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Again from the pages of Vidimus comes another great morbid panel, this one depicting a Danse Macabre, or Dance of Death from St. Andrew's Church, Norwich.  In it a skeletal figure dances with a bishop reminding the viewer that, regardless of rank, death awaits us all.

Image © Mike Dixon
 
 
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Judith Schaechter turned me on to this English gem, which also features in the fantastic "Death in England: An Illustrated History" edited by Peter C. Jupp and Clare Gittings.


It was commissioned by Henry Williams, vicar of Stratford on Avon, in 1500, showing the vicar himself kneeling in prayer being shot at by Death kneeling in a coffin.
 
 
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From the pages of Vidimus comes this intriguing little roundel.  The theology of it (salvation comes through belief and grace, not via indulgences and priests) would have been quite radical in its day.  But I love the literal tug of war and the hermaphroditic devil!  (Though we can't see its genitals, I'm assuming from the prominent breasts that the artist was following in the tradition of depicting the devil as a hermaphrodite.  There's a similar depiction in the painted ceilings of the John Knox House in Edinburgh.)
 
 

The panels that started my fascination with monstrous (old) stained glass......  From the small museum in Ste. Etienne du Mont, behind the Pantheon.  Not the best snaps in the world -- if anyone has any better, let me know!

 
 

So, you think of old stained glass & you think of proper saints, right?  WRONG! There was some mad stuff made.  I intend to keep a compendium of bizarre old glass -- the more lurid and morbid the better!

First up is this odd wee roundel in the Burrell Collection, Glasgow.  St. Notkur Balbulous beating the devil, who came to tempt him while in the form of a dog.  How exactly the devil, especially in that pose, was tempting the saint, is not explained.

The saint's robes are stunningly black -- but look at that lurid devil dog!  A contorted pose and unlikely anatomy. Green enamels painted on the back and blue and silver stained spots on the front give a subtle parallax shift.