces have been repaired in this way
49:08they can be reassembled within a framework of new lead
49:12Tony Cattle
49:16will be responsible for re-leading all the conserved panels
49:19wow so this is where it's all coming together
49:27yeah this is not the final stage
49:30but we're getting towards the end of
49:33the conservation if you like
49:37so you're putting in new leads
49:39you're putting in new leads
49:41all the way over the comp
49:42being completely re-leaded
49:43and it does look like a proper painting now doesn't it
49:46it does yeah
49:47and that's the idea really
49:48is to make it look like a proper painting
49:50without noticing the lead so much
49:52it's where art meets practicality here isn't it
49:56it is yes
49:56because you use the wider lead
49:58yeah
49:58to outline the figures
50:00yeah
50:00and that helps them stand out
50:01but I suppose it's also to keep it strong
50:03yeah
50:04it's also yeah
50:04you do need some substance there
50:06you know
50:07some strength in the panel
50:08you know
50:08so is it very hard to
50:11to do the leading on this
50:12not really no
50:13this I mean this piece is particularly easy really
50:16it's the angel's foot
50:18chance I can have a go
50:19yeah sure yeah
50:20my goodness
50:20wow it feels so fragile
50:23it has actually been bonded there
50:25yeah be careful of the bond
50:26yeah
50:26so what happens next
50:28well really you just need the lead that you're going to use for that
50:32which is a five millimetre piece
50:35uh-huh
50:36and you would then
50:37to find the length you need is just stand it on one end
50:40and roll it round like as if it was a ball
50:42like this
50:43yeah
50:43and then
50:44yeah
50:44until you come back to that point there
50:46okay
50:47oh I understand
50:48how's that
50:48that's fine
50:49okay so about a little bit because it's got bends
50:52yeah
50:52what do I do now
50:54hang on I better put the glass down
50:55yeah
50:56a sharp knife is a
50:57I can't tell you how much
50:58the most important tool
50:59so
50:59put it down
51:00so
51:00cut
51:01cut directly down
51:03like that
51:03that's it
51:04wow
51:04okay
51:05and then we take the
51:07yeah you take the glass
51:08um looking at that
51:09it wants to end at that point there
51:11so
51:12okay
51:12so we need to give it a bit of an overlap
51:14like that
51:15and then slowly
51:16manipulate the lead to fit each
51:20to fit into the facets
51:21right in because the next piece of glass would be going up to that edge
51:24so
51:24oh my goodness
51:25oh it's quite malleable once you
51:27it's very soft
51:27work out the tension
51:28yes it's quite soft
51:29there we go
51:30and then around this toe
51:32and bring it around that end
51:33oh my goodness me
51:34so then I just keep following
51:36just follow the shape of the glass
51:38yeah
51:38and then try and get it
51:40back
51:41yeah
51:41into position
51:43oh my goodness
51:46what an experience
51:47thank you
51:48wow
51:48yeah
51:49you just need to finish it off really
51:51you just need to put a nail in
51:52just to hold it
51:53uh-huh
51:53either side and
51:54thank you for the opportunity
51:56you're very welcome
51:57thank you for trusting me
51:58with such a fragile material
51:59of course
52:01this is only one panel
52:03there are 311 in the whole window
52:06but it's a real privilege
52:08to have been allowed to make
52:09even a tiny contribution
52:11to such important work
52:12a project which it's hoped
52:14will transform not just our experience
52:16of the east window
52:17but of the whole minster
52:19I wanted to get a sense of the atmosphere
52:32when the building is being used
52:34as a place of worship
52:35which after all
52:36is its primary purpose
52:38and when you do that
52:44you really appreciate
52:46just how affecting
52:47the experience of light
52:49space
52:50and sounds
52:51in a great cathedral
52:53can be
52:53for everyone involved
52:56if you say worship
53:01in a great cathedral
53:02is like theater
53:03I'd have to say
53:04yes it is
53:05but of course
53:06it's not fiction
53:07it's reality
53:08and so when you have
53:11the daily acts of worship
53:12happening here
53:13you do it
53:15in this setting
53:16of a great encounter
53:18which is going on
53:19and the encounter
53:20can be described
53:21in all sorts of ways
53:22it's heaven and earth
53:23it's time and eternity
53:25it's mortality versus immortality
53:27it's humanity and God
53:29and they're brought together
53:31in this very carefully designed place
53:34and light is something
53:39which is a real actor
53:41on the stage
53:43light is the thing
53:45that pours through
53:46light is the thing
53:47that says God
53:48so what do you anticipate
53:52will be the effect
53:53then when the east window
53:54is back in situ
53:55you'll be able to see
53:56much more what's going on
53:58and that will be
53:59in itself
54:00very important
54:01being able to read
54:03a building like this
54:05is an art
54:06we want everybody
54:07to develop
54:07at one time
54:09I guess
54:09a lot of people
54:10would instinctively
54:11have known
54:12because they knew
54:13the stories of Genesis
54:14and the Old Testament
54:16and the book of Revelation
54:17now
54:18in order to
54:20get on board
54:21with what's happening
54:22we'll be able to
54:23give them the right information
54:26at the time
54:26they're looking at it
54:27this should increase
54:29their enjoyment of it
54:30enormously
54:31then I saw a new heaven
54:39and a new earth
54:40for the first heaven
54:42and the first earth
54:43had passed away
54:44and the sea
54:46was no more
54:47and I saw
54:50the holiest city
54:51new Jerusalem
54:52coming down
54:54out of heaven
54:54from God
54:55prepared as a bride
54:57adorned for her husband
54:59and I heard
55:01a loud voice
55:02from the throne
55:03saying
55:04behold the dwelling
55:05of God
55:06is with men
55:07he will dwell
55:09with them
55:09and they shall be
55:11his people
55:12and God himself
55:14will be with them
55:15he will wipe
55:17away every tear
55:19from their eyes
55:20and death
55:21shall be no more
55:22neither shall there
55:24be mourning
55:24nor crying
55:25nor pain
55:27for the former things
55:30have passed away
55:31and he who sat
55:36upon the throne
55:37said behold
55:38I make all things new
55:42I am the alpha
55:45and the omega
55:46the beginning
55:49and the end
55:51stained glass
56:03has been called
56:04the poor man's bible
56:05and you only have to look
56:07at John Thornton's
56:08east window
56:09to see why
56:10these panels
56:21gave people images
56:23to carry in their minds
56:24together with the message
56:26they heard from the pulpit
56:27that they should strive
56:29to be one of the saved
56:31of all the traditional
56:41visual arts
56:42I think that
56:43stained glass
56:44has a unique capacity
56:46to communicate
56:46stories
56:47on a public scale
56:49but
56:50it can also
56:51illuminate
56:52changing attitudes
56:53across time
56:54to the medieval mind
56:56the east window
56:58was a portal
56:59onto an eternal paradise
57:01after this fleeting life
57:03on earth
57:04but now
57:05the light
57:06pouring through
57:08these centuries old images
57:09affects us differently
57:11we've no trouble
57:14imagining back millions of years
57:16to the birth of stars
57:18and yet
57:19our attitudes
57:20to life after death
57:21are much more individual
57:23the window
57:26is no longer
57:27speaking to one
57:28community of people
57:29with a common faith
57:31we all understand
57:33its message differently
57:34what was once
57:36a universal truth
57:37has become
57:38a question of choice
57:39so now
57:42instead of looking
57:43through the glass
57:44we see in it
57:46a reflection
57:47of our own
57:48ideas and beliefs
57:49and
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