Jesse Window

Every December, I deliver a Bible reading at the Advent Service.  Every year it is the same:  Isaiah 11 Verses 1-9, which begins:  ‘And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots:’

I have always thought it is a shame that the service takes place in the dark, because the East Window up behind me is the perfect illustration for the reading. 

It is a version of what is known as a Jesse Window and many were created around the time this was originally installed in 1393.  Let’s start by running through what it depicts.  There are seven lights, divided by vertical stone mullions, the top section, where the mullions curve into arches is called the Tracery.

Jesse was the father of King David, and he is the largest figure, lying down in the lowest panel, wearing purple robes and filling the central three lights.  Either side of him in the bottom panels are secular figures, whom I won’t dwell on, although they are worth a talk of their own.  William of Wykeham appears twice: on the farthest left with Mary and the Angel Gabriel, and furthest right, kneeling before Mary and Jesus.

Other secular figures are Edward III and Richard II, Wykeham’s royal sponsors. And then, under Jesse’s head, the tiny figures of the builder, carpenter and Clerk of Works for this College, while kneeling at Jesse’s feet is Thomas of Oxford, the glazier who made the original glass for this and all the other windows in Chapel.

The remaining figures below the Tracery are all taken from the Bible.  Look carefully at the sleeping Jesse.   Instead of a right arm appearing from his sleeve is the lower trunk of a vine.  This is the ‘rod growing out of the stem of Jesse’.  The vine spreads upwards and outwards across all seven lights and forming octagonal tabernacles that house Kings and Prophets.  The central pair of vines lead up to King David (holding his harp) and King Solomon, holding the Temple of Jerusalem, followed above the stone transom by the Virgin Mary and Child and Christ’s crucifixion, in this depiction being nailed to the shoots of the vine.   Each figure is identified by a banner or scroll, so in the left-hand light, each of the prophets Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiell and Zachariah has their name plus the label ‘Ppha’ (an abbreviation of Propheta), as opposed to the label Rex for the kings. 

The kings that occupy most of the central lights are all descendants of Jesse, so this window in effect becomes a simplified, but literal, family tree.  Few of the kings are everyday names nowadays, but you might have heard of Absolom, the son of David, or Jehosaphat and Jereboam.

The theme depicted in the Tracery is The Last Judgement.  Those of you with good eyesight will be able to follow what I describe.  I recommend returning with a pair of binoculars, as I did.  On the left, the saved souls rise from their graves.  These figures are not named, but by their headgear, Popes, a bishop and a king can be spotted.  On the right of the window, the souls of the damned are committed to hell, depicted here as the huge jaws of a blue-skinned monster.  There are two demons, one is green-bodied with a red head, sitting cross-legged on the monster’s snout.  Another demon above him has a blue body and carries off one of the lost souls.

Centrally and at the top sits Christ in judgement over the souls of the dead.  And yes, the globe on which he sits does show Australia, so it is possible that a sharp-eyed Wykehamist unmasked the replacement glass by Betton and Evans in 1822. 

It is probable that the previous image was a standing Christ and therefore the replacement was a more obvious change.

Below Christ are four saints interceding on behalf of the risen souls: St Peter holding the key to Heaven; St Paul, holding a sword; above them, Mary on the left and St John the Baptist on the right.

That is a very rapid run through the detail of this marvellous piece of mediaeval art.  What I have left out are most of the names and many of the motifs the designer used to depict nobility or rank.  Maybe another time.

But simply describing the window only goes part way to explaining its significance.  There can be no doubt that William of Wykeham played a large part in choosing the imagery and not just because he appears twice in it himself.  Had it survived, the New College Jesse Window might have made a neat pair with this one, created by the same Oxford craftsmen.  Other Jesse Windows exist and many of those built around the same time depicted the Day of Judgement in the Tracery, presumably for practical reasons because the tracery openings are small and irregular and cannot consistently show major figures.  But to consider why Wykeham chose the window at all, we must go back to Isaiah, and the stem of Jesse.  The window shows the lineage of Jesus as a ‘son of David’ and links the Old Testament prophecies fulfilled by his birth.  It is necessarily a summarised line of descent, and a much more detailed lineage can be read in both Testaments of the Bible.

The prophets were all chosen because they each provide some foreshadowing of Jesus through their acts, or because their prophecies foretell of Jesus.  For instance:  Micah prophesied that Jesus would be born in Bethlehem; Zechariah that Jesus would ride into Jerusalem on a donkey; Samuel and Ezekiel that he would be descended from David.

It is on these prophecies that some of the fundamental tenets of Christianity are based and it is the fulfilment of these prophecies that Jesus himself and the Gospel writers used as evidence that he is the Messiah and the Son of God. 

So, the window performs two functions.  First it further glorifies this Chapel through the magnificence of its art, complementing the innovative stonework of William Wynford’s architecture.

The second is to provide a pictorial emblem of the Christian faith and perhaps it is no surprise that Wykeham included such windows in both his educational establishments.  I have condensed a vast amount of scripture and historical archive into a few minutes.  Wykeham could reasonably expect his students to study and know in detail about the majority of its subjects.