Panel

This panel is the upper part of a canopy with a crocketed spire and a finial at the top. It is flanked by flying buttresses and tall pinnacles. Originally, it would have been set in the upper part of a window with a figure displayed below.

In the 12th and 13th centuries, cathedrals and churches often had large narrative schemes of stained-glass windows. Whole windows would be devoted to events associated with the lives of the various saints, or of Christ and the Virgin Mary. The events were often told in quite small medallions placed one above the other in each of the window openings (‘lights’). These could be difficult to ‘read’, because they were small and high up.

About 1250 window openings began to get bigger and stained-glass designers began to devise schemes that moved away from the small story-telling medallions. They began to exploit the bigger window opening by filling it with large images of figures displayed beneath elaborate canopy forms.

This type of display in glass was similar to the array of sculptured figures you would see on the west fronts of great churches and on choir screens in the interiors.